A/N: last chapter. :)
_____________
The next day, Lisa wakes up alone in a foreign bed and wonders why she thought it would have been different this time.
She stares at the ceiling for so long, Lisa could tell you where each and every one of its cracks were.
She stares for so long, that when she stops, she's surprised not to find her world an endless white and bare slab.
She had almost expected it to be.
She takes a deep breath, finding her clothes on the floor and putting them on without bothering to make them seem presentable.
She takes another deep breath as she gets out of the room. For a second, it's like she can't live without that white, white ceiling hanging over her head.
It doesn't feel real.
It feels too real.
She almost can't stand Jisoo's cheeky grin as she walks into the kitchen.
"Good morning." Jisoo sips her coffee, grin temporarily obscured by her mug.
She grunts an hello back, reaching for the coffee. Jisoo swipes it out of her reach before she can.
"I heard someone didn't come back to their assigned room yesterday." Jisoo continues sipping her coffee with her other hand.
"Was that someone you?" she quips, managing to steal the coffee back.
"Maybe." Jisoo laughs, self-satisfied and happy, and that pulls a small smile at the corner of Lisa's mouth despite everything, "But so did you."
"Nothing happened." she lies before Jisoo can go on with her interrogation.
"So, I didn't see you walking out of Chaeyoung's kind of room?"
"No. But shouldn't you be more worried about Chaeyoung having a permanent kind of room at your girlfriend's house?" she tries to deflect -badly, she knows, by the way Jisoo only lifts an eyebrow.
"Not my girlfriend and not a concern. So, I also didn't see the two of you walk into that room yesterday looking quite busy?"
Lisa doesn't say anything. Jisoo just stares at her -into her, through her- until she cracks wide open.
"It was a friendly kiss."
"Friends kiss now? Well then come on." Jisoo laughs sharply and puckers her lips up in a way Lisa would really like never to have to see up close ever, ever again, "I know you've always wondered."
"Jisoo!" she evades Jisoo's grabby hands, walking around her and out of range.
Jisoo laughs again -cackles, really, "C'mon, Lis it's a friendly kiss. Whatever could go wrong?"
"Can you please stop? You've proved your point."
"So, no kiss?"
"Jisoo."
"There's nothing wrong with it." Jisoo's voice drops into one that is kinder than Lisa deserves, "Nobody's going to fault you for falling in love with your best friend."
"I'm not in love with you." Lisa says quickly.
Deflecting comes too easily to her lips as of lately, she thinks.
Jisoo just looks at her, "Lisa."
"It's being a cliché I mind, really."
"Lisa."
A lifted eyebrow and Lisa sags against the counter, "What do you want me to say, Jisoo?"
Jisoo smiles like she knows more than Lisa ever will -which is probably true, but it's still rude, "C'mon we never have girl talk."
"For a reason. And she's with Suzy anyway. I think."
"And yet, she kissed you on New Year's Eve."
"It was a-"
"Friendly kiss. Sure."
She ignores that. She ignores the tears that threaten to fall from her eyes, too.
"And now she is gone."
"What?"
Don't cry.
"She was gone. When I woke up in the morning." Lisa tries to explain, words failing her like always -don't cry, don't cry, don't cry- "She was gone."
She never told the full story of that summer to Jisoo, she didn't have the strength to do that, but Jisoo guesses the ending instantly right at this moment, Lisa knows. She can see it in her eyes.
Don't. Cry.
"Oh."
"Yeah." Lisa wills herself to smile, to soften the blow on Jisoo -and herself a bit, too. It doesn't work. She sighs and shakes her head, "Oh."
"Lisa."
"There's nothing else to say, Jisoo."
"There could be." Jisoo whispers, kind and cruel all at once, "Chaeyoung... she's different when she's around you. Softer."
"Yeah. Maybe."
"I'm serious." Jisoo insist, her hand resting on her own.
It's warm, and Lisa feels so cold, "I know you are."
"You should tell her."
"Maybe."
"Lisa."
She sighs one last time, throwing her long gone cold coffee into the sink with a jerk of her hand, "Sorry. Just wondering how long I'll keep living in a fucking ghost house."
