"10 ice cream shops. We've passed 10 ice cream shops and none of them are the ones that Mark put in his clue. I'm starting to think we just got the clue wrong." Jackson muttered as he drove down the road.

Mira hummed and rolled her window down before propping her arms on the sill and resting her chin on it, "Patience."

"ing hell, do you care about this at all?" He barked in annoyance.

"Honest question." She said, perking up, "Do you really hate me just because I made that one comment about you at the party?"

He snorted, his lips lifting into a smirk, probably the closest thing she got to a smile, "Don't you think you're giving yourself too much credit?"

"So you don't hate me?" She asked while tilting her head.

He rolled his jaw before sighing, "I just don't care enough about you to feel either way."

"I've never heard that one before." She said while pulling her head back into the car.

She looked over at Jackson who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He snapped.

She blinked at him and tilted her head, "Do you want me to drive? You've been at it for almost 10 hours."

"No. You can drive after we go to the ice cream place." He mumbled.

She raised her brows, "I'm impressed. I thought I'd have to knock you out cold before you'd let me drive."

"I'm about to pass out and I'm not ready to drive this car into a lampost and kill us both." He grumbled much to her amusement.

She flipped the mirror down to check her hair when something fluttered down to her lap. She picked it up and turned it over before staring at the photograph, "Is this your mom?"

Jackson frowned and glanced over at her before looking back at the road, "Yeah."

"She's quite beautiful." Mira commented as she brushed her fingers against the image.

Jackson grunted, his fingers curling tightly around the wheel, "Yeah she is. Do you mind putting it back?"

Mira stared at his profile, taking in the way his entire body seemed to stiffen before sliding the picture back. "What about your dad?"

Jackson didn't look away from the road and just lifted his hand to tap on the mirror above his head, where a picture of his father must've been tucked. "He died in a car accident. It's kind of a good luck charm."

"Only the dead have seen the end of war. Plato said that." Jackson knit his brows together and looked at her, not expecting that as a response. She caught his gaze and felt herself deflate when she realized how off-putting her reply must've been. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged and his blinker before merging onto the next lane, "It's not really a big deal. I was a little kid and my mom still had her job. My dad left a hefty insurance policy so we were pretty well off for a single mom and her son."

"What the hell?" Mira muttered while frowning.

Jackson glanced at her from the side of his eye, "What?"

"Someone finds out that your dad passed away and your instinct is to explain that you're financially stable?" Mira asked in confusion.

Jackson's eyes widened when the realization hit him. He hadn't realized that he got that defensive. He was so used to the pity or people thinking he was barely getting by because of having a single mom that it had become a knee jerk reaction.

.

"What about your parents?" He asked, quickly changing the subject.

She knew what he was doing. Someone like Jackson didn't actually care about the life story of someone like her. Someone he wasn't sleeping with, hell, she was pretty sure he didn't care that much about the people he was  sleeping with. But for some reason, instead of calling him out on his transparency, she played along.

"They're both professors."

Jackson's lips quirked, "Ahh, the golden child comes from golden DNA.  No wonder you're so smart."

"Meh." She said with a shrug, "My parents actually don't care too much about my grades. They think that school is supposed to be fun and a place to find yourself. Whatever the hell that means."

Silence fell over the car as both of them mulled over their thoughts.

"At your party, you asked me what I was going to do with my degree. What amazing thing I was planning on doing. The truth is, I don't have a damn clue. I don't know. There's nothing really amazing about me or what I'm going to do with my future. It's nothing. I don't want to pursue philosophy after I graduate but then what do I have? I'm the golden child because of philosophy. Because I'm good at those courses. That's all I have. That's all I am." Her voice held no strong emotions not anger or sadness or bitterness. She just stated facts.

Jackson frowned again but stayed silent, he had no idea what she was expecting him to say. He barely talks about this stuff with Jaebum, much less a girl he didn't like and didn't know.

"I don't want to go to grad school but I know I'll probably have to. Then I overhear girls in my class talk about applying to schools in Ireland and England and I just don't get it. Why would anyone want to do that? Why would you go somewhere you don't know anyone or any place and be on your own? You don't know how to navigate or speak the language or go places." She said incredulously.

"Experience?" He muttered.

She leaned her head back and stared out the window, "I'm a creature of familiarity. I like being around places I recognize. I'm satisfied in my comfort zone. It's home to me. There's this belief that humans always need to be challenged and should grow and become better but I mean, after a certain point we need to accept that this is who we are and be happy with that and not force ourselves out of our bubble. I'm content with being someone that likes being close to home but I hate feeling like I'm lagging behind. I'm this weird living contradiction of someone who keeps to herself but gets terrified when left to her own devices."

 "Why are you telling me this?" He asked her with a frown.

She blinked to herself before looking over at him, "I don't know. I've never told anyone that and there are not that many people I can talk to even if I wanted to tell more people. I guess it's easier to tell it to someone who doesn't care about me than to someone who thinks the world of me."

"I thought you didn't care about the praise." He pointed out as he turned the corner.

She nodded with a small smile, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less when you see the disappointment in someone's eyes when they realize you're not the person they built you up in their heads to be."

He didn't like this.

He didn't like the intimacy he felt after she shared something so close to her heart. Mira was mysterious, that's why university boys gravitated towards her. She appeared to have no baggage and no drama that surrounded her, she was every guy's dream. She was a y mystery that every guy and his brother wanted a piece of.

And Jackson couldn't handle the fact of all people who she would open up to, and show who she really was, she chose him.

And he hated that he could relate to her.

He hated being similar to someone who frustrated to him so much.

He hated thinking they thought the same thoughts and had the same feelings cross through them.

"Do you do this often?" He asked blandly.

She snickered, "Unload my anxieties on a stranger? No. But Hobbes thought that fear is what bound people together, right? Fear makes people to crazy things. Things that are disproportionate to the danger of the object we fear. We might as well do it together."

"No, I mean just carrying around the you're feeling without telling anyone?" He muttered, rolling his eyes at her comment.

She stayed silent and stared at Jackson's face until he pulled to a red light, felt her gaze on him, and turned to face her. She gave him a broken smile with eyes that held more emotions than he was comfortable with seeing.

"Don't you do the same?"

-----

"According to Google Maps, this is the only ice cream shop between here and the next place that Mark put down on the map." Mira said while staring at her phone.

"I'm guessing Google Maps won't tell us where the next place on the map actually is."

"No, it's just showing some dirt road." She said while holding her phone up.

Jackson grunted in displeasure, "Of course. How does he even find these obscure places?"

"Oh come on! It's fun! It's a new adventure." She said cheekily.

Jackson scoffed and walked towards the ice cream shop with her, "I thought you didn't like stepping outside your comfort zone."

"I know." She said with a dumbfounded laugh, "Maybe I'm a bit delirious or maybe it's because you're here with me but I'm so intrigued."

Jackson's lips hitched up in a ghost of a smile at her sudden enthusiasm and opened the door for her, letting her walk into the shop before following behind her.

"Hi! Welcome! What can I get for you?" A cheery voice chirped from behind the cases of ice cream.

Jackson blinked before muttering quietly under his breath, "Why is everyone so damn cheerful?"

Mira snorted as Jackson scratched the back of his neck before clearing his throat, "Tell me, does the name Poseidon or Daisy mean anything to you?"

"Uh…The Greek God? The flower? I don't…I'm not reall