Winter Hearts

Walk

Siana awoke with a start, feeling smothered by her sheets. She sat up and peered into the half darkness at Min, who slept peacefully in her bed. The sun had not yet risen but she could see the light of dawn through the hotel curtains. She felt she couldn't sleep anymore, so she got up, washed up and tugged on some warm clothes. She left quietly, texting Min that she was going out, and took the stairs a couple of flights down to the lobby.

Once outside, she stopped to breathe in some cold morning air. While not exactly fresh countryside air, it was dewy and revitalising, and she set off walking down the street.

Athenian pavements were sometimes wide and pedestrian friendly, other times ridiculously constricted, and often covered with either pigeon or dog shit, so she kept her eyes down for a while, heading for a small playground in the area. Their hotel was situated near the underground metro, where they had only taken a couple of stops to get to Monastiraki the night before. She passed by the entrance, noting that small street coffee and breakfast vendors were already opening their shutters and warming up their coffee machines.

At the playground, she found a bench and sat down, leaning her head back and looking up at the lightening sky.

She could hear the bustle of city commuters and of waking households around her, but other than that, the street was quiet.

She pulled her phone out and looked through her messages and phone calls. There was nothing from Taekwoon, but then she was expecting that there wouldn't be, yet.

As they had separated the night before, he had given her a quick kiss on the cheek and said he would call her in the morning and that she should not think too much about what happened and rest well. HE had squeezed her hand and made her promise him not to think on it too much, which she found a little odd. Then he had kissed her again on her forehead and let go her hand before turning and leaving quickly with Kkomae.

Siana sighed, putting the phone back in her pocket and leaning her head back again.

After Mark had fallen over, the bouncer had sprung forward and helped him up, roughly grabbing each of his friends by the collar and telling them to go sober up by the kerb. The aide from the embassy had come forward as N came and gently lead Leo towards Kkomae.

With some quick talking in Greek, the aide had pretty much gotten a statement from the bouncer that Mark had attacked first, and that Leo was defending himself.

Defending me, she thought despondently. She couldn't help feeling she was the source of all the disruption, although she knew she had not caused it.

The bouncer agreed to go with the aide to make a police report in the morning, but that didn't seem to make Kkomae happy - in fact, he seemed more agitated. Siana realised now that any sort of record of the event might not be to their advantage. But then, she thought it was important that they got the bouncer's statement on record now rather than later.

Mark. She wondered if he might have behaved better if she had treated him a little differently back when she had met him on the flight.

She shook herself, not liking how her thoughts were going. She hadn't treated him any differently from anyone else that day. And she didn't cause him to be drunk or to think that it was alright for him to target her in any way.

But she felt that Leo might not have reacted the way he did if it wasn't for her, and she didn't want the repercussions of his actions to hurt him, or the boys.

Then again, she thought, I didn't make him punch Mark in the gut. Like a hero. Like a warrior. She giggled suddenly, tucking her chin into her chest and shaking her head. She felt stupidly girlish, ridiculously proud of herself and of him. Also very confused and suffering an anxious stomach and rattled nerves.