Imperfectly Perfect [Chaelisa]

forty seven

“We’re doing individual speaking assignments.”

The second Lisa hears the words, she looks over to Chaeyoung, who is suddenly a lot tenser than she was before. Speaking assignments would’ve been bad enough, but individual ones? Talk about Chaeyoung’s personal hell.

Lisa shuffles closer to her girlfriend and holds out her hand, hoping that Chaeyoung will take it. The older girl favours clenching and unclenching her fingers as she watches their teacher explaining assignment guidelines.

“Rosie?” Lisa tries her best to soothe her girlfriend, not sure if her words are even registering in Chaeyoung’s brain. “I’m sure she doesn’t mean you. She probably knows how nervous you’d be-“

“I wasn’t in a Thai class last year,” Chaeyoung interrupts her, staring down at a little scratch on their desk. “I did one on one in my free periods instead. Because of the- uh, speaking requirements.”

“Well,” Lisa tries to think of something positive. “We’ll talk to our teacher after class and see if she’ll let you out of it. If she refuses, we’ll get a note from Miss Yoona and see if that works.”

Chaeyoung keeps clenching her fingers, and Lisa knows that’s a negative stim. A stim that she doesn’t want Chaeyoung to keep doing, because if she’s doing that, it means she’s upset. And an upset Chaeyoung is her least favourite thing in the world.

“I don’t-“ Chaeyoung closes her eyes and lets out a long breath. “I don’t like public speaking. I’m not- I’m not good at it. And- um, I… it- I stutter when I’m nervous and people are mean…”

“Hey,” Lisa murmurs, resting a on Chaeyoung’s shoulder and sending her the most supportive smile she can muster. “We’ll get it sorted out. I promise.”

“It’s- um, 20%,” Chaeyoung gestures towards the front of class, “of our grade. I can’t not do it.”

“Maybe… we’ll ask if you can do something else to make up for it.” Lisa says. “If not… screw the 20%.”

“I can’t!” Chaeyoung looks at her like she’s crazy, “It’ll ruin my GPA! It won’t be a 5.0 anymore, I can’t- I- Lili-“

“Hey, Rosie, shush,” Lisa carefully takes her girlfriend’s hand as the bell signalling lunchtime rings, “It’s okay. We’ll work something out right now.”

“What- but,” Chaeyoung frowns as Lisa shushes her again. “It’s not- it won’t be okay!”

Once most of the class has left, Lisa takes Chaeyoung by the wrist and pulls her up to their teacher’s desk, not sure what to say, but only one thing on her mind.

“About the speaking assignments,” Lisa introduces the topic, making sure to run her thumb over Chaeyoung’s knuckles to calm her girlfriend down. “Is there any way for Chaeyoung to skip out on it but have it not affect her grade?”

“No,” their teacher shakes her head and Lisa’s heart nearly breaks at the sound of Chaeyoung’s upset whimper, “it’s compulsory to complete a speaking module.”

“Well, uh,” Lisa pauses in thought, “does it have to be individual? Like, could I work with her and do like a conversational kind of thing?”

Their teacher seems to consider it, and Lisa carefully places a hand on the small of Chaeyoung’s back and starts tracing circles, because she knows that calms her down. It’s not the most calming thing for – that’d be belly rubs – but it works enough that her girlfriend becomes less tense.

“Okay,” At the answer, Lisa’s heart soars, “but you have to speak an equal amount.”

Chaeyoung bites down on her bottom lip. “I can’t- can you tell the class not to look at me? When we do it, I mean?”