Chanyeol plays with fire. Some call him a pyromaniac and others don't even bother to acknowledge the boy they so frequently see composing orchestras of sight with driftwood mountains, petrol and a single match. What can one really ask a teenage boy partaking in such peculiar behaviour? Walking up to him just to ask the one word question of why is too impolite, and finding out the adolescent's reasoning through a roundabout route is too much effort for something only of meaningless interest. So people just pass by daily, tormented with queries they can't answer as the boy methodically builds his mountains and burns them to the ground. They seem to not even acknowledge his existence when one just glances and the scene, but if one was too look closer they would see the furtive and fleeting looks each person sent Chanyeol as he carried out his task. The looks are so short one can only really see them if they look out for them; it's as if passing citizens are scared of the unknown consequences of being caught respecting the teenager's presence on the beach alongside them. Such a scene is a daily occurrence in this small seaside town.

People soon noticed an alteration to the image they were so accustomed to seeing. Now when they looked out on the same patch of beach they noticed a new actor in the play involving many. Except this new character was different to the varying other characters in the scene; he unlike the others stopped and watched the principle character building and destroying that which he had so perfectly built. This action of his baffled the residents of the town and gave birth to many more questions that haunted their minds. The main unsolved query was whether or not this new character was the secondary protagonist or the antagonist. None of them found an answer to this question, but all of them noticed his omnipresent part in the seaside view of that particular expanse of beach in this specific coastal town in South Korea.

What none of the onlookers knew was the name of the character they had now grown accustomed to. His name was Baekhyun. Baekhyun was fascinated by the complex beauty of light; he always had been and always will be. When he was a child he used to watch the way shadows moved across a room during the day. In summer he would go to bed late and wake up early in order to watch the rise and fall of the sun in the sky. The vibrant colours that burst over the horizon at first and last light drowned his core in a pure beauty that stripped him of his personality, sense of self and soul. There was the light and his emptied body, that’s all. He had grown addicted to that otherworldly sensation from the first time he experienced it. That light he saw was his favourite thing in the entire world. At least it was until he moved to a small seaside town with his family. On his first day in the foreign place he found something he loved more than that light he had discovered years ago. He discovered a light that intoxicated him to such an extent he had not known possible, and he was immediately addicted. He found Chanyeol's manmade light and never again did he want to watch the sunrise or sunset. They no longer had the same effect.

It stayed like that for months; Chanyeol built fires, Baekhyun watched Chanyeol and the town's residents watched them both. There were always questions left unanswered, dancing lights to intoxicate one and mountains to build then burn to the ground. It was a never ending daily cycle that no one could change even if they wanted to. Until one day a character in the scene started moving. With each movement Baekhyun made a force would change the feel of the scene and this unpredictably worried the residents of the seaside town. One day instead of sitting on the weathered bench directly behind the spot on which Chanyeol built fires, Baekhyun watched the scene standing. All he did was stand but the shift in the balance of the image was undeniable. The next day Baekhyun was slightly closer to the boy who played with fire. The day after he was even closer. With each step he made the more the scene morphed into something that gave birth to more questions to all that observed it. In the month it took for Baekhyun to reach Chanyeol's side through small advances no one was able to form a theory as to the reason for his change in behaviour. They all gave up trying and resigned themselves to waiting for the outcome of the inevitable meeting of the two protagonists. What they didn't know was that Baekhyun had his own questions to ask the boy he so avidly watched, and that he was the only one brave enough to seek his desired answers. No one knew until the fateful day upon which the first words were shared between the two adolescents. Words that were relayed throughout the town through whispered conversations in cafes, bars and homes so that the entire town knew them in one day. The conversation created more questions than it answered.

Baekhyun had been the one to break the silence.

"How come you never run out of driftwood?"

Eye witnesses all explained Chanyeol's expression after hearing such words in great detail. The way in which Chanyeol turned to face to the other boy with wide eyes had made those who watched believe that the taller boy had never noticed the smaller boy's presence as a spectator of his daily ritual until then. The truth is that he hadn't. His need to create fires was something that possessed him entirely. From the moment he felt the warm sand under his feet all that mattered was his need to create bright burning colours that were similar, yet so diverse, that they created a symphony of beauty when they danced freely amongst each other. He needed to watch as individual colours weaved through the others on their own distinct path. The smell of smoke that infiltrated the air around his pyre was something that he needed to experience in order to fall victim to sleep every night. Without such experiences Chanyeol was unable to function.

"The driftwoods always there, I've never even thought of the possibility of it not being there."

Baekhyun just nodded. His eyes remained fixed on the waves of light emanated by the flames that reached up towards the star studded sky. The intricacies hidden in the source of the light he loved had become clearer the closer he had come to the fire.

"Your light is beautiful."

It was Chanyeol's turn to nod in silent agreement. After that all that people could speak of was the eerily comfortable silence the two fell into as they basked in the light they both adored until it dwindled into a pile of embers. A pile of embers so meagre that one would not believe they came from a fire so large and beautiful unless they had seen it with their own two eyes. After the last light faded from the fallen mountain both adolescents left the scene together. None of the people they passed were able to decipher the hushed, low words they shared as they departed; it was like a code that only the two boys in question were able to understand. However people found no problem in observing the clear intimacy that flowed between them and the affection that grew in their facial expressions with the increasing amount of words they used to cross the distance between them. These emotions surprised people as they weren't emotions one would expect from two people who had only just had their first meeting, but at the same time it was as if they expected this outcome once the two boys had met on that beach in front of the mass of flames. People felt like this is what they had been anticipating from the first fire formed by Chanyeol's hands ten years ago. This feeling within themselves is what confused the town's residents the most.

