Gary and Ji Hyo didn’t say much on the drive back. They were both exhausted but, upon returning to their hotel room, neither felt much like sleeping. Ji Hyo slipped out of her heels and opened the balcony door, closing her eyes as the sea breeze swept over her. Gary joined her outside. He kissed her neck and told her he loved her, trying to make her smile. But Ji Hyo seemed lost in thought.

“What do you think she meant by that?” Ji Hyo asked.

“Who?”

“Sun Marie,” Ji Hyo said. “When she pointed to the tree and said her mom lives there.”

Gary shrugged. “That’s where Jong Kook scattered the ashes,” he said. “That’s all she meant.”

Ji Hyo didn’t answer. Her expression was blank. Normally, Gary loved her mong face, but tonight, it worried him. He put his arm around her, running his hand down the length of her bare arm. She shivered and folded her hands across her chest. 

“It was creepy,” she said.

“What was?”

“What she said, Gary-ah.” She was growing frustrated by his nonchalance.

Gary sighed. “She’s a kid,” he said. “They say weird things.”

“What about the swing? It was moving by itself.”

Gary tried not to laugh but couldn’t help it. “Ji Hyo-yah! What are you saying?”

“Kang Gary-ah! Don’t laugh at me.” She hit him and tried to look mad, but something about the way he looked at her always made her smile. She leaned in to hug him, her head resting against his chest.

“Jagiya, my love,” Gary said. “Let’s go to the beach tomorrow. We have time before our flight back.”

Ji Hyo didn’t answer. Instead, she wrapped her arms tighter around Gary’s waist, thinking about what Kim Gap Jin had said in his phone call to her days earlier, how Jennifer had just passed away in her sleep, unexplainably. Ji Hyo clutched onto Gary’s arms then, tugging at the sleeves of his black suit jacket, and looked up at him, staring into his eyes. “Let’s go inside,” she said. She leaned in to kiss him, closing her eyes as she felt his lips on hers. She loved the way he kissed, his lips pursed and wet. His tongue moved with hers, and a sudden urge came over her, something crazy and rushed and almost animalistic. She wanted him more than ever before. She couldn’t explain why, but later, after they had made love and she lay awake in bed staring up at the ceiling, she rationalized her urge as stemming from thoughts of mortality – hers, his, everyone’s. She just wanted to feel alive.

While Ji Hyo lay awake by Gary’s side, unable to sleep, Jong Kook lay alone in his bed, trying to wrestle away thoughts of Jennifer. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her. Small moments they had shared together kept replaying over and over in his mind. But one memory was prominent, and he couldn’t shake it from his head.