[attr="class","castleonthehill"]
He follows the red light, not unlike the leaves that fell and bled from the trees right outside the office building. The first time's an accident, the second a curiosity, and he'll later have to admit that by the fourth time, it was no lack of knowing the rules— it had become a habit that he simply couldn't break, routine. Perhaps he really did practice a form of mental masochism, actively seeking to be scolded for bothering her with the ears of a live radio audience, but those were the simple pleasures.

The slight chill that was beckoning the coming winter made him pause for a moment— almost an entire year experienced, the emptiness that he had carried with him slowly but surely filled. He had thought that he had made his choices firm and clear, but that was the thing about this crazy mambo called life— sometimes, it made choices for you, and you learned to live with it. For all of it, he would be forever grateful. He'd been taken to heights he simply wouldn't have thought of for himself, given a chance where he had not seen a chance for himself.

Approaching the window of his office, pumpkin spice latte in an official merchandise line Goodnight Moon mug, his hand traced the window sill, reflection looking back at him over the oranges and reds and yellows that bathed the city. It still scares him to approach the end of the year, but with a sip of his pumpkin spice latte, he'd figured that the arrow of time would march forward, no matter what was said and done.

"you only get one chance. one. after this, no more even stepping into the radio division ever again."

A smug smirk on his lips, he shoots back a text just as quickly.

"that's all i'll need— see you at the restaurant soon, sweetheart"



Stepping out of the building, he looked overhead, spotting the top of the media conglomerate, where they hosted one of the city's best cafeterias, complete with an executive chef. A look more westward, and he could spot the top of the Nexus Tower, crowning the Artemisian skyline. Zephyr's ultra sleek and modern headquarters wore on distinctly, a splice of two buildings in a U-formation, GAIA's barely visible toward the East (and barely functional looking if he were to be honest).

And across the street, just past one of Artemis's busiest intersections, was the grand headquarters of his old company, what was once home a towering fortress where even he no longer had the right to traverse without a proper visitor badge.

His gaze holds for a moment until it snaps back to the intersection's pedestrian light turning green.

He walks onward now, forward.