Jang Aera never expected that day to unfold the way it did. In fact, up to this day, she still hasn't quite decided if it really was a good decision to buy an ice cream cone on that exceptionally chilly autumn evening.

It was unusual for Aera to break from her routine and her principles. She was very strict about her likes, her dislikes, her values and beliefs; but to this day, that one autumn evening stayed an unerasable mark in her otherwise perfect routine. One speck of dust that only she could see in an otherwise clean space - a mark that she never touched since that day. One simple thing she forgot which cascaded into a mess of translucent butterfly wings caught in an endless whirlwind cycle.

It still affects her to this day, and she still hasn't decided. If it really was a good decision to buy that ice cream cone on a chilly autumn evening. If it was a good decision to have met Jeon Jungkook, the man who asked her to stay but left in the blink of an eye.

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Jang Aera was never one to buy sweets. Ever since she was a kid, she would be the only one not lining up for birthday cake or pulling her parents to a colorful candy store. Other tired and cranky parents would often approach her mom and gush over how "behaved" and "well-mannered" she was. But the truth is, she was just never fond of the sweet treats everyone else seemed to have a hard time keeping away from. Jang Aera didn't have a sweet tooth at all but this one day, she spontaneously decided to go and buy something sweet.

It was an action so out of her strict daily routine but it never occured to her that it was weird - falling in line for a one-day pop-up ice cream store instead of going straight home. It never occured to her that it was out of the ordinary that on that exceptionally chilly autumn evening, she just had to fall in line and buy something that she didn't like.

Maybe it was the stress from a bad day at work - which she also hasn't experienced since the day she started working.

Jang Aera, a simple barista trainee at a coffee shop in Hongdae, was a star employee. She was never late, was never seen slacking off, and was never mixed-up or frazzled by a mountain of complicated orders during peak hours. She loved her job and was excellent in it. Jang Aera was born with a love for coffee and the brain to match. She easily handled Venti and Grande cups of hot chocolate to Americanos with double shots of espresso and one and a half pumps of vanilla syrup. Not anyone would have remembered all that in just one go but Aera could.

However, Jang Aera, so unlike herself, was late to work. Unlike her usual self, she didn't get to tie her wet hair up in a neat bun, and had to fumble with her hair five minutes into the morning rush hour while taking orders from already-stressed office workers and college students. Unlike herself, she got confused and mixed up a bulk to-go order from the nearby company with the orders from the customers at the coffee shop. So instead of sending ten inconspicuous and similar Tall cups of Iced Americanos, she sent various sizes, types, flavors, and colors of coffee to the business building at the far corner of the street.

The intern who ordered the coffee got reprimanded and had a hard time figuring out how to distribute the coffee to the workers who got easily envious of what the others got. He came back to complain, and Aera had to prepare the right orders and compensate for the wrong orders from her own paycheck.

Jang Aera, the star employee, had an off day. So unlike herself.

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Maybe it was because she missed her bus - the bus that she always rides at exactly 6:03AM every morning to go to work. The only bus that left her with just the right amount of time to walk to the shop, change into her work clothes, and fix her hair. It was the first time she missed it.

Maybe she was late because she forgot to bring her umbrella, even when the weather reports warned of heavy rains in the morning. One simple thing that Jang Aera, who was so strict to stick to her routine and schedule, forgot. A simple umbrella that she left hanging on a clothes rack in her small but comfortable apartment room. A simple umbrella that she usually brought everyday, left forgotten at home.

The umbrella Jang Aera forgot that pushed her tumbling head-first into one of her worst but most memorable days.

She left home and got caught in a sudden autumn rain. Her hair and clothes soaked to the bone, Jang Aera made the first slip from her routine as she entered a convenience store to buy a shirt to change into and an umbrella to use instead of going back home to change and fetch her own umbrella.

But buying the new umbrella was useless because as the rain came, it went away just as quickly. In fact, Jang Aera still could have pushed her day back in the right direction by not buying the umbrella at the convenience store. The five minutes it took her to locate the umbrella stand and pay for it could have been used to run to the bus station, and Aera could have caught the 6:03 bus just fine.

But Aera, still shivering, rushed to the bus stop only to realize that her bus already left. Ten minutes later than her usual schedule, her day had just started cascading into a series of bad timings and wrong decisions.

Jang Aera was thrown into a mess of translucent butterfly wings caught in an endless whirlwind. Shimmering broken wings hit her lightly on the face, sticking to her eyelashes and cheeks still wet from the rain, bursts of color spreading across her face without her even knowing.

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