“Soojin,” the nurse peers down at her from her surprisingly outstanding height. Her blue eyes are full of an emotion, one which people seemed to look at the girl with constantly throughout the entire day, as she edges her hand a mere centimeter closer, egging for the small girl before her to take the contents atop her palm.

Despite the fact the thoughtless child could not make out the said emotion everyone seemed to show her herself, it was known to everyone else around her. Everyone, even in such a place like a mental hospital, looked at her the same way, sympathetically, pitifully.

Sure, those who got stuck in such a place as an attendee weren’t well themselves. But Soojin, she was another definition of sick, one that no one could seem to quite understand. It was why the patients always constantly whispered about her when she would walk through the lounge or the lunch room. They’d always say the same words, ask the same questions, “why don’t they just give up on her? She’s so clearly a lost cause.”

But never did the brunette, petite young girl pay attention. She ignored the reality that was around her, which was exactly what she was doing to the exhausted nurse who only tried endlessly to help her.

“That’s funny, your jokes are so good!” she had suddenly belted out a high pitched, hysterical laugh that chained into many more. Her words weren’t directed at the only person standing in her dorm room which was the emotionally drained nurse that stood beside the opened door, in fact, they were directed at only the air – which poor Soojin believed to be something much more.

A deep sigh leaves the nurse’s lips as she watches the girl continue to engage in a conversation with someone that didn’t exist in the first place. Soojin didn’t notice her own existence, she only continued whispering and mumbling to the being she bid was before her. Every so often she’d giggle or laugh, before saying a faint reply.

It was something she did all day, every day. Seeing her endlessly perform such actions worried the nurse, who couldn’t help but care for the helpless patient. The medicine was supposed to be helping her, the therapy was supposed to be fixing her mind. But from her perspective of the child, she only sought it was getting worse. It was as if she was hypnotized.

After watching the girl engage in more pointless conversation with the ‘being,’ she’d lost her patience at the fact Soojin was refusing to acknowledge her existence. Stepping forward, she opens her mouth to speak her name again when the girl had suddenly gasped abruptly from where she sat cross legged on the floor, facing the wall.

“I told you, I can’t go today,” she’d been saying. Once the words leave her lips, she had paused for a moment, staring intently ahead of her as if someone was sitting there. The nurse had stopped in her tracks once again, curious of the information she was hearing.

Meanwhile, Soojin’s green eyes peer ahead at the boy who sits in front of her. His brown eyes are bright, brighter than any star she imagined ever existed. In such a place that she lived in, that was as dull as could be, he found a way to make everything turn into glittering fireworks. Never did she deem she’d be alive if it wasn’t for him, for the light he brought to her world, for the smile he always gave her.

His previous words became stuck in her mind, and she pursed her lips as if to think about them again, when he’d spoken up again, “but why can’t you go?” he pushes, reaching out his hands before him to grab hers. There, they sat, on the cold tile floor, legs crossed together. It was as if they were the only people on the world, if only one of them was real.

Soojin had sighed at the question he was asking yet again. It felt like he had been asking her that question over and over for hours. No matter how hard she tried to change the subject, he’d always come back to it.

Realizing he wasn’t going to let it go, she bit her lip in hesitation before sputtering, “I-I can’t tell you.”

This causes the worst thing she could’ve imagined to happen, as his usually glistening smile had turned upside down. His lips curl downward in a frown, or perhaps more of a pout, as he stuck his bottom lip out. His black locks of hair fall in his face as he squeezes her hands that’re still engulfed in his own, “I thought you promised not to hide anything from me.”

With deep puppy eyes that peered into hers, she felt her heart being toyed with like a child. It was too much for someone like her to take. And no doubt, she couldn’t break a promise, especially not with her only friend.

“okay,” she lets out a deep breathe, preparing herself to tell him the dark truth of what had been happening, “they told me not to go anymore.”

By just the mention of ‘them,’ he seemed to know exactly who she was speaking about. The therapists and doctors, that endlessly tried to pound the reality of her condition into her head. They always told her the same things over and over, until she began to try to listen to them – well, at least a portion.

“You know what I told you,” he shakes his head, “they’re lying to you, they just don’t want you to be happy.”

Her green eyes couldn’t help but divert away from his due to the emotion that his words caused to well up inside of her. A tiny part of her told her that he was wrong, but the rest of her body was sure he was right. After all, why would her only friend lie to her? Those other people weren’t trying to help her.

