Oceans Between Us
“If I go out like this,” Yeonhwa said, “are you going to be good and not drown?”
That was the first thing she asked when she stepped out of the hotel bathroom.
My brain short‑circuited for half a second.
She was wearing a black swimsuit. Of course it was black. Simple lines, with frills, the kind that looked almost modest until you realised there was nowhere to hide much.
A light beach shirt hung open over it, more symbolic than useful. Her hair was tied up, neck bare, a faint old scar tracing along her collarbone that no amount of sunlight could soften.
I realised I was staring when she lifted one eyebrow.
“So?” she asked. “Do I look strange?”
Strange wasn’t the word.
Dangerous, maybe.
Like a mermaid who dragged sailors under and argued it was their fault for looking.
“You look fine,” I said. “Like someone the Interpol posters forgot to censor.”
“…Is that a compliment?” she asked.
“For you? Yes.”
She snorted lightly and walked past me to the balcony doors.
“Let’s go before I change my mind,” she said.
“You were the one who wanted the beach,” I reminded her, grabbing the towels.
“I wanted to see you in the water,” she said. “I never got to before.”
“Romantic,” I said. “And you still might. But I can’t really swim.”
“If you drown,” she said without turning, “I’m jumping in after you.”
“That doesn’t actually help,” I said.
She opened the door anyway.
The beach was less crowded than yesterday.
Still tourists, but fewer umbrellas, fewer kids.
The loud family that had been near us last time was gone.
The shouting British couple were gone.
Really suspicious but I tried not to think too hard about that.
The sun was dropping, staining the sea with streaks of orange. The air was warm, the waves gentle. The town behind us glowed in the lazy way of tourist places that never really slept.
We found an empty patch of sand. Of course it was empty. People instinctively avoided the woman whose shadow didn’t match the angle of the light.
I spread the towel. She sat, legs stretched out, toes digging into the sand.
“Lie down,” she said, rooting around in the beach bag.
“That’s usually my line,” I said.
Well, that’s something new even for me.
“Back,” she said flatly. “You’ll burn.”
She pulled out sunscreen.
Of course.
I lay down on my stomach, folding my arms under my head. The sand was still warm from the day.
Cold lotion hit my shoulders.
Her hands followed.
“You could have used a spell,” I said. “Skin protection, barrier or something.”
“No,” she said. “I prefer it like this.”
Her palms moved over my shoulder blades, firm and thorough. She didn’t avoid the older scars, but she was gentler over the ones that looked newer.
“If you keep flinching, this will take longer.”
“I’m not flinching.”
“You are. Every time I touch your neck.”
“Maybe stop touching it.”
“Turn,” she said.
I rolled over.
She straddled my hips without ceremony, still wearing that black swimsuit and open shirt, and started on my chest.
I tried to look at the sky.
Failed.
“Could you just relax?”
Her tone was light.
“You’re sitting on me,” I pointed out.
Her eyes were: so you noticed. Good.
“Relax,” she said. “You are not in danger.”
“That’s reassuring, coming from you,” I said.
“Of course,” she said easily. “I’ll make sure of it.”
I stared.
She didn’t laugh.
I really hoped that was a joke.
A couple walked past at a safe distance, not looking too closely at the girl massaging her boyfriend like she was leaving her marks.
The sea breathed.
Her hands slowed.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “Are you happy?”
That was a loaded question.
“Compared to what?” I asked.
“Compared to before,” she said. “You know,”
I thought about it.
The sun. The sea. The lack of visible chains.
And The suspiciously low number of other humans.
“It’s… comfortable,” I said. “In a weird way.”
“Comfortable,” she repeated.
“Do you want poetry?” I asked. “I can write you an essay later.”
Her lips twitched.
“No,” she said. “I like that word. Comfortable.”
She leaned down and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to my forehead.
“Good,” she said. “Stay that way.”
With anyone else, that would have sounded like a wish.
From her, it sounded like an order.
They did fireworks at the harbour that night.
Some festival, some saint, some excuse to sell more grilled things on sticks. I didn’t catch the details. My attention was busy making sure I didn’t brush shoulders with anyone long enough to get murdered later.
We stood among a small crowd near the water, faces tilted up. Fire bloomed over the bay, red and blue flowers opening in the sky before falling as embers.
Yeonhwa held my hand in both of hers. Not laced fingers. Just palms pressed together, like she was warming them.
“Loud,” I said.
“You don’t like it?” she asked.
“Of course, not. ” I said.
She made a small sound that might have been a laugh.
“I used to hate it,” she said, eyes on the bursts of light. “The noise. The explosions. They always remind me of a gate break out..”
“When you were a kid,” I said.
“When we were hiding under stairs,” she corrected.
Another firework cracked open above, white sparks raining.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now…” She tilted her head, as if testing the air. “Now when it’s loud, I can’t hear anything but you breathing beside me.”
“Then let it be your anchor,” I said barely a notch above the wind. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It wasn’t all a lie. I liked it here.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” she replied.
