behind the stars // chaelisa + hints of jensoo

12

"Wow! You sure know how to make a girl feel special."

Jungkook bursts into laughter and Chaeyoung smiles wider as the way the tip of Lisa's ears grow hot pink as she scrambles to explain herself, "No! No, no, I don't mean it like that. I just mean that I wasn't sure you'd want me to drop by uninvited."

Chaeyoung settles a hand on her arm and squeezes, chuckling out, "Don't worry. I'm a big fan of surprises, and you're the best one I've had in a good while." Maybe that is crossing a line, but Chaeyoung is too tired and too overjoyed to care, to worry about what it all means. "And you are almost better than a burger."

Lisa frowns at her, "... What?"

"I'll go get it," Jungkook sighs, admitting defeat after Chaeyoung bats her eyelashes at him. She's starving, she's definitely not above begging - and she wants a moment alone with Lisa, to soak up all the warmth she brings with her. Jungkook rolls his eyes and marches away, shouting back. "You're so annoying."

"I haven't eaten in so long I could swear I was hallucinating you," Chaeyoung says because why not - it's flirty and it's true. Lisa smiles, casts her eyes down to her shoes, and Chaeyoung almost hugs her again. It's always been so easy to flirt with Lisa, to make her blush with an offhanded compliment.

"I'm real," Lisa looks back at her, her eyes glinting with something Chaeyoung can't put her finger on, but it makes her smile wider anyway, "I'm here."

"You're here," Chaeyoung repeats and the realization washes over her, blissfully warm and icy cold all at once. Because Lisa got in a plane and she's here , she's living and breathing in the middle of a messy set, she's not a dream that Chaeyoung had. She's real and she's here. "God, I can't believe you're here ."

Something in her tone surprises Lisa, because she raises her hand in a defensive gesture, her eyebrows quirked in worry, "That's a good thing, right? I didn't cross any lines?"

"Of course not! Why would you think that?" Chaeyoung wraps her fingers around Lisa's palm, squeezing it gently, tugging at it. She wants to intertwine their fingers, want to never let go, but she settles for drawing circles with her thumb on the back of it.

Lisa looks down at their joined hands, "We didn't talk after you left."

"Yeah, because you didn't even text me," Chaeyoung says and if she sounds a bit hurt, neither woman comment on that.

Jisoo had gotten her phone while she was still in the hotel and would send her pictures from sunrises Chaeyoung had been too sleepy to see and whatever horse she was tending that day, since that's as close as Chaeyoung would get from one. She had assumed Jisoo would give her phone number to Lisa after the third time Chaeyoung had asked about her, but if she did, Lisa never texted her.

"You didn't text me either."

Chaeyoung is the one to avert her eyes now, her a hot flash crawling up neck. She had had a deep fire burning within her, a longing she hadn't expected. But she didn't think it was her place to take that first step. "Touché. I didn't think you'd know how to text."

"I know how to use a phone," Chaeyoung looks up just in time to see Lisa rolling her eyes, her upturned lips the only thing that gives away her amusement, "I may live in the middle of nowhere, but civilization isn't lost on us."

"Okay. I'll text you when you haven't seen a building in a week," Chaeyoung promises, making a mental note to text Jisoo, to ask her for Lisa's number, to text her pictures of buildings. It's silly and she knows it, Chaeyoung is aware it's something high schoolers would text when they ran out of ideas. Yet, she can't help but wonder if Lisa will like it.