Her bag was pushed against the wall next to the door, thick canvas bulging as the zipper strained to hold everything in.

Junhee tried not to look at it too often, tried not to think that it looked too lonely, too strange, without clothes spilling out of its open sides. Her gaze swept the room instead, taking in the desk lamps, shades glowing faint yellow as light filtered through the thick material, reflected by the beads that dangled loosely down the sides. The bedspread was smoothed, tugged into the corners to get rid of the creases, and the room was neat –an expression of gratitude of sorts, aimed to thank Taeyeon for her hospitality and everything she had said yesterday about Jongdae. It wasn’t something she’d thought could be expressed in words. Words were what got the point across, but she always thought that she always thought fell short in terms of expressing the actual feeling. It was why, she thought, she preferred expressing her innermost thoughts in the form of pictures –a habit, she bleakly recalled, that she shared with Jongdae.

She glanced at her watch again, sighing as the seconds ticked mercilessly on. She’d have given anything to have another day, another chance with Jongdae. There were so many things she’d wanted to say to him. She wanted to thank him for everything: the crazy escapades, the adventure through the streets and the alleyways; the time he spent on her, the gentleness he showed beneath his sharp-tongued wit and playful mischief; and also for opening her eyes, for showing her that beauty resides in the most unexpected places, hidden in the little cracks and crevices that you normally wouldn’t look.

She wanted to say goodbye to him, and tell him that he was the one person in her life that she could never ever forget.

He thought of leaving without seeing him clung at the back of her head, leaving bitter and raw. It felt strange and foreign, for memories about Jongdae were always sweet, peppered with a dash of tanginess at the edges where he inserted his dry, aggravating humour, but never bitter. Jongdae could never be bitter; he was all smiles and laughter and twinkling eyes. But leaving him was, and it cut grooves through her heart.

Junhee pushed back her hair and pressed her fingers to her eyelids, promising herself she wouldn’t cry. She thought of bright side of things: she would finally be able to see her mother and share the tale with her best friend. Would he understand, she wondered, how it feels like to lose the person who you really don’t want to let go?

She shook her head, shoving the thoughts away, far from her reach in her subconscious. With a shaky breath, she marched towards the door and picked up her suitcase and her art supplies, swinging her hair around so that it fell on one shoulder. With the end of her foot, she tugged the door closed behind her.

That was the end of her stay; that would be the last she thought of Jongdae.

The sun was strangely bleak today, she noted. Warm, like always, dependable in its everyday appearance. But the light looked strangely muted, illuminating every form, but not exactly its life. She could feel it against her skin, shining upon the crown of her head and tracing the curves of her features, but the warmth just felt uncomfortable now, like a stranger’s touch. Gone was the anticipation, the thirst for adventure and the desire to delve into the town’s mysteries, leaving in its place an empty hollowness that ate through her soul.

The bus conductor smiled at her, enquiring softly if she required assistance with her bag, which she gladly accepted. It felt oddly nice, handing it over to someone else, letting its weight rest on another’s shoulders so that she’d have more room to think. She gazed around, taking in her surroundings, the enchanting scenery that she knew she was going to miss. Due to the influx of guests the B&B would be receiving in replacement for the ones that would be leaving today, the tour bus had decided to pick them up at the park instead, in the back parking lot that never seemed to have any cars. It wasn’t a long walk but she cherished every moment of it, taking on a slow pace so that she could enjoy the town for the last time before she left.

She tried to commit to memory the quaint little shops, how it bowed out into the street, awnings jutting out into the sidewalk as it welcomed customers under its shade. Leaves framed vibrant flowers, spilling out of the boxes beneath windows, waving as the breeze whisked tendrils into the air. Almost all the shops she passed had a nice touch of wood: a beam here, extending to support the roofs and awning; a wooden sign there painted with the shop’s name, surface smoothened and waxed below the careful of each character. She had wondered slightly how difficult it would be to paint them, how divine the picture would turn out upon its completion. Her fingers itched for her paint set to find out.

