maquillna:

_{✦ renetae started following you}

_{Perhaps it was ill-advised to be roaming the streets so late at night, but Hyuna was much too exhausted to care. It had been a long day, and she’d been on the receiving end of a real earful from her superior — though, even he’d said the apparent mishap hadn’t been entirely her fault, but she was the only one who stuck around afterward and had been the unlucky victim.}

_{His tirade was still ringing in her ears when she entered the tiny corner store. She’d barely had a dinner or a lunch, and it was high time to drown her sorrows in saturated fats and a sugar concentration that would make even the most avid of candy-lovers cringe. With her purchases in tow, she tottered down the sidewalk, catching a glimpse of the time on her mobile. The sunset was but a memory at this hour.}

_{“Damn,” she cursed quietly, withholding an eyeroll (or a more explicit utterance) when she approached a bus stop with a small crowd of people in line. Great, now it’d take even longer to get home. Hyuna was normally in a cheerful mood, even when she left work late or had to deal with primadonna stars — but this time, something was off, terribly off.}

_{The back of the line was a lonely place to be, and her impatience was steadily passing its bearable stage. With a small sigh, she squinted in the darkness to make out the features of another face in the queue. “Excuse me,” she began, shuffling away from the others slightly. “You didn’t happen to see when the last bus came by, did you?”}

_{He had known a wanderer once, who came and went like the seasons. Never could you trust him to stay, but always could you count on him to keep wandering. Sometimes gentle and predictable—other times as unpredictable as an autumn storm. At the time he had wondered how he could find peace in wandering, and not settling down. Now, after the long passing of time, he thought he knew how.}

_{There was a peace to walking. A rhythm, a plan without a plan. It was him, his thoughts, his music, and whatever he may encounter. When you were struggling to figure out what quite to do with yourself, a walk gave you time to ponder, gave you perspective—and something to do. Lee Taemin had been walking for several hours; aimlessly, yet with the goal of clearing his mind of the thoughts of his life. Torn between wanting to let himself forget the past, and thinking of it often as if it would slip between his fingers if he looked away for a moment too long, it had been an increasing annoyance that needed to be swept away with the wind.}

_{If his quest had been a success, however, could be widely debated. Nevertheless, it had him end up here. On the other side of town, the sky finally a canvas of night, but one lacking of stars. Clouds hid them like jealous lovers. He had hoped it would not be so, but it seemed his luck was narrow there, so instead of walking all the way back to the hotel in which he stayed temporarily… he had found this bus stop. It was full of scents; cigarette smoke, sweat accumulated over the day, clinging to the skin of humans, along with the dying hints of perfume or cologne. The breeze carrying vain traces of fresh air, failing in their effort to chase away the armada of scents.}

_{If he had not been used to worse once upon a time, perhaps his sensitive sense of smell would have driven him away from the bus stop, but as it were, it did not. He merely stood there, waiting without looking at anyone, largely keeping himself to his own thoughts. At least, until a lady voice pierced his attention, making him slowly let his gaze fall upon her. The last bus? he repeated inwardly.}

_{“No”, he told her. “Not for the last five minutes at least.”}

1. renetae reblogged this from maquillna and added:

   He had known a wanderer once, who came and went like the seasons. Never could you trust him to stay, but always could...

2. maquillna posted this