The Double

𝒯𝒽𝒾𝓇𝓉𝓎-𝒯𝓌𝑜

Maybe later.

Finally, I check for the umbrella that must come with the room because I know rich people don't have to remember to bring things like that when they travel. I only have one so I knock on Duna's door. Ira answers and waits for me to speak.

"Do you have any umbrellas?" I ask. "Taehyung and I are going on a date so I need two."

Her face freezes. "Pardon?"

"Not a date," I rush to explain. "A walk. It's not a date-date. Do you think Duna will be mad?" I can't ask if she and Ira want to come because we can't be together.

"Excuse me?"

She shuts the door in my face. I stand there, shocked. Ira is never rude. Cold, yes, even abrupt, but never rude. Then the door opens and Ira hands out an umbrella.

"Oh, thanks," I say. "Uh, everything's good?"

"Have a nice day." This time she waits until I turn to shut the door.

I let it go—Ira is an eternal mystery to me—and go to meet Taehyung.

"Where are we going?" He takes the umbrella I hand him. I realize Taehyung doesn't have many surprises in his life—everything is scheduled—and decide to make him wait to know.

"You'll see."

It's a twenty-minute walk, and Taehyung badgers me about our destination the entire way, laughing when I give him increasingly silly locations.

"The elevator at the end of the world?" he repeats. "You just said it was the invisible shopping center."

"Could be the pioneer village near the underpass." He gives me a doubtful look, since this could be real place. "Kidding, the pioneer village is further east. We're here."

"The ferry terminal? We're taking a ferry?" He lights up.

Taehyung is excited to get on the ferry as I've ever seen him or any person. As predicted, hardly anyone is going over to the islands in this weather, and Taehyung relaxes a bit under his umbrella, holding it high to read the signs.

"Do we want Centre Island, Ward's Island, or Highan's Point?" he asks.

"Highan's has the nudist beach."

He wiggles his eyebrows at me. "I'm game if you are."

"You're wearing a face mask and a hat so low you look like the invisible man in disguise," I say. "You expect me to believe you'd go to a nudist beach? Where the entire point is to be naked?"

"Well, I doubt they'd be looking at my face."

Don't look down. Don't look down. I keep my eyes straight. "We're going to Centre Island."

The ferry arrives in a few minutes. Taehyung climbs the staircase to the upper level and leans over the side, breathing in deeply. "I love the smell of water," he says.

"Ocean or river?"

"Ocean but rivers are fine. I have properties on both." He catches my glance. "Grossly overindulgent to have multiple homes?"

"You know it is."

"They're investments. I rent them out."

"Slightly better."

The ferry starts moving and Taehyung grins into the wind, his capitalist spirit silenced by the beauty of the view. Taehyung stands at the front of the ferry, watching the island as it approaches, then moves to the back. The city shrinks in the distance until it transform into a graph, the skyscraper the western outlier to the normal distribution of downtown business owners. A few intrepid boaters are out, and one dude on a Jet Ski zooms by. I often forget that Orange County is a coastline city and there are people who own things like kayaks and actively enjoy being on the water.