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Lalisa Manoban has always been a sucker for happy endings.
There's a reason she's been so fond of Disney movies all her life, isn't there? The fulfillment the ending brings is really the only reason she ever finishes all the animated films she comes across, despite her excruciatingly short attention span when it comes to everything else. The movies taught her that, no matter what the story, there would always be a beginning, a middle, and an end.
What they didn't teach her is that, sometimes, the ending happens at the beginning; and that real life is never arranged the same way as a Disney movie.
This reality hits her on the face in the form of a piercing wind that makes her teeth chatter in her slightly open mouth. She stands on the balcony of Jisoo's hotel room, on Blackpink's only free day in Japan after their debut, her body trembling and her lips quivering. She wishes it's only because of the cold.
She wishes it's not because the woman leaning on the railing beside her just rejected her confession a full five minutes ago.
"Unnie," Lisa trotted into Jisoo's room the moment the black-haired girl swung the door open. "I need to tell you something." She hastily threw the thick curtain leading to the balcony open, letting the unforgivingly frigid air inside.
The urgency in Lisa's voice seemed to get Jisoo's attention. Slowly tucking her phone into the pocket of her jeans, she walked towards the younger girl, who had not turned around to face her.
"What is it? Why are you so serious all of a sudden?" she placed a hand on Lisa's shoulder. It was her hand, rather than the cold, which made her flinch. Her anxious state of mind was making her take several short breaths, white smoke swirling and dissipating in front of her.
"Jisoo unnie, I like you," she said hurriedly, nervousness evident in her tinsel-sharp voice.
"Of course you do," Jisoo, being Jisoo, quipped, almost automatically, the ghost of a smirk starting to appear on her face. Lisa wanted to shake her and tell her no, that's not what she meant, but instead, she only shook her head. Jisoo's hand fell back to her side.
"No, unnie, I like you. A lot. Like..." She searched her thoughts for even a pitiful comparison of how much she'd fallen for Jisoo, in hopes of making her understand what she was getting at. The older girl tilted her head to one side, appearing clueless at Lisa's internal struggle.
"Like how Ariel wanted to have legs so much that she was willing to give up her voice," she almost whispered after what seemed like hours, finally daring to turn and meet Jisoo's eyes.
The gaze that looked back at her was unreadable, closed off. She couldn't tell at all what the other was thinking. At the lack of response, Lisa resumed her previous position, resting her arms against the cold railing.
Jisoo was beside her a minute later, mimicking Lisa and leaning against the railing as well. Lisa almost didn't hear her say, "You can't", her whisper being even softer than Lisa's.
Lisa's head whipped to the side, her bangs swishing at the motion. She expected rejection, surely, but the way Jisoo said it still hurt. Then again, she probably would have been hurt no matter how Jisoo rejected her, anyway.
"What?"
Without turning to the younger girl, Jisoo said, in a firmer voice, "You can't. You can't give up your voice just to have legs. It's not worth it."
Lisa bit her lip. "I don't care. I want you."
"You haven't asked me if I like you back."
"Do you?"
She looked at Jisoo, and saw a steely determination in the way she stared straight ahead. "No. Let's not talk about this anymore." She paused, blinked once, and briefly turned to Lisa. "Do you want breakfast?"
And just like that, Jisoo brushed the blonde's confession off, similar to the way she had once dismissed Lisa's desire to have bangs in her hair a while back.
"I give my opinion about something just once, and I don't speak about it again." Jisoo's words from her Vlive the night before surfaces in Lisa's mind. It's taking her all of her strength to both disregard the cold wind and the sting of Jisoo's nonchalance.
Surprising both Jisoo and herself, a pained smile makes its way to her lips. "Yes, but I think I'll go with Jennie unnie. I can't face you right now, after saying something so embarrassing. You understand, right?" Jisoo opens her mouth to respond, but Lisa breezes back inside the room, waving, before she can say a word. "I'll talk to you later, unnie!"
Lisa quickly closes the bedroom door behind her. There are tears prickling on the edge of her eyes, but as she walks briskly down the hall, she tells herself it's only because she's biting on her lip so hard.
Not because the ending of her story happened before it could even begin.
-----
She never talks to Jisoo later.
