snowdrop | 최범규

prologue: snowdrop.

winter, that laughable feeling when your smile is concealed with your scarf and ice melting onto my fingertips, snowflakes falling and covering my eyelashes, blinking to remove them. somehow, i could still see your beautiful smile.

you were a small bud of a flower bound to bloom in the winter snow. winter had become my favorite season, watching snowflakes fall from the dark yet light clouds in the sky and land on the eyelashes you had to bat away.

i watched as you didn't bother to remove the snow from your chestnut hair. you seemed like a simple boy, yet i sit and watch the smile on your face form as your eyes crinkle. you spun, excitedly.

you turned your head to see me on the bench afar from you. you waved, shyly, as if you had been embarrassed. don't be, i love seeing you happy.

i've always told myself that it's the small moments in life that made me smile. your waves, your laugh, your genuine happiness. the flakes fell as the snowdrops began to bloom.

in a way, you were a snowdrop. you were the happiest boy in the winter but i never saw you again after that season. i wanted you to stay for spring. yet, i understood it to an extent. a part of me could understand that you were a snowdrop. you would bloom at the end of winter but i never saw you after the first days of spring.

snowdrops symbolized hope and innocence. you were both of those. you were a symbol of hope in the cold winter weather, a boy who hoped for something in spring. but when you never got it, you disappeared. why was that? i never knew. i never knew.

i watched as you took off one of your wool gloves and wrote something in the snow.

choi beomgyu

that was your name.

choi beomgyu.

you took off both of your gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of your winter coat. you seemed to have forgotten i had been sitting there on the bench of the flower shop, waiting for the bus.

though, there was another reason i disliked the spring. it gave me the hope that you and i will bloom like before.

the smile that was once mine. the hope that glimmered in my soul as you kissed the snow from my face. the hope had once been mine.

i allowed my petals to wither, as long as the petals of your snowdrop could bloom as beautifully as before.

the snow you collected in the palms of your hands soon became water that seeped through. if you were to collect all of the tears i shed for you, to collect all of the melted snow in the palm of your hands, you would be able to feel the pain that bears more than the universe does.

the weight i carry once i saw you walk away from my sight. spring gave me the false hope that i will sprout and stand tall. that i will bloom just like you in the winter.

the season slowly came to an end and my time never came. but i no longer care for the spring, anyhow. because i don't want to bloom if it means i'll bloom without you.

i want to stay in winter forever. so that i will lean my palms forward and collect all the melted snow in my fingertips,

and this time, you will be the one who cried for me.

and your snowdrop will be the one that bloomed.

start: 06/07/22
end:  07/30/22

this book is fictional and made for entertainment purposes only. do not take any of the events in this book as real or a recommended action. do not do anything the characters did in real life and take it as a recommended action. the events in this book are solely for the storyline and nothing else.