Chapter Text
The familiar aftermath of a drunken stupor chases away my chance of going back to sleep the moment my consciousness seeps in.
“Fuck,” I groan.
My throat and tongue feel so dry in my mouth as though I’ve swallowed a fistful of sand and another, my head pounds like it’s being axed over and over with a blunt axe desperately trying to get to the center of my brain, and my body feels peculiarly heavy, too heavy to even move.
In short, I feel like shit.
With a frustrated grunt that barely passes my lips, I wait for my sight to adjust to the unforgiving bright morning light, but I’m left even more confused when my view finally comes into focus.
I have no recollection of passing out on the couch in the living area, but here I am, with a woman deep asleep on top of me who, I just realize, is the very reason why I can’t move. I guess that’s one thing I cross out from the list of what my hangover did cause.
All her deadweight pinning me down and her limbs entangled with mine, that it’s hard to distinguish where I end and she begins, make it impossible for me to even wiggle away, leaving me no other choice but to wake her up.
“Hey, Jisoo?” I try again and again, my hoarse voice reaching the peak of its volume, but she just won’t budge. Desperate, I manage to free an arm and I gently shake her shoulder, once, twice, until I wasn’t being so gentle anymore, and that finally makes her stir a little.
“Jisoo, can you move? I really need to—”
“Shut up,” Jisoo grumbles just clear enough for me to understand, slapping my hand away.
“Drink. I was gonna say I need to drink... I mean there are many ways to shut me up but letting me die from dehydration is a little mean, I think.” I retort, but soon realize my efforts are futile when it’s her soft snores that answer me. “Well, I guess not.”
I chuckle feebly as my still stinging hand reaches out to tuck the strands of hair sprawled all over her face and just like always, I catch myself staring at her beauty with nothing but absolute awe.
How anyone can look this good while sleeping is beyond me. Waking up next to Jisoo happens often, but it still amazes me how she looks like an angel when she sleeps; so beautiful, so serene, so dazzling to the eyes, even more luminous than the morning sun, but never blinding.
But as much as she's pretty to look at, I really badly need a glass of water.
“Okay, let me just…” I slide my arm trapped under her to her hip, trying to be as careful as I can to move her without pushing her off this stupidly small, stuffy couch, but Jisoo stirs again and mumbles unintelligibly, nuzzling further in the crook of my neck.
“Fine, I'll stay.” I take a deep breath to release a resigned sigh, but the faint scent of bacon wafts through my nose, then shoots straight to my stomach, causing the famished monster in there to growl loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood.
That's what finally jolts Jisoo awake. She prods herself up on her elbows and I try hard not to laugh at how disoriented she looks.
“Lisa?”
“Hi, I'm down here.”
Jisoo looks down, squinting. “What the fuck was that? Thunder?”
“Sort of,” I smile, wiping away the sleep around her eyes. She furrows her brows when she sees the pristine weather condition outside. “Not out there. It’s from my belly and I’m thankful it woke you up.”
“That's how you wake me up? You can’t do it like how normal people do?” The adorable bags under her eyes become more prominent when she chuckles groggily.
“Perhaps if you sleep like a normal person and not like a fucking log,” I bite back. “Also, fyi, I tried, but you slapped my hand away and gave me mad attitude again. Not cute!”
“Oh.” Jisoo's face falls at that, pursing her lips, and buries her face on my shoulder. “I'm sorry.”
“What?” The guilt in her voice surprises me as much as it confuses me. I was expecting a snarky comeback, not an apology. Jisoo should know I wasn’t being serious like, we bicker all the time. "You know I'm just messing with you, right?"
Jisoo slightly tilts her head just so she can look me in the eye, her face just inches away from mine. I huff a soft chuckle at the pout on her lips, resting my hand on the small of her back.
“I mean not everyone can say a pretty girl was sleeping on top of them when they woke up this morning. Who am I to complain?”
"Shut up," Jisoo says, but she laughs and visibly relaxes as the tension leaves her body. "I just thought—"
“Oh, please! Get a room!”