Instead, she clings to Jennie like a needy puppy the rest of the day while the four members walk the streets of Tokyo. Jennie can tell that something about Lisa is off by the way her smiles unnaturally falter every so often, but she doesn't ask her, thinking that the younger member will talk about it when she wants to. Besides, she's too distracted by the pursing of Chaeyoung's lips and the narrowing of her eyes as she focuses all her attention on a game in her cellphone.
She's so preoccupied with staring at the younger girl that she fails to see Lisa's face leaning closer to her left cheek. She jumps at the kiss as it lands, and does her usual high-pitched shriek reserved for moments such as this.
"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh! Lisaaaaaa!"
Lisa merely laughs and squeezes impossibly closer, hands wrapped around the younger Kim's arm.
Jennie sees Chaeyoung smile—though it looks more like a grimace—at their antics without looking up from her phone. The other girl continues to stare, and Chaeyoung looks away from her screen briefly so that their eyes meet for a few seconds before she glances at Lisa, then quickly busies herself with her phone once more.
"Lalisa, I can't feel my arm," Jennie whines, keeping her eyes on Chaeyoung.
"Sorry unnie, it's cold," Lisa pouts, round eyes and pouted lips showing, evidently trying to use aegyo to her advantage. Jennie huffs.
"Go walk with Jisoo-unnie, she's the warmest. Didn't you say that once?"
Lisa falls silent, the aegyo act dropping suddenly at the mention of Jisoo's name. Something is definitely off, the older girl muses.
She gains her composure and rubs her hands together. "Nah, she looks busy," she replies offhandedly, without actually looking at Jisoo, who is walking a little ways behind them.
"Guys, can you go ahead? I think I'm gonna go get myself something from this store."
Chaeyoung looks up from her phone and locks it. She raises an eyebrow at Lisa's words. "You know you can't go anywhere without Manager-unnie, don't you?"
"I'll only be a minute, I promise," the pout appears on Lisa's face once more. "Please, Chae?" she directs her second attempt at aegyo to Jennie. "Jennie unnie?"
Jennie huffs for the second time that day. Chaeyoung meets her eyes in a worried gaze.
"Fine."
At that moment, the selfish side of Jennie Kim wins over her responsible unnie side. The prospect of spending some time alone with Chaeyoung (Jisoo appears too preoccupied in her own world to hold a conversation) is all too tempting...
"Let's go, Chaeng," she says, holding out her hand and smiling slightly, trying not to give away her excitement. "Jisoo unnie, Lisa's going somewhere for a bit," she called.
"Mm-hmm," Jisoo hums in response, walking closer to them and brushing past Lisa without sparing her a glance. Lisa swallows and disappears into the convenience store in front of her, ignoring the heaviness in her chest.
Jennie no longer notices Jisoo's and Lisa's unusual behavior, however, as Chaeyoung takes Lisa's place on her side, gently locking their hands together. All she notices now is how Chaeyoung smells like the petals of freshly picked white roses, how her eyes sparkle like Christmas lights as they pass display windows of stores that catch her attention, how soft her hand feels pressed on to the palm of her own.
All she thinks about is how much she notices about this girl she's fallen for, and how much she can't tell her.
When the four members return to Seoul the next day, Jennie is so lost in her thoughts that she fails to notice the half-empty bottle of vodka (which was transferred from its original bottle to a plastic one supposedly for water) tucked under a pile of clothes in Lisa's luggage, or the fact that the Thai girl's cheeks are unusually rosy (even if the weather currently isn't as cold as in Japan), or that there is a noticeable distance between her and Jisoo whenever they walk beside each other.
So on the first night back in their dorm, when Lisa drunkenly barges into Jennie's room and kisses her messily, while she is startled at the act and of the taste of alcohol on the maknae's lips ("L-Lisa! What are you—" she stutters, before the other girl effectively silences her with another sloppy kiss.), she berates herself inwardly for allowing Lisa out of her sight the day before and thinks that whatever is happening now must be a consequence she needs to endure.
She tries to push the younger girl back, but stops when she feels the tears from Lisa's eyes spill on to her own face. Lisa pulls her lips away briefly and presses her forehead against Jennie's, cupping her cheeks with both hands. "I'm sorry, unnie, I'm so sorry but—but I need... this. I need... y-you," she slurs.
"Why me?" Jennie breathes. She has every right to, but for some reason she can't bring herself to be mad at Lisa for kissing her while intoxicated, and for not being the one she actually wants to kiss. She can't be mad, not with the way the light seems almost completely gone from those eyes. Eyes that tell her the owner had died a little inside overnight.
