❝How far can you go with a lie?❞
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word count
— 25k (yeet!)
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N A R R A T I O N

Lalisa remembered Kim Taehyung from the first time she met him at the ripe age of six; she was the younger six between the two of them.

It felt like their fates had been sealed with each other since the beginning of time — Lisa had shifted with her parents in a small town in Daegu back then, far away from the bustling cityscape, where houses were separated by asphalt roads and lush greens in between.

As a natural instinct, moving places was somewhat fearful for the little girl, for she wasn't sure if she could find someone of her age to play with. Lisa wasn't prepared to face new people neither did the child have the foresight to run away when she met strangers; but eventually realised she didn't need it at all when a certain lad drove past her window on his red bicycle with metallic blue rimmed wheels.

In the same breath, she remembered how his tanned skin glowed in the sunlight and the stark dark hair blowed every time there was a gush of fresh breeze, the strands of hair sifting away to expose his forehead.

She observed from the window of her room at the boy who travelled some distance before tracing back the same route, pausing momentarily right before the porch of her new home and suddenly, he jumped from his bike seat — over enthusiastically squealing, "this house isn't abandoned anymore!"

The second time, Lisa had met the boy was on the playground. She had watched him play alone in the sand pit after he had politely declined the offer to watch a movie suggested by his other friends.

The girl wasn't really meaning to eavesdrop on the conversation but happened to overhear it when she walked right into the playground; her curiosity then peaked at the certain fellow, and she wondered how could playing in the sand be any more enthralling than watching a movie. Something in her little thinking cap urged her to be friends with him.

She marched up to him and asked if he wanted to build a sandcastle together with her, to which he had smiled brighter than any stars in the sky then, basking in his enjoyment of making a new friend; he scooted over in the box, sand clinging to his legs.

His smile resembled one like those stretched square shapes her teachers had taught her in nursery school — the smile, ever so delightful and outstretched and the soft squint of his eyes that sparkled when he patted the space beside him.

That day, Lisa had learnt two things about the boy.

One, he was an easy conversationalist who could go on for hours as long as someone truthfully listened to him;

And....

Second, he had a weird sense of creativity to do absurdly unique things. Be it the patterns he crafted on his sandcastle, or the secret admiration he held for the flowers that grew on the pavement.

Truly, the boy was weird.

But the good kind of weird.

The kind that needed to be cherished, just like the bunny-toy she hugged to sleep every night.

Needless to say, Lisa was awestruck by the boy. It didn't take long for her to develop a liking towards him and from that day onwards, they were officially best friends forever.

〰️

Just when Lisa and her family were slowly getting accustomed to their lives in the small neighbourhood, Taehyung could soon comprehend the fact that his new neighbour was no less than a carefree, fun-loving daredevil — neither did he understand the sequence of events when he became the part of all the silly decisions she'd make — there was barely a time they were alone without each other.

She had been different than all of his other playmates, for she never dismissed him whenever he tried to speak. He was bullied among the other boys quite a few times only because he collected flowers like some girl would and was friends with one.

There was one such incident a very fine evening, when they were eight; Lisa being the younger eight between the two of them. She had been out of town for a visit to one of her relatives who resided in Seoul, meaning Taehyung was left all alone to play by himself.

However, the day she had returned was when she was first-handedly exposed to his vulnerability. Lisa had sprinted over near the swings where he sat defeated with a scrapped knee, the three older guys towering over him.

Their boisterous laughter cackled like wildfire when Lisa scooted beside him, her eyes peering at him, concerned whether he was okay. The other three pairs of hostile eyes on him felt tormenting; yet in that moment, Taehyung felt like something was clawing at his throat, making him tongue-tied and unable to stand up for himself.

Watching him in a vulnerable stand like this had made young Lisa feel sorry for him. Here stood three tall boys, probably more than twice their age — acting like bosses before powerless children thinking they had established something great for their little ages.

"Leave him alone!" Lisa hollered as she stood up, feeling ten feet tall whilst trying to avoid how loud her own voice resounded in her ears.

One of the boys walked a step closer, posing as the ringleader. "Oh, what are you gonna do then, huh? Fight back with the scaredy princess would you?"

"Don't call him that."

"I will call him what I wish to. And he deserves it, to be called a princess — if he's out there collecting flowers like some girl."

"Don't call him that!" She repeated, this time her voice almost breaking into a howl, and in the same enraged state, she pushed the boy who had dared to insult her friend.

Everything happened in the spur of a moment — a soft thud sounded when the boy lost his balance and tripped over his leg, landing on the ground — Lisa flinched, covering her mouth with her hands, both shocked and overwhelmed with what had just happened.

Logically speaking, she wouldn't have done it; the boy would've hurled back with an even stronger impact yet the entire exchange came out in form of a quiet shock — the two other boys and Taehyung were equally shocked as well.

The boy got up and dusted himself, throwing daggers at the two kids. He then venomously stepped on something that lay on the ground, grinding his heel onto it. Had Lisa felt larger than life mere seconds ago, she could now feel smaller than she ever had. Nevertheless, she still didn't let that show on her face, and built herself up before Taehyung, silently praying that they'd leave.

Which they did, eventually.

In the silence that followed, Lisa darted her eyes to where the boy's heel had been earlier, taking in what had been the most beautiful colourful flowers she'd ever seen.

"You okay?"

"I'm sorry." Taehyung's response took Lisa by surprise.

"Why?"

"I was scared... didn't know what to do, you weren't around and t-they saw me by the gardens. I was picking f-flowers for you..."

"Oh, Tae..." Lisa's eyes fell back on the destroyed flowers. "They look beautiful."

"They were."

Another round of silence thwarted in. This time, not as heavy. Peaceful. The storm had passed.

The vermillion hues of sunset surrounded them, casting long shadows in the lawns.

"I promise I will never let those mean boys break something that you love. I'm sorry I left you alone."

Taehyung didn't speak a word, simply nodding as he tried to get up by himself. The wound wasn't that severe for him to be limping.

"You're here with me now."

"Yes... will you promise me something?"

"But what can I give you?" Taehyung asked, his lips subconsciously forming a slight pout.

"If they trouble you again and if I am not here, promise me that you will still fight them back."

"Lisa I—"

"Please."

"....okay. I promise." Taehyung admitted defeatedly, sticking his pinky finger out.

Lisa jumped, happily reaching her pinky out to intertwine and complete the promise. Taehyung noticed the fear that had earlier encapsulated her pupils. For a little brain, he wasn't able to comprehend much, but all he could know was that Lisa was the type to stick by his side forever.

And silently, he had made a promise to himself; that he shall stay by her side forever, too.

〰️

The next four years that passed were full of imaginary games, playing pretend within the tall canopies of the favorite forest at the foothills of the town shared by the two of them.

They'd accompany their fathers on their fishing expeditions, dipping their dainty feet in the clear rills that bestowed a cooling relief in the hot season, reviving the joy and exuberance of summer months to the fullest.

As autumn drew near, it brought with itself the appearance of amber hue on the leaves and a gust of icy wind that promised a frigid winter and of course, the advent of the major festive seasons. Winter was the most anticipated time of the year — Taehyung and Lisa infamously regarded the period as the 'hand-holding' season, after all.

The seasons changed and nature's love bloomed in different ways throughout the years.

What never did change though, was the way Taehyung and Lisa fitted together, complementing each other in the best of ways. Taehyung was someone who had always been inclined to the reserved side but Lisa always sought to bring out a side of him that no one ever could. In the same manner, Taehyung helped her to come out of her own shell and he taught her how to see the world in different filters of a palette with his idiosyncratic perspective.

It was the summer period before school reopened after vacations and probably the first summer in these four years that Taehyung and Lisa had spent apart since they were children.

They were both twelve now, Lisa being the younger twelve between the two.

Taehyung went off to live with his grandparents on their farm in the countryside, only a few miles away from the town for little less than a month. There were still three days left before school started again and Lisa missed Taehyung so much that she was almost starting to get itchy as if it were some sort of a withdrawal symptom working her up.

Her father was tired of having explained that telephones didn't work there because the countryside was an extremely remote locality and there were not enough towers constructed yet, causing the phone lines to get disrupted or for the most, cross connected.

Her restlessness had known no bounds — being deprived of his voice, the flower wreaths he'd make her, his jolly amicable smile — as she waited for his return. There was nothing much to do in summer than sitting bored in her room, when her parents were both busy working and had promised to take her out somewhere during winter break.

Lisa didn't realise when she'd fallen asleep on her bed that faced the window, because when she woke up from her sleep, she was looking at the setting sun in the twilight sky. She descended down the wooden stairs in her flowy summer dress hearing her mother call her from the hallway.

"Did you call me, eomma?"

"Hmm," the elder woman nodded while cooking, before asking her to look at the fruit basket that sat prettily on the dinner table. At some distance was a box of strawberries. "Tae-tae got you some strawberries, you were asleep so I asked him to leave them here."

"He's back?!" Lisa asked, her voice jittery in anticipation.

She nodded. "Well yes, the Kims got back over an hour ago."

The entire house was engulfed in the aroma of freshly grilled lamb skewers, enough to make Lisa's mouth water for her favourite dish. Yet it was not enough to stop her from skipping away to the certain golden boy who lived two blocks away from her home.

Lisa's mother grinned with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows as she leaned against the wall, watching her daughter slip her feet into her sandals by the doorway, looking ever so determined to sprint in a marathon.

"Where's she going?" Her father entered the scene, witnessing his daughter scoot out of the house in a hurried chaos.

"Taehyung's back."

"Oh." Her father smiled, wanting no more explanation from his wife.

Lisa sure loved her lamb skewers, she would've probably thrown a wail if they got over before she returned home. However, there was no denial that she still loved her friend more than her lamb skewers and that was true friendship.

〰️

The park where Lisa had first met Taehyung was in its well-lived form, mostly tucked away in a quiet sleep at night. Not exactly secluded, because the overgrown fields at some distance still echoed with the chirp of the crickets in the hot summer weather.

The place left like another home. It was their heavenly abode.

She had reached Taehyung's home in exactly a minute with the speed she ran, only to race to the park swings with the boy as she saw his parents unpacking, exhausted after a long drive.

Though it wasn't a decent choice to leave kids roam in the streets by themselves, the town was still a relatively safe and secure place where everyone had a good reach to one another. Their parents had never stopped them from wandering off too far although there wasn't exactly much to explore if given the freedom anyway.

Lisa heard Taehyung long before she met her eyes with him. His feet were beating hard and fast against the pavement in sync with his ragged breaths. And she knew it was him. Not only because they had challenged a race to the park sometime earlier, yet also because this was a Taehyung sound and Lisa could've sworn to recognise it anywhere.

When Taehyung finally entered Lisa's field of vision, her face broke into a gingerly grin; her eyes squinted into two near-crescent moons that somehow reflected the warmth of the sun.

Her beaming smile struck him all over again. It alleviated all the tiredness that had earlier consumed him and induced a tingling sensation in his heart for a fleeting second.

For a child like him, he couldn't surmise what the feeling meant. It gave him a sense of relief of being home, back to her. And he didn't ever want to let the feeling go.

He mirrored the same rectangular smile like the one he smiled the first time they met on this very playground. Soon after which, his arms were engulfing Lisa into his embrace.

As the two sat on the playground swings, the light from the lamppost illuminated on them. It was then that Lisa had realised, how summer had been really, really good to Taehyung.

His skin looked a brazen, the tan more gold than brown. The chubbiness of his cheeks had melted away and above all else, his personality looked different — from the way he talked, he felt — as if he were sure of himself.

"The summer weather at the farm did you pretty well."

"I guess..." Taehyung answered with a laugh, "it's a lot more work than what I thought. Even harvested strawberries with my grandma."

"Good for you, it was a lot less work for me to do here. I learnt gardening with eomma, but ended up making a mess of the lawn. Then I took three weeks to complete just two pages of holiday homework—"

"Wait, there was homework?" Taehyung widened his eyes, tugging at Lisa's arm causing her to halt her talk.

"The four worksheets that were handed off right on the last day before school closed down? Don't tell me you didn't do it yet."

"No but— oh no wait.....I think I remember now. I haven't started a single thing yet." Taehyung pouted, a sad frown taking over his facial features whilst he ran a hand through his hair. His hair had grown slightly longer, and the way it slopped on his forehead looked effortlessly beautiful.

His actions evoked something in Lisa's heart and all she ever wanted to do at that given moment was to rain hearts at her best friend.

"Summer's not over yet. We still have three days to go."

"Hmm, right." He pressed his lips onto a thin line. Only a moment after, Taehyung felt Lisa's comforting nudge on his shoulder.

"Yah, don't make that face."

"Make what face?"

"You're sad. You don't look like yourself when you're sad."

"How else do I look on other days then?"

God.

Taehyung asked a lot of questions.

"You look like you. Like my best friend, like Kim Taehyung. The happiest and the biggest Dora lover on the planet."

"Hey! I don't like Dora!" Taehyung whined, and almost instantly he had a drastic change of mood — from being pensive to chaotically annoyed. Lisa continued to tease him, and finally giving up, he got up from the swing and went over to her side, and didn't think for another second when he started tickling her — finally stopping when Lisa's begged him to stop.

"I'm excited for school to start," Lisa started in a low voice when Taehyung sat next to her in the sandpit, the sky now completely dark with silver specks scattered like a blanket illuminating it.

"If not for the homework, then me too." His voice cracked to a marginal extent, the puberty still brimming on his vocal cords.

Lisa giggled with the shake of her head, turning to face him, only to find him staring back at her. His lips quivered when he hesitated to spill what he had trapped in his mind for so long.

"Tae?" She called him softly, her pupils dilating for a fraction of a second, wanting to listen to his plea. It gave Taehyung a sense of reassurance, allowing him to continue.

"Do you think school would be any different?"

In an instant, Lisa had known what Taehyung had been meaning to ask. This was a daunting thought for sure.

They were only at the terminus a quo in the process of adulting, after all. Long gone were the days of blowing bubbles, picking flowers in the garden and playing hide and seek in the tall blades of the grass fields. This was an extremely awkward phase while growing up, because there was now a stress of fitting in, paired with the intensely overwhelming build up of emotional and physiological changes that were showing up at the onset.

These dubious doubts alone had Lisa's stomach wound up in knots, yet the anxiousness washed away with the same speed as it had pushed in, with the single knowledge that Taehyung was never leaving her side.

Her lips turned up into a sweet grin as she calmly hummed.

"Probably. We should be open to the changes in between...."

"Don't you fear if I changed?"

