Destiny

Chapter 6

Time is slipping through her fingers hard and fast and Mina still doesn't know how to find what Nayeon would have wished for as she laid there taking her last breath.

Tears prickles her eyes when she thinks about her last moment, was she petrified? Did it hurt? Why does she have to go through it again? Is there something she can do to stop it?

She sees Nayeon going for her walk with Kookeu from the balcony. Something inside her tells her to join them, she slips on her coat and hurries down the stairs but they're nowhere to be seen when she gets to the car park.

It doesn't matter, she knows where they go for their daily walks at night. She treads down the darkened path that leads to the small park next to their apartment complex.

The moonlight illuminates the narrow ground between the tall trees and she comes to a stop when she sees Nayeon sitting on a small rock that overlooks the pond. Her hand lays over a soft spot on the ground as she strokes the sodden earth tenderly.

Kookeu runs around her, wagging his tail excitedly whenever she picks a wooden stick and throws it to a distance.

The sight before her calms the stormy thoughts in her head. She almost takes a foot forward but freezes when something dawns on her. Nayeon's hand lingers on the spot that Kookeu always barked at.

"Do you come here often?" Nayeon turns around and gives her a bright smile at the sound of her teasing voice.

She gets off the ground, dusting the back of her trousers and waits for Mina to join her side.

Nayeon leans in and whispers conspiratorially in her ears. "They tell me a beautiful girl sometimes comes here late at night."

Mina chuckles because she's sure Nayeon is talking about herself, again.

"Does she wear a white bugs bunny jumper, blue jeans and a red beanie by any chance?" She jokes.

Nayeon tilts her head to a side and taps a finger to her chin. "Nope, she wears a mustard sweater under a comfy white woolen coat."

Mina's cheeks dust a pretty pink as she looks at herself. She'll never get used to receiving compliments, especially ones that's thrown at her with twinkling eyes and an endearing grin.

"I'm going to head home." Nayeon announces as she stretches slowly under the moonlight.

"I'm going to stay here for a while." Mina sits on the spot Nayeon has previously occupied. "Goodnight."

"Don't be too long." Nayeon waves a finger at her. "You'll have to wake me up in the morning."

A lump forms in her throat as a memory of her asking Nayeon to wake up to only get a deathly silence in return flashes before her eyes.

She nods her head solemnly.

She stares at the water glimmering under the soft light of the moon. A white flower falling on the spot Nayeon was resting her hands on catches her attention.

She picks up a stick and digs the earth absent mindedly for a while, her gaze lost in the water.

The sound of the stick scraping against a metal snaps her thoughts away and she looks to her side curiously.

A metal surface shines behind the sand and dirt covering it. She digs around the metal and retrieves it in her shaking hands.

It's a time capsule. She opens it with a little struggle and a note falls from it.

I love you. I wish I could work the courage to tell you this someday.

There's no signature , but the handwriting is unmistakeable.

Nayeon has written it.

Her heart begins to slowly pound and her fingers tremble lightly as she puts the letter back in the capsule and buries it back in the earth.

Was Kookeu trying to show her this all this while?

Is this what the cloaked figure was talking about?

Nayeon is in love with someone.

Her mind process the words on the letter again and again trying to make sense out of it.

She died of a broken heart.

Was Nayeon thinking of this person as she took her last breath? Did she never get around to tell them how she felt?

Her heart aches a little because none of them have seen past the walls the older girl has built around her. Nobody has been with her taking those walls down brick by brick and show her what friendships meant.

Mina's eyes shift to the water again and becomes glazed with a glassy layer of tears. Nayeon has suffered alone and they let her, they let her alone with her suffering even as she took her last breath.

The tears flow down her cheeks and dips from her chin. She's too sad to cry out or wail, she sits there as still as a statue while the magnitude of Nayeon's pain sweeps over her.

She died of a broken heart.

The words echo cruelly in her ears.

I love you. I wish I could work the courage to tell you this someday.

Her heart aches to soothe the pain the older girl is feeling, must have felt in her last moment.

Because a soul that has a last wish can not leave this world.

Mina finally knows the purpose of her being taken back in time.

She needs to find this person and let them know how Nayeon feels about them.

That's the only way she's going to set her soul free.