Baekhyun had been told, several times, by several people in his life, that he was a man with extremely high expectations. He would raise an eyebrow at the odd statement, wondering why would anyone even consider the alternative? Having expectations was necessary for success. Anything less than perfect was absolutely unacceptable. This was his rule in life, and this was his motto at work. This was why, to him, children being naturally dependent creatures, knowing nothing about how life worked, had never appealed to him. He knew, there were people who gravitated towards such ‘innocence’, but he was not one of them. In fact, he was far, far from it. Baekhyun had no sympathy for children. They were too needy, too clingy.   He had never been like that.   It was, however, beneath him to blame them for these facts. Baekhyun knew children were the way they were because of their parents. If a kid was rude, it was because the parents didn’t set an example. If a child was helpless, it was the parents who had failed in their teachings. If a child was strangely independent…   An image of a certain seven-year-old boy crossed his mind.   Luke, the boy had said was his name. Baekhyun found himself frowning at the memory of the child who was loitering in public spaces when every one of the same age was clinging tightly to a hand of an adult. It was a strange encounter. It was an encounter which he just couldn’t shake off. And it wasn’t like Baekhyun to dwell on things that were not beneficial to him.   Did the boy manage to get home safe? Did his parents even notice his absence?   In retrospect, Baekhyun should have offered to give him a ride home. And it was perhaps, this acknowledgment that caused him to dwell on the appearance of this strange boy. But then again, he wasn’t sure if Luke would have accepted it. Even if this kid had grown up in a relatively safe town, he must have known better than to reveal too much to a stranger. Living in the city for the past 10 years, Baekhyun couldn’t quite remember life as a small-town kid anymore.   ‘Yet another ad for a missing child’   He could hear her heavy sigh, as her soft eyes scanned the newspaper before her, reaching out distractedly for the hot coffee that Baekhyun had set out for her. She flinched when her fingers came into contact with the ceramic mug, not expecting the heat. He would chuckle at her action, before reaching for her hand, lightly grazing his lips on those lovely fingers. She smiled.   Baekhyun forced his eyes shut.   Focus, he had to focus.   The man had gotten out of his car and made his way to the carnival, not exactly sure what he was looking for. There were still a couple of kids still around, but no one was wearing a baseball cap or a black mask. Luke had promptly disappeared after getting out of his car, and to be honest, Baekhyun didn’t even have a good look at him. If he was to run into him again, Baekhyun was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize the young boy.   Just as well.       He found himself leaving the carnival without really doing anything there, deciding there was another time for that. There were, naturally, several places Baekhyun could have gone back to, now that he was back in Port Town. Baekhyun didn’t feel like visiting any. Instead, he went straight to that tiny bed and breakfast, by the pier. Nothing had changed. It was still run by this old lady with the calmest of smiles, and she was always knitting at the reception desk.   Of course, when Baekhyun was last here, there were fewer lines on the corners of her eyes and there weren't as many white hairs on her head. The old lady wasn't alone then too, Baekhyun remembered her hardworking but overly talkative husband, fixing the lights in the hall. If Baekhyun was to speak kindly to her, if Baekhyun managed to relieve just a little of the elderly woman's boredom, she would give him the best room in the house, the one right at the top with the just the right amount of sea breeze and the perfect view of the carnival from the window.   He remembered the history of the carnival well, even though he wasn't sure who had told him of that particular story. The small town, being perched on the side of the province, had very little visitors. Granted, everyone who wanted a scenic route to the city would go past here, but few choose to stay. It was a town whereby almost everyone knew everyone, and nothing interesting ever happened. They said at the very least, this was a safe place for children to grow up in. Baekhyun scoffed at that thought.   The ambitious would find the town suffocating. Life was dull, predictable and not a lot of fun. Until one day, a brilliant idea struck a young businessman, and he decided to build a carnival over the sea. It was meant to be grand, it was meant to lure in visitors from other states so that they would stay long enough to appreciate the small town and its many hidden wonders. He had a huge plan and backed by a couple of big investors. All of them believed that the town would be lively with tourists, that they would finally flourish like their neighboring towns once the word spread. Perhaps it worked. Perhaps it drew in visitors to Port Town for the first couple of years. Baekhyun wouldn't know, for by the time he was a child, the carnival had passed its glory days, and was now merely frequented by people of this town and the neighboring ones. It was still, not interesting enough to draw in outsiders. In the end, it seemed like nothing could defy fate, and all that efforts were for nothing.   The first thing that Baekhyun did when he checked into the room, was to plug in his phone. The battery went flat during his journey, though he suspected, he wasn't very much missed. There were a couple of work-related messages, which he chose to blatantly ignore. He figured he had given them enough of his time already. There was no hint of the person he wanted to hear from, no sign of her reaching out. But there was a missed call, from someone whom he really didn't want to hear from.   A missed call. One call. One single bloody call.   He really wasn't trying very hard.   That night, when Baekhyun laid his heavy head on the pillow, he found himself repeating a mantra over and over to himself. It was something that he used to himself, but he had let himself forget.   Nothing last forever.     The next day, he was back at the carnival, people watching. Thank goodness, the entrance was free.    Settling himself down to one of the benches near the food and drink stalls, Baekhyun was watching young families past him by on their way to making fun memories, as he sipped mindlessly from his straw. Even though it was a carnival, Baekhyun wasn’t going to succumb to the temptation of carbonated drinks, he had bought himself a bottle of plain mineral water and had to endure the odd stare of the employee when Baekhyun asked for a straw. Baekhyun was firm about taking care of his body, but apparently, the concept of dieting was quite restricted to city-dwellers.   The truth was, Baekhyun didn’t know why he was here again. It wasn’t like he was going to eat anything from the food stalls here which only seemed to serve food that was either going to give one a heart attack or diabetes (or quite possibly both). He stopped enjoying the rides years old, considering that nothing had been upgraded. And quite frankly, looking at the happy faces of the kids as their parents brought them cotton candy was nauseating to look at.   He was an awful person, and he admitted it.   Yet, Baekhyun just couldn’t bring himself to visit the other parts of Port Town. He convinced himself, there was no point anyway. There wasn’t anything new to visit, and he was reluctant to return to the places that were always going to be familiar to him, despite being away for so many years. Something was nagging at him at the back of his head, and Baekhyun reasoned, that he simply didn’t like being confined. Port Town trapped Baekhyun. There was the way it had always been, that was the way it was always going to be.       “Mister… Vadar?”   It wasn’t shock or even curiosity that overtook him. What overwhelmed him the sec