Narrator POV

Ara blinked her heavy lidded eyes open before closing them right away.

The sun hurts.

Groaning, she turned her head away and tried opening her eyes again. Her arm glazed past some leather and she quickly realised at she was lying in the reclined seat of a car.

She sat up and got out of the empty vehicle. A salty breeze greeted her right away carrying her hair in the wind.

“You’re up.”

Ara used her arm to shield the sun as she squinted at the voice that came from above.

Hyungwon was sitting on the roof of his car.

“Here,” he offered her a hand.

She took it and he hulled her onto the roof.

Both of them stared into the horizon at the lapping waves.

“Are you feeling better?” Hyungwon asked as he leaned back supporting his weight with his elbows.

Ara hummed in response. By now, she wasn’t going to deny herself of the fact that she had just completely broken down in front of an almost stranger. She didn’t really feel embarrassed or shocked. She was just extremely… tired.

“As a kid, I’ve always wanted to go to the aquarium,” he glanced at Ara, “So my mom took me.”

Ara wondered why he was suddenly telling her this.

“Then a few years later when I was older, I wanted to go to the ocean,” Hyungwon played with his hands, “But by then my mother got depression.” He was staring at the ocean again, “It only got worse when she found out that my dad was cheating on her. Eventually, she committed suicide.”

“I was only seven.”

Ara hesitantly reached a hand out to console his slouched shoulders, but eventually retracted before she could touch him.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” he took the words right out of .

Hyungwon’s eyes lingered on her bruised cheek, “Because your childhood wasn’t any better.”

She flinched slightly.

“You talk in your sleep,” Hyungwon explained.

Oh. Now Ara knew. Shownu told her that she had a habit of revealing her deepest secrets in her sleep. Most of it was her returning to her five year old self pleading her mother to stay.

Not wanting to talk about herself, she hopped off the roof. Hyungwon eyed her movements cautiously before following her.

“C’mon, you said you like the ocean,” Ara offered him a small smile, “Since we’re already here, let’s enjoy it.”

Before Hyungwon could say anything, he felt a light tug on his sleeve and he was being dragged towards the beach.

Eventually both of them found themselves running along the shorelines trying to push the other one in the water. Their laughter rang throughout the entire beach.

“Hey!” Ara giggled as she dragged herself out of the ocean, “That wasn’t fair! I tripped.”

“So I helped you fall,” Hyungwon laughed, “You’re welcome!”

She pouted wringing out her wet shirt, “It’s your car that’s getting ruined anyways,” she tried consoling herself.

Trudging out of the water, she kept grumbling until she saw a bubble fly past… then a second bubble and a third bubble. She turned her head towards the direction they were flying from.



Hyungwon placed the wand back in its bottle and gave her a soft smile, “You mentioned how you really wanted a bubble gun for your birthday.”

Ara was speechless. Bubbles had been the next best thing to ice cream so she asked her mother for a bubble gun for her fourth birthday but her mother just said that they had no money and tore her away from the display glass of a convenience store.

“They ran out of guns,” Hyungwon slipped the bottle into her hands, “So I just got bubbles.”

Ara stared at the little plastic bottle in her palms and then looked u