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jjoooonn1127 · 5 years

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Set Free

Word Count: 2.3k

Genre/tags: Oneshot, Barista!Lisa, Ghost!Jisoo, Slight Angst

Pairing: Lisa x Jisoo

Notes: Feel free to give constructive criticism!! This is my first-ever oneshot so it’s not the best but I’m pretty proud of this :) Also I turned this in as a narrative story for my English class lmao

Lisa let out a sigh of relief as the last customer walked outside and she wiped down the counters. 9:00 PM; finally. The workday was finally over, and she was the only one left in the coffee shop. Or, at least, so she thought.

“Hello?” She heard a female voice, not much older than herself, from the other side of the room.

“Oh, sorry, ma’am, we’re closed,” She began in response, turning towards the source of the sound. But, to her disbelief, there was nobody there. ‘That’s weird,’ she thought, ‘I could’ve sworn that I heard somebody.’ After looking around for a few minutes, she concluded that it was probably just her imagination. It’d been a long day, and the overtime she’d worked had probably begun to take its toll on her mind and body.

The young woman finished making sure everything was back in place, grabbed her keys, and left the building, remembering to lock the door behind her. She pulled her long bleached hair out of her ponytail as she walked to her car. It was a long day, but something’s gotta pay for her rent and college tuitions. But something still felt off, particularly with the voice she heard. Lisa had convinced herself that it was her imagination, but still; it felt so real, and present. Was she absolutely sure nobody had just, walked in and walked back out?

She shook off the thought as she unlocked her car. Work was over- it didn’t matter what she heard, because she was going home, anyways. Right?

The next day, Lisa came back in at 11 o’clock in the morning. Today was a Monday; it’d be considerably slower today, which was both a good and a bad thing, in her opinion. She just hoped that everything would go smoothly today. It should- it usually does- but there are some exceptions, and she didn’t want to have to deal with that.

Fortunately, the day went quite smooth. She took her lunch break at 3, grabbed herself a croissant, and walked back to the breakroom. It was a simple room- just a table, a few chairs, and a microwave- but she liked the solitude provided in it. She was the only one working today, but, to be fair, it was a Monday. Chances are, there wouldn’t be any customers during the time she was eating, and even if there were, she would be able to hear them enter.

After a few minutes, she heard the familiar jingle of the door. She quickly rushed back into the service area. “Hello, welcome to-”

“Hi,” the other person smiled. It was another girl, who looked to be in her early twenties, with long, dark hair. She was standing near the counter, but not too close- it seemed as if she was going to order, but not yet. She stared at the menu overhead with great focus and contemplation, her dark eyes shimmering more than a lake at sunset.

“Do you need a minute to choose?” Lisa asked, preparing to take the girl’s order.

“Oh, uh… No, it’s okay,” the other girl shook her head. “I’ll-”

“No, it’s fine, I can give you a minute if you need it.”

“It’s okay, I don’t need it, I know what I want.” The other girl chuckled for a second as Lisa nodded. “I’ll get a Matcha Green Tea Frappé”

“Alright, miss, that’ll be $3.50. Will you be paying with cash or a card?”

“Cash. And you can call me Jisoo.” The girl slid four dollar bills across the counter. “Oh, and keep the change.”

“Oh, thank you!” Lisa smiled as she put the cash in the register, and began making her order. “So, what brings you to our little town?”

“Nothing; I’ve actually been here a while.”

“Oh, really?” exclaimed the blonde-haired girl, amused. “How long?”

“Longer than you’d think,” Jisoo responded, a bit of a somber and mysterious tone lacing the words.

“Ah… Alright.”

Lisa gave her the drink, and the two continued to talk. They actually found that they had a lot in common, despite Jisoo’s occasional peculiarity. She was quite nice, and Lisa found her presence enjoyable- you could even say they were becoming friends. She also noticed that Jisoo felt comforting and familiar in a way- like a protective and nurturing friend. However, after about thirty or forty-five minutes, Lisa heard the phone ringing from the breakroom. “Hold on a second,” she said, rushing back to the room. But as soon as she arrived, the phone stop ringing. “Dang it,” she muttered to herself, walking back to the counter. “Well, they’ll call back.”

