At lunchtime, Baekhyun turns up with Minseok and Lu Han in tow. They’ve all got sandwiches in their hands from the deli down the road, and Baekhyun tosses another one at Chanyeol over the desk. Chanyeol catches it and tries not to stress out about the fact that they’re all munching on their sandwiches inside the bookshop. He wouldn’t mind, but there’s a rule about no food or drinks inside the bookshop, and his mom will get mad at him if she finds out he’s letting his friends get away with breaking the rules.

“Guys, you really can’t eat in here,” he says. Baekhyun swallows his mouthful and grins unrepentantly at him.

“We’re not really here. We’ll be gone in a sec, right guys? We’re heading down to the skate bowl. Can you come down after work?”

Chanyeol hesitates, remembering that Jongdae’s coming by to be shown around. “I'm not sure. Maybe.”

“Why do you even bother, Baek?” Lu Han asks. “Chanyeol never wants to do anything fun anymore.”

Chanyeol tries to hide his flinch. It’s true, even though it hurts to hear it.

“Shut up, Han, you know he’s been through ,” Baekhyun says, instantly leaping to his defence, and Chanyeol hurriedly intercepts before Baekhyun and Lu Han can get into one of their famous fights right here in the bookshop.

“I’ll come, I’ll come,” he says hurriedly. “I met a guy new to town today, might bring him down too. He seems pretty chill.”

“Oh, really?” Baekhyun looks interested. He’s always keen to meet new people. “Does he skate?”

“No idea,” Chanyeol says. “I know he surfs though. He told me his whole philosophy about the ocean within, like, five minutes of meeting him.”

“Nice,” Lu Han says, giving Chanyeol an abashed glance through his eyelashes, which Chanyeol knows is as close as he'll get to an apology. “I like him already.”

“Fine, you can meet him later, just please take your sandwiches out of here before my mom comes back,” Chanyeol begs, coming around the counter to herd them out of the door. They hop onto their skateboards and glide away down the road, laughing and shouting to each other. Chanyeol heads back inside, feeling a thousand years older than his friends. This time last year he would have been dying with frustration at being stuck inside while everyone else went to skate in the sun and mess around on the beach. Now he feels so… separate. He can act, pretend, but he can’t connect.

He picks up his sandwich from the counter and takes it into the back room, where his older sister is sitting at the computer. She’s scanning a huge stack of new books into the system and stacking them on the trolley to be shelved, her half-eaten salad forgotten and wilting in front of her.

“Noona, can you watch the shop while I eat?” Chanyeol asks.

“Are there any customers right now?”

“No.” Chanyeol picks his way between the boxes of newly delivered books that arrived this morning and sits down on the old couch, peeling the wrapping off his sandwich.

“I’ll go out if the door goes. I can’t believe Mom ordered so much new stock at once, I’m going crazy.” She scans another book in, a thick novel with a dark cover, and slams it aside. Chanyeol recognizes the graphics.

“Is that Dad’s new release?”

“Yeah,” Yoora says. “It’s doing pretty well. Not that he cares. He just writes these awful things instead of bothering to live in the real world.”

His sister sounds angry. She’s been angry with their father for years.

“He can’t help it,” Chanyeol says.

“He can. He can take his meds properly instead of skipping them half the time. He can make a bloody effort.”

“You know he says they stifle his creativity—”

“Creativity to write this disturbing ,” Yoora says, jerking her head at the pile of their father’s books. “Did you read any of this one?”

“No,” Chanyeol says. His father’s novels are always dark psychological thrillers, difficult to read at the best of times, and he is absolutely not in the headspace to handle them now. “Did you?”

“Some,” Yoora says. “It just makes me so mad that he’d rather keep his creativity— ” she makes quotation marks with her fingers— “than take his medication and live like a normal human being. Like we’d care if he stopped writing. I’d rather have a father than a famous novelist, and don’t tell me you don’t feel the same.”

Chanyeol stares down at his sandwich. Yoora is right. He would rather that, but he’s long since given up on the chance of it ever happening.

“It’s his choice,” he says quietly.

He hears the regular beeping noise of the infrared scanner stop and the creak of the computer chair as Yoora gets up. She sits down beside him on the couch and puts her arm around his shoulders.

