Namjoo awoke the next morning when she heard rustling noises in the room. Upon sitting up she spotted Luhan taking her clean clothes from his backpack and placed them at the foot of the bed. As if he’d had a makeover done he looked fresh and happy. There was a glow resonating off his face.

It was difficult to depict what was different; almost as if the Luhan last night had gone through a reformation and came out anew.

“The ship reaches dock at six,” he told, “I’ll be in the lounge. Get dressed and come out.”

Without saying anything she watched him put his lips together and pulled a kind of smile as he slowly turned, his eyes landing on the ground before looking at the door. Once it closed she leaned forward and grabbed the clothes at the foot of the bed, caressing them under her thumbs.

After changing she headed into the lounge with her food and immediately spotted him sitting by himself. Gritting her teeth very lightly she walked toward his table and sat across from him. She knew he was surprised when he looked up at her, but she kept her eyes glued to her food.

“What’s the point of this cruise?”

“Just…” Luhan struggled for words, “I didn’t want to waste the tickets.”

The overwhelming click of forks and spoons against plates became the silence surrounding them. Something was amiss, Namjoo knew that. Dew drops were hanging in the air nonchalantly and neither she nor Luhan planned on catching them. They were just going to hang there, quietly in the air, dangling over their heads, and they would be blind to it.

“When we get back, we should start thinking about how to attack Mario and his gang.”

“Namjoo,” Luhan looked up, “lets not talk about that.”

Darting her point of view out the corner of her eye she stared at the wall. There was really nothing else to talk about between them. Something in her didn’t want to treat Luhan as if they were close. Yet another voice told her it was ok. And on the other hand, she was scared to be comfortable because she knew what could happen if she became comfortable, so she didn’t want to be comfortable.

Namjoo’s head was a jumbled mess. Instead of finding something to say she stuffed with one spoonful after another.

“I’ll be for you outside, come out when you’re done,” Luhan told before getting up.

She didn’t look at him as he left, but she could feel her emotions keeping its eye on him. Why did she feel kind of guilty for having acted so heavily on her anger last night? Then she thought about how he’d touched her face and played with her hair last night. Deep inside her mind she could see him carrying a smile on his face and feel his heart flutter.

Letting out a shout she hit her head. She didn’t want to think about it or why he’d done it. Her being there was not to fix their relationship. That was not the point of the trip. But if she wanted to find a way to counterattack Mario, she couldn’t keep arguing with Luhan like this. There was no teamwork thus far and that was bad. They needed trust and a kind of bonding…

Bonding…had an intimate feel to it, but there was no other word she could think of at the moment. She would have to draw the line somewhere. Yes, she’d do that.

Gulping down her cup of cold water she got up and walked out of the lounge. After a few paces she discovered Luhan leaning against the rail gazing out at sea. He looked to be in deep thoughts as if drawing every lengthy emotion of the waves. A cold wind was cozily blowing his way brushing through his hair like a mother swiftly touching her grown up son’s hair, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Namjoo glanced at the floor of the deck before starting toward him.

“Your hair’s getting messed up.”

Luhan pressed a hand over his hair. He turned to look at her with those big innocent eyes of his and smiled. As if embarrassed to be caught by the anger nowhere to be found in her tone she turned and set her hands on the cold rail. They stood silently listening to the waves crash against the ship as if each push might bring them back to where they once started. There was a kind of peace in the atmosphere surrounding them and Namjoo thought it was good neither of them wanted to break it. 

“Can I ask where you were planning to go yesterday?” Luhan started after a few minutes.

And Namjoo guessed she knew why Luhan had been looking out at sea. There was nothing else to look at.

“Just…I wanted to ride an elephant.”

There was a soft laugh and she turned to look at him.

“You think that’s funny?”

Luhan turned to her and raised a hand up to wipe the smile off his lips, “No, it’s…not what I expected of you.”

She frowned.

“Sorry,” Luhan apologized, “for making you come with me.”

Unable to tread on her anger anymore she just said, “Lets just forget it.”

A small smile overcame his lips and he averted his eyes back to the water.

“Lets go out like normal people,” Namjoo spoke, “I mean…like normal people do on nights out. My birthday’s next week, right?”

Luhan slowly turned before fully shifting to look at her. Afraid that he might expect something she added, “I mean; we’re just in hiding, not on the run. Mario’s people can’t attack us all the time. We’ll most likely get somewhere, so lets get along and try not to fight so often.”

As she spoke she averted her eyes into a part of space between them and once finished looked up at him. There was an all calm expression on his face and she didn’t know if he was going to agree or not.

“Mmm…” he nodded. “That sounds good. Lets just take it as we’re both apologizing.”

