#bae suzy

[serratedtigerpraetorian]

Is there an ad-free site to watch While You Were Sleeping K-drama?

Edit : I finally found 𝖣𝗋𝖺𝗆𝖺𝖫𝗂𝗑.𝗑𝗒𝗓 with quick uploads, smooth playback, and clean design.

Pop-up ads constantly open whenever I try to press play on standard streaming sites. Geo-blocks make it impossible to get decent speeds from my location.

[afterhours37]

Where Morning Stayed

A Bae Suzy Fan Fic

Word Count: 14,250 Genre: Fluff with Smut

The married fitter turned his phone face down when the waitress came back with the beer. Matteo noticed. He always noticed.

Not because he wanted to. Not because he cared where the man went after dinner. But once you had spent three contracts staying loyal while someone cheated on you at home, certain movements became visible forever.

Phones turned away. Messages deleted too quickly. Wedding rings twisted loose before shore leave. The small logistics of betrayal.

Across the barbecue table, one of the younger oilers laughed too loudly and asked if Matteo was joining them for ‘one more place’ after dinner. Matteo turned a strip of pork before it burned.

“I came for food.” “That’s it, 2nd?” “That’s it.” “You’re wasting your salary.” “I waste it on hotels.” “At least hotels don’t text you after,” the Bosun said.

The table laughed. Matteo laughed too, because it was funny enough. He was not a saint. He noticed women. He understood loneliness. He understood why some men treated shore leave like a country where consequences had not been invented yet. He simply had no interest in becoming another bad story someone told quietly later.

A man should not create a life he had no intention of returning to. That rule had cost him enough to trust it.

The first woman had cried when he signed on, then found comfort with someone from her office before Matteo reached his second port. The second had promised she understood the life, then decided understanding was easier when another man was physically present. The third had helped him name a future she was already leaving.

After that, something in Matteo became quiet. Not broken. Quiet.

So he stayed for the first hour of shore leave because the first hour was always good. Food. Smoke. Bad jokes. Men talking too loudly because land was close and the ship was not moving. Matteo cooked the meat when the younger ratings kept burning it. He paid more than his share before anyone could protest. He laughed when the Bosun insisted Korean lettuce was stronger than Filipino lettuce because it “held responsibility better.”

Then the ‘after hours’ arrived. The dangerous hour. The hour when loyal men went back to the ship or hotel, and the others began pretending they had not planned the rest from the beginning. “Come on, 2nd” the Bosun said, already smiling. “One more place?”

Matteo wiped his hands with a tissue, “Hard pass, you guys go on ahead.” The oiler groaned. “Sir.” “I came for dinner.” “You always say that.” “I am consistent.” “You are boring.” “Boring enough to make you chip and paint the entire engine room tank top tomorrow.”

The Chief Engineer, who had spent all day calling drydock legalized murder, waved him away like he was granting shore leave from foolishness, “Leave him. Reyes has a date with his hotel pillow.”

“A loyal woman,” Matteo said, standing.

The table erupted. Someone called him disciplined. Someone else called him useless. Matteo took both as compliments. Outside, the cold met him first.

Sharp air had a way of cleaning the noise from his head. He walked without checking directions. That was one of the pleasures of being ashore with money and no obligations. He could get lost within reason. He could buy a drink from a store he would never visit again. He could watch people pass and owe none of them an explanation.

South Korea moved around him in bright windows and gray pavement.

Couples walked close together. Office workers smoked near corners. Students laughed in clusters. A delivery rider cursed after nearly hitting a curb. Somewhere above the shops, a glowing advertisement showed a woman’s face large enough to become weather.

Matteo did not look long. Advertisements rarely needed help being seen.

His vessel had arrived for drydock that morning, and the ship had already turned into a body opened on a table. Yard workers, checklists, hot work, delayed parts, rust found where no one wanted rust to be, and inspections that made every department smell like steel dust and bad decisions.

Drydock was not rest. People on land always thought it was. They imagined the ship sleeping. Matteo knew better.

A ship in drydock did not sleep. It squealed everything out. Every hidden problem became visible. Every minor defect became urgent. Every machine that had behaved at sea suddenly remembered it had a grievance.

By evening, he had wanted food, air, and a room where no one could call him for at least six hours. After forty minutes of walking, his hands were cold enough to become annoying.

He found a convenience store tucked under a narrow building, bright and warm and quiet enough to be useful. The bell chimed when he entered. He nodded to the cashier, took a canned coffee from the fridge, and stood in front of the triangle kimbap like the decision required engineering judgment.

Tuna Mayo or Spicy Pork.

Something with cheese that looked suspiciously confident. He picked up tuna mayo first, then put it back because the sea had already taken enough from him and his dinner had been too clean. Spicy pork, then.

He was reaching for it when the woman near the bottled teas went still. Matteo noticed that before he noticed her face. Cap. Mask. Long coat. One hand around a drink she had not taken from the shelf. The man in front of her had his phone half-raised, “Just one photo.”

The woman’s answer was quiet “No. Sorry.” “Come on. I know it’s you.”

Matteo looked at the cashier. The cashier looked at the woman. Then at the man. Then at the counter, suddenly very interested in doing nothing.

Matteo placed the kimbap back on the shelf. He did not move quickly.  He walked over like he was only passing through, stopped beside the man, and left enough space that his body did not become the first argument, “She said no” Matteo said in English.

The man turned.

Annoyance came first. Then confusion. Then the quick inventory men made when deciding whether someone was worth challenging. Foreign. Broad-shouldered. Calm. Not drunk. Not looking for attention. Inconvenient.

“What?” Matteo looked at him “She said no.” The man’s mouth tightened. “You don’t know who she is.”

Matteo glanced at the woman. Tired eyes. Polite posture. A hand holding the bottle too tightly. Then he looked back at the man, “Someone who said no.”

For a moment, the whole store held its breath. The cashier finally discovered a spine and said something sharp in Korean. The man cursed under his breath, stared at Matteo like he had been personally insulted by basic manners, then left with the wounded pride of a person denied something he had never owned.

The bell chimed after him. The store became too quiet. Matteo picked up the spicy pork kimbap again. The woman stared at him.

He paid for the food and coffee. The cashier thanked him twice, once normally and once like Matteo had just handled a problem before it became an incident report. Matteo nodded, took his things, and stepped outside. The canned coffee tasted better than ship coffee.

That was enough to make it successful. The bell chimed behind him. The woman came out. She had removed the mask. Matteo looked at her properly for the first time. Beautiful, obviously. But beauty was easy to notice and easier to misunderstand.

What held him was the tiredness underneath it. Not the tiredness of someone who had walked too long or slept too little, though maybe that too. This was older. More practiced. The kind of tired worn by people who had learned to make exhaustion look graceful because too many strangers were watching.

“Thank you,” she said in English. Her voice was soft, controlled, careful. The way people spoke when they were deciding how much of themselves the room deserved.

“You’re welcome,” Matteo said. She studied him “You really don’t know me?”

He heard the shape of the question. Not vanity. Experience.

“No, I don’t,” Her eyebrows lifted “Should I, though?”

A small change moved across her face. Disbelief first. Then something stranger. Relief, maybe. Suspicion behind it, “Most people here would,” she said.

“I’m not from here.” “That is not always enough.” “Then I try not to know people who have not introduced themselves.”

For the first time, the line of her mouth shifted. Almost a smile. Almost.

“Bae Suzy,” she said. Matteo nodded once, “Matteo Reyes.”

She waited. He waited back. The almost-smile became real. Small, but real.

“That is all?” “You introduced yourself,” he said. “I introduced myself.” “You are not going to ask for a photo?” “You did not offer one.”

Suzy laughed once. It seemed to surprise her. It surprised him too, but only because he liked the sound immediately, and that was inconvenient, “What do you do, Matteo Reyes?”

“Seafarer.” “On one of the ships near the yard?” “Yes.” “Officer?” “Second Engineer.” “What does that mean?” “That if something is loud, hot, leaking, expensive, or refusing to work, there is a chance someone will call me at very inconvenient hours.”

She laughed again. This time, he was ready for it. Barely.

“You explain your job very romantically,” she said. “It is not a romantic job.” “No?” “It is mostly sweat, alarms, paperwork, and men pretending they are not scared of inspections.” “That sounds honest.” “It is cheaper than romantic.”

Suzy looked at his canned coffee, “Were you going somewhere?” “Eventually.” “Where?”

He looked down the street. A taxi passed. A couple crossed at the light. Somewhere behind them, the convenience store door opened and closed again, “Hotel.”

“You said eventually.” “I was walking first.” “Why?” “Ship stopped moving,” he said. “I didn’t.”

Suzy became quiet. He regretted the sentence immediately. Not because it was untrue. Because it was too true for a stranger. She held her drink between both hands and looked toward the road, then back at him, “I know that feeling.”

Matteo did not ask how. That seemed to matter. For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. Then Suzy nodded toward the narrow table beside the store window, “Sit with me for five minutes.”

Matteo looked at the table. Then at her “That sounds like a request.” “It is.”

