Archive of Our Own

“Euijoo, hey. How have you been?”

“Unnie—I’ve been doing well, just the usual. Why are you calling?”

“Wait… you haven’t heard?”

“Heard about… what?”

“Euijoo…”

“What is it?”

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We first met in our first grade of high school, in Tokyo.

Nicholas, she was the kind of person who moved like the wind, she was the type who vanished the moment the bell rang, out the door, down the stairs, already halfway across the courtyard before the rest of us had even stood up. Her life is always moving and she refused to stay still in one place.

I was her opposite in every way. I stayed quietly in my seat, unpacked the lunch my mom prepared, sometimes the container was a little too striking for my liking. I kept to the corners of the classroom, the only time I left was during lunch breaks, when I went up to the rooftop alone.

And that was the only time I could have possibly crossed paths with Nicholas.

“You’re smoking?”

Her voice cut through the still air like a dropped pin in a quiet room. My heart jolted before my hand did and all I could feel at that time was panic. I threw my cigarette to the floor in a second and stomped it out without thinking. The embers blinked out beneath the rubber sole of my shoe. When I looked back at Nicholas, she was just standing there, at the edge of the door, her eyes fixed on the crushed stub at my feet, unreadable.

“What a waste,” she said after a long pause. “Aren’t cigarettes kind of expensive?”

Nicholas knew me, of course, we were in the same class, after all. But she never really looked at me before that moment. Not really.

“You don’t seem like the type,” she said. “But I guess that’s what makes it funny.”

She told me that she never expected me to be the type of girl who smokes. She didn’t say it with judgment. If anything, there was a sort of amused honesty in her voice, like she had caught something mildly unexpected. She teased me about being reckless, about my inability to resist nicotine in the middle of school grounds.

After that, she started appearing more often.

She never said she came up there for me, and I never asked. Nicholas simply showed up—sometimes five minutes after I did, sometimes already leaning against the wall when I arrived, eyes half-closed under the sky. She said the rooftop was her escape, a quiet place to get away from the noise of school and be alone with her thoughts.

It struck me as strange because I had always been there too, and she talked to me constantly. Though, in the end, I never minded. I never really said that out loud either. But she must’ve known, people like Nicholas always seemed to sense things without being told.

“I used to think we were total opposites,” she said one afternoon, her fingers idly tracing circles on the dusty railing. The sky behind her was pale, the color of cold milk. “But now I’m not so sure. Maybe we’re just... different sides of the same thing, you know.”

I glanced at her, unsure of what to say. My cigarette stayed unlit in my hand that day.

She shrugged, not waiting for a reply.

“I don’t mind your presence here,” she added after a moment, her voice quieter now, almost swallowed by the breeze. “Actually... maybe I’d rather have you here.”

There was no blush on her face, no bashfulness. Just a calm statement tossed into the wind, like it didn’t matter if I caught it or not.

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“Woah… your eyes are crazy.”

Yudai let out a quiet lighthearted laugh, her fingers gently brushed the corner of Euijoo’s eyes, where the skin was red and swollen. Euijoo didn’t flinch, only nodded faintly as her eyelids nearly shut from exhaustion. Her whole face was puffed and bloated. Yudai didn’t ask what happened, more like she didn’t need to. The story had already written itself into the way Euijoo was sitting, back hunched just slightly forward with her knees pressed together like she was trying to hold herself in place.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Her voice was gentle, unpushing.

The question was met with silence, Euijoo didn't say anything, her gaze fixed on the ground, on her shoes—black leather loafers, clean and perfectly polished despite the rest of her looking undone. Everyone knew about them. They were a gift from Nicholas, who had insisted on buying them even though Euijoo protested at the time.

Now, those shoes sat still beneath her, unmoving. Euijoo’s gaze stayed locked there as if they could somehow speak for her.

“...Later” Her voice came out barely above a breath, raw, raspy, as if even those few syllables hurt to say. Yudai didn’t say anything back. She just moved closer, wordlessly pulling Euijoo into her arms. Her hand moved slowly to the back of Euijoo’s head, fingers combing gently through the strands of hair that had been tied with care but now fell slightly loose. Her touch was soft, reassuring without needing explanation. There was no rush for words.

Then, the others came. Their footsteps echoed hurriedly down the corridor, the sound sharp against the sterile quiet of the hall. The door creaked open before they even fully reached it, and in a flash, they were there, rushing toward Yudai and Euijoo, who were still sitting just outside the room, backs against the cold wall.

“Have you guys gone inside?” Fuma asked between shallow breaths, her face flushed from running, eyes darting anxiously between them. Yudai nodded slowly, her hand still resting gently on Euijoo’s back. “You guys go,” she said softly. “I’ll stay here with Euijoo.”

Harua crouched down beside them, folding her legs carefully until she was kneeling at Euijoo’s side. Her small hand reached out, brushing over Euijoo’s knee—barely a touch, just enough to comfort the older girl without pressing further. “Are you doing okay, Euijoo-chan?”

Euijoo didn’t speak. Instead, she raised a hand, fingers brushing against Harua’s in return then reaching up to gently squeeze them. The kind of gesture that meant more than a sentence ever could. And then she smiled faintly. It was a tired smile, fragile at the edges but it was there.

“You didn’t say anything at all in the group chat. I thought you couldn’t come,” Maki said as she approached. Her hair was messy, her shirt wrinkled, as if she had pulled herself out of bed without a second glance in the mirror. If Euijoo looked like she’d been crying all night, then Maki looked like she hadn’t stopped, she looked just as messy as Euijoo, if not worse.

Euijoo glanced at her, another small smile tugging at her lips. “Of course I’d come,” she said simply.

“It was hard for me just to get up and get ready this morning, you know?” Maki said, her tone light, almost joking. But it didn’t reach her eyes. Even in her playfulness, there was something heavy hanging in her words. Maki was the youngest of them all, always the one cracking jokes, lightening the mood. But even now, with her voice laced in humor, everyone could hear it, the grief threading through her sentences like a low, steady hum. It clung to her, quiet and aching, even though she never said it out loud.

Euijoo looked at her friends—at the way each of them wore their grief differently. Some in silence, some in laughter, some in touch, some in movement.

She was grieving too. They all were.

And in that moment, Euijoo found herself thinking that maybe you don’t really know who you are until you’ve grieved, until you’ve stood in a hallway outside a quiet room, waiting for something that’s already gone. Until you’ve felt the strange things grief can bring out of you. The way it changes the pitch of your voice. The way it slows your footsteps. The way it makes you show up even when you think you can’t.

Later, when the others had gone quiet and the day blurred into the next, those thoughts lingered—almost imperceptibly—as she moved through the motions of the morning.

She put on her clothes today, and it wasn’t all that hard. It was harder in the morning, when she was utterly exhausted from pulling an all-nighter for work. The fabric felt a little heavier than usual, but it slid over her skin without resistance. She didn’t stumble. She didn’t sit on the edge of the bed for too long, staring into nothing.

She tied her hair carefully.

Not with the usual rushed tug or uneven knot, like muscle memory touched by something gentler. She doesn't know why she even bothered. Maybe because she always said it made Euijoo look put together, even when she wasn’t.

What was unexpectedly hard, though, was tying the shoes. They were the black ones she picked for Euijoo. The laces took longer than they should have. Her fingers paused halfway through the first knot.

She wished Nicholas had picked a pair without laces.

Something simple. Something Euijoo could slip into without bending over, without having to crouch on the floor and stare at the loops and strings and suddenly think about Nicholas.

Euijoo didn’t argue much that day. She let Nicholas choose.

Now, every morning that she lace them up, she linger just a little longer.

When the others were done, they didn’t leave right away. Instead, they began talking about their plan to visit Taipei next week.

Nicholas’ parents had invited them. Something about wanting to meet the people who had loved and cared for their daughter. Something about gratitude. About connection. About trying to feel close to her, even in absence. It wasn’t clear if the invitation was for closure or comfort, maybe it was both.

“Anyways… have you guys seen him?” Maki’s voice broke through the quiet like a pebble tossed into still water. She didn’t say the name, more like she didn’t need to. The rest of the group caught on instantly. Harua said under her breath, “I’d rather not see him.”

Silence settled again, sharper this time. He was a subject they avoided, consciously or not.

Nicholas had been married.

She was the first in the group to settle down. Her marriage had come fast, like most things in her life—impulsive yet cautious, burning with that strange, confident clarity only she could carry. None of them had ever liked her husband. But they had trusted her.

Because it was Nicholas. Nicholas, who had always lived on her own terms. Nicholas, who never compromised herself, never strayed from what she believed was right, not for anyone. Nicholas, who took the wheel of her life with both hands and never once let go. They wanted to believe in that decision because it was hers.

Euijoo’s fingers curled slightly into her palms, pressing against the fabric of her pants. Around her, the others continued speaking in low voices, their words distant, dulled by the weight pressing on all of them.

They had been to Taipei before, the first and last time they visited the place with the homeowner herself, still smiling, still laughing, still leading them through the narrow streets like a local guide who belonged to every corner of the city. It had been for Nicholas’ wedding ceremony, a weekend that now lived in all their memories like a film caught in soft golden light.

They had stayed in a hotel. But on the first day, they visited Nicholas’ home. It was a modest, warmly lit house tucked into a quiet neighborhood, the kind of place that smelled like soy, steamed rice, and sun-dried laundry. Her mother welcomed them at the door with the ease of someone who had been preparing for guests for weeks. The food had already been set out, still steaming in the center of the dining table.

