Winter is the season of death and suffering for, loss and cold. But as the night set in on us on that twilit evening, the chill of the past months seemed to be draining out, like a tub was emptying its ice water. My angst from the trauma of leaving my country, enduring and providing for myself, and encountering various dangers – all of it seemed relieved from the surrounding atmosphere. I wasn’t cold that night, while Junhong and I slept in the cocoons of my blankets, just as wrapped in each other as we were in cloth.

Spring started to set in earlier than I’d ever witnessed, and – similarly to the flowers and city – I experienced a months in which my bare life was decorated with blooms of life and renewal. We remained undisturbed for nearly a month and a half, repairing each other in the ways that love nourishes a garden after frost. Plucking weeds, sowing flowers, and brushing hands with innocent glances, Junhong and I joined forces to better our living conditions. He helped me refurbish my appliances, and I painted a mural on his walls, a sunrise on one side and sunset on the opposite. Our lofts became almost synonymous; some nights we would study in my living room and collapse into my bed, others we reclined on his couch and talked above soft music until I drifted off in his arms.

Like me, he’d had to separate from his family and was struggling emotionally with the transition, since he’d always relied on the support of his parents. His pain was more severe than mine, of course, since his condition prevented him from ever returning, while I would likely go back to my home in the next three years. Nevertheless, we were somehow able to act as supplements to each other’s grief by assuming the roles of roommates.

By the time we’d known each other for three months, our relationship was so advanced that rumors began on our block that we had been together since I immigrated. At work, I was often ushered out by the restaurant owner before closing so that “my oppa could walk me back to our home”. School was a hundred stares when Junhong escorted me to every class, jealous sneers from other female students on the streets we walked on pleasant afternoons.

And while I was startled by the way people reacted to us, I was also grateful that they perceived the intimacy that I was feeling between myself and Junhong. I’d never realized that two people could be so compatible until he finally began to reveal his personality to me. We were able to relate over our interests – music, scenery, general knowledge - and bond through our irrefutable chemistry.

The sun of the spring was brilliant and warmed my heart with his.

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On a generously sunny Tuesday, we’d parted from school early to skip an assembly and had become part of the anonymity of pedestrians browsing