Chapters with Bloody Letters

{🖤} prologue: have you found it?

Three years ago

"NO, SOOHA! Give me that back!"

I chuckled as I ran after that crazy girl I considered my best friend. She always loved to take my stuff and run away with it. On that day my polaroid camera suffered from her kleptomaniac habit.
We ran across the beach of Jeju Island. It was our first high school trip together, not ever. Sooha and I had been in the same class since primary school. Call it faith.
It was late at night and the other classmates were sitting at the bonfire in the woods. But not the sweet twins. Sooha was laughing, giggling and kicking her feet while I was pinning her to the sand and tickling her.
"Fine, fine! There you go, I'm weak when I get tickled!", Sooha shouted in lighthearted laugher.
I laughed as well, taking the camera out of her hands with my right hand while my left hand continued to tickle her belly. Never make deals with the devil without insurance.
Sooha wiped her tears away, letting out a few last chuckles before sitting up. I looked at the ocean through my camera. It was a peaceful sight and sound, the sparkling, blue water and the breaking of the waves.
Sooha's habit number two (less kleptomaniac) was to put her head on my shoulder in moments like these. It was a remember that she was my best friend after all and I couldn't kill her just because of a camera.

"Luna, can I ask you something?", she broke the silence, smiling and speaking in softness. I knew right away that it was the rolling off of our traditional deep talks in beautiful and rare moments like these. A smile formed in my face as I lowered my camera and looked down at her.
"Ask me something, Sooha.", I said teasingly, burying my hand in the sand and leaning back with my body weight.

Sooha let out a deep breath, staring at the ocean. I did the same, unconsciously. After all, we were twins.

"Have you found it?"

At first, I didn't understand what she meant with that question. I looked down at her, but her focus was on the waves of the ocean. The blueness was reflecting in her brown eyes, making them look more vulnerable somehow. But maybe it was my imagination, I thought.
"If I... have found it?", I tried to figure out the meaning behind her question.

Sooha chuckled as she hugged her knees more tightly.
"Your happiness. Have you found it yet?"
It was an unusual question of hers. Usual for Sooha was to be direct and confronting. To get to the point. But in that moment, I had no idea why she asked me that question, or what she expected to hear. I was taken back.

Pause of silence.

But then Sooha spoke again, her voice remaining calm and soothing.
"You don't have to answer me now. I want you to answer me when you have found it. But promise me that you will tell me, okay?", she finally looked up at me, smiling with a warm aura.
I smiled back at her as I nodded in understanding.
"I promise... But only if you promise me to tell me your answer as well.", I said with extending my pinky.
She firmly wrapped her pinky around mine, chuckling while shaking our hands wildly.
"For now... I think I would be happy if we took a picture together. First high school trip together, right?"
And we made it.

What I didn't know back then was how much this picture would mean to me in the future.
Capture every moment like a treasure, because it could be your last one.