springtime | winrina

three

As soon as she arrived back in the comforts of her room, Winter retrieves the small pieces of papers from her skirt pocket, pouring them out onto her study desk.

"Winter, dinner is ready!" her mother yells from the kitchen downstairs.

She turns on her lamp, looking around her messy desk for some sort of holder or any empty boxes to store the notes in. Unfortunately, she doesn't find anything quite fitting. So she needed to work with the things she did have. Her old stationary holder would do for now.

Winter reached over for the holder which had been plastered with stickers she accumulated since childhood. It was very mismatched and messy, but at least the notes she'd fill it up with were heartfelt and sweet. She dumped out all of the stationery onto the desk, pencils and erases tumbling and rolling off the desk, clattering around.

The redhead retrieved the empty holder, bringing it into the bathroom to rinse and clean before placing each note she had folded into mini squares inside the holder. As for the pink note which was once a crane, Winter holds it between her fingers, scanning Karina's handwriting over and over again.

She slides it back into her wallet, deciding to keep it somewhere she'd carry around often.

"Winter Kim!" her mother's voice echoes again, she was clearly getting mad that the food was turning cold.

Winter had more important matters to take care of though. She wished she knew how to fold papers into pretty shapes like Karina could...

And so she does. After gobbling up her dinner and stuffing her stomach, she practically dashes back into her room, slamming the door shut. "Okay, let's do this," Winter mumbled to herself, fingers pushing onto her mechanical keyboard as she searched up 'How To Fold A Paper Crane' on the internet. She clicked into the tutorial with the most views, thinking it should be the most reliable one.

Winter didn't have much spare paper or any pretty post-it notes around her. So she pulls out a disorganized stack of old examination papers and worksheets from the previous years, dumping it on one side of the table. She separates sheets of papers individually before using a ruler to tear them into smaller pieces.

She follows the tutorial carefully, eyes shifting between the computer screen and the paper in her hands. "Shouldn't be that hard, right?"

Two hours later, Winter was on the brink of giving up. With every failed attempt, she would crush the paper up into a ball and toss it into the trash, which was now piled up like a mountain by the corner of her room. She had finished half a stack of papers by then.

"One last chance," she inhaled, folding the paper according to each step she has well memorized, fingers gentle, laser-focused on the piece of paper. She was betting on this one paper. Determination ran through her veins as she held her breath, reaching the last few steps.

"I did it!" Winter exclaimed, jumping up from her seat, eyes nearly popping out of her sockets, jaw hurting from how much she was smiling. The last time she ever felt this accomplished and excited was when she won her middle school soccer competition. Honestly, nothing could match up to this moment though.

She was so happy she could nearly cry.

The next day at school, Winter was extremely attentive. She had a mission to accomplish today and that was to write Karina Yu a reply note. During class, Karina was listening attentively to the lesson, busy jotting down notes into her notebook like the studious student she had always been.

"Hey, do you have a post-it note or a small blank piece of paper?" she whispered, leaning over to her desk mate who she absolutely knew nothing about. In fact, they just might hate Winter.