Short Story Title: See You On The Next Trip

Chapter Title: I’ll See You Soon

 

Before you start reading the ending of this story, STOP AND READ THIS. I do apologize for taking so long to update. No excuses. I had read a tweet of an author, saying that a part of her didn’t want to update because she didn’t want her story to end. And I felt the same. Or maybe I’m just being lazy. Could be both. But here. The much deserved ending of this short story.

I would like to thank my manager aka a devil whom I made a bet with. You lost the bet but here’s the update.

I would also like to thank my friends that I met because of BP. Idk why I’m thanking them I just wanted to be sweet ehe. Labyuol sindikato frends.

Ps. If there are typos, sorry. My bad. I’m not a keen observant.

For the last time, please enjoy.

 

Clanking metal trays were the sounds occupying Lisa’s eardrums, but she couldn’t care less for she was too engulf with the paper she was writing. She types a word or two, then erases it because it wasn’t enough to describe what she was really going to say. It’s been like that for the past hour. She groans as she switches from one tab to another, looking for a better reference to put in her paper. It wasn’t working for her. Nothing seemed to be working for her. She isn’t functioning quite well, knowing that her mind has something else to focus on. She sighs, leaning back to her seat.

 

“I don’t understand why you’re stressing yourself so much about the paper,” Jisoo says, surprising Lisa, for she had completely forgotten that she was with her friend.

 

“I forgot that you’re here,” she mumbles, looking up at the ceiling.

 

Jisoo rolls her eyes, “What else do you not forget?”

 

Momentarily, silence draws upon them. Lisa finally shuts down her laptop, putting it back to her navy blue Jansport bag with some of her papers.

 

“How do I get to Jennie’s province?” Lisa asks out of the blue as she zips her bag, making Jisoo almost choke on her food.

 

“Hold on, what?”

 

“I wanna go to Jennie’s province,”

 

Jisoo drops her chopsticks, cleaning her lips covered with sauce. She eyes Lisa, watching her gesture, her facial expression, and most importantly, her eyes. She knows it’s the most important thing to look at. Lisa told her that if you want to search for answers that are not said, look into their eyes. She had a hard time doing that. She tried it on Chaeyoung but the latter found it creepy. And now, she knows what Lisa exactly meant. The latter misses Jennie. She could see how sad her eyes are and how it looked her soul is in despair. She need not to ask, but she want it to come from Lisa’s lips.

 

“Why?”

 

“I wanna see her,”

 

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jisoo leans back to her chair, crossing her arms just below her chest as she waits for Lisa to tell her the obvious fact.

 

She could see the hesitation. She could notice Lisa’s body tense up and she knows that the latter is looking for an answer that would take her out of this situation. The years they have spent together somehow gave her the ability to read Lisa. The way the latter looked the other way, trying to avoid her eyes. The way she tapped her index finger on the table and how it stopped after a minute. She knew that the girl doesn’t have anything to get her out of this.

 

“I like Jennie and I wanna see her before she leaves,” Lisa says, her voice hitching at the last part of her confession. She soon shrinks to her seat as the last amount of her confidence drops away.

 

Grinning like an old ert, Jisoo tried so hard to contain her laughter at the sight of Lisa being so shy after confessing something that she already know. She takes her chopsticks, putting her focus back on her lunch that would soon turn cold.

 

“I’ll message you the directions so you don’t forget, for now, eat your goddamn food.”

 

“But don’t tell Chaeng okay?” Lisa notices the look Jisoo gave her. It was an indirect question, asking her to explain why she said that. She sighs, “She’ll freak out and ask me questions before I could go.”

 

Jisoo chuckles, nodding in agreement to keep Lisa’s plan in secret.

 

 

The banging on her door started out as faint taps. She must’ve taken too long to respond, for it turned into a continuous banging alongside with the calling of her name from time to time. She groans as she lifts her head away from the comfort of her soft pillow. With eyes still tightly shut, she searches for her phone. She grabs ahold of it, and immediately checked for the time.

 

5:26PM. That’s what her phone says. She must’ve fallen asleep once she got home after her classes. There were a few messages from her friends and tons from Jennie, asking for her whereabouts. She slides on one of Jennie’s messages, and immediately calls her.

 

“Hey, I fell asleep,” she says, her voice groggy.

 

“I figured, school got you tired?”

 

She stretches her arms as a yawn escapes , “Yeah, I’m going somewhere tonight.”

 

“Where?”

