Triggering contents ahead:

Though sounded quite stranded, Petlas was nicely modernized with time.
The French built a local hospital, a missionary church, and the roads around the island during the colonial period.
Native women served as the nurses while a doctor comes every week for two days from Marshal Island.

The missionaries established a small school for the locals.

Most of the people work on the pearl farm in the right season and do their other works the rest of the years.

A schooner regularly goes to Marshal island every two weeks for supplies and equipment. Besides, some small ships stop by for food or drinking water on their way though the island was far from the shipping course.
So a little sailors' club has been established too.

Arya was lazily roaming around the old house. It was evident that nobody lived here these past years.

well not permanently. Probably it was used for temporary residence if anybody came from management for a few days.

The house was simple and nice. It was made with wood and bamboo with an inside square-shaped garden containing oriental herbs and flower bushes. The pattern was typical Japanese dojo with papered doors and wooden floor.

It was impossible for making something more than this, even building a residence as simple as that also needed a lot of effort here.

The house was quite huge to be exact. It was quite far from the locality where most of the natives lived.
The road was well built and the only transportation was an aged-old pickup truck.

It was evident that the house once was maintained with care. Everything had a very simplistic and a hint of good taste.

Chamiyu was following Arya from the start.

"Well Chamiyu, how many days you are working here?"

"Since I was sixteen," he took time to respond.

"You said, Jin was born here."

"Yes."

"How?"

"How he born?" chamiyu frowned.

Arya laughed, "I know how he was born. I was asking why here?"

"Oh...Mr. And Mrs. Kim was here from the very beginning. They built the island for I don't know, some projects, maybe? In their second year here, Master Kim was born. He stayed here for six years."

"Why move out?"

Chamiyu looked at her with strange eyes.

"What?" Arya was curious.

"You are Master Kim's friend?"

"Yes." Arya frowned.

"Then why don't you know it?"

"What should I know?"

"Mr. And Mrs. Kim was murdered here. Both. Master Kim was saved cause he wasn't home at that time."

Arya remained silent. She had no idea that both his parents were killed.

"Who did this? The natives?"

"Our people loved them!" Chamiyu denied instantly and frowned. "It was one of the people they started the project with. Apart from Mr. And Mrs. Kim, a few other families came here too. And one of their closest friends did it."

"Why?"

"We don't know. And we couldn't catch him either. He took the flying boat and ran away. Master Kim first discovered the bodies."

"How old was he?" Arya was quiet.

"Six. He came back home at night and couldn't go out the whole night due to the cyclone that happened that night. He was alone with the two dead bodies the whole night."

Arya almost shivered for the horror of the six years old Jin must have felt and her heart turned heavy and her mind softened with the thought of it. It must have been so unreal for the little kid.

"My father raised him for almost three months before Mr. Jeon came and took him back."

"How was he back then?"

"He was a lovely kid. Quiet, calm but very lovely."

"And how did he take all these things?"

"He didn't do anything. He just went back to the house every day in the morning and sat in front of his parent's room quietly. Probably he still believed someday someone will open the door once again and come out. My father used to go and bring him back where we lived and he came back without a word every time. Probably that's the time he went completely quiet."

"That's them?" Arya indicated a small aged-old photo frame on the shelf. One lovely couple was holding one child and smiling widely at the camera.

"Yes. When Mr. Jeon called me about the Master's arrival, I and my father cleaned the whole house and arranged everything that was in the boxes for all these years. My father, he wanted master Kim to feel home."

"Call?"

"We have a little satellite phone set up here. Mobile network doesn't work."

Arya picked up the photo frame in her hand to have a closer look. Jin was to be honest, a lot similar to this photo even after all these years.

A little smile appeared on Arya's lips. Jin was by the universal law of children- cute.

Suddenly a hand took the photo frame gently from her hands.

Arya looked back to see Jin. When he came, she has no idea.
His eyes were soft. He took a glance at the picture and quietly put it back on the mantlepiece. But he gently put it upside down.

That is probably the earliest wound he has ever had. Does it still hurt? Does it still bleed inside?

Arya decided to leave the situation, "That's a nice sword!" her eyes were on an elegantly decorated seath with a sword in it which was proudly hanging on the wall.

"That's my father's," Jin said from her side.

"You also had a refined sword." Arya remembered, "the one you got at the ceremony of our commissioning. The sword of honor."

Sword of honor was the highest recognition for the cadet for best performance overall in the air force academy. And Jin was the recipient of their batch. Arya was second in the ranking. But she too admitted that the sword belonged to Jin. None other.

Jin was silent.

"Did your father teach you fencing?"

"A little. I was too young." Jin answered casually.

Arya got it. Jin wasn't the hurt and scared kid anymore. He wasn't someone who would get emotional or be vulnerable to open up his old wound. He was talking casually. That means he had this in him to not avoid even if it hurts. Arya appreciated it.
It means he has grown and he was stronger than ever.

