Every inch of Seokga is still shaking as he stands in line at the Creature Café located on Deck 8. The SRC Flatliner has long since taken off, and the café’s glass windows overlook the shimmering red waters of the vast Seocheongang River. The familiar smell of roasting coffee beans comforts him. He knows it’s not real: Food and drink here are memories—even ghosts—of food and drink above, generated by Yeomra. There are no caloric benefits from drinking the large iced coffee with one cream and one sugar that Seokga orders at the register, but he doesn’t mind. It tastes real, and should he grow hungry, Hwanin and Dr. Jang brought along a grocery store’s worth of food in their luggage.

“And for you?” the café worker asks Kisa, punching in Seokga’s order and looking bored. Seokga feels a pang of nostalgia, remembering when it was Hani behind the counter, purposefully messing up his order.

“Hot chocolate,” Seokga replies before he can stop himself. It just slips out.

“Actually,” corrects Kisa, shaking her head, “I’ll have a small flat white, please.”

Seokga swallows hard, gripping his cane tight. Hani hated coffee. She loathed it.

But she isn’t Hani, he reminds himself. Her name is Kisa. It’s fine if she likes coffee. She’s not going to be the same person that she was in her past life. You know this.

At least she isn’t an old man.

At least she isn’t an old man.

At least she—

“Are you all right?” Kisa asks politely, and he realizes that she’s staring at him, eyebrows furrowed.

Seokga hastens to arrange his expression into something other than abject horror as the barista passes them Seokga’s coffee and Kisa’s…flat white. “Perfectly,” he manages to wheeze. “I am perfectly fine.”

Kisa does not look in the least convinced, but leads him to a circular wooden table and sits primly in one of the chairs regardless. “I have to be back at the sick bay in twenty minutes,” she says, sipping her drink. Seokga is slightly disappointed not to see a grimace of disgust, as Hani might have made. “Lots of gwisin will complain of seasickness on the first day of the cruise. Our mentor finished her penance on this ship a few months ago, so it’s only Hajun and me working there at the moment.” She sets down her drink and leans forward. Seokga wants, badly, to brush a stray curl out of her eyes, but refrains with notable effort.

She’s his lover and a stranger all at once.

Oh, he’s very much struggling, torn between intense feelings of both distance and familiarity. “I’m assuming we’re soulmates,” Kisa says matter-of-factly. “Threaded soulmates.”