After our hour is up and Sabina catches us sneaking out of the lodge but shrugs nonchalantly, we go our separate ways.
On my way back to my cabin, I spot the familiar dark brown hair of the boy I was previously being accused of smiling at in a certain way apparently. He's sitting in the canteen with some breadstick in one hand and his phone in the other, just casually munching and scrolling down his device.
After contemplating if I should head over to him, I throw my towel over my shoulders and curiously walk over there. Through the tables and chairs, I eventually make it to his table.
For the first few seconds, he doesn't notice the presence looming by the leg of his table until I sit down across from him. That's when he lifts his chin and his eyes meet mine. And when a brightness emits from his expression at the sight of me, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his dimples show and all, I have a hard time hiding my smile.
"Good morning," he sings, switching his phone off and pocketing it.
"Morning," I say back.
"A bit early to go swimming in the lake, no?" he muses curiously after looking me up and down, noticing my bare torso and towel.
"I did not go swimming in the lake. My friends and I sneaked into the jacuzzi in the lodge," I inform him.
He gives me a ponderous look.
"Not in a weird, pervy way as in to spy on the girls or anything like that. Savannah just banned all boys from the lodge so Taylor had to sneak us in."
With a look of amusement, he says, "You did not need to clarify that."
"Well, you gave me that weird look so I felt like I needed to clarify," I say blamelessly.
"I was just wondering why nobody informed me that there was a jacuzzi in the lodge," he explains and my mouth forms a silent 'oh'. "I would have loved to join you."
"Are you sure you would have been capable of staying above water level and not drowning like you did yesterday?" I ask him with a teasing smile.
Instead of answering my jesting, he grins at me with a glimmer of humour in his beautiful eyes and then he leans forward to courteously ask, "Did you get a good night's sleep?" interested to hear my response.
I don't think I've realised it until this very moment, but he is very well-mannered. He's the opposite of Dominic in every way.
So then why do I…
When I realise that I've been too quiet for too long, I blink myself out of my train of thought and hurriedly answer him, "Yeah, I did. The beds here are like sleeping on top of an angel that has embraced you in its wings."
Amused by my words, the sides of his lips tilt up. "Nice."
"I'm surprised you're already up and having breakfast. Don't tell me you're an early bird."
"No, I'm actually a really light sleeper and Richard's snoring immediately woke me up. I wish I was the type of person who could sleep through a thunderstorm."
"Unlucky."
"I should have asked you to be my cabin partner instead," he playfully says with his eyes twinkling mischievously.
"How do you know I don't snore as well?"
After taking a sip of his tea, he points his fork at me questioning, "Do you?"
With a grin tugging at the corners of my lips, I shake my head.
"Well, then there you have it. Even if you did snore, I don't think you could be as bad as Richard. That guy needs to get his sinuses checked, I swear."
We share another round of laughter.
"By the way, are you hungry?"
I shake my head from side to side, but still, he decides to hold his bread stick up to my lips, prompting me to take a bite. When I shake my head again, he promises me that it tastes really good.
Slowly, I open my mouth and sink my teeth into the bread, the strawberry jam staining my bottom, so I roll them into my mouth. And as I'm busy licking the jam away and masticating the bread in my mouth, I'm unaware of his stare until I unwittingly glance up and catch his heated gaze on me. My chewing grows slow and as usual, my eyes drink him in too.
All hell breaks loose in the pit of my stomach, and I don't need to wonder why. Either I suddenly need to take a fat shit or those are butterflies excitedly flapping around in there.
"Jesus, get a room."
Our stare breaks and I look up just in time to see Sabina who slides in the chair beside him.
Abashed to be caught in such a questionable moment, my neck grows flushed and because my entire upper body is on show, the embarrassment is apparent to everyone sitting at the table.
He tries to play it off by going back to scranning his bread and I play it off by awkwardly bringing my hand up to scratch the itch on the corner of my eyebrow. It's immediately apparent that out of the both of us he does a much better job at acting casual. I am terrible at trying to appear innocent no matter how often I may refer to myself as the king of guileless expressions.
"By the way," Sabina starts after spreading some butter on her toast, "where did you two go yesterday? Your canoe was just floating away in the lake. The instructor was so vexed at us."
"Seong Jin decided not to head back for it."
I explain while staring at him pointedly, "Yeah, I mean since your friend nearly drowned, I didn't think it was safe to swim back to the canoe."
"You nearly drowned?" she asks him, taken aback when he nods. "Wait, you can't swim?"
With a look of shame on his face, he responds, "No, I cannot."
"How come? Don't you have a swimming pool at your house?"
"That's what I said."
"I just never found the idea enticing. I never found myself wanting to swim. I was that kid who was satisfied just hanging his legs off the edge into the water."
"You never found the idea of learning something that could save your life enticing. What kind of masochistic freak are you?" she questions him playfully and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head with a soft smile making its way onto his lips.
"Hold on a second." He stands up out of his chair, the legs loudly scraping against the floor. "I'm going to go and get some more breadsticks from the till. I barely ate anything last night and I am marving."
When he asks me if I want anything, I politely shake my head no. If I feel the sudden urge to eat something this morning, I'll just eat the breakfast Dominic prepared. Besides, it was a bit rude of me to just leave while he was preparing said comestibles even though I truthfully don't like to eat breakfast.
As he is strolling over to the counter, my eyes follow him, except when I feel a stare on me, my eyes flicker over to meet Sabina's burningly curious gaze.
Even after getting caught staring confidently, she blinks up at me, and I notice that she looks like she's dying to know something, I have no doubt in my mind that she's going to ask me whatever it is she needs to be clarified. She doesn't seem like the sort of person who'd bite her tongue as opposed to asking someone something and possibly overstepping some boundaries.
"You know, Kai used to have feelings for me," she decides to drop that bombshell on me, and my eyes widen in shock.
While gnawing on the inside of my bottom lip, I murmur, "Really?"
An affirmative noise leaves the back of her throat and she crunches down on her toast. After swallowing, she adds, "He used to tell me how much he liked me almost every day."
Uncomfortably, I say, "Oh, uh… I had no idea."
"I mean, I doubt he'd ever want to speak to you about it."
Even though I want to ask why, I decide to keep my mouth shut.
"But then one day he just decided to stop confessing his feelings for me. It was so out of the blue, but I thought he finally got the message that I didn't feel the same way about him that he did about me."
The entire time she's speaking, I'm listening attentively and taking each word in with sincerity because I am genuinely interested. I'm interested in learning a bit more about Kai Singh from the person he's around most of the time, and the things he probably won't talk to me about as per her own words.
To be fair though, he did admit to me that he has liked five or six people. He even told me that he had been in love. Perhaps speaking about the individuals he has had feelings for requires us to build a bit more trust between us.
Through my peripheral vision, I sneak a glance over at him and already find his eyes on us. Softly, he smiles at me and waves. I smile back.
"But now I have a sneaking suspicion as to why he felt the need to stop telling me that he likes me," Sabina continues to talk whilst I'm still distractedly staring over into those heterochromatic eyes, heart racing a minute a mile.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Perhaps he stopped liking me and instead caught feelings for someone else before coming back from Shoreditch the night before Halloween last year. Especially after said person kissed him that very night."
With my eyes widening in astonishment at her words, I turn around so quickly that I'm surprised my neck didn't snap off cleanly. The knowing grin playing around the edge of her mouth makes it difficult not to read between the lines.