“The clouds are really beautiful today!”

“Un…”

From the moment they stepped out of the bath house, Haneul had been commenting on every single thing that she could. First was the weather, which was scorching hot but she just went ahead and said the weather was great anyway. When they were having breakfast which were only onigiri with banana milk, she kept commenting how the rice was soft, the tuna was fresh etc etc. Myungsoo who didn’t know how to respond although Haneul was smiling widely could only nod and said ‘yeah’, ‘un’, ‘you’re right’.

And then they were on their way to their next destination, a fishing village. On the bus, Haneul suddenly became quiet. Myungsoo thought she had finally ran out of things to say and probably suffering burnout after trying so hard. During the silence, Myungsoo became a bit stiff each time he remembered the little incident that morning.

Little? More like big incident, he thought to himself but regretted thinking so immediately. He also felt sorry towards Haneul who had been keeping her promise to not stop talking to him although she must have felt awkward. Carefully, he peeked at Haneul’s face was relieved to find her asleep. He then looked down at his crouch and slowly pushed his legs together. Sighing, he wondered whether things would go back to normal. Should he apologise again? But apologising means addressing the incident again and Haneul would probably freeze and becomes a robot again.

While he was busy thinking, they arrived at their destination and Haneul was swaying a little after getting off the bus. Her face looked like she hadn’t slept for days. He took her luggage and every now and then grabbed her hand so that she won’t stray to the middle of the street. Their first stop was the fish market.

Since it was almost 10 am, most of the stalls were already closed and not many people were around. Haneul who finally woke up was looking at the fish sold with awe. Myungsoo too couldn’t help but stare; imagining all sort of fish dishes. He sighed when he thought of his mum’s cooking.

Myungsoo approached a group of tough-looking ahjussis who were cleaning up their boat at the pier with Haneul stopping behind him. The men didn’t stop working although Myungsoo had called out to them, and were just exchanging looks with one another while listening to him talking. Haneul thought they were a bit scary. The ahjussis, though short in stature, were rather firmly built. Myungsoo on the other hand, was tall and… big?

Haneul suddenly were stiff. She was staring at his back and although they had been together for quite a while, it was the first time she realised how broad his shoulders were. His head also looked big and her thought naturally reversed back to the big incident that morning. She almost whined but stopped herself when she heard them talking.

“We will usually be sailing for 3 nights, depending on our catch. Are you sure you are able to?” one of the ahjussi said, talking in rough dialect while folding his fish net. “You look too pretty for this job.”

The men laughed, but Myungsoo said he will try. Panicked, Haneul stepped up beside him and gripped his hand tightly, causing him to jump.

“I think your girlfriend agrees with us,” they said, still laughing.

Myungsoo turned his face to Haneul who was still stiff and panicky. “Haneul?”

“Don’t go…” she said, with a meek voice. Her face became red.

Unexpectedly, he found himself blushing as well and after excusing themselves, they turned away and headed towards the town, still holding hands. They stopped under a big tree to rest and while Myungsoo was unsure whether he should let go of her hand, she pulled away first. He didn’t know why he felt so disappointed as soon as she did.

“It’s too dangerous...” she said, sitting down on the bench. “I know we have to look for a job but I can’t let you do such thing… I will find a job! So please, don’t go…” She looked up slowly with her face still red.

Myungsoo felt himself getting flustered again, “O-okay… I mean… I will look for another job then. So, don’t worry.” He wiped the sweat trickling down his neck and gulped. “So, then uh… Let’s have lunch and then we go look for the bath house…”

While lunch was great because they had the chance to taste fresh ingredients from the sea, there was still some awkwardness between them. Myungsoo found himself unable to look at Haneul for more that 2 seconds and Haneul was only looking at her food. And when they arrived at the bath house, they were devastated to find ‘UNDER RENOVATION’ sign at the front of the premise.

Then they started asking locals whether there was another bath house but to their dismay, it was the only one around. They eventually find their way back to the tree where they sat while Myungsoo was scrolling something on his phone vigorously.

“I guess… we have to stay at a hotel then. There are some which are cheap around here and the facilities are okay. We can go to the next town but it’s already late to go now…”

Haneul only nodded and just followed to wherever Myungsoo was going. She was sure she wasn’t allergic to seafood but her stomach seemed to be partying whenever Myungsoo looked at her and when he spoke. Probably she should start commenting about the weather again to ease the awkwardness between them, she thought.

