Let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers.

— Emilie du Chatelet

“There you are!”

A loud, high-pitched, female voice speaks from behind Yujin, and she turns around and catches a glimpse of her two closest astronaut friends clapping their hands as they approach her. The first astronaut is a woman with long, straight, black hair (not that the hair being straight or curly matters—it would just float in space, anyway) and chestnut eyes that stare directly at Yujin as she whistles proudly at the woman beside her. The slightly shorter second astronaut, which has a chest-length, magenta hair and big, pinkish lips sporting a pout, has the same proud look reflected on her eyes as the two of them race each other towards Yujin's side.

“I told you she would be here, Yena,” the first astronaut says as she arrives a second earlier than the other one, putting her hand on Yujin’s right shoulder. “If there's one place the great Ahn Yujin would want to go to before leaving the Space Station, it would be no other than the Cupola.”

Yena sticks her tongue out at the other girl who then acts as if she's going to pull Yena’s tongue from . Yena quickly shuts her lips close and glares at the other girl. “Fine, you win this time, Hyewon, but I'm still Yujinie’s best friend.”

Hyewon snorts at Yena’s remark and answers her sarcastically, prompting the two ladies’ childish argument to continue even more. Yujin just watched Hyewon and Yena as they foolishly lay out each of their own reasons why they are Yujin's ‘true’ best friend, completely forgetting the fact that Yujin's also there with them, like they always do.

When Yujin met the two girls seven months ago, the first conversation that she heard from them was just the both of them bickering with each other. Yujin shakes her head as she giggles at the memory of Kang Hyewon and Choi Yena arguing every day ever since the first time they arrived at the ISS. The two would argue about literally everything — from their work station, who gets to go inside the lavatory first, who gets to sleep and eat first, who gets to stay longer in the observatory deck, heck, they even argued while they were outside the space station, as they were doing their very first space walk. It’s really a mystery to Yujin, and to their fellow astronauts as well, how the two became very close to the blue-haired girl in the first place.

“I can't believe that I will be leaving this place with the two of you still bickering non-stop like a child,” says Yujin, grinning sideways, as she savors the last moment she would probably have with her two best friends in space. Yujin is sure that they will see each other again after the two complete their mission in three months, but she would surely miss Yena and Hyewon as she has already grown attached to them not just as her friends, but also as her sisters.

The three astronauts hug each other for a long time, with Yena shredding tears as she continuously says that she will miss Yujin a lot, and they start journeying towards the Poisk module where Yujin’s rocket is docked and waiting for her. Before leaving the Cupola, though, Yujin sees that the two girls noticed the view of the Earth below them — the one Yujin was staring at before they came — and they regard Yujin with a sad smile albeit they didn't say anything. Yujin averts her gaze so that they wouldn't see the emotions battling in her eyes. Hyewon and Yena know about her, and they're very much aware of Yujin's efforts in forgetting all about her. Yujin doesn't want them to see that she will be leaving the space station with the exact same emotion she felt when she arrived a year ago — wrecked.

They glide towards the opposite side of the space station where the russian modules are located, Yujin taking in the view of the instruments, modules, and faces of people she would definitely miss once she's back on Earth. The group has to stop every time they encounter another astronaut, however, as they are all keen on shaking Yujin's hand for the last time, bidding her goodbye and congratulating her on the big achievement she has done that is not only celebrated inside the ISS, but also in the whole world: for Yujin is now the title holder of having the longest continuous time in space, breaking the previous record of 328 days with her 340-day stay.

Not that it really matters that much to Yujin, though. She just really loves space, and she would have volunteered to stay much longer had there been no side effects in living in space for a long time. Plus, there's also some personal reasons involved as to why she would prefer not to go home — but she wouldn't admit that to anyone, not even to Hyewon or Yena, not even to herself.

Yujin is further greeted with warm hugs and embraces as the girls reach the Poisk where at least 10 more astronauts are waiting for her, one of them holding a laptop in hand. As soon as they all settled, the said astronaut casually sticks the laptop to one of the walls of the module and gestures to a microphone floating in front of them; Yujin sees the director of their space mission together with a famous newscaster, both waving at her through the screen, and she immediately realizes that it is an interview arranged for her by NASA, her last interview before she finally boards her spacecraft.

Yujin had been interviewed a lot of times already (when their communications instructor told them that there will be occasional interviews while they're at the ISS, Yujin hadn't expected occasional would mean every month), so she answered the questions pretty well. Besides, it's not like the newscaster, who introduced herself as Kim Chaewon, is asking her questions she hadn't answered before. It's all pretty much the same: how she managed to stay that long in space; what are some of her most memorable experiments in the station; what she feels about being a young accomplished astronaut in her late twenties. In her peripheral vision, Yujin could see Hyewon and Yena giving her a thumbs up every time she answers confidently.

