You stared at the paper you had retrieved from the piece of cookie, the remains of which you were currently chewing. Your brows were furrowed, your chewing slowing down as you reread the sentence printed on it over and over again.

'You look over your shoulder for something that's always been right in front of you.'

What a joke.

"What did it say, Yena-unnie?" Yuri's voice queried, tone b with curiosity. You looked up and abruptly crumpled the paper into a small ball between your palms, shaking your head and swallowing the cookie down.

"I'll choke on a carbonated drink tomorrow and sprain an ankle sometime around August." You attempted a nonchalant shrug accompanied with a roll of your eyes, for a good measure. You hoped she'd buy it.

Yuri laughed, the sound akin to windchimes.

"I didn't know these fortunes can get so specific."

You relaxed slightly. Good, she had no idea.

"They have their moments."

And you left the crumpled ball of fortune on the table outside of the store when you left, hands clammy inside your pockets. You let Yuri hook her hand around your arm, let yourself be pulled into her comfortable warmth.

But when you thought of the sentence, your blood ran cold.

It was a funny feeling.

Fortune cookies were supposed to be vague. They were supposed to be more cryptic than the non-answers Dumbledore gave in the Harry Potter series, or the weekly horoscopes, or the readings of the tarot cards. And yet, the moment you saw it, your heart instantly knew – and you couldn't deny it. Not without pretending you're blind.

Because of course it was her.

Of course it was her and her soft smiles and her adorable ways of sulking. Of course it was her and the slight crinkle of her nose whenever she's thinking deeply of something. Of course it was her and her then constant presence in your days from the moment she had the nerve to enter your life – through pain and joy and high and low and thick and thin and winters and springs.

Of course it was her, and the way she was a light that shone through even your closed eyes.

It made sense.

She made sense.

And yet, you couldn't honestly tell her what the damned fortune said, because –

It also meant laying your heart bare for her to pick apart, and you weren't ready for that. Would probably never be ready for that. Not when you were still trying to come to terms about it, not when your insides couldn't seem to agree between cold and warm whenever she's near –

Not when she's so close and this growing feeling inside you threatened to engulf you whole any second.

Tomorrow, you told yourself, or the day after, when you were finally brave.

"So what's yours?" you asked lightly as the both of you left the store, and Yuri hummed – the wordless sound weaving in the air like music.

"About time I got out of that cookie."

You snorted, and your lips quivered as you tried to hold in your amusement – but a glance towards her and you broke into peals of laughter, her own spilling over yours, both of your sounds colouring the atmosphere with happiness as light as the weightless clouds drifting overhead.

Happiness.

You never seemed to have a problem thinking of that word whenever you had her in your hold.

You thought of holding onto her forever, prayed she would hold onto you forever, hoped you didn't have to summon courage to tell her of these things, wished you had the guts to say it right at this moment.

But she tightened her hold around your arm, and brightly pointed at a cherry blossom tree in bloom ahead.

Then you let your thoughts fade, letting her to drag you towards the soft pink beauty. She asked you to take a picture of her with the tree as the background, because of course she would. You'd usually about it before finally giving in, but today, you took your phone out the second she made the request, and only smiled at the pleasant surprise on her face.

"Go on, do a pose."

You knew her favourite filter. You knew her favourite angle. You knew you'd do the countdown really slowly, just so you were able to look at her through the lens a little bit longer. You knew that if you had your way, you’d gladly do this forever.

And when you thought back to the sentence –

you look over your shoulder for something that's always been right in front of you,

you knew that it's about her.

So you stopped looking around, and captured her –

in your phone,

and in your own memory.

Someday, you swore, you would let her know.

end.