Soojin was cut out of her own jumbled thoughts by the feeling of someone lifting her chin up with a finger, forcing her eyes to meet theirs. His brown orbs found a way to her soul once again as she met them, “hey, stop thinking so hard. I promise I’m telling you the truth, you know I would never lie to you.” She could only nod along to his words, “it’s your life. You have a right to be happy.”

The emotion was swelling up inside of her before she could stop it. Just thinking about all the things they would tell and ask her. Over and over, they’d say, “Soojin, the boy you speak to isn’t real.” They’d tell her he was a figment of her imagination. Hearing their lies, it broke her heart. After all, if he wasn’t real, then how was he here?

The doctors would always ask what his name was, they said they would prove he wasn’t real. Every day she was asked the same questions about him. Soojin had told him the sort of things they would demand from her, and he’d told her to just refuse them all, to say one thing.

So, anytime they’d ask her, “Soojin, what’s his name?”

She’d keep her head down, brunette locks falling in front of her face, and no emotion in her tone of voice as she informs, “smile flower.”

Those two words would only raise more questions from them. However, all she would ever reply with was the same two ones. After so long of just hearing her repeat such, they would give up. As she’d walk back to her room, preparing to tell him all about what happened, she’d hear their whispers, “what in the world is a smile flower?”

She knew they would never understand. After all, they would never be able to hear it. Such people could never be allowed to be blessed with the sound of the melody he would sing to her, the words that would leave his lips when they went alone to the place.

“You’re right,” she finally hums matter-of-factly. Her confident words cause a smile to spread across his face, and he perks up. She could only watch as he swiftly rises to his feet, before holding out a hand to her.

Soojin knew exactly what he wanted, it was time to go. What the doctors tell you aren’t true, she reminds herself, they can’t take me away from my smile flower. Telling herself this sternly, she shifted in a way so that she could rise to her feet. Her small, delicate hand reaches out through the air, her fingers just able to barely graze his – when she was pulled away.

The feeling of someone much stronger than her grabbing her, pulling her away from his hand which she had just been about to take, so she could get away from this place, had thrown her into a shock. Such sudden actions caused her to screech, throwing her arms and hands around her in a mess as she tries to break free from whoever was forcefully pulling her back, and away from him.

“Let me go!” she screams, her voice piercing through the ears of anyone that might be around, “Jinani, help me!” her eyes which had been tightly shut from the shock had opened, just as her lips had called for him, screaming his name which she refused to tell the doctors.

Only to see he wasn’t there.

A moment later she was let go, allowing her to freely run back forward. Her eyes are bulging as she tries to figure it out, where could he have gone? It was astonishing to her how he seemed to disappear so quickly. Did he go to the place without her? She couldn’t help but feel torn he’d do something like that.

“See? There’s no one there, Soojin.”

Her frail body turns to face the nurse that had been standing there the entire time, who’d also pulled her away. Soojin wasn’t aware of her actions, however, as she narrows her eyes, either way offended by the accusations she was making.

“You don’t know that,” is all she says, sticking her nose in the air and looking away.

A sigh of defeat only leaves the workers lips, before she slowly steps forward. Her heels clicking against the tile floor of the dully decorated, small bedroom, caused the green eyes of Soojin to look up. Before she could say a word to the contents the nurse was holding out to her, the woman speaks first, “please take your medicine, Soojin.”

The girl didn’t hesitate to snap in refusal, “I don’t need them.”

At this point, it was as if all her energy had been forcefully sucked out of her. The nurse didn’t feel like she had the willpower to fight the girl anymore.

Therefore, she only shook her head in disappointment, before setting the cup of water and pills on the end table that sat by the single bed. With that being done, she turns back to walk to the doorway, her hand on the handle as she prepares to close it.

“They’ll make you better,” are the words that leave her lips before she’d closed the door behind her.

Soojin’s eyes had only watched her leave. They trail from the closed door which she just walked out of, to the pills which she set on her end table. Every single day they tried to give her the same medicine, and at the beginning the began to take them when she was first here. Back then, she wasn’t sure what they were trying to do to her. But after a few days on the medication, she began seeing Jinani less and less. Out of fear, she stopped taking them, knowing it had to be the thing causing it.

To her exact thoughts, he’d ended up telling her the same thing. “Don’t take those anymore – if you do, we won’t be able to see each other, and then I can’t sing for you anymore, and we won’t be able to go anymore.” His words sounded like her worst nightmare.

