Short Story Title: See You On The Next Trip

Chapter Title: Lights Down Low

Alright so again, sorry for taking so long to update. There are just a lot of things happening lately, including our wifi (still not fixed btw) and my fam going back and forth to Batangas for some reasons. But yeah. Here’s the chap before the ending. I have to warn yall, I will take time to write the ending. School is back and yeah I’m going to have a hard time writing it.

So for now, please enjoy. And look forward for the soft copy of Heights and Sunsets!

Ps. Sorry for the typos ehe

The sunrays mix with the blue skies, creating a perfect combination of orange haze and bluish shade. The cold wind passes, and Lisa knows better than to leave the house with just a sweatshirt. She runs back to the house, grabbing her red hoodie, then runs out of the house again. She digs out her phone from her back pocket, answering the call of her, probably, irritated friend. She fixes a couple of strands of her bangs that was not in their places while her other hand puts her phone right next to her ear.

“Where are you? Jisoo is already on her way. I swear to god Lisa, if she arrives earlier than you, I’m going to cut your bangs!” Chaeyoung says, making Lisa fear for the life of her bangs.

“Taxi!” She yells in panic, her hand gesturing for a taxi to go towards her direction. “Heard that? I’m on my way!”

“Ugh,” she hears Chaeyoung say and Lisa could almost see how her eyes rolled. “Keep safe, bye.”

Lisa drops the call, then enters the cab, mumbling the address of her destination. The driver nods and as soon as Lisa locked the door, the cab speeds off towards their destination. She leans her head against the window, glancing up above the purplish sky. She smiles upon remembering how Jennie would rest her head against her shoulder. And now the sky reminds her of Jennie. It reminds her of the moments they had shared under the beautiful sky. It reminds her of the comfort the sky brings to Jennie and how it would simply make the latter smile in the purest way. She smiles to herself.

She sighs as the cab stops at the red light. She watches the people cross the road. Some with a smile on their faces and some with an obvious frown. She chuckles. She didn’t realize right away how much Jennie resembles some of her traits. They both love looking at people pass by them. They both love to share a silence that is comforting. They love the sky. They love going places they’re unfamiliar with. They love the simplest things. As simple as a kid running around, doing nothing but be a kid. And somehow, Lisa finds herself wishing everything is as simple as running around. No complexity. But she knows life was never a simple thing and she has to accept that. She sighs again, and the cab starts to move, along with it was the ringing of her phone. She hastily takes out her phone, smiling widely upon seeing who the caller is.

“Hey,” she answers, bubblier than usual.

“No, this is not Jennie, where the hell are you? Jisoo is already here,” Chaeyoung’s voice wipes her smile away, changing it into a grimace.

“How dare you use her phone. I’m almost there,” she whines, forming her lips into a pout that would surely make Chaeyoung puke.

“Almost there my , hurry up.”

The call ends and once again she chuckles. The ride went on for an hour. She pays the driver, not forgetting to give him a tip, then rushes out of the cab. She looks for a certain furious girl and when she spots her, looking angrier than ever, she runs. She places her palms on her knees as she breathes in a huge amount of oxygen that she lost.

“You’re late,” Chaeyoung says.

“I know,” she breathes out.

A hand caresses her back. Lisa knows exactly whose hand is that. She need not to look for the way it makes her feel, the way it warms her, she already knows. Her body have grown accustomed to it. She stands straight, greeting Jennie with her grin that made the latter grin as well.

“Hey,” Lisa greets, panting. She stands next to Jennie, resting her arm on the latter’s shoulder as she looks around the place. Observing people. Providing analysis because that’s what she does most of the time.

“Hey,” Jennie greets back, “why are you late?”

“I fell asleep,” Lisa says, scratching her head lightly as she flashes an apologetic smile at Jennie.

There are already a lot of people lining up the gate. Some were foreigners, touring around. Some were, according to Lisa’s analysis, were students of their age. Some held cameras, spinning around, looking for people to interview and wave at the camera. And some were just people wanting to let loose tonight, using this event to free themselves of the stress. Of the negativity that the world brings. She sees people, wanting to live.

