"When the clock strikes seven, the sea will grant you a wish

So be careful of what you want, for the sea won’t tell when it will come true;"

They woke up far before the morning did, and Sehun challenged him in a race.

“Who collect most clocks by the end of the day wins!”

Sehun shouted ‘ready, set, go!’ as they opened the door.  Kai chuckled as Sehun ran ahead of him, his new and bigger basket bouncing on his back.  He walked with leisure steps, he caught the sight of twinkles of lights reflected on the clocks even without him trying.

Sehun busily hopped from one place to another, taking every clock came in his way.  His endearing determination brought a smile on Kai’s face.  He didn’t even stop to play sands with his bare feet or greet passing hermit crabs as he usually did.  Kai chose to take another way so he wouldn’t take any clock that came into Sehun’s sight.

But being a Retriever that he was, Kai easily collected most of the clocks when the sunshine began to ebb away.

He thought it would be fun to claim his victory and tease Sehun for his loss, for Sehun puffing his cheeks and sulking was just as appealing as his chortle.

But it changed when he witnessed how Sehun’s basket was already so full that his back bent and his legs quivering with the weight, yet he still tried to find more.

He secretly went back home to put most of the clocks he retrieved in the Chamber of Chants, before going back again to where Sehun was.

The race ended when the city had turned bronze, and they counted the clocks they had gotten.  Sehun had three more clocks than him.

“I win!”

Sehun threw his arms high in the air in celebration.  He leaned backwards to lay himself on the floor of the Library, laughing heartily.  His laughter gradually turned into a series of exhausted but contented breaths.  His eyes started to flutter close.  Kai smiled and Sehun’s hair, delivering him to sleep.

“What do you want for the prize?”

Sehun answered before he closed his eyes.

“A promise.”

That day, number seven appeared on Sehun’s clock, and the crack had spread nearly the length of an arm. 

And Kai finally saw it.

"When the clock strikes eight, the sea will whisper you a secret

So always remember it, for it might be one about yourself;"

They woke up in each other’s arms that morning, and Sehun had the idea to play hide and seek.

Sehun loved to run, so Kai naturally took the role of the seeker.  Sehun ran out of the door at the same speed he did the day before, barefoot as always.  Kai counted until 412 before he started looking for Sehun.

Finding things had been his metier for a time immeasurable by the way of people of the surface, and he arrived at Sehun’s hiding without much struggle. 

It was a small cave woven by foliages of water hawthorn and watercress.  Kai bent his back to peek into the cave, wearing a triumphant smile.

“Found you.”

But Sehun didn’t return his smile.  Not with a laughter nor whine.

He sat with his legs folded to his chest.  In his hands was a tiny clock, and he was looking at it with a doleful expression.  Kai crawled to sit right beside him, shoulder touching Sehun’s.

“I wonder if it’s a clock of a child.”

The clock was the smallest Sehun had ever seen, it didn’t fill even half his palm.  It looked delicate and fragile.

“How unfortunate it is to have such short life.”

Sehun cradled the clock with mournful tenderness.  The usual scintillating light Kai had always been admired in his eyes seemed to dim.  Gently, he rested his chin on Sehun’s shoulder.

“It’s not merely the length of the time that matters.”

He reached out both arms to encircle Sehun, hugging him from behind.  His fingers entwined with Sehun’s, holding the clock together.

“Look, the clock is small, but the numbers are complete.  Even though his time might have been ephemeral, he was loved.”

Sehun rested his head back to the space between Kai’s jawline and shoulder.  His voice was as soft as the way he held the clock in his hand, as if not to wake a sleeping child.

“Can I believe that he really was?”

“Of course.”

“But then, does it mean I’m not loved?”

There was loneliness sneaking into Sehun’s words.  They both remembered how Sehun’s clock had no number the moment he arrived.

Kai pulled Sehun deeper into his embrace, drawing a line of feathery kisses along the side of his face. 

“Didn’t you say you are a gift sent for me?  That’s why your clock was empty.