Jiyong stares through the window of the simple hotel room, a cigarette perched between his lips, smoke  stinging his lungs. The sky is as clear as it can get on a spring afternoon in Paris, and it would have been able to sober him up, if not for last week's confrontation with his ex and yesterday's incident at the club. He lets out a puff of white and grey, and the steady click of a keyboard in the otherwise silent room reminds him of the woman busy typing on her computer. 

      "So." he turns around, resting one hand on the metal window frame and addressing his savior. After what she has done, the least he can do is try and make small talk. "Where are you headed?"

      "Beijing, China," She says simply, still busy with her keyboard. She must be writing her next blog update. Does it include how she bumped into Korea's biggest pop star on a train, only to see him again a week later, -faced? He sure hopes not. "You?"

      He doesn't even need to think about his answer, because it has been the same one since he has left. "I don't know."

      She stops typing momentarily, and he notices how she lifts her chin up a little, maybe to look at him with the same confused face s have given him, but she resumes her work almost immediately. "How long have you been in France, anyway?"

      "Long enough." he shrugs, purposefully avoiding getting into the details. Just because she doesn't care about who he is doesn't mean selling his story to the media won't get her whatever amount she wishes for. It isn't worth the risk.  After another draft of his cigarette, he changes the topic. "When's your flight?"

      "What flight?"

      "To Beijing."

      "Oh," She finally looks up at him, her large-framed glasses barely balancing on the bridge of her nose, a slow smile brightening her face, and her eyes shine, and Jiyong is nearly jealous of her excitement. "I'm not taking a plane."

      That declaration has him lifting his eyebrows, and he blinks. "What do you mean? How else will you get there?"

      She grins. "I'm taking a train."

      A moment of silence passes. Jiyong stares at her incredulously. "Are you serious?"

      "Why not?" 

      "Are you aware of how long this will take you?" He gapes, using his cigarette-free hand to gesticulate. "It could be months."

      "Don't be overdramatic." She laughs, dismissing his statement with a mere hand gesture. "It would normally take eleven to twelve days, but I'll be stopping in a couple more cities to enjoy the trip. That's the only reason it would actually take me months."

      "Isn't it dangerous for a woman to go alone?"

      "You make it sound like I'm going to off myself in some rural area." She looks at him, amused. "I'm taking publicly monitored trains. Police officers will be present, I'll be staying in well-secured and researched hotels and hostels, and I like to believe in the greater good of people. It's only dangerous if you believe it is - besides, what's life without a little adventure? A woman can do whatever she wants."

      His heart beats in his chest. Just listening to the lively blogger talk about her upcoming trip results in a long-lost sense of adrenaline creeping sluggishly into his system. With a throat dry from tobacco-smoke and maybe something else he doesn't quite understand yet, he asks her the one question running through his mind. "Why?"

      "Why what?"

      "Why do you want to... go through unconventional ways to get there? Why do you want to take the long way?" 

      "I told you. It's an adventure." Her smile widens, and as she stares at the farthest blank wall, a dreamy look on her face, Jiyong nearly gulps. "Before technology and the modernization of industries and work, life used to be so much simpler. Happier. People may have invented faster ways to travel, but they left behind the joy of discovery. 

      "People used to go places and actually learn something. They used to intermingle with different people and different cultures, and further develop themselves as human beings and as people by communication and understanding. For once, by taking the train to the place I want to be at, I would pass by other places and enjoy it as much as possible in the limited time I've got. I don't want to just settle. I want to pick up camp again and go somewhere else, where other adventures might wait."

      "It's like being a bird," he finds himself saying out loud, and she looks back at him, surprised and glad that he is responding, and he can't stop there, so he continues his string of thought. "I've always envied them," he says, taking a deep breath and looking down at his burning cigarette.

      "They fly from one country to another, albeit in flocks, and stay there for as much as they possibly can, enjoying every inch and aspect of life. And when the time to leave comes, they just pick up their wings and flap away, no strings attached. They aren't tied down."

      "Being tied down takes the beauty out of life." She finishes the thought, and he looks up at her, embarrassed by his own speculations- but she smiles at him and tilts her head, as if contemplating something.

      "Kwon Jiyong."

      She says his full name, and he is used to people knowing his full name without his telling them, so he just nods a little, telling her he's attentive. "Would you like to join me?"

      No doubt, he is taken aback by her invitation- because who in their right mind would ask a stranger they met twice- once -faced in a club- to travel across two continents with them? But what surprises him more is the fact that although his initial reaction is to refuse, a big part of him is actually contemplating the crazy idea. A sense of adrenaline rushes through him. The last time he's felt this way was when he was working on BIGBANG's post-scandal comeback after he had met his current ex, and he suddenly he wants this in the way he had wanted her- a reprieve. A short lived spark of enthusiasm.

      He has taken a hiatus anyway, and all for the right reasons. He knows the risks and the consequences that come if he accepts this - both on him and her. But it is counterbalanced by the fact that he will definitely regret not taking Lee Chaerin up on her offer. After all, how many times in your life are you asked by a beautiful woman to accompany her on a train trip across Europe and Asia to get to Beijing?

       Not often.

      He blows out the last of his cigarette, and notices she is still looking at him expectantly. "When are we leaving?"

      "In three days." She grins widely, and runs slender fingers through her long blonde hair, a small laugh slipping past her lips. Jiyong finds himself smiling too- out of relief that he might just be on the right way to regaining his peace of mind and self.

      "I have one rule, though."

       Jiyong raises a brow. "What?"

      "These," She points at box of Marlboro thrown on the night stand and the gritty, half-full ash-tray next to it. She wrinkles her nose. "Get rid of that habit of yours, or get used to lounging on balconies."