When you see italics that means they're trying to speak English. Also if they make mistakes, remember: that was on purpose!

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Are you familiar with that feeling when you simply want to escape from your life?

Donghae was oh so familiar with it.

Constant deadlines, troubles with friends, lonely evenings, fans who follow just everywhere… life is just so hectic and hard to live sometimes.

That’s why he decided to take a break. Nothing special, just a small break in some kind of place where he’ll be able to wander around without worrying that someone will recognize him. Without thinking about how he has to finish that one project he absolutely had no power to finish. Without thinking how he’s become a terrible friend for always being at work…

Donghae never dreamt about becoming famous. That’s not what his family wanted for him. He’s been living his quiet life and studying economics and just loved taking a break from numbers to take some pictures. First those were photos of his family, then his friends. Every moment is precious because it won’t happen to you twice, he truly believed it, so the guy tried to capture the loveliest things that were dear to his heart. He never thought about it becoming something serious.

Then humanity made some progress in technologies, and such things as Twitter and Instagram appeared. Donghae’s friends advised him to post photos there, and of course it wasn’t him waking up famous one morning. Slowly, but surely his blog was gaining attention.

Well, ‘blog’ was a little too loud for a name; he’s been posting random things with even more random captions. Yet somehow people found it cute. Day by day, he’s been gaining more followers. He gained even more when he revealed his face as people loved following ‘a real person’ more than ‘pictures bot’ whom he was before.

And that was his biggest mistake.

Of course in terms of advertising that was a profit. He himself even became a model for a couple of brands as the number of his subscribers was suitable enough for him to be proposed such a big role. Then YouTube channel followed once the guy decided he likes filming videos just as much as taking pics, and so some TV programs started inviting him too. Donghae became quite famous in Korea and started making money, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

He wanted a calm, quiet life. He wanted to take pictures because he likes it, not because he needs to post something, anything for his followers to not lose interest in him.

His work started like something he put his soul, his dreams, his hopes into.

And now it became something that kept his energy out.

He couldn’t last longer, so he decided to run away. Anywhere, any place, any country. He was okay with everything as long as it was far from his homeland. He wasn’t that famous abroad, so there won’t be any problem even if someone will recognize him. He just wanted to escape from people and big city life.

He wanted to spend some time alone. In silence. He wanted his inspiration back, he needed it because it felt like he wasn’t honest with his followers anymore. And more than anything he hated not being honest.

That’s how Lee Donghae decided to escape from his life at the age of 33. Too early to be tired of life? Too late to start anew? Maybe.

But he simply didn’t care.

***

That town was wonderful.

Was it even a town or a small countryside?

It was located in mountains and it seemed like there were no more than 100 houses. A small bridge led to another town, mountain and waterfalls surrounded that small place as if protecting it from the outside world.

River, grass, forest, sky. There was nothing more. Apparently locals thought it was a boring place to live in as there was nothing apart from a few shops. There were no cafes, not to mention any restaurants. The closest was located like 1 hour of walking away, which wasn’t particularly close.

That place was perfect.

The small town located in Austria; Donghae wasn’t sure he saw the nameplate saying what was its name and he himself already forgot it, but it didn’t matter. The less you know, the less are chances someone will find you.

Locals started greeting him on the first day of his arrival. They obviously wanted to be friendly, forgetting that he absolutely couldn’t speak their language. Donghae came to imitating the sounds they were saying once they saw him, hoping it didn’t sound too wrong and that it wasn’t an insult.

It took him only two hours to look at every street, every building and every waterfall. 20 more minutes, and the guy found a bench somewhere on the hill where a beautiful view on the next town opened just for him. He could also see a railway, all surrounded with green, orange and yellow.

Green, yellow, green, orange. Plants and nature were everywhere, and his soul has never felt better.

On the first day, Donghae spent hours sitting on that bench and looking at people somewhere far away, enjoying those moments.

On the first day, Donghae barely spoke a word.

On the first day, he still found something nice in being lonely.

***

It hit him on the second day.

It hit him that as much as he wanted some ‘me time’, as much as he really missed being able to walk the streets freely… nothing much changed.

Nothing changed in terms of him spending time alone.

It’s always been like this. Donghae was a workaholic. When he was a student, he was studying most of the time. When he started working, he gave his everything to do it well. What about friends… he wasn’t as hard-working here.

The guy always thought he’ll get time. ‘Oh, I’ll call them once I’m done with this’, ‘I promise to text them once I’ll be able to give them my full attention’, ‘I’ll wait for a right moment’.

And by now, it was a little too late to wait for a right moment. His friends were busy. They had families, they had their jobs, they had plans. And those plans didn’t include Donghae anymore. And it was his fault. Absolutely. Entirely. No one else’s but his. Maybe it’d be nice to text them now? To share some pictures he already took, to chat about life, to appoint a meeting…

Yeah, that would be nice…

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any courage to. Donghae felt lost.

On the second day, Donghae felt lost once again.

***

He got literally lost on the third day.

The guy decided that the best way to distract himself is to look for some inspiring landscapes, so he planned to go to that forest and take some pictures there.

The weather was quite gloomy. There was no rain anymore, yet the grey clouds made the whole sky look rather glum, which suited the photographer’s mood just perfect. He expected to take some pretty nice dark photos and diversify his colorful and bright Instagram page. That could be a nice change.

What he didn’t expect was to get lost in the middle of the forest.

Which was… which wasn’t that bad.

Donghae clearly didn’t remember where he turned the wrong way and how to come out of here. He kind of pitied he wasn’t in that sort of game his friends loved playing – the one where you can always refer to map and find your way out. But it wasn’t that bad.

Why he didn’t panic? He didn’t know. But now, once he was lost and there was no connection… he thought he’s never felt better in his life.

What kind of problems are there if he’s lost in the forest? Do they even matter now? Does he have to do anything now if no one even knows where he is?

Donghae wasn’t afraid to not find a way. He’ll make it out somehow and then he’ll use a GPS navigator in his phone to get home. Not a big deal; he knew the forest wasn’t big and there were no wild animals. Not a big deal.

He could make his mind rest. And that was a big deal.

Apparently you could tell Donghae was rather… odd. But ‘odd’ doesn’t mean ‘bad’, right?

Right?..

Click!

He took a picture. The very first picture he was really happy with. Maybe that was just his own thinking, but it felt like that photo was radiating freedom. That was real Donghae, not a shameless parody that kept making money by betraying himself. The picture wasn’t really good, but it was real, and that was a win.

Click! Click!

What a pity. That bird was beautiful.