She allows herself to get mad about Lisa smuggling liquor into the dorm, though. "And why are you drinking?" she hisses.
Lisa smiles ruefully through her tears. A smile that never reaches those dying eyes. "Because you know how it feels," she says simply.
She never answers the second question. Both girls end up on Jennie's bed, Lisa keeping her lips moving against Jennie's until she falls asleep on top of her, and Jennie letting her.
"Because you know how it feels."
-----
Lisa manages to act normal as soon as the sun rises. On the first day that she wakes up in Jennie's arms, she strokes the older girl's cheek tenderly, stands unsteadily, and ambles out of the room as quickly but as silently as she can.
Nothing is out of the ordinary as soon as the sun rises. As long as there's daylight, Lisa keeps her adorable maknae façade up for the Blinks and for the cameras. She's much better at it than she initially thought she would be.
Then night falls, Jennie's door opens (She knows she should really lock it, but she always hopes a certain someone would walk in instead of the youngest member), Lisa apologizes, and plants her lips on hers yet again.
Jennie doesn't know what to feel, except that every single time she wishes it's a different pair of lips she tastes, but she can't seem to stop Lisa from doing what she does. Better me than some other random person who might hurt her, she reasons with herself. She still believes Lisa will talk about whatever she's going through when she's ready, but she never really does anything else except make out with her, night after night, never sober.
One of those nights, however, she gets bits and pieces of information from little conversations in between Lisa's feverish kisses.
"I'm glad you like me, Jennie unnie."
"I do, but not in that way, Lisa. I'm sorry."
"That's okay. Better than nothing. She doesn't like me at all. She told me."
"Who?"
"She won't talk about it anymore. So I won't."
"How do you always bring alcohol in here?"
"A secret. Why? You want some?"
"No, I'm just worried about you."
"That's cute."
"Why are you even drinking? You never liked liquor."
"I want to forget. Her words. Pain. Feelings. Everything."
"You know I'm in love with Chaeyoung, don't you?"
"I know. Wouldn't it be easier to just like me though, unnie?"
"Easier for me, or for you?"
"Easier for everyone."
Lisa never tries anything beyond leaving a trail of light, little marks behind Jennie's ear or on the side of her neck before she falls asleep, tears always running down her face the whole time. Jennie runs one hand through the maknae's hair, trying to comfort her. Trying to comfort herself.
She wonders when Chaeyoung is going to find out about this, because she knows it's only a matter of time. She also wonders why the usually nosy Jisoo doesn't seem to have a clue about Lisa's newly-acquired drinking habit.
It's almost like she doesn't want to know.
When Jennie talks to Jisoo in the living room the next morning, while Chaeyoung is at church and Lisa is nowhere to be found, it's evident that she doesn't.
"Do you know Lisa's been drinking, unnie?"
"What? No," the older Kim answers, but doesn't say anything else, obviously wanting any conversation related to Lisa to end as quickly as possible.
"Aren't you going to do anything about it?" Jennie demanded. "I've been losing sleep because she keeps coming into my room drunk off her ass and—" she bites her tongue before she can reveal anything else. No need to tell Jisoo what Jennie's been letting Lisa do to her when she drinks. "—and she needs to stop, unnie."
For a moment, she sees Jisoo's eyes brimming and on the verge of spilling tears. It was gone as soon as it came, however, as one blink later, she simply muttered, "She's old enough. As long as she does well in front of the fans and in front of the cameras, it doesn't matter if she gets herself drunk from time to time."
Jennie can't believe Jisoo's answer. "Don't you care? She obviously has a problem and she's getting drunk instead of talking about it with us!"
"Whether I care or not doesn't matter, Jennie-yah."
"But you do, don't you? You care about her?" she says pleadingly.
"Yes, I do. But she can't know that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want her to give up her voice just to have legs."
"What? Is that a Little Mermaid reference?"
Jisoo smiles sadly. "I don't want her to sacrifice her career just to be with me. I'm not worth it. Then there's you, and Chaeyoung too. It may sound cold, Jennie, but I'm not about to ruin all our group's hard work to act on my feelings."
The truth in the older girl's words sears through Jennie like a cold fire down her spine. This is the exact same reason she can't act on her own affections for Chaeyoung. She wants to slap herself for giving in to a moment of weakness in Tokyo that day.
