Kyungsoo was miserable.

The late afternoon sun was beating down like a hammer, and the woven straw hat on his head was doing nothing to dispel the punishing rays. The trees were gnarled, scraggly things so close to the coast, providing only the barest idea of shade. If Kyungsoo had been told he’d died and this was his eternal torment, he would not have been surprised. Hell was a fishing village, overlooking the sea.

A halmeoni trudged by, dragging her cart of crab-filled buckets up the steep hill from the beach, and Kyungsoo leaped off his perch on the rocks to help her. The cart practically flew up the hill with his help, the old woman cheering him on with gusty shouts and the occasional swipe on the from her sweaty towel. At the top of the hill, she gave him a couple of crabs in exchange for his help, and he grinned widely, waving as she disappeared around the bend. The second she was gone, he scowled down at the salty little baggie, snarling at the crustaceans inside. He hated seafood, but of course, what more would he expect from hell.

Four grandmas later, Kyungsoo had amassed quite the fisherman’s haul, his mood dipping with each new acquisition. The men of the village began coming in from the sea, but most of them had scooters to help them transport their day’s work. Kyungsoo waved to each of them as they rode by, exchanging pleasantries or impressed exclamations over the size of the catch as the conversation warranted. As the sun lowered in the sky, the tide of fishermen began to wane, so Kyungsoo gathered his armful of sea dwellers and began making his way back to the village.

His destination was a small house near the village’s edge, its condition halfway between well-lived-in and shambles. He deposited his goods on the wooden deck in the small, brick-paved yard. The blind man who lived there looked up at the sound, his gums showing in a toothless smile.

“Ishad crab?” he lisped, setting aside the basket he was weaving as he sniffed the air.

“YES, HARABEOJI,” Kyungsoo bellowed. The old man’s hearing was sharp enough to identify visitors by their footsteps, but he always made people repeat themselves until they were hoarse from screaming. Even if he hadn’t been their host, Kyungsoo would have liked him for his trollish sense of humor alone. The old man began creaking to his feet, and Kyungsoo left him with the fishy offering. He’d come back in an hour, and all the seafood would be bubbling in a pot of a stew, the old man humming contentedly as he stirred.

Kyungsoo felt his energy picking back up as the sun continued to set, able to appreciate the vibrant orange and red sky now that he wasn’t being steamed like a meat bun. He skipped through the narrow roads, greeting a few housewives as they set out their pots to prepare for their husbands’ catch of the day. Peals of riotous laughter echoed into the deepening dusk, and he followed the sounds to the community center squatting in the center of the village. A truly thunderous roar practically vibrated the eaves as Kyungsoo approached, followed by high-pitched screams. A group of young women clustered at the entrance to the community center, peering inside, giggling and slapping each other excitedly. The Yeol effect, Kyungsoo called it, was in full force. He couldn’t get anywhere close to the door, so he he settled for squinting through the window, tenting his hands around his face to cut the sunset’s glare.

Chanyeol was barely visible, he was just a scaffold for the eight small children gleefully hanging off of his body. He raged around the room, stomping and bellowing like Godzilla as the kids squealed in delight, holding onto his legs and arms for dear life. He even had a toddler strapped onto his back so everyone could be in on the fun. After another five minutes of dinosaur time, he began shaking the clingers free, citing exhaustion. The kids whined in disappointment, but Chanyeol’s shirt was completely transparent and sticking to his broad chest, which the mothers at the door greatly appreciated.

“Again!” A roly-poly child crowed, hopping onto Chanyeol’s calf. “Monster!”

“Monster is tired,” Chanyeol said, ruffling the little boy’s hair as he tried to catch his breath. “Monster will die.”

“Again!” A girl, clearly Roly’s partner in crime, climbed Chanyeol like a tree, latching on to his waist. “One more? Pleeease?”

Kyungsoo could practically see Chanyeol’s heart melting, and the mothers swooned, fanning themselves as he let all the children climb on for another ride. One more time turned into three more times, and then Chanyeol collapsed under the pile of enthusiastic tiny people. The indefatigable tykes proceeded to prop his limbs into various positions so they could use him as a configurable jungle gym. In their zeal for their new game, the pygmies rolled Chanyeol all over the floor, and somewhere between the karaoke machine and the stack of life jackets, he lost his shirt. Kyungsoo thought the mothers were letting this go on for a bit too long, and clucked disapprovingly at their clear and obvious thirst. He marched around to the front of the building, shouldering his way through the ajumma fan club, even taking an elbow to the gut from a particularly strong young woman (fanclub president, he named her). He began peeling the children off of Chanyeol, much to their dismay. A few tried latching onto him as their new Monster, but he put that to rest with a snarly bark he’d learned from a rabid dog. The would-be clinger ran to her mother in tears as Kyungsoo began helping Chanyeol up.

