Archive of Our Own ^beta

Lisa haltingly steps onto the patio, eyes focused on the two steaming mugs of tea she’s holding as she inches her way to where Jennie is. She breathes a sigh of relief as she sets the mugs on the coffee table, mildly proud that she didn’t spill or forget to use a coaster.

Jennie’s sitting on the hanging chair, an open book on her lap, a blanket around her shoulders. Lisa shakes her head when she hears her soft snores.

She moves around the coffee table, careful around the edges, and sits gingerly beside her wife. Jennie doesn’t stir, and for a moment, Lisa’s content to watch her sleep, taking in her slightly parted lips, the way her time-touched skin looks when it’s caressed by the light of a dying sun.

Lisa reaches for a hand before scooting closer and pressing her nose against Jennie’s temple.

“Nini,” she whispers.

She smiles when she feels Jennie squeeze her hand the moment she wakes.

“I brought tea,” Lisa says quietly.

Jennie breathes slowly and deeply before turning her head until she can rest against the crook of Lisa’s neck. Lisa wraps an arm around her, moves closer so that she can feel Jennie against her side.

The world is still and quiet, the wind gracefully dancing around them, the sun stealing one last peek. Lisa closes her eyes, utterly content.

If she could choose how they end, it would be like this.

--------------------

Jennie rests a hand on Lisa’s thigh, feeling the gentle back and forth of the hanging chair as Lisa lifts her legs onto the cushion. She opens her eyes just enough to see the last of the sunset, eyes taking in the paint-splashed sky above them. The book lays ignored on her lap, the steaming mugs of tea patiently waiting on the coffee table.

Lisa sighs against the top of her head, and Jennie knows that sound. She smiles, glad to hear it now, even after so many years together.

She doesn’t know how much time they have left for moments like this but knows that they don’t have forever. Something will come for them one day, sooner rather than later, and they have lived long enough to welcome it with open arms and acceptance in their hearts. Jennie isn’t afraid, but she has spent a lifetime with one person by her side and if she could demand it from death, she would ask to have her with her for whatever comes after.

“Lili,” she says softly.

Lisa hums, hand squeezing her shoulder.

“Love me again tomorrow?”

Jennie feels a kiss and a smile pressed against her gray crown.

“I’ll love you even after.”

Jennie believes her, and it’s enough.

🌜

Lisa shivers into wakefulness with her knees almost up to her chin, her hands tucked into her armpits, feet rubbing together in a useless attempt to generate warmth. She sighs, resigned and fond, and doesn’t bother muttering a word of complaint.

It’s her turn to make breakfast anyway.

Her joints click as she goes about the long, slow process of straightening her body, muffling a groan as best as she can when her knees and back protest against the movements.

She slides a hand underneath the mountain of blankets and pillows, some part of her instantly soothed the moment she touches Jennie’s skin. She’s warm, Lisa notes exasperatedly. She wraps her ice-cold hand around Jennie’s wrist in an act of petty revenge, snorting when she hears a whisper of a sleepy grumble before Jennie pulls out of her hold and pathetically tries to bat her hand away.

Serves you right, Lisa mutters to herself as she gently presses a thumb into Jennie’s palm in response.

This time, Lisa feels Jennie’s fingers curl sleepily around hers, the hold slack and barely there.

Lisa supposes she can forgive her.

She lays still for a handful of moments. The sun creeps into the room, and Lisa has never been a morning person, but well, life has a way of changing a person, particularly when there are kids involved. She brushes a thumb against the bumpy, cold metal resting just above Jennie’s knuckle and smiles a little helplessly.

25 years, Lisa thinks, and she’s still hogging the blankets.

--------------------

Jennie wakes to the sound of dogs barking, cats meowing, and Lisa uselessly attempting to quiet all of them. She blinks at the brightness of the room and at the weight of blankets and pillows piled on top of her. It must’ve been a cold night, she thinks, and then wonders if Lisa’s knees are okay.

She crawls out of bed a little groggily, already knowing that she overslept by the way her neck feels stiff. She stops by the bathroom to do her business, noting that she’ll need to call a plumber for the dripping faucet if she doesn’t want Lisa to take matters into her own hands and inevitably make the problem worse.

On the way out, she grabs Lisa’s cardigan haphazardly thrown on the back of a desk chair and slips it on before bending down to pick up the pair of bright yellow slippers next to her plain black ones.

The house is relatively more peaceful by the time Jennie makes it out of their room. It was strange to be here during the first year they spent with just the two of them after years of child-rearing. There were no stray sounds of loud, teenaged music in the third bedroom or overexcited voices in the living room. She and Lisa had been lonely, but they did what they’d been doing for 25 years now: they figured it out.

She’s greeted by Leo Jr. as soon as she makes it down the stairs, the tip of his tail curved happily and pointing eagerly at her as he trots up to her with a mouthful of meows. He weaves in and out of her legs until she gives in. She bends down and traces the top of his head down to his tail, smiling softly at the way his spine arches to get closer to her touch.

“Good morning, handsome,” she greets.

Almost immediately, the soft music coming from Lisa’s phone pauses abruptly.

“Nini, is that you?” Lisa calls.

Jennie hums. “Are you expecting anyone else? Do you have someone on the side?”

She bites back a smile at Lisa’s loud snort, quickly arranging her features back to something neutral by the time Lisa comes out of the kitchen to meet her.

“‘Course not, have you seen my wife?” Lisa says as she wipes her hands on the faded apron that Jennie got for her a day after she finally managed to make rice all those years ago.

Jennie rolls her eyes. “Flatterer,” she mutters before tossing the yellow slippers at Lisa’s feet. “You forgot to wear your slippers again. If I find out you put your dirty feet up on any of the upholstery, you’re going to be sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Lisa waves the threat away but wears the slippers anyway.

“Did you make breakfast?”

“Yes,” Lisa answers. “Waffles, eggs, and bacon. Coffee’s ready too.”

Jennie moves to head to the kitchen, patting Lisa’s cheek with a smile. “Thank you.”

Lisa snags her wrist before she can get too far, a pout on her lips that really shouldn’t look as adorable as it does on her 60-year-old face.

Jennie kind of wants to tease her if only to see her grumble the way she does when she doesn’t get what she wants, but she supposes that she probably has some making up to do for stealing the blankets.

Lisa seems to sense relative safety as she cautiously tugs her closer, smiling beautifully when Jennie follows the motion without making fun of her. Lisa squeezes her wrist gently, kisses the middle of her palm, something like you make me happy passing from lips to skin. Jennie brushes a thumb along her laugh lines, slips a hand under Lisa’s shirt to rest it just above the garter of her faded pajama pants, something like I love having you close to me passing from fingertips to hip bone.

“Good morning, MILF.”

Jennie laughs loudly. “Lisa-yah,” she coos, shakes her head, and asks a question she’s been asking for years. “What am I going to do with you?”

🌜

Lisa grunts as she hauls one of Su-jin’s heavier bags, forgetting for a moment that she’s really too old to be lifting things that weigh even half of what she does. But she’s nothing if not stubborn, so she huffs and puffs all the way to the car with a few choice curse words muttered under her breath.

She doesn’t make it two feet past the front door before she’s caught red-handed.

“Mae! What are you doing?” Su-jin hurries to her side, bodily stealing the bag from his mother, glaring when Lisa opens her mouth to protest. “You know what the doctor said about your knees.”

“Yes, I was there. He said they’re fine.”

“For now,” Su-jin shoots back as he hauls his bag into the back of the car, grudgingly fixing it the moment Lisa arches an eyebrow at him. “I was also there, remember? He also said not to lift anything too heavy.”

“Who’s lifting what?” Jennie asks with her back to them, locking the door, arms filled with various snacks and beverages for the trip.

Lisa and Su-jin move in sync, stepping up to Jennie to take some of the load off her.

“Why’d you bring so many? It’s literally a two-hour drive to the airport,” Lisa says.

“Su-jin is a growing, hungry boy,” Jennie answers matter-of-factly. “So, who’s been lifting what?”

“Mae,” Su-jin, the traitor, reports dutifully as he tears through the pack of gummy bears.

Jennie fixes Lisa with a look. Su-jin snickers.

“Lili,” Jennie coos, voice sickly sweet. “What did the doctor say?”

“That’s what I said,” Su-jin mutters, yelping when Lisa steps on his foot.

Lisa knows it didn’t really hurt, but Su-jin’s obsessed with keeping his sneakers as white as possible, even willingly washing them once a month to make sure that they’re sparkly clean. She can’t help the smug smile on her lips when their son bends down to dust off the mark Lisa left.

“Stop betraying me and get in the car, child.”

Su-jin grumbles but thankfully listens.

Lisa cringes at the stare that Jennie’s still giving her.

“It was one bag,” Lisa finally admits. “It wasn’t even that heavy.”

Jennie spots the bald-faced lie and rolls her eyes. “If I tried to learn how to skateboard with this ankle, would you let me?”

“No,” Lisa says instantly before thinking about what she just said. “Okay, you win this one.”

Jennie leans up to kiss her cheek, smiling when Lisa automatically wraps an arm around her waist so that she doesn’t have to strain too much. “I want you here with me for a while longer. Okay?”

“I’d call that emotional manipulation or something, but okay, Nini,” Lisa grins, dropping a kiss on Jennie’s lips.

“Mae, Mom! The plane’s gonna leave without me if you keep kissing!”

Lisa groans. “He’s so eager to leave us. 19 years, and this is what we get?” She says the last part loudly before turning to look at her amused wife. “Do you have your motion sickness patches?”

“I do,” Jennie smiles. “Now, stop stalling or he’s going to lift us both, shove us in the backseat, and drive the car himself.”

Lisa whips around to see Su-jin inching his way to them, hands suspiciously empty. She points a knobby finger at him. “You’re not driving my baby.”

Su-jin pouts. “I thought I was your baby.”

Lisa sticks her tongue at him.

Jennie sighs as she drags Lisa by the arm before pushing Su-jin back inside the car. “How I ended up with a dramatic family, I will never know.”

“You love us. You wouldn’t have us any other way.”

Jennie hums as she opens the passenger door. “Says who?” She teases, laughing her way through the whiny Mom and the indignant Nini!

--------------------

“It’s your fault, you know.”

Jennie takes Lisa’s hand, both of them frozen in the midst of a moving crowd. She doesn’t look at her wife, eyes still following Su-jin’s retreating back, heart trying to follow after him. He looks smaller the further he gets, and she doesn’t know if he’ll be okay or how they’re going to reach him in time if anything happens. She doesn’t know how to not be a mother, can’t remember being anything else for Su-jin, a little lost now that he’s grown up enough to discover the world outside the home they made.

“How is it my fault?” She asks around the stone in her throat, grateful when Lisa grips her hand just shy of painful.

“He got your brains,” Lisa answers, sounding like she’s trying not to speak too loud lest she ends up calling him back into their arms. “And now, he’s going halfway across the world for college.”

“Me? I’m not the one who’s fluent in… how many languages now?”

She feels more than sees Lisa shrug. “You carried him.”

“The first thing you did when you held him was speak to him in Thai, Korean, and English all in the same sentence.”

Lisa doesn’t answer, and Jennie understands. They can’t see Su-jin anymore, their son disappearing down one corner or the other. Lisa leans forward like she intends to follow, and though it breaks Jennie’s heart, she holds onto her hand, anchoring them both to the ground beneath their feet.

They stand like life paused the moment Su-jin left, their world stumbling in its tracks, veering out of the course it’s been set to follow since they met each other.

“Lisa-yah,” Jennie breathes, eyes still fixed on the corner Su-jin disappeared to, refusing to blink just in case he comes back and needs them for something. “Is he gonna be okay?”

For a handful of moments, Lisa doesn’t answer. And then, she heaves air into her lungs, turns to face Jennie, and cups her cheek. Jennie allows her to coax her away from what she’s been looking at, setting her gaze instead on Lisa’s wide, watery brown eyes. She looks like she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself, and it’s instinct the way Jennie lifts a hand and presses it on Lisa’s chest, right above her heart.

It’s just the two of them now.

“He’ll be okay,” Lisa promises, tears spilling down her cheeks, a brave smile on her lips. “And we’ll be okay.”

Jennie leans forward, rests her forehead on Lisa’s chest, cries when she wraps her up in her arms.

“He’ll be okay,” Lisa repeats, softer this time.

Jennie listens to her say it again and again until they believe it.

🌜

Lisa knows she’s fussing. She cups Su-jin’s cheeks, turning his head this way and that. Her thumb hovers over his split lip, her brows furrowing at the cut above his eyebrow, her heart aching at the bruise growing roots into his cheekbone.

The car is quiet, somber, tense.

She had never expected to find herself in this position, had hoped she would never have to question her faith in the world around her, had prayed that her son would never have to learn exactly what words can do when used so carelessly, so harshly, so hatefully. He’s too young, she thinks. Hasn’t even grown a stubble yet or dealt with the messiness of puberty. And yet.

Su-jin touches her hands hesitantly as if he expects her to recoil or punish or hurt.

Lisa would never, and she hates that this is how her son learns that hands can be used for something far more than holding and touching and loving. Lisa doesn’t know what to do with the anger in her chest but knows that this is the last thing Su-jin should see from her right now.

“Mae,” he says, voice cracking in a way that has nothing to do with growing up and has everything to do with all the things that shouldn’t have happened. “Are you mad? I didn’t mean to, but they said…”

“Su-jinnie,” she breathes, finally letting his cheeks go in favor of taking his hands that are still smaller than hers. “Will you tell me what happened?”

His lower lip wobbles. And then, he tells her everything. There was a group of them, he starts. Three boys from an older class. They waited until Su-jin was alone before cornering him. Called him names Su-jin refuses to repeat to her, somehow knowing that there are words that should never be uttered because he was raised to be kind, raised by two mothers who thought the world of him, raised in a home that doesn’t have room for dark, violent things. They goaded him, provoked him, bullied him, and Lisa, who isn’t a stranger to all of this, aches and aches and aches.

Su-jin tried, he tells her. They punched him, kicked him to the ground, spat at him. And in the end, Su-jin just had to fight back because no one came until it was too late.

Lisa knows the rest. The teacher who found them and sent all of them to the principal’s office, the call that had Lisa speeding down the streets of their home, the folded body of her son waiting amongst his unrepentant bullies.

If she could set the world on fire, she would have right here, in this moment, because how dare they.

How dare they.

“Do you believe me?” Su-jin asks, smaller than he should be at 10 years old, back hunched with a weight he shouldn’t be carrying.

