When Kai awakens, there is sand on his tongue, thick, grating, and heavy.

It clings to the curve of his cheek, slips through his fingers like water, turns baby soft skin into sandpaper. The water laps at his toes as they curl one to ten, sun baking his skin honey gold under blinding rays.

He tries to breathe but sand clings to his windpipe and he chokes instead. He raises himself on wavering elbows, palms sinking into the sand like putty between his fingers and he falters, coughing and choking again with the threat of leaving his soul behind on the long stretch of beach.

A soul; funny thing, really. He can’t seem to remember having one of those.

For a moment, he thinks he hears Sehun call his name, thinks he feels those soft, languid fingers pressing against the place where his spine pokes out of his collar as if to tuck it back in, but his mind often likes to play tricks on him and he knows better than to lend it his trust.

He feels pathetic, crawling like this with nothing to anchor him down but something as passive as grains of time pressing against the pads of his fingers. He reaches out, struggles, stands with what feels like every last bit of strength he has, and brushes himself off.

Fall down seven times, stand up…stand up when you have something left to stand for.