hide your fires | ✓

xiii. my baby has been around

every time i look into your eyes
i see it, you're all i need
– daniel caesar, get you

• •

lisa felt like the romanticism of metaphors were failing to give justice to chaeng's whole being.

nothing could compare, nothing could be enough.

she was so much more than the universe itself and to be graced by her presence alone was a privilege not everyone could afford.

as they walked along the path in the park, the sun had enunciated chaeyoung's features, making her glow even more, looking like she was home.

lisa was almost too afraid to touch chaeng, she was worried that she might snuff out her light once again.

she still believed that she's got a poisonous touch, it was almost as similar as midas' but with hers people decay and wither until they were nothing but dusts and shadows.

chaeng had a different perception, she knew lisa's changed, she wasn't dim; she was not the hopeless case everyone thought she was, lisa had flourished, bloomed on her own that she even helped chaeyoung believe in hope, believe in betterment.

if it wasn't for lisa she most likely would still be stuck in her bed, wallowing and wailing.

she had to show lisa that it was not the same anymore, that it had never been like that to begin with, so she reached out for her baby's hand and held onto them.

"hey,"

chaeng pulled lisa closer to her.

"hey," lisa breathed out, echoing chaeng's words. "chaeng-ah," a crooked smile.

"you can hold me, you know?" chaeng smiled, though it was laced with innocence, the anti-thesis of lisa's.

"i know," lisa laughed and pressed her lips against the side of chaeyoung's temple.

"hmm, then why did you look hesitant?"

"i was scared to taint your beauty,"

"you don't do that, you make me more beautiful than i already am when you touch me, hold me."

they held each other's gaze and soon lisa broke out into another fit of giggles.

"chaeng-ah, there are children around!" lisa whispered-shout and then wrapped her arms around chae's middle.

"sheesh, get your mind out of the gutter, i was being sweet here." she then left a kiss on lisa's cheek and got out of her grip, but she reached for lisa's hand.

they basked in the morning sun some more, walked hand in hand, smiles plastered on their faces; this was nothing significant, but when the bleakest of days would come, it's the trivial things like this they would go back to.

and lisa had seen how all this time she's touched chaeng, she stayed as she was, she had only grown, she was more alive than ever.

lisa wasn't poison, she couldn't be, after all this time chaeng stayed.

perhaps she's gotten immune.

whatever it was, lisa was just grateful that she had never lost chae, she almost did numerous times, and yet there they were.

"chaeng?"

"yes, babe?"

lisa took chaeyoung's arms and wrapped it around her body, "don't go okay?"

chaeng smiled and giggled, "okay."

—

note:
this is trash.
but pls take this trash.