Jackson had been waiting for exactly thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds, stretching his usual tolerance threshold.

Bora was not just late, she was not going to show up.

He’d been waiting in the training room for far longer than he would usually tolerate. 

He took big strides on his way up to the dorms. Just as he arrived, a recruit with hazelnut hair was making her way out of the commons. She smiled big when she saw Jackson.

“Wendy,” he said. “Could you go wake Bora up for me?”

“She’s not here,” Wendy responded with a frown, disappointed she could not be of help.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s not in the dorms,” she shrugged. “Come to think of it, I don’t think she even spent the night here.”

Jackson got taken aback by her answer. 

Bora was always so motivated about their lessons. When he’d told her that they’d take their training up a notch before leaving her the night before, she had bubbled with so much excitement that he almost expected her to be waiting on him.

He almost felt disappointment at her absence.

Where could she—

He stopped mid-thought. An image suddenly struck through his mind.

Bora’s sparkling eyes gazing at the workshop he had set up for her in the house. 

He quickly thanked the recruit who stood stiffly, like a soldier waiting for instructions. 

He was almost certain that Bora would be in her workshop and that she had probably spent the night over there too.

When he arrived, the door was closed. He turned the knob slowly.

“Bingo,” he muttered through his breath.

Bora was there. She was sleeping on the velvet armchair, her arm extended on the outside and her head lolling on the other side. He couldn’t help but smile at her ridiculous position. She had opened wide the doors that led to a pathway to the beach, and had a panoramic view of the sea in front of her. 

Before her stood a canvas on its easel and it depicted the view of the sea at night. She had decided to capture the strategic moment when the moon kissed the sea and made one. There was no way to tell where one started and the other ended, inexorably intertwined.

Jackson’s gaze snapped back to the artist. Her head still hanging on one side, he crouched down to her level. She had one cheek on her arm, lips parted slightly. She looked at peace, her eyelashes casting shadows over her cheeks. The beams of sunlight cast an eerie glow on her hair, bringing out deep purplish highlights.

“Bora.”

Nothing.

“Can’t say I didn’t try the easy way.”

He got back up, grabbed the glass containing the dirty water that served to rinse the brushes and spilled it all over her face.

She jerked awake, making the armchair fall over. She put a hand in front of her, like she was trying to ward off some kind of attack.

“Good morning sunshine,” he snickered.

“You ing jerk,” she threw the first thing she could grab at him — namely, a spatula.

He caught it with ease with one hand. 

“I didn’t intend on teaching you so quickly about knife throwing but I can adapt.”

She looked around, dumbfounded, then seemed to remember where she was, what she was supposed to be doing. 

“, Wang. The lesson! What time is it?”

“Way past the time we’d agreed on, like, yesterday.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she groaned, rubbing her face, “I just get hyper at night. This is the time I’m most productive. You know, when you suddenly get an overload of ideas and your brain is on overdrive and you just need to do something about it?”

She had said that without taking a break. 

Jackson placed his hands on her shoulders. “Breathe.”

Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were red and her aura was vibrating like a battery. 

She took a deep breath in and bit her lip. “Sorry, I’ll go change and then we can go.”

“You do that. Meet you in five here.”

***

Although it might’ve been Bora’s last day at Division, Jackson didn’t act like it. The field trip had finally made him deem her ready to pull out the big guns. He insisted some more on the importance of mastering close-quarter combat before he took her to the armory and asked her to pick out any gun she wanted. His treat, she supposed.

Naturally, she picked the biggest of the lot.

A sniper rifle.

Bora didn’t remember it being there the last time she had been in the armory for her cleaning shift. The rifle looked regal, in the middle of the room, protected by a glass case. It was shiny and looked untouched.

Jackson snorted when she pointed to it. “Why am I not surprised?”

He had gone on and on about the technicalities and she suppressed several yawns before he finally took her out for practice on the sandy dunes, far up from the mansion.

Bora was on her stomach, the rifle making one with her body. Jackson had placed three targets down on the beach. The closest one was at the foot of the dune, the farthest one was far away on the sand, across the mansion.

“Your breathing influences accuracy. Don’t fire while you’re inhaling or exhaling. Your round will be thrown off. Once you see your target, focus on it, but don’t let it distract you from what’s happening around.” 

Jackson stood tall above her, arms crossed around his chest as he gave her his last recommendations. 

“When on the field, take note of abnormal behavior. Sometimes the threat is far closer than what you’d think. Most importantly, trust your gut. If something feels off, then something is probably off. Don’t worry if you miss. Recruits never get it on the first try.”

She pursed her lips, even as she marveled at the precision offered by the rifle sight. “I’m not a recruit.”

He ignored her. “These types of weapons are unlike the ones you’re used to manipulate. They take some time getting used to.”

Keeping a firm grip around the rifle, she strayed her eyes from the sight and glanced upward at Jackson. “Let’s bet. If I hit the target, I get a wish of my own. If I don’t, you get another wish.”

A small smile played on Jackson’s lips. “Quite the player, aren’t you?”

“Scared?”

The way he saw it, the odds were stacked against her. 

He didn’t bother with a response. “Get in position. You have five seconds to hit a bullseye.”

She tried to contain her smile and set her sights back on the target.

Jackson crouched down next to her, elbows resting lazily on his knees.

He grabbed a fistful of sand and let it slip away between his fingers like water.

“Five,” he grabbed another fistful of sand. “Four…”

He threw the sand in her face.

“Ow, !” Bora gasped as the particles touched her eyes, burning them.

“Three…”

She spat and rubbed her eyes.

“Focus.”

She tried to ignore the stinging pain that slithered all the way to the back of her eyes and got back in position. 

“Two…”

Tears streamed down her left eye, but she forced it open. 

Focus. Focus. 

She held her breath.

“One…”

She pulled the trigger.

Jackson looked through the binoculars as she loosened her grip around the rifle and wiped her eyes.

“You didn’t even hit 100.”

She looked up at him with a mischievous grin. “I wasn’t aiming for 100.”

Something akin to uncertainty flashed in his eyes as he paused to look at her grinning face. The thought of taking Jackson aback made her grin widen even more.

Slowly, he raised the binoculars back to his eyes and looked again.

Bullseye.

She’d hit the 300 meters target in the bullseye.

He looked down at her slowly with pursed lips. “First-timer, huh?”

That shot definitely wasn’t from a first-timer.

She shrugged. “I told you I wasn’t a recruit. You never asked.”

Her father had initiated her to precision shooting. Of course, she hadn’t mentioned that. 

He’d taken her on hunting fields, and taught her how to manipulate a rifle. At the time, she thought it was a weird hobby of his or his way of reminiscing his time spent in the army.