"That's why you learned to fence?"

"Yes," Jin agreed.

"Good to know that you did something on your likings." Arya patted his shoulder

"I need to go for a while. Will you be ok alone?"

Arya scoffed. Yet so gentleman Jin.

"Go ahead. No problem." Arya shook her head.

Jin nodded a little and went out.

"You speak Chamorro quite well." Chamiyu suddenly commented.

"Probably I learned it somewhere." Arya smiled.

"It's not a common language to learn anywhere, you know that, right?" Chamiyu looked at her suspiciously.

"I know."
Sighed Arya sarcastically, "I too wish I knew how did I learn the language. By the way, you never said what projects were about to start here?"

"I don't know that well too." Chamiyu shook his head, "I was young back then. But they brought a lot of equipment here. And Mr. And Mrs. Kim regularly practiced with those."

"What practiced?"

"Shooting." Chamiyu's answer made Arya surprised.

"Shooting?"

"And fencing, and knife fighting and taekwondo, and archery and..."

"Enough. Stop right there." Arya sighed, "I should have guessed that his parents weren't normal either. What a family!"

Arya opened her door hearing a slight knock on her door.

"Dinner is ready."

Arya had no idea when Jin came back.
It has been two days. Mr. Jeon probably gave him a few tasks before coming here. He was always busy the past two days with the pearl farm.

He was buried in loads of paperwork on the farm, so they barely talked.

Arya came out only to see quite a lot of food was already on the long table. Telling chamiyu to cook less wasn't doing any good. He was adamant about keeping these two guests as comfortable as he can. And his meaning of comfort was food.

They both sat to the opposite head of the long table.

"How does it feel to operate a business?" Arya smiled.

"Not my thing." Jin shook his head slowly, chopstick poking through the food.

"A man like you...you are more suitable for some sort of rich CEO thingy. Not someone who merely kills people." Arya teased him a little.

Jin didn't answer.

"Do you ever plan on retiring? If you retire, will you come back here?" Arya eagerly leaned forward.

"No speech during dining." Jin wiped his lips with A tissue.

"You know I'll not listen to you. Why waste time every time teaching me etiquette?" Arya rolled her eyes.

Jin was again silent.

After chatting on her own for a few minutes more, Arya got up with her plate which almost had everything left on the plate.

"Arya."

"Yes?"

"Sit down." Jin's voice was calm.

"Why?"

"Sit down."

Arya was a bit surprised but she complied with his words.

"What?"

"It's your turn to talk."

Arya frowned in to try to guess what was Jin indicating, "I am sorry? I didn't get you."

Jin got up from his chair, collected both of their plates and put them on the sink, and came back with a first aid box.

He sat beside Arya and before she could move her hand from him, his hand gripped her wrist.

He quietly lifted her sleeve and looked at the one-time band-aids pasted carelessly over the cuts.

Arya again tried to pull out her hand from his grip but Jin calmly removed the band-aids.

Arya shivered when the antiseptic solution was applied to the throbbing red cuts.
"Slowly! It hurts hurts hurts!!"

Jin's full concentration was on her hand but he said, "Why don't you start with Jeremy?"

"There is nothing to say about him." Arya's voice turned bitter,
"apparently he thought I killed his fiance, he tried to kill me once, made you super mad, hid into MOSSAD, then I just happened to jump into his lap, got punished for what I had done and then he got killed. The end."

"Why don't we stop between his time in MOSSAD and your time there too?" Jin was as composed as ever.

"There is nothing to say." Arya smiled with a hint of stubbornness.

"After you got released from the neuro specialized hospital, you were sent in solitary confinement and when you came out, you were working for them as a sleeper agent. What did they do to you in between? Jeremy already told me that he was the one who suggested MOSSAD use you. So I guess it shouldn't be good."

"Well, good job in that, sherlock!" Arya almost mocked him.

"Tell me." Jin slightly caressed the newest cut and looked into her eyes, "what are you hiding?"

Arya again rolled her eyes but kept silent.

"Arya."

"You are one annoyingly persistent man, you know that?" Arya's voice was annoyed this time, "You should know how this brainwashing works, don't you? In simple words, they tortured me and broke me little by little. When they broke my very little being to shreds, they shaped me as they wanted. They made me  a machine who would never question their authority and will always be their trump card whenever they needed."

"Then why did Jeremy tell me that it was different?"

Arya didn't answer.

Jin completed his work and quietly closed the lid of the first aid box,
"Your eating pattern...you are not eating well enough. Probably it's not you don't want to, but you can't. You have developed an eating disorder, right?"

Arya lowered her head.

"And your insomnia, it's not any normal anxiety-related insomnia, is it?"

Arya was still silent.

"Talk to me, Arya." Jin
gently lifted her face and looked into her eyes which were slowly covering with a thin layer of gloss over them.

"I am scared, Jin," Arya whispered finally letting it out, "I am scared."