Sometimes, sometimes, Lisa can be so clueless.

Lisa isn’t really one to be clueless, though. She’s actually a very observant, very thoughtful, and a very sensitive person.

A person with more know-how on matters of astrology and zodiac - ehem, Esther, ehem - would say that that side of her comes from her scorpio moon. A layman would simply chalk it up to the duality that Lisa carries within her - that it is simply the paradox and the complexity of who she is, fun and goofy and loud but also thoughtful and sensitive.

But as observant and sensitive as she is, sometimes some things just do slip by Lisa’s awareness.

Like, for example, how her best friend Roseanne Park - the very hardworking, very disciplined, very uncompromising Roseanne Park - somehow always made an exception for her.

It’s in the way Rosie ran the school with a stern openness fitting for a student leader like her.

Even before she was elected student body president and overall university student representative, even as she worked as the council’s secretary, she was already the backbone of the student council - the head in-charge. Everyone naturally turned to her for guidance and leadership, even her predecessor and senior heeded and listened to her advice.

She was progressive, she is independent, but she also knows what she wants and who she is that she’s unwilling to bend and acquiesce for things that do not fall in line with that.

Take for instance the way Rosie - in all her sweet polite smiles and warm greetings - has heads with the university chancellor more than a few times during her overall stay. She has vehemently opposed fee hikes, the implementation of discriminatory learning policies that put the lesser-fortunate students at a disadvantage, and even protested the threats of the chancellor to shut down the university paper.

Sufficely put, no matter how strong a rock you are or how hard of a place you see yourself to be, Roseanne Park can and will bulldoze you over if she needs to.

Except when it comes to Lisa.

See, when it comes to Lisa, Rosie can’t help but give in.

Like whenever they have to choose what to eat.

“Rosie I want sausages,” Lisa announces out of the blue.

It’s the next weekend after their dorm’s unfortunate incident with the air conditioning breaking down. The two of them are cuddled up on the couch, Lisa with her back against the leather backrest and Rosie splayed out on a huge pillow in her lap.

Their weekdays were always still busy with summer school activities, but their weekends had to stay free. Surprisingly, it was Rosie who was adamant about reserving weekends as rest days. Lisa couldn’t argue. She was happy to have nothing to do during weekends.

And inevitably, the weekends turned into time allotted to spend with each other. How could Lisa complain about spending time with her best friend, secret crush, and quite possibly the greatest love of her life? Lisa might never be able to admit her feelings to her best friend and roommate, but she would be damned if she wasn’t taking, counting, and being grateful for her blessings one by one.

For this weekend, they are lazily watching a random episode of Junior Masterchef. Rosie loved the show and loved watching the cute little kids be almost as good as professional chefs. Lisa loved the food ideas Rosie would get from the show and then would make for her.

Rosie’s eyelids were drooping closed and she was nearly drifting off to sleep. At the sound of Lisa’s request, she groans.

“I was thinking of something healthy, Lisa. We’ve been eating so much junk food this week, we need to eat greens and fruit.” The blonde student leader admonished her friend, her voice whiny and sleepy. “We’ll end up frying our brain to mush with all the MSG and preservatives we’ve been ingesting.”

“But the sausage they’re grilling looks so good.” Lisa points to their tv with a pout. Sure enough, the junior master chefs are in the middle of a group challenge where they have to grill sausages and feed a group of people.

Rosie hears the pout in Lisa’s voice without even cracking an eye open. She sighs.

Well, who was she to deny Lisa what she wants? She may be the student council president and overall university student representative, but on what authority does she stand to deny her favorite person in the world the satisfaction of her sausage cravings.

Rosie opens one eye to look up at Lisa. She is immediately greeted with Lisa’s pout - the most powerful weapon in her arsenal.

Rosie immediately shuts her eyes closed again, scrunching her face as if Lisa’s pout wounds her ever so deeply.

“Fine, fine” The blonde student leader raises her hands, palm up, in defeat. “You win, Lisa. We can have sausages for dinner.”

Lisa whoops in happiness. In a sudden burst of excitement and gratitude, she grabs Rosie’s face and plants a big soft kiss on Rosie’s forehead and wraps her in a tight, warm embrace.

“Thank you,” the dancer sing-songs, holding Rosie’s head against her chin. She feels the vibration of Rosie’s small chuckle.

“You have to promise me that we’re eating better tomorrow, though.” Rosie demands.

Lisa lets go, sits back, and does a mock salute.

“Aye, aye, cap’n!” Lisa agrees using a fake pirate voice. Rosie laughs.

If Lisa was watching the two of them, she would have noticed how Rosie blushed as she kissed her forehead and held her.