Strangely, though, when she returned, Jisoo was nowhere to be seen. ‘She must have left…’ thought Lisa. She felt a twinge of sadness amongst her confusion. For some reason, Jisoo had left behind her drink.

And, strangely, it was completely full.

Jisoo continued to come back, more and more frequently each week- and, eventually, each month. Whenever she showed up, it was always at the same time, too- around 3:15, and only on weekdays. Yeah, she was puzzling sometimes, but Lisa came to know her as one of her best friends. They talked a lot, getting into pretty deep subjects and exchanging personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Eventually, in fact, Jisoo stopped buying drinks and began showing up just to talk to her new best friend.

One Sunday night, a few months later, as Lisa was closing up, she found something in the back room. An old scrapbook. ‘Huh,’ she pondered, ‘I wonder when this is from. Or whose it is.’ She didn’t want to snoop, but something about the scrapbook just pulled her in. It had some sort of energy- energy that she couldn't resist. She couldn’t help but flip through it.

The pictures in there looked to be a few decades old, at least. They were grainy and also a bit worn-out but in otherwise fairly good condition. As she looked through, she saw nothing strange. It was a family scrapbook, with multiple photos which included a father, a mother, and two young daughters. The family looked slightly familiar, though Lisa couldn’t quite put her finger on it. As she watched the daughters grow, though, she gasped. Why did the pictures look so familiar?

One of the daughters looked remarkably like Jisoo, and as she watched them grow up, Lisa realized, she was Jisoo.

And why did Jisoo seem so familiar when they first met?

Well, thirty years ago, in 1989, two young women- sisters- died in a terrible car accident. Lisa remembered reading a book about the event at the library a few years ago. And, well, these photos were undeniably some of the same ones she’d seen.

Lisa vigorously shook her head, continuing to flip through ‘No, this isn’t real. Jisoo is dead. Is Jisoo dead? Is this even her? Or is this… Is this all a dream?’

Alas, it wasn’t- and that was definitely Jisoo. The blond girl didn’t understand this. Were ghosts real? Thoughts, ideas, and overall anxiety raced through her mind. Her vision began to become blurry, and she felt a wave of nausea, but she couldn’t do anything about it before… she blacked out.

“Lisa? Lisa, are you okay?” She groaned as she heard the voice echoing. Her head was pounding, and she had no idea where she was, or what had happened.

“You’re awake?” The voice asked. She groaned, again, in response. “Okay, good. Now, I know you’re confused, but I can explain. At least, once you get up.”

Lisa rubbed her eyes and eventually sat up. As her vision cleared up, she saw a face. An all-too-familiar face. She wanted to say something, but she was too shocked- she didn’t know what she would say, anyways.

“Lisa, I know this might be kind of scary, but please don’t be afraid. It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you.”

Lisa squirmed in her position “But… A-aren’t you…”

“Yes, I’m dead. But that doesn’t change anything, really.”

“You died thirty years ago, what-”

“We’re still friends, though, aren’t we?” Jisoo stared into her eyes- er, well, more like her soul, to be honest.

“Yeah, but… W-what the heck happened? What’s going on?”

The dark-haired girl sighed. “You found my scrapbook.”

“W-well yeah,” Lisa said,“I did, but-”

“So now you know.”

“Yeah, I do, but what’s going-”

“Please….” she gave Lisa a chilling touch on the shoulder.

“...What?”

“Please set me free.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every night, I relive it. Every night.” Jisoo took a deep breath. “It’s because I’m bound to death. This isn’t hell, but it’s my own personal hell.”

“Bound to death…? J-Jisoo, are you alright? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I couldn’t. And, no, I’m not really.” She paused. “The only thing that’s made things worthwhile in the past few months, has been you.”

Lisa’s eyes watered. She had been best friends with Jisoo for months, and not only was she a ghost, but she was ‘bound to death’, whatever that means. And she helped her, and could help her further. “So… What happens if I set you free?”

