“Let’s go to the beach,” Key said out of the blue.

“What are you talking about we have to get to Jinki’s party,” Minho said.

“Come on, all were going to do is swim, eat and watch movies and I really want to see the ocean.”

“Key,” Minho said tiredly.

He started whining, “Come on, just humor me.”

Minho sighed, “Alright, alright fine. Just as long as we call Jinki hyung first.”

The sun was beating down on the car and Minho was glad he got the A.C fixed yesterday. The music played softly in the background as they drove off to the beach. The calm atmosphere was broken when Kibum started shouting, to the apparently blind driver, that they were here.

Minho was turning into a parking spot when Key stopped him.

“No don’t park here, were to far from the beach.”

“Kibum we just have to walk for like five minutes and we’ll be on the beach,” Minho pointed out.

“No, Minho it’s to far park closer,” Key said kicking the dashboard.

“Kibum, I don’t think I’ll find a parking-“

“Will you just humor me,” he said frustrated.

Minho put his arms up in defeat and turned the car around, apologizing to the cars behind him as they drove closer to the ocean.

After ten minutes of driving in circles around the parking lot, Kibum gave up.

“Damn, guess we can go to Jinkis party now.”

“What are you talking about? We just have to wait a couple of minutes. I’m sure a spot will show up”

“No, come on lets go. It’s really hot in here and I’m getting all sweaty,”

“Look I didn’t drive all the way out here just to burn in the car and look at millions of mini vans. We’re going to see the ocean even if I have to run over all the people on the beach and sink this car.”

Key pushed his lips together suppressing a smile and told him to shut up.

A few minutes later a car was pulling out just as they turned the corner. It took every last bit of Minhos patience to not tell Key to shut up, stop hitting him and screaming in his ear ‘hurry hurry hurry’, and throw him out the window.

They were passing by the gift shop and were starting to descend down the stairs onto the sandy beach when Minho noticed that his scrawny friend was no longer beside him. He turned around to see Kibum with his face pressed against the side of the gift shop window. He walked up behind him and saw hat he was looking at. He was staring at a key.

It was made of bronze and the bow had two dolphins tail to tail and snout to snout. It was beautiful. No wonder Kibum wanted it.

Kibum had loved collecting keys way before he met minho. He told him that as a kid he was interested at how keys could open things. How only one certain key could open one certain object. He said people were just the same.

He had a small collection of keys, about fifty or so. He would only collect them if they had a meaning to them.

And no, just because a certain key opens the door to a certain dino’s house, does not make it special.

And due to his love of the metal objects his friends had given him the nickname ‘Key’.

“Do you want it?” Minho asked bringing Key back to the present.

“What no,” Kibum said shaking his head “I don’t have any money with me.”

“Yeah, but I do”

Kibum backed away from the window, “What are you talking about? It costs seventy thousand won.” [Sixty-three U.S dollars]

Minho shrugged, “Yeah, well im humoring you”

Kibum kept smiling all the way out of the store and onto the beach. He tucked it safely in his jacket pocket and smiled at the sea.

“Here,” he said stuffing a plastic Ziploc bag into Minhos hands “Go grab some sand.” Our shoes were already filled with sand but I guess he wanted new sand. So he decided to humor him a little more. He brought it back to Key and he stuck his hand in and started to crush the little grains of sand, as if he was trying to break them up into smaller piece.

“Hey can you grab me some shells,” he said pointing to the sand closer to the water, “I wanna get some for Taemin.”

Minho picked out a few pretty ones and placed them into Keys bag of sand. He looked at them and smiled simply

“Come on, let’s see if we can still make it to Jinkis party.”

His shoes were soaked and filled with sand and he was all sticky but seeing how happy it made Kibum, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

Three months later Kibum was informed he had cancer. And seven months later, his battle ended.

At the end of his funeral Jinki and the rest of the gang were heading off to the bowling alley because Kibum wouldn’t want to see them all sad and depressed. That’s just how he was.

Minho stayed back a bit, holding onto the bag of sand and seashell from there out of the blue ocean trip. He threw some sand on the grass beside his tombstone and dug a hole beside it and dropped a shell in.

“Wow,” said a voice behind him, it was Jonghyun, “You are so corny.”

Minho kicked him and Jonghyun punched him back.

“Come on frog prince or were leaving you behind,” He shouted as he ran from a punch aimed at his head

He looked back at the grave and brushed his fingers across the cold marble. He was glad ten months ago he listened to Key. It was a good memory.

“Hey Kibum, if you ever come back as a ghost, go scare the sh!t out of Jonghyun hyung will ya?” At that moment a strong gust of wind blew by, strong enough to push him back a couple of steps. The corners of his mouth pulled and he chuckled, putting the sand and seashells back into his pocket he said, “Come on, just humor me.”

Based on a true story I read long ago.

In memory of Lynn Dean’s father.