Chapter 38

# Day 12 - 17:43

Zhao found the shower empty, the drain already clogged with a fistful of someone else's hair. The water was cold, even for ocean standards, but that was the point. He let it beat the salt and sex and engine grease off his skin, then dressed in the first shirt that didn’t smell of fish. Down the corridor, past the echo of his own wet footsteps, he found the air deck deserted. The sky was fire, orange bleeding into purple, the sun lolling at the horizon like a bomb that had given up on detonation.

Vivienne sat where she has found him this morning, at the aft deck just above the waterline, feet bare and knees pulled to her chest. Her hair was down now, a riot of gold in the wind. If she’d been crying, she’d wiped it away so cleanly that only the pink at her eyelids betrayed the effort. She looked unbreakable and small at once.

He nearly turned around. She saw him anyway. “Evening,” she said, voice flat.

“Evening,” he echoed, and regretted the repetition immediately.

He started to set up the fishing rod—something to do with his hands, a defense mechanism more than a hobby. He fumbled with the leader, tied a knot wrong, had to start over. Vivienne watched him for a while, head cocked, then let her gaze drift to the water.

She didn’t offer to help, but when he sat on the deck beside her she scooted closer, so their knees brushed. The ship’s hull sang beneath them, a resonance that was both physical and somewhere in the blood.

She kissed his cheek, quick and dry, then let her head rest on his shoulder. It was not a come-on, not a ritual, just gravity pulling two lonely masses together.

For a while, neither of them spoke. He swung the lure over the side, letting it splash down near the hull. The reel clicked steadily as the ship's momentum pulled line, the distance growing between them until he was satisfied. With a practiced thumb, he locked the reel. Behind them, the lure skipped and bubbled through the surface tension, dancing erratically in their wake like a wounded fish searching for its school.

Vivienne spoke first. "So. Did you catch anything?" She glanced at the lure he'd cast barely thirty seconds ago, still skipping across the surface.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Not unless fish have learned to teleport." He watched the lure spiral and stall. "Give it time."

“Maybe you’re scaring them off,” she said, a trace of her old mischief sneaking into the words.

“Maybe.” He let the reel click a few times, then locked it again. He looked at her. “Are you… okay?”

She inhaled, held it, exhaled through her nose. “I thought if I researched enough, if I planned it out, I could make it matter. I’d impress you, or at least not make a fool of myself.”

He said, “You didn’t—”

“I did,” she interrupted. “You know how many hours I spent prepping? Reading manuals, watching videos, mapping out the psychology. And I just… fell apart anyway.” She pressed her temple against his shoulder, eyes closing. “It was all for nothing.”

He didn’t know how to answer. Instead, he fidgeted with the reel. “That’s not true,” he said.

She ignored him. “You treat people like people. I tried to treat Kim like a job. Like if I hit the right sequence she’d unlock and then everything would go back to normal.” Her voice caught, then steadied. “But people aren’t puzzles, are they?”

He shook his head. “They’re not. I tried that at first, too.”

Vivienne turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “Really?”

He shrugged. “You know my first day? They gave me a list. A literal checklist. I followed every step, and it almost broke me. Then I realized the checklist was bullshit.”

She smiled, the real one. “So what’s your new protocol?”

He thought about it. “I just try not to make it worse.”

Vivienne laughed, then let it fade into something softer. “You ever get used to it?” she asked. “The stakes?”

He was silent for a while, watching the sun stall at the horizon. “No,” he said, finally. “But with practice, you get better at walling off the part of you that cares. Otherwise you drown in it.”

She nodded, as if she’d known that all along but needed to hear him admit it.

“You’re different now,” she said. “You’ve changed.”

He watched his own hand flex, the knuckles whitening. "Yeah. I think I'd hate myself two weeks ago." His mind drifted to Aida's patient guidance, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she'd corrected his technique, her fingertips warm against his wrist as she'd adjusted his grip.

Vivienne shifted, uncurling her legs and letting her toes skim the deck. “Do you like yourself now?”

He stared at the horizon where the sun had been. "I don't know." His voice caught. "Sometimes I think about what it would be like to just... hold someone's hand at a movie theater. Or argue about what to make for dinner." He swallowed. "But every time I let myself want that, I remember—if I stop, someone else dies. That's the whole math now."

She reached for his hand, interlacing her fingers with his. “I think you like being the center of the world.”

He shook his head, smiling. “I’m not. None of us are. This is just… a new world. With new rules.”

She squeezed his hand, not letting go. “What rules are you making?”

He let himself imagine it for a second. He stared at his own reflection in the darkening water. The words caught in his throat, half-formed and raw. He opened his mouth, closed it, then finally managed, "No more..." but the rest dissolved into the space between them. His chest tightened with something urgent and unnameable—trust trying to take shape, care without vocabulary. His fingers twitched against hers as if they might spell out what his voice couldn't. All he knew was that in this broken world, these women were what remained of humanity—and whatever it took to keep that flame alive, he would do it, even if he had to navigate each crisis blindfolded.

Vivienne looked at him, blue eyes fierce and clear. “You know you can tell me anything.”

He nodded, feeling something tight in his throat.

“I care about you,” she said. “I want to be in your story. Even if it’s just a footnote.”

He wanted to say more, but the words knotted in his chest. Instead, he looked down at her hand in his, traced the ridges of her knuckles with his thumb.

Her voice softened. "You and Aida..." She let the words hang between them like a question mark. He opened his mouth, closed it again, his throat suddenly dry as sand. The truth was there, buried under layers of obligation and desire, but he couldn't excavate it, not even for her.

Vivienne pulled her knees back up, folding herself small again. “Is it always going to be this complicated?” she asked, voice barely audible.

He answered, “Probably. But I can try to make it less bad.”

She laughed, then wiped at her face again, this time not caring if he saw.

She looked down at her hands, then back up at him. "Would you let me try again? With the treatment, I mean. I know I messed up before, but—" She stopped herself, waiting.

He smiled, gentle but tired. "Yeah. I trust you."

She stood, brushing off her skirt, then offered him her hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s watch the sunset. It’s the only thing on this ship that doesn’t judge.”

They stood right at the edge, side by side, his arm around her waist. The sun was gone now, the sky a deep cobalt, the only light from the ship’s LEDs and the faint, phosphorescent wake.

She let her head rest on his shoulder again. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For not making me feel stupid,” she said. “For not pretending.”

He didn’t answer, because anything he said would be a lie or a joke, and she deserved neither.

They stayed like that, watching the darkness swallow the horizon, until the wind picked up and the cold drove them back toward the warmth of the inside decks.

At the threshold, they found Aida waiting, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed too tightly across her chest. She took one look at them, her eyes lingering on where their hands had just been joined, then quickly flicking away. The smile she offered trembled at its edges before settling into something that didn't reach her eyes. She blinked twice, rapidly, before nodding at Vivienne with a gentleness that betrayed her.

She didn’t say a word, just nodded and turned back inside.

Vivienne let go of Zhao’s hand, almost flinching at the loss. She walked past Aida, then turned back at the last second.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice clear and steady. “I didn’t mean—” She faltered, then shook her head. “No, that’s not true. I did mean it. But I’m still sorry.”

Aida shrugged, a queen dismissing a courtier. “Don’t apologize. We all need something to hold onto.”

Vivienne smiled, then wiped her face one last time and disappeared down the corridor, shoulders set and steps growing surer with every stride.

Zhao stood alone in the cold, watching the black water churn in their wake.

He knew tonight would be worse.

He also knew he’d show up, anyway.