Summer Harmony

A girl in loafers halted her steps in front of a flower bush. She, who was none other than Brissia, lowered her body slightly to take a look at the yellow chrysanthemums.

"Did you really meet her in Archtier?"

Brissia turned her head at Ashley's voice from a distance. The little girl in a white and blue polka dot dress walked beside Harris with a sparkling gaze.

"Yes. To be exact, I met her in the Algor District," Harris answered with a small smile.

"Oh, like Mom and Dad!"

Ashley's enthusiastic response invited Harris's chuckle. However, his laughter faded as he found Brissia walked toward them.

His eyes didn't blink when he saw her walking leisurely with her back to a yellow chrysanthemum bush. The wind gently rustled her elbow-length white blouse and her knee-length turquoise skirt. Whether he was delusional, the woman seemed to be smiling at him through her eyes.

"Hey."

Harris blinked as Brissia waved her right hand in front of his face. He pulled the corners of his lips.

"Yeah?" he asked gently.

"Why me? Shouldn't you ask Ashley what she meant?"

"Oh, right." Harris turned to look at Ashley with curious eyes.

Brissia chuckled gleefully as Harris asked Ashley. "How obedient," she muttered.

Harris, who heard it, glanced at her with a knowing smile. "I'd do anything if it made you keep our little secret, remember?"

"Secret?" Ashley looked at Harris and Brissia in turn. "Are the secrets between you the same as those Mom and Dad kept?"

"No," replied Brissia, smiling tightly as she covered Harris's mouth with her palm. She knew what the man was going to say as soon as she saw the knowing smile etched on his lips. "It's just a secret between friends. Trust me," she continued, lowering her hand.

"Oh… they're different."

Ashley nodded as she straightened her head back, looking a little disappointed. She also slightly quickened her pace as she descended the hill, making it quite difficult for Brissia and Harris to catch up with her.

"I know a lot about Mom and Dad's secrets," Ashley said again with a big smile. "Like Dad who negotiated with an intermediary in order to meet Mom, Mom almost angered the entire market by complaining about the price of fish, then she reunited with her old friend after becoming an agent..."

Harris and Brissia listened to Ashley with worried smiles, especially when they found Veron staring at them from a distance.

"Shouldn't we stop her for the sake of all of us?" Brissia whispered while gently nudging Harris's elbow.

"Why don't you give it a try?"

"Because I'm not good at communicating with children!"

Harris laughed heartily, ignoring Brissia who glared at him as if asking him to hurry up and stop Ashley from leaking all her parents' secrets.

"Too bad. I wonder how that blue-eyed guy will lose his temper, though. Well, perhaps sometime," said Harris.

Ashley stopped talking when Harris called out to her.

"Princess, you should be careful not to reveal others' secrets," said Harris with a tender smile.

Ashley, who widened her eyes and covered her mouth, instantly made Harris unable to hold back the tingle in his stomach.

"Is that so? But… I believe in both of you!" Ashley said cheerfully.

"Woah, that fast?" Harris grimaced as he glanced at Veron, who was approaching them with a sullen face.

"Don't, Ashley. Believe in yourself. You never know how dangerous they can be."

Harris looked at Veron disapprovingly. "I don't bite?"

"We don't," Brissia added. "Besides, shouldn't you let her make friends?"

"Oh, is this how you thank me for my help?"

"No offense, but I don't like your prejudice."

When Alessia came out of the house carrying an umbrella, she raised an eyebrow. From some distance, she could see Harris and Ashley shivering from the cold due to the winter wind blowing around Brissia and Veron.

"Gosh," she chuckled softly, "what are they doing?"

Veron averted his eyes as soon as he caught the presence of his soulmate. He followed her, who invited them all to the coast to help the locals collect shells.

"Shells?" Harris asked.

"It's one of the high-value commodities here. As you have seen, we have clean seas."

Veron's answer made Brissia nod and Harris glance at her. "What about the tourism potential?" she asked.

When Alessia explained and Brissia paid attention to every word she said, Harris's eyes were again unable to look away from Brissia. Sometimes, he asked himself: why he was comfortable looking at her? Was it the way she spoke, the way she walked, or the liveliness in her golden brown eyes?

White sand particles harmoniously meld with the ocean's light azure color. Adults and children of all ages assembled beneath the vast golden sky to collect the shells strewn across the beach sand. Brissia and Harris noticed how much laughter and small talk flowed between their activities, despite the fact that there weren't as many people as in Archtier.

"Excuse me, Miss."

