Nemamiah wakes up from an empty dream slowly. Her head feels heavy, and the remote thought that she has never slept before crosses her mind lethargically.
She takes a few more deep breaths. As her body becomes less dizzy, she comes to the realization that, for the first time in a long, painful eternity, her body doesn't hurt.
She is awoken by the thought, and she sits up in the well-known cold surface in a bit of a haste. The pad of her fingers immediately search for her back, and she opens her mouth when she is not meet with the sting of a bleeding wound but with the roughness of a scar.
Nemamiah's eyes fill with tears of relief. She fears, still. She's terrified by the next step of her punishment, but the lack of pain makes her feel somehow renewed, with a small light of hope tingling in the middle of her chest once again.
This time, however, it's different.
Las time, the glimmer of hope was fueled by the weight of her ego, of a false sense of superiority that poisoned her soul from the very core.
Now, all that lightens her heart is humility, forgiveness, acceptation.
Nemamiah puts her hand against her the steady beat on her chest.
Her mind drifts immediately to a soft smile, to dreamy eyes, to a tenderness that she has never encountered before.
Love, Nemamiah thinks.
Her heart swirls, content.
It's full of love.
Nemamiah closes her eyes, breathing deeply still, despite the void, despite the punishment, despite the maddening silence.
She smiles.
Suddenly, something changes.
The ground shakes, and the atmosphere gets heavier. Nemamiah opens her eyes, honestly surprised. She feels fear shaking her body, but she waits.
A blinding light illuminates everything in a matter of seconds.
Nemamiah blinks, trying to understand.
Gratulationes.
Then, she finds herself floating softly, her body transcending the layers of existence not with resent, but with ease.
She sees the colors, the shapes, the mysteries.
She parts her lips as her eyes tear up endlessly.
It's beautiful.
-
Jisoo lands on Earth with both feet steady on the ground.
She tries to take in her surroundings, her body still shaking with the shock of her beautiful trip.
Once her eyes focus better, she looks at the trees, at the houses, at the people chatting around loudly, their clothing different, their hair different, the gadgets shining their hands different.
Jisoo feels different, too. She appreciates the sunshine caressing her skin as she never did before.
Then, she hears a voice.
She hears a lot of voices, actually, but this one is special. This one makes her heart jump against her chest in sheer excitement.
"Jisoo!"
The brunette turns around to see the Guardian that makes her soul sing running towards her with teary eyes.
Jisoo begins to cry as well, overwhelmed by an embracing feeling of happiness.
Chaeyoung stops suddenly, just some inches apart from the shortest angel's body, and she needs a moment to breathe.
Meanwhile, Jisoo keeps staring at her in a mixture of tenderness and disbelief. She's there. She's truly there.
When the blonde looks back at her, her expression is shaded by worry.
"Jisoo, I'm so sorry, I-"
But Jisoo can't wait another second.
"Can I hug you, please?", she asks.
Chaeyoung exhales heavily before wrapping her arms around the brunette, tears still staining her cheeks.
"Jisoo, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry".
The brunette frowns, but she doesn't pull away.
"I'm the one who is sorry".
"No", Chaeyoung leans back, letting her hands cup Jisoo's cheeks with absolute care, "I should have supported you, even..."
Jisoo puts her hands on top of the blonde's. She looks at her with a sad smile tugging her lips.
"No, Chae. It's okay", the tallest angel opens her mouth, but the brunette speaks again, "I just... do you want to move on?"
The blonde looks at her in slight confusion, and Jisoo blushes as a giggle tickles in her throat.
"I mean... I feel that we will keep apologizing and I just... I just want to be with you".
The heat in her cheeks intensifies, and Chaeyoung can only look at her with surprised delight.
She smiles, unable to stop herself, and feels uncharacteristically shy as well.
"Yes", she musters, finally, "I want to be with you, too".
Jisoo looks at the floor with a barely contained grin.
"Cool", she says, and waits a second to gather the strength to look at Chaeyoung again.
The blonde stares back, still smiling, her eyes dripping a fondness that Jisoo is pretty sure she has never seen aimed towards her. She feels as the tallest girl cups her cheeks again, and she lets her own hands fall on Chaeyoung's waist. When the blonde doesn't pull away, Jisoo squeezes lightly. The gesture earns her an angelic giggle.