But still, despite her knowing this, the things those doctors tell her seemed to find a way to hammer themselves into her thoughts. “You’re never going to be able to leave if you don’t take them,” they’d say, before endlessly rambling about how there was something wrong with her. She didn’t understand why they said those things, why they told her that her smile flower wasn’t real.

If he wasn’t real, she didn’t want to be alive. After all, he was the only thing that made her smile.

Those tiny objects seemed to taunt her as they laid there on her nightstand, mocking her. They angered Soojin, along with the words she was tired of being told. She was fine, there was nothing wrong with her, she thought these things as she angrily stepped forward, Jinani was real, how could he not be? Their words were full of idiocy, and she knew that as a fact.

Although she was unsure of what she was going to do, she was just reaching out for the pills when an abrupt voice had broken her out of her actions.

“What’re you doing?”

Jumping from surprise, the small girl holds a hand to her heart as she turns to face him. Her smile flower is doing nothing more than smiling as he looks down at her from his towering height, “I thought I told you not to touch those, remember?”

Hurriedly, she nods, “I know, but just seeing them there make me angry.”

Jinani purses his lips at her words. He seems to ponder for a moment, before stepping forward to grab the contents himself. In a swift movement, he chunks them to the ground, before stepping on them repeatedly with his boot. There’s a loud crunch sound of them being shattered under his weight, and he’d grinned to himself out of satisfaction, looking back up to her.

“What about now?”

She couldn’t help but allow a smile to spread over her own lips at his actions. So easily, he could make her the happiest person in the world. It was as if she could climb the rainbows that fled the sky and jump from cloud to cloud as she tried to reach the galaxy that hid up above. A million things, it felt like she could conquer, if she had him at her side.

With such a feeling, it was why she could never believe anything they told her. Jinani was her smile flower, the reason she was happy. Going to the euphoria with him was the only reason she was still alive, she knew that otherwise she would never survive in such a lifeless place like the mental hospital.

“Are you ready?” her eyes look up to the sound of his voice calling to her, only to see he’s holding out his hand once again for her to take.

Worriedly, she didn’t waste any time to grab it. She couldn’t risk someone pulling her away again. She couldn’t risk him going into hiding again. No one would disrupt them, she was going to go to the place that gave her true bliss.

A smile spreads over his lips as he steps forward until he’s directly in front of her. They’re so close the tips of his boots are touching hers, and she could feel his breathe against the skin of her forehead as he whispered, “close your eyes.”

And just like that, she was taken to a place that no one else could ever dream of being. After all, such a special place was only for the two of them. No one else had access no matter how hard they’d try. It was the place the two of them would find each other most of the day, when she didn’t have any appointments with the doctors or any therapy sessions. This place, this euphoria, was where she found herself squealing out of pure bliss.

It was exactly what you’d see her doing in that current moment as she opened her eyes again, only to be met with the bright sun glaring down against her pale skin. Around her, lay fields and fields of flowers of every color anyone could imagine. They were flowers of all sorts, that went on for what she deemed to be forever. It was a peaceful land, with nothing more than the sounds of nature, with giant oak trees to sit under and flowers to pick. Her beloved happy place filled with more smile flowers than just Jinani.

Soojin closed her eyes for a split second, inhaling the air around her as if to just take everything in. This, she tells herself, this was real. Nothing like this could be dreamt up, nothing like this could be imagined.

“Hey, come on, stupid!” she opens her green irises once again only to see Jinani, a bright grin on his face as he stands feet away, motioning for her to follow him.

Chuckling to herself, she only moved her feet in a fast pace after him. In her cheaply made sandals and hospital clothing, she treaded through the tall grass, over the colorfully blinding flowers, to wherever he desired for them to be. Truthfully, Soojin didn’t mind where it was if he was there.

Only moments later would you find the two of them sitting on a tree stump. With the help of Jinani, she’d been able to climb up to it. It was feet in the air, so high up that you’d most likely break an arm if you fell. In any other situation, the brunette would be mortified of the heights, but with the bright boy beside her, she felt as if she had no fear in existence.

They sit in silence for a moment, and she swore she could hear a familiar melody playing in the back of her head. It was one that didn’t take her long to recognize. Turning to face the boy beside her on the tree, she didn’t wait to ask, “Jinani, can you sing smile flower?”