"Unless you don't acquire some strange superpowers and become a shape-shifter then we're good." Taehyung choked in a laugh at her ridiculous sense of humour that resembled his elder cousin.

"Remind me to introduce you to Seokjin hyung when he comes to visit here. He'll love you for sure."

"As a matter of fact, everyone loves me." Lisa spoke haughtily, flattering herself by waving her hair as Taehyung laughed. There was no denial in her words, given that her optimistic aura and kind persona were the attributes that made her really precious in everyone's eyes in this little town, even in his.

Their elbows brushed against each other when Lisa leaned back a little, taking support of her arm by extending it backwards — Taehyung looked at her hand that rested a few measly inches away from his own, his fingertips tingling with an urge to reach forward and grasp it.

When he looked up, he found Lisa mirroring the same look as him — he doesn't know why it felt awkward all of a sudden, but it felt like the only way to break this bubble was to do what was going in his mind for so long.

And so, hesitantly, Taehyung moved his fingers close, until his hand was pressed against Lisa's, fingers interlocking together in the most simplest of ways.

"I'm glad that you're back." Was the first thing that Lisa said fondly, with stars in her eyes.

"Yeah." Taehyung leaned back too, the starlight glow radiating his face. "Me too."

〰️

The sun bloomed like a bright daisy amidst the blossom of clouds that sailed tranquilly in the clear blue sky. The chatter of students discussing what they'd done during the vacations on the sweltering summer day reduced down to muffled whispers when the teacher walked in.

"Alright class," the teacher, the friendly Mrs Cho announced whole clapping her hands to attract the attention of the children.

"We're getting pen pals." The teacher said, making the students gasp in excitement; obviously, it wasn't a usual occurrence to have such activities in schools which meant that programmes like these accounted for maximum participation — at least by middle school graders.

The mere mention of the activity caused Lisa to fall flat on her back — she had been trying to balance herself on the hind legs of her chair in a desperate attempt to look cool, like the other kids, although she had never succeeded in her act to this day. Today though, her misfortune was timed perfectly with the teacher's words as everyone darted their heads in her direction, the teacher looking extra concerned as she tried to approach her.

"Are you okay, Lalisa?"

"Yeah— Yes....yes ma'am. Sorry, I'm fine." She replied, pulling up her chair and setting it back upright, following which she dusted away the specks of invisible dust and seated back like a well-behaved child would do.

Mrs Cho's gaze lingered on Lisa for another stray second before she internally decided that it was best suited to move on.

"Like I was saying..." she continued to address the class who listened to her attentively. "The organisation we are volunteering for works like a post office that connects kids like yourselves to others all around the world. I will have the names and locations assigned to each one of you and I will be calling you all one by one to hand them out. This activity is not supposed to be assessed but that doesn't mean you wouldn't do anything. I expect active participation from the whole class."

Lisa glanced over Taehyung from her left, noticing him jumping up and down on his seat in anticipation of receiving his slip.

He showed her a rectangular grin when he settled on the seat to her left, waving the slip in his hands.

The slip that every child received contained a few important details of the person they were supposed to write letters to — the name, their age, gender, the city in which they lived and most importantly, a postal address.

"Hey."

"Hmm?" Lisa turned to face Taehyung after hearing his voice call her out.

"Who are you writing to?"

"Some boy named Austin Butler, he lives somewhere in California is what it says. You?"

"Oh, I got Jennie Kim. You think she's Korean?"

"Could be? Why, where's she from?"

"New Zealand."

"Ah. Her name still doesn't give much hints either."

Taehyung leaned his back on the chair, looking at the blades of the running fan, lost in a momentary thought.

"I wonder if she knows Korean. Then maybe I can write my letter in Korean without having to fuss over my grammar in English."

"Well if she doesn't turn out to know Korean, she wouldn't know what you're saying. Maybe she won't write back to you." Lisa pointed out.

"Oh, you're right. I think I'll just ask it in my letter."

"Hmm."

〰️

Truthfully from what Lisa had heard and learned so far was that, having pen pals was deemed a novel idea to cultivate foreign interaction as it was easier for one to act upon non-verbal cues, even if the responses weren't as quick as mails, phone calls or the newly evolved sms texts.

The activity sounded really cool and exotic as described by the witty minds until they took writing themselves. Because after having brainstormed over the whole night to frame a decent-length introductory letter, talking mostly about her favourite colour, season and more while posing questions right after along with a closing statement, Lisa reckoned she was able to write no more.

Consequently, her contact with her pen pal died exactly a week after she received the response from him, where he ended with the standard 'so excited to make a new pal! I hope we will continue speaking through mail!' that Lisa was unable to follow through.

Even her other classmates who seemed to be enthusiastic about the activity at first, progressively lost interest in it, the hint sparking in their conversations that moved on from discussing pen friends to the usual synopsis of the trendy kdrama scenes of last week.

The only person in her close friends circle that still seemed to be overzealous and engaged in this concept of writing to a stranger, was Taehyung.

It was no surprise this seemed intriguing to him; for Taehyung always had a penchant of unusual things was what Lisa had known ever since she met him. His friends circle wasn't as big as hers and this, again, was no surprise that she alone was his honorary best friend — the one and only person who heard all about his letters.

The first time Taehyung had received the letter, he had marched straight to Lisa's house holding the torn envelope to read it before her.

"What's her name again?"

Taehyung gaped in wonder at Lisa  momentarily as if forgetting his pen pal was the greatest deal to get away with on the planet. He reminded her, almost in a rebuking tone to not forget it, for the name was important in his life, and soon, it may become relevant in her life, too. "Jennie Kim, told you so."

"Ah, right."

Practically shoving the envelope onto her face, the boy urged, "here, look at what she said."

Sighing onto her palm, Lisa took the envelope from his hands to pull open the unfolded letter, reading the words out aloud. "Dear Taehyung," she started.

"I'm so glad for being paired with someone who knows Korean! Yes, I am Korean but I live here in New Zealand for my studies. My name sounds very unfamiliar for having no syllables of Korean in it so I get the confusion that comes with it (ㄒoㄒ) it was given by my mother after one of her favourite actors. Your name is pretty too. I'll be happy to know where it came from. Since I don't speak Korean on the daily, my pronunciation and letters are not correct as my English. Do you have any brothers or sisters? I don't, since I am an only child. You have any pets? I love dogs (^∇^) but since my mommy is allergic to pet fur she says we can't have doggos. Life back in Korea must be great, I haven't been there for a long time. It will be fun to explore my birth country when I come back for vacations, maybe I can meet you too? Haha (>▽<). Jennie."

Lisa's state lingered on the letter for a second longer as she read the only single word — Jennie — written in Korean in the entire letter, before she handed back to Taehyung in the same unfolded state along with the envelope. "Isn't she like the coolest?"

"And isn't this your first letter from her?"

"Yeah. Maybe I'll get more. For that, I need to write back."

"And what exactly are you gonna write back?"

Taehyung placed his palm under his chin before huffing and nodding sideways. "Dunno, please help."

"I— okay." Lisa opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. She chose to agree, instead. Having zero ideas of what to write back had been the same reason why she had stopped writing herself. And now, Taehyung wanted her help with that, seemed far too impossible in her foresight. In the same breath, she glanced at Taehyung, who was putting back the letter in the envelope it was encased in, taking note of the expression sitting on his face — satisfaction.

〰️

The letters managed to go back and forth for maybe a period of two months. A week for every letter, it was commendable how Taehyung had resorted to maintaining a connect with his pen friend. He talked about Jennie as if she was actually their classmate, with them, listening to the same lesson being taught in class.

Any person living in utmost normalcy would've probably grown a tad bit jealousy against his relationship with a girl he's never met but considering the fact that Lisa had known Taehyung enough to comprehend he would never drop her (for she was his only friend when it came to discussing stuffs like these), she was pretty much unfazed with the whole thing.

It was a free Saturday when Taehyung and Lisa were out for a walk to the nearby ice cream parlour. Getting their ice cream cones, they were sitting on the lawn in his front porch when Taehyung brought up the progress of his non-verbal friendship.

"I'm trying to get her send me a photo of her."

"Uh...who?"

"Jennie, who else?"

"You talk of her out of nowhere, it's all so confusing. At least set in cues before you mention her."

Taehyung watched her with a deadpanned glare, darting his thumb out to wipe the drop of ice cream that Lisa had accidentally collected on the tip of her nose.

"I've tried to hint it in two recent letters I wrote to her but she wouldn't budge. I don't know why." He conveyed, watching the random patterns of the clouds in the bright sky.

"Maybe her mom doesn't allow her to."

Biting into his cone, Taehyung knitted his brows in confusion. "But my mom had no problems in letting me send a photo of myself to her."

"Well that's because your mom is not her mom." Lisa took in her last bite, continuing, "her mom might be different."

After a short-lived pause, Taehyung recited his thoughts out aloud. "I'm gonna keep asking her. She'll send one some day at least."

His firm determination made Lisa eye him in sheer disgrace, for he sounded exactly like every generic teenager who thought they were old enough to take decisions by themselves, thinking they're always right. And that they'll get anything that they want.

"I believe you shouldn't force her though, it's kinda rude."

"But it only makes sense if she does it too, to even it out somehow? You sound like mom at this point." Taehyung shaped his lips into a pouty frown.

"Maybe because I'm right. Or maybe, Jennie probably saw your photo and you looked too ugly in it, that she took pity on you and decided it was better if she doesn't send it cause she didn't wanna make you feel bad."

"Yah!" Taehyung scoffed. "That's mean— no, it's dumb. I'm the cutest twelve-year old child you'll see in this town. I'm smart too. You can nowhere find such qualities in any other kid you'll ever see, don't you agree?"

"I don't know, well I'm sitting right here."

Taehyung placed a hand over his chest in faux offence, pushing her onto the grass as Lisa dragged him in by his shirt collar, resting their backs against the grass bed.

"Hey what if she likes macho guys?"

"Not another word!" Taehyung whined before the two burst out into a fit of giggles.

〰️

It wasn't long after their conversation from last week that Taehyung actually received a photograph from Jennie — certainly, he was elated, not only for his belief to come true, but to also disprove his best friend for teasing him back in the day.

The girl was cheekily grinning ear to ear in the sent photo, seated on top of a brown horse and some hair blown over her face, covering the top portion of her eyes. It appeared that she had removed her safety helmet when she had her picture clicked, because it had been hanging from her elbow while the same hand was raised till the corner of her eyes, two fingers pointing up in a V-symbol. It was one of those photos taken from an old camera, that seemed to explain its hazy grained texture and the date printed in orange lettered font that indicated it was from about a year ago.

"You said she wouldn't send me one." He mocked, marching around Lisa while flapping the photograph like a trophy and gloating it in her face while doing some sort of a victory dance.

"Hearty congratulations to you then," Lisa folded her arms, "I didn't think she'll actually send you one. You gonna thank her for the photo or something?"

"I think I'll ask her that helmet looks extra expensive, she shouldn't be carelessly holding it like that."

"Huh?" Was all Lisa could let out, plopping herself on his bed.

Seriously Taehyung?

"That's it, Tae?"

"No, I'll also tell her that horse riding seems like an interesting activity. I wonder if she's actually trained."

"And...?"

"What else am I supposed to say?" Taehyung furrowed his brows in confusion.

"Well, you can tell her that she has nice hair."

"I don't like her hair. Looks bad. Why should I lie?"

"What do you mean she has bad hair? How do you know?"

"It's flying all around, look for yourself—hey!" Taehyung let out a frustrated cry when the pillow thrown by Lisa knocked him directly in the jaw.

"Trust me Taehyung. No girl in this world likes being told she has bad hair." She insisted. "So, for my sake, tell her she has nice hair, even if you don't think she does, because no one cares about what you think unless it's a compliment."

"Girls like being told they have nice hair?"

"Yeah, most of them do."

Taehyung took a pause, chewing at his lower lip as he scrutinised the photo in his hand for another time.

"Does that include you as well?" He asked, turning his attention to her.

"Hmm yes, I do."

"Then as a matter of fact, let me tell you that your hair looks super ugly today."

This only prompted a pillow fight, ending with Taehyung tackling Lisa down to the bed while she choked out a laugh, begging to be released when he let her go, rejoicing his triumph when the poor soul was hit again by a winning pillow streak, culminating the fight with Lisa's victory.

Nevertheless, Lisa was thanking the heavens secretly, feeling grateful and on top of that, super relieved because she didn't have to suffer from hearing Taehyung's whining anymore.

And right when she had thought about it, was when everything went downhill.

Apparently, the day Taehyung received the photograph from Jennie was the day the girl had officially cut off all ties with him — only that Taehyung wasn't aware about it yet.

So like a diligent child, he awaited her response for almost a month but to no avail.

"Maybe she's running late. Who knows, maybe her mail service is a little busy at the moment? Don't lose hope, Tae."

"But it's taking longer than usual," Taehyung parted his lips, sighing, "I complimented her hair just like you told me to. Swear I didn't offend her with anything, I just want to know if she liked it."

Truth to be told, neither Taehyung nor Lisa ever found out if Jennie ever liked Taehyung's compliment. Summer was over long ago and the response was delayed by nearly two months — the period of autumn now relaying a depressing vibe with it.

If Lisa had to admit, she found herself at a crossroad when she mulled over her best friend, watching him open the mailbox flap hung on the fence guarding the entrance to his front porch, only to be let down finding the space empty.

On one hand, she felt it was utterly disheartening and undeserving to Taehyung who awaited Jennie's letter, his faith now dwindling — he wouldn't have been too pumped up about it had she not stopped writing to him the moment she sent him her photo — after which she had suddenly vanished from his life, ebbing away his smile bits by bits each day of the prolonged delay.

And if Lisa could feel so upset for Taehyung, she couldn't just imagine how he would be feeling from inside — given they were kids, it made zero sense to mope over a reason so petty as his, yet probably the unsaid goodbye hit him stronger than a strong blow of the fist to the gut. She didn't even remember the last time she saw him have a full smile taking over his features.

Yet on another hand, Lisa couldn't bring herself to blame the girl who lived overseas — she tried to give the benefit of doubt to Jennie, putting herself in her shoes. The girl did try her best to engage writing back to Taehyung even though it wasn't something she was obligated to. Likely, she might have many more interesting activities to do than to sit and the take responsibility of writing away letters after letters to an enigmatic boy she's never met in person, without the slightest hint of how anticipated her response was.

And looking at Taehyung's hung down face before the mailbox from the opposite lane as she headed home, Lisa had an insight of what she needed to do.

〰️

Okay, Lisa wasn't meaning to do this.