She bit her tongue. It wasn’t enough of an apology for the fight she’d had to deal with the other night, but restrained herself from arguing. Then Luhan pulled something out of his pocket before holding it out to her. It was the ring she’d taken off the night she’d gone to the night club alone. She’d forgotten all about it.

Had he been angry when he found it? Was he angry all along because she took it off?

None of that anger was relevant on his face.

“Put it on,” Luhan directed.

Namjoo glanced to him then at the ring before taking it from him and slipped it over her finger. For a slight second she thought she could feel satisfaction floating from him.  

“Lets go sit on the upper deck,” he suggested, “have you been up there?”

With a nod of the head they both turned and headed toward the staircase. It was even more humid on the upper deck. The heat of the sun seemed to penetrate immediately onto their skin. No clouds seemed to be swirling in the blue and no shade to hide under was present. Most of those they found standing around were either soaking themselves up with a towel of cold water or a bottle of cold water as they leaned against the doors for hope of some shade. People were sweating over all the place nonetheless seemed to be enjoying themselves.

A kind of sweet jazzy music with the sleepy voice of a singer was playing overhead when they finally found a circular table away from the bar she’d sighted yesterday.

“Sit here, I’ll get us some water,” Luhan offered.

She watched him walk away before sitting down and fanned herself with a hand. The feel of sweat sticking her hair to her scalp made her feel dirty as if she’d been rolling in mud the whole day. As if the hands of sticky sand were pulling her deeper and deeper into an abyss of heat never to feel the cool again. If she’d taken the chance earlier she could have just returned to the room where she could be sitting by the air conditioner. Although that sounded boring, it was a lot better than melting out there.

“Oh look, the girl from yesterday…” she caught the voices of a few guys murmuring behind her and slightly turned around to see the guys she’d seen yesterday.

They were walking her way and Namjoo realized there were a few empty seats at the table. Her eye shifted when Luhan placed a cup of cold water in front of her.

“Nah…forget it, she already has a man…”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the boys retreating toward the stairs before finally turning to take the cup of cold water and chugged it.

“Disappointed?” Luhan questioned.

The cool freshness of the ice cold water slid down in such a satisfying manner that she almost wanted to curl up on the ground to let it seep through her body. Namjoo almost wanted to become an ice cube or better yet take a bath in a tub full of ice.

“Why should I be?”

The corner of his lip curved up and he shook his cup gently.

“If I were younger I’d probably regret it,” Namjoo stated, “they’re just college boys out for the fun. Then after all, we should always take advantage of our youth; not that I’m still there anymore anyway.”

“You had your share of fun,” Luhan opinionated.

Namjoo peered into her empty glass and tossed an ice cube into . A second later Luhan grabbed the cup from her and poured some of his water into her cup.

“Don’t just eat the cubes, they’re bad for your teeth,” he placed the cup back in front of her and Namjoo heard the cub crack in half between her teeth.

They became silent and the jazzy music transitioned into some kind of noisy samba. The drums overpowered the silence, each beat pounding at the rate of her heart. It didn’t become any less awkward than she felt uncomfortable, it quite an ok atmosphere honestly. Namjoo didn’t despise it so much.

Grabbing her cup she drank the water conservatively then placed it back on the table.

“Can I ask,” Luhan started, “if you’ve seen anyone in the past year?”

Fully swallowing the contents of water down she stared into the glass cup and the cold fog she was wiping away with her fingers. While the chill tremored into her skin she felt the sun beat against her back. Her sweat had probably soaked up part of her back already.

Remnants of the past year flew by in her head. The lonely nights she spent sitting alone while Mi Yun soundly slept, the times when her mother came over to continuously persuade her to move back home, and the rare times she met with Sungyeol for lunch all whipped her mind. As did the moments when she stared at the family portrait hanging in the living room that her daughter dearly loved. The days when Luhan’s parents stopped by to shower their love over Mi Yun and to make sure Namjoo was caring for her right also returned. She remembered days when she’d stand there feeling slightly awkward while Luhan’s parents hogged Mi Yun in front of her as if Luhan had given birth to their daughter and not her.  

Namjoo didn’t want to speak about how she’d silently droned on about what used to be or how she secretly stored their memories into a box in the closet, and at certain times of the day would go look at them. Thinking about Mi Yun’s drawings even made her feel somewhat depressed.

“Mommy, mommy, picture! Daddy, mommy, me!” she could hear Mi Yun exclaiming while sitting on her lap.

When she’d been so busy trying to raise Mi Yun, going to work, dealing with herself, his parents, and hers, who else would she have time for?

“No,” Namjoo answered, “I see Seungyeol sometimes, but I’m too busy with work and Mi Yun for anyone else.” And she added, “You know that.”

“Yea,” Luhan nodded.

She knew he’d been busy with work too. They’d been too busy for each other and it didn’t really matter.

“At the club,” Luhan began again and hesitated before finishing, “did he do anything else to you?”

