a misty gashed aperture

the erratic flying of a butterfly

That line usually delivered something bad, and Roseanne felt knots forming in her gut instantly.

Taking Roseanne's hand in hers, Lisa cleared her throat. "I want to start being honest with you and I thought this didn't matter at first because it was already in the past but... That void last year is connected to what I'm about to tell you." Her defenseless gaze met Roseanne's fretful one.

The supermodel shifted Lisa's hold of her hand, placing each finger in between the spaces of hers, certain that she held Lisa's hand tight for her own sanity and not the other way around. "I'm listening."

Lisa leaned closer for the intimate confession while her other hand rested on Roseanne's knee as if that was enough to keep the model's warmth close. She exhaled, thinking there were only two ways Roseanne would take the truth: swallow it or walk away from it.

Talking about the past was her way of tending her messed-up garden so as not to lose Roseanne. But she was prepared for Roseanne's wildest reaction. Not that it would not hurt but she held on to Roseanne's love.

Just like how a butterfly would naturally choose to visit a different flower,

it would always come back to its favorite garden.

"I... I had a muse before you." (prologue)

Slack-jawed, heart-frozen, Roseanne's hand pulled away from Lisa at the same moment her knee jerked Lisa's hand away. It was like instinct, recoiling at the first encounter with a needle. Lisa's words were drowned out by the loud static in her ear. Which part of her got stabbed because even her eyes saw only fog?

"Listen first, please. Before I lost all my emotions, I met someone. I—I already painted her and then—and then something happened, then Jisoo spilled paint on it—" Lisa talked rapidly and suddenly stopped when she saw Roseanne's face fluster and her jaw clenched. "Chaeyoung..."

Roseanne could not process the rest of Lisa's words as she was stuck at the 'I had a muse before you' part like a broken disc. It had only been a week where nothing crazy happened between them, and now another fucking bomb had been dropped. When Lisa touched the small of her back, she was electrified, not in a good way, and her feet reacted fast, carrying her to the counter.

Lisa followed. "Chaeyoung." While Roseanne followed up their bill impatiently, she tried to explain more. "She's not here anymore—in Korea. But she was the one in my nightmares. And flashbacks. I'm...," her voice trailed off. She was losing the right words at the same time that she was losing Roseanne. "I'm still figuring out what happened to us."

Roseanne wished Lisa would take those words back.

Wishing she was not there, in love with the woman who just told her there was someone else before her like it still mattered.

Wishing she was in another universe where Lisa did not have to replace her muse because it had always been her.

Wishing she was somewhere else on a Saturday morning, five years later, and it was spring, then Lisa would touch the small of her back and she would smile at her without flinching.