The next day there was no fire, there was no Chanyeol and there was no Baekhyun. The beach was empty. No trail of smoke pirouetted across the evening sky and no residents cast quick glances at two adolescent boys. Instead the entire town was enveloped in a tense atmosphere that permeated into the pores of all that resided in it. Everyone was on edge, and most words shared were terse or ones of anger and agitation. For ten years there had never not been a fire on that small stretch of beach, today all there was were the charred remains of fires that had passed in the days prior. The ash was soon picked up by the harsh winds that blew on that fateful Friday, and distributed across the land and sea so that the next day there was nothing to remind the citizens of the fire that failed to burn bright on the beach. For that week negativity was all that was present in the small town as without the teenage boy compulsively burning fires on the beach they weren't at home in their hometown. All familiarity was lost and people felt at odds with their environment and the people in it. Even the weather seemed to mourn the lack of the familiar scene as every day and night it rained exponentially, winds blew fiercely, thunder clapped ominously and lightening struck the ground threateningly.

But a week later the two boys returned hand in hand with the sun beating down on their tanned skin. Both of them fervently collected driftwood from the entire length of the beach. They brought their collective findings together on the spot that was now void of ash after being abandoned for a week. Habitually they began to construct the mountain that they would inevitably burn, but this mountain was far larger than any made before solely at the hands of Chanyeol. This mountain reached majestically higher than any that preceded it and burned far brighter as well. The flames of this mutually built pyre at the sky aggressively, and the colours within it danced to a faster tempo than the town's residents were accustomed to seeing. But the most memorable aspect of the fire was its light. It was a light that illuminated to the far reaches of the beach as it played mischievously with all that was in its grasp. The light drew almost all in the town down to the beach as if mystified by its magnificence. The light extended into those who came, and calmed down their restless souls until serenity overpowered the negativity that had become dominant in the week long absence of the two boys and their fire. Words bounced around the bonfire as those who stood there apologised to people they had argued with in the past week for reasons they no longer understood. The air was alive with laughter and singing, faces were adorned with smiles and the floor shook from the dancing of many. They danced to a silent song played by the fire before them that they felt within themselves yet didn't hear. Joy was present in all.

At the front of the scene stood two boys. Their hands had intertwined the moment they had set their masterpiece alight and they had yet to separate. Both wore identical expressions of bliss as their eyes remained fixed on the light twirling before them. Words never once passed between the short space that separated their bodies, there was no need to voice emotions that flowed through directly through their hands. They understood each other without having to complicate notions with words that couldn't quite encompass exactly what they intended to convey. After a while Baekhyun leaned his head on the taller adolescent's shoulder. The movement broke Chanyeol's trance and he turned to look down at the smaller boy. Baekhyun returned the gaze. Slowly Chanyeol moved his other hand to link with Baekhyun's free one as he turned the boy to face him. He leaned forward until his face was right before Baekhyun's and stopped. Both of them just stared into each other’s eyes momentarily before both letting their eyelids fall as they closed the needless gap between them. In the light of the fire all that those behind them could see was the silhouette of the two as they joined lips in perfect unity for a short few seconds. They broke apart and Baekhyun once again leaned on Chanyeol's shoulder seeking comfort. Their eyes once again fixed on the fires unpredictable light, but the one thing that changed was that their smiles were far wider than before. They were smiles that never once faltered again.

In the months and years that followed people watched the familiar scene of the two men holding hands and kissing briefly, but lovingly, before a fire of their own making. They sat on the bench that Baekhyun had occupied in those months preluding their eventual first encounter, and exchanged words of greeting and pleasant small talk with those who passed.

Years flew by, and the town grew, and it's people changed but they all knew of the two who created fires on the beach. Fires that cast a mesmerising light on all that saw it. People still talked to the two who sat on the increasingly weathered bench as taller buildings sprung up in the landscape behind them. Over the years their skin lost the brightness and taught quality associated with youth as their bodies were captured by time and age. But their smiles never once faded nor did their fires or the love conveyed in their fleeting kisses. They were soon joined by a small Chinese boy by the name of Lu Han. People now stopped not only for small talk but to coo over how beautiful their adoptive son was, such words made their smiles grow with a new element of pride present in them. Soon they became four as Lu Han's best friend Se Hun joined them. Chanyeol and Baekhyun sat and watched as he and Lu Han played excitedly for hours on end. Never once over many years did they bore of each other's company, just like Baekhyun and Chanyeol.

After a few years Lu Han and Se Hun no longer sat at their side once they had heard the call of the world's possibilities and had set of to adventure in them hand in hand. They'd still come back and sit on the bench again and tell of stories of life outside the ever growing seaside town. The smiles on the faces of their avid listeners brightened in awe of the escapades the two had been on in places they had never even heard of. Yet neither wanted to go find such places for themselves - perhaps in their youth they might have - but they were content to remain in the place they had met, watching the fires they composed continually burned day after day. Lu Han and Se Hun made no effort to convince them knowing of this fact.

The years continued to pass, fires continued to burn and time continually drained vitality from their beings but they still habitually sat on the beach basking in the beauty of their handiwork. Chanyeol never stopped his need and want to watch the vibrancy of dancing colours, and Baekhyun was unable to cure his addiction for the light these colours made, not that either of them wanted to achieve such feats. Hand in hand they gave into their demons and revelled in the happiness doing so together brought them. Their town became famous for the omnipresent pyre on the beach and people would come to watch them and experience the magical qualities many had spoke of. All left with their aim satisfied; except for one. They had come on a day were no such experience was attainable.

Eighty years after the first fire was burnt, the last driftwood mountain was built and then immaculately burned to the ground.