It’s felt like time has passed by so quickly since you last saw Daehyun and his brother at the mall. That incident left you scarred in pain. You couldn’t bear to see Daehyun after what seems like everything that he’s done to you. You couldn’t focus on the good things you two had. It was no longer memories left with you, it was all a nightmare.

Every now and then, there would be a knock on your door, it wasn’t your mother for she was always at work every time the noise happened. You only had one idea of who or what it was, but there was never a good enough reason to answer.

“_________…”

“Go away..” you replied.

“_________..”

“What?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“You had your chance. And now it’s gone. Now go away.”

“But _________..”

You rushed to the door and pulled it open with your fury and heartbreak balled up inside.

“I said.. go away,” you struggled to pronounce while staring at the floorboards.

“__________..”

You looked up, “What do you want from me?!”

He stepped back, being astonished, “What?”

“You had my love and appreciation—I let you into my world and my heart for heaven’s sake! What more could you want?!”

“I want you back _________!”

Your breathing stopped.

 

“What?”

“_________, I want you back in my life..”

“Why..?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m no longer important to you that’s why.”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing now.”

You stormed out of your house without even thinking of how freezing cold you were about to be. You only had a pair of pajama pants, a short sleeve and pair of slippers barely warming your beautiful body up. You ran out towards the middle of the snow-blocking neighborhood until you heard Daehyun calling for you. You didn’t know what it was but you just.. stopped.

“_________!”

You didn’t turn around but felt a layer of clothing lay on top of your shoulders. There was a silence between the two of you and no matter what, you wanted no part in the conversation.

“You don’t have to talk to me or even look at me, but please listen..”

You heard him take a deep breath and you saw how frosty it was once he exhaled, it sent chills down your spine.

“I never said that I wanted you out of my life. Nothing even close was my intention. I was just.. scared.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“Us. I was scared of ruining what we were if things kept going the way they did. And I know it seems too late to say that because how we are now. I didn’t mean to push you away. I didn’t mean for us to become so distant that you end up pretty much hating me. I just wanted to have you, but I was scared to. I know none of this seems to make sense but.. I was scared of us being worse than this by being too close to each other.”

He looked up at you, hoping that you would respond in some way, but you didn’t and he was losing hope.

“Please look at me __________. I’m begging you.”

And after a little bit, you gave him his wish. You turned around and faced him with tears running down your red cheeks that were suffering from the cold.

“What is it..?” you sadly whispered.

“I have always wanted you around, no matter how mad we got at each other or how stupid the fights were. You were still there no matter what and I liked it. I like you _________—no. I.. I think I love you..”

“I think you’re not in the right mind to be saying that..”

“What are you saying __________?”

“What does it matter what I say anymore? You have someone else to be with.”

“I never had anyone.. I never had anyone like that. What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter..”

“Why do you keep acting like you know everything?”

“Because I know the truth Daehyun. And this right here is me trying to live with it.”

“___________, we’re not kids anymore. You can’t treat me like this..”

“What exactly am I doing?”

“You’re not listening to me or to anything I’m saying!”

“.. I think you’ve forgotten about everything that has happened lately. You left me for someone else and there was no indication whatsoever that you were coming back. So after so long, I gave up because I just expected it. But was I a fool for believing that? Because that’s just how I’ve been feeling and I can’t help it.”

“___________..”

“You know.. my mom told me this when I went to meet you, she said that “there’s always room for more.” when it came to friends. So why won’t you let me in?”

He was getting frustrated with your attitude and was just ready to let it go.

“Because you were never just a friend to me __________.”

“What?”

“You matter so much more to me.”

“Then what’s your excuse for hiding from me?”

“There is no excuse. I just don’t know how to handle it, how to handle any of this.”

He sighed and sat down on a nearby bench. You followed him.

“I told you at the mall to go away, so why are you still here?”

“You did the same thing back when we were kids __________, you wanted me out of your life but I’m not ready to leave. And I never wanted to leave.”

You looked at the snowy ground in sadness, “don’t you think it’s a little too late to be saying that..?”

“I don’t know __________, is it?”

You started coughing and sniffling your nose again.

“_________, do you need me to take you to the hospital?”

You looked at him as if he was worrying too much, “What? No, I’m fine. I’m just a little sick.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I just need to stay in bed. It’s nothing big.”

“Let’s get you back then. Can you walk?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

You two began to walk with you stumbling along the while and making it very obvious. So with that happening, Daehyun stopped, took a deep breath and squatted down in front of you.

“Get on.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“No I’m just taking care of you. Now get on.”

You did as he told and lazily crawled on his back.

“Hold on tight ok?”

