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Celine never meant to turn memory into inheritance.
When Mi-Yeong died, all Celine wanted was to make sure her daughter wouldn’t be forgotten. Rumi was barely a year old then—soft, curious, clutching at everything like she was afraid the world might slip away if she didn’t hold it tight(They were the same in that way). Celine used to think that if she could just keep Mi-Yeong’s memory alive long enough, Rumi would somehow still grow up with her mother’s warmth wrapped around her.
It started innocently enough—stories before bed, little fragments of another life that Celine tried to pass on like heirlooms. “Your mother used to hum this song when she worked,” she would say while brushing Rumi’s hair, the comb catching on fine tangles of beautiful purple. “She always got the words wrong, but she laughed through it anyway.” Rumi would giggle, asking her to sing it again, not realizing that Celine’s voice would always falter halfway through, a tremor swallowed before it became a sob.
Those small moments became a ritual. Celine didn’t notice when they stopped being stories and became incantations. The house filled with Mi-Yeong’s traces: her handwriting on recipe cards taped to the fridge, the faint smell of her favorite tea lingering in a box no one had opened in years, her books lined neatly on the living room shelf in the exact order she’d left them. And above the mantel—a photograph, always dusted, always in view. Mi-Yeong stood in the center, her smile soft and sure, Ha-Eun beside her with one arm thrown around her shoulders, eyes bright with mischief. Celine would polish the frame like a sacred object, her thumb tracing each of their faces—Mi-Yeong’s calm, Ha-Eun’s spark—as if the warmth of them might somehow transfer to her skin.
“Do you remember her?” people sometimes asked Rumi when she was little, crouching to her level with a smile too soft.
Rumi always shook her head. “No.”
But Celine always had another answer on her tongue. “She does,” she’d insist gently, smoothing a hand over her daughter’s hair. “She was too little to say it, but she remembers in her heart.”
And so, without anyone saying it aloud, Rumi learned early that forgetting wasn’t allowed.
Celine told her stories every chance she could—at breakfast, in the car, while folding laundry. There was always another anecdote waiting, another piece of Mi-Yeong stitched into their days. “Your mother used to make this dish when we first met,” Celine would say as garlic hissed in the pan. “She said too much meant you were trying too hard.” Or, pausing mid-task, “Mi-Yeong could never sit still. Even when she was sick, she’d find something to fix, something to clean. Ha-Eun used to scold her for it, but I think… I think she just didn’t know how to rest.”
Rumi would smile, because it made Celine happy. She wanted her to be happy. But sometimes, when the stories came too often, she’d start to wonder where she ended and where the ghost began.
During tutoring, teachers would say, “You’re so polite, Rumi. Such a good listener.”
And at home, Celine would beam, pride softening her grief. “Just like your mother.”
The first time Rumi heard that, she was eight. The words made her chest swell—she liked the idea that she was like this woman everyone spoke about with such warmth. But by thirteen, the compliment had begun to sting more than it soothed.
Because just like your mother meant never quite yourself.
She began to notice the pattern everywhere—the way every smile, every quiet gesture, every bit of kindness was measured against someone she’d never known. The comparisons came like soft rain at first, harmless enough: “You have her patience,” “You have her laugh.” But over time, it gathered into something heavier, a constant drizzle she couldn’t escape.
Rumi didn’t think Celine meant to drown her in it. She truly thought she was honoring love. But every story layered another expectation onto Rumi’s shoulders. Every framed photo became a mirror she didn’t ask to stand before.
Sometimes, Rumi would catch her reflection beside her mother’s picture on the mantel—the same slope of the nose, the same dark eyes—and she’d look away before the resemblance could feel like a theft.
She wanted to ask Celine once, When do I get to be mine?
But Celine was always too busy keeping Mi-Yeong alive to hear the question.
So Rumi learned to smile instead—to nod, to listen, to pretend the past wasn’t pressing against her ribs. She carried the weight quietly, because even as it suffocated her, she could see how it kept Celine breathing.
And that, perhaps, was the cruelest part of love.