He should have refused. He had learned to recognize thresholds. Some moments were doors. Some invitations looked small because they knew better than to announce themselves. Five minutes was how trouble learned manners. But Suzy watched him with tired eyes and a steadiness that did not ask him to become anything impressive. Only be present. So Matteo sat.

Suzy sat across from him and opened her drink. He unwrapped the kimbap, took one bite, and immediately regretted trusting Korean spice with Filipino confidence, “Problem?” Suzy asked.

“No.” “You are sweating.” “It is a technical reaction.” “To spice?” “To betrayal.”

She laughed again. Matteo looked at the street so she would not see how badly he wanted to hear it a third time. Suzy saw anyway. She was quiet about it, which was worse.

Five minutes became twelve. Twelve became twenty. The cold settled harder around them, but neither stood first. Matteo finished the kimbap out of pride and suffered with dignity. Suzy watched him pretend not to suffer and looked more entertained than sympathetic.

Eventually, she checked the time. Not because she wanted to leave. Because someone, somewhere, probably expected Bae Suzy to exist on schedule. Matteo understood schedules. He understood leaving before anyone had to ask. So he stood. Suzy looked up at him, “You are leaving.”

“My hotel is that way.” “You don’t know where your hotel is.” “I know the general concept.” “That is not navigation.” “It has worked so far.”

She smiled again, smaller this time. Then, before he could step back into the comfortable safety of being temporary, she held out her hand, “Give me your number.”

Matteo stared at her. Not long. Just long enough to be stupid, “My number does not always work.”

Suzy’s brows lifted “That is a strange rejection.” “It is not a rejection.” “It sounded like one.” “I sail international waters,” he said. “Phone numbers become decorative out there.” “Decorative?” “Like hotel pillows. Present, but not useful.”

She looked at him for a moment. Then laughed under her breath and pulled out her phone, “Then give me something that works when your number becomes a pillow.”

“I have email.”

Suzy stared at him. Matteo knew immediately that he had said the wrong thing.

“What?” “You are around my age and you offered email?” “It is reliable.” “So is a fax machine.” “I do not have a fax machine.” “Congratulations.”

He sighed. She was enjoying this now.

“Do you have KakaoTalk?” “No.” “Instagram?” “Technically.” “What does ‘technically’ mean?” “It exists.” “Do you use it?” “No.” “Messenger?” “Yes.” “Why?” “My relatives will assume I died if I delete Facebook.”

Suzy nodded once, accepting this with alarming seriousness, “Then Messenger it is.”

Matteo gave it to her. It felt more dangerous than giving his number. A phone number could fail. A social account waited. She typed his name into her phone. Matteo watched her save it, and for some reason the sight unsettled him more than the man in the convenience store had. Suzy had no reason to keep his name. She kept it anyway.

“Now you have no excuse,” she said. “I have many excuses.” “Use fewer.”

Then she put her mask back on, pulled her cap lower, and became someone the street could almost ignore again. Almost, “Goodnight, Matteo Reyes.”

“Goodnight, Bae Suzy.”

She paused. Then looked back, “Just Suzy.” “Then just call me Matteo, too.” He nodded. “Goodnight, Suzy.”

That should have ended it. Matteo was very good at letting things end. But that night, after he found his hotel by general concept and poor navigation, his phone buzzed while he was brushing his teeth.

Suzy: Did you survive the spicy pork?

He looked at the message for a long moment. Then typed back.

Matteo: No. This is my ghost. Suzy: Your ghost uses punctuation properly. Matteo: I live as I died, educated. Suzy: Good. Then you can haunt me clearly.

Matteo stood in the bathroom with toothpaste still in his mouth and realized, with mild horror, that he was smiling.

Drydock swallowed him after that. Days turned into defect lists, inspections, toolbox meetings, delayed jobs, yard arguments, and sleep so shallow it barely deserved the name. Suzy did not message too much. That helped. She did not ask where he was every hour. She did not demand photos. She did not treat his silence like betrayal.

She only appeared sometimes. A message after midnight. A photo of coffee with no explanation. A complaint about a script. A question about whether ships had elevators.

Matteo answered when he could.

Sometimes after ten minutes. Sometimes after ten hours. Once after two days, because the vessel had shifted schedules, inspections had gone badly, and the engine department had been living with a very angry Bosun after Oiler took some paint out of the Bosun Store without permission.

When he finally replied, he expected the usual damage. The coldness. The suspicion. The accusation hidden inside busy? Suzy messaged him normally— despite every delay.

Suzy: You are alive? Matteo: Unfortunately. Suzy: Eat.

Matteo stared at the message. Then, because he was tired enough to be honest, he sent a photo of his dinner tray.

Suzy: That looks sad. Matteo: It has protein. Suzy: Sad protein. Matteo: Still protein.

That became their rhythm. Not constant. Never easy enough to feel careless. But steady. When the vessel left South Korea, Matteo assumed the distance would do what distance always did. Thin the thread. Make the conversation impractical. Turn Suzy into a strange, bright port memory.

Instead, she remained. Not loudly. Not possessively. Just there. He saw her again when he signed off. Not immediately.

He went home to Mindanao first. Cotabato air hit him warm and familiar. His cousins called him rich and made him pay for dinner. His mother looked at his face for too long and said he was thinner, even though he was not. He slept for fourteen hours, woke up confused, and spent three days remembering how to be a man without a watch schedule.

Then Suzy asked, casually enough to be dangerous:

Suzy: Are you coming back to Korea before your next contract? Matteo: For what? Suzy: Coffee.

Matteo stared at the screen. Coffee was a small word. That was how it trapped him. He flew to Seoul for four days. For coffee.

That was what he told himself.

Coffee became dinner in a private room where the staff treated Suzy with the careful discretion of people trained not to react. Dinner became a walk near the Han River with masks, caps, and enough distance between them to look accidental. A walk became Suzy asking him why he never searched her name. Matteo answered honestly, “I don’t like celebrity culture.”

“You don’t like celebrities?” “I don’t like the culture and what people do to them.”

Suzy became quiet. So he continued, because he had already made the mistake of truth.

“People talk about famous strangers like they own them. Who they date. What they wear. Whether they smiled correctly. Whether they gained weight. Whether they are grateful enough. It feels…” He searched for the word. “Unclean.”

Suzy looked at the river. Then at him.

“You know that includes me.” “I know now.” “And?”

He looked back at her.

“I met you before I knew where everyone else had put you.”

That was the first time she held his gaze too long. After that, Korea became a place Matteo returned to for reasons that slowly stopped pretending to be practical. One off-contract window became five days in Seoul.

The next became a week.

Then a layover in Singapore. A quiet dinner in Tokyo. Three cold mornings in Switzerland where Suzy learned Matteo bought bread with military focus and no imagination, and Matteo learned she became personally betrayed by bad butter.

They did not call it dating at first. Suzy did not ask. Matteo did not offer. The word sat between them anyway, patient and smug. It followed them through private rooms, delayed replies, airport goodbyes, and messages that arrived after two days of bad signal with no apology dramatic enough for the distance.

Suzy: You are alive? Matteo: Allegedly. Suzy: Eat. Matteo: You say that like an order. Suzy: It is.

Somewhere between contracts, his Chief Engineer’s relief got delayed. The company asked Matteo to act up. Matteo said yes, then made one condition inconvenient enough to become policy.

If he moved up, then 3rd Engineer Ernesto Villanueva moved up too.

Ernesto already held the license. He knew the plant, knew the crew, and had done Second Engineer’s work often enough without Second Engineer’s pay, which Matteo considered one of shipping’s favorite little crimes.

The office hesitated. Matteo let the silence do most of the arguing.

In the end, the company agreed because the Chief Engineer started threatening to contact Maritime Labor Convention. Matteo became acting Chief Engineer. Ernesto became Second Engineer. A relieving Third was sent instead of two senior officers.

Staffing efficiency, Matteo called it. Kindness wearing a hard hat, Suzy called it.

“You changed his children’s future,” she said during one call. “He earned the rank.” “I know.” “The company needed a solution.” “I know.” “Then why are you looking at me like that?” “Because you only admit care when it can wear a uniform.”

The signal froze after that, which was merciful. When it returned, Suzy was still watching him. She had a way of making distance feel poorly constructed.

Months passed. Matteo sailed. Suzy worked.

He returned when he could. She disappeared from the public when she could. Sometimes they had three days. Sometimes only a dinner. Sometimes only messages that crossed oceans badly and still arrived with more tenderness than either of them admitted.

Then Bali happened. Four days. No ship. No manager knocking. No cameras. No crew asking for signatures for working permits. No one saying soon, when, why, how long.

Just heat, rain, slow breakfasts, and a villa quiet enough to make both of them dangerous.

On the second morning, Suzy found him by the pool answering a company email with the seriousness of a man defusing a bomb.

“You are on vacation,” she said. Matteo did not look up. “This is only one email.” “That is how infestation begins.” “It is work.” “It is hiding.”

That made him look at her. Suzy sat across from him, hair loose, face bare, one knee drawn up on the chair. She looked nothing like the woman on billboards. Or maybe she looked exactly like her, if anyone had bothered to remove the performance first. Matteo closed the email.

