Dear best friend, I love you.
Five words that made Lisa go through five stages: denial, realization, fear, acceptance, and confession to the best friend. Easy on paper, impossible on the action, the seemingly harmless words were a double-edged sword that kept Lisa on her toes around the Thai prince.
It was her fault for unconsciously falling into this wicked trap, missing the blur between caring and caring too much, not keeping the boundaries on track, ignoring the light tickles on her stomach and the fast heartbeats she stupidly convinced herself they were from her unhealthy red bull addiction when the real reason was clear from the farthest point on earth.
Lisa desperately wanted to move back in time to their first meeting to meet him as a lover, silly blind date, or lose him on the spot without having so much to lose at stake. Loving a best friend was skeptical to comprehend as some sort of natural process before BamBam.
The shifts were lame jokes, hard to laugh at. How one day she was listening to her best friend and then swiftly, lightly shifted to noticing the mole under his eye, his sharp jawline, or the cute puff on his face in the early morning. How the light concern turned into sleepless nights until he would return safely, how the constant chant of pushing him to date became the darkest fear, how the long-lasting friendship changed to a greedy wish of being his long-life partner.
Losing him was close, she felt it as her trembling feet followed BamBam's aimlessly, silently until they reached the small park nearly meters away from the dorm. His strong, warm, gentle grasp around her wrist never loosened as they stood in front of each other, feeling his intense stare that she didn't dare to look up to.
She was busy pushing the fear in her heart, her lips bitten repetitively, chest tight to breathe, waiting to hear his goodbye, to let go of her love to grant the happy ending he deserved.
"Look at me," It was a calm whisper as his fingers traveled from her wrist to squeeze her hand with a gentle reminder. Hesitantly, she lifted her head, her almond eyes meeting his round ones, her heart pounding twice faster from the simplest action.
"What's wrong?" He asked with a stolen step to lean closer.
"What's wrong with us?" The added two words to the repeated questions hit deep when she studied his eyes, to him "Us" meant friends, to her it meant something more.
"Nothing, I---I wanted you to focus. I g-gave our space."
"Since when do we need space?"
"S-since... I don't know." The words were caught in her throat, as she diverted her panicking eyes from the confused ones.
Neither the mind nor the heart was prepared for the sudden confrontation or even the appearance of the boy in the middle of the cold night. If it was a normal fight, it was the time for BamBam's eyebrows to frown, for his tongue to click against the gritted teeth before they would start bickering, but none of these happened with silence encasing their space.
"We have the whole time in our intertwined hands that won't untangle until I hear your honest answers because I won't lose you like this. I'm not angry for the unanswered calls or the unread messages but answer me before I go crazy and do something stupid."
The coldness of the night was fading with the warm touch and reassurance, his magical spells of turning everything into butterflies. Lisa closed her teary eyes, allowing herself to engrave their last moment in her heart with a pained smile.
It was time to let go, to say goodbye, to stop being selfish.
She inhaled a deep breath, letting it out slowly with apprehension. "I wasn't ready to say goodbye, to let this go."
His free hand cupped her face, his thumb wiping tears she failed to notice. Their eyes locked again, and she could see the suppression of mixed emotions in his brown eyes.
"Goodbye?"
A shaky overwhelmed whisper with a tight squeeze on her petite hand cornered her for answers, for the truth behind her encrypted words.
"I—I have made a huge mistake, stepping on the blurred boundaries. I— think I have f-feelings for you, and they won't stop even after the vast space I created between us. You and Minnie are a good match even if there is nothing between you two now, but I can see how she is perfect for you and I'm really happy for you. I just needed time to prepare my selfish heart to say a proper goodbye. J-just---"
As a knight in shining armor, BamBam cut her off, the hand on her cheek traveled to the back of her head, erasing the gap between them with a tight warm hug where her tears damped the thin fabric between her face and his pounding heart.
He lifted their intertwined hands, reaching for his plump lips to respond to her anxious rambling with a delicate, warm, long kiss. The action rendered her paralyzed as she looked up to check if he was sane or if was it all a dream.
Lisa could feel his dazzling smile behind their hands from how squishy his cheeks bunched up, his tender eyes replacing the mixed emotions with affection and warmth.
"I think I can do my stupid thing now." He said with a grin.
"What?"
"Be my girlfriend." His warm tone gave confidence as he swung their linked hands.
"What?"