He stood up with you on his back and walked back into your house, being warmed by your body heat. You were still coughing however and that just made Daehyun want to rush even more.

“Are you ok back there?” he asked.

“Yeah…”

“We’re almost to your bed so don’t worry.”

He gently carried you to your room and set you down on your bed where you laid peacefully. He, however, just sat there on the edge of your bed, not making any sort of contact at all.

“Daehyun..” you mumbled.

“What is it?” he said with a bitter tone.

Despite his attitude, you smiled and nicely asked him, “Can you lay down with me?”

He lifted his head up and slowly turned it towards you, thinking that you had lost your mind. Your bed was way too small for two people and he’s never had that kind of close contact with someone.

“This is a twin size bed.” he commented.

“Then we’ll squeeze.” you replied back.

He looked at you like you really were out of your mind but a part of him wanted to do that, just lay down with you with no more fighting and arguing and angry nonsense blurting from both your lips.

“Are you alright with this __________?”

“Yeah, I have been.”

He laid down next to you and you scooted closer to him, resting your head on his chest and listening to his faint heartbeat.

“It’s so quiet Daehyun. Everything is so quiet.”

His eyes looked down at you and his fingers ran through your hair, moving the small strands out of your face; he left his hand to rest on your cheek. Tears suddenly began to fall from your eyes the more you looked at him. Your heart was not at peace and Daehyun was well aware of that. His eyes roamed over to something beloved behind you and you quickly followed them. You turned your body around and saw something missing, but it wasn’t just something that could be replaced. It was the only thing that had made you want to be with Daehyun in the first place. It was thing that was the base and foundation of what you two were. And it was gone.

“Where is it?” you spoke as you pushed yourself up.

“Where is what?” he asked.

“The-the flower. Where is it?”

He turned away and you immediately assumed that he was the cause of it missing.

“Daehyun. Where is it?”

“It’s gone..”

“What do you mean it’s gone?”

“I broke it..”

“You, broke it?”

“.. yeah.. I broke it.”

“How? Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I was mad..”

“Because you were mad?!”

“Yes! I was mad!”

“You got mad at me so many other times, why is this any different?!”

“Because I thought you wouldn’t care about the flower!”

Your eyes were left wide open.

“You didn’t want to talk to me or anything, you just wanted to avoid me and I didn’t know what I did wrong. I know that the stupid flower is what made us friends.”

“Stupid?!”

“It was stupid!”

“Why is it so stupid?! Is what we have stupid to you?!”

“Don’t say that!”

“Why shouldn’t I?! You haven’t done me any good for who knows how long because you had someone else Daehyun. You had a girlfriend and other people to be with and leaving me behind was your only choice.”

“I never had a girlfriend, __________.”

“I’ve seen you! You play house with her whenever we’re in class. You pass her notes and laugh at each other. You flirt with her and I knew how it was going to end.”

“Why are you mad?! I didn’t do anything!"

“I saw you hold her hand..”

“What?! I was giving her a pencil! What’s the big deal anyway?”

“You sure like holding hands..”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have held mine! Maybe we wouldn’t have been in this mess if you never talked to me!”

“Is this what it’s come to? A mess? Why is this my fault?!”

“Because I loved you Daehyun and you did nothing but lie to me about how we were going to be!”

He caught his breath in mid-gasp, “..What?”

“You heard me.. now I’m here all alone. My mom doesn’t even talk to me anymore, everyone at school keeps looking at me like I have some kind of problem. And I’ve been feeling like since day 1!”

“When was Day 1?”

“Day 1 is.. the day I knew you were going to leave.”

“And what day is it now?”

“Day 100.”

“100 days? You’ve been like this for 100 days?”

“I can’t help it!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because we weren’t anything anymore. And I knew that.”

“Stop saying that!”

“Why should I?! In the end, it doesn’t matter anymore! Because I’m not ok and you are and I can’t do anything about it because I’m just going to be a bother.”

“Why aren’t you ok __________?”

“That’s right.. you never knew about it did you?”

You looked at him, disappointed in yourself for hiding such a secret for so long. Slowly, you took off his jacket from earlier and ed the shirt you were wearing, only to reveal your bra underneath.

“What.. what are you doing _________?” he asked as he was flustered by dirty thoughts.

“It’s not what you think you ert.”

You lifted off one shoulder and revealed the reddish pigment of your skin on the right side of your chest that connected with some of your shoulder.

“What.. what happened?”

“I don’t know.. it runs in my family and it always has. I guess it’s just my time..”

“What do you mean your time?”

“This.. is how my father passed away. He died before my mom could have another child with him, so I was the only one. And this is how my grandparents from my fathers side passed away. My mom wasn’t affected, her family came from another area.”

