I always thought she had origami eyes.

       I never bothered myself with folding paper into designs because there was never a point if someone would always come along and destroy it. Paper is too frail, too delicate, too light to last long enough to make everything worth it. (Paper can light on fire but I don't think about that anymore, I don't I don't I don't.)

       But when I met her it suddenly seemed to me like origami was worth exploring.

       There was a paper crane in her eyes. I could see it and I wanted to unfold it and see how it was made, how it was designed, how I could recreate it and alter it and make it my very own flying eagle.

       (Someone would always come along and destroy it.)

       I was watching those eyes when I said something like, "Hi, I'm Chaerin," and I could see when the paper crane folded on itself and became a glinting dagger of caution and feral insecurity. It never unfolded. I still couldn't see how the crane was made but that made me want to see even more.

       "Get the away from me," she had muttered, like I was a relentless, needy animal tugging on her pant-leg when she was trying to run(away).

       "You're Dara, right?" I began with the next day, thinking that if anything, the blade would respond to what it was originally: a crane. (But something told me there was a layer beneath that crane, a softer, even more fragile layer.)

       Instead of seeing graceful folds and smooth unfolds, I saw the tip of the paper dagger rip before she bolted out of the room and carried the crane (and whatever was underneath it) with her.

       I didn't see her for the next few days and I started daydreaming about pastel pinks and seeping crimsons and deep navies all folding and layering on top of one another into nothing but pain. In my dreams the folding paper didn't result in a crane or a box or a star, but just in a mural of anger and trauma and agony. I tried to draw it on paper once but all I could transfer onto white blank emptiness was a mosaic reeking with the letters P-A-I-N.

       The next time I saw her, the origami in her eyes was on fire.

       (Someone would always come along and destroy it.)

       The frame around the paper eyes was dull and dreary and heavy but the paper itself was bright, fervent, unsettled. She was hostile to everyone who approached and they all thought she was crazy, but I saw it. I saw the pain.

       I didn't need to see the dagger unfold into a crane unfold into what I suddenly knew was a simple sketch of a rose, not anymore. I could see the pain all the same.

       "I can help," I said the third time I talked to her. The fire in her eyes grew and roared upward like I had poured gasoline onto it. She ran away again.

       I saw her sitting on the concrete outside three days later, at 10:17PM during a thunderstorm. I forgot my umbrella but she did too, and somehow that was enough reason to stand by her and look into the sky she was looking into and try to see the things she was seeing and try to feel the things (the pain) she was feeling.

       "Dara." Somehow I felt that saying her name was enough.

       "I don't need your goddamn help," she replied flatly, throwing her head back to the sky and closing her eyes. (She was trying to put out the fire with the rain but it would never work, never never never.)

       "You're vulnerable and hurt, aren't you?"

       She morphed into an indignant fiery monster, whipping her head toward me and growling through clenched teeth. I looked into her eyes and I saw the fire burning brighter than ever and if I squinted hard I would probably have seen charred pieces of paper floating and falling (and dying).

       (Someone would always come along and destroy it.)

       The rabid lion inside her realized I was not one to back down, so she took the initiative and backed down first. She turned back to the sky and lapsed into serene calmness. She settled for a question that could pass as a simple curiosity (but I knew better, I could see the fire in her eyes and I had dreamt the P-A-I-N and I felt the rain pelting onto me just like it was pelting onto her.)

       "Why don't you have an umbrella?"

       "Why don't you?"

       "The water comforts me." Lies. She was trying to put out the fire with the rain, I'm sure of it. She wished the rain could wash away all the pain and drown all the worries and extinguish the roaring inferno of anger and frustration and pure hatred toward anything and everything in this world. I knew from the moment I realized paper can burn, even the paper in her eyes (don't think about it stop stop stop).

       "No it doesn't." Sometimes less is more.

       Those three words equated to more than the rain and I could see as the dagger on fire became a fallen crane became a blurred, smudged drawing of a dark rose. She crumbled and the rose wilted with her.

       As she sobbed into my shoulder, her tears mixed with the rain in my shirt and that fact in and of itself hurt a little bit. (But the fire was put out it shouldn't have hurt anymore but it did even more is afterburn supposed to scar more than the burn itself?)

       "You can fix it. I can help," I said into her hair. She shook her head, choking on sobs and shuddering at the rain. (The fire was put out so she was cold, she was cold, hurry and make her warm again.)

       (But how?)

       "No I can't," she mumbled into my neck. "It's been too long. Nobody can fix it now."

       She didn't sound hurt. She just sounded tired. The fire burned away all of the P-A-I-N along with the beauty.

       (Was that her plan all along?)

       "Was it hard?" I asked. She wasn't seeking comfort and I knew that. She just needed someone to help finally erase that rose from the page.

       (Someone would always come along and destroy it.)

       She didn't say anything but I could feel her nod against me.

       I kissed her at 11:53 PM, when it was still raining and her tears mixed with the rain mixed with my tears (that I never knew were there). Instantly she melted into me, both hands flying up to grasp my hair, body pushing toward me in seek of warmth and roots and an anchor that wasn't rusting or breaking or falling apart or drifting away. (I could not deliver.)

       The fire was put out in her eyes but somehow rekindled in my heart. I reflected her like a mirror and melded into her the same way, gripping her hair and leaning toward her and moving my lips in a way that I will never be able to explain but will always remember as a way to say, "I will tie up all the loose ends for you. Somehow, even though I don't know what they are, I will. You just need to do what you need to do."

       When we broke apart, the pitter-patter of the rain bouncing off the metal gutter and drenched concrete faded away into silence as I got lost in her eyes, those fragile, sharp, destroyed, burnt, strong origami eyes.

       I saw as the rose erased itself, folded into a crane, and flew away.

       Dara kissed me on the forehead before turning away and walking down the street, not huddling into herself despite the cold, not slipping despite the puddles, not stumbling despite the fatigue, not broken despite the pain. I watched as her back disappeared into a blur of raindrops and grey buildings and dreary air.

       (Someone would always come along and destroy it.)

       The next day, I could feel the ashes of her crane drifting through the wind. I worked through the day but the only thing I could see was an image of burnt paper drifting away from me, higher and higher and farther and farther. I couldn't catch the pieces that used to be reds and greens and blues and yellows and golds but were charred black.

       I realized that the fire was mine. The ashes of her crane became my flaming eagle.

       And the girl with the origami eyes was gone.

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