The cold breeze after a night of rain embraced Jimin as he stepped outside his apartment building for his daily run in the early mornings, clad in his hoodie to avoid stray raindrops.

He had his earphones in his ears, loosely dangling for dear life. Tucked away in his pocket was a dead iPod that had long lost its life in a laundry accident but people rarely approached someone who had earphones in their ears. So it was like his personal shield.

The smell of early dawn accompanied by the scent of wet sand and gravel were doing a better job at awakening his senses than the cup of coffee he had downed before leaving.

He started running with his downcast eyes following his sneakers as they landed perfectly in the middle of each tile of the sidewalk. Doing this gave him a sense of rhythm like he was in control. There was no danger of bumping into anyone at this time of the morning and he had the route memorized like the back of his hand.

Preferably, he ran every day. For many years now, he'd treated running as a vital daily necessity, and he'd been known to squeeze in a jog at mid-night or in the middle of a blinding snowstorm.

He often followed the same route; a little over five miles, a forty-five minute round trip.

Small puddles of water left behind after the previous night's rain had seemingly all agreed to deviate him from his usual route by either threatening to splash the bottom of his sweat pants or by reflecting the sky above to make him stop and admire the vibrant blue of a sky that cried all the other colors down unto his surroundings, making everything glisten like a freshly painted watercolor portrait.

The red roofs of the tiny houses looked like freshly washed strawberries with water still dripping from the corners. Birds sailed above with leisure rather than purpose, enjoying their ability to soar through the chilly morning to sing sonnets for the first rain of the season.

Jimin felt nostalgic as he ran at a slower pace than his usual speed, his heart aching with the realization that he would never be able to hold unto this feeling. This feeling of witnessing something that would forever stay young in his mind.

Mornings like this always made him feel a certain way, like he was missing unto something important, something big but yet, he never seemed to figure out what exactly.

Being nostalgic for something was beautiful. No wonder it hurt so much. His heart ached, his throat constricted, his eyes glossed over, his nose forgot to inhale for a second and his hands became fidgety because they couldn't grasp the moment that his heart so desperately yearned for.

Out of all the feelings, Jimin hated this the most. It was hard not to because it was rather challenging for him to put it into words.

And when Jimin couldn't put something in words, he couldn't put it in his heart.

So he let his heartache as he ran through narrow cobblestone streets of his neighborhood, the timeless beauty of it making it look like it belonged inside an antique shop, not in the bustling heart of Prague.

Jimin ran till his lungs could take no more nostalgia and he turned around finally. Once he got to his gate, he decided to sit outside on the steps and admire the morning some more.

He had a class in a while but since it was going to be all about poetry writing, he thought the best way to prep for it was to sit and inhale the beauty around him.

The wind was blowing gently and Jimin looked at everything nature put out on show for him and let his mind wander through the words in his mind which he had accumulated since his early teens and gave every painting displayed in front of him an epigraph.

He started with the sky thinking about the time he was twelve when he first started admiring it and one thought led to another until eventually, his mind veered him back into a nostalgic bubble.

He gave up almost immediately and got up to walk inside instead.

The morning was too beautiful for him to let his writing frustration about 'Nostalgia' ruin it.

He picked up his wallet from the kitchen counter and walked deeper into the house, through the living room and out through the second door.

The two-story villa that he preferred to call his apartment building was built with the same intricate detailing one found in miniature collectible ceramic houses. But it had a twist that Jimin never shut up about to anyone willing to rent the upper floor.

The front of the house and the back of the house were both built to look like the front. The three steps Jimin sat on faced the street outside and the steps on the other side faced the backyard except it was the front yard because it also faced the other side of the neighborhood.

A house with two fronts, both opening out and leading to two different places. It was a bagged deal but Jimin thought his villa was running low on luck recently because he had put up the rental sign four months ago and no soul came wondering about it yet.

The upper floor had been home to four different tenants since Jimin had decided to renovate it three years ago and had been good money, enough to get him by.

But since the last tenant moved out, Jimin had been trying very hard to be frugal with his spendings and even though being twenty-two meant he should already be depending on himself, he still found the concept of work foreign for him.

He was a daydreamer by day and a night writer by the night, so he was convinced getting a job would take up all his writing time.

The cobblestone street was starting to buzz with morning crowd and Jimin finally pulled out the earphones and tucked them in his pocket as he made his way to the bakery he usually bought bread from.

The bell chimed when he walked through the door into the empty shop plunged in the sweet aroma of baked goods, ready to be greeted by the owner like always but instead, this time the greeting came from someone else.

"Ahoj. Jak vám mohu pomoci?"(Hello. How may I help you?) she asked cheerfully and Jimin's tongue instantly knotted upon hearing the familiar Czech words.

Being a citizen of Prague, he knew the Czech language like a native but only theoretically. The words rolled and danced gracefully inside his head but when it was time to speak them aloud, they never came out like he wanted them to.

He looked at the expectant eyes of the girl waiting for his answer but at the same time, the girl appeared to be studying his face, probably marking him off as a tourist in her head because this side of town was often infested with travelers.

"Jeden bagel, prosím," (a bagel please,) Jimin said cringing at the sound of his own words, and the girl's mouth twitched at the corners hearing his accent.

Jimin always wondered whether people around him found his accent cute or completely horrible but no one he knew ever enlightened him about it yet. Naturally, Czech people didn't show much appreciation towards foreigners speaking their language. It was a cultural thing.

The girl proceeded to prepare Jimin's order as Jimin secretly hoped she wouldn't ask anything else and busied himself studying her features.

People-studying always came in handy later whenever he wanted to create characters for his stories and being surrounded by people of diverse characteristics made him an avid people watcher.

In contrast to the fantasy of a baker-girl in a pink apron with hearts and muffins drawn on it and a top knot hair bun with strands falling down, this girl looked the complete opposite.

Her hair was tucked inside a hair net and the infamous loose strands were held captive inside and she was wearing a baggy white overall with no sign of any hearts or muffins.

The touch of flour on the cheek was nowhere in sight either. Instead, her cheeks looked pale and sallow with a tinge of pink right on the apples, dark under-eye circles, and downcast eyes. But Jimin had to stop at the eyes for a second.

They were wide and big and upturned at the outer corners but also had slight epicanthic folds at the inner corners as if the shape of them got confused about her heritage and couldn't decide between western and Asian and ended up being a unique but a beautiful mixture of both.

The eyebrows were knotted in concentration and the nose stood proudly for being narrow and long and well, pretty.

Jimin almost laughed to himself at the sight of her nose, it was the cutest thing he had seen with a small beauty mark right where a tiny round nose stud would fit. It looked like her beauty mark was the stud.

Her mouth formed an 'oh' for some reason as if someone just whispered an explanation to her about something she was wondering about and Jimin's watching ceased.

Did I say something? He thought to himself at her strange action but before he can ask the question out loud, she lifted her eyes and her tongue rolled through both the cost of his purchase and his head.

"Huh?" Jimin uttered realizing she was charging him more than the normal cost.

She repeated herself slowly expecting Jimin to pay up but when he stared back at her dumbfounded, she raised her hands and tried explaining the number with hand gestures, holding up nine and then six fingers simultaneously.

"Ninety-six," she said slowly as if explaining the number to a child and Jimin noticed something dancing in those eyes.

He pulled out his wallet and took out only half of the required amount and placed it on the counter leaning forward to look her dead in the eye.

"Nejsem turista."( I am not a tourist.) He said through gritted teeth surprisingly with no accent and grabbed his bread abruptly.

He turned and walked away leaving her to her now flaming cheeks and him wondering about what he saw briefly in those eyes.