She needed to bring Taehyung's smile back.

The only possible way she could conjure was to eliminate the root cause of the problem — the letters.

A distant memory clouded her mind when she sat at her study desk, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm.

It was an incident that had occurred back when she was eight or so, and she had once eaten away a bread pudding meant for a guest coming over to her house. She didn't regret it though, for she knew Aunt Greta, her father's elder sister, was coming over — she was one of those aunts who always resorted to slaughter the self esteem of any child's house they went to; prompting them to sing, dance or perform some sort of a gymnastic move to entertain the adults. And after looting away all the confidence that a child restored within themselves, she wouldn't have the courtesy to drop a dime when she'd leave.

That wasn't the incident she wanted to remember; it was the lesson that occurred soon after her aunt was gone. Her parents hadn't been mad over the fact that their daughter had disrespected their relative by eating away what was meant to be their meal, but more annoyed at the thought of her lying about it. It was then, after an hour worth's lesson of reprimanding the little girl of her mistake that she begrudgingly made a promise — that she would never lie.

Lies, if Lisa was to admit in all her honesty, were a pretty damn funny thing. Growing up to the many lessons and morals her parents taught her, they preached the power of truth, relaying emphasis on trust and the idea of how a lie can diminish the trust between two human beings.

On the contrary, the same question always silently popped in her head when her mother reminded her to tell grandma that she enjoyed her meal and sing praises about it, when it didn't really capture the whole truth, or the time when her mother would lie to her sister that she loved wearing the dress that her sister gifted her for her wedding anniversary three years ago when in reality, the dress was donated off to a charity centre only a month after — Lisa doesn't even recount seeing her mother wear that dress for once.

In all that Lisa had watched and observed as a young child, she drew a conclusion that lying wasn't entirely bad — given the situation and the truth that was to be concealed. Some lies have the potential to ruin lives, because they're let off with the intent of malice or selfishness. Some lies on the other hand, were considerate — they didn't exactly mean no harm and were spoken to protect someone's feelings out of respect or care.

What Lisa did fail to notice about the art of deception, was that any lie — good or bad — no matter how small as a bug it was, had conjured up this magical ability to transform into something as huge as a whale.

The realisation of which, was lurking somewhere amidst the dark shadows, waiting to pounce on the perfect occasion — it wouldn't take long for it to come face to face before the girl for she was about to commit the single biggest mistake of her life that afternoon, completely oblivious of the circumstances that would, perhaps, change her life forever.

Pulling out a fresh sheet of white paper and a black ink pen, Lisa heaved a sigh, the thrumming of her heartbeat too loud in her ears.

If someone were to ask her why she was doing this, she would've answered that it was unbearable to live with Taehyung's sad pout anymore — sure it was adorable, but a prolonged exposure to it on a daily basis was dejecting; she wasn't definitely doing this for him alone, but also for her, because she had to take one for the team, doing the greater good while being a responsible friend.

The thought doesn't strike her when she was done with writing almost half of the letter — the thought that Taehyung wasn't a dumb prick to not notice the difference between the handwriting styles. This coincided with the exact minute Lisa's mom entered her room, asking her to sort the old stationery waste from the computer room before they can discard it off from the house.

A lopsided smile sat at the corner of her lips — there was no way that Taehyung could make out the writing similarities if she typed the whole thing.

Contented, she marched straight into the computer room and typed the whole thing, also coming with a valid excuse for the delay from Jennie's end.

Dear Taehyung.

I'm so sorry for not getting back to you sooner! It's been a while since I wrote to you, gosh, I don't even remember when was it! Actually, my mommy got me a new computer and an attached printer along with it, isn't that cool? After the technician set the monitor, it took me so long to get the basics of how it worked so I almost forgot to write to you.

Ah, I read what you had to say about my hair. It was really a mess that day, too windy outside but still thank you for the kind words! Yes, it was an old picture of me training at a horse camp, though I can't say I have improved much. My ambition is to become a polo player when I grow up, I hope I am successful someday! What is your ambition, I don't think I have asked. There's so much stuff to do in school and my hobby clubs, I'm sorry in advance if I don't reply to you for a while.

Please take care,
Jennie.

The smile slowly faded off Lisa's face as she read through the document. There was a narrow feeling of guilt encapsulated in every word that only amplified by the time she reached the end. To tone down the guilt a little, she tried to remember what her idea was about.

The whole plan had been very simple, foolproof and a win-win situation for all — the real Jennie had probably stopped writing back for good, so she was completely out of question. This one letter, though a lie, conveyed a silent truth that Taehyung wasn't getting anymore letters from her anytime soon and once he realised this, he'll eventually stop feeling the need to write to Jennie anymore. This way the whole pen pals communicate would stop and the problem, gone.

After hitting print, Lisa glanced at the hand copy of what she...cough— Jennie, had just written. The first problem was tackled, and now came the second part of the plan. She immediately ran back into her room, avoiding her mother's nagging to quit jumping on the wooden flooring from downstairs. Her hands rummaged through the drawers to find the envelope of one of the letters that Taehyung had opened in her house, praying to the deities above to find it soon among the impossibly jumbled mess of paper slips and craft papers strewn all over.

After a search of what felt like hour but was barely fifteen minutes in reality, Lisa somehow managed to locate the envelope, only to copy the postal address from it on a fresh envelope and fold the letter back into it.

Now that the second problem was solved, she came in terms with the third and the final problem — thinking of a way to mail the letter to Taehyung's house without coming into anyone's suspicion. After brainstorming of a possible solution for a good half an hour, Lisa went back into the computer room, searching up on the internet for the local mailman service schedule to show up.

There.

The mailman allotted for their neighbourhood arrived usually in the later hours of the day, mostly around an hour after Taehyung and Lisa reached home from attending their respective extracurricular activities at school — he had opted for baseball while she had chosen dance.

For a fact, the school bus always dropped them off at the lane which faced their garages as a convenient spot because it was easy to take a U-turn from there.

Which also meant that Taehyung preferred to walk home from his back entrance that opened inside his house via the garage, completely sitting in the direction opposite to his front porch.

This gave Lisa the perfect window period to work her way out to the front entrance and slip the letter in the mail right after the mailman left — so that it would appear that the mail folks delivered it all the way from New Zealand instead from the girl who lived two blocks away.

Bingo. 

Having her fingers crossed that her calculations wouldn't fail her, Lisa put her plan right into action the following day. She silently patted herself for the success of her three-step plan, smartly whistling as she retracted her way back into the house from her front entrance.

〰️

The smile on Taehyung's face the very next day was enough to hint that he read the letter last night.

He waved the letter frantically in his hands, rushing out of the house and almost falling before Lisa caught his hand to slow him down. There was still time for the school bus to reach the lane, giving him enough time to hand the paper to her, asking her to read the whole thing for herself.

"Didn't I tell you she would write to me? She finally did!"

"It's typed?"

"Hmm. Looks fancy, no?"

"I guess..." Lisa smiled half-heartedly, before pointing her finger to the ending note of the letter. "Look here, she says she won't be able to talk to you—"

"I know, I'll keep sending letters anyway. She never said she's gonna completely stop or something, I know she'll write me too, when she gets off her work. Now that I know the reason, I can wait."

His judgement was dumb... and so not part of the plan.

Guess the foolproof plan was not fool proofing anymore.

It frightened her and she almost raised an eye in panic, wanting to object. "But isn't this gonna go waste? As in, you sending off letters hoping she'll reply to you god knows when, wasting away the stamps—"

"I'm the only person in the house who uses stamps," Taehyung intervened, completely ignoring the previous part of Lisa's argument. "My parents use emails and nobody uses stamps anymore. My grandpa gave me a box full of his stamp collection and he felt it was depressing to look at so he wanted to rid them off. Automatically the stamps go to me."

Lisa was at a loss for words; it seemed like her frontal lobe had stopped coordinating with the rest of her body. She had expected the array of letters would cease after this final reminder letter.

Oh darn, she just did not blast upon a huge problem by herself.

"Hey Lisa, you okay?" He raised his voice, a little concerned as his palm sat on her shoulder.

"Oh nothing."

"You look stressed."

"It's...nothing, really. The bus is here.

Taehyung retracted his arm, giving a slight pat on it as the two got in, to continue the rest of their day at school.

Two days later, Taehyung made a quick mention of having left a letter for Jennie and as planned, Lisa picked it up after the bus dropped them home. This time though, her action didn't go unnoticed, because as soon as she stepped foot into her house, she was immediately confronted by her mother.

"I saw you snooping around Taehyung's mailbox from the balcony today." She asserted, before strictly instructing, "quit doing it, it's rude."

"I'm not snooping eomma. He's the one sending letters to me anyway."

"Huh?" Her mother gaped. This wasn't an answer she was expecting. "Wouldn't he mail them to our house then?"

"He wouldn't, for I'm tricking him."

Her mother, though incredibly puzzled by her answer didn't elaborate on further questioning, brushing the matter off for some sixth-grader kid things that she wouldn't understand.

Changing herself out of her uniform into a fresh pair of clothes, Lisa tore open the letter and in midst of doing so, happened to notice another piece of paper falling on her lap. She lifted the paper in the opposite hand while the other held the letter, immediately recognising the photo contained in it.

The photo dated back from the annual spring fair in town, the nostalgia of which erupted a fresh bloom of happiness in the pit of her stomach. The letter read;

Dear Jennie,

Thank you so much for writing back! School is busy, it keeps me occupied as well. I will continue sending letters to you, please don't worry about not being able to respond super fast! I like to talk to you.

Polo is a really interesting sport, wish you all the best on your ambition. As for me, I like playing baseball, though I am not sure if I like it too much to make a career out of it. Nor have I decided anything for now, but I hope I would do in near future.

The photo I've sent is from the spring fair that takes place every year in our town. Do you have fairs in New Zealand? It's a fun event that happens in most places around our country, they have some amazing games to play even if the prizes kind of suck. The only reason I go there is because we get some delicious meatballs there. And also because my best friend drags me to come with her. Her name is Lisa, she is standing beside me in the photo and we're eating meatballs! We spend a lot of our time together. She helps me write letters to you and is really smart, too, but I won't say it to her cause she mostly makes fun of me.

We have an inter school baseball league in two weeks so I don't know when I will be able to send you a letter, but if in case I do, please don't feel pressured to answer me. I just like sharing glimpses of my life with you.

Taehyung.

Lisa felt weird to read Taehyung talk about her to someone neither of the two had met, and from the sincerity in his words, one could easily make out how entrusting he was with each letter.

Most of the time he acted offended whenever Lisa teased him and this side of him came to her as a complete surprise, for she never expected him to write such amiable things about her. He would rather prefer to be dead than admit the same words verbally before her.

He spoke to Jennie as if she was his accomplice, another friend who played with him on the daily. The tone of his words was reminiscent of the time when she first met him, the same kind of icy breakthroughs to push past the awkwardness in their friendship.

Her face hung low as she read the letter once again while tracing her fingertips over the alphabets that were never meant for her, a sigh of guilt launching her into another tale of woe.

〰️

"Are they really playing volleyball with a soccer ball in their hands? Which kind of a weird everything-is-wrong parallel universe have I gotten myself into?" Taehyung made a cringeworthy face at the girls playing volleyball during recess as he sat beside Lisa by the stairs.

"Oh wow, you came real quick. Just a second ago two girls had almost convinced me to join them if it weren't for you."

"So is it like a good thing or a bad thing?" He asked, as she deadpanned him, almost interrogating his late arrival through gestures. "Yeah, I know I'm kinda late but my baseball coach won't let us take a break, Jihyun got a wrist injury so they were reallocating our positions for the semis."

Lisa curved her lips into a big 'O' as Taehyung pulled out a familiar envelope.

"She wrote back again!" Taehyung cooed as he slithered the paper into Lisa's hands. "I'm glad she did, even if she had said she couldn't."

"Maybe she felt guilty of you being the only one sending her stuffs while she had nothing to send you." Lisa showed him a tight lipped smile and almost immediately, Taehyung jumped in his place in sheer surprise.

"Oh my god, thats's exactly what she said." He snatched the paper for a second, pointing it precisely on the sentence in the ending para. "You really do know girls, don't you, Lisa?"

"That's because I'm a girl too, Taehyung." She playfully hit him on the elbow, praying he'd forget the accidental slip of her tongue.

I'm also the one to write that letter to you, Taehyung.

"So have you decided?" She paused, her palm under her chin as she looked at him with a small pout that he seemed to notice. "That you're gonna keep writing to her?"

"Hmm." Taehyung gave her a polite nod. "She's easy to talk to, you know? Especially in the recent time when she sent me an apology letter over a month ago, and this one now in middle of my matches, it feels like we've known each other for years. I don't think I'll stop talking to her anytime soon. Scratch that, I don't think I'll ever want to stop talking to her."

For a moment, Lisa glanced at those girls playing volleyball with a soccer ball in their hands, wishing that she were a part of their game. Because then, it wouldn't have struck her with so much pain or anguish her heart was feeling right then for lying to the only boy she'd lived half of her life with, perhaps longer in the coming time, playing ruse with the same trusting boy who felt so contented with things that were not the least bit real.

〰️

The clumsy, sauntering years of middle school fly passed with the click of a finger, and Lisa couldn't remember when her feelings for Taehyung had blossomed into something else — something more than what the permissible boundaries of friendship defined.

She was, for a fact, confused when she first felt those butterflies in her stomach — and she didn't know if it was a genuine affiliation or a mere exaggeration of what they showed in those television romcoms. Moreover, the only vivid memory of the feeling that Lisa could trace back of her heart skipping a beat was somewhere in the middle of her puberty phase, on the last day of eighth grade.

They had both been fourteen around the time, Lisa being the younger fourteen between the two of them.

The last exam of the year marked the ending of the session and the departure from their school as well — for, the school only functioned up to middle school and didn't have much courses to offer for high school, causing the children to shift and complete the senior secondary schooling from schools outside town.

So when the school bell went off, announcing the dispersal, the children let out enthusiastic cheers when they exited the building. Most of them throwing water at each other, sharing hugs and melodramatic goodbyes while some signing away fancy signatures on each other's uniforms. Lisa being no exception to them, wanted to rush out as soon as she could, so she wrapped up her materials in her bag and proceeded to leave — only to be abruptly stalled by a strong grab of her backpack handle.

"What the hell Tae?!"

Taehyung knelt down without a word, arms reaching out to tie her shoelaces, much to her surprise. His brows creased whilst he concentrated on twisting his hands to loop the lace strings to tie the knot of her sneakers into perfect bow.