I didn’t answer.
She looked up at me then, really looked, searching my face.
“You look guilty,” she said.
“That’s my resting face,” I said.
“I meant it,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
A child nearby cheered as another rocket went up, scattering gold over the water.
The explosions painted her features in flickers. Sometimes she looked soft. Sometimes she looked like the woman who’d told someone to dig faster while she held their ankles over a hole.
“You still think about her,” she said abruptly.
Fuck, that's so random. Why did she even think of that?
“Cha Eun‑ha,” she said anyway. “Do you miss her?”
Her Insecurity or misunderstanding, this was bad for me.
“Of course not,” I said. “She tortured and locked me inside her basement like a dog.”
“Answer it,” she said.
Damn it. She won’t believe no matter what I say, truth or not.
The crowd whooped at a particularly pretty pattern. For a moment, their noise covered ours.
I looked at the fireworks.
“No, I don’t miss her. I miss the old me,” I said finally. “She represented that, at one point. The person I was before… before I lost my memories. My life. My work. My guild. My paycheck. Pretending to be a functioning adult.”
All lies but please work.
“And now?” she asked.
“Now when I think of her, I remember what she did to me,” I said. “And it just… ruins everything.”
Her fingers squeezed mine.
“That’s her fault,” she said. “I will heal that.”
She said it like a fact.
I didn’t argue.
Another volley went up.
For a few breaths, we both watched in silence.
Then she tugged my hand.
“Come,” she said.
“Where?”
“Somewhere quiet,” she said. “For us.”
That phrase should have been familiar.
I still went.
The lighthouse sat at the end of a stone pier, a pale tower against the dark sky. No tourists here. Just the slap of waves against the rocks and the faint echo of distant music from the festival.
The fireworks looked smaller from here. Further away. Less like falling stars, more like someone else’s problem.
We stopped near the base of the lighthouse, where the stone was damp and smelled like salt.
Yeonhwa let go of my hand.
For the first time that day, that felt wrong.
“Stand there,” she said, pointing to a spot a few steps from the edge.
“I’m not fond of specific instructions near suicide place,” I said.
“Just this once,” she said.
I did as she asked.
The sea was ink. No moon tonight. The only light came from the town behind us and the occasional flash from the fireworks.
She stood in front of me, hands at her sides. The wind tugged her hair loose, strands sticking to her lips until she brushed them away.
“I have something to say,” she said.
“Um, ,” I said.
“It is,” she said. “For me, not you.”
That made me shut up.
She took a small breath. Her shoulders rose and fell.
“I spent half my life chasing the light,” she said. “The other half… chasing you. And I never caught either one.”
Her mouth curved, but it wasn’t a smile.
“I thought I’d gotten used to it,” she said. “People like me belong in the dark. People like you deserve the light… and someone better than me.”
“You’re not—” I started.
She cut me off with a look.
“Then,” she went on, “one day you ”
She laughed quietly.
“I thought, ‘Finally. He came back to me, in the shadows, with me.’”
The laugh dried up.
“And then, just as I started to believe that,” she said, “you disappeared again. Back to her.”
The fireworks painted the edge of her jaw red for a second, then washed it out.
“I know you’re lying to me,” she said.
My stomach tightened.
She didn’t let me speak.
“When you say you picked me over her,” she went on, “when you talk about photos and aching hearts… I know it’s not the whole truth.”
“…Yet you don’t call me on it,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she said simply. “I care that when I hold out my hand, you take it. Even if your reasons are ugly.”
She reached into her pocket.
For a second, habit told me “weapon.”
She pulled out a small box instead.
Black. No logo.
My throat went dry for an entirely different reason.
“Yeonhwa,” I said.
“Don’t run,” she said. “There’s nowhere to go.”
She opened the box.
Not a diamond.
A ring of dark metal. Simple.
“I don't need the sun, Si-woo” she said softly. “I don’t need the World’s approval. I don’t need anyone to call me good.”
Her eyes met mine.
"I just need you. Just you. Here. With me."
"Some call me a villain," she whispered, twisting the ring in her fingers. "But for you, I'd be just a wife. Is that enough?"
The waves hit the rocks below, patient.
She looked down at the ring, then back up.
“Marry me, Si‑woo.”
The world narrowed.
Her. The ring. The edge of the pier.
If I said no, she might kill me.
If I said yes, I might still die, just slower.
Survival had an opinion.
I reached out.
Her fingers trembled when I touched the box.
“I—”
Something grabbed my ankle.
It was sudden.
The world tilted.
Stone vanished from under my feet.
I saw the sky spin.
The box flew from her hand. The ring popped out, bounced once on the pier, rolled toward the edge.
Her eyes went wide.
“SI‑WOOO—!”
As I was drowning, an image flashed the blurred shape of Yeonhwa at the edge, reaching. For a heartbeat, our hands were lined up, distance measured by water and bad timing.
The last thing I heard wasn’t “yes” or “no.”
It was her scream, tearing the night in half.
