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For years that they were cultivated to be the perfect, record-breaking idols, sometimes it’s still hard for Chaeyoung to believe that so much time had passed since the day she first watched Lisa dance. In a glance, it was so easy to recognize the raw talent that the Thai girl possessed. Little did she know was in the couple of years of training, that the same but much improved talent is what would be one of the elements that their group donned as to set the standards in the industry.
And so being in a girl group with Lisa meant that Chaeyoung will see even more of her and her dancing. It meant many things, like how she’d have to travel around the world with her, learn and record songs, practice choreographies or even go on lives set in parks with the both of them taking pictures of each other or just simply being huddled in the couch with Lisa’s cats while Chaeyoung ever so carefully avoids not to call any of them a date.
After all the schedules, that she would later realize as mere distractions from what was already simmering somewhere between the two of them, it finally dawns on Chaeyoung what is the true nature of her connection with Lisa when a fan had asked about how many times Lisa kisses her in a day.
“I think she does it at least once a day,” she answers, while the same girl now sitting a couple of feet away from her rustles in her mind and Chaeyoung ponders if all of the unresolved acts of intimacy ever meant anything for her.
Then her own response scares her because she also has absolutely no idea where it all started and now it must have been an hour ago when Chaeyoung told Lisa she’s off to sleep but the thought still lingers in her mind, keeping her awake. She didn’t know what to do with the information that has already been there, unnoticed for God knows how long.
Until she hears a soft knock, and Chaeyoung becomes suddenly conflicted because she knows only Lisa would knock on her bedroom door in the middle of the night. Chaeyoung will open the door in an instant, if it was just like any other, but tonight was one a bit different since she needed to drown her thoughts in sleep.
(So that she’ll have the courage to face Lisa for breakfast, without the longing and what if’s evident in her face.
For if it was, Chaeyoung might just have to give herself away and confess her feelings.)
“Chaeng, are you asleep?”
It was almost a whisper as the wood warps Lisa’s voice but Chaeyoung hears it clearly and she didn’t need the confirmation that it’s Lisa who wants to see her at this hour, or else her delusion will then again feed her unwelcomed thoughts enough to cause her another sleepless night.
“It’s me,”
Lisa, bare-faced and vulnerable, is a sight Chaeyoung imagines on the other side of the door. She realizes it’s no use thinking.
Chaeyoung twists the door knob.
“Hey,”
Not a minute later, Chaeyoung finds herself cuddled with Lisa on the bed. The irony – how the reason for her insomnia eventually becomes the one she lies on the bed with.
“I didn’t get to kiss you today,” another whisper.
Chaeyoung thought she was already asleep. “It’s fine,”
“We were busy today,”
She runs a hand on her locks, “You don’t have to,”
I want to.
“It doesn’t have to be such a chore for you.”
Lisa buries herself on the crook of Chaeyoung’s neck. She feels the warm air from her exhale.
“But it’s nothing like that,” Lisa tells her. Then it’s her lips that she plants on her skin, as her arm crawls on the other side.
Chaeyoung feels it all; her touch, her warmth and the affection, everything that had always been present but right now, it overwhelms her on a night that she expected would devour her. Instead, Lisa showed up and it’s a relief, but a punishment if she let her emotions get the best of her.
“Then what is it, really?” A question she’d been meaning to ask since a time she can no longer remember.
“Can I tell you something?” Lisa avoids the question.
Their eyes finally meet. “You can forget all about it in the morning.”
Her heartbeat starts to pick up the pace.
“I love you, Chaeng,”
“I love you too, Lisa.”
More than you know.
In a way more than what you think.
Chaeyoung fights another surge of emotions beneath her. “Why would I want to forget about that in the morning?”
“I love you, not like how a best friend should.”
Lisa confesses and makes Chaeyoung’s world stop completely. Everything seemed to fall into place like how puzzle had been granted its last piece. She was out of words. The love of her life just told her she feels the same way.
“I love you, Chaeyoung. I’m sorry if it took me this long to realize it and finally say it to you,”
“Please tell me if we’re in the same page,”
Lisa loves her, too, and if this was a dream she won’t even dare to be mad. Lisa loving her in a way Chaeyoung does too, would bring her that much of a happiness, that to barely taste it is still worth the pain.
“Can I kiss you this time around?” Chaeyoung asks.
Lisa looks up to her, with glazed eyes and plump lips – a look Chaeyoung’s mind will play back a million times later, along with it is the feeling of Lisa’s lips on her own, after the girl nods and then Chaeyoung says she loves her, too.
The gentle kiss tames all of her worries and the thoughts the kept her up all night vanished in seconds. Lisa holds her neck kindly and her lips are stitched up with her, a consolation that Chaeyoung can’t find anywhere else in the world no matter how hard she would look.
After minutes they would stop to catch their breaths, but there is a stillness that none of them can explain, one that is stable as it holds the desire embedded in the passages of their hearts.
With their faces still only centimeters apart, Chaeyoung hugs her and they fall into an embrace. Lisa’s eyes never leaving hers.
“Did you like it?”
Truthfully, Lisa tells her, “Yes.”
“I’ve been meaning to do that with you for a while now, Chaeng,”
“You’re driving me crazy, Lisa,”
And then they kiss again.
The way the edges of their mouth find each other feels like a familiar road Chaeyoung wants to walk on forever.