so, do we like each other or not? // JENLISA

Chapter 28

(If any of you are particularly uncomfortable with things related to sexual assault, I'd recommend skipping the very end of this chapter)

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Lisa went back to her own apartment on Sunday morning, although she wouldn't be able to call it that for much longer. She was still supposed to be moving out of it, but she was also desperately hunting for a way to actually do that: every scenario she ran through in her head resulted in her crashing in one of the Caterpillar storage rooms for the foreseeable future, or gradually moving all of her possessions into Jennie's apartment without her noticing. She was running out of time and running out of options, but on that particular day, she didn't have the room left in her head to panic about it. Instead, she decided to spend some time with Mary before they finally parted ways, all the while mentally preparing herself for her meeting with Soohan that evening.

Something in her gut was warning her that this was a bad idea, but she pushed it aside with a firm voice that repeated for Jennie, for Jennie until she felt marginally less queasy.

She half hoped Soohan would cancel on her just so she could go back to Jennie sighing and telling her that he was officially a lost cause, but as the day wore on it became more obvious that that wasn't going to happen. He even texted her at five to tell her how much he was looking forward to seeing her.

So, forcing down the anxiety that was quietly stirring in her chest, she got on the subway and stopped off to buy some beers just before she got to his studio. She wasn't wearing one of her Jennie outfits that day, and she realised that it was the first time Soohan would see her in her normal clothes. She wondered if that would make a difference – maybe he would have been more receptive to Jennie's meeting requests if they'd stopped showing up at his door looking like a pair of judgy lawyers.

At 7:05pm, because she knew Soohan wasn't the type of person to be impressed by punctuality, she hit the buzzer for his loft. He let her in right away, and she traipsed up the five flights of stairs with the beers cradled against her chest.

The door was already open when she reached the top floor. Soohan was peering through, his face a picture of sheer delight as Lisa rounded the corner.

"Hey," she said, approaching him. "This feels different to last time."

Soohan just grinned, seemingly unembarrassed by his previous behaviour, and opened his arms for a hug. The smell of paint enveloped her.

"Come in," he said, stepping back and grandly gesturing to the promised land. Liza walked past him, wondering whether she should feel some sense of awe at having finally made it inside. Instead she just blinked, realising for the first time that Soohan's workshop was also his apartment. It suddenly became more obvious why he'd been reluctant to let Jennie in there.

She looked around at the rolled-up futon, the TV with three different consoles sprawled out in front of it, the tiny kitchen with a stack of plates in the sink. The loft was split in two by a Japanese screen door that was supposed to look edgy but had come off its tracks some time ago. Through the gap in the middle, Lisa could see what looked like his studio taking up the majority of the space.

"You live here?" she asked as Soohan closed the front door and stepped around her, gathering up dirty mugs as he went.

"Yeah. I got a decent grant that paid for this workshop space, but being an impoverished artist doesn't exactly leave much leftover for rent," he explained. Lisa once again looked at his multiple consoles and doubted just how impoverished he was.