Please Read: I just put the teeny tiny chapters together because I hated seeing how short the upates were. Anyway, Chapter 4 is the newest update so please start here I guess if you read all the chapters before I adjusted things like this.. if that makes sense (???)

+(7.111)

He’s back at the office again, in the same seat in which he sits every day on the same side of the long desk he uses to set up his laptop as well. Honestly, he finds every bit of his life to be dreary. He does nothing but code all day. In the distant past, that was exactly his dream but he hadn’t quite envisioned something like this.

Bleak grey walls of an underground storage place with 4 singular columns of those long pillar-like fluorescent lights, and one small 7”x13” window which only catches the little light that enters the alley beside it. A prison cell is what it was.

Sighs and tremendous groans of boredom resonate throughout the room.

                “You guys! Let’s take a break—a vacation—to Maui,” Chanyeol, of course, is the first to speak.

                “Do you have Maui money?” Sehun claps back.

And Chanyeol stays quiet again since he is still a struggling graduate student who will never win against the likes of Sehun.

                “That’s not so bad an idea, actually.” Luhan speaks.
                “Yeah! Maui!”

                “No, loser. I mean something more affordable, more—local.”

                “Maui is right there; 9 hours passes in flash. I can bring my puzzles—”

                “Where do you suggest we go, then?” Sehun promptly and effectively ignores Chanyeol.

                “Busan is a classic,” Luhan suggests.

“Right, but to rent a room for several days in Busan, all those expenses. Not to even mention the almost 4 hour drive down there,” Sehun, a frugal but considerate man, visibly shivers.

                “Then let’s go for a day!”

Chanyeol’s birth name is Park Persistent.

                “Drive all the way down to Busan, to spend just one day there?”
And Chanyeol remains silent because Sehun is always right and there is no fighting it.

                “How about we just go to the beach down here?”

Luhan is the office’s token problem solver.

“Hm, that sounds cool, and much more reasonable,” Sehun side-eyes Chanyeol (the office’s token unreasonable guy). “What do you think Jongin?”

It’s a promising idea, really. To escape the confines of his office and the tall buildings surrounding the concrete jungle, Seoul, to sit by the ocean, doing absolutely nothing. It’s a goddamn beautiful image.

                “I’m down.”

+(8.1000)

It’s a weekend, and Jongin likes to spend these days smothered underneath a mountain of sheets and his comforter with the A/C on full blast. Instead he gets the loud and constant drone of his cell’s ringtone (he’d made it an annoying one so he’d always hear it, a decision which he’s regretting.) He stays in place, not moving an inch (barely breathing.)

Jongin’s not home right now, please leave a message at the sound of the beep.

But it’s not that easy, as the phone stops and starts once again. Whoever is on the other end is consistent.

Might it be Chanyeol?

It is.

                “What?” Jongin’s voice is raspy and unpleasant.

                “Morning sunshine! Wait, you’re not still in bed, are you?”

                “And if I am?”

                “That’s no good, since we’re going to the beach today and all.”

                “Today?” Jongin is completely winded at such news. “When were you gonna tell me?”

                “Well, I’m saying it now, aren’t I? Anyways, we’re on our way, hyung. You should get ready!”

And before Jongin can even inhale his next breath, Chanyeol has hung up.

For how cold it’s been, the sun is surprisingly high in the sky. The rays cook their flesh as soon as they step down from Sehun’s Hyundai.  Jongin is wearing a thin, white, long sleeve Henley. Against his better judgement he’d decided not to wear shorts that expose his calves and gone with sweatpants of a gray and thick material. The backs of knees gather sweat like nobody’s business. His bangs already cling flatly against his forehead. He was stupid, he reasons.

Sehun, picks a nice spot that is not too close to the shore and quite a distance from the bigger crowds of other beachgoers. Sehun has always been very good at planning. He pulls 2 huge picnic-like beach towels from the tote he’d been lugging on his shoulder and pitches the tall umbrella he also carries between them. They all sit and Sehun pulls out his wallet, removing ₩7,000 before extending it to Chanyeol.<