Suzy smiled faintly, “Good boy.” “I outrank you in machinery.” “There is no machinery here.” “There is a coffee machine.” “And you clung to it like it was sacred.” “Have you every had shitty ship coffee? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemies.”

Yet despite that, Matteo knew that Suzy had a point. So he just accepted it and put the laptop and anything work-adjacent away.

Rain came hard that afternoon. They sat under the covered patio while the pool blurred silver and the garden steamed around them. Suzy read. Matteo pretended not to watch her. She let him pretend badly.

“Are we dating?” she asked without looking up.

Matteo went still. Suzy turned a page. The rain filled the space where his answer should have been, “You questioned that too casually” he said.

“It was not.” “No?” “No.” She closed the book. “I made it sound casual because you scare easier when things matter.” “I do not scare easy.” “You offered me email.” “That was reliability.” “Who the hell contacts through email nowadays? You might have been better off by suggesting a carrier pigeon.”

He looked at the rain. It was easier than looking at her.

“Dating sounds small,” he said. Suzy’s expression changed, but she did not interrupt.

“For what this is,” he continued. “For the flights. The waiting. The bad signal. The fact that you cannot walk into a store without someone thinking your face belongs to them.”

“And relationship?”

He breathed out once. Relationship sounded heavier. More honest. More dangerous. A thing with shape. A thing someone could lose.

“My contracts are not kind to relationships,” he said. “I know.” “I disappear.” “I know.” “I answer late.” “I know.” “I am not always good company.” “You are rarely company.”

He looked at her. She smiled. He almost did too.

“I have been cheated on enough to become boring,” he said. “You told me.” “I leave first because it is cleaner.” “Cleaner for who?”

He had no answer. Suzy placed her book on the table and leaned forward.

“I am not asking you to become easy,” she said. “I am not asking you to stay ashore. I am not asking you to promise me a life you do not want.”

The rain softened “What are you asking?” Her eyes stayed on his, “To stop treating me like one of those machineries you are too afraid to damage by returning to me.”

That landed harder than he expected. Matteo looked down at his hands.

They were good hands for work. Burn scars, old cuts, calluses from tools, nails kept short because machinery did not care about vanity. He trusted them in emergencies. Trusted them on valves, filters, pumps, generators, all the way down to paperwork.

He did not always trust them with people.

Suzy reached across the table and touched his knuckles “Matteo.” He looked up to her, “I am not temporary just because you are used to leaving.”

The rain kept falling.

Somewhere inside the villa, the coffee machine clicked to itself like a defeated animal. Matteo should have made a joke. He wanted to. It would have been safer. Instead, he turned his hand over and held hers properly.

“Then yes,” he said. Suzy’s face softened “Yes?” “We are in a relationship.”

She watched him for a second longer than necessary. Then nodded once, as if accepting a formal report, “Good.”

“That is all?” “You answered.” “I expected more reaction.” “We are the same age, Matteo. I can be mature.” “You asked if we were dating while pretending to read.” “I said I can be mature. I did not say I always choose to be.”

He laughed. Suzy looked pleased with herself.

That night, when the rain returned and the villa lights turned the room warm, she kissed him first. Not dramatically. Not like proof. Like permission finally becoming unnecessary. Matteo still hesitated. Only for a moment. Suzy noticed because she noticed everything.

Matteo still hesitated. Only for a moment. His lips met hers, and for a heartbeat, he held himself back, his body stiff, his mind instinctively calculating the distance he would eventually have to put between them. It was a reflex, a ghost of a habit that told him to keep one foot near the exit.

Suzy noticed. She noticed everything. She didn’t pull away; instead, she leaned into him, her hands sliding up his chest to cup the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the short hairs there. She deepened the kiss, her tongue grazing his lower lip in a slow, deliberate invitation. It wasn't a demand; it was an anchor, pulling him out of his head and back into the room.

Matteo let out a breath he felt he had been holding since the convenience store in Seoul. He stopped calculating. He stopped thinking about the next contract. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him, feeling the softness of her curves press into the hard lines of his frame. "You're thinking again," she whispered against his lips, her voice a low vibration that hummed through his chest.

"Hard not to," he murmured. "Stop. Just be here. With me."

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes dark and steady. She reached down, her fingers grazing the hem of her silk slip, and slowly lifted it over her head. She didn't do it with the practiced grace of a camera lens; she did it with a raw, honest vulnerability that made Matteo’s throat tighten. She stood before him, bare and luminous in the moonlight, the rain drumming a relentless, private rhythm against the roof.

Matteo’s hands trembled slightly as he reached for her. He was physically confident—he knew how to handle the heavy, demanding machinery of a ship—but this was different. This was precious. He traced the line of her shoulder, his thumb brushing over the delicate skin of her collarbone. He treated her with a carefulness that bordered on reverence, his touch light, almost tentative.

Suzy sighed, a small, needy sound, and stepped closer, pressing her breasts against his chest. She took his hands and guided them lower, placing his palms on her hips "I'm not glass, Matteo," she whispered. "You don't have to be afraid of breaking me."

He looked at her, really looked at her, and the last of the restraint snapped. He kissed her again, but this time there was no hesitation. It was hungry, a collision of months of delayed replies and airport goodbyes. He stripped out of his clothes with a frantic efficiency, his eyes never leaving hers. When he was finally bare, the contrast between them was stark—his skin tanned and mapped with the scars of his trade, her skin pale and flawless.

He lifted her, her legs locking around his waist, and carried her the short distance to the bed. He laid her back against the sheets, the mattress dipping under their combined weight. He spent a long time just exploring her, his mouth mapping the valley between her breasts, the dip of her waist, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. He wanted to memorize her, not as an image, but as a feeling.

As he moved lower, Suzy’s breath hitched. He parted her lips with his fingers, finding her already wet, a sweet, musky scent filling his senses. He leaned in, his tongue swirling around her clit with a slow, steady pressure. Suzy gasped, her hips jerking upward, her fingers digging into the sheets.

"Matteo... please," she whimpered, her voice breaking.

He didn't rush. He listened to the sound of her pleasure, the way her breathing became jagged and shallow. He used his tongue to taste her fully, sliding deep inside her for a moment before returning to the peak of her desire. He felt her body stiffen, her internal muscles pulsing against his tongue, and then she shuddered, a long, guttural moan escaping her as her first orgasm ripped through her.

Before she could settle, Suzy reached for him, her hands gripping his shoulders to pull him back up. She shifted, positioning herself over him, her eyes locking onto his. She slid down his body, her hair brushing against his skin, until she reached his cock.

Matteo groaned, his head hitting the pillow as she took him into her mouth. The sensation was electric—the heat, the suction, the wetness of her tongue swirling around the head of his shaft. He tried to keep his composure, his fingers clenching the sheets, but Suzy was intentional. She knew exactly how to move, using her lips and tongue to drive him toward a ledge he wasn't ready to fall from yet.

"Suzy," he gasped, his voice rough.

She looked up at him, a small, knowing smile on her lips, before sliding deeper, taking him almost to the root. Matteo’s hips bucked instinctively. He reached down, gently guiding her away, unable to take the intensity for another second. He needed to be inside her.

He moved over her, his weight a heavy, comforting shadow. He guided the head of his cock to her entrance, feeling the heat radiating from her. He paused, his eyes searching hers.

"You okay?" he whispered. "More than okay," she replied, her voice a soft command. "I want you. All of you."

He pushed in slowly. The sensation was overwhelming—the tight, velvet grip of her walls hugging him, the friction of their skin meeting. He felt her stretch to accommodate him, her breath catching in her throat. He stopped when he was buried deep, their pelvises slamming together with a heavy thud.

For a moment, they just stayed there, pinned to one another, hearts hammering in a synchronized rhythm. The rain outside seemed to fade, leaving only the sound of their shared breathing, "You're so... full," Suzy whispered, her eyes fluttering shut.

Matteo didn't answer with words. He began to move. He kept it slow at first, pulling back until only the tip remained before driving back in. The sound of their bodies colliding—a rhythmic, fleshy slapping—became the only thing in the world. He watched her face, the way her eyebrows knit together, the way her lips parted in a silent plea.

As the pace increased, the friction built into a searing heat. He could feel her getting wetter, the lubrication making every thrust a sliding, effortless motion. He shifted his angle, driving his cock upward to grind against her G-spot.

Suzy's reaction was instantaneous. Her back arched, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her nails leaving red crescents in his skin, "Right there... oh god, Matteo, right there!" she cried out, her voice rising in pitch.

He hammered into her, his movements becoming primal, stripped of all the carefulness he had carried for years. He wasn't the Second Engineer, the man who planned for failure, the man who left before it hurt. He was just a man, lost in the heat and the scent of a woman who had chosen him.

He felt her insides begin to quiver. Then, it happened. Suzy's entire body stiffened, her internal walls contracting in a series of violent, rhythmic pulses that squeezed his shaft with an almost unbearable pressure. A loud, guttural moan tore from her throat, and as she climaxed, the sensation pushed Matteo over the edge.

