“…….” I couldn’t utter a word. That was far worse than what had happened to me. I was just… so disgusted and enraged with that green thing that I wanted to kill that piece of shit.

“Toya… are you disgusted by me now?” she was facing down with embarrassment, all sad like a puppy.

“What? No! Why would I be disgusted by you?” she was still in my arms with teary eyes.

“Then will you shun me, now?” she looked up at me.

“Definitely not! No! Why would I do that? You are my only best friend. I care about you.” I just wanted to protect her. Then we took ourselves back to our position.

“Toya…I love you.”

“I lo______”

“Not as a friend, but as a lover. I- love- you.” She interrupted me and confessed to me…?

“……” I took a silent gulp. The confession was so abrupt. I had never thought about that possibility becoming a truth.

“I am not telling you or forcing you to like me back. I just wanted you to know before something happens to me.”

"happens to you?"

 She gently tucked her flowing hair behind her ears. And then I re-noticed all of the different things in her dressing and expressions. Her always two-pigtailed salmon hair was tied in a single high pony. She was wearing a red dress with a luring peach lip gloss. Her dark green eyes were shining brighter than usual. And the maple tree shedding its red leaves with the wind added a silver lining to that beauty. The weather became cool and she was sitting in front of me, that might be a cliché but… she was looking like an angel.

My eyes went wider and brighter and there was a tingling in my heart as I saw her.

“Why…why are you staring at me? Is there something on my face?” she began fumbling her fingers looking here and there, with her cheeks flushed in red.

“Oh! Uhm… It’s just that- you are so beautiful.” And I flinched as she snapped her fingers looking at me.

“What? Were you hypnotized or what?” she giggled.

“No…” I scratched my head. I was embarrassed.

“Toya, I am kissing you.” And she placed a gentle kiss on my lips without giving me a chance to react. I was taken aback by that. But…Her lip gloss was cherry flavored and- it was all over my lips and my tongue tasted a bit of it. It was sweet for a cosmetic. It wasn't that weird. Maybe it was an edible lip gloss. The scent of her mild rose perfume blurred the sense of rationality in me and my heart was beating faster than ever. I was caught in the action. I lost control. But…somehow it felt that I was doing something unfair to Nina. I didn’t know why.

Nina started crying again. She kissed me but she was crying? Was it that bad? (=y=!) (Just an FYI, I am no perverted or selfish girl.)

“Toya, this might be the last time that we meet…sniff…”

“Last time?” I was so confused.

“As I said, I have the power of vision. I can see what happens in the future. And…my future awaits my death.”

“What are you talking about Nina?” ____she was going to die?

“I am going to die. I will be killed by someone but I can’t see the murderer’s face, every time I try.” She was crying unstoppably.

“Nina…” I held her tight in my arms and she said to me with pleading and teary eyes, “I don’t want to die Toya. I don’t want to leave you.” And then she hid her face on my chest.

“Nina, I won’t let anything happen to you. It is in the future. We can still change it. I promise.” I was trying my best to comfort her.

“Nothing can change Toya. Everything that I see happens in reality with a hundred percent accuracy and similarity. But…I don’t want to die like them. I just … I just want to live.” She pulled herself back and I released her.

 We sat there in the sunset with few crows flying back to their home in the orange sky. We sat there quietly for a while. There was no trace of humanity until the faraway playground where kids appeared like small black miniatures of a video game. Their distant noise was all that could be heard beside the crows and chirping crickets.

In the midst of that, I broke the silence, “I don’t think that anyone tried to change it.”

“……..” she glanced at me with forest pool-like eyes.

“I don’t think that anyone has ever tried to change your visions. I mean predictions can be changed by definite actions, right! We can do it if we try. There must be a way to change it. Every problem has a solution even if the solution’s difficult. It-has- a-‘solution’. And I promise you I will find that solution for you. Nina, please believe me. I can’t lose you. I love you, Nina. I love you too much to live without you.”

She had a sympathetic expression which showed me that I was trying to rely on false hope.

But- that was all I had to rely on.

She hugged me and said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes! I am sure I will find the way to___________”

“Are you sure that you love me?”

I inhaled a mass of air and exhaled it. And then I said to her, holding her round shoulders in my hands, “yes! I do! I- love- you! I love you, Nina.” I gave her a peck on her left cheek. Her face was flushed red in seconds and she covered her face with her tiny hands.

I found the right time to finally tease her.

“Why? What happened to the Nina who took the initiative to kiss on my ‘lips’ and be bold about it for ‘that long period’?” I smirked as I got up from the bench.

“Ugh! Stop it you pervert.” She yelled at me with embarrassment.

“Oh my! My! You attack me with a ‘direct’ lip kiss and ‘I’ get to be called a pervert? That is unfair.” I was walking ahead and she threw her sling-bag on my back. It was heavy and it hit perfectly hard. It was painful.

“Ouch! That hurt! NINA!” and she ran forward crossing me from the side. And I followed her.

“Wait for me! Nina! You won’t be forgiven for this! I will torture you back for this!”

“Catch me if you can!”

"You know I can easily do that with my abilities!"

"That is cheating, you fool!"

She was laughing so beautifully in the orange lights of the drowsy sun; it was like a magical dream that I didn’t want to wake up from. That was a happy day. I found out that I loved her more than life. That she was more special to me than she had ever been.

End of the third chapter.