"It tickles, Soo", Chaeyoung complains, and the brunette is about to tease her further when her eyes catch a well-known human figure walking directly towards her.
Jisoo's face falls, and the blonde turns around with a frown and a question on the tip of her tongue.
A tall brunette sporting jet-black hair and soft features marches with her head low between a sea of people. Her Vans tap quickly against the grass as she keeps her gaze fixed on the floor, her body language a screaming sorrow.
She passes rapidly besides the shocked angels, being of course completely unaware of their presence. Once that her lean figure becomes smaller, Jisoo snaps out of her stupor.
"Is she...?"
"Lisa", Chaeyoung states without doubt.
Jisoo snorts.
"You'd think they could come up with subtler names".
The blonde giggles, noticing that her hands have moved to rest on Jisoo's shoulders. She doesn't pull away.
"It doesn't matter. They are the last humans".
The brunette nods, her gaze burning in the tallest angel's chocolate eyes.
"The last humans", she agrees, and then she looks at her side again, "I wonder what are their stories now".
"Let's find out", Chaeyoung suggests.
They pull away but intertwine their fingers, and begin to walk following Lisa's trail.
-
Lisa focuses hard with her blurred eyes to find the keyhole of her dorm room's door. She needs to hurry up because she knows that her roommate will come back in a few minutes, and as much as she enjoys the girl's presence, she needs a moment to spill out the sadness caged in her body.
When she finally gets into her room, her legs give out. She cries on the floor then, with a hand pressed against her mouth and her knees pressed against her heart.
After letting out some sobs, Lisa curses herself. It's been days already. She should be, at least, staring to move on.
But she can't. She can't because the aching hole in right in her chest has not stopped tugging in the slightest, because there's still pure shame and regret running through her veins, and because she keeps seeing her walking around campus.
Jennie.
Her ex-best-friend for life.
Lisa's lower lip trembles in misery and frustration.
And she could still be her best friend.
She could still be the one walking side by side with the brunette, delighting in her gummy smile, in her soft giggles, in her mellow voice. She could still be the one the brunette choses to spend her afternoons with, legs and feet brushing against the grass as soft whispers and loud laughter fill in the air.
Lisa could still be happy, honestly, if she just had kept her mouth shut.
She sighs, feeling absolutely defeated, and searches blindly for her cellphone to distract herself with the cutest cat videos that she can find. When she unlocks it, a picture of her and Jennie shines flamboyantly in the home screen.
Lisa pouts again and puts her cell phone away. She can change her wallpaper later.
The brunette decides to stand up, and searches for her sketch book. She purposefully moves past the first pages because she knows she might find her ex-best-friend's face splattered here and there in all imaginable angles.
But how could she not sketch the most stunning face she has ever seen?
Lisa sniffles then, as tears come back to her eyes, and makes the effort of staring out of the window and tracing soft patterns to resemble the almond tree swinging with the wind.
-
Jennie forces a chuckle out of her throat as one of her university friends half-shouts a poor joke for the whole group.
She keeps walking, her maybe too-expensive shoes echoing on the pavement, and tries very, very had to follow the conversation that seems to be unfolding all around her ears.
She can't.
Jennie makes an effort again. She plays with the ends of her chocolate locks, and tries to keep her breathing as even as possible.
She fails.
When everyone keeps talking and talking, and her heart keeps beating in a painful rhythm, she stops dead in her tracks, feeling overwhelmed.
Her friends turn around, startled.
"Jennie?", one of them asks, but the brunette nods quickly, plastering her best smile and commanding her brain to search for any excuse it can muster right now.
"I- huh, I forgot I got an assignment for tomorrow", she says.
Her friends keep looking at her, the previous concern absolutely forgotten.
"Boo, Jennie, really? You have to go?"
The brunette nods, feeling her shoulders already relaxing, and searches for a believable self-pity tone.
"I'm really sorry. Next time?", she half-asks, and her friends merely gift her a nod and turn around to keep walking to the coffee shop they intended to go to.
Jennie doesn't mind, really. The space they occupy in their heart is not of great importance, neither.
The brunette closes her eyes and breathes deeply before turning left to rush to her room.
Saying that she feels sad would be an understatement. She feels absolutely shitty, with her temples begging for sleep and her throat tightening more and more with the pressure of unreleased words.