If Lisa was anybody else, if she was looking at them from an outsider’s perspective, she would have noticed that Rosie had just compromised and went against her nature, albeit the matter at hand was seemingly small and insignificant.

But the little things grew into bigger things. Rosie wasn’t an edm or hip-hop girl. They both agree on RnB but that’s the extent of their similarities in music taste. But Rosie let Lisa take over the bluetooth speakers more often than not, blasting Nicki Minaj and dancing in their living room. She manages to pull her best friend into her dance crazes and Rosie would join her, laughter spilling over plump lips and stars seemingly plucked from the dark heavens taking residence and giving her the twinkle in her eyes.

Once, Rosie had a huge disagreement with her mother. It was something about government social programs being implemented, or something like that. Lisa only caught the tail end of the argument, which was mostly Rosie trying to fight off upset tears and arguing about how socialism won’t destroy the fabric of society the way conservatives think it will.

Rosie angrily hung up on her mother and stomped to her bed, plopping down on it. Lisa was sitting down in front of the small table in their dorm room, lenses and cameras scattered about. She was cleaning and removing dust from them, as diligently as she could before the normal evening phone conversation Rosie had with her mom turned into a heated debate.

Lisa put down the special piece of cloth she was using to wipe the insides of where she screwed the camera lens into the camera.

“Rosie?” The photography student tentatively peers at her friend, concern lacing her voice. When the blonde lump on the bed doesn’t move, she gets up and sits on the edge of the bed beside her.

Up close, Lisa sees the little movements of Rosie’s shoulders, indicating that she was sobbing with her face buried into her pillow.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Lisa croons. She wraps comforting arms around her friend, hands rubbing her back soothingly. “What was it? What did you and Auntie fight about?”

Rosie gets a few more sobs out of her before she explains everything fully. Lisa listens patiently, face resting against Rosie’s shoulder and still holding and comforting her friend.

By the end of it, Lisa pushes the messy strands of blonde hair away from Rosie’s face. Underneath, Rosie was red and puffy from crying.

“Aww, sweetie. Don’t cry.” Lisa wipes her tears away. “You wanna know what I think?” She asks softly.

Not really, Rosie almost retorted back, because she knew Lisa was about to say something she didn’t want to hear. Otherwise, why would Lisa be asking her?

But Rosie nods instead, hearing her friend out.

“I think, when you’ve calmed down, you should call Auntie again. You should explain patiently to her why universal healthcare is important. I know it’s exhausting to have to constantly explain and argue, but we have to try to educate the people we love on issues we care about.”

Rosie huffed.

“My mom can google. She can look these things up and study them. It’s not so hard.”

Lisa sighs.

“I know, sweetie,” she says, tone still soothing. “But listen, maybe she just needs some encouragement. Who better to give it to her than you, right?”

Rosie almost wanted to be annoyed at how good Lisa was being to her, how comforting and how right she was at this moment.

But she couldn’t.

Cause it’s Lisa.

Lisa seemed to be the common pattern among the times she acted completely unlike herself ever since they’d met their first year at uni and become roommates.

“Fine,” Rosie murmurs. “You’re right.”

Lisa beams at her.

Another thing Lisa is the absolute exception to was how Rosie would usually and naturally be aloof and be doing her own thing. But ever since she met Lisa, that changed.

Rosie learned to be clingier. Lisa loved hanging out with her and doing things with her.

Of course, it was because Lisa had feelings for her, but Rosie doesn’t know that and enjoys her company anyway.

Rosie kept a distance with many people but Lisa would be able to come barreling through anytime, give her a cheek kiss or a hug, regardless of time and place.

Lisa was allowed to hold her hand in front of her fellow student council members, allowed to hug her in front of teachers, and allowed to kiss her cheek even in front of the convenience store cashier.

And Rosie accepted all the affection happily, gratefully.

At first it wasn’t like that.

Rosie wasn’t comfortable with it. She would always lean away or smack Lisa off. But Lisa was persistent. And most importantly, Lisa was goofily, adorably happy every time she successfully expressed affection for Rosie.

And who was Rosie to deny her best friend the simple joy of expressing affection through physical touch, right?

Joy had mistaken them for a couple at first, when Rosie introduced Lisa to her.

Rosie laughed loudly and corrected Joy, saying she was straight. Lisa just chuckled uncomfortably and agreed.

But see, Lisa doesn’t see all that - doesn’t realize how she always somehow falls outside the realm of the general rule and always into the exception for Rosie.

And it’s easy to lose sight of that. She is the object of it, afterall.

But maybe, maybe if Lisa just knew, she would see.

Lisa would see that maybe her feelings aren’t so hopeless after all.