 

“I’ll tell you later, for now, I need to go and prepare,”

 

“Okay, laters,”

 

The phone beeps, signaling that the call had ended. Lisa didn’t waste another second as she sprints her way to her bathroom, bringing only her towel with her. She moved around her room so easily, turning here and there, changing outfits after a minute of contemplating whether she’s contented with it or not. She settles for her dark orange knitted sweater and some dark skinny jeans. She jogs down the stairway, hearing soft chuckles from her mom as she nears the kitchen. She walks in, smiling at the sight of her mom’s glowing face. She hasn’t seen her smile this way. Must be her dad that she’s talking to. She proceeds, hugging her mom softly.

 

“I’m gonna see her mom,” she says, her head resting on the older woman’s shoulder.

 

“Alright dear. Just be safe on your way their okay?”

 

Lisa receives a few light taps on her head, she beams at her mom, giving the woman a kiss on the cheek before heading out of their house. She holds onto the straps of her bag tightly, inhaling a huge amount of air before wishing herself good luck on her trip.

 

The whole journey took longer than she expected. Or longer than what Jisoo had told her. It took her almost four hours to get there. Thanks to the traffic jam at the highway. Nonetheless, her excitement didn’t fall short. For what it’s worth, she grew even more excited. She’s nearing Jennie. Only a few kilometers away and she’ll be exactly where Jennie is. Right next to her. And she pictures herself standing next to Jennie. Holding her hand or hugging her tightly. It brings her joy to picture them together happy. It makes the whole walk a little less lonely and less scary.

 

“Good evening, is there a Kim Jennie in this house?” She mumbles, as she roams around the quiet village. She shakes her head, cringing at herself for sounding so bad at her greeting. She had been practicing what she’s going to say once she gets to Jennie’s house. But none of them seem to be perfect.

 

“Good evening, is Kim Jennie here?” She tries again.

 

And again.

 

“Good evening ma’am, does Jennie Kim live here?”

 

“Good evening ma’am, do you know this girl in the picture?”

 

And again. She shakes her head for the last time, groaning. None of it seemed to be doing it for her. It sounds creepy and a little too in formal for her liking. She wanted it to be perfect. But what if Jennie answers the gate? What should she say?

 

The cold evening breeze brushes against her skin as she roams the village Jisoo had told her. Turning her head left and right, she looks for the exact house number her friend sent her. She was nearing, and the idea of it makes her heart race with every step that she takes. She wonders why people feel this way. In any given situation, a person would always feel nervous, like their hearts would fall off any second. Jennie isn’t someone she’s going to meet for the first time. Not an internet friend whom she had agreed to meet with. Certainly not her professor or anyone higher than her. She’s just Jennie. Her Jennie. If she could consider her as hers. But she continues with the idea that Jennie is hers. After all, no one would know that she’s claiming her.

 

“That must be it,” she mumbles to herself, seeing the numbers she had memorized along the way, molded perfectly in a piece of metal that was screwed on the wall.

 

Beneath it was a doorbell that Lisa somehow found so hard to press. What if there’s no Jennie in this household? What if Jisoo had a drastic typo? The overthinking starts, causing her mind to go haywire with other bunch of questions that she’s going to stress about in a minute.

 

“Alright, don’t make this hard Lisa. Just press it,”

 

She sighs, convincing herself that she gained enough confidence to bring her finger up and press the button. She hears the ding as soon as she pressed the button and that was the time she wished that the ground would swallow her whole. She wanted to run, make it seem like some kids pranked them. But all the scenarios she thought of doing came to a stop when she heard the metals clanking, signaling that someone just removed the lock and was about to open the gate.

 

She stood frozen at the sight of an old woman, with strands of silver hair dominating the dark ones. The older lady smiles warmly at her, and Lisa tried so hard to smile a little bit comfortable.

 

“H-Hi... i-is there a Kim Jennie here?” Lisa scolded herself at the back of her mind, she hated how bad her greeting sounded. How it must’ve struck her as someone who is disrespectful.

 

“Yes dear, are you a friend of her?”

 

Scratching the back of her head, Lisa says, “Yes, my name is Lisa Manoban.”

 

“Hmm, I don’t quite remember her friends, but come in.”

 

She follows the older woman. Arms pressed to her sides, not wanting them to move around too much. Her head wanders around the softly dimmed place, and she notices the garden pond just a few meters to her left away from the pathway they were walking on. Lisa almost tripped at the elevated floor, she knew she had to shift her eyes to where she’s walking. She whispers an apology, taking off her shoes as she did so.

