Dedicated to the first person that caused me to rethink romance and one of the role models I look to for inspiration in improving my meager writing. Thank you very much for that.

Author's note: This story is based partly on the experiences of my family with my uncle's condition and other experiences friends/family/myself have gone through. Heavy themes of grief, white lies, death, chronic illness, stress, amnesia, trauma, cheating, etc are explored in this story. Reader discretion advised.

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"Bosnia and Herzegovina is so far away though."

"It's just a family trip, baby," his girlfriend teased, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before attempting to saunter off.

"But do you have to go...", he whined, swaying her hands back and forth as he pouted, adding quivering lips and puppy eyes to better persuade her into staying.

"Jon, it's only for the summer. My family won this all expenses-paid trip to the Balkans so we might as well make good use of it, right?"

Letting his childish facade drop, he added, "At least get some pictures of the Kravice waterfalls for me, m'kay?"

"Deal," she whispered into his ear, subsequently grabbing the cheap white earphones in his pocket that he had brought for her to especially use during the long plane ride.

She was prone to popping her ears, and he wanted to make sure she had the smoothest flight possible.

"Alrighty then. Have a safe flight!", he exclaimed, pressing his arm around her in a side-hug before letting go abruptly.

"You know I will, honey", Maxine, the gorgeous cosmetologist-in-training, replied back, waving both her hands frantically in the air.

With that said, Jon sheepishly smiled. Sighing longingly as he watched her walk towards the terminal, he regretted he couldn't afford to go to Europe with her as well.

Oh how he would miss seeing the beautiful sights with her, because he loved traveling, but at least he could video-call her via Skype often.

Some good news at least-that he happened to live in a time with cellphone coverage.

About the distance of two mid-sized compact cars behind him, a slightly jet-lagged former chess champion reluctantly dragged an exhausted piano player away from baggage towards the exit doors.

"But what if my phone charger's still there...", she complained once they got out of there. Running out of breath, she quieted down for a minute and checked her phone for texts from her fellow competitors.

By the time she had finished replying to her last message, her cousin had mustered enough force to push aside the tide of people rushing to the airport late. Opening the door for her, he said, "Then, we'll just buy you a new one. You're lucky we're in the States right now. Otherwise, we'll...it'd be a whole other story."

"TAXI!", he then called out while lifting his hand up to the sky.

"STEVEN! Let's get some McDonalds first though!", she chided while prodding deep into his shoulder with her manicured rose fingernails.

At this, Steven sighed. "You act as if there wasn't McDonalds in London."

"But we're in AMURICA now. Time for some American food."

"I get it, Olivia. Jeesh. Honestly, you act as if McDonalds food is the epitome of Americana cuisine. Where has your world-class palette gone to?"

He turned and stared at her blankly as she chanted monotonously, "England meant English food. America means American food. France meant..."

Snorting, he muttered, "If McDonalds, it being just about the worst food you could chow down, can be considered a perfect example of it, how much trouble are we in as Americans?"

Licking her lips, she responded back, "Never mind the philosophical qualms now. Let's get some Big Macs!"

"Fine...you pick, but only because it's your birthday."

"If I was with my parents, they'd already let me pick!", she shouted before being chased by a pissed Steven trying to clamp her mouth shut as all eyes 'cept one had shifted to them in public.

The one eye who wasn't paying attention to them clearly had other things to do. Carefully watching his step on the cement lest he bump into another soul, someone flight-bound to South Korea passed by them and continued on to the entrance, only pausing in his tracks when he realized he had left his sunglasses in his car still at the long-term storage parking spot.

"런 젠장," he exclaimed. Covering his face with his hands, he lamented exposing his normally-sensitive eyes to such harsh sunlight.

The sun beat down his back, leaving trails of sweat running down his dark suit as he struggled to make the crucial decision on turning back or not. Veering from his current trajectory, he headed back that way until he spotted a flimsy shamrock-colored hat situated against a tree.

Picking it up, he glanced at it closely till a gentle hand took it from his grip and thanked him for taking it off the ground.

A young lady with a flowery blouse, mid-length marigold skirt, long dirty-blond hair and a pair of pale eyes greeted him back with barely veiled embarrassment over losing her green hat so soon after having landed.

As she scooted away from view, he felt something against his fingers and realized that she had left a scarlet bracelet.

Returning to her cousin, the young Korean man kept staring back at them as Olivia's figure vanished into the distance.

The temptation to go and give her back the red bracelet was strong until he recalled that being an introvert left him with very little useful conversational experience and his flight, that had previously been delayed, would not wait for him to catch up to it now.

It would be a better choice to leave the dark sunglasses behind, place the bracelet in lost & found while on the run through the airport and hurry on after his flight.

Not like they would ever have the chance to meet again.

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New Vocabulary:

Hangul -Pronuncation - English Translation-ish (not literal translation)

런 젠장 - ileon jenjang - Holy Shit/bloody hell/what the heck  [Yep-it's a bad word]

Author's note: And with that my first romance story begins! (Well-technically it's kinda of a prologue, but you get what I mean.) Btw, I usually don't write romance or include romance in most of my stories 'cept for maybe a sprinkle so...this is my first time writing a book in the romance genre. Leave constructive comments and feedback, but remember to be nice. I'm human too. XD.