Please remind me (who I really am)

Chapter 6

Lisa's weekend passed about as slowly as it was possible for a weekend to pass. She spent the entirety of both Saturday and Sunday in Candlelight Bookstore, as it was their busiest time of the week. In fact, of the year. It was only a month until Pride, which in her experience in the bookstore, usually led to a huge increase in footfall. Mostly the additional customers were people who had just, or were about to, come out of the closet, and were looking for some books to either help them through the process or to be surrounded by people who didn't take any notice of their sexuality. Otherwise, she often had concerned but supportive parents come in asking for books or advice about how to deal with the change in their lives.

They were Lisa's favorites. She liked to hope that her biological parents would've been alright with her life if they had lived, but instead she settled for acting the way that she herself would've liked to have been received. Hyori and Heegun had been extremely supportive of her, although it was a bit of a surprise to have both of their daughters come out to them. Hyori in particular had simply switched from asking when she was going to bring a nice boy home to asking about girls instead, for which Lisa was very grateful.

Of course, she'd had Rosé helping to pave the way for her. Some of these parents hadn't seen this coming, and they were the ones Lisa wanted to help the most. It was one thing for their child to have time to get used to the idea, but loved ones often had to make a snap decision, and some of them struggled. She'd had a steady stream of them come in already today, and she gently directed them to the table she and Hanbin had set up which contained books, pamphlets from local LGBT charities and groups, as well as leaflets from PFLAG. There was a sign in the window that said they were open for help and advice as well, and it made her happy that people took her up on it.

Unfortunately, Pride being on its way also meant an uptick in the amount of hate mail that the store received. At first, it had upset her, but she no longer bothered to read it before sticking it in the shredder. As far as Lisa was concerned, if they had something to say, they should say it instead of hiding behind paper or a screen.

On this particular Sunday, once she'd opened the store, they hadn't had a single moment where there was nobody in the store.

When Hanbin had appeared at 9:15am, nursing a hangover (apparently, he had decided to over-indulge on Jennie's scotch the night before and now severely regretted it), he had scurried into the back and only reappeared 15 minutes later, looking a little green and sweaty. Lisa pushed him back into the storeroom and shoved a bottle of water in his hand until he felt brave enough to go for coffee at 10am, but she hadn't had time to drink more than half of hers.

The coffee had perked him up no end, though, and by the middle of the afternoon he had been happily teasing Lisa about Jennie.

"Sooooo, have you heard from the lovely Miss Kim yet today?" he asked casually, sidling up to her to take his turn at the till.

"Not yet. I'm sure she's busy. People have lives, you know, Hanbin," Lisa said, handing him the till key fob and starting to move towards the entrance.

"You two were making eyes at each other the whole night on Friday. Don't pretend you didn't notice the most beautiful person in the room, other than me, looking at you like you were a full-on meal," Hanbin said with a grin.

"Hanbin!" Lisa exclaimed with a blush rising on her face. "Does anyone even say making eyes anymore?"

"You can't argue with the classics," he replied, his hand over his heart as Lisa rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"I'm going to take a quick break," she said.

"Don't forget to text your girlfriend!"

"Hanbin!"