a/n: hey! Hope all of you are doing fine :) Hang in there! We will get through this.

_

“Do you want to go over there and sit on their table?” Joy secretly kicked Irene under their table while the whole camp was having dinner. “Would you please stop staring? Everyone’s looking at you.”

Irene turned to her half-sib, a clueless expression on her features. “What?”

“For Aphrodite’s sake,” Hayoung rubbed her face with her hands. “Our sister is whipped.”

Nana rolled her eyes with all the dramatics happening around. “Wanna say something?”

Irene just stared, still looking utterly innocent.

“Anything at all?” Nana opened her eyes really wide. “Anything, Irene, say something.”

“Meaning, why are you having a staring contest with the head counselor of Apollo’s cabin?” Hayoung explained, clearly enunciating every word that made some of their younger half-siblings turn their heads in curiosity. “Honestly, I don’t know if you guys want to kiss or kill each other. It’s a little bit confusing.”

“What she means to say is-” Joy covered Hayoung’s mouth with her hand. “You two have been looking at each other since the dinner started, and we want to know what’s up because we literally don’t have any idea.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Irene waved her hand dismissively despite the fact that her face was on fire. “We just had a walk at the beach.”

Hayoung raised her brows at Irene suspiciously. “If I were to guess, you did more than just walk-”

Joy shoved a loaf of bread in Hayoung’s mouth to stop her babbling. “Please stop talking like this in public, thank you.”

“You know, if you want to date her or anyone you fancy,” Nana told Irene. “We will support you, right?”

“I know,” Irene nodded, grateful for her cabin’s unwavering support. “But it’s really nothing.”

“Okay,” Nana didn’t press her anymore, she just handed her a small origami swan. “Here, this little guy came to the cabin and had your name on it so I think this was meant for you.”

Irene accepted the paper swan and put it in her pocket, having decided to look at it further in the privacy of their cabin. She glanced back at Apollo’s table but Wendy was already busy talking with her brood so she just finished eating.

After dinner, they were supposed to join the campfire sing-along but Irene told Nana that she’d rather rest early because she’d had an exhausting day and was allowed to, although Joy and Hayoung didn’t look convinced of her excuse.

As soon as she was on her bed, Irene took the swan out of her pocket and unfolded it, inside was a jumble of thoughts scrawled without the name of the author:

Falling in love is such a profound thing that I’ve never really had a chance to uncover – not for the lack of opportunity, but for the lack of guts

I wish I could say that today I possessed that kind of courage, I wish I could say that I’m not afraid of commitments, I wish I could say that I’m not scared of heights…

I wish a lot of things.

Sometimes I feel like it’s all just foolishness – an elaborate trick of nature in order to procreate, just a complicated mix of chemicals in the brain, a mere illusion of Aphrodite and her throngs of romanticists

 And yet other times I wonder if there are really words spoken by a particular someone that could warm up a cold night, lingering memories to last you a lifetime, bright smiles to rival the sun, arms to hold you and nothing will seem to matter anymore

I’m curious

wondering if they are worth the heartbreak in the end…

Perhaps someday when I’m brave enough, I’ll know-

how nice it must be, to fly without falling, to soar and glide in the skies

to have moments filled with meanings, every touch, all the lows and the highs

losing yourself in love – a drink of sweetest nectar and Eros’ poisonous darts

to allow a piece of yourself in care of another regardless of inevitable hurts

to be vulnerable despite of consequences

to dream in the vastness of possibilities

to live without fear of pain

to fall

to fly

…and to fall again.

_

For the nth time, Wendy saw Irene staring at her – rather wistfully, she thought – over her plate of toasts and strawberry jam the next morning after their little escapade. She gave the girl a smile for the first few times when they met each other’s eyes but it had been almost a quarter of an hour and the Cabin 10’s camper was still staring.

Honestly, what’s up with her this morning?

Wendy was starting to get uncomfortable and shifted uneasily on her seat. She tried to listen to the snippets of conversation happening around Apollo’s table and put her attention somewhere else other than Irene’s dark eyes boring multiple holes in her body.

“Are you okay, Wendy?” the tall boy with platinum-silver hair they nicknamed Silver – his name is actually Lucas but the moniker quickly stuck and no one outside of their cabin knew his name wasn’t Silver – asked her when she fidgeted on her seat again, trying so hard to keep her eyes away from Aphrodite’s table.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m okay,” she lied while managing to keep a straight face. “Does the jam taste a bit different to you today?”

