Bled
Taemin’s POV
In a hospital, Seoul, South Korea | Mid-November 2024
I remembered the water in Lake Bled, Slovenia that October afternoon looked like glass — clear, still, afraid to ripple as I sat quietly in my wheelchair, my legs too tired to move.
Rosé, my younger half-sister of four years was beside me, holding a thermos of hot tea like it was our lifeline.
“Can you believe this is real?” I remembered whispering to her.
She looked at me, brushing my hair back, “We’ve made it real.”
I wasn’t supposed to be able to travel anymore. Not with my legs weakening, not with the constant fatigue.
But there was something about Slovenia that pulled me in when I saw a photograph of the place a year ago — a small chapel on an island in the middle of Lake Bled.
It looked untouched by time. Pure. Like a place the sky came down to visit.
If I was going to die — and I was — I wanted my last real breath to be somewhere time couldn’t chase me.
Then me and Rosé met Winwin there.
He didn’t talk much. Just nodded, eyes focused behind a vintage Leica camera. He took pictures like he was afraid they’d disappear — slow, intentional, tender.
Rosé invited him to join us in our trip and we even sat side by side in silence, watching the Julian Alps blush in sunset. No words. Just the click of his shutter.
Somehow, it felt like he understood me without needing to ask what was wrong with me. He didn’t look at my weak legs or the tremble in my hands. He just looked at the sky with us.
“Why Slovenia?” I finally asked him.
He took a long breath before answering. “Because this place looks like it remembers everything.”
So did I. I will forever remember everything in Slovenia.
=====
Rosé’s POV
Gozo, Malta | May 2025
I hated the ocean that day. It was too blue. Too loud. Too alive. A complete contrast to what I feel.
Winwin was with me at the edge of the rocky shore near Azure Window site in Gozo, Malta.
He had a camera around his neck and a scarf Taemin-oppa gave him last year tied around his neck.
When I looked at him properly, I noticed he hadn’t cut his hair. He hadn’t changed. Except now, he looked older. So did I.
“Taemin-oppa would’ve probably loved this place too,” I whispered.
Winwin only nodded, as if inhaling the view for seconds before he opened his coat and pulled out an envelope — inside it, a photograph. Us three.
The one he took on the last day in Slovenia. Taemin-oppa was laughing in it, real and unfiltered, sunlight catching the edges of his face like a halo.
I looked away. The world blurred.
=====
Winwin’s POV
Gozo, Malta | May 2025
I never planned to speak in long sentences again but I looked at Rosé, and for the first time, I broke my own silence.“He made Slovenia sacred.”
Rosé smiled, teary-eyed. “He did and I’ll always remember Slovenia that way.”
We stood in the cold air, two people bound not by time, not by love, but by the memory of someone who changed the shape of our world in five days.
Before we left, I placed the photo of us three into the wind. Letting it fall, like ash, into the Mediterranean below.
=======================================================
FLASHBACK
Rosé’s POV
DAY 1 | Morning at Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport, Slovenia | October 2024
The air felt impossibly clean, like the kind that only exists in postcards.
I tightened my grip on the handles of Taemin-oppa’s wheelchair as we rolled out of the small airport terminal and into the brightness of a Slovenian afternoon.
He had sunglasses on — not to shield from the sun, but to hide the tears he swore he wasn’t shedding.
I had saved up for this trip like my life depended on it. The side gigs, the sleepless nights, the tears I’d quietly let out in the shower — all of it led to this moment because he wanted it so badly.
“Slovenia,” he whispered when I asked him, a year ago, where he’d go if he only had one trip left in him.
He said it with a softness I’ll never forget, like it had been growing quietly in his chest for years. “Lake Bled. The Julian Alps and the people. They say it’s peaceful there.”
Peace. He deserved that.
At a restaurant near Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport, we tried potica first — that rolled walnut cake Taemin-oppa had read about on a travel blog.
I cut a bite-sized piece for him and he slowly chewed, brows rising like it was the best thing he’d had in a while.
Then came the Kranjska klobasa — Carniolan sausage. I wasn’t expecting to cry over sausage, but I did, when he looked up at me and said, “You know Rosie, this tastes like something I want to remember forever.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes before he could see. But he always saw.
Later that day, after we had checked into our room at Grand Hotel Toplice, I wheeled him gently along the cobbled paths by Lake Bled.
I watched as his eyes wandered, taking in everything — the lake bathed in soft afternoon pastel light, families pedaling by on bicycles, and the laughter and easy joy of strangers filling the air.
He was memorizing it. I knew that look.
When we sat by Lake Bled and shared hot tea from a thermos, I wanted to tell him I was scared.
That every push of the wheelchair reminded me he was slipping away but I couldn’t ruin it for him.
Well, not now. Not on his dream trip.
So I just kept smiling like this was the beginning and not a goodbye we were pretending wasn’t coming.
Taemin’s POV
DAY 1 | Afternoon at Lake Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
Rosé pushed me slower than usual. I think she wanted me to feel like I was walking — like my legs still had something to give. She didn’t know I noticed that, but I did. I noticed everything now.
People walked past us without stares, without whispers. Just normal. The kind of normal I hadn’t felt in a while.
I let my eyes linger on a little girl in yellow chasing pigeons. A couple feeding each other spoonfuls of ice cream. A man sketching something with a pencil and notebook.
I tried to burn them all into memory.
When you’re 31 and your muscles fail you — little by little, month by month — the world begins to feel smaller but Slovenia felt wide and open.
Like it hadn’t given up on people like me.
And Rosé had done so much. I used to tease her for being stingy. Now I knew she wasn’t.
She was just saving for this. For me.
“Rosie,” I recalled saying while we ate at a restaurant near the airport earlier, “you really brought me to heaven, huh?”
She laughed, too loud. Her nose crinkled like when we were kids. She still laughs the same.
I looked around, at Lake Bled, at an old man playing accordion in the corner.
And for a moment, I forgot I was dying.
I forgot about leg cramps, about my muscular dystrophy, about the cold, stiff mornings.
I only remembered this: My younger half-sister, here. The breeze, here. Life, still here.
And I was thankful. So thankful, it almost hurt.
=====
Rosé’s POV
DAY 1 | Nighttime at Grand Hotel Toplice, Lake Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
Changing Taemin-oppa’s clothes had gotten harder these days. His arms didn’t lift like they used to, and the moment I tried to raise them, his whole body stiffened with resistance.
I bit my lip, forcing my hands to be gentle even as my shoulders ached from the awkward angle.
“It’s okay, Taemin-oppa,” I whispered, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. “Just relax, I’ve got you.”
He always apologizes — whispering sorry like it’s his fault. But I won’t let him carry that guilt. Not when this disease already takes so much from him.
I could still remember the sterile white room, the way he sat stiff beside me.
The neurologist explained it all calmly to him — Muscular Dystrophy, a degenerative disorder, the kind that slowly strips away your strength and dignity.
The kind that doesn’t have a cure. The kind that makes you wonder, every day, what you’ll lose next.
After that, everything started — booking appointments, researching diets, finding physical therapists. All for my brother.
And now, here we are. Across the world from that hospital. In his dream country, Slovenia.
Once I got him into his pajamas, I had to lift him from the wheelchair to the bed.
His frame was thinner than ever, like carrying a fragile branch I couldn’t afford to snap.
He didn’t say a word, but I felt the shame in the way he avoided my eyes.
When I finally helped him lie down and pulled the covers up to his chest, I leaned over and gently fixed the strands of hair that stuck to his forehead.
“Goodnight oppa,” I said quietly, brushing my thumb across his cheek. “Rest well. You’re safe.”
I waited until his eyes fluttered shut — or at least pretended to — before I stepped away, sighing.
My arms burned. My back twinged. But I didn’t regret a single second.
I poured myself some warm milk and sat on the edge of the window.
Outside our hotel room, the night was calm. Lake Bled glittered under the moonlight, street lamps casting soft gold against the water.
