The case with winter was, the majority of the townfolks wished winter comes soon with lesser tensity because they only wanted snow, not the cold. They only wanted christmas holiday, not stubby toes. It was like holding certain dislikes to your friend but you still wanted them around. But in the end, winter came and the street went frozen like always. People were just too powerless to change it otherwise because winter did not need their says on anything. They liked it or not, it would come when it came, and they need to cope with that.

Huisoo thought, perhaps, it was what winter wanted to tell people about life. Sometimes, rather than fussing about it, people need to succumb to the given situation because some things in this life did not need their opinions. Maybe, things were just supposed to be there. Maybe, winter wanted them to stop clinging to hope so hard that they forgot about the reality.

At least in her lonesome, winter taught her that; that life was a compromise. Compromise between her feeling and reality. And how at almost stages, she should quit her feeling and accept the reality.

Maybe, she should stop hoping that there would be a chance for Jongin and her and stop thinking that they would find a way to change everything between them. She might as well stop forcing herself telling lies because Kim Jongin never felt for her what he felt for his girlfriend. That was truth. So, what Huisoo could had been was washed away on the waves of that woman’s memory. He relentlessly left no space for another.

All this time, she figured out that she was just too cowardly to admit that truth because she was afraid her catch would run off. She thought, somewhere along the way, she had given up up because there came a point where she had had enough and would love to give up; but she never did since she hoped that things would change.

And, no, they didn’t.

She was clueless to where this would lead her, but from now on, she would become one of those people in winter who accept the reality with big heart. Although it did not help the sadness that it still suffocated her everytime the thought of her place got taken away by some other one, she had to deal with it.

Only the question was: how is she gonna handle the pain?

Okay, here’s the thing: she liked him, but as naive as it might sound, she did not want to come out bleeding. What could be her final verdict was she would not compete against any woman for him. Who knew it was gonna hurt more that it had actually become.

            “My dear, you, too, deserve a life.”

The memory of Hayoung’s voice shut her up. Oh, how many days had she been grieving the loss of love that was never hers again? A week? More?

She sighed. It might be taking a desperate effort to defeat herself and her feeling, but dear bloody tears, she could no longer live in silence. She would go out and face the truth. It could not be that bad, right?

In other part of the house she was inhabitting, the morning had started awfully terrible for someone. He woke up pretty late for someone who had to shower in a very poor condition of his bathroom. He was the man of his action, so having progressing his life ever so slowly was not nice, let alone waking up when the morning had aged.

Currently, he found it difficult to distinguish the days and the nights because everything had no difference. This state had been lasting for couple days. Everything was same plain. Everything was voiceless, the house felt bare.

It was pretty confusing. Sometimes, he woke up and the room was so dark and quiet. He did not have the slightest idea whether it was night or morning. It seemed to him that the world had stopped. There was no sound around him. Sometimes he needed to reach over the curtain to assure himself that the snow was still falling and life was still on.

It was strange.

Sometimes, he wondered if he was the only human in the house. In other time, he questioned if Huisoo still managed to stay alive during her attempt to savagely steel herself from his world. He wanted to know how she saved herself from this cruel situation because honestly, he was not too happy about this condition. Every now and then, he started having an unpleasant feeling about morning.

And that morning, oddly, it was like he did not know he was missing something until he ran into a pair of hands holding a black cup. It was weird that he saw the cup before he saw the owner of the pretty hands. Instinctively, he lifted his sight and eventually met with a pair of sad eyes concentrating at the cup below.

Look! Look who finally decided to show up!

The kitchen air filled with a mature and an ultra feminine fragrant. Although he could feel a slight sweet smell of Japanese tea from the cup which penetrated his nostrils, the humanly smell outshone its smell.

Strangely, the corner of his lips curled up withou