Lisa exhales shakily, trying to reign in the urge to roar or maim or kill. “Su-jin,” she says, and he flinches. “Can I hug you?”

Su-jin looks up from his lap, tears welling up in his eyes so suddenly that he doesn’t even get the chance to blink.

“You’re not mad?”

Lisa shakes her head, arms opening the moment Su-jin leans across the center console. She holds him as tightly as she dares, falling apart when she feels his tears touch the skin of her chest beneath layers of clothing.

“I am mad,” she whispers against the crown of his head. “But not at you.”

“I’m sorry, Mae,” he whimpers.

“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says fiercely. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to hold you until you get tired of me babying you,” he gives a sniffling snort and Lisa needs him to stay young and small and hers for as long as possible. “And then, we’re going to go to the clinic so that we can get your wounds taken care of. God knows I know next to nothing about first aid, and I don’t want to hurt you more than they already have. We’ll have ice cream while we wait for your mom to come home, and then, we’ll talk about what we’re going to do. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says softly. He’s quiet for a beat or two, and Lisa waits for him to form the words. “They’re wrong, Mae.”

Lisa grits her teeth. “Yes, they are,” she hisses.

Su-jin pulls back a little, and Lisa barely stops the protest suddenly in her throat. “No, I mean,” he hesitates. “They said that I can’t be happy because I don’t have a dad and boys should always have a dad.”

Lisa wonders if she can get away with murder.

“They’re wrong,” Su-jin says, eerily calm and sincere the way Jennie is when she’s making a point or stands by something she believes in. “I’m very happy with you and Mom. I don’t need anyone else.”

Lisa barely manages to say a watery, “I’m going to baby you now,” before pulling Su-jin back into her arms. “I love you, Su-jinnie.”

Su-jin slowly, gently, lovingly curls his fingers into the back of her shirt. “I love you, too, Mae, even if you’re silly.”

“Hush, child.”

--------------------

Jennie takes off all the band-aids and wipes away all the ointment Su-jin got from the clinic.

She doesn’t know why she does it.

It could be that she wants to see exactly what they did to her son, unable to believe the story she was told until she sees the evidence of it for herself. It could be that she doesn’t trust anyone to take care of Su-jin because, beyond Lisa, no one else kissed and caressed and touched his unmarred skin more than she has. It could be that she doesn’t know what else to do with the helpless feeling born out of the knowledge that she couldn’t be there to protect him from this.

She can’t comprehend the angry reds and bruised purples on his face, some part of her resisting reality because not him, not Su-jin.

“Let me do the talking tomorrow,” Jennie whispers.

Su-jin is asleep on her lap, his body stretched out on the sofa. Jennie combs her fingers through his hair, looking up at Lisa, who sits in front of them on the coffee table, eyes constantly shifting between her and the boy who stole their hearts the moment he entered the world.

Lisa nods, and Jennie suspects that her anger has gotten to her words, burned through anything kind and tender she could say.

“He doesn’t want to leave his friends and teachers,” she continues, remembering the way Su-jin nearly begged them not to take him out of his school. “So, we’ll make it safer for him to be there. Whatever it takes.”

Lisa nods again, this time leaning forward and taking Jennie’s hand, thumbing the wedding ring in the way she does when she feels lost or overwhelmed or afraid, as if the metal houses a piece of her soul, something that can call her back to Jennie.

“I’m scared it’ll happen again. If not in school, then somewhere else,” Jennie says, pressing one hand against Su-jin’s heartbeat and curling the other around Lisa’s fingers. “What will we do then?”

Lisa shifts closer, holds her gaze, swallows to rid herself of whatever she’s feeling. “If he wants to, I can take him with me to boxing classes. Or some other self-defense training. We’ll talk to him about violence and bullying and hate. We’ll prepare him. We’ll teach him everything we know.”

Jennie tips her chin up, every part of her yelling in defiance, echoing the set in Lisa’s jaw,  the protective steel in her eyes. She feels the weight of their names and everything that comes with it, all the power they hold between the two of them and two others. It wouldn’t be impossible, she thinks. They’ve done it once before when they chose each other against the costs and the odds and the stakes, when Jennie told her I just want you, when Lisa cried and asked a question neither of them thought they’d be able to ask.

“Or we’ll change the world,” she utters, trusting Lisa to take it as the promise that it is.

Lisa straightens, finally losing the lost, dazed look on her face. She nods, just once. “Or we’ll change the world,” she repeats.

Nothing else is said after that, the day already having taken too much out of all of them.

Lisa gets up, holds herself steady on the arm of the sofa, and bends down to press a kiss on Jennie’s forehead then her lips. Jennie watches her wife gather their son into her arms, adores the way she tucks him against her straining body, falls in love with the way Lisa offers an elbow for her to hold onto.

Tomorrow, she knows that they’ll be standing in front of a system that will either bend for them once again or work against them. Tomorrow, they will struggle to let Su-jin go to where he needs to be, now knowing that they can’t always be there to protect him. Tomorrow, they’ll take hold of the very fabric of their world to snip out the things that make hurting a gentle boy with two mothers possible.

Tomorrow.

For now, Jennie traces the cuts and scratches and bruises on Su-jin’s face and knuckles as soon as Lisa lays him on his bed. She kisses each and every one of them, inevitably waking Su-jin.

“I’m okay, Mom,” he mutters almost unintelligibly. “You’ll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that.”

It startles a chuckle out of Jennie and drags out a snort from Lisa. Su-jin smiles sleepily into his pillow, and Jennie feels warmth chase away the cold she felt the moment she saw what they did to him.

“Do you want us to stay with you?” Jennie asks, hoping he’d say yes if only because she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to let him go after today, doesn’t know how she’ll survive it, doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to do it even when it’s time.

But Su-jin shakes his head. “I’m 10.”

Lisa rests her hands on Jennie’s shoulders. “You’re always gonna be our baby, Su-jinnie.”

He whines in protest, much to Jennie’s amusement. “Don’t grow up too fast, love,” she says fondly.

“I’ll try,” Su-jin jokes before sobering, blinking at them groggily. “I love you both. I have the best moms in the world. I don’t care about what anyone else says.”

Jennie cries.

“Ah, well,” Lisa chokes. “I guess we love you too.”

Su-jin rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out at Lisa, and Jennie knows, deep in her heart, that she would take on gods for them.

🌜

Lisa’s life as she knows it changes one supposedly peaceful night.

She had been in deep sleep, arm wrapped around a very pregnant Jennie, hand resting on her swollen stomach when she was pulled out of everything comforting with a sharp and stinging pain on her upper arm.

“Wha—” She chokes on a dry mouth, eyes focusing on the only likely culprit for her rude awakening. “Did you just slap me?” She shakes her head, registering how Jennie seems to be doubling over.

Lisa scrambles onto her knees. “Are you okay? Ni, what’s wrong?” She asks, forcefully shoving the sweet temptation of sleep.

“Baby’s—” Jennie groans pitifully, and Lisa barely manages to think oh, oh is this—“Baby’s coming.”

And okay, they’ve spent months preparing for this moment, the evidence of it scattered all over their bedroom. There’s a stack of pregnancy books on both bedside tables, a go-bag underneath their bed, and the clothes they wore for the breathing classes they attended yesterday still in the hamper by the bathroom. They’d taken monthly photos because they’re both sentimental, and Lisa has watched pregnancy pull miracles out of Jennie’s body.

But, for some reason, it isn’t until she’s staring uselessly at her wife’s gasping form that she realizes this is it.

She’s going to be a mother. Her. With Jennie.

They’re going to be mothers.

A little insane, Lisa wonders if she even remembered to pull her hair out of the shower drain before going to bed. Or unload the dishwasher. Or clean the cat litter.

“Lisa! Now is not the time to freak out,” Jennie says in between controlled breaths, glaring at her like she’s going to kill her if she doesn’t move in the next second.

So, Lisa moves.

She flings herself off of their bed, going straight to the closet to pull out clothes for Jennie before moving back to help her into them. She doesn’t say anything more than it’s okay, it’s going to be okay as she helps Jennie down the stairs and into the living room where she sits her down on the sofa and gives her water. Lisa dashes back up to their bedroom as soon as Jennie seems more or less settled, grabbing both their phones in one hand and snatching the go bag with the other.

“Baby’s coming,” she says to no one before remembering that she actually has to dial Jisoo’s number.

She shoves her feet into her shoes and grabs the car keys.

“Lisa!” Jennie shouts.

“I’m coming!” She responds loudly just as Jisoo picks up the phone.

“Do you know what time—”

“Baby’s coming,” she yells unintentionally into the receiver before promptly hanging up.

Wife. Keys. Phones. Go-bag. Lisa ticks every item off of her mental checklist as she tries not to fall to her death on her way down the stairs.

“Okay, let’s go, I’ve got everything. Called Chu too. She’ll call Chaeng. I’ll call all the parents at the hospital.”

“Lisa.”

“Just breathe. Come on, Nini,” Lisa says, moving to guide her to her feet.

“Lisa.”

“I swear I’ve got everything.”

“Lisa!”

Lisa’s neck nearly breaks in her haste to actually look at Jennie’s face only to find her looking at her with a mix of amusement, exasperation, and fondness alongside the pain downplayed by a brilliant smile on her lips. Lisa… is admittedly confused as Jennie tugs her down to kiss her.

“Pants.”

Lisa tilts her head. “Huh?”

Jennie traces her jaw with her fingertips. “Pants. You forgot pants.”

Lisa looks down at herself and sees nothing but shoes, skin, and underwear.

Inexplicably, she tears up. “Don’t you dare regret marrying me.”

Jennie laughs before it turns into a moan that has Lisa shifting closer to her. “I would never,” she gasps. “But go put pants on before I end up giving birth in our living room.”

Lisa does as she’s told, muttering curses all the way back to their bedroom and nearly falling flat on her face as she shoves one leg into fabric then the other. She speeds down the stairs, this time fully dressed. She hauls all their stuff onto one shoulder and wraps an arm around Jennie’s waist.

She pauses on the way out the door. Jennie smiles at her as if she knows what she’s going to say.

“We’re going to be mothers.”

Jennie nods, equally as amazed as she is, hand resting on her stomach, looking at her like Lisa put the stars in the sky just for her. Lisa falls in love over and over again in a span of seconds, and when she bends down, Jennie meets her halfway in a kiss that sweeps Lisa off her feet and steals her breath away.

“You’re with me?” Jennie pants against her lips, a little scared and a little nervous and a whole lot in love.

Lisa pulls her closer and repeats the promise she made 15 years ago when they chose each other the first time. “Nowhere else I’d rather be,” she whispers. “Pants or no pants,” she adds just for the undignified snort Jennie gives in response.

“I’m never gonna let you live that down,” Jennie says as they hobble out of their home.

“Jennie, I love you.”

“I love you, too, but I’m still telling Chu.”

--------------------

Jennie can’t look away.

She’s so tired that she would think she had been reduced to nothing more than a puddle on the hospital bed if it weren’t for the way she aches in places she didn’t even know could ache. She had survived the influx of visitors – a pajama-clad Jisoo, a photoshoot-fresh Chaeyoung, a frantic then cooing mother, and even a FaceTime with Lisa’s parents, who were already waiting to board the plane that’ll carry them to meet their grandson.

It took a while for everyone to leave gifts and promises of visiting tomorrow before collecting their proud, happy tears and shuffling hesitantly out the door to give the new family some time with each other.

Jennie had been relieved when Lisa finally shooed away their family, but now that Su-jin’s in Lisa’s arms, she finds that, for the life of her, she can’t seem to allow herself to blink. Lisa’s been murmuring to their son (their son) in various languages since she got over her fear of dropping him long enough to figure out that her arms seem to be made specifically for holding Su-jin.

There’s something profound about it, about the way Su-jin turns his head in the direction of Lisa’s voice, about the way Lisa speaks to him about all the things they’ll do together. Jennie felt it the moment Su-jin was in her arms and resting against her chest and she feels it now as she watches her wife and son with the attention of someone who doesn’t want to forget a single detail about this moment. Her heart expands past the confines of her chest, grows so big just to accommodate everything Su-jin is and will ever be.

She stretches a hand in the direction of her family, and Lisa, ever aware of her even when she’s so obviously smitten with the baby in her arms, tangles their fingers together without looking away from Su-jin.

“I’ll give you the world,” Lisa says. “And your mommy—”

She pauses.

“Lili?” Jennie asks, her voice raw and hoarse from all the screaming and cursing she had done. “What’s wrong?”

Lisa blinks at Su-jin for a beat or two before looking up at Jennie. She’s grinning from ear to ear, eyes alight with mischief and affection, looking younger than she should be at 37. Jennie smiles right back, helpless in the face of her obvious happiness.

“What?” Jennie asks again, this time around a giggle.

“Jen.”

“Lisa.”

“Guess what.”

Jennie raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“You’re a MILF.”

Jennie guffaws before slapping her free hand over her mouth, waiting with bated breath to see if she woke Su-jin up. Su-jin sleeps on, oblivious, happy, and unbothered. Lisa looks extremely proud of herself.

“I want a divorce,” Jennie says, hoping her face is as grave as she wants it to be but knowing it’s not because she’s too happy, too in love, too loved.

“Only if I get custody of Su-jin.”

“I’m the one who gave birth to him.”

Lisa’s grin instantly softens around the edges, her fingers curling tighter around Jennie’s. “You did,” she breathes. “You were amazing.”

Jennie couldn’t have stopped the blush she feels spreading across her cheeks even if she tried. She untangles her hand from Lisa’s, reaching for Su-jin. Lisa moves to sit on the hospital bed so that Jennie doesn’t have to reach too far.

“He’s so small,” Jennie murmurs as she traces his cheek before pressing a finger into his palm.

All five of Su-jin’s fingers wrap around Jennie’s index. She looks up at Lisa with wide-eyed wonder only to find Lisa already enamored by the scene before her.

“Hi, Su-jinnie,” Jennie whispers quietly, tears in her eyes, a fierce kind of love blooming in her heart. “It’s me. It’s Mommy.”

Lisa starts crying all over again. She bows and bends and brings Su-jin’s hand holding Jennie’s finger to her lips, pressing the softest of kisses.

“I’m so happy,” Lisa says as she scoots further up the bed. “Thank you, Nini.”

Jennie feels her gratitude and her love settle like a blanket over her body, and she closes her eyes with a watery smile still painted on her lips. Lisa wipes her tears away, murmuring something about placing Su-jin back in his crib before moving away to do just that. Jennie watches her do it through half-lidded eyes, relieved when Lisa moves the crib as close as possible to the hospital bed before climbing in with her.

