"We ate lunch on a tiny boat," I reminded Dani. "You weren't there."

His eyes got even lighter, but streaks of dark blues starting churning in. It was fascinating and so strange to watch. "Maybe I was hiding to make you suspicious."

I glared at him. Then, without another word, he slid down off of the rocks and jumped back into the water.

I didn't talk to him until we were back on the bus a couple of hours later. I had a feeling he was avoiding me. It seemed like there was a lot more to what was going on than just the fact Dani had gone overboard. With every new thing that he and the others tried to hide from me, my curiosity grew. I sat down next to him on the bus and couldn't help but feel a bit smug that I'd stopped his avoiding-game. It was time to get some more information.

"Is Jon your boss too?"

He glared at me. "Yes," he finally muttered. His eyes swirled to dark blue as I watched.

I never really thought of blue as an angry color, but his irises reminded me of waves during a storm. They really did react with his moods. I stared, mesmerized as they grew darker and darker. The colors in them crashed against each other like waves on rocks.

"Is there a reason you're staring at me?" he chuckled. "I'm married, you know."

"Sorry," I said quickly. "It's just..." Just what? Your eyes are weird? I didn't think that would be very polite.

"Just?"

"Your eyes are... interesting."

He looked confused for a moment and his eyes stayed dark, but the movement slowed. Dani studied me for a moment, almost like he was curious. "Interesting how?"

"They uh..." I wasn't sure how to say it without sounding crazy. "Change color." Eyes did that. Not nearly in the way that Dani's did, but it didn't sound as insane if I said it like that.

That got his attention. Now he was definitely curious. He almost looked surprised. "Change color? What do you mean?"

"Like, different shades of blue." Well, now that I was telling him..."And they move. The colors sort of, I dunno, splash around. It's like water."

Dani's jaw literally dropped. Then, the touch of the deep blue I had started to associate with angry splashed in his eyes. "You're not just something messing with us, are you?"

"What?" I asked in confusion. "No, I'm not. Your eyes really do that!" I figured that was something he would have known.

Dani studied me for a moment, then whistled and hummed at the same time and looked out of the window. He looked really bothered, and I hoped I hadn't hurt his feelings or anything. The bus stopped near the dock, and Dani wordlessly fell into step with me when I headed for the burger place. We stopped at a railing on the dock by the restaurant and leaned against it. I watched one of the lifeboats make its way from the dock to the ship in the distance. A few minutes later Dani pushed himself up off of the railing and cleared his throat.

"He's here," he said.

I followed Dani's gaze across the dock but didn't see anybody coming toward us.

"Jon!" he yelled. "Hey, Jon!"

A man turned and looked at us. That was Jon? Aside from the fact he was wearing a business suit, he didn't look very boss-like. As he walked over to us, I noticed that he didn't even look that much older than us. He certainly didn't strike me as old enough to run some company. Then again, he had, in Thomas' words, taken care of him. Thomas had acted like he viewed Jon as a father figure more than an older brother, so he couldn't be that close to us in age. He must have just been aging well. He had neatly combed black hair and dark eyes.

"Danio," he said as he approached us. Even his boss called him that? He stopped in front of us and looked at me. "You must be Jennifer."

Thomas joined us. "How was your trip?"

Jon turned to Thomas. "It was pleasant, we..." he trailed off, and his eyes widened. "Oh my god, Thomas. It's only been two weeks..." He started rapidly talking in a different language.

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Thomas looked embarrassed, and I was surprised when he replied in the same language. It looked like they started arguing. Thomas was apparently fairly fluent; he spoke quickly and never seemed to fumble for words. Jon was obviously worried about something, and from their body language, it looked like Thomas was defending himself. I looked over at Dani. He looked sort of angry. His jaw was clenched and dark blues crashed in his eyes. I wondered if he understood them.

"We're being rude," Thomas said suddenly in English. He was practically glaring at Jon, and I knew their argument hadn't been resolved.

Jon looked annoyed that Thomas had ended the conversation, but nodded. "My apologies," he said to me, holding out his hand. "I am Jon Kiyosugi."

"Jennifer Maddox," I said. "Nice to meet you." I took his hand and shook it. He bowed a bit as we shook hands.

"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing to the restaurant.

They sat us outside by the dock, overlooking the water. Thomas and Jon sat on one side, and Dani sat next to me.

"What language was that?" I asked Thomas as we sat down.

"Japanese." He picked up a menu and opened it.

