The sound of my footsteps against the pavement. The pumping of my heart. The raggedness of my breath as it became shorter. And the sweat that ran across my forehead.

This felt sooo good!

The little walk I planned turned into a morning jog. Thought I'd regret it, but no.

What I did regret was doing this real early in the morning. It was too damn cold and I forgot to put on my jacket. Yes, I was so dumb. I mentally punched myself.

I jogged more to sweat more. It felt nice as it warmed me up inside bit when I had to stop over to cool down, I literally shivered like an epileptic cockroach there in the sidewalk.

"d-d-dang... Thanks a lot, cold coffe--"

I was about to blame the cold porcelain of caffeine when over there, my eyes were graced by the wonderful building humans called a 'tea house.'

"bubble tea?" I mused to myself.

"but it's still too cold."

and so this was it. Confliction.

I shivered while staring at the tea shop, my eyes quite dilated to the max.

"you okay, man?" a guy asked as he walked pass me.

"i-i... yeahhh..." I said without looking who it was. My eyes still fixed on the building.

"bubble tea in the morning won't hurt as long as it makes you happy" the same guy said, he was sitting there on the sidewalk, beside me, stretching his legs.

I looked at him, his face unrevealed. He had his black hood up and a mask on.

He looked at me and I couldn't see his eyes anymore as they smiled at me.

"heh..." REALLY AMBER? WAS THAT EVEN A LAUGH?

I tried to flash a smile but I shivered again.

"See ya around, dude." the guy spoke in English as he got up and jogged away.

While I was there.

Still staring.

Still staring at the Tea shop.

--

"I'm home~"

Jackjack and Gongju greeted me with enthusiastically wagging tails.

My soul was happy as I put down on my table the empty cup of bubble tea.