My Universe

33: “Thanks, angel.”

The cool temperature caused by the air conditioner of every convenience store was always the best part in going to one. With random music from a radio channel playing from the speakers in a low volume and the employee behind the counter just scrolling on his phone while waiting for customers to come in, it felt like being in a top-selling western film for the raven with her being the cool main character who was just wrapped in an oversized black hoodie. An unexpected encounter with a major character in the convenience store could probably prove that she was really inside a literary medium, though Winter was not that delusional enough to hope for that.

After the conversation with Summer’s mother that was not able to end properly because of the hasty need to wrap up the call, the raven decided to step outside the dormitory building for the first time in the weekend to get some fresh air and some snacks to munch on while trying her best to move on from it. Since she was just going to go grab some potato chips in the convenience store that was near by the dormitory, Winter did not bother dressing up as she wore comfortable clothes that would rather cover her physical appearance from being noticed by anyone.

With her hands buried in her pockets, the raven walked past the shelves while passing her eyes on every product to another as half of her mind was still at that phone call moment. A groan of annoyance escaped her lips as she roughly shook her head in attempt to kick the memory out of her brain like how she once kicked a bee out of the house without any safety equipment, which resulted to her hand looking fat than usual for more than a week.

There were a lot of different types of junk food in each shelf that did not look much different with the chips that Winter knew in her universe with the names and package design being the only difference. At that moment, she was craving for original salted potato chips as she stood in front of the shelf that had different brands of potato chips in different flavors displayed. The thought that it was Sunday and that tomorrow is Monday again popped up in her mind as she got more things to stress over again.

Tina and Hana appeared in her mind as well as Winter felt sad again while missing her two best friends. If they were in that universe with her, they would surely have fun to explore the universe and learn more about the multiverse together instead of worrying how to get back to their universe—rather, they might even want to stay in that universe instead of going back home since the three of them together like new places. Surely, Tina and Hana would have laughed and made fun of Winter for being a person whose major was about something that she sucked in, which was cooking.

The raven had her bottom lip extended forward into a pout because of the bittersweet thought that she was having as she stared at each bag of chips while guessing the taste of each since it was not like she could actually buy everything to know which one she would like the most. She could only afford one bag of chips so she had to make sure that her final decision would be a good one. It was as if she was in that situation in which she had to think carefully before making a decision otherwise the world would blow up.

After choosing among more than ten kinds of potato chips, the raven was finally left with two bags of chips: the bag on her left hand was a blue bag with the image of the potato chips on the front being star-shaped, while the other one that was on her right was a yellow bag with a simple image of original potato chips on the front which reminded her of Lays.

Winter pursed her lips in as she alternated her glances on each bag of chips while judging each by the appearance of the bag in her head like she had four adjudicators seated by a long rectangular table with a paper and pen for each to rate each criterion. There was one thing that both bags of chips had in common, and that was having the satisfying feeling of a full bag of chips with zero air inside. Full concentration was what the raven was in while pondering hard about which potato chips she would buy that her forehead was turning creased from furrowing her eyebrows too much.

After almost three minutes of making up a huge decision, the raven eventually returned the blue bag of chips back in the shelf since the yellow bag of chips looked a lot like Lays; that was Winter’s all-time favorite potato chips. If the potato chips that she was holding tasted the same as Lays, she would definitely choose it over Lays next time if ever she had to be in a situation in which she was going to have to pick between the two because unlike Lays, it was not filled with air.

Just when she turned around after finalizing her decision, Winter accidentally bumped on someone which made the bags of chips that the person was carrying drop to the floor. Immediately, the raven uttered an apology as she crouched down to pick up the bags of chips that the stranger had to drop because of the physical contact between them. The bags of chips happened to be her choices earlier as she realized that the stranger might have picked them earlier without her noticing because of her concentration in deciding between the two potato chips.

While picking them up, Winter froze on her spot with her hand stopping midair when she heard the voice that she knew by heart and that she had been longing for more than a week.

