“I want you to be with Jisoo.”

The moment the words are out of she feels Lisa’s shoulders tense under her hands, her eyes are filled with shock and she is openly gaping.

“You…what?”

Lisa tries to take a step back out of Jennie’s hold but the brunette refuses to let go and steps along with her.

The red-head takes another step back and shrugs off the brunette’s hands before turning away, “I can’t do this, I need to g-,”

“Lisa, no,” Jennie latches onto the taller girl, her arms firmly wrapped around her waist and her forehead resting against her back, “just listen to me, please.”

She’s my last hope.

Lisa stops in her tracks, unable to detach herself from the shorter girl. She glances down at the hands wrapped around her waist and, not for the first time, she wishes those hands were there because Jennie loved her, not because she wanted something from her. She silently stands there for a moment, contemplating, part of her wants to run away from this, from the pain, from anything and everything that is Jennie Kim. But, the other part…the other part wants to brave the pain and take, take any single scrap of love, or anything remotely resembling it, that Jennie is willing to give her.

She takes a resigned breath and gently places her hands over Jennie’s, her voice soft, “What is it? Why would you want me to…? Just, why?”

Jennie loosens her grip on Lisa and tugs at her to turn back around. Lisa complies, a frown on her face. Jennie is still holding her arms when she speaks again, her words sincere, “I want her to be happy.”

A flash of pain passes through Lisa’s eyes before her frown deepens and she lowers her gaze.

What about me?

“I want her to be happy but I can’t be the one to make her happy,” Jennie continues, her voice strained with the effort it takes to say the words out loud, “she loves you, not me…It has to be you.”

Lisa purses her lips and starts to shake her head, “I-,”

“Please, let me finish.”

The red-head’s eyes snap back to the shorter girl and she nods.

“I want to make a deal with you,” Jennie pauses to gauge the younger girl’s reaction, “If you manage to make her happy again, for as long as you make her happy…I’ll give you anything.”

I just want you to love me, but I can’t ask for that, can I? The red-head thinks.

opens and closes several times before she finally settles on what she wants to say.

“Anything?”

Jennie nods and takes a shaky breath, “Anything.”

She brings one of her hands up to gently caress Lisa’s face, her eyes full of something that Lisa can’t quite discern.

.

.

.

.

“I’ll be yours.”

“W-what?”

Lisa’s brain nearly short circuits with the combination of Jennie’s gentle touch and her words.

“I’m saying I’ll be yours, Lisa. I may not be in love with you like Jisoo is and I know it would be extremely unfair of me to ask you to be with her when you don’t love her that way either, especially when you have nothing to gain… That’s why…I’m willing to give you this.”

Jennie starts to lean forward, aiming for Lisa’s lips, her eyes already closed, Jisoo’s smiling face flashing through her mind.

Her smile.

Her sparkling eyes.

Her lips…

In a split second her lips are nothing but scant centimeters away from Lisa’s, the red-head’s hot breath hitting her face with every exhale.

Until it’s not.

Jennie feels the younger girl lean back from her original position, away from her. She opens her eyes only to see a flustered Lisa, staring back at her with a mix of conflicting emotions.

“What are you doing?”

Jennie’s eyebrows furrow together.

Is this not what she wanted?

“I’m kissing you.”

“Why?”

“I just said-,”

“I know what you said, I just- I don’t-,” she fumbles with her words.

She does. She wants to give in and take it. She wants to take it all. She wants to taste Jennie’s lips and treasure the memory. She wants to hold her through the night while she sleeps. She wants everything she has to give. But, above all else, she wants her heart. And her heart, regrettably, is not what Jennie is offering.

“I can’t,” she lightly pushes Jennie away and shakes her head, “Not like this.”

“But-,”

“I’m sorry.”

Lisa turns and walks away before her traitorous brain decides to throw it all to hell and dive right in to her deepest, darkest desires.

She doesn’t even stop to take one last look at the defeated brunette she leaves in her wake.

Not once.

Not because she doesn’t want to but because she knows, within a fragment of a second, just one look from those deep brown eyes, she would cave in and give her anything she asked for.

**

Lisa, even with her packed schedule, couldn’t stop thinking about Jennie.

She couldn’t stop the words from repeating in themselves in her head.

“I’ll be yours.”

Taunting her.

“I’ll be yours.”

Provoking her inner desires.

“I’ll be yours.”

Lisa spins around and drops to her knees on the floor, her finishing move for the dance routine. Her dance tousled hair falls over her face and sticks to her due to the perspiration. She sits there for a minute, catching her breath after practicing the same routine for several long hours. She had the routine down pat after the second time she saw her choreographer going through the steps but she wanted to practice. So, she kept going, on and on. These days she found that dancing was the only thing she could do to distract herself, even if just for a while.

But, when the dancing stops, all the thoughts she’s been trying to block away come rushing back, nearly ten times louder than before.

She takes another breath and sweeps her hair out of her face, she can feel the sweat drops rolling down her back and it is certainly not the most pleasant feeling in the world. She turns off the music and the lights then grabs the bag she left by the practice room door to head out.

A hot shower, she thinks, is something she desperately needs.

**

“Where have you been?”

Lisa looks up, startled to find a glaring Chaeyoung blocking her path into their dorm.

“I- I was- practice,” she stutters and mentally facepalms for being unable to control her own voice in front of an angry Chaeyoung.

“Practice?” Chaeyoung raises a finely sculpted brow.

“Yeah,” Lisa nods, “for the show I told you about.”

“If I remember correctly, you also told me you learned almost the whole routine on the very first day,” Chaeyoung points out.

Lisa’s eyes widen and she scrambles to come up with an excuse but Chaeyoung beats her to the punch.

“It’s been a week, Lice, it doesn’t take you a week to learn a routine. Why are you really doing this?”

“I told you-,”

“Lalisa,” Chaeyoung’s voice instantly changes and Lisa knows she’s in for it because Chaeyoung never uses her full name unless Lisa has done something incredibly stupid.

“If you think you can go around avoiding all of us and get away with it,” Lisa opens to protest but Chaeyoung swiftly covers it and cuts her off before any words come out, “y