The One That Got Away | Fang x Janet

First Life

Janet POV
"In the very first life we remember, the beginning of the story of us, I was a young barista at just a random coffee house. Just a very ordinary, very normal person among the millions of others. But you...you were not. You were one of the most famous people in the world—a CEO of a big phone company, Lightning Industries, at twenty-five years old. You were insanely popular and well-known. Basically, the exact opposite of me.

So there was this one day..."

My mind drifted back to the same scene I had just recently recovered...

The blue-haired boy sat at the table, his eyes glassy with crystal drops, his chin jutting out, his face red, his expression downcast. The white-haired girl standing behind the counter looked at him sadly, knowing he experienced the same feelings that she did. So she got a cup of coffee and walked over to his table, asking, "Hey, you don't look great. Are you...okay?"

He quickly wiped his eyes dry and stuttered, "U-um, y-yes, I'm okay!"

But something about the intensity of the care in her stare must have Mande his resolve crack, because a few tears slipped down his face like rivulets as he admitted, "Actually, no, I'm not okay at all. Something bad just happened, and..."

"You want to talk about it?" She offered.

"Don't you have to get back to your work?" He asked the girl.

The girl shrugged it off, "Nah, my shift is almost ending already. Plus, I think you need to let some stuff out, and you're all alone, so I thought I would join you." She smiled with the last words.

He gave her a small smile too. This girl really knew how to cheer him up. "What's your name?" He asked curiously.

"Janet," she answered, pointing to her name tag. "What's yours?"

"My name is Fang," he said.

"So, Fang, are you...gonna take me up on my offer?" Janet murmured.

"Yeah," he told her. "Well...just a few years ago...my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Over these few years, witha each passing day, it gets worse and worse. So, once the doctor told us last year she only had a while more to live, everyone was prepared for the fact that she would die. Even herself. She was still so happy, living the days by brightly, she didn't even seem to care about her illness. So I tried to be the same, trying to keep the est of her days happy so that she would have great memories of it, so that she could be happy, all the way to the very end. But today she passed on suddenly...and I-I...just thought I was prepared for it already, because I knew it was coming. But it was so much to take...and I just can't...imagine how my life will be like without her. It's like a beacon of light just disappeared from it, leaving me stranded in the darkness."

"Wow, that's rough," Janet whispered. "Looks like you definitely aren't okay, huh?"

It was obvious. But it needed to be said.