Stupid Lisa, she thinks, and her shoes start to dig on deep, rich grass. Stupid Lisa and her stupid hugs, and her stupid comfort words and her stupid bad joes that she desperately needs right now.
Jennie purses her lips tightly as she spots the door of the room.
Her mind goes over the previous days meticulously, just as it has been doing again and again almost against her own will.
She's left without a single answer every time.
Something went wrong, Jennie thinks, horribly wrong.
But what?
She enters to her single room quickly and closes the door with her back.
Stupid Lisa, she thinks again.
Then, Jennie's eyes set on the plushie that the tallest girl gifted her for her eighteenth birthday, lying as a sorrowful memory token just on top of her bed. She pouts, unable to stop herself, and looks at the plushie with a stern gaze. A moment later, she hugs it against her chest.
She breaks down in hot tears.
-
"Alright", Jisoo narrows her eyes, "what the fuck?"
Chaeyoung snorts, and then looks again at a weeping Jennie through her bedroom's window.
"I have no idea, honestly", she murmurs.
The brunette puts her hand on her hips, reflecting.
They have tried pushing them together. It didn't work. They have tried staying back. It didn't work neither.
There's an approach, however, that they have never followed.
Jisoo nods to herself, as if trying to find courage, and turns towards the blonde with a determined expression.
"I think that we have to talk to them".
Chaeyoung looks at her with wide eyes.
"Really?", she asks.
Jisoo tilts her head at the insecurity laced with her tone.
"You've never talked to a human?"
The tallest angel denies with her head, feeling a bit ashamed.
"I've never gotten the chance".
Jisoo smiles reassuringly, grasping her teammate's hand and squeezing it lightly.
"You'll do great. I think I could talk to Jennie, since she seems a bit... tougher to break, and Lisa seems to need a lot of emotional support".
Chaeyoung nods, feeling more secure.
"What should we tell them?"
The brunette thinks for a moment.
"I think that, for now, we should at least get to know what's going now. Then, we'll decide what to do".
The blonde smiles softly, feeling more at ease due to Jisoo's renewed leadership.
"Alright, captain", she says.
The brunette looks at her with a startled expression.
"Oh, if it's okay for you, I mean, we can always-"
"No, I'm just teasing you. I like it when you lead. It's..." attractive, she thinks, "comforting".
Jisoo grins back, and, in a sheer impulse, she brings the hand that's holding Chaeyoung's closer to her lips to place soft kiss on the blonde's knuckles.
"Thanks", she murmurs, her lips still grazing velvety skin, and Chaeyoung feels completely breathless, a furious blush extending through all her face.
"Yeah", she manages to let out, in a very high pitch.
Jisoo gifts her another smile before falling into a pondering silence.
-
Lisa watches the colors of the sunset as she sits one of the most remote wooden bench of the whole university campus.
Her eyes fix in the purplish clouds, but her mind is far, far away, tangled in cat-like eyes and the sorrow twirling in her own chest.
She's tired already, really tired, both because her usual cheerful self is not used to the feeling of absolute helplessness and because she has been sleeping terribly through the whole week.
As the colors get deeper, Lisa lets her forehead rest against her hands. She sighs, and forces herself to think about a particular proposal that she had completely dismissed just a month ago, but now-
"Hi".
Lisa raises her head startled, her gaze falling on a blonde, gorgeous girl sitting nonchalantly besides her.
"Hi", she gets out, her voice reflecting surprise and hesitation.
The girl doesn't seem fazed. She smiles softly, in an almost maternal way that leaves Lisa thinking whether she should feel comforted or absolutely creeped out.
"Tough day?", the girl asks, and the brunette tries to hide a frown.
It takes her a few seconds to react.
"Yes... it has been... yeah", she musters.
The blonde nods and lets a hum fill in the awkward atmosphere, and Lisa shifts slightly in her seat.
"Do you... huh... Do you need something?" she asks then, feeling a bit ashamed of not having offered help before. Maybe the girl is just lost, or new, or sad...
But the blonde merely shakes her head, her grin becoming a bit melancholic.
"No. You just look like you need a friend".
Lisa stares at the girl in shock. She feels like she should be somehow offended, but she can't bring herself to do so. The blonde is looking at her with too much open honestly for Lisa to doubt her.
"I... I'm fine, really".
The girl hums again, as if deep in thought.
