melancholy. [countryhumans x reader]

chapter i

It was as if the colours had been drained from everything. It was all a bleak grey mush of buildings, everything the same. If there was one thing we were never taught, it was how the real world functions. Nothing could ever prepare someone enough for the emotionless and pale life of an adult. 

Remembering the days where life was different hues of reds, yellows and blues, where days of rain were welcoming and fresh, where life was simple and easy.

The city was no longer a place of wonders and new adventures, but a place of sorrow and pending doom. Everybody was stuck, there was no where else to go. Only the rich and the pretty made it anywhere. We were all left to sit down for another eight hours each day, doing the same repetitive work.

As a child, saying you wanted to be someone was easy. Now it all feels as if you were the same as that man standing next to you. Living in an apartment, taking the train everyday just to sit in your nine to five office job, hoping that one day you could go back to living in a house with your family. Maybe if we hoped enough, it would happen. Maybe if one day, we could just go back to how it was. Maybe.

Yet maybe was only a wish. A wish we knew no one would answer to.

I remember wanting to become an adult when I was a child. How everyone encouraged our dreams. They left us to believe we could while they all knew that we would never achieve them. They left us to believe the world was still full of colours and emotions, maybe they could still see them. Maybe they had left behind the cities, hoping to give us a better life. 

Who am I kidding, they all knew we would just end up back there, making just enough money to afford an apartment and bills for a month.

I sometimes remember the days I spent playing video games with my friends, or the days we spent riding our bikes around the neighbourhood. The days where we would all play a game of tag at the block BBQ, or the times we all spent watching fireflies dance with each other on a cool summer night. Or the times we would all huddle around a TV in elementary school to watch a movie, the times all laughed at the dumbest things.

But it was all gone. It was over. Time stops for no one.

I made my way through the crowd of people getting off the train, looking down at my phone. I had a job interview in around 15 minutes. I started rushing through the hoard of people, hoping to actually make it there on time. It looked like fate was on my side this time.

I made it to the building with a few minutes to spare. I walked up to the security checkpoint, showing them the papers I was meant to give them. The security stamped the papers, handing them back. They took my bag, doing a quick inspection. After all of that, I was let inside the building.

Upon entering, the receptionist looked up from her laptop. "Oh, Ms (L/N), correct?" She asked. I nodded, walking up to the desk. "Someone will be down in a minute to assist you." She said with a smiled. "For now, you can take a seat over there." She said, pointing to a cluster of couches. I made my way over, sitting down on one of the stiff couches. I looked up to see two important people come through the same door I did. As if they knew I was glancing at them, one of them turned to look at me. I swiftly looked back at my hands, fiddling with them a bit.