He was simply a mere gesture

before I called him.

But when I called him his name,

he came to me

and became a flower.

...

Flower/Kim Chunsoo

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

The shadow that long, fine eyelashes made danced slowly over big green eyes as flame of the fireplace wavered. The girl with long, long, long and fine golden locks unconsciously sighed in deep thoughts, looking into the glowing fire, shaped like a flower. A red and passionate one. She was hugging her own legs and had her chin on her knees. Tip of her bare toes that stuck out of a thin blanket was tapping the carpeted floor as she sang the Christmas song.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose-

Rapunzel stopped humming when she heard Eugene, who was lying on the sofa behind her, chuckle.

"What."

She wrinkled her nose, demanding for the reason of his chuckle. Eugene shrugged.

"You are singing it with completely wrong melody," he stopped the words and took his time to change his position into a more comfortable one, and then added, "as usual."

He yawned lazily. Rapunzel wrinkled her nose again, not so happy about Eugene's comment - or criticism, was what Rapunzel thought. She never cared about the correct melody. Never knew - would be the right words but whatever. She learned the lyric of that Christmas song from one of many books her mothers brought home, among many other songs. They never taught her how to sing them, though. Never. That was why she sang the song differently every time. She did not mind it, oh she never did.

Neither did he. He used to sing along the messed-up song...

"Hey."

Startled by Eugene's voice, she stopped daydreaming, thinking about herself years before. Before she escaped the prison. Even before she knew that she was in a jail. Of course, it was not an actual prison where she was born and lived until sixteen, but at least she felt like it.

"You should sleep.

"Oh."

Again, she nearly floated deep into her thoughts. Rapunzel's voice cracked a little as she spoke.

She was not crying. She really wasn't.

It was just because she did not speak for a little while.

Well, she did not shed tears when she thought about her previous home. That was what Eugene found strange yet impressive. For such a small girl, small as both in size and age, she was strong. He always thought that if he was in her place, he could not have lived through the whole thing. Her life was that tough. Eugene, the drug smuggler, saying he was not able to survive what Rapunzel did, was a big deal. A big, big deal.

"Okay." She replied after clearing her throat. Eugene threw her comforter, and though it was quite heavy, she caught it with ease, since it was a part of their usual routine of the night. Throwing the comforter and catching it, that is.

"Gotcha." She ran her fingers through her long, blonde hair. Eugene told her to cut it whenever he could, at least half its length, but she strongly refused. It was the only part she liked about herself.

"Such a great job, Rapunzel!"

His teasing words made her laugh a bit.

Their usual routine. She knew she was drifting, again, into her inner mind, but she couldn't help it. It had been nearly half a year since she left where she had been living for her whole, short life. She was thinking about her past. A lonely one. She always had to hide. She had to stay in the shadows after she became eight or nine, she couldn't remember. The funny thing was that even now, she and Eugene were hiding, being cautious to make sure that they are not caught by the police. It was not so different from her early teen years. And yet, it was different. Definitely different because she was not alone. Also, often did she meet other people, including purchasers(to sound professional, but technically junkies) and fellow smugglers. How decent acquaintances, she thought. Decent.

"Ready for America, blondie?"

Finally, she got out of her thoughts.

"Not sure." She shrugged. And then she yawned. After stop thinking about the past, the sudden tiredness flooded all over her. She never knew she was this tired.

Rapunzel pulled the worn-out, once-upon-a-time-white-but-now-grey comforter over her. Before lying down on the mattress, she glanced at the brunette man on the old sofa. She scanned her eyes over his fit, muscular, but not to muscular torso under the winter blanket and asked, "A goodnight kiss?"

Eugene grinned with his eyes shut and shook his head. "Nope."

Rapunzel groaned at the same response as every other night. "Why? I love you."

Eugene didn't even wince at her words. He simply shook his head again and she bit her lips. The thing was, even when she was saying the three-words-eight-letters, she was not sure what they even meant. Like the Christmas song, she only read it and never heard, smelt, seen, nor felt it. It, being, love. She did not know love. She just presumed that she was in love with Eugene because princesses in fairy tale books always fall in love with their saviors. Princes. Although she was not an a princess material and nor was Eugene a prince one, their situation kind of fit to those stories - her, locked up in the prison, and him, dramatically rescuing her by getting her out of there. So Rapunzel thought it was highly logical for herself to be in love with Eugene.

But she did not know love. And Eugene knew that.

"Nope," he repeated the word. "You don't, blondie."

'Yes, I am.' She thought of arguing back his words but she didn't. Maybe a part of her was admitting that she was ignorant of the thing - love.

However, even before thinking about it, sleep pulled her deep into darkness, where she could be free as she was now but at the same time, could be as much locked up as she was for the last sixteen years.

And... could it be...?

That she felt a cold winter breath tickling her cheeks right before falling asleep?