sporadic butterflies

CHAPTER 5

FRIDAY. 8:30 AM

A page of her small notebook was rapidly being filled with random doodles since Jisoo unconsciously picked up a pen ten minutes ago, sitting on her desk and desperate for something to accompany her thoughts. But even the overload of work she has dumped on herself wasn't enough to drown the insistent nagging in her brain.

This is literal agony.

Who knew that you could like someone so much that physical distance causes you emotional pain? She didn't, obviously.

Her eyes drifted to her phone placed beside her keyboard. Aside from the notifications of her socmed accounts and a few emails, there was nothing else displayed on the screen - not that she was expecting anything else, anyway.

She sighed for the nth time this morning. Thankfully, Rosé's working outside today or she'd be playing therapist to Jisoo again.

The elevator stopped on the floor and out came Lisa carrying a large order of bubble tea and a smaller sized Frappuccino. She marched directly to Jisoo's table and deposited the bubble tea in front of her.

"You're welcome," Lisa said to the writer as she sipped from her own cup. "You wouldn't believe the queue line I went thru for this. I literally bribed some people just to get to the counter faster but it's an emergency so..."

Jisoo looked up at Lisa curiously. "What's the emergency?"

The photographer swallowed her drink and fixed her a pointed stare.

"You. You are the emergency."

Jisoo leaned back on her chair and crossed her arms defensively.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yeah?" Lisa challenged. "You don't think I didn't notice that you weren't yourself since yesterday? You couldn't even focus on your work, you were barely eating, you're always staring at the wall like it's suddenly the most interesting thing in this building. What's happening, girl? Talk to me."

"I- I can't," Jisoo stuttered as her eyes shifted away from Lisa's confronting figure. "It's kinda messy at the moment."

"Fine," Lisa shrugged. "I guess I'll just ask Rosé, then."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, she's your new bestfriend, right?"

"Oh my god," Jisoo breathed out in exasperation. "Please not now, you're not helping."

"Then how am I supposed to help you if you're not telling me anything?" Lisa hissed, equally frustrated. "Seriously, I hate seeing you like this but you don't talk to me, I want to help you but you're building walls instead. It hurts me to think that you don't trust me enough to tell me what's going on!"

Jisoo blinked at Lisa's outburst. "Lisa, it's not that I don't trust you-"

"Spare me that bs. What the hell is up?"

"Look," color has started to creep up Jisoo's face as her emotions heightened. "I wish I knew how to tell you because trust me, I need to get all of this off my chest but I literally don't even know where to start!"

Lisa tossed the empty cup of her coffee to the trashcan and leaned towards her friend, palms against the surface of her desk.

"Just. Start. Talking."

Jisoo buried her face in her hands and shook her head. "I don't know! I-I don't know what to do!"

"About what?"

"Because it's the first time I have these feelings for someone and I'm fucking scared because I've never been here before, and I'm going in blind, and it's overwhelming, and I don't know what to do!" Jisoo finally looked up, eyes rimmed with tears. "She's all I think about and we can't even see each other, I miss her so much it's driving me insane!"