Golden Girl | Chaelisa

3

The morning of Taehyung's birthday, Lisa climbs in through his window with his gift tucked under her arm.

She slips from the windowsill and lands on his bed easily, bouncing slightly on the mattress. A quick glance confirms that Taehyung is nowhere to be seen, but a faint rustling comes from the bathroom. Lisa assumes he is in the middle of showering and gets comfortable on the Star Wars sheets.

Taehyung's bedroom is the same as it has been since middle school, save for a few small changes. A Highschool sticker is now glued to the top of his door. The nightstand is chipped from when he fell over and hit his head during a makeout session. That same nightstand has a picture of them on it from freshman year — young, hopeful, and chubby-cheeked.

Lisa can't stop her mind from drifting to Roseanne. She wonders how her room is decorated. The first and only time Lisa saw it, it had been plain except for the stacks of boxes.

Damn it.

It's barely eight in the morning and Lisa is already thinking about Roseanne. She needs to pinch this thing in the side before it grows into a full-blown crush.

Lisa hasn't had a crush on anyone since the third grade. Bambam. He'd been dashing, with his curls and the cute grin on his face whenever he offered Lisa star-shaped stickers. Lisa can't recall any more details about him, other than those short few. She decides it doesn't matter.

She shouldn't be thinking about other people while Taehyung is in the other room, probably carefully looking over his body for the soulmark that matches her's.

"Ah — Lisa!" A high-pitched yelp leaves Taehyung's mouth as he emerges from the bathroom and spots her. He quickly drops his voice an octave lower than it usually is. "What are you doing here?"

"It's your birthday." Lisa responds, each word coming out slowly as her suspicion rises.

Why is he acting weird?

It can't be because Lisa climbed through his window without announcing her presence or asking first. She has been doing that for years now, ever since her Tarzan phase in the fifth grade. This is all as normal as every other day.

Yet, Taehyung hasn't moved a muscle or greeted her properly. His face is void of its goofy smile and his eyes pick up speed with every passing second, darting around the room in panic. The most bizarre part of this is the way he clutches his towel to his body like a girl — bunched up around his chest — despite wearing boxers.

"Why are you acting like you need to cover your boobs?" Lisa asks, finding his actions ridiculous. She's seen his bare chest multiple times before. "Did you get your mark or what?"

"Yeah. I got it." Taehyung continues to walk to his dresser with the towel as his partner.

"Well, can I see it?"

Lisa inspects his back. She traces the familiar line of his spine, the barely-there muscle, the pale skin that bruises so easily and yet doesn't appear to be marked in any way. That can't be right. Lisa checks again, but the only noticeable mark on him is a particularly large freckle.

Nothing special.

"Tae?" She prompts. At his silence, her hands curl tightly around the gift she brought.

What if Taehyung isn't her soulmate? Her whole life would be a lie. Three homecomings, a hundred dates, and thousands of days spent together, only to find out that they shouldn't be together at all?

For a second, one she will ignore in the near future, Lisa feels relief.

"It's on my ass." Taehyung blurts, finally abandoning the towel to get an outfit out of the drawers.