A minute of absolute silence passes and Lisa is on the verge of not being able to take it anymore. It's plain uncomfortable. She has never been a people's person, really, that has always been Jennie, and Jennie has always been kind enough to respect her spaces and bring her only to places where she knew that her friend would be comfortable.
But now Jennie is not there anymore, so-
"My name is Roseanne", the girl says suddenly, "I'm majoring in Physics".
Lisa blinks several times.
"Oh", is all that she says, but the blonde -Roseanne- is looking at her with an expectant expression, so she finds herself speaking again, "I'm Lisa. I am majoring in Arts".
The girl seems extremely pleased with the answer, so the brunette feels somehow more relaxed. She doesn't think that the blonde has bad intentions, really, she's just... a bit too curious.
"Cool, Lisa. Nice to meet you".
The girl extends her hand in a greeting gesture and Lisa shakes it, feeling more at ease.
"Nice to meet you too", she murmurs, and they both fall into a moment of silence again.
The brunette watches with the corner of her eyes at the blonde fixing her gaze to the floor, as in deep thought. She's cute, really, and nice. She would even be a great friend, Lisa considers.
And her mind, stubborn, drifts to Jennie again.
It's already kind of late. There is only a faint, bluish reminiscence of the sun mixing with the light of upcoming stars. Lisa thinks that she should be heading home already, even if the idea of doing so without the shortest brunette rambling about her day by her side makes her heart ache.
Without noticing, her expression turns gloomier.
Roseanne, however, does notice.
"You know, Lisa", she begins, "I know we don't know each other, but... if there is something truly bothering you, you can just tell me".
Lisa wonders on the way in which the blonde seems completely unaware about how absolutely odd that would be.
And somehow, the idea comforts her. Roseanne is a complete stranger, which means that she cannot judge her too hard. And if she does, well, that wouldn't be a great loss for Lisa anyways.
And she desperately, desperately needs to let go some of the deep sadness that seems to be rooting in her chest. She doesn't have any good, close friend near campus, really, except for... well... her, and she doesn't want to worry her sensitive parents by telling them about her broken heart.
So, well, the stranger might do.
"It's... I'm hurt", she lets out simply.
The blonde smiles with absolute patience.
"I can see that", she says simply, and Lisa feels prompted to continue.
"I've been hurt by somebody that I care about a lot. And I don't even know if I have the right to be angry because... because I was wrong, too. I overstepped, but...", her eyes start to get teary, "but I truly tried my best. I tried".
The blonde looks at a crying Lisa with a look of absolute empathy. As a reflex, she puts her left hand on top of the brunette's thigh, who is too busy weeping to even notice.
"I'm sorry, Lisa", she says eventually.
The brunette looks back at her with a sad smile, and her eyes drift to the front again.
Suddenly, Lisa's heartbeat quickens. She sees a figure, kind of far away, that looks exactly like Jennie's. She narrows her eyes in disbelief, thinking that she's starting to see things, but as the figure gets closer and closer, it resembles her ex-best-friend more and more.
Lisa realizes then, as the girl she's gazing at stops dead in her tracks looking, probably, towards her direction, that she's indeed Jennie.
The brunette stands up then, startling the blonde in the process, and turns towards her in a rush.
"Sorry, Roseanne, it was nice to meet you but now I have to go. Thank you", she bows, "for showing support. Bye!".
Like that, Lisa is gone, her long legs drawing big steps as she runs to hide in her own dorm room.
Chaeyoung turns around then, and her eyes spot a familiar, shorter brunette staring at her with a stern expression and then turning around to run towards the other side of campus.
A few moments later, Jisoo's figure appears, her face dripping absolute annoyance. She tops to wave at a smiling Chaeyoung and keeps jogging, trying to follow Jennie's steps.
-
Jennie takes a break from her running just in front of her own institute.
When she can finally breathe properly, without feeling an unstoppable weigh pulling her heart down, she begins to reflect in her actions, shoving her hands harshly in the pockets of her lab coat.
What the fuck was that, is the first one of her thoughts. Who the fuck was that girl is the next one.
She rubs the palm of her hands against her eyes and sighs loudly.
Is it possible that Lisa found someone to replace her with so quickly?
Of course not, she tells herself, it's not like our issue is impossible to tackle.
Right?
