The tulip was still there when she woke up, lying atop her open sketchbook. She yawned, brows furrowing as she tried to remember how it came into her possession, and then sitting back with a smile when she remembered Jongdae. Gently, she reached out and tugged the sketchbook onto her lap, catching the flower easily when it fell limply off the page.

She remembered working on this sketch late last night: the Galloping Horses, she had decided to call it, as she twirled her pencil between her fingers. She had sketched in the details of the chestnut now: the flowing mane that streamed like a cape on its neck; the dark, determined eyes that gazed straight ahead towards the track, though it had a strange gentility to it, warmth that one wouldn’t expect in an animal. Behind the stallion, the partial forms of three others loomed –a later addition, inspired by Jongdae’s pictures. One was as graceful and fluid as a shadow, the only one besides the chestnut that had more than half of its body displayed in her sketch.

Jongdae’s gift yesterday had helped –a lot. She hadn’t realised the amount of details she’d missed, the small things that gave life to her sketches. Beauty in motion was a rare and difficult thing to catch, but Jongdae seemed to manage it easily. He caught details that the untrained eye would have missed, the little split second gestures that would have gone unnoticed if one did not care to pay special attention. He took pictures of the things she didn’t realise she’d done.

It was strange, seeing herself in the perspective of another, the variation of her expressions and how her limbs coordinated with every little gesture. Jongdae seemed to take it into an otherworldly level, sugar-coating everything she did until it was near perfection, adding a sense of grace and sophistication to her movements, not unlike that of his models’. Jongdae had a gift in bringing out the beauty in everything.

She ended up taking them with her downstairs to the dining hall, shuffling through photographs with every stair she descended. The only indication that she’d reached her destination was the sudden assault to her senses; the garbled mix of voices and clinking glass and the delicious, mouth-watering scent of breakfast, both traditional and western. She tucked them away into her bag and proceeded to grab a plate.

The dining hall was fairly expansive, running about half the length of the building, with glass doors opening to the world outside. Tables and chairs filled a good portion of the room, spilling out onto the porch and the soft grass of the lawn, a motley collection of different designs and materials. The ones indoors were wood; elegant, lightweight sets stained deep burgundy, adding colour to the room. The ones on the porch were made out of both wood and metal, waterproofed to withstand the rain, and the ones on the garden were forged purely out of thick, heavy metal, painted eggshell white. Personally, Junhee preferred the garden tables, not only because of the lovely fresh air that tasted sweet and clear in , but also because of the flowers Taeyeon grew.

Every morning often found the petite owner in the garden, tending to her flowers with the gentility of a mother to her child. Junhee wondered sometimes if Taeyeon planted the flowers out of habit or as manner to alleviate her loneliness –did each flower in the garden represent a person, friends and family and the lover she might have had in her life?

This morning saw no fail in the young manager’s routine, and Junhee offered a smile at her as she set her plate on her table, close to the lilies. Taeyeon smiled back; there was always something tranquil about her smile, something that reminded her of fairies and fawns dancing in the forest. She recalled what Jongdae told her about Taeyeon’s unexpected efficiency in the management of the establishment and decided that the girl was more than what meets the eye.

 “Good morning,” Taeyeon greeted her, something that she extended to all the customers who made eye contact with her.

“Morning. You have a really good hand in gardening; those are pretty flowers.”

Taeyeon’s laugh was soft and tinkling. “Yeah, thanks. Not to seem arrogant, but I get that a lot. And besides, with the amount of flowers I use as decorations, it’s much cheaper to grow everything myself than have everything delivered to my doorstep.”

Junhee nodded in understanding as she munched on a piece of toast.

“Do you have a favourite?” Taeyeon asked, letting water trickle onto the blooms as she looked up.

“Tulips,” she answered automatically, and then coloured slightly.

Taeyeon smiled. Junhee was never the master at telling a person’s expressions, but there was something knowing about that smile. “Yes, they are pretty.”

Junhee smiled at her and began picking at her food again. It was only at her second bite that Taeyeon spoke again. “Jongdae was here, early this morning.”

Junhee choked a bit, grasping her glass to gulp down some water. She wiped with the napkin she’d snatched from the buffet table, the cogs in her brain turning as she tried to think of an appropriate response to Taeyeon’s statement.

Taeyeon’s smile was serene. “He seems to have grown quite fond of you.”

“Why was he looking for me?” she asked, setting the napkin down with trembling fingers and a hammering heart.

“I can’t say; he never spoke to me. But then again, I don’t think he intended to.” Taeyeon tilted the watering can again; water rained down in silver rivulets over the lilies. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come so early, and wouldn’t have looked so forlorn on my porch, gazing up the windows.”

