She by the Banks of the Galaxy

Lin Jin is twenty-four and works the night shift at a convenience store in Kyoto. His life is as dull as a cup of water gone cold, until one morning at three, when a barefoot girl walks through the door.

Her name is Lingshu. She comes from Vega III, a planet with no winter, no food, and nothing but light. She says her spacecraft is broken and will take seven days to repair.

Seven days is brief, too brief to watch an entire snowfall.

Seven days is long, long enough to fall in love with someone.

Her eyes light up the first time she drinks a latte, and she shrieks like a child the first time she sees snow. She uses her superpowers to show me the aurora and asks, “What does it feel like to like someone?” She says her planet has no “I,” only “we,” but for these seven days, she is willing to be an “I.”

On the seventh day, she leaves. All she leaves me is a transit card and a line of words that will never fade:

“I’ll wait for you on Vega III.”

Seven years later, at three in the morning on a winter night, the convenience store’s automatic doors ring again.

This time, it’s not just a person who walks in, but an answer from twenty-five light-years away...

Some waits aren’t for a reunion, but to prove this: you’re worth waiting for.