They remembered the way Nicholas’ older sister teased her relentlessly, laughing with a mouth half-full while Nicholas swatted her arm with an embarrassed grin. The house had been full of voices, clinking cutlery, and overlapping conversations, everything pulling together at the dining table like threads of warmth sewn into a single moment. It was loud in the best way—familial, chaotic, alive.

For Euijoo, it was one of the most vivid memories she had of Nicholas.

It was the last time Euijoo saw Nicholas laugh and smile with that kind of ease, like the whole world belonged to her.

The last time she walked through Nicholas’ beloved hometown with Nicholas by her side. The last time she spent the day with Euijoo, not as someone’s wife, but simply as Nicholas.

The last time Euijoo held Nicholas’ hand without worrying about the ring in her finger getting in their way, without feeling the cold reminder of it pressing between them.

The group had joked back then that Nicholas was the last person they expected to get married first. Not because she didn’t care about romance—Nicholas was always the one swooning over someone else’s story, the one who stayed up late watching romance movies and woke up with the soundtrack still playing on her phone.

She wore her heart out in the open, laughing with her whole body, crying easily during dramas, talking about love like it was something soft and sacred. She celebrated it in everyone else's life, even if she never said much about wanting it for herself.

What Nicholas had always spoken of in her quiet late-night moments or those dreamy afternoon talks was freedom.

She used to talk about becoming a successful woman after college, about making her own name, her own money. She wanted to visit new cities, fall in love with strangers on the subway, learn their names and forget them a week later. She wanted to never stay still. She wanted to be in motion, always.

Nobody had expected her to settle into a life of working from home, under the scrutiny of a man. Nobody imagined her navigating life under the close gaze of a husband—especially that husband. But she had chosen it. And they had trusted her choice, because it was Nicholas. She had always known what she was doing… or at least, that’s what they told themselves.

But here they were.

Nicholas was gone.

And Euijoo remained.

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“Last week you said you wanted to be a teacher!”

Nicholas’ voice rang out, half amused, half exasperated, as she swung her badminton racket through the air. It cut through nothing but wind, the shuttlecock nowhere in sight. Euijoo sat on the concrete floor, her back leaning against the chain-link fence that wrapped around the edges of the building.

The sun was starting to fall, dipping low enough that the metal links cast long, crisscrossed shadows over her legs. She brought a piece of melon bread to her mouth, taking a small bite.

“Well, it changed,” Euijoo mumbled, still chewing, her tone flat like the subject didn’t matter enough to defend.

“In a week…” Nicholas said, incredulous. She let the racket drop beside her with a soft clatter before plopping down on the floor across from Euijoo, legs stretched out in front of her. “You changed your whole life plan in seven days?”

Euijoo raised one eyebrow slightly but didn’t meet her gaze. “As if you haven’t done that,” she replied, voice low and steady. “Don’t you change your dream every other day before pretending to have your life figured out?”

Nicholas huffed, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes as the wind tugged it back again. “Sure, but switching from a teacher to a mechanical engineer halfway through high school is wild.” She leaned forward, eyes wide with mock disbelief. “That’s dramatic, even for you.”

Euijoo didn’t react. She just tore off a small piece of her bread and held it out. Nicholas took it without hesitation, popping it into her mouth and chewing contentedly. “What other thing did you dream of before this one?” Nicholas asked, voice a little softer now as she settled into the quiet.

Euijoo’s face stayed unreadable. “A mom,” she said simply.

Nicholas blinked with her eyebrow furrowed. “Hey, I expected something funny.”

“It’s true,” Euijoo said, this time looking up, not at Nicholas, but past her, at the buildings beyond the fence, the windows glowing gold under the fading light. “I used to want to be a mom.”

Nicholas tilted her head, studying her friend’s face. “Do you… still want to?”

Euijoo didn't answer right away. The wind brushed past again, ruffling the hem of her skirt, sending a small napkin fluttering across the rooftop before it got caught in a corner. Somewhere far below, the faint hum of traffic continued—so distant it might as well have belonged to another world. “I dunno,” she said eventually, voice softer, nearly drowned out by the breeze. Her fingers picked idly at the edge of the bread in her lap.

She paused, then added with a quiet shrug, almost to herself, as if the words had only just revealed themselves in her mind: “I guess I want to be a mom… but I don’t want to be a wife.”

Nicholas let out a small laugh, “Marriage is scary huh?”

Euijoo didn’t respond right away. The laugh drifted off into the cold wind. Her gaze wandered to the edge of the rooftop again, watching as a bird dipped low between buildings before vanishing from sight. The thought lingered in her head, heavier than her friend’s tone. It wasn’t really about marriage. Not exactly.

“I just… don’t like the thought of living with a man,” she said quietly, her voice more solid this time, but still thoughtful. She didn’t say it with judgment or bitterness. Just honesty.

Nicholas blinked, surprised, not by the sentiment, but maybe by how sure it sounded. She tilted her head, brushing Euijoo’s bangs back as she considered her words. “Well… maybe you’ll meet someone you love. Then maybe you’ll understand?” she offered, not entirely convinced by her own suggestion. There was no bite to her words, just curiosity, like someone poking gently at the corners of a sealed envelope.

“Don’t you ever crush on your classmate?” Nicholas continued with a playful smile. “Or, I dunno, fall for a random man at the convenience store?”

“Of course.” Euijoo snapped back a little too quickly, as if trying to defend her own normalcy. Nicholas’ grin widened. She leaned closer, resting her elbows on her knees. “Like what?”

Euijoo hesitated. Her cheeks puffed slightly in embarrassment, then she turned her head away in mock annoyance. “Like… a handsome man…” And Nicholas raised her brows, clearly amused. “Finding someone handsome is different from actually being attracted to them, you know.”

“I know!” Euijoo groaned, her shoulders hunching as if trying to shield herself from the conversation and from Nicholas’ knowing stare. By then, Nicholas had already lost interest in the technicality of their conversation. Her gaze lingered on Euijoo’s face, her teasing grin softening into something warmer. There was fondness there—unfiltered, unhidden. She didn’t try to hide the way her eyes curved or the way her chest felt full looking at Euijoo like that.

“I bet,” Nicholas said with a teasing tilt to her voice, “there’s a man out there who’ll love teasing the living hell out of you.”

“Like the way you’re teasing me right now?”

Euijoo shot back with narrowed eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile despite herself. She gave Nicholas a weak punch in the arm, Nicholas caught it in her open palm, laughing freely now—clear, bright, and completely unfazed by the attempt. Her laughter echoed a little in the rooftop’s open air, brushing against the cold wind like a warm note in a winter song.

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It was like a sign stamped across their faces every time they went somewhere together, a sign that read: FREQUENTLY BOUGHT TOGETHER. DO NOT SEPARATE. Not having Nicholas anymore meant there would be no more curious glances asking, “Where’s Nicholas?” whenever Euijoo arrived alone, but Euijoo had endured that for approximately ten years. Perhaps that, she thought, was the part she would miss the most: the world’s subtle acknowledgment that they belonged in the same frame.

That’s what happens when you make friends with someone in high school and you stumble into a frequency that matches yours better than you expected, when your small jokes find an echo in someone else’s chest. Then you choose a university only a stone’s throw away from theirs, close enough to see each other between classes, close enough to blur the lines of habit and companionship. Before you know it, your friends become their friends, and suddenly you’re not just two people, you’re a nucleus around which an entire group orbits, one of those pairs that are mentioned together in invitations and whispered about in the same breath.

Euijoo used to live a life where Nicholas was always there by her side, tagging along for nearly every little thing she did. All of them—mundane, trivial, joyful, dull. Nicholas was there for nearly every single one. Running errands, grocery shopping, walking to the laundromat, even waiting for buses on gray afternoons. It’s strange now, unbearably so, to stand at the curb with a plastic bag in hand and not hear Nicholas’ voice on the phone, announcing, “I’m at the station,” as though that line alone tethered them to the same map.

Of course, it had been fun and nice. Comfortable in the way only years of shared time could be, but as with all things that stretch a little too long and too close, there came the moment when it loosened, and Euijoo had to face the empty spaces left behind. That’s the problem with a person like Nicholas, someone who has filled every corner of your calendar and carved their presence into the quiet routines you never thought twice about.

It was odd, now, to stare at a half-empty pack of cigarettes and hear no one nagging at her for chain-smoking again. Odd to stand at a cashier’s counter, rummaging for change, with no soft voice reminding her to use the coupon from yesterday. The oddness wasn’t just absence, it was the echo of habits that had nowhere left to land.

And perhaps most of all, it was the quiet humiliation of catching herself in these moments—fingers hesitating over a coupon, eyes flicking to an empty spot beside her—and realizing she was reminiscing, not in the safety of memory, but in front of a cash register that didn’t even care, in a line that moved on, while her mind still lingered somewhere where someone existed.

It was past eight in the evening when Euijoo finally began packing up her things, the crumpled receipts, cigarette pack, and empty ramen bowl scattered across the small convenience store table like remnants of a longer night. She had been there nearly four hours, not unusual for her, though this time there had been no work to keep her hands busy.

Just the slow burn of a cigarette between her fingers, a half-finished bottle of soft drink sweating on the table, and the occasional stir of the flimsy chopsticks before abandoning the bowl entirely.

