Yuri enters the café with a blank expression on her face. unsure of whether or not to curl up into a smile, she leaves it as a straight line and her eyes match her uncertainty. With no idea to why she’s there, or why she took a second train for thirty minutes when the café was a smile ten minute walk from the first station, she sits down in the far corner of the building and sets her eyes on the monochrome floor.

With a heavy heart, she slumps into the leather chair, aimlessly staring at the menu but not bothering to pick it up and order because despite being in a place that served food, she had no appetite at all.

She allows herself to ignore her surroundings – the hushed conversations, the tempting smell of sweet delicacies and frothy milkshakes, and the never-ending sound of coffee makers steaming and whistling. This was the only place where she could truly be alone, but never feel alone.
The only thing she focuses her mind on is the ringing of the door chime as it opens and closes, customer after customer, but it suddenly it stops and she has no choice but to look up, frustrated that it broke her concentration.

She watches as a customer enters and falls in line to order, but he is not what catches her attention. Truthfully, it is the lingering figure hanging around the door that her eyes were drawn to, unmoving and staring at her with crestfallen eyes that held no surprise.
opens slightly, but no words come to her and instead, her heartbeats are lodged in . However, her heart beats his name once and she’s unable to swallow it away.

I could never escape you, no matter how much I try.

She closes her eyes tightly shut to check if he was simply just a hallucination, but as she opens her eyes she is no longer sitting in the café.

~~~~

As Huang ZiTao entered the train, Yuri frantically looked towards her left and right only in dismay to see the empty seats beside her.

“Please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me, please don’t…”  She could only pray, but of course she never received the answer she wanted.

Tao greeted her with his signature ‘painfully-handsome’ smile that she had more than once confessed to liking during a before-class gossip with her girlfriends, and took the seat right next to her. “Well, look who we have here- hey, Yul!”

She forced a smile and wrinkled her nose as she breathed in his perfume. “What the hell did you spray yourself with- a skunk?”

He laughed and placed an arm around the back of her seat. She immediately leaned in forward and avoided any physical contact with him completely. “It was a present.” He noticed her moving away and smirked. “Relax, I’m not that bad!”
 

“You were with Kris when you saw me last week, and you laughed at me for no apparent reason. The other day, we accidentally met on the same bus and you wouldn’t quit kicking my seat. You-“

“You have an endless grudge against me, don’t you?” he whispered, neither trying to be funny not serious.

Yuri stayed silent, knowing he knew the answer just as well as she did. “What stop are you getting off at?”

He laughed as she didn’t answer. “Yours. You’re heading to that café by Taeyeon’s house, right?”

She turned around with slightly open, “How the hell did you know that?”

Scoffing, he pulled his arm off of her seat and leaned forward with them resting on his legs. He looked at her from the side, but she refused to meet his eyes and turned her head. “Kwon Yuri, you’re so predictable.”

“I hope you’re not a stalker. That would make you so much worse…”  she rolled her eyes, “are you really getting off at the same stop?”

He could only laugh at her. “Seriously, how much of a bad guy do you think I am?” Without hesitation, she opened to answer but he frowned at her. “No, please don’t answer that. I’m meeting someone at the same café. I’m not a stalker.”

Yuri felt the weight on her shoulders lighten one second, but lean down on her again another second. “What a coincidence.”
 

Tao stood up and placed his hands in his pockets, whistling a tune familiar but also very unfamiliar to her. “Might as well walk there together then.” He smiled down at her and she stared at the train door as the world outside began to slow down.

“Promise me you’ll leave me alone afterwards.” She murmured through narrow eyes at him, to which he just smiled and nodded.

“I hold no promise at all, Yul.”

“And you wonder why I think so less of you…”

Tao was the first one to step off as the train halted completely. Yuri lagged behind, but she was only hesitant to follow his steps, somewhat suspicious of him.

Immediately, the crowd began to surround them and with her being a few steps behind, she was almost engulfed by the walking figures until Tao painfully squeezed his way back to her.

“Kwon Yuri, you’re so pred