“Sorry, Yeol. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol says. His big sister is treating him gently these days. It makes him feel bad, because they’d always bounced off each other without a care when they were growing up. Now Yoora feels like she has to look after him, like he’s fragile or something. Like he might break if she says the wrong thing. “Rant all you want. We all need to vent sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Yoora says. “We do. That goes for you too, Yeollie, you know that, right? You ever want to get something out there, I’m here, no questions asked.”

“I know,” Chanyeol says. But he can’t talk about it. He takes a large bite of his sandwich to end the conversation, even though he’s not really hungry anymore.

~~~

Jongdae has two 10,000 won notes in his pocket. It took him four hours of scrubbing black buildup off the grills and trays of a barbeque restaurant to earn it, not counting the twenty minutes of convincing the owner to let him work without ID. Now he’s heading back towards Chanyeol’s bookshop. His arms are aching from the scrubbing.

He’s still unsure about what exactly this body can do, and what he needs to do for it. He feels pain, so he must have some kind of nervous system, but he doesn't have a circulatory system. His knuckles feel sore and bruised from breaking the glass last night, but he can’t see any visible bruising. Probably because bruises get their colour from blood seeping through tissue, and his not-blood is clear. He also feels hungry—or at least, he thinks he feels hungry. There’s a pinching ache inside him, and that same sensation of being run down he felt after putting the pendant on yesterday, like a phone that hasn’t been charged. But does he have a digestive system? He tried holding his breath earlier and nearly passed out, so he’s pretty sure this body does prefer to take in oxygen the regular way, at least.

Through the glass of the bookshop window he sees Chanyeol with a customer. Something lifts inside Jongdae at the sight of him. It’s clear Chanyeol is still busy, so Jongdae sits down on a bench to wait. He stretches his arms along the back and turns his face up to the bright blue sky, closing his eyes to feel the warmth of the sun play across his skin. The cool, briny breeze caresses his cheeks and ruffles his hair. His arms still ache, but he appreciates the pain. If he doesn’t think too much, he can pretend he’s still alive.

“Hey.” Jongdae opens his eyes and finds Chanyeol standing over him, looking down at him with his head tilted, like Jongdae is some sculpture in a museum and Chanyeol is trying to decide what he means. Jongdae can’t help the smile that rushes to his lips, in time with the rushing sensation inside him that comes at Chanyeol looking at him instead of through him. Seeing him.

“Hi, Chanyeol,” he says, grinning, and is gratified to see a faint smile touch Chanyeol’s lips in response. It’s not much, but it’s something. “So, where are you taking me?”

“The best place in town,” Chanyeol says. “The skate bowl. Some of my mates are down there, they’re keen to meet you. And on the way we’ll discover the deli that makes the best sandwiches and steamed buns in Sanha.”

“Sounds good,” Jongdae says, falling in step with Chanyeol as they walk down the street. They stop at the deli, where Chanyeol talks to the woman behind the counter like he knows her well, and then tells Jongdae that this place is run by his friend Minseok’s family.

“It’s a small town,” he says, smiling a little again. “Everyone knows everyone here.”

“Seems so,” Jongdae agrees, taking the steamed bun Chanyeol passes him in both hands and feeling the warmth through the paper wrapping. He digs out one of his notes to pay and gets a handful of change back.

“You found work, then?” Chanyeol asks.

“Just casual. I scrubbed grills all afternoon down at the barbeque restaurant,” Jongdae says. “My arms are killing me, but it was weirdly satisfying to scrub all the black stuff off those things until they were sparkling.”

“You are a kindred spirit with Minseok,” Chanyeol says as they leave and continue walking down the road. “He’s the cleanest and tidiest teenager I’ve ever known.”

Jongdae laughs. “I don’t know if I’m exactly clean and tidy. I don’t think I’d want to scrub grills for a living. One afternoon was enough.”

“What do you want to do then?” Chanyeol asks. “Have you worked before?”

“Last summer I was a lifeguard,” Jongdae says, and watches as Chanyeol takes in the words. “At a pool though, not a surf lifeguard, so I don’t think they’ll let me join the crew here.” He nods in the direction of the beach.

“What was it like being a lifeguard?” Chanyeol asks. “Did you ever save someone’s life?” His voice is intense. It would seem strange, if Jongdae didn’t already know exactly why he was asking.

He shrugs. “I hauled a few kids out who’d gotten out of their depth. It’s rare to have someone actually drown at a pool. Beaches are more dangerous, because people can get so much further away, and the ocean is so rough. I’ve always wanted to try it, though. Surf lifeguarding, I mean.”

