Merfolks ⚢

Chapter 34 Five

KAYLOR

Puerto Princesa is located in the midsection of Palawan Island. It is bound to the east by the Sulu Sea, to the west by the South China Sea. It is 460 km from my hometown.

I entered the restaurant, with a lump in my throat, suddenly feeling cowardly and for the first time in years, today I held my head high. I gestured to the table at the far end corner of the room, and most specifically in Iko's direction, who was talking vividly with some of his local and foreign friends. They were all laughing and smiling and I guessed that they were most probably talking about Iko's engagement to Rosa; the event of their holy matrimony was to take place at the start of September that same year.

I smirked as I remembered that next month Empress, Morgana, and I would go shopping to choose our bridesmaids' dresses. I doubted that Morgana would let me get matching cerulean blue dresses, but in a way it hardly made a difference now, for the only thing that I was interested in was making sure that Iko's and Rosa's day went on perfectly.

She approached the table and all of the sudden the loud murmurs and giggles ceased, and the sparkling eyes of the flirty girls beamed at her playfully.

"Well, the dead arose and appeared too many!" Jeon said when he saw me.

Iko smiled. "Good morning, Kaylor," he said. "I see this time you're early. Care to join us for breakfast?"

"Sure," I smiled back with a high head. "Of course I'm early. I told you that next reunion, I'll try not to be late."

"Where's Morgana? Isn't she supposed to be with you?"

It was the same as last time. It was all a blur as if time passed too much to my liking. After our first summer of the club, when Morgana and I were the ones left in the loft, we have learned that Mr. Ainsley has gone missing. The investigators we called found out that he died drowning when he sailed his cruise that morning. They discovered his ship and it seemed electrocuted. Some theorized that a thunder hit the boat's antenna and electrocuted the whole engine and somehow, Mr. Aisnley fell off-board.

My flight and Morgana's got delayed entirely. Sadly, we never found his body. It was forever lost in the ocean.

We told everyone the heart-breaking news. It was a terrible time for us. This could be lead to disbandment but we promised to see each other in upcoming International Photography gatherings.

And we did.

Morgana went to my school, taking her Fine Arts and Photography and she became my roommate. I didn't know why. But Morgana changed the morning we received the news of our club moderator's death. She seemed less about her temperament and she seemed more attractive to me than Empress was.

In those days, my head was turning because of my thesis. Even if that was the only subject I have for the semester, it still left me stressed 24/7.

My thesis is about Dunbar's number. By using the average human brain size, humans can only comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships. It became hard because I associated it with sea animals. As a Marine Biology student, I leaned towards the sea creatures. So I wanted to know if a person's stable relationship increases from 150 or not if one of those you interact with a lot are sea animals.