“Yoo Kisa!” Seokga’s back stiffens as a pair of high heels click against the small boutique’s tiled floors. A woman who looks vaguely familiar stalks past the rows of swimsuits and merchandise before coming to a fuming stop before Kisa and Seokga. Her eyes are narrowed, and her lipsticked mouth is pressed into a tight line. Lee Soo-min, her golden name tag reads.

The dokkaebi at the counter makes an ooooh sound, eyes lifting from Godly Gossip before hastily averting them back down as the woman directs her glower to her.

Hands on her neatly pressed skirt, Soo-min narrows her eyes at Kisa, who’s quickly shoving away the shirt. “And why aren’t you in the sick bay? Why are you bothering this guest?”

Kisa flushes and opens her mouth to reply, but Seokga gets there first. “She isn’t bothering me,” he snaps with withering coldness, and Soo-min’s head whips to him.

“You!” she hisses, hands balling into fists at her sides. She stomps a heeled foot on the glossy tiled floor. “You ruined the greenhouse soiree! You trampled the flowers; you broke the glass—”

Seokga stares down his nose at her, unimpressed. The woman huffs and puffs for a long moment before clumsily regaining her composure. “Kisa,” she warns, attention turning back to her, “if you continue to shirk your duties in the sick bay, I will be forced to notify the CEO. You have five seconds to leave.”

“Yes, fine,” Kisa mutters, looking rather peeved. But there’s no way that either of them can explain that the CEO is allowing her to shirk her duties without explaining the little fact of Hwanin’s murder. She looks to Seokga, who feels rather frustrated at being thwarted of a mid-morning spent lounging on the sundeck with Kisa, before hastily leaving the little boutique, the red thread growing longer and longer with each step she takes away from him.

“I’ll thank you not to consort with the ship’s workers,” snips Soo-min. “The girl should know better: It’s in direct violation of Rule 5 of the SRC Flatliner’s handbook.”

Seokga’s right hand, which is not holding Hwanin, tightens on the hilt of his cane. “I’ll thank you,” he sneers, “to stay out of my business.”

The woman’s face is growing blue with anger. “As cruise director, everything that happens on this ship is my business—”