Chapter 4
June
Dannie and I spent about an hour walking around George Town, trying to digest both the fish soup and the heavenly brown-sugar dessert with the odd green noodles.
I was amazed that this country wasn’t plagued by obesity.
These people were either blessed with good genes or the heat simply melted everything away.
Someone should really do a study on that.
We stumbled upon street art scattered across the old walls—some hidden in alleys, others surrounded by crowds waiting for their turn to take a picture.
One mural caught my attention: two kids laughing, a young girl in front carrying her little brother on an adult-sized bicycle.
The bike was real, welded to the wall, while the kids were painted behind it.
“What were you like as a child?” Dannie asked after snapping a picture of me beside the mural.
“Constantly bothering my brothers, making them play with me and Chloe,” I chuckled. Memories flooded back—when I was obsessed with Beauty and The Beast and made my brothers play the monsters. Except in my version, there was no love story. I was the hero who killed the beast and saved the village.
“What about you?”
The question hung between us, heavier than it should’ve been. I quickly added, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
He took a sip from his water bottle. “Like everyone else, I guess. Went to school, learned some stuff after school.”
“Oh, my mother made me learn a lot of stuff too,” I said, slowing my pace under the midday sun. “Violin, piano, ballet, swimming, painting… probably more I’ve already blocked out. Oh, and some kind of martial art.”
“Are you good at any of them?”
“Not really. Since I wasn’t good at any of them, by the time I got to high school, my mother made me focus on academics.”
“I did a lot of martial arts,” he said. “Not a lot of studying.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. I guess being able to protect yourself is kind of necessary in your line of work.”
The moment I said it, a chill ran down my spine. My nerves didn’t like that topic. My head screamed change the subject, but my mouth stayed open.
“It wasn’t always like this, though,” Dannie said quietly.
“What was it like?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
“I used to play, you know? Like other kids. My parents wanted me to have a normal life. We even moved to Shanghai, where nobody knew us. Away from… the triad scene.”
“You lived in Shanghai?” My voice rose before I could stop it. I already knew, deep down. I’d seen pieces of that truth before, but never wanted to look at them too closely. Anything that reminded me of Kai, I avoided like a wound that never healed.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did you go to school there?”
He nodded. “One of the best international schools. Everyone was nice—my teachers, my friends. Nobody knew about me, or what my family did.”
A faint smile curved his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
I understood more than I wanted to. As a teenager, I used to dread people finding out who my brothers were. The girls were obsessed—always asking about them, pretending to be my friends just to get closer. I never knew who to trust. That’s why Chloe was my best friend—my only true friend.
We’d known each other since we were toddlers. Sure, she’d had a crush on one of my brothers and ended up with another, but back then, I had no reason to doubt her friendship.
“I think I kind of get it,” I said softly.
“It was one of the happiest times of my life,” he said, voice low but clear over the hum of the late afternoon traffic. “Apart from the time when we were together.”
I glanced sideways. He wasn’t smiling. He didn’t have to—his eyes said everything.
That familiar weight of his gaze pressed against my skin like sunlight too close, too intimate.
I looked away, pretending to study the intricate colonial windows of a nearby shophouse, their peeling turquoise paint fading into years of heat and history.
“Why did you move back to Hong Kong?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
His voice thinned. “My family didn’t think we should stay after my kidnapping.”
I stopped walking. “Shit,” I whispered—just before it became literal. My sandal slid on something slick, and my balance wavered backward.
Strong hands caught me around the waist, pulling me upright. “Fuck, what was that?” Dannie grunted, steadying me as I flailed.
I blinked down—and groaned.
“Oh my God.”
It was exactly what I feared. Wet, gooey, fresh-from-the-street dog shit, glistening under the tropical sun like a bad omen wrapped in humidity.
“Thanks for the save,” I muttered, forcing a laugh as mortification flooded my cheeks. Relief and disgust fought for dominance on my face.
“I’m glad you didn’t fall,” he said, still holding onto me a beat longer than necessary.
“Yeah. Because landing in that pile would’ve been the highlight of my trip.”
A low, easy sound slipped from him, the kind of chuckle that always made me forget where I was. The kind of laugh that gave away more than words ever could.
The smell, however, was less poetic.