He let out a low, ragged moan, his muscles locking as he surged forward one last time, burying himself as deep as possible. He felt the hot, thick jets of his cum flooding her, filling her to the brim. He stayed there, pinned to her, their hearts drumming against each other's chests.

They lay in the silence for a while, the air in the room heavy and humid. Matteo didn't pull away. He didn't start the mental process of retreating. He kissed her forehead, his breath still coming in short, sharp bursts.

"Don't go," she whispered, though he hadn't moved. "I'm here," he replied, his voice a gravelly shadow of itself.

But the fire hadn't fully died; it had only settled into a slow, deep burn. As the minutes passed, the physical connection remained, the lingering heat of their joined bodies creating a bridge that neither wanted to cross back over. Matteo felt himself stirring again, the friction of her internal muscles still clinging to him, refusing to let go.

Suzy felt it too. She shifted beneath him, her legs wrapping around his waist once more, pulling him deeper into her. "Again," she whispered, her voice an invitation. "Stay inside me."

Matteo let out a breathy laugh, a sound of genuine surrender. He began to move again, but the rhythm had changed. Where the first time had been a collision, this was a dance. It was slower, more deliberate, each thrust a conversation. He focused on the sensation of her—the way she tightened around him, the way her skin felt slippery with sweat, the way she looked at him as if he were the only solid thing in a blurring world.

He spent the next hour mapping her again, but this time, the map was written in pleasure. He explored every angle, every depth, feeling the way her body responded to the slightest change in pressure. He felt the tension building again, not as a sudden explosion, but as a steady accumulation of emotion.

He realized, in the middle of a long, slow stroke, that he wasn't afraid anymore. The fear of wanting her—the fear of the hurt that comes with leaving—was still there, but it was smaller than the need to be known by her.

Suzy sensed the shift. She reached up, cupping his face, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones "I can see you, Matteo," she whispered. "I see you."

The words were the final trigger. The intensity surged back, the pace quickening as they both chased the peak. He drove into her with a focused intensity, his movements becoming urgent, desperate. Suzy met every thrust with a desperate hunger of her own, her hips rising to meet him, her voice calling his name over and over.

"Finish inside me," she gasped, her voice breaking. "Please, Matteo... give it all to me."

He didn't need to be told again. He hammered into her, the friction becoming a searing, blinding white light. He felt her walls clench around him one last time, a violent, rhythmic squeeze that pulled him under.

Matteo let out a choked cry, his body shuddering as he surged forward, burying himself to the hilt. He felt the hot, pulsing jets of his second climax flood into her, a deep, visceral release that felt like it was emptying not just his body, but his soul.

He collapsed onto her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, their breathing the only sound in the room besides the fading rain. He stayed there, heavy and content, feeling the slow, rhythmic throb of their bodies returning to a state of rest.

Afterward, the room went quiet in the way only rain could make it quiet. Not empty. Just softened.

Suzy slept first, or pretended to. Matteo could not tell. Her breathing had evened out against the pillow, her hair loose across her cheek, one hand resting near the place he had been a moment ago.

For a while, Matteo stayed. That alone felt like effort. Then habit found him. Not panic. Not regret. Only the old instinct to put distance back before morning could name what had happened.

He slipped out of bed carefully, found his sweatpants, and stepped onto the covered patio with a cigarette he had bought at the airport and forgotten until then.

The rain had slowed to a fine silver curtain. Matteo lit the cigarette and watched the smoke disappear into wet air. He did not feel clean. He did not feel dirty either. He felt known.

That was worse. Better. Both actually. He did not know anymore.

Behind him, the room remained warm. Suzy remained inside it. No ship. No schedule. No alarm panel. No one calling him Chief Engineer or ‘Hepe’. No machinery waiting to fail if he stopped paying attention. Only a woman who had touched him like he was allowed to stay.

Matteo took one drag. Then another. The cigarette tasted like avoidance. He stared at it.

“Tangga gyud ka, Matteo.” he muttered. (T/N: You really are an idiot, Matteo.)

Then he put it out halfway.

When he returned, Suzy was awake. She had not moved much. Only enough to turn toward the door, the sheet pulled loosely around her, her eyes calm in the low light.

Matteo stopped just inside the room. Caught. Not because he had done anything wrong. Because she had seen the part he had not meant to show, “Suzy, I was just outside.” he said.

“I know.” “I came back.” “I know that too.”

The quiet stretched between them. Suzy looked at him for a long moment. Then she asked, softly, “Are you planning to always leave after you touch me?”

Matteo looked down at the cigarette still pinched between his fingers. Then he crossed to the ashtray, crushed it out properly, and came back to bed.

“No,” he said. Suzy watched him sit beside her, “That sounded like a decision.”

“It is.” “Good.”

She lifted the sheet for him. Not seductively. Not dramatically. Like she was making room. Matteo lay down beside her again. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Suzy’s hand found his wrist beneath the sheet, fingers resting over his pulse like she wanted proof that he was still there.

“You are quiet,” she said. “I am thinking.” “That sounds dangerous.” “It usually is.” Her mouth curved faintly “What are you thinking?”

Matteo stared at the ceiling. There were easier answers. A joke. A warning about his next contract. A practical comment about morning. Instead, he said the one that had been waiting since the rain started.

“Us.” Suzy went still for half a second. Then her face softened, “Us?”

“Being in a relationship.” She watched him carefully. Not surprised, exactly. More like she had been waiting for him to arrive at the word on his own, “Are we?”

“Yes.” “Not coffee?” “No.” “Not international haunting?” “No.” “Not decorative phone numbers?”

Despite himself, Matteo smiled “No.” Suzy shifted closer, her warmth settling against his side, “Good,” she said.

“That is all?” “You came back, Matteo.”

He looked at her. She looked sleepy now, but not careless. Never careless, “I do not need a speech for what you already did.”

That stayed with him longer than any speech would have. Before dawn, he woke again. Habit tried once more. Check the time. Check the phone. His hand moved. Suzy caught his wrist without opening her eyes “Nope. You’re staying right here, tiger.” He froze. Her fingers tightened around him, “Morning is not here yet.”

Matteo looked at her in the dim light. Then let the phone go. When she woke later, he was still there. Suzy opened her eyes, looked at him, then at the untouched phone on the bedside table, “You stayed.”

His voice was rough from sleep “You asked.” “That usually does not work on you.” “It did this time.”

Her smile was small. Private. Dangerous to everything he had built.

After Bali, the relationship became official only to them. That was enough. Matteo still sailed. Suzy still worked. The world still asked too much from both of them, only in different uniforms. They became good at temporary cities.

A Seoul apartment with the curtains closed. A Tokyo restaurant too small for fame to sit comfortably. A Singapore rooftop where no one looked up fast enough to recognize her. Cotabato once, where his cousins loved her immediately because she looked at Matteo like he was not allowed to vanish.

The rest passed in fragments. Sign on. Sign off. Bad signal. Delayed flights. Suzy’s voice messages saved for after watch. Matteo’s photos of coffee, weather, and the least confidential parts of the ocean.

The next time Ernesto Villanueva became more than a name passed through fleet gossip, he was already stepping into Matteo’s engine control room as the vessel’s relieving Second Engineer.

“Chief Matteo!” Matteo looked up from the PMS, “Putangina ikaw ba yan, Villanueva?  (T/N: Motherfucker is that you, Villanueva?) “Miss moa ko, sir?” (T/N: Did you miss me, sir?) “No.” “I missed you too.” “You have five minutes to stop being sentimental before I give you the sewage tank on your first week here.”

Ernesto laughed and took the chair beside him like he had earned the right to be there. He had.

The promotion had done what promotions were supposed to do when they went to the right man. It did not make Ernesto louder. It made him steadier. He corrected juniors without making them feel small. He checked before deciding, but decided when checking was done. He knew the plant, knew the men, and knew when Matteo wanted silence badly enough that even a joke became a maintenance hazard.

The crew liked him. That mattered onboard. Men obeyed rank. They respected character, and Ernesto had both.

During one quiet watch, while the vessel waited on cargo delays and the engine control room hummed with the rare peace of machines behaving, Ernesto showed Matteo a photo on his phone. His daughter stood in a lab coat that finally fit her shoulders properly.

“Laboratory classes,” Ernesto said, trying and failing to sound casual. Matteo looked at the photo, “She still looks expensive.” “Already is, Chief.” “I warned you about children.” “You have none, so your advice is theoretical.” “Money is not theoretical.”

Ernesto laughed and swiped to the next photo. His son stood beside a small training aircraft, grinning like the future had agreed to wait for him.

“Pilot,” Ernesto said. “If God allows and my salary survives.” Matteo handed the phone back, “You should have raised cheaper children.” “They learned from their father.” “You are also financially irresponsible.” “Yes,” Ernesto said, smiling. “But now I can afford to be.”

That was the important part. Not the title. Not the paperwork. Not the office calling it efficient because the arrangement had already benefited them.

Only that Ernesto had more room now. More breath. More future. And Matteo had helped put him there, no matter how many times he called it staffing.