Now Lisa has a drinking problem, and it might as well be my fault, she thinks.
-----
Jennie hears Lisa's bedroom door close. As much as she wants to help the younger member sort out her issues, a large part of her wishes she wouldn't come to bed with her tonight.
There isn't anything wrong with Lisa herself, Jennie thinks. Her lips always seem to taste like cinnamon sprinkles, mixed with whatever liquor she's able to grab from when she's out. Even drunk, she would be careful not to hurt the shorter girl with her hands and body, pressing just enough against her on her bed without crushing or suffocating her.
She would have easily fallen for her, if her heart didn't already belong to a certain Chaeyoung Park.
The same Chaeyoung who is now in her room, restlessly bouncing one of her legs and chewing on her bottom lip as she sits in the middle of Jennie's bed.
"I'm worried about Lisa," she says. Jennie crawls over to sit beside Chaeyoung, leaning her back on the headboard, hugging her knees.
"I know. Me too."
"But you've been talking to her the most, haven't you?" Jennie thinks she hears a twinge of resentment in the other girl's tone, but then again, her exhausted mind may just be overthinking again.
She nods, averting her eyes from Chaeyoung's questioning ones. "Yeah. We've been... talking. At least, she talks, but she doesn't really tell me anything."
"Umm, well, can I tell you something, then, unnie?" Chaeyoung suddenly asks after a few minutes of silence, turning so she completely faces the side of Jennie's smaller frame. Jennie's forehead wrinkles. She expects the worst. She knows, she thinks frantically.
Chaeyoung's next words confirm this. "I know that when Lisa comes into this room, you don't just talk. The walls are thin, unnie. My room is right next to yours."
Her words are not unexpected, Jennie knows, but they make her heart sink, just the same.
"I'm sorry Chae. I don't... I don't know how else I can help her," the older girl stammers, daring to meet Chaeyoung's gaze. "I don't even like her the same way, and I know it's not me that she likes either. But she—she's been drinking and I—"
Chaeyoung wraps her arms around a Jennie that's just a hairbreadth away from breaking down. She feels the sleeve of her shirt getting wet as Jennie leans her head on to it, the only indication that she is crying. Her sniffles are almost silent.
"She's been forcing herself on you?" Jennie hears Chaeyoung's pitch rise in a way she's never heard before.
"No—I don't—l don't know, I can never push her away. She's hurting and, I don't know, this must be my punishment."
"Jennie, no, nothing you've ever done ever justifies someone forcing you to do something you don't want to do. How can you think that? And what have you possibly done wrong?"
"Remember when we left Lisa behind in Tokyo?" Chaeyoung nods. "It was only for a few minutes, but that was when she bought her first bottle of vodka. She put it in a water bottle and brought it with her back here. Because I let her. It's all my fault, Chae. I wasn't being responsible because I was being selfish. This is my punishment."
"Selfish? Selfish how?"
Jennie wants to tell her the truth, wants to forget Jisoo's words from the other day, wants to do something no one's forcing her to, for once in her life.
And yet she can't possibly jeopardize their careers because of her feelings. She ultimately decides that Jisoo is right. "I... nothing. Forget it. We should go to bed, Chae."
Chaeyoung reluctantly pulls away. She gently plays with Jennie's brown hair, tucking a few stray strands behind her ear. "Are you gonna be okay?"
Jennie reassures the other girl with a small smile. "Yes, thanks for talking to me."
"Anytime, unnie. Good night." She makes to get off the bed but pauses, and after some hesitation, kisses Jennie on one cheek and turns her back on her to get out of the bed.
Unknowingly, the other girl's smile widens until it becomes a full-blown grin. It's not until Chaeyoung is out the door when she replies, "Good night, Rosie."
-----
Not even a minute later, there's another knock on her door. Lots of foot traffic in here lately, she thinks wryly, before she opens it to reveal a stumbling Lisa, who falls on her side, trying to hold back giggles.
"Lisa! What the heck..." Jennie pulls her up to stand, which the younger girl is barely able to do. She ends up leaning on Jennie as she walks them both to her bed. Lisa all but falls, brick-like, onto the mattress, and Jennie can tell she's had more to drink tonight than any of the others before this.
"Jennie unnie, remind me... never to watch Inkigayo ever again," she starts, her eyes closed, chin pointing upward.
