𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 - 𝐥𝐤

chapter 30: always

Author's Note

To my dear readers,

If you're reading this, it means you've reached the very end of our journey. It feels surreal to say this, but this is the final chapter of the story.

I know it's been a long road. Years have passed since I first started writing this, and I can't apologize enough for the long waits and the time it took to bring this to a close. Life has a way of happening when you're busy making other plans, and it certainly did for me. But your messages, your comments, and your unwavering support never once left my mind. They were the constant reminders that this story, and its characters, meant something to you.

I hope this ending, though open, brings a smile to your face and a sense of warmth to your heart. It was written with the hope that you, the readers, can imagine the next chapters for Jungkook and Lisa, filling in the blanks with your own hopes and dreams for them.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your patience, your kindness, and for sticking with me until the end. I couldn't have finished this without you.

With all my love, rektjk.

Enjoy!

Two months. It felt like two days and two decades all at once. For Jungkook and Lisa, time had become a strange, elastic concept, stretching and compressing depending on a single text notification. Their worlds were a study in contrast, their lives running on entirely different tracks. Lisa's existence was a whirlwind of perpetual motion: frantic flights, early-morning photoshoots, late-night events, and the constant, blinding flash of cameras. Her face, a familiar fixture on billboards and magazine covers, was a testament to her global fame. Jungkook's life, in contrast, was a quiet, steady rhythm. The sun rose and set over his cafe, its warm, welcoming scent of coffee and fresh pastries his constant companion. He found comfort in the predictable cycle of brewing, baking, and serving the regulars who had become like family.

Yet, despite the six-hour time difference that separated them, the late-night calls and the flurry of texts never stopped. They had found their rhythm, a secret, intimate language that no one else understood. It had started with Jimin, of course, who, with a sly smirk, had passed his phone to Jungkook one afternoon, the screen already open to a message from Lisa. "Tell your friend I miss his ramen," it read, a simple, playful message that broke the tension and bridged the gap between their two worlds. From that moment on, a quiet, insistent thread had woven itself between them, one text at a time.

It became a sacred ritual. Jungkook would be closing up his cafe, a soft jazz playlist humming in the background as he wiped down the counters, when his phone would buzz with a simple "Still up?" from an airplane, a hotel room, or a backstage dressing room thousands of miles away. Sometimes, their conversations were deep, delving into their childhood memories, their fears, and their dreams for the future. Jungkook found himself opening up about his anxieties as a new business owner, and she would listen patiently, offering simple, reassuring words. Other times, their conversations were silly and mundane, a shared inside joke or a picture of an odd-looking pastry. Lisa would send him photos from her sets, a look of pure exhaustion on her face, and he would send her pictures of his new cafe creations, each one more extravagant than the last. Their lives were worlds apart, yet in these moments, they were in the same room.

Their friends, of course, were well aware of this new development. Jimin and Taehyung acted as unofficial cheerleaders, constantly prodding them for updates and teasing them relentlessly. Yoongi, ever the quiet observer, would just smirk, knowing exactly what was happening and keeping his thoughts to himself. It was a pleasant, lighthearted kind of chaos that Jungkook found himself loving.