First Times

And then they said other things

Lisa recognized the café as it came into view. Well, she would have if she could've pulled her eyes away from Jennie. She passed by it every Sunday on her way to the park but it was never open so early in the morning, and by the time she left it was always too crowded.

It was like that now, bustling with teenagers lounging around the patio tables outside, soaking up the late morning sun. Lisa vaguely recognized the circle of old ladies from the park, gossiping over their lattes, before Jennie pulled her into the cashier line-up.

"What are you gonna get?"

Lisa glanced at the menu hanging over the counter. She tried to read through the list, sorting through the exotic names and descriptions of dozens of things she'd just call 'juice'. It wasn't helping that Jennie kept brushing her arm against her own while they inched closer to the cash register.

"Uhhh...why don't you decide for me? Everything just looks the same to me."

They stepped up to the lanky teenager manning the cash register and Jennie gave their drink orders. Jennie was clearly a frequent customer, her drink was so modified with pumps of this and whips of that and spritzes of this that Lisa zoned out after the first sentence.

Instead she looked up at the gangly employee who was taking their order. Literally looked up. He was so ridiculously tall that she had to crane her neck backwards to make eye contact. Not that she could actually make eye contact. His head was bobbing up and down slowly, fingers entering the order into his register, but his eyes were firmly focused on Jennie's...assets.

Lisa couldn't blame him. Jennie's running apparel could stop traffic. It didn't make her want to punch him in the face any less though.

When the offensively tall employee was finally done taking their order and ripped his eyes away from Jennie long enough to tell them their total, Lisa pulled out her wallet and paid for the drinks. She made sure to glare at him as she handed over the cash. He blinked down at her. He hadn't even realized someone else was there.

As they made their way to the end of the counter to grab their drinks, Jennie spoke up from beside her, "Thanks."

Lisa turned to her. She had been mentally visualizing how she could leap up onto the counter and clock the guy in the face without Jennie noticing, so she was genuinely perplexed to see that Jennie was blushing.

"I...for what?" Lisa couldn't figure out why she was thanking her, much less why Jennie's cheeks had suddenly turned such a bright shade of pink. But apparently she had done something right, because Jennie smiled shyly at her as they grabbed their drinks, and pulled her outside to one of the patio tables.

She spent the rest of the morning and half the afternoon talking to Jennie. She was a fashion design major. She loved pink. She went to the same university as Lisa. She had a small studio apartment near here she shared with a friend.

After the initial struggle of rebooting her brain every time Jennie laughed at her jokes or smiled at her, she realized that Jennie was remarkably easy to talk to. She felt like she could stay in this moment forever, talking to this gorgeous girl and drinking this ridiculous drink. And she wasn't totally sure she could physically leave even if she wanted to.

The entire time, Jennie never took her eyes off her. Even when the teenagers were whooping and hollering in the background. Or when the old ladies noticed the sweaty old guy sitting in the corner of the café staring at them and started scolding him. Jennie's unwavering gaze pierced right into Lisa and pinned her to the patio chair.

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Lisa was in the middle of telling Jennie about the time she and Jisoo snuck into Seulgi's room and covered it floor to ceiling with post-it notes when the sound of someone coughing and scuffing their foot made Lisa turn.