forget-me-not || lee dohwa

𝐈 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐃𝐨

I Deal With Heartbreak the Way All Artists Do

"White winter," Jeong Namju had whispered, lips against the nape of her neck. Their bodies twisted together under the sheets, her arms around his shoulders while his across her waist.

As the light outside began to turn blue with the sunrise, Gyeoul suddenly wondered whether she had locked the door to her room or not. She did remember closing the door behind her. She had pressed a finger to her lips to make sure Namju knew that, despite successfully tiptoeing up the wooden staircase when everyone was asleep, Kyung's room was still down the hallway.

"White winter," he repeated, shifting to look at her, eyes hooded and a small smile playing on his lips, "It's a pretty name."

He had taken his time to admire her room. A bed big enough for the two of them under a large window from where you could definitely see his house. Bookshelves built into the wooden walls adjacent to each other. And her work desk; the biggest piece of furniture in the house, cluttered with pens, pencils, pastels and crayons, canvases, paints, and paintbrushes—some dried and unusable, some in the process of drying, and some that had never been used. Her sketches, drawings, paintings—acrylic, watercolour, oil—pinned on the wall or stacked on the floor or scattered under the table.

Gyeoul had worried that it smelled too much like varnish here but he had yet to complain.

"Oh," she said softly, shuddering as he joined the freckles on her shoulder with the tips of his fingers, "I never read it like that. My name's written as one hundred winters. I've never really liked it because it sounds a bit sad."

"Mm," he kissed her, not unlike the hundred times he had repeated the action through the night, "I don't know about that but I really like winter."

The plan was to stay in bed until Gyeoul's mom and brother left. Once they were sure that they were alone, Namju would gather the clothes strewn on the bedroom floor and return home to get ready for school. Gyeoul would meet him at her doorstep, like she had the night before, and they'd walk to school together, hand in hand.

"Gyeoul, you up?"

The two froze, heads turning to the door as two knocks sounded against the wood. It was barely four in the morning. Why the hell was Kyung up? With a gasp, Gyeoul whispered, "He has that track thing today!"

"I thought that was tomorrow," Namju replied as more knocks sounded, "We closed the door, didn't—" Instead of finishing his sentence, he hastily and clumsily rolled off the bed to hide under it as the door creaked open. In any other scenario, Gyeoul would've found it funny but she was too preoccupied with hugging the blankets closer around her.

Kyung stepped in, dressed in his school P.E. tracksuit, and jolted at the sight, "What the f—why are you sitting up like a damn ghost!? You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"What do you want?" He picked up the clear urgency in her tone but ignored it.

He narrowed his eyes at the way she scooted to the edge of her bed in the dark, "Have you slept at all?"

"N...no." Times like this made her wish that lying came easy to her, that she didn't throw up her guts every time she told a fib.

But after years of living with the fact that she couldn't lie, Gyeoul found little loopholes to avoid answering truthfully. Either reply with another question or tell a part of the truth. It was very simple, really. Anyone could've come up with it. Gyeoul thought herself to be somewhat slow and stupid to have realized the solution so late.