A six feet tall man with adorable ocean-blue eyes, walked out of the doctor's private office after about thirty minutes of a very tense discussion.
He was looking every bit of the perfect young handsome man who both men and women would look at in admiration, even though his mind was weeping.
His dark curly hair was now messy from how he had repeatedly run his hands over it in exasperation, over the past half hour.
Rowan Donovan had thought the extreme fatigue, loss of appetite and back pain he had been feeling for some months was just a result of always burying his head, soul and time into work.
Imagine the deafening shock he felt when the doctor informed him few minutes earlier that those were signs of late metastatic cancer...
"Why haven't you come for check up earlier? How did you even endure the pains?" The doctor had inquired solemnly, furrowing his brows in confusion.
Well, the answer was simple: Rowan Donovan was busy being the filial son that his parents wanted and had no time for any other thing than work.
"Is there anything we can do to... to keep me al...alive?" Rowan had asked the doctor, his usual confident voice slightly shaky.
The doctor had heaved a deep sigh, his eyes holding what could only be interpreted as pity for the young man seated across him.
"I'm sorry to say, but there's nothing we can do." The Doctor had declared and the world had come crashing down on Rowan.
"Damn it!" Rowan gritted his teeth as he approached his car. He shook his head once as if that would change everything that he had heard in the Doctor's office.
His luxury Mercedes Benz was in the parking lot of the hospital but it seemed Rowan's eyes weren't seeing the car.
His feet, instead of leading him to the passenger seat which his driver was already holding its door, carried him right past the car, away from the parking lot.
"Sir?" Ray, the forty-year-old driver called out to his boss but Rowan just kept walking away, his fists clenched tightly by his sides.
Ray's brows furrowed in confusion as he watched his young boss walk into the busy city without saying a word to him.
"Is he going to get something?" Ray wondered aloud, even though he knew the boss he had worked for, for five years wouldn't go for anything in the city, without his car.
Meanwhile, Rowan didn't--- actually couldn't stop his legs from taking him to no destination.
Maybe the legs had developed a mind of their own and knew their owner needed an escape!
"How can this be?"
"Why should I leave this world abruptly?" Rowan's thoughts spiraled.
His lips were pressed tightly together as he tried to keep them from trembling. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked blankly at the city.
He could see passersby walking around freely, some with their partners holding hands and giggling at each other. That was one luxury he hadn't enjoyed despite the generational wealth.
Yet he was going to die in six months?
"F-uck fate!" He snarled inwardly then let out a bitter chuckle.
He never thought his life would be ending this way.
The late evening wind blew lightly and the collar of his three piece expensive gray suit shook but not as heavily as his mind.
Rowan kept walking, his tear-filled eyes shining from being illuminated by the city lights.
After a few minutes, he found himself at a bus station. That was one place he had never stepped foot onto since he was born.
The Donovans never had a reason to go to the bus station when there were numerous expensive cars in the mansion.
"Aren't you entering? The bus will leave soon." A voice called out, jolting Rowan back to reality.
Without thinking of it, Rowan surged forward and he was inside the bus for the first time in his glamorous, shiny and seemingly perfect 25 years of life.
His eyes stared blankly at the rows of seats which were being occupied by passengers and finally they landed on one empty seat.
It was as if the seat had been miraculously reserved for him.
Occupying the other seat of the empty one was a young man, who didn't look older than twenty three. The v-neck brown shirt he had on faintly showed the bad boy tattoo which ran down his chest.
His long blonde hair was tied loosely to the back and his eyes were glued to his phone screen desperately.
It was obvious he was expecting a message.
Rowan's clouded mind didn't really allow his senses to notice this attractive man, he just sank into the empty seat and the bus began its journey to where Rowan knew nothing of.
"When will it be?"
"What will be the last thing I get to see or do before it comes knocking on my soul...?"
These dark thoughts of when he would actually died filled Rowan's mind as the bus driver drove through the city.
Gentle conversations within acquaintances, possibly lovers filled the bus while some passengers simply stared at their phones, all looking relaxed and satisfied.
And Rowan couldn't help but feel he was the only one who wasn't happy. He was certain none of them had just been informed that they were dying soon.
This heartbreaking thought broke up the tough facade he had been keeping and without warning, the tears he had been holding back, started streaming down his cheeks.
His chest rose and fell heavily as he managed to keep the sob inside of him.
"Of course not, he can't be crying inside the bus." Lucian, the man with the blonde long hair beside Rowan said to himself when his ears caught a muffled sound.
He didn't look up from his phone anyway. It was as if the message he was waiting wouldn't arrive if he looked away from the phone for as short as a second.
For a solid ten minutes, Rowan's tears fell unrelentingly.
He became lightheaded after all the tears and his head fell on Lucian's shoulder.
Lucian's gaze was forcibly torn from his phone screen and his eyes shot up to look at this strange man that had been shedding tears on the bus.
"Hey, what are you..." The words died in Lucian's throat when he saw how exhausted the man looked.
And something stirred inside Lucian. Was that compassion? Or pity? He couldn't tell but he didn't see the need to push this stranger away.
"Just until I reach my destination then... I should let him rest." Lucian thought to himself.
But even when the bus stopped at Lucian's bus stop, he couldn't summon the courage to tell this man to get off his shoulder.
Rowan had stopped crying and now his heart was just beating tiredly, while his eyes were kept shut.
Lucian exhaled sharply, he had no idea what to do.
Shortly after, the bus stopped at another destination, two stops away from where Lucian was supposed to drop, and Rowan suddenly jolted awake.
He raised his head slowly and his gaze met Lucian's curious, unwavering one. His lips parted slightly as if he was just realizing what he had done.
"Are you okay now?" Lucian asked gently. Rowan swallowed hard then without a response, he stood up from his seat and bolted out of the bus.
"Hey, wait..." Lucian called, also jumping from his seat but the bus was already moving.
While Lucian's eyes followed the man who was running away like he was being chased, his phone buzzed.
The message he had been waiting for had arrived.
He glanced down at the phone in his hand and when his eyes scanned through the message on the screen, his eyes widened in shock, with one word on his lips;
"What?"