flash back o clock

“You're too fast!” Damian giggled, his cheeks flushed as he tried to catch his breath.

“Well, you can't keep up!” Nyla winked, laughing as they both collapsed onto the fresh green grass.

Something about the evening felt so beautiful. The air was filled with their heavy breaths, framed by the glowing orange of the sunset. Damian was glistening with sweat, using the collar of his shirt to wipe his brow.

“Can I get a napkin? I know you have everything in your bag,” he giggled, nudging her side.

“Well, clearly not everything!” Nyla pulled out a Hello Kitty napkin, which Damian snatched immediately to clean his face.

“Let me guess, chica,” he teased, eyes sparkling. “You've also got an endless supply of candy in there.”

She bit her lip, suppressing a smile before pulling them out one by one. “Chocolate, gummy bears, hard candies—hey!”

Damian snatched the bag of gummy bears straight from her hands, tearing it open and tossing a handful into his mouth. “You're too slow,” he mocked, gobbling them down with a triumphant grin.

Nyla didn't complain.

He was the only person in the world allowed to take her candy like this. Anyone else would have triggered a massive tantrum. Pretty cliché for a seven-year-old, right? But Damian was her entire universe.

“Well, you're lucky that you're my best friend, or else there would've been a problem,” she huffed playfully.

Damian stood up, brushing the stray grass off his shorts before reaching down to help her up, too. “It's getting dark, chica. Let's go home.”

Nyla nodded, but before he could step away, she caught his hand. She wrapped her small pinky finger securely around his, her heart beating with a sudden, serious weight. “Promise me that you will never leave me.”

Damian did not think twice. He tightened his pinky around hers, giving her a reassuring smile. “Promise.”

“Pink promise?”

“Pink promise!”

Years had passed now, and neither of them were the same seven-year-old kids they were back then. Nyla’s world had been uprooted when her father’s job forced them to move to the UK, leaving France—and Damian—behind.

But she always knew she’d return.

She had spent years telling herself that when they finally met again, she would keep her identity a secret just to see if he would recognize her on his own. Yet, actually standing on French soil made the thought of immediately telling him the truth way too tempting. She was never the best at keeping secrets anyway.

Now that she was sixteen and supposedly more mature, she walked the streets of Paris with her parents, silently praying that Damian would just spawn out of nowhere. She was a firm believer in destiny. If they were destined to meet, nobody could stop it.

“What happened, sweetie?” Vincent asked, noticing his daughter's distant expression.

“Nothing, Dad. I'm just looking around to see how much France has changed... and maybe if I find someone familiar.”

Vincent let out a soft chuckle. He knew exactly how much his daughter wanted to find Damian. She hadn’t stopped talking about him since the day they left France. Nine long years had passed, but for Nyla, the memories were as fresh as yesterday.

“Should we eat something first?” Vincent asked, but Nyla was too busy scanning the faces in the crowd to notice. “Nyla! Your dad is asking you something,” Isabelle added, gently elbowing her arm.

“Oh, yes, Mom?” She snapped back to reality, blinking.

Vincent repeated himself, emphasizing his words with a dramatic sigh so Nyla could judge by his voice that he was absolutely starving.

“Okay...” she agreed softly.

Nyla sat with her family inside a cozy bistro, quietly eating coq au vin while her parents chatted across the table. The restaurant buzzed softly with conversation, and the rich aroma of herbs and wine filled the air. She listened to her father's stories and smiled occasionally, enjoying the rare comfort of a peaceful evening spent together before their next inevitable move.

But as soon as the meal was over, Nyla insisted they visit the exact street corner where she and Damian used to get ice cream. She had a gut feeling he would be there. Even after nine years, it had been his absolute favorite spot.

They caught a cab, the city blurring past the windows. Nyla kept her eyes glued to the road, her anxiety rising. When the tires finally screeched to a halt at the location, her heart dropped. The ice cream cart wasn't there.

“It's not here!” she panicked, a sudden wave of heat washing over her. But just as desperation threatened to take over, she heard it.

A familiar voice. The exact voice she had craved for years.

Damian walked down the street with an easy, confident stride, his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his coat. The cool breeze ruffled his dark brown hair as he moved through the crowd, his sharp blue eyes fixed ahead as he laughed at a joke his friend was making.