"There. You would've kissed the floor if you dragged yourself with those laces." He said, standing back up.

Lisa cleared her throat. "You'll always tie them for me anyways, thanks." She retorted with a smug.

Taehyung widened his eyes. "Unbelievable."

"What if I actually fell, won't you catch me?"

"Fine, I'll catch you and punch the ground right after. How does that sound?"

"Highly unlikely, I used to be the one to save you when we were kids—"

"Time to return the favour, I'll be your Anpanman, alright?"

"Hmm okay." She replied, feeling all giddy and bouncy from inside.

The concept of love for her juvenile brain was too complex to comprehend, however, Lisa was convinced that her love for Taehyung would always remain yellow, or one that was just based on platonic affections and care.

〰️

The preteen dewdrops on Lisa's rose tinted imaginary glasses slowly faded as she sifted through the years of high school — along with Taehyung, she had shifted to a college in Seoul after their parents made a mutual decision to leave them in the same institution so they could always look after each other in their absence.

Puberty had brought with itself, some good deeds for Taehyung. Because now, he was a good few inches taller than Lisa, almost nearing six feet in height, voice dropping a few octaves lower to form a perfect baritone, his jawline more defined and fit physique by years of baseball training, it seemed as though Taehyung had bodily changed in the span of a night. He didn't exactly come in the buff category but that didn't mean he wasn't brawny at all.

In junior high, Taehyung additionally picked swimming as an extra curricular after being moped up about how the clear rills back in the their town in Daegu served excellent purposes for the activity, a feature completely absent in metropolitan Seoul.

In contrast to him, Lisa had rather a subtle change throughout her teenage years. Given in terms of her height, her complexion, her facial features, her personality — she hadn't changed much in her self introspection.

She wondered if Taehyung ever noticed these changes in between, a transient thought a little too difficult to decipher when he still treated her the same as he did throughout their childhood years — the rectangle shaped boxy grin that remained all the same in the process of his adulting.

They were both eighteen now, currently in the last year of high school and one and a half semesters, six months away from graduation — Lisa being the younger eighteen among them.

By the time they had arrived into senior year, there were ton more things to worry about. Be it teachers, parents and friends — asking about future plans every two days with so much attentiveness and concern that it had almost sounded exhausting to answer.

With Taehyung however, nothing seemed changed. Being with him felt like taking in a breath of fresh air, a cool breeze that encapsulated them whenever they sprinted in the fields as kids.

If anything, given his athletic qualities and stellar academics complimenting his attractive looks and fairly pleasant aura, Taehyung was the leading light in the campus.

Taehyung had this certain dynamic in him, always intrigued to know and learn; a quality that persisted in him ever since he was a child, only showing with more vibrancy as he made use of all the opportunities made available to him in the city.

The boy wasn't only a stellar performer but a young zestful fellow, enrolled into any program or event in the campus and a treasure box worth of medals and certificates and trophies he won while representing their esteemed school. Sometimes he chose to enroll himself in, if the program qualified what he called his 'vibe check'. In other times, he was just enrolled for the sake of his professors who compelled him to represent himself as the face of it.

This obviously earned him some decent token of fame among the girls (probably the guys too, who knows?), albeit the self awareness of his good looks didn't necessarily soar an impact in his dating life. His schedule was so hectic that it forbade him to actually go out and date.

Regardless of all that, in the many years that had passed, the only two unwavering constants in terms of girls after his mother and grandmother were Lisa and Jennie.

Or to put it in other words, Lisa and Lisa-but-also-not-Lisa.

As for the letters, the charade only ever continued to snowball onto their lives, already having lasted for six long years until god knows when.

In her initial letters, Lisa tried to be discreet, keeping her letters short and concise, mostly in a responsive mode to Taehyung's long eventful descriptions. She did try to bring the whole thing to a close, many subtle times and even tried to hint him herself whenever Taehyung showed those letters what he believed Jennie had written to him.

In spite of that, as months had taken a dramatically slow time to transform into years, the end to the façade had started to look almost impossible when the horizon wasn't in sight.

Over the years of following these exchanges, Lisa had amassed quite a bunch of things Taehyung sent her — well, those that were meant to be sent to Jennie.

They consisted of some occasional postcards during New Years and majorly a collection of random photos — ranging from trips to Jeju, walks in Hongdae and the scenic view of the Han river, some from the baseball tournaments and the debate competitions he'd participated in, a picture from a swimming open where he came second, to some unseen weird photos of him like stuffing in a half bitten slice of pizza in his mouth.

Sometimes all Lisa could do was sit and wonder in silence of her dorm room, if she could've ever been a witness to these photos had she stopped posing as his pen pal.

The whole horde of Taehyung photos that tagged along with his letters were getting increasingly difficult to store, especially went they kept piling up and he often came over to her dorm to relax whenever he was free in the afternoon or late evenings. Given the intrigue the boy had, it was well suited to store these photographs and letters in two separate bland cardboard shoeboxes — the one with the photos underneath her bed whilst the letters one in the corner of her wardrobe, hidden behind the group of dresses that she excitedly bought on a whim but never fucking wore.

The conversations shared in those letters, well, had significantly metamorphosed into something radically different — not the same childish bullshit about favourite sport, favourite colours, dogs and cats — but rather intellectually stimulated but equally mindless things, such as Taehyung making a presentation on Money Heist and what if the thriller crime series was a reality of life, although his only motive behind it was to find the number of die hard fans in class. Or the one time Lisa had almost lit the chemistry lab on fire when she left a burning matchstick carelessly close to a halfway closed burner (though she still strongly believed Taehyung was the one to leave it open, since he was in charge of handling the burner).

Sometimes the conversations felt deep and insightful, as though they were two old friends reconnecting through ink, taking a trip down the memory lane to recite the incidents they did in each other's absence. Except that Taehyung was the only one to write the letters while Lisa only typed them out.

Transportation of the letters was also not a big issue now, as Taehyung was usually occupied, he couldn't leave his envelopes in the college mail — consequently he entrusted Lisa to deposit the mails — making it easier for her to sneak the letters in her pocket without having to snoop up his mailbox when they lived in neighbouring houses.

If Lisa were to admit, it was kind of fun playing this Jennie character — because it reflected her creativity and established some sense of her freedom to be able to manipulate and fabricate her life as if she were writing the protagonist of a film script. It was almost as if she took some character traits from Taehyung from the letters he shared with the actual Jennie back in childhood, and painting her in a reincarnated life — well, provided that Jennie wasn't physically there to clap back on it.

So in Lisa's characterisation, Jennie was simply  doing great in her polo training while being an avid history lover, who wished to take sociology in her forthcoming university courses, absolutely a sucker at math and could rap a whole goddamn verse against calculus. She had two pets, both dogs, who had once followed her home after her polo practice and she pleaded to her mom to have them. She named them after two K-sounding syllables as opposed to her bloodline in which majority of the names started with J, only because her dogs made a funny cracking voice when they laughed.

Yet all the humorous things she had remodelled Jennie into didn't change that one thing that still lingered in her heart, hurting like a spirit applied on an open wound — the guilt.

There was guilt every single time she hit print on her keyboard, printing the page out from the printer at the library twice a month — avoiding suspicion from the onlookers for always having something to print all the time. There was guilt every time she forwarded Jennie's letter to Taehyung, claiming she had received it from the mail desk. There was guilt that ate away at her soul for lying to the only best friend she ever knew, for allowing this fugacious lie catapult into something so huge that the consequences of the truth would never be easy to get over with.

She felt guilty at every second of her life whenever Taehyung brought up the subject of Jennie and her life, a whole counterfeited persona in the part of a stupid act that Lisa was afraid from letting out. She somehow could now relate to the shepherd who always lied to the villagers and when it was time for the truth, not a single soul believed him.

The wise old folks who always said a lie only grows bigger and bigger but never smaller were perhaps right in their judgement. As a child, Lisa never believed their advice, passing it off as a hoax unless it really occurred to her.

Furthermore, what amplified the guilt a thousand times more was Taehyung and his happiness whenever he unfolded the letter. There was a smile started with the crinkle of his eyes, wandering south to his lips, always lighting up like the brightest star in a moonless sky.

Even if Lisa suggested it was better off if he used email as a better means to communicate, he simply brushed her off by stating that although writing was a little too old fashioned for the generation, but Jennie had a thing for letters given she was a history student — and letter writing just seemed too authentic for a thought, compared to emailing.

The same old lies that went on from the times they were twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and now eighteen — Lisa hated it all because it was a phoney.

Lisa hated it because she was the reason it was all a phoney.

〰️

Lisa let out a frustrated groan into her pillow while going through the timetable the first thing in the morning — she had her anatomy lecture, and last night she barely had a wink of sleep.

By the time she rolled into the lab, roughly ten minutes before the class started, the chatter had already started like usual. Four students were addressed on each station, two on each side of the table. Since Taehyung was supposed to be attending the council meeting with the teacher regarding the upcoming scholar badge ceremony, she had to sit with another girl, Minji as her pair.

"Hey," the girl whispered a while after the professor asked them to spray some solution on the specimens to wet them and note observations, and Lisa suddenly didn't recount whether she had ever talked to her before.

"Yes..?"

"You're friends with Taehyung, aren't ya?"

In a second, Lisa already got an indication of what the next question was about to be. The whole school was probably aware of their friendship, and Minji wasn't a new face to this.

Why then was she so insistent to ask?

"Hmm." Lisa answered, while spraying the specimen allotted to their table.

"What is he like?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, like, you know, is he nice?"

Lisa frowned in her honest response, "of course he is. The nicest you'll ever meet."

"What sort of movies does he like?" Before Lisa had the chance to answer the question, Minji continued to press on her questionnaire. "What kind of candy does he eat? When is his birthday?" She giggled. "What's his ideal type?"

Albeit expecting this as some of the common questions asked to whenever Taehyung wasn't around, her face turned a little sour this time; she didn't have an idea why that was so.

"Well it's better if you asked these questions to him yourself."

She took note of Minji's surprised expression, before turning her chair a step away from her lab partner. Only a second letter, bringing the lost girl back to her senses by saying, "don't spray a lot of solution on the specimen, you might damage it."

After class, Lisa remembered, though very briefly, hearing Minji being chastised by her friend. Apart from a practical anatomy lecture, she didn't expect to be greeted by a Taehyung quiz this early in the morning; not when she had barely four hours of sleep last night and two cups of coffee to keep herself awake.

This was going to be a long day, she thought to herself.

〰️

"You stink."

The truth rolled off Lisa's tongue the minute she opened her door to Taehyung, who just returned from his baseball practice.

In the second that followed, Taehyung shot a beaming smile in her direction as opposed to the exhaustion that ghosted all over his face, a smile that gripped her heart, digging deep enough to send a thrill down her nervous system. Lisa swallowed hard, her gaze dipping down to the cupid's bow of his rosebud lips that caused a sudden unprecedented spike in her heart rate — momentarily, before she resorted to darting her stare away from ogling at him as she stepped aside, allowing him to enter in.

"Well, it's nice to see you too, best friend." He eagerly responded, after she closed the door behind her.

A strange heat formed in her gut, as she watched his intruding figure padding over to her bed, dropping his training bag with a soft shuffling sound.

From here, when he finally came into a brighter light compared to the dim hallway lighting, she could clearly take notice of his arm muscles that had quite recently grown a little meaty; the sheen of sweat climbed onto his golden skin while his tousled hair was still damp, perhaps from the shower he took after practice.

It was just amazing how his hair still look pretty decent, even in their disheveled state, arranging into curls that crowned upon a sense of innocence that tugged her heart. An itchy sensation overtook her fingertips, wanting to tuck aside the beautiful curls that fell over his face.

"Don't you dare trespass near my bed smelling like a sewer, Kim Taehyung." Lisa made herself clear, jumping on her bed right before Taehyung could take another step closer.

He only let out a scowl in response. "Hey, that's unfair! FYI, I showered at school already and I don't smell that bad — you're just being dramatic! Perks of having my best friend in the theatre club." He feigned a melodramatic sigh.

"You reek of sweat right now Taehyung. You better take another shower before stepping into my sheets, I changed them just last night."

Taehyung's tongue darted out to lick across his lower lip, the corresponding flutter Lisa discerned her heart felt that moment, as if the realisation struck her like an imminent death.

And it was too depressing to die too early, let alone in the college dorm.

Because of a certain guy she grew up with and the same guy who was making her these awkward emotions.

She couldn't like him right—?

Of course she does, he's her best friend.

But what if the fatal attraction was more than friends have? Could this be classed as platonic?

She bet not.

Alright, not now.

She doesn't have to make herself look like a fool in front of her best friend right now while arguing with her mind whether she liked him.... in a seemingly romantic way or not.

"Fine, I'll go shower." Taehyung sighed, as if she was the one causing him some major inconvenience. Holding the hem of his sweat-drenched shirt, he hauled it over his head and tossed it on the floor — without the least bit of awareness of how her heart had a near cardiac arrest when it abruptly halted the second her gaze landed on his naked chest.

Taehyung shouldn't have taken up swimming last year, because now his body was even more chiselled than before. It was having a negative impact on her body and mind. He looked glorious, his warm skin glowing as if the sun was trapped within it.

Another hard swallow hit her throat again as she rose from her bed, towering till the edge were the Adonis stood and with an outstretched arm, she whacked his head, nullifying the desire spurring in her guts and short circuiting her brain.

"Ow, Lisa!" She heard a yelp. "What the hell was that for?" Taehyung's pout counter-attacked her by sending a heatwave scintillating through every nerve of her body, a noticeable effect of which was visible in her cheeks that had turned scarlet with the instantaneous blood rush.

"Why are you getting naked in my room, in front of me?"

Taehyung opened his mouth to retort. "Cause you said I reeked a goddamn minute ago?!"

"Nowhere did I tell you to get naked before me or use the shower in my dorm. Your dorm is a good five minute walk away—" Taehyung caught the punch Lisa intended to throw to his shoulder. A thrill surged through like the fast blow of the wind when his indecipherable large hands enclosed around her wrists, his grip taut. In one sharp tug alone, Lisa came tumbling into his arms, her chest colliding against his firm front.

"We used to share baths as kids. What makes you prohibit me from using your shower? It's not like I asked you to join in." His groggy baritone sounded husky this time, softly wrapping her promptly like his arms did around her shoulders.

"That was when we were kids. Look at yourself now. You're, you're—" Lisa's voice faltered as she pulled back from his embrace, her eyes leering at his figure from up close, unable to form comprehensive words to complete her sentence.

