Before we split up
Chapter - 13

Ayunda took back the clothes that the Ocean had stripped and put them back on quickly.

The ocean helped Ayunda put on her clothes, she reached out and straightened the sleeves of the clothes that could somehow be upside down.

"Thank you"

“I've been to Jogja once to see you, apologize and ask you back.” The teeth of the Ocean crackled as he breathed through the nose. “I took a night flight, and when I got to your place, I saw it. Seeing you take that man to your doorstep, and then you wrap your arms around his neck.” Samudra said.

Had Samudra known that Ayunda had never slept with Djiwa, Ayunda had never been attracted to another man, nor had Ayunda been interested in Djiwa. Samudra will meet Ayunda and ask her to return.

It felt like a rusty knife was slicing through his stomach, sending Samudra backwards and away from the Ayunda residence before Ayunda saw the Ocean in front of his residence.

Even though that night Ayunda and Djiwa were working on their project until late at night, then accidentally Djiwa slept on the sofa, not on his bed, and Ayunda can't have sex with a man she's not interested in.

Oh my God, thinking of the Ocean making a night flight to meet him and instead seeing it. Had Ayunda known if the Ocean had come to see him, he could have given an explanation.

No. gabe. There is no ifs. He had stopped saying such things for a long time.

“Me and Djiwa are working on a project. But, we are not..” Ayunda's words came to a halt. He can't say it.

The ocean saw Ayunda's reflection in the mirror. “Because of me, you didn't do it?”

“Not you. But I.” Partly because Ayunda has not been interested in Djiwa.

But that's only half the reason.

Ayunda hugged herself, trying to fight the thought of how warm she was when she was in the arms of the Ocean a few minutes ago.

All of that is gone now.

“What happened between us. How things changed after I lost our baby. How I don't respond to you anymore. That's why, Ocean. I barely existed, as if my whole world had darkened” Ayunda shrugged. “I have long been trying to come back alive, not only looks there, but anyway.” Ayunda breathed slowly, then took off a hug on her own body.

Ayunda was about to extend a hand to the Ocean, but he abandoned his intentions. At the last moment, it was better that he left. Ayunda quietly picked up her bag, then observed the messy space.

Maps and reports were scattered on the floor, there was only a piece of paper still left on the table that was almost covered with their bodies. “Thank you for sharing in our last night together, sharing something fun."

Moments after seeing Ayunda walking towards the guest room, Samudra walked into the master bedroom, but he faintly heard the sound of a door slamming behind him. At a rapid pace, Samudra paced back and forth, trying to control his adrenaline and testosterone, which had mixed into toxins, dampening the pressure in his veins. Hitting his eardrum with a deafening roar.

For three years, he felt like a fool. The shadow of Djiwa coming out of Ayunda's house, like a weapon trying to eat away at the comforts of life he had built.

Perhaps because Samudra did not have a male figure in his childhood home who taught him how to be a father or husband, the way to always be there when the wife needed it, and learn to understand commitment and responsibility.

Ocean hates it, he hates himself and hates Ayunda for destroying the reality he has easily trusted, for making him wonder, doubt. For giving him one more failure to be rested upon a mountain of faults from the first day he met with Ayunda.

Why didn't he just get out of that fucking car? Walk to the door of Ayunda's residence and rebuke Ayunda. Ayunda will tell the truth, and they can step forward afterwards.

But it was too late, their marriage had been dead for years, no one could resurrect it.

That part of the story will not change.

And now Ayunda is nothing more than a memory.

Shit, Samudra can still feel Ayunda's skin on his tongue. Smelling Ayunda's hair on her clothes. Feel the heat of Ayunda's body in the hands, chest. Hot, wet and so passionate.

Resigned, to him.

Because in these three years, Ayunda never felt the touch of another man.

Why is it so important for the ocean? Knowing that he is the only one. Ayunda is still his.

This garden, and everything inside this house, is a masterpiece that is balanced between color, texture, and aroma. The hip-high, slender, bright green bamboo ripples in the night breeze across the base of a twelve-foot-tall stone bridge carved from a typical Chinese river. The brightly colored flowers stick out over the bushy leafy vines. And cocoa shells are buried under various leaves and shrubs that absorb seawater air with a dense aroma that provides intoxicating comfort.

Comfort that no Ayunda can embrace.

It is truly a disaster he does not want to add to the guilt and responsibility that the Ocean has borne because of him.

The horn sounded twice, the taxi that Ayunda ordered had arrived.

Ayunda stood up from the bench, then walked to the gate. “Wait a minute, Sir.”

However, after a moment of confusion, he realized that he did not know how to open the door.

Every time it comes or goes, it goes through a side street with an electric door that it doesn't know how to access. This door was six feet wide, the panels carved in the form of an intricate and pitch-black flower this was both amazing and confusing.

Ayunda pulled the handle with all her might, but the door did not move at all. He searched his latch desperately and his face heated up at the thought of having to search for the Ocean just to get out of the man's house No. There's gotta be another way.

“Wait a minute, Pak” exclaimed Ayunda to the waiting taxi, then stepped on to feel the hidden key. There aren't.

“Like this way.” The heavy mutterings came with a surprise right behind him, and Ayunda surged as the Ocean approached to press the hidden button and at the same time pull the hilt. The gate opened without a sound, forcing Ayunda to step back towards the Ocean. But the man had already moved away from her, the man's eyes staring at her for a while.

“We are not finished.”

Samudra ran to the waiting taxi and handed out hundreds of thousands of bills through the open window and apologized for the inconvenience of booking a taxi.

Then the Ocean walked back, looking like a dark silhouette in the middle of the shadows, his expression unreadable, but the tension emanated clearly. Frighteningly.

“I brought you here, so I'll take you home.”

Ayunda clenched her lips, and nodded. He thought that he and Samudra should be able to complete the division of these assets as a team. Get this job done quickly. Solve everything.

The silence was tense until the sound of the Ocean interjected, “Do you still feel pain, Ayunda?”

“What?” Ayunda was surprised by the unexpected direction of her question.

“Your soul, your heart. You look strong now, alive. But I don't know what's inside, so I have to ask. Do you still feel pain?”

Ayunda's heart trembled, trembling in her chest.

“No...” Ayunda almost get life as expected. However, at the same time.. “Unlike before, when with you”.

“Djiwa?” ask Samudra, "Does it make you feel... something?”.

“No.” Ayunda gulped. “But I want to feel it, I want to learn to love her and make her relationship.”

Ayunda could not see because of the dense shadows, but he seemed to see the jaws of the Ocean stiffening. “Because you think he's interesting.”

“I want my life back, and forget everything.” Ayunda's throat was choked by emotions that were flavored with hopes and dreams she did not want to imagine.

“And with me?” ask Samudra, while approaching and pulling Ayunda out of the turmoil of his heart. The standing ocean blocked the moonlight, the hard and tense jaws on his face were clearly visible. “You feel love when you're with me?”

The ocean is trying to find the truth it deserves.

“I don't want to feel it.”

The lips of the Ocean grinned wryly. “But that's not what I asked.”

Ayunda lifted her chin, then looked into the eyes of the Ocean. “Ya.”

“I know you want to get away from me, but I want you to know one thing, Ayunda.”

Ayunda shivered under the hot breath that washed her neck. Ocean's lips touched Ayunda's shoulder "I want you again"