Jennie truly feels like pouting and stomping her feet against the floor like a child. Instead, she sits on the grass with her legs crossed. The night has already settled completely. The moon and the stars decorate the sky beautifully, but Jennie can hardly appreciate them as she still searches for an acceptable breathing pattern.
Besides, the thought of reaching her dorm room alone is... depressing.
She lets out a whine and puts her forehead against her knees, feeling more free to express her emotions due to the lack of students roaming around campus.
Or at least that's what she thought, really, because as she's finding the strength to stand up and go home, a raspy voice reaches her ears suddenly.
"Hello", Jennie hears, and looks up with her eyebrows deeply frowned just to find at a tiny brunette girl staring at her with a hint of politeness.
She's kind of cute, true, but a stranger still, and Jennie feels immediate apprehension.
"Hi", she says then, cautiously, "you need something?"
The girl stares at her intently.
"No", she says slowly, "You just seem like you need to talk to somebody".
Jennie opens her mouth slightly in disbelief. She tries to keep calm. Maybe the girl is truly trying to be generous.
"I'm alright", she answers then, "just a bit tired".
The girl tilts her head and runs her eyes through Jennie's face as if analyzing her.
"Well... you don't seem to feel that great".
Jennie scoffs, unable to stop herself, and gifts the tiny, shameless girl, her most intimidating look.
"And who are you to say that? You don't even know me!"
The brunette freezes for a moment, and Jennie thinks that she resulted victorious in the absurd contest that was set up by a girl she was never met before.
However, the short brunette remains unfazed.
"I'm Jisoo", she says simply, then, she hesitates for a second, "and you are...?"
Jennie scoffs again, starting to feel somehow amused.
"Do you think I'll give my name to any stranger?"
Jisoo's gaze changes then, and becomes more humorous.
"Well... no. But you are wearing your lab coat, and the shinning tag on it clearly says Jennie, so... I was just trying to be nice".
The tallest brunette feels her face heating up with slight shame but mostly fierce anger. Truly, what the heck is going on?
"Look, Jisoo, I really don't know you nor your intentions, but-"
"Are you majoring in science?" the girl interrupts.
Jennie feels like pulling her own hair out. It has been a horrible week between tons of papers, and books, and lack of sleep, and excess of coffee, and the absence of... Lisa in general, and now she's dealing with this.
So, fuck it, she thinks, and gives in only a bit.
"Neuroscience", she merely says.
When she looks at Jisoo, she is met with brown eyes reflecting something tender, as if the girl was somehow proud of her.
It feels weird, but still... comforting.
But as Jennie looks around, she notices the depth of the darkness in the sky, which is a clear sign that it is most probably way past dinner time.
"Look, I don't have time to-"
"Why are you sad?"
Jennie grits her teeth.
"Why do you care?", she spits.
The girl shrugs.
"I do".
Jennie tries really, really hard to keep it together.
"Well, you shouldn't".
"But I do", the girl answers again.
And Jennie kind of loses it.
"Look, girl, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you but I don't have time to deal with it. I'm going through what could most probably be the worst week of my entire life. I can't sleep properly, I can't eat properly, I can't work properly, and what's worse, my best friend since I'm sixteen has decided to cut me off of her life without a single reason", her voice breaks at the end, overwhelmed, and Jennie feels truly ashamed.
However, Jisoo keeps looking at her, now her gaze softer.
"You don't know why she doesn't want to talk to you?"
"No", Jennie sighs, feeling teary, "I have no clue".
The girl tilts her head up in silence, and then she speaks again.
"Are you guys just friends?"
Jennie frowns, visibly confused.
"Yes. We are- we were best friends. What... I mean, why...?"
The brunette clears her throat and denies with her head.
"I heard wrong", she simply says. After a moment, she turns towards Jennie, as if trying to make out the correct words, "Maybe you should talk to her".
Jennie denies. She has tried. She has tried through all possible means, face-to-face, texting, private messages through any app available.
Everything was left answered.
And well, she has seen her around campus after her first attempts, and she could, technically, knock on her door and ask what's wrong again, but the absolutely heartbroken way in which Lisa looked at her every time she tried has kept her away.
She might have done something horrible, and she's truly afraid of finding out what, exactly.
So she stands up, feeling defeated. She takes a glance at the shortest brunette, who is looking at her with an apparently calmed expression.
"Goodbye, Jisoo", is all she says.
And like that, she begins to walk to her room, alone under a billion lights.