“Why don’t you apply? They’d train you. You can already surf, you’d be good at it.”

Jongdae looks away. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

“You said that before,” Chanyeol says. “Do you have somewhere else you need to go?”

Jongdae his lips nervously. “I guess you could say that.”

It’s harder than he expected to answer questions so vaguely. He doesn’t want to be evasive, but he’s always hated lying, and he can’t bear to tell outright lies to Chanyeol. Sadness is welling up inside him at being asked about things he can’t do, plans he can’t make, and he realises for the first time how dangerous this pendant might be. Maybe that’s why Junmyeon was trusted with it, and not Jongdae. It’s giving him a painful glimpse of what he could have had, reminding him of everything that was snatched away from him by his death. Taking off the pendant is going to be like dying all over again.

Chanyeol seems to sense his mood, because he reaches out and pats Jongdae’s shoulder tentatively, then looks away as if he’s embarrassed for doing so. Jongdae watches his ears slowly go red, and he has to lower his head to hide his smile. It’s adorable.

They reach the skate park, where Chanyeol waves at the two little kids who were with him at the beach this morning, now practicing grinds along the edge of a wall. Then they go over to the skate bowl, where older kids and teenagers are dropping down the vertical walls and pulling the insane stunts Jongdae has seen when he’s visited Chanyeol here before. He recognizes Chanyeol’s best friend Baekhyun, and Baekhyun’s friend-possibly-girlfriend Jieun, and a bunch of the other kids who were at the beach party last night.

Chanyeol sits cross-legged on the concrete rim of the bowl and takes a bite of his steamed bun. Jongdae sits down beside him and eyes his own steamed bun warily. Something inside him is definitely sending him strong hunger messages, so he takes a careful nibble. It tastes delicious, and when he carefully swallows and waits a few beats, he doesn’t feel like he’s being poisoned or the urge to projectile vomit. Encouraged, he takes a slightly bigger bite and focuses on what's going on inside him. It feels like his body is transforming the food particles directly into instant energy, rather than having to digest it like a living person. He wonders if it would work the same if he ingested something normally inedible to humans, like petrol, but decides he doesn’t want to risk it. It’d taste gross anyway.

“It’s good, right?” Jongdae realises Chanyeol has been watching him, his eyes slightly curved up like he’s amused by Jongdae’s tentative nibbling. It probably does look pretty funny.

“It’s the best thing I’ve eaten in six months,” he says, and Chanyeol huffs a breathy laugh, naturally thinking he’s joking.

Chanyeol starts pointing out his friends who are skateboarding. Baekhyun and Minseok seem to be having some kind of impromptu battle, pulling off higher and more terrifying tricks in turn, and when he asks about it Chanyeol explains that there’s a skateboarding festival next month and that Baekhyun and Minseok are rivals for the prize of best local.

“What about you?” Jongdae asks. “All your friends seem to be skateboarders. Do you skate?”

“I used to,” Chanyeol says quietly, looking out over the bowl. “Not anymore.”

“How come?”

Chanyeol’s eyes go distant, shoulders hunching a little as his gaze lowers. The setting sun shafts across his face and catches the dark brown strands of his hair, turning them golden. He looks like he’s a thousand miles away from here, where everyone is playing and enjoying themselves in the warmth of the summer evening. He looks like he’s still underwater, the winter waves battering his head and holding him down as the rip current tugs at him. And that’s the truth of it, Jongdae thinks sadly. Chanyeol hasn’t moved on from that day.

“I guess I just haven’t felt like it,” he says eventually.

Jongdae sighs softly. Chanyeol is so locked up, and he doesn’t know how far he can push him. He can’t stop worrying that someone’s going to find out what he’s doing and stop him before he manages to really help Chanyeol.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Chanyeol asks.

“I moved around a lot,” Jongdae says. “Most recently I lived in Busan. That’s where I learned to surf.”

“So what brought you to Sanha? Most people go towards the big cities, not away from them.”

Now they’re getting into trickier waters. “It’s a long story.”

“I don’t have anywhere to be.” Chanyeol takes the last bite of his steamed bun and watches Jongdae expectantly.

“I already told you. I’m here to work.”

“But why not get a summer job in Busan? There’d be way more work there. There must be a reason you came out to the middle of nowhere.”

Jongdae doesn’t know what to say. He watches Baekhyun land a huge jump and swoop down the side of the bowl. When he gets up the other side, he jumps out and lands on the rim. Jieun high-fives him and he takes off his helmet and shakes out his hair, then puts his arm around her. They look so happy as they smile at each other.