“That dog has a sense of humor,” I mumbled, shaking my foot uselessly in the air. “Probably mocking me for dating men who’ve been kidnapped. Maybe it’s karma.”
He raised a brow. “Karma?”
“Yeah. Lincoln was kidnapped a few years back and somehow ended up with the love of his life. You and Kai were taken before him. Maybe it’s like—” I waved vaguely at the offending pile, “—the universe’s way of telling me I have a type.”
“Men with traumatic backstories?”
“Apparently.”
He smirked. “At least you’re consistent.”
If I ever found that dog, I thought, I’d adopt it just out of spite. Give it a good life. Feed it well. Maybe it was just the universe’s twisted way of saying wake up.
Was it coincidence?
Or something more?
If I were religious, maybe I’d take it as a sign. A divine joke. A cosmic wink from above.
“Hey, you okay?” Dannie asked softly, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. His fingers lingered for just a second too long, grazing my temple.
Our eyes met. For a moment, the noise of the street faded—the scooters, the chatter, the sizzle of hawker woks in the distance.
I nodded, even though my heart wasn’t as steady as my head claimed.
The truth was, I wasn’t okay. Because I’d just admitted something I’d been denying for a long time—the quiet, unspoken connection between us. It had always been there, simmering beneath the surface, waiting for one wrong step to spill over.
Dannie saw through me in ways I wasn’t ready for. He always knew what to say—the exact words that slipped into the cracks of my heart and filled them, gently but completely.
With him, I didn’t have to pretend. I could be myself—the messy, tired, sometimes ridiculous version of me. No makeup, no filters, no forced smiles. I could even let my armpit hair grow if I wanted to.
If only things with Kai had been that effortless.
If only I didn’t have to second-guess his silences, or wonder if he truly knew me beneath the versions I presented.
I shook my head sharply. Don’t go there. Kai was the past. A shadow I’d already tried to leave behind. Like the bloodstained blouse I threw away at the airport—gone, but somehow still haunting me through that ridiculous “I heart Shanghai” souvenir T-shirt I bought to replace it.
Time heals, I told myself for the hundredth time. Time heals everything.
I looked back at Dannie, determined to change the subject, and forced a bright smile. “So,” I said, “where are you taking me next?”
He tilted his head, smirking. “You trust me enough to find out?”
“I’m trusting you not to lead me into another pile of dog crap,” I shot back.
He laughed again, that warm, unguarded sound that made my chest tighten for reasons I didn’t want to name.
As we kept walking, the late afternoon light began to fade, coating the cracked walls and neon signs in gold. The air smelled like spice and sea and something faintly sweet—like the start of something I wasn’t sure I was ready for, but couldn’t stop walking toward.
“I’m sorry to be a buzzkill,” Dannie muttered, chewing on the tip of his sunglasses while one hand clutched his stomach.
“Something wrong?”
His posture changed in seconds—from tall and confident to shrinking, his shoulders curling inward as if trying to contain the pain.
“You ate something bad?” I asked, frowning.
“Can’t be,” he said through a tight breath. “You ate the same thing, and you don’t look sick.”
I noticed the sheen of sweat gathering on his temples, how his jaw flexed as if holding back a groan. The lighthearted man who had teased me about my salad-making skills was suddenly gone, replaced by someone pale and strained.
“I wanted to show you a temple,” he said, voice thinner now. “It’s just a little further ahead.” The last words cracked, breaking into a small, mouse-like groan.
That was it—the point where concern overrode everything else.
“I don’t think so,” I said firmly. “Let’s go back.”
The word home slipped out before I could stop it. It hung between us, heavier than I intended. I hesitated, wondering if he caught it—if he noticed that I was no longer thinking of his apartment as his, but ours. The realization twisted something small but significant inside me.
“We’ll go back, and I’ll take a look at you, okay?”
His lips twitched in an attempt at humor. “Oh, we’re playing doctor now, huh?”
“Haha, very funny.” I crossed my arms, trying to mask my worry. “I bet it hurts to laugh, though.”
His head bobbed weakly, a shallow nod. The corner of his mouth lifted just enough to tell me he was still conscious of teasing me—and that he was probably downplaying how bad it really was.
“Come on,” I said softly, placing a hand on his arm. His skin was hot under my palm, his muscles taut with tension. “We’ll get you somewhere cool. You’re burning up.”