Chapter 2: Her Last Trip

Rain trickled down the convenience store's glass windows, painting everything outside in shades of gray. Inside, the hum of the refrigerator and the gentle tapping of the clerk's keyboard provided the only soundtrack to an otherwise quiet evening. Ryu stood behind the counter, his eyes shifting lazily between the clock on the wall and the door.

"5:48 p.m.," he mumbled. "Twelve more minutes."

Outside, the storm was starting to build. The sky looked like a heavy curtain waiting to fall. People rushed past the store, umbrellas tilted against the wind, feet splashing through puddles.

Then, the door jingled.

She walked in slowly, her crimson umbrella dripping trails of water onto the floor. Rose. Her hair was damp, strands clinging to her cheek. Her eyes, always deep and searching, looked tired.

Ryu blinked. "You came back early. The trip...?"

Rose offered a weak smile. "Cut short. I... I needed to come back."

He hesitated. He hadn't heard from her in a week. Not even a text. She was supposed to be gone for two more days. The last message she sent had simply said, "Take care of the store. I'll tell you everything when I return."

Something was off.

She walked past the aisles without grabbing anything. Instead, she stood in front of the drink cooler, her fingers trailing the foggy glass but not opening it. Ryu watched her carefully. There was a tightness in her shoulders, something different in the way she held herself.

"Rose?" he finally asked. "Are you okay?"

She didn't answer. Not at first. Then slowly, as if pulling her voice from the bottom of a well, she said, "Do you ever feel like... no matter how far you run, the world still catches up to you?"

Ryu stepped out from behind the counter. "Rose, what happened? Did someone—?"

"No one hurt me," she said quickly, looking over at him. "It's not that. I just... saw things. Felt things I didn't want to. And now... there's no time left."

He came closer, standing just a breath away. "You can tell me. You always could."

She looked up at him, her eyes shimmering under the fluorescent lights. "Do you remember when we were ten, and you told me you'd marry me if no one else did?"

Ryu chuckled nervously. "Yeah. You punched me in the arm and said, 'I'll marry you even if ten people ask me before you do.'"

"I meant it," she said.

The laughter died in his throat. A silence fell between them, louder than any thunder outside.

She leaned against the cooler door, sliding down to sit on the floor. Ryu followed, sitting beside her. Their shoulders touched.

"I realized something on that trip," she said softly. "That I’ve been afraid to admit what I feel because… what if I lose you? What if it ruins everything?"

He looked at her, heart pounding.

"Then let me be the one who's brave," Ryu said, his voice shaking. "Because I’ve loved you since the day you walked into my life with that same red umbrella and asked if I believed in magic."

Her lips trembled.

"I still do," she whispered.

Then she kissed him—soft, uncertain, but full of every word left unsaid for years.

The rain outside faded into the background. The storm had come and gone. And in its wake, something new had taken root between them.

Love.

A fragile, blooming truth.

But fate—cruel, unpredictable fate—was already moving in the shadows.

The next morning, she left again—to complete her interrupted trip. "It’s just for two days," she said with a smile. "Wait for me. I’ll bring you a surprise."

Ryu waited.

Two days passed. Then three. Then five.

By the sixth day, worry turned to dread.

On the seventh day, he couldn’t take it anymore. He called her phone. No response. He called her hotel. They hadn’t seen her since she checked out.

That night, unable to sit still, Ryu took the last train to the town she had visited. He searched the streets she might have walked, the market she loved, the cliffs where she once took a picture. Nothing. No trace of her.

He filed a police report. They told him to go home and wait.

He didn’t.

The next morning, he joined the search team. Drenched in rain, crawling through muddy hillsides, calling her name until his voice cracked.

That evening, they found the wreckage.

Two days ago, a bus went missing during a landslide. It was buried under tons of earth and debris.

There were no survivors.

Among the recovered items was a torn red umbrella.

Next to it, a bouquet of crushed Green wildflowers—ones she had once said she’d pick for him if she ever found them.

The police gently handed them to Ryu.

He didn’t cry.

He didn’t scream.

He just knelt on the cold, wet ground, holding the broken umbrella to his chest as if it could still keep the rain away.

As if it could still bring her back.

The storm hadn’t passed.

It had just begun.

To be continued…