Goodbyes are the last thing anyone wants. But sometimes, a goodbye is needed and a sacrifice a result. For in love, not everything is about giving and taking or reciprocation. Sometimes, you need to give up for the one you love for what you believe will make the other’s life better, whether it concerns your presence or not.

Meanwhile, on the equally busy streets of Seoul, where people pass by endlessly and cars speed by along its highways, snow gently falls on the earthen ground below from the gray clouds above making everything white. The weather’s as cold as ice and people wear many-layered clothing to ward off the chilling breeze.

Lights merrily color the streets, giving a joyous and wonderful vibe around the city’s streets. Left and right, people snap photos, whether by two or with a group, even solo, they snap along with the picturesque surroundings, smiling happily at the camera.

Different sounds of carols echo around different shops with people thundering inside, buying gifts and other Christmas merchandises for the yuletide season.

Yet, amidst this jubilant environment, two girls walk along the sidewalk with an aura and vibe strikingly opposite the people’s celebratory behaviors. Morose expressions and emotions engulf their being as they tread the solid pavements, drifting to nowhere in particular.

“You know it was never to be but you still pushed for it,” one of the girls begins to talk. “What in heavens were you thinking? Were you thinking even?!”

She’s a tall girl with long, blonde locks naturally waving along the slight breeze of winter, with eyes that of a doe and skin as white as snow.

The other girl, much shorter than the latter had short blonde hair and skin as white as milk. She held her head low with the other’s words, as if each utterance were daggers awaiting to strike her once they leave the speaker’s lips, and her face becoming more depressed with it.

“You know the consequences of your actions but you let it happen. And now things escalated at this level and circumstances have become worse.” The tall girl speaks again but the small one remained silent still.

The tall girl shakes her head hopelessly at her companion’s behavior.

“And now you’ll just remain silent forever? Talk to me Kim Taeyeon! Answer at least or give a brief explanation as to why you let all these happen? How cruel can you get?!” the tall girl demands, her voice rising more and more as her frustration erupts.

The smaller one, Kim Taeyeon, halted her steps, her head still low. Slowly, she turns to look at her companion whose eyes were full of questions mixed with sadness, pity, and anger. And then, she kept her head low again after a brief glance at the doe-eyed girl.

“I never wanted this to happen but it did,” she beings to say.

She shakes her head slowly, smiling sadly and then she continues with her steps, the rest of her words getting caught in letting the rest of the story hang by her lips. But she never got even more than two steps forward before the other girl’s hands clasped her right arm and stopped her from going anywhere.

“Tell me why. Why?” the other girl demands once more, a little calmer than her previous inquiries.

At this, Taeyeon was no longer able to hold anything back, shaking forcefully her hand off the other’s, facing her face-to-face with tears slowly streaming down her eyes stricken with guilt, anger, sadness, and longing.

“Because it was the only way!” she blurts out, her voice rising and shaking with her emotions.

The other girl was caught off guard with the smaller one’s surge of emotions. Her then intense and fiery eyes smothered down to an empathic look for the girl.

“And you chose to decide things on your own, because what? You loved that person?” a troubled tone colors the taller girl’s voice.

Taeyeon heaves a sigh at her words, a harsh realization slapped across her face.

“I-I…” Taeyeon starts to say.

The other girl scoffs at her stammering words. Disbelief shadows her face, her eyes full of disappointment.

“If you really loved her, you shouldn’t have done anything like that. It was cruel. Did you know that, Taeng?”

The taller girl starts backing off, away from Taeyeon who was still caught aback with the other girl’s words, not expecting such a response from her.

“Then what should I have done instead, huh? Should I have just continued on and watch how real cruelty be inflicted upon her?” she asks, turning her head to the direction of her companion who’s now a few steps away from her, back turned. “What do you suggest should I have done, Im YoonA? If you’re so great at it, what do you think should I have done? You know what would’ve happened if I didn’t do what I did. Or have you forgotten?”

Im Yoona, the tall girl, was stopped in her tracks by Taeyeon’s words. Slowly, she turns once more to her direction and then walks back to her side, whispering.

“Then was it what she wanted, then?” she says in a cold and hollow yet somehow empathic words.

Shock and harsh truth was evident on Taeyeon’s face, a grueling fact sweeping her off-balance.

“It wasn’t, right?” Yoona continues on. “Maybe you should’ve started by telling her the truth and everything that would’ve happened before you did anything. I get that what you did was the only way but you could’ve at least told her everything before you went on with your plan.”

“I just wanted to spare her any trouble.” Taeyeon responds in a low voice, her head held low again, turned away from Yoona.

At this, Yoona snickers and scoffs once more at her shorter companion.

“Trouble, eh?” sarcasm poisoning her tongue, coloring her voice. “Then, don’t you think, if everything starts to wear off, because eventually it will, it would be more troubling for her not knowing anything? It would drive her mad.”

Yoona emphasizes the last word and Taeyeon is shaken beyond her thoughts.

A long pause echoes around them, the momentary silence threatening to swallow them whole and slowly but painfully drive them insane.

The two were continuing on with their intensifying conversations but all around, nothing seems to have changed. People didn’t take heed nor noticed their fiery interaction and everything is still the same – people celebrating the joyous season, everyone smiling and laughing. No one noted the two people who were just standing there in the middle of the sidewalk with eyes shouting of guilt, remorse, anger, disappointment, and empathy.

