hide your fires | ✓

xiv. hold you for the rest of the week

i could drop forty on that bag
cause i gotta get a gift for my girl
– mac ayres, this bag

• •

furtive glances had been exchanged quite so many times between chaeyoung and lalisa as they walked along with jennie who was showing them each of her pieces in her art gallery.

admittedly they should have been listening to their friend rather than being distracted with each other, but the past few days they were both acting like bunnies on heat.

it was simply difficult to keep their hands to themselves, they don't need to be influenced by anything but their arousal.

jennie had noticed that her two friends were quite distracted which brought an eye roll from her, it was better she heed to other prospects who would certainly buy one of her pieces with a generous price.

"you girls help yourselves with champagne," jennie then gave them a wave of dismissal before she nodded towards a group of neophytes and left them without any other word.

chaeyoung stared into the piece in front of her, her face suddenly was still, her lips fell into a straight line, her heart was lit on fire; she closed her eyes and imagined as jennie created this piece, a prick of jealousy was on her heart as she missed it– being able to create, to release emotions she's kept inside of her.

an epiphany had happened there, and lisa was left there to witness it. the pretext of their arousal was suddenly forgotten just like that.

a moment of silence, silence, and more of it; then an intake of breath, lisa reached out for chaeyoung's hand and held it.

"do you miss it?"

"yeah, i do." a defeated sigh left chaeyoung's lips.

she gave up what she's loved to do the most to make her late father happy.

chaeyoung wanted a different thing, she wanted to pursue the arts, yet it wasn't really something her father wanted for her, he wasn't happy with that. he had a vision that his family would be bunch of attorneys.

she had to bite onto it and please her family. there were a lot of nights in which chaeng cried to lisa: 'i hate this, lis', 'i wish for once they will just ask what i want', 'i am so tired of this what more once i enter law school'

chae felt like she did not have any choice, she had to acquiesce to their wants since she felt like her other foot was buried into the ground having come out to her parents as... bisexual, she felt like she was already a defect, she did not want to be a bigger anomaly than she was.

it was perverse to have such a feeling, but she did feel that way, she was free of the shackles that her family had put around her wrists and ankles; she can truly be who she wanted to be now that her father was gone.

after the funeral—which was a month ago—chaeyoung fell from the face of the earth and had become aloof, her mother and older sister tried to get in contact but she won't let it, lisa was left to deal with her family and lisa was just thankful that they were patient with chaeyoung.

chae was a daddy's girl, to simply put it.

"i want to get back to it, to painting," she smiled and looked at lisa's doe eyes, "no more law school." she felt light, she really did, she could fly and let her gay light shine.

lisa returned the smile "okay, baby, that is noted," she pressed her lips against chaeng's temple, "what else do you want?"

"this painting," chae turned her head to look into lisa's eyes, her voice was a whisper, "and you..."

lisa's breath hitched, everyone knew that she would blindly do anything that chaeyoung wanted for her to do, she wanted her happy, pleased, safe, and so much more.

she held chaeng by the chin and captured her soft plump lips. "anything for you, m'kay?"

anything truly.

lisa bought the painting for chaeyoung, jennie was more than happy to give them a discount, which caused an eye roll from lisa, she wanted to be gallant and besides jennie deserved to be properly compensated from the work she had done.

especially when it had sparked and inspired chaeng.

they left the gallery with smiles on their faces, the painting canvas held delicately in lisa's arm.

impatience had colored them completely.

chaeyoung was buzzing with the need to show her appreciation for lisa, and so that she did, in the back seat without any qualms of getting caught.