"Everyone talks to their ghosts." Jisoo says, and Lisa is reminded -wise beyond her years- and a smile pulls at her lips, "The problems start when the ghosts talk back."
Wise beyond her years or not, Jisoo's still wrong about that.
"No." she shakes her head, watching the water flow into the faucet, how it dripped and dripped until it dropped.
Jisoo tilts her head, "No?"
"The problems start when you begin listening to them."
"Lisa."
Lisa puts the cup in the sink, turns the tap off.
"I'll see you later, Jisoo."
(She doesn't cry.)
***
She doesn't speak to Jisoo about Chaeyoung.
She doesn't speak to Chaeyoung about Chaeyoung.
Not that she speaks to many people in general, she's too busy, she tells herself.
There are meets and classes. There are girls at parties that believe she's just another jock with a scholarship and a pair of abs -Lisa dances with them and lets them believe she is just that. There's her heart, kept safe from any of them.
But there's classes, mostly. Classes she follows, classes she doesn't, homework she doesn't like and homework she doesn't understand.
***
One day, her professor ends the class forty minutes before he's supposed to. And Lisa knows by the way she's a little too glad about it, that maybe it was time to make some choices about her future.
Lisa may have been a wrecking ball in her life for the last few months, but she had also made many points. She had to decide whether she wanted to make a smart choice or the one she actually wants.
Somehow it feels like she means more than just finally switching majors.
Decisions shouldn't feel so daunting at nineteen, and yet.
She flashes a quick text to Jisoo as she leaves the building. She doesn't even know why she does it, but some part of her guesses it was a mistake the second she does it. She wonders why.
She jogs a bit to get across campus, hoping that was enough of a warmup and hoping she didn't fuck up her legs in her laziness.
She doesn't expect other people to be there, but she hears muffled voices the moment the cold air of the locker room hit her.
The door is left ajar, the voices clearer as she gets closer. She frowns, hand hesitating on the handle when she realizes she knows these voices.
"You hang with someone who's always lived in a gilded cage, hand them freedom without them ever having to ask, and then you're surprised when they fall in love with you." she hears Jisoo say to Chaeyoung, in that chiding tone she uses way too often for a girl only in her twenties.
She almost gasps out loud, when the words hit her, her hand flying to her mouth.
And she knows, she knows the words weren't meant to cut, that Jisoo probably doesn't even know she's overhearing their conversation.
(There's a weird bell setting off in the back of her brain, though.)
Still, the way her best friend -they argued more than talked and were always a second short from physical violence, but her best friend nonetheless- would read her like that, psychoanalyse her feelings like that... it hurts.
Plus, the fact she just totally outed her feelings to the recipient of those feelings, and before she even had the chance to tell Chaeyoung herself.
Besides she's a firm believer in uttered love confessions, words that were meant to be spoken in private, soft and loving, not thrown out into the sky by meddling best friends.
(Not that she would have ever said anything.)
And Chaeyoung is quiet.
And Lisa doesn't want to wait for an answer.
So, she backs down the hallway carefully and then steps forward again, making as much noise as possible to announce her presence, because she doesn't know if she could stand to hear Chaeyoung's answer.
It'd be the first time she would hear Chaeyoung's voice after a month.
Both Jisoo and Chaeyoung are turned towards her when she steps into the locker room.
"Hey." she greets them, a slight smile on her lips like she just hadn't had her whole life torn open in front of the girl she used to love -still loved, despite herself.
"Hi." Chaeyoung greets back with a twitch of her hand that might categorize as a wave if Lisa was being clement.
Awfully neutral for someone who just heard a declaration of love spoken to them -even though the unlikely emissary that is Kim Jisoo.
Awfully neutral for someone who hasn't seen Lisa in almost a month after fucking her on New Year's Eve and disappearing the next morning.
Seen isn't the right verb, actually. Chaeyoung had more or less ignored her for the past month, and Lisa is done softening the blow of this reality.
She doesn't understand why she was softening it in the first place, anyway.
Jisoo stays quiet, barely glancing her way as she slips past her. When she does, Lisa notices how she doesn't quite meet her eye, and good. About time she felt some shame.