“They’re swearing at you in their dialect,” Chanyeol chuckled as he dusted a few crumbs of dirt from his sweaty shoulders. Kyungsoo started to help, but then decided that felt weird and went to go find his shirt. He tossed the damp rag at Chanyeol from across the room.

“Enough with the strip show. Put some clothes on, .”

“YAH!” Fanclub president screeched from across the entrance. “Why don’t you give your shirt then?!” This was followed by some unnecessarily loud speculation about Kyungsoo’s probable lack of abs. Much to Kyungsoo’s irritation, Chanyeol flashed the mothers a megawatt smile as he sauntered out, still shirtless.

“Don’t make fun of his abs, I’ve seen them.” He tossed a wink over his shoulder. “They’re nice.”

Kyungsoo knew he had just gone beet red, and he covered his face as he ran through the gauntlet of mothers to chase after Chanyeol.

—-

Kyungsoo sneezed awake, then curled himself more tightly as the night breeze ghosted over his bare skin, raising goosebumps. He cracked one eye open, yawning, his hand patting for something that had gone missing… He startled upright as his fingers brushed against scarred wood, still hot to the touch—Chanyeol was gone again. Kyungsoo hastily swung his legs over the side of the bench, pulling on his shirt as he stuffed his feet into his shoes. Rubbing his arms briskly, he jogged out of the courtyard of the old fisherman’s house, heading for the seaside. After spending so much time with a walking furnace, he’d lost all tolerance for the cold, and he was shivering by the time he reached the sand. Kyungsoo ran along the sea shore, salt air whipping his hair into his eyes as his feet sank into the damp sand. Finally, he spotted Chanyeol, a small speck at the furthest edge of the beach, where the sand turned back into rocky coast.

When he was within shouting distance, Kyungsoo staggered to an exhausted walk. But instead of yelling, he plodded to the arsonist’s side and dropped wordlessly to the sand beside him. Chanyeol didn’t move from his position, arms wrapped around his legs, chin resting on his forearms, looking up at the sky. A wave washed in around them, hissing steam as it hit Chanyeol’s legs, burying his feet further and further in the sand. Kyungsoo slipped off his now-useless shoes and wiggled his toes in the pleasantly warm water, sulking a little when the wave retreated back to the sea. He scooted closer to Chanyeol, not snuggling exactly, just taking advantage of his toasty body heat. Stars sparkled in the clear, moonless night, and, between the soothing rustle of the waves, the rhythmic hiss of steam, and the warm water lapping at his shins, Kyungsoo nodded off.

“I used to live on a beach like this.”

The murmured words were so low, Kyungsoo wasn’t sure if he had imagined them.

“The village kids would compete to see who could go the deepest, and the water was so clear, we could watch each other swim to the bottom and touch the ocean floor.”

Kyungsoo raised his head, mostly awake now but still cobwebby from sleep.

“I feel like I’m living in a dream, but I’m afraid to wake up, because everything will be ashes.” Another cloud of steam puffed around Chanyeol as the wave rolled in. “I can smell the smoke. I can hear the world crumbling. But if I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend it’s not real. ”

Kyungsoo rubbed his face. “Is that why you haven’t been sleeping?” he mumbled. “Nightmares?” That explained the scorch marks on the bench.

The breeze tousled Chanyeol’s hair, the white stark against the night. “It’s just a matter of time before death follows me here. I’m a plague. A virus.”

Kyungsoo slapped his cheeks, and the sting finally refreshed him enough to open his eyes fully. “Don’t call yourself that. You saved my life.”

Chanyeol turned to look at him, resting his cheek on his hands, his gaze dark and unreadable. “Did I?”

Kyungsoo frowned at him. “The militia attacked us in that motel. If you hadn’t… done something, we would both be dead.”

“Still, if I left, they wouldn’t have a reason to come after you.” Chanyeol traced a little pattern in the wet sand with one finger. “They’d never come here. You’d be safe.”

“I benched a van,” Kyungsoo reminded him, “I’m pretty sure that earned me a spot on their hit list. So don’t even think about running off and leaving me here alone in this hellhole.” He bumped Chanyeol with his shoulder. “If you do, you’ll just have another person chasing you. And I’m the only one who’s ever caught you.”

Chanyeol didn’t look up from his sand doodle, but the tiniest smile played on his lips.

Encouraged, Kyungsoo fished his phone from his back pocket, a little damp from the rising tide, and held up the empty notification screen. “Look—no texts, no calls, not a single message from our guardian angel. As long as we keep our heads down and stay off the militia’s radar, we’ll be fine.” He took a deep, cleansing breath of the ocean air. “And if they do find us again, we’ll figure it out. Together.”