In the blink of an eye, Taehyung caught the spot where the heat had flooded her face, because only a second layer, he was stroking his thumb on the same spots on her cheeks, the smile tugging the corner of his lips into an eclipsed moon facing upwards.

"I'm still Taehyungie. Your best friend, Taehyung." He implored.

"You're not the same Taehyungie, you're much older, an adult Taehyung right now. The star kid of the campus, you don't see that?"

Taehyung had to bite the insides of his cheeks to suppress his laughter. "And that's the only reason you're forbidding me from using your bathroom?"

"A couple more reasons, but yes that's one of them." Lisa tried to look away to avoid Taehyung's honey eyes from gazing into her soul and making her feel more flustered than she already was.

"Oh my God Lisa, you really grew up with no brains."

Lisa threw in a pillow at his hysterics as he dodged the throw, grabbing his training bag before he jumped into the bathroom — allowing Lisa to breathe and take in all that occurred a hot damn minute ago.

Her cheeks were puffed up, red as a ripe strawberry and her heart racing an endless marathon.

In that moment where she stayed alone in her room, Lisa was befuddled with a number of questions — her brain arguing with her heart, posing these questions to play games with her. Taehyung was her best friend. Even if she repeated this statement a hundred more times in her head, the truth thrummed loudly against her ears, her feelings combusted to become a thousand times stronger.

At this point, it didn't even seem like a manageable small crush at the boy like the other girls on the campus — it seemed like one of those unrequited ones, too difficult to explain when she expressed her undying adoration for him in many different ways from past to present.

Could that all be just some platonic affection?

Did she really forget the feelings of her own heart in midst of impersonating a fictionalised version of Jennie, who, none of the two have no idea of how she looks or what she does or even how she's keeping up after all these years of ghosting Taehyung?

This was only adding up more to the mess that a naive Lisa started years ago without an idea of the repercussions she'd face.

Well, bad for her, because the strings of the lie were slowly untangling, on the verge of splitting apart and reveal the hidden truth hidden in its girth.

Her fingers rummaged through the photographs from the box that lay hidden below her bed. The photographs that were never meant for her. Those that were —

The running of the shower tap came to a close along with Taehyung's simultaneous whistling. Within the same second, the door opened and out came Taehyung, smelling like her shampoo — his hands still drying off his hair with a towel. He had changed into a pair of black shorts and a white shirt, the sleeves of the latter were folded midway till his biceps.

While Taehyung got back in to get his bag back from the bathroom, Lisa pushed in the shoebox on the floor but not completely inside the gap she made beneath the bed.

"There, happy now? I showered for you again. You better take the blame if in case I catch a cold."

"Aww, so sweet of you." Lisa cooed, patting on the bed as Taehyung obliged, diving in.

"Jennie wrote to me yesterday."

"I know, as if I wasn't the one to hand the letter in your hands."

Taehyung smacked his lips. "Ah right, I forgot."

"You really need to start taking prescriptions of memory pills." Lisa teased, "it'll pain me if you're diagnosed with early amnesia or something."

"Wow, so phunny."

"What did she say this time?" She asked, stretching her legs and crossing her ankles as Taehyung did the same too as they sat on opposite edges of the bed. A balance was necessary unless they didn't want to fall off the single bed mattress.

"Oh, nothing much, just dog antics." Taehyung sighed, one leg swinging back and forth across the bed, a little too close to the protruded shoe box. "Her dogs are funny."

"You've never met her dogs." Lisa added, bending over to push the box back where it earlier sat, with her fingertips.

"Yeah but from what I've read, they do hilarious things!" He proceeded to explain some of the many embarrassing situations the dogs had landed Jennie onto, most of which included the chaos in the neighbourhood townhouses Jennie lived in with her mother, and in her house when her relatives were over.

"Well they do sound like a local nuisance to me." Lisa said, sounding like mothers when they spoke in false admiration when their children had something very interested to share but as adults they didn't care much about it.

The box slid itself finally inside the space, the risk was out of his reach.

Phew.

Crisis averted.

She smiled.

"An entertaining nuisance is what I'd say," Taehyung corrected her, while he had reclined himself against the pillow, amused with every single detail Jennie shared with him.

"You two get along pretty well, huh."

Taehyung hummed in response. "I know. I just, I just feel like I can share everything with her. Almost as if I were talking to my diary, and she wouldn't judge me. Sometimes when I read what she's sent me, I feel like we've been together for like many years."

"True that, you've been writing entries to her for what, six years? Isn't that too freaking long?"

"Yeah, but — not in that sense. As in, Jennie's so easy to talk to. The girl's unaware that she's a fucking dream. Because whenever I talk to her, it's almost as if I were talking to you."

Wonder why.

"Then dream on, Tae. Good luck." She held up her fists, holding her thumb out to cheer him on.

"Hey Lisa," the humorous tone disappeared from his voice for a mere second as he turned his head to look her in the eye. "I can tell you, am I right?"

"Of course, I'll be more than happy to hear. And as we're such great friends, I won't betray you."

"Woah, you sound like you're taking marriage vows with me."

She feigned a scoff in response. "Hear me out first, lad. I have some t&c to follow up too. I won't help you with any problem you're going through like I've always had, unless you're doing some criminal activity like smuggling drugs and shit. Cause if that's the case, I'm sorry but I'll be the first one to turn you into the police."

The room sprang with Taehyung's laughter, the sound of which made her feel giddy from within as she mustered up a cutesy grin.

"I've got a clean record, miss. I haven't done anything illegal yet."

"Now that's a relief. Phew." Lisa pretended to throw an imaginary stroke of sweat from her forehead.

"Are you aware of this girl from anatomy class?"

"Hmm. I know many girls from anatomy class. Thank you, for being oh so specific." Lisa scoffed with an eye roll, making wild gesticulations to prove her sarcasm.

He shot her an unimpressive glare. "The one who always tags along with Minji. They dislocated the clavicle of the skeleton while playing some weird dance macabre once."

"Oh those two. Minji and Jiwoo. Tell me, what about them?"

"Ah correct. Uhm..." Taehyung scratched his nape, commencing. "Anyway, so, Jiwoo — she asked me out today. Right after practice."

"Thought so, Minji kept bugging me with questions as if I'm the walking Kim Taehyung dictionary."

Taehyung goofed up at her response, as Lisa prompted him to continue. "So you...rejected her?"

"Yeah."

"Obviously, I've known you. But there's something more to it. One that you've locked inside your pretty brain." She pointed at his head, the dampness slowly drying off.

"It's not tiny, I'm a smart kid. You can't be disrespecting me." He let out his infamous whine, one that was Lisa was so used to seeing in contrast to all the other people in college who were never to this side of him.

And Lisa doubted if they ever will be.

"Oh no sweetheart, I can. With all honours, I'm your best buddy."

Instantly, Taehyung hovered over her and had his knees on both sides of her waist — tackling her arms being thrown randomly at him, he instantly flung her into the bed. In this compromising situation, where Lisa attempted to knee him in his groin, Taehyung caught her erratic leg with ease, pinning her onto the sheets effectively.

"When are you planning to release me?"

"When you offer to shut your pretty mouth because you happen to slip only mock offences against your dear buddy when he's got something serious to say."

"...."

The unresolved anguish was quite laughable in Lisa's opinion, if she were not trapped in this incredibly uncomfortable position, squirming beneath him. The butterflies were back.

Taehyung released her the very second he heard her curt nod.

"So the thing is," he cleared his throat, while seating himself back against the pillow. This time a tad bit nervous. "I didn't reject her only because of my schedule. I told her that I have a crush on somebody else....and it wasn't an excuse."

"What you mean it wasn't an excuse? Oh my God, wait a minute—"

Lisa enthusiastically crossed her knees and sat upright on her bed. "Who is the lucky girl? The council president? Or the artsy literature girl from English class—"

"Jennie."

To Lisa, it felt suffocating to sit in a silence with her best friend who could also be a someone she had possibly harboured a infinitesimal crush on.

"Jennie?"

He hummed his response, as if he was signalling her lowly to be the ice breaker again.

Lisa hated to be that friend. "Why Jennie? You— you, you haven't even met her, Taehyungie."

"I know, I just—" he trailed off, licking at his lower lip again and looking down at his fidgety fingers, few of the common actions he normally did whenever he felt hesitant about anything.

"I was thinking about all the things we've told each other in these many years. I've kept her updated about my life, just as she has about hers. She knows some of my S-tier embarrassing moments to a few secrets that I've only shared with you apart from her. Mostly it's about how she's open to accepting whatever I've got to say, every single word about it and I have to say, I think I like her."

"Do you know how she looks, it's only been you who sends her photos since elementary—"

"No, but like, she said she was uncomfortable sharing it and her mother didn't allow. I still have the only photo of herself she sent me."

"And how would you go about it? Expect to look all the same like how she did in her preteens, or search her up in those age progressions websites?"

Taehyung had to silence himself for a minute, as if he was projecting something after listening to Lisa's advice, or rather, her intense interrogation.

"Wait— I'll never do that. They'll come up with this shitty photoshop forgery that looks a 100% fake and it's guaranteed."

"You really took a minute to imagine that?" Lisa snickered. "One of a kind person you are, Taehyung."

"Course I am."

In that awkward silence that followed in the room (again), Lisa was stealing glances from Taehyung as he did the same with her; it was only a second later that the two of them opened their mouths, at the same time — to run over what both of them had to say.

"Do you plan to tell her?"

"What should I tell her?"

They laughed; this instance had happened many times in the past, a regular occurrence when they had to share their secrets — yet it felt so funny like the first time.

"Alright, I don't think I should. I'm not worried about her rejecting me for liking her if she doesn't like me back, I'm more worried about her cross examining me like you are right now — what if she thinks that it's not possible since we have never met? What if she starts thinking I'm an idiot? I don't want her to think that."

Finding herself in jeopardy, it was best suited for Lisa to act a tad more diplomatic. Not only because she didn't want Taehyung to think she was invalidating his feelings, but also in order to both some more time — on how to get the letters to a close. For good this time.

"I seriously don't know Taehyung," she started, reaching her arm out to take his palm in hers. It was whimsical to notice how Taehyung's hand was huge compared to hers, even though her digits were slim and long. Nevertheless, it rested perfectly in her palm, the butterflies hitting her stomach as she bit her lip.

"Hey, what happened? You were gonna say something and you stopped."

"Oh...right. Sorry." She bit her tongue, totally unaware of how that minimalist thing was enough to bring about a smile on Taehyung's face, his frown slowly clearing away as he awaited an answer. "Like I was saying, people don't want to be outright rejected. So, you should just do whatever you're comfortable with."

"Yeah," Taehyung nodded. "I think it's better if I don't tell her..." Lisa breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief.

"....yet. Of course, I only started thinking about it yesterday. I can't tell her anything that I conjure up in my brain in the spur of a moment, not when I'm not so sure about it myself. Don't wanna come out too strong."

More relief washed over her.

"Sounds like a good decision. What about the girls who keep asking you out on a regular basis?"

Certainly, it would absolutely break all the hearts that look with a gleam in their eyes, as if Taehyung were a Prince Charming from some faraway kingdom, to hear that he was in throes of a girl he'd never met, and who probably lived a thousand miles away without an idea of what or how he was doing.

"Well I can just let them know that I've got my eyes set on someone else. I don't have to elaborate further on that."

The chuckle doesn't escape from Lisa's lips like it would've normally had on his joke. Because this time, the wink he shot her right in the end of his self-suggested plan had her heart fluttering, the butterflies signing up a permanent residence in her stomach, in Taehyung's name.

It was then in that moment that Lisa had a stream of epiphanies hitting her at once.

One of them was that her feelings were no more a mere crush; she was indeed, falling for her best friend.

Second of them was a thought, of how much it would take Taehyung to see her in a different light, to realise that the girl who he claimed he was starting to like was no more than a fictional entity in his life.

Amidst an intrusion of thoughts, when Taehyung rested in his head on her thigh, his glowing face sinking into her heart, Lisa allowed herself to immerse it all in herself.

Flashing her pearly whites to him, in the warmest of smiles.

〰️

Friday was hands down the worst days of all. Or maybe it was the management who loved to fuck with the senior high students by stuffing all academic subjects in one day, before they got off for the weekend.

After a strenuous hour-and-a-half of doing snake-like math curves spiralling her mind, Lisa was desperate to hoard a shit load of snacks and readily cooked meals for her weekend getaway and of course, followed by a nice eight hour nap on her bed. It felt like she hadn't had a peaceful sleep in years and like any conscious kid her age, still had a lot to explore in the world — she couldn't have herself turn prematurely old and it was best suited to sleep her worries away.

Her pencil case and notebooks made it into her backpack, when Taehyung walked in. A bright grin plastered on his face.

"Hey, Lisa." He greeted, with her bag swung over his shoulder and his green shirt neatly tucked into the waistline of his brown trousers.

"Woah, you really look like Fred from SpongeBob."

His lips shaped into a small pout. "I don't know if I should be obliged or offended over my best friend noticing my outfits than choosing to greet me."

"Then I must also ask, how am I so lucky for being graced with the presence of the one and only Kim Taehyung today?" Lisa asked without even glancing at him.

"Yah, you can't be forever upset because I cancelled our weekend movie marathon. The coach wanted to have a serious discussion about choosing one of the two sports I play, to represent for the upcoming festa."

"Don't make me sound like the bad guy. You were almost invisible from my sight for three weeks? I didn't sign up for that shit when I agreed to be friends with you."

"I'm sorry okay, please, let me make it up to you."

Truth to be told, Lisa was indeed hungover with Taehyung skipping their cozy chilling hangouts but having him act all whiny and caring was just too adorable; hence her pretentious attitude for being supposedly disappointed by him.

"By doing what?"

"I have a free night tonight." He proposed. "Wanna go out and grab dinner with me?"

"Kim Taehyung, are you really asking me out on a date?" Lisa threw in a hysteric scoff. "And what makes you think I'm very free to go out with you too?"

"Allow me to think, miss," Taehyung placed his thumb and index finger under his chin, tapping at inexistent stubble, only proceeding to laugh a second later. "When was the last time you stood me up because of your busy plans before a weekend?"

That was it; Lisa knew she was a goner at this point. "Woah," she recited, a smile finally taking over her features. "You've got me there."

"So...?"

"Where to?" She asked, zipping up her backpack before swinging it off her shoulder.

In that moment, Lisa noticed it, rather she allowed herself to notice it; the two girls, Minji and Jiwoo were standing two rows behind Taehyung in the lecture hall. Jiwoo looked shocked, while Minji was already throwing daggers towards them.