“Well, right now, I’m in a bit of a purgatory. Something went wrong when I was going to the afterlife, and I became a ghost instead of going where everyone else goes it’s not as uncommon as you might think. But, for some reason… Everything is limited for me. I can only spend a certain amount of time in the ‘real world’, and I’m always connected to the scrapbook.”

“Isn’t that how ghosthood normally works?”

“Well, not really. Most of the time, as a ghost, you can roam free, and do whatever you want. But for some people, like me, things are limited. It’s like the universe wants to torture us, and we keep reliving our deaths. We have no escape. We’re bound to death. But… If a living person sets us free, then we can be free. We can be like normal friends, and I could leave this stupid place. It’s almost like being alive again.”

“What if you went to the other place, though? To the afterlife, or whatever?”

“Well then, I’ll still be free, and at peace. Except… I won’t get to see you.”

Tears began to spill a bit from Lisa’s eyes.

“No! Don’t cry! The chances of something like that are slim to none.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. If you just follow these instructions, I’ll be able to come to the real world, and we can keep being friends. And I’ll finally get to escape death.”

“Please, set Kim Jisoo’s soul free. So mote it be.”

Lisa finished saying the words, and a powerful wind began to fill the breakroom. Papers flew off of the table, flyers were torn off of the corkboard, and everything seemed to swirl around Jisoo’s figure, which was now glowing a bright blue.

“IT’S…. HAPPENING…” she struggled to get her words out. She knew her soul would be forcefully ripped from the scrapbook, but she thought it would feel refreshing, if anything, rather than draining. She felt physically exhausted, and increasingly detached from this world, too. But… that would subside soon, she was sure of it. You have to lose something to receive something… right?

Right.

“Jisoo, is it working? How do you feel?”

“I….” Jisoo began, but the roar of the circling winds within the room drowned her out. Lisa held onto the table, gazing at the situation in both euphoria and horror. ‘This is scary, but Jisoo’s being set free. Jisoo’s being set free. She’s being set-’

But, then, all at once, everything stopped. The winds relented, the paper all fell to the ground, and the center of the room stopped radiating a bright blue.

But where was Jisoo?

“Are… Are you there?”

No response.

Lisa waited for a few seconds, then repeated herself, louder and more concerned this time.

“Jisoo, please, are you there??”

Still, no answer.

Lisa ran out of the breakroom, searching frantically for Jisoo. 'She has to be here somewhere. She has to be. I did everything right, didn’t I?’

She hurried outside, still looking for her friend. ‘I did everything she said, she has to be here somewhere,’

Break room?

No.

In the shop?

No.

Outside?

No.

She kept looking. Rushing back to the breakroom, she found the scrapbook in the pile of documents, and yanked it out, flipping through the pages once more. Nothing changed, and Jisoo was still nowhere to be found except for in the photos. ‘Please. She has to be here. She has to.’

She checked every possible place, and even drove home in a frenzy, wondering if she could be there. But, still, her best friend was not in the bedroom, the kitchen, living room, bathroom, or any other possible place.

She was gone.

It was a week later. Lisa had scoured everywhere for her best friend, but she soon realized that it was all in vain and gave up.

She’d been crying. A lot. Nothing could replace Jisoo. When they met, it was just a nice, seemingly meaningless conversation in a coffee shop; but it grew to be so much more than that. Jisoo was her best friend, her confidant, even- dare I say it- her soulmate. Nothing could replace that.

As she sat next to the lake, Lisa remembered how Jisoo’s eyes looked when they first met. More shimmery than a lake at sunset. Yes, this setting was beautiful, but Jisoo was even more so, physically and intellectually. She felt heartbroken and absolutely terrible; she’d messed up during the ritual, she knew it. Jisoo was sent to the afterlife instead of to this world.

She knew she could never forgive herself. Jisoo had already suffered enough; she deserved to be free, to explore the world as long as she wanted to, to “live”. To be free, in this world. She once again felt the familiar warmth of tears, running down her face in a bitter cascade of sorrow and yearning.

And, as she brooded over her fault and meditated on their friendship, Lisa could have sworn she heard a voice. A familiar voice, that said, ‘It’s okay.’- even though there was nothing there.

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