Slovenia was exactly how Taemin-oppa dreamed it — like a fairytale paused in time.
I saved for this. Every hour I worked overtime — because I didn’t want him to miss this.
I didn’t want muscular dystrophy to take everything before he could see beauty with his own eyes.
He had been diagnosed two years ago. And it’s been two years of slow, quiet grief.
But for me, it is also two years of love.
Taemin’s POV
DAY 1 | Nighttime at Grand Hotel Toplice, Lake Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
I couldn’t move much, but I didn’t need to. I could hear Rosé’s soft steps across the room, the quiet clink of the mug as she poured her milk.
I closed my eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come.
Instead, my chest tightened and I cried silently. No shaking breath. Just gratitude for everything she had done.
Slovenia. We made it.
This country always felt unreachable to me — something from a screensaver or a YouTube video.
But I remembered saying once, barely above a whisper, “If I could go anywhere, I want to see Slovenia before my body forgets how to move.”
And somehow, Rosé made it happen. She made it happen.
Rosé saved for this trip. Carried me through airports. Made sure I was warm.
Helped me with every pill, every injection, every piece of clothing.
She even smiled when she lifted me from the chair, though I could see the strain in her arms.
It hurts — needing help with even the smallest things but it hurts more knowing how hard she works and never complains.
I stared at the ceiling, memorizing every detail of the hotel room. The sound of distant laughter outside. The low hum of the heater. The faint scent of chamomile from her milk. I wanted to remember all of it.
…because I know what this disease is doing.
I’ve lived with it for two years. I feel it when my fingers twitch, when my legs stop responding, when my breathing takes more effort than it should.
But tonight, I was in Slovenia and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.
“Thank you, Rosie,” I whispered to the darkness.
=====
Rosé’s POV
DAY 2 | Morning at Vintgar Gorge, Slovenia | October 2024
I woke up to birdsong and the softest ripple of lake water against stone.
The curtains I forgot to draw last night fluttered gently in the breeze, letting in the pale gold of morning light.
For a second, I didn’t move. Just stood at the foot of the bed and watched the way the early sun spilled over Taemin-oppa’s face, resting against the fragile curve of his cheekbone.
He looked better. Not good. Not healthy. But better.
Less tight around the eyes, and his fingers weren’t curled in pain like last night. It was small, but these days, I clung to small things.
This trip was a miracle, in its own quiet way. It shouldn’t have happened — not when everything in Seoul was begging us to stay.
Not when his lungs gave out just last month. Not when his legs haven’t worked properly since two years ago but Taemin-oppa had looked at me with that kind of reckless hope only he could pull off and said, “Rosie, just Slovenia.”
And here we were.
I turned away from the bed and reached for the folded itinerary I kept beside the water jug.
My handwriting was scribbled, but I knew every line by heart.
October 13 — Vintgar Gorge
October 14— Ljubljana Castle
October 15 — Postojna Cave
I had mapped everything down to the minute. From the hotel to Vintgar? Barely 20 minutes by car — just 4 kilometers.
Ljubljana was trickier, 40 minutes on the road, but the castle had a funicular and ramps. They even emailed me a photo of the viewing deck Taemin-oppa could actually roll onto.
And Postojna? I hired a van with a ramp. The cave had a little train ride that didn’t require steps, and the guides knew in advance that Taemin-oppa would need support.
I had never been this prepared in my life. I had no choice. Taemin-oppa’s muscular dystrophy had progressed fast. Faster than anyone expected. His muscles had grown weaker even in the short months we were planning.
This is also the very reason why I chose Grand Hotel Toplice. Right by the lake. No hills. No driving just to see Lake Bled. Just open the door, push the chair, and there it is — like a postcard that had been waiting for us.
I looked back at him, still resting under the soft duvet. His chest rose and fell slowly.
I crossed the room, crouched beside the bed, and touched his forehead. “Morning oppa,” I whispered. “It’s Vintgar Gorge day.”
His eyelids fluttered open. For a second, he looked confused — like he forgot we’d made it here.
Then the corners of his lips lifted, just slightly. “Oh, shoot.”
I brushed the edge of his bangs with my fingers. “You can see it today. Not through a video. Not from a picture. Really see it.”
I dressed him slowly, carefully. Soft hoodie, fleece-lined pants — he hated the cold.
The bruise on his collarbone looked lighter. I adjusted the cushions, secured his seatbelt in the wheelchair, and wheeled him gently out of the room.
The moment we exited the lobby, I felt it — the cold brush of lakeside wind, the scent of pine and water and gravel.
The promenade stretched out in front of us, level and paved. It was perfect.
We then drove through sleepy Slovenian streets, the kind that seemed untouched by time.
The road narrowed near the entrance, hemmed in by towering cliffs and the distant hum of the Radovna River. I glanced sideways.
Taemin-oppa had fallen asleep again. His head tilted slightly to the right, lips parted, the softest snore rising and falling with the rhythm of the van.
I didn’t wake him until we were parked.
“Oppa,” I said, brushing a hand along his arm. “We’re here. Vintgar Gorge.”
His lashes fluttered. He blinked slowly, looking dazed, then nodded. “We’re really doing it, huh?”
I eased the ramp down and helped him settle in. The gorge had built a wide wooden walkway years ago, just above the river — meant for hikers, photographers, tourists.
I had emailed the park office weeks in advance, confirming widths, guardrails, and turnarounds. They said it would be tricky. Not easy but doable.
And so we did it.
The boardwalk creaked gently beneath the wheels of his chair. Beneath us, the Radovna sparkled like melted jade, curling around stones and under wooden bridges.
Water crashed gently in the distance — not violent, just persistent, like the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.
Taemin-oppa didn’t talk much. He never did when he was overwhelmed.
I could tell, though, by the way he leaned forward slightly, eyes darting to the moss-covered rocks and the way light filtered through the canopy, golden and quiet.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered.
I nodded, tightening my scarf. “I told you it would be.”
We reached a wider platform that overlooked a small waterfall — not tall, but powerful, a white plume crashing into green. I parked the wheelchair close to the railing.
He reached for my hand, and I gave it without a word.
We stood there — or sat, really — for what felt like hours. Not speaking. Just watching the water carve its way through centuries of stone.
“It hurts,” he said suddenly. Quietly. “To know this is probably my last time.”
I squeezed his hand. Harder than I meant to. “But it’s a real time. That matters more.”
He looked up at me. His eyes shimmered, not from tears but from light — soft and honest and unflinching. “Thank you, Rosie. For not letting me die before this.”
Something cracked in me then. Not loud. Just a fracture. The kind you don’t notice until winter seeps in.
When we wheeled back through the gorge, the wind had shifted. Light danced on the leaves, and in that moment — with everything crumbling inside me — it still looked like a painting.
Like something worth remembering.
Tomorrow, we’d go to Ljubljana for the famous castle. I’d make sure the van came early. I had even rehearsed pushing his chair onto the funicular in my head.
The day after that, Postojna Cave — where the underground river ran so quietly you could hear your own breath echo.
When we came back to our hotel from Vintgar Gorge, we strolled again at Lake Bled.
Taemin’s POV
DAY 2 | Afternoon at Lake Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
The lake didn’t look real.
It shimmered in a way that felt too soft for real life, like someone had placed a sheet of glass over the entire surface and let the sky press its face into it.
The air was cool, the kind that brushed against your skin without rushing, like it had nowhere else to be. I liked that.
Rosé parked my wheelchair near the wooden railing, adjusting the brakes before pulling the blanket tighter around my legs.
She didn’t say anything — she rarely did when the view was this beautiful and maybe she knew I wouldn’t be able to say much either.
It was strange. This place had lived in my head for so long, like a recurring sketch I never had the skill to finish.
Ever since I saw it in a photograph...
Not for something big. Not for a honeymoon, or a milestone. I just wanted to sit here.
I wanted to breathe in the quiet and let the stillness settle somewhere deep inside.