Jennie presses her ear against Lisa’s heartbeat, the sound as familiar to her as her own.

“Sleep, love,” Lisa whispers against the top of her head. “I’ll watch over you both.”

It’s exactly what Jennie needs to hear.

“Lili?”

Lisa hums, rubbing her back in a gentle, soothing motion.

“You’re a MILF too.”

Jennie feels more than hears the way Lisa chokes on startled laughter. “I’m so flattered, thank you. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

🌜

There were a handful of moments in Lisa’s life when she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was exactly where she was meant to be. It had nothing to do with destiny or fate; it was simply a feeling in her bones, a deep and resonating kind of knowing, that told her that she made it to where she wanted to be.

She felt it for the first time when she called Marco dad and suddenly couldn’t think of any better man who could fit into the role the way he does. She felt it a second time when she stood on a stage in front of strangers, knees shaking like a newborn fawn. She’d been terrified that leaving home was a mistake, that the years she spent sweating and crying and bleeding on training room floors were for nothing, that she couldn’t possibly amount to something. But then they said Blackpink, and Lisa felt the moment she realized that she was sharing a name with three of the best people she’d ever been lucky enough to meet and knew that they could do anything.

Then there was the moment nearly two years ago when she pissed Jisoo off and nearly had her eardrums shattered by a squealing Chaeyoung because she fell to her knees and asked Jennie a question, effectively wasting months of elaborate planning because she just knew she had to do it then, that a beach in Hawaii couldn’t possibly beat the sense of rightness she felt when her bones hit their cold-ass apartment floor, that it didn’t matter when or where she did it as long as she was in front of Jennie.

And then, there’s today.

The crowd in front of her is nothing but a sea of faces, all of them paling in comparison to Jennie. She is beautiful, and Lisa thinks that it has little to do with the dress she’s wearing; Jennie could wear the ugliest sack known to man and still make it look like something someone would have to sell half of their liver for. She does look beautiful though, resplendent in her wedding dress, and Lisa knows it’s counterintuitive, but she can’t wait to take it off her and consummate their marriage.

Marriage.

Wife.

Jennie is her wife. She married her. Lisa. Lalisa Kim-Manoban, her paperwork says. There’s actual paperwork that acknowledges that she’s Jennie’s wife. Stamped, signed, and filed. Married in the eyes of the law, married in the eyes of God, married in the eyes of anyone who even knows her name.

Jennie (her wife. Gosh darn. Snaps all around, please. She’s never gonna get over it.) nudges her, finally abandoning all pretense that she’s listening to whoever’s giving some speech about how they fell in love.

Lisa doesn’t know why they bother — everyone knows how they fell in love. You don’t love someone the way she loves Jennie and have even a single subtle bone in your body. It pours out of her in waves, undeniable and constant, something that can shift and change the landscape.

If it were a race, she’s been ahead of everyone else for two decades, just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to what she has known for a very long time: you don’t deny a love like this.

“Rosie’s still talking,” Jennie whispers from the corner of her mouth, hand warm on Lisa’s thigh.

Lisa honestly didn’t notice when Chaeyoung even started her speech. “Is she?”

“It’s very sweet,” Jennie mutters. “Have you been listening at all?”

Lisa smiles, wide and free and saccharine. “No.”

Jennie rolls her eyes but turns her body to look at her, evidently giving up on making sure that at least one of them is paying attention. “Lisa-yah,” she sighs in this fond, affectionate, you’re-lucky-I-love-you kind of tone that Lisa wants to hear for the rest of her life. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Marry me?”

Jennie grins like she can’t help it, blushes a pretty red, and goddamn, Lisa’s so happy. “I just did that.”

“So marry me again,” Lisa answers because obviously.

“You don’t want to get to the next part?” Jennie teases, somehow closer to Lisa than she was before.

“Oh. Well, when you put it like that… I mean, have you looked into a mirror? You in that dress, Jen. I’m not a saint.”

Lisa feels Jennie’s laughter against her lips. “You’re hopeless.”

“No, I’m yours,” Lisa says instantly.

Jennie bites her bottom lip, slips an arm around Lisa’s waist. “Are you?”

“We have paperwork that says I’m yours.”

“And that’s all that matters?”

Lisa shakes her head minutely, kisses the corner of Jennie’s mouth. “I’ve been yours for a very long time, Nini.”

“SEE!”

They startle away from each other, and Lisa would’ve fallen off her chair if it weren’t for Jennie’s arm still wrapped around her waist.

At some point, Jisoo had joined Chaeyoung on the stage, looking like she snatched the mic right out of Chaeyoung’s hands and is now pointing an accusatory finger at them. Chaeyoung has her hands in her face, and it’s only thanks to the fact that Jisoo’s standing so close to her that Lisa can hear the laughter and groans of embarrassment Chaeyoung’s attempting to muffle with her palms.

“Chaeng’s been here for all of two minutes, giving a speech she actually practiced, and they’re not even paying attention. If any of you ever wondered what it’s like for us to be with that 24/7 for most of our lives, that should tell you everything there is to know,” Jisoo declares smugly.

Jennie untangles from her to cup her hands around her mouth. “It’s Lisa’s fault!”

“Of course, it is,” Jisoo rolls her eyes. “I still haven’t forgiven you for Hawaii, Lalisa.”

“Okay, but that was technically Jennie’s fault!” Lisa declares loudly.

Chaeyoung snatches the mic back. “To conclude,” she mutters shyly, looking like she’s begging the ground to open up and swallow her whole. “They’re definitely made for each other. That’s really all I wanted to say.”

Someone hands Lisa her own mic. “Guys,” she says and waits until the entire crowd is looking at her.

“Oh no, here we go with the cheese,” Jisoo warns, tugging Chaeyoung’s mic closer to her.

The crowd laughs, but Lisa’s undeterred. She has something to say after all.

She sweeps a hand grandly at Jennie’s direction. “Meet my wife. She’s my wife!” Lisa bursts out laughing because what else can she do with all this unbridled joy in her body?

“We know!” The crowd tells her in various tones of exasperation and amusement and love. So much love.

Jennie tucks herself into Lisa’s side, warm and real and married to her. She kisses her cheek, and Lisa can’t help the way she tears up because they know, because they’re loved, because this is exactly where she wants to be.

--------------------

Jennie had allowed herself to forget what complete and utter freedom feels like.

She’d contented herself with little bits and crumbs of it, consumed in dorms and shared with three other people, leaving them with just enough to feel like they’re free despite contracts and obligations, responsibilities and expectations, images and names. And then, she would move on, resigned to yet another day of policing which parts of her identity she can share, which thoughts she can speak into being, which feelings she can express. Their freedom was a necessary sacrifice, just something they had to give up the moment they signed a contract with signatures they practiced on nights when they all wanted to see what it would be like to finally be allowed to stand at the top.

But then, there’s today.

The reception had rapidly dissolved into chaos with them at the center of it all. Jennie catches a glimpse of her wife dancing like a jellyfish with her parents, glancing at her every once in a while as if to make sure she’s there.

Wife, Lisa’s her wife. Jennie doesn’t really believe in soulmates, but she believes in being chosen, in that conscious decision to stay with someone, in love built over time, despite imperfections and mistakes, across moments both good and bad. It’s freedom and comfort and safety, all the things she’d forgotten how to have, everything she hadn’t known she could have until Lisa offered it to her wholeheartedly. Jennie can’t help the tears that well up in her eyes.

“You okay?” Jisoo asks over the pandemonium that is their wedding reception.

Jennie smiles big and silly. “I’m happy!”

Jisoo grins and resumes her ridiculous wiggling before being knocked over by Chaeyoung, who wastes no time cajoling her into jumping to the beat. Jennie almost dies laughing at the disgruntled look Jisoo’s trying to fake as she jumps with Chaeyoung, body ramrod straight. Her mom cuts in with a look of glee on her face, and Jennie allows her to coax her into overexaggerated swaying, off beat and stumbling. They get caught in a group of children dancing in circles, and Jennie revels in the youth on her mom’s face as they go with it.

“Sweetheart,” her mom whispers in her ear as soon as the tide of gleeful people finally carries them to a relatively peaceful corner. She pulls back and cups Jennie’s face. “I’m so proud to be your mom.”

Jennie cradles her elbows and doesn’t try to stop her tears from overflowing because of what it took to get here, how it almost tore them apart, how she and Lisa fought to have her in their corner.

“I love you,” Jennie tells her.

Her mom beams. “I love you. And I love Lisa, too. I love who you are to each other.”

Jennie knows she means it, can see it in the way her eyes shine, can feel it in the warmth of her hands. She holds her mother close until a gentle cough invites them back into the chaos, and they both turn to acknowledge Marco and Chitthip.

“Your wife’s been dragged somewhere,” Chitthip laughs.

Jennie finds Lisa in the midst of the dance circle, a child on her shoulders, eyes already looking at her, a sheepish smile on her lips. Lisa flashes her a thumbs up and tilts her head, and Jennie nods, waves a hand, I’m okay. Lisa smiles widely and taps the child’s knee, give me a minute. Jennie nods dazedly, her thoughts suddenly overtaken by a single question; what if they had a family?

“Thinking about giving us grandchildren?”

Jennie almost breaks her neck as she whips around to see all three parents looking at her with varying degrees of mischief and mirth. She can’t even tell who asked the question, not that it matters considering she might have just swallowed her whole tongue in shock.

“I worry about you if that’s the case. I mean, look at her,” Chitthip gestures at Lisa, who’s half wrapped in children and encouraging them to abandon any shyness the kids may have had. “Can you imagine the chaos she’ll cause?”

Jennie knows her face has burst into a stark, firetruck red. “I’m not sure we’re there yet.”

Her mom nods. “I’m not sure I’m ready to be a grandmother, but it would be lovely to have someone to spoil.”

“Lisa’s not going to be happy about us teasing her wife,” Marco, bless him, interjects before turning to Jennie with a proffered hand. “Would you dance with me, Mrs. Kim-Manoban?”

Jennie sees the out he’s offering and hastily takes his hand. “Yes, please,” she very nearly begs to the sound of the mothers’ combined laughter.

Marco, as it turns out, is a very graceful dancer. He leads her closer to where Lisa is before settling for a rhythm that allows Jennie to enjoy the movements without worrying about missing a step or stumbling into someone. He has always been a man of few words, but Jennie understands why Lisa has never doubted whether or not her father loves her. There’s a tenderness to the way he holds her, a protectiveness to the way he moves her out of the way of the crowd, a quiet kind of happiness to the way he smiles at her. Jennie revels in his encompassing warmth, and when he tells her bashfully that he’s glad to have her in the family, she forgets that she was ever without a father.

Jennie doesn’t really know how it happens. All she knows is that Marco coaxed her into a spin and when she stopped, she found herself in Lisa’s arms.

“Hey,” Lisa greets, utter joy etched in every line of her 34-year-old face. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Well, it is our wedding. Where else would I be?” She answers without missing a beat.

Lisa wraps an arm around her waist, and Jennie drapes her arms over her shoulders. They dance to their own rhythm, not even noticing the spotlight that found them or the swift change in the music they forced the DJ to make. Jennie can’t find it in herself to look away from Lisa, from the happy flush on her cheeks, from the way she looks at her with unequivocal promises; I choose you, I do, I love you.

“We’re married,” Jennie says with a breathless chuckle.

Lisa’s grin widens, and Jennie wishes she could pocket this image and carry it with her wherever she goes. “We are. Lucky you, huh?” She teases.

Jennie doesn’t rise to the bait because it’s true. “Lucky me.”

Lisa, the incorrigible flirt, actually blushes. “You’re gonna make me fall stupid in love with you again if you keep saying things like that, Nini,” she warns, a trace of Marco in the way she seems just a little bit shy.

Jennie pulls her closer. “Please do,” she says, loving the way the blush on Lisa’s cheeks spreads to her neck. “I promise I’ll catch you.”

“Jennie, I’m literally going to die,” Lisa deadpans, ducking her head to hide into Jennie’s neck. “You’re not nearly this sappy on a regular enough basis that I’d actually be used to it.”

Jennie muffles her laughter into her shoulder. “Well, now you have an entire lifetime with me to get used to it.”

She feels Lisa smile against her skin. “Sounds like a dream.”

“It’s real,” she whispers, more for her benefit than Lisa’s. “We made it. We won. Lili,” she coos. “I get to have you forever.”

Lisa pulls back just to kiss her in the way she always does when she’s too overwhelmed to tell Jennie how she feels. Jennie kisses her back because she can, because they’re surrounded by the people they love, because this is exactly what freedom feels like.

🌜

Lisa stumbles into their apartment, drained and exhausted from a full day of standing on stages, trying to change minds, and battling her way through stubborn cameras.

Jennie isn’t home yet, still caught up in the interview she has with Chaeyoung. Lisa fumbles with her phone as she goes around greeting all their pets, shooting a quick text, still busy? Don’t forget to eat, love.

She rummages for the comfiest clothes she can find, stopping for a minute when she spots the cats climbing up their bed. She scratches Lego’s ear before she feels cold and damp snouts nudge at her leg. She bends down to give scratches to Kuma and Love.

“I know, I’ll feed all of you. Give me a sec to take a bath, yeah? I stink,” she mutters.

The bath is a blessing, and she’s glad she insisted on the bigger tub when they were getting their furniture. She smiles to herself at the memory of an affronted Jennie when she told her that she needs more space considering the length of her legs. Jennie had sulked all the way to the checkout counter, only relenting when Lisa told her that she likes their height difference, the way she fits against her.

Lisa checks her phone before jumping into the shower.

On my way home. I better not find your shoes scattered by the front door, Lili.

She smiles, some part of her easing back into place.

It’s been two years, Lisa muses as she lets the shower wash off the layer of sweat and dirt on her body.

Two years of trying to change their world because it was the only way she and Jennie could love each other without being afraid. It’s an excruciatingly slow process to reach into someone who doesn’t understand and try to find a part of them that might be willing to see that they aren’t wrong for wanting a world where it’s safe for anyone to be with who they love. Showing support for anyone who fought for their rights hadn’t been enough. All four of them had to step into the frontlines and face the world head-on.