Finally looking at him she caught the signal from the expression in his eye that he was serious. Namjoo recalled him telling her earlier on after her first incident with Mario that he didn’t like others touching her. It’d been a couple of days already, Luhan shouldn’t still be brewing over that and it never occurred to her that he might have seen it at the club. Talking about it would only instigate another argument. Perhaps, he was just worried generally…Namjoo decided to stick with that perspective.

“No.”

She suddenly thought about how he’d impulsively treated her during their argument back at the hotel and felt a fiery rage go through her. Grabbing her cup she chugged down the rest of the water repeating to herself that they already accepted each other’s unsaid apology and that was better than nothing. It was already too late to get heated over it.

After setting the cup down she let out a loud exhale and patted her chest to coax herself into feeling better.  

They finally arrived at dock in the evening and had to take a 15 minute walk before being able to hail a cab. As her eyes ran over the others on foot and the shops that were still running their last few hours of business she wondered what her parents might be doing. Was her father sitting with a beer in front of the TV while her mother read a book or were they watching a movie together with Mi Yun? On evenings like those, Namjoo wanted to go home.

“Should we stop by the mall?” Luhan asked.

Namjoo turned to look at him curious about why he was asking.

“You don’t want to go to the hotel?”

“Well…it’s still early.”

A few minutes later Namjoo found herself strolling through the large mall lost through the hallways with Luhan. They took an escalator up and she watched as Luhan browsed through the phones on display. There were still plenty of customers around, everyone busily chatting up something.

“If you want one, just get one,” Namjoo prodded, “there are other people waiting.”

“No,” Luhan muttered turning away, “what’s the point of getting one anyway?”

Namjoo frowned and stared after him before hurrying her pace before she’d get lost herself. She would rather stick to Luhan than be found at the child lost and found center. After riding another escalator up they stopped by to browse hungrily at the restaurants still open even when they’d had dinner on the cruise. Then turning away Luhan stopped by the theater to browse over the movies currently showing.

“Should we watch a movie?” he asked.

She looked at him again wondering why he was suggesting all these things. Of course nothing was out of the peculiar with it, but it wasn’t like they were out in Bangkok for fun. Perhaps it was ok to let it go, they weren’t being followed anyhow. It’d been a long day and they just returned from the cruise. What wrong was it to enjoy herself with this little time before tomorrow?

In the end they ended up watching a movie with some soda and popcorn. When they got out, the mall was already closing so they followed the crowd out to the streets where the sky had blackened in color. A group of friends were working to hail a cab toward them. Namjoo watched enviously as they got in one.

At this time of night it was difficult to spot any unless they were called for. When the crowd slowly dispersed Namjoo turned to look at Luhan.

“Should we just walk back?” Namjoo wondered with uncertainty.

“Just up to the busier roads,” Luhan suggested, “I’m sure we’ll find one then.”

But even with their luck, they weren’t able to get one. Giving up they trekked on for almost another half hour under the blank sky ridden of stars. Lady Luck was not there to accompany them. Was this punishment or retribution?

“Are you tired?” Luhan asked. “Should I carry you?”

“I’m fine.”

Luhan paused and slipped the backpack off his back, “Come on.”

Namjoo turned away with a roll of her eyes, “I’m not that tired.”

She felt him grab her hand to urge her forward, “Save yourself some strength. Just get me breakfast tomorrow.”

Heaving a heavy sigh she jumped onto his back listening to him shift her into position with a loud grunt before finally starting forward. Twisting her head she stared out into the bleak streets lit up with the blurs of headlights. All was calm and quiet.

To her expectation, Luhan was a lot sturdier than she’d expected. Well, he was still in the force after all. For the first time he’d offered her a piggy back ride and to think it was after they’d divorced. Somehow the thought of it was amusing, but not that amusing.

When the hotel came into sight Namjoo lifted her head up, “We’re here, let me down.”

“You’re awake?” he sounded surprised.

“I was always awake,” Namjoo mumbled.

“Forget it, we’re almost there,” Luhan stubbornly insisted before heading up the stairs to their room.

Namjoo felt quite sorry that Luhan was pushing himself, but if she argued with him it’d take minutes for them to finally arrive. They were both stubborn idiots after all. So after slipping off his back she kicked off her shoes and crawled into bed. Once the lights turned off her eyes closed. They only reopened later in the night when police sirens and an ambulance began roaring in the distance signaling that something tragic had happened in the night.

A dark shadow of fear gripped her heart wondering what had happened and to whom. As her eyes made sense of the objects in the dark she realized the blanket was well tucked over her. For a while she lay there and bit her thumb when she felt Luhan’s fingers combing through her hair ever so gently so that he wouldn’t wake her. 

***Aha! So they're starting on the right track again! Just a bit more till Namjoo's birthday ;D