Air so full of water it felt like you were drowning with each breath. The soft sounds of sirens, car horns and angry yells. Metal frame digging into his forearms, Jongin leant on the windowsill, face to the smog filled night sky. He was tired of the city, of all its lights, of the air that was never quite pure. Nothing like home, an island in the sea, miles and miles from here.

There the air was always fresh, and you couldn’t taste acrid smoke, or toxic car exhaust, merely the salt in the air. The only thing you would here at night would be the soft breeze, gently brushing palm leaves, or the quiet talk around a backyard bonfire.

Only a few days until freedom, till the day and a half trek home; two plane trips, one train ride, a two-hour bus trip on dusty roads and finally a short boat jaunt in a dented tinny. Sand like satin under his feet, baby waves brushing his legs as he lifted his baggage, and that of Sehun. The two Oh brothers were returning home with him too, Luhan and Sehun also tired of rushed city life. It had been an adventure to start with, to learn at university and help earn money to support their families.

“Still awake Jong?” A sleepy Luhan leant on the doorway, glass of cool water in his hand, perspiration beaded on his forehead. His pale skin was very visible in the slim amount of moonlight coming through the window. It was too hot to sleep, to hot to wear clothes. Luhan was wearing black boxer shorts, a damp flannel in his hand.

“Can’t sleep. It’s too hot. You?” Jongin turned to face Luhan, a small smile on his face.

“Neither. The princess is rolling around complaining that he’s too hot, so he instructed me to get him a wet flannel. I couldn’t handle the complaining any more, so I got one.” Luhan gestured towards the flannel. “It won’t cool him down much, but it’ll shut him up for a while.”

“Hey, only two more days to go. Then we can go jump into the water if we ever get hot.” Jongin walked over and slipped his fingers round the cool glass, removing it from Luhan’s hand and letting the chilled water slide down his throat.

“Hey, I was planning to drink that!” Luhan grabbed the glass back and pressed it to his temple, the slick glass leaving a wet patch on his skin.

“There’s no point in lying in bed not able to sleep.” Jongin waved his hand down his body; gesturing to the only piece of clothing he was wearing, a pair of silken blue boxers. “It’s too hot. Do we have any ice-cream?”

“Two boxes. One of Princess Sehuna’s low-fat, no-fat, blueberry, raspberry pineapple, ‘sorbet’, no dairy ice-pole thingies. The other is lemonade and raspberry ice-poles for normal people like you and me.”

“Want one?” Jongin strode past Luhan into the small kitchen, filled with a fridge, cooktop and a half-dozen cabinets.

“Hell yes. Let me give Hunny his precious flannel and then we can sit on the tiles and eat them.” Luhan poked his head through the doorway of his and Sehun’s shared bedroom and tossed the flannel, it landing on Sehun’s head with a wet ‘smack’.

Hurrying back to the kitchen, Jongin had his head already in the freezer, opening the cardboard box of icy-poles and chucking Luhan one, along with an ice pack. Face backlight in the ice-coated freezer light, Jongin smiled. “We have a half tub of double chocolate fudge chunk in here too.”

“Thank the chocolate gods.” Sehun’s light lisp echoed through the darkened apartment. Appearing out of the bedroom doorway, he came across both Jongin and Luhan, freezer now closed, clad in boxer shorts and lying on the cool kitchen tiles. They each had an ice-block stuck in their mouths and damp tea towel covered ice packs on their chests.

“Come and join the chill down party.” Jongin removed the bright pink; raspberry flavoured popsicle from his mouth and motioned to the space next to him.

Several minutes, three spoons and the half tub of chocolate ice-cream later, all three boys were snoring softly. Sehun, face pressed into the back of Jongin’s bicep, Jongin in the middle and Luhan stretched out in something resembling a ‘H’ shape on his other side, they slept all night on the refreshingly cold tiles of their small kitchen.

Slim rays of sunlight crept their way into the kitchen, highlighting the three boys still asleep on the floor. Luhan awoke first, squinting his eyes against the warm glow. Brushing light, golden brown hair out of his eyes, he sat and stretched, joints cracking as he rolled his shoulders. Jongin and Sehun were still spreadeagled on the floor as Luhan prepared for the day. Stepping over prone bodies, he flicked the switch on the small, blue coffee maker, one of the few luxuries that they had splurged on after a month of having to wake up at seven o’clock without the sound of waves or bright sunlight using sleepy faces as some sort of trampoline.

Humming quietly to himself, Luhan pulled out an ironing board, and collecting his crisp business shirt from it’s hanger in the laundry, began to press the hot iron in long patterns to straighten the barely crumpled shirt.

“Whassat? Coffee?” Sehun sat up, bonking his head against a kitchen cabinet. “.” He gave the cabinet the finger.

“Morning Sehun.” The tousled haired boy gave Luhan an award-winning smile before shaking Jongin with the hand that wasn’t rubbing his eyes.

“Get up lazy.”

“No.” Jongin rolled over, head curled in towards tan arms.

“Ahahaha. Yes.” Sehun grasped the counter with one hand and pulled himself upright.

“Nope. Not happening.” Arms overlapping meant that small red marks were obvious against his dark skin.

“Who bit you?” Luhan, torso lying on the island counter, poked his head over the edge closest to Jongin.

“That would probably be your younger brother.” Jongin gave up the fight and sat, inspecting the blatant teeth marks marring his bicep.

“Two minutes younger. Only two minutes! Why does everyone use that against me?” Sehun returned from the second bedroom with a severely crumpled black blazer and white dress shirt. “Oh, I did bite you. Sorry.”

“You nibble your lip when you get nervous, so you must have had an odd dream and subconsciously started doing it. I think your face was sorta pressed up against Jjong’s arm.” Luhan nabbed the blazer off Sehun’s arm. “I hope you know that I can’t wash this, so we have to get it steam cleaned when you crumple it.” He sighed and grabbed a hanger from the laundry pile on the couch.  “Hang it in the bathroom and by the time we’ve all had showers, it might straighten out.”

“Yes mum.” Jongin snorted laughter as he reached for a mug to put under the coffee machine.

“Just because I wash and I cook and I watch out for you two lunatics does not make me ‘mum’. Not that I would trust either of you to wash anyway. Whites and colours, people, whites and colours.” Luhan begins to gesture with his hands, one still clutching the iron in his mock frustration.

Sehun caught Jongin’s eye across the room and together they spoke. “Yes mum.”

Twenty minutes later, all three young men were showered, mostly dressed and chowing down bowls of cereal while watching the morning’s news on their small television (yet another of the ‘small luxuries’ the boys had given themselves). Sehun’s blazer was mainly crease free, Jongin had two socks on, albeit mismatched and Luhan, spoon in one hand and hair gel in the other, was giving himself a sufficiently ‘I just got out of bed, didn’t at all spend ten minutes of precious morning time on this hair. I woke up like this’ look.

The angel-faced boy was clad in black business pants, creased perfectly down the middle and a pale blue and white shirt, sleeves professionally folded to the elbows. Sehun, dressed for his job as a swanky restaurant waiter, looked virtually edible in his adorableness. Many patrons, both male and female, often slipped him a phone number. Jongin was wearing the commonplace jeans and shirt combo worn by ninety-five per cent of their fellow university students. He had a late morning class, followed by an Ancient History lecture. Jongin would work the night shift at the same restaurant as Sehun, while Luhan had a night lecture in Kinesiology in preparation for the final day of classes, which for him entailed a trip to a designer’s studio and a short catwalk performance. Sehun had finished his classes the day before with a final class of journalism and a writing workshop.