Whenever stress found its way into her chest, she couldn’t stand being locked up in her own room. The quiet became too loud, pressed in like damp walls. She’d learned early that she did better with company—not the kind that demanded conversation or comfort, but the quiet, shared presence of another human being breathing in the same space. Just sitting. Just existing.

She wouldn’t talk about whatever was bothering her. She wouldn’t announce her grief or her exhaustion. Whoever was with her could easily believe she was doing fine, because that was how she preferred it.

But tonight, the only company she could have sought out was already gone—the girls who had long since left to return to the rhythm of their own lives. And so she settled for this instead: the small, humming island of the convenience store. She watched strangers pass by under the weak spill of streetlights, their shadows stretching and folding across the pavement. A thin wire of her earphones trailed into her jacket pocket, the music muffled enough that the world still bled in at the edges.

By the time she reached the subway, the peak-hour crowd had already drained away. The station was quieter now, its tiled corridors echoing only with the occasional shuffle of a commuter’s steps. She leaned against a cold metal pillar, waiting for the train that would take her home. There are things to do, practical things, urgent things.

She needed to book plane tickets for Taipei before the night ended. When she had offered to handle it, the others had given her looks she could read without a single word spoken. You look like a wreck. You barely sleep, you wander around like some lost caveman and now you’re volunteering to pile more work on yourself? Is this the way you cope? They didn’t say it aloud, but Euijoo can read between the lines.

Still, none of them objected. Maybe because they remembered, just as she did, that the last time they went to Taipei, she had been the one to arrange everything. Flights, hotels, schedules. She’d never taken that role before, but back then, it was because Nicholas had said so. If we both travel together, you would be the one who takes care of it all.

And they had trusted her. Nicholas had trusted her.

That thought lodged itself deep in her chest as the train approached, the wind from the tunnel brushing her face. She stepped inside, the doors sliding shut, the dim reflection in the window looking more tired than she wanted to admit.

She had never said it out loud before, but the subway always reminded her of Nicholas. It made sense, how could it not? She had grown up alongside Nicholas, their after-school boredom often sending them into the city for no real reason except to stretch the day a little longer. Sometimes it was the curry house far beyond their neighborhood, a place neither of them needed to go but both insisted on visiting. Other times, when they’re older, it was simply because their class schedules overlapped and it felt wrong to go home without the other.

When Nicholas got married, she and her husband moved back to Tokyo, where both their jobs kept them anchored. Her husband had bought her a car, practical, sleek, and convenient. Nicholas liked practicality. It meant she could load groceries into the backseat without having to lug them through crowded platforms and long station corridors. She had agreed without protest.

But somewhere in the stretch of those early married years, Euijoo began to notice a particular scent—subway steel, faint detergent, and that almost-electric tang of the train’s brakes—that began to feel like Nicholas herself. She noticed it the first time Nicholas chose to take the subway home instead of slipping into the comfort of her driver’s seat. She had never told Euijoo why she took the train, but Euijoo caught on anyway. Nicholas knew she would. Nicholas always knew that Euijoo would read her faster than anyone else.

If Nicholas had driven, she would have been home faster.
But she didn’t want that.
She didn’t want to get home quickly.
She didn’t want to be at home longer than necessary.

That was what Euijoo thought, and she had been right, at least halfway. What she hadn’t realized back then was that Nicholas’ choice wasn’t just about avoiding her home. It was about lingering in Euijoo’s company just a little longer, about turning the subway into an excuse to stay side by side in the slow rhythm of the ride.

Now, the smell of the train pressed in on her. It should have been nothing but metal and air, but it felt heavier than that, thick with the weight of memory. Or maybe it was just the cigarettes along with the two cans of soft drink and instant ramen churning in her stomach.

It’s not like you to lose your grip like this, isn’t it?

The words slipped into her head without invitation. If Nicholas were here beside her, she would have said that.

She pulled out her leftover heat pack from her coat pocket and pressed it against her lower stomach, the warmth slowly seeping through. With her other hand, she unlocked her phone and scrolled through her messages. She searched Nicholas’ name, not to send a text, but to find the home address Yudai had sent her. Her thumb hovered over it, then stilled. Another name with a contact attached to it popped up instead.

An idea came, sudden and unsteady, like a gust that knocks something loose. Her mind filled with a flurry of possibilities—none of them entirely rational. Euijoo wasn’t someone who made impulsive choices. She didn’t act on whims. She weighed her steps before taking them.

But then again, it wasn’t like Euijoo to be without Nicholas by her side either, so she might as well abandon everything and do it.

Her finger tapped the call button before she could talk herself out of it. The ringing filled her ear, each tone stretching longer than it should. “Unnie?” she said when the line connected. Her voice sounded steady, though her chest was not. “I want to talk about the Taipei trip.”

A pause.

“I think… I’m going to go there a few days earlier than you guys.”

When Euijoo got home, she didn’t even bother changing her clothes. She sat down at the dining table, phone in hand, and typed Taipei flights into the search bar. It was mechanical at first—scrolling, tapping, filtering—but the moment she saw the last available seat for a late-night departure the next day, her chest tightened.

When she called Yudai, the older woman paused for so long Euijoo thought the call had dropped. Then came the stuttering, the disjointed words, Yudai was trying to process what she’d just heard. While Euijoo offered no explanations, she had none. She couldn’t name the reason she wanted to leave ahead of everyone else; the thought had simply rooted itself in her, and she couldn’t shake it off. And that was enough, Yudai agreed that it was all that mattered.

“I’ll take care of our flight booking,” Yudai said, still sounding a little dazed. “Just… take this as a little healing trip. Away from work. Tell your office you’re taking a break, you never use your break days, right? Don’t think about it too much. Don’t… put too much pressure on yourself. Where will you be staying?”

Three days in Taipei alone. That’s what she’d have before the others arrived. Logically, she’d need to book a hotel—tomorrow—but she knew that was nearly impossible this late. Except, she hadn’t thought about a hotel at all when she was on the subway earlier. That wasn’t the picture in her head. She’d been scrolling through her old messages with Nicholas, her finger pausing over the contact that had saved under Nicholas Mama, still there, untouched for months.

Daylight had drained away in a blink of an eye, and she was out on the streets of Tokyo, headed in the direction of Haneda, the evening air damp against her skin. The city hummed faintly in the distance, but here the roads were quieter, broken by the occasional rattle of suitcase wheels on uneven pavement. She ducked in and out of shops—souvenir stalls, stationery stores, even a tiny confectionery—searching for something to bring to Nicholas’ parents. She couldn’t arrive empty-handed, not after telling Nicholas’ mom she would be staying with them.

She had called her earlier that morning. Euijoo could hear the hoarseness in the woman’s voice, the way it was wrapped carefully in warmth as if she’d straightened her tone before speaking. Euijoo had told her the things she didn’t tell Yudai, that she wanted to take a few days for herself, to wander the streets alone, to process things in the city Nicholas had loved more than any other.

There was a tongue-tied layer beneath her words. She was speaking to the woman who had raised Nicholas, who had shaped her into the kind of person who could laugh freely and love without fear, who could carry a kindness that softened even the sharpest moments. Euijoo knew Nicholas’ mother would almost certainly say yes—ninety percent certain, if she had to put a number to it.

And yet, after the call ended, what stayed with her was not the permission, but the thought of how deeply the grief must have burrowed into that woman’s life. She imagined how Nicholas’ mom might picture her now: Euijoo, alone, heavy-eyed, carrying the same hollow ache. Maybe she thought of her request not as something strange, but as a last attempt to be close to what remained of Nicholas. Maybe she imagined Euijoo tracing familiar streets, pausing in front of their old haunts, as if these places might give her back a fraction of what she’d lost.

Or perhaps—the picture of Euijoo that had stayed in her mind all these years was not the woman standing here now, but the fifteen-year-old girl dripping wet from the rain. Euijoo at the front door, her long hair plastered to her cheeks, school skirt clinging uncomfortably to her legs, breathless from the sprint she and Nicholas had made together through the downpour. Raindrops slid from her lashes as she tried to brush them away, laughing softly in that sheepish, guilty way teenagers do when caught in a storm without an umbrella.

Back in the days the woman was still living in Tokyo, that was the Euijoo she had first known, not the woman who now stood taller than her, composed in formal dresses and tailored blouses, her hair neatly arranged instead of windblown, her shoes clicking neatly on polished floors instead of splashing in puddles. Back then, she was simply Nicholas’ classmate, a girl whose name she’d heard whispered and giggled over at the dinner table long before they ever met in person. A name that, even then, seemed to light up her youngest daughter’s entire face.

She wondered if the image had frozen there, in that year, at that exact moment in time—Euijoo and Nicholas side by side in their school uniforms, socks soggy, shoes squelching with each step, laughter bubbling over between them despite the chill of the rain. Maybe that was the Euijoo who had stayed in her memory: not the accomplished woman who moved with quiet assurance now, but the high school girl who once stood in the doorway, shivering, smiling, carrying half of her daughter’s joy in her hands as if it were her own.

If there was anything in the world that could have healed Euijoo more than Nicholas’ presence, it might have been that woman’s embrace, the kind of embrace that came from the one person who had loved Nicholas longer and harder than anyone else.

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“I’m getting married.”

It was an announcement that never even existed in the realm of Euijoo’s imagination, a possibility so far from her line of thought that, for a few seconds, she simply stared as if Nicholas had spoken in a foreign language.

