The next few days passed with Solan Elric maintaining a strict routine of low-profile living and high-grade awkwardness.
Every morning, he arrived to class on time. Took the same seat in the back corner. Perfect posture, zero eye contact. By now, he was practically a master at shielding his face with a water bottle, a folded handout, or his own elbow. Whenever the professor posed a question, Solan’s head would drop so fast to his notebook it was like playing dead—an ancient survival instinct: If I can’t see them, they can’t call on me.
But today, something threw off the equilibrium.
Aayush who smiled like he was perpetually filming a toothpaste commercial and had the patience of a Buddhist kindergarten teacher—looked… off.
They were in the middle of a lecture on oceanic thermal expansion. Professor Cummings was showing a slide of a creature that looked like an octopus crossbred with an emotionally unstable sea anemone. Solan was halfway through deciding whether to be disturbed or impressed—when he felt it. A flicker in the air beside him. Magnetic. Repetitive. Aayush’s eyes were twitching sideways at 30 frames per second. Toward the third row. Window side.
Elena Ivanova.
The Russian girl from the Harvard Contamination Genetics Initiative—according to Clara’s matter-of-fact roll call on day one. Also known, unofficially, as: the human embodiment of stage lighting.
She moved like her own camera crew followed her everywhere. Even on a damp, tilting deck full of tide monitors and salt-streaked cables, she could land ten-centimeter heels between safety zones with millimeter precision. When she turned her head, hair flipping just so, the ship’s camera drones sometimes glitched and reoriented without cause.
“Oh boy,” Solan muttered under his breath. His lips twitched. It didn’t take a genius. Aayush had clearly, deeply, irretrievably fallen.
And with that, Solan’s dormant skill tree activated:
Human Behavior Observation Mode: ON.
He ignored the dying coral reefs, the greenhouse simulations, and spent the next forty-five minutes logging every seismic shift of this unfolding microdrama.
—Elena twirled her pen. Aayush’s Adam’s apple jumped.
—She adjusted her shoulder strap. Aayush suddenly discovered an intense academic interest in disassembling his ballpoint pen.
—Most damning: when she casually answered “2.3 degrees Celsius” during a discussion about global collapse… he clapped. Audibly. At a climate doom lecture.
By minute twenty-eight, Solan had mentally storyboarded their entire future in a slice-of-life research romance manga. Title: Between Wind, Salt, and Heatwaves .
The bell rang. Solan rubbed his temples.
“Brother,” he muttered, “that radar of yours is about to interfere with the ship’s sonar.”
By day six of life at sea, while most passengers were adapting to the slow rhythm of waves and schedule, Solan had fully given up on being inconspicuous. He was now a dedicated field observer of Homo sapiens in Mating Display Phase.
And Aayush? Terminal. Morning muster? He’d accidentally align his route to pass Elena’s. Lunch? His tray always— always —landed within a ten-feet radius of hers, like orbiting a small star. Pen drop? Solan witnessed a dive so fast it violated basic fluid dynamics.
You’re supposed to be in a lecture, Solan thought, watching Aayush drift past Elena’s desk for the third time with the subtlety of a soap opera extra. Not auditioning for Survivor: Love Island – Open Ocean Edition.
Clara walked past then, arms full of freshly printed lab worksheets. Same steady gait. Same unhurried silence. She didn’t look at him. Not even once.
Sea wind slipped through the porthole, briny and tired. Solan exhaled, grateful for his corner seat—where classroom questions rarely reached, and the best view of humanity’s romantic malfunctions played out like clockwork.
The lighting was dim and heavy, the kind that stretched every shadow into a silhouette. Slow jazz oozed through the air like a lazy serpent, coiling into corners, curling around half-finished drinks.
At the bar, a few silver-haired passengers murmured over their whiskeys, the clink of melting ice crisp as falling glass. Karen sat alone in the far corner, framed like a portrait left unfinished. Dark gown. Straight shoulders. Back against the porthole. She traced invisible circles along the rim of a soda water glass. No lemon. No alcohol. Just carbonated silence, rising and breaking in small, disciplined bursts.
“You don’t think the cocktail menu here’s a bit… conservative?” The voice cut in from behind her left shoulder—familiar, amused, and thoroughly unwelcome.
William Grasse had arrived without warning, as always. The flamingo-print shirt he wore looked like an act of violence in this light—neon tropical chaos beneath the golden jazz haze. His drink glowed an unnatural green, like someone had liquefied a rainforest and dared him to swallow it.
“Vice President.” Her eyes didn’t even lift from her glass. “Your taste in clothing is as inscrutable as your sense of humor.”
“And your paranoia,” he replied smoothly, lowering himself into the seat across from her, “is as flavorless as your drink.”
He moved with the confidence of someone playing a game whose ending he already knew. “A Defense Ministry elite, drinking soda water? No garnish? Not even ice?”
Karen finally looked up. “You following me?”
“You’re hard to miss.”