-
Lisa walks around campus convincing herself that the pace is big and crowded enough for there to be almost no chances of her bumping into Jennie.
Her Vans tap against the pavement in an anxious rhythm, and the almost scrunched position of her shoulders make it evident that there is something definitely wrong.
She's fucking miserable, that's the issue, but being miserable is one thing and being miserable and failing all her classes is another one. Lisa needs to go to university, no matter if even her favorite classes seem dull under the shadow of her sadness.
She sighs then, still walking quickly, thinking that she needs to pay more attention next time, because half an hour ago she was scolded for completely ignoring the task she was given and depicting just what her heart felt like doing so. In her defense, she didn't hear the professor demanding for a postmodern interpretation of The Persistence of the Memory, but she did hear the part where he prompted the students to paint from the depth of the heart. Well, Lisa did. That's why she was somehow offended at her professor's outraged reaction when he saw her very well-done portrait of woman staring at the side with wild, intense, very familiar looking eyes.
It is a decent painting, anyways, Lisa decides, and turns around the smooth road only to stop dead in her tracks.
Thousands and thousands of students, some walking, some running, some sitting down on the grass and enjoying the last bits of a moderate weather.
And somehow, all her eyes focus on is on Jennie.
There she is, sitting in one of the white benches, the traces of the pale autumn sunlight hitting her face in such a way that all the angles of her features are highlighted perfectly.
Lisa feels that she has to move, knows that she has to move, but she can't. She can't, because the absolutely magnetic, enwrapping being that Jennie is makes her feet attach on the floor stubbornly, as her heart orders her again and again to just stay there and... rejoice.
The brunette's gaze in fixed on a big book with its cover decorated with what Lisa guesses must be brain cells or something equally science-y. Her rich, chocolate hair is shining against the light in a dreamy way, and her whole outfit, tight black jeans and a flowery blouse, makes her look like a whole model. Lisa worries at the back of her mind, as her gaze keeps enchanted in Jennie. The shortest girl might feel cold later if she didn't bring a jacket, and Lisa can't accompany home which means that she cannot provide her warmth by pulling her close to her body.
The thought makes her unbelievable sad. Meanwhile, Jennie uncrosses her legs to cross them again, and brings a hand up to put a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Lisa's heart flutters against her chest. Jennie is so incredibly beautiful, and incredibly smart, and incredibly kind... of course there was no single chance in Earth of Lisa getting her. She's just a plain girl. Jennie, on the other hand...
The shortest brunette tilts her head lightly as a soft smile begins to spark among her features.
Jennie is the most amazing girl she has ever met. Lisa has been in love with her for so, so long, while watching her giggle, while watching her cry, while watching her get angry without a serious reason, and yet she has never found the right way to just tell her.
And now, as she stares at Jennie in her most beautiful moment, as she's absolutely comfortable doing one of the things she enjoys the most, Lisa thinks that maybe what her ex-best-friend did was not out of lack of empathy, but out of pure compassion.
The tallest girl blinks quickly, trying to keep her tears at bay.
Maybe it's for the best. Maybe she was meant to take the scholarship she was given and just leave her to be happy with someone else. Happy with him.
Lisa gives Jennie a last lingering gaze before turning in her heels with absolute defeat wrapping up around her throat.
She runs home, shedding a few hot tears.
-
Jennie closes her eyes as an attempt to mitigate the constant pounding on her temples. She vaguely waves at the remaining classmates who are too exhausted to continue working, and focuses again to take a glance through the ocular of the microscope.
She gets dizzy as she writes, and the stabbing in her head only gets more prominent.
She decided that it is enough. It's still a bit earlier than her usual leaving time, but she knows that her tired body is asking for some good rest. Or at least for some decent rest.
Jennie packs up her things then, and turns off the lab's lights before leaving the place. Just because, really, without any determined motive, she takes the long way home, following a road that makes a very, very random turn that very, very randomly takes her to the front of the Arts institute.
It's pointless, anyways, most art students are morning or afternoon people, or at least Lisa told her so, so there are very few possibilities of her casually bumping into the tallest girl.
It's not like it was her intention in the first place, anyway.
So Jennie walks with decision but keeping her eyes sharp, getting somehow nervous at the sight of a light shining through the window of one of the side classrooms. She swallows, feeling her heartbeat quickening, trying to calm herself down because there would be too much of a coincidence to find Lisa, who only stays in campus until well-settled the night to accompany her home, still working at such time.
