Suho wore his hangover in the bags under his eyes. He hadn't meant to get drunk on his first night in the village but the fishermen had intercepted him and Baekhyun on the way to the doctor's house and they wouldn't take no for an answer. 

"Hey, you the guys from Seoul," one of the men said in the brazen Susido dialect. Suho thought Baekhyun was going to piss himself. There were five of them in total, all wearing stained white t-shirts with the sleeves ripped off, though in the dark they looked like wife-beaters. Suho didn't think that those huge cigar-smoking men actually existed. But there were five of them telling him to join them at the bar and he couldn't walk away. Maybe it was because of sheer terror, but Suho and Baekhyun followed them obediently, drank when they drank, and passed out before midnight. Not your typical grimy fishermen, Suho thought as he rubbed his temples, if they carried us all the way to a bed. 

He was covered by a thin sheet and out of all the rooms he had been in so far, this one smelled the most like the sea. He rolled over to turn his nose away from the direction of the pungent salt-water, and sighed. Now that he was awake, he couldn't get comfortable and the morning was too cold to be laying under anything less than a comforter. He felt air blowing on him and it was passing through the sheet and his skin, chilling him to the core. It couldn't be airconditioning. Did they have airconditioning on the island? If they did, he would've been able to hear the grumbling of an outdated machine, but the only thing that reached his ears were the cicadas and not too distantly, the incessant crashing of waves on the shore. There was another gust of wind, making his toes curl. He forced himself out of his fetal position to get a coat from his suitcase. 

Suitcase. He expected it to be there on the ground beside him but he there was nothing but empty-and cold-wood flooring. Suho began to panic, because his head was pounding and the more he tried to remember where he had left his suitcase, the less he could remember at all. He scanned the plain room for his belongings, his eyes finally coming to rest on the source of the breeze.

A door leading to a balcony had been left slightly ajar. Suho moved towards it, staring at the sea that laid beneath. From his view, it seemed as though the entire house he was in was sitting in the water. A blue-gray mist glittered in the air as waves beat against rocks. Forgetting about the cold, Suho stood on the balcony, entranced by the magic of the ocean. It was clear closer to the beach; the colorful life below the surface danced and shimmered in the light. His gaze drifted to the horizon, where its unfathomable depths remained hidden under a deep blue cover.  

He felt deep respect for the water that stretched out in front of him. Without considering the possibility that someone could be watching him, he bowed at the waist. 

"Thank you," he shouted, "Thank you for being so beautiful." There was something about all of the openness that made him want to shout, like it would be wrong to whisper in the precense of the great sky and the great sea. He hadn't taken much time to look at the sky yet, but it was a stark blue that he could feel. There were no clouds, nothing to obstruct the sun's blinding rays. 

"Still drunk?" a voice called out. Suho had forgotten that he wasn't alone on the island. Not once had he wondered where Baekhyun was since he had stepped outside. He peered in the direction of the voice, expecting to see the snarky smile of his friend, but saw a shirtless body with skin too dark to belong to anyone from the city. What gave him away was his equally as dark expression. 

"Hey," Suho said, suddenly in a bad mood. "Chen, right?"

"Chen to my family. Jongdae to you. You look like a real local up there." He was shamelessly patronizing. "Talking to the ocean? Definitely one of us."

"How did I get here?" 

"Carried you." 

"You did?"

"Had to."

Suho thought about thanking him, but wasn't that what Chen wanted? What he expected? A well-mannered, subservient city boy who couldn't handle his liquor. He would only let part of that truth be known. Suho realized that he was the total stereotype. No more, he thought. 

"Where's Baekhyun?" 

"Oh that other guy. Did you check the room next to yours?"

Suho frowned. His headache had returned and he couldn't gather up enough wit to have a fair match with the country boy.

"Nope," he said, forcing laughter and accepting his temporary defeat.

"You do that."

Baekhyun wasn't in the room when Suho got there, but he had been-the imprint of his body was still fresh on the bed. Suho scanned the blank space. The decor of the house was not befitting to its massive size. Baekhyun's room was identical to Suho's, including the absence of a suitcase, with one exception. On the nightstand was a single picture frame. It was an aged photograph of three young boys jumping off of a waterfall. It looked like they had been trying to jump in sync, but their timing was way off. The one in the middle was a little chubbier than the others and he looked like he was yanking them downwards.  Suho picked up the frame to inspect it closer. That smile. Suho wasn't familiar with it, but he recognized the lips, the way they curled up at the corners. It was Jongdae, innocently and purely, it was him. Suho involuntarily began to smile too.