A contrast in the small space of the world where two people are locked in on a bubble placed in the middle of the sidewalk of a brightly shining city. Outside the sphere of the bubble were a wonderful atmosphere full of happiness and joyfulness, contrary to the vibe inside the sphere where guilt and remorse and anger pioneered and beat all other emotions; no tinge of happiness whatsoever.

“Will it really…?” Taeyeon begins on saying, breaking the seemingly infinitesimal silence going on between her and Yoona but letting the rest of the sentence hang, letting it get blown away by the cold winter wind.

Yoona then turns her attention towards the ground below, her gaze seemingly fixated at a non-existent interesting spot in the pavement – looking at and beyond it, her stare going on ahead to nowhere. Both of the girls’ shoulders slackened, like a heavy weight was upon them and they were the ones bearing it.

“Honestly,” Yoona responds after a short pause, “I don’t know myself but it’s what I’ve heard. Mine was a different situation since I told her everything and left her clues so that once everything wears off, she would know who I am and would be able to move on smoothly without getting stuck at one point in time that I created and involved me.”

“I wish I was brave as you, as strong as you Yoona. Maybe I would’ve been able to do that.”

Taeyeon was getting deeper and deeper into the blackhole of sadness.

Yoona smiles empathically at her, but anger is still brewing behind her eyes. Only, her love for her companion was greater than the anger and disappointment she feels towards her.

Becareful what you wish for Taeyeon. You don’t know what you’re asking.

She then shakes her head and gave Taeyeon a long look.

“So, what will you do now?” Yoona quietly asks, her intensity cooling down a bit, turning her attention to the smaller girl who’s still spaced out, drowning in her own sorrows.

Freckles of snow still fell lightly on the city, slowly draping everything in white. Yoona just stared at Taeyeon as she waits for her answer.

After a seemingly long pause, Taeyeon finally gave her one.

“I don’t know,” she says simply, eyes still vacant of anything, her gaze fixated on the pavement she’s standing on.

Yoona let go of a small, sad, yet meaningful smile.

“You should try.” She begins to say but Taeyeon interjects before she could add anything more.

“I know…” the smaller girl counters. “But, hey, can you just let me off for now? I know you mean well, Yoong, but let me be for a while. Can you do that?”

Taeyeon turns to look at Yoona with hopeful eyes but the other girl just her head to the side, as if Taeyeon said nothing at all. She opens to say something more, to make Yoona just leave for now, her emotions slowly building up nearly getting past her own limit of holding them back, but her friend was faster and resumed on her chat which Taeyeon interjected moments ago. Just as if nothing happened and Taeyeon spoke nothing.

“Before everything, even the smallest of memories, drive her insane. Before every rumor, hearsay, or speculation come true about the aftereffe – ”

“Enough!” Taeyeon cut Yoona’s words short with an authoritative scream, catching the latter off-guard. Her emotions surged right through her unable to repress them any longer.

Yoona was caught aback with Taeyeon’s actions making her frown at the other, her eyes getting narrower by the second.

“Shut it, Yoona. Enough already,” Taeyeon chides, a seemingly sudden change in her mood. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

Anger and frustration set evident on Taeyeon’s face, her eyes mirroring the same but behind those, a glint of a different emotion sets in, carefully hidden and locked away in the smallest of corners in herself, deeply set back behind a rage.

Resolve set in Yoona’s eyes while Taeyeon had a blank, depressed look in her orbs and her face set hard in a stoic glare.

“Then I’ll leave you to your misery. I only came to warn and remind you Taeyeon, of everything you’ve done and the consequences of your actions,” Yoona replies in a steely voice.

Taeyeon’s companion then takes her leave quietly, vanishing as quickly as the winter wind blew, leaving Taeyeon alone with her thoughts.

“Sorry. And thank you,” she whispers in the wind, hoping and knowing the other party will hear.

She glances up in the sky and then at the view before her. Slowly, she takes something away from her pocket: a photograph with her and another girl in a light pink motorcycle jacket paired with denim pants and plain white shirt.

A small smile graced her lips, but it is stained with a heavy dose of sadness and regret. She touched the photograph longingly, as if it can relay her touch to the person in it. 

“I’ll be waiting under the rainbow, the unreachable rainbow, just holding our picture together and setting it at the ground where the rainbow touches hoping you’ll find it one day. This picture is our treasure, right?” She glanced sadly at the photograph she’s holding.

“You are my ray of light, my sunshine. Yet what have I done?”

Tears of regret befall from her dark brown orbs. Her blonde locks sway as the cold December wind blows, giving a chilling breeze which she doesn’t mind. Ever so slowly, she lets go of the photograph, her tears getting blown off and carried by the wind just as how her treasured memory, her photograph, is blown off from her hand and carried some distance far off.

She turns her back and silently takes her leave, melting with the people and the scene around her; the photograph lost in sight, gone with the wind, the breeze taking it to another horizon, the place where rainbows meet.

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AND I'M BAAAAAACK!!! 

Here it is everyone! As promised, the next chapter is up. I hope you enjoyed reading this and that you would honestly scream as much as I did while reading this one (tbh, I hate myself for this. I'm so cruel TT). Do you already have a clearer picture as to what's going on here? *sly grin*

Anyway, do not hesitate to comment your thoughts guys. Comments, suggestions, violent reactions, etc. are very much welcome. 

Again, sorry for the extremely long delay for this one. I will try my best to keep this story updated as fast as I can but I still won't promise anything. I hope you can understand.

Well, this is it for now! Ciao and see you guys soon ~