Kaimana had taken Sun Marie for a walk down the beach. The girl felt that her mother was gone and was crying. Kaimana held her hand and told her to slowly breathe in the salty air and calm herself. “Your mother has moved on, child,” she said. “She is on her journey to the leina-a-ka-'uhane, the leap of the soul. And you must move on, too.”

“I know, Miss Kaimana. But I’m going to miss her.”

Kaimana felt tears in her eyes. Since Jennifer’s death, she had been trying not to cry, to be strong for both the little girl and her father. But she let it out now that Jennifer’s soul was at peace. “I will miss her, too, child. I will miss her very much.”

Sun Marie held her hand to her brow like a visor to keep the sun from her eyes as she looked up at Kaimana. “Mommy is happy now, right?”

Kaimana smiled at the girl. “Yes, dear, your mommy is happy.”

Sun Marie now smiled, too, and continued walking alongside Kaimana as the ocean waves rolled in near their feet. “Miss Kaimana?” she asked.

“Yes, dear?”

“Why was appa fighting with Uncle Gary?”

Kaimana had hoped that the little girl wouldn’t ask her this. It was not her place to answer. “You’ll have to ask your father, dear.”

Jong Kook and Gary carried Ji Hyo’s bags to the guestroom and placed them on the bed. Ji Hyo pulled a blue shirt from her bag and held it up against Gary’s chest.

“This will look good on you, Gary-ah,” she said.

Jong Kook felt as though he was intruding on their personal space and slowly backed out of the room without either of them noticing.

Gary looked down at the shirt and then up at Ji Hyo. He smiled, realizing then that she had thought about him when she was out and that she must still care for him. As Ji Hyo took out other clothes she had bought for him, he placed his hand on hers. She looked up at him then, her mong face with those big brown eyes. He pulled her hand toward his body as he moved in close to her. He wanted so badly to kiss her but he didn’t want to push this moment with her. And so he instead guided her hands around his waist and leaned in to gently hug her. “Thank you, Ji Hyo-yah,” he said.

She hugged him back and then smiled. “Yah, I just did it so you can get out of those stinky clothes,” she said. 

He looked down at the dark shirt and jeans he was wearing, the same clothes he had worn that drunken night in Seoul, and then across the Pacific in his flight to Hawaii, and now, standing here with her in the guestroom. He could still smell the alcohol on his shirt. He smiled now, too, and joked with her. “Ah, you want me out of these clothes?” He began pulling off his shirt then, and Ji Hyo laughed, trying to pull it back down.

“Yah, Gary-ah!” she yelled, laughing.

He flung the shirt toward the hamper in the corner. And he stood there now, with his bare chest, facing Ji Hyo. He felt himself throbbing, wanting his beautiful fiancée. But he had been worried before about how even a kiss might lead to her pushing him away. And so he tried to calm his blood as Ji Hyo continued sorting through the bags. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “You need one.”

“Yah! Why are you so mean?” he joked.

She flashed him a smile. As Gary began to walk out of the room, he saw Ji Hyo pull a photo album from the bag. He was about to ask her about it but Ji Hyo walked past him then, holding the album close to her chest as she knocked on Jong Kook’s door.

Gary’s eyes narrowed in confusion. So, she had thought about Jong Kook, too? He sulked a bit as he walked down the hall to the bathroom.

Jong Kook had been sitting on his bed, his head in his hands, when he heard a soft knock at his door. He stood then and walked over to open it.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

He nodded and sat back down on the bed. Ji Hyo sat beside him, and Jong Kook felt slightly uncomfortable with how close she was to him now. He had only just begun to think of her in this new way, a resurrection of these feelings he had long ago for her, and this made him feel awkward, as if he was a teenager again, unaware of how to handle himself around the opposite .

She handed him the photo album. It was