it's a beautiful thing.

i // chrysanthemum

SHE WALKS BACKWARDS in her dreams.

Lee Nari doesn't accomplish anything. She just wanders. She experimentally taps her foot in the water, then slowly immerses herself in it when she finds that it's cold but not unbearably so.

Then, she drowns.

And wakes up gasping.

The feeling of clawing for air, desperate for circulation in the brain, makes her wonder if this is how newborns feel when they are forced out of their womb, the only place they knew, into a cruel world where they breathe and wail. Or is it the feeling of holding her breath, knuckles turning white at her grip on the sides, as she pushes, and pushes, her tiny body enduring through the pain no matter how many pills she's swallowed and how many drinks she's downed without thought on the delicate life inside her— and then gasping when he's out, when it's over, and when she simply can't stand the thought of looking at the boy she gave birth to because it was dreadful to bear it.

Jihoon was so lucky to come out healthy and beautiful despite her dark, damp... and more. Those circumstances.

But everyone knows her story. It has been plastered for months on the news. One court meeting after another. One interview after another. One rumour and exaggeration and invasion of privacy and ugly picture made public after another.

She's famous for the most wretched reason.

Jihoon sleeps soundly curled up beside her, tightly gripping her shirt, his soft breathing filling up the silence.

Nari takes deep breaths in and out, leans over to stroke Jihoon's soft, fine hairs to the side, and bends down to kiss his forehead. "I love you," she whispers.

She doesn't fall back asleep. Eventually, she gets up once she's had enough of staring at her bedroom window getting brighter like watching paint dry.

Walking around her house— which is actually Alice's, her legal guardian since she was five— Nari's bare feet creak against the wood before they flinch at the cold morning tiles in the kitchen. She makes hot tea and inhales the scent smoking up to her face, calming her occasional morning trauma recall.

She's okay.

She finds that she can still laugh, still walk outside, and still function. Life goes on. It moves forward.

It's in her best interest to move on with it.

"For Jihoon," she reminds herself, "and for Alice."

"Nari-ah?" Alice calls, entering the kitchen with a cane. "Are you in here?"

"I'm here, Alice," Nari says, reaching out to gently touch her guardian's wrinkled arms. "Please sit down. I'll make eggs."

"Eggs? Oh, no, I don't want breakfast," she insists with an amused cackle. "Tea is enough for me right now."

"Alice," Nari prompts sternly. "You need to eat breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day."

Alice chuckles. "Why don't you eat breakfast with me, then?"

Nari glances at the clock above the small, wooden kitchen table. There is no dining room in her house, since it's just her, Alice, and Jihoon, so the room that can be a dining room is just a play space for the child. Though it's quite barren; there's only an old grand piano nobody plays, some houseplants, and a bunch of scrap paper and crayons scattered on the floor.

But Jihoon is completely fine with that, since it closely resembles the play space where he used to live— and that, in utter contrast, unnerves Nari to the point where she'd sometimes find it unbearable to walk in that very space of the house.