The trend ended.

I woke up without a dream. Today was a day I desperately needed one. I had the last tests of my finals. The finals of the final year. And I needed something so real that it was equal to being unreal.

The one thing about artists that I had realised in 12th grade was that we don't have the littlest of shame. We admit that we flunked the whole year because whatever we come up with was within a mere span of minutes. And all that we trust is our luck.

And we separately plan a panicking session before actually setting our feet at the work, I mean, hands. But no, I've actually seen artists paint with feet nowadays.

I had found a video on a ballerina painting one of the items of their dance. I will be real, it may have held sentimental values but it didn't hold artistic values.

Art is boundless sure, but some things are just not artsy enough.

I was trying to find out all the canvases I had worked on, "1, 2, 3," I counted as I ventured throughout the room.

"Only three, shit! Sir will definitely kill me!" I stamped my feet on the floor, punching the air and my idiocy.

"Wanna hear something?" Y/n popped her head through the door. She held a paper in her hands. Now if that's a bad new, I would cry.

"To see a world within a grain of sand,
And heaven's grace in a wild flower's stand.
To cradle infinity in the palm of your hand,
Yet find no vessel for love's vast command." She started reading out.

I watched her. I was a grain of sand and she was the vast sea. She was the wild flower and I was the wilt doting grass. She cradled me in her palm.

"To hold the cosmos in a single glance,
And feel eternity in a fleeting chance.
Yet still, in all the wonders you behold,
Your love remains unconfined, untold." My eyes shut themselves, feeling the melody that the words hid. And I couldn't contain the surprise when the peonies landed on my lips.

She giggled between each minute. If love was a sin, I would still lay in her alter. I would readily enter hell knowing I had kissed heaven's grace.

"Goodmorning, love." She whispered in my ears.

"Goodmorning, my lady."

"What are you looking for?"

"Canvases. I thought I had painted quite a few but I don't seem to find any. Just three, can you imagine?"

She smiled, a soft glow in her eyes. "Maybe you've painted more than you realize. Maybe your canvases are the moments we share, the emotions we evoke."

I pondered her words, the weight of their truth settling in. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe love is the canvas, and every day with you adds a new stroke."

Y/n reached out, intertwining her fingers with mine. "Then let's paint our masterpiece together, one moment at a time."

"But that would only mean I fail the semester." The optimism in life only taught us to look forward but sometimes it's better to stop. Life isn't about just going on but taking a break. And life is about not wanting to fail. A new stroke of paint didn't change that I had only painted three canvases.

"About that, don't worry. I know you're the last minute person so I had already loaded Antonella's car with our canvases while Jimin was still here. All our canvases are currently locked in the boot. But I must say, 28 isn't a small number."

"Wait, so you've already smuggled them from my room?" I laughed. Smuggling sounds like a small term. She's a great help.

"Not only those. I have packed your paints, brushes, your favourite liners and also you're very special palette. I have replaced your fine liners and makers with new ones from the same brand in the same exact hex code. Rest assured."

"My goodness! Why, Y/n, aren't you the mother I never had!"

"Please be the father I had and make me something to eat. I'm infinity times super hungry. Go, go!"

I couldn't help but grin at her playful insistence. "Alright, alright. But only if you promise not to sneak any more surprises into our journey."

She raised her hands in mock surrender. "Cannot promise. Now, off you go, Chef Kook!"

With a shake of my head and a fond smile, I headed to the kitchen, feeling lighter knowing Y/n had taken care of everything. As I prepared a quick meal, the weight of the impending finals and the journey ahead seemed more manageable, buoyed by Y/n's unwavering support.

We somehow managed to be at the campus just in time . The upcoming task was unloading so many canvases and preparing our stall. Y/n, Chan and I were sharing the stall this year.

We'd have some foreign delegates visit our stalls and based on what we explain to them about our art, is how we get ranked.

"Can you call the team, Kook? We need manpower." I dialed Jay, Felix and Bam. Only Bam showed up instantly. But by the time we hand unloaded the car, the other two showed up.

"Where are your stalls?" Felix picked up the largest bundle as a half groggy Jay pushed past us, trying to figure out the location.

"They asked us to set them up in the gallery." Y/n answered.

"Y/n," Jay's stern gaze pierced through the half sleepy crew, "There are 5 galleries in this campus spreading over 48,000 acres. It takes around half and hour more than an hour to travel from one end to the other in a sports bike if you travel at a speed of 150 kmph. How the fuck are we supposed to do that on foot!"

"I don't know! Had I known, I wouldn't ask you to come, Jay!"

"Point. There's a point." Bam interjected.

"Shut up!" The two roared at the poor Bam.

"Come on, it wouldn't be in the medical campus, would it? That only leaves us with two galleries. And I would assume that they'd locate us to the east one just because that's a bit fancier than the other."

"That's true. Wait, I'll call Jennie. She's probably one of the organisers." Felix confirmed over the phone that I was indeed right. The east side gallery was where we had to go.

Chan had already put the nails on the boards. All that I had to do was put up my canvases in order.

"Jk, do your artworks follow a storyline like your poems?" I had only put up the first canvas when the question was directed towards me.