—
By the time Rumi was fifteen, it felt like she knew the stories by heart. She could recite Mi-Yeong’s favorite foods, the songs she hummed, the way she tied her hair when she cooked. It wasn’t memory—it was conditioning. So Rumi began testing the edges, searching for air outside her mother’s shadow.
Mi-Yeong painted with water colors and brushes, so Rumi learned how to draw with charcoal and pencil. She liked the weight of it—the scrape of graphite, the drag of charcoal that left her fingertips gray and grainy. Her drawings were all angles and shadows, rough and unfinished, like they were meant to smudge rather than shine.
When they were finally good enough to show she brought one up to Celine while she was cleaning—a sketch of the old sycamore by the gravestones, its roots like twisted ribs—Celine looked up from the kitchen counter. For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. Then she smiled, small and fragile, the kind that flickered more in her eyes than her mouth.
“It’s beautiful, Rumi.” she said quietly, setting down the dish towel. “Mi-Yeong would have loved it,”
That was all. No rush of excitement, no talk of framing it or showing it off. Just a gentle nod, a quiet sort of pride that never grew louder than a breath.
Rumi nodded back, pretending it was enough. But later, alone in her room, she found herself staring at the sketch, wishing Celine had said more. Wishing her voice had caught the way it used to when she talked about Mi-Yeong’s work—warm, wistful, full of something that lived past grief. Wishing she’d said I love it instead of she would have. Wishing, just once, her mother would look at her without seeing someone else’s shadow.
Later that night, Rumi sat at her desk, the sketch propped against the wall where the lamplight hit it just right. The charcoal left a faint dusting over her fingers, a gray halo of effort. She glanced at it again—bold, rough lines, heavy shadows—and waited for it to make her feel something. Pride, maybe. Satisfaction. Something that didn’t ache.
Celine’s reaction played in her mind, over and over: that quiet, polite smile, the soft “It’s beautiful, Rumi,” before she turned back to washing dishes. No laughter, no spark in her voice. Just... silence.
The silence clung to her like static.
She wanted a reaction—any reaction. To be seen. To be recognized not as someone’s echo, but as something new.
So if Mi-Yeong did watercolors and brushes; she would do pencils and charcoal.
If Mi-Yeong couldn’t keep a single plant alive no matter what she did; Rumi would be the best damn gardner you’ve ever seen.
If Mi-Yeong was as clumsy as it gets; then Rumi would be like an acrobat—the definition of balance.
When Rumi entered a room she swore that she would have her own presence that no one could ever compare to.
The only problem is that stubborn and determined she may be, changing your presence wasn’t just something she could do by being the opposite of the way someone was. Oh sure she could try to be more calm, cool and collected but in the end she always fell back on her awkwardness and usual personality. It was frustrating. She had been hopelessly lost until one day, the inspiration had essentially come to her.
It was when Celine had forced her to go to one of her CEO meetings. The first time Rumi went with Celine to Sunlight Entertainment, she thought it would be boring.
Just a conference room, some papers, maybe a slideshow she wouldn’t understand. But the moment they stepped out of the elevator, Rumi could tell this place moved differently.
The floor gleamed like water under the fluorescent lights. People passed briskly in heels and sneakers, balancing coffee cups, murmuring into phones. They all nodded when Celine walked by—some smiled tentatively, most straightened their posture, as if her presence was a current running through the room.
Rumi stayed close, trying to keep her steps even with Celine’s.
Celine didn’t rush. She never did. She moved like she was exactly where she was supposed to be, every motion deliberate—the flick of her jacket sleeve, the calm way she greeted the receptionist by name, the slight tilt of her head that meant she’d already noticed everything. She was like a predator in her home territory.
The meeting room was made of glass walls, the city skyline reflected across them. A long table stretched through the center, cluttered with laptops, color-coded binders, and the faint scent of coffee and marker ink.
Executives were already waiting inside. They stood when Celine entered.
“Ms. Park,” one of them said, “we’ve been reviewing the budget adjustments—”
Celine raised a hand, just slightly.