They're really not selling the 'we were not just talking about you before you walked in' look. Like at all. Lisa almost scoffs.
"My last class ended early." she continues, though, as nothing was out of the ordinary, as if there wasn't an anger burning through her veins that threatened to slosh out with each step she took towards them.
Why the fuck were they in the locker rooms for this?
She watches Jisoo from the corner of her eye, the way there was a spark in her eyes, and she had known her class had ended early, and she had known Lisa wanted to run, and she had known how long it'd take her to get here from across campus.
Angry summoned up Lisa's feelings well.
"I can see that."
"Thought I could slip for some seven miles practice unnoticed."
"We won't be the one to rat you out." Jisoo suddenly joins the conversation, seemingly coming back to life with a jolt.
"God forbid you say anything to people you shouldn't." Lisa mutters under her breath.
"What?"
"Nothing." she says before punching in her locker combination with maybe more force than was required.
Yeah, angry summoned them up pretty well.
She starts stripping, shoving her hoodie and t-shirt in her locker without much care.
She's grabbing her tank top when she realizes she just stripped down to her sports bra in front of Chaeyoung. She shoves her uniform on before facing Chaeyoung and Jisoo, and really, congratulations to her that managed to make this all so much more awkward.
She quickly grabs her water bottle from her locker, turning away from this mess of a situation, "So... I'll be going."
She's halfway to her favourite trail when she hears the soft thuds of Chaeyoung's steps, "Wait! Lisa!"
She hates the hopeful flutter her heart makes as she turns to Chaeyoung. Chaeyoung, who looks like she herself doesn't know why she had stopped Lisa.
She waits, as Chaeyoung shifts her weight and stays quiet in front of her, not really meeting her eye.
"You needed something?" she asks when Chaeyoung doesn't seem to have nothing more to say.
"I- yes. I wanted to ask..."
Lisa waits on bated breath for her to continues, and it's weird how easy it is to hope in that moment, that maybe Jisoo's words had done something good for once, even if she sincerely doubts it.
"Yeah?"
Chaeyoung shakes her head, eyes trained on the ground, "It was nothing, don't worry about it. Have a nice run."
"Yes. Sure. I'll see you later?" she offers, even if she doesn't know why.
She doesn't know why she does, but it makes Chaeyoung look at her again before her eyes settle on a pot over Lisa's shoulder -still looking but not quite.
Chaeyoung smiles once more like she swallowed glass, before saluting Lisa with an awkward twist of her fingers, "And I, you- I- Will see you. Bye."
She watches as Chaeyoung practically skips her way out of the field, moving in short but mechanical steps, and Lisa is left wondering what the hell had just happened.
**
Her surroundings blurry as she runs, greens and browns and blacks.
And it always got a little bit easier to breathe when her world was blurry with motion.
Not this time.
***
She doesn't expect for Chaeyoung to turn up at her dorm room the next day, holding flowers.
She finds her on her bed again, though this time Minnie was nowhere to be seen -and it all feels familiar, and it all feels foreign, like a recurring dream. Actually, that was pretty close to who Chaeyoung seemed to be to her.
She didn't dream the orange flowers in her hands, though.
Why was she holding flowers?
She shakes her head.
She doesn't want to fall for this again.
Not so soon.
(Maybe in three years' time, though.)
"Minnie opened the door for me. She had to run, though." Chaeyoung answers the question Lisa's brain hadn't even thought to supply to her lips.
And Lisa should be angry, but she discovers she's only bone-tired -and excited, despite it all, despite herself, to see Chaeyoung.
"Breakfast?" she offers like an olive branch because if she's going to do this, she's going to do this on her own terms.
Chaeyoung smiles, a tight, weird and small smile, but it was still a smile. Lisa had missed it; she had missed her, "Yeah."
Chaeyoung holds onto the flowers like an anchor. Lisa doesn't ask for them and Chaeyoung brings them out with them, the only touch of colour on her.
Chaeyoung always looked like nothing could touch her.
"Do you want to walk?" Lisa asks, her throat already tightening at the thought of being confined in her car for a whole twenty-minute ride to their brunch place -their.
Hers.
She shakes her head.
Focus.