And despite million odds, there she is.
Jennie stops in shock as Lisa's side figure becomes clearer in her eyes, the tallest girl being illuminated by the light of the sculpture classroom.
The brunette stays still then, unable to move.
The tallest girl, completely unaware of the sharp stare through the window, keeps working with her eyebrows slightly scrunched, and the dimple besides her mouth that only pops out when she's focused full on display.
My god, she stunning, is all that Jennie can think, her boots firm in their place as her lips part slightly.
She can make out perfectly her ex-best-friend's side profile, her soft cheekbones, the perfect curve of her nose, her pouty lips, the sharpness of her jaw. The hard and the tender, the apparent and the subtle, everything combines perfectly like the pieces of a puzzle to create the most beautiful face that Jennie has seen in her life.
She has always known that Lisa was gorgeous, of course. She has always been, despite her early attempts to find her own -sometimes questionable- fashion style. Jennie knows that the only reason why Lisa never had tons and tons of people queuing for a chance of a glance was because she was too shy, too introverted, too angelically clueless to even care or notice.
Jennie sucks in a deep breath, and watches as Lisa runs the pad of her fingers through the smooth texture of the clay. She strokes slightly, modeling, creating an image that reminds the shortest brunette to the sculptures that the tallest girl stopped to look at every time they went to museums together. The thought makes Jennie feel a bit sad.
Lisa, unaware, keeps working. She tilts her head to her side, letting her deep black hair caress her jaw. Her apron is quite dirty, but she still looks, at Jennie's eyes, like an absolute goddess. Lisa bites her lip suddenly, as a sign of deep focus, and pushes with her indents a bit harder, a bit steadier, and the image makes Jennie's heart leap up without further notice and a blunt blush spread through her cheeks.
The shortest brunette furrows her brows, confused.
Her feelings wave through her body. A faint memory crosses her mind, suddenly, the thought of that weird girl she met a few days ago looking at her in the eyes almost as if knowing something she didn't know yet.
Are you guys just friends?
Jennie's breath begins to quicken, then, and the haze in her mind wears off enough to make her able to move. She glances at Lisa one more time, almost desperate for an answer.
When her heart flutters again, she runs away.
-
Lisa puts her hands deeper in the pockets of her artistically torn skinny jeans and stops walking for a moment to enjoy the sunlight caressing the skin on her face.
It won't last long. Days have become shorter already, and the sky has become gloomier. The oranges, golden and browns of the trees have started to fall more precipitately, covering the opaque grass with a crunchy mattress.
It's beautiful, really, even with the hint of departure that characterizes the sad autumn. Everything seems to be touched by a sepia filter that makes afternoons sometimes long and sometimes the shortest.
Lisa sighs, letting her heart rest for a moment. Her gaze focuses on the depth of the big red oaks that spread here and there on campus. Her sharp eyes catch how, under the perfect light, the leaves of the tree seem to be engulfed by an on-going fire. Without taking her gaze off the tree, Lisa fishes in her bag until she finds her camera. She takes a deep breath, watches her landscape through the optical, and shoots three times.
She's so focused on her camera, on her perfect shot, that she doesn't even pay attention to the sea of voices that seem to approach from her right. She has no reason to, really, there are thousands and thousands of students that walk the same paths at hers every day, and she seldom knows any of them.
Except that, when she's able to snap out of her artistic trance, and to be more aware of her surroundings, Lisa realizes that, among the thousands and thousands of students, one of the voices that are getting closer and closer is the one of her ex-best-friend.
So she turns around in a haste, and at the sudden sight of the brunette, so beautiful, she absolutely panics, and her panic brings her to proceed probably in the most stupid way ever, which is trying to hide in the shadows provided by the red oaks.
She's in plain sight and she knows it, but as she turns around half in fear and half in shame, she catches the sight of Jennie completely unaware of her presence, paying close attention, instead, to whatever her tall, red-haired friend is saying.
Lisa sighs, relieved, trying to come up with a way of leaving the place sneakily enough so as not to be noticed. At the same time, Jennie lets out a chuckle, so soft that it almost doesn't reach the tallest brunette's ears.
But it does.