Back in their college days, Euijoo had been there for every flicker of interest Nicholas ever had in men. She had seen the way Nicholas’ eyes lit up, briefly, at the prospect of someone new—those early sparks that often fizzled before they became anything at all. Names of strangers floated into Euijoo’s ears and, despite her best efforts to remain indifferent, she always found them lingering. Even if she didn’t know the men, even if they never mattered, she held onto them because they mattered to Nicholas, if only for a while.

Nicholas’ first attempt at dating was in high school, an underclassman with broad shoulders and a smile too confident for his own good. It ended after three months. Nicholas with her impatient honesty couldn’t stand his childishness. The second was during their second semester of college, a longer relationship, one that survived until midway through their fourth semester. Euijoo had seen Nicholas try—really try—to make it work.

But that man, too, revealed himself to be no different. Euijoo would never forget the night Nicholas showed up at her apartment door at eleven p.m., mascara smudged and eyes blazing, cursing him until her voice was hoarse. Euijoo had sat with her, brewed her tea, and listened as she declared she was done, swearing she’d never let herself be humiliated like that again.

Then came the last one. A man Nicholas met at an after-party, someone connected to a brand she’d been working with. He was Taiwanese, a detail Nicholas mentioned with a spark in her voice, and maybe that alone was enough to catch her attention. Euijoo, who could be scatterbrained about most things, never failed to try to remember every fragment of Nicholas’ life, every piece of her story.

Yet, for some reason, the details of this particular relationship blurred for her. She couldn’t bear to recall them clearly, and yet they lodged themselves at the back of her mind anyway, haunting her with half-remembered conversations and small complaints Nicholas had let slip.

“I really cannot tell whether you’re joking or being serious right now.”

“Euijoo, I’m serious.” Nicholas’ voice was steady, certain in a way that made the air between them tighten. “You’re the first person I’ve told about this.”

Euijoo’s hand instinctively rose to her temple, massaging it as if she could physically press the words into her brain until they made sense. The sentence repeated itself, louder each time: You’re the first person I’ve told. Why had Nicholas said that to her, of all things? Was it meant to comfort her? Or did it mean something more—something Nicholas didn’t even realize she was saying?

Nicholas continued, with calmness in her voice. “We had a careful discussion, and it wasn't an easy decision. You know what I am.”

Euijoo’s chest tightened. “But what about… what about you saying that sometimes he makes you feel alone in the relationship? About—about how he doesn’t like you being away from him, and you feeling restricted—”

“Euijoo.”

Her name, spoken softly but firmly, cut through her protest like a blade. It was all Nicholas needed to say to halt her unraveling. Euijoo froze, her words dissolving before they could leave her mouth.

She stared back at Nicholas, her heart pounding so loudly she thought it might echo in the silence. She wondered how her reaction must have looked—whether her desperate attempt to argue had come across as nothing more than the protective instincts of a lifelong friend, shielding Nicholas from men who had failed her before. Or had she revealed too much? Had her feelings, buried so carefully for so long, slipped through the cracks in her voice and given her away.

Euijoo braced herself, her hands fiddling restlessly under the table, the way she always did when she needed to keep herself grounded. “You’re getting married first. Before me.”

Nicholas only smiled, a soft curve of her lips that felt far too gentle for news so heavy. She moved to sit beside Euijoo. The white floral scent clung to her like a veil—one Euijoo knew too well, too familiar, too close. It made her chest ache in ways she refused to name. Reflexively, she adjusted her position, leaning back a little, putting a thin strip of space between them. Space she thought would protect her from feeling too much, though it never truly did.

“I think if we tell our fifteen-year-old selves about this, they would be so surprised,” Nicholas said, her voice carrying that old mischief, that way of turning heavy truths into something almost playful.

Euijoo laughed, a little too quickly. “They would never believe it.”

Nicholas tilted her head, eyes narrowing with fondness. “I think my fifteen-year-old self would be so confused. She would ask me to rethink my decision a thousand times.”

Then, she turned that gaze directly on Euijoo, eyes glowing with the kind of familiarity that made escape impossible. “But I would tell her I already got you nagging at me ten million times.”

Euijoo smiled faintly, though the words pricked at her. “You would nag at me too if I suddenly told you I’m getting married.”

Nicholas’ hands lifted from her lap, rising into the small space between them, and Euijoo froze. Delicate fingers brushed through her hair with an ease that made it feel natural, something Nicholas had done a thousand times before without ever realizing how dangerous it was for Euijoo. She let her. She always let her.

“Are you?” Nicholas’ voice dropped, quiet but sharp, her hand pausing mid-motion as she tucked back the strands that had fallen across Euijoo’s face. “Do you have any plan to?”

Euijoo could only stare. Stare at her, at the little crease near her brows, at the way she was so focused on arranging her hair as though the world depended on it. She swallowed, the weight pressing on her throat, and whispered, “Maybe.”

The word barely left her lips before she bit them, her eyes darting away when Nicholas’ gaze lifted to meet hers. Their eyes locked for a second too long, the kind of second that always threatened to undo her, and she broke it with a sharp breath, as though that was enough to steady herself.

Time moved in a blink of an eye. One moment, you were fifteen, trying to find your place in the world while standing in the rain with your best friend, trying to understand why her smile felt different from everyone else’s. Trying to name the warmth blooming in your chest and failing every time. The next, you were older, you still found yourself trying to find your place in the world, and still sitting here with the same girl, except she was a woman now, sitting too close, wearing a scent that belonged to someone’s fiancée. You realized you were still trying. Still stumbling toward an answer you’d been chasing for years.

You grow older but not wiser. Or maybe you are wiser, but wisdom has teeth, and it terrifies you more than ignorance ever did. The clueless teenager inside you had no language for what she felt, but the woman you are now knows exactly what it is—knows it and fears it all the more.

Euijoo felt the fear gnawing at her. Fear of seeing Nicholas standing at the altar, radiant in a white dress, veil trailing behind her, hands clasped with someone Euijoo couldn’t even picture because her eyes would never move from the bride. Fear of standing there among the guests, smiling, clapping, all the while her insides twisted because the truth was too raw to expose.

Fear, too, of herself. Of the fact that what she buried so deep had roots that never loosened, no matter how many men she pretended to notice, no matter how carefully she convinced herself that her life would fall into line someday, just like everyone else’s. It was a fear of desire itself—the desire she could never admit to anyone, least of all to Nicholas, the subject of it all.

And so she sat there, still and silent, with Nicholas’ hand slipping back to her lap, the floral scent mixed with something woody clinging stubbornly to the air, her heart hammering against her ribs like it wanted out.

.

.

.

Jioufen lay further out from the pulse of the city, perched between the sea and the mountains. Further from Taipei. Further from Nicholas’ presence, and yet, somehow, never far enough. The town was a maze of narrow lanes and stairways that seemed to descend straight into the fog, teahouses with warm light spilling from their latticed windows, and the faint scent of salt carried in from the ocean below.

Nicholas had insisted they visit this place years ago, when Taipei still held the shape of their shared laughter. Euijoo remembered little in detail—the way the streets curved, the names of the shops—but there were fragments that clung to her like film negatives: the countless staircases branching away from the main street, the teasing complaint from Taki about how her legs would fall off before the day ended, the sudden slip of her foot that had everyone gasping before laughter broke loose, Nicholas’ laughter ringing loudest of all. It had wrapped around her like a scarf then, light and unassuming, but warm enough to stay.

Now, the view was still beautiful, so much so that the tourists around her couldn’t stop taking photos, cameras and phones held up toward the distant sea framed by terraces of tiled roofs. Euijoo lifted her phone once, the black screen catching her reflection before the camera could, but the moment dissolved. She lowered it again, fingers cold around the device because the picture she wanted to capture wasn’t there. It was behind her eyes, stitched from memory.

This was the place that had shaped Nicholas. The place that had held her before Tokyo, before the long winters and crowded streets, before the ache that stretched between them. Nicholas had left in the eighth grade, but her childhood still lived here, scattered in these alleys, in the way the shopkeepers leaned out to call, in the silver drizzle that softened the horizon.

Euijoo walked on, the stone stairs damp beneath her loafers, past teahouses with steam curling from the doorways. Every turn felt like passing through a memory she almost remembered but never fully touched. Nicholas never left her mind; even the air seemed to carry her name.

When she stepped into Taipei when the plane landed, Euijoo already thought how this might be a bad or a good idea, visiting a place that was once filled with memories with your beloved group of friends to celebrate a happy moment, now going back alone with grief clinging on her back.

When she first stepped off the plane in Taipei, Euijoo already wondered whether this was a mistake or a necessity, she had already braced herself for the weight of it. Returning to a place once brimming with memories of laughter and celebration along the lanes, celebrating something so simple. Now walking back into it alone, with grief draped heavy across her shoulders. She had wondered whether it would be a mistake to walk these streets with a heart so hollowed out.

And yet, the human mind is a strange, unruly thing. When the bus finally stopped at Jioufen and she stepped out into the cool air, something in her loosened. The wind was damp and smelled faintly of the sea; the sky, a slate-grey canvas stretched above the town. She pulled her cardigan tighter under her coat and let her feet find the rhythm of the old stone steps.

