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ON THE THIRD DAY, THE SACRED FOREST MOURNED THE LOSS OF A LIFE. The cries of the flowers and the tears of the trees could be heard and seen, even from Sunghoon's cottage. Rain splattered down on the roof, touching his windows with delicacy. The pattern of the droplets formed a melody hummed by the souls that inhabited the sacred forest.
Sunghoon had not been the first one to die on that ground. To him, it was nothing more than a graveyard. A thin layer of soil and dirt covered the bodies of those who had made the same mistake as he had. But to her, it was the way of life. The grim thought of stepping on dead bodies did not bother her. Death did not scare her. She saw beauty in it, Sunghoon saw an escape. There was nothing beautiful in wanting to run, and yet she did the impossible and found that very thing.
He loved her for that.
Of course, he had been shocked in the beginning, but the realisation was slowly coming to a rest. He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was not complex. Instead, it was rather simple. That's what made it hard for him to accept it. He was going to die. There was nothing more to that. As he slowly made peace with it, he also made peace with himself. For him, there was no reason to stress or be upset anymore. His time was limited ━ it had always been, just not this limited.
She came knocking on his door, pushing him out of his thoughts.
He greeted her the way he always did, with a kiss on the lips.
She was having a harder time accepting it than he did. Not that he could blame her, he was not sure what he would do if he found out that she was going to die.
'Are you okay?'
Sunghoon nodded, finding no strength to smile at her.
'Okay.' She gave him a small nod. 'Good.'
He didn't ask her how she was doing, not knowing how much he was going to regret that.