Now that I was here, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I watched the swans drifting near the shore. I remembered telling Rosé once — back when I was still walking without help — that if I ever came here, I’d choreograph a dance that is something inspired by the way swans moved.
She laughed and said only I would come up with something like that.
Maybe I would’ve done it too. Found a quiet studio back home, put on something instrumental, and tried to mimic that gentle sway, that subtle turn of the head, that gliding motion that looked like it didn’t belong to gravity.
But then came the diagnosis. Then came the shaking hands. The tightness in my chest. The falls. The quiet tears Rosé never thought I heard.
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. It took my legs first, then my back, and now, some days, even holding a pencil felt like a battle.
I stopped choreographing dances when I realized I couldn’t demonstrate anything anymore.
Clients moved on. Students left. Not out of cruelty, but because the silence between movements was too loud when I couldn’t show them what I meant.
But my younger sister, Rosé didn’t leave.
She became my movement. She carried me when my own body wouldn’t. Literally, sometimes and always quietly.
I looked out at the lake again, at the small church resting on Bled Island in the distance. For a moment, it looked like it was floating.
“I always thought I’d come here and dance,” I murmured.
Rosé turned, kneeling beside me to fix the scarf around my neck. “You still can,” she said.
I smiled — small, crooked. “Maybe just with my eyes now.”
She didn’t argue. She just stayed there for a while, watching the water with me.
I blinked slowly, holding back the warmth behind my eyes. I didn’t want to cry here. Not here.
…but there was something about Slovenia — about finally being here — that cracked open a part of me I’d tried to keep sealed.
I had dreamed of this moment for so long, and now that it was here, I didn’t need an audience.
I didn’t need anyone to see me. I just needed to sit, and breathe, and feel.
Rosé took out her phone. “Want a photo?”
“Just of the lake,” I whispered. “Not me.”
She nodded, not surprised. The shutter clicked.
One frame. One proof that I had made it. That despite everything — despite losing my balance, my strength, and parts of the life I thought I’d live — I still got here.
And even if I couldn’t choreograph a single dance step anymore, this moment moved something inside me.
And that was enough.
=====
The soft clinking of boat paddles in the distance and the faint rustle of leaves above created a cradle of silence around Lake Bled.
It was a beautiful afternoon, and while a few tourists dotted the edge of the promenade, most remained hushed, almost reverent, as if the lake demanded stillness.
Rosé stood beside Taemin, one hand on the handle of his wheelchair, the other holding the scarf she had just adjusted around his neck.
She didn’t speak. He hadn’t, either — not since whispering that line about dancing with his eyes.
She let the moment linger because she knew how long he had carried this dream.
And then, softly — almost too softly to notice — came a voice. “Excuse me, I’m sorry. May I take a photo of you two?”
Rosé turned.
Standing a few feet away was a young man about her age, slim-framed and dressed in earth-toned clothes that blended into the trees behind him.
His backpack was modest, worn at the edges, and a small film camera hung from his neck.
His hair was light brown, brushed neatly to the side, and he kept his eyes low, as if even asking had cost him something.
Taemin blinked up, surprised. Rosé looked from the man to Taemin and back again.
“Just from behind,” the man quickly added. “I… I take photos of people in quiet moments. I’ll blur the faces. But this one — it’s beautiful. You two. The lake. I — I just wanted to ask permission.”
There was a long pause. A bird chirped in the trees above.
Rosé tilted her head. “What’s your name?”
“Winwin,” he said. “Sorry — Dong Sicheng but most people just call me Winwin. I’m Chinese.”
Rosé smiled. “Hi, Win. We are South Koreans by the way.”
He flushed a little. Taemin gave a slow nod, and though he didn’t say anything, it was enough.
Winwin nodded in gratitude, then slowly lifted his camera. He didn’t rush. He moved quietly, almost like he was afraid to break the air around them.
He didn’t ask them to pose. He didn’t direct. He simply waited.
And then, as the breeze picked up slightly and the waters of Lake Bled shimmered with the movement of light, he pressed the shutter.
One photo. Then another.
A shot of Rosé’s hand gently resting on Taemin’s shoulder. A frame with the outline of their silhouettes against the lake.
A wide shot, capturing the quiet poetry of the moment — the vulnerability, the shared history, the stillness between them.
Winwin lowered his camera after just a few minutes. “Thank you,” he said, bowing a little. “I… I hope one day to show people why these moments matter. And I think yours does.”
Rosé’s eyes softened. “That’s kind of you.”
He nodded, backing away, respectful to the end. He didn’t ask for their contact. He didn’t push further.
And when he finally disappeared into the trees, it felt as though he had never disturbed anything at all.
Rosé however couldn’t stop thinking about how shy he’d been, how he’d asked for permission before taking a photo — how he looked like someone quietly yearning for connection but not quite knowing how to ask for it.
She glanced at Taemin, who was looking at the lake again as he sat in his wheelchair, the sunlight soft against his lashes.
Without overthinking it, Rosé stood up and called after him. “Hey! Win!”
The name came out light but firm, enough to make him pause mid-step and turn around, eyebrows raised in surprise.
He stepped back toward them. “Yeah?”
Rosé tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Are you traveling alone?”
Winwin nodded slowly. “I am. I’ve been solo since Austria, few months ago.”
She exchanged a quick look with Taemin, who blinked and tilted his head toward her in curiosity.
“Well,” Rosé said carefully, “…it might be a little strange, but would you like to come with us? Just for a few days. Or even just to the next stop.”
Winwin blinked. “Seriously?”
“We’re headed around Slovenia,” she continued, a little embarrassed now that she was saying it out loud. “My older brother — Taemin — made a list of places he’s always wanted to visit. It’s nothing fancy, but…”
“But we’d like the company,” Taemin finished, smiling. “If you’re not in a rush to be somewhere else.”
Winwin stood frozen for a moment. You could tell no one had offered him that in a while. “I… I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not,” Rosé said gently. “And I’m a good judge of people. You’re quiet, but you’re kind. That’s more than enough.”
Taemin looked up at him. “We’re siblings, by the way. In case you were wondering earlier.”
“Oh!” Winwin’s face flushed. “I’m sorry, I thought — I mean, I didn’t want to assume — ”
“It’s fine,” Rosé laughed. “You’re not the first. But yeah, he’s my older brother. My annoying, stubborn, impossible-to-deal-with older brother.”
“And she’s my overly protective, bossy, emotionally constipated younger sister,” Taemin shot back, grinning.
Winwin laughed. It was a small, surprised sound, but real. Then he looked between them and nodded, like the decision was already made. “Okay,” he said. “I’d love to come with you.”
Rosé smiled. “We are staying at Grand Hotel Toplice but tomorrow we are going to Ljubljana Castle. Taemin-oppa’s really the boss of this itinerary.”
“Of course I am,” Taemin said proudly.
Then Rosé said, “but I can decide for us that we can stroll around here for a while,” shooting playful look at his brother.
As the nostalgic afternoon progressed at Lake Bled, three unlikely companions were stuck together — two siblings bound by years of shared pain and healing, and one stranger with a camera, invited not out of charity, but recognition.
Something about the way they looked at each other now said this journey wasn’t going to be the same anymore.
It was going to be something better.
They then found themselves tucked inside a quiet café off a cobbled side street, far from Lake Bled.
The windows fogged slightly from the warmth inside, and their table by the corner offered a perfect view of a small courtyard framed by ivy.
Three mismatched mugs sat between them — one half-empty, one untouched, and one still steaming.
A rain started outside, gentle and barely there, the kind of drizzle that added softness to everything.
Winwin was the one who broke the silence first. “I didn’t expect to talk this much today,” he said with a sheepish chuckle, eyes resting on the rim of his cup. “But I’m glad I did.”
Rosé smiled. “We’re glad you joined us. You don’t give off ‘stranger danger’ vibes.”
“I try not to,” he said, then hesitated. “Can I tell you something?”
Taemin nodded, leaning in a little. “Of course.”
Winwin glanced at both of them, then down at his hands.
