The Aesthetic Question

Breaking

[Night - Taeyeon]

Maple tried, for the fourth time today, to tame her man of black hair. It insisted on sticking out at unflattering angles so after a while, she gave up.

It turned out she didn't need to, as a gust of strong wind hit her square in the face as soon as she opened the front door. Normally she would've been pissed over the weather messing with her OCD, but today was different. Today she had been blessed with a stream of inspiration for her novel. She simply couldn't wait to settle down in the café Aurora recommended and bleed her words out.

The smell of hazelnut must have had something magical in it because by the time she was ready to leave, she had almost finished the first draft. There was just this one part before the epilogue that she hadn't been able to put into words. For now, it was scattered around her brain in jumbled pieces and she needed more time to piece them together.

Writing was a long and tedious process. Some people seemed to think that having an outline carefully laid down meant smooth sailing ahead for the actual writing. Contrarily, when the outline was all set and there was no more room for imagination, that's when it got tiring. The ideas that kept her up at night suddenly seemed less fun to put into words, turning out to be somewhat boring even for the writer.

A homey bakery practically beckoned her to go inside when she walked past. She decided to play nice and buy everyone cupcakes. Grace would certainly love them.

The house was strangely silent when she got back. Usually by this time, Berkley would be up making breakfast and end up playing fames on her phone for two hours. Again, it wasn't a rare occurrence that Berkley was nowhere to be seen, but Maple couldn't shake the itch that something was wrong.

Even though this sudden burst of intuition came out of the blue, she would thank it later.

Especially when she pushed the eerily unlocked door to Berkley's room and found her on the floor, a scarlet gash on her arm and a dozen liquor bottles rolling around.

* * *

'How's life?'

Alex looked up from an orchestra pamphlet to see a girl whose name he couldn't remember looking expectantly at him.

'Life's great.' He winced on the adjective, acutely aware of how hollow and fake it sounded. As discreetly as possible, he stuffed the pamphlet into the back of his pants.

'So great that you're considering auditioning for another orchestra?' So she didn't miss what he just did.

'Yeah well, you can't deny this orchestra is a hellhole. It should be disbanded long ago, the tiny amount of sponsor it's got.' He shifted his weight from one foot to another.

She regarded him with renewed interest. 'Alexander, isn't it? Why haven't we talked before?'

'I dunno.' He blinked and looked away, something he did a lot.

'I'm Amanda.'

I didn't ask for your name, but alright. He nodded again, making his way for the door. Amanda followed him with her French horn, easily matching his pace. He didn't find an excuse to shake her off because she looked kind of cute. Her choice of clothing and those watery eyes were definitely not hard on the eyes.

To say the truth, he didn't really have a type. The most he could pinpoint was that he liked proactive girls. Other than that, there's no rhyme or reason to his preferences. When he met someone he didn't dislike, he just went for it, usually without thinking twice about it.

Maybe that's why they never lasted. He mused.

Maple had always told anyone who would listen that Alex's fatal flaw was his inability to take in advice. There was never a shortage of people waiting to point out his flaws, wanting the best for him of course, but he either listened with ears shut or retort with an even more negative comment. Since he was quite harsh on himself, sometimes people doubt if he could take the blow, or if he would just break down into something nasty.