And Your Name Is?

The Capital's Harbor

When they reached the holding area of the Capital Harbor, Jenny mouthed an "I'm sorry." to Uncle Tawi before she joined the rest of her teammates.

The annoying nasal sound of a ship's horn surprisingly made all the delegates shout for joy. They were eager to leave the stink of the harbor behind. Summer has not arrived, yet the rotten egg smell floated in the harbor. Everybody covered their noses and would rub their clothing every once in a while in fear of the odor sticking to it. They shook their heads at the thought of a champion that smelled like a rotten egg. Nope. That never happened.

Sunny managed to find her cabin without any form of help and was appalled at her predicament. 'How on Earth am I going to fit inside?' 

She skimmed through her ticket for her assigned bed and found it at first glance. She pushed her bag inside the top bunker. 'My bag could fit, but how am I supposed to squeeze into that?' Her lips pursed at the sight of the coffin-like bed. She looked at the bottom bed and saw a girl lying down with her eyes closed. Her hands clasped together on top of her belly.

'At the very least, if I slept at the bottom bed, my legs won't dangle in the air.' Sunny thought long and hard on how she should approach the girl on the bottom bunk bed. 

The girl must have sensed the hawklike gaze of Sunny that she opened her eyes. She sat upright on the bed and asked Sunny, "Do you want to switch beds?" 

"Yes. No. No, really." Sunny shook her head and waved her left hand as she said no. She peeked at her assigned bed one more time before she took a deep breath and shyly said, "Hmmm... Actually… Can we switch beds?"

The girl looked at the opposite bunk bed behind Sunny. She turned her sight back to Sunny and studied her; she looked at her from head to toe then clicked her tongue. 'This girl must be a princess. To hell with it.'

After a few seconds of suffocating silence, the girl said in a nonchalantly way, "Sure. No problem." The girl grabbed her bag at what seemed to be a bottomless pit inside her part of the bunk bed.

Sunny gasped as she thought, 'Omo, how did that happen? Why did her bed seem deeper?!' 

The girl then stood up and moved about as Sunny clapped her hands in delight, she moved to the side to make way for her life savior. 

Sunny arranged her bags first; then, she straightened her back as she stood up. She beamed and extended a hand towards her newfound friend and introduced herself…

"Hi, last name is Huang, first name is Jenny. And your name is?"

"Call me, Chinshih."

"Ching Shih? Like the pirate?" Jenny jokingly said. Of course, she heard her name right and only wanted to break the ice with her newfound companion.

The girl eyed her. "I think I prefer to sleep in my designated bed."

When she heard her savior take back her word, she hurriedly hugged Chinshih. Jenny buried her head on Chinshih's chest as she pleaded in a teeny tiny voice, "Da-jie! Da-jie! Please forgive me!"

Chinshih smiled and patted the girl's head. She should be annoyed by the proximity, yet this girl was akin to the sun that melted her polar caps.

"Yes, I'm a pirate, and I'm here to hijack the ship," she said flatly. Her joke, half-meant.

"Hahahaha! Omo! You're a trickster, Da-jie!"

"Stop calling me Da-jie. I'm not your sister," Chinshih hissed. She playfully tapped Jenny's shoulder to get her point across.

"Yes, you are. And you will be in the future!" Jenny insisted, she even poked the sides of Chinshih. Unfortunately for Jenny, her Da-jie is not a ticklish person, and she was not able to get the result that she was aiming for. 

"Sunny!" Her coach called her attention and knocked on the cabin door, "Time for a briefing. Let's go."

"Ok, coach! See you later… Da-jie," Sunny whispered the last word, her smile reached up to her almond-shaped eyes. 

Her mood as bright as the sun, ready to warm any heart that it touched.

'Maybe that's why they call her Sunny,' Chinshih thought to herself. She pulled herself out of the bunk bed, a necklace dangled in the air as she jumped.

Oops.

Chinshih looked left and right to check if anybody saw what happened. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw not one soul within sight. She hid the necklace back inside her shirt then patted her chest twice.

"I won't disappoint you, brother."

With a determined face, Chinshih headed out of the cabin - the crossroads of their fates.

Edited by Swaning