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Chapter 10: A Dream Shared – July 1 – 9, 2019

She swallowed.  Eunho had never made her laugh.  He had never even attempted to make her laugh.  She glanced up into Kookie’s eyes.  How could she feel so drawn to someone she’d met only a few days ago?  And how could he possibly have decided he loved her already?  

They had barely spoken to each other.  Now, he set his gaze back on her book.  He flipped to the next drawing and stilled.  It was of a garden.  A rose garden.  Just like the one he’d wanted to carry her off to.  

His eyes traced the gray stone wall surrounding the garden on three sides in the sketch.  There was their apple tree.  The one he wanted to kiss her under.  And roses were climbing the walls of the garden and spilling over into its center too.  He stared at it in shock for so long that Yunyeong finally noticed.

“What is it?” she frowned.

“I wanted to take you here,” he murmured, half to himself.

Puzzled, she furrowed her brow.  “What?”

“Today, when you were hurting, I buried my nose in your hair.  You smelled like a rose garden.  So I imagined a rose garden – a secret garden protected by walls, a place only you and I could go.  I unlocked the gate and led you inside, locked us in, and threw away the key.  So you would be safe forever.”

She just gazed at him in disbelief.  That was the very thing her heart had been longing for when she’d created this sketch.

“Turn the page,” she whispered.

Gently, he did so.  And he stood, transfixed, staring at their garden brought to life.  She’d recreated the sketch, but then she’d painted it in.  In the most brilliant colors.  This garden overflowed with pink and red roses – just like in his imagination – and an abundance of lavish greenery.  

Even the tree was the same.  It really was growing apples.  They were crimson too.  They appeared so realistic.  Just looking at them, he could imagine what it would feel like to sink his teeth into one.  He could even hear the crisp bite as his teeth broke the skin of that luscious apple.  He could taste its sweetness too.  And feel the juice dripping down his chin.

As his eyes continued to peruse the painting, he noted a swing hanging from the apple tree.  Perhaps she’d like him to push her so that she could ride it high into the sky.

“This is it,” he muttered.  “The exact representation in my mind.  I kissed you under that tree.”

Had he really said that aloud?

She watched as his face turned almost as scarlet as the roses she had painted.  And her heart shifted violently in her chest.  Kookie was embarrassed to admit that he wanted to kiss her.  She felt tears invading her eyes.  Maybe she was already in love with him.  How could she not love a man who would blush at the suggestion of a simple kiss?

And had he really dreamed the same dream as her?  He didn’t even know that the next picture she had planned had them standing under that apple tree, locked in a sweet yet innocent embrace, his lips just barely brushing hers.  She swallowed.  

How?  How had he discerned her most private thoughts?  Her most secret desires?  Should she be terrified?  Or fascinated?

Kookie sat for nearly an hour studying her sketches.  After a few moments of observing him perusing her drawings, she finally walked over to her bed and threw herself across it.  She lay there, her head on her pillow, as she watched him.  As intent as he was on her artwork, she was equally as fascinated by his face.  Her eyes traced that gorgeous countenance.  She didn’t think she’d ever grow tired of looking at him. 

But what really got to her were the expressions that flitted across his face for that hour.  He was completely absorbed by her sketches.  He loved them.  She could tell.  They were as dear to his heart as they were to hers.  So if a tear invaded her eye, and she had to blink it back, it was, perhaps, understandable.

How did he feel things as deeply as she did?  She was the quiet one in her family.  The emotionless one. But it wasn’t really so.  Sometimes, she felt like she actually experienced greater depths of feeling than anyone else in her family.  She just kept it buried deep down.  So how had this sweet boy unearthed all her passions so easily?  How had he read her heart when she never shared it with anyone else?

Could it really be that he loved what she loved?  That his heart was moved by the same things that touched hers?  Was it possible that she had found what her heart had stopped believing existed?  Could she really be happy with – or, at least, understood by – this beautiful boy?

—

He went home that night and talked to his parents.  He wanted a gift from them.  He discussed it with them.  Then they called his grandparents.  A tear escaped his eomma’s eye as he spoke his dream aloud.  They agreed to it.  As long as he was willing to pay for it.

It looked like Yunseong was going to begin to beat him more often at MIRᴙOR.  But there was nothing he could do about it.  Some things were more important than video games.

––

Jungkook hadn’t come to visit all week long.  Yunyeong was beginning to lose hope.  She peeked into her sister’s room on Friday.  

“Where’s Kookie?  I haven’t seen him all week.”

“Kookie, is it?” Her twin grinned from cheek to cheek.

Yunyeong rolled her eyes.  “Where is he?”

She’d spent the whole week drawing and wanted to show him her new sketches.  

Yunseong shrugged.  “He texted a couple days ago that he’d gotten a job and wouldn’t be visiting us for a while.”

Yunyeong’s heart sank.  Not one word from him.  In a whole week.  Even after all the beautiful things he’d said to her the other day.  Of course, they hadn’t exchanged phone numbers.  But he knew how to get hers.  He had Yunseong’s.  He’d asked for her cell number the first night they’d met.  Apparently, he hadn’t been as serious about Yunyeong as she’d believed.  Why had she let her heart get so tied up in him already?  She should have known it was too much to expect a guy to turn the sad water of her life into refreshing wine.

She turned around and headed to her room to weep in private.  Here was a perfect example of her feeling more deeply than she ever revealed.  She had spent the last few days foolishly spinning dreams around him.  She had fleetingly believed that perhaps he really did care for her as much as she had begun to care about him. 

But, of course, a wonderful guy like Kookie could never really be serious about a girl like her.  He’d probably just been bored that day.  Looking for a bit of amusement.  At her expense.

She picked up her sketches of the garden and set them in the bottom drawer of her desk.  She closed it firmly.  It was time to forget the beautiful boy with the magnificent, obsidian eyes.  And their rose garden too.

—

But two days later, she couldn’t sleep for thinking of that garden.  Every time she closed her eyes, she saw herself there with him.  It was a place of healing.  This beautiful rose garden.  Buried deep within her heart.

It was so real to her.  When her eyes were closed, its perfume even wrapped around her head and invaded all her senses.  How was it possible to smell with her eyes?  Or taste with her ears?  Or feel with her nose?  But in this garden, she could.  The beauty of each sensation was so overwhelming.  And the sense of peace there was out of this world.

She climbed from her bed and turned on the lamp on her desk.  She bent to retrieve the sketches from the bottom drawer.  She set to work drawing her heart’s dream.  She worked until the sun rose.  She had finished three sketches and begun painting each one.  There was a story floating through the hallways of her mind.  

She knew she was illustrating a book.  All the words kept swirling through her heart.  She decided this would be her project this month.  If she couldn’t forget the beautiful dream Kookie had birthed in her heart, she would put it down on paper to heal someone else.