When the vessel returned to South Korea for drydock, Suzy messaged before the pilot was even off the ship.

Suzy: Ship stopped moving? Matteo: Unfortunately, no. The ship stopped. The work multiplied. Suzy: Korea? Matteo: Yes. Suzy: Do I get five minutes? Matteo: You usually take more than five. Suzy: You usually stay longer than you planned.

He did. This time, he admitted it. They met two nights later in a private room above a restaurant Suzy trusted.

He arrived smelling faintly of soap, steel, and fatigue. She arrived in a cap, mask, and loose coat, looking like a woman trying to disappear politely from a world that had memorized her face too well.

For the first ten minutes, they only ate. That had become one of their private languages. Food first. Questions later.

“You look tired,” she said eventually. “It is drydock.” “That is not an answer.” “It is several answers wearing one helmet, and I’m sure one of those answers is going to stab me with surprise paperwork.”

She stole meat from his plate

“That was mine.” “It looked lonely.” “You and food theft have become comfortable.” “You keep coming back. That teaches me confidence.”

He had no defense against that. So he let her keep it.

Drydock swallowed him after that. Inspections. Permits. Hot work. Delayed parts. Yard disputes. Extra coffee. Poor sleep. Men pretending they were not one bad job away from snapping. Ernesto worked beside him through most of it. That was why the days were survivable.

“You are becoming annoying,” Matteo told him once after Ernesto caught a missed detail before he did. “I was mentored by the best, Chief.”

“Do not blame me for your defects.” “I blame you for my promotion.” “That was staffing efficiency.” “Of course, Chief.”

The joke stayed between them until it became familiar enough to hurt later. After that, memory became selective. Not absent. Worse. Selective.

Matteo remembered the smell of coffee in the engine control room. Burnt, old, reheated too many times, but familiar enough to be comforting. He remembered Ernesto laughing at something one of the oilers said during the toolbox meeting.

He remembered Suzy’s last message sitting unread on his phone because he had meant to answer after rounds.

Suzy: Eat something that is not sad protein. Suzy: I love you.

He remembered the purifier alarm coming in as nothing dramatic at first. Just another sound in a ship that had returned from drydock carrying a hundred small complaints in its steel.

Drydock never truly ended when the ship left the yard. It followed them out. It hid inside gaskets that seated properly during testing and misbehaved under load. It waited in fittings disturbed by maintenance, in sensors that passed checks but drifted afterward, in machines that looked fine while everyone was watching and changed their minds three days later.

The purifier had been one of those irritations.

Not dangerous. Not then. Just irritating.

It had been opened during drydock, cleaned, inspected, reassembled, tested, and signed off as good. The yard technician had been there. Ernesto had been there. Matteo had been there.

Clearances checked. Rotation checked. Vibration within range. No abnormal heat. No unusual sound. No leak. A proper job. A boring job. The safest kind, supposedly.

Then, after departure, the purifier began complaining in small ways. A vibration alarm that cleared. A temperature reading that returned to normal after local inspection. A noise one oiler described as different, which was not an engineering term but was often more useful than that useless as fuck of a manual.

Matteo did not ignore it. That was the part that made it worse. He reviewed the trend. Ernesto checked the log. They reduced load, inspected what could be inspected, confirmed oil flow, checked the foundation bolts, checked for leaks, checked the discharge pressure, checked the bowl running condition from outside the casing the way sane men checked high-speed machinery.

Nobody opened what should not be opened. Nobody bypassed what should not be bypassed. Nobody rushed because they wanted dinner. They treated it like competent engineers treated a suspect machine after drydock. Seriously, but not theatrically.

“It is not right,” Ernesto said. Matteo stood beside him, listening. The purifier was running, but there was a thinness underneath its sound. A faint metallic rise that came and went quickly enough that a tired man could convince himself it had not happened. Matteo heard it. So did Ernesto.

“Stop and change over,” Matteo said. Ernesto nodded immediately. “I’ll take number two online.” “No heroics.” Ernesto gave him a look “Chief, it is a purifier.” “That is not an answer.” Ernesto smiled. Small and tired, “Yes, Chief.”

Matteo returned to the control room to coordinate the changeover and update the bridge. It should have been routine. Bring the standby purifier online. Confirm parameters. Shut down the suspect unit. Lock it out. Open after full stop and cooling. Inspect with daylight, patience, and no pride.

That was the plan. That was the last comfort Matteo had before the sound changed.

Not an explosion. Not at first. A scream that didn’t belong to any human, metal rising against metal in a pitch that did not belong inside any running machinery.

The alarm panel lit. Vibration high. Trip. Then another alarm.

Then the radio cracked open with a voice that had lost all shape, “Chief! Chief! Purifier flat—” The rest dissolved into noise. Matteo was already moving.

By the time he reached the purifier room, the air had changed. Not smoke exactly. Not yet. Hot oil mist. Metal heat. The sharp smell of something that had failed faster than the room could understand.

An oiler was on the deck near the doorway, coughing, eyes wide, one hand pressed against his shoulder where Ernesto had shoved him hard enough to bruise. Later, the man would keep apologizing for falling. As if living was something to apologize for.

Matteo stepped past him. The suspect purifier had stopped, but not cleanly. The casing had held most of the failure. Most. That word would return to Matteo often.

Most was not all.

A fractured piece of rotating assembly, or coupling, or something the investigation would name properly later, had torn through where metal should have contained metal. It crossed the space between machine and man in less time than a warning could become useful.

Ernesto was inside the trajectory.

For one impossible second, Matteo’s mind refused to understand the shape of him there. Then training arrived. Training was cruel that way. It gave the body somewhere to go before the soul could catch up.

“Emergency stop confirmed!” Matteo shouted. Someone answered. He did not know who, “Isolate power. Close oil supply. Someone call Chief Mate and 2nd Officer, NOW.”

His knees hit the deck beside Ernesto. There was blood. Too much.

Not sprayed like movies made it. Not dramatic in the way people who had never seen it imagined. It was worse because it was real and fast and soaking through things that were not supposed to be red.

Matteo pressed both hands where pressure had to be. Ernesto made a sound. Not a scream. A breath trying to become one. “Stay with me, you bastard.” Matteo yelled out.

Ernesto’s eyes found him. For one second, he looked embarrassed. That nearly broke Matteo. “Chief, this going to be… shitty paperwork.” Ernesto breathed.

“No. Don’t talk.” “Tisoy… is he safe?”

Ernesto’s eyes shifted, searching. “He’s out,” Matteo said again, louder, because Ernesto needed the order confirmed more than comfort. “You pushed him clear. He’s alive.”

Something in Ernesto’s face loosened. Just a little. Then tightened again, the pain did that. Reality did worse.

The Chief Officer arrived running in his safety shoes and the emergency kit, he wasn’t dressed properly since he was asleep after his watch while 2nd Officer had just arrived with the stretcher and the emergency morphine from the medically supply.

Cadet was trying to stay composed in the doorway, he failed. Threw up at the sight of all of it, nobody blamed him— his first international vessel and he sees something like this? Any other sane person would stay on land forever after seeing that.

 Someone else was repeating “pressure, pressure, pressure” like prayer and instruction were the same thing. Matteo kept his hands down. Hard. Harder than kindness.

“Look at me,” he ordered. Ernesto did “Your daughter is in medicine,” Matteo said, because he did not know what else could anchor a man to the world. “Your son is going to fly. You hear me?”

Ernesto’s breathing broke “Expensive” he whispered. Matteo almost laughed. It came out wrong, “Yes. Very expensive. So stay awake, asshole.”

Ernesto tried to smile. Failed. His eyes moved past Matteo for a moment, toward the machinery. Toward the purifier. Toward the thing that had been checked, tested, signed off, and still decided to become trauma for everyone involved.

“Not…” Ernesto breathed. Matteo leaned closer “Don’t.” “Not their fault.”

The words cost him. Matteo understood. That was the worst part.

Even then, Ernesto was still an officer. Still protecting his men. Still making sure the oiler who had lived would not spend the rest of his life believing he was responsible for Ernesto’s accident. Still making sure the juniors would not think routine work had become murder because they missed something that even the technicians did.

Matteo’s throat closed “I know,” he said. “I know.” Ernesto’s eyes closed. “Stay awake.” They opened. Barely.

Then more hands arrived to assist, too many hands and not enough time. Captain’s complexion became whiter, he couldn’t do anything but watch since everything that could have been done was already done by everyone else.

The Chief Officer’s face became older. Someone contacted shore. Someone checked distance. Someone asked for a pulse and then asked again because asking again was easier than accepting the answer.

Matteo did not move until someone made him. Even then, he resisted. Not violently. Just enough that the captain had to put a hand on his shoulder and say, “Chief.”

Only then did Matteo look down and realize his hands were still pressed to a wound no pressure could make survivable.

Afterward, everything became procedure. That was the obscenity of it. A man died, and paperwork decided that it deserves everyone responsible person’s attention.

The area was secured. Photographs taken. Statements prepared. Equipment isolated. Logs preserved. The company notified. The authorities notified. The crew accounted for.

