❛ Every man must die. But first he must live. ❜
A STORM OF SWORDS STARTERS: accepting!
The dim dull grey sky hovering over Seoul had slowly turned into a noir slate bearing few stars as Songyi watched from the train window. It wasn’t a regular occurrence for her to commute home by train, usually she opted for a walk after a long day at the office or driving for convenience, however courtside affairs had seen it as the easiest option for her. Half an hour into the journey, she knew that she had made a dire mistake. All around people seemed to be doing things just to rub her the wrong way; old women yelling on their phones; people coughing and sneezing into the open; pushing and shoving for chairs; dropping their luggage everywhere – she was beginning to believe that she would bite the head off of anyone that breathed in her general vicinity.
Not eager to be stuck between the family with three crying children – a reason why she swore off of them, too loud, too annoying – she had without word, only serving an impatient glare, picked up her briefcase and left them to their whining. Instead, she shoved her way through the train until she found a free seat, solely placed yet placed before another with only a table separating them. A boy sat in the other chair but as self-serving as ever, Songyi dismissed any thought of him saving the seat and took it herself.
Not to soon after, she had found some stretch of comfort in the over-packed train, she was separated enough from the mouth-breathers but still only close in presence to the boy before her. He didn’t seem to mind, she gaged, at least from his lack of protest. Her files neatly laid out on the table before her, taking up all the room of half in a somewhat childish notion of ‘this half is mine’ as she gazed over her day’s work. The attorney was more than glad that her case was over, what with the sleepless nights that it entailed, if she didn’t have to write up a file and store them, she would have burned everything to do with it.
At the other’s words, Songyi raised her head, cocking it to the side with a raised eyebrow somewhat sceptical of his words. It had been the first thing that she had heard from him, nothing short of unexpected, and she was not particularly sure what had brought it on. She did know however that she did not want to be starring the newest remake of ‘Strangers on a Train’. And he, he was not wrong, she could grant him that respect but hesitated to think further though perhaps this was only due to her hesitation with strangers.
“That is true, I suppose,” she nodded, “Though that depends on your definition of living, people go through life, living through motions without hitches or stops never acting out of mould – is that living? But then they die, how is that if they never truly lived? Unless your definition of living is as simple as it seems and nothing something as profound as Aristotle.” She doesn’t know what she was expecting, nor what the other was thinking but to an extent she’s curious – more curious than she is in her case – so she raises her eyes to his expectant of an answer.