“I’m a freelance photographer. I mostly do work for an international broadcast network — nothing big or flashy. I get sent to cover stories, sometimes just to get atmospheric shots for documentaries, short travel segments, that kind of thing. The pay’s decent, enough to keep me moving.”
“That’s amazing,” Rosé said sincerely.
He gave a small smile. “It wasn’t really my dream job, to be honest. But I said yes when the opportunity came up, because it gave me the freedom to move around. I’ve been based mostly in Europe the past months.”
“Why Europe?” Taemin asked gently.
Winwin’s eyes softened. “My mom,” he said. “She always wanted to see Europe. When I was little, she’d show me pictures in magazines, and we’d watch travel shows together. She loved the architecture, the languages, the idea of taking trains from country to country but she never got the chance to go. Life didn’t give her that.”
The sound of spoons stirring lingered between their silences.
“She passed away last year,” he continued quietly. “And before she died, she made me promise something. She said — ‘if life allows, see it all for me. Every country. Walk those streets. Eat things I never got to taste. Take photos so I can see it, too.’”
Rosé reached across the table and lightly touched his arm. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“It’s not always easy,” he admitted. “There are days when I wonder if I’m doing it for her, or just running away from everything else. But then I’ll take a photo of some church steps, or a window with flowerpots, and I’ll think — she would’ve liked this. And that’s enough to keep going.”
Taemin, for a moment, said nothing. Then he gave Winwin a quiet nod, one filled with a kind of unspoken understanding.
“We’re all chasing something,” he murmured. “I think yours just happens to be a promise.”
Winwin looked up at him, surprised at the depth behind his words. “And you two?” he asked. “Why Slovenia?”
Rosé answered with a grin. “That’s Taemin-oppa’s story to tell.”
Taemin only leaned back in his chair and looked out the fogged window, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “We’ll get to that,” he said.
The rain picked up just slightly outside and a comfortable silence settled when Taemin added quietly, “Slovenia…” he began, eyes still on the window, “wasn’t just random.”
Rosé looked at him, her brows slightly lifted.
Taemin exhaled softly. “A few years ago, I found this travel magazine at a secondhand bookstore in Seoul. It was old — pages yellowed, cover bent. But there was this photo of Lake Bled on the front. The water looked like it had been painted in oil, and there was this mist curling over the island church. I remember thinking it looked too still to be real. I tore out the page and kept it.”
He paused, glancing down at his fingers.
“Every time I got stuck choreographing something, or when life felt too tight, I’d look at that photo. Like maybe, one day, if I ever got a break, I’d go there and see it in motion.”
He gave a small shrug. “So when my younger sister Rosé asked where I wanted to go, I said Slovenia. I didn’t even blink.”
Rosé smiled, soft and knowing. “I didn’t even argue.”
Taemin chuckled. “For once.”
Winwin didn’t say anything, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a quiet smile — because he understood. Sometimes a single photo was enough to carry you across oceans.
=====
Rosé’s POV
DAY 2 | Afternoon at Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
There was something about the way Winwin held his camera — gentle, almost reverent — that stayed with me as we returned to Lake Bled once more from the cafe.
He didn’t speak much about his work, didn’t name-drop the places he’d been or the people he’d shot for.
But the way he looked through that lens, it told me more than any story he could’ve bragged about.
He waited — not just for the right light, but for stillness. As if he was trying to catch something the rest of us missed.
Now, the van rumbled quietly beneath us as we drove past rolling valleys and sleepy villages with red roofs and fading shutters.
Taemin-oppa was asleep beside me, his head tilted against the glass, breath fogging the window slightly.
Winwin sat up front, next to the driver, camera poised again — this time to catch the way the sun bled into the late afternoon sky.
A photographer traveling across Europe. On paper, it sounded cinematic. Something straight out of a magazine spread — wild, romantic, curated for envy. But I knew better now. I’d been listening.
He wasn’t here chasing beauty. He was here chasing a promise.
I could still hear his voice in my head, soft but certain. “This was my mom’s dream. She always wanted to travel Europe but she never got to.”
And now he was walking every cobbled street for her mom. Framing every cathedral and lakeside village like he was bringing them back to her, piece by piece.
I tightened my grip around the thermos in my lap, the tea inside barely warm now. My fingers ached a little from the cold, or maybe from holding too tightly. I wasn’t sure.
Everyone has someone they’re carrying.
I turned slightly to look at Taemin, my older brother. His face was soft in sleep, mouth slightly parted. He’d talked about Slovenia for months— ever since he saw the picture of Lake Bled.
I remembered the way his eyes lit up when he mentioned Ljubljana’s old town, like it was a place he already lived in, even if only in dreams.
And now we were here. Not because luck made it happen, but because we made it happen.
But God, it wasn’t easy.
Some mornings, I had to coax his legs to move. Some nights, I had to watch him grit his teeth through pain he’d never admit out loud.
I counted pills like prayers, changed his clothes, massaged lotion into skin that bruised too easily.
I broke down more times than I’d ever tell him. Silent sobs behind bathroom doors. Panic attacks muffled into a towel. And yet, if I had to choose again — I would be with him. Every time.
I don’t know — technically, we’re only half-siblings on our father’s side but it’s always felt like more than that. In every way that matters, we’re whole. We’re family, completely.
I caught Winwin’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Just a flicker. He smiled — not the kind that asks for anything in return, just acknowledgment. I gave him the same.
He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t try to understand. But something about the way he looked at me told me he already did.
He was carrying someone, too.
Winwin’s POV
DAY 2 | Afternoon at Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
I didn’t say much, but I saw everything.
Rosé didn’t even notice herself doing it — adjusting her brother Taemin’s scarf with one hand while holding his coffee with the other.
Movements so fluid, so practiced, you’d think she’d been doing this her whole life. Maybe she had.
She stood slightly to the left as we walked down the cobbled street earlier, always on the outer side. Shielding him from the wind. From the world.
It wasn’t loud, her kind of care. No declarations. Just instinct. Steady and constant. The kind of love that never needed to be explained.
I’d met a lot of people on this job. Big personalities. Big plans. People who wore their purpose like a badge. But Rosé, she didn’t talk about what she was doing for her brother. She just did it.
I sat across from them at the café earlier, warm with clinking spoons and low conversation. My coffee was growing cold, but I didn’t mind. My eyes kept drifting to her.
She stirred Taemin-hyung’s coffee gently, then slid it across the table like it was a ritual she’d memorized.
Taemin-hyung whispered a soft “thank you” and smiled. He looked tired, pale around the edges. But she didn’t flinch.
She just returned the smile, her hand brushing against his like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I didn’t know all of their story. I hadn’t asked. But I felt it in the in-betweens.
In how Rosé checked her phone like she was keeping track of a schedule she couldn’t afford to miss. In the way her eyes flicked toward Taemin-hyung every few minutes, always watching, always aware.
There was history there. Not just as siblings but as fighters, as survivors of something they rarely spoke about.
And somehow, watching them now, I saw shadows of my mother.
I remembered how, even in her final months, she tried to pretend everything was fine.
She’d fold my shirts with trembling hands. Stand at the stove like she wasn’t shaking. That same quiet insistence — I’m still here. I can still do something.
Rosé reminded me of that. That kind of strength that isn’t loud, but lingers.
She laughed then — at something Taemin-hyung said. Her face lit up for just a second. Real, unfiltered joy. It hit me in the chest.
She wasn’t here for leisure. Not for photos or pretty backdrops. This was something else.
She was giving her older brother a piece of the world before his world got too small. Too heavy.
I reached for my camera, then paused because some moments don’t need to be captured. Some moments just stay.
And this one — I’d carry with me, frame or no frame.
Taemin’s POV
DAY 2 | Afternoon at Bled, Slovenia | October 2024
The cold didn’t bite like it used to.
It rested gently on my skin — crisp, clean, almost kind. I sat this morning at Vintgar Gorge, letting the wind graze my cheeks, and for a moment, I forgot the heaviness in my legs.
