Lan rubs his forehead and looks out at the bay, shaking his head. Fucking idiot, he thinks, forgetting how often he uses dark humor for such situations.

  He immediately starts after her, darting around a few people as he spots her from behind in the crowd shuffling their way to the exit ramp – one of the few perks of being tall in Japan. He turns from side to side, apologizing to the people he's squeezing through until he's behind Saya.

  “I'm sorry, that was.. insensitive of me.” She turns and looks back, then up at him, before turning around and moving with the crowd towards the single file ramp.

  Eventually, they can breathe again as Saya pulls her purse from in front of her to her side, stepping out onto the solid dock, Lan following.

  “I can't.. be serious about anything anymore.” He stops, but quickly catches up when she shows no signs of stopping, walking up to solid ground from the dock.

  “Saya, wait. Wait, please?”

  She slows and walks over to the guardrail, not out of the way of the crowd, but enough for them to stand without being pushed around.

  The rail was only knee high, so he sits down on it, this time looking up at her, though she was only looking out towards the bay.

  “If.. I stepped back and took inventory of my life.. without any humor in the view, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't..” He sighs and pulls the hair away from his face as it whips around behind him from the bay.

  “Before you.. accepted to come here, with me, a few nights before, I tried to kill myself.”

  Saya turns and looks at him with absolute, utter disgust instead of the surprised reaction he was expecting. Though with her, expectations were hard to gauge.

  “Fuck you, Lan. How dare you use that for some sort of sympathy from me.” She turns and starts along with the crowd again – not knowing where they were going but just remembering that Lan had mentioned walking a bit.

  Lan's sneakers squeak against the asphalt as he blinks away his initial confusion, again swerving around tourists as he has to trot to keep up with her this time. The faster walk of a woman that wants nothing to do with whatever is behind her.

  Reaching out, his large hand wraps around her wrist as she twists and yanks it free of his grasp, bumping into people behind her as she stands in front of him.

  “Don't touch me!” She yells, her hands balling into fists as the crowd starts to stare, passing slowly at the tall Half and the white woman blocking the sidewalk.

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  “What do you want, Lan, sympathy? To pluck that little gem of knowledge out of nowhere as if that explains all your actions?” Saya doesn't let him answer as she continues, “To remind me that on the one hand, a man that cares enough to call my parents to ensure my safety to them, then plainly says he wants to die when the passive question didn't hit hard enough?”

  Saya steps up and digs a finger into Lan's chest, hissing up at him. “With a gun? Not in Japan. Hanging? A razor? Did you have it planned out?” This was nothing but anger, no sympathy. From what Saya knew of his family, he guesses that she already knew the support around him was lost on deaf ears. Still, he holds up his hands when she prods at him.

  “Define the word vacation, Lan.” She crosses her arms over her chest, waiting.

  “Th.. j.. the act of.. getting away, traveling, experiencing other.. I..” he stutters over his own words, put on the spot as the crowd from the ferry starts to thin, leaving just the two of them on the sidewalk.

  “How many times are we going to have this conversation? You acknowledging that I am not your therapist. I am not your family. I may have agreed to be your shield, but I am not your horrible humor dumping ground.”

  “People are surrounded by depression, Lan. I've lost people near to me to suicide, and you joke about it.” She turns away from him again, head tilting to the side as she looks down the road. “You're not suicidal. Not actively or passively. You just don't care.”

  “Have you written a note? The night you 'tried to kill yourself'.” Saya looks over at him, actually waiting for an answer this time.

  Lan had, repeatedly, to himself. Over years and years if depression, but he had never left them for anyone to find. But that night, he shakes his head. “I have before. But not that night.”

  “You know why I ask? Twenty-five percent of people that kill themselves do. The other seventy-five believe it would hurt more, finding a note, and all of them would be truly tortured as to why. 'Why did it happen, what could I have done.'”

  She sighs and rubs her eyes with one hand, this is as far from a vacation as you could get, she thinks. But even with him, it wouldn't be on her watch.

  Unbuttoning her purse, and holds it open and turns to him, holding out her hand. “Empty your pockets. The pills, your wallet, anything else.” He places his hands over his jean pockets protectively, confused – until he realizes she's starting to think like his family, removing temptation completely.

  “This is my vacation. Not yours. And if we're going to go further from right here, we do it my way.”

  “Or I walk.”