The man Ernesto had shoved clear was examined and found physically safe. That made him cry harder. Nobody blamed him. Nobody blamed Ernesto. That should have helped.

It did not. Because no blame meant there was nowhere for Matteo’s mind to put the weight.

The investigation would later find what investigations often found: layered failure. A defective part that the shore personnel were not equipped to check for. Stress that had likely begun before anyone heard the first strange note. A component disturbed, inspected, reassembled, and cleared after drydock, then betrayed by real running conditions. Safeguards that contained most of the failure but not enough. Competent checks. Competent response. Bad timing. Bad luck. Steel obeying physics without mercy.

No single careless act. No villain. No easy sentence that could make the dead return cleaner. Only the unbearable fact that sometimes men did the job properly and the job still took one of them.

Matteo washed his hands afterward. Then again. Then again. The water ran pink first. Then clear. That did not help.

The captain found him in the washroom outside the engine room, standing over the sink with his sleeves rolled to his elbows “Chief...”

Matteo turned off the tap. The silence after running water felt too loud “They will need your statement,” the captain said.

“I know.” “Not now.”

Matteo looked at him. The captain’s face was steady in the practiced way captains became steady when the ship had no use for their grief yet. “Sit down first.”

“I’m fine.” “You are not.”

Matteo almost argued. Then he looked at his hands. They were shaking. Not badly. Enough. The captain saw, “You did what you could.” he said. Matteo dried his hands with a paper towel until the towel tore “That sentence is useless, Captain.”

“I know.” “Then do not give it to me.”

The captain accepted that without offense. That made Matteo angrier for half a second. Then too tired to keep it, “I need to call his wife,” Matteo said.

“The company will coordinate official notification.” “I did not ask what the company will coordinate.”

The captain’s expression tightened. Not in disapproval. In understanding. “Not yet,” he said. “Not before the official channels. You know that.”

Matteo did. Rules were cruelest when they were correct. He closed his eyes. For one dangerous second, he saw Ernesto’s son beside the aircraft. Then his daughter in the lab coat. Then Ernesto’s mouth trying to smile around the word expensive.

Matteo opened his eyes again, “What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing for ten minutes.” “That is not possible.” “It is an order.”

Matteo looked at him. The captain looked back. Old sea rule. If a captain turned care into an order, you obeyed because disobedience was worse than cardinal sin, so Matteo sat.

Ten minutes became seven because procedure did not respect grief any more than machinery did. There were reports. Names. Times. Temperatures. Alarm logs. Sequence of events. Statements written in language too clean for what had happened.

At 1432H abnormal vibration was observed. At 1434H changeover initiated. At 1436H catastrophic mechanical failure occurred. At 1437H emergency response commenced.

It looked almost reasonable on paper. That was what Matteo hated most. On paper, death became organized. By midnight, the ship was quieter than it should have been. Nobody joked in the mess. Nobody argued over coffee. Nobody slammed doors.

The oiler Ernesto had shoved clear sat with both hands around a mug he did not drink from and a cigarette in the ashtray. Every few minutes, his shoulders shook once, like his body kept remembering he was alive and finding it unbearable.

Matteo wanted to tell him to stop apologizing. He did not trust his voice. So he only sat across from him for a while with a cigarette in his own hand. That was all he had. Presence. Useless, but sometimes the only tool left.

Later, alone in his cabin, Matteo finally picked up his phone. Suzy’s unread message was still there.

Suzy: I hope you ate something that was not sad protein.

He stared at it until the words stopped looking like words. Then he called her. No video. He could not let her see his hands. Suzy answered on the third ring. No video, “Matteo?”

Her voice was quiet at first, softened by sleep or rehearsal fatigue. Then something in his silence reached her faster than words could “What happened?” He closed his eyes. For a second, he saw the purifier casing again. Most. Not all.

“Ernesto died a few hours ago.” he said.

The sentence came out too clean. He hated that. On the other end of the line, Suzy did not speak immediately. No gasp. No dramatic question. Only silence. The kind that made room.

Matteo gripped the phone tighter.

“There was a purifier failure after drydock. We had checked it. Ernesto checked it. I checked it. We heard something wrong, so I ordered changeover. It failed before the shutdown completed.”

He stopped. His throat refused the next part. Suzy waited. That was one of the things he loved about her and one of the things that made lying impossible, “He pushed an oiler clear,” Matteo continued. “The junior lived. Ernesto did not.”

Suzy breathed in softly. Not for herself. For him, “Matteo.”

“They are sending the directly affected crew home,” he said quickly, because facts were safer. “The oiler. The watchmen who responded. Me.”

“You?”

“It’s company protocol. No one directly involved stays aboard for the remainder of contract. Not after fatality. They are likely sending the relievers in at the next port.”

“That is good.” “It is correct.” “That too.”

He pressed the heel of his free hand to his eye, “The oiler keeps apologizing.” “I know.” “You do not.”

“No,” she said gently. “I don’t. But I know what guilt sounds like when it looks for somewhere to sit.”

Matteo almost laughed. It hurt instead, “He has a wife,” he said. Suzy went very still. Matteo heard it through the phone.

“He has children. Daughter in medicine. Son wants aviation. He used to complain about the money like it was killing him.” His voice thinned. “I helped him get promoted.”

“Yes.” “I put him there.” “No.”

The word came calmly. Too calmly for how badly he needed it not to. “Suzy.”

“No,” she said again. “You helped him get what he earned. You did not put him in front of that machine.”

Matteo looked at his hands. They were clean now. They should not have been, “He would not have been Second if I had not bargained for him.”

“And his daughter might not be in medicine. His son might not be closer to flying. His family might have had less financial room to breathe.”

“That does not balance it.” “I am not balancing it.” “Then what are you doing?” “Stopping you before you turn kindness into evidence against yourself.”

His breathing changed. He did not want it to. Suzy heard anyway, “Matteo,” she said, softer now. “Where are you?”

“My cabin.” “When is the next port?” “Two days, maybe more if we prioritize the reports. We were already sailing back to Korea first for bunkering. Now everything depends on the authorities.”

“Korea?” “Yes.” “Good.”

Something in her tone shifted. Not panic. Decision. He knew that sound from the night in Bali when she had asked whether they were dating without looking up from her book.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “I am checking my schedule.” “No.” “You have not heard what I am checking.” “I know that tone.” “Then you know arguing will waste both of our time.” “Suzy.”

“I was already supposed to take two weeks of vocal rest after the drama promotions,” she said. “My doctor recommended it. My agency wanted to delay the announcement until the last minute because that is what agencies do when they think human bodies negotiate with schedules.”

Despite everything, Matteo closed his eyes “Do not use me as a reason to disappear from work.” “I am not.” “You just said—” “I said I already had a reason. You are the reason I am using it properly.”

He had no answer. That was becoming common with her.

“I will not arrive as Bae Suzy,” she continued. “No airport entrance. No cameras. No public hotel. My manager can say private medical rest. My staff already knows how to move quietly.”

“That is too much.” “A man died. You are being sent home from a ship because you held him while he died. Do not tell me what is too much.”

Her voice did not rise. It did not need to. Matteo sat on the edge of his bunk. The cabin felt smaller than it had before the call. Or maybe his body had finally remembered it was inside one.

“I do not know what I need,” he admitted. “I know.” “I might not talk.” “I know.” “I might be terrible company.” “Again, you are rarely company.”

The laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Small. Broken. Real enough that it frightened him. Suzy stayed quiet for a second. Then said, “There you are.”

He pressed his palm over his eyes again. This time, when his breath broke, he did not have enough discipline left to hide it. Suzy did not tell him it was okay. That would have been useless. She only stayed on the line. For a long time, that was all.

The ship moved under him.

Somewhere outside his cabin, men walked softer than usual. Doors closed with care. A vessel that had once felt too loud now felt like it was holding its breath around a missing man. Eventually, Suzy said, “Tell me one thing.”

“What?” “Have you eaten?” He looked toward the untouched tray on his desk “No.” “Can you?” “I don’t know.” “Try.” “Suzy.” “Not a meal,” she said. “Just something. One bite if that is all you can do.”

He stared at the tray. Rice. Egg. Soup gone cold. The sad protein she talked about that would definitely made the cook cry if he heard that comment.

He picked up the spoon because she was silent and stubborn and across an ocean but somehow still in the room. One bite. It tasted like nothing.

“I ate,” he said. “Good.” “It was terrible.” “I did not ask for a review.”

He almost smiled again. Almost. Two days later, the vessel entered Korean territory under a sky the color of wet steel.

Authorities came aboard. Statements were taken again.

The relievers arrived with careful faces, already knowing not to ask the wrong questions. The company representative spoke in a lowered voice and used phrases like critical incident support, compassionate repatriation, and fitness for continued duty.

Matteo signed where he was told. The oiler Ernesto had saved cried when he was ordered to pack, “Chief, I can stay.”

“No.” “Chief—” “That is an order.”

The young man’s face crumpled. Matteo wanted to soften it. He could not, “If you stay, you will keep apologizing to a machine,” Matteo said. “Everyone has to go home. That means me as well, Tisoy.”

