Screeching metal on metal.

Sparks flying off tracks.

Darkness.

Piercing light.

Dull voices over old speakers.

And strangers.

Strangers are people we see everyday. We see them on the sidewalk, in the street, at school, at work, on the bus, in the elevator, or at home- Kyungsoo lived in a modest apartment building and still didn't know the people who lived next door that were making a ruckus at 3AM or the people who lived upstairs whose pattern of foot movements and steps resembled dancing or the people who lived below him who threw too many parties than was probably good for anyone's liver. 

But Kyungsoo's favorite strangers were the one's on the train. They were rarely the same. Rarely consistent. He never recognized anyone. There was never a consistency with who he saw on the train. There were all sorts of people. There were moms with their children, drag queens, crossdressers, cosplayers, bohemians, businessmen, artists, musicians, students, the occasional or homeless person.

Strangers never really stuck out to Kyungsoo. He never really remembered them. He never wondered what they did. Why they were on the train. If their fates would somehow be deeper entwined or simply just a single passing in a whole lifetime.

It was late and rush hour had just passed and Kyungsoo just wanted to go home and warm up some food, maybe eat the last slice of carrot cake that was waiting for him in the freezer, take a shower and go to bed. Any weekly updates of tv shows could wait for tomorrow. He was exhausted.

The train stop for the local university brought in more people. There was a tall gawking man in colorful pants and a bandanna with plastic ram horns. A girl in a green dress wearing headphones. Kyungsoo's eyes lingered on the person standing in front of him, leaning slightly forward to see the train map behind him. 

The guy looked no older than Kyungsoo himself. Perhaps holder. He seemed mature. He was dressed in all black, he had long bleached blond hair. A Snapple bottle in one hand and black duffel bag in the other. 

Staring wasn't polite. He knew that. But Kyungsoo was pretending to read a book, perhaps he could forget the rudeness for now. The guy had now taken a black beanie out of his bag, flipping the direction his hair was, attempting to put it on, afterwards tucking the hair sticking out in the back into the hat. Piercing eyes like cold train tracks in moonlight. That's what the gaunt face looked like. His cheekbones sharp, a jawline Kyungsoo thought he could cut himself on. A tall, lean body. Kyungsoo thought he was a dancer. He looked like one. Or maybe he was an actor or a martial artist. The world was so unpredictable, he would never know.

They had reached the part of their travels during which the train would go over the bridge. The man moved exiting from the door at the end of the train car. The door shut behind him with a clack.

Did the he notice Kyungsoo was staring at him?

Did he change cars?

Kyungsoo stared through the glass, making out the shape of the man, now standing between the train cars. Exposed to the elements, to the dimly lit darkness. He could see the flash of a light. A flame. It was a lighter. The man was holding it close to his face, that much he could tell. He was taking a drag in the cold air. The glowing but of the cigarette was visible and the white smoke he breathed was a light gray. The smoke pushing up against the window, the moving to the side with the wind, disappearing into the atmosphere. 

He couldn't look away. Kyungsoo was entranced by such a simple sight. Entranced as the man released another puff of smoke, by the red-orange glow of a cigarette, by the stranger.

Kyungsoo glanced out the window in front of him as the train began to slowly descend below ground once more. The door opened and clacked shut again. The man was standing a few feet away from Kyungsoo now. He was curious. He wanted to know the stranger. To ask him a thousand questions that still wouldn't paint the complete picture. The man rolled up his sleeve, a tattoo on one arm. Kyungsoo squinted slightly, trying to make out what it was but time was a fickle friend. There was a ding as the train slowed at the stop and he watched as his mystery walked out the door to never be seen again.

Kyungsoo felt no sadness. Perhaps a lack of interest of the new crows on the train, but nothing more. He released the breath he didn't know he had been holding began searching once more for something interesting. Countless stops left on this ride, from behind the book he held, Kyungsoo imagined the stranger in black who smoked a cigarette in between the moving cars on a train that was going over a bridge.

And maybe. 

Just maybe.

Kyungsoo imagined the stranger had invited him to smoke with him.

He imagined two lit cigarette butts illuminating the darkness of night over them in between train cars.

He imagined the stranger to whom he himself was no more than a stranger.