“So what’s going to happen? Are you going to..?”

“I don’t know Daehyun.. I don’t know.”

“But.. you can’t. Not you too.”

“What do you mean? “Not you too.”?”

“My… mom passed away when I was younger too. She’s the one who grew all of those flowers we have.”

“I’m sorry..”

“There were only a few of those flowers left back where we lived before we came here. And my dad kept getting sadder and sadder the more he looked at the flowers because they reminded him so much of my mom. So we moved and kept only a few of those.”

“What flowers were they?”

“They were the same as the one I gave you.”

“But.. you broke the pot.. who knows long they’re going to live now.”

“Same with you isn’t it?”

“Daehyun..”

“I’m sorry ___________.”

“Don’t be.”

And suddenly, your head felt fuzzy and your heart rate became slower and slower the more you stood in front of Daehyun.

But then he caught that.

“___________, what’s wrong?”

“I.. I don’t know..”

“__________!”

Your body was weak and you were blacking out from everything around you.

“__________!”

You couldn’t say anything or hear anything; you only felt yourself falling for what felt like forever.

“__________!” Daehyun cried for the last time.

Your body had dropped to the floor and there was no sign of consciousness coming from you. Daehyun checked your heartbeat. It was slow but it was there. He rushed to carry you in his arms, out of the house and into his car where he placed your body comfortably in the passenger seat.

“Don’t worry ___________, you’ll be ok.”

He tried to start his car, but it was taking forever to warm up and the ignition was barely working.

“.”

He ran into his house and took his brothers keys right in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

“Emergency.”

“What? At least wear something warmer!”

But Daehyun had stormed out of the house with fear escaping his lips as he carried you from his car to his brothers. He started the car and it seemed to work perfectly fine. Immediately, he drove to the hospital with sweat dripping from his forehead even in such cold weather. The drive felt like forever and he was losing his patience more and more as the road dragged on.

“Where am I even going?” Daehyun asked himself.

All these kinds of cars were surrounding him and he had to drive so much slower with all the traffic. The more he waited, the more he couldn’t take it.

He pulled his car over to the side and quickly got out with his keys dropping in his pocket. He ran over to the passenger side and carried you in his arms, closing the door with his foot after locking it.

He kept running and running until he saw the hospital in his eyes. But the closer he felt, the farther it looked. He could feel his breath getting heavier and heavier and his legs were stumbling. A couple of strangers saw him carrying you but only stared. He became a little angry that they were. You weren’t ok, but they didn’t seem to care.

“We’re almost there ___________..”

His knees began to fall to the ground and his breath had escaped his lips oh so quickly. Everything became a blur to his eyes until all he was able to see was black.

—

*beep.. beep… beep…*

A soft alarm had woken you up gently, but the sound wasn’t too familiar, neither was the smell or the look of the world around you. You could barely feel the muscles in your arms and legs, your chest was the heaviest of all. You blinked slowly until you were ready to see what was going on around you.

You were in the last place you ever wanted to be, a place you thought you didn’t need to be. A white, sanitized room inside of a quiet and mentally tormenting hospital. You thought to yourself, “why am I here? What did I do wrong?”

A nurse came in, pulling a pen out of the pocket of her scrub.

“How are you feeling?”

You turned your head to the door, “why am I here?”

“Someone brought you here. We did some tests on you and noticed your sickness, so right away, we injected an antidote into your veins and placed you into this room so you can rest. As of right now, you seem to be doing better than you were when we found you. According to the test results, I’d say you’d be here for no longer than until the weekend is over.”

“What day is it? How long have I been here?”

“It’s Friday, and you’ve only been here for a little less than a day.”

This was all new to you. Hospitals, doctors, medical vocabulary you weren’t used to.

“How’d you find me?”

“We found you outside of the hospital emergency building in the arms of a young man.”

“What? Where is he now?” you said with a slight panic.

“It’s still resting in another room.”

“Is it.. ok if I see him?”

“Yes of course, let me just get you a wheelchair and I’ll take you over.”

The nurse left you alone in the room where you tried to think of what exactly happened.

“Daehyun? Resting? But how? Why? What did he do?”

The nurse came back with the wheelchair and helped you out of your bed. She pushed the wheelchair and the IV stand that was connected to your arm. You were nervous and scared to know what the real reason was that Daehyun was in the hospital with you.

“We’re here honey.”

You looked up at the door and saw a manilla folder with Daehyun’s name on it, and it gave you a sweat. The nurse opened the door for you and pushed you into the room to see him.

“We found him on the ground passed out. And after some simple tests, we found out that he was malnourished for a few days, accompanied with some sleepless days and nights. He passed out from exhaustion and stress.”