When in doubt, talk about the jam.

Silver lifted his spoon and scooped some strawberry jam with the tip. “Tastes the same to me,” he replied thoughtfully.

“Yeah, maybe it’s just me…” Wendy bowed her head and stared on her plate through her lashes, she could still feel Irene’s warm glare in her direction. “Hey Sil, do me a favor?” she whispered but audible enough for Silver to hear.

“Yeah?” the boy also lowered his head and pretended to be busy slathering his toasts with insane amounts of jam.

“Is Irene still looking this way?”

“From Aphrodite?”

Wendy nodded idly then tore the corner of her bread and stuffed some of it in just so she could do something with her hands.

Raising one of his toasts piled high with enough jam to give someone diabetes, Silver bit into it and casually gazed around all the other tables, careful not to let his eyes linger too much when he got to Aphrodite’s lot.

“Yes, she’s still staring,” he muttered through mouthful of bread and jam. “Oh… she just stood up and… she’s walking now… gods, I think she’s heading to our table?”

Wendy lifted her head sharply and drew a harsh breath when Irene’s figure appeared in her view. All the conversation on their table stopped when the Aphrodite camper stepped in their premises. The memory of that particular night was still fresh in their memories and almost everyone in Cabin 7 was still wary of Irene and her charmspeak abilities – with the exception of a few campers, of course, mostly the older ones. Meanwhile, Silver resumed chewing.

“Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you guys,” Irene grinned sheepishly and raised both of her hands in a placating manner. “I come in peace, I swear.”

Nobody answered her. And Wendy was still too busy thinking up of the possible reasons why Irene would approach their table.

“Right…” the Aphrodite girl bit the corner of her bottom lip as Cabin 7 continued staring. “I just-” her head swerved to the head counselor’s direction. “Wendy, can I talk to you for a sec?”

Several hands coming from different directions reached out to Wendy when she started to rise from her seat.

“Guys,” she raised a palm towards them and all the arms quickly and simultaneously backed out. “I’m fine, I can take care of myself, don’t worry.”

She followed Irene to the edge of the pavilion and although some people were still staring, they decided to ignore them.

“Listen, I just wanted to thank you for the poetry last night,” Irene smiled brightly, her eyes mirroring her happiness. “That was so sweet.”

Wendy was silent and when she spoke up, there was a strain of confusion in her voice. “What poetry?”

Irene’s smile wavered for a split-second. “The- the paper swan? The origami thing?” when Wendy didn’t react, she tried to give more information. “You sent it to my cabin last night, it had my name…”

“No, I-” Wendy stammered, still confused. “I didn’t send you anything, Irene.”

“But-” Irene took out the origami swan from her pocket and showed it to Wendy. “The poetry was about being scared of falling in love and stuff like that, and you have a fear of heights and we had a Pegasus ride yesterday. It can’t be a coincidence.”

Wendy just stared at her thoughtfully and didn’t speak.

“Please,” Irene sighed in frustration. “Don’t play with me, Wendy. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but please don’t lie-”

“I’m not lying to you!” Wendy was indignant and mildly irritated with the accusation. “I didn’t write you a poetry and I didn’t send you anything. Is that hard to believe?”

Irene gazed at her for a moment and realized that Wendy was telling the truth. Embarrassment and anger filled her eyes. “You know what? You’re right. Why would you write and send me anything. It’s not like we’re-” she swallowed the lump in and looked away. “I apologize if I assumed it was you. I just thought that there was something – never mind, I should go.”

“Irene…”

Wendy could only follow Irene’s retreating image with her eyes. She wanted to say that she’s sorry for hurting her feelings and Wendy didn’t mean it. But the fact remained that she didn’t write Irene a poetry and sent her one – at least not yet – but she knew what poetry the other girl was talking about.

She knew it because she did write it. A long time ago.

Wendy slowly raised her eyes to the bright morning sun. “Hey dad,” she spat through clenched teeth. “Can we talk?”

_

She found the god of the sun just chilling on the doorstep of their cabin, casually sipping something like a liquid gold in a crystal goblet. He chose to appear like a surfer dude this time, completing his look with a printed tank top, shorts, and shoulder-length sandy-blond hair.

“Hey kiddo,” Apollo beamed a blinding smile – literally. Even his teeth were too sparkly that they could probably be made into je