She smiles upon seeing a familiar face walking up to them. It was Jisoo, waving four tickets as she approaches them. It was a long line and they could see how much Jisoo feels victorious for getting the tickets that are about to be sold out.

“Here you go kids,” she says, handing their tickets to them. “Don’t lose that. Especially you Lisa, you’re tall, we can’t sneak you in.”

Lisa’s face scrunches, her eyebrows almost meeting each other, questioning herself about the involvement of her height in their conversation. She shakes her head as they make their way towards the long line at the entrance.

“I don’t understand why you have to bring my height in all of our conversation Jisoo,” Lisa whines.

“Because you ?” The latter retorts.

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“You don’t make any sense!”

Lisa gasps, her eyes widening, then she looks at Chaeyoung asking for help. But the girl shrugs, putting her eyes on her phone.

“It’s okay Lisa,” Jennie says, comforting the latter as she fakes her sobs. “It’s true anyway, just accept it.”

“Yah…” Lisa says.

Jennie shrugs, pinching the taller girl’s cheeks.

When the clock hits 7PM, the field was already getting filled with audience screaming their lungs out as the DJ drops the beat. Lisa and Jennie were in the middle, sandwiched by people, but not minding it; for they were too engulfed with the music and the hype that it brings.

The speakers were blaring. Everyone could feel the ground shaking along with the beat of the music. With beer cups in their hand, they scream. Both hyped up, Lisa takes Jennie’s hand, dragging her out of the raging crowd towards the back part of the audience, where the booths are staying. Jennie screams one more time, then turns to Lisa.

“This is so fun!” She yells, raising her plastic cup.

Lisa chuckles, “I know, let me just go and grab us another punch.”

The latter nods, handing her cup to Lisa before walking a little closer to the crowd.

The booths, offering different merchandises, line up at the back part of the field. Lisa approaches the booth that was selling a variety of drinks. There were a few people in front of the booth, she stands a few meters away, waiting for the others to leave with their drinks and their drunk faces. As she was approaching the lady taking orders, a customer suddenly turns around, causing Lisa to bump against her. The drink in the girl’s hand spills a bit on Lisa’s hoodie, causing both of them to gasp.

“,” Lisa hissed, taking a step back as she wipes the stain on the lower hem of her hoodie.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” the girl says, helping Lisa out in wiping the stain. The girl takes out her handkerchief, using it to clean the mess.

Lisa looks up to check who the girl is, for the voice was quite familiar to her ears. She has heard it a couple of times and somehow her ears are quite accustomed to how it sounds, making it a distinct a voice that she would recognize anywhere. She stood there, frozen. Eyes glued to the girl who was busy cleaning her jacket. Her heart beats faster out of nervousness. She hasn’t seen her for years. After their senior year.

 The girl looks up and the proud smile on her face fades away upon seeing who the stranger is. “Lisa…” she mumbles, her hand slowly returning to her sides.

Shock was written all over Lisa’s face. How does a person react when they see someone from the past that they have been trying to bury? She wanted to speak her name, but went dry. She can no longer utter the girl’s name that used to roll off her lips so smoothly. A name that used to take a huge part of her and had been tattooed in her mind. She takes a step back, drawing an ample distance between them.

“It’s nice to see you again Lisa,” the girl says, a smile forming on her lips. Her hand travels up to Lisa’s shoulder, caressing it softly, bringing back memories Lisa tried so hard to forget.

Lisa shivers as the familiar feeling of the girl’s touch flows inside her once again. She sighs, letting it take her back to the past. She remembers it. The good ones. But she swiftly shakes it off, for she knows where it leads. She had forgotten about this. All of it. How her face looks like. How her voice sounds. How her touch feels like. She had forgotten about her. But with a single touch, she remembers. As if they were just yesterday’s event.

“Y-yeah,” Lisa replies. She couldn’t say the same thing to her, she knew it would be a lie. She didn’t hate seeing her, but she didn’t like it either.

“Do you hate me that much now?” The girl asked.

