"I made waffles, you coming?" She called Karina when she saw the girl walked out of her room.

"You dressed me." Karina said.

"Yeah, I thought you wouldn't want to have your bed to smell like beers and tears."

***

After Karina's little breakdown last night, which Winter has no idea what it is about, she went to carry Giselle and Ningning to the former's room and prepared them to bed. Thankfully the two were really obedient  when drunk.

When she returned to Karina's room, the girl is already sleeping. Karina looked so beautiful spread out on her bed sleeping like an angel with her black hair fanned out along the pillow. The girl, however, looked uncomfortable with her sweater. Winter rumbled on the girl's closet to find something more suitable for sleeping. 

Winter spend countless moments memorizing every details of Karina's faceㅡas if there is something that she missed all those years of dreaming about Jimin. When she felt satisfied, she faced the other side and let herself drift to sleep but not without kissing Karina's forehead.

***

"Where are the others?"

"Still sleeping. But they woke up earlier to eat and take hangover meds. Which by the way, here's yours."

"Thanks. I'm sorry about last night."

"Don't be," Winter said with a smirk. "At least now I'm sure that you'll keep my drunk story a secret."

"I don't think mine's as embarassing as yours but your call." Karina said, taking the meds. "Do you have plans today?"

"I don't think I have. Why?"

"Let's go out. I want to show you something."

***

"Why are you driving to the campus?"

"Just wait and see. I think you'll pick up an inspiration from this," Karina said, eyes still focused on the road ahead.

"You've said that same reason when you took me to hiking, the picnic at the park, and the archery center," Winter reasoned out, putting her arms on her chest.

"Winter Kim, are you saying I'm bad at picking places? Should I drive back?"

"No, I just... what I'm saying is that I have a different inspiration for Phoenix Blood," Winter said, her tone a bit worried that Karina was offended with what she said.

"I'm not referring about Phoenix Blood but just anything in general," Karina said, flashing a smile in her direction.

They left Karina's car in the parking lot and walked near the mini-forest where she met Yeji during the surprise rain. She thought that they'd walk inside the forest only for Karina to walk past it towards a more secluded part of the campus. They were really far away from the university buildings although Winter is sure that they're still inside the campus.

The trail is getting more slippery and dangerous as they walk. Without second thoughts, Winter reached for Karina's hand. She knows she can hold her arm instead but her hand makes her feel assured. After a few more moments of walking, Karina stopped in front of a dome-like infrastructure. Karina slowly opened the small gate to let themselves in.

The place was beautiful: airy, circular, with a high domed ceiling made of glass, the morning-blue sky visible far above. A series of stepping-stones led to the center of the structure, where there was a stone platform with two gilded, throne-like chairs. The rest of the floor was dark, wet soil. There were plants everywhere: small twisting trees around the perimeter of the room, sprays of orange and yellow flowers, leafy vines crawling up the walls, a thick briar of wild roses. Birds flitted through the air, some ordinary as sparrows and others strange and exotic, with bright green feathers.

Fat little pheasants marched around pecking at the dirt; hummingbirds dipped their long beaks into the flowers. Birdsong echoed through the wide-open space, high trills and low, raspy calls, a cacophony of song and shrieking. There were butterflies, too.

She was so busy craning her neck to see the birds flying around at the highest point of the domed ceiling, she didn’t realize Karina was already looking at her with a wide smile, phone in her hand taking shots of her.

"What is this?" Winter asked.

"An aviary" Karina answered. "Which is basically a fancy name for a place where you keep birds."

"Yeah, the name sounds fancy but fitting. How did you find it?"

"Long story but let's just say that it was during the time I was not my best self. I just kept walking and I didn't know where I was until I stumbled upon this place. I didn't know it was here but I've read it from one of the university's archives. The birds were really beautiful and the sounds calmed me more than when I make soaps." Karina said, smiling as she recalls the memory.

"And then one day when I came here I didn't know one of the birds was waiting for me to open the gate and it got out, I followed it outside and you wouldn't imagine where it lead me," Karina turned to her.

Winter didn't want to interrupt the girl so she just nodded her head to urge the girl to continue.

"It lead me to what I was looking for and I promised myself that I will do my best to hold on to it." Karina concluded.

"That's... that's good to know you looked like you moved passed it," Winter said still exploring the place as Karina lead them to the chairs at the center under the sun-apple tree.  

"Yeah, much better. I felt lost before I found this place, you know. It was like living a life everyday but not actually living. It felt like this life didn't belong to me but I feel much better now."

"I think I know what you mean." Winter paused, removing the dried leaves from the chairs.

"If you didn't brought me here, I wouldn't know the campus has a place like this. Is this the same to those places that you brought me?"

"You mean if I found them during those times? No, it was after. I guess I found a hobby of looking for places that people didn't know exist," Karina said, pulling her phone out of her pocket and started playing a song. The sound echoed in the whole place, the birds didn't seem disturbed at all but rather liked the song. They listened to it while admiring the view in front of them, which what Winter mean, in the girl in front of her.

The song was interrupted with a notification from Karina's phone, signaling Winter to break from her trance.

"It's Yeji, telling me about dance practice today." Karina explained. "I already told her that I won't be attending today."

"I forgot that you're part of the dance t