"Why?"
"So I never have to see Jisoo unnie being all lovey-dovey with that Jinyoung guy. They have a dance together, Jennie. A fucking dance!" She suddenly bursts into a fit of drunken laughter.
Jennie doesn't remember ever hearing Lisa swearing before now.
"Fuck. Seriously? I can fucking dance way better than he can. The only thing he has that I don't is a fucking dick."
"Lisa!" Jennie gasps, not used to hearing so much profanity from the youngest of the group.
"What?"
"Language."
"Mmm, whatever you say, unnie." Her breathing starts to slow, and Jennie thinks Lisa may already be asleep. She starts to move towards Lisa's feet to take her slippers off when she gets pulled back by the other girl so she's on top of her. Jennie visibly stiffens.
Gaining back her physical sense of balance all of a sudden, Lisa flips them over. Jennie looks for any signs of light in her eyes, and starts to panic when all she sees is a cold and empty gaze.
"You're the only one who can help me, unnie," she says slowly. "Help me forget her."
Jennie struggles against Lisa's hands, but Lisa's surprisingly strong grip ends up pinning both of Jennie's arms over her head. "Lisa, I can't help you do that, I'm sorry."
"Sure you can," Lisa drawls with a smirk appearing on her lips. This is definitely not the Lisa Jennie knows. She can feel her ears pounding and her mind reeling. How do I get out of this, how do I get out, I need to get the hell out—
But Lisa is too strong for the smaller girl, and she is unable to do much when those familiar lips crash against hers once again. Unlike all those other nights, these kisses are rough, callous, uncaring. Lisa shoves her tongue into Jennie's mouth, then bites down hard on her lower lip before releasing it. Jennie thinks she can taste her own blood, but she has no time to know for sure, as Lisa's mouth trails downward onto her chin, to the side of her neck, biting and marking her with bruises that she's sure would not be at all light like before. She cries at the sharp pain.
"Lisa, stop it, please." One hand leaves her wrists and starts probing under her shirt, moving upwards to her chest. Jennie can't hold back her tears as she finally realizes what Lisa intends to do with her.
"I can't, unnie. I have to forget her. This is the only way."
Slowly, Lisa releases Jennie's other arm. At this point Jennie knows she should use her free hands to fight Lisa off, but she finds herself frozen, body unable to listen to her mind's commands.
The younger girl's slender fingers start venturing lower and lower, slowly, agonizingly. It's supposed to send pleasant tingles inside her, but all Jennie feels are the bruises forming on her wrists and Lisa's ice-cold hands on the inside of her thigh.
"Lisa, please... stop..."
Lisa doesn't appear to hear her pleas, or see her tears. Her hand just keeps going lower still and dips behind the waistband of her shorts, and Jennie has never hated herself as much as she does at this moment.
Everything else after that happens in a blur. The door swings open, Chaeyoung storms inside, pulls Lisa from on top of Jennie, and flings her to the floor with a strength Jennie didn't think the soft-spoken girl could ever possess.
"Ch-Chae," she says weakly. "Chaeyoung..."
Chaeyoung is on her side immediately, fixing her clothes and covering her with her blanket. "Shhh, it's okay, unnie, I'm here. I'm not leaving you." She takes her hand and gives it a gentle squeeze before turning to Lisa, who hasn't bothered getting up off the floor.
"I don't even know what to say to you right now, Lalisa!"
"Why don't you just punch me or something and get it over with. Jennie unnie can do it too. As many times as you all want."
"What's wrong with you?" Chaeyoung is visibly shaking. "Why don't you tell us? You know we're here for you right? Me, Jennie unnie, Jisoo unnie—"
For the third time that night, Lisa laughs, but this one is the most emotionless. "Not Jisoo. Definitely not her." She hoists herself up with her hands and tries to walk to Jennie's bed, but Chaeyoung blocks her path immediately.
Lisa casts a plaintive look at the form lying warily on the mattress. "Jennie unnie understands. She knows. It's why I can talk to only her."
"Talking is great, but you were trying to fuck her just now! How is that talking?!" Chaeyoung says hotly. She steps forward and shoves the taller girl's shoulder with one hand, causing Lisa to stumble backward. "Get out. Sober up before you try talking to any of us. And don't you dare touch Jennie like that ever again."