There was a fondness in her chest where she had expected an ache. It was soft, unsettlingly so, as if the town itself was whispering that memory did not have to mean pain, that presence could linger without tearing her apart. All Euijoo could picture was the woman who had once belonged here—the tilt of her head, the sound of her voice, the familiar warmth of her presence—and yet her eyes stayed dry. Not because she had forgotten, but because some places carry you differently; they do not demand her tears, only her steps.

When Euijoo returned to Linkou, it was past six in the evening and the air held that faint chill of a city about to turn in for the night. Her phone screen glowed in her palm, a map pinned with an address she had memorized far too many times on her way here, yet still needed for reassurance.

She walked briskly, every step closer made her chest tighten. The familiar streets passing like ghosts of old memories, and with each one, her mind rehearsed the moment that awaited her: how should she greet Nicholas’ parents? With a bow? With a hug? Should she offer condolences first, or keep it light as if not to prod at wounds too fresh? What words were proper for something this improper, visiting without a real reason except that her heart had nowhere else to go.

By the time she reached the door, her fingers were cold, her palms clammy despite the warmth of her sleeves. Her heart was thundering in that impatient, uneven rhythm she hated most, the kind that betrayed her calm façade. She raised her hand and pressed the doorbell. It didn’t take long. The door opened, and there she was—Nicholas’ mother, her face lighting up with a tired but genuine warmth.

Euijoo forced a smile, the kind she hoped looked less fragile than it felt, and instinctively stepped forward to embrace her. There was a brief pause, the familiar soft fabric of her coat brushing against Euijoo’s cheek, and then the woman patted her back gently, as if trying to comfort the both of them at once.

The conversation began with easy, almost automatic questions—how was the flight, did you eat well, was the weather in Tokyo as chilly as here? Euijoo answered honestly, fumbling a little, admitting the first thing she did after landing after a quick meal at the airport was to take the bus straight to Jioufen. Nicholas’ mother blinked in surprise, but smiled softly at that, as though recognizing something in Euijoo’s restlessness.

Not once did Nicholas’ name cross the woman’s lips. Not in the form of a question, nor a cautious remark. Instead, her concern was solely directed at Euijoo, whether she had eaten, whether she had been sleeping enough, whether she was coping. Even with puffy eyes that betrayed her own sleepless nights, the woman gave her care as if she had no burden of her own.

Euijoo’s eyes wandered, almost on their own, drawn to the living room that stood suspended in time. The same potted flowers sat quietly by the window, their leaves catching the dimming light. The same shelves lined with little ornaments and scattered family belongings near the couch. And there—by the dining table—the same framed photographs: Nicholas as a child, Nicholas in her school uniform, Nicholas’ smile that had once felt like the center of this home.

“I immediately cleaned everything up when you called me yesterday,” Nicholas’ mother said, her voice half-proud, half-teasing.

Euijoo turned back to her, guilt pinching her chest. “I’m sorry… I ended up troubling you.” But the woman only laughed, shaking her head as she placed a cup of warm tea before her. “Troubling me… but thanks to you, this old lady finally got out of bed and tidied the house a little. It’s nice, you know.” Euijoo lowered her gaze to the rising steam and nodded, fingers curled around the cup. The tea was hot and comforting, but it didn’t quite reach the cold ache beneath her sternum.

“Do you want to put your bags away? It must be tiring, carrying them all while walking through the city all day,” the woman asked after a moment. Euijoo stood, shaking her head with a faint smile as she followed her down the hall. “It’s nothing, really… I didn’t bring much here, actually—”

Her words faltered as the woman stopped in front of a familiar door. Slowly, she turned the knob, the hinges creaking in quiet protest, and the room opened before her. “I’m sorry,” Nicholas’ mother said gently, “this is the only room you can sleep in.”

Euijoo’s breath hitched, her throat tightening. She didn’t need to step in to recognize it. Every inch of it, though rearranged, though neater now.

“I know,” the woman added, her voice soft as though speaking to both Euijoo and someone unseen, “she wouldn’t mind you staying in here too.”

Euijoo stepped inside the room, her fingers lingering on the doorknob a moment too long before letting it close softly behind her. The faint scent of old wood and fabric, a mix of dust and something faintly floral, greeted her like a whisper from a time she could not fully return to. She slipped the straps of her backpack from her shoulders, letting it fall with a muted thud onto the floor, it had clung to her back for hours.

Her gaze wandered across the room. The walls were the same pale shade she remembered glimpsing once from the hallway, but the life that had once filled them was gone. Nicholas’ belongings were still here, yet they no longer breathed. They had been arranged into a kind of stillness. Books aligned too neatly, photographs in frames set upright, little trinkets displayed rather than left where they were last touched. It no longer felt like a room where someone lived; it had become a quiet exhibit, a museum of memories, curated but empty.

Euijoo reached out, her fingers brushing over the bedsheet. It felt cold under her skin, as though no one had sat there for a long while. Her mind flickered back to their last visit—she had only been here once, briefly, for a dinner and a small family gathering when they were all in Taipei together. None of them had gone into Nicholas’ room then; it hadn’t crossed their minds, or perhaps they had known better. Nicholas might have protested, flustered, secretly embarrassed at the thought of her friends intruding on her private space, and yet… Euijoo wondered now if Nicholas would have liked that intimacy, the quiet acknowledgment of her friends standing in where her truest self once lived.

Before she could let the question sit long enough, her gaze caught on something across the room. A table, modest and quiet against the far wall, bore a frame—large, plain, but impossible to miss. Inside it, a dried bouquet, brittle and sun-faded, its petals pressed and preserved.

Her breath faltered. She knew that flower.

Nicholas’ mother followed her line of sight, her expression softening into something almost wistful. “That’s your flower, isn’t it? The one you gave her before the ceremony.”

“She had it in a vase at first, but it dried so quickly. She asked me to help her frame it instead.”

Euijoo stepped closer, her steps barely making a sound on the wooden floor. The bouquet looked smaller now than when she had handed it over, its reds had dulled into ochre, its greens turned the color of old parchment. Yet somehow, it felt heavier now, as if time had pressed not only the petals but the memories into it, making them immovable.

“To think she left it here instead of bringing it to Tokyo,” her mother murmured, almost to herself.

“You two are such good friends,” the woman added gently.

The statement was tender, almost harmless in sound, yet it landed with the precision of a blade wrapped in kindness. Good friends. The phrase folded upon itself in Euijoo’s chest, heavy with all the things it didn’t say. Her throat tightened, a tremor rising like an echo from somewhere long closed off. She felt the familiar sting at the corner of her eyes, the kind that doesn’t come from sudden pain, but from an ache nurtured over years.

“Are you okay? Euijoo-chan?”

The question reached her like a hand through the fog. “Yes,” she managed after a moment, her voice low, trembling but steady enough. She turned away slightly, her hand curling on the bedsheet as if to anchor herself. Nicholas’ mother stepped closer, placing a hand gently on her shoulder, a soft maternal touch that said everything words could not.

“Thank you,” Euijoo whispered, her voice barely audible, “for letting me use this room.”

.

.

.

Euijoo was sitting at the vanity table when a soft knock landed against the door. Before she could answer, the door creaked open, and there she was, a woman draped in a radiant white dress, the fabric catching the muted light like ripples on still water, a thin veil softening the neat knot of her hair.

When Euijoo lifted her gaze from the mirror, her mind briefly fractured—every noise from the corridor, the distant shuffling of shoes, the murmur of bridesmaids outside—all dulled into a quiet pulse, like the world had held its breath just to let this image settle in her. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice coming out steadier than she felt. “You’re supposed to stay in your dressing room.”

“Is there anything wrong with a bride wanting to see her beloved bridesmaid?” Nicholas’ voice carried that familiar lilt, teasing.

Euijoo stood. Her knees felt momentarily unsure beneath her, as though standing in the presence of something too rare to be touched. She moved closer, the distance between them collapsing into a thin thread of air. Nicholas looked… unreal. Radiant in a way that did not simply belong to the fabric or the lighting but radiated from the certainty of her presence.

Her eyes traced the delicate beadwork along Nicholas’ sleeves, the soft fall of the dress that draped like a curtain over the life she was about to step into. Euijoo caught herself staring—too long, too openly. Something in her ached to reach forward, to lift the veil and see her more clearly, to pretend that moment belonged to her alone. She swallowed it down.

“You’re very beautiful.”

Euijoo let out a small, half-hearted laugh. “Shouldn’t I be the one to say that to you?”

Nicholas chuckled softly, a sound that landed far too close to Euijoo’s chest, then reached for her hand. It was then Euijoo felt the tremor beneath Nicholas’ fingers, small, restrained, yet unmistakable. She looked up, searching Nicholas’ face, and found it unreadable. How strange, she thought, that after all these years—after all their shared trains, midnight talks, rain-soaked runs, and long silences—this woman, who claimed to read her better than anyone, but Euijoo sat like a locked page.

“Nicholas—” her voice dropped, the syllables almost a plea. “If you have anything you want to say, say it to me.”

Nicholas let go of her palm and sank into one of the chairs, the dress fanning gently around her ankles like a tired tide. Euijoo followed, crouching before her, the proximity intimate in a way neither the mirrors nor the walls dared to acknowledge.

“It’s scarier than I thought,” Nicholas murmured, her tone carrying it like a joke but none of its weightlessness. “When you get married in the future I promise I’ll be there to hold your hand. This is so scary, Euijoo-ya.”