Chaeyoung released songs and appealed to the music industry because if there’s anything that can unite a people, it would be a song that resonates, invites, and empowers. Jisoo accepted roles from independent studios that sought to bring awareness through media because it was the best way to reach a bigger audience. Jennie tugged at her connections as well as her mother’s and made their ideas a reality, brought in the financial support that their programs needed, and organized events in various industries not only to raise awareness but also to drive donations to affected groups. She believed that they didn’t need to wait for their government to do something, anything, to help those who needed it. Lisa ended up with anything youth-related. She taught dance classes, went out on outreach programs, spoke in seminars and workshops and just about anything that gave her a way to speak from the heart because if change isn’t gonna happen during their lifetime, then the least they can do is make sure that the next generation is well-equipped to create the world they envisioned.

Not everyone was happy with what they’d been doing. They’ve been subjected to the worst verbal attacks they’ve received throughout their career, been criticized and scrutinized from every possible angle, lost friends along the way. They’re both hated and loved, and they’ve learned to focus on who gave the love they needed to make it through another day, to allow their voices to drown out anything that’s being spat at them, to strengthen the relationships that mattered most.

A relieved sigh flows out of her mouth the moment she sinks into the tub, the warm water doing wonders to her body. Being at the head of a revolution is exhausting, and often, she has had to settle for any form of comfort she can get.

Sometimes, in small, insignificant moments, she thinks about giving up. She wonders if they could have settled for love in nooks and crannies, anywhere the light can’t reach, everywhere they won’t be seen. She leans back against the tub, closes her eyes, and wonders if that would have been enough.

“Li?”

An instant smile chases away her thoughts. “In here.”

It takes a handful of minutes, but Lisa opens her eyes just in time to see Jennie slip into the bathroom with the deftness and swiftness of someone who’s used to trying to keep the pets out of rooms. Lisa chuckles when Jennie grimaces a little at the betrayed meow from the other side.

“Hey,” she says quietly, wincing internally at the hint of weariness in her own voice.

Jennie puts her clothes on the counter beside Lisa’s pile and hangs up her towel before marching straight at her. Jennie cups her jaw and coaxes her up to meet her halfway, and Lisa catches something fierce in her eyes before she’s swept up in a kiss. Jennie nibbles at her bottom lip, licks inside her mouth, cards her fingers through Lisa’s damp hair; I need you. A muffled sound leaves Lisa’s throat, and she reaches up a hand to grab Jennie’s collar, drags her closer; take what you need.

Lisa’s panting by the time Jennie lets up and rests her forehead against hers.

“Hard day?” Lisa breathes against her lips, hand moving to cup the side of Jennie’s neck, thumb pressed lightly on her pulse.

Jennie sighs and sinks to her knees beside the tub before taking the hand Lisa has on her neck and holding it. She shakes her head. “It was just… a lot.”

“How did the interview go?”

Jennie rolls her eyes. “I’m pretty sure we spent half of it being mocked before the editor-in-chief finally realized what was happening. She stepped in and apologized. We had to restart and she had to take over, but I’d rather that than waste my time talking to someone who isn’t really listening.”

“You didn’t stab anyone, did you?” Lisa teases, earning a half-smile.

“No, I don’t think a murder charge will help us right now. Rosie was definitely thinking about it though.”

Lisa snorts fondly, knowing how protective Chaeyoung has gotten since they began trying to change the world. “We’re lucky Chu wasn’t there then. She wouldn’t have thought about it. At least Chaeng hesitates.”

This time, Jennie chuckles. “That’s true.”

Lisa leans forward, smirking a little when Jennie’s eyes drop helplessly on her chest. She kisses her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “Join me?”

Jennie squeezes her hand. “Yeah. Tell me about your day while I shower,” she gets up, groaning softly. “You haven’t fed the pets, have you?”

Lisa shakes her head, momentarily speechless as she watches Jennie strip off her clothes. “I will later,” she answers then clicks her tongue. “You drive me crazy.”

Jennie sweeps her hair to one side to expose the length of her back, knowing exactly how to push Lisa’s buttons. She looks at her over her shoulder with something that makes Lisa forget about everything else. “Good.”

Lisa may or may not have choked on her tongue, only managing to collect herself when Jennie lets out an amused laugh before prodding her to tell her about her day. So she does. She has to talk over the sound of the shower but she manages to tell her about the shy boy in her dance class who tried not to die when he asked her about crushes all the while staring at another boy, about being so strangely moved that he felt safe enough to ask her, about how she nearly cried when he told her that she made him feel brave enough to tell his parents about being gay.

“Did it go well for him?” Jennie asks as she steps out of the shower before padding over to Lisa and urging her to scoot forward.

“Yeah. Apparently, his parents threw him a coming-out party,” Lisa says before pressing her back against Jennie’s front.

Jennie holds her close, shivering lightly when Lisa turns her head to press a kiss against her neck. “That’s cute.”

Lisa hums, tired but content. Jennie sighs, dropping her chin on Lisa’s shoulder.

“I missed you today,” Jennie murmurs. “I wanted to have you with me.”

Would it have been enough?

Lisa nuzzles in. “I’m sorry we can’t yet, but I would have been there if I could.”

It’s maybe the most challenging part of changing minds. They had to learn when to push and when to retreat, a constant balancing act.

Jennie holds her closer, kisses her shoulder. “I know,” she whispers. “But we’re getting somewhere, aren’t we?”

Lisa thinks about the boy in her class, the dad who asked Jennie last week how he should react if his daughter ever came out to him, the letters they get from fans who wanted to tell them their stories. At the same time, she thinks about being able to love Jennie the way she deserves to be loved, building a life with her, everything that they can have without worrying about red tapes.

No, Lisa realizes, it wouldn’t have been enough.

She breathes easier, sinks deeper against Jennie. “We are. It’ll happen. It’s already happening. And one day, I swear I’ll marry you.”

“How are you so sure I’ll say yes to you?”

“Please, have you seen me?”

Jennie’s hands start wandering. She hums. “Good point. I guess it’s worth considering.”

“Also, I think I’d actually be an idiot if I let you go… Again.”

She shudders at the memory. Jennie huffs out a laugh, soothing her hands against Lisa’s waist.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jennie warns. “I’d really rather forget that ever happened. We don’t need to go back to that.”

“God, yeah. Worst year of my life.”

“So, I guess we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing? You’re not tired yet?”

Something about the way she asks tells Lisa that Jennie had known what she’d been thinking before she came home. Lisa doesn’t know how, but she’s glad that it didn’t have to be said. She pulls away to turn around, tugging Jennie onto her lap, wrapping her arms around her waist, and laying her head on her shoulder.

“I am,” she answers honestly. “But I just need this. You. Always.”

Jennie wraps herself around Lisa. “I’m here. For as long as you’ll have me.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Lalisa.”

--------------------

It happens on a random afternoon.

Jennie had known that today is an important day.

All four of them decided not to go to the rally despite wanting so badly to be there because ultimately, they didn’t want to drown out the voices that needed to be heard or take the attention from what matters. Instead, they decided to act as if it was a normal day. Jennie found it hilarious that in spite of everything they said, she knew for a fact that they were all in Seoul, doing one mindless thing or another. She didn’t really have the moral high ground to say anything though, considering she was the only one who had decided that she would stay in the apartment she shares with Lisa and take today off.

In her defense, Jennie has spent the first three years of her thirties battling and hauling and dragging a kicking and screaming country to the future she wanted to see. She deserves to take a damn day off.

So, there she was, pacing restlessly in front of the TV, holding her breath along with millions of others, one of her pockets weighed down with a ring box that doubles as her lucky charm.

She suddenly regrets insisting that Lisa should be somewhere out there doing something, but then again, an anxious Lisa is a nightmare, and Jennie didn’t really want to watch her try to burn their apartment building down in an attempt to get the nervous energy out. Jennie knows she’s somewhere close though because she took all three of their dogs out and was wearing casual clothes that probably did little to nothing to hide who she is.

The reporters are talking about the thousands of people that showed up to see the results of years of blood, sweat, and tears spent fighting for their rights. The crowd is chanting, and Jennie feels her heart beat alongside them, a strange sensation she’d never known she could feel, a sort of awareness that she’s part of something big, something far more than she is on her own, something impregnable and unstoppable.

Suddenly, everything falls silent, and when Jennie’s lungs stop working, she feels as if she’s right there, standing side by side with a crowd now waiting with bated breath.

The cameras pan to a single person who could decide what course their lives will take.

For a single, heart-stopping, breathless moment, Jennie throws all of her faith skyward; God, please, I just want to marry her.

“Today, I’m proud and happy to say that we’ve brought up our LGBTQIA+ community to heights we wouldn’t have been able to imagine just a decade ago. We thank everyone who made an effort, big or small, in public or in private, as an individual or as a group. We also thank the Assembly members who voted, as a majority, in support of same-sex marriage today.”

Whatever else he had to say is inaudible.

The country roars, loud and fierce and reverberating across the land, and Jennie, in tears before she can fully process what’s been decided, thinks pride.

Maybe this is why it’s called pride.

Jennie can hear the world around her, the way it bursts to life, the way it pours out all the love that’s been waiting for the moment it can be declared proudly from the rooftops. Cheers in the hallway, yells from balconies, feet rushing through the length of the hallway.

Their front door bangs open, and there she is, all the reason Jennie has for everything she did.

An incoherent yell leaves Lisa’s lips as soon as she kicks the door closed and starts stumbling her way to her.

“Tell me you heard what I did,” Jennie begs.

Lisa falls into her, chest heaving with whatever it took for her to get here as soon as possible.

“Jennie,” she yells yet again. “Jennie.”

Jennie’s legs give out under her, and Lisa follows her all the way down. She grasps at anything she can hold onto – Lisa’s hoodie, Lisa’s skin, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa.

“We won,” she cries to the sound of a thousand others screaming and sobbing. “We did it.”

I can marry you.

She doesn’t even need to think about it, doesn’t give a fuck if it’s cliché, doesn’t care for anything other than dragging another dream into reality.

Jennie pulls back, digs a hand into her pocket, and snaps open the ring box.

“Lisa,” she breathes, pleads, begs. She had an entire speech, can’t remember any of it now, doesn’t matter anyway. “Marry me?”

Jennie will never forget the face Lisa makes.

Lisa chokes on nothing, face flushing a bright red, eyes nearly falling out of their sockets. When she finally manages to scrape something coherent together, it’s not the one word Jennie was looking for.

“I can’t believe you!” Lisa says indignantly, loudly.

For a second, Jennie blanks. No thoughts. Restarts. “Wha—”

“I was supposed to do it first!”

Jennie nearly slaps her. “Says who?” She screeches, equally indignant now.

“I was planning it with Jisoo and Chaeyoung!” Lisa blubbers through the tears Jennie doesn’t know when she started crying. “We were supposed to go to Hawaii, and I was supposed to ask you there. I made reservations.”

Jennie doesn’t really know how any of that is relevant right now, and she opens her mouth to say exactly that, but Lisa, for the second time in under a minute, renders her speechless. She shoves a hand in her own pocket and nearly thrusts a ring into Jennie’s face.

“It’s not even done yet,” Lisa mutters defeatedly, wiping her face messily, her other hand shaking as she holds out the ring out for Jennie to see it in its all its flawed glory. “I’ve been working on this for months, and I thought I’d have time to make it better than it is because I know you love handcrafted things. But you just—”

The bottom of the band bends slightly inward, the metal on the left side of the single diamond on top hasn’t been polished, and it’s really, truly, honestly the best thing Jennie’s ever seen.

“You made this?” Jennie asks shakily, feeling so many things at once.

“I know it’s not perfect and I’m still going to work on it, but yes,” Lisa says before wiping her face again and straightening her spine. “It was never a question to me; I’ve known forever that I want to marry you. And now—” her breath hitches and Jennie’s crying all over again. “Now we can. Jennie, will you marry me?”

Jennie grins and cries, can’t keep up with everything that’s happening. “I asked you first,” she says as matter-of-factly as she can.

Lisa looks flabbergasted, and Jennie bursts out laughing because it’s silly, they’re so silly. She wraps a hand around the one Lisa’s using to hold out the ring, tugs her closer. Lisa pushes forward until Jennie’s on her back, laughing in between messy kisses, both of them smiling too widely to even catch a rhythm.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” Lisa gasps against her mouth. “Will you—”

Jennie steals the question from her lips. “Yes. Yes.”

They fumble, both of them unwilling to be parted for longer than necessary, coming back to each other again and again until they’re breathless, ring fingers getting used to the new, affirming weight of a promise solidified into metal and stone. Lisa weeps quietly, a soft, relieved thing, and Jennie wraps her arms around her neck, lets her rest her weight against her, something proud and tender in her heart. They’re both trembling and bursting at the seams, more in love than they’ve ever been.

“I can’t wait to live the rest of my life with you,” Jennie presses into her ear, words stumbling and shaky but sincere.

Lisa pulls back, and Jennie smiles as she swipes a thumb across her wet cheeks. She looks so bright and so beautiful, so young and so hopeful, that Jennie believes that they might actually have forever.

“We’re getting married!” Lisa declares, a laugh in her voice.

The front door bangs open for the second time that day.

Jennie startles badly enough to push Lisa off of her, shooting her an apologetic look at the oof that rushes out of Lisa’s lungs. She looks up just in time to see Jisoo and Chaeyoung crash into each other as they fight their way into the narrow front door. Chaeyoung recovers first, and the newly engaged couple barely has time to prepare before there’s a fully grown woman throwing her entire body onto them.

“Did you hear?” Chaeyoung asks excitedly, giggling and crying. “I’m so happy!”

“We did!” Lisa answers, vibrating right along with her.

Jisoo stands a couple of feet from the impromptu cuddle pile with a wide grin on her face. Jennie sees the moment her eyes rest on the hand Lisa has on Chaeyoung’s back. Her face blanks, much to Jennie’s amusement.

“Wait—” Jisoo marches over to them and grabs Lisa’s wrist. She looks at the ring then at Jennie then back again. “Are you—Did you—”

Jennie laughs underneath half of Chaeyoung, wheezing almost. “She said yes.”

Jisoo sputters, and Chaeyoung pushes herself up with her flimsy-looking arms. Jennie shows them the ring Lisa made for her, and Jisoo’s jaw drops in shock.

There’s a beat of stunned silence.

And then, Chaeyoung’s squealing, reaching a pitch Jennie didn’t even think she could hit, before she’s throwing herself back into their arms.

“Chaeng, my ears are bleeding,” Lisa complains but doesn’t really mean it.

“You!” Jisoo points an accusatory finger at Lisa, glaring for all she’s worth. “I’m going to strangle you. Did we—After all that planning. What was the point?”

“It’s Jennie’s fault,” Lisa rushes to say, some form of self-preservation kicking in.

“Rosie, sit up for a minute? I need to make sure Chu doesn’t kill my fiancee.”