The two of them turned to a middle-aged woman who was standing next to them holding a shell necklace. After Brissia and Harris exchanged glances for a moment, Brissia finally lowered herself in front of the middle-aged woman. She stood up straight again while carefully touching the necklace around her neck.

"Beautiful, Brissie."

Brissia turned in surprise to Harris, whereas he turned his gaze and looked flustered. "I mean... the necklace."

A faint smile was etched on Brissia's lips, followed by a small sigh. "I know, but we can't buy it."

As she was about to take off the necklace and return it to the seller, a little girl suddenly held her hands.

"Why not? The necklace is so much prettier when it's on your neck!" said Ashley, giving a handful of coins to the local residents.

She then turned again to face Brissia and Harris, who were dumbfounded by her actions. "W-won't your parents scold us, Princess?" Harris asked, seemed a bit agitated.

Ashley shook her head firmly. She answered lightly, "Thank you for the delicious ice cream, sis!"

Without waiting for Brissia or Harris to respond, the girl then turned around cheerfully and gathered with other local residents on the beach.

"Look who called her Princess and who got the prize."

Harris snorted in annoyance at Brissia's sneer. "She may be the princess, but you..."

Suddenly, his tongue became numb. Until finally, he could only click his tongue before turning away and following the only daughter of their host.

"Whatever. I'll get a bigger prize, you'll see."

Brissia chuckled at Harris sulking. Inside her was a stirring feeling that she couldn't tell Harris or herself. If the tale of the Little Mermaid was true, she believed her feelings have been trapped in a shell necklace like Ariel's voice.

***

"Those people in the intelligence agency you work for..."

Harris turned his head as Brissia muttered while staring unblinkingly at her phone.

"...They're unique."

Hearing Harris said the same words as her, Brissia sat up on her bed. She stared perplexedly at Harris, who sat leaning against the nightstand beside her bed, smiling oddly.

"I had the same thought on my first day at SURVIVE. But this is the first time I've seen someone who thinks what I think," he said while looking at Brissia.

Brissia smiled in amusement when she saw the corners of Harris's lips slowly rise. Not long after, she let out a soft chuckle.

"By the way, do you miss him that much that you keep holding it?"

"What?"

As soon as she saw where Harris's gaze fell, Brissia glanced at her cellphone for a moment. "Oh... You don't?"

Harris stared emptily at the wall.

"If we hadn't asked him to come along, maybe he wouldn't have..."

Brissia lowered her gaze. Her grip on her cellphone tightened. Harris's hanging words turned the silence of the night into a short introspection session. The memory of Benjamin exclaiming for the two to go to the harbor without him flashed through their heads.

As she got down from the bed, Brissia said, "It's a risk he took consciously, Harris."

Harris looked up slowly at Brissia, who sat cross-legged in front of him.

"I'm sure he's ready for that. So, there's nothing to regret," said Brissia.

Seeing Brissia's determined gaze, which seemed to profoundly convey the determination in her heart as well, Harris's eyes dimmed.

"Tell me, Brissie…"

Brissia gave a confused look at Harris, who was looking at her with a wistful smile.

"…Do you regret coming here with me?"

The smile on Brissia's lips faded. She did, in fact, occasionally feel her steps become heavy since yesterday. While she and Harris were sailing the ocean to Bouville, she had also just left a class.

Harris chuckled bitterly in his heart as he observed Brissia's expressionless silence. He had believed that nobody—not even Brissia—would want to get into trouble with him.

When Harris got up and walked out of the room, Brissia just stared at him in silence. She experienced the same uneasy feeling as when she and Harris returned from a mission to take the photo of the Miss Savior.

However, that feeling was instantly swept away by a familiar scream in her ear. She immediately walked over to the wide open window of her room, only to find the two people closest to her standing at the edge of a cliff.

"Ji? Nicho?!"

Gierra and Nicholas's eyes widened when they noticed Brissia at the window. But at the same time, the black-robed figure in front of them also turned toward him.

"Bris! Help us!"

Brissia didn't budge. Big waves continued to crash from beneath the cliff, kicking her in the gut. The screams of her two friends slashed every part of her, disturbing the calm within her.

All she did was think, think, and think. How could her two best friends be there? How could she save them without risking her life by going up against the black-robed figure? How would she know if the only answers didn't have to be down there?

A hand gripped Brissia's shoulder from behind, causing her to flinch. How startled she was to find herself leaning out the bedroom window with one foot propped up on the frame.

She was even more shocked to notice that neither the figure in the black robe nor her friends were exist anymore.