#a.nsw

August turns, a furrow in his brow. “It’s just a— ah, cigarette.” He steals a quick drag as if to prove his point; August preferred to smoke occasionally over his balcony but, the building the ledge overlooked was currently under construction and the noise was dreadful. Smoking inside his apartment wasn’t an option, so August found himself stood in the nearest alley by his building. Despite his reply, the stranger before him remains, and August fidgets a bit beneath the attention. “Would you..” He slowly sifts through his pockets, fumbling with the packet of Camel’s before offering a cigarette, “—Like one?” 

The tabloids were his guilty pleasure, and August held one in his hands with such concentration, he hadn’t noticed that he was blocking a section of the shelves. That is, until a voice spoke up, low and quiet yet rang alarms in August’s ears. He glances up, eyes wide and staring. “Oh!— Uhm, sorry,” sidestepping, quickly August then begins spewing apologies. 

"I don’t know what you mean by that," August replies, each word with increasing vehemence. With his torso leaning over the piano, August buries his face into crossed arms resting against the sheet music rack. His knee bounces beneath him with growing frustration; the notes, the melody were there yet August, try as he might, couldn’t grasp them. 

August flits his stare between the stranger and his fluid handwriting. “Complicated indeed,” he comments, canting his head. Yet before his curiosity can venture him to question further, August catches himself.