Lisa stares at her again. Jennie is talking now, her group of friends, all pretty faces, staring at her with absolute undivided interest. The tallest brunette bites off a sad smile. There is something melancholic but yet beautiful, prideful in seeing Jennie creating a friendly atmosphere almost without any effort, talking with certainty, with ease, with a charm that she seems to emanate and soak everybody else with.
Whenever she thought about it, and even when she thinks about it now, Lisa doesn't find any single reason why Jennie would choose to keep hanging out with her after secondary school. Yeah, they were best friends, became best friends with the arbitrariness with which random girls become best friends. They didn't even have many shared interest or any shared group of friends, but they worked out anyways, chose to stay together anyways. But Lisa didn't expect, not for a thousand years, not despite the everyday text messages that they used to send each other, Lisa from her hometown and Jennie already living in campus, that the shortest brunette would be waiting for her with open arms a year later.
She asked Jennie about it once, in an insecure murmur. The brunette simply looked at her with eyes shadowed by concern, and answered that she would chose her above anyone else in the world, all with a smooth certainty in her voice that made Lisa's heart flutter without mercy.
And now, the tallest brunette thinks as she watches Jennie become suddenly quiet and fix her eyes to the floor, it doesn't have to be much different. Maybe she still has a chance of winning the brunette's friendship back, of winning her trust back.
Maybe she can talk to her, explain everything as clear as possible, and ask her if there's even a slight possibility of things going back to normal, or as normal as they can be, anything to put an end to the drought making her heart smaller and smaller.
So she takes a deep breath, trying to fill herself with bravery, making the effort to convince herself that she indeed can approach Jennie, even when she's surrounded by her much cooler group of friends.
She emerges from the shadows then, her chest a bit puffed, and Jennie actually sees her and opens her mouth in genuine surprise.
And then, it happens. With a crooked smirk and messy bleached hair, Jennie's boyfriend, Kangdae, emerges from seemingly nowhere and puts his arm heavily on top of the shortest girl's shoulder.
Lisa stops dead in her tracks then, as Jennie turns around to look at him with her eyes wide, and she feels the heart she cheered on a few seconds ago breaking in pieces in her chest once again.
The shortest brunette keeps staring at her boyfriend, now mumbling something that Lisa can't understand, probably a cute nickname, probably a love declaration, probably a request to keep her creepy ex-best-friend away from her.
The tallest girl feels her eyes filing with tears. A few of Jennie's friends stare at her with a hint of vague disdain.
Deciding that she has a last shred of self-esteem to protect, Lisa turns around and leaves the scene as quickly and silently as possible.
-
Jennie stares at that prick that she hates with almost every fiber of her being with absolute surprise.
"Hi, Jennie, babe", Kangdae murmurs with a pathetic grin.
She feels like boiling, really, and has to fight the urge of staring right back at Lisa's gorgeous figure again because she knows that the tallest girl will feel uncomfortable under the curious gaze of the whole group.
She needs to be subtle, and she needs to calm herself down because she might end up punching Kangdae straight on the face.
"Get off of me, asshole", she simply murmurs then, and tries to shrug away from his heavy, uncomfortable embrace.
Her group of friends stare at her in passive astonishment, and Jennie doesn't even know why none of them are calling him out.
"Come on, babe, you know-"
"What the heck is your problem, dude", she blurts out then, feeling pure hate rampaging through her whole body.
Kangdae lets go then, and looks at her trying to hide his fear.
Jennie forgets him immediately. Her gaze settles on the red oaks, searching desperately for Lisa.
She's not there.
"Fuck you, bitch. I can find hundreds of girls better than you", the boy spits, but Jennie merely gestures vaguely at him, clearly disinterested.
So Kangdae leaves, stomping, and Jennie begins to realize that she might have lost yet another chance.
"Jennie, I thought you guys were dating?" one of her friends murmurs, as the brunette starts to walk away from the group with her eyes narrowed.
She needs to find her. She needs to speak to her.
But if she left...
"Why on Earth you would think that I'd date someone as shitty as him?" she lets out, dripping frustration.
If she left...
"But-"
Jennie doesn't stay to hear. She walks through the place trying to seem to be nonchalantly returning home. Her gaze, however, is intensely looking for familiar doe eyes.
When she realizes that Lisa has indeed left, Jennie keeps walking home with a soft tremble in her lower lip revealing a contained sob.
If Lisa left, maybe it is because she doesn't want to talk to her.