“Let’s start with the talent contracts,” she said, her tone even, almost soft—but the man stopped mid-sentence and clicked open a different folder without hesitation.
Rumi sat quietly in the corner, trying to make herself small. But she couldn’t stop watching her adoptive mother.
Celine didn’t dominate the room with volume or force. She listened more than she spoke. When someone made a suggestion, she didn’t interrupt; she’d pause, tap her pen once against the table, and ask a question that made everyone realize they hadn’t thought things through.
At one point, someone tried to push a proposal that clearly irritated her—a new trainee lineup that ignored several artists Celine had personally scouted.
“Sunlight isn’t built on shortcuts,” Celine said simply.
The room went still. No one argued after that.
Rumi’s chest tightened—not with fear, but with awe.
She’d seen Celine at home, tired and quiet, the softness that came out only when she was brushing Rumi’s hair or humming over the stove. But here—here she was something else. Unflinching. Grounded. Everyone seemed to orbit around her.
After the meeting, as they rode the elevator down, Celine didn’t say much.
“You were quiet,” she noted.
Rumi nodded. “You didn’t have to yell at anyone,” she said after a moment. “But they all listened anyway.”
Celine gave a small smile, faint but real. “You don’t need to be loud to be heard, Rumi. You just have to mean what you say.”
Rumi looked up at her, memorizing the line of her posture, the stillness in her gaze reflected in the chrome elevator doors.
It wasn’t the bright, easy warmth that people always said Mi-Yeong had. It was quieter, heavier, like the gravity of the moon—unseen, but always felt. Even when the woman said nothing, her presence filled the space.
She had never wanted to be like Mi-Yeong—never wanted to chase someone she’d never truly known, or live inside a story someone else kept telling. But watching Celine now, she finally saw something worth reaching for.
Not the ghost of a mother she couldn’t remember, but the quiet force standing right beside her.
So Rumi began to mirror her. She started to move like her, to speak softer but firmer, to stand straighter.
If Mi-Yeong was the sunlight that warmed everything she touched, then Celine was the still night sky that held it all together.
And Rumi, caught between the two legacies, finally knew which one she wanted to follow.
She didn’t want to shine.
She wanted to anchor.
She wanted to be like Celine.
For a while, things were easier between them.
Rumi tried to carry herself the way Celine did—measured, calm, deliberate. During practice, her teachers called her composed. At home, Celine smiled and said she was maturing beautifully. The house felt quieter, steadier. For the first time, Rumi thought they were finally finding balance.
But grief, like dust, always found its way back in.
Rumi had been working on her garden for weeks.
It wasn’t anything grand—just a narrow strip of soil along the back fence, but she’d mapped it carefully in her sketchbook: neat rows of lavender, basil, white roses, and a small corner penciled for camellias, though she hesitated. They reminded her of stories she’d only half-remembered. Each was labeled in looping pencil notes. It was hers—her first project that wasn’t haunted by anyone else’s fingerprints.
She’d started it because Celine always kept plants in her office—succulents lined along the window, thriving in the light that poured over her desk. Rumi had noticed how alive that space felt, how grounded Celine seemed among the quiet green. So she thought, maybe if she grew her own garden, she could feel that kind of stillness too.
On Saturday morning, she called for Celine to come see it.
Celine stepped out into the sunlight, coffee mug in hand, still in her loose blouse from the day before. She crouched by the fence, examining the rows. “You did this all yourself?”
Rumi nodded. “I wanted to try keeping something alive. Like you do with your office plants.”
For a moment, Celine smiled—soft, proud. But then she noticed the uneven spacing, the crooked stakes, a few wilted basil leaves curling brown at the edges. Her expression shifted, just slightly.
“You should have told me you were starting this,” she said. “The soil here’s too dense. You’ll need to mix in compost, maybe use deeper pots. Your mother used to love hydrangeas—you could plant some over there, they’d do better with this light.”
Rumi blinked. “I don’t want hydrangeas,” she said quietly. “I wanted white roses.”