 

“Take a seat,” the older woman says, welcoming Lisa to the house, unfamiliar yet comforting to her feeling, the woman then adds, “I’ll just call Jennie.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Lisa waited for the woman to disappear upstairs before she takes a seat on the couch right across the TV that was showing some Korean drama she had forgotten the title of. Unknowingly, she watches it, although she knows that the plot is similar to some other dramas she had seen before.

 

 

“Someone’s downstairs looking for you,” the woman says as she enters Jennie’s room.

 

“Who would look for me at this time of the night Granny?” Jennie asks, seeming uninterested as her eyes didn’t move an inch from her phone.

 

“Someone named Lisa?”

 

In a second, she turns her head up, looking at her grandma with wide eyes, “You’re kidding.”

 

Soon, she finds herself running faster than anyone else. In fact, she could win an Olympic medal with the speed she’s going. There’s no way her grandmother would joke about Lisa being downstairs. The old lady doesn’t even know Lisa. But her heart pounds as she makes her way to the living room, hoping she would see Lisa waiting for her.

 

She recalls the phone call she had with Lisa earlier, and her heart beats faster as she remembers Lisa telling her that she will be going somewhere.

 

‘Did she really come here?’ she says to herself as she takes the last step of the stairs.

 

And she was there.

 

She sees Lisa, sitting politely with both palms placed gently on her knees, smiling faintly at the television.

 

“Lisa...” she whispers, taking baby steps towards the latter.

 

The slow movement catches her eyes. She looks past from the screen and sees the person she went for. Slowly, her lips forms into a smile and she stands, ten meters away from Jennie.

 

Five meters.

 

Four...

 

Three...

 

Two...

 

And a hug closes the distance between them.

 

“This is the ‘somewhere’ I told you I was going to,”

 

Jennie buries her face on the crook of Lisa’s neck, tightening the hug, making sure that she’s really holding Lisa.

 

“You said you have a paper to write,”

 

“I did, but I figured, the paper could wait. Plus, I couldn’t really focus on writing it, since I wanted to see you,”

 

“Corny.” Jennie says, smiling against the latter’s neck. “It’s late though, how are you gonna get home?”

 

“I’m planning to book a room at a nearby inn,” Lisa says, her hands pointing to any direction, hoping Jennie would picture how near it is.

 

 

The drama playing in the television no longer mattered. Lisa didn’t even notice that it ended just a few seconds after the two of them fell in a comfortable silence that got their whole body frozen. Now it just shows a program that targets to capture a lot of housewives or grandmas to buy the product that promises to make things at home easier. But everyone knows that sooner or later, the thing that they bought, would be the thing giving them a hard time. And somehow, that is how life works. One moment you think everything is easy, like everything is going to their places, only to wake up to a whole different set of challenges that would either make you or break you. Lisa is quite aware of the same situation happening between Jennie and her. They could have all of this planned out in the beginning. Have things like video calls, phone calls, and messages scheduled to fit their timeline. But she knows, somewhere between the lines, there would be something that messes it up. What that is, Lisa doesn’t know. She can only hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as it she thinks it is.

 

Jennie shakes her head, taking Lisa in a series of wondering about what the shaking meant.

 

“I’m not letting you book some old crappy room at a nearby inn,” Jennie sternly says, crossing her arms as she look at the abstract paint on the wall, “You’re staying here.”

 

The thought of sleeping next to Jennie still makes Lisa excited. It’s not her first time but somehow this one has a different feeling to it. They’ll be sleeping next to each with both of their feelings out in the . And that makes it different, because now, none of them would have to wonder in the middle of the night of what it is between them. No one would have to look at the other and wonder if they feel the same. She giggles, finding Jennie’s stern look, adorable.

 

Their moment was soon cut off when Jennie’s grandma appeared, sporting a smile that is somehow similar to Jennie’s.

 

“Yes dear, stay here.” The old lady says.

 

Not sure of how to accept the kindness brought by Jennie’s grandma, Lisa stands there awkwardly smiling at older woman approaching the couch just behind her.

 

“T-thank you,” Lisa mumbles.

 

“Well, I think introduction is done, come Lisa,” Jennie says, taking to her grip, Lisa’s hand, “I’ll show you something.”

 

Jennie swiftly opens the sliding door, letting the cold breeze enter the kitchen as they walk out of it. It was the back porch that Lisa once saw in the picture Jennie had sent her. The only difference is that, it’s dark and only a couple of small lights lit the place.

 

Jennie leads her to the bench on the right side. It was a little colder than expected, nonetheless, her body adjusts to it.

 

“Wow, it is beautiful here.” Lisa says in awe, watching the sky lights up wi