It’s 8:15 AM Tuesday morning and Aria is swiftly walking down a busy city sidewalk. Everyone bustling around her, like her, is in business attire, all making their ways, like her, to work.
Suddenly her eyes shift reflexively to the side, settling on the eyes of a staring man walking her direction on the sidewalk. Aria doesn’t even take a moment to take the man in; she instantly breaks eye contact to the side just as soon as she’s made it.
“Oh God, way too early for that,” she thinks. The last thing she needs is a random guy chatting her up before she’s even had her first cup of coffee for the day!
Fortunately, the man passes her by without an approach. Aria knows that most guys who look only ever look. But you never know for sure when one of the guys who’s looking will take you looking back as an invitation to approach. Right now she isn’t in the mood to meet new people.
As she approaches a crosswalk, she slows down to join the mass of morning commuters waiting for the “WALK” sign to appear. Stopping behind a small crowd of people, she notices a man slightly ahead of her nodding his head to some song only he can hear. Curious, she cranes her neck a bit to see the side of his face. He looks normal… not super cute or anything. But the relaxed, confident expression on his face makes him stand out from the sea of tired businesspeople all around.
Aria brushes her hair back, staring at the nodding man, half trying to get him to notice her. He’s off in his own world and doesn’t seem to detect her. “He looks so cute listening to his music,” she thinks to herself. “I wonder what makes him so different from everyone else!”
She tries brushing her hair back a second time while staring at him, but he still doesn’t notice. The “WALK” sign comes on, the crowd crosses the street, and the nodding man turns off another direction from the one Aria’s traveling in.
“There he goes,” Aria thinks, a slight longing in her breast. “I wonder if he walks this way every day?” Briefly as she walks, she imagines meeting him on her way to work tomorrow and ending up in an accidental chitchat with him. Inside her imagination, they talk, laugh, and in the easy conversation it turns out they have a surprising amount in common.
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