However, as soon as they arrived at their hotel room, felt like it had closed up when she saw the queen bed in the middle of the room. Myungsoo’s ears had turned red but he showed no reaction as he strolled into the room and put their bags.

“I will sleep on the floor…” he said, before he noticed that the space beside the bed was so only 30 cm wide. He then went around the bed to see the other side and while there was some space, it was directly in front of the bathroom door. He froze. Haneul froze. Then he suddenly went out of the room before coming back again with his face even more devastated. They only had queen beds for all the rooms, since it was a small, budget hotel.

Myungsoo sat on the bed and started scrolling on his phone again but there other hotels were either too expensive or too shady. He jumped again when Haneul sat beside him, leaving some space between them. He noticed that Hanuel’s face was still red.

“Haneul are you okay…?” he asked, peering closer to her face.

“Just a bit dizzy… I guess it’s the weather.”

Myungsoo got up from the bed and took a bottle of cold water from the minibar. He opened the cap for her and asked her to drink. After making sure she drank enough, he asked her to lie down.

“No, I’m fine…” she said, “Oh… we need to do laundry… Are there any coin laundry downstairs?”

“I think they do… What if I go? You just stay here and rest.”

“Aniya, I’m fine… Please gather the clothes that you want to wear. I guess I’ll wash this too…” she said, looking at the shirt she was wearing. She then went to her luggage and took out some fresh clothes and went to the bathroom to change. Myungsoo gathered all his dirty clothes and put inside a big plastic bag when he heard her screaming from inside the bathroom.”

Myungsoo immediately stood up and knocked on the bathroom door. “Wae? Wae? Wae? Haneul? Are you okay?”

“Uh… I’m okay,” she said, but she screamed again.

“What is it?” he asked, already panicked. “Haneul?”

When Haneul opened the door, Myungsoo wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to sympathise. It seemed that a bunch of her hair was stuck to the zipper of the jacket she was wearing. It seemed to have been caught when she was pulling up the zipper. Haneul was looking miserable, clearly in pain because she couldn’t move her head without tugging her hair. So Myungsoo decided to behave.

“I will help…” he said, “Sit down first.”

Haneul sat down but as soon as Myungsoo sat next to her, she became stiff yet again. The zipper was on her chest, just above her . Maybe she should just stop him but when Myungsoo gently pushed away the rest of her hair to the back, she couldn’t move anymore. After making sure the amount of hair that was stuck, Myungsoo reached for the zipper and tried to untangle it.

It wasn’t clear which one of them was radiating heat or whether it was the heat from the sun but it got a bit hot that both of them started sweating. Myungsoo had to get closer to see the hair clearly and so Haneul was almost kissing his hair. Probably because he was sweating, he was emitting such a musky odour, and she felt like she was being gagged. To make things worse was Myungsoo who was breathing against her chest area. Haneul gripped the bed sheet under them.

“Just grab a scissor and cut it…” she said, with her voice a little shaky.

“Andwae…” he said, with a rather dreamy voice because he was concentrating, “I like your long hair, we can’t cut it…” Haneul bit her lip, feeling herself flushing.

Every now and then, his hands would be pressed against her body and he would sigh and make long humming noise when he was trying to decide what he should do. All the while he noticed that Haneul was breathing a bit faster. Myungsoo didn’t know why he felt like he wanted to drag it on a while longer. Being that close to her, he felt like he wanted to pull her into his embrace… He must be crazy, he thought.

At the moment, he had managed to untangle the hair. He was relieved though with a bit of regret. He pulled away a little and said, “Ohh… It’s done,” and to test the zipper to make sure it wasn’t stuck, he pulled it down, just a little below her s and saw something that he didn’t expect.

Haneul was wearing nothing except her bra under the jacket.

He was staring at her white skin and the cream coloured bra that she was wearing. His eyes trailed a drop of sweat that trickled down and disappeared between her cleavage. His mind went totally blank and when he looked up, Haneul was staring at him, not in shock but with rather a weird, dreamy look in her eyes. She slowly gripped the front of her jacket and zipped them up, almost knocking down Myungsoo when she got up. Next she gathered up the dirty clothes from the floor and went out of the room. She didn’t slam the door, thankfully.

Myungsoo was left on the bed, with the image still processing inside his brain. He sat on th