"Yeah."
"Is that the only word you know how to say?"
"Yeah." Chaeyoung says again, and Lisa could bet there would be a smirk on her lips if Chaeyoung turned towards her now.
Lisa huffs a laugh, despite herself.
"So, I-" she starts, voice tentative and unsure.
At the same time, Chaeyoung opens her mouth, "What I--"
Lisa stops. Chaeyoung looks at her. Time slows down.
The spell is broken the moment Chaeyoung awkwardly laughs, rubbing her neck with her hand, "You first."
"Sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. We're friends, aren't we?" Lisa asks, swallowing the weird lump in her throat that expects for Chaeyoung to shake her head, "Even if things have been weird lately."
Understatement of the century.
"Best friends." Chaeyoung nods, her hands going to her side like she wanted to hide the flowers in her hands.
Lisa ignores it.
"Okay so, as a best friend, I missed you."
"As a best friend, I missed you, too..." Chaeyoung trails off, a sad sort of smile on her lips, "I never had to before."
Lisa flinches at her words without meaning to, her steps faltering for a second like the words had been a bullet tearing through her flesh.
"You don't have to be so cruel about it."
Chaeyoung's hand flies to Lisa's arm, her touch burning her through the layers of her jacket. She doesn't shake it off, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean- I have all these words I want to say to you in my head, then every time I try to tell you anything I fuck it up."
"I decided to change my major to undeclared." Lisa says because she doesn't think she's strong enough to hear what Chaeyoung wanted to say.
No.
She couldn't afford to hear what Chaeyoung has to say.
"What?"
"You were right. I wasn't happy," Lisa shrugs, putting her hands into her jean's back pockets, "I made a choice I didn't want to make because I thought it was the one I was supposed to want."
Chaeyoung opens her mouth, once, twice, before closing it again.
"I don't know. I figured I should go after the things I want."
"Will you stop running too?" and it feels like Chaeyoung is asking her something more, something that had too many meanings and too few all at once.
"No. I like cross country."
Chaeyoung shakes her head, her hair curling around her chin before she bats it away, "The things you want?"
Lisa misses a step and stops.
Chaeyoung stops with her.
(No, she had missed a step the moment she had said it.)
"All the things you want?" Chaeyoung continues, rushing through the words that make Lisa's heartbeat too loud.
She feels like all the eyes on the busy street are stuck on them.
"I don't-"
Chaeyoung's eyes are as unforgiving as they are true, "Do you want me, too?"
"Chaeyoung." she hisses, feeling all of the sudden, like maybe taking her car would have been better.
"Did you want me to stay?"
Lisa grabs Chaeyoung's hand and drags her into the closest alley she can find. She can't have this conversation out in the open.
She can't have all those eyes on her while Chaeyoung broke her heart again.
"Did you want me to stay?" Chaeyoung asked again, the shadows dancing around her face making deciphering her emotion an impossible task.
"That's... that doesn't matter." Lisa backs away until her back hits the alley's brick wall, "You wanted to leave. You left."
"Do you want me to stay?"
"Chaeyoung."
"I know I don't deserve to ask you that." Chaeyoung says, hands clutching the flowers so tightly one or two of them bruise darker, petals falling down.
Lisa gasps for air, "Did you- do you want to?"
"I'd stay beside you for the rest of my life if you'd let me." Chaeyoung says, brown eyes pinning her in place, making everything so much harder.
Lisa's chest feels tighter and tighter the longer Chaeyoung looks at her like that.
And why is it so hard to ask for Chaeyoung to stay?
And Lisa wishes this was a movie, that she'd take a breath and say the right thing and the music would swell and she'd kiss Chaeyoung as everything fades to black.
But it's not a movie, and there's no script Lisa can follow to make this into anything other than a tragedy.
"I never..." her heart stutters painfully, and Lisa almost forgets how to breathe, with Chaeyoung's full silent attention on her, "Wanted all those girls wrapped around my finger. I never wanted anything, and it was fine, I was fine until you came back around and make me want all these-"
"Then what do you want?" Chaeyoung interrupts her, fire in her eyes, and Lisa wants to burn like a phoenix, live from her ashes.