The dark-haired boy, who had previously been absorbed in his own thoughts, kicking his legs back and forth through the air, had stopped once he heard her request. Smile Flower, a song Soojin had never heard until she met him. One day, she heard him humming it, and out of curiosity had asked what it was. “it’s a song I wrote about how happy you and I,” he’d explained to her. Out of excitement after hearing those words, she’d begged him to sing it for her. Since that day, it’d been a routine for them. All she ever wanted to do was listen to him sing the words to that song, as she’d close her eyes and disappear into euphoria. It was the only way Soojin felt at peace.

It was why when they asked her what his name was, she’d only say those words, “smile flower.”

Jinani had cleared his throat, beginning to swing his legs back and forth once again, before the words began to pour from his lips in a peaceful, melodic sound, “I can smile because we’re together. Whenever, wherever, even if we’re not together, our smile flowers bloom,” just like always, the words found a way to her heart as she could only stare out at the flowers that spread through the valleys around them, “I’ll be the spring to your smile.”

When the song had ended, the two of them were once engulfed in a silence. Although it was a lovely one, she found herself disappearing into her own thoughts again. Through out this, a question arose in her brain, one she had never really thought much of until then. So, she had to ask in a small voice, “what exactly is a smile flower?”

It felt like a millennia of quiet before he’d replied. “A smile flower?” Jinani repeats the phrase slowly, as if to truly let it sink in his mind, “I like to think it’s a key, a key to someone’s utopia. Something that causes them to feel an endless euphoria through out their veins, something that makes them feel as if they’re real.” Little did she know how ironic his words were, as she let them pour into her brain.

Soojin thinks about what he said for a second, before her eyes widen in sudden realization, “is that why you’re my smile flower?”

The boy chuckles from how slow she managed to be sometimes but nodded in response. The smile that was over his lips soon spread over hers as well, as she felt proud that she had figured it out by herself.

There, together in the blissful, lively valleys of paradise, had they found themselves in each other. Soojin had never imagined she would rely on someone as much as she did Jinani, and that exact fact was the reason she exhaled deeply, thinking hard on the words she was about to confess.

“well, my smile flower,” she says, grabbing the attention of the now curious boy beside her, who rose a brow in question, “please don’t ever go.”

A reassuring grin only forms on his face, “don’t worry,” he shakes his head in dismissal, “even if we’re not together, our smile flowers bloom.” His quote from the song she could never get out of her head seemed to strike a soft spot in her heart, causing her heart to erupt into a million emotions of bliss she couldn’t control.

Without a second thought, she scoots slightly aside on the tree to wrap the both of her small arms around him. He tenses from her touch at first, before he accepts her hug. “Thank you,” her voice is a whisper as she closed her eyes ever so slightly, trying to cherish the moment they were having.

Little did she know, the unfortunate reality that was taking place. It had been around ten hours since the nurse had visited Soojin, and she’d decided to come check on her again to make sure she had taken her medicine. After the visit didn’t go how she had hoped earlier, she’d informed the doctors of how the poor girl’s condition was only getting worse. She worried it would never get better, that it couldn’t.

It was the reason the doctors had entered the bedroom with her. They pour inside slowly, their eyes raking across the room. The sound of laughs is heard, along with faint mumbles that they couldn’t make words out of. The eyes of the workers fall onto the girl, who appears to be passed out cold on the tiled floor of her room. From a normal person’s perspective, they’d assume she must’ve fainted from something, but it was common for Soojin’s condition. It was how she got to her ‘smile flower.’

Every so often, she moves around rapidly, whether it was sitting up straight, or moving her arms around in the air. It was as if she was performing actions in another world none of them knew of, a world that was a figment of her imagination.

Such a rare condition, it made the doctors feel bad for the girl. Seeing her there, like every other day, they knew well of what had to be done. No longer could the inevitable be avoided. There were only so many things they could do for someone who didn’t want to get better.

Therefore, if she didn’t want to take the medicine herself, they had to make her take it in another way. The nurse frowned sympathetically as she watches them pad across the tile floor over to the girl, equipment in hand.

One of the doctors slowly reached out to hold her arms down, so she was unable to move if she possibly woke up during them injecting her with the drug. The other had bent over on the other side of her seemingly jolting body, holding a large needle before them all in the air. It was filled with a liquid, one that had a dose that would help her since she refused to help herself. Never did they enjoy treating their patients this way, as this sort of dosage would do more things than just cure her disorder. But they felt as if they had no other choice.

A sigh leaves the man’s lips as he takes her arm gently, before using his other hand to plant the needle into the skin of her arm, aiming straight for the vein.

