chasing girl wonder

our milk hopes aren't gone

Roseanne called her driver after to take her and Lisa back to the café. It was an hour after closing time with only a few of her staff left to complete some of their preps for the next day. Tzuyu and Karina stepped out of the café while Key finished doing a round of checks in the kitchen and was also heading out. Roseanne caught their astonished looks upon seeing her back with Lisa, her middle and ring fingers tugging Lisa's middle finger as they got inside the café, their hair and clothes drenched. She bid them good night and wished them a safe trip home, ignoring the questions on their faces, and whatever ideas Karina would instill in the other two. She was too happy to care.

Getting dragged by Roseanne toward the kitchen, Lisa was careful with every step she took until she completely stopped walking and let Roseanne's fingers slip. "Your crew just cleaned. We shouldn't make a mess in here."

It was such a thoughtful thing to say, and Roseanne beamed appreciatively. "Okay, you can wait for me outside. I'll just get the cake," she said, checking the floor if she left any dirty marks.

Threading a hand through her dampened hair to scrub a few more rain droplets off, Lisa stood at the front of the cashier area, her eyes adjusting to the dimly lit room. Over a month ago, she stumbled upon that café without any clue how every instance compounded to bring her back to the stranger who stopped her from doing the unthinkable back in Jukdo. The concurrence of events that followed without apparent causal connection turned that stranger into a friend and more—the closest thing she ever had to call home.

Home. Thailand was her home for a very short time, she vaguely remembered any good memories there except for spending time in the kitchen with her mom and Marco, talking about the proper way to cut onions or the right amount and frequency to season the Tom Yum soup. That home had been broken since Amara died. It crashed down entirely when Sinn and Nichkhun left.

Is it really a place? Tiger JK's huge, bachelor's house in a private village in Seoul served as her shelter growing up. A roof above her head, a comfortable bed to sleep in, and a music room to spend the rainy nights in. It was far from the small house she lived in back in Thailand, but having Tiger JK for a company made her teenage years more bearable and fun. It was in that home she learned more about life—and drinking and smoking too—changing her perception of what real family meant. She found a father and a brother in Tiger JK, perhaps a mother too, who never let her down even once.

The kitchen? Poached, the chaos menu, Tuk Tuk Noodle, Soi Mao, and all the kitchens she worked in. They were her escape from all the things and people she was running away from. Her life inside the kitchen had always been busy, ironically, her mind was quiet, but it did not mean it was tranquil. The chefs, Sorn, and her crew kept her grounded, yet she only became more closed off, settling with the skeletons in her closet. Those hollowed voices in her head stopped talking whenever she worked for fourteen hours behind the scenes.

A dog? Love was the only living creature who had seen her at her worst, had listened to her selfish musings, witnessed her anxiety attacks, but never screamed judgments against her. His senses read through her before she even had a name for the emotions that caused her paralysis in dire moments when she felt like she was going to take her last breath.

A person? Roseanne's existence just made her heartened for life. Inside she was smiling. Outside, she took a defiant joy in it. What made her hand tremble then was sheer joy and contentment, the feelings made her want to start dancing. Singing. Be enchanted with her stories. And just be comforted by the sweet territory of her silences too.

Her migraine had resumed, it was so debilitating that she had to pull a chair and sit down at one of the tables. Leaning back, she could feel the cords in her neck becoming rigid. The headlights from the cars passing by outside blinded her, she shut her eyes, becoming sensitive to the light. She pressed her middle finger and thumb on either side of her temples. The sound of silverware coming from the kitchen was not strident, but it caused a ringing in her ear that disconcerted her, she almost flinched at the slightest sound.