Chaeyoung, an incoherent, babbling, squealing mess, complies. “How’d it happen? Tell us everything,” she asks when she finally remembers how to speak.

“Lisa,” Jisoo coos, sickeningly sweet, “come here.”

Lisa scrambles closer to Jennie before putting her hands up. “Uh,” she swallows. “No?”

“I asked first,” Jennie groans as she tries to sit up, some part of her swooning at the way Lisa instantly presses a hand against her back. She presses a kiss on her cheek, loving the instant blush that spreads through Lisa’s already flushed face. Jennie shrugs at Chaeyoung and Jisoo. “I didn’t think about it. It just… felt right to do it,” she continues, cringing a little but doesn’t take it back.

Jisoo clicks her tongue but her lips are trembling with the effort it takes to stamp down a smile. “Of course it did.”

“She was already asking,” Lisa adds, amazement in her eyes like she still can’t believe the turn of events. “What else was I supposed to do?”

Jisoo sighs and throws her hands up. She softens, comes close, and sits on the floor with them.

“Hands,” she demands.

Jennie and Lisa hold each other’s hands.

Jisoo rolls her eyes so hard that Jennie thinks they might never come back around. “I meant, let me see the rings.”

Chaeyoung laughs and coos, switching between two very different sounds like she can’t decide which one to stick with. Jennie rushes to comply and places her hand in Jisoo’s, momentarily caught speechless when she sees her ring resting on Lisa’s hand. Jisoo studies both, this time with a fond smile inching its way up her lips. She tilts her head at the ring around Jennie’s finger.

“Lisa.”

“—I know. I’m gonna keep working on it.”

Jennie tugs Lisa closer by the waist and turns her head just enough to rest her chin on her shoulder. “I love it,” she says and hopes everyone can hear the way she means it.

“I’m glad,” Lisa kisses into her hair.

She hears an exasperated sigh a second before a pair of arms wraps around them both. Chaeyoung’s entrance back into the cuddle pile is less gentle than Jisoo’s, and Jennie distantly worries about Lisa’s lungs when she hears another soft oof before Chaeyoung wraps herself around them all.

“Lisa, I’m gonna be mad at you for years,” Jisoo mutters, voice muffled by someone’s limb; Jennie can’t tell whose because they’re a tangled mess at this point. “But I’m also really happy for you both.”

“I’ll take it,” Lisa says bravely.

“I’m glad all of you are my family,” Chaeyoung says. “I feel so lucky.”

“Chaeng, I’m gonna cry again. Shush,” Lisa grumbles.

“So cry. Today’s a really good day.”

It is, Jennie thinks. It’s an amazing day for family, for love, for happiness.

🌜

Lisa doesn’t know where to go.

She stalls at the airport for as long as possible; spending a quarter of an hour in a washroom, meandering in souvenir shops, insisting to have dinner in the lounge. She had done all that she can to delay leaving the airport, where she can decide to board another flight to someplace else, somewhere that doesn’t feel as unfamiliar and as isolating as Seoul. She wants to go back to Paris where everything is new and nothing seems impossible. She wants to go back to Thailand and stay with her family a little while longer. She wants to go somewhere she’d never been before in hopes of finding what she had lost.

A year ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She wouldn’t have wasted so much time loitering in washrooms and looking at things she doesn’t intend to buy and eating unreasonably expensive food alone. She would have rushed every single person who was tasked to escort her, dragging them if necessary, just to get herself to wherever Jennie was as soon as possible.

But she couldn’t do that now, could she?

It wasn’t anything explosive or destructive or dramatic. In fact, in her best moments, Lisa could convince herself that the decision to break up had been mutual. It was too much. They would have resented each other if they continued to fight for an unraveling relationship. It wasn’t just the pandemic; it was also everything else. The way they couldn’t sit too close to each other, the way they couldn’t look at each other like they normally would behind closed doors, the way they couldn’t go to each other for the simple comfort of holding hands when they were in public. A kind of distance that they could feel down to the last millimeter, one that only grew with schedules that took them to different countries and in the company of different people. One that Jennie cemented when she decided to move back to her mom’s.

You’re leaving?

Yeah. Mom wants me home.

Lisa couldn’t tell her that no one could make Jennie do anything she doesn’t want to do, that Mrs. Kim never approved of them, that this might just be the thing that could kill whatever’s left of their relationship.

Is this it?

I think so. What do you think?

Lisa couldn’t tell her that she thought it was hell, that it wasn’t what she thought would happen to them, that she didn’t want it to be what it turned out to be. But Jennie is tired, and Lisa knew, beneath all the promises she made when they got together, that she felt the same.

I’m sorry.

Jennie had smiled something sad but relieved. I know, I am too.

Lisa doesn’t know what to think of the way they seemed better for it. She’d been both disgusted and amazed at how she found it so much easier to do her work when she didn’t have to worry about how she was conducting herself, how she suddenly had long stretches of time doing nothing in particular, how she doesn’t have to think about what someone else might think if she decides to leave for another country on a whim. For a time, it all made it easier to accept what had happened, to tell herself that it was the right thing to do, to convince herself that they were headed to where they are now anyway.

Except, that’s not the full story.

Lisa hasn’t slept well since they broke up, all too used to having Jennie beside her. She can’t go into certain restaurants or eat one dish or another, a part of her always aware that this is where she and Jennie celebrated their first anniversary or this is the food Jennie left in front of her room when she had to isolate. She couldn’t fully enjoy some things like the release of her solo because she couldn’t call Jennie and tell her about the long hours she spent at the studio or the dancer who just about died with her the first time they were given the choreography or the dread she’d felt when they started filming the music video.

It felt both right and wrong to be without Jennie, and Lisa doesn’t know how to wrap her mind around it.

She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what else she could have done.

She doesn’t know where to go.

“Where to?” Her manager asks as soon as he finally managed to get her in the car.

She looks up at him helplessly. “Can you take me to Jennie’s?” Her heart answers for her.

He stares at her, brows furrowing, lips thinning. Lisa wouldn’t be surprised if he tells her that it wouldn’t be a good idea. It’s true, after all.

But he sighs and turns back around, pauses for a beat or two.

“Okay,” he says, something kind in his voice.

Lisa doesn’t question it and instead wonders if this is the right thing to do.

The city passes her by, a blur of lights and nightlife. She could tell her manager to turn back and say that she doesn’t know what she was thinking. She has turned the past year over and over in her mind, studying it in all its confusing angles, trying to make all its contradictions make some form of logical sense she can accept.

But maybe she shouldn’t? Maybe it’s not up to rationality the way she wants to be with her despite and in spite of everything else? Maybe it doesn’t have to be logical the way she hopes they can find another way? Maybe it just is? Maybe it’s okay? Maybe.

She half listens to her manager tell her that he can handle her luggage, nodding dazedly when he asks her to make sure she has everything she needs for the night. She doesn’t remember getting out of the car, but when she blinks, she finds herself inches away from knocking.

Lisa hesitates.

The door opens anyway.

“Lisa.”

She ducks her head, swallows, looks up again. “Hi, Mrs. Kim.”

The matriarch crosses her arms and doesn’t move away from the doorway like she would have before she found out about their relationship. Lisa doesn’t know what to make of the carefully blank look on her face or how she seems unsurprised to see her.

“Why are you here? It’s late,” Mrs. Kim says but not unkindly.

“I…” Lisa starts and stops. I want to see Jennie. I want you to see how much I love your daughter. I want something to make sense. “I don’t know. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

Mrs. Kim sighs, uncrosses her arms, and holds her own elbows instead, something hard giving way to something soft.

“Are you here to see Jennie?”

“I-I think so,” Lisa answers quietly. “May I?” Please?

Mrs. Kim smiles wryly. “I was relieved, you know?”

Lisa’s confusion grows, a distant throbbing now making itself known in the back of her mind. “Ma’am?”

She sighs again, looks away like she’s… she’s ashamed? Lisa doesn’t know what she has to be ashamed of. She was being a mother, the best she could be for Jennie. This is the reason why Lisa couldn’t bring herself to resent her. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be a parent, but Lisa had watched her own mom carry the sky for her long enough to know that it’s not easy.

“I was relieved when I heard you two broke up. Jen didn’t seem too devastated about it, or at least, that’s what I thought at first. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t even mad at me. She looked like she was glad to be home, and I was relieved,” Mrs. Kim explains. “I thought I was right; this is what’s best for the two of you.”

“Oh, I—” Lisa chokes, suddenly unbearably alone. “Should I leave?”

Mrs. Kim shakes her head. “You were always so quick to jump to conclusions. She’s not okay, Lisa. She’s here, but it always felt like a part of her was somewhere else. She would do things like go out and meet her friends, but it took me a while to realize that she was just doing what was expected of her. She doesn’t talk about you with me. It felt like I didn’t know my own daughter and that I have no one to blame but myself.”

“Mrs. Kim,” Lisa says, unable to take the way she looks so sad. “I’m sorry.”

“I think I should be the one apologizing. I’ve tried everything I can to reach her but I just… I can’t. I don’t understand what it is about you two, but looking at you, I think I understand one thing: it’s not me she needs right now. She won’t say it because you broke up and maybe she doesn’t want to regret it.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Lisa says and believes it even when it leaves something rotten in her mouth.

“But you’re here.”

“I—yes.”

Mrs. Kim reaches for her hand, and Lisa tries not to flinch. “So maybe it was the right to do. At the time. Things change, Lisa. And sometimes, it takes letting something go to know what you’d be willing to give everything to hold onto if you had another chance to do so.”

Lisa’s shoulders drop from her ears, a breath rushing out of her lungs in a half-hearted huff of a laugh. “Not gonna lie, Mrs. Kim. I didn’t really expect this from you.”

She waves her free hand. “As I said, things change, however slowly,” she says a little self-deprecatingly. “I don’t know how she’s going to react to you being here.”

“That’s alright,” Lisa promises, braver for some reason, like Mrs. Kim represents something she can hope for, something that can happen. “I just want to see her. Really.”

“I thought so,” Mrs. Kim tugs at her hand. “Come in then.”

She leads her through the foyer and into the living room. Lisa doesn’t get to sit down before she nearly trips as an overexcited ball of brown fluff attacks her ankles. Mrs. Kim snorts, letting her hand go.

“Kuma,” Lisa breathes, barely managing to drop her bags on the nearest chair before she’s sitting on the carpet with an armful of dog. A tight knot in her chest loosens just a little. “Hi, baby.”

Kuma whines and licks at her face. Kai comes out from nowhere and makes a beeline for Lisa’s lap, stepping over Kuma, circling once, twice, then flops down, forcing Kuma down to the floor. Still whining, Kuma stands on his hind legs and paws at whatever part of Lisa he can reach. Lisa kind of wants to cry.

“You’re not moving from that spot anytime soon,” Mrs. Kim warns.

Lisa looks up at her, vision a little blurry. “It’s okay.”

Mrs. Kim smiles fondly. “Of course it is. Get comfortable then. I’ll go get Jennie.”

“Thank you,” Lisa says, meaning it for more than just letting her in.

Mrs. Kim walks over to pat Lisa’s head. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “Thank you for being here.”

--------------------

Jennie wasn’t doing anything worth mentioning.

That’s been true for most of the year after they broke up.

There was nothing to regret. She watched by the sidelines as Lisa soared, and Jennie couldn’t, for the life of her, regret ending them when she was so, so proud of her. Sure, maybe it still would’ve happened had they stayed together, but Jennie knew from experience that sometimes, life just doesn’t have space for another person to occupy.

She misses her though. It’s not a thing she likes to think about or even admit to herself, keeping the knowledge of it at arm’s length, hoping denial would be enough to make it less true. They still talk about random, senseless, fleeting things, the two of them re-learning how to be around each other. They see each other every once in a while too, but if Jennie were to allow herself some honesty, she would confess that she’d rather they didn’t. It’s not out of bitterness or anger or any of the sort; it’s just that seeing Lisa makes her want to be closer to her than she’s allowed to be. That’s the problem, she supposes. Her life has shifted enough to always have space for Lisa, and Jennie has yet to figure out how to fill it with anything or anyone else. She’s not sure that she can.

Maybe she doesn’t want to. Jennie doesn’t know what to do with whatever that could mean.

So she settles for this strange place of missing Lisa but trying not to, of being happy for her but so sad for what’s become of them, of trying to make the most out of her life but feeling as if it’s not the one she had wanted to live.

“Jen? Can I come in?”

Jennie places the book down on her lap, giving up on trying to pretend that she’d been reading it. She gets up, steadies herself.

She knew that she hasn’t been doing much of anything to repair her relationship with her mother. She tries whenever she can, but like everything else, Jennie has yet to learn how to look at her mother and not think about the limits of her love for her.

Jennie’s not angry. She just can’t stop herself from wondering what it would have changed if her mother had been in their corner, if she had been someone Jennie could talk to about her relationship with Lisa, if her shoulder had been a safe enough place for her to cry when everything got too hard and too complicated for them.

She pulls the door open, and the first thing she sees is her mother’s red-rimmed eyes.

“Mom,” she says, wincing at the ice that crawled up her tone. She swallows, tries again. “Are you okay? Is there anything you need?”

Her mother gives her a sad smile, and Jennie wishes she knew what to say to fix this. “Lisa’s here.”

Jennie reels back in shock, heartbeat stumbling over itself, yet another thing she has yet to learn how to forget. “Here? In the house? You let her in? Is she okay?”

She watches, dazed, as her mother’s eyebrows slant, lips thinning down to a trembling smile. “Yes, here. And yes, I let her in. She seems tired but otherwise okay.”

“Why is she here?” Jennie mutters more to herself than anyone else.

“Well,” her mother sighs… affectionately? “I suspect it’s because she misses you.”

Jennie swallows, aches. “I—oh.”

“Would you like to see her?”

“Is it okay if I do?” Jennie answers without thinking before folding a little into herself. “Sorry, I—”

“Jennie, sweetheart,” her mother cuts her off, stepping closer with her arms open. “Can I hug you?”

Something frays in Jennie’s chest, right where her heart is supposed to be, and oh, something whispers in the back of her mind, a voice so small and so innocent that she could barely hear it, I miss this too. She barely manages to nod before she’s wrapped up in her mother’s arms, warm and tender, the way she used to hold her.

“There are so many things I want to say to you,” her mother presses against her temple. “But for now, know that I love you.”

Jennie grips the back of her shirt. “But…?”

Arms tighten around her, limbs trembling with the effort, the fierceness, the certainty. “But nothing. I love you; whatever you decide to do, whoever you turn out to be, whoever you love. No more ifs or buts. You’re my daughter, and I love you.”