“They’re pretty,” Celine said, straightening. “But they don’t last long. Hydrangeas would remind you of her.”
She meant it kindly—an offering, a connection. But to Rumi it felt like a hand rearranging everything she’d built.
Celine was already kneeling down, pressing a finger into the dirt. “See how it clumps? You’ll need to water it differently. Maybe I can pick up a few new pots tomorrow, something sturdier. I’ll help you replant.”
Rumi stood there, watching the garden she had made—her garden—slowly become another project of Celine’s. Another memorial in the making.
By the time Celine looked up again, Rumi’s arms were crossed, her voice tight. “You don’t have to fix it. I didn’t ask you to.”
Celine paused, blinking at the sharpness in her tone. “I’m not fixing it, Rumi. I’m helping.”
But Rumi was already stepping back, her breath unsteady.
“I didn’t want help. I just wanted you to see it.”
The words hung there, heavy and raw, and Celine, not knowing what to say, only nodded once—thinking her daughter was being moody, sensitive. But as she walked back inside, Rumi stayed by the fence, staring down at the small white buds she’d planted, feeling them blur behind her eyes.
All her effort to build something of her own—to be like Celine, steady and independent—had ended the same way it always did: swallowed by someone else’s idea of who she should be.
—
It was winter.
The snow had been falling since morning—thick, heavy flakes that clung to the windowpanes and softened the world beyond them into silence. The cabin sat alone at the edge of the woods, half-buried in white, the world outside sealed off like a forgotten memory. Inside, the fire crackled low, throwing slow, amber light across the worn floorboards and the two figures curled on the rug.
Rumi sat cross-legged near the hearth, a pencil smudge along the edge of her thumb, her sketchbook open across her knees. The firelight made her drawings flicker—bold strokes of charcoal and pencil that gave depth to the things she couldn’t put into words. Celine sat beside her with a mug of tea cupped in both hands, her eyes distant, the kind of calm that had to be practiced.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The snow hissed faintly against the chimney; the flames breathed and shifted.
Then Celine leaned forward, her gaze falling onto the open page. “You’ve been working again,” she said softly.
Rumi looked up, startled, then followed her gaze. The sketch on the page was one of her best—a camellia bush, every petal shaded in soft gradations of gray, the leaves glistening as if dusted with frost. She hadn’t meant for Celine to see it yet.
“Yeah,” Rumi said, her voice quiet but steady. “I finished it this morning.”
Celine reached out, her fingers brushing the edge of the paper. For a long moment, she didn’t speak. Her expression softened, the faintest smile curving her mouth. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “You’ve gotten so much better with shading. The petals look almost alive.”
The praise came gently, not effusive—just warm enough to melt something small inside Rumi’s chest. For once, she felt like she’d been seen. Not compared, not measured—seen.
She couldn’t help it; she smiled. “I wanted to draw something that could survive the cold,” she said, glancing toward the window where the snow piled high against the sill. “Something that doesn’t give up just because everything around it is dead or dying.”
Something shuttered in Celine’s gaze after that. Too many emotions passing in her eyes as unheard thoughts swarmed. Celine swallowed, hesitating, “Camellias,” she said, almost to herself. “Your mother used to love them. She said they were like m—”
Rumi’s shoulders tensed. “Please don’t,” she said before she could stop herself.
Celine looked at her in confusion and surprise at the sharp tone, but seemed almost relieved to not continue the topic about Mi-Yeong for once. Looking to lift the awkwardness that befel them after the interruption her gaze drifted to the coffee table, where a leather-bound album sat half-buried under a stack of unopened mail. The edges were worn, the corners frayed from years of handling. Without thinking, Celine reached for it.
“I found some new photos while digging through Ha-Eun’s stuff last week,” she said softly, already opening it. “You’d like them—there’s one of Mi-Yeong with her first painting, back when—”
Rumi’s pulse spiked. “Not now,” she said, sharper this time.
Celine hesitated, fingers hovering over the page. “It’s just one picture, Rumi.”
