   ❝  Have I startled you?  ❞   he asks of the young man with smoking pipe in hand. To say that Haruki had come across him by pure happenstance is not entirely accurate; he’d watched him take a long drag from his pipe and blow it into the brisk night air from afar, curious, as its trail of smoke became a languid snake of ice fog while he sat somber with the stars. And within normal circumstances, the spirit guide may have very well left him be, for more often than not he refrains from entangling himself too deep in mortal affairs. Yet something about this human had drawn his approach, though he isn’t sure why. Like the nameless force that pulls a moth to a flame.    But no matter the magnetism at work, he maintains his distance and his words come even.    ❝  Given how late the hour, I’d thought I’d see not a soul out tonight. I don’t suppose you are also feeling restless?  ❞                                   @existentialismee​;  ❤’d  for  a  starter !