“He did? And.. he was carrying me?”

She nodded her head. And you couldn’t say a word.

“Please call me if you need anything.”

She quietly left the room with a creaky door closing behind her. Your head turned to Daehyun as you tried to stand on your weak, numb legs and walk towards Daehyun with your limp arms reaching for his.

You smiled at how handsome he looked, he peaceful his eyes and lips were.

“I’m so sorry..” you whispered as you teared up.

He was just so quiet and his heart monitor was so slow that you couldn’t believe it.

You looked back at how you were to Daehyun and realized, you were a big brat back then, so you smiled, “you didn’t have to do any of this Daehyun. You’re such an idiot.”

“Why?” a mumbled voice spoke.

You looked up from Daehyun’s still body and at his face. His eyes were barely open and his skin was still pale but a soft smile had sweetly blossomed from his lips.

“Daehyun…”

He smiled even bigger at the sound of his name coming from you, “Hi _________..”

“Why did you do this to yourself?”

“I didn’t mean to, I just was not ok.”

“And hurting yourself was a better idea?”

“Of course not. But hiding that fact is worse.”

You knew what he meant by that, you were hiding how you were far more ill than he was, but now you couldn’t even remember the reason why.

“I’m sorry.. Daehyun. You didn’t have to do any of this.”

“So it would’ve been ok to let you die right before me? I don’t think so.” he quickly retorted.

“Why didn’t take care of yourself?”

“Because I wanted to take care of you first.”

“But I knew what I was doing?”

“Then how come you weren’t here until I brought you?”

“I don’t know Daehyun..” you were starting to cry even harder at the sound of his angry tone he had towards you.

He sighed deeply, feeling regretful of such an attitude.

“I didn’t mean to sound like that __________ .. I just.. I didn’t want you to leave me.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Please.. please stay with me.”

“What.. what do you mean?”

He gave a slight smirk at your confused self, “can you reach into my left pocket of the jacket that you were wearing earlier? There’s something in there for you.”

You slowly, very slowly, walked towards his coat, then reached for what he asked for. You pulled out a folded up piece of paper and looked towards him.

“Open it.” he requested.

You unfolded the small sheet of paper and saw something that was worth more than 1000 words, and you couldn’t utter a single one of them.

“Daehyun.. what is this?” you said with a glowing smile.

“I know how much you loved Pieris when we were younger. I never met him but.. this is what I thought he was with you.”

It was a lovely drawing of a kid version of you and Pieris as a giant white moth that made your heart melt with warmth enveloping your entire body.

You smiled, “Actually Pieris has white eyes, not yellow.”

The both of you laugh at such a light hearted joke.

“I love it Daehyun.”

“There’s more.. look in the other pocket.”

You reached into the right pocket carefully and what you pulled out with your shaky hands amazed you from the moment you felt it.

“Daehyun.. why?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Why did you get me a new flower?”

“I didn’t. All of the younger flowers died before I even met you.”

“So is this..?”

“It’s the same one __________.”

“But, it’s supposed to be dead, why does it look so new and young?”

He smiled, “some things aren’t meant to die..”

You looked at him with tears falling like crazy down your cheeks, you ran to him as fast as you could, and wrapped your arms around his neck with the sound of your crying echoing in his ears.

“___________..”

“I love you so much Daehyun. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done. You should’ve never had to put up with me.”

“___________..”

“I never meant to hurt you. I was just scared and I didn’t know what to do. You said that I was the only friend you wanted and I thought I was going to be the only one for you but then everything changed and I was really hurt and scared that I—”

“___________..”

You looked at his face while yours was still full of tears, “What?”, You sniffled.

He slowly lifted his arm up and caressed your soft cheek with his hand, wiping away the tears that kept falling from your glistening eyes. He began to sit up, still holding onto your face. And the closer he came to it, the more your heart felt like stopping.

His eyes began to close the closer he came to your face, and his lips matched with them. He pressed his soft and tender lips onto yours, embracing your warm touch with a simple kiss that was meant to happen the day you both fell in love with each other.

The kiss lasted for only a few seconds, but you wanted so much more. But that wasn’t the time or place for something so romantic and life-changing.

“Daehyun..?”

“Yes __________?”

“Why did you give me that flower when we were younger?”

“I don’t know.. I just felt like it. I felt like there was something about you that was.. good.”

You scoffed lightly,  “do you  still think that?”

And he smiled, “yeah, I do.”

You looked at his handsome grin and kissed him once again, and this time, you knew that everything was finally going to be okay. You knew that, Daehyun had become, your Pieris, your winter moth.