Emira opens the door to see a Park Seonghwa in front of their house, crisp suit and all. He is holding a bouquet of flowers and donning the silliest smile ever - one that she knows is because of none other than her sister. She chuckles seeing how eager the man is; Akira had told her that Seonghwa called out of the blue, saying that he wanted to go on a short trip with her to the beach, just a 2 day 1 night trip for them. The thing that's making her chuckle is that he doesn't look like he's going to the beach, but instead a high-end restaurant as he treats her sister to the most expensive dish.

"Akira!" she shouts into the depths of their unit, "your actual annoying boyfriend is here!"

Akira comes out wearing a yellow summer dress, and if it's even possible, Seonghwa's face breaks into a much bigger smile as he hands her the bouquet made up of baby's breath.

She takes it with a shy smile, even more as Emira whispers to her, "I hope that you don't come back and make me an aunt." Emira winks at the two before closing the door, claiming, "Have fun, but not too much! Please remember your poor sister at home too. Gosh should I open the tattoo parlour or not today and tomorrow? It would be too lonely."

Her voice is drowned out behind the closed door and Akira turns to Seonghwa, who has his arm out for her to hook with his. "Looking good with the new hair colour, Park Seonghwa," she greets him as she takes his arm.

"Anything for you, my-" he smirks, reaching out a hand to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. "-love."

They leave the apartment compound with Seonghwa driving one of the convertibles, letting their hairs whip in the wind as they cruise out of the district, passing by the concrete buildings and tall glass windows to change their scenery to rocky mountains, lush greenery and the ocean that glistens under the sun. Breathing in the fresh air, she puts out one arm to feel the wind caressing her skin, all the way until they arrive at the beach resort.

She waits at the lobby with their bags as he goes over to the counter to check in, the receptionist immediately standing up as he sees Seonghwa, a respectful bow following next. The receptionist almost does a salute but Seonghwa quickly stops him, saying, "Come on, you're over-reacting, Seoho. Glad to see you're doing well besides staying in Desire."

"Sure am." He sees Akira sitting on one of the orange sofas of the lobby. "Are my eyes deceiving me, or is that really the Akira Hwang?" A small smile plays on his lips. "Looks like you guys finally got together after all these years, I suppose? Gosh, we used to ship both of you so much back in Desire; the hottest and badass couple from Medusa. You're here on honeymoon?" He raises up his eyebrows.

Seonghwa waves him away. "Don't say it like that, you're making me blush. Yeah, looks like it happened that way, but it's only just starting." His eyes turn downcast as he thinks and looks back to her. Akira is using her phone to snap pictures of the statues and paintings in the lobby, nodding in satisfaction as she takes another one. "What about you, left your gang for good?"

Seoho shrugs. "Found out it's not the life for me, escaped from that district and here I am, happily running a small resort here. Took a lot of money but it's standing okay. You know, I was surprised to get a call from you saying that you wanted to book two rooms. Was expecting a large crowd but it's really just you and her, eh?" Seoho nudges Seonghwa as the former checks him in and gives him the keys.

Seonghwa blushes as Seoho points this out, claiming, "You really are going to make me shy from all of this. Thanks, Seoho." He picks up the keys and puts two fingers to his brow as a parting gesture.

"Sure, hope you enjoy your time at my humble resort. We don't get that many occupants as it's not a peak season, so you might even get the beach all to yourself."

"We will!"

Seonghwa slumps onto the sofa next to her as he puts the keys down on the wooden table, showing her which rooms they're going to stay at. He points at the row of beach houses facing the ocean through the curtains from the lobby.

"You booked two rooms," she merely says, picking up one key and inspecting it.

"Well... um, yeah." His face feels hot. "Because I know that we are uh, just starting to, you know... so it might be too... hasty if we were..." he pronounces as if he's a toddler trying out different words to form sentences. "So I booked two rooms so that we can have one each but they're connecting so if you want to come to-" He mentally slaps himself as he realizes what he's saying. "I'm not implying that you should, but you can- wait that's not it either. What I'm saying is," he places his palms flat on his lap, "I don't want you to be uncomfortable when we're just starting this... relationship. We haven't even-" he purses his lips as his voice drops to a whisper, "-kissed."

