Taeyeon's dreams are vibrant. Often the same notion would re-appear: a distant shape which is hiding behind the tall, cherry-red, wooden walls that outlined the courts of Gwanghwamun Palace and Taeyeon is trying to catch it, identify it in hopes to understand the surreal surroundings of her dream land scape. When located Taeyeon would get to her feet instantly to chase after the human frame but often a flock of Chinese tourists would block her view and after they had gone trotting by the shape has gone. Only a light fragrance would linger in the dense summer air, a fragrance so distinctive yet so delicate that it clung to her mind like the sweat-tripping clothes to her body. It's her scent which disturbed the air, Yuri's perfume.
The sun beats down on the back of Taeyeon's neck as she trots down the stone pavement to where she had last seen that brief flash of a person.
She turns around the corner just to face the eye-blinding clarity of the Mediterranean Sea. The firm ground beneath her starts to transform into sand, gradually giving away to her weight. Taeyeon is sinking as if trapped in Quick Sand, the reality is shifting and with a dull thud her mind resurfaces in the reality she has temporarily left behind.

On her right Oppa is soundly asleep as Taeyeon jerks up from her dream, pulling half of their shared cover aside but he keeps snoring, slumbering, not taking notice of anything in his dense coma-like state. Taeyeon could bang kitchen pots against one another, causing an eerie orchestra right next to his ear and yet his eyelids wouldn't flutter a second. Alone in darkness she leaves the bedroom behind, motions over to the small lobby that Oppa has supplied her with, flicks the lamp light on and lowers herself onto the small sofa. The yellow lamp light has eased the gloom a bit still Taeyeon has to squeeze her eyes in order to check the date on the calendar hanging on the opposite wall. January 21^th, two weeks prior to her wedding and she has dreamed about Yuri again. She rests her head against the back of her sofa. It's comfortable but not comfortable enough for her head which felt heavy with a wave of memories crashing against her mind. It's been almost three years but Taeyeon couldn't let go of those short summer months she had spent with Yuri. Yuri has disappeared and all she had left behind was a bundle of memories and a small notebook of poems which is now resting in Taeyeon's lap. She keeps it hidden from Oppa although she is certain even if he would ever find it, he wouldn't distinguish Yuri's energetic, strong handwriting from her own elegant characters. Now she flips through the pages again untill she stops at those lines whose words are now resonating in her head. Rilke. Yuri had piled up quite a few poems by him. He's somewhat German, she remembers Yuri explaining. The title reads Interior Portrait.

Interior Portrait

You don't survive in me

because of memories;

nor are you mine because

of a lovely longing's strength.

What does make you a present

is the ardent detour

that a slow tenderness

traces in my blood.

I do not need

to see you appear;

being born sufficed for me

to lose you a little less.

She hears Yuri's voice reading these words to her, the emphasis almost visible, a distant echo in the night. Another wave of recollections invades her mind as she glances down at the small words in her hands.

Yuri used to scribble the poems she liked the most down on the sun-bleached brown of her desk. Every time Taeyeon visited her she would notice how the cover of Yuri's desk was enhanced by another set of lines. Often she wouldn't recognize the words written in languages that were completely alien to her but Yuri seemed to master them all to a certain extend. She had always been one of the few individuals carrying a seldom passion for foreign poetry.

„Not that Korean poetry isn't beautiful enough. It's just that some poems are made with a certain mystique which I hardly feel in Korean poetry.“ She once explained to her in a narrow coffeshop on one of those unbearable hot summer days.

„Feel?“ Taeyeon sees herself darting a curious look across the table at her friend. „How can you feel poetry?“ She fished the last few red beans out of the ice. The weather had been so hot, patbingsu seemed to melt to water right before your eyes if you weren't fast enough.

„I just do!“ Yuri delivered her answer with a cheeky smile. She often did it that way, cutting the conversation off without offending her counterpart. Taeyeon had often seen this smile flashing up during school days, avoiding teachers, boys, almost everyone, but her. And yet when she saw Yuri smiling at her cheekily Taeyeon never felt troubled. Instead she wished for that smile to last a little longer. It suited her. 

„Look.“ Yuri picked up her question again. „In music there is rhythm. Music sounds ty when you're off rhythm, right?“ Taeyeon nodded. „It's the same with poetry. If you don't get the rhythm of a poem right, you're destined to mess it up. In Europe there are tons of rules that make european poetry unique, sound unique.“ Above the rim of her taecup she scanned Taeyeon's face to see if she was understanding what she was saying. Taeyeon didn't but nodded anyway, admiring her skillfully tied back hair. „So. Now. This is my problem with Korean poetry. I don't get the rhythm right.“

„But Korean is your mother tongue!“ Yuri began to rummage in her pocket at her remark. Her long black hair, though tied in a ponytail, fell from her shoulder like a loose silky veil.

„Here!“ She flipped the page of her notebook open and placed it front of her. The pages weren't as scribbled on and bleached as they are now but the words were the same.

She pointed at the poem in her notebook. It was a korean one. „Its 'The Flower' by Kim Chun-soo.“

„I might know him!“ Yuri overheard her remark and went on. „I find this one beautiful but I can't find the rhythm. Listen.“ And she began to narrate it over the empty teacups.

„The Flower by Kim Chun-soo

Before I called her name,

she was nothing

more than a gesture.

When I called her name,

she came to me

and became a flower.

Like I called her name,

will someone please call my name

that suits my light and fragrance? -

„Fragance“ Taeyeon mouths wearily, her head again resting on the sofa as though it would still be to heavy for her neck to carry. For a brief moment she thinks she would inhale Yuri's perfume again, a faint breeze out of her dream, the flowery scent which would always linger a while before vanishing.

„Yuri!“ Her fingers traced the words on the paper. She hovers above the pages again, reviewing the poem in search for those last lines she couldn't remember.

„I, too, long to come to her
and become her flower.

We all long to be something.
You, to me, and I, to you,
long to become a gaze that won’t be forgotten.“

„Taeyeon! You shouldn't be reading in this light!“ Oppa flicks the light on. 'How on earth did he got up?', Taeyeon asks herself and blinks in his direction, eyes not yet adjusted to the sudden brightness. A tall man with disheveled hair standing in the door frame. His pajama looks wrinkled from lying in bed all night. „Come back to bed. It's late.“

Covers raised to her chest her mind traces back to the dream she had and Taeyeon feels a little flutter of hope in her chest. Maybe she would get back to that beach if sleep seizes her again. Maybe she could find her then.

„What's 'Yuri'? You said that...“ Oppa suddenly asks, his voice muffled by a pillow.

„A place in France I'd like to visit during our honeymoon.“ She lies. He grumbles in response.

„Alright. Let's go there then. Just tell me where that place is and we go there.“ Sleep is creeping back into his voice. Soon he would be snoring again, leaving Taeyeon alone to yet another uncomfortable night.

With blood racing in detours in her veins and the urgent longing to become that unforgetable gaze she slowly drifts into sleep again but the dream wouldn't come to her again.