Jennie grits her teeth, burrows deeper into her, searches for the right thing to say. “Mom, I—” the words stall at her throat, suddenly too overwhelmed.

Her mother shushes her. “Later. Or tomorrow. We’ll have time to talk, but for now, someone’s waiting to see you,” she pulls back and cups Jennie’s cheek. “I think you’ve been waiting to see her too.”

Jennie’s watery eyes fall to her feet. “I don’t know if it’s right for me to.”

“Nothing right or wrong about this, sweetheart. There’s only what you want to do. Sometimes, that’s enough. And I think you want to see her, don’t you?”

Jennie claws at her chest, fingertips pressed at the space where Lisa used to be. She nods shyly.

“Well, go on then,” her mother nudges her out the door. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

She starts walking away, and Jennie might never forgive herself if—

She grabs her mother’s hand, the first time in a very long time that she’s reached out to her in any way. “I love you too, Mom.”

Her mother squeezes her hand. “I know. Go.”

Jennie tries not to hope for anything. Lisa’s here and that should be enough, she tells herself as she makes her way down the stairs. She’s here to see her, and that’s more than she can ask for.

She finds her in the living room, sitting on the carpeted floor, Kuma and Kai snoozing on her lap. Jennie freezes just out of sight, taking a moment to breathe or process or something. She settles for looking at Lisa, taking her in from a distance she wants to close. She knows that she just came back from celebrating her birthday with her family, and maybe that’s why she looks so tired. Her back is bent as she soothes her hands over the dogs, a sad smile on her lips. Jennie’s chest aches, pushing a quiet whimper past her lips.

Lisa looks up at the sound, searching, and Jennie steps out of the corner, watches as Lisa’s eyes rest on her in an instant.

Lisa just… She just starts crying.

Jennie’s heart drops to her feet, and she’s crossing the space before she can think about it, falling on her knees in front of Lisa, scaring the dogs into moving a couple of feet away from them.

“Oh, love,” Jennie breathes, tears in her eyes, hands hovering, unsure if she’s allowed to hold.

Lisa looks brokenly up at her, hides her face into her hands, elbows crashing down on the top of her knees, and suddenly, it doesn’t matter. Jennie can’t fathom why she should be thinking about what she can and cannot do when the answer is right in front of her, when she can put a hand on Lisa’s back and guide her to her chest, when she can wrap her arms around her. So she does all of these things, allowing Lisa to be small and sad against her, allowing herself to miss having Lisa against her like this.

A primal, incoherent sound echoes through the space around them. It takes Jennie a moment to realize that it’s coming from her own throat, her body defying logic and rationality to express what she had forcefully ignored; the grief, the love, all of it.

Lisa curls her fingers into the hem of her shirt at the sound, and Jennie wonders, a little desperately, if she’s feeling the same, if this isn’t just falling apart because of too many things piled too high, if maybe Lisa misses her too.

What had they done?

Lisa pulls back, gasps a breath in. “Sorry. I just wanted to see you. I didn’t want to—I didn’t mean to cry.”

“It’s okay, Lili, it’s okay,” Jennie chokes on a sob as she wraps her hands around Lisa’s wrists only to start truly falling apart when Lisa grasps instantly at her fingers.

“I didn’t know where to go,” Lisa cries. “I just wanted to see you because you’re the only thing in my life that ever made sense, but we broke up and it was the right thing to do. So, why,” she cries brokenly at her, “does it feel so wrong to be without you? I don’t know what to do anymore, Jennie.”

All this time, Jennie had thought that Lisa was better for it. But that’s not true, is it? Because if it were, Lisa wouldn’t be here, she wouldn’t be saying all these things, she wouldn’t be breaking down as if it’s been a long time coming.

“I thought you were okay.”

“I thought I was too,” Lisa confesses. “Or… maybe I was forcing myself to be okay with it because I understood why we broke up, you know?”

Jennie nods, a shaky sigh punched out of her lungs. “I know,” she says. “I was trying not to miss you, and sometimes, it felt like the only thing I could do.”

“What should we have done, Ni? What are we going to do?” Lisa whispers, sorrow and frustration in her tone.

Jennie thought it would be harder to stay together. They were naïve when they said yes to each other, drunk on the sense of freedom offered by a foreign country, too young and arrogant to understand exactly how the world could tear them apart.

They have learned since then, and Jennie had watched the way Lisa became so scared that she couldn’t even look at her, had felt the same kind of fear whenever she unthinkingly reached out to touch her. More than anything, she’d been terrified of the way she had begun to think about what it would be like if she wasn’t in a relationship with Lisa and the way she could almost hear the same question at the tip of Lisa’s tongue.

It was never a question that had to be answered in the way they did. Maybe they could have talked about it. Maybe they could have figured out a way to stay together. Maybe there’s another way.

Or maybe they could make another way.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Jennie says, suddenly certain.

Lisa flinches. “I know, I’m sorry. I-I’ll go.”

Jennie grips the hands in hers, lifts them to her lips, kisses Lisa’s fingertips with all the tenderness that had nowhere to go for the past year. “I don’t want you to go,” she confesses, hoping it’s a truth that could change things, stop them from going back to the way they’ve been.

Lisa whimpers, drops her head on Jennie’s shoulder. “I don’t want to go. I just… I want to stay with you. I’m sorry, Nini.”

It’s not something she should have to apologize for. If they were anyone else, it might have been something to celebrate. But they are who they are, and Jennie understands but loathes it all the same.

“Lisa,” Jennie says, something strong and defiant in her tone. “I love you.”

Lisa inhales sharply. For a single, endless moment, she freezes against her. And then she’s wrapping her arms around her waist, tugging and pulling until Jennie’s sitting on her lap, the admission taken as the permission that it is; be with me. Jennie moves because she knows what Lisa wants, knows how to be with her because she couldn’t forget no matter how hard she tried.

The first kiss lands on Jennie’s jaw, a question pressed into her skin, can I? Jennie turns her head, meets her still-parted lips, yes. Yes, please. Lisa holds her closer, kisses her like she’s trying to make up for the year they couldn’t be as close to each other as they are now, the pace feverish, desperate, and unrelenting. Jennie wraps her arms around Lisa’s neck, claws at her back, and meets her again and again.

“Jennie,” Lisa mutters into her mouth. “Jennie.”

Jennie drags her lips across Lisa’s cheeks to the shell of her ear. “I know,” she answers in between kisses and tears.

Lisa shudders, starts crying again. “I love you.”

Jennie falls apart a little more at that, heart climbing to her throat, and she kisses Lisa until they’re both breathless and panting, desperate and crying, so in love that it hurts.

“I don’t want to be without you anymore,” Jennie says, scared to go back to the way they were.

Lisa shakes her head, still desperate. “We can’t do the same thing all over again. We know how it ends; we lived through it. I can’t… I don’t know how I’ll live with myself if you ended up resenting me, Nini.”

Jennie could promise that she could never, could promise that she will love her no matter what, could promise a whole lot of things she doesn’t know if the world will allow her to keep. She doesn’t because though they may be battered and bruised, they have learned, paid a high price for the knowledge they now have.

“So we won’t do the same thing. We’ve tried what everyone else wanted us to do, and I-I hated it. I don’t care what we have to do,” Jennie fits Lisa’s jaw against her palms, begging her to understand. “I just want you.”

The tension in Lisa’s shoulders finally seeps out of her, and she falls against and into Jennie. “Do you think we can find another way? Do you think we could actually fight for this? Risk all of it?”

“I don’t know,” Jennie says truthfully. “But we can try, can’t we?”

Lisa nods once, hands slipping underneath Jennie’s shirt like she needs to be closer.

“It’ll be hard,” Jennie whispers, repeating the same thing she’d said three years ago, this time with the awareness of someone who has had to learn certain lessons the hard way.

“It was harder to be without you,” Lisa answers instantly.

Jennie kisses whatever part of her she can reach; her temple, her ear, her shoulder. Lisa’s fingers dig into her skin, nails dragging down her back, coaxing a moan Jennie has to muffle into her shirt. They hold each other until something gives way, until their tears and sadness and fear fade into nothing, until they’re holding just for the sake of holding.

“I know there’s a lot we still have to talk about, but can I stay here for the night?” Lisa asks. “Not for…that. I’m just really, really tired, and I think I might actually die if I have to wake up to another day without you.”

Jennie starts chuckling, pulling back just so she can look at Lisa’s face, see the smile she’s trying to hide, trace it with her fingertips.

“I missed you,” Jennie says softly.

Lisa looks at her the way she used to, all love and affection underneath the fatigue she must be feeling. “I missed you, too.”

“We’ll try again?” She asks, just to make sure.

Lisa kisses her slowly and settles back into the space in Jennie’s life that was always meant for her.

“Please.”

🌜

Lisa hates crushes. Loathes it, in fact.

For as long as she can remember, having a crush on someone never boded well for her. It’s not the potential rejection that scares the living daylights out of her (although that’s definitely a factor); it’s the sheer embarrassment she’s sure to put herself through.

If anyone were to ask her how she knew that writing rap verses was something she could do, her standard answer would be that it was always something she was curious about. Except, that’s not the truth at all. She knew she could at least write something decent because there was a girl back in her elementary school days that just made her want to pour her young, dumb heart out on paper. She wrote a poem. And actually read it out loud to her. In public.

It would have been sweet if the poem made any sense at all. Or if the girl said literally anything else other than the aww, Lali, you’re such a good friend that she ended up getting.

There was another girl, and Lisa doesn’t even wanna think about that, wants to bleach her brain and burn the memory of doing dumb shit just to get the girl to laugh. (She did. It was not a very nice laugh.)

To this day, Lisa doesn’t know what the fuck she was thinking. Or maybe that’s the problem. Having a crush on someone made her impulsive, tongue-tied, and dumb. Literally the worst possible combination of things to be.

It’s not a problem Lisa has had to deal with in recent years. Thankfully.

She’s been too busy training then debuting then recording then touring that there really was no time for crushing. If, for example, she was crushing on someone (one person in particular), it had been easy to ignore.

If, say, that someone does something that makes Lisa feel like she definitely has a crush on her, Lisa could always say that no normal human being can resist at least a little attraction to her dancing or singing or… breathing. If that same someone did anything sweet for Lisa that she doesn’t do with anyone else, then Lisa will try very, very hard not to overthink it and accept it as it is. If that someone then takes it up a notch and does things like flirt with her on stage and backstage, well, Lisa can just claim it’s all for the sake of entertainment.

Vigorous denial, willful ignorance, and maybe a desperate prayer to whatever deity cares enough to listen is how Lisa has survived for years. It’s how she has managed to avoid making assumptions and dodge any crumb of hope tossed straight to her face. It‘s safer that way because if, god forbid, she yearns, then she may as well dig a six-foot deep hole and maybe even order a custom headstone to go with it.

She was doing so well, mastered the art of not-crushing, nailed all the techniques down to a tee.

And then, Jennie goes and does something like read an entire speech written in Thai, in front of thousands of people, for her.

It’s the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Years of effort down the drain. Hope loaded into a canon and fired straight at her at point-blank range. Yearning injected straight into her heart.

She was so nervous too, Lisa groans to herself, wishing she could palm her face.

She had employed every defense tactic she knew. Jennie would do the same for Jisoo and Chaeyoung, Lisa reasoned as she waved and smiled at the fans after the encore stage. Jennie’s just really, heart-wrenchingly sweet, Lisa argued all throughout the couple of days they had before boarding another plane this time to Hawaii. Jennie’s way, way out of her league, Lisa insisted to absolutely no one the entire seven-hour ride.

At least one of these and hundreds of other rationalizations should have worked.

Except, Lisa may or may not have forgotten that crushes aren’t really meant to be buried. It gives it fertile ground to take root, nurtured by the innumerable moments that Lisa rationalized then carelessly tossed out, growing and growing until Lisa’s staring at a big ass, honest to God beanstalk even Jack would hesitate to climb.

Which leads her to her current predicament.

Lisa helplessly stares at Jennie now clad in a black dress that should be illegal. Lisa gets that it’s hot and no one sane should be walking around in long sleeves and jeans. But Lisa’s convinced that it wouldn’t have made a difference considering she should really be burning in hell for how shamelessly she stares at her friend.

And then, as fate would have it, she’s seated beside Jennie for dinner. Honestly, Lisa might die, with or without a custom headstone.

Is she being dramatic? Yes.

But is she being dramatic because she’s well and truly fucked? Hell yes.

She’s not even sure if she can call it a crush anymore.

Lisa tries not to think about it because realizing that she’s in love with Jennie in the middle of dinner is how she’s really going to end up signing her own death certificate.

It’s already a mess because Lisa can’t keep it together; taking pictures of everyone and everything else before Jennie because it’s exceedingly hard for Lisa to remember to press the shutter button when she’s staring right at her and Jennie’s looking at the camera like that; saying “tumbling” instead of “dumpling” because Lisa’s tongue won’t cooperate (though Jennie did almost choke on her drink for that one so maybe it’s not that bad); unintentionally glaring at the waiter for being too close to Jennie, which, he has to be because how else is he supposed to give Jennie her food?

She barely manages to scrape together a single, functioning brain cell by the time they move out of the restaurant and into another venue for the games.

“Are you okay?” Chaeyoung asks as they wait for their cue to step into frame. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m always weird,” Lisa responds, hoping she hasn’t been that obvious.

Chaeyoung nods like Lisa had just given her an irrefutable fact of life and thankfully leaves it at that.

Some god must have heard her prayers though because she and Jennie are seated as far apart as they could possibly be. She’s not going to deny wishing they sat closer together, and that is exactly why crushes are so inconvenient.

Still, she powers through it, and she’s actually starting to believe that she just might make it through the day after all.

And then, Jennie gives her the chocolates she won.

“It’s for you,” Jennie offers, smiling a little at the shock Lisa doesn’t manage to hide.

“Really?” Lisa is… she’s definitely not swooning. Nah. Nope. She’s stronger than this. She’s not gonna fall completely and absolutely head over heels for someone over chocolates.

“Yeah, you love chocolate,” Jennie says softly, completely oblivious to the internal screaming and wiggling that Lisa’s desperately trying to hide.

Lisa takes the chocolates but not before glancing down and making sure that her knee won’t meet the sharp end of the coffee table because if she’s definitely not swooning, then there’s absolutely no reason for her to somehow bang her knee against furniture (Jennie would do the same for Jisoo if she got milk instead, Jennie’s just really sweet, Jennie’s just doing it for the cameras…).