The oiler looked down. Then nodded. One by one, the directly affected men left the vessel. Not dishonorably. Not because they had failed. Because some things stayed in the body before the mind had words for them, and a ship did not need men handling high-speed machinery while their hands were still remembering blood.

Matteo was the last to leave. The captain walked him to the gangway. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then the captain said, “You will receive the full report when it is released.”

“I know.” “It will say you acted correctly.”

Matteo looked at the port below. Containers. Cranes. Men in helmets moving cargo like the world had not shifted at all, “That sentence is still useless, Captain.”

“I know.” The captain’s face changed slightly. Older now. Less captain, more man. “Take the flight home, Reyes.” before Matteo could talk back, Captain continued.

“You’re staying longer in Korea, the authorities need to talk to you more, nothing to worry. We had accommodation covered but someone in Korea contacted the company and it seems you’re staying somewhere else instead. I am not prying, but at least see everyone else off at the airport.”

Matteo gripped the railing once. Then let go. At the airport, he expected company staff. A driver. Maybe a hotel room arranged under his name. He expected procedure.

He did not expect Suzy. He saw her before he understood it was her. Cap low. Mask on. Plain coat. No jewelry that could catch light. No visible staff except one woman standing several meters away pretending not to guard a famous person with the eyes of a professional hawk.

Suzy looked smaller in the airport than she did on billboards. More real. More dangerous to his self-control. Matteo stopped walking. She did not run to him. That would have drawn attention. She only stepped forward and took his bag from his hand. As if this were ordinary. As if men came home with grief every day and women who loved them simply carried what they could.

“You should not be here,” he said. “I am on vocal rest.” “You are at an airport.” “I am not singing at it.”

He stared at her. She stared back. Then his face changed before he could stop it. Suzy saw. Of course she saw. She touched his sleeve. Not his hand. Not yet. Just the fabric near his wrist, where no stranger would think much of it, “Come on,” she said. “The car is waiting.”

He followed. Because there were too many people around to fall apart. Because she knew that. Because she had come anyway.

The car took them through back roads to an apartment he had never seen before. Not her public place. Not anywhere cameras would wait. Small by celebrity standards. Quiet. Clean. Curtains already drawn.

There was food on the table. Not much. Soup. Rice. Water. Coffee he knew she did not drink.

His bag went by the door. His shoes came off because Suzy pointed at them without speaking, and somehow he obeyed that more easily than condolences. For a while, he stood in the living room like he did not know what furniture was for.

Suzy took off her cap and mask. Her face was bare. Tired. Serious. His.

“Shower first,” she said. “I already washed.” “I know.”

He looked at her. She did not look away, “This one is not for the blood,” she said. That nearly undid him. He went to the bathroom. The water was hot. Too hot. He let it hit his shoulders until his skin reddened and his hands stopped feeling like they were still pressing down on something that would not close.

When he came out, Suzy had placed clean clothes on the counter. His clothes. Somehow. He did not ask. Maybe from the bag. Maybe from memory. Maybe she had learned him well enough that nothing about care felt accidental anymore. She was sitting on the edge of the bed when he entered the room.

No speech. No dramatic embrace. Only space beside her. Matteo sat. The mattress dipped. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then he said, “I keep thinking it should have been me.” Suzy’s hands folded in her lap “No.”

He closed his eyes “I have no wife. No children. No one depending on my salary.” His voice hardened because softness would break, “Ernesto had all of that.”

“Yes,” Suzy said.

That stopped him more than denial would have. She turned toward him, “His children lost their father. I will not pretend your grief would be the same as theirs.” Matteo looked at her. Her eyes were wet now. She did not hide it, “But you are using their grief to make your life cheaper.”

The words landed without cruelty. That was why they landed at all, “If you died,” she continued, “it would have drowned Ernesto in guilt, it would not be clean for me either.”

His breath caught “Suzy.”

“No.” Her voice trembled once, then steadied. “You do not get to decide that because no one needs your money, you think that no one would need you alive.”

He looked down. She reached for his hand. This time, he let her take it, “You mean something to me,” she said. “That makes your absence matter.”

Matteo could not answer. The room blurred. He bowed his head, not enough to sob, not enough to surrender, but enough that Suzy moved closer and held him before he could decide whether he deserved it.

He did not cry loudly. He did not fall apart beautifully. Grief did not make him poetic. It made him quiet and ugly and exhausted. Suzy held him anyway. For the rest of the night, she did not ask for the full story again.

She fed him three more bites of soup. She took the bowl away when his hand shook too much. She let him sit in silence. When he woke from the first bad dream, she was there.

When he woke from the second, she was there too. By morning, the agency had released a short notice.

Bae Suzy would be taking a brief period of rest under medical advice due to accumulated fatigue and vocal strain. She asked for understanding and privacy while she recovered.

The public believed what it wanted. The industry moved on by lunchtime.

Matteo slept through most of it with his head in Suzy’s lap and her hand resting in his hair like a quiet refusal to let him become a ghost while still breathing.

The official part took longer than grief did. Authorities. Company representatives. Statements that repeated themselves until language lost all shape. Matteo answered what he could. Times. Orders. Readings. Alarms. Who was where. Who heard what. Who responded first.

Every question was necessary. Every answer felt useless. By the time the company office finished with him, the decision had already formed in a quiet place inside his chest.

They offered him the remaining duration of his contract in full salary. No deductions. No argument. No hidden punishment dressed up as accounting.

Then came the recovery package. Psychological support covered by the company. One year away from active deployment. Reassessment before the next assignment. Words clean enough to belong in an email.

The welfare officer looked at him carefully, “Do you think one year would be enough?” Matteo looked down at the folder on the table. One year. A number made by people who needed pain to fit somewhere “No,” he said. The room went still. The superintendent leaned forward. “Chief Reyes, you do not have to decide today.”

“I know.” “We can revisit after rest.” “I know.” “Many officers return after incidents with proper support.”

Matteo folded his hands on the table. Maybe he could have. That was the frightening part. He could pass the medicals. He could sign the paperwork. He could stand in an engine control room again and make correct decisions. He could call it professionalism and pretend the body did not remember what the mind was tired of carrying.

But the next time a machine sounded wrong, he would not hear machinery first. He would hear Ernesto, “I might never recover in a way that makes me safe as Chief Engineer,” Matteo said. No one interrupted him. “The next time something sounds wrong, I will overcorrect. I will override good men. I will turn fear into caution and call it leadership.”

His voice stayed polite. That made it final, “That is not safe.”

The welfare officer’s face changed. Not pity. Recognition

“So I am stopping,” Matteo said. “For good.”

Outside the office, Suzy was waiting in the car. She did not ask how it went. She looked at his face once and knew enough. Matteo got in. The door closed. Manila moved around them in heat, traffic, and noise.

Then Suzy reached across the space between them and took his hand “You stopped, didn’t you?” she said. “Yes.” Matteo told her.

“Because of Ernesto?” Matteo looked out the window, “No.” Her fingers tightened slightly “Because of what I would become if I stayed.”

Suzy nodded. He turned to her, “That is all?” “You chose before the sea had to break you twice.”

A year did not pass cleanly.

People liked anniversaries because calendars made pain look organized. Grief had no respect for calendars. Some mornings were fine. Some afternoons were not. Some nights put Matteo back in the purifier room with alarms in his teeth and blood under his hands. He went to therapy because Suzy made appointments like she had learned war from watching him avoid himself.

He visited Ernesto’s family because staying away would have been easier, and Matteo was tired of choosing easy exits. The first death anniversary hurt. Of course it did. There was food, prayer, relatives, stories, and photographs. Ernesto’s widow hugged him like blame had never been invited into the house. His daughter told him she was still in medicine. His son talked about flight school like he was afraid hope might become expensive enough to offend the dead.

Matteo stood at the grave and said, quietly, “Your children are still financially irresponsible.”

Ernesto’s widow laughed through tears. That was not healing. Not exactly. But it was breath.

Years moved after that.

Not quickly. Not gently. Just forward. Suzy’s vocal rest became a boundary she never fully gave back. At first, the public called it fatigue. Then selective scheduling. Then semi-retirement. Then, eventually, the words no agency statement could soften anymore.

Bae Suzy was stepping away from celebrity life.

No scandal. No dramatic farewell. No resentment toward the work that had shaped her. Only a woman deciding that being loved by millions was not the same as being left alone to live. She still sang sometimes, when she wanted to. She still accepted private projects when they mattered enough.

But the public version of her became a closed door. The real one stayed in the kitchen, barefoot, complaining that Matteo sliced fruit like he was preparing engine parts for inspection.

Their son was born on a rainy morning. Matteo cried before the baby did. Suzy never let him forget it, “He was just checking if the atmosphere was safe,” Matteo said later, defensive and sleep-deprived.

“He was a newborn.” “He had instincts.” “He had lungs.” “Powerful ones.” “From me,” Suzy said. “Unfortunately.”

She threw a pillow at him. The years softened the sharpest edges without erasing them. Matteo still woke early. Suzy still noticed everything.

