Prologue

[2020 MAY 1^st] [PRESENT]

“One last chance, alright…”

"Along the same vein of emotions, flowers that bloom in the absence of light are fake. These flowers will not wither, much like your illusory emotions driven by another."

“Ugh! Dang it!” The old yet new-looking book came flying from Seungwan’s hands. It’s been half an hour and she’s still stuck on the same line, over and over. It’s almost impossible to interpret each line from the book, she can’t even imagine when she’ll get to finish it.

Seungwan lifted her head that was leaning on the study table as her phone buzzed insistently. It’s almost midnight. At this point, there’s only one person who’s likely to call.

“What is it?” She complains as soon as she picked up.

[“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”]

“Nah.”

[“Why are you still up then? Waiting for the mid-term results too?”]

Seungwan sat up straight in a haste, her posture tells she forgot about something important.

“Ah, I almost forgot. Are they out already?”

Joohyun on the other line hummed in response. [“They should be, in a few minutes. Maybe they released top students’ results first. You should check your email.”] She giggles.

Seungwan logged in without hesitance. It’s been a minute since she opened her inbox but the result is yet to come. She could only frown while looking at her computer monitor. Why would the university release them by midnight in the first place?

[“It’s not—“] The faint sound of a notification interrupts. [“Oh, never mind. I think it’s here.”]

[“Ugh, I wish I could be as confident as you are. Why was I born a scatterbrain~”] Seungwan ignored Joohyun’s whining. She has her brows creased instead while looking at the email that arrived. Apparently, it’s not from the University nor from job recruiters that usually flood her with callbacks.

“Urno.1fan?” Seungwan reads the sender’s name in a whisper. Assuming that it’s another spam message, she was about to delete it permanently, only to be put in a halt upon seeing a familiar name.

An email… from her? If she would list every unexpected events she assumed might happen, this would come from the bottom of the list. She shut her eyes and rubbed her temples in case she saw wrong, owing to her delusions, but she felt her stomach twist after looking at the monitor screen one more time. She wasn’t mistaken. She saw it right the first time.

Her gaze slowly shifted to her hands, feeling the tremors she never expected to experience again.

[“Oh! Seungwan, I just received mine!”] Seungwan jolts from her seat. Right. She almost forgot about Joohyun on the other line.

[“Seungwan? Hello? Did you fall asleep? Seungwan-ah~”] Getting back to her senses, she picked up her phone with eyes still fixed on the monitor.

“Hey…”

[“Oh, I thought you fell asleep—“]

“S-she sent me an email…”

[“Yeah. I just got the email too.”]

“W-what?”

[“I got my results too.”]

“N-No, that’s not what I’m talking about." She sighs. "It’s… Sooyoung—She sent me an email…”

A few seconds passed before Joohyun from the other line was able to answer. Listening to Seungwan stutter as she spoke, she knew something was odd. But she didn’t expect to hear this from her because… [“Seungwan-ah… Sooyoung p-passed away. What do you mean?”]

Email

Urno.1fan < Urno.1fan @sy.rv>
(to me)

12:00 AM
(0 minutes ago)

Seungwan! Shon Seungwan~

[It’s March 1^st today.]

AHHHHH! I just checked my schedule Seungwaniee~ Guess what? One of our classes overlapped! God, I thought I’ll never get to join the same lectures as you ㅠ~ㅠ Thankfully we share at least one. Anyway, if you’re wondering what this is for… it’s my new diary ㅋㅋㅋ I’ll be sending you messages as often as I could to remind of how cold you are to me ㅠ~ㅠ (Kidding!) Hmm, you’ll know why I’m doing this, SOON enough, I hope.

And oh… by the time you’re reading this, it’s probably May 1^st already. That’s right! It’s a scheduled mail. I set it two months away from now. It would be boring to read about what happened today on the same day after all, right?

I promised myself to start writing these mails on our first day of class, which is tomorrow, but I got all excited so here I am! ㅋㅋㅋ That should be it for today. I know you won’t read this if it gets too long.

Bye for now! I can’t wait to see you at the University tomorrow!

Your number 1 fan,
y Sooyoungie~

Reply Forward

Seungwan’s false hope disappeared into thin air. Of course, a scheduled email, she thought. What could she have expected? That she was alive, perhaps?

She raised her head to prevent her tears from falling down her eyes. She knew she just had to, because the moment she let her tears flow freely, she won’t be able to stop.

[“Seungwan-ah?”]

“Don’t mind what I said today. I-I misread the name.” With that, she hangs up.