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« 🥀 » 𝐜𝚑. 4

-͟͟͞͞➳ 𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥

(𝓃.) 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒; 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑.

Bomi tells herself it's just for personal hygiene when she rushes to her dorm room right after class ends at five to take a shower and change into nicer clothes.

"Hey, Bombom! What's got you in a hurry?" Emma asks from where she's curled up on her desk chair, absentmindedly twisting a pencil through her fingers.

"I'm meeting a friend at six." Bomi tells her, tugging a brush through her uncooperative hair.

"Does that friend happen to be of the male gender, since I know you're straight?" Emma smirks.

"Yeah, a guy called Ethan Ricci." She says.

Emma seems to ponder for a moment. "Oh! I have a friend who's in design, Samar Lal. I think he's one of that guy's good friends. He's mentioned him before." Then she leans closer to Bomi. "So, this Ethan Ricci."

"I met him at a coffee shop." Bomi tells her. "He's nice."

Emma flips her tight curls over her shoulder and shrugs. "You know I don't really swing that way, so I can't relate, but as long as he's nice to you, sure."

"We're not—" Bomi makes an affronted face. "He's a friend, Em! Nothing more!"

Emma just laughs.

She eventually settles on a warm blue sweater over a gray skirt. After a second of deliberation, she pins a star-shaped hair clip in her hair before snatching up her coat and grabbing her phone and bag. An alarm chimes on her phone, announcing the current time of six in the evening. She waves goodbye to Emma.

On her way down, she receives a text from Ethan saying he's in front of the dormitory building. She's just pressed send while skipping hastily down the last few stairs when someone taps her shoulder.

She looks up, losing her balance for a second, and Ethan's there, holding her wrist to steady her.

"Hey, there." He laughs, letting go of her wrist, and the dark curls of his hair are ruffled by the winter breeze sailing in through the open door as he does. There's a white Polaroid camera hanging around his neck.

She blinks. "Hi. I thought you were at the entrance."

He shrugs guiltily. "I thought so too, until I found myself wandering in. I haven't been to the dorms before, since I live in an apartment off campus."

She nods. "You've mentioned it before, I think. And speaking of off-campus, where do you plan to take me?"

His smile widens, revealing dimples and uneven front teeth she finds endearing.

"That's a surprise. Let's go before the sun sets." He says, and they set a brisk pace as they head out of the university campus.

A sheet of snow covers the city streets they walk through, and their breath rises in white clouds in front of them. The city is busy, filled with life.

Eventually Ethan stops in a less-populated area of the city. There's a park just around the corner, full of bare-branched trees and snow-covered benches. Bomi doesn't recall ever coming here before, but it's quieter than the bustle of the rest of the city and she appreciates the calm.

They walk past the park; there's an old, small building, inconspicuous in the shadow of greater architectural buildings. Bomi thinks it belongs somewhere in a historical fiction novel, not a busy metropolis that cannot spare it a glance. It looks lovely in the evening light, but not a single person seems to notice it as they head briskly towards their own destination, busy as can be.

Ethan stops in front of the old building, as does she.

"This is the place." He tells her, eyes gleaming.

At the quirk of her eyebrow, he laughs. "Not just the building. The top of it."

"How do we get up there, then?" She asks.

"This way!" Ethan says, eyes wide and sparkling. He leads her behind the building and in front of a protruding part of the building. There is a door on it, seemingly locked, but when Ethan slides the handle slightly to the right before pulling it towards him, the door opens easily besides the creaking hinges.

It doesn't lead to the inside of the building, but a staircase trailing the side of the building and leading upwards. The brown stairs seem to be in surprisingly good shape as they climb it to the top.

Bomi is slightly out of breath when they reach the top, but all that yoga seems to have done her some good.

There's another door there that opens more easily than the first one. As it slides open, Bomi is met with the sight of a rooftop. Half of it is sheltered under some form of a roof, possibly an alternative for a shed, while the rest is completely bare under the setting sun, save for a lone easel with a blank canvas and a small stool.

There's a low wall and railing lining the edges of the rooftop. Bomi steps out onto the rooftop and to the closest edge, staring out at the world below them.

The park is visible below them, bare-branched trees and couples on benches and dogs wounding excitedly around their owners. Beyond that is the city, cars honking, voices chattering, buildings towering over everything else. And on the horizon is the path of the sun, setting slowly but ever so surely, bathing the city in a golden light.

It's breathtaking to witness the humble simplicity of this otherwise convoluted equation of life.

She feels Ethan come up beside her. "Do you like it?"

She nods wordlessly. During the time she'd been here, she hadn't had a chance to explore the city or spend any leisure time to visit a place like this. After all, it was her first year of university, and taking biomedical engineering meant a heavy burden to bear.

But now that she was here, it was truly unforgettable even as she watched the city move all on its own.

"It's beautiful." She says, and her own voice is soft as she leans against the railing, tugging her coat closer as her breath rises in fog.

"It is." Ethan agrees. When she looks back, he's settled on the stool, watching her with a little smile on his face.

He gets up again to stand next to her. Right then, as the sun's final rays start to give way to an inky darkness to create a mesmerizing gradient of colors across the canvas of a sky, the street lamps turn on.

The ones farthest from them switch on first, and then the next, and the next: all in a blink of an eye.

The sun disappears under the horizon.

"It's beautiful." She says again, and she looks up at the sky. She can't see the stars; The city's lights prevent that. But the moon, in all its pale glory, illuminates the sky around it and the city below it.

"I'd like to take you here more often." Ethan says quietly. "When the stars are more visible."

"I'd—" Her breath catches as she turns her head and meets his eye. He's looking at her with a sort of soft expression on his face, and she can see the moon reflected in his dark eyes. "I'd like that."

There are few words said, but they watch the city below them, which is quieter in the night but never truly silent. And as the calm of night washes over them, they listen to its heartbeat, thrumming and pulsing and living, even as time seems to hold its breath on the little rooftop in the quiet part of the city.

This was one of the longer scenes. Hope it was okay!