He walked down the stairs towards the beach. The wind was a bit chilly so he briefly regretted not taking a jacket with him. He also hoped that no one else was out right now to see him walk down the beach barefooted wearing only his baby pink pyjamas with tiny ducks on them. Why he actually was there, on the way towards the beach clad in his pyjamas, he didn’t really know. He only knew that he’d woken up at 3:13 am and felt a need to get outside. But now that he actually was outside and could think everything through just to realize that he had no reason to be out he still couldn’t turn around and return to his room. It almost felt like something was pulling him towards the beach and away from the hotel and his comfy bed. He only hoped that Chanyeol wouldn’t wake up, because he really had no desire to be killed by his best friend today – or night, whatever – like he would be if his friend woke up only to find his bed empty without any explanation where he was and why.

The sand under his feet was cold and slightly damp and he didn’t look forward to trying to get it all off his feet before stepping inside the hotel. He already knew that he would get sand inside his bed no matter how clean he thought his feet were, the stupid sand always found its way in one way or another. Soon he saw the silhouette of the small jetty that he guessed was the destination he had been walking towards all this time. He still didn’t know why but he guessed that his subconscious just wanted to relive the memories from his childhood were he always would drag his poor grandfather out during his working hours to the jetty so they could sit down on the edge and bath their feet in the lukewarm water. Whenever his grandfather even mention something about going back he would always hold onto his hand and look at him with puppy eyes. The excuse that they didn’t have enough time to just be with each other accompanied with looking like a very small, very sad puppy always worked on his grandfather that then would stay at least another 20 minutes.

He was just about to take the first step onto the rough wood when he saw it. The outline of someone hanging off of the edge of the jetty. He froze for a second before sprinting all the way down to the edge. He threw himself down to his knees and grabbed the upper arms of the person being there. Only to quickly release his grip. The skin he had grabbed didn’t feel like normal skin, but more like the skin of a fish, slimy yet smooth. He looked at his hand in horror before sizing up the person in front of him. The first thought that crossed his mind was “experiment gone horribly wrong”. Then he realized that what he saw was probably just an incredibly well done costume of some sorts. The person – boy? Man? – in front of him was extremely pale, basically transparent, and had almost a greyish complexion. He had big eyes that had almost no colour at all, just a big round pupil in the middle. They were also slightly cloudy so he had no idea if the boy in the water could actually see him that well or not. But seeing as the other had followed his every move and smiled at him when he had grabbed his arm he guessed that, yes, he could actually see him. Water-boy seemed to be around his age and he also seemed to be quite fit – hey he wore no shirt. He could not not look, okay – at least judging from what he could see of him above the water.

“Do you need help up?” He asked water-boy when he finally found his voice again. That had been his reason for running there so might as well ask, even if he didn’t really want to touch the other again. He had just wiped of his hands on his pants, he did not need to get them all slimy again.

“No, thank you. I’m perfectly fine here.” Water-boy answered with a smile – wait was that fangs? How detailed was this costume anyway?

“Aish.” He literally exclaimed and threw up his hands. Had he just run 20 metres for nothing? Moving his hands he noticed that he felt a slight stinging in his left index finger and of course he had managed to get a splinter. He pulled it out, not really keen on having a bit of wood sticking out of his finger.

“Sorry.” Water-boy smiled apologetically. “What’s your name? If you don’t mind me asking that is…” He continued.

“What? Oh, no I don’t. Jongin, I’m Jongin.” Jongin answered and was just about to ask water-boy for his name when he saw the other zeroing in on his finger.

“What’s that?”

Jongin looked at his finger and saw how the splinter had resulted in a tiny drop of blood. He looked from his finger to the other with wide eyes.

“Wait, you don’t know what blood is? You’ve never bled before?” How could he not know what blood was? Everybody had to bleed one time or another; you can’t just simply avoid it. The boy in the water simply shook his head.

“No. Can you eat it?”

“Eat it?” Jongin shrieked. “Well I guess you can, but-“

Two hands that suddenly grabbed his arm interrupted him by bringing his finger to the other’s mouth. He shivered internally at the feeling of water-boy’s hands against his wrist but soon got distracted by the fact that his finger was in the other’s mouth. How did his life come to this? Sitting on a small jetty with his fingers in a stranger’s mouth. This moment easily topped the list of awkward moments Jongin had encountered, and he had had a lot of them. He couldn’t deny that it was slightly sensual though with the way the other closed his eyes while lightly on his fingers. Jongin suddenly felt extremely hot and awkward and- Nope. He pulled back his hand and cradled it against his chest, looking completely horrified of the whole ordeal. Water-boy looked almost disappointed at the loss of Jongin’s fingers, something that Jongin tried to ignore as he was currently trying to forget everything about the incident that just happened, and a slightly pouting adorable boy with weird and abnormal characteristics did nothing to help that.

“That tasted… kind of weird.” Water-boy said and Jongin froze. He tried to recall if he washed his hands before he went to bed. He must’ve, and he hadn’t touched anything weird going down here if he remembered correctly. Then why would his hand taste weird? The blood should only taste metallic, but maybe the other thought that was strange? He had never even bled for god’s sake. “But it still tasted… good.” Okay maybe that was even stranger. Who thought someone else’s fingers tasted good? Jongin’s inner monologue was cut short when he noticed a strange kind of wave making its way towards them

“Da is that?” He mumbled and stood up, feeling slightly unnerved by the wave. Nothing that could be the cause of it could be seen, no ship, no boat, no nothing. There was also no wind at all so that couldn’t be the cause either.

Water-boy turned around at the sound of Jongin’s question, managing to keep upright with half of his upper body still above water even without holding onto the jetty.

“Already?” He whispered which made Jongin turn his eyes from the constantly nearing wave towards the boy in the water.

“’Already’ what?”

“Nothing.” Was the immediate answer. Water-boy quickly turned around and held onto the edge again and Jongin crouched down to get to an eye-to-eye level with the other. “Unfortunately I must go now, but it’s been most pleasant. Thank you for speaking with me, Jongin.” And before Jongin got the time to answer the other leaned forward, kissed his nose and then dived down into the water. Jongin froze –did he just kiss his nose? -  before blinking and focusing on the water. The wave had disappeared and he wondered where the boy had gone. He stayed in the same position for a couple of minutes searching for the other’s head to break the surface before giving up and slowly make his way towards the hotel again. He hoped that the other had come up safely and hadn’t drowned. It had been a hella weird time with the other boy and they hadn’t spoken much – basically not at all – but he still didn’t regret going down there and meeting water-boy. Although strange and awkward it had been worth it.

He finally reached his hotel room. Chanyeol was sleeping in the same star-fish position as when Jongin left and was snoring quietly, with a bit of drool slowly making its way down to the pillow. If he remembered this tomorrow he would blackmail Chanyeol into buying him food. He sat down onto his bed, and after scrubbing the last sand off of his feet – he missed a little at the back of his heel – he laid down and it didn’t take long for him to fall into a deep sleep.

AN:

Oh God...

Sorry for this crappy chapter, hopefully I'll get better in the future. I'm going to blame the stress from moving away from family and friends (it's not the reason... but I'm still going to use it oops)

I actually might've wanted to add a swedish comment at one place in this chapter, but then I realized that basically no one would understand it and I don't know a good translation for "hejare" ^^' but the phrase I wanted to use was "han måste vara en hejare på att trampa vatten!" if you know what it means, good for you! I'll give you a virtual cake! :D

Again, sorry for this short and crappy chapter. I'll try to get better at this.