There goes the woman whom everyone loved so dearly, walking in a room full of people, but was never known for all of her. The woman who was often touched by the flesh, but so little in the heart. The woman who breaks a smile but never the aunthentic one. The woman who is seen perfectly fine but not in her own unsettling eyes. Regardless of her flashing into the unknown, she is still the same flawed woman only Minjeong’s eyes can remember, she was the same imperfect woman only Jimin herself can return to.

Nothing in this room can hurt more than watching that woman wear all of her heart as Minjeong recieves bits of her for the rest of the night. It was nothing new, she said. Nothing can hurt anymore from the same old Yoo Jimin, she repeated again.

A soft voice calling out for her was heard from a distance fortunately enough to break the chain of thoughts Winter has been drowned into. Aeri’s concerned tone directed her to an open space of familiar faces—sedating her from a poison nothing else can cure. No wonder Karina is called by the name ‘tangent.’ She is just Winter’s all at once.

All at once, never twice.

All at once, less enough.

“Girl, you really need to wear off your eyes, kahit titigan mo yan ng matagal, hindi ka niyan pupuntahan. Alam mo namang busy yung tao mang-entertain ng iba bukod sayo oh…” Giselle didn’t have to hit that hard, Winter thought. Truly, letters do hurt more everytime they are worded.

“I don’t need you to brush it infront of my face Gi. Alam ko naman tanga. Iniisip ko lang kung kaya niyang baguhin si Rina the way I did for years.” Not really a concern of hers but Winter undoubtedly, will never learn when to stop carrying Karina in her best and in her lowest.

“You don’t even have to worry about that Win, wala namang pinapakinggan yang si Karina, and you know too well, not even you can settle her down kahit almost half of your life ka nang nandyan, it doesn’t work like that...” And when will Giselle stop slitting her tongue with the truth she never ever wanted to know in the first place? The truth she always and will always refuse to believe.

“C’mon, she doesn’t even know what she wants, I doubt magsesettle yan sa kakakilala niya ngayon pa lang… kung sa akin nga hindi, kaya ba niyan?” A hint of bitterness in her competitive voice was vividly heard from Winter’s forced and uncracked tone. Yizhuo who was silently listening to their conversation glanced at Aeri signing her up to stop talking, she knows she’s ticking, close to making a scene.

“You really don’t get it do you? You still don’t understand why Karina kept running away from you?” The air from the balcony of a well-lighted building felt colder than usual. The warmth of a single chandelier on top of them used to make her feel at ease, and now they are nowhere to be found.

“What do you mean by that? What is it that I still don’t understand?” Both Ningning and Giselle noticed the ache from her wrenching lips resisting every emotion delivering out of . Resisting a piece of truth she knows her heart can no longer handle. Again, Ningning eyed Giselle to stop, to stop sparing Winter from the lies she already lived with.

“Win, pasundo raw si Ryujin sa baba, nakalimutan yung invitation ayun hindi pinapapasok ng guard. I think it’s better for you to go down na, and pakalma ka na lang muna... I’ll talk to Gi about this don’t worry.” Ningning thought she did something, but for some reason Winter wishes to stay in that balcony where her feelings are able to feel itself in the moment. What else can hurt other than misunderstanding what she forced to wrap her mind up over and over and over.

It is a thought that she hardly understands, a thought only Karina can provide, but never given a chance.

It is a thought she might be able to acknowledge—a thought Karina could never admit to himself.

In all circumstances and situations that will make this night even worse than it already is, Ryujin didn’t have to add up on her daily worries. Coming out of her box is like facing death in the most lively manner, and watching Jimin with a woman by the name Choi Jisu is the utmost description of her very own suicide. Breaking into shards as she celebrates the forming love in her eyes—not hers to begin with… never was.

For once, Winter stopped. One step forward, two steps back. She stopped looking at Karina for the woman they created in her, she stopped thinking about the idea of her, the idea of them, the idea of love that was supposed to be theirs. This time, she just wanted to see Jimin, not the raw and authentic one but the Jimin she probably never understood; her place in her life or perhaps she thought there was.

Oh for how many days, weeks, and months they spent together, Winter knew by the bone that she of all people can never coexist on another, she of all people is a see-through cloth only her can navigate and recall. Karina is just a part of her that will always be the completing piece of Winter’s soul and wholeness, if it’s not her no better lass can ever compare to the woman named Karina.

To her, standards are just like mirrors of your own, mirrors of how much someone can meet you the way you have met yourself. An image of her intensity reflecting back as much as she deserves. Just a right mixture of flawless and flawed, yet catastrophic and endearing. To her, Karina was that mirror of her own; a hot coffee in the morning, so tender and loving. A sense of both humanity and comfort wrapped in a mysteric way of letters shown through a series of subtle actions.

