riki.nishimura → airport hug

6

TWO WEEKS LATER → 2:36AM

I still had no grasp of my purse unfortunately, I decided to give up looking for it and order everything new again.

I sat painting, finishing off one of the greater canvases for the exhibition. It was simply just around the corner, and tickets to see had been sold out in minutes, I was astounded to say the least.

As an artist, it's a great achievement when an exhibition solely displaying your artworks gets sold out in minutes. Not hours, days or even weeks, but minutes.

Insane.

I brought the paintbrush up to the canvas, about to paint an intricate detail, until the strong bass of music and tremble of my house stopped me from further adding any more paint.

I stopped, listening to what was going on.

There was a copious amount of music from the house beside me, followed by cheering, laughter and just in general - a lot of loud noise.

I groaned to myself, waiting for a bit to see maybe if the noise would calm down a little. But after five minutes, it seemed to have increased vastly.

I brought my hand up to my forehead, massaging it while closing my eyes. With loud, horrible music like this, I couldn't concentrate on one of the most important pieces of work, especially with small small details.

I didn't want to be the neighbour that complains over the slightest noise and cannot have any fun, so I decided to leave it for a while.

Instead, I resorted to painting one of my smaller canvases, those weren't so bad considering the canvas was much smaller and therefore less annoying to finish.

But after an hour passed, the music still blared, and even occasionally shook the walls of my house lightly. I grew frustrated, trying to finish all my paintings in this one night was not going to be possible with such disruption directly beside me.

It seemed as if my neighbours weren't better than the last ones after all.

I put the paintbrush down angrily, standing up and not really caring that I was dressed in some rather big pyjamas and that my hair was just thrown up into whatever combustion possible.

With that, I made my way outside of my house, heading in the direction of the neighbour's house which just screamed houseparty.

I haven't seen my neighbours, I don't know if it's a family, or a shared house, or whatever it was. But one thing for sure, was that it was being obnoxiously loud at a time that is supposed to be quiet.

I sighed, walking up towards the door and seeing a banner plastered on the door.

'CONGRATULATIONS NIKI!'

A sparkly banner was plastered horizontally on the door, and I just stared at it, my eyebrow slightly raising in disgust and confusion.

Jesus, this banner was so ugly to look at. It had sparkles, sequins and all sorts of flashy decorations, it was so repulsive and tacky.

I hesitated to knock, clearly they were celebrating something, and it'd suck if the next door neighbour had to come up and ruin it all, but then again - why should I care? Better me than the police.

So, mustering up the courage, I raised my hand to the door, giving it a firm yet timid knock. This was my first time even confronting someone for loud noise or for being annoying in general.

Normally I would've just tried and dealt with it.

It took awhile for anybody to open the door, and I had to knock once again, which made me feel a little embarrassed, but eventually, the door opened.

My gaze was elsewhere, to the side and looking up at the stars in the sky. As the door opened, I shot my gaze to the person stood before me.

And there, my mouth dropped to the ground again, and my eyes widened more than they have ever.

He stared at me too, and seemingly recognised me. An eyebrow raised smugly, and he gave a very slight smirk, as if to say, 'I haven't forgot.'

The urge to jump into the Han River began to triple once again, and I just wanted to disappear in this right moment, but instead, my body froze in shock as he stared at me, and I stared at him.

The same guy I accidentally mistook for my boyfriend at the airport.

I swallowed hard as my words fumbled and I couldn't even think of what to say anymore.

"Can I help you?" His deep voice caught me off guard, his eyes trailed from my face down to the ground, and back up at my eyes.

"Oh." I cleared my throat, "Actually.."

I looked behind him, and just plastered on a wall, was an authentic painting of mine, just hung up on the wall with pride.

Oh shit.

"Could you just turn the music down a little, I'm having trouble concentrating." I quickly spat out, in a rush to just get away from him and hide in my house.

"Shit yeah, my bad, it's not me, it's my friends who are hosting a party. Sorry about this." He gave a small sigh, fixing his glasses on his nose bridge.

A friend of his came up to him, wobbling and slurring his words. He placed his arm around him, barely able to keep both his eyes open.

"Oooooh, pretty woman." He choked out of a laugh as I awkwardly turned around and hurried back into the safe premise of my house.