I momentarily stopped. Maybe. May not be. I didn't have a solid answer to begin with. Everything that I paint is somehow related to Mai, that is for sure. But if Mai is just another version of me, then they don't have any correlations.

"It's not exactly that, Chan. We all have a muse. For instance, Y/n usually only paints memories with her families. Photographs them. You like to paint scenic beauty. I happen to be a student of you both. I never really had a family and nor was I interested going out. So whatever I dreamt of, from movies, from songs, from books, from stories—they became my muse. Thus, my subjects."

"I find it fascinating how you paint people you've never met." Chan let out a giggle, hammering another canvas to the board.

"That is something I question. Have I really never met them? Or was I very close to them? You know, I can sometimes feel Mai's touch. Is that normal?"

"Is that like another life? Previous life sort of something?" Out of nowhere Y/n popped herself in the frame for the second time today. I couldn't help but laugh. No,not at her assumption but at her characterisation.

"You know, when I stand here and speak to you all, you all only remind me of the people I have dreamt of."

"Cool, who do I remind you of?" Jay with his still groggy face, took a new topic to discuss on. I swear, they can make butter out of milk without churning it.

"In my dreams, there was a character called Jayun Lee, a naval officer during the Korean War. You remind me of him."

"Me?"

"Felix, you don't remind me of anybody as such except this one fellow in the orphanage I see. He was just bubbly like you. I don't know his name, however."

"How about Jennie?"

"She reminds me of Ahyun. And Antonella reminds me of Hyung. I've painted Ahyun and Hyung's marriage. Canvas number 16."

The eyes turned to find the said canvas. A young girl walked up the aisles with a man twice her age. Anybody upon first glance would think that this was a "evils of child marriage" propaganda. This should have been. This will be. Except only I know the story and that's why the child is happy.

"How can a child be happy to marry someone?" Y/n was visibly offended.

"Who said that she's not terminally ill and her only dream is to have princess wedding? I have met countless such kids during our trips to the children's hospital."

Jay undoubtedly had a good point but come on, her death wasn't as less hurtful as illness! Okay, I'll not mention anything. Let them interpret it however they want.

"Who's this?" Bam was pointing at canvas number 7.

"He's General Hardy Torres. He was our platoon captain. And he was the best one in the military. Doesn't he looks just like sir?" We shared another quick laugh. Very definitely sir was a mad man but the good kind of mad.

"And he?" They pointed at hyung.

"He's hyung in his car. He's riding with the doctor under his church, or something like that. They're in a rush to deliver Mai's first child."

"He resembles Jimin more than Antonella, doesn't he?"

"And this one's Mai, right?" Y/n pointed at the 17th canvas.

"Nope. She's Ju Gyeong. Mai's daughter. They had a fall out and she left her. She then married a foreign man and settled in Europe, I think, I don't remember clearly."

"Ju Gyeong?" Y/n's eyes held a question in them that felt like a bullet as they stared back at me.

"Hmm. Mai's husband, as much as I can assume, died in the war even before their daughter was born. I think they weren't even married. They were probably just lovers. Ju Gyeong never met her father and this frame is from one such scene. This was the time when she said that she'll leave the country to study abroad and she wanted her mother to join. But Mai insisted that her lover will come back one day. He never did."

"Woah, that's a whole damn movie, bro!" Felix quoted. It was in fact just like a film when I had watched it.

"I have never seen Mai's whole face, you know. I have only ever seen Ju Gyeong, Ahyun, Hyung and General Torres. I have seen Aein also and only seen the scenes from the military from the eyes of the Lieutenant, but never him. The only time I saw him was when he died in the field and that time his face wasn't worth seeing. I woke up immediately." I let out a deep sigh.

I had seen him but... Let that be, that's none of my concerns. All I ever wanted was to find Mai. At least see her face. But alas! Even the dreams have stopped.

By the time I was able to sit, I had completely forgotten that I didn't answer Y/n's eyes. They held an indirect question, as if they had some other story to tell.

"Kook, there's time till the event. Do you wanna grab a cup at our hideout?"

"Sure!"

We silently walked to our "peony home". It felt nice to call it that. It was a routine sketch, we always went there with food, silent on the way, then unstoppable.

But today turned out different. Another trend ended. Y/n kept silent even when she chewed on her sandwiches.

"Hey, you okay? Is there something you want to tell me, mon amour?" I took her face in my hands. There was something more than something that she wanted to tell.

"Mai's daughter, you said, didn't you?"

"Yes. Her only family. Ju Gyeong. Lee Ju Gyeong. I remember her as clear as a sunny day because she's such a prominent character."

"She is?"

"Yes! You know, Mai had spent years trying to find out her whereabouts until she recieved a letter from Ju Gyeong's husband, letting her know that their first child was born. And that's also the last time she came to know anything about Ju Gyeong."

"Can I ask you one more question?"

"Of course, love. As many as you want, as long as you want, I will always answer you." I gently smiled at her. She didn't smile back.

"Ju Gyeong had a daughter, right?"

"Yes! Jimin must have told you about this dream, right?" I got excited thinking I had found the grain of sugar in the packet of salt.

"And was her name Esmé Bijoux Albertson?"

"Yes!"

"I am Esmé Bijoux Albertson."