Second floor of the brick building.
Morning light spilled through the window, painting a soft, warm square onto the worn wooden table.

Steam drifted from the soup bowls.
Hard bread and sliced fruit sat ready.

The room was quiet; Jack was already gone.
The only sounds were the distant hum of the harbor and the faint metallic friction of the girl across the table moving her spoon.

Clink.
Clink.

Regular.
Cautious.

Pain stopped eating.
He watched the girl—Salt.
She kept her head down, carrying soup to her mouth with mechanical rhythm.
Her face was still as a pond without wind.

But the silence was deceptive.
Pain remembered the last two nights.
The stifled sounds from under the opposite blanket.
The sharp, trembling intakes of breath in the dark.

A stranger in a strange place, surrounded by foreign sounds and foreign people.

Pain had lain awake in the next bed, feeling the weight of that fear pressing against the room’s air.

She wasn’t crying now.
But the wire was tight.

Pain swallowed a spoonful of soup.
He kept his voice light, soft as the morning sun.

“Hey.”

Salt looked up.
Her eyes didn’t hold hostility, only a quiet assessment of the noise’s source.

Pain pointed to the window.
Beyond the frame, blue sky met the green curve of a ridge.

“Want to go out? The wind feels good.”

Salt’s gaze flicked between his fingertip and his face.
She tilted her head slightly, the meaning lost in the sounds.

Pain set his spoon down.
He smiled and lifted his hand.
He walked his index and middle fingers across the air.

“Let’s go. Outside.”

Salt’s eyes tracked the walking fingers.
Seconds of silence drifted by.

She lowered her gaze, staring at the table.
Then—slowly—she nodded.
A movement so small it barely registered.

No smile.
But no refusal.

Pain let out a long breath.
The tightness in his chest loosened.
He stood up and opened the door.

The hill behind the base rolled gently upward into the open sky.
A single, large broadleaf tree stood at the summit.

At its roots, short grass rippled in the breeze, and sunlight brushed the ground with warmth.

“Yeah. This is a good spot.”

Pain inhaled deeply.
The smell of salt water and green grass filled his lungs.

He shook out the linen sheet he had brought.
Snap.
The fabric caught the air, billowing into a white dome before settling softly onto the grass.

Pain straightened his posture.
He puffed out his chest, exaggerating the movement, and extended a hand with theatrical grace.

“Right this way.”

Salt’s eyes widened a fraction.
She stared at his face, then looked down at the sheet.
She stepped onto it and sat, hugging her knees.

Pain saw it then.
A flicker in her profile.
Not quite a smile, but the hard lines of her jaw softened.
The invisible knot holding her together had unraveled—just a millimeter.

Pain sat next to her.

“It feels… good here, right?”

No answer.
Only a comfortable silence settled between them.

The wind pushed through the branches.
The broad leaves rustled—a dry, soothing sawa-sawa.

Pain hugged his own knees, letting the words drift out like a monologue.

“Do you like it?”
“The wind is nice.”
“You look a little brighter than yesterday.”

Salt didn’t change her expression.
She simply stared toward the sea, toward the source of the wind.

Pain’s words reached her as texture—birdsong, rustling leaves, the low, calm voice of the boy beside her.
The boundaries melted.

Pain paused.
He looked at her profile.

“Oh, right. …I’m Pain.”

He tapped his chest with his thumb.
Salt looked up, startled.

Pain tapped his chest again, clearer.

“Pain.”

He smiled, turned his palm toward her, and tilted his head.

And you?

The wind died.
A vacuum of silence fell over the hill.

Salt’s eyes wavered.
She licked her lips and took a small breath.

“…Sa… l…”

A rasp.
A sound like dry leaves.

“…Salt.”

Pain’s eyes widened.
A spark lit in his chest.
It connected.

“That's a good name.”

Pain grinned.
He pointed to himself again, firmly.

“Pain.”

Then he pointed to her.

“Nice to meet you, Salt.”

The wind returned, stronger this time.
Whoosh.

The branches groaned.
A cloud of leaves spiraled into the air.
Green fragments and particles of light filled their vision.

The world drowned in the sound of the gale.

In the center of the wind, Salt opened her mouth.
The voice was lost to the roar.
But her lips shaped the word perfectly.

—Pain.

The soundless name rode the wind, sucked up into the blue sky.

In the pool of sunlight, their shadows stretched long and overlapped, merging into one.