Her single brain cell can’t possibly handle the task of denying whatever strange feelings she’s having and perform at a memory game, so when she fails to say “straw hat” like she can’t speak multiple languages, Lisa completely and utterly gives up.

What else was there to do?

Jennie is… Jennie. She’ll always smile as warmly as she does now, swallowing whatever exhaustion she might feel so that she can thank the crew and staff who came with them. She’ll always pinch herself awake to listen to Chaeyoung’s endless stories on the way back to the place that’ll be home for the next seven days. She’ll always coax and cajole Jisoo into the bathroom so she doesn’t end up falling asleep on the couch without changing her clothes or removing her makeup.

She’ll always keep doing things like putting the kettle on as they wait for Jisoo and Chaeyoung to vacate the only two bathrooms in the suite, unearthing two packets of hot chocolate from somewhere deep in her luggage, and stirring them into two mugs; one of which she hands to Lisa without prompting.

“Tired?” Jennie asks as she takes a seat beside her on the balcony.

Lisa wants to tell her that she’s probably way past just tired, that it took everything in her to not overthink but ended up doing it anyway, that it’s very hard to keep a crush under control when Jennie makes it so easy to fall in love with her.

She settles for an all-encompassing, soul-deep groan instead.

Jennie chuckles, closes her eyes to the light breeze that finds its way to them, looking every bit like someone Lisa would write poems for.

Really, what else was there to do?

Give in. That’s what. There’s no denying it, no rationalizing it, no escaping it. Jennie is Jennie, and Lisa thinks that she’s been doomed for longer than she cares to admit.

“What?” Jennie asks with a confused smile and a blush on her cheeks when she catches Lisa staring.

Impulsive, tongue-tied, and dumb, Lisa shakes her head and doesn’t look away.

She wants to tell her that she’s so beautiful that it hurts to look at her. “You’ve got Chanel-branded eye bags,” she says instead.

Jennie pouts, and Lisa really wants to lean over and kiss her. She stamps it down with a snort, except that’s a mistake because she’s also in the middle of drinking hot chocolate. She can feel a resigned almost distant kind of horror when the liquid that’s supposed to go down her throat dribbles down her nose instead. She doesn’t even hurry to put her mug down. She coughs and tries not to spill her drink before wiping at her nose with all the calmness of someone who expected nothing less to happen.

Lisa smiles sheepishly at Jennie who’s looking at her like she’d grown another head before bursting into laughter.

“What are you even doing, Lisa-yah?” She asks in between breathless giggles that does nothing good for Lisa’s poor, stupid heart.

Falling in love with you. “It’s your fault, you know.”

Jennie wipes a finger at a Chanel-branded eye bag before raising a brow at her “How is it my fault?”

Lisa gestures vaguely at her. “You were being too pretty for my brain cells.”

Jennie instantly blushes and tries to hide it behind the rim of her cup. “You’re so gay,” she sighs.

“For you, yes.”

Lisa kind of wants to give herself a hearty pat on the back for that one.

“Smooth,” Jennie mutters.

“I know right,” Lisa says proudly. “Think you could be gay for me too?”

And okay, she wants to stab herself for that one.

Jennie hums. “Maybe.”

That’s… honestly more than Lisa could ask for. “I’ll take it,” she says vehemently. “It’s a deal. You’re not joking, are you?”

Jennie smirks, a blush still high on her cheeks. “Who knows?"

“Ni,” Lisa whines, puts a hand on her chest. “My heart can’t take all this potentially false hope you’re giving me. It’s your responsibility to do something about this. Take it away or make it real. Save me from the heartache.”

Jennie finishes the last of her hot chocolate before standing from her chair. “Ah, well, when you put it like that,” she trails off as she moves in front of Lisa.

She combs a hand through Lisa’s bangs, anchors a palm on the arm of her chair, bends down a little. Lisa thinks she might actually end up dead when she feels lips press against her forehead, soft and lingering and definitely not good for Lisa’s heart. Jennie pulls back, head slightly tilted like she’s about to say something. Lisa can do nothing but stare dazedly at her.

Jennie opens her mouth only to snap it shut. She shakes her head before smiling something small and fond.

“Good night, Lili,” she says before turning abruptly on her heel and quite literally running away.

“Wha-Wait! Jennie! I thought we were having a moment!”

Lisa gets nothing but rapidly fading footsteps.

Sighing, she turns back to the night sky. The stars wink amusedly at her, laughing at her expense.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lisa glares at them all then touches her forehead and smiles.

Ugh, feelings.

--------------------

Jennie didn’t mean to leave Lisa so abruptly.

She had spent any spare moment they had for the past three days agonizing over it, chastising herself in between filming and meeting dolphins and diving into oceans. Lisa didn’t seem offended or annoyed at her the morning after, and it didn’t sit right with Jennie the way she just accepted it and moved on, acted like nothing mind-boggling happened, even seemed resigned to the whole thing.

Lisa acted as if Jennie didn’t nearly give herself a heart attack over a completely spontaneous forehead kiss, as if she thought that it was just something that Jennie normally did and so accepted it as it is, as if she didn’t think she was anyone special to her.

No, it didn’t sit right with Jennie at all. It’s not about vanity or competitiveness; it’s just that these assumptions couldn’t be farther from the truth. Jennie didn’t say anything about how she felt because it didn’t seem like a thing that they could do something about. Up until three nights ago, she had thought it was a harmless attraction between friends, hopeless before they could even begin, too impossible to even consider. But Lisa had looked at her like something changed, unfettered affection in the way she simply drank her in, a weird kind of acceptance in the way she joked and teased.

Jennie’s neither oblivious nor unaffected. She’d caught glimpses of the truth from Lisa many times over the years, and Jennie had always allowed herself to enjoy it, to reciprocate whenever possible, then to give it up, grateful that she’d experienced it in the first place and convinced that this was as far as they could go.

It’s not a thought she considers often, but she wonders now: what if?

Take it away or make it real, up to you.

Jennie knows that Lisa didn’t mean it as a challenge. She would even be willing to bet a kidney that Lisa was half-joking. But now that Jennie’s thinking along the lines of what could be instead of what can’t be, she wants to rise to the occasion and let the universe surprise her.

She’s not known to be impulsive, but their only free day is today before they set out to a sunflower field on the 21^st then a mountain on the 22^nd before flying back to Incheon on the 23^rd. She would have preferred to have enough time to plan the day and actually make sure that Lisa knows what Jennie intends to do, but, well, she’ll just have to settle for poking Lisa awake at 7am while Chaeyoung peacefully snores beside her.

“Lisa-yah,” Jennie digs a finger into her arm.

Lisa chokes on a snore, shifts a little, but remains unconscious. Jennie mutters an apology before pinching Lisa’s nose shut.

She waits a beat or two before Lisa’s eyes and mouth fly open, head rearing back almost violently.

Jennie shushes her and apologetically soothes a hand on her back. “Sorry, sorry. It’s me, Lili, it’s okay,” she whispers.

Disoriented, Lisa blinks at her surroundings and turns her head to see Chaeyoung still deep in sleep before looking back up at Jennie.

“Are you okay?” Lisa slurs, still trying to get a hold of her consciousness.

Jennie breathes around the unexpected swell of affection she feels at the question. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just need you to wake up.”

Lisa rubs at her eyes. “Maybe next time, you could try slapping me awake instead of suffocating me to death?”

“Noted,” Jennie quips then impulsively adds, “I was thinking maybe I could kiss you awake, but if slapping is your preferred method, who am I to question it?”

Lisa’s face bursts into a lovely shade of red. She groans and hides her face into the pillow. “Nini, it’s too early for gay.”

Jennie muffles a laugh. “Is it too early to ask you if you could spend the day with me?”

Lisa peeks at her. “It can’t wait until, like, noon?”

Jennie worries her bottom lip, sighs, and admits, “I kind of wanted to have the whole day with you. If that’s okay? I don’t really have a plan though,” she grimaces, realizing in the moment that this might not be a good idea after all. “But today’s the only day we don’t have anything scheduled so I thought it would be nice to—”

“—Jen,” Lisa cuts her off amusedly. “Don’t give yourself an aneurysm. It’s okay.”

Jennie relaxes. “So… yes?”

“Yep,” Lisa answers, popping the ‘p’. “Let me take a quick shower and maybe make myself coffee.”

“We can just have breakfast somewhere?”

“Then ice cream?”

Jennie rolls her eyes. “I should've known. Fine, yes, we’ll get ice cream after breakfast.”

“That you’ll pay for.”

“That I’ll pay for.”

Lisa grins. “Okay,” she grunts as she pulls herself up and untangles her legs from the covers. She tries to yawn with a closed mouth, presumably because of morning breath, before she leans into Jennie’s space and drops a kiss on her cheek. “You’re lucky you’re cute. Good morning, by the way.”

Jennie exercises every bit of self-control she has. “Good morning.”

Lisa hauls herself out of the bed and goes about collecting her towel and a change of clothes. Jennie has to stifle her laughter when Lisa nearly walks into the bathroom, receiving the same sheepish smile she got when Lisa choked on her hot chocolate.

In half an hour, she and Lisa are on the streets of Hawaii, surrounded by new and unfamiliar things, both of them armed with their respective cameras, Google Maps pulled up on their phones, and nearly identical caps on their heads.

They pick a discreet but cozy-looking place for breakfast where Jennie has the pleasure of watching Lisa inhale half of the breakfast menu before downing a cup of coffee like she’s parched. The conversation flows easily as it always does between them, and Jennie eases into the spontaneous day out.

After breakfast, they wander the streets for a while, taking pictures of everything, constantly handing each other their respective ice cream cones when they need both hands to get the perfect framing. Jennie waits patiently when Lisa manages to convince a child to let her take a picture of her, snapping a shot of the moment because it’s adorable the way Lisa can fold herself to match said child’s eye level.

“She was so cute,” Lisa gushes to her after thanking both the child and the parent.

Jennie smiles and loves the way Lisa’s sporting a happy, sun-kissed flush on her cheeks. “She was. You’re very cute too, you know?”

“Am I?” Lisa teases.

Jennie hums an affirmative and wipes a bit of ice cream from the corner of Lisa’s lips before licking her thumb clean. Lisa looks like she might spontaneously combust.

“That… should be illegal.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jennie shoots back as innocently as she can manage though she doesn’t quite manage to stamp down the blush she feels creeping up her neck because where the hell did that come from? “Can we stop by the bookstore? I regret not getting the book I was reading when we went there.”

Lisa narrows her eyes suspiciously at her but nods hesitantly. “Yeah, okay. You’re up to something. I don’t know what though.”

Jennie loops her arm around Lisa’s. “You’ll figure it out.”

“You can’t just tell me?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“I feel like I’m going to be meeting my maker before the end of today.”

“I really hope not.”

“Why? Will you miss me?”

Jennie squeezes her arm as they enter the blessedly air-conditioned bookstore. “I wouldn’t know how I’d live without you,” she admits, surprisingly sincere this time, unable to take even the thought of it.

Lisa notices and interlaces their fingers together. “If it’s up to me at all, you won’t have to find out. Though you’d have to promise the same,” she says softly.

Jennie smiles gratefully up at her, glad to be known by her. “Gladly.”

Good moods successfully restored, they drift rather aimlessly, weaving in and out of bookshelves.

Lisa was initially helping her look for the book Jennie was talking about but got distracted by an art book she pulled out from the higher shelves. Jennie lets her be, telling her that she’ll go look around and receiving a nod and a quiet find me when you’re ready to go in return.

She does eventually manage to find the single, remaining copy of the book she wanted to get. She ends up with two more because one had an interesting title (The Girl with the Louding Voice) and the other had an interesting blurb (The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.). Satisfied with her finds, she makes her way back to Lisa. She finds her sitting in the corner of the store, an open book in her hands.

Lisa’s not as much of a reader as Jennie is, but Jennie does know from experience that she only ever forgets about her surroundings when the book she’s reading is just that good. Considering how Lisa doesn’t even look up until she’s standing right beside her, Jennie’s sure that they’re going to walk out of the store with a copy of whatever Lisa’s reading.

“Hey,” Lisa greets, half of her attention obviously still on the book, judging by how she looks a little dazed. “Did you find what you wanted?”

“Yep. Found a few others too. What are you reading?”

“So, like, one of the characters is blind and she goes around touching things so that she can figure out what they are. Shells, trees, faces. Everything. And… here, let me read something to you,” Lisa stands up so that she can show Jennie the page she’s reading from. “‘To really touch something, she is learning — the bark of a sycamore tree in the gardens; a pinned stag beetle in the Department of Entomology; the exquisitely polished interior of a scallop shell in Dr. Geffard’s workshop — is to love it.’”

Jennie takes a moment to let that sink in, reaching for Lisa’s forearm by instinct only to be acutely aware of her warmth and her proximity, the trust it takes to let someone else come close enough and the countless conscious decisions involved before touch between two people is instinctual, familiar, and comforting. Jennie wonders what it would be like to really touch her, to be allowed that honor, to be touched in return.

Lisa closes the book gently and reaches for her hand again, and Jennie thinks (hopes) that it means something.

“You’re getting it then?” Jennie asks quietly, still a little unwilling to let the moment slip them by.

Lisa looks at her, tilts her head like she’s thinking about something, before giving her a grin. “Yeah.”

They pay at the counter before walking back out under the brilliant sun, fingers still locked, palms warm.

They spend the next few hours going in and out of stores, having a scrumptious lunch, and sharing a plate of chocolate cake. Jennie learns a thing or two about Lisa, including the disastrous crush she apparently had when she was in elementary school. Lisa looked like she regretted mentioning it, but she did significantly feel better when Jennie told her that it was definitely the girl’s loss. In turn, Jennie offers things she’d never really told anyone, like how she nearly started a fire when she mixed two chemicals for lab just because she wanted to see what would happen and had been too young to be patient enough to wait for someone to supervise her experiments. Lisa laughed herself hoarse for that one.

Jennie doesn’t remember how they end up on the beach by the time the sun has finally had enough of burning their skins off. A part of her wants to cringe at the unintentional cliché, but she honestly can’t bring herself to mind all that much when Lisa takes her shoes off and beams as soon as she manages to dig her toes into the sand. It reminds her of the day they met, the way Lisa can find joy in the littlest of things.

“Did you have fun today?” Jennie asks, giggling lightly when random shells poke at the skin of her feet.

“I did even though you woke me up before noon on our day off,” Lisa says, all bark and no bite.

“I think it was worth it.”