Her words landed somewhere between jest and confession. Euijoo tilted her head, steadying her breath, watching her—really watching her. “I don’t think I want to have a child,” Nicholas added, almost as if to herself, “but I want to see my child playing with yours.”

Euijoo’s throat tightened. The air felt heavier, saturated with the weight of all that had been exchanged over the years and all that had been withheld. She couldn’t move, couldn’t look away. Nicholas’ words carried the shape of a future that was never hers to claim, and yet here it was, laid bare between them like an unspoken vow.

“You want me to say that during my speech?” Euijoo finally replied, her hand finding its place upon Nicholas’ lap. Nicholas’ hand moved instinctively to brush her arm, a touch that felt both casual and impossibly tender. “If you want to.” Euijoo laughed faintly, though her heart was a knot.

“Fuck, actually I’m scared and worried about your speech.”

Euijoo gave a pained little smile, squeezing her arm gently. “You trust me, right?”

Nicholas squeezed Euijoo’s arm, “Text it to me,” she added after a beat, her tone trying to be light but cracking somewhere at the edges. “You want to read it now? A few hours before the wedding?”

“No,” Nicholas shook her head with a soft exhale, “I just want to have it saved with me and maybe… process it properly.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, you know what? Is it allowed for a bride to write back to her bridesmaid’s speech? I’ll write you a letter back.”

Euijoo shook her head, half in disbelief, half to keep herself from unraveling. “Now that scares and worries me.”

“What? Are you scared of a heartfelt, tear-jerking letter from your lifelong friend?” Nicholas teased, and Euijoo lightly punched her arm, their laughter sounding more like a shield than relief. “You’ll probably forget it later,” Euijoo said.

“No, I want to see you cry.” Nicholas murmured. Her gaze lingered a fraction longer than it should have. “Wait, will you cry when I walk down the aisle?”

Euijoo’s fingers toyed with the hem of Nicholas’ dress draping her legs, the fine fabric cool against her skin. She couldn’t think anymore—every thought dissolved into a low hum of want and restraint, the kind that sat beneath the ribs and stayed there. “Let’s see later,” she whispered.

From the hall came the sound of their other friends, voices approaching in bright ripples of excitement. The door swung wider, letting in the noise, and Euijoo felt herself recede. The room filled with laughter, chatter, the rustle of fabric and perfume. She stayed there, crouched at Nicholas’ feet, still holding her thoughts like something fragile and undesired.

.

.

.

When does grief go away?

Is grief a feeling, or is it something that settles quietly beside you, like an uninvited guest who learns the shape of your home and refuses to leave. People say it fades with time, but no one ever tells you how much time or what kind of time it needs. Does it go away on its own, or do you push it out the door? Can you even?

Sometimes it steps back for a while, it lets you breathe, lets you laugh, lets you think you’re done with it only to return again. Not always in the same shape, not always in the same place, but it finds its way back. It always knows the way.

Euijoo doesn’t really know much when it comes to grief, not the kind that cracks your life open, at least. But if she had to name it and to pick a moment that resembled it, she thinks it would be the time her plant died because she watered it too much. She remembered how she checked on it every morning, thinking the act of giving more was the same as taking care. She wished the plant could have told her where it hurt, if it could have whispered, that would have been nice.

In the end, she got a new one. A different plant with a different set of leaves that didn’t remind her as much. And of course, it didn’t feel the same. That was her first plant, after all, the one she learned to care for, and the one she lost. But what can you do? Humans make mistakes too even with the things they love most.

But when grief comes in the form of someone closing the door of your home without a single word of farewell, it settles differently. It makes Euijoo think that maybe the final stage of grief isn’t a neat, distant point you eventually arrive at, but rather wherever you happen to be standing when you’re about to draw your last breath. No, not stages, she thinks. That would imply an end, a finish line. It feels more like a circle—a cycle you walk through again and again, even when you think you’ve left it behind.

And there’s no manual for it. No guide that tells you how to move through it without stumbling, no checklist to mark off when you’ve grieved the 'right way.' There are only the quiet judgments of others saying it’s too much or too little. Too loud in your pain, or too quiet for them to even believe you’re in pain at all.

She cried for the first three days, her eyes raw, her chest hollowed out from the weight of it but now she can’t shed a single tear. It isn’t that she’s healed, it’s just that the grief has gone deeper and buried itself somewhere no one can see, no one can measure. It no longer needs her words, her tears, her gestures to exist. She feels it, like a low buzz that never stops vibrating under her skin.

Because love, she realizes, always drags grief behind it like a long, trailing veil. There’s no escaping it. It will come for you, whether or not you’re ready, whether or not you’ve braced your heart for the moment it slips away. It will come when you try to move on with your work and there’s no text from them waiting on your screen. It will come when their favorite song plays at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and you find yourself straining—desperately—to remember the exact shape of their voice because you never imagined it would become so hard.

There were far too many things that reminded Euijoo of Nicholas, far too many sights, sounds, and textures that carried the echo of her presence. It wasn’t only the obvious things, the familiar streets, the places they had walked together, the scent of a particular brand of coffee, it was the subtle ones, the ordinary moments that suddenly felt haunted. The sight of a certain color on a storefront. The faint rhythm of a song playing from a distant café. Even the quiet air of Linkou at dusk carried her shadow.

If reminiscing about the past could kill, Euijoo sometimes thought she would have died before even stepping out of her room. Her mind had a cruel way of preserving Nicholas in every little thing, like the afterimage of light that lingers behind your eyelids long after you’ve closed them.

She walked down the narrow street of Linkou, the pavement slick from a passing drizzle, a cool breeze lifting the stray strands of her hair. Cradled carefully in her arms was a small bouquet of sweet peas, freshly arranged, their petals tender and damp from the florist’s spray. It was the same flower she had once given Nicholas on her wedding day. The one she had kept long after they had lost their vibrancy, drying the fragile blooms and asking her mother to preserve.

Euijoo thought, as her steps slowed in the fading light, that it would be good to bring a new set—something alive, something that could breathe in the quiet of that room. The sweet peas would wither in five days, maybe less due to the humidity, but that was never the point. Life had to wither before it could make room for something else.

She traced the outline of the bouquet with her thumb as she walked, her mind briefly wandering to how Nicholas had once held the first bouquet, how her fingers had lingered too long over the ribbon before placing it into a vase, how her laughter had filled the air when she teased Euijoo about being too sentimental. Now, the room where that first bouquet had been placed was dark and uninhabited, with the air that was too still and the sheets that tucked too neatly.

“Euijoo?”

The sound of her name cut through the bustling noise. She hesitated. For a moment she considered pretending she hadn’t heard it, but the hesitation only lasted a breath; a hand tapped her shoulder before she could decide. Standing tall, imposing. He carried himself with that same dominance she had always known, those unreadable eyes. It was a look only Nicholas could ever fully understand, one Euijoo had always found both infuriating and strangely telling.

“I thought you were still in Tokyo,” Euijoo said finally, her voice steadier than her chest felt. “Well, that goes the same for you.” His tone was flat, factual, with that distant edge he carried. “You’re here a few days earlier than Mother told me.” Euijoo let out a small scoff, her lips twitched into something that wanted to be a smile but never quite made it there. “I suppose I am,” she murmured, unsure whether it was an admission or a defense.

Silence lingered for a heartbeat too long before she added, “I’m really sorry for what happened.” Her eyes tilted upward slightly, trying to catch his, but his gaze didn’t rise to meet her. It stayed locked on the box in his arms, the cardboard edges pressed into his palm.

“Car crash,” she continued softly, “it was… unfortunate.” The words felt thin, like paper trying to cover a chasm.

“Yes,” he said, his voice barely shifting. “I know it’s been hard for you as well. You knew her longer than anyone.”

Euijoo swallowed. There was a part of her that wanted to bite back, to remind him of the times he made things harder for Nicholas, the coldness he wrapped himself in even when warmth was all she needed. It still annoyed her, remembering how he could be so careless with someone who gave so much. But the anger was faint, blurred now by something heavier—something closer to pity.

Because at the end of the day, Euijoo thought, this wasn’t about him. The empathy she felt wasn’t for the man standing in front of her, it was for the shadow that had been left in his life. For the absence that now settled on both of them, however differently they carried it.

“Are you going back here?” Euijoo asked him politely as the man shook his head, only out of necessity.

“I came back with my parents,” he explained. “I’m staying for a little while. I’ll return to Tokyo eventually—I can’t leave my job for too long.” His gaze drifted toward the box in his arms, fingers tightening slightly around the edges. “I was just about to visit Yixiang’s mother. I have some of her belongings… it’s better for her mother to keep them.” Euijoo offered a curt nod, she couldn’t care less.

She didn’t want to see him at all. She didn’t want his voice in this hallway, didn’t want the scent of his cologne lingering after he walked away, didn’t want the faint tremor of tension she felt in her own shoulders whenever he was in the same radius. And she certainly didn’t want to be trapped with him in the same room for longer than ten minutes. Especially not when Nicholas’ parents would be there.

“Why did you come earlier than the others?”

None of your business, Euijoo thought, letting the words stay sealed behind her teeth. She couldn’t understand why he bothered asking, why he suddenly cared to measure her choices like this. “It’s just… what felt right,” she said instead. “I wanted to do it.”

“That was quite an irrational decision.”

