A Sulawesi Romance

Chapter 9

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Third Person POV

"Well?" Mr. Siwat prompted his son to respond to his question about how he was going to approach Gun regarding his leg cramps situation,

Mark shook his head, disappointment and frustration written all over his face. He knew from the get go that he did not stand a chance with Gun. If he could not even convince Gun to have lunch with him in his private suite, fat chance he had to convince him to accompany him during the night.

With a heavy sigh, Mark stood up from his father's office chair.

"It's alright, Dad," said Mark. "I will deal with my leg cramps the way I always have when they come unexpectedly in the night."

Mr. Siwat looked at his son with much concern. He did not want his son to suffer alone in the night when he had those episodes of leg cramps. They could indeed be very painful if not attended to immediately.

Then Mr. Siwat had an idea.

"Why don't you go to the medical center in the town and see if a doctor can prescribe something for it, some kind of preventive medicine," Mr. Siwat suggested.

"Yes, Dad, I think I will do that," Mark said with a heavy heart. He wondered if a doctor could also prescribe something to relieve a heartache.

Mark spent the rest of the day carrying out his usual villa responsibilities, making sure to keep out of areas in the villa that might make him come face to face with Gun. The sight of Gun being in close company with Berkah only served to deepen his pain.

Just as Mark had expected, he was awakened in the middle of the night by a painful episode of leg cramps. He tried to massage his affected leg. It was always his left leg that suffered from the cramps. It was rare that his right leg ever suffered from it and he wondered why.

He tried to reach as far as he could to massage the back of his left leg were the cramp was concentrated. He pressed his eyes tight as he massaged and massaged his leg until his fingers threatened to suffer from cramps as well. He closed his eyes so tight that some tears got squeezed out from the sides of his eyes.

Dawn was starting to break when he finally fell asleep. He decided before he fell asleep that he would travel to the center of town to see a doctor about his condition. He would probably prescribe some muscle relaxant pills.

= = = = = = = = =

"Wake up, sleepy head," Berkah shook Gun gently to awaken him. "You don't wanna be late in clocking in. We have a lot of work to do today."

Gun was tempted to hide under the blankets but he knew that it would be futile. Berkah could so easily scoop him out of bed and drop him into the shower stall.

As he let the steady spray of warm water wake him up fully to his senses, Gun tried to remember what it was that he and Berkah needed to attend to today.

He was rinsing off his shampoo when he remembered that Berkah was going to show him around the town's commercial center where they would buy the villa's supplies. Mark only traveled out of Sulawesi and into Jakarta if  the supplies they needed could not be found in the town's commercial district.

Right after breakfast, Berkah informed the receptionist that he and Gun were going to travel to town to replenish the stocks in the supplies room. If Mr. Siwat needed him, the receptionist  should let him know where he was.

Gun was happy and excited to be in a new environment. Berkah told him to memorize the streets and the way to get to town from the seaside resort so that next time Gun would be able to come to town by himself.

They went into the town's only supermarket. Berkah reached into his shirt pocket and took out the paper where he had written the items that needed to be bought.

Soon they were loading their grocery cart with assorted items including two jumbo boxes of laundry detergent that the housekeeping department had notified Berkah was urgently needed.

Berkah was driving the villa SUV back to the seaside resort when they passed by the town's only medical center.

Gun grabbed Berkah's arm, making Berkah almost lose his grip on the wheel.

Berkah turned his head in the direction that Gun was pointing. Berkah saw Mark limping out of the medical center building his face grimacing in pain.

What the hell was going on with Mark?