Limerence (Chaelisa)

Chapter 18: I Know We Can

I come back to the dorm at around 10 o'clock. I can tell that Jisoo's about to ask how things went, but before she can finish uttering out her first word I interrupt her with a, "Later. I'm not in the mood." I walk over to my side of the dorm, quickly change out of my clothes, and wash my face clean of makeup. As I'm brushing my teeth, I can hear the sound of the T.V playing from the living area.

"Limerence," a dreamy voice says. "One spritz and you're ready to go. Meet your new lover."

That perfume ad again? Why does everything have to remind me of Chaeyoung when she's the last thing I want to think of right now. Limerence, limerence, limerence—fuck limerence—I hate it. I loved Chaeyoung and took a chance and now look what happened. I know that Chaeyoung was drunk when she said those words, but still... there had to be some truth behind it. She couldn't have just made up all of it to hurt me or to anger me. Maybe we've both been wasting our life away from the moment we met one another. Maybe we were the worst things to happen to each other.

I don't sleep easily that night. My body wants nothing more than to fall into a state of rest and unconscious, but my mind is up and still buzzing about, replaying what happened at the bar over and over again. At around 4 a.m, a sharp dinging sound inturrupts the ongoing calm rumble of Jisoo and Jennie's snores. It takes me a second to process that the sound came from my phone, and another second to realize that I had probably received a text message. But who would be texting me this late into the night? Or this early in the morning? I let curiosity take over me and shift over on my bed to check the message.

Unknown Number
hey it's chaeyoung

How did she get my number?

As if reading my mind, another message comes.

Unknown Number
youngmi gave me your number

Ah, after Chaeyoung had left the bar, Youngmi offered to accompany me home. I said no since I didn't want to bother her, but she insisted that I message her once I got home because she wanted to make sure I was alright, and so we exchanged numbers.

me
hey chaeyoung
are you okay?

chaeyoung
i should be asking you that
i'm alright but
i'm sorry for what i said earlier
actually
i can't even remember what i said if i'm being honest, but youngmi and jaegyu said that it was bad. but i'm really sorry.

She can't even remember how she hurt me? Should I tell her?

No.

That's so awful. Why would I do that? There's no point in doing that. It wouldn't help anything.

chaeyoung
so our date went to shit but i really think we should give it a second try

me
that would be nice

chaeyoung
but can you tell me what i said? i really wanna know. youngmi and jaegyu refuse to tell me what happened.

I nibble at the dry skin on my bottom lip to the point where I start to taste blood. My fingers hover over the keypad, wondering if I should be honest or not.

me
you just told me that it was shitty of me to kiss jun. and then u cussed a little. that was it.

It's just a white lie. It's not as if she'll ever find out what happened. I doubt she'd ever talk about it again with Youngmi or Jaegyu. If I told her what she really said to me, it'd make things awkward between us; awkwardness is not something that we need right now.

chaeyoung
i'm really sorry lisa. but i promise i'll make it up to you on our next date.
dinner at my place on saturday?
youngmi is never home saturday nights so we're good

me
that's great. i'll be there at 7?

chaeyoung
:)

The days hastily past by and soon enough, it's 6:48 on a Saturday night. Alright, this is going to be the date that pushes are relationship forward. This is going to be it.

I knock twice on her door and it swings open after several seconds. "Hey, Chaeng!" I greet happily. The area is small, but it doesn't feel cramped—just homey. It would be nice if Chaeyoung and I lived together in an apartment like this someday.

To my surprise, dinner isn't prepared in the dining area, but on the coffee table in front of the T.V. "I don't know why people bother with dining tables when you can just eat in front of the T.V," Chaeyoung explains. The food that she has "prepared" consists of boxes of takeout food from different stores. "By the way, I can't really cook so I just ordered a bunch of food."

I take my seat on the couch, leaning over every once in a while to restock my plate full of food. Chaeyoung turns on a movie that becomes background noise to our conversation. Everything just falls together so nicely. There are no awkward silences and times passes by easily.

At one point, we're both silent at a rather boring part in the movie. I glance over at Chaeyoung, ready to start another conversation to pass the time. Chaeyoung's staring mindlessly at the ground.

"Chaeng?" I ask, trying to grab her attention. Instead of looking over at me, she continues to stare at the ground. "Chaeng?"

"I thought I could ignore this," Chaeyoung eventually says, eyes finally rising from the ground to meet mine.

"What're you talking about?"

"You lied to me," she replies bluntly. "About what I said when I was drunk."

Shit. How did she find out?

As if reading my thoughts, she says, "I was talking with Jaegyu this morning and figured it out. Why would you lie, Lisa?"

I stumble on my words. "I-I just—I thought that it was for the best?" I reply, more answer coming out sounding more like a question.

"Did you think it'd make me feel better?" she asks.

"Yeah," I respond.

"How can you lie so easily to me like that, huh? Why?"

"I just thought that it'd be awkward between us!" I exclaim.

"We can work through it!" Chaeyoung raises her voice to my level. "We've been through so much, how can you not understand that we could've worked through it?! But now you've gone and made the situation worse!"

"I wouldn't have had to lie if you hadn't had said those words in the first place!"

"I wouldn't have had said those words if you hadn't gone and kissed him right in front of me! How'd you think I would react?! 'Oh, yeah, I totally understand why you would pick kissing another man over admitting to dating me.' You treated me like shit!"

"Why can't you just give me time?! We're not the same person! You might be confident about liking women, but I'm not, okay?! Not yet at least, but you're certainly not making it better!"

Chaeyoung huffs and buries her face into her hands. I can see her scrunch up her features through her fingers. At the moment, the anger leaves me as quick as it had come and I want nothing more than to give her a hug. And so I do. I wrap my hands around her and instead of pushing me away, she leans into my touch.

"We can work through it," she says, voice muffled from her hands. "I know we can."