Akira chuckles as she waits for him to finish talking. Besides Seoho and the other receptionist, there's no one else at the lobby. No other customers around; only the two of them. "This is exactly why I fell for you, Park Seonghwa. You're so brutal when you're in Medusa but you always respect me, and you can't even talk about this... thing without blushing even when we're full grown adults."

He scratches his head. "Am I doing bad at this relationship thingy? I tried to look up a manual on how to treat your girlfriend online but all of them seemed like bad advice." He grimaces. "I mean, one of the blogs told me that I have to make sure that I'm awake to accept your calls any time, or else you'll be mad at me. What if I'm sleepy and I couldn't keep my eyes open? They said that the girlfriend would become-" he animates by letting his arms open, "-a monster if you make them mad."

She shrugs. "Maybe it's not a bad advice after all." She narrows her eyes as she says threateningly, "If you ever ignore my calls I will haunt you in your sleep."

He widens his eyes as he hastily blinks before stammering, "Re... really? Is that how a relationship works?"

She enjoys seeing him flustered that she gets up and pats his head, before picking up the bags and keys, saying, "Come on, let's check out the rooms that we got."

Seoho looks at them from behind as they walk hand in hand, and there's a fatherly smile on his face as he follows their every movement. It's like he's seeing his son finally getting down to confessing to the girl he likes, but as they walk onto the sandy surface to get to the rows of rooms facing the beach, something Seonghwa said to him when he placed a call to book the rooms keeps tugging at the back of his head.

"Are you spending your time with your other team members?" Seoho had asked when he received the call. He had expected an answer of 'yeah just to spend time with the boys' or maybe 'we thought that we could use some time to wind down'.

"Nah, I'm just trying to spend the time I have left. It's only starting but I already have to put an end to it; I don't know how I'm going to go about it," Seonghwa had replied without context, putting him into further confusion.

He didn't get to ask more though, because Seonghwa quickly cut off the call. Part of him wanted to call back and ask whether everything's alright, but part of him told himself that it should be none of his business.

But as he looks at him and Akira smiling as they walk to their respective rooms, he wishes he had taken the time to ask.

---

"This room is bigger!" Seonghwa stretches out his arms before snatching the key from Akira. "This one's mine."

"Park Seonghwa you are testing my patience right now. I'm going to-" she jumps towards him to steal the key, and like kids they run around the room trying to steal the key from one another. They laugh and shout, completely forgetting that there might be other people in the rooms on the same row as them.

Both of the rooms that Seonghwa booked have a queen-sized bed, with windows behind curtains that give them the perfect view of the beach; the rooms are clones of each other except for the fact that one room is at the furthest end, so a little bit of extra space is given. It's the room they're playfully fighting over, resulting in her cornering him and reaching out to grab the key from him.

She slams a hand against the wall, trapping Seonghwa with a sly smile and her eyes drop to the level of his lips and for a moment they're frozen in time. Instinctively, he puts both his hands over his mouth so Akira uses this opportunity to snatch the key from him.

"Look at you being all shy," she mutters before moving away from him. She twirls the key in her hand, a look of victory over her face as her eyes sparkle with something mischievous.

"Stop it," Seonghwa mutters, before taking the key to the other room.

"Are you mad at me?" she asks. "Because I took the bigger room?"

"No." He looks down before heaving up his bag and going through the connecting doors to plop onto the bed face-down.

When the connecting doors are left open, anyone on the bed in one room can see straight at the person on the bed in the next room. She plops on the bed in her room, looking through the opening as he curls on the bed like an angry kitten, a black heap on the white bedsheet.

Seonghwa feels something weighing down on his bed, and he lifts up his head to see Akira with an amused look on her face. He pouts before burying back his head into his body, refusing to look at her. He feels a nudge from her as she pokes his shoulder, his stomach then his back.

"Park Seonghwa," Akira says. "Do you want to go and waste time at the beach? We can do nothing and just laze around, maybe have some coconut water and seafood."

He remains mum but he uncurls himself, searches for her hand and pulls her together with him to the beach, with Akira looking at their interconnecting hands with some kind of pained expression. She doesn't let it show, though, because as he turns around to look at her she smiles, not wanting to make him worried.