Être Le Coup de Foudre- Bee Bishop

Ren had spent months creating her paradise: her perfect little cottage, her perfect little garden, the perfect little town. She had decorated every inch of the park and made it into a paradise: A grand gate welcomed the visitors, a small bench sat next to a music box for people to sit and listen and even a small teacup ride in the corner for a more thrilling experience. She had planted a forest to her liking and watched the trees grow into perfect lines. She had filled an entire museum full of local wildlife and foreign art. She had even spent days handpicking her neighbors and garnering relationships with them until her days felt like rhythm gymnastics: precise, graceful, beautiful, perfect. 

Except for one thing.

Well, not a thing. A figure. A person. A name, really.

“Ren, when is Kit coming back?” one of her neighbors asked.

“Having Kit over was so fun!” another said.

“I hope Kit liked the present I gave her!” a third said.

Kit, Kit, Kit. All anyone wanted to talk about was Kit. Not her. Not Ren who had painstakingly performed every task expected of her. Not Ren, who had spent months building this paradise for everyone else to enjoy. Not Ren who had wasted days away standing by a river waiting for fish to bite or skinned her knees as she ran from bees and spiders. Not Ren, who fretted for days about money and loans and museum donations and blood-thirsty capitalistic fucking tanukis. 

The front door of the apartment closed. 

“Ren? I’m home!” Kit’s shoes were flung into the living room before she entered, stumbling as she tried to pull her mismatched socks off her feet as she walked. 

“Hello,” Ren greeted. “Traitor.”

Kit froze, her eyes wide and sad before they fell on the T.V. where Ren’s Animal Crossing game sat open. Her unfinished conversation with her favorite villager– a little freak of a cat named Raymond– was front and center. Kit relaxed and rolled her eyes.

“Rennie. Darling. Dearest,” she said. “Light and love of my life, why is this upsetting you?”

Ren slouched back into the couch and crossed her arms, her lips pursed in a way that they hadn’t since she was 9. She refused to answer.

Kit chuckled and went into their shared bedroom. “Let me change first and then you can tell me all about it.” 

She disappeared behind the wall and a few moments later emerged in her pajamas. Ren’s pout melted away a little when she saw her girlfriend. Kit was beautiful: a defined aquiline nose with a slight hook at the end, short hair dyed black with a wicked neon green underneath, with broad shoulders and beefy biceps covered in tattoos. Ren’s favorite one was the spanning peacock neck tattoo that started just under Kit’s left ear and spread its feathers across her collarbone. And with the evening sun coming in through the windows behind her, backlighting her glory, Kit was ethereal. 

“Is there something I can help you with, sugar?” Kit teased, finally looking up to see Ren staring. She was planted against the door frame, arms crossed with the smuggest look across her face. 

Ren felt her face heat up before she picked up her controller and started to play again. “You stole my villagers.”

Kit laughed, fully laughed this time, and moved to plop herself down on the couch right next to Ren. She tucked one leg under the other and propped her head on her arm, her eyes firmly fixed on the side of Ren’s face.

“I hope you know that the game is just programmed that way.”

“Still!” Ren cawed. “It’s not fair! Your island was full of weeds! And so disorganized! Nothing made sense!”

“I haven’t had the chance to pick it up again,” Kit defended. 

Ren harrumphed and quietly mimicked Kit’s words in a mocking tone. Kit just laughed and snuggled closer to her.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You stole the hearts of all my villagers.”

“Well, add it to the list of hearts I’ve stolen,” Kit had moved to rest her chin on Ren’s shoulder so she could gaze up at her. “Right after yours.”

Ren’s cheek warmed up as Kit’s lipstick left a light mark on her cheek.

“Ah. Ça a été le coup de foudre.”

“Rennie, you took one year of French in middle school. You have to stop using it around the house.”

“It was freshman year and you love it.”

Kit snorted but merely snuggled closer instead of arguing. And Ren rested her head on her girlfriend’s. And everything felt perfect. 

Well… almost everything.

“If one more villager mentions you, I’m throwing the remote at the T.V.”

“God, you’re a drama queen.”