BACK TO WINTER 2021💕

The campfire was dying, and so was our time at Yuki Lodge. I poked the embers with a stick, watching sparks fly up into the snow. It had started falling an hour ago. Soft, silent. The kind of snow that covers everything and makes the world quiet. Across from me, White sat with his knees to his chest. He was still wearing that stupid gray scarf. The one I knitted for him in university, second year, when my hands were clumsy and the wool kept tangling. I told him I bought it. He knew I was lying. He wore it for seven years anyway. "Are we really selling it?" Aerin's voice cracked. She was sharing a blanket with Anya. Her writer's notebook was damp at the edges from snow. She hadn't written in it for months. Writer's block, she said. Heartbreak, I thought. Anya's eyes were red. "Buyer comes at nine tomorrow. Contract is signed. This is our last night." No one spoke. Behind us, Yuki Lodge glowed. Warm light on snow. The sign was crooked since that winter in 2021 when we raced bicycles and White crashed into the post. We laughed for an hour that day. My ribs hurt from laughing. Now the paint was peeling. Mrs. Sato passed last spring. None of us had money to keep it. This was where everything started. Winter 2021. University exchange in Hokkaido. Four friends. Two boys who liked boys but were scared. Two girls who liked girls but thought timing mattered. That winter, I should have told White I loved him in the attic, watching snow. That winter, Aerin should have kissed Anya before the Tokyo train. We didn't. We thought we had time. Now we are twenty-eight. White is engaged. Not to me. To a girl his mother loves. He looks at me sometimes like he wants to say something, then his phone rings. Aerin is famous in Bangkok but hasn't written anything honest in two years. Anya leaves for Canada next month. Maybe forever. We became what we feared at twenty-one - adults who chose safe. The wind picked up. The old pine over the lodge dumped snow straight onto our fire. The fire should have died. Instead it flared white. Not orange. White. Bright like a star. No heat. No sound. Snow stopped mid-air. "What—!" White jumped up. Aerin grabbed Anya. White light rose, swallowing lodge, swallowing us, swallowing seven wasted years. I reached for White but my hand went through light. Then - cold. Real cold. Snow in my mouth. I was face down on snowy road. A bicycle wheel spinning by my head. I sat up, coughing. Coat was thinner. University-issued. Hands younger. No watch my fiancé gave me in 2024. No scar on thumb. "North! You fell again! You'll be late for Yamamoto's exam!" That voice. Annoyed, fond, worried. White. Not twenty-eight-year-old tired White. Twenty-one-year-old White. Beanie falling off, glasses fogged, cheeks pink, my scarf wrapped three times. Alive like I forgot he could be. Two bicycles skidded behind him. "North, are you hurt?" Aerin. Twenty-one. Long hair, not short like now. Notebook held like armor. Anya next to her, laughing then stopping when she saw my face. "You look like ghost." Behind them - Yuki Lodge perfect. No peeling. Sign straight, bright: YUKI LODGE - WELCOME WINTER STUDENTS 2021. Smoke from chimney. Mr. Sato young, shoveling steps, humming. Anya held out phone. December 14, 2021. 3:42 PM. Day of bicycle race. Day everything started. I stared at White kneeling in snow, wiping snow off my sleeve, gloved hand warm. "You okay? Hit head?" I couldn't speak. Throat closed. We were back. All four. Aerin gasped, staring at hands, then Anya, then lodge. "Wait. I know this day. Already happened. Anya, do you—" Anya touched face. "My hair. I cut it 2023. Why long?" White looked between us, confused, then down at phone, hands. I saw memory of future flood in - engagement, lodge sale, white campfire. He looked up, eyes twenty-eight in twenty-one face. Whispered, "North," only I could hear. Snow still falling. Soft. Silent. Covering everything. Just like first winter. Only this time, we have second chance to not wait.