Some nights, when she wandered through the city, Jimin felt as if something or rather someone was walking by her side. It felt like a presence. It was warm and comforting.
Some nights, when she wandered through the city, Jimin felt as if something or rather someone was walking by her side.
It felt like a presence. It was warm and comforting.
She considered it a strange feeling, because no one was following her. Still, she was able to feel it. She was not alone, there was a weight pressing down on her shoulder, the ghost of a memory.
Whenever it happened, she did not feel lonely anymore; she was able to forget about what happened.
Back then, she had received a text from Aeri informing her that she was about to board her plane.
A text saying, “I can’t wait to finally be able to hug you, I miss you so much. Have you picked the flowers yet? The wedding planner won’t stop asking me if you did. We’ll talk about it when I get back home. I should land around 9pm. I love you.”
At the time, Jimin couldn’t help the stupid smile plastered across her face. Her fiancée was coming back home after three long weeks of business travel. They were going to get married.
The wedding was supposed to take place exactly a month after Aeri came back. Almost everything was already booked and planned. It was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.
But that day never came.
Because Aeri’s plane never reached its destination.
She had waited for more than an hour in front of the arrivals display boards without an answer. Next to Aeri’s flight number “delayed” was written, but that was all.
The airline staff had brought people waiting for their loved ones into a waiting room. They were all packed there, waiting, wondering.
And there was no one by her side. She was surrounded by strangers when the news broke.
Her world spinned when she saw journalists come into the room; she knew that something was wrong. And it was soon confirmed when someone, whom she assumed to be the airline president, said the words.
“Attention please. Due to an ongoing incident involving Flight AIR728, family members and persons expecting passengers on that flight should proceed to the airline’s assistance desk/Family Assistance Centre located further down the hall.”
What was supposed to be the happiest month of her life had turned into a nightmare in a fraction of seconds.
She couldn’t breathe, her lungs were empty, she was choking on thin air. Her eyes burned and her knees failed her.
She didn’t even have to check, she knew what those words meant, she had watched enough disaster documentaries to be aware of the precautions airlines always took when referring to a tragedy.
She had lost the love of her life, her soon to be wife.
People moved around her, but she couldn’t. She heard some of them shouting, others crying in despair, but the only thing she could do was to remember Aeri’s last text.
The text she hadn't been able to reply to before her fiancée boarded because she was driving.
She had wanted to, really wanted to, but Aeri's words had echoed in her mind, “Never answer my texts when you're driving please, nothing is more important than your life.” So instead, she had simply read the text with a smile.
And she assumed her beloved never got to read her answer to it because she was already high in the sky, that she would never be able to read it.
Because Aeri wasn’t coming back, she wasn’t here anymore.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she reached for it with trembling hands, tears blurring her vision.
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