Day Three 

"Oh, good morning. You woke up even earlier today. Do you want to sit here with me?" Martin greeted her in this early morning.

Celine looked at him suspiciously. He was the kind of person she didn't understand. At times he would be so quiet that she thought he was half mute. Since we are just on good terms, she could tell he was more used to ordering people around rather than being nice to them. And the experience yesterday was kind of odd for her. After eating ice cream together for a while and she told him that she wasn't angry anymore. It was as if Martin had already concluded in his head that she wasn't angry, and he should cease all further effort. Like a switch, his nice kind words spoken in a gentle tone stopped there. We return to speaking normally as if in his head; convincing her to forgive him was like some sort of a mission he had already accomplished. And what he should do was to move on to something else.

And that something else was to go back to the villa and work. She saw some documents with financial projections and some other calculations. The reason he went into max workaholic mode was that phone call. Someone called him a bit after the time we spent eating ice cream together, and he was quiet the whole while, being lost in his thoughts once again. Even when we went back to the same restaurant for dinner yesterday, he also brought some of the documents to review; he ate, and he read. She thought he was on holiday….

"Martin, the weather is nice today. Do you want to go for a swim with me?" She asked him after we were halfway through breakfast.

"What?" She bet he was half listening, and so she repeated herself.

"Do you want to go for a swim?" She asked him again, more slowly and deliberately this time.

And what she saw was the man in front of her who shook his head vigorously like a child whose parents forced him to take a pill. In suspicion, she took a wild guess.

"Don't tell me that since you came here, you haven't gone for a swim?" It should be impossible. He had been here for a while, way before she did.

But Martin shook his head slowly.

Oh, man! Has the man ever lived a life? Or he just works?

"What! C'mon! You are kidding me. We are here on one of the most beautiful islands, and you are here on holiday. Why haven't you swam once?"

"I didn't choose this place. Someone else did. Besides, just looking into the ocean is already calming. There is no need to go submerge my head in the water. The seawater is quite sticky, no?" His cool voice and reasons made her roll her eyes.

"Or you can't swim?" She questioned a potential fact. She didn't care much about the issue that he said someone had chosen this island as a holiday destination for him. She was more interested in knowing he hadn't gone for a swim despite being on an island.

"Of course, I can swim. I even won some medals in school back then" Yeah, Whatever.

"Or are you afraid of sharks?"

"The statistics of shark attacks in this area for the past hundred years is zero, I have checked." The answer made her roll her eyes again.

"And why haven't you gone for a swim?"

"I simply don't want to. Must there be a reason? Besides, I have work to do."

"I thought you were here on holiday."

"....."

"Please, you've said you are on a break. You really need to go out and explore this place. Let's go for a swim. It's not the same, just observing the views." She asked him to go out, trying to reason with the man. She sensed that he was the type that rarely found simple happiness and always stressed about everything. Always plan, and always have a rationale to justify things.

"....."

"I know, I know I'm just someone who crashes at your place. I don't have the right to ask you to go anywhere but consider it that I invite you out this time. As a friend."

Celine was uncertain whether she should call herself a friend. But at least for now, this word is the closest she had to describe our new relationship.

"A friend, you said?" Martin recounted her words slowly as if he was talking to himself.

She was waiting for his answer patiently and at last…

"Well, sure, why not." He closed his eyes and grinned. A small gesture that made her smile.

"Okay! Then let's get change!"