Sadness draws on her face as the question escapes her own mouth. She didn’t have to ask. She knows the answer anyway. She remembers everything. The pain she caused. She remembers it crystal clear. She removes her hand away, hanging her head down, for she can’t look in the latter’s eyes, knowing that the pain is still imprisoned there for her to see.

From a not-so-distant place, Jennie stood, watching the whole thing unfold. She waited for a couple of seconds, and when she sees the girl’s hand reaching for Lisa’s shoulder again, she walks towards them. She cannot let this happen. She doesn’t know why, but she felt the need to protect Lisa from whatever the stranger is causing.

Surprised, the girl removes her hand before it even reached Lisa’s shoulder. She smiles awkwardly at Jennie. She shivers a bit at the cold gaze Jennie was throwing her.

Jennie wasn’t raised with disrespectful manners. As much as possible she wanted to show respect to people she barely knows and to people she doesn’t like that much. But tonight, she doesn’t care. All her beliefs, the do’s and don’ts— she forgets them all. She ignores the smile to check on Lisa. She sees the girl frozen, with an expression she rarely sees. It was a mixture of pain and sadness. An expression she once saw, one moment in the mountain.

She holds Lisa’s hand, interlocking her fingers with the latter’s, making sure that her grip poses a protection, “Lisa,” she calls out.

Lisa flinches but softens up, realizing that it was Jennie, calling her. She smiles softly. The memories diminishing like the foot prints in the sand getting washed up by the waves. Not even a trace of it was left. Just a plain sand, ready to be marked with new footprints. She tightens the hold of their hands, making Jennie smile as well.

The girl smiles to herself, watching Jennie and Lisa create their own world with just their eyes. She smiles at them, secretly, watching Jennie take away the pain in Lisa’s eyes in a glance. And somehow, she felt relieved. She felt relieved at the fact that someone is there to erase the pain she had caused her. And she hopes that Jennie stays to do what she can’t. She hopes that Jennie keeps her. She leaves them, without a word. She leaves like how she did a few years ago. This time, Lisa didn’t bother to spare her a single glance, because she wouldn’t dare to leave Jennie’s eyes for something else. And it didn’t matter to the girl, whether Lisa spares her one last glance or not, this world— this moment, is what matters and that’s better than anything else.

“Who was that?” Jennie asks as she looks around to find the stranger.

Lisa softly chuckles, turning to take an order that was hindered by an event she didn’t want to happen, “no one.”

The taller girl takes the cups from the lady, she mumbles a soft thank you before turning around to walk back into the crowd.

“Are you seriously not gonna tell me?” Jennie asks, taking her cup from Lisa.

For a second, she had a glimpse of what Lisa is thinking when the girl turned to look at her. Jennie saw it. The hurt in her eyes were so obvious and surprisingly, she knows what those meant. The latter’s eyes scream nothing but the past. A past Jennie knows Lisa doesn’t want to share. She need not to question her anymore, because she knows already.

The girl earlier meant something more to Lisa than an old friend she no longer had communication with. She’s not just a mere schoolmate or a close friend that she had drifted apart from. She was a past that held a significant place in Lisa. A past that had millions of memories with the latter.

Jennie walks past Lisa, leaving the taller girl standing still, confused. She wanted to get lost into the crowd. She wanted to scream with them, to let the jealousy out. But she can’t. The amount of the craziness in the crowd would not suffice to make her scream or even utter a single word. She pushed herself into the crowd. She did not care if her drink is spilling or if she’s being pushed by some stranger. All she cares about is to get lost, let the jealousy that she’s feeling to die down. She wants it gone because she knows she doesn’t have the right to feel those.

Confused, she chugs down her drink to the last drop. Making sure it is empty. The jealousy faded for a second but when the picture of Lisa and the girl flashed in her mind, it went back. She doesn’t even know why she’s jealous. Nothing much really happened. Lisa didn’t have any physical contact with the girl nor smiled at her. Nothing nice happened between the encounter but she was jealous. Jealous of the fact that the girl held something in Lisa. Like she was somehow, a valuable piece to the puzzle. She envied the fact that the girl made Lisa vulnerable to the point that anyone can read her like an open book. Because she did, she was able to do so, even if it’s just for a split