Taehyung still chose to ask Lisa out on a date before them, despite the fact that Jiwoo was the same person whom he rejected nearly three weeks ago.

If Lisa's ego didn't inflate before, it surely did right then.

Taehyung truly did not have absolutely a single sense of shame.

She grinned.

Taehyung, who stood by her side, studying her features, knew exactly what that grin was for. His lips mirrored her smile.

"How about the new restaurant that opened downtown almost two months ago? I've heard from folks here that they serve great Mexican food."

"Taehyung, you hate Mexican food." Lisa countered his suggestion.

"You can't call me out on it, Lisa, I'll like to part with my hatred just this once, for you. And there's no harm in trying to broaden my horizons, is there?"

"Fine," Lisa agreed. "It's Mexican for the night."

"Cool. Now it's up to you to decide if it's a date or not." He winked, while simultaneously pointing a finger gun at her with the smack of his lips, rendering her confused.

"Huh, what do you mean?"

"I was the one to suggest dinner and the dinner place. Now it's up to you to decide we're going on a date or not." He suggested, "I hope I'll get my answer by evening when I come to pick you up."

That was when Lisa knew exactly what he had been hinting at. Her lips widened and a confident smile fitted over her pearly whites.

"Meet me at seven."

〰️

By no means did it occur to Lisa that she was actually going out on a date. Probably the first date of her social life. With just no one, but her best friend. This date wasn't supposed to mean anything serious, much to Lisa's misfortune.

Not when Taehyung had still not resolved his internal conflict whether he seriously liked the 'Jennie' character he wrote to on a weekly basis and neither was Lisa herself sure if it was good to admit that she had started to just like Taehyung more than a friend, that is.

Oh no, what a terrible liar.

This time, even her brain was in accordance with her heart, the voices from all corners of her body collectively barking a strong affirmation in form of her inner conscience.

She was head over heels in love with her best friend.

Nice going.

Confession was off the table, not only because she was she aware of Taehyung's feelings, but also because she hadn't cleared up the mess yet.

She just couldn't figure out a way how to.

No.

She didn't want to burden herself with too many thoughts at the same time.

Especially not now.

Especially not when Taehyung was taking her to this fancy romantic restaurant in downtown Seoul, and it was time for her to wear nice clothes if she needed to hint that she was vey much interested in this date.

Her phone lit up just two minutes before the set time, Taehyung's name flashing on the caller id.

"I'm waiting by the memorial. You coming down?"

"Okay."

Taehyung's charms didn't fail to amaze Lisa when she met him by the memorial where he stood, rocking his all-black combination comprising of a dress shirt and pants, over which he draped his grey checkered jacket. Though it looked like he'd just got off blow drying his hair after a quick shower, the streaks of dark hair falling over his brows only seemed to furnish his entrancing looks.

"Woah, look at you," Taehyung gasped, foregoing any sort of salutation when Lisa approached him in her striped black and white sequin sweater. "Haven't seen you wearing this after last year's annual ceremony."

"You remember this?"

"I remember a lot of things about you," Taehyung reminded her, with a tight lipped smile, inching close until they were standing face to face in front of each other.

Though Lisa had opted to go for a neutral makeup for the night, Taehyung surprisingly added a flair of rouge on her cheeks — only by his sultry actions. "Your hair compliments your dress too, you should let your hair loose and longer more often."

"Damn Tae," she raised a startled brow, "is this what you say to all girls who keep throwing themselves over you?"

"Nah, you bet, flirting isn't an option for me." Taehyung replied. "So to add, my very pretty best friend once told me that girls like to hear that kind of stuff."

A chuckle slipped past Lisa's lips at the recital of the same advice she'd herself given him many moons ago.

"Great going, then."

〰️

As expected of him, Taehyung turned his nose up at every single dish listed in the menu, muttering under his breath to have anything but red beans, unfortunately, he never found something to fit his taste. Giving up on the menu after staring at it for a good fifteen minutes, he eventually settled down for a plate of nachos and Caesar salad — one of the saddest combinations to order from a Mexican outlet.

"Why are you looking at me as if I murdered someone?" Taehyung asked with knitted brows as Lisa sighed when he stuffed his mouth with a fresh head of lettuce.

"Seriously you have the guts to ask me that? While you're sitting out here in this well-to-do place and you're doing uncultured stuff."

"You can't blame me if the place in question only serves red beans or extra spicy chilli sauces in every given dish." His words only came out in a muffled voice as he continued to munch away the nachos while Lisa found it hard to bite into her enchiladas.

"I hate Mexican food."

"Not a valid excuse. Why did you even bring me to this place then?" Lisa raised her fork with one hand and cupped the opposite palm under it to catch any drips, bringing her hand near Taehyung's face. "Here, try this."

Taehyung scrunched his nose up at first, trying to dodge her hand for what felt like a struggle of two minutes, finally forcing himself to take a bite in defeat as Lisa successfully shoved the fork in his mouth. Earning a snicker from the kid seated at the table neighbouring them.

"The kid had quite a show, thanks to you." Lisa giggled, retracting her hand back to continue eating while Taehyung sat still with the piece of enchilada still stuffed inside his mouth.

"Oh come on, gobble it down! Your face looks funny when you pocket the food like a friggin five year old."

"My goal wasn't to have Mexican food actually," Taehyung uttered while still being stuffed a mouthful as he slowly chewed on his bite and swallowed it down his throat, and Lisa smiled internally at the thought of him not spitting the food out, to say the least. "My priority was you over food for tonight."

"Huh?"

"Yup, I wanted to focus on you instead of food tonight."

"Taehyung, I swear to God if you don't quit your nonsense—" Lisa almost threatened, feeling her cheeks heating up at his comment. A warmth buzzed delightfully beaneath her skin, bright and tepid under the dim warm lighting of the restaurant they were currently seated at.

"No literally Lisa, I'm serious. I swear I am." Taehyung spoke convincingly, in an attempt to prove his certitude. "I kinda feel like we don't talk anymore."

"Hey, I don't know how you register it, but I'm really not mad at you for for being away earlier. I get that you had work, I was only messing up with you."

"It's not about that."

"Then what? We text everyday."

"It's not about that either." Taehyung insisted, rephrasing his words, "we don't discuss deep shit like we used to."

"Deep shit? If your definition of deep shit is talking about Jennie and her letters then—"

"See, that's what. When was the last time you and I even had a decent conversation without including the letters? It's like we don't have anything to discuss with each other anymore."

"Oh?" Lisa suddenly went quiet. She hadn't seen this coming. She didn't have anything to object against. There was no denial that his words did encase some amount of truth in them.

Although Lisa didn't know when and how this epiphany really hit him, somewhere she felt at peace to know he had a slight realisation.

"You're not gonna say anything?"

"No...uhm, wait, let me think," she hesitated. "What did you finally pick for the festa?"

"Swimming, of course. The management decided on giving the junior batch a chance to represent in team-based activities this time. I guess they're doing this for theatre arts too?"

"Uh-huh. It's kinda jobless to assemble those kiddos to get the lines perfectly but it's alright anyway."

"Then why would you ask?"

"Cause that's not Jennie related...?"

Taehyung groaned, almost face palming himself at her response. "Lisa..."

"What? Don't Lisa me right now." She raised her hands up, air quoting her what she was about to utter next. "I literally don't know what 'deep shit' means to you, Tae."

"Deep shit can mean many things," Taehyung suggested. "For example, why don't you go on dates?"

"Yah, what kind of an asshole question is that?" Lisa glowered, stuffing his mouth with piece of enchilada, bigger than the previous one.

"I ain't kidding, Lisa." Taehyung swallowed another forced bite down his throat. "I don't get why you run away from basically every guy."

"I don't do that," Lisa's voice faltered as she tried to redeem herself, "they just assume I'm dating you."

"Don't lie to me, I know you rejected the quarterback of the football team last week. Heard from Jimin that the dude had big plans set for you which he kinda spilled in the dressing room."

Lisa was amazed. "I never knew guys share gossip too."

"That's not my point." He started, before sneaking in a burp. "My point is, that you're funny, pretty and an amazing person to talk to. I can affirm that as your best friend. And since I'm a guy, I can validate for a fact that other guys like you too."

"So are we here to discuss about my dating life?"

"Yeah....no, I mean, wait— stop putting words in my mouth."

"Then have this." Lisa stuffed the last piece of enchilada in her plate right into Taehyung's mouth for the final time, earning his frown again.

Though she chuckled at his defeated expression as he reluctantly chomped on it, she couldn't seem to hide the sudden, overwhelming gush of butterflies waltzing inside her stomach over and over again, thinking about all the compliments he laid as though he was firing a flower gun aimed at her.

It didn't take a lot of math to figure out that by the end of their date night, the intense dopamine rush wouldn't let Lisa sleep through the midnight.

"Did you even have anything tonight? Cause you kept busy stuffing weird food inside my mouth the whole goddamn time I was trying to ask you something."

"Enough to fill my stomach. Yours too. You should be glad that I made you love enchiladas. Next time we're definitely trying something else until you quit your hatred for Mexican food."

"God, come on," Taehyung sighed; only to grab her hand a second later, wiggling her fingers apart to slip in his calloused fingers beneath her delicate palm, causing Lisa's stomach to twist into tight knots, a sharp longing clawing at her lovesick heart.

Little did she notice a shy smile sneaking at the corner of Taehyung's lips when he squeezed her hand, making her go weak at her knees.

"Uhm...." Lisa started, "we better be looking for cabs, or we might not find any to go back home."

"Or, we can take the next bus from the nearest station. It's more convenient."

Lisa hummed in agreement. "Alright."

Taehyung's hand was still gently intertwined around Lisa's as they walked by the pavement. A low rumble spread up from his chest to his fingers as he swung their hands back and forth ever so lightly, just like he did back when they were young.

When he left her by the stop to check for the transit routes, Lisa couldn't help but wonder if Taehyung wished Jennie were in her place.

Still, she allowed herself to savour this — savour the view, the feelings of warmth that soothed her heart, because platonic or not, these fleeting moments were something worth treasuring.

"We're lucky, the last bus for the day is yet to arrive, in twenty minutes or so." Taehyung announced as he joined her in.

"You're cute like this," he exclaimed, poking her nose with his finger.

"I am?"

"Yeah. Very. So if you want guys to date you, allow them to take you out on dates. They must all be whipped for you cause you're nice-looking and funny and plus..."

"Plus what?"

"You're pretty low maintenance too." He stuck his tongue out.

"Yah!" Lisa sputtered and gasped at the unexpected revelation, the tiniest piece of ego contained in the bottom of her heart seemingly hurt and bitter by his teasing comment.

"It was just a way to express that you like casual stuff okay?" Taehyung winced when Lisa punched his bicep, whining, "ouch!"

"Words make a huge difference, Taehyung." Lisa patted her hands together, rubbing her palms against each other to create some friction between them as the distinct chill night breeze began to blow. "The same way I can imply how you charm the pants off of all girls in the campus."

"Wait...that doesn't sound so appropriate." Taehyung looked at her with exasperation as he followed on his cue to keep going, "that's the kinkiest shit I've ever heard from your mouth."

They burst out laughing quietly, and Taehyung had his warm hand slithered into Lisa's palm again while they waited at the bus stop that followed the route to their dorm.

She tried to sneak a glance at him, hesitantly observing the way he stared at her, his honey orbs holding a unparalleled intent in them that she couldn't decipher.

The silence left a cue for Taehyung to speak. "By the way, Lisa?"

"Hmm?"

"I wasn't kidding when I said you were funny and pretty."

In the same breath, Lisa's inner conscience answered to herself. And the only guy I wish to take me out on dates is you, you're already here with me.

〰️

The events of the next four months happened in shutters. It's wisely said that time passes how one anticipates their horizons. And it was no surprise to perceive that time did fly fast when Lisa was having fun, some genuine smile in her life.

Because now, horror loomed over her. She was nearing the end of her high school, just two months away from graduation. Her exams were about to start next month, and here she stood in the park inside the campus compound, fretting over her own feelings.

It was no surprise that Lisa was head over fucking heels in love with Taehyung. She could already comprehend the feeling from four months ago, the way it augmented by their little date night.

Loving Taehyung wasn't exactly that bad as it sounded. Logically why wouldn't someone ever love him? He was so kind, too endearing, funny and smart. And standing here, while self introspecting herself, Lisa could also probably list ten more campus in a minute right off her head who also fancied him.

What made her case different from others because, she was his best friend — and she was starting to hate the embodiment of the title as much as she fell in love with him. Furthermore, she was also the only one who talked to him and wrote to him all the time. This made falling for him even worse, because despite not confessing to Jennie directly by writing off what he felt, Taehyung was definitely making a show of how much he truly liked her when he was around Lisa.

How else could she explain those little snippets of adoration she showed for her, when it was it had been pretty damn clear to the two of them that they were friends?

Anyhow, Lisa could claim this with certitude that this Jennie thing had been going on much, much longer than she ever wanted to. After all, she most certainly never foresee her future hurdles back when she was twelve, writing the letter for serving one strong purpose to stop his incessant whining.

So here she was, essentially stuck, trying to worm her way out of this inexistent love triangle where she falls for her best friend, only to witness him fall for another girl who is just basically her posing to be someone else — and this painfully vicious cycle endlessly repeats.

Her mind traced back to a stray memory of an incident that occurred merely two weeks ago; Taehyung had been tutoring her a few lessons in physics, and just one day they happened to hangout at his dorm room for their study sessions.

He accidentally happened to knock a picture frame while taking his modules out before slumping down on the floor, as dorm rooms were too small to accommodate two people to sit and study on the bed together. When the sound of a crack was heard, he instinctively got up and neared his table, he was looking at the photo, with an expression that could only be classed as somewhere between being soft, regretful and dejected all at once.

He spurred out of his trance only after Lisa called him maybe thrice, as he placed the frame back where it stood, face up on the table. On a closer look, Lisa realised he had framed the picture of the horse riding get up of Jennie that she had attested with the last letter she mailed to him back when they were twelve.

"You know Lisa, sometimes I wish I knew what she looked like now." Taehyung had said while staring at Lisa with a wistful smile.

You're looking at her right now, only if you knew, she thought to herself.

"Why, wanna bring her to prom? To spike jealousy among those girls who're ready to throw themselves over you?"

"God, no," Taehyung had laughed at her suggestion, "I just want to thank her, for being an amazing friend to hear all the musings I lamented to her about my life."

"You really like her, don't you, Tae?"

