paper cranes - kth [oneshot]

paper cranes

"If you had one wish, what would you wish for?"

"I already told you, I don't believe in wishes."

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0

You always believed in miracles. You believed that if you wished hard enough for something, that someday, maybe, something would change, it would happen. You often played with your best friend Taehyung who lived across the street from you. Taehyung loved going on adventures, ones that always left you panting and kept you on your toes. He always believed in miracles. Just like you did.

"Hey, (Name)!" Taehyung called out to you one morning, while you were both out hunting for sticks and stones in a nearby forest to aid you in your adventures. You ran over to him, your glistening locks swaying in your high ponytail.

"Yeah," you asked. "Did you find the special rock you were looking for?"

"Nah, I just thought of something." Taehyung sat some of his rocks down beside him in a pile and brushed the soot off his hands on his khaki shorts. "I read something the other day, about this Japanese legend or something like that."

"A Japanese legend?"

"Yeah, and basically, it says that if you fold a thousand origami cranes, you will be granted a wish," he said. His face was elated, showing his trademark box smile. He was missing his two front teeth, but that didn't make it any less charming.

"So," you drawled out, "do you wanna fold that many? I mean, paper cranes?"

"Why not?" He shrugged, picking up his stones again placing them in a little pouch he made from his T-shirt by folding up the end. "You could do some and I could do some! We could split it, and make a wish together!"

"What would we wish for," you asked, placing your chin in the palm of your hand.

"To be together forever! We could go on adventures until we are billions of years old," he exclaimed excitedly. You couldn't help but beam at him, it was truly the best wish.

Small children like you and him, around the age of seven, believed that there was another force out there, something incredible and beyond human imagination. That something out there, is what granted wishes.

Or so you believed.

On the day Taehyung was killed, the weather was perfect. It was a fresh, breezy day in late June. Taehyung was in a deadly accident, and was pulled out of the burning Toyota with a faint pulse. You wished and you prayed and you wished and you prayed as you sat in the antiseptic smelling waiting room of the local hospital. Face buried in your hands, all you asked for was that the gods or something will grant your one and only wish—to keep your best friend alive and breathing.

When you received the news that your best friend has passed, you wept for days on end. Despair, rage, and confusion flooded your brain. You were nine.

600

It's been nearly nine years, and you turned eighteen. You were a winter baby, born during a snowstorm with howling winds and large ice crystals that pelted the hospital windows. This year however was quite the contrast. It wasn't snowing at all, in fact, it was mildly cold. You could pass with just a mere sweatshirt and jeans.