(She wants Chaeyoung to stay.)
(She wants Chaeyoung to love her.)
And Lisa isn't a poet. She doesn't think in elaborate metaphors, or big words, or lost worlds. She's a different kind of artist, one that sees moves, colors and shades. Chaeyoung had always been the best kind of gold in her eyes.
"You. I only ever wanted you."
She watches as Chaeyoung gasps, like she hadn't expected for Lisa to just come outright and say it, like she had expected for Lisa to laugh at her. The flowers fall from Chaeyoung's grasps, falling like feathers at their feet.
Chaeyoung takes the few steps still separating them all at once, crashing into Lisa and tilting her head to meet Lisa's lips.
And it's not a movie.
There's no music playing in the background (there's some kid singing on the street, though she doesn't think it counts) no perfectly coordinated lips that move in a way no first kiss ever go -even if this kiss was anything but, even if this kiss was everything- no wandering, hesitant hands holding her close.
No, this kiss is not from a movie.
It's teeth and bite instead, it's scratches from Chaeyoung's short nails, it's panting against her mouth before diving in again, desperate to drown under Chaeyoung's ocean.
They break apart, and everything is the same and different, like an overdeveloped photo.
"Again." Lisa says, "I- I want..."
Lisa doesn't know what she's about to say, she just knows that if Chaeyoung doesn't kiss her anytime soon, she might just spontaneously combust.
Thankfully Chaeyoung understands her, pushing up and tangling her fingers in her long hair, strands falling from the braid Lisa had twisted them in earlier.
And it feels infinite.
It feels like... it's like this small spark, buried deep down in her chest, finally coming to life. It's like every other girl before Chaeyoung was nothing but stifling wet tinder, never really catching fire, never really bursting free, but Chaeyoung... Chaeyoung's kerosene.
She is a Molotov cocktail.
Lisa trembles under her touch, aches for her every kiss, itches to be touched.
And she's on fire.
Chaeyoung breaks the kiss gently, before pecking Lisa's lips tenderly, more the memory of a kiss than a kiss itself.
Lisa feels flowers bloom in her chest.
"Does that mean you'll stay?"
She wonders how she could have gone so long, without Chaeyoung in her arms.
"Like anything could tear me away from you."
And well, it's not like Lisa could not kiss Chaeyoung when she said stuff like that.
So, Lisa kisses her again, taking great care in properly smudging Chaeyoung's lipstick as much as she could.
There was something satisfying in opening her eyes and seeing Chaeyoung's mouth a mess of red.
Nothing, no one could ever affect Chaeyoung's appearance, but Lisa; oh, Lisa could.
And they should probably stop kissing in a dirty alleyway.
And they will, probably.
After one last kiss.
Probably.
**
She meets Jisoo at the library the next day, no books in her hands, but a thousand pamphlets shoved in her bag with her laptop. Art programs she could take.
Chaeyoung had helped find most of them if Lisa were to be honest, but now it was up to Lisa to choose which one she liked best.
She can't help the smile breaking across her face at the thought of the previous day spent on Chaeyoung's bed. Of Chaeyoung. And then of the night after that spent doing other things.
Jisoo watches her, her brows furrowing and her lips pouting slightly.
Lisa smile gets impossibly big, her cheeks almost hurting from the stretch, before dropping it into a serious frown and turning her attention back to her laptop.
It doesn't take long for another smile to grace her face, as she remembers how Chaeyoung had been curled next to her when she had woken up. Lisa would've fixated that particular memory into her brain surgically if she could.
"Oh my God! Stop doing that. It's disgusting," Jisoo hisses across the table, her foot colliding with Lisa's shin.
Lisa rubs at the spot with a wince, "Ow. Doing what?"
Shushes come from around them. She rolls her eyes.
"Sitting there all..." Jisoo continues, gesturing wildly, her hands flying around in circles, "Just stop."
She lifts her shoulders to her ears, "What am I even doing?"
"You're all happy and shit. I don't know how you do it, Lis, but when you're happy it's like the whole world glows with you and then you put me in a good mood, and it's just weird. Please stop."
"I am happy." she says.
"Not content?"