Forgot the weakness in my arms. The slow betrayal of my muscles that has shaped my life since two years ago.
This place — Slovenia — it felt like a country painted from memory. Not my memory maybe, but someone else’s dream.
The pastel buildings, the way the river curved through the heart of this place like it knew exactly where it wanted to go.
There was something quiet here. Something unhurried. The kind of quiet that doesn’t ask questions, just lets you breathe.
I didn’t think we’d ever get here.
Rosé, my younger sister promised me this place when I was in the hospital after I told her I liked to be here.
Back when I was still learning how to use a wheelchair on my own. “We’ll go there one day,” she’d whisper, brushing crumbs from the white bedsheets. And I’d nod, not because I believed it — but because I wanted to see her believe.
She believed enough for both of us.
And now here we are. In a country I can barely pronounce, drinking coffee with a stranger-turned-companion, and watching my sister stir sugar into my cup like she’s done a thousand times before.
Her hands know my needs better than I do. They’ve known how to hold me, carry me, steady me — long before I understood what muscular dystrophy even was.
There’s something about Winwin, too. He’s quiet in a way that doesn’t fill the room with silence but rather makes space for it.
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I catch him watching Rosé sometimes — like he’s studying her. Not out of curiosity, but out of respect.
I don’t think he’s ever said the words, but he sees it. What it takes to keep showing up. What it means to sacrifice dreams for care, for family, for me.
That’s the thing no one tells you about illness.
It doesn’t just happen to you. It happens to everyone who loves you.
Rosé could’ve had a different life. A freer one. But instead, she chose this — me even if we are only half siblings.
And somehow, she still manages to laugh like the world hasn’t taken anything from her.
Slovenia has been gentle with us. The roads are uneven, but people help without asking.
The air feels like it’s been filtered through trees older than memory.
I maybe slower these days. My body’s not what it used to be, not that it ever was — but here, that doesn’t seem to matter.
No one rushes me.
For the first time in a long while, I don’t feel like a burden.
Just someone. Someone who still wants to see what’s out there. Someone whose sister made a promise in a hospital room, and then kept it.
Maybe that’s what this trip is — one long promise being fulfilled. One breath at a time.
And I think, I’ll carry Slovenia with me. Long after my body forgets how to move.
=====
Day 3: Ljubljana Castle | October 2024
They had gone up to Ljubljana Castle just before dusk. Taemin had insisted they take the funicular, even when Rosé offered to rather stay in the old town for his safety.
But he had only smiled — that quiet, stubborn smile of his — and said, “This trip won’t be complete without seeing the view up there.”
Winwin on the other hand, just soundlessly laughed at them.
So up they went, gliding along the glass rails, the city slowly unfolding beneath them like a paper map.
At the top, the old stone courtyard stretched wide under the fading afternoon light.
The cobblestones were uneven and worn, centuries pressed into every crack, and Taemin’s wheels moved carefully across them.
Rosé kept glancing down, worried that her brother might get stuck, though he never did.
She hovered without smothering — always just close enough to catch him, never close enough to make him feel fragile.
They then explored every corner. From the Watchtower, Ljubljana spread out in all directions, a city painted in red rooftops and soft blue haze.
In the distance, the Alps rose up, snow-dusted and still, like something carved from a dream. She had leaned against the railing beside him and said, almost in a whisper, “If this were a painting, I wouldn’t believe it was real.”
After that, they didn’t speak much. They didn’t have to. The silence between them was warm, full of all the things that didn’t need saying.
They visited the castle chapel, tucked quietly near the entrance — empty, echoing softly with their footsteps.
She and Winwin lit a candle. She watched it flicker in the still air, the flame delicate and stubborn all at once. It looked fragile. It looked alive.
Later, in the small castle café, they shared a slice of kremšnita and mugs of hot tea.
He teased her about not liking whipped cream, and for once, she laughed without effort.
Not the polite kind of laugh, but something lighter. Truer. The kind that rose without warning and left a trace of warmth behind.
Winwin somehow didn’t fail to snap photos of them.
There was something about that moment — something about the thick stone walls, the hush of old stories still clinging to the air — that made everything feel weightless.
And in that brief stillness, Taemin didn’t feel like a burden. He simply felt human.
Day 4: Postojna Cave & Piran | October 2024
They left Grand Hotel Toplice just after breakfast, the sky still pale with early sun, and Taemin freshly bundled in his hoodie and scarf.
The hum of the countryside lulled him to sleep somewhere past Vrhnika.
Winwin sat beside the driver of the rental car while Rosé sat beside her brother in the backseat, quietly stroking his wrist when he twitched from a sudden jolt in the road.
Postojna Cave was their first stop of the day.
Rosé had carefully arranged everything ahead — accessibility check, confirmed rail tour, emergency contact just in case.
As they arrived, Taemin’s eyes widened at the massive karst entrance, like the mouth of some ancient creature waiting to share its secrets.
Inside, the air was a gentle 10°C — sharp enough to wake the senses, but not cruel.
The electric train clicked along the tracks, slowly revealing a world of stone: stalactites draped like melting wax, cathedral-like ceilings, and the unforgettable Brilliant Stalagmite — milky white, tall, and impossibly clean amidst the darkness.
Taemin barely blinked. His hand found Rosé’s without needing to look. “It looks like a candle that’s been burning forever,” he whispered.
Rosé smiled.
They didn’t rush. They let him linger. Even when the tour ended, they stayed in the cafe just outside the cave entrance.
Taemin had warm soup; Rosé shared a buttered roll with him and Winwin. Winwin took photos only when asked.
By mid-afternoon, they made their way to the coast — Piran, two hours west.
The drive wore Taemin out a little, so they paused at a view deck just before entering town.
From there, the red rooftops and turquoise waters of the Adriatic seemed like a painting.
Piran felt like a different world — sun-bleached stone, laundry flapping between windows, and salt in the breeze.
They walked slowly through Tartini Square, where Taemin paused to listen to a violinist playing Bach.
He didn’t speak much, but Rosé could see it in his eyes — the weight of beauty, and the fear of having to leave it.
They found a quiet seaside restaurant, all wooden chairs and yellow lamps. Taemin ordered seafood risotto but barely touched it — not from lack of appetite, but from being too busy watching the sunset over the water.
Day 4: Nighttime travel to Bled from Piran | October 2024
That night, they returned to Grand Hotel Toplice from Piran.
The coastal air still clung to their clothes — briny, sun-warmed, tinged with salt and wind. Piran had felt like another world entirely.
They had spent the day wandering through its maze of Venetian facades and sun-faded shutters, where laundry fluttered between buildings like flags of a quiet resistance to time.
Taemin insisted on touching the Adriatic Sea, even if just with the tips of his shoes.
Winwin also had helped him down the old stone steps near the marina, where tiny waves kissed the shore in gentle laps.
He’d stared out, eyes glossy with salt and wonder, and said, “It smells like the color blue.”
They climbed to St. George’s Parish Church — Winwin again this time pushing his chair up steep, winding paths while he read the names etched into the stones beneath them, saying each one like it meant something.
From the bell tower, the town unfurled like a painting — red roofs in a messy harmony, the sea endless and silver.
He pointed toward the distant curve of Italy and whispered, “I think the world is smaller when you really look.” Rosé painfully smiled.
And when they left, Taemin asked Rosé not to say goodbye to Piran — just thank you.
So that night, they returned to Grand Hotel Toplice quietly.
No fanfare. No farewell dinners. Just soft beds, warm socks, and chamomile tea.
Taemin fell asleep holding a photo Rosé had printed for him — the one of him beside the Brilliant Stalagmite from Postojna Cave.
Something to remember the earth by.
Outside their hotel window, the moon hung over Slovenia like a silent witness.
=====
Winwin’s POV
DAY 4| to Bled from Piran, Slovenia | October 2024
It’s strange, traveling with them because I didn’t feel like a tourist — I felt like a witness.
Every day was planned around what Taemin-hyung could handle. Every hour came with small adjustments, silent negotiations.