Euijoo halted mid-step, the bluntness of it made her stop walking as the air between them tightened. “No, it’s not.” She slowly turned her head toward him, her jaw tightening as she met his gaze. “It wasn’t irrational,” she said. Her voice remained calm, but her shoulders stiffened. “Yes, it was impulsive and made by feelings. It wasn’t strictly logical, but not entirely unreasonable.”

She doesn’t care if her words come out more bluff than she intended; it was an unnecessary question. It was already a stretch for her to muster even the tiniest bit of sympathy for the man. She had assumed, perhaps naïvely, that of all people, he would understand how those close to Nicholas might react to the news. That grief didn’t move in straight lines, didn’t obey manners or rules. Euijoo didn’t want to be interrogated about the way she coped, or the way she grieved. Not by anyone—especially him.

A sigh escaped her, thin and tired. She lifted a hand to her temple, massaging away the dull ache building there before she resumed walking. She didn’t want to entertain any more questions. She didn’t want to acknowledge anything that came out of the man’s mouth.

“I know you were in love with Nicholas.”

Her steps stopped.

A coldness crept up her back like a draft slipping under a closed door.

“It was obvious.”

Her mind seized around the words, every nerve in her body turning rigid. In an instant, a sharp pain bloomed behind her eyes, and a nauseating churn rose from her gut—violent enough that she felt she could throw up despite having eaten nothing. She didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to see his face, not after that.

This wasn’t the first time someone had brushed against her sexuality like picking at a scab, but this—this—was the first time it made her feel truly sick.

“You were in love and trying so hard to scrub it off, but it carried on until Nicholas was married. And do you know how your presence and feelings affected Nicholas, affected her relationship?”

Euijoo stayed silent, frozen in place, but she could feel him drawing closer. His presence loomed behind her, cornered her, heavy and intrusive, like a shadow pressed against her spine. She felt cornered—stripped—like someone had peeled her skin back and forced exposed her raw flesh to the cold air, leaving her to be examined, judged by someone else.

“You were in love, or still are?”

When Euijoo finally lifted her head, he was already beside her, standing just slightly ahead, not facing her but close enough that she could feel the chill radiating from him. His eyes slid toward her, dissecting her expression with a cruel sort of precision.

“Nicholas was right, you’re like an open book.”

If Euijoo’s mind and heart had been mother nature, the flower she held in her hand would have withered instantly.

“And your point?”

He scoffed—derisive, frustrated—clearly not getting the reaction he had wanted. “I just explicitly said that you might have been one of the tiny reasons that troubled someone else’s marriage, but it seems like you still don’t understand.”

“I’ve always held back anything within me that I knew would’ve troubled Nicholas and what she wanted,” Euijoo replied, her voice shaking but steady enough to land. Her knuckles paled as her jaw set hard in an attempt to keep herself composed. “You not being there for her, you acting like an asshole—that’s not because of me.”

“You’re imagining things, you created the problem and you picked someone else to blame.”

“Just because I was the easiest person to blame for wearing my heart on my sleeve.” Her eyes didn’t leave him this time, even though every part of her wanted to look away. She felt the words dig into her, but she let them sit, let them echo, because she refused to let him twist her silence into guilt.

She was no longer scared anymore, each second spent in conversation with this man only drove her closer to the edge of her patience. Her breath came shallow, her chest tight, but her stance never wavered. This person was using her insecurity and inability to express her feelings to trap her, to corner her into admitting something he could twist again. If her feelings spilling out was the true problem, her friendship with Nicholas would have been the one falling apart, not their relationship. She lifted her chin slightly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a flinch.

“My words remain valid,” he said, rolling his shoulders back with a faint scoff, eyes narrowing as if he was lecturing a child. “You coming early proves my point. You still revolve everything around her.”

“Or maybe I simply cared.”

“Caring? You call that caring?” His brows furrowed, the mockery in his voice deepening.

“You seem very sure you know everything.”

“I know enough.” His expression hardened, a tight line forming on his lips. “Every moment and even the night of the crash.”

Euijoo was about to let her emotions take over the words that come out of her mouth when she registered the last sentence, she paused and stared at him with questions. “That night? What happened that night?”

The man stood still in silence. She didn’t step toward him, didn’t look at him fully, didn’t raise her voice. But her next question landed with the precision of a needle. He stiffened—only for a fraction of a second, but enough. Too much.

“I already told you,” he muttered, turning his face away as if the air had suddenly thickened. “It was an accident.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Her tone didn’t waver, didn’t sharpen, didn’t accuse. But the calmness itself was a blade, and she saw the way it made him blink. The way his mouth pressed too tightly shut. The way silence clung to him like something he couldn’t shake off.

Her emotions started building up, rising like a tide she had been forcing herself to hold back for days. The pressure gathered in her chest, in her throat, in the trembling of her fingers wrapped too tightly around the stem of the flower she carried. Memories and thoughts began locking into place as if someone were snapping pieces of a puzzle she never wanted to see completed. It was only a matter of seconds before something inside her threatened to burst open.

“Something happened.”

Her breath hitched after the words left her mouth.

“Something happened between you that caused that crash.”

“I know damn well that the reason was not because of me like how you had wished it to be.”

Euijoo steadied her stance, shoulders squaring even though her knees felt weak. Her body felt as if it were trying to collapse inward, drawn tight around a truth she had never wanted to name. Tears began building beneath her eyes—not falling, not yet, but pushing, pressing, making her vision waver at the edges. Her head swam in a slow, nauseating dizziness. She had known, for years, that this man was a weight around Nicholas’ ankles, a stormcloud that never fully cleared.

Nicholas had always been caught in arguments with him, always shrinking herself a little bit, always smoothing over the cracks he caused. Euijoo had watched it—helpless, frustrated, angry—telling herself it wasn’t her place, that Nicholas was an adult, that marriages were complicated and private.

But to know there was something that happened that night, something heated enough, cruel enough, foolish enough to lead to a crash—her stomach churned. Her breath stuttered. If Nicholas hadn’t been with him. If she had been anywhere else. If Euijoo could have done something, anything.

Her mind spiraled.

She thought of every moment she chose silence over honesty.
Every time she walked away instead of intervening.
Every time she convinced herself she was being dramatic.

Not to steal Nicholas away. Not to rewrite the ending in her favor. Not for some selfish dream of “us.”
Just to protect her.
To shield her.
To keep her alive.

Any possible way to prevent the wedding.
Any possible way to keep the arguments from growing.
Any possible way to stop the small injuries from becoming fatal.
Any possible way for Nicholas to remain in this world, even if Euijoo herself carried the ache nonetheless—in quiet corners, loving alone.

Just for Nicholas to still be here.
Just that.
It would have been enough.

Her jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached. Heat built in her stomach, rising, swelling, threatening to break her open. She lifted her head, eyes burning, her expression trembling somewhere between heartbreak and fury. She could feel her body leaning forward, as if her rage were pulling her toward him despite herself.

With her voice trembling and her hand shaking. “You think I don’t know?” She felt her eyes begin to sting. Euijoo bit her lip—bit back every word threatening to rise—then failed, the dam cracking. “That night when you had a business trip, that night when you made her stay at home when she obviously wanted to do something, all the nights you never treated her like a person that she always was… but just a wife.”

Her breath shuddered. The memories churned too violently.

“Do you know how many times she cried?” The heat and dizziness crawled up her spine, blooming behind her eyes. Her chest tightened, aching as if it were about to burst open. She clutched at it, fingers digging into her shirt, as though she could force her lungs to after they had forgotten their purposes. “Do you know how many times she said she was tired?”

Her steps moved closer without her realizing it, her hand curling into a fist, then loosening, then curling again. She couldn’t decide whether to restrain herself… or release everything she had buried for long. Voice broke into a stutter, falling silent for a heartbeat. Her eyes widened as if the memory had just punched the air out of her lungs. “A week before that day, no—not even a week, probably just a few days.”

Her breath trembled, barely there.

“You argued with her. Again, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t an accusation, it was a statement. A truth that she dragged out of him like a confession.

“You fought with her. Again.” Her restraint began to crumble, chest rising too fast, throat constricting visibly as she finally held his gaze. When she spoke again, her tone cracked open into something raw, sharp, almost feral.

“You always fought with her.”
“And she was always the one who paid the price!”

Her voice came out too weak, too raspy, too thick with grief and regrets. No longer steady, no longer polite. Rage pulsed through her, yet her mind was filled, painfully, with Nichol’s voice—soft, tired, echoing in every corner of her skull. Guilt slid in and twisted itself inside her chest.

“She came to me because she had no one else!”
“She told me everything you did…”
“Everything you refused to fix!"

Her tears almost spilled, she shook her head violently, unable to contain herself any longer, unable to hold back the storm in her ribs. Her fist tightened at her side, and her other hand slipped, letting the wrapped bouquet fall, landing softly on the street like something already grieving.

“And you think you have the right to stand here and pretend you loved her more than anyone? You don’t even know half of what she went through.”
“You don’t get to be the victim!”

“You pushed her. You pushed her again, and again, and again—until she…”

Her lips parted. But the rest of the sentence refused to come, lodged painfully in her chest.

Rage and grief collided across her face, twisting her expression into something shattered, half-collapsed inside herself yet still burning at the edges. Her anger had left her trembling, drained her, eyes gleaming with both hate and heartbreak. She stumbled back a step, whole body trembling with the force of all she had unleashed, drained of strength yet overflowing with everything she had tried so long to swallow.

She turned her face away, unable to bear the sight of him any longer, as her tears slipped down despite every desperate effort to hold herself together.