William drummed a light rhythm on his glass, casual and precise. “Navy blue evening gown, the seat farthest from the entrance, and that drink…” He leaned in, inspecting. “Warm soda. Ascetic. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were here for penance.”
“I thought you were on vacation.”
“Vacation and surveillance (civil duty) aren’t mutually exclusive.” He blinked slowly. His lashes caught the light like tiny wires.
Their eyes met—brief contact, sharp and quiet. “What’s your opinion on the Drakespawns?” she asked suddenly.
His smile didn’t twitch. “That depends. Are you looking for a biology lecture? Strategic analysis? Or...” His voice dipped, “A retired intelligence director’s unfiltered opinion?”
“Whichever version’s less boring.”
He spun the glass between his fingers. “Sometimes, knowing too much shortens your expiration date.”
Karen nodded once. Could’ve been agreement. Could’ve been contempt. She stood, her dress slicing through the air with a soundless chill. “You didn’t come here to drink.”
As she passed him, her voice was soft enough to cut steel. “Try not to make the performance so clumsy.”
William raised his glass behind her fading silhouette. “And you? Here to watch me watching you?”
The hallway swallowed her whole. As if she'd never been there.
The Vice President stared into the radioactive green mess in his cup. Then, without warning, tossed the whole thing back in one rough swallow. His throat worked once, hard. His expression twisted. “Goddamn. That’s foul,” he muttered, half to the empty chair across from him.
And then, without hesitation, slid the glass forward to the bartender.
“Another.”
“Got ‘em!” Solan Elric slammed the coupon he got onto the bar like a amature dealer hit 21. The plastic card spun across the counter, skidding to a stop next to two crumpled cocktail vouchers.
“Two Blue Dolphin specials. I was there the second they dropped—three p.m. sharp.” He was breathing like he’d just raced the ship’s engine room uphill.
The bartender glanced at the coupons with the dead-eyed indifference of someone who’d seen too many student promotions and not enough tips. “These expired.”
“What?”
“Valid until 8:00 tonight.” He gestured lazily at the crooked wall clock with a lemon-slicked finger. 8:03.
There was a beat of silence.
Then the bartender’s mouth split into a grin missing a tooth. “But hey… credit for effort.”
Which is how they ended up in the shadiest corner of the White Foam , the cruise ship’s least celebrated bar—tucked deep in the lower decks like a regret someone forgot to seal properly.
The lighting flickered in shades of dying firefly. Even the shadows looked sticky.
“Bro…” Aayush poked at the condensation forming on his cup like it was suspicious bacteria. “Are you sure we can drink alcohol on this ship?”
“If we weren’t, we’d be pinned under security guards by now instead of sipping Siren’s Tears .” Solan swirled the cocktail. It glowed faintly green, like regret mixed with reactor fluid. The ice cubes rattled with an almost personal sting. “Allegedly contains real seawater.”
Aayush took a sip. His entire face contorted like a dried-up sea star.
“This tastes like—”
“Disinfectant and blue dye? Yeah.”
Solan collapsed into the rusting iron chair, the paint flaking off like old sunburn.
“But it’s free. And when you’re broke, ‘free’ tastes like Michelin.”
A jukebox in the corner coughed and died mid-song. One of the passengers was using his necktie to polish his shoes. The bathroom door behind them didn’t even pretend to latch anymore.
Aayush leaned in suddenly, eyes reflecting the eerie glow of his drink.
“Okay, tell me I’m not crazy—but when she said ‘interesting’ during the feedback session, she looked at me. For, like, three full seconds.”
“You mean Elena.”
Solan didn’t even blink. His gaze was fixed on the wilted lemon slice sinking at the bottom of his glass.
Of course he knew who Aayush meant.
“…How’d you know?” Aayush stammered, caught.
“Lucky guess,” Solan replied.He wasn’t about to admit that he recognized the tone. That dumb flutter of hope. That desperate little need to believe someone saw you.
Aayush lit up like Solan had just passed some secret rite. “I knew you were good at this! You gotta teach me. I need, like… mentorship.”
“Man,” Solan sighed. “I brought you here for a pity cocktail, not to start a doctoral thesis on Love Under Pressure: A Field Study .”
But Aayush had already leaned in, whispering like they were plotting an inter-deck heist.
“She said—and I quote—‘your energy curve is very unusual.’”
“… pretty sure she was talking about your lab results.”
“I think it was a compliment. About my metabolism.”
Solan massaged his temple like he was trying to forcibly shut down parts of his brain. “Are you being serious right now?”
Aayush’s straw was spinning in his glass like a miniature whirlpool. “You think… I have a chance?”
That question landed with the soft, lethal weight of something personal. Solan blinked. His mind didn’t go to Elena. Or Aayush. It snapped—like a rubber band—to a message half-written, never sent. To a hallway shadow. To the shape of someone standing in the light at the corridor’s end. To that ache lodged in his chest like a bad signal that never quite went through.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked at Aayush, who was still waiting—half lit, half hope, half idiot. *Do I have a chance? *God. He wanted to ask someone that, too.