Like, can he endure a little more? Should we stop now? Will it hurt tomorrow?
And through it all, Rosé held it together.
She didn’t break. Not once. At least, not where Taemin-hyung could see.
But I noticed — I always noticed. The way she’d help him into a chair and then quietly roll her wrists behind her back like they were sore.
The way she looked at the lake in Bled — eyes fixed, as if memorizing it for someone else. The way her voice stayed steady even when her hands were shaking.
I’ve always admired her — calm, deliberate, strong but this was something else. This wasn’t strength for herself. It was all for him.
And Taemin, he wasn’t what I expected.
I thought I’d meet someone tired, quiet, maybe even bitter. But he was sharp. Sarcastic in the best way. Even when he couldn’t walk, or when we had to carry him into tight places, he kept his humor.
In Piran, as the wind tangled our hair and the sun dipped gold into the sea, he stared out and said, “Feels like I lived here before. Probably as some broke local who sold stolen postcards.”
I don’t know why that hit me so hard. Maybe because he said it like he really meant it — like he had lived a thousand lives already in just this one. Like this was all a borrowed memory, something he was visiting before it vanished.
There were hard moments, of course. His muscles would tremble when he was tired. Sometimes he’d wince and try to hide it.
Sometimes Rosé would step in without a word — gently lifting his arm, adjusting his scarf, resting a hand on his back. And then just wheeled him like it was nothing.
There’s a kind of language between siblings that doesn’t use full sentences. I don’t have that.
But with them, I could almost feel it.
Like I was watching something ancient. Quiet love, the kind that doesn’t need reminding.
At Lake Bled, I saw Taemin smile — not big, not showy. Just full. Content. He held his breath like he didn’t want to exhale and lose the view.
At Ljubljana Castle, after we helped him to the railing and he took it all in, he said, “You don’t have to keep carrying me guys. I know I’m heavy.”
And I told him the truth. “You’re not.”
Because he isn’t.
He’s not heavy. Not in the way that matters. If anything, he made me feel lighter. Like being with them stripped everything down to what’s essential — time, presence, breath.
Now, back in this hotel I’m staying in Bled with the curtains glowing amber and the street outside still quiet, I realize I’m holding something I didn’t expect to carry from this trip. Not a souvenir. Not a photo.
But a memory of how it felt to belong to a moment.
To help someone see the world a little longer. A little wider. To be part of a family, even for just a few days.
And I think — maybe that’s why I came. Not because Rosé asked but because some part of me needed this too.
Maybe we all did.
=====
Day 5: Travel back to South Korea | October 2024
The morning came slowly, as if even the sky didn’t want to let go just yet.
Outside the Grand Hotel Toplice, the air carried a lingering chill, softened by the warmth of the rising sun.
The cab Rosé booked would arrive in fifteen minutes.
Their luggage was packed neatly by the hotel’s entrance: Taemin-hyung’s canvas bag with its fraying straps, Rosé’s pale gray backpack with the pink ribbon charm.
Winwin emerged from the steps, camera hanging around his neck, already powered off.
Taemin was sitting on his wheelchair, his hands tucked in his sleeves.
Winwin walked over and stood beside him, silently for a moment, eyes wandering over the neighborhood — red-tiled roofs, sleeping windows, a cat curled on a windowsill across the street.
“Still heading to Croatia next?” Taemin asked, his voice low but steady.
“Maybe,” Winwin replied. “Or Hungary. Depends on the assignment.”
Taemin smiled faintly. “Take care always, buddy.”
“Always.”
They both laughed quietly.
Rosé came out from inside with a paper bag — a leftover pastry from the bakery down the street, and a handwritten note folded like a letter.
She handed it to Winwin. “For the road,” she said. “Or the train or whatever border you decide to cross next.”
Winwin took it with both hands, bowing his head slightly. “Thanks.”
There was a quiet pause. A shared knowing.
And then Rosé reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. “Here,” she said, unlocking it. “Let’s not make this the last time. Instagram, KakaoTalk, Line, pick your poison.”
Winwin chuckled and took out his own phone, exchanging contact info, usernames, even one silly selfie the three of them had taken in Piran that none of them liked but somehow kept anyway.
“I’ll message you,” Rosé said. “Even if it’s just to send weather updates or what I’m eating.”
“Or a picture of Taemin-hyung pretending he’s not cold,” Winwin added.
Taemin laughed. The taxi pulled up quietly.
Before finally leaving, Taemin said, “Thanks for joining us. It really meant more than I can say.”
“I should be thanking you hyung,” Winwin replied. “You guys reminded me why I started taking photos in the first place.”
Rosé blinked fast — a moment too long. She nodded and stepped forward, pulling Winwin into a brief hug. It wasn’t dramatic or drawn out. It didn’t need to be. Just firm. Meaningful. Real.
“You take care of yourself,” she whispered. “And let us know if you ever pass by Seoul.”
Winwin nodded. “I will.”
They got into the taxi. Taemin leaned against the window and raised a small wave as the engine started.
Winwin raised his hand in return, not stepping back. Not just yet.
The taxi turned the corner, disappearing slowly from view.
And Winwin was left alone on infront Grand Hotel Toplice, in the soft light of morning, a paper bag in hand, and the sudden absence of footsteps beside him.
He didn’t feel empty, though.
He felt full of quiet memories. Of shared days and borrowed hours. Of the sound of laughter echoing in limestone caves and the hush of wind at Lake Bled.
=====
Winwin
DAY 1 | En Route from Podgorica to Malta | May 2025
He woke before dawn in Podgorica, Montenegro’s drowsy capital, where he was currently stationed for the international broadcast network he worked with.
The sky outside was still charcoal-grey, the city hushed, caught between night and morning.
His guesthouse room was dim. A suitcase sat half-zipped on the hardwood floor, camera lenses tucked neatly into the folds of an old sweater.
The air smelled faintly of dust and brewed coffee from somewhere downstairs.
There was something about packing that always made him feel slightly unmoored — like every country was just another layover, every room a waiting room. Never home. Just somewhere in between.
His flight wasn’t direct — Montenegro to Malta never was.
First, he had to catch a short hop from Podgorica to Belgrade, just under an hour.
The sun rose somewhere above the Adriatic while he sat at the departure gate, sipping cheap coffee and watching a mother braid her daughter’s hair.
His bag felt heavier than usual — not because of gear, but because of anticipation.
He hadn’t seen Rosé in seven months. Not since Slovenia last October of 2024.
From Belgrade, he boarded the next leg to Rome — a couple hours through calm skies. The layover in Fiumicino dragged.
He flipped through photos on his camera: crumbling stone villages, blurred children laughing in Montenegro, and the silent hush of mountain lakes.
Then came the final flight: Rome to Malta, a short hour-long stretch that barely gave him time to rest.
Looking out the plane window, he saw the jagged coastline of Malta, sun-splashed and ancient.
It didn’t look like anywhere he’d photographed before. It was drier. Wiser. Like the kind of place people went to remember something they didn’t know they’d forgotten.
At Malta International Airport, he arrived a little earlier than Rosé. He bought two coffees from a quiet kiosk — one black, one with cream, because he can’t remember well enough if she like it a little sweet — and waited near the arrival gate with his camera bag slung across his chest.
Rosé
DAY 1 | In transit | May 2025
It started with the soft flicker of the departure board overhead — flight codes and numbers blinking like secret messages only the sleep-deprived could decode.
Incheon International was already stirring: the hush of murmured conversations, the steady whir of suitcase wheels, and the faint, bitter scent of airport coffee clinging to the cold air.
Rosé sat quietly by Gate 113, cradling a neck pillow and an over-worn passport that still smelled faintly of Slovenia — of lake mist, chamomile, and old stone.
She was bone-tired.
The flight to Malta loomed like a long sigh. Twenty-two hours in transit, with a layover in Germany she barely remembered — just sterile corridors, vending machines with words she couldn’t pronounce, and a dull ache along her spine that whispered: you’re not twenty anymore. You’re twenty-eight. And that means something now.