Lisa drops the act and nudges her shoulder lightly. “Yeah. It was really nice. I almost don’t want to go home.”

“We can stay here for a little while longer. I don’t think I want to go home just yet too.”

Lisa nods gamely, eyes decidedly focused on Jennie even as they make their way through the length of the beach. Jennie lets her stare, doesn’t call her out on it, hopes she’ll ask.

“I have a potentially stupid question that may or may not make things awkward,” Lisa declares eventually.

Jennie bites back a smile. “Go ahead.”

They stop walking, waves kissing their ankles, shadows creeping up to them.

“Is this a date?” Lisa asks hesitantly. “I mean, it’s fine if it’s not and I promise not to let things get awkward.”

Jennie’s shoulders relax, a weight slipping down to the sand and into the ocean, because here it is, a chance to answer what if? Lisa took a chance on her when they first met, and maybe (hopefully), it’s all they need today.

“I’d like it to be,” she admits honestly, easier than she thought it would be. “And I’m hoping you’d want the same.”

“I—Really? Like, a date. A date date,” Lisa stutters, hand reaching to grab at the hem of Jennie’s shirt.

Jennie steps closer. “A date date,” she confirms.

“You… You’re making it real then?” Lisa asks, and Jennie instantly understands what she’s referring to.

Take it away or make it real, up to you.

“I am. Is that so hard to believe?”

Lisa shakes her head, looking as if everything’s just now catching up to her, face caught somewhere in between wide-eyed awe and unfathomable joy and cautious hope.

“I’ve had a very inconvenient crush on you for years.”

Jennie grins, heart dancing in her chest. “I know. You didn’t notice I felt the same?”

Lisa shakes her head again, tugging her closer. Distantly, Jennie hopes that it’s dark enough that they’re just two indistinguishable shapes to anyone who happened to be passing by.

“No,” she answers emphatically.

“Why not? I thought I was being obvious enough actually.”

“I thought that was just you being… you.”

Jennie feels a frown tug her lips downward. “I really don’t like how you seem to think that you’re not special to me at all, Lili. And I think that’s on me because I never told you. Though, I could also argue that you never said a thing either.”

Lisa smiles guiltily in response. “Let me fix that then,” she inhales deeply, straightens to her full height, eyes giving her away before she could even say anything. “I like you. Actually, I think I’m in love with you.”

Nothing could have prepared Jennie for that, for the way her heart nearly climbs right out of her chest, for the way she starts tearing up.

“You’re not sure?” She jokes, a little too out of sorts to say the right things.

Lisa doesn’t seem to mind though as she throws her head back to let out a beautifully untamed laugh. “In my defense, I’ve spent years denying to myself that I even have a crush on you. Give me some credit, Ni.”

Jennie reaches out to touch the corner of her mouth, needing to make sure that this is happening, that she could actually make Lisa this happy. “I think I’m in love with you, too.”

Lisa smiles so widely that it tugs at Jennie’s own lips. She captures Jennie’s wrist, presses her fingertips against her pulse, and Jennie hopes she can feel exactly what she does to her. Lisa leans forward, and if she kissed her right here and now, Jennie doesn’t think she would mind at all.

It’s probably for the best that Lisa goes in for a hug instead.

“I really wish I could kiss you right now.”

Jennie closes her eyes, shudders at the thought of it. “Not here,” she says quietly, voice hoarse even to her own ears.

“I know,” Lisa responds in a tone lower than Jennie’s ever heard it before.

She realizes it then, exactly what they’re up against, exactly what this means. She burrows deeper into Lisa, allowing herself this closeness. “It’ll be hard.”

Lisa holds her closer. “It’ll be worth it.”

“You’re with me?” Jennie asks, terrified and hopeful all at the same time.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Jennie wants to believe her, wants to toss all her hope into this chance she didn’t think they would have, wants to believe in magic and miracles. So, she says, “okay.”

“Think we could kick Chu and Chaeng out? I really, really want to kiss you.”

Jennie presses a laugh into her shoulder. “You’ll just have to wait. We’ll have tomorrow.”

“And the day after that?”

“All of it. Forever even,” Jennie whispers shyly, unused to allowing herself to be as young as she feels right now.

Lisa sighs, a content kind of sound that sinks into Jennie’s bones. “Sounds good to me.”

🌜

They begin because of what Lisa supposes is the dumbest idea she’s ever had.

She peeks into the room through the small, square glass on the door just long enough to confirm that yes, the girl’s still there, retracing and repeating the steps they learned today for dance class. She ducks to the side, hands nearly falling off with the combined November temperature that she’s still getting used to and the cold plastic of the water bottle she’d gotten off the cafeteria on a whim.

She has spent her first three months in this country hearing about and seeing Jennie Kim. She hasn’t had the chance to actually talk to her because Jennie keeps to herself most of the time. Lisa suspects that it’s more by force than by choice. Her Korean still needs a hell of a lot of work, but she can understand enough to know that most of the other trainees avoid her for one reason or another.

To be honest, Lisa doesn’t care enough to actually ask them why they’re so determined to avoid Jennie. She can make her own opinions, and as far as she can tell, Jennie’s hardworking, cool, and really pretty. Lisa can admit that she may or may not be intimated though, which is the entire reason why she’s acting like a creep.

If this was all happening back home, Lisa wouldn’t even hesitate to walk in and introduce herself. As it stands, Lisa still has a rudimentary grasp of Korean social norms, and she doesn’t really have the confidence to do what she would normally do and be assured that she wouldn’t unintentionally offend anyone.

Her solution? Wait until the music stops, give Jennie a bit of time to breathe, and walk in to offer her a water bottle.

Never mind that Jennie has a tumbler beside her bag or that Lisa’s been waiting a couple of hours or that she could honestly just walk over to Jennie during one of the many classes they share and introduce herself without all this effort. Lisa doesn’t really have anything to do anyway, so this plan, no matter how dumb, suits her just fine.

It’ll be fine, Lisa thinks as the music finally, finally pauses for longer than 10 minutes.

She straightens, dusts herself off, tries not to slap herself for overcomplicating things. In her defense though, Lisa just really wants to meet her. She doesn’t like the way Jennie’s always by the sidelines, the way no one gives her credit for her relentlessness, the way she seems sad every single time Lisa’s managed to sneak a glance at her. Something about it all felt strangely familiar.

A homesick, lonely twinge in her chest lifts her hand up.

She knocks before she can think better of it.

It opens before Lisa can catch her breath.

“I-Hi,” Lisa says, forgetting that she’s not allowed to speak in English (which—if Lisa’s allowed to have an opinion on it—is dumb). “I was just passing by and I saw you were practicing pretty hard and I have an extra water bottle and I just thought… well… here,” she rushes out in one choked breath.

She doesn’t even know if Jennie speaks English. She ended up lying to her too. This is really, really dumb, Lisa thinks.

But Jennie takes the proffered water bottle. She’s hesitant and cautious, and Lisa can understand that so she backs up a bit, folds her shoulders inward, tries to seem as small and as non-threatening as possible.

“Lalisa, right?”

English. Jennie spoke in English. Lisa would’ve fallen on her knees and thanked God if she could.

“Yeah!” She says, suddenly enthusiastic.

“I’m Jennie.”

Lisa wants to say that she knows but she doesn’t want to add another thing to the alarmingly growing pile of creepy things she’d done today. “Nice to meet you,” she responds instead.

Jennie smiles something small and shy. “Nice to meet you too. Thank you for this,” she says quietly, raising the water bottle. “You didn’t have to.”

Something about the way she says it makes Lisa think that maybe Jennie’s being so cautious because she expects it to be a prank. And no, Lisa can’t have that. Not after the months she spent wondering about her and the two hours she spent going back and forth with herself over this stupid plan.

“Can I be honest with you?” Lisa says impulsively because at this point, why not?

Jennie crosses her arms, pressing the water bottle against her ribcage, a guarded expression falling over her face. She doesn’t respond. Lisa doesn’t need her to. All in or nothing.

“I actually got here a while ago,” Lisa admits. “And I didn’t have that on hand. I saw you practicing, and I went to the cafeteria to get water of all things because I really wanted to meet you and I needed an excuse,” she grimaces. “I’m sorry if that’s creepy.”

Jennie’s jaw drops open a little. “I—Oh,” she breathes. “You could’ve just walked in?”

Lisa smiles sheepishly, scratches the back of her neck, blushes for all she’s worth. “I didn’t want to disturb you. And I didn’t know if it was okay,” she gestures at herself. “I’m not really from here. I’m still learning.”

Jennie smiles, full and pleasantly surprised. And oh, oh no, Lisa thinks dazedly, she’s really pretty.

“You’re really weird, Lalisa,” Jennie says.

Lisa pouts. “Just Lisa, and you know, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”

“Thank you again for this,” Jennie repeats, sincerely this time.

“No problem,” Lisa grins. “Do you maybe want to have lunch out? I don’t really know where’s good so you can pick a place.”

“You haven’t explored?”

Lisa shrugs. “Aside from being weird, I don’t really have a good sense of direction. I’ve been too scared I’ll get lost and die in a ditch somewhere.”

Jennie chuckles, and Lisa feels pretty damn proud of herself. “Okay. Let me get changed?”

“Sure, I’ll wait here,” Lisa agrees readily.

Jennie leaves her to do as promised. Lisa leans back against the wall that’s been her support for the past couple of hours.

She smiles to herself, feeling like she’d done something amazing today.

--------------------

Jennie can’t remember the last time she had so much fun.

She knows what the other trainees think of her, and though it hurt, she has learned to get used to it, to expect nothing less, to make peace with it. She threw herself into training, spent her time writing verses and trying not to berate herself for her inability to say a simple hello to people. It’s a different kind of loneliness, she had realized at some indiscernible point during her first year as a trainee, to be surrounded by people and still feel alone. She had accepted that it’ll probably be the story of her life until she debuts, but that didn’t stop her from hoping that someone might see past the narrative her face tells.

And then, Lisa comes knocking.

Truth be told, she had thought the water bottle was part of an elaborate joke. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time, and people can be really mean when they want to be. Except, Lisa gives herself away, surprisingly honest and genuine, and Jennie finds herself agreeing to lunch before she can even think about it.

Jennie spends most of the time it takes to walk to her favorite Korean place, order food, and eat lunch waiting to be the punchline. It isn’t until Lisa’s eyes nearly fall out of their sockets at her first taste of gamjatang that Jennie finally relaxes.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Lisa says, something awed in her voice.

“No?” Jennie answers honestly.

Lisa closes her eyes as she bites into the meat and chews around a satisfied groan. “We’re gonna have to have lunch here every day.”

Jennie smiles teasingly, hiding the way the strangely relieved feeling she gets at the implication. “Really? Every single day?”

“It’s that good. I need this in my life until I get tired of it.”

Lisa, Jennie’s learning, is a little silly.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Like might be an understatement. I can’t cook to save my life, but if I ever feel like trying, this'll be the first thing I’m gonna attempt to make.”

Jennie gets an idea, hesitates, then goes for it anyway. “I can make it for you?”

Lisa looks at her like she’d just given her an early Christmas present. “You can cook this?”

Jennie blushes but nods. “It might not be as good though.”

“You know, Jennie, you’re really cool. And if you can make this, then I’m gonna need you in my life every day.”

She’s also a little bit of a flirt, Jennie notes. Not that she minds.

Lisa asks her what else she can do, which is how Jennie ends up promising to help her with her Korean but only if Lisa teaches her Thai. Jennie also somehow gets roped into a songwriting session because she let it slip that she writes verses for fun, a walk down the Han River because Lisa’s never been, and a marathon of Lisa’s favorite show because Jennie’s never heard of it.

Being with Lisa is unnervingly easy, but Jennie supposes she could get used to it.

It’s below freezing by the time they step back out to the streets of Seoul. Jennie’s well-prepared for it, wrapped as she is in multiple layers and the thickest scarf she owns. She can’t say the same about Lisa, who shivers as soon as they’re greeted by the gentle winter wind.

“You don’t have a scarf?” Jennie asks, eyeing the way Lisa’s shoulders inch closer to her ears.

Lisa shakes her head. “It’s always hot where I’m from. I never thought about scarves or coats or earmuffs until I got here. If I wore any of those back home, I’d probably end up getting a heat stroke.”

Jennie hums, digging around her duffel bag. “Here,” she hands Lisa a pink scarf.

Lisa grins. “You sure?”

Jennie can’t help the smile that tugs at her own lips. “You look like you really need it.”

“Thanks,” Lisa answers before draping the scarf on her neck. “Do I just… leave it like that?”

Jennie bites back a snort. “Come here,” she says in an uncharacteristic show of boldness, reaching for the scarf, and deftly tying it into a knot. “There. It’s not too tight?”

Lisa buries her red nose into the fabric, but Jennie can see the way her eyes crinkle at the corners. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

Inexplicably, Jennie blushes.

The walk is comfortable, neither of them in any particular rush to get back. Lisa does most of the talking, regaling her with endless stories of her childhood, completely and utterly trusting. At first, Jennie reciprocates because she feels like it’s only fair, but eventually, she starts giving away pieces of herself just for the sake of it, sinking into the easy rhythm of holding a conversation with Lisa, lulled in by the way she seems wholly interested in whatever she had to say.

They go back and forth with questions and answers until Lisa comes to a sudden stop a handful of blocks away from the dorm. Jennie peeks at her and finds her comically cross-eyed.

“Lisa? Are you okay?” Jennie asks, trying and failing to hold back a huff of a laugh.

“I think something just landed on my nose,” Lisa says, frozen for a moment before tilting her head back, palms facing skyward. “Is it about to rain?”

Jennie follows her gaze, squinting until she can make out shapes. “It’s snowing.”

She startles when Lisa suddenly faces her fully. “Snowing?” She asks with barely contained excitement.

Jennie matches her grin. “First time, huh?”

“Yeah!” Lisa answers, looking like she’s about to burst. “You mean we can make snow angels and snow people and have snowball fights?”

Jennie’s never really enjoyed any of these things, already used to the particular inconveniences that snow brings. At one point though, Jennie was also amazed by the white little balls of fluff now dropping gently over them, and she thinks that Lisa might teach her a thing or two about joy.

“We’ll need a little more snow than this and warmer clothing for you, but yeah, we can.”

“You’ll do it with me?” Lisa asks, all puppy dog eyes and innocent hope.

“If we get sick, I’m blaming you,” Jennie warns but smiles anyway.

Lisa picks up on it and beams so brilliantly that Jennie forgets to breathe for a beat or two. “Deal.”

A promise made.

Unbeknownst to them, the first of many.