The alarm bells immediately went ringing in Aera's head. She immediately whirled around and stared in disbelief at what Kai was doing--dangling her precious camera above the water. "Don't you dare!" she yelled.

At that moment the loud horn from one of the cargo ships in the distance rang out, distracting Kai for a split second. Spotting her chance, Aera made a forward lunge in a desperate attempt to retrieve her camera from his hand, but before she could even touch her camera, her sudden action gave Kai enough of a shock to cause his hand to slip. 

And the camera dropped into the sea with an anti-climatic "plop". 

The both of them stood there in stunned silence for a good minute or so, staring at the ripples on the surface of the water where the camera had vanished. 

Sensing that he was in trouble, Kai cleared his throat and said, "Well... That was an accident. I'll pay for a new camera. And you don't need to pay me back for the coffee and croissant anymore." 

The next thing to happen shocked him even more than Aera's sudden lunge and dropping the camera into the sea, because for the first time in his life he received one tight slap to the face. What was even more surprising was that before he had time to react to the sting on his left cheek, Aera had shouted, "You jerk! You can pay for a new camera but can you pay for the memories that I've lost?" And then she jumped straight into the water, disappearing beneath the waves. 

"Is that woman insane?" Kai muttered incredulously to himself. "Does she actually think she can get the camera back?" Staring at the ripples she had created, he waited for her to surface again so that he could tell her off for slapping him in the face. For an ordinary human, holding your breath underwater for more than two minutes was already a considerable feat, so when his watch went past the three minute mark with still no sign of her breaking through the water surface, he began to get a little worried.

Seeing no other option, Kai sighed and dived into the water.  

Although he had been sailing the seas for years, he hadn't actually been in the water ever since that fateful day fifty years ago. The cool sensation of the saltwater against his skin felt strangely distant and unfamiliar, but it didn't take him long to regain his senses--after all, it was in a dragon's nature to be one with the ocean. The waters around the pier were not deep and it wasn't difficult for him to dive all the way to the sea floor, but there was no sign of Aera anywhere. Searching in the vicinity, he finally spotted an odd rainbow glimmer about ten metres away from his current position.

Having dived into the sea in search of her camera, Aera's foot had become trapped between some debris and she couldn't get it to come loose no matter how hard she tried. In the initial moments the fear and panic overcame her completely and she felt herself slowly suffocating, up till the point when she blacked out completely. In the darkness, her mind was still calling out for help, but who would save her in this dire situation?

Kai swam towards that glimmer of light, and as he got nearer he noticed the pendant that hanging off Aera's neck, bobbing peacefully in the water. 

Isn't that a dragon scale? he wondered as he eyed the pendant curiously. Could it be... No it couldn't. If that was mine then I should be able to sense it, but I'm not sensing anything even though it's so close by. Brushing those thoughts out of his head, he dislodged Aera's foot from the debris and wrapped an arm round her neck, pulling her unconscious self back up to the surface.

Lying her down on the pier, he shook her shoulder and asked, "Hey, are you alright? Can you hear me?" 

There was no reaction.

"She can't be dead right..." he murmured, wondering if he had gone and gotten himself into another pickle. Placing two fingers against her neck, he heaved a sigh of relief when he detected a faint pulse. Seeing that there was no one around, he placed one hand over Aera's heart, thinking that transferring a little of his energy should be able to revive her--to his dismay, there was still no reaction from her even after he tried the transfer for a full minute.

Puzzled, he wondered if it was because he hadn't used his dragon abilities for such long time that he had become rusty.  

Regardless of what the reason was, a failed attempt was a failed attempt, and Aera was still lying unconscious in front of him. Even though she was still alive, he knew that there was a chance that she might not make it if she continued remaining in this state for an extended period of time.

"Of all the times for there to be no one around," he muttered, looking around the quiet pier. Sighing, he grappled with his own inner struggle for another thirty seconds before finally deciding that there was no other option but to resort to the traditional human way of rescuing someone who had almost drowned. Tilting her chin upwards, Kai pinched her nose and took a deep breath, before bending over and placing his lips directly over hers. With one breath, he transferred as much air from his lungs to hers as he possibly could. 

For someone who hadn't had physical contact with anybody for fifty years, this sort of interaction with a girl he had just met was incredibly uncomfortable, and at the moment when their lips touched, Kai could feel his heart pounding in his chest. 

Straightening himself up quickly, he gave her three quick compresions to the abdomen to force out the water she had swallowed--nothing happened. 

Kai's brows furrowed up in frustration at the lack of a response, and he had no choice but to lower himself once more to give her another breath of air.  This time, just as their faces were millimetres apart, Aera opened her eyes and stared straight into his own blue-grey ones. 

Before he could react, there was yet another sharp sting delivered to his face--this time to the right cheek instead of the left.

"What the hell do you think you are doing! Pervert!" Aera shrieked, choking out several mouthfuls of water as she did so. Her immediate reaction was to sit up, and this sent her forehead crashing right into Kai's. 

"Are you crazy?" Kai shouted back, rubbing his sore forehead ruefully. "I saved your life! Shouldn't you be thanking me instead of hitting me?" 

"If you hadn't snatched my camera away, would I have had to jump into the sea? And you still try to steal my first kiss after that?" 

"It was just a freaking camera! I already said I would pay for a new one--no one asked you to jump in!" 

Aera stood up and glared angrily at the man who was sitting on the pier with a bump appearing on his forehead. Eyes brimming with tears, she said, "I already said, it's not about the camera. It's about the memories. Once you lose memories, you can never get them back again." Picking up her bag, she turned on her heels and went running down the pier, wanting to get as far away from this place as possible.

Seeing her silhouette disappear in the distance, Kai shook his head, thinking that this entire encounter was just plain bad luck. Picking himself off the ground with a huff, he dragged his drenched self back to his yacht.