But this wasn’t a vacation. Not in the way others did it.
This was for something else.
When the final descent into Malta International Airport began, she stirred from her nap, peeking out of the window to see the unfamiliar terrain below.
The sun was bright and generous, casting gold over the terracotta rooftops and stone-walled farms.
The sea was a quiet, endless blue — and for the first time since leaving home, she breathed like she wasn’t in between things.
She rolled her suitcase toward the arrival hall, blinking the sleep from her eyes and adjusting her cardigan.
It was only spring, but Malta was warmer than expected — soft winds, salt in the air, and people speaking a language she didn’t understand.
The tiled floors were cool beneath her sneakers. Her phone buzzed. One unread message.
“I’m by the Arrival Exit. Holding coffee.” — Winwin
She looked up, heart catching a little in her chest — not from nerves, but from familiarity.
There he was.
Leaning casually against a column, wearing a navy windbreaker and sneakers covered in dust, Winwin gave her a quiet nod when their eyes met.
In his hands, two takeaway coffees — one for her, just like he promised.
The Montenegro-to-Malta flight was short, just under seven hours including the transfer, but he looked like he hadn’t slept much either. His camera bag hung heavily on one shoulder.
“Long flight?” he asked.
“Twenty hours. I think I’m missing a year of my life,” she joked weakly, accepting the coffee. Their fingers brushed.
“Still worth it?”
She looked at him. At the small smile he wore. At the way the light caught the side of his face, calm and a little tired.
“Ask me again after meal.”
He chuckled, gesturing toward the exit. “Well then, let’s find something to eat. Welcome to Malta.”
They had only just left the airport to find a restaurant when he noticed it: the emptiness beside her.
Just Rosé— standing under the sharp spring sunlight with that kind of silence that clung too closely to grief.
He hesitated, then asked, softly, “Where’s Taemin-hyung by the way? You hadn’t mention him to me yet.”
It slipped out without ceremony, but the question had been throbbing at the back of his mind since he first saw her walk through Arrivals — alone.
Rosé didn’t answer right away. She stilled, then gave him a slow, quiet blink. Her lips pressed together, like she was chewing on glass.
The seconds stretched too long. “…Rosé?”
She turned away slightly, her gaze fixed somewhere far across the parking lot. “He’s not coming,” she said.
=====
FLASHBACK
Seoul, South Korea | Late October to Mid-November 2024
The first signs were almost forgettable.
They had just returned from Slovenia, from Bled, from the quiet walks and slow mornings by the lake Taemin had loved.
He always said it felt like a place the world hadn’t touched yet. When they landed in Incheon, the air in Seoul was colder than when they’d left.
On the third day back, Taemin woke up with a runny nose and a hoarse voice.
He brushed it off with a smile, murmuring something about “just the travel catching up.”
Rosé had smiled too, made him ginger tea with honey, tucked an extra blanket over his lap while he rested on the couch.
But the cough didn’t go away. It wasn’t loud or deep — just persistent. Dry. Quiet. The kind of cough that echoed in still rooms.
By the fifth day, he had a low-grade fever. He looked pale, thinner than usual, and the way he breathed had changed.
His chest rose awkwardly, the movement more visible in his neck and shoulders.
Rosé, who had lived alongside the slow erosion of his muscles for two years, knew that sign: he was using accessory muscles to breathe.
The doctor came two days later.
Taemin didn’t want to go to the clinic. “It’s just a cold,” he insisted.
But a portable pulse oximeter told a different story — his oxygen saturation was 89% at rest.
A stethoscope to his chest revealed coarse crackles in the lower lungs. The doctor ordered a chest X-ray that afternoon.
“Bilateral lower lobe consolidation,” the radiologist said. “Pneumonia.”
Rosé wasn’t ready for how fast things would change.
With muscular dystrophy, every cold had always been a risk but this time was different.
His diaphragm was already compromised, the respiratory muscles too weak to fully expand his lungs.
Even more dangerously, his cough reflex was nearly nonexistent — meaning the mucus and pus building inside couldn’t be expelled.
The infection spread. By the time the antibiotics were adjusted and intravenous fluids started, he was already working too hard to breathe.
They admitted him to the hospital. He hated hospitals.
The beeping monitors, the fluorescent lights, the cold IVs — he had lived in and out of them for two years, and they had never stopped feeling clinical and cruel. But now there was no choice.
A BiPAP machine was strapped over his face, pushing pressurized air to keep his alveoli open and force oxygen in but even that wasn’t enough.
He gagged when they suggested intubation. His eyes widened with fear at the thought of a breathing tube.
Rosé refused it too. She knew. He wouldn’t have wanted that kind of death — tied down, sedated, surrounded by alarms.
Still, the numbers dipped lower.
Carbon dioxide began building in his bloodstream. The arterial blood gas results came back: rising PaCO₂, dropping pH. He was moving into type II respiratory failure.
They had moments of lucidity between waves of fatigue. Sometimes he could respond, blinking, holding her hand, a slight squeeze of the fingers.
Other times, he drifted in and out of consciousness, lost in fever dreams and delirium. His skin grew colder. His voice, when it came, was no louder than a breath.
Rosé stopped sleeping.
She memorized the curve of his brow. The way his eyelashes trembled even when his eyes were shut. She counted every rise and fall of his chest like it was the last.
And then came the eighth night.
The room was dim. The only light came from a soft lamp in the corner and the green pulse tracing itself across the monitor.
He stirred.
His lips were dry, pale. But his eyes opened — just a little — and met hers.
“Rosie,” he whispered. The mask was slipping; she adjusted it gently over his face.
She nodded, pressing her forehead against his.
“You know…” His fingers reached for hers, weak but certain. “I wanted to see Bled again.”
Tears spilled without her realizing. “I’ll take you there again,” she whispered, though she already knew it wasn’t a promise that could be kept.
He didn’t speak again.
The nurses came in at dawn. His breathing had slowed.
Oxygen saturation: 72%.
Heart rate: 46 bpm.
No alarms. No resuscitation. They had signed the DNR.
At 5:12 a.m., November 14, 2024, he passed quietly — his hand still in hers, his eyes closed, his body finally at rest.
Outside, the first winter breeze swept through the city. Inside, time stilled.
And in Rosé’s chest, something broke that would never quite heal.
=====
DAY 2 | Gozo, Malta | May 2025
Rosé never planned to go to Malta.
In fact, her older brother, Taemin had never even mentioned it. Not once in all the years they were other — not in passing, not in dreams, not even as a joke.
It was just a place, one of thousands, oceans away from the life they shared.
But after he died, Rosé started reading. About everything and nothing. About grief and history. About the way things fall apart.
And that’s when she found it. The Azure Window. A stone arch carved by time, standing like a gate between earth and sea — strong, enduring, seemingly eternal.
And then, one day in 2017, it was gone. A sudden collapse during a storm. No warning. No slow erosion to prepare people for the loss.
She saw a photo of it — that majestic window into the blue — and something in her chest cracked open.
This seemed like her brother, Taemin. His strength, his grace, the sense that he would always, always be there.
And then he wasn’t. That’s why she came.
Not because Taemin ever wanted to but because she needed a place that felt like him. Something that stood proud once — and then fell too soon.
When she and Winwin reached the Azure Window, the wind hit her like a breath held too long.
They walked slowly, the cliff path empty except for scattered tourists and gulls circling overhead.
It was strange — there was nothing to see, really. Just open water and the jagged rocks where the arch once stood.
But Rosé’s knees almost gave out.
The pain in her chest was sudden, raw. Not dramatic — no sobbing or collapsing to the ground.
Just that sharp, invisible tear inside, like the first time she woke up and forgot he was gone, only to remember a second later and feel it all over again.
She stepped forward and whispered, almost to the sea, “He never mentioned this place. Not once.”
Winwin turned to her slowly.
