Chapter 5

AGNES

I decided to hop in the same bar I used to come when I couldn't still feel that I wanted to go home.

Looking everywhere, hoping to see that stranger again with a tattooed hands, but he's nowhere in there.

I had a few beer. That I didn't realized that I am in the bar for almost three hours now. I sighed and decided to just go home.

Inwas about to leave the bar when my phone vibrates again "Where are you, Love?"

Ino.

My heart started to pound, in fear.

I just wished he just stopped doing this to me. For six months, I thought I was able to get my life back together and all of a sudden he's there kept reaching out to me.

But I had never ever respond to it, I did try.

Maybe it was his first time texting me. I am still naive that first time.

So naive that I thought that maybe what we really have is genuine and true.

So naive that I am willng to put myself through all that once again.

But after telling all this to Dominic, my therapist. Maybe I am suffering from attachment and stockholm syndrome.

Ino groomed me and took advantage of me at my early age knowing that I am longing for someone like my father and grab that chance because I am naive and young. And innocent.

I do believe Dominic by what he says.

Maybe I am really suffering through that, that is why I am so afraid of myself than me being afraid with Ino.

I left the bar and hung out at the side of the bar, in the place where that stranger from the other night smoked. I don't know why I look for him every time I feel like I might slip up and come back with Ino.

I am not expecting him to come and see me here, but apparently, he did.

"You're here." He said, he is leaning on the wall in the far end corner of the side of the bar. Couldn't even see him in that dark alley.

But hearing those voice I know so well, I know it is him.

"You too." I hugged myself, the chilly air of winter is starting to come.

He walks closer to me, painfully slowly after he stomped his cigarette on the floor.

When he comes into the light, he smiled at me. Not a smile with a glee look, but just a typical smirk, I think.

"What does someone like you doing in a place like this?" He leans in the wall infront of me, both hands on his jeans pockets. Eyes on me.

"Place like what?"

"Place like someone like you shouldn't be."

I chuckles and looked at the sky, small figments of white snow is starting to fall. And I smiled. "I don't even know why I am here."

I looked at him, he's already cast his sight on me with a blank face. "Walk with me?"

"Walk where?" I pressed. I hope he wanted me home with him. I don't want to be alone tonight.

"Through your home."

My home?

Does this mean he wanted to know where I live?

"Wht would you walk me?"

"I wanted to know the certainty of where to find you when I am finding you."

He just looks at me straight, with no emotion even after telling me that.

I swallowed hard, I smiled "Told you, I don't want you to be my stalker." I jokes.

He smiles but look at the sky and I find him so gorgeous standing there infront of me.

"I stalked you three hours ago."

"What?"

He smiles and looked at me again "I saw you from the very first hour you stepped inside this shitty bar, looking like you were looking for someone--" his sight cast on my eyes. Not even faltering.

My heart beats loud but I am trying to calm myself down. I avoided looking at him, I can't have a staring contest with him, I feel like he's reading my soul and my whole being when he's looking at me like that.

"Why didn't you--" before I can ask why he didn't come to me, I stopped myself. "--nevermind." I fixed my coat.

"--Because it looks like you wanted to be alone." He answered.

I looked at him, I nodded "Yeah--" I took a deep breath "--appreciate that."

He walks in front of me, "Come?"

"Where?"

He chuckles "Somplace amazing."

By the looks of it, he doesn't want me to spend the night with him, disappointed and confuse, I think.

I know I shouldn't be walking alone with a complete stranger, a stranger I once had a night with.

But his calm demeanor and mysterious personality wanted me to know him more.

Do you know the feeling that you are doing something forbidden but you still do it because you find it exciting?

That is what this is to me.

Exciting and new.

We started walking on an unfamiliar place

and every step we take while walking is the cooling of the air. When we were in the middle of the trees whose leaves were falling and there were only a few people, he stopped and put his brown coat on me.

"You don't need--"

But before I can finished what I am about to say the coat is already on me.

We started walking again until we reach a short tunnel, no cars, no people.

Just the tunnel, the trees and some streetlights.

The tunnel is rundown and have some caligraphy in it. A neon writings. And I find it really amusing.

"What is this place?"

"My space, just what I want to call it. Freedom wall." He smiled and handed me a white spray paint. "--white suits you."

I smiled, "Is this allowed?"

"This place has been abadoned and off guards to citizens for two decades now after the earthquake. Said that this place is dangerous and should be accessible to anyone." He explains and starts wall painting on the other side with a smile on his face.

"This place is dangerous and you just brought me here?" I chuckled.

He looks at me, then smile "You are more dangerous than this place."

"What?" I chuckled.

He continues on what he's doing and I read what he just write on the wall or rather drew. The Rose again and shredded glass all over it.

"You had it as a tattoo--" I points.

He nods while coloring the rose white. "Yeah, I designed this tattoo."

"What's the meaning?"

He looks at the tattoo and smirks "Breaking the innocence, I guess."

"That is deep."

"It is deep." He looks at me. "--go on, try writing or drawing in this dangerous walls of this tunnel."

I smiled and started to drew something.

I can feel that he is checking up in what I am drawing in the walls, and when I finished, I took this long deep breath that I never know I stopped and look at what I just did.

A composite of a woman's eyes with tears flowing in a white neon spraypaint.

I smiled, because It felt good.

"Wow! That's--" he said after standing beside me taking the time to apprecaite my art.

"--Deep." I finished for him and he looks at me.

He smiled "Yeah."

He cupped my face then bring his other hand to my back, pressed me against him closer and kiss me.

I did kiss him back.

The kiss was passionate and slow. Like we just kiss out of the blue, out of the emotion we just felt.

"Walk you home?" He asked again.

But this time I nodded.

We started walking to my home and I feel more light unlike earlier.

When we stopped by infront of my apartment, he looks up and around.

My neighborhood is far more quiet but not too expensive just what he have.

"That's my apartment." I pointed up to my floor to ceiling type window.

He smiles. He kissed my forehead "Go up. And take a rest."

I smiled and nod "Thank you for tonight."

He just smile and I go up.

Never would gave thought that a stranger will comfort me like no one else could.