“I said not now.”
The fire popped, sending a small spray of embers up the chimney. The sound filled the space between them like a warning. Celine looked up, confusion flickering into hurt. “What are you doing?” she asked quietly when Rumi stood, crossing the room.
Rumi snatched the album out of her hands before she could react. “I’m tired of this!” she snapped.
The suddenness of her voice startled even her. Celine stood, setting her tea aside. “Rumi—”
“You always do this,” Rumi said, her voice trembling. “Every time I try to show you something I made, something that’s mine, you find a way to bring her into it. Mi-Yeong loved this. Mi-Yeong did that. Do you ever hear yourself?”
Celine’s brow furrowed, her tone caught between confusion and hurt. “Rumi, I wasn’t trying to—”
“Then what were you trying to do?” Rumi’s grip tightened around the album. “Because it feels like no matter what I do, I’m never enough unless it reminds you of her!”
Celine took a step closer, the firelight catching the lines of exhaustion beneath her eyes. “You don’t understand,” she said softly. “I just wanted to share—”
“No,” Rumi cut in. “You wanted to remember. You always want to remember. You keep her alive in every corner of this house, in every story, every picture—” her voice cracked—“even when I’m right here, someone whose actually alive!”
Celine’s lips opened, but she didn’t speak. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound like defense, nothing that wouldn’t tighten the ache between them.
The flames flickered behind them, warm and alive. Rumi’s breath came fast, her hands shaking around the album’s spine. Her eyes flicked toward the fire—the bright, hungry glow of it—and for a moment, an idea took shape. A small, terrible thought that pulsed like heat under her skin.
Celine followed her gaze, and realization dawned slow and cold. “Rumi,” she whispered. “Don’t.”
Rumi didn’t move. The fire crackled louder, as if it were listening.
The silence between them stretched taut, trembling like the air before a storm.
Celine’s throat closed. Her hands trembled as she reached out towards Rumi, trying to grab the album of her girls before the girl did anything rash. “Rumi—please. Don’t—”
“Don’t?” Rumi’s laugh was short, sharp, bitter. “Don’t what? Don’t make me feel like I owe her something I never got to owe her?” A step closer to the burning light, eyes blazing. “You keep her alive so you don’t have to live with her being gone. You want me to be proof that she mattered. Well, I won’t be your monument!”
“You think I wanted you to be her?” Celine snapped. “God, Rumi, I’ve spent years trying not to see her in you. But how can I not? She’s everywhere—in your eyes, in your smile—and every time I look at you, it’s like losing her all over again.”
Rumi’s glare sliced through her. “You don’t even see it! I hate being compared. I hate feeling like her shadow. I hate that everyone expects me to be her—and you keep reminding me in every little thing you do. I hate what she left me to inherit.” Rumi yanked her sleeve up, showing flaring purple patterns on the upper part of her arm. Celine tried not to show her flinch, the way Rumi’s eyes hardened into resolution told her she failed.
“I hate her.”
Celine felt her chest tighten. “You—you don’t mean that,” she said, voice rising. “You can’t mean that.”
”I do,” Rumi scoffed derisively, her gaze on the woman unwavering. “Mi-Yeong. Everyone keeps saying I’m like her. That I’ve got her smile, her patience, her... everything. But I’m not her, and I don’t want to be.” Her jaw tightened, grip on the album whitening her knuckles.
Celine’s hands trembled. “Rumi—don’t talk about her like that.”
Rumi took a step closer, the flames from the fireplace and anger flaring bright under her brown eyes. “I don’t even remember her, Celine. Just stories. Everyone wants me to care about a ghost.”
Celine’s breath hitched. “She wasn’t just a ghost. She was—”
“I don’t want to be the substitute for someone who’s gone.”
“Rumi—”
Celine’s lungs felt as if filled with ice as she tried to speak. “That’s not true! I—” Her voice cracked as she tried to defend herself. “I never wanted you to feel like that. I just— I wanted to remember her. To keep her close. To teach you everything she would have wanted you to know!”
