THE ORANGE GIRL

chapter nine

Monday, 2nd November 2015

8:10PM | The Centennial Park

Downtown often felt more like home than the apartment itself. The soft orange ambience of the streetlights pooling onto the pavement, the continuous hum of vehicle engines as they chugged along the busy roads, the constant stream of beings that clicked heels and tapped tailored shoes and swallowed identities whole within a sea of crowds. Yoongi could walk the streets as himself, no dye slick in his hair or contacts itching at his corneas, just another man strolling to work or home or dinner with his wife at that highly rated restaurant down the lane in a grey pinstripe suit and a charcoal hat dipped low over his eyes as the day gave way to the evening, navy bleeding into the violet setting of the sun upon the skyline. The man felt comforted between bodies waiting at crosswalks, occasionally brushing shoulders or elbows with a soft murmur of an apology, because among the downtown atmosphere he was a kid again with his fingers slipped into the palm of his mother who would show him all of the sights and attractions, pointing them out with her lips whispering velvet into his ears and a prettily manicured finger pointing his gaze into the right direction.

She always knew which way to take him. But now, Yoongi was beginning to feel lost as ever, and all he could ever think about lately was you.

When his thoughts would become stuffed with cotton, so entirely focused on a single mission, he would stroll down to the Centennial Park. It was a lush haven among buildings of concrete and stone, the borders surrounded by flourishing hedging and trees with branches that hung low to conceal any idea that the fifty acres of flora and park benches even existed within such a populated area of the city. It was an escape, a breath of fresh air, black iron gates wide open and welcoming until ten in the evening. Yoongi often frequented the ethereal place with his mother as a child, perched on wooden seating as she would thread her delicate fingers through his wispy locks and tell him all about the world outside of the city, beyond their sterile apartment, far away from his father. The young boy was always enthralled by her stories of the country town she grew up within, the endless fields of grass that swept over the hills behind the family cottage, the tiny deli on the corner of the main street that was owned by the neighbours across the road. Though since meeting her husband, the Centennial was the closest she ever got to home. The nearest she was ever allowed.

Yoongi had not yet been home to see you. He needed a break from hostages and forgotten secrets and the unfamiliar warmth that would pool at the base of his stomach whenever your eyes would roam off into the distance with thought, time off from the constant nervous edge that had attained his mind with every word you uttered since that single memory returned. I remembered I am a good cook. If the way he reacted to that was anything to go by, then he did not want to know how he would feel once you remembered precisely who you were among society. He would never have the heart to tell you himself.

The park was dimly lit as it enveloped him in an embrace, an aroma of tulips and petunias replacing the stench of fuel and garbage. Yoongi leisurely walked down the path that lead to his usual place among the beauty, a park bench marked by the backs of his mother's thighs, stretching his legs and crossing ankles and tilting his head back to look up at the empty sky. It was forever void of stars, the city smog swallowing up their beautiful constellations and instead leaving the night to look bleak and grey. When the man truly thought about it, he realised that he had never witnessed the stars in all of their vibrant might, scattered across the blanket of navy darkness in silver speckles; only ever seeing them in photographs inked into the pages of a book or digitalised on a screen. He knew nothing but the city and you.

"I miss the stars too."

Yoongi smiled fondly at the gentle voice that had sat down beside him, round black eyes gazing up at the thick pollution to search for even a flicker of light. After a moment of silence, the blonde sighed and tilted his head to the side to be met with drawn together eyebrows and pursed lips still staring at the lifeless sky. The fearful boy from the farm would always be etched into his expression, a year of training enough to conceal it from the eyes of others, but the Boss could only ever see him as a child covered in blood.