The protector

China - Pad Thai

The Great Wall – day three

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Mutianyu was just a little more than one hour from Beijing. Touristy – being in winter the probabilities that they wouldn't have met anyone were high tough – but at the same time quite wild. Plus: it had a bonus. There were a cable car to go up which they didn't care for, and, wonder of wonder, a roller coaster with a toboggan to go down. (1)

It was still night when In-ah had steered him out of the door. The touristic bus not working in winter, they had had to call a private car – "more probabilities for us to be alone," she had commented, and he had had to turn his face to the window or she would have seen him giggling. And night was when the car had left them at the beginning of their trekking.

"Don't you want to stop?"

"Why? Let'..." but a shake of his chin had the woman stop. In-ah had put her arms around his waist, "yes, I really want to see it with you."

The sun rose enlightened a snuggled couple, the pale stone, the uneven path of the Wall revealing to their eyes. Dawn always was their thing, since the times when In-ah didn't allow him to stay for the night – or when she allowed him, but he knew she didn't really want to sleep with someone – and he waited till almost dawn to leave her bed, riding his bike in the lighting up city, wondering if he had remembered to close the curtains or the light would have awakened her. And then, once he was in his own bed, it was he the one who was unable to sleep because she didn't want to leave his thoughts.

"Are you ready pianist?" The hot breath of the elf had felt deliciously cosy on his cheek, fighting the icy mountain air.

"Is this the reason why you wanted that glass wall In-ah?" His finger had playfully rubbed the tip of his nose. "To see the dawn?"

"Just three days to understand it, it's a record for you. Are you maybe becoming smart Jeong Hyeok?"

"It would be easier for me to understand when you want to be romantic if you wouldn't act any time like a pirate."

"Have I been pirate through these days?"

"Ani."

"So?"

There would have been a moment in his life, when he would have thought that it would have been better for him to only know the pirate, and not that soft kitten too. But on that morning the pianist still ignored it.

"So now I can recognize if you're doing something romantic, just need from 24 to 72 hours." The man had turned his glance to her. "In-ah."

"Oh."

"You've really been. Romantic. If I would have known, I would... you always do a lot for us. Much more than me." If he would have known that romance would have been allowed on that trip, he would have prepared something more than a fancy dinner. Something romantic, maybe he could have asked Ju-meok what women considered romantic, yes, he would have definitively known it.

No, sure – she had thought – you never do anything for me. Except always looking at her as if she was his personal miracle and other insignificant things like that.

Used to not receive fondness - and grown up educating herself to not care about it - it was difficult for her to catch the signs of it. If she was having her coffee alone, and a ray of sun enlightened the cup, she could even find herself in tears for the beauty of the moment. But if someone did something for her, most of the time she missed it, whether it was a small or big thing. Like, very big. Like that time when her husband had bought a penthouse with exactly the wooden terrace she had always dreamed, and her reply had been "uhm."