A Paper Airplane

Graduation for Minji came with the blossoming flower petals of spring. Instead of going home, however, she decided to take a stroll along an unfamiliar road. Though unfamiliar there was nothing quite out of the ordinary from the typical roadsides she was used to seeing. Houses on both sides, worn out streetlamps guiding the way, and the same breeze. It almost felt peaceful.

Walking along, she stops to look around as she hears a faint sound of humming. It was surprisingly clear and pleasant to her ears, yet oddly sad. Curious, Minji continued towards the direction of the noise. Though, when she turned the corner a paper airplane came flying out of nowhere, startling her to a pause. Puzzled she picked up the airplane that almost hit her and as she looked up, there she saw an old desolate building resembling a school building. As she observed further, not too far from where she stood she saw an open window with a man inside seemingly writing in a journal of sorts. Piecing two and two together she unfolded the paper airplane to see if anything was written inside.

“In the form of anxious thoughts, I am not lonely. Yet, I’m surrounded by screaming voices, and it’s hard to breathe.”

The words were short yet compelling, leaving a strong impact on Minji. She thought it would be too awkward if the man caught her reading his note, so she hurriedly turned back around the corner, tore out a piece of paper from her notebook and wrote a few lines down before folding it carefully into a similarly matching paper airplane. When she was satisfied she quickly tossed the newly folded plane in the direction of the man and booked it back towards the direction of which she came, clutching the misshapen note close.

The man observed by Minji was so engrossed in his thoughts he was unaware of her presence and completely unperceptive of the airplane coming his way. It took a few seconds before the man realized something was odd. When he realized the addition of the airplane in the room he suspiciously looked it over before tossing it aside. He figured a kid must have thrown it in this direction and went back to where he was sitting.

Now this man was anything but, in fact he was only about a year older than Minji yet had an appearance so disheveled and an expression so unbefitting of his adolescence it masked his youthful looks. 

Flash forward to later that night…

It was almost 1:00AM when the young man jerked up in fright. He couldn’t count how many times he experienced that same nightmare over and over again. An unbreakable cycle of the day he regretted the most haunted him almost constantly, causing him to suffer from countless insomnia attacks. Irritated, he got up to go for a walk and accidentally crushed the paper airplane he tossed aside earlier that day. When he picked it up to throw it away, he noticed words written in an unfamiliar handwriting and curiously opened it up.

“I don’t know who you are, but I found one of your paper airplanes. I couldn’t return it, so I thought I could give you this one instead. If you ever throw out another I’d love to have it and in exchange I’ll give you a new one.”

…

The young man laughed, but he couldn’t quite sort out how he felt about the strange note. It was completely baffling to him. For the past year he’s lived all alone in that abandoned building, being careful not to interact with others as much as possible, and yet somehow, he let his guard down. It was quite perplexing, but he didn't feel turned off by it, in fact it was oddly amusing. He decided to play along with it for now and wrote down something on a scrap paper before folding it into a paper airplane. Once done he left it outside a few feet from the building and left.

“You’re brave.”