Immersed by the moment, captured in full sincerity. Winter was caught in the depths of her unfiltered insanity. The stare she projects might not reach her on the side of their own little reality, atleast Minjeong can sit down with it and speak to her deliberately. Heard but unseen, loud but silent, in a space where Karina seems to be unaware of her lingering feelings, she would love to let some of these throbbing thorns out of her petals.

‘Wincing through the aches and pains, oh to be thy darling of a woman by the name of JImin? Oh to be loved in every inch of my being, reaching out for the deepest scars my own vision cannot even comprehend? Oh to be embraced and caressed for all the ounce of tears I have left, kissing them goodbye as my skin concedes in the warmth of your hands? And oh to be the woman you wish to seek in everyone else, as you declare me as me—your least favorite part of yourself?’

“Gi, you really don’t need to be that harsh kanina, hindi mo na dapat sinabi kay Win yung about kay Rina, saka bakit ba natin pinapanood mga taong labas pasok ng venue, it doesn’t really make sense to me how this is very entertaining to you.” To where Winter sits in a world that’s not ready for her, Giselle along with Ningning reiterated the vows they could not dare to deliver.

“People are just like tangents, they are everywhere, they are in all paths, directions, places where they do not even belong, some uses it as a breakthrough, some uses it as a diversion. Pero alam mo what’s the worst thing about it? They are simply our beloved Winter and Karina.” Ningning, on the other hand, do not seem to follow what Giselle was trying to make her feel for the complexity of their friends’ feelings.

‘And it hurts, it hurts, it hurted so bad, to be the shelter as you look out for your undying home. To be the recieving end of your exhausted laughters, drained from all the stories your mouth probably breathed into. To be the occasional jewelry you only love in secret, soft tender and sweet in convenience. For I so loved you in ways that I knew, oh to be thy darling of the woman by the name of Yoo Jimin?’

“Win and Rina? In what ways do they resemble with that? Dami mo namang nalalaman may pa-tangent, tangent ka pa diyan.”  It was like a puzzle for the young woman, feelings and emotions are indeed the most complicated thing every human probably struggles to deal with. Given the fact that, Winter masks her love away, while Karina was lost in a lane where she wasn’t meant to stay.

“Yun nga yung point, tangent… ano ba ‘yon? It’s drifting away to where you are supposed to go, and maybe that’s what Rina has been doing all these years, what if umiiwas naman pala talaga siya kay Win, alam naman natin kung saan ang destinasyon niya, pero bakit hindi niya sinusundan diba? She’s right, perhaps it was what Winter never understands, it is the truth she’s been erasing giving it no chance to be alive.

‘And in the name of love that burns through my core, you Karina, are the spine of my life engraved in the stems of my memories detailed in progress, source of my breath. You are the bed of my sorrow, the light of my joy, the room of hope that takes over the wholeness of my soul. You out of all people, is you, whose adored so beatifully yet so unaware of it. Wincing in aches and pains, oh to be thy darling of the woman I loved so dearly?’

“Then it must be hurting both of them so bad? If you were right…” Ningning didn’t take her lenses away from the couple, even without a thick wall separating two hearts bleeding for each other, distance was enough to describe the resisting vigor they have to meet in another point of their timeline.

“What is grief, if not love persevering?” Giselle responded. She knew right from the beginning where this relationship was going, she and everyone else in this room knew Winter wasn’t alone all along, Winter was loved in ways she was oblivious of. Unfortunately, it never reached each other as if it wasn’t there living just for her.

“How about Win then?” Tilting her head on the newly suma laude graduate, Ningning did her best to integrate Karina’s body languages coordinating it with her gardens of messages. And even before Giselle could utter a single word, Yeji who was there in every frame of their story, walked in answering Ningning with a simple yet impactful fact.

“Who said she didn’t?” Giselle nodded, it wasn’t that hard to read Karina, it wasn’t supposed to be that intricate. Mayhaps, Giselle and Yeji assumed she’s intentionally making it tiring, hateful, and confusing.

“Alright everyone, party’s over. Magsiuwian na kayo, pagod na ‘ko maghugas ng mga kaldero rito!” Echoing at a high rate of frequency, Yeji’s authority alerted Karina’s attention.

“Party mo ba ‘to? Bakit nag dedesisyon ka against my will ha? Nag-eenjoy pa ‘ko, KJ mo naman. The young woman scoffed, being skeptic as usual. It has always been Karina’s manner to get things on her way; a grip of her so-called controlling instincts.

“Bading, it’s almost morning. May ganap pa tayo mamayang ala singko baka lang nakakalimutan mo. Tama na inuman hoy… bakit hindi mo na lang puntahan si Winter ‘don na kanina pa naghihinay sayo jusko. Hindi mo man lang ata pinansin yan buong maghapon.” Eight o’clock within the surface, Minjeong felt a sting from the woman’s light gazes only her mind can automatically identify. The burning sensation it always gives, made the young woman think it really is her most favorite feeling.

Her essence must be very suffocating as the heart continuously pound on the sound of her f