The bus felt rickety under her feet when she embarked, wheels groaning at the addition of extra weight. She gazed pensively at the steel steps, almost convinced that seconds from now, one of the tires would pop and the bus would sag onto the pavement, like an old horse ridden to exhaustion by its master. A few seconds past and the bus remained intact; she decided to take her chances and leapt up the last step.

The seats were almost completely full save for a pair of seats in the middle. Gingerly, she made her way towards it. The sun had warmed the cracked leather, tracing the lines and little holes and sagging edges –indicators of the years it had spent in the bus’s service. Junhee grazed her fingers onto it to gauge the temperature, and then sat down when her senses registered the heat as tolerable, though only a few degrees shy of burning away her skin. A week spent sleeping on a soft bed had worn off the bad memories associated with the bus’s upholstery. It took a lot of wincing to adjust herself to its stiffness and creaking springs.    

She cranked down the window just as the engine roared, a harsh, jagged sound that seemed to claw its way into her ears, rough and a little bit ominous. It was nothing like the purr of Jongdae’s motorcycle when he gently coaxed it to life with deft, encouraging fingers. She winced, both because of the sound and because she broke her promise about not thinking about Jongdae.

The bus groaned as the driver floored the pedal. Like a bull whipped into movement, it rumbled forward, slow at first, before easing itself into a faster speed. She leaned back. Suddenly the thought of watching the town move and shift before her eyes, the colours blending, merging, buildings dissolving into towering trees and rolling plains, seemed too much to bear for her fragile heart.

In the midst of the sound of the roaring engine and the turning wheels, she heard her name.

She blinked at first, unsure if it had been her imagination. It sounded like the syllables of her name, unclear, though the tone, the manner in which it was pronounced, sounded familiar. The roar of the engine was enough to overwhelm everything else, but then, she heard it again, the sound filtering through her open window, carried by the wind. She whipped around and gasped in surprise as she pressed her palms against the glass.

Her lips moved quietly to form Jongdae’s name.

He edged his bike closer to the bus –a precarious move, wrought with danger that might end with him losing his life. He wasn’t wearing his helmet (the fool! she thought) and his thick, dark brown hair streamed behind him, revealing a pair of frantic eyes and a worried mouth. Junhee’s heart somersaulted and she forced the whole window down.

“You idiot, what the hell are you doing?” she screamed at him, eyes darting around frantically at the passing cars. One of them swerved, narrowly missing Jongdae.

“You’re leaving without a goodbye!” he yelled back, voice carried by the wind. “I figured it called for desperate measures.”

“You weren’t there for me to say goodbye,” she said through gritted teeth. Her heart was hammering now, fearing for Jongdae’s safety.

“You didn’t wait.”

“Is it my fault now?”

“No.” He grinned that rakish grin of his, the grin that both tugged her heartstrings and drove her insane. “It’s mine.”

She took in a deep breath. “You’re insane.”

“I always have been, for you.”

She blinked. “What?”

He grinned again. “I’m sorry for not saying goodbye.”

“Fine! I forgive you. Just please, stop following me before you get killed.”

“Not before you take this.” He stretched his arm out. Clasped tightly in his fingers was a small sheaf of paper, though she surmised that it was more of a card, considering the way in bent in the wind, but didn’t dance.

Huffing, she reached out of the window and snatched it out of his hand, drawing it in before the wind could tug it away. Her fingers clamped at its sides, but her eyes were too busy watching Jongdae to glance at it. He was slowing his bike, slipping out of her vision, melting with the jumbled colours of the passing buildings that she was leaving behind. She jumped up, straining her eyes to see the stretch of road behind her, but he was already gone, no more than a distant memory.

She clamped a hand onto , fighting away the overwhelming urge to cry. Not saying goodbye to Jongdae had been better than saying it and knowing that they could never meet again; it tore her to pieces.

Her fingers were still clamped over the small card. She tugged it onto her lap and stared at its glossy surface. It hadn’t been a card, but rather, a photograph. A photograph of her sitting at the cafe, the corners of her lips tugged up into a small smile as her fingers grazed her sketchbook. It was a photograph taken many days ago, when she’d first noticed Jongdae in the cafe.

He had been looking at her after all.