“It would've been better if you were the one who died instead.”

.

.

.

“We could get scolded Juju!”

“But we have no choice!”

Nicholas glanced toward the glass door that separated them from the downpour outside. Rain streaked down the surface like silver threads, turning the world beyond into a blur of shifting shapes. She looked back at Euijoo and smiled—small, mischievous, a little daring. Then she nodded. “Fine. I’ll lead the way. You follow me, okay?” Euijoo nodded, heart thudding.

The moment Euijoo pushed the door open, the roar of the rain swallowed every sound in the room. A wall of cold air rushed in. And before Euijoo even had a chance to register anything, Nicholas’ hand found hers—warm, urgent, certain—fingers interlocking as if they were molded to fit. Then they ran.

Nicholas pulled her first, and Euijoo let herself be pulled, her feet stumbling into the rhythm of Nicholas’ pace. The rain cascaded onto them in heavy sheets, instantly soaking their clothes, their hair, dripping down their eyelashes. The world became a blur of wet pavement and laughter. Nicholas’ grip tightened—not out of fear, but almost protectively, as if she wanted to make sure Euijoo wouldn’t slip away from her.

And Euijoo… she couldn’t look anywhere else except at Nicholas. The girl in front of her was laughing, her shoulders bouncing with joy, her hair plastered against her cheek, her voice bright even against the thunderous rain. Nicholas looked like she was shining, as if the storm itself was something she was dancing through rather than running from.

Nothing else mattered.
Not the scolding waiting for them at home, not the fever they might wake up with tomorrow.
Nicholas was holding her hand as though she held something precious, and Euijoo felt her heartbeat hammer so violently she wondered if the rain might wash it right out of her chest.

“What the hell! That was fun! We should do that again!” Nicholas burst out as they reached her front door, breathless and soaked.

Nicholas was rambling, brushing her wet bangs away, trying to shake the water off her arms, but Euijoo couldn’t focus on a single word. Nicholas was drenched from head to toe, clothes clinging to her skin, droplets tracing down her jaw, pooling at her collarbone. And somehow—somehow—to Euijoo’s eyes, she looked warm, glowing with life, her smile brighter than any light in the house behind her. Her smile felt ten times warmer against the cold rain that pierced her lungs, as the cold rain seeped into Euijoo’s bones, Nicholas’ presence felt like a hearth.

At that moment, questions began filling her mind. Not just questions—unnamed feelings, the heat blooming in both her cheeks, the butterflies stirring in her stomach.

“Where is Mom? Should we press the doorbell aga—”

Before Nicholas could finish, before Euijoo even fully realized what she was doing, her hands were already lifting—gently cupping Nicholas’ cheeks.

Euijoo’s thumbs brushed away the water droplets tracing down Nicholas’ face, slow, careful, as if she were touching something too delicate to risk breaking. Warm palms against cold skin. Breath mixing in the narrow space between them. The rain behind them softened into distant static.

Nicholas felt her breath hitch. Euijoo’s gaze—soft, unbearably tender—rested on her like a warm blanket after winter. Too gentle. Too intimate. Too much. Nicholas couldn’t even breathe, couldn’t even move. She only stared, wide-eyed, as if the world had finally paused for them. None of them knew they had secretly wished for time to freeze, to let them bask in the warmth they offered each other. And Euijoo’s gaze drifted lower, then landed on Nicholas’ lips.

“Euijoo-chan?”

Nicholas’ mother broke the daydream when she finally opened the door after Euijoo had pressed the bell minutes earlier. Euijoo blinked, dragged back into the present, and managed a small smile as she took off her shoes.

“Here’s the flower,” she said quietly. “I know it’ll wither in a few days, but… I thought maybe it’d be nice to see something alive in her room. Just for a little while.” Nicholas’ mother received the flowers gently, embracing them against her chest. “It’s beautiful, and you’ve always been so thoughtful, Euijoo-chan.”

Euijoo nodded, slipping off her cardigan as she stepped inside. Her eyes felt hot, eyelids heavy. She prayed they weren’t too swollen. “He was here just a few minutes ago.”

It had all been intentional—walking away from him immediately after their argument, giving herself space to breathe and to wrestle with whatever was going on inside her. She’d waited outside until she saw no unfamiliar shoes at the entrance. Thankfully, Nicholas’ mother didn’t seem to notice the slight smudge in her eyeliner or the redness blooming beneath her eyes.

“That’s unfortunate. I didn’t get to see him,” Euijoo said, trying to sound polite, neutral, at the very least.

“Oh, there’s something I want to show you,” Nicholas’ mother said suddenly, already walking toward the living room and then Nicholas’ bedroom. Euijoo followed, confusion softening into quiet anticipation.

The woman opened the box sitting atop Nicholas’ desk—the very same box he had carried earlier. He’d been here nearly an hour, Euijoo had counted. They must have talked. Maybe even cried. Maybe circled around truths Euijoo did not want to know. “You know Nicholas loves taking photos. She said once she settled in Tokyo, she wanted to hang the ones she took around her house.”

“So when she was about to leave Taipei after the wedding, she asked me if I had any photo frames that weren’t being used. I have lots of them, you know.” Euijoo smiled faintly, the image forming easily. Nicholas standing in her new house in Tokyo, holding a hammer wrong, asking if she was doing it right. “I can see that. There are a lot of photos in this house. That trait really came from you.”

Nicholas’ mother smiled as she turned her face toward Euijoo. At that moment, it felt as though they hadn’t spent the past few days struggling to cope with her absence. The conversations about her, the mentions of her name, no longer slipped from their lips with that familiar bitter weight.

They both knew the grief was still there—somewhere quiet, somewhere waiting—but for now, their words were filled with fondness, with the soft warmth of reminiscing about the girl who had once filled their lives, and in many ways, still did. The heaviness would return later, as grief always does, but just not in this moment. It simply stepped aside for a breath.

“This is the photo frame I gave her. I bought it when she was a child. And this…” She lifted it carefully. “This is what she decided to put inside.” Euijoo tilted her head and leaned forward, it wasn’t the photo she expected.

Nicholas, in her wedding dress, bouquet in hand. Glowing, radiant, eyes turned toward the camera—toward Euijoo. A small calligraphy note in the corner:

쭈쭈’s.

Euijoo felt her throat tighten. She remembered that moment, when Nicholas had turned and looked back at her, the exact angle of Nicholas’ smile, the way she had looked at her. Brighter than the venue lights, brighter than the sun that afternoon. It was the happiest she had looked throughout the entire day. She thought she had imagined it out of longing, that grief was distorting memory, but no, this photograph was proof. Nicholas had been truly happy in that split second.

Nicholas’ mother excused herself to get a vase for the flower. Euijoo sat at the desk, her fingertips grazing the wooden frame, tracing the carved name 王奕翔 at the bottom, a few inches below the typed 쭈쭈 on the photograph. She turned the frame over carefully, intending only to look at how the backing was secured, when a small piece of paper fluttered out from behind it.

And there she was, with Nicholas, both younger and softer. Euijoo’s hair was still long, almost reaching her waist, loose and flowing, while Nicholas’ hair was short. Contrary to how they looked as adults—when Euijoo always kept her hair never longer than her shoulders and Nicholas wore hers longer. One of Euijoo’s hands rested on Nicholas’ waist, while Nicholas’ hand was pushing against Euijoo’s shoulder just enough to squeeze her closer. Their cheeks were pressed together, their eyes closed, their lips curved into smiles so wide that Euijoo thought it might have been one of the happiest moments of their lives.

It was their graduation photo.

Euijoo’s vision blurred. Her throat closed. Something inside her—a tight, burning knot—finally loosened. Nicholas had kept this. She had carried this. She had framed a piece of Euijoo in her new life. In her new home. In her new beginning. And behind it, she had kept their beginning.

She pressed her lips together, but the tremble still came. Her fingers shook around the edge of the photo. She wasn’t sobbing, not even crying; her body simply softened, as if it finally allowed itself to breathe after holding too much for too long. She lowered her forehead to the edge of the desk, breath shaking. Her shoulders trembled as she held the photo to her chest.

Nicholas had loved her. In what way, Euijoo didn’t know. Maybe not fully spoken, maybe not in the way Euijoo had quietly, painfully hoped. But it was love. A gentle kind. A steady kind. The kind that lived in small gestures, in laughter shared under the rain, in the way Nicholas reached for her hand without thinking. The kind that threaded itself through years without either of them naming it. The kind that stayed soft even when life around them hardened.

Euijoo felt it now, subtle, almost shy, tucked between memories she hadn’t dared to look at until this moment. Love that had been there all along, patient and open, waiting for her to see it. Love that didn’t demand, didn’t insist, didn’t claim. Just existed quietly, like a light left on in an empty room.

Maybe it wasn’t the love Euijoo had dreamed of.
Maybe it wasn’t the kind that could have rewritten fate or stopped the choices that led them here.
But it was hers.
And it was real.

For the first time since the funeral, her tears finally fell, not out of grief alone, but out of love, returning to where it had always belonged.

Placed inside the photoframe, with one sentence written by Nicholas herself behind it, right behind the wedding photo Euijoo had taken of her. And Nicholas held the same smile—

the same radiant smile that never changed, never faded.

It had always been there, and still was, even now, long after her shadow had left the soil. As long as Euijoo remained in this world, as long as she breathed and carried her days forward, that smile lived on.