Their son learned very quickly that if he made a certain face, both his parents lost whatever argument they were pretending to win.

By the time Ernesto’s children came to Korea for vacation, the boy was old enough to throw rice crackers with accuracy and no remorse.

Ernesto’s daughter arrived first, taller now, steadier, her smile carrying more of her father than Matteo had expected. She was about to start residency soon, which she said casually, as if she had not dragged an entire family’s prayers with her into the hospital.

Ernesto’s son arrived beside her, leaner than the last time Matteo had seen him, sun-browned from training, flight school graduation only months away.

Suzy met them at the door with their son balanced on one hip. No mask. No cap. No guarded staff pretending not to guard her. Just Suzy, hair tied back, house slippers on, smiling like celebrity had been a strange dream someone else once had.

“Come in,” she said. “You must be tired.”

The son stared for half a second too long. His sister elbowed him. He recovered badly, “Sorry, ma’am.” Suzy’s mouth curved, “If you call me ma’am for the whole vacation, I will make Matteo cook for you.”

The daughter looked at Matteo, “Is that a threat?” “Yes,” Suzy said. Matteo lifted the baby higher against his chest “I am an excellent cook.” “You reheat with confidence,” Suzy corrected. “That is a skill.” “That is a microwave.”

The baby slapped Matteo’s cheek with one small hand. Everyone took that as agreement. They stayed because Matteo and Suzy had insisted. A hotel would have been easier. Less personal. Less dangerous.

That was exactly why Matteo had refused it, “You are family,” he had told them over the phone. The line had gone quiet. Then Ernesto’s daughter had said, carefully, “Chief, you know Papa would have cried if he heard that.”

Matteo had swallowed around something sharp “Then don’t tell him, I don’t have enough salt if he haunts me with thanks.”

Now, in Korea, their small apartment carried the comfortable chaos of guests. Shoes by the door. Suitcases near the wall. Snacks on the table. A baby determined to personally inspect the emotional stability of every adult in the room.

Dinner was simple because Suzy had overruled Matteo’s plan to order enough food to feed a village “You think hospitality means logistics,” she said.

“It does.” “No. Sit down.” “I can help.” “You can help by holding our son.” “That is help.” “He is chewing your shirt.” “He is developing teeth.” “He is attacking you.” “He is passionate.”

Ernesto’s son laughed first. Then his sister. Then Suzy, softer, watching Matteo pretend not to melt while the baby gnawed happily on his collar.

After dinner, they sat around the low table with fruit, coffee, and a stack of baby toys that their son ignored in favor of Suzy’s empty water bottle. “So,” Matteo said, looking at Ernesto’s son. “Flight school.”

The boy straightened automatically. “Yes, Chief.” “Stop calling me Chief.” “My father specifically ordered me to call you that until further notice, Chief.” “That son of a b—” Suzy had elbowed him, “No talking ill of the ones who have passed.”

Then Suzy hid her smile behind her cup. Matteo gave her a look. She did not look sorry.

“You graduate soon?” he asked. “In a few months. If I survive the check ride.” “You will.” The boy looked down, embarrassed “My father used to say I was too confident.” “He was right.” “Chief.” “He also used to say expensive children deserve expensive dreams.”

The room softened. Ernesto’s daughter looked at her brother, “He cried when you first soloed.” The boy frowned. “Mama told you?”

“She told everyone.” “I was emotional because fuel is expensive.” Matteo pointed at him “There. That is your father.”

Everyone laughed. Even the baby, because noise pleased him. Suzy bounced him lightly on her lap, “What about you?” she asked the daughter. “Residency soon?” The daughter nodded “Almost. I’m terrified.”

“Good,” Matteo said. She blinked. He shrugged, “Only idiots are not scared before responsible work.”

“That is comforting in the least comforting way possible.” “That is his specialty,” Suzy said.

Matteo accepted this. Their son reached for his coffee, “No,” Matteo said. The baby frowned. “No caffeine until you have bills.”

“He is one,” Suzy said. “Then no caffeine.”

Ernesto’s son leaned forward, grinning “What career is allowed for him, then?”

Matteo and Suzy answered at the same time. “Not entertainment. Definitely not seafaring.” They looked at each other. Then both spoke again, “No way in hell.”

The table exploded. The baby laughed because everyone else did. Ernesto’s daughter wiped at her eyes, “Really? Nothing at sea?”

Matteo held up one finger “Boat rides with life jackets.” Suzy added, “And no celebrity industry.” “What if he wants to sing?” “He can sing in the shower,” Matteo said. “What if he becomes handsome?” Suzy looked personally offended “He is already handsome.” “What if companies scout him?”

Matteo’s face went flat “I know how to make people disappear politely.” Suzy patted his arm, “He means decline the offer.”

“I said politely.” Ernesto’s son grinned. “Not even one of those Pilots for maneuvering?” Matteo considered. Suzy turned to him slowly, “No,” she said. “I did not answer.”

“You considered.” “Considering is not agreement.” “It is betrayal with extra steps.”

The baby slapped the table. Suzy nodded at him, “See? He agrees with me.” “He agrees with violence.” “Also from me,” Suzy said.

Matteo sighed. The room laughed again. For a moment, it was impossible to tell where grief ended and family began. Maybe that was the point.

Later, after the dishes were done and the baby had finally surrendered to sleep against Matteo’s shoulder, Ernesto’s children stood by the window, looking out at the city.

Korea glittered below them. Not like a promise. Like a place where life had kept going despite everything. Ernesto’s daughter spoke first, “Papa would have liked this.” Matteo looked at her reflection in the glass “The city?”

She shook her head “This. Us being here.” Her brother nodded “He would have made a joke about the baby being expensive.” “Diyos miyo, he is expensive,” Matteo said. Suzy, sitting on the sofa, looked up “Matteo.” “What? Diapers are financially violent.”

The daughter laughed quietly. Then her expression softened, “Thank you for letting us stay.” Matteo adjusted his sleeping son carefully, “You do not have to thank family for a bed.”

The words came easier now. Still not easy. But easier. Ernesto’s son looked at him for a long moment. Then smiled, “Papa really would have cried.”

Matteo looked down at the baby asleep against his chest. Tiny hand curled in his shirt. Breathing warm and alive, “Yeah,” he said quietly. “He would have.”

Suzy crossed the room and stood beside him. Her hand rested at his back. Not holding him up. Not anymore. Only standing with him.

In Bali, staying until morning had felt like courage. Now, waking beside her was habit. Not small. Not casual. The kind of habit a man built a life around.

Their son stirred, made one offended little sound, then settled again. Suzy smiled, “Still here?” she murmured. Matteo looked at Ernesto’s children by the window. At the city. At his wife. At the life that had not come cleanly, but had come anyway. He shifted the baby higher against his shoulder.

“Still here.”

Suzy looked at him for a moment. Then her expression softened in that quiet way that still made Matteo feel like she had found something in him he had not meant to leave uncovered.

“You better be,” she murmured.

Ernesto’s daughter made a small sound from the window, suspiciously close to a laugh. Her brother turned away too quickly. Matteo looked at them, “What?”

“Nothing, Chief,” the boy said. “That sounded like something.”

“It is family privacy,” Ernesto’s daughter said, already smiling. “We are respectfully ignoring you.”

“You are doing it badly.” “We learned from our father.”

That hurt. Not sharply this time. Warmly. Matteo looked down at the baby sleeping against his shoulder, then at Suzy beside him. For once, the words did not feel like something he had to survive. They only felt late.

“I love you,” he said.

Suzy went still. Not because she did not know. Because knowing and hearing were different things. Her eyes turned wet before her mouth could find the joke. Matteo shifted their son carefully in one arm and reached for her with the other.

“I should say it more,” he added. “Yes,” Suzy said, voice softer than usual. “You should.” “I love you.”

Her breath caught. Then she smiled, “Better.”

Matteo leaned down and kissed her. Not dramatically. Not like a vow made for witnesses.

Just a kiss in a quiet room, with their son asleep between them, Ernesto’s children pretending not to look, and Korea glittering outside the window like a life that had kept going.

When Suzy pulled back, her forehead stayed against his “I love you too,” she whispered.

Matteo closed his eyes. For once, he did not measure the silence by what it might take from him. He only stood there inside it.

It was home.

[sexybeauty072]

Bae Suzy

[gimmethatgg]

[sickeningly-cruel]

[k-star-holic]

Suzy showcased a fresh new look with a striking red dress and a new hairstyle.

Bae Suzy's Latest Style Reveal

Singer and actress Bae Suzy recently shared a new look on social media, featuring sleek, straight black hair and a vibrant red dress. The post highlighted her striking visual transformation, complemented by a bold bouquet of red flowers.

Source

Upcoming Role in 'Hyunhok'

Bae Suzy is set to return to the screen in the upcoming Disney+ series 'Hyunhok'. The project is scheduled for release in the latter half of the year.

Source

Source: k-star-holic.blogspot.com

[lenteur]

bae suzy x celine for dazed korea (july 2026 issue)

[sickeningly-cruel]