THIS IS DOUBLE UPDATE PLS READ PREV CHAPT FIRST <3

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To: Son Chaeyoung

From: Myoui Mina

Subject: Future Perfect #2

Sent: March 10, 7:33 PM

By the time you read this you will have forgiven me.

Take Off.

FORGIVENESS

I'm staring out of the window of the airplane and see miles and miles of greenery sectioned into perfect squares. Dozens of mysterious blue-green pools lie below, glowing at their edges. From so high up above it, the world seems ordered and deliberate.

But I know it’s more than that. And less. It is structured and chaotic. Beautiful and strange.

And I'm outside again, but this time I'm alone.

Dr. Dahyun was not happy with my decision to fly so soon. But anything can happen at anytime. Safety is not everything. There’s more to life than being alive.

To her credit, my mom didn’t tried to stop me when I told her last night. She swallowed all her fear and panic even though she still doesn’t fully believe that I’m not sick.

Her doctor’s brain struggles to reconcile what she’s believed for so long against the evidence of too many other doctors, too many tests.

I’m trying to put myself in her shoes, playing games not of cause and effect, but of effect and cause.

I go back, and back, and back, and I always end up in the same place.

LOVE

Love makes people crazy.

Loss of love makes people crazy.

My mother loved my father. He was the love of her life. And she loved my brother. He was the love of her life. And she loves me. I am the love of her life.

The universe took my dad and brother away. For her it was the Big Bang in reverse—everything that became a nothing.

I can understand that. Almost. I am trying to.

“When will you come back home honey?” she asked, with a sad and insecure expressions.

And I told her the truth.

“I don’t know if I should feel that this is home anymore.”

She cried then, but still she let me go, and that has to count for something.

Eventually the cloud cover grows too thick for me to see much of anything. I relax into my seat and re-read The Little Prince. And, just like every time I’ve read it before, the meaning changes.

Life is Short™

Spoiler Reviews by BLACKSWAN

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Spoiler alert: Love is worth everything. Everything.

THIS LIFE

Even at 9 A.M. on a Saturday, New York City is just as loud and jam-packed as it’s famous for being. The streets are filled with honking, slow-moving cars.

The sidewalks teem with people just narrowly missing each other as if their movements were choreographed. From the back of the cab I let the noise and smells of the city wash over me. I open my eyes wide to take in all the world I see.

I didn’t tell Chaeyoung what I was up to, just that there was a present waiting for her at a used book-store close to her house. I imagined our reunion for almost the entire flight. Every scenario involved us kissing within the first thirty seconds.

The driver drops me off outside of "Ye Olde Book Shoppe". I push through the doors. Right away I know that I will eventually spend a lot of time here.

The store is a small, single room with floor-to-ceiling shelves, each overflowing with books. The room is dimly lit by small penlights attached to each shelf so that books are just about all you see. The air smells like nothing I’ve ever imagined. It smells old. As if it has been in this same place for a very long time.

I have fifteen minutes before Chaeyoung will be here. I wander the aisles gawking at all the books. I want to touch them all at once. I want to add my name to all the people who read them before me.

I trace