“Those two look cute together,” he says, nodding at the pair. Chanyeol blinks at the subject change, but then nods, agreeing.

“They’ve been flirting with each other for like, a year. I’m pretty sure the only reason they’re not together already is because they’re both enjoying teasing each other too much.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Jongdae asks, though he’s already sure Chanyeol doesn’t, and it’s confirmed when Chanyeol shakes his head.

“No. No relationship. Girls aren’t my thing.”

Oh. Now Jongdae feels like an idiot for assuming, and it’s such a stupid thing to assume when he’s biual himself. “I go both ways,” he says, grinning and holding up a fist. “Gay fistbump!”

Chanyeol actually laughs out loud before obligingly bumping his fist. “I see you’re a dork,” he teases. Jongdae beams and nods proudly, which makes Chanyeol laugh more, and Jongdae is unable to tone down his grin. He’s too happy that Chanyeol is comfortable enough with him to . He knows he should be trying to dig up deep topics, make Chanyeol open up about the things that have hurt him so that Jongdae can try to help him step over them, but he finds he doesn’t want to. For the first time, he’s seen Chanyeol laughing, and he doesn’t want to steal the glimpse of light away.

So instead he tells Chanyeol about the beach in Busan and how many times he’d wiped out on the rental boards teaching himself to surf. Then Chanyeol tells him that seals from the colony a few bays over sometimes swim up to the rocks by the saltwater pool and steal fish from the divers, and how he once saw dolphins while out on a boat with his friend and it was that which made him want to be a marine biologist. He asks what Jongdae wants to study. Since Jongdae is never going to get to go to college, he tells Chanyeol that he wants to be a paramedic. He kind of already is, he just doesn’t use the same life-saving techniques regular paramedics do.

Every now and then some of Chanyeol’s friends stop skateboarding to come say hi to Chanyeol and meet Jongdae. They all seem like nice enough people. Jongdae guesses they’re just kids who don’t really know what to do when someone’s had an experience like Chanyeol’s except pretend it never happened.

The sun sinks slowly into the ocean and the breeze picks up. The horizon disappears into a wash of indigo, the skate park floodlights turn on, and the younger kids start to disappear home. Eventually Chanyeol stands up. “I better go,” he says. “I have work tomorrow.”

“Chanyeol,” Jongdae says, standing up too and hoping he can leave Chanyeol with something more substantial than chattering about school and work. “Whatever happened in the past, and whatever you end up doing, marine biology or something else, you deserve to be happy. I hope you know that.”

Chanyeol looks down at his sneakers and bites his lip, as though he’s not sure what to do with the statement. The breeze flicks his hair and ripples his baggy t-shirt like a flag. Jongdae can see his gears turning, trying to find context for his words. He’s not sure if he succeeds or not, but he nods anyway, a shy smile turning his lips up and creasing his eyes. It’s the second genuine smile Jongdae has gotten from Chanyeol, and he saves the memory to cherish it. Chanyeol, standing in front of Jongdae with the sunset behind him and the wind in his hair, smiling at him.

Even if this evening with Chanyeol is all Jongdae gets, it was worth breaking the rules for.

But as Chanyeol turns and starts to walk away, Jongdae can’t bring himself to say goodbye. One day isn’t enough. He wants more. More time in this body, more time with Chanyeol. More time with Chanyeol seeing him. Talking to him. Smiling at him.

He calls Chanyeol’s name. Chanyeol turns around, the floodlights of the skate park bathing him in white light.

“Can we hang out again tomorrow?” he asks. He suddenly feels very anxious, and scared too, like he’s being abandoned. He wants to run after Chanyeol and cling to him like a young child and beg him not to go. To take Jongdae with him. Not to leave him.

“Sure,” Chanyeol says. “I’ll give you my number.” He puts his hand in his pocket for his phone, and Jongdae’s heart sinks.

“I don’t have a phone.”

Chanyeol looks surprised for a second, then shrugs. “Then come see me. You know where I work.” He smiles, and it makes Jongdae feel warm from his head to the tips of his toes. Then his expression turns concerned. “You have somewhere to stay, right?”

Jongdae gives him a reassuring smile. “I’ll figure something out.” He can’t even afford a bunk bed in a youth hostel with the remains of his hard-earned cash, but sleeping under the stars won’t kill him. He’d have to be alive for that. “I think I’m gonna wander on the beach for a bit. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chanyeol hesitates, then shrugs and waves good night. Jongdae watches him cross the road and vanish up the street towards the houses on the hill. He’s still staring after him long after his silhouette has disappeared into the shadows.