“But after he died, I kept reading things. I saw a photo of this place and it…it made sense.” She inhaled shakily.” “It was strong, you know? This place. Just like him. People thought it would stand forever but it didn’t.”
Her voice cracked. “One day, it just collapsed into the sea. Gone. No chance to say goodbye. No way to hold onto it.”
She clenched her fists. “That’s how it felt when I lost him.”
The wind whipped around her, but she didn’t flinch. She stared at the empty space — that aching absence where the arch once stood.
“I came here because I needed to see something that broke like he did,” she whispered. “So I could stop pretending that strength means forever.”
She didn’t actually cry. She had done enough of that in quiet corners of airport gates and long showers and lonely mornings.
Now, she stood for him. In front of a place that no longer existed but once meant everything.
A grave made of sky and saltwater.
And beside her, Winwin didn’t speak but he reached out to her.
=====
DAY 3 | Gozo, Malta — Early Morning
They sat on a worn stone ledge overlooking the cliffs, a soft mist rolling in from the sea.
The horizon was blurred — no clear line between ocean and sky. It looked like the world had exhaled and decided to rest.
Winwin handed Rosé a paper cup of coffee. She took it with a quiet thank you, the steam curling in the morning air.
Neither of them spoke for a while. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was the kind that came after storms — still, reverent. Healing.
Rosé tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at him. “You look like him when you’re quiet.”
Winwin glanced sideways. “Taemin-hyung?”
She nodded. “Especially when you tilt your head like that.”
He smiled faintly, unconsciously correcting his posture.
“No — don’t change it,” she said with a soft laugh, her voice warm but fragile. “Let me have that for a while.”
Winwin grew quiet again. “You probably missed him so much by now.”
Rosé looked down at her coffee, then back at the sea. “I am missing him everyday. He was fire and calm. Reckless in the way only someone brave can be,” she said. “But gentle, too. Gentle in moments you wouldn’t expect.”
She swallowed. “You do that, too. So just stay like that.”
Winwin blinked, unsure what to say.
“I think,” she continued, voice quiet but steady, “some people come into your life and you don’t know what they’ll mean to you until it’s too late. And some people come in when you’re already broken, and somehow they become part of your healing.”
She turned to him fully now, her eyes glassy but holding the tears back.
“I’m actually grateful I met you during that five-day trip to Slovenia last year.”
Winwin didn’t look away. “And I know you’ll always be part of my story,” she said quietly. “Because when I look at you, I remember my older brother. I remember what it means to love someone… and to let them go.”
The air between them seemed to pause — fragile, trembling, like breath caught between goodbye and memory.
Winwin lowered his gaze, swallowing hard. “You’re gonna make me cry.”
She smiled — a real one this time. Wounded, but true. “Then cry,” she whispered. “Because I think that’s how we keep the people we’ve lost — by being human enough to still feel them.”
They sat there, side by side, two cups of now-lukewarm coffee between them, the wind brushing past like a third presence.
Day 4 | Gozo, Malta: Where the Sky Remembers
The morning sun in Gozo was softer than usual — diffused in a thin mist that made the limestone cliffs look like they’d been sketched in charcoal.
Rosé and Winwin had left their guesthouse early, walking side by side through narrow paths lined with low stone walls and olive trees, dew still clinging to the leaves.
They passed through San Lawrenz, a quiet village that smelled of morning bread and earth.
The church bells rang once as they crossed the piazza — a low, echoing sound that reminded Rosé of the church bells at Lake Bled, last year.
Winwin bought two bottles of Kinnie from the village grocer.
By late morning, they reached Dwejra Bay again— the place where the Azure Window once arched into the sea, proud and impossible.
Rosé knelt near the waterline just like she did yesterday, running her hand along the warm, honey-colored rock. “It’s like it still remembers,” she whispered, “even if it’s gone.”
“Ruins don’t erase a place,” Winwin said quietly, pulling his camera from his backpack. “Sometimes they just distill it.”
They wandered along the coast, tracing old trails that wound around Fungus Rock, past fossil-streaked stones and crumbling viewpoints overtaken by wild thyme and chamomile.
The Inland Sea, just a short walk away, shimmered like a portal. A single fisherman was preparing his wooden boat, looping rope in tired, rhythmic movements.
They watched him drift into the cave’s mouth, disappearing into the blinding blue light beyond.
They didn’t speak much. Just breathed.
Near noon, they found a shaded spot under the low cliffs, sharing fresh gbejna cheese, olives, and fig biscuits wrapped in parchment.
Rosé took off her shoes and let her toes dig into the sun-warmed dust, her face tilted up to the breeze.
“You know,” she said, eyes closed, “this is probably the kind of place people come to when they’re ready to let go. Or when they need to remember they haven’t.”
Winwin was watching her, but she didn’t look back.
Instead, she pulled a folded receipt from her bag — a torn receipt from that cafe they visited at Bled in Slovenia. It had been stuck in her passport since last year.
Without a word, she placed it under a small rock beside her, letting it flutter a little in the sea wind.
“A grave offering?” he asked softly.
“A thank-you,” she murmured.
By late afternoon, they walked back into San Lawrenz, slower now. The sun slanted low over terracotta rooftops.
They stopped at a quiet café where vines curled around chipped blue windows. Inside, old men played cards, and the air was heavy with espresso and time.
Rosé wrote a single postcard to herself — not to Korea, not to a friend, just to herself — and tucked it between the pages of her journal.
That night, as the stars settled over the village and the wind blew in from Dwejra, she stood at their balcony and watched the sea.
Winwin handed her a photo he had developed from the little darkroom kit he always carried on long trips.
It was her — sitting by the crumbled edge of the Azure Window, face turned away.
On the back, he’d written in pencil: There’s beauty in what’s missing, too.
DAY 5 | Malta International Airport
The airport smelled like coffee, jet fuel, and bittersweet goodbyes. Voices echoed under the high ceilings, some hurried, some tearful, some indifferent.
But for Rosé and Winwin, everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.
Her flight back to South Korea was boarding in less than thirty minutes.
Rosé zipped her coat, scarf tugged snugly around her neck. The Mediterranean warmth had faded early that morning, as if the island itself knew it was time to let go.
Winwin stood in front of her, shifting from one foot to the other. His backpack hung low on one shoulder, and in his hand was the train ticket to Zurich — the first stop on his way to Liechtenstein.
She looked up at him and smiled — the kind that tried so hard to be okay.
“Well,” she said softly, “this is it.”
Winwin nodded but didn’t speak.
They stared at each other for a moment, until he suddenly stepped forward and pulled her into a tight embrace — arms locked around her as if he didn’t want to let go. Not yet.
It caught Rosé off guard. He hadn’t hugged her before but they stayed like that for a moment longer, just holding on.
Then he pulled back slightly, just enough to look her in the eyes. “Promise me something.”
Rosé tilted her head. “What?”
“If things get too heavy back home,” he said, voice gentle, “if grief comes back like a storm — call me. Don’t shut me out.”
She blinked fast, eyes brimming. “Okay. I promise.”
“And…” he added, taking a step back now, trying to smile through the ache, “I’ll promise something too.”
Rosé raised an eyebrow, trying not to cry. “What is it?”
“In Liechtenstein,” he said, “I’ll find peace. Or at least pieces of it. For both of us.”
She let out a soft laugh through the tears. “That’s a big promise.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “But you gave me something I didn’t know I needed. A memory of Taemin-hyung I can carry. So now I’ll carry something for you, too.”
The final boarding call echoed overhead.
Rosé gave him one last look — a look full of things she couldn’t put into words. “Thank you, Winwin.”
He smiled. “Please have a safe flight, Rosé.”
“I will. Promise,” and smiled.
And with that, she turned and walked toward the departure gate — not quite whole, but more alive than she had been in a long time.
Behind her, Winwin stood still for a moment, watching until she disappeared from view.
Then he turned, hoisted his bag, and walked toward his own gate — to Liechtenstein, to whatever came next.
=====
CHARACTERS:
Rosé of Blackpink
Taemin of SHINee