The menacing tone in Chaeyoung's voice feels like a bucket of ice water that somehow breaks Lisa out of her drunken state, at least for the meantime.
"Oh my God. Shit. Jennie, Jennie unnie, I'm sorry. Shit. I didn't mean to. I didn't—" She turns to Chaeyoung, choking back a sob. "Slap me. Now. Please. I don't care how many times."
"No. You don't even deserve that," Chaeyoung says coldly. She goes back to the bed and softly asks, "Jennie unnie? Can you stand?"
The other girl gives her a little nod. "I think we should stay in my room tonight to get your mind off..." she gives Lisa a scathing look, "things."
She holds out her hand, and as Jennie takes it, she knows in her heart that Chaeyoung will always keep her safe.
"I'm really, really sorry unnie," Lisa tells her, and this time she doesn't hold her sobbing in. "It's never going to be enough, but I'm still sorry."
Lisa buries her face in her hands so she doesn't have to watch the other two girls as they leave.
-----
When Lisa wakes up the next day, a new wave of guilt hits her for what she did to Jennie the night before.
Not even bothering to nurse her hangover, she takes out all the liquor bottles —both the emptied and the unopened—from her secret hiding places and lines them up on the floor in front of her. She's very much tempted to take one of the unopened ones and drink till she passes out, but her mind would flash back to last night, to Jennie's tear-streaked face, Jennie struggling to free her wrists from Lisa's hands, Jennie's repeated pleas for her to stop—
And unlike last night, she does. Instead of picking up a bottle and drinking from it, she takes several in her arm and brings them to the living room. It takes one more trip to her room to bring out the empty bottles as well.
She feels the hangover pulsating on both sides of her head more than ever when she stands in front of Jisoo's bedroom door. Lisa still craves that drink, but she decides she's tired of using liquor as an escape.
"Jisoo unnie?" she calls, knocking softly. "Are you awake?"
She hears some shuffling on the other end, and sees Jisoo Kim's head peek out once the door is ajar. "Lisa?" she says softly, evidently trying not to look surprised at the fact that the younger girl was actually reaching out to her. "You're up early."
"Yeah. Are you busy?"
"Not really. Why?"
"I kind of have a favor to ask you. If... If you don't mind."
"What is it?"
"Maybe I should show you." Lisa hesitates, takes a deep breath, and walks back towards the living room, turning her head and seeing if Jisoo would follow. She does, and they eventually fall into step beside each other.
Jisoo's gaze is immediately drawn to all the bottles on the table. "Lisa..."
The other girl's lip trembles, but she fights to get the words out and keep her voice even. "Unnie, I need to get rid of all of this. For good. Can you help me?"
"Of course."
They both start to work in silence, gathering the unopened bottles first and taking them to the kitchen sink. Jisoo takes one and opens it, the strong smell permeating the air in front of her. Lisa swallows, fingernails digging into her palms as she tries not to take back the bottle and her decision.
"This is probably not a helpful thing to say right now," Jisoo starts, tipping the bottle upside down and emptying its contents, "but you seem to have good taste with your liquor selection."
Lisa chuckles darkly, the smile so distant from her eyes. "At least I managed to do something right." She rubs her index and middle finger against her temple, the headache still not leaving her. Jisoo notices, takes a glass and fills it with water. She takes a pill out of her pocket and hands both to Lisa wordlessly.
"Thank you."
"You've been through enough pain," Jisoo mumbles. "Please take care of yourself from now on."
"Do you know... what I did to Jennie unnie?"
"Chaeyoung sent me a text." Jisoo shrugs, sounding like she's talking about something much more trivial, like the weather. Like nothing she hears can ever surprise her.
"You all must hate me now. I don't deserve anything else."
"I hate what you did. But you, I could never hate you, Lisa."
"Well you should."
"Will that make you feel better?"
"It doesn't matter how I feel," Lisa echoes Jisoo's words from her conversation with Jennie a few days ago. She rests her hands on the cool kitchen counter, her frame bowing forward, looking as though she no longer has much strength to stand.
"I'm sorry. All of this wouldn't have happened if I just told you the truth." Jisoo places a hand on top of Lisa's. She instantly straightens up at her touch. "I was so caught up trying to do what's best for the four of us. It sounds rational, doesn't it, setting your feelings aside for your career? Keeping your voice and never sarificing it to be human and have legs? But look where it's gotten us. We're ruining each other from the inside."