"Hmm." Taehyung's eyes crinkled and he was practically gleaming at the mere mention of Jennie. "I'd say she's wonderful. She's easygoing and funny at times, just the way you are! I find it easy to get along with her, even we are separated by thousands of miles apart and even if we don't share the same interests. As if I've known her my entire life."

"Haven't you though? You started writing to her at twelve, I bet you're the only kid in class who sustained their relationship with their pal for so long."

Taehyung raised a brow, adding in a consolation sentence. "It's not that long as I've known you."

"There's a difference between her and me." Lisa argued, "you like her."

"Well my dear bestie, I like you too."

Lisa rolled her eyes at his mockery. "Not in the same way, you bitch."

Taehyung opened his mouth to retort, though his argument went unspoken. Lisa was glad it did, for she couldn't have been able to survive him bringing up the topic all over again.

It only forged to prick her jittery heart, to hear Taehyung describe all the qualities of her personality in Jennie, the fake persona she created out of pity and hear him muse about how much he liked her.

Maybe if the analogy was correct, somewhere he was talking about Lisa when he described his feelings for Jennie, it was the least she could pretend he was talking about her indeed.

Lisa was Jennie after all.

Maybe he liked her too.

"Hey!" Taehyung voiced out to Lisa, putting his headphones down as he slowed down his jogging pace until he was finally walking towards her.

"Evening jog?"

"Yeah...wait, were you crying?" He suddenly pinpointed out, as Lisa hesitated to deny his accusation.

"W-what..?"

"Your eyes are rheumy. What happened?"

"Nothing." The wet pellets were still fresh on her tear strained cheeks, and Lisa hadn't realised when she had teared up.

"That means something is definitely wrong, you crybaby." He finally reached by her side, gently brushing away the unshed tears in silence while he mimicked her stance.

Taehyung gently nudged her shoulder after they'd been dwelling in the silence for the past five minutes. "What were you thinking about?"

"A lot many things."

"Care to tell me?"

Lisa quietly contemplated her thought, before giving in. "If I can perform well in my papers, if the choices I subsequently make are correct. There are a number of expectations of others and expectations of my own — I don't know how I'll be able to live it."

"That is it?"

There's a lot more actually, a greater part of which concerns you and my heart. You don't need to know that anyway.

"Isn't it a lot already?"

"Since when did people's opinions really matter much to you, Lisa?" Taehyung wondered.

"They always have. Just because I don't say anything doesn't mean I don't feel pressured." She sighed, her fingers absentmindedly playing with the hem of her tee-shirt.

"That's a very morbid way of looking at life, especially if it's you."

"Yah, what does that mean?"

"What I wanna tell you, is that," Taehyung paused, holding her stare steadily. "You're already good enough. You don't need to give a damn about what others think as long as you're confident about yourself. And about choices, people struggle with them the entire time. Because every single thing you do, is basically an outcome of a choice you make."

"How so?"

"Well, let's look at this. Right now, you chose to come here in the park to look at the stars. When you're eighty— something years old, will you actually remember your stress or the little choices that made you stand against the odds? Or maybe, would you remember choosing to stargaze with a really cute boy and having a nice deep conversation?"

Taehyung fluttered his eyelashes dramatically with a teasing grin, enough to make Lisa laugh. A hearty laugh, though sounding a little noisy and obnoxious but the prettiest sound Taehyung had heard in a while.

"Does this come under your understanding of deep shit?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then I suppose I'll remember conversing with a really cute boy who's trying to fix me when I'm in my deep shit."

Taehyung chuckled, tugging at her wrist to pull her in his embrace.

And everything progressively muted and a silence took over, this time, a relieving one. Suddenly Lisa felt light, her mind quiet, the void of her uncertainties falling into a void. The loud thrumming of her heart gently slowed down to the same rhythm of Taehyung's heartbeats as he slithered a stronger hold around Lisa's waist, holding her close to his chest.

"Lisa." Taehyung murmured in a soft voice while he was still embracing her, his warm breath fanning on her neck.

"Hmm?"

"I got something to tell you. But I don't want you banging your head over that for now, at least not until exams are done. Just promise me that you'll not overburden yourself with such thoughts. Can you do it for me?"

"I'll try."

"Thank you."

〰️

Caged in his dorm room, Taehyung remembered the conversation he had with Lisa approximately half a month ago. Both of them gotten extremely busy after that day, refraining from hanging out with each other to congeal any scope of distractions for their final papers. He still had to revise some portions for his chemistry paper that was in two days but his mind couldn't concentrate in cent percent as he stared at the letter on his desk that he had drafted only a while ago.

The letter that was meant to go to Jennie, but somewhere even Taehyung knew he wasn't sending this into the mailbox.

The letter read;

Dear Jennie,

Exams are overhead and I should be really focusing on my modules than sit and waste time thinking about unrelated matters, but I feel like this is important. I don't even know how to begin with this one.

It's going to be a very weird opening sentence, please forgive me for the same. But hear (or shall I say, read) me out: I think I like my best friend, Lisa. Actually, no, I know I'm in love with her. I don't know how to go about it. She's been a little distant from me, but it's understandable as I was the one to suggest we don't talk with each other but somewhere this thing has been bugging me.

It's not today that I realise it. I think I've been in love with her for a long time, but somewhere I just hung up on another girl until now.

She's beautiful, funny, and an amazing person to be with. But I think you are too. And since you're also one of my friends, I thought I should seek you for help. We're nearing graduation anyway, and I think I should let her know. So what should I do? Possibly confess? Please tell me what I should do, this is eating my brains out.

Take care,
Taehyung.

Grazing his teeth over his lower lip, Taehyung was stuck in a trance-like state as he repented every word he wrote in the finished letter. He wished this letter would ever respond to him, but getting over it, he picked up the paper, crinkling it before tossing it into the trash.

〰️

The last letter that Taehyung ever sent to Jennie was only a day after the graduation ceremony.

They were nineteen at the time of graduation, Lisa being the younger nineteen among the two.

Attested with it came the picture that included him and Lisa grinning happily while they were dressed up in caps and gowns over their formal suits in the colours that represented their school's representative colours, standing along with their parents posing together for a group photograph in front of the school.

Dear Jennie, read the letter.

We have finally graduated high school today! A new set of opportunities and responsibilities awaits us for the future, though I don't wanna think of anything at the moment, just feel like taking a little break from everything. It has been an exhausting phase for me, and soon I will be applying for universities.

The rest of the letter included a few mentions of the universities he was looking forward to complete his degree in, and some universities that had already mailed him their acceptance letters. However, apart from the semi-formal tone of his phrasing, there was one sentence in the concluding lines that spiked Lisa's interest;

Thank you for writing back to me all these years, it has been a wonderful time communicating to you. I feel that we should stop here. Don't expect any more letters from me, as I will be quite busy in the coming months, or maybe years. You've been a great pen pal. If fate permits, we shall see each other in person some day. Wish you the very best in your life.

The whole letter seemed almost surreal. In these six-almost-seven years of exchanging letters with Jennie, Taehyung had never taken break from writing. And suddenly after graduation, he wanted the letters to come to a close. Lisa couldn't help but wonder what he might've had in store, but whatever it was, he seemed passionate about his future. Which is why he was probably ending things off on a good note, and Lisa was glad for the respite; she didn't have to write a melancholy response to him that might've possibly resulted in a heart break.

She had sinned by lying to him for too long anyway.

Just when Lisa was putting the envelope away in the many of her mailboxes, her phone buzzed with a text from Taehyung.

Hey.
Wanna grab some brunch?

〰️

"I don't even understand how you can sustain that shit. It's so bitter."

"It's not shit Taehyung, it's coffee!" Lisa pouted, taking a sip from her coffee tumbler while Taehyung just shrugged, finding comfort in his milkshake. After a quick brunch from a nearby cafe, the two decided to continue taking a stroll while admiring the beautiful springtime blossoms on the pavement built along the course of the Han River.

"Can't believe we're finally going off to university!" She sighed as she slumped down on one of the empty benches beside Taehyung who had dashed there a second before her, wanting to reserve the bench for themselves.

Taehyung palmed his chest dramatically, as if Lisa had just spoiled the climax of a movie he'd been anticipating to watch for ages. "That's literally like asking for more problems."

"For the love of God, Taehyung, stop trying to be a mood kill."

"Yeah fine, I'll spare that for once." Taehyung waved his hand to elaborate his words, before turning his torso to face her, a memory popping back into his head.

"By the way, do you remember that I had something to tell you before exams?"

"Oh yeah," the thought struck quickly in Lisa's head, overthrown by curiosity the next second. "The surprise thing."

"Yeah. Summer's coming soon. So tell me, what are your plans for summer?"

Lisa knitted her brows, puzzled at Taehyung's surprise quizzing. "How is that related to the context of what we're talking about?"

"It is, Lisa. Very much."

"Fine, so, uhm... I didn't make any plans yet, but I guess after prom's over, I'll be packing my stuff to move out of my dorm, sit and cry for a whole day about how much I'll miss it even though I'm not sure if I really would—"

"We literally have a week to pack our stuffs. The management guys said so themselves. What about the rest of the summertime?"

Lisa merely shrugged in response, nodding her head sideways.

"Nothing fun, then?"

"Hanging out with you I guess? That's fun."

Taehyung's signature smile widened at that. "Then how about you come on a vacation with me?"

An incredulous expression took over Lisa's features. "What?"

"What 'what'? I wanna know how you'd feel about going on a vacay with me."

"But it's so sudden. I have to convince my parents—"

"I talked with them and they seemed cool about it." Taehyung brushed the fact off as if it was nothing, earning a shocked glare from Lisa.

"Wait, so the whole surprise is that super confidential conversation you were having with my dad on graduation day? Have you got plans to propose to me or something?" Lisa snickered at her own suggestion.

Maybe I am, doing something along the lines of proposing to you. Confess my feelings.

The words lay unspoken, and Taehyung smiled to himself as Lisa bugged him with more questions. "Then where exactly do you wanna take me? A beach? Or a trip to Jeju, that would be so—"

"How about Australia?"

Her smile dropped the minute the word slipped from Taehyung's lips, as if her mouth was pressed down by gym weights.

"Australia?"

"And New Zealand too, add that to the list. I found some decently priced tour packages to wrap up with a very good travel deal. We can also meet Jennie, if the itinerary provides some relief."

Shit.

Lisa's eyes instantly widened, as if she sat in the wrong examination hall and was met by a completely out of syllabus question in the question paper.

Her heart was now teetering along the edge of her throat, on the verge of falling out from her mouth.

If Taehyung was really resorting to meet Jennie after he himself wrote that he wanted to end things with her, the charade was about to burst and expose Lisa's façade.

The one she had been going on with for the last six years.

Lisa was thoroughly fucked.

"Is this why this was all a surprise?"

"Yeah, I felt the need to keep it under the wraps," Taehyung answered. "Kinda wanted to make sure of everything was in order before I asked you."

"But why New Zealand of all places though? We can still go to other places in and around Korea—"

"Expand your horizons ma'am, why did you struggle in the passport office to apply for a passport if you don't want a single international stamp on its pages?" Taehyung teased, completely oblivious of what was truly waiting in store from him.

"That's not what I meant, uhm—I...."

Taehyung rested his arm on the back support of the wooden bench, the thumb of which pointed under his chin as he curiously awaited her to finish her sentence.

Damn it, she couldn't even get past her stammer right.

Finally bracing herself for the worst while foolishly hoping for some goodness to strike in, Lisa hesitated, unsure of what to say.

"I've been hiding something from you too, Taehyung."

"Oh, I see you have a surprise for me too."

It killed Lisa from inside to watch Taehyung have an interested smile on his face that she was about to wipe off under the name of her so-called surprise.

She didn't have the heart to tell him, but she guessed, it was better to let this out in a way. Maybe this was indeed an indication that she couldn't run away from her secrets; she had to let them out someday.

It truly did hurt her heart a hundred and one percent to do this, especially when they were on a post-breakfast stroll on this lovely day out to witness the late spring.

"It's not a surprise, no, don't call it one."

"Well, alright?" Taehyung coughed, "but what is it really about then?"

"It's, I...you...and me, it's about— it's about Jennie."

"Jennie?" Taehyung affirmed her words and she rigidly clenched her jaw, nodding vigorously.

"Jennie— Jennie hasn't written to you since a long time," Lisa started, shrinking herself before Taehyung's eyes as he watched her with a confused glare.

He scoffed, befuddled. "What do you mean she hasn't written me since a long time? Of course she has."

"No, Tae, she hasn't," she repeated, sadness coating her words as she was about to drop the final truth to Taehyung. This really wasn't how she wanted the truth to be out. "She stopped speaking to you back when we were twelve. The person you've been sending and reading letters from since then wasn't Jennie. It was—"

Me.

"—you." Taehyung completed her sentence that she couldn't dare to complete by herself, picking up the cues from what she had been trying to say.

Lisa knew Taehyung was now stuck in a whirlwind of emotions right now — she prepared herself to face his rage, anger, sadness and what not, when her words finally set in.

Yet, when she sneaked in a glance from his face, she found none of those sentiments. Instead, she was met by the look of absolute betrayal encapsulated in his eyes, the look of nothing but hurt on his face, Lisa felt smaller than the smallest living thing on earth.

"You—you, lied to me— how— why—? Why would you do that?!"

"I cared about you, Tae." She pleaded, grabbing onto his bicep as he flexed the muscle by crushing the empty milkshake plastic, a stark, ripping voice tearing through.

"Care," Taehyung mocked, feeling hurt, broken and dejected at the same time. "H-How so?"

"Because it killed me to see you sad and upset like that, when Jennie abruptly stopped communicating with you. You were sulking for weeks on end, and I missed the old you, so I—"

"So you took pity on me, kept this up for six years. You lied, Lisa, you made a puppetry of my darn feelings for six— scratch that, almost seven years. That hurts me more than feeling sad for a mere week."

"We were kids back then! And I swear, it was only meant to be just one letter....I didn't know it would turn like this and you, you'll eventually start falling for Jennie."

Silent tears trickled down Lisa's eyes, straining her cheeks as she watched Taehyung without a second blink. Her gaze was desperate and mournful, deliberately trying to salvage her friendship that she had knocked down into flames.

"Why couldn't you just tell me?" Taehyung spoke after an unhurried amount of silence and his tone went from being accusing to now sounding soft, yet broken.

"D-Do...Do you think you would've listened? I tried, Tae, many a times. You were just too upset and you wouldn't smile at all. So I had to, uhm...finally step down."

"What else have you been hiding from me?" Taehyung spoke over Lisa, still not believing anything she just told him.

How could she, out of all people in the world, do this to him?

"I...I'm," more tears spilled from Lisa's eyes, as she struggled to let the words out.