"Happy." she confirms with a nod, her smile threatening to burst at the seams.
"So," Jisoo leans over the table, pushing her laptop away, "What happened?"
Lisa's smile turns into a teasing smirk, "Girl talk? Really?"
"Let me have this, I'm begging."
Lisa laughs at that, the shushes get louder. She winces in unison with Jisoo.
"So?" Jisoo whispers after the other library dwellers have turned back around, still leaning closer than it was comfortable.
"So what?"
Jisoo kicks her shin again, "C'mon!"
"Stop doing that! Okay, okay." she leans close, too, pausing dramatically until Jisoo tried to kick her again, "We kissed."
(And it feels miraculous to even say out loud.)
Jisoo lets out a gasp as she starts slapping her arm repeatedly, her mouth falling open in excitement.
Lisa can't help the small laugh that escapes her lips at that, "Then we talked."
Jisoo smiles in return, as Lisa smile got wider and wider.
"And then we kissed some more."
"Okay, I don't need that much more." Jisoo interrupts, "I'm glad it worked out."
"Yeah, me too." Lisa sighs, resting her head on her crossed arms, hiding her smile in the crook of her elbow.
"See? It wasn't that hard to ask Chaeyoung to be your girlfriend."
Lisa straightens up in the second it takes for Jisoo's words to be processed by her brain.
Shit.
"Lisa."
"I-"
"Lisa!" Jisoo more or less shouts.
"Shh." she hisses, putting her hand over Jisoo's mouth, "I'm- I'll work on it."
"You better!" Jisoo hisses back, lips smashed against her palm, "God, this is exhausting."
She takes her hand back with an ugh, her nose crinkling, "What?"
"Being your best friend. You're such a dumbass." Jisoo says, taking another chance at kicking Lisa under the table.
"Hey!"
"Stop sabotaging yourself, tell Chaeyoung how you feel, and I'll stop."
"That's an awful lot of clauses."
"Deal?" Jisoo asks, offering her hand.
She takes it, "Deal."
"So... Chaeyoung?"
Lisa smiles, Jisoo smiles back.
Laughter bubbles out of her lips, Jisoo's following soon after. She stifles it as best as she can with her hands, watches Jisoo as she tries to do the same.
She ignores the million hateful stares she feels on her back.
She's too happy to care.
(Jisoo's right, though, Lisa should talk to Chaeyoung.)
**
It takes less than four days for Lisa to realize they hadn't exactly talked in the end, too distracted by Chaeyoung's lips to fulfill her resolution to do so. It takes her two more to gain the courage to actually do something about that realization.
"We should probably talk," is how Lisa approaches the conversation, with the same subtlety of an elephant in a crystal shop.
"About what?" is Chaeyoung's answer, still bent over her work, and before Lisa could ramble herself into a grave trying to explain, she notices the smirk lingering around Chaeyoung's lips.
Two can play at that game.
Lisa spins her in her chair, forcefully and successfully pulling her away from her work.
"Do you..." Chaeyoung starts to ask only to stop dead in her tracks the moment she sees how close Lisa is.
Mind, she supposes, is how she would have finished her sentence, hadn't Lisa lent into her, pushing her knee in the spot in-between Chaeyoung's thighs, using it as leverage to pull herself down to Chaeyoung's lips stopping right before she can feel them against hers.
"You kissed me, in case you forgot."
She enjoys the way Chaeyoung's body stills, the way her throat bobs up and down, the way her eyes are trained on Lisa's lips. Good. About time she understood how Lisa felt.
Chaeyoung swallows and Lisa wants to kiss her -but she won't until Chaeyoung admits her feelings back, "Did I?"
"Yes. And now you can't ignore the fact."
"Obviously a mistake on my part."
"Don't be rude." Lisa whispers, before going against her resolution and pecking her lips softly once.
When she breaks the kiss Chaeyoung chases her lips, her hand sneaking around her neck to bring her close.
"So?"
Chaeyoung turns her head, or well, tries to at least, but Lisa is already there to bring her back, "Lisa..."
Chaeyoung's eyes stay on her, so dark and beautiful, and it's like she had reached out into Lisa's chest and carved out her heart to write her name on it.