That was that. The three of them started reading the menus and didn't seem in any hurry to explain things. This was starting to get really annoying.

Then, Dani leaned forward and spoke quietly in another language. It sounded like he was speaking Japanese too! Thomas and Jon both looked shocked by what he was saying. Suddenly, all three of them started whispering to each other. I felt a bit uneasy, and my silly government theory seemed a bit less silly again. It made sense that Thomas and Jon could both speak it. Jon looked Japanese, and for all I knew, he had been born there. If he was like a father to Thomas, he probably would have taught him. But, it was a bit of a stretch that Dani spoke it, too. He spoke English, and Greek, and Japanese? And TS spoke Greek. I'd met a few tri, and even polylingual, people before. But with all the other weird things going on, the fact that all three of them were at least bilingual, in the same language no less, was very suspicious.

Even worse, they all kept glancing at me. They weren't talking about me, were they? TS sat down in the chair on my other side, nodded to me, and looked curiously at the others. I was about to say something along the lines of ‘Annoying when people speak languages you don't know, isn't it?’ hoping they'd stop speaking Japanese and start explaining things to me. Before I could, TS’ eyes grew wide, and he started speaking it, too! This wasn't a coincidence, not if all four of them could speak it. Maybe they all worked for a Japanese company; that would explain things. But that seemed like pretty serious work for a bunch of college students.

They stopped talking and all started staring at me.

"What?" I demanded.

"Let's eat first," Jon said. "We have things to discuss later."

Was he kidding? I had waited all this time, and he wasn't going to talk to me until we finished eating?

They all picked up a menu, and I had no choice but to do it too. The restaurant had a jungle-tiki theme, and consequently, the entire menu was a big splash of greens, browns, and reds. All of the dishes had silly names, but I noticed that it was pretty standard burger joint food.

"You want steak?" Thomas asked.

"Please," TS said. He frowned at his menu and shut it. "Thanks."

Thomas nodded and studied his own menu. "Jungle Sacrifice? Twenty-four-ounce steak with fries."

TS grinned. "Perfect, thanks, Tom."

That was a bit odd, but I didn't get to think on it for too long; Jon waved a waitress over, and we all ordered. They started up a conversation as soon as she left and kept it up until our food arrived. They chatted about all sorts of nonsense while we ate. Most of it was telling Jon about their time in Mexico. TS kept complaining that his steak wasn't rare enough, which baffled me. I like my meat sort of rare, but I didn't think his could have been any rarer without being raw. Thomas got a huge appetizer sampler, which to my surprise, he easily ate by himself. TS snagged some things off of it, but Thomas ate most of it alone. Considering how skinny he was, I would have assumed he'd get a salad or something. He couldn't possibly eat like this all the time. Dani got a big hamburger with tons of toppings, and Jon opted for some spicy chicken. Had I not been annoyed by the fact that they weren't being very forthcoming, I would have enjoyed my wings, fries, and milkshake more. The food on the ship was good, but not great. The food in the ports, so far, had been amazing, but I did miss a good taste of home.

We were almost done when Jon said, "Fend, let's make sure."

An adorable little black bird came out of nowhere and landed on the table. It looked like a little hummingbird.

"Enjoying your dinner, Jennifer?" a male voice said.

I looked around for the source of the voice. "Who said that?" I asked. It hadn't been nearly deep enough for TS and was a bit higher than Thomas and Jon, too.

"Me! Right here!" The little bird hopped up and down.

For a moment, I just stared at it. The bird was talking. No, no, that was impossible. It must have been a prank of some kind. "Wow," I said. "That's impressive."

"What is?" Jon asked.

"The ventriloquist act." I hadn't seen any of their mouths move, but that was the only explanation. "And the trained bird. What is it, a hummingbird?" I hadn't realized hummingbirds could be trained.

"I'm a raven," the voice said indignantly.

"Right," I laughed. "You could almost convince me the bird is talking, but I'm not so gullible that I'll believe it's a raven."

They all exchanged a look. Jon said something softly in Japanese, and they all nodded. Once again, before I could demand my answers, the waitress appeared. Jon took the check without hesitation.

"I can pay," I said.

"No, no, I invited you here," he said calmly. He paid for all of us without batting an eye. Then, he stood and bowed to me. "Pleasure to meet you, Jennifer. I hope to see you again. Thomas, a moment?" With that, he walked away. Thomas got up and followed him.

For a moment I just sat in shock. He hoped to see me again? He sounded like he was just going to walk away without giving me any answers.