Seungwan fumbles in the unexpected darkness for a moment, finding it curiously difficult to map the space she was sure she'd have memorized by now.

Her hand hovers around the region where she expected there to be a table as her eyes squint, trying to make out shapes from the weak light that filters from outside. Did someone draw the curtains?

Then she is nearly blinded as someone behind her flips a switch and her living room lights turn on, revealing a familiar apartment - the table she was reaching for a few tantalizing inches to the left - filled with familiar, though entirely unexpected visitors.

"Surprise!" a chorus of slightly dissonant voices calls out, and she smiles with delight not even remembering to move at first.

As the crowd dissolves and spreads to fill the room, she finally remembers herself and steps forward to accept the first set of congratulatory words and hugs.

In a few moments, she's made her slow way towards the likeliest culprit for the party.

She approaches Seulgi, not leaning in for a hug but instead smacking her lightly on the arm.

"I'm guessing you're to blame for all this?" She waves her arms as she says it, encompassing the decorations all around the room.

"Not just me, actually."

A pair of arms snakes around Seungwan's waist and she instantly recognizes the warmth pressing against her back.

"Taeyeon," she says simply, and her lips seem to wrap around that word like none other, to shape it in the very form of her love and send it off into the world.

She feels the arms grip her a little tighter, returning the sentiment.

"As the flatmate, Seulgi naturally had the bigger role," Taeyeon admits good-naturedly, "but I did have a say in the decoration. And I baked the cake!" she adds as an excited afterthought.

Seungwan smiles at her words and pretends not to notice how Seulgi coos teasingly at the two of them before wandering off.

"You really didn't have to do all that." She turns around to face her girlfriend, taking care not to break her hold.

"You aren't the only one who gets to make the big gestures. Seungwan..." Taeyeon hesitates, reaches out a hand to fix her hair, a hand that lingers by her face. "I love you. I want to make you happy. I want to see you smile.”

Taeyeon smiles herself then, a little self-conscious, and Seungwan is lost in the sight.

She really couldn't be happier.

Seungwan is standing by the window when she sees it.

Taeyeon is off with mutual friends and she’s been walking around, greeting friends and family.

In her hand is a glass of soda, taken from a generously stocked table of refreshments, and she finally stops at a reasonably empty spot, right by the window.

With her back to the wall, she can feel the cold air from outside push its way through the imperfectly insulated window pane, providing welcome coolness.

She turns around, to receive some of that fresh air on her warm, flushed cheeks, and her gaze settles vaguely on the empty streets.

It’s a dull, overcast day, the sunlight so heavily filtered through layers of dark clouds that the world seems almost grey.

It’s a day where nobody wants to be outside, for fear of getting caught in freezing, hailing rain.

And nobody is. Not a single soul crosses those inhospitable streets.

Not up near the bus stop, not down by the local supermarket, not even off in the distance, towards the tiny park. Not even-

And then she sees it.

She isn’t sure what she does after that.

At some point, the drink is no longer in her hand, though she doesn’t remember putting it down. Instead, she is holding on to a coat that she doesn’t recognize, that surely isn’t her own.

She thinks she must have said something, given some excuse to step out, because nobody is stopping her, nobody is gripping her arm and turning her around and asking, “Why?”

Why is she walking out of her own birthday party and into a day that doesn’t want her in it? A day so cold and harsh that the whole world has come inside to seek cover?

Nobody is asking, so she must have found a way to put into words how she is feeling. The immensity of what pulls her inexorably out of the door and down the creaking stairs and out into the grey.

Outside, there is nothing. Only Seungwan, standing by her apartment with a foreign bundle of fabric pressed against her side, making no move to put it on.

Only Seungwan, and her.

She’s moved since Seungwan caught sight of her through the window, and that’s enough to send panic coursing through her veins. She can’t lose her.

The first drop of rain falls on her cheek, stirring her into motion, and she takes an uncertain step, eyes never leaving the woman she seeks.

Seungwan matches each of the woman's movements with her own, then pushes herself faster, hurries to keep her in sight before anything can steal her away.

She's gaining on her, breaking the distance, barely feeling the rain that falls harder, that sends icicles down her hair and dyes her clothes a darker shade. Her eager steps land on puddles and send droplets flying, drenching her shoes inside and out.

It's raining so hard now that the sound forms a barrier, an even outpouring of white noise. Around her form is a glowing halo, where the icy water hits her warm body and steams off.

The woman, so close now that Seungwan could just run up and touch her, stops.

She turns around.

The same white light surrounds her, framing her like an angel.

The sight is like nothing Seungwan can describe.

It's like she's been holding her breath her entire life and only now, as she finally releases it, does she realize how the pressure had been building, how she had been choking.

It's like a face that had been carved into her mind, and her heart, and every fiber of her being, but never been allowed to pass before her eyes, has suddenly been returned to her, and now she can't bear the thought of losing it again.

Now that she's found her, losing her would be like losing herself.

But still she doesn't know. She looks at the woman and her very being vibrates with yearning, with recognition, but she can't pull the memory from its deep recesses.

This woman is everything, but she doesn't remember how.

The woman stands and watches her, waiting. Her face is calm, expectant. Seungwan has to break the distance, break the spell, say the words that will bring her back.

The rain falls like curtains all around them, like walls of droplets, thick and incessant. Seungwan watches the water land on buildings and streetlights, on benches and trees, and leave weaving traces behind.

Like a watercolor, the world becomes streaked. Its colors bleed and fade, its outlines grow fuzzy. The rain falls and falls and pulls down the scenery until it all turns the same uneven grey, nothing but splotches and blurs.

Seungwan watches the world come washing down and she stumbles forward, but the road is gone. No more gravel street and stone sidewalk but only the same papery grey.

She is stuck, the woman barely out of reach, still bright, still clear, still encased in her halo, the only thing left in the world.

Seungwan raises a hopeless arm, stretches out her fingers, and the spaces between them grow vague, and their edges dull, and she sees the rain wipe them clean, wipe all of her away.

Up ahead, the sky is still dark. She raises her eyes to it, watches the water come pouring down. It falls on her face, on her eyelashes, but she can't brush it away.

She stands, feeling herself disappear, and watches the rain fill the world.