“Don’t say it’s the end. Whatever happens, just like always, our smile flowers bloom,” Soojin’s head laid on the shoulder of her smile flower, a close-lipped grin on her face as she listened to him sing the song once again for what was probably the tenth time that day. She couldn’t help the addictive feeling it gave her as the words would pour so effortlessly from his lips into the air around them, “just like always, we’ll be together.”

Soojin believed his words, she always believed his words. After all, her only friend would never lie to her. Her smile flower was the only person she had ever trusted since she was young. He was the only one who never left her side, who never believed there was something wrong with her like everyone else. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be there. It was why she couldn’t live without him, without her smile flower.

It was unfathomable to her, and the doctors knew that. They knew well of her condition, and the fact there was only one way to fix it. It was why they did what they did, it was what they had to do.

Her green eyes feel as if they’re bleeding as she opens them. Soojin’s body feels weak, like she had just carried a million pounds of bricks up flights of stairs for hours. Her head aches, and the world around her felt heavy and over bearing.

It takes a moment for her eye sight to adjust to her surroundings. Only then did she see where she was, a hospital room? Never did she have any memory of being in a hospital. It arose the question that was now in her mind, what happened?

After a hassle, she manages to sit up in the single bed of the hospital room which she sits in. The room in decorated dully, with tan walls and white tiled floor. There’s nothing more than a bed and a nightstand, which lays a cup of water and two pills.

She stares at those pills for a long while. Why are they there? She didn’t necessarily feel sick, not enough for any medicine. No matter how hard Soojin racked her brain, she couldn’t think of any reason why she would be where she was. So why did everything feel so familiar?

“Soojin?”

The girl’s frightened by the sudden loud voice bursting through the room, and she jumps a bit at the sight of a nurse standing before her. Her eyes peer down at her, a feeling she wasn’t sure of deep with in them. She stares back at her for a moment, have I met her before?

“How are you feeling?”

She didn’t answer the question. All she wanted to know was answers to her own as she blurts, “why am I here?”

The nurse purses her lips, hesitating before she sits on the edge of her bed. Soojin wasn’t sure what to expect from her, being that she had absolutely no idea as to what was going on. She felt as if someone had removed a part of her brain, stolen a piece of her. But she wasn’t sure how something like that could even be possible.

“Calm down, Soojin, I just need you to answer one thing for me, alright?”

Although she was confused, she hoped that by answering the woman’s question, she would grant her an answer to her own in return. It was the only reason she nods in agreement, waiting for her to share what she wished to know.

“Do you recognize the words Smile Flower?”

The girl blinks a few times at the sound of those two words. They seemed so randomly put together, so blatantly thought of. What could something like that mean? She swore she had never heard them before in her life, so why did she feel a ping in the bottom of her heart?

With a final glance up at the nurse who was nervously staring down at her, she deadpans, “no.”

A breath of relief leaves the nurses lips. She rises to her feet immediately, her actions seemingly jumpier than they had been only moments ago. Already walking to the door, she turns to inform her quickly, “I’ll work on getting you discharged, my dear.”

“Hey, wait, but what happened?!” Soojin is calling after the woman, but she was already out the door without a second thought, leaving the girl to ponder in her own confusion.

Blankly, she was lost to sit there, wondering how she ended up where she currently was. There was an off feeling that was apparent in her body, one that she was unsure of the meaning. Her head still hurt, and it was only getting worse the more she tried to fight her brain for some sort of memory as to what happened to her.

Everything felt so blank, and she had no idea as to why. The only thing she could do was close her eyes, but when she did, she imagined she saw something.

A smile flower, the words the nurse had asked her about immediately popped back into her brain. She wasn’t sure how to explain what she was witnessing, but she saw flowers, and endless amounts of them.

Her brows furrow at the sight, but she had yet to open her eyes. Soojin was too interested in what was happening, she was trying to find the answers to her questions.

It was when the sound of a melody had filled her ears. Some sort of song she didn’t think she had heard before played ever so softly, its decibels flying like doves through the morning sky. The lyrics to such a song were faint, so much she couldn’t hear them well enough to understand them.

But it was familiar, the more she heard it repeat. In frustration, Soojin’s eyes bolt open once again, and she turns frantically in the bed, trying to find where it was coming from.

No matter how hard she listened, she couldn’t seem to pinpoint a location. Running a hand through her hair in anger, she had just been giving up, deciding it was nothing, when suddenly, words had been clearly heard along with the melody of the music.

“Whatever happens, even if we’re not together, our smile flowers bloom.”