Rumi’s laugh turned bitter, almost incredulous. “Teach me? You think showing me pictures and repeating her words is teaching me? No. I don’t want her. I never did.”
Celine’s chest heaved, anger flaring at the accusation . “I didn’t raise you to hate anyone! I just wanted you to understand—”
She was interrupted again by the girl in front of her, distantly she could notice the Honmoon shimmering pink in the corners of her eyes.
“You don’t get it!” Rumi cut her off, trembling with barely-contained fury. The shout made the Honmoon flare around them as the lights from the kitchen blew out and like that the anger seemed to peter out of her as the room grew dark except for the fire illuminating her. The fireplace crackled before Rumi spoke again, quieter, but no less cutting, she added, “I don’t want to be her. I just want to be like you.”
The words hung between them, soft but devastating.
For a moment, Celine thought she’d misheard. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. The air felt too heavy, too fragile to hold what she felt. Then, faintly, she laughed—a hollow and bitter sound that didn’t reach her eyes.
“You don’t mean that,” she said too lightly, trying to sway Rumi, to ease the tension. “You don’t want to be like me.”
“Why not?” Rumi demanded, gripping the worn album tighter. “You’re strong. You don’t let anything break you.”
Strong. The word burned like acid.
All her life, Celine had carried that same unspoken rule: Your faults and fears must never be seen. She’d swallowed every tremor, every ache, until silence became survival. She was anything but strong.
Celine’s chest tightened. “Strong?” Her voice trembled as she stood more upright, taking steps closer till she was fully in front of the younger girl. “You think this is strength? Pretending not to feel? Smiling so no one sees the cracks? That’s not strong, Rumi—it’s pathetic.” The words lingered sharp in the air, but under her breath, almost too soft to catch, she added, “Your faults and fears must never be seen.”
It sounded like someone else’s voice—one she’d carried for years and never questioned until now.
“Don’t say that,” Rumi pleaded, eyes shimmering. “You hold everything together. Everyone says—”
“Everyone’s wrong!” Celine’s voice cut through like a knife.
“Mi-Yeong was the strong one!” Celine snapped, her voice breaking. “She carried everyone—me, you, even when the world was falling apart. She had hope. She believed. I can’t even look at her picture without feeling like I’m pretending to be someone she’d be proud of. Don’t you dare try to be like me—I’m not what she was.”
“You don’t want to be like me,” she said stronger this time. “You don’t want to be this—” Her hands gestured to her face, finally giving Rumi a chance to truly see the barely taken care of hair, the eyebags, and stress lines that hid how young Celine really was(Celine was barely into her 20s when Rumi was born). “This mess of a person who only knows how to hold on to ghosts.”
Rumi’s jaw tightened, her voice breaking but defiant. “Mi-yeong was never my mother,” she said, spitting the name like it hurt to say. “She wasn’t the one who raised me, who sang to me when I couldn’t sleep, who patched my knees or held me when the thunder scared me.” Her grip on the album trembled, pages threatening to tear under her fingers. “You were.”
The words cracked the air between them, sharp and final. For a moment, the house seemed to exhale—firelight flickering, silence expanding in its wake. Celine stood frozen, unable to look away from her daughter. Rumi’s chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, eyes blazing not with anger now, but with something rawer—need, grief, love she didn’t know how to name.
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then Celine stepped forward, slow and unsteady, and pulled her into an embrace.
Rumi stiffened at first, her hands still curled around the album, but then she let herself fall into it—the trembling warmth, the steady rhythm of another heartbeat against her own. The heat of her mother’s arm pressed close, the kind of warmth the fire couldn’t give, the kind the world itself wouldn’t bring until the new year.
And when they finally pulled apart, the silence felt different—no longer heavy, just waiting.
—
Spring came slowly that year.
The last of the snow melted in uneven patches, leaving behind the dark, damp earth beneath the cabin. The air was sharp still, but gentler now—the kind that carried the promise of thawing things.
