Her Garden

Chapter 32

7:00 PM

Nata burst into my room, seeming exited to see me, which made me happy for some reason.

"I brought you something!"

"Hm?", I rested my hand in my lap and cocked my head at her. She smiled brightly and sat down beside me, holding something behind her back. "What is it?"

"Well, your father told me that your mom's favorite flower was a cherry blossom. So I got you this to remember her by.", she held out her hand, allowing me to see the item in her palm.

She held onto a silver necklace with a metal cherry blossom pendant on it.

I stared at it for a moment before gently taking it between my fingers and looking for a bit longer.

"You don't have to wear it. But I figured even if you didn't want it, you could give it to her. I hope you don't mind me getting it for-"

"Thank you.", I smiled softly, almost instantaneously latching the necklace around my neck after speaking. "My mother would have liked you."

"You think so?"

"I know she would have. Because I do."

I watched as her face grew a dark shade of red after I said that.

"W-what?..."

"We're close aren't we?", I raised an eyebrow. "I don't dislike you."

"Oh...you meant like that..."

"What did you think I meant?"

"You seem genuinely confused...", she looked at me curiously. "You don't know what I meant by that?"

"No I don't. Could you explain for me?"

"Well there's more than one way to like someone. Don't you know that?"

I shrugged and looked down.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?..", her eyes turned sad once I looked back at her.

"No. I don't understand. If you like someone, you value their company, right?"

"Yes but you can also like someone romantically."

"Romantically...how does that work?"

"Like...loving someone."

"Loving someone. I've heard that's nice but I don't understand it very well either."

"Jihyun, you really don't know any of this?"

"No."

"That's...sad. Has anybody ever told you that they love you?"

"Yes. Though, it lacked meaning."

"How does that lack meaning?"

"I didn't understand. All I knew was that I was supposed to say it back, so I did."

"Here.", she grabbed my hands and stared directly at my eyes. My own kept finding their way back to her lips, but I wasn't sure why. Endless romance movies couldn't explain feelings to me, they never had been able to. It made me feel like a robot. "I love you."

She said it differently than my family did, which only confused me more.

"I-"

"Don't say it back. I want you to think about what I'm saying okay?"

I was trying, but I'm my head I lacked the knowledge.

"Think about how much you cared about your Mom. How bad it hurt when she died and how much you loved her company. Think about every moment you spent with her. Through the good and the bad ones, you still cared about her."

"I would have killed myself for her...", I sighed, keeping my head low.

"That's what love is.", she squeezed my hands. "The feeling you get whenever you're with someone you can't stand to be without. You loved your mother, didn't you?"

"If that's so then yes, I did."

"She was family so of course she meant a lot. But loving someone romantically is different."

"How is it different?"

"For example...how would you feel if you were your father, and saw your mom with another man."

"I would be upset. I know how jealousy works."

"But the reason why you would be jealous is because you love her. Seeing her with someone else would crush you, wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever seen romance movies?"

"They're hard to understand but yea."

"You see people kissing and holding hands, sharing affectionate moments because they love each other. That's how romance is. You want to be with someone every second, you want to touch them, you enjoy looking at them...It's so simple to say that you love someone but without meaning behind it, no emotion gets through. Have you ever felt emotions like that?"

Should I answer that honestly? It makes me nervous.

"I-...Yea I have."

"So...do you understand better?"

"Yes. Thank you for the explanation, Nata. I love you too."

"I-I told you not to say it back..", her face began to turn red again, which for some reason made me smile.

"But it means something now. It's not just words to me. Even if you only said it to further explain what it meant, I mean it."

"B-but I-"

"Nata...", I let go of her hand and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I'm juggling with my life right now so let me learn what I'm feeling. If I say I love you, I mean it."

"And you think I'd just say that to anyone?", she glared at me softly. "I mean it too, you jerk."

I didn't respond, which made her sigh and lean her head against my chest. "Take baby steps okay, you're still lost."

"Maybe. But at least I know a little about what I feel. You have no idea how amazing that is to me."