Jisoo and I roll our eyes and grunt at the same time, turning our heads towards the archway where a tall blonde girl is now standing, eyeing our very compromising position with a disgusted frown on her lips.
“On the couch? Really?”
“Roseanne, stop,” Jisoo warns sternly.
But, Rosie just smirks, unbothered. “I’m not saying you two are—”
Jisoo moves so quickly that I could've sworn that the empty can of beer now in her hand has just magically materialized out of thin air.
“— fucking, but that’s exactly what I’m saying!” Rosie gabbles the rest of her sentence and zooms out of sight, the empty can Jisoo throws just barely missing her.
Rosie's loud cackle echoes in the apartment, “Get your asses in the kitchen when you’re done being girlfriends! Brunch is ready!”
“That dumb bitch.” Jisoo stands with a scowl on her face.
“Whoa, okay, hold up.” I ignore how the room spins when I sit up quickly, pulling Jisoo back down beside me. She looks genuinely pissed and for what reason? How she’s been behaving is seriously throwing me off. “What's up with you? You're acting all weird. Is the thought of being my girlfriend really that bad?”
“Bold of you to think I would even think about that,” Jisoo deadpans.
“Okay, damn. I get it, you're straight. No need to hurt my feelings.” I start to laugh, but it halts awkwardly when Jisoo doesn’t join me and stays all riled up.
Okay, hear me out.
Having been her best friend since high school, Jisoo being straight as an arrow is something I’m already fully aware of. I’d be lying though if I say I didn’t have any amount of attraction towards her the first time I met her, but that shallow feeling waned the closer we got. Seven years have passed since and now that we’re in our last year of college, our friendship is only stronger if anything.
So strong that we’ve got no problem being affectionate towards each other to the point where we get mistaken as girlfriends a lot. Like, a lot.
And, that’s something we have already grown so used to... So much so that we can just lightheartedly bicker and get a good laugh out of it. But that’s clearly not how she’s acting right now.
It’s typical of Rosie to tease us and we’re both already so used to it in the past three years we’ve all lived under the same roof, so Jisoo being all pissed at her just because of her stupid one-liner is so weird and confusing the shit out of me.
“Is there a problem? Do we have a problem?” I ask warily.
“No, not us.” Jisoo meets my eyes with a glint of worry in hers and I feel a pang in my chest. That one look is all I need to understand what’s going on. She’s worried about me.
“I just think it's insensitive of her to joke about that right now. You literally just broke up with Joy.”
My chest tightens, even more, when I hear her say it. I guess that also explains the apology and why she was being cautious about my feelings earlier, but the thing is since I woke up, I haven’t thought about what happened last night. Well, not until now.
I was doing so well keeping my mind off of how I left our apartment still being in an eight-month-long relationship and came back being out of it, but I guess I just can’t run forever.
“Here, drink this.” Jisoo hands me an aspirin and a glass of water. My eyebrows furrow in confusion, because where the hell did she get these? As if reading my mind, she says, “I left them here for when you wake up.”
“Oh, thank God, you’re an actual angel.”
“How are you feeling, Lisa?” Jisoo asks, and I know she’s not asking about my terrible hangover.
“I don’t know,” I sigh heavily, putting the now empty glass of water back on the table. “I really don’t know.”
See, it’s funny how I went to surprise my now ex-girlfriend but was the one surprised instead when I caught her cheating on me with someone who was supposed to be her “project partner”. I believed that, until I saw that the project they were busy doing was each other.
I couldn’t even be bothered to listen to her explain herself because whatever she spewed, I would have called bullshit, so I broke it off right there and then. She ran after me in the hallways, no, not to apologize but just so she could go off about how it’s my fault and I have no one to blame but myself.
I wanted to burst because how the fuck is it my fault that a man’s tongue was down her throat, but I just scoffed and walked away before she could say more.
How I held myself together on the way back is beyond me, but the facade of a tough front collapsed as soon as I retreated into the comforts of my home where my friends were both at a loss when I suddenly walked into their movie night and burst out into ugly tears.