"Lalisa, why do you think I flew in the middle of the night? I have fallen for you for months."
"Why didn't you---"
"You would have freaked out and I was coward to lose you, silly."
"I'm sorry, I---"
"I love you."
"I love you."
Jinyoung tapped the pen on the table, feeling drained from going through the two-thousand-page book, looking for dumb confusing equations they needed for a class. Meanwhile, Jisoo was equally tired next to him, testing the non-ending code, groaning at the bug sounds they had been hearing for hours.
The girl squinted her eyes, inching closer to the screen, his bottom pink lip jutted out in a pout as her fingers scrolled the code lines up and down. "I give up, I can't find the error." She whined.
Jinyoung chuckled at her misery, placing the pen between the opened pages, and leaning closer to take a look at the long code. From the first look, the colored lines seemed free of errors that he almost gave up too if not the stupid semicolon at the end of the seventieth line was missing.
He typed the semicolon, before running the code successfully. "Oh, what was wrong?" Jisoo leaned closer, almost resting on his shoulder. "Don't smash it, but it was a semicolon."
Jisoo hit her head against his arm with muffled curses on the brown knit sleeve as Jinyoung giggled, swallowing the urge to hug her head, and messing her hair bun.
A ringtone and a small window popped up on the screen with a "Wang" on it.
"Who is Wang?"
Jisoo's head snapped, her almond hazelnut eyes beamed at the mention, her index finger pushing his hand to tap twice on the green button.
A fencer, his skin was glistening with sweat appeared on the zoomed-in window.
"Jisooo!"
"Jackson, Hii!" She greeted with so much excitement to be ignored by Jinyoung who watched the strange interaction.
"I miss you, bunny! How are Markiepooh and my otter?"
"All good, Missing you too."
Jinyoung frowned, hearing Jisoo's natural response to the nicknames without puking. He kept watching his partner talking sweetly with the happy virus dressed in a fencing suit while being all giggly, nothing like the whining he had been dealing with daily.
"Who is the angry guy close to you?" The young athlete finally noticed his presence, forcing him to look at the camera.
"It's Jinyoung, My partner. Jinyoung, this is Jackson Wang, An Olympic fencer." Jisoo introduced them, gesturing him to engage with them.
"Looks like it." He forced the words out in disdain.
"Hi, nice to meet you, bro!" Jackson beamed at him with a wide smile that he didn't feel like it was necessary to mirror.
Jinyoung forced a thin smile with a slight nod to the athlete radiating Youngjae's energy he hated. He grabbed the neglected book, still close to Jisoo who was invested in keeping up with whatever Jackson was showing her. He tried hard to keep his focus on the small characters printed, but the way Jisoo was bubblier in the past minutes than the months he knew her, was making him wonder with weird, unsettled feelings that he failed to determine.
"Taehyung isn't Jealous seeing you that close to Jinyoung? He may take the wrong idea."
Jinyoung's hand became tight around the pen gripped in it, looking at Jisoo at the mention of the stranger's name. He noticed the flickering pain; the opened mouth lost its words as she propped herself away from him.
"Don't worry, we are rivalry partners," she said awkwardly, trying to mask the uncomfortableness of the situation, her light mood sliding down.
"Tell this brat to answer my call. I wanted to congratulate him on your third anniversary after getting the notification of the past year's memory, but he had been avoiding me." The boy's whines weren't completed as Jisoo intruded: "He must be busy. Oh, I have a class now, Jackie. I will call you later."
She didn't wait for him to say goodbye, slamming the MacBook shut, staring at it with her face rigid, her small hands clenched into fists as if she was caught red-handed cheating on her three-year boyfriend who she had never mentioned since day one.
"I forgot a scheduled appointment, Let's finish things up, tomorrow," Jisoo announced without sparing him a glance as she hastily threw her stuff in her bag.
"So, your third anniversary is important, but my parties aren't?" The words came out mean, unprocessed that Jinyoung wanted to take back when he saw how she froze for a second, almost tearing up through her glare before leaving him without a word.
"Jisoo, I didn't m—-"
Hello 🌿🍂 Our first official couple finally made it 😭🧡 What do you think about this chapter? 🤍
I have a small announcement to make🥹🧡 I have just published a GOTSVT action fiction that is called "Ruthless" in my which will be a short book about brotherhood and friendship if you have time, hope you give it a shot🥺🧡
P.S. The cover is made by my talented friend FeralClaws 🧡