Nyla didn't care about what they were saying; she only cared about him.

Without a second thought, she waved her hands frantically and sprinted across the pavement toward him. “Oh my god!”

Damian and his friend stopped dead in their tracks, exchanging a strange, uncomfortable look as they stared at the girl running toward them.

“Damian, do you remember me? We used to hang out when—”

Before she could even finish her sentence, Damian stepped back, his expression cold and annoyed. He pushed past her shoulder. “Non, je te connais pas,” he muttered. His French accent was way heavier than it had been when they were kids, and poor Nyla’s brain scrambled, unable to work out what the words meant.

“Damian!” she cried out.

“How do you know my name?” He finally spoke, switching to English this time, his tone sharp.

“Elle est bizarre, cette fille,” his friend whispered loudly into his ear, making Damian let out a low chuckle.

Nyla stood frozen, completely confused and humiliated. “Mr. Damian, I know you can speak English. It's me... I'm Nyla.”

“Nyla who?”

The words felt like a physical blow to her chest. It broke her heart into a million pieces. But how could she have expected him to remember her after nine years?

“Madam, leave us alone!” the friend, Adrien, interjected in a heavy French accent, glaring at her.

They both walked right past her, mocking her in rapid French as they disappeared into the bustling crowd. Nyla stood entirely still, watching their retreating backs until they vanished.

Vincent and Isabelle rushed over, rubbing Nyla's trembling shoulders. “Relax, princess,” her father soothed gently. “He must have just forgotten.”

But Nyla couldn't relax. A full, agonizing meltdown tore through her right there on the Parisian sidewalk.

“How could he have forgotten! He promised me!” she screamed, the overwhelming weight of her attachment issues crashing down on her all at once. She started running in the direction he went, her voice cracking as she shrieked into the crowded street. “Damian!”

She growled his name in absolute agony, but it was too late.

He was gone.

Isabelle and Vincent gripped Nyla tight, trying to hold her back. “Don't make a scene, you're not a kid!” Isabelle hissed, embarrassed as Nyla sank directly onto the floor, crying and screaming hysterically.

Crowds of confused tourists and locals gathered around them, staring at the spectacle. Vincent threw his hands over his head in sheer stress. “Goodness gracious!”

To anyone else, it looked like madness. But to Nyla, every single tear was justified. She had waited years for this moment. She had written about him in her diary every single day, keeping his memory alive like a sacred religion, and he had forgotten her in the blink of an eye.

“I WANT HIM!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, tears blurring her vision.

“Calm down, Nyla, so many people are watching!”

It took her a few agonized seconds to process her surroundings before she finally forced herself up and stumbled blindly back toward the waiting cab.

“I'm sorry, my daughter was not feeling well!” Vincent called out to the lingering crowd. The bystanders just looked at each other, trying to work out what the English-speaking man was saying. Feeling helpless, Vincent pulled out his phone, hastily typed an apology into a translator app, and showed it to them. They nodded subtly, signaling it was fine, before dispersing.

Vincent immediately ran back to the cab, where Nyla was sobbing uncontrollably into Isabelle’s lap. He wanted to shout at her for creating such a massive fuss in public, but looking at her shattered expression, he just couldn't.

He had heard his daughter ask daily about when they would finally return to France, and whether Damian would remember her. He knew how deep this wound went.

Meanwhile, blocks away, Damian had absolutely no idea who Nyla was. To him, the childhood they shared was a lifetime ago—a minor detail he had moved on from long ago.

He was sitting in a café, casually playing chess with his friends when another one of his classmates slung a backpack over a chair and sat down.

“Hey, Damian, what's up?”

“Sup, dude,” Damian replied, keeping his eyes on the chessboard.

Jack sat down beside him, leaning in with a smirk. “I literally just saw a girl down the street screaming and throwing a massive tantrum. And get this—she was screaming your name.”

“What?” Damian finally turned around, drawing his attention away from the game.

Adrien burst out laughing, clapping Damian on the back. “I think you have a stalker, Damian.”

They all began to tease him, throwing jokes back and forth across the table. Damian rolled his eyes, laughing it off with his usual careless charm. But as he looked back down at the chess pieces, a strange, phantom sensation brushed against his mind. Deep down, a faint echo of something familiar stirred—but he couldn't put his finger on it.

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