"I'm in love with you." She whispered in a single breath.

"You...what?" Taehyung asked with both his brows raised.

The words only settled around like a heap of dry, wilted leaves on autumn days, those that get walked over and are often forgotten like dust.

"I'm in love with you." Lisa repeated. This time, a little louder. "It's what I'm hiding from you."

"Lisa you don't— you can't just, go around telling me that," Taehyung's expressions were still unreadable. Just a moment ago, he looked extremely pale as though the colours of life had washed away from his face.

And right after Lisa's confession, his cheeks were an insufferable red with a stark resemblance to the freshly plucked ripe strawberries.

"I can't what, Tae? I've lied to you enough already. If anything, I don't want to live with you hating me for hiding things from you, because simply, I can't." She reasoned, wiping off her tears as she look down at the coffee tumbler she had been holding in her hands. "You don't deserve what I've done to you, I betrayed your trust. But you ought to know why I did that — because I love you."

"You....I, I can't...."

Taehyung's broken words don't make sense as he struggled to form a coherent reply for about a minute. Or two. Maybe three. Lisa didn't know how long.

Until suddenly, he regurgitated a truth he had been hiding within himself for long.

"I love you, Lisa."

Oh God.

If Lisa thought her surprise was the bigger one this afternoon, she wasn't prepared for Taehyung's confession.

"Taehyung, you—"

The boy neither objected nor interfered with Lisa this time; instead, he grabbed onto her wrist when she was about to get up.

"This is not something I'm making up or saying as a consolation prize. It's true, I've been meaning to say it. Not exactly in this way."

"Can we take a break? I need a break from all this, I can't bear so much stress at once."

"No, Lisa. We really have to sort this shit, for once and for all. We can't let it go." Taehyung was still adamant when he got up, his palm wrapped around her wrist, keeping her firmly planted to her spot.

In the many years that Lisa had known Taehyung, she barely saw him cry, except for the times when he was bullied as a child. And today, she saw him crumble before her again; his eyes formed a fresh sheen of tears that cascaded down his cheeks, though his face was still stoic, devoid of any expression.

In the midst of sniffs and sobs, Lisa tried to wriggle her hand out from Taehyung's vice grip, yet the boy refused to part with her. "Tae. We'll sort this another time, okay? I need to clear my mind, I can't take so much stuff at once. Please."

Taehyung's hold loosened at once, as he finally relented her request. However, he walked in closer, until he was only centimetres away from Lisa — wiping the teardrops from her cheeks before giving a small peck on her forehead.

"Do you promise?" Taehyung asked in a small voice, a little hesitant. Lisa had always been precious to him — always will be — and he didn't want to her hurt her. He knew that if she stayed a little longer, he won't probably let her leave without a fight, and might respond carelessly without reflecting first so it was better like how she suggested.

"I promise."

Consequently, they parted ways, going about opposite directions from the spot.

〰️

A whole week passed without meeting Taehyung's eyes whenever they met each other to complete a few post-school circulars. And in that week, a number of thoughts flew in and out of Lisa's head, leaving her dazed and thoroughly confused.

Lisa loved him.

She never realised she did until last year.

She lied to him.

For almost seven years.

Taehyung first said he liked Jennie in the beginning of the year.

But then, Lisa was Jennie.

Or at least she impersonated herself as a fictional Jennie.

Then Taehyung said he loved her. Not Jennie.

Still, she lied to him.

Would that ever stop her from loving him?

Never.

But what if he does—

Okay, this had to stop. She couldn't keep running away from her feelings. Taehyung left her restless and breathless, even at times when he were not by her side.

It was nearly midnight and Lisa was still heavy on her Taehyung thoughts when she received a call from him. It didn't take her more than one ring to pick it up.

"Hey," She heard him anxiously utter from the other end of the call, "how're you?"

If this had been any normal day, Lisa would've irrefutably rebuked him for calling her for shooting up annoying questions like these, in the middle of the night. But here came a difference; this was no normal day and the the boundaries that defined their relationship as best friends were rational no more.

"Sleepy but still not sleepy."

He chuckled, the groggy voice not doing enough but intensifying her yearning for him. Yet, in the delicate seams of silence looming in her room, Lisa awaited him.

"And how are you?"

"Quite the same as you are right now."

"So...."

"So..." he repeated after her, halting for a second when Lisa asked him, "when do decide on leaving dorm?"

"I've packed already, I'll be going home maybe a day after prom. Why?"

"I'll come with you."

"You would?" He asked, voice springing back to life.

"Yeah. Why did you call though?"

"Nothing, I just...." A soft shuffling of the sheets was heard when he continued, "I was thinking about you."

"In the midnight?"

"Doesn't matter to me. And I know it doesn't to you as well."

"Yeah, maybe."

Then came the question that Taehyung had been hiding in the deep corners of his cranium, the actual reason why he had even dialled her number in the first place.

"Can we meet at prom at least?"

"You assume I don't have a date?" She asked, and Taehyung could practically feel her smile even when she wasn't right before him.

"Do you though?"

"No."

He tittered. "Be my date then."

〰️

Prom was only an excuse for a farewell party extraordinaire among the students — for kids who practically lived in hostels, prom was just a sophisticated version of frat parties in campus that occurred every now and then.

Consequently, the prom wasn't a matter of concern for Taehyung — just a minimal thirty-minute appearance before everyone went about their ways hand-in-hand with their dates. In fact, prom was indeed an excuse for him too, because he used it as a bait to convince Lisa to come out of her burrow and talk to him. And when she agreed, he supposed that she kind of needed to, anyway.

So when they strolled in the park situated in the campus compound where Taehyung jogged around endless amount of times and Lisa had vented her stress out to him, he couldn't help but take in her mesmerising form from time to time.

Even though she hadn't applied much makeup neither had she bothered to opt for an extravagant dress up and hairdo, she looked flawless. Moreover, he recognised the dress as one of those that she had opted to wear for one of her theatrical gigs. The white fringes added more glimmer to the pristine outfit, and Taehyung couldn't help but admit that she was indeed, a dainty fairy.

"Did you persuade me to come take a walk with you only to stare at me? We can go inside the main hall if you want."

"No, stay." Taehyung said at once. "I don't wanna let you go after you walked away more than a week ago. Feel glad that our school does prom after graduation, else I'd probably never find a chance to see you."

Lisa nervously chuckled, in awe of his handsome tux that she never knew had existed to this day, neither was she willing to ask when he got it. "You're kinda guilt tripping me right now."

"It's what I intend to. So tell me, is your mind all cleared up?"

"Better, though I feel it'll always be a little fuzzy up there. You?"

"Me? Oh, I've been fantastic, now that you're here. We leave tomorrow, you know that correct?"

"Hmm."

The silence slowly set in as the two of them strolled on the grass, thinking internally of what to say next.

"I'm sorry." She suddenly blurted out, causing Taehyung to glance at her, stupefied. "I don't think I ever apologised for what I did. Lying to you was morally wrong, and so was choosing to go on with the act for so long even if I didn't do it with a wrong intent."

"Apology accepted, you know I can't stay mad at you forever." Taehyung's lips shaped into his signature boxy smile. "I should be sorry too, because I kept gushing about Jennie like an idiot when I was really talking about you."

"Hey it's okay, not your fault either." Lisa comforted him with a sense of reassurance. "Did you mean what you said that day?"

"What?"

"You know, that you....uhm, you liked me—"

"I don't recount saying anything of that sort." Taehyung bluntly brushed off, causing Lisa to stare at him with widened eyes. Right then, he continued. "What I do remember saying, was that I love you."

"....yeah. Right." Relief took over her facial features. "But do you still love me?"

"How could I ever stop?"

A while later, Lisa found herself in Taehyung's dorm room — his lips pressed against hers as they slowly kissed in the dimly lit atmosphere around them.

"I've always wanted to do this," Taehyung admitted sheepishly, quoting honesty in his words, as he crawled over her with the supple dip of the mattress.

"Nothing's stopping you then, you can do it again and I'd still love that." Lisa eyed him meekly while her fingers curled around his nape.

Taehyung's voice echoed like a low chuckle in Lisa's mouth when he teased the seam of her parted lips using his hot, wet tongue before licking his way right back in; his sultry tone was a soft drizzle of warm nectar that escalated the gush of butterflies in her gut, almost dizzying her as she breathed him in.

When her back pressed against the mattress, a low giggle left from her now swollen lips, making Taehyung raise his brow and mouth part into a grin. "Never been this close to me, hmm?"

"As a matter of fact I have," Lisa asserted, reminiscent of all the times Taehyung had tackled her to the bed or the floor during their playful fights. "But I've never been kissed while doing it."

"Well, there's a first for everything." He winked. "I'll go slow, okay? Cause neither of us have an idea of how to do this."

"Hmm, alright, I trust you."

In midst of their bodies pressed against each other, Lisa placed her hands on the collar of his shirt, clumsily unbuttoning it while he helped her shed herself out of her fancy evening wear, leaving them completely exposed to each other.

Lisa found herself gravitating towards Taehyung's sun-soaked skin, the athletic tone of which had gotten increasingly better every time he descended down the pool and for his baseball training. Meanwhile, Taehyung almost halted his breathing when his gaze was transfixed over her naked slender frame, his fingers fluttering over her ribs and the contour of her breasts, humming with desperation for him.

"God, I always knew I wasn't kidding when I said you're pretty." Taehyung whispered with a shuttered breath, and Lisa giggled, only to playfully slap his arm a second later. "You're a goddess."

"You're irresistible too, dear sun god."

She allowed herself to drown in the scent of his intoxicating cologne that doused her in perfectly, his fervent kisses seizing the air from her lungs and the warmth of his breathing that felt like rays of the sun when he towered over her. He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips when he slid in home, making her sigh at the feeling. He shivered when her fingertips traced along the expanse of his back, laying hold of his shoulder blades for anchorage each time he rutted in.

To ease the burn of him thrusting inside her, Taehyung's lips opened into a wildfire across her chest, blazing down on the softness of her skin, smothering kisses all over. Feeling the spasms when they reached achingly close to their respective climaxes, the unwavering fire fuelled from within their heated bodies in moments they vowed to savour forever.

Their shadows continued to whisper to each other, casted in patterns of slow, romantic waltzes on the walls like two lovers embracing their tryst meetings in the dark.

Soft moonlight spilled through the windows and illuminated their entangled bodies when the two of them were curled up against each other in the afterglow. Taehyung pulled Lisa close and allowed the weight of his hand to comfort her scalp whilst his fingers brushed through her hair like the evening breeze.

"Do you think you would've still fallen for me if it were not for Jennie?"

"Now where's that coming from?" Lisa asked, searching for his eyes in the dark.

"I just wanna know. If there were no Jennie since the beginning, do you think we would've ever been where we are today?"

"Would you though?"

"Yah," Taehyung pouted. "Stop counter attacking me with more questions."

"Aww," Lisa cooed. "If we're really meant for each other, I don't think there's anything that would've stopped us from loving each other. We would've fallen in love, someway or the other."

"I think so too." He murmured, lips pressing against each of her eyelids in a faint kiss. "I love you."

Snuggling in closer, feeling a homelike warmth engulf her along with Taehyung's words that induced a feeling of falling asleep after years of being awake on end, Lisa hummed against his skin.

"I love you, too."

〰️

Two months later.

Lisa sat by the window seat as the airplane rolled along the runway from where it was supposed to take off. The seatbelt sign glowed brightly over her head, the red cautionary signalling the passengers to wear their seatbelts as the plane was readying itself for the take off.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. This is your Captain speaking. Welcome aboard to Flight 327 bound for Wellington International Airport, New Zealand. We will be taking off shortly, so please ensure your seatbelt is fastened. It is our pleasure to serve you today." Came the radio announcement made by the head pilot.

Lisa turned her head to face the passenger seated beside her, groaning in a low voice.

"Sleepy?"

"Hmm." He uttered in his refined husky voice.

"You can lay your head on my shoulder, if you want to." She smiled warmly at him.

Taehyung cooed. "Thanks for being my favourite pillow."

Minutes after, the plane sped its way across the tarmac, before finally taking off from the ground.

A feeling of weightlessness took over.

And in that moment, even though her feet were fixed on the carpet of the airplane, flying only a couple feet over the ground after the take off, it felt as though Lisa had been miles and several light years away from the earthlings, exploring the vast expanse of infinity.

Precipitously, she was teetering on the edge of her own orbit, narrow millimetres away from traversing into her own trajectory of self destruction but she didn't need to have an ounce of worry.

Because she had Taehyung right by her side, a steady lifeline amongst the chaos and the pandemonium.

Truly, she had begun to realise the real implication of love. That love isn't simply an emotion and a feeling of being on cloud nine, it's a journey much beyond that.

Love's a choice. It is choosing to work through the difficulties and hardships instead of taking the easier path and walking away. It is choosing to stay. It is trusting and choosing each other yesterday, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of their lives.

Somewhere in between, Taehyung slipped his hand into hers, holding onto her firmly as he allowed himself to fall asleep on her shoulder, little snores escaping his lips.

Nothing else mattered to Lisa, because Taehyung had carved out a piece of heaven for her, taking her on a voyage to cloud ten.

FIN.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A/N

if i haven't bored y'all with a long ass intro chapter and an even longer story, here's a closing note i give in every work of mine lmfao.

alright so, since this is a childhood friends to lovers au, i didn't want to attract too much unnecessary drama for the trope to look realistic and paint a character-centric story more than a dramatic power plot (some points in this fic occurred in the my reality of life).

also i wanted to emphasise on the friendship bit before getting onto the lovers part instead of directly jumping on the train, so forgive me not for giving an extremely slow start and a long drawn out build up to the story lmao :]

and it is sensible to acknowledge that the two best friends grew up together had mutual understanding and care for each other. although a lie can't get too far (it went on for a good six years so jokes on me pfft), sometimes it doesn't hurt to make an innocent lie if it makes someone happy is what i wanted to inculcate as the moral.

did i mention that i typed almost half of this fic out on my phone? the draft was crashing on my laptop and my fingers are exhausted from the exercise 😮‍💨

like i have already expressed, i wasn't exactly convinced with the plot running in my mind at first though now after i finally brought it to an end, i think i should admit that i'm glad of how this turned out, especially after i struggled for an hour to be able to write that ending :)

so in all i can regard this plot as one of my personal favs from some aspects though i'm still doubtful if y'all liked it ♡ hopefully i was able to do some justice to the characters, if not for the plot.

please send in feedback and lmk if y'all enjoyed!🤍
— authornim.