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

The raven noticed how the woman in front of her crouched down as well but she did not want to raise her head to meet eyes with the person that was in front of her even though she could feel her stare. As much as Winter missed that person, she lowkey hoped that she was wrong and that she could just be hallucinating at that moment because she was not emotionally ready to meet her yet. She was not healed yet and she needed more time and space before going face to face with the woman that made her heart completely shattered to pieces for the past weeks.

Still, Winter thought that it would certainly be impolite of her to suddenly run away without responding to her when the person right in front of her was literally being nice to her by asking if she was fine. Her heart was racing fast and loud that she was nervous if the woman in front of her could hear it, especially when the distance between them was really short.

Slowly, Winter raised her head as her heart felt like bursting when she met the same light blue eyes that resembled the calm ocean waves which she fell in love with even though she was not a fan of the bodies of water.

Confusion was evident on the face of the latter though a friendly smile was flashed on her face to not look cold. The both of them just stayed there staring at each other for the next few seconds since the raven was in disbelief that the love of her life was literally right in front of her face that she had the urge to cup her face and pinch her cheeks to make sure that she was real and not a figment of her imagination. Fortunately, Winter was mentally stable at that moment enough unlike the first time that she saw her in that universe as she could only intently look at her with wide eyes.

Iris stood up after glancing at Winter from head to toe to make sure that she was not hurt anywhere as she held her hand out for the latter to hold and stand up as well. The raven dropped her eyes from her pretty eyes down to her fair hand that looked softer than how Claire’s hands were. Seeing how she was acting in front of her as if she was the loser character in a romcom medium that encountered a hot person, the blue-haired woman could not help but secretly have a smirk creep up on her face as she was completely aware of the effect that she had on a lot of people. Iris admitted in her head that Winter was pretty, so she felt proud of herself for attracting a good-looking woman.

Winter swallowed a lump in her throat before accepting the latter’s help as she held it with her hand slightly shaky and pulled herself up while carrying the bags of chips that mostly belonged to the taller woman. Iris let out a husky chuckle as she ran her fingers through her silky blue locks, which made the latter swallowed another lump in her throat because of how sexy her ex-girlfriend’s alternate self was being.

“Can I have my bags of chips?” the blue-haired woman spoke with a grin on her face as she pointed at the bags of chips that the raven was hugging.

“O-oh, yes. Of course.” The raven slapped herself mentally as she immediately handed to her almost all of the bags of chips that she did not even realize she was hugging.

“Thanks, angel.” Winter widened her eyes even more with her heart going insane because of the increased speed of its beating when Iris suddenly leaned forward to tuck her messy black strands behind her ear before turning to meet her gray orbs again. “Bye.”

With one last charming smile, the dancer gave her a wink before turning around to head toward the counter to pay, leaving the raven frozen on her spot like she was the one who got struck on the heart with ice by Elsa of Arendelle.

Winter was in disbelief and surprise that she just met Iris at that moment as that was the least thing that she expected to happen. Even though she knew that she was a different person from the person that she knew and was in love with, Winter could not help but feel emotional and have the desire to give Iris a tight hug when she saw her up close in person. It felt like a dream—a good dream she definitely did not want to wake up from because that was way different from the bad dreams which she had about Claire leaving her and being with another woman; basically, those were considered nightmares already for Winter.

Once everything had sunk in, the raven finally came up with the answer to Aster’s suggestion from that day by the pond with ducks. Aster was right. There was no way for her to know when she would be going back to the universe that she originally belonged to or if she would even go back. If Winter and Claire were meant to break up in the previous universe, there was a possibility for that to have an opposite ending if Winter would try to start over with Iris since it was a parallel universe, after all.

And Winter decided to start already at that moment as she came back to reality.

The raven ran to the side to head toward the counter but the blue-haired woman was no longer around. With hope that the dancer might still be nearby, she immediately went out of the convenience store and roamed her eyes around though she could only see busy people walking across the sidewalk as she could spot anyone with blue hair anywhere, leaving her in disappointment.

That was when Winter realized that she was probably a main character in a romance medium as she smiled at the thought of that with her motivation flaming up to make her ended love story continue in a new season.