I told them nothing more than we broke up and they respected that. They didn’t push for more details instead, they stayed silent by my side while I wept and downed my poison heedlessly. And, that’s as far as I can remember.
How I ended up on the couch with Jisoo is something I can’t recall. I must’ve squeezed myself beside her and somewhere, somehow in the midst of a movie I can’t remember now, I fell asleep and she must’ve too.
I meet Jisoo’s worried gaze, smiling reassuringly. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll be fine. I don't deserve someone who cheats on me anyway.”
“She what? Like you caught her in the act?” Jisoo exclaims and her eyes widen with anger when I nod. “Oh god help me... if I see her on campus...”
“Oh?” I snort. How bold of her to insinuate what she’s insinuating when she’s a dwarf compared to Joy. “What are you gonna do? Fight her knees?”
That earns me a solid punch I'm not guarded for. “Don't test me.”
“Geez, calm down.” I say as I tend to my soon-to-be bruised arm. I know she can fight. I’ve known that since high school, actually, when she came to my rescue and got into a fight with this stupid girl who called me the ‘d slur’ and pushed me in the hallways.
“Joy knows how to fight too, you know. You two have a lot in common, actually.” She throws me a side-eye and my lips curve into a silly grin. “No wonder she’s also into dicks just like you are.”
Jisoo looks so affronted that I can’t stop myself from laughing. Aware of it now, I stop her fist before it connects. “You dare compare me with that bitch? You’re so annoying!”
“You love me anyway.”
Still holding her wrist, I pull and lock her in an embrace, her back against my chest. She’s so warm and I’ve always found her warmth so comforting. And, comfort is what I need right now.
I sigh heavily, digging my chin gently on her shoulder and Jisoo stops struggling, knowing how much I need this without me telling her.
“Do you want me to stay with you today?” Jisoo asks after a little while.
“Hm?” I scrunch my nose in thought. “But, don’t you have plans?”
“Well, yeah, but I can cancel—”
“Cancel your plans with Suho? Oh no, you can't,” I cut her off abruptly, thinking of how long Jisoo hasn’t had any quality time with her boyfriend, because of their busy schedules. She’s been waiting excitedly for this day and I’m not going to ruin that just because some bitch broke my heart. “That’s not what you’re gonna do.”
“But—”
“Nah, no buts, lady.” I release her from my embrace and distance myself to safety before I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively. “Go get your pussy dicked down like you deserve!”
I swiftly avoid the can she throws at me and run out to the kitchen and I hear her shout, “Whether my pussy gets dicked down or not is none of your business!”
Rosie wheezes with me. “Whatever you say, horndog!” I shout back.
“Well, this horndog is gonna get more sleep,” Jisoo yawns as she climbs the stairs, looking back at us. “Leave some food for me.”
Jisoo enters her room before I can even get another word out.
“It’s literally noon,” I mutter. “What does she need more sleep f—”
Roseanne cuts me off by shoving a bacon strip in my mouth. I raise my brows questioningly and she scoffs, shaking her head.
“You don’t even remember, huh? You were a fucking mess, created a fucking mess. Bitch, you were so drunk. Who do you think took care of you ‘til the crack of dawn?”
“Oh.” Looking at the change of clothes I just noticed I’m wearing, I ask, “She did?”
“Uh-huh.” Rosie nods and my heart swells. “You didn’t wanna go back to your room and you wanted her to stay with you. That’s why you two were on the couch, by the way.”
A smile spreads across my face, stamping a mental note to thank Jisoo later.
“Are you sure you two aren’t together? I mean that’s the kind of stuff I’d only do for my girl—”
This time I shove a piece of bacon in her mouth. “Don’t start. That’s what good friends do. Heck, I’ll even do it for you and that says a lot about me.”
Rosie makes a face. “Yeah, that you’re too kind for your own good and it’s gonna bite you in the ass one day.”
“Good thing I don’t have an ass,” I deadpan.
And, that finally makes my housemate drop the subject as she bursts into laughter, “Right, that you don't.”