Rumi knelt by the garden fence, her hands deep in the soil. The frost had killed most of what she’d planted in autumn, but not all. Near the back corner, where the snow lingered longest, a single camellia had survived—its petals pale red, trembling in the cold wind.
She brushed a thumb over it carefully, dirt streaking her skin. It shouldn’t have lasted through winter. But it had.
Behind her, the door creaked open. Celine stepped out, wrapped in her old cardigan, a mug in her hands. She paused, watching the girl crouched in the dirt—the girl who had once wanted to burn it all down—every memory, every ghost—who hated the weight of memories.
Now she was planting again.
Celine walked closer, stopping beside her. “It’s growing back,” she said softly.
Rumi nodded without looking up. “I didn’t think it would.”
For a while, neither spoke. The wind moved gently through the trees, carrying the faint scent of wet earth and smoke.
Then Rumi glanced up at her, eyes softer than they’d been in months. “I’m not planting hydrangeas,” she said, quiet but certain. “Just camellias.”
Celine’s lips parted to speak—to offer advice, maybe—but she stopped herself. Instead, she crouched down beside her daughter, set her mug in the soil, and reached out to steady the stake Rumi was driving into the dirt.
No stories this time. No comparisons. Just the sound of two pairs of hands working side by side.
When they finished, Rumi sat back on her heels, wiping her palms on her jeans. The petals caught the light like tiny lanterns.
And in all but a second, the world seemed to tilt—just slightly, just enough for time to blur.
For a heartbeat, she wasn’t in the garden by the snow-melting cabin, but the old park they used to walk in: grass thick and uneven underfoot, still wet with morning dew, the air crisp with the scent of fallen leaves, wet earth, and blooming flowers.
Celine blinked, and for a moment, the shape before her wasn’t Rumi—it was her.
Mi-Yeong stood there, back turned, gazing upon a batch of freshly groomed camellias. Her hair caught the sunlight, the edges haloed in warmth. The same slope of the shoulders, the same quiet tilt of the head. Rumi’s breath, trembling and soft, carried the echo of Mi-Yeong’s laugh from another lifetime.
“Did you know camellias are my favourite?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at young Celine, who had tilted her head in confusion.
“I thought your favorite was hydrangeas.”
Mi-Yeong shook her head, brushing a stray lock from her face. “Those are my second favorite.” She lifted a delicate camellia, holding it in both hands, letting the petals catch the light.
“These,” she said softly, turning the bloom toward Celine, “these are strong. They endure. They bloom no matter how cold the winter gets. That’s why they’re my favorite.”
Celine watched, fascinated by the quiet certainty in her voice, the way she treated the flower like it was one of the most precious things in the world.
Mi-Yeong smiled then, leaning slightly toward her. “They remind me of you,” she said gently, eyes soft. “That’s why they’re my favorite.”
“They mean strength,” Mi-Yeong murmured, glancing at the woman.
“They mean strength,” Rumi murmured, glancing at her mother next to her.
The memory gave way to the young girl still looking at her, familiar adoration in her eyes, Celine blinked, the vision dissolving into the soft gray light of morning. Her gaze drifted to the flower in Rumi’s hand, and the memory hit her all at once—
It hadn’t been hydrangeas.
All those years she’d been wrong. Mi-Yeong’s favorites were never the fragile blooms that wilted easily—it had always been the camellias.
Somehow, Rumi had remembered what she had forgotten
Celine swallowed before smiling faintly. “I know.”
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy anymore. It breathed.
Snow melted in thin veins along the garden bed, the soil dark and soft beneath her hands. Beside her, the camellias bowed gently in the wind—bright, alive, their roots buried deep where the frost couldn’t touch them.
Rumi exhaled, watching the air cloud fade. Maybe strength wasn’t something passed down in blood or name. Maybe it was what remained when memory softened—the ache, the warmth, the will to keep going.
When she looked up, she could almost see them in the rippling glass of the window—Mi-Yeong’s easy smile, Celine’s steady hands—folded into the light like reflections too familiar to ever fade.
They had been the weight she carried.
Now, they were the ground she stood on.