She never told him about the genetic disease. Because why would she? What good would it do, when all they had was now? When every second together already felt borrowed, a secret tucked beneath the lining of her coat like her last bottle of medication.

Besides, they were happy. Or at least pretending well enough to fool each other.

The snow had fallen hard that morning, covering the field in an endless sheet of white, stretching so far it felt like the world had been emptied and reset- just for them.

She had taken off running first, laughing with a sound that broke open something in him. Not the forced kind of laugh he’d gotten used to, but loud and wild, like she was daring life to take it from her. She looked over her shoulder only once, grinning at him with pink cheeks and wind-stung lips, before shouting something he didn’t quite catch and diving into the snow like a child.

Hae-Jo stood there for a second, frozen not from the cold, but from the way she looked: alive. Free. Untouched by everything that had tried to ruin her.

He chased after her, of course — because that’s all he’d ever done, really. Chased after love like he didn’t deserve to catch it.

They ended up on their hands and knees, digging through patches of green just barely poking through the snow. A dumb game, really. But to her, it seemed important. Like finding a four-leaf clover could somehow reverse everything written in her blood.

When she finally looked up at him, snowflakes clinging to her lashes, he couldn’t help it.

He dropped to one knee beside her and held out his pinky.

“If you find one,” he said, “Then I'll grant one of your wishes. But if I find one first, then you grant mine."