“For the last question, Miss Ahn, is there any country or city or location that you're planning to go visit first once you come back to Earth?” Kim Chaewon asks her.

Yujin stops to think for a while.

There's a lot of countries on Yujin’s to visit list that she's eager to go to when she comes back — Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, even her hometown Korea, to name a few. Staring at the rotating Earth for a whole year, the continents seeming like small globs of land from thousands of kilometers above, made Yujin realize that even though she already reached space (which is literally a place where no ordinary person can go to), still, there's so many places she has yet to explore in her own planet.

But of course, there's one place Yujin knows in her heart that she will travel to the instant she comes back. Even though she shouldn't.

“Actually, there is,” Yujin answers Chaewon, as her mind automatically forms the image of the prettiest girl she met in a restaurant in Scandinavia a year ago.

What had that woman told her the reason they kept on meeting in that place before?
 

'Ah,' Yujin sighs, 'fate.'

Kim Minjoo.

One year ago. Stockholm, Sweden.

Fate.

As a woman of science, Ahn Yujin didn't like to believe in such a thing called fate. If it's any consolation, she would rather believe in destiny instead — something that is a result of one's actions, something that you can change. Fate, on the other hand, is inevitable. It is something that is planned from the beginning, hence you can never change or alter it. Yujin refused to accept the justification of her fair share of hardships, poor judgments, and wrong decisions by saying that they are predetermined to bring her to her “fate”. Just no.

Yujin glanced at the brunette who was sleeping soundlessly on the seat opposite hers. Her head was resting on a large neck pillow, her long hair covering more than half of her face. 

After Minjoo asked her five hours ago if she already believed in fate, Yujin just laughed at the other girl and told her that she still didn't. A mere coincidence, sure, but definitely not a made up thing called fate.

Yujin thought that she might have offended Minjoo, though, because the latter didn't say anything after that. She was quiet the whole time, only opening when she needed to excuse herself to go to the restroom. Yujin didn't attempt to start a conversation, either, because what were you supposed to talk with a person who wasn't really your friend, but a stranger whom you met on multiple occasions in a single day? 

In the end, the two remained quiet until Minjoo fell asleep and Yujin got tired of reading online science articles. She decided she would apologize later and explain that she hadn't intended to trample on the other girl's belief.

Well, she does look like the typical naïve, hopeless romantic girl, Yujin thought. She tore her eyes away from the girl and shifted her attention towards the window. It was nighttime, and Yujin could see thousands of stars and the bright crescent moon above as they illuminated the dark sky, giving off a tranquil effect to those who could gaze upon them.

As she continued to stare at the stars, her eyelids slowly becoming heavy, Yujin remembered her sister and parents’ reactions when they told them she was chosen to be part of NASA’s next ISS mission. Her sister, Nako, and her mother, Sakura, were very happy for Yujin, while her other mother, Eunbi, didn't say a word to her. Eunbi thought that Yujin was already making a steady career in the field of medicine, only for her to ruin it by changing paths and going to space.

Yujin didn't blame Eunbi, though. Ever since she was a child, Yujin had had many dreams for herself — from being a writer, to a chef, to a singer, to a doctor, and the like. Despite being a very intelligent girl with various dreams, Yujin didn't really know what she was looking forward to in her future. She gets tired of something rather easily, and maybe that was the reason why Yujin didn't have a steady goal ahead of her. Maybe that was also the reason why when she was finally doing well as a physician, Yujin suddenly recalled her dream of going to space and, without thinking twice, sent an application to NASA. Perhaps Eunbi was right that she was doing all of these too impulsively, but Yujin can't do anything about it, can she? She couldn't undo her decisions.

And that was why until now her mother refuses to talk to her.

In her pursuit of her dreams, Yujin lost one of the few people who supported her from the start — her mother.

Fate. Yujin laughed bitterly. If all of these did happen for a reason, if all of these were truly meant to happen in the first place, and if this really was indeed the work of fate, then Yujin couldn't think of anything else other than that fate .

Yujin yawned and gave one last look at the person sleeping in front of her before she, too, drifted to sleep.

***

“Hey,” a light tap on her left shoulder woke Yujin up. She slowly opened her eyes and was surprised to see Minjoo standing in front of her. The other girl was wearing an additional layer of jacket and a beanie on her head. She was holding the paperbag from the flower shop they went to last time.