The older girl places her other hand on Lisa's back, and that's when she leans against it and breaks. "I'm so sorry unnie," she whispers over and over, through her tears. She feels Jisoo wrap her arms around her from behind.
"Ask me again," Jisoo says softly against her back. "The same thing you asked when we were in Japan."
"W-What?"
"Ask me again... if I like you back. And this time I won't lie."
Lisa's lips part as she remembers her exact words from that day. She holds Jisoo's arms and turns around. "Do you?"
She looks at Jisoo, and this time her eyes hide nothing. Lisa sees the internal conflict between wanting to do what's right and wanting the girl in front of her. She sees desire being barely held at bay by rationality. She sees love and lust and all the things Jisoo must be seeing in Lisa's eyes as well.
"Yes," she answers, pulling Lisa's collar down so she can place a soft kiss on her lips. When they both lean back, Lisa's smile finally reaches her eyes.
And Jisoo, being Jisoo, casually asks, "So, breakfast?"
-----
Chaeyoung wakes up to Jennie pressing herself on to the crook of her neck, her warm breath giving her goosebumps she could see on her arms.
"Chae? Are you awake?" Jennie asks, her voice still thick with sleep.
"Yes, unnie."
"Thank you for saving me," the older girl says quietly. "If you didn't—"
"I never should've left at all," Chaeyoung replies. "I'm so sorry, Jennie."
Jennie holds on to her more tightly. "Don't leave me alone ever again, then," she says, trying to sound playful.
Chaeyoung runs her hand through Jennie's scalp and places a kiss on her forehead. "I won't. But... there's something I need to know."
Jennie's head appears from hiding so she can meet the younger girl's eyes. Wordlessly, she wills Chaeyoung to continue.
"Why does Lisa think only you can understand her?"
"She told me I know how she feels."
"Feels about what?"
Jennie no longer has the strength to filter her words before they come out of her mouth. "Wanting someone you can't have."
She sees what looks like hurt in Chaeyoung's eyes. They both fall silent, Chaeyoung occupying herself with drawing patterns on Jennie's palm. Jennie reads a text from Jisoo.
Hi Jendeukkie. I'm so sorry. I'm taking Dalgom for a walk and will take Lisa so we can talk about it. Please stay with Chaeng for now. Take care of yourself. I'm sorry for not being a good unnie. But I promise I'll fix things.
She sets her phone down. She doesn't know what to make of it. She only knows she can't bring herself to be angry at anyone but herself.
"While she was trying to..." Jennie speaks after a while, "Last night. I thought of you. I wished it was you instead of her. I wouldn't have minded."
Chaeyoung swallows the lump in her throat. "I couldn't... I wouldn't. Don't you know how beautiful you are? No one has any right to treat you like that."
"I-I can't undo everything she did, unnie, but," she leans forward and kisses away the dried blood on Jennie's lower lip from where Lisa had bitten it. She sees the broken flesh and doubts she would ever be able to forgive Lisa for this. "I would if I could."
She trails her lips downward, placing careful, feathery kisses on all the angry purple marks Lisa had left, and Jennie's breath hitches. She starts to panic, her mind replaying how she was pinned down, powerless, but the manner in which Chaeyoung gently holds her now makes her powerless in an altogether different way.
"Chaeyoung, I—I love you."
The younger girl smiles against her neck and moves back up so they're both eye-to-eye again. "I've been waiting to hear that for a while now. I love you too, Jennie." She tucks a strand of Jennie's hair behind her ear, and kisses her tenderly.
"And just so you know, you've always had me."
-----
Lisa notices a lot of things, now that she's stopped drinking.
She notices that Jennie still flinches at the slightest unexpected physical contact, whether it's from her or from anyone else. She sees how Chaeyoung seems like she's walking on eggshells whenever they talk, but is trying hard not to show it. Jisoo doesn't appear to treat her differently, though, and Lisa wonders how she does it.
She wonders if things between the four of them would ever go back to the way they used to.
Then, on one of their free days, Jennie takes Lisa's hand while they walk outside and whispers "I forgive you", before running to catch up with Chaeyoung, who is a short distance in front of them, stopping in front of a clump of flowers. Jisoo gives her a knowing look and a one-armed hug.
Lisa is still a sucker for happy endings, but she thinks she's starting to see the beauty in beginnings now, too.