~~~

Chanyeol got home an hour ago, but he hasn’t gone inside. He’s sitting on the steps at the top of his street, gazing at the sparkling lights of the houses below him, tracing out the curve of the bay in the streetlights of the esplanade. The ocean breeze plays with his hair and goosebumps start to rise on his bare arms as the temperature drops.

He can just make out the ocean, the flat glimmer of it, faintly shining in the light of a crescent moon. For the first time in six months, looking at the ocean doesn’t send him into a spiral. He doesn’t know what it is about Jongdae, but there’s something... steadying about his presence. Hanging out with him doesn’t feel like he’s with a stranger or a new acquaintance. He seems so accepting, so genuinely interested in Chanyeol. He knows it doesn’t make sense, and he keeps trying to tell himself he’s imagining it, but it’s as if Jongdae cares deeply about Chanyeol, even though they’ve only just met.

Maybe Jongdae is what he needs right now. It’s not that his friends aren’t good people. They don’t usually push him; they do their best to understand that things are hard for him right now, and if they sometimes get frustrated, like Lu Han did earlier, Chanyeol can’t really blame them. Baekhyun, especially, does try his best to help. But none of them understand. They don’t get why he can’t be the same person he was before a stranger died saving his life. They think he should have gotten over it by now, and they don’t understand why Chanyeol can’t. Why he doesn’t deserve to.

But Jongdae is different. There’s something mysterious about him. The sadness Chanyeol glimpsed in Jongdae’s eyes reminds him of his own. The way he evades basic questions about who he is and where he comes from makes Chanyeol wonder what pain he’s hiding. There’s got to be a reason why a kid Chanyeol’s age is on his own, washed up in Sanha with the drifting tide, and he wants to know what it is.

Jongdae is a mystery. The way he talks about things feels like there’s a deeper, secret meaning beneath his words. Talking with Jongdae at the skate bowl tonight, Chanyeol felt like something shifted inside him. Like he’s been stumbling blindly through a dark maze for the past six months, and Jongdae has just turned up with a flashlight, taken his hand, and offered to show him the way out.

~~~

It’s past midnight, and the beach is empty. Jongdae huddles against the base of the lifeguarding hut, his stolen jacket pulled tight around him. He may not be able to die of the cold, but apparently that doesn’t stop him from feeling it. He’s so cold he’s shivering, and his toes have gone numb. He wishes he’d grabbed jeans instead of shorts in his clothes-stealing panic.

He has hours to get through like this before he can see Chanyeol again. He runs his fingers through the cold sand, feeling the softness of it against his fingers. He’s been doing it for the past two hours. Partly because he can feel it now and it’s comforting to pretend he’s alive, and partly because he’s bored out of his skin and the sensation gives him something to focus on.

He looks out at the dark mass of the ocean, moonlight glinting where the wind ruffles it. He can see it catching the white caps of the rough waves by the rocks to his left. The place where Jongdae drowned.

He doesn’t remember the moment he died, or his body being sealed on the ocean floor. His first