hold my heartbeat

Lisa was ugly sobbing on a sidewalk the first time she meets (and fails to recognize) her soulmate.

It's not the most attractive thing to see, but Lisa has a laundry list of valid reasons why she's spending her Wednesday afternoon kneeling on a sidewalk and getting soaked by the rain.

First of all, Chaeyoung posted a video of her drunkenly dancing in nothing but her bra and rainbow pants a month ago. It blew up, literally went viral, and somehow gave people permission to come up to her and engage her in greasy conversations two minutes before class. She did her best to dodge the frat boy whose name she can't even be bothered to remember, but it ultimately ended with her having to shove him back and being ten minutes late for a class of a mere 13 people.

Which, of course, meant that she got Mr. Choi's stink eye for the entire two-hour period. He did her best to make Lisa feel like she was the dumbest person on earth until one of her more studious classmates finally took pity on her and started writing the answers in her notebook under the guise of taking notes. It didn't help that he kept asking her questions about readings that they weren't even supposed to discuss until two weeks later. The injustice of it all.

Speaking of, she got her thesis introduction back from Dr. Jung, who basically told her that she needs to re-write the entire thing if she wants to graduate. Lisa hasn't even touched the literature review with a ten-foot pole and here she is having to go back to square one while also dealing with an insane amount of readings for her philosophy class.

And then, just when she thought the Bad Day™ had finally ended, it started pouring on her way home. It would have been fine because she took pride in being one of those weird people who brought an umbrella everywhere. Except, some asshole drove straight into a goddamn puddle right next to her, and Lisa barely had enough time to protect her backpack where her laptop (her entire life, really) is stored.

So, she's soaked in god-knows-what, but her backpack's mostly dry so Lisa tries really hard to cling to this one good thing.

After a long litany of damning curses that could probably make a witch want to offer her an apprenticeship, Lisa moves on, this time sticking as close as she can to the building walls.

Guess fucking what.

She trips.

On a box.

That literally appeared out of nowhere.

To make one thing clear, Lisa's not one to whine and complain. But she was honestly so close to tears that when the box gives a feeble cry, she figures that she could just step into incoming traffic.

She makes sure that her backpack's as dry as it can be (thank fuck for water-repellent fabric), pausing to consider if she wants to find out what's in the box or save herself the potential horror.

She was just about to walk past when she hears the same sound from earlier.

She goes through yet another moment of intense hesitation (because with her luck today, there could be, like, body parts in that box and she's hearing the sound of a lamenting ghost, who knows), she eventually crouches down and pries the lid open.

Meow.

Two kittens look up at her pitifully.

And Lisa...

Lisa does the only three things she can do considering the absolutely horrible day she's having.

She hugs her backpack to protect it from the rain and moves the umbrella to cover the kittens more than herself.

And then, she sobs.

Loud, I'm-so-done-with-the-world and I-hate-people and we-don't-deserve-cats kind of crying.