Come with me…. Airplane…. Love…

Tears drift down her face as she hears those words. Holding a small paper airplane in her hands, she weeps. She weeps as the memories play through her mind like a broken record trying to catch up. Everything moving as if it was in fast forward, but the focus always seems to be those paper airplanes and her friend who taught her how to fly.

Come with me… Airplane… Love…

The first memory starts again. A small girl resting on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest as her parents argue. Her room is bare, new, fresh. Bare walls, with the bed not even made yet and boxes strewn across the floor. She walks over to one.

 AeRin

Stuffed Animals

Moving her hands up to the box, she opens it and looks in to see the small faces of her play toys. The baby tiger is the first she sees and almost instinctively she picks it up. Aerin pulls it close, hugging it, as she tries to not be frightened as the slam of a door can be heard below. A small breeze plays into her room, ruffling the window curtains her mother had put up prior to going downstairs to finish unpacking. Feeling the breeze and wishing to see the view from her new room she stands up and walks over to the window, parting the curtains and looks out.

A house stands next to hers, it’s not much of a view unlike her old place but she notices a pair of eyes looking back at her. A boy stands there, his eyes twinkling as he sees her, staring but yet not trying to be rude. He waves, a smile forming on his lips.

Nervously, AeRin steps out view. What is she to do? Should she wave back? Would that be strange? What if he thinks she’s weird? She peeks over, around the corner of the window to take a peek at her new neighbor. She looks across into the other window adjacent to hers to see… nothing.

The boy is gone.

Sighing, she turns away again, slowly sitting down again, holding the baby tiger in her hands. She screwed it up already. The first friend she could have made. And she screwed up. The realization that she had lost the opportunity to befriend the kid that lived next door made her head hang in defeat. The wind trickles along the back of her neck, moving her hair slightly. She feels tears starting to build up. Everything was new and different, her parents were fighting. Her friends were gone, and even though she had the opportunity to make a new friend, it’s gone. In the split of a second. Feeling a tear that’s on the edge of falling she closes her eyes and lets it fall, feeling the wind on her again.

The sound of crinkling paper…

The breeze that seemed so calm that day…

The tears that streamed her face…

AeRin looked up, brushing the tears from her face wondering where the sound of crinkling paper came from. Her eyes scan over her room trying to find the one thing that’s different and finally they rest on a small white plane. A paper airplane. She blinks, confused, before reaching over to pick it up.

Where did this come from?

She looked down noticing a small hint of writing on the plane’s wing. Unfolding it carefully, she read the message.

Hello. You must be my new neighbor.

My name is Zhang Yixing.

I’m 9. How about you?

You’re pretty.

The baby tiger you’re holding is cute.

Let’s be friends. Okay?

AeRin giggles softly at the message, letting a small hint of red tint her cheeks. She smiles and stands up to look out the window, to see the boy returning the smile to her. His eyes twinkling. Shyly she speaks up to him.

“I want to answer you. But I don’t know how to make a paper airplane!”

The boy looks a little confused before laughing softly and speaks up as well.

“What’s your name?”

“AeRin. Kim AeRin.”

“Well, AeRin. I’ll teach you how to make one.”