November 2, 2019
It was a few minutes past 6pm when Bella was back at her hotel. She decided to try her luck with the ATMs in the area first. She remembered that intersection she had seen yesterday. She moved in that direction. When she reached it, she saw that indeed there were a row of ATMs. There was a short line of people waiting and she fell in line. In no time at all, she was in front of the ATM.
"Please God, let this work!" She said a silent prayer and inserted the card into the slot. The machine asked for the preferred language. Bella chose English. Then it asked for her PIN. She encoded her PIN. The machine then asked for the amount. She thought for three seconds and decided to take out 1000NTD.
She did a quick calculation and knew she had bought all the souvenirs she needed. This was for food and anything else she felt she might want to buy on a whim. After all, how often was she in Taiwan.
The machine whirred to life and dispensed 10 pieces of 100NTD. Bella said a silent prayer of thanks.
A receipt was ejected and then her card. She took both and inserted it all into her wallet.
Walking back to her hotel, Bella breathed a sigh of relief.
In a span of 24 hours, she really experienced a roller coaster of emotions. She initially felt excitement about exploring Taipei then she slipped into worry about getting lost in a strange city. Next, she was amazed at the tourist attractions she managed to see thus far and then there was her fear of not being able to take money out of the ATM.
And now, she was feeling a little tired but still energetic. In about an hour, she would be at the night market and experiencing all that she could of Taiwan's famous night market scene.
She entered her room and placed her purchases on her side table. It was 615pm her watch told her.
She thought about maybe resting a bit but decided against it. She did not want to make Jake wait for too long. She knew getting to Shilin was going to take around ten minutes. She had to leave Taipei Main Station by 645pm. Factoring in the time she may take trying to find the right line to get on, that only left her fifteen minutes to do what she needed to do here before she had to leave again. She decided to freshen up and grabbed her wicker basket. Taking her keycard with her, Bella entered the washroom on her floor and went about her business.
When she was ready to leave, she reached into her backpack and applied her perfume. Always in the same way: on both her wrists, on either side of her neck and once on her back for good measure. Sometimes, like tonight, she added a spritz on both her shoulders.
With her earphones on, she selected a song on her Spotify playlist of BTS. She decided to try a song named, "Euphoria."
She looked at her phone. Someone from BTS named Jungkook started singing.
'Neoneun nae salmedasi tteun haetbit. Urin sijeol nae kkumdeurui jaerim. Moreugesseoi gamjeongi mwonji. Hoksi yeogido kkumsok ingeonji. Kkumeun samagui pureun singiru. Nae an gipeun gosui a priori. Sumi makil deusi haengbokaejyeo. Jubyeoni jeomjeom deo tumyeong haejyeo.'
Bella was in love with his voice. It was so soulful and so rich. It seemed light but powerful at the same time.
Jungkook continued to sing into her ear and the more Bella listened to his voice, the more she felt the warmth in it. She felt like this Jungkook was hugging her with his voice. She didn't know if that made sense but his voice really made her feel some sort of way. It felt familiar and it felt like home.
She had no idea what he was singing about but dammit, this guy could sing.
Bella continued walking and listening to this song, paying attention to each lilt and each groove his voice made.
