When Winter Blooms

The sun seems cold, and with the tears that gather in her eyes; Yiseul hates it. She hates it, she hates it, and she doesn't know how she's suddenly lying on concrete. Her limbs feel like dead weights. Like a burden on fire. She somehow thinks of the day she found her pink backpack, the day she glowers at him. She thinks of the morning she witnesses the winter sun streaming in, making his skin look golden in the light, his freckles like constellations on a sun kissed sky. Her breathing feels like a chore as the last breath forces its way out between her lips. She wants to remember that sight, to save it into her memory in all its glory. The thought of not having that picture feels wrong. The very thought of it feels utterly, wrong.

A strange, serendipitous miracle happens to Lee Yiseul one day as she bleeds out under the mid-August sun.

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