“…How would I know.” He twisted his straw into something that looked like a failed knot.
“Come on, be honest with me.” Aayush was chewing on his own straw now, gaze unrelenting.
“Did she reject you or something?”
Solan didn’t lift his head. “…Who?”
“Clara, man. Clara Vale.” Aayush said it like it was obvious.
“You two used to be tight, right? I saw you in the same disaster response elective back at the academy. She even signed you in one time.”
There was the briefest hitch in Solan’s hand. The rim of his glass paused against his fingers. “That was because I had a concussion that day,” he said.
“She brought you Stabilin, too.”
“She brought it to other students,” he mumbled, almost inaudibly.
“I’m just curious,” Aayush said gently, stirring his drink. “You act like you’re dodging her. But she doesn’t dodge you.”
“I dodge nuclear fusion, too. And subpoenas from the Enforcement Bureau.”
Solan shrugged. “You like her.”
Aayush bit down softly on his straw, watching him. “…I like sleep. Is that allowed?”
Solan’s voice didn’t waver, but his hand betrayed him—the drink in his fingers spun faster, bubbles bursting like static under his fingertips. “You don’t look at her the way you look at anyone else.”
*Now you can read people's mind? *“I look at a lot of people weird. For example, right now I’m looking at you like you’re a social disaster countdown timer.”
“Why don’t you just talk to her?”
“Because I don’t want to end up in someone’s bioethics thesis as the case study for poor decision-making under emotional duress.”
Solan stood up, too fast. “Alright, this one’s on me. I’m heading back. Got a Kamuy stability panel discussion tomorrow—gotta keep up the illusion I understand any of it.”
Aayush didn’t chase him. Just looked down and murmured,
“She actually… seems to care about you.”
Solan didn’t respond. He walked out into the corridor, the door swinging shut behind him as wind rushed in like a breath held too long. His shirt clung to his back. The night pressed close.
He had the urge to delete that old draft for good. Instead, he opened the message window again. Typed one line under the unsent text:
Have you been sleeping okay lately?
Then erased it. The blinking cursor remained. Alone on the screen. Pulsing. Like a lighthouse signal waiting for an echo that wasn’t coming.
Solan Elric had picked this corner of the ship to escape human weather systems—no collisions, no forecast of awkward. But Aayush arrived like a storm surge of emotion, dragging with him two leaking gel pens, a tissue crumpled like a misfolded sea chart, and a face that could barely contain the static inside it.
“I need to write something,” Aayush said, tapping the table in what could generously be described as Morse code. “Not like, cringe pickup lines—more like… an academic prelude. You know? Like the intro paragraph to a thesis.”
“Sending false signals to enemy radar?” Solan stared up at the ceiling with the glassy detachment of a man spiritually elsewhere.
**“Exactly!” Aayush whispered like he was betraying state secrets. “What do you think of starting with, ** ‘Ever since I first met you...’ ?”
“That’s like doing tap dance on the self-destruct button.”
Solan snatched the napkin and scrawled near an old grease stain:
Your question about the energy reclamation system was really thought-provoking.
Aayush gawked.
“You remember what she asked?”
**“Doesn’t matter if I do. What matters is **she thinks you did.”
Solan added another line, fluid as sleight of hand:
Would love to hear your thoughts on multi-stage storage conversions.
“This is... hardcore.” Aayush hovered his pen over the napkin like it was a sacred relic. “Won’t she think I’m trying to schedule a team meeting?”
“It’s called academic icebreaking. Very advanced.”
“Has it ever worked?”
Solan’s handwriting faltered. Just a flick of hesitation, but enough to tilt the tide.
The sea outside dipped slightly along the horizon.
“…A friend tried it once,” he said. “Didn’t end well.”
That “friend” had watched his own reflection in a library window one winter, radiator heat making the air shimmer. Clara had leaned close to explain Stabilin metabolic variance, her hair brushing across his annotated report. He’d panicked and asked about Ordozyme recombination rates.
She answered—kind, thorough, precise.
He thought that meant something.
He later realized it didn’t.
**That wasn’t flirting. That was submitting a term paper to **Romance 101 with no name on it and wondering why no one graded it.
“You spaced out again.”
Aayush snatched the napkin.
“Calculating your casualty odds,” Solan replied dryly, folding the paper into a wind-resistant square. “Deliver and evacuate. No lingering.”
“Why?”
“Because waiting on the deck is like a beached whale hoping the tide’ll carry it home.”
He paused.
“Too obvious.”
Aayush clutched the napkin like a holy artifact. “You’re a genius. A seasoned romantic strategist.”
Solan turned toward the window, didn’t answer.
He didn’t tell Aayush he’d once waited outside the library for forty minutes just to walk home with someone who didn’t notice. Didn’t say that he’d drafted a thesis-style acknowledgment page that no one would ever read, let alone receive.
In the glass, two seagulls skimmed the waves.
One of them, mid-flight, let go of a fish.