“When did he leave?”

“Not long before you came down. Tore up my driveway with that bike of his.” Taeyeon shook her head; Junhee wondered for a fleeting moment how she could have missed something that had become a sonata playing at the back of her mind. “But then again, I’m used to it.”

Junhee swallowed down more food; it felt oddly papery in , tasteless and hard as she forced it down . What was Jongdae doing? And if Taeyeon was right and he’d been looking for her, why did he leave before he saw her?

“Jongdae’s a lovely boy.” Junhee looked up again, surprised that Taeyeon was still speaking to her. The latter’s voice was gentle. “Sweet and kind and passionate about everything he does. I hope for his sake that you never forget him.”

“Hey, we –you don’t have much time left, right?”

She tore her gaze away from the lake, away from the choppy waters dancing with light to peer into his eyes. His face looked drawn underneath his bangs, and his eyes were too dark for her to make out anything. Something about his tone –the hesitance, the way the syllables rolled clumsily off his tongue –piqued her attention.

“Yes.”

“Can’t believe it’s already a week.” His shrug was half-hearted and the smile he offered her was strange and forced. He whirled around in his heels before she could say anything and made his way onto the jetty, strides purposeful, right hand steadily holding the bag that held half his life. His footsteps pattered on the layered planks, staccato beats that reminded her of raindrops falling against her windows.

She hesitated, but made a slow jog after him. He was already at the end now, hands in his pockets as he gazed at the lake. The sun illuminated his figure, highlighting the lines of his torso and legs and the curves of his limbs, swathing his skin in a strange orange hue that she would have loved to paint. The colours of his hair danced between dark brown and honey gold, glowing where sunlight slid over the strands, darkening at the base of his head, where the light couldn’t reach. A question was already at the tip of her tongue when she reached him, but Jongdae had cut her off before the words were even fully formed, smiling that dazzling smile of his as he discussed how beautiful a picture the light on water would have made.

The memory skittered past her mind as she stood by the waterfront, hands gripping the thick ropes that kept anyone from falling into the mysterious lake. Unlike usual days though, she wasn’t facing it, instead turning her back on it, gazing at the park instead. There were a lot of people: couples on walks on the paved paths cutting through the grass, people lying on the grass, draping tired arms to block out the light from the sun.

She sat still by the water, her eyes moving to scan the faces of the people that roamed the park to enjoy a lovely day. She spotted the blond-haired boy again, the one Jongdae called Luhan, sitting on the bench, fingers tapping against the stone as he gazed around anxiously. He offered her a smile when he caught her eye, a quick lift of the lips that you would grant strangers when you caught them staring, more out of politeness than as an invitation for a conversation. He tore his eyes away from her when a girl approached him and the smile turning bright –no more a formality but a show of familiarity, of affection. She realised with a slight jolt in her heart that the way Luhan smiled at the girl was the same way Jongdae smiled at her.

Her body tensed when thoughts about Jongdae flitted through her head again, suddenly reminded of the purpose of her mission. She gazed around the park again, hoping to catch his head of dark brown hair somewhere within the mass of bodies. They had only known each other for less than a week, but she found that she’d come to memorise the details about him, the mannerisms that made him so uniquely Jongdae. She recalled how his hair always looked both neat and mussed, sweeping over a pair of charcoal eyes. His camera bag would always hang heavily down his shoulder, his lifeline of sorts, something he could never live without. He never seemed to mind how much it weighed him down, the same way she never minded how much room her sketching equipment took.

She lifted her wrist and stared at the watch. She realised with a jolt that it had already been three hours, three hours of endless waiting, when the past few days, she barely had to wait at all. Jongdae’s absence cut deep grooves into her heart, and she wondered what could have compelled such a strange behaviour, the need to keep a distance from her when for as long as she’d known him that was the one thing that Jongdae never tried.

Her stomach was grumbling; it was almost lunch, but she stayed by the water. People came and went; Luhan was gone, disappeared off with the girl whom she was sure he had been in love with. Groups of kids stampeded past, gone as fast as they had come. She’d met the eyes of dozens of curious passers-by, but the contact was brief, gazes flickering away before any one of them felt obliged to offer a smile.

She waited for almost the whole day, but Jongdae never came. 

A/N: Okay, you guys might have noticed the slight difference in the names of the chapters. That's because I sort of messed up my timeline. No worries though, it's nothing big and doesn't change the story at all. It's just that I had to shift a section so that it was in the chapter before and then rename everything. 

Sorry if I caused you some confusion. This is the newest chapter