A Ghita Blom x Mads Lauritzen fanfic from The Missing, Romance Club visual novel.
---------------------------------------------
"Why does she seem so familiar to me?ā
Lauritzenās thought as his words come out from his mouth. If they had met sooner, he would surely have remembered her.
---------------------------------------------
It was in afternoon. A backpack and a notebook rested on the bench beside a girl with a ponytail. She sat quietly, switching between a history book and her sociology assignments. The world around her faded; even her best friends passed unnoticed.
āGhita! Arenāt you coming to the dance rehearsal for prom?ā Jaynie, her longtime best friend, called out, braking her bicycle nearby.
Ghita closed the book but kept her finger marking the page.
āI already told Saga Iād join tomorrow. I just need to prepare for the university test first. After that, weāll meet at the cafĆ©, okay?ā
āCopy, unbeatable nerdy girl. Donāt miss that or Iāll strike you down on our pact of friendship!ā
Ghita lifted a thumb in agreement and allowed herself to mimic a playful āgot it!" gesture, then bent back over her notes. While many of the 3rd grade students were preparing their end-year activities, most of them were also studying for entrance exams to their dream universities. Ghita actually loved the euphoria of creating eventsābut if she forced herself to do everything at once, she might lose her chance at her first-choice major. So she decided to focus on what mattered most, even if it cost her moments of joy.
A cool breeze swept through, carrying fallen leaves across the park. Soon after, a man in a gray jacket took the seat beside her. He looked as though heād just finished a walkāor a run. The smartwatch on his wrist caught her eyeāit wasnāt common at the time. Maybe, she thought, he worked for a well-known company in the city. His age seemed to support that.
He opened a bottle of water and drank, glancing around. Out of the corner of her eye, Ghita noticed him, but quickly returned to her reading. Usually, it was nothingāshe had encountered plenty of strangers sitting beside her. Once, it was a grandmother with her grandchildren and their Akita, filling the bench as though the whole park were theirs. Ghita had played with the children and the dog, but always returned to her textbook. Always like that.
The rustling of leaves, the crisp autumn airāit gave the moment a quiet thrill. One wave of leaves scattered, only for another to fall in their place. A girl on the verge of womanhood, chasing her dreams. A man, barely transitioning into adulthood, already heavy with ambition. Two souls, unknown to each other, sitting with their own purposes. Wandering beneath the same sky that silently protected them.
His gaze drifted to her scattered notes on the bench. He had trained at the Academy, but undercover work left him little time for theory. Every day was pressure, burden, responsibility. He gladly accepted the risk, yet sometimes he wondered how many nights he would have to stay awake while others slept safe in their beds. What recklessness would be created by his choices?
Their eyes playing hide and seek. A flicker of curiosity. A silent stutter. It's like the path itself was nudging them closerābirds singing, crickets whispering faint music orchestrating their inner monologuesāfor themselves and for each other. The moment lingered, then passed, as they slowly looked away.
A schoolgirl, nearly a university student, he thought. But why spread all her notes out on a park bench? How can she study out here? How does she even understand that textbook? He wondered how she managed it.
In the Academy, he had been among the top students, even cracking his first case in his senior year. His colleagues never asked how he did it; they knew he had instinct in the fieldālogical, deductive, unshakable. But if the girl beside him had been his classmate, he would have doubted his place.
Iād gladly surrender, he thought, because I canāt beat her multitasking brain. Just look at that book. She aces it all, and thatās⦠amazing.
Lauritzen allowed himself a small smile, remembering his Academy yearsātimes when he tried to escape class, only to be dragged by his mentor to volunteer in social facilities. Everything was simpler back then. That was when he wished the moment not to die, but for his own goodness, life had to go on, like the pedals of a bicycle that must keep turning unless the rider chooses to stop.
And yet, even as he thought about duty, something inside him stirred. A strange pull. The sense that he had sat beside her before, though he knew he hadnāt. It was dangerous for him to linger on such feelings. But still, the weight of familiarity pressed against his chest, quiet and persistent.
āLauritzen, suspect heading north side of the park. Circle around and intercept.ā The headset crackled to life.
He rose quickly and walked off with purpose. Going opposite to where Ghita sat.
Her eyes followed him. For a heartbeat, her thoughts went blank. Then something inside her surged. There was an ache in her chest as she looked at him, clearly seeing his figure, yet unable to place him. The weight pressed down on her ribs, sinking deep, as though she had always known him. As though he were the one she had longed forāthe one she dreamed of when watching sunsets in summer, when touching the waves at the shore as they embrace at her feet, when she whispered silent prayers at night to no one but herself...
It was too much. Her chest swelled with a longing she couldnāt understand, an ache that frightened her.
She shook her head, snapping herself back.
It must be because Iām too tired.
But as poets have always saidālovers are destined to cross paths. They walk through the same places, circle the same moments, until fateāpatiently waiting in the cornerābrings their souls together at the right time.