@baejlns
the words echo in his mind- you are never truly alone. they had been accompanied by a press of his grandmother's hands against his cheek, cool and weathered by years of use. he thinks of it now, laying down in the dirt and watching the trees sway above him, branches shivering down leaves as he lets his fingers curl into the grass.
hyeonju knows he's not alone, here.
yes, there are the animals, and yes, there are the trees and the flowers and the brush that keep getting thorns stuck in his clothes, only for him to yank rips in them moments later to detangle himself from their grasp, but there's something else too. it's the same feeling he's had for months, now, anywhere he goes. in the market, there's so many faces he can't put a name to, but something familiar always flashing across his vision- when he happens to look up from the book he's reading, there, another face that doesn't have a name, but he sees everywhere.
he's half convinced he's making it up. the town is small, sure, but hyeonju only knows so much of it to be familiar to him by now. it's not like the city where he passes by so many people to not remember them again, a parting gift of a memory- here, it feels purposeful. here, he tugs strands of grass from the earth and feels them wither in his hands with a mutter underneath his breath, returns them back to the earth to restart the cycle, sits up, arms on his knees, looking around for some sort of clue.
"if you're out there, you might as well show yourself." he's tired of pretending the feeling isn't there, standing, footsteps heavy in the leaves, crunching over a branch and rounding the trunk of a tree, mouth set in a determined line. he doesn't expect a person to actually be there to collide into, hands reaching out to steady as he curses. he'd actually been expecting something else- a ghost, an animal, whatever else creeps around this island and frequents the forest.
"shit. sorry. are you.. were you following me?"