"So?"
It's like Lisa is standing on the edge of a precipice and Chaeyoung is the one waiting for her at the bottom.
"Don't you know how much I love you?"
It's like flying towards her to meet her where the stars meet the moon.
"I'm selfish." she tells her softly, and a corner of Chaeyoung's mouth curves upwards, "I like to hear you say it."
Chaeyoung presses her mouth to hers another time, gently and quickly, "I love you. Even if I don't know how to do it properly."
"I think you're doing just fine. But I am a college dropout so what would I know?"
Lisa can't stop her mouth from breaking open into a grin when Chaeyoung laughs.
"I love you." Chaeyoung says again, her voice sweeter than honey and sugar and candy, and Lisa flocks to her lips like a moth to a flame, "And you didn't drop out, exactly. You're just in the process of figuring out what you want."
She's pretty sure that if she doesn't stop grinning like this, her face is going to get stuck. "That's a good one, can I use that the next time someone asks? It sounds less depressing."
"Sure. Do you perchance, maybe want to ask me anything?"
Lisa huffs, before playfully kissing Chaeyoung's nose. "You always make me do all the work."
Chaeyoung doesn't rise to the banter, just looks at her until Lisa cracks at the seams, all of her wanting pouring through.
"Be my heart, Chaeyoung," she says, she asks, pressing the words to her lips, like a sinner to a holy picture.
No act of love has ever felt as sacred as kissing Chaeyoung gently in the middle of the afternoon, the sound of her frantic heart the only witness.
Chaeyoung kisses her back until they're both out of breath, limbs like vines on an old brick house, "Seems fair. You have so much of mine, already."
"I love you." Lisa says, dragging Chaeyoung's lips up to her mouth again.
She kisses Chaeyoung until she has no more air in her lungs, and then she kisses her again, drawing her in and out of the chair, towards her bed.
"I love you." she whispers again, as she pushes Chaeyoung on her back never straying too far.
Chaeyoung gasps against her, "I have to-"
"You," she drags the word out, kissing her again, "Have to kiss your girlfriend."
The smile on Chaeyoung's face is blinding, "Girlfriend. I like the sound of that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Chaeyoung breathes out, capturing Lisa's lips again, "I do."
**
"What was your deal with BamBam the other day anyway?" Lisa asks, after the need of kissing Chaeyoung until they both fell asleep had toned down from a burning urgency to a constant, persistent buzz.
Chaeyoung turns away from her, for the first time in almost hours, and Lisa frowns. She misses her face already. She bumps her nose to the underside of Chaeyoung's jaw. When that doesn't prompt her to speak, she sneaks a finger to Chaeyoung's side, tickling her.
"Okay." Chaeyoung shoves her away with a small laugh, "Okay. I was... jealous."
"Jealous."
"Jealous." Chaeyoung confirms with a nod, her lips pressing together.
"Chaeyoung. He's a boy."
"I know that."
"I'm a lesbian."
"I know that too."
And Lisa has to laugh at that, "Why were you weirdly fixated on his letterman, then?"
"I-" Chaeyoung hesitates, and Lisa pecks her lips in encouragement.
"C'mon. How much more embarrassing than being jealous of a boy could it be?"
"I wasn't fixated with his letterman." Chaeyoung finally blurts out.
"Wait."
Chaeyoung covers her face with her hands, groaning.
"Wait." Lisa repeats, "Did you want to have my letterman?"
"No." Chaeyoung mumbles, face in her hands still, and it's too precious for Lisa to handle.
"Did you want to be my official girl? To go steady?" Lisa can't help but tease, wiggling her eyebrows even if Chaeyoung couldn't see her.
Chaeyoung's only answer another groan.
She tries to pry Chaeyoung's hands away from her face with poor results. "Chaeyoung."
"It's embarassing."
"Do you want it, still?"
Chaeyoung doesn't answer beyond an indistinct mumble.
"What if I wanted to give it to you, then? Would that be less embarrassing?"
Chaeyoung finally pries her hands from her face, "Would you?"
"I've already gifted you my heart." Lisa says, "What is a letterman?"
Chaeyoung blushes the prettiest of pinks and Lisa kisses her. She couldn't not kiss her.
Chaeyoung rests her head on Lisa's chest, and Lisa wraps her arm around her tight.
"Do you remember our first kiss?" Chaeyoung asks out of the blue, her fingers tapping against Lisa's forearm once before curling around it. Lisa's hand goes to cover Chaeyoung's automatically.
"That depends." she says, and laughter threatens to bubble out of her stomach when Chaeyoung kisses the soft spot under her jaw, "Which one?"
"The roof one."
"Oh."
"Yeah. I don't know how you found the guts to kiss me."
"Well, you kissed me, to be fair. I just propositioned you."
"Miss Manoban."
"Miss Park." Lisa plays back, living for the way Chaeyoung's cheeks tinge red, "I don't know. I couldn't help it. I never could help myself, around you."
Chaeyoung smiles, closing her eyes. Lisa follows after her in the world of dreams.
**
Lisa wakes up to a pair of warm, soft lips to the nape of her neck.
(She stayed.)
"Morning."
(Chaeyoung stayed.)
Lisa's answering smile feels bigger than her face. She presses it to Chaeyoung's skin, like a seal and wax, only to be broken by the receiver, "Morning."
"I love you in the morning." Chaeyoung kisses her temple next, and Lisa leans into the touch, eyes still closed.
"Only in the morning?" she whispers, her lips finding Chaeyoung's cheek blindly.
"Especially in the morning," Chaeyoung amends with another kiss, this time to the bridge of her nose, "You glow, in the mornings. Like sunshine, or stardust."
Lisa opens her eyes to find Chaeyoung's trained on her.
She can taste love on the tip of her tongue. It tastes like toothpaste and morning breath and forgotten remnants of lipstick.
"I love you. In the morning, and in the afternoon, and in the evening."
Chaeyoung's nose scrunches up, but her lips curl into a pleased smile, her cheeks flushing bright pink for a second, "You always have to one-up me."
"It's not a competition," Lisa lifts herself up on her forearms, kissing Chaeyoung slowly and properly, eyes closing again as she whispers against her lips, "I'm just terribly in love with you."
Chaeyoung pushes at Lisa's shoulder until she's hovering over Lisa, her hair curling and uncurling around her collarbones.
If there was anything close to heaven, Lisa imagines it would look an awful lot like this.
"But if it were, I'd be winning." Lisa continues before she went on one knee and ruined everything.
Chaeyoung barks a laugh, "Smartass."
She smirks up at Chaeyoung, hoping that the tears burning through the back of her eyes aren't as noticeable as they feel.
Chaeyoung brushes her hand over her cheekbone carefully, and it's a hope unfounded, "Don't cry."
"I'm sorry," she shakes her head, but it only makes the tears fall faster, big, warm drops against her cheeks, "They're happy tears, I promise."
Chaeyoung brushes one away, kisses another one, until Lisa's cheeks are dry again, "I stayed."
"You did." Lisa breathes out.
"I love you."
"You do?" and this time it sounds like a question, even if it's one of which she already knows the answer to.
Chaeyoung nods in answer, anyway, wrapping herself around Lisa.
"Do you think there's a world where we get it right the first time? Where I kiss you back in the mornings?"
"I don't know." Lisa admits, and when she feels Chaeyoung pull away, she turns her head back towards her, "But I don't think there's a world where we could stay apart for long. I know there isn't -can't be one where I don't love you. My body has only ever known how to love you."
Chaeyoung looks at her then, and Lisa forgets any other thought that isn't Chaeyoung's name.
She kisses her.
**
Lisa will remember only later, with Chaeyoung asleep on her chest and her fingers intertwined with Lisa's, what she had wanted to say.
There's something poetic about Chaeyoung being her beginning and her end, even if they weren't exactly each other's in between.
Lisa wouldn't have it any other way, though.
Chaeyoung's nose brushes against her sternum, and no, she wouldn't have it any other way.
_________
A/N: First of all, thank you for taking your time to read (or re-read) this story, I deeply appreciate each vote and comment. <3
If you liked this book, give Summer Flowers a chance too! I already republished the first chapter, you can find it on my profile. 🖤