'I'm killing Yerim when she comes back' was all Irene could think of as she pushed herself between the scorching mass of costumers in their local pet store.

Last time she joked about never having a daughter like Yerim; after all it was reserved only for Sooyoung, but this time she was seriously considering adding her to the club, maybe even making her the president.

She wasn't believing any of this, especially the fact that she had trusted her in all this cat matter because now it was her who had to go and buy the things she foolishly assumed Yeri had bought already, including bed and food, not just weightless snacks.

On the first half an hour after waking up, Irene had been chilling on the sofa while playing her phone games as she innocently waited for the maknae to wake up, very unaware of what had been planned against her for the next weeks, months, maybe even years if it went well.

But aside all that, Yeri had just gotten a break after working so hard on her solo album promotions and her now well-known YouTube show, so Irene wanted to let her sleep a bit longer and give herself time to prepare a nice, warm breakfast if she found anything to do it with. Yeri was never very fond of cooking so she left the option to quickly go buy something in a café because delivery had become something taboo for them both.

However, when she headed to program the machine for Yeri's morning coffee, she spotted a few ramyeon pots on the counter and a note on top she had found suspicious the moment her eyes read it, first thing crossing her mind being that Yeri never woke up early unless it was for work, or a date.

Confused, she picked it up and wondered if that had been there the night before, at which she quickly disagreed to after remembering her small trip for a cup of water before going to sleep. Practically raising Yeri had earned her with the same powers any mother would have, so the fact that it was out there had her senses in full alert.

After inspecting the area a bit more, she walked to the master room and knocked a few times as she waited some minutes in case her suspicions had been wrong, knowing it takes Yeri a bit longer to get out of bed. But after getting no response her hand slowly made its way to the knob and pushed it down gently in case she was still deep in sleep.

From inside the room, all you would probably see would be Irene's head going through a half-opened door and then her mouth opening wide in shock after spotting the state it was in; the bed sheets lay messy on the floor, along with half folded clothes and the pyjamas she recognised as the ones Yeri wore to sleep the night before thrown over the closet door plus shoes in all corners.

At that moment, Irene could smell something fishy was going on and her suspicion quickly solved it way before her mind started to imagine scenarios where Yeri had been planning this for a long time to flee somewhere and leave her to pay the rent because she had no more money left after spending it on games.

And this is where the big deal started.

Yerim may or may have not forgotten an urgent matter she had to attend in New York before offering Irene to stay in her apartment last night, leaving her to wake up alone with a single voice message in their chat and three of her favourite pot ramyeon on the counter with a small 'ejoy!' note stuck on the plastic lid Irene guessed she had written in a rush due to the missing 'n'.

As if in a hurry, she rushed back to the living room and picked up her phone to dial Yeri's number but just before she could, a message from her vanished daughter popped up on the notification bar and she wasted no time to listen to it.

''hi Unnie, how did you sleep? I hope you dreamt something good hehehe...he...uuummm anyway, by the time you wake up I'll probably be in a plane heading to New York! YEYYY! Things happened and they called me yesterday morning and I know, I know, I'm very irresponsible for not remembering but I did when I woke up-''

''THAT'S BECAUSE I CALLED YOU?!-'' she heard another voice on the background and assumed it was Yeri's manager before hearing her embarrassed laugh

''well... yeah but anyway, Unnie I'm deeply sorry for being such a pain but please please please could you buy the things for the kitten?''

'she has to be joking...-'

''I was planning on buying everything today but you know this and that happened and by the time I'm back tomorrow I'll only have time to go pick him up... so pppllleeeaaassseee Unnie!!! just this once!!!-'' and the recording ended with Irene sitting on the edge of the sofa as she stared down at her phone dumbfounded. That explained why Yeri's room was upside down; she was woken up by her manager and had to rush to the airport making minimal noise to avoid being scolded by two people at the same time, because oh if Irene had found out she would've given her the speech of her life.

The problem was that Yeri had already tossed the task to her knowing Irene wouldn't reject it no matter what it was because she couldn't even call and complain to someone flying so many kilometres away but especially because even if she didn't want to admit it, Yeri had taken a very soft spot in her heart since the beginning of times.

So, she just left a '👉🏼✈️🇰🇷⚰️😊' in the chat and threw her phone on the other side of the sofa before groaning some more to finally stand up and get ready. At least she didn't have any plans, otherwise she would've actually taken a plane to Yeri with a funeral ready for her back home.

The trip to the shop was short, luckily... because by the time Irene reached it, she was sweating buckets. Good for her, the weather forecast predicted the hottest day of summer would be the next day, but like they say 'it's only the calm before the storm'.

Finding the things was easy and it would've been easier if by 'things' Yeri didn't mean a bed, a carry case, a water and food bowl, the food, the litter tray, the cat litter, a brush, a toothbrush, a scratching pole and last but not least the toys. Spotting and choosing them was the easy bit, the hard bit was carrying them because Irene wasn't particularly on the 'strong' side and she also didn't have five hands, so she did wonder for a long time how would she make it to her house with all the stuff in one trip, because it was either one trip or zero trips with the boiling temperatures she was forced into.

After thinking for a while, she decided to take a taxi home. Even though her house was literally 10 minutes away walking, she realised she wouldn't make it alive if she tried to save money this once, so after the kind shop keeper helped her taking the stuff in front of the main road, she stood facing the cars in hopes she would spot an empty taxi.

5 minutes went by, 10 minutes, 20 and she couldn't help it anymore. It's in the middle of the day when it's the hottest and Irene had been standing under the sun with no protection for about half an hour, so she was in her limits of getting a heat stroke on the street. The problem being that even if she tried moving, she couldn't carry everything and asking for help would be the cherry on top because obviously if someone was to recognise her, chaos was prone to start and all she could think of at that moment was having a cold drink of water.

She looked about for solutions, maybe a friend or a colleague she could ask for help from but having so many people on the streets made it hard for her to spot and to be spotted, though just as if she had been listened to by the heavens someone approached her from behind, holding a few bags similar to hers and a leash on the other hand as they tapped her shoulder, to which she obviously jumped startled at before quickly turning around to find a pair of tender eyes looking straight into her shaken ones.

''Irene-Shi?''

***********************************************************************

These two last chapters are mostly here just to set up the scenario.
It might've been a bit boring but from now on there'll be plenty of JackRene so don't worry (wew that kinda rhymed).
Hope you enjoyed! 

⁂Guess who's Irene's saviour?

a) hot Jackson

(lol imagine he came to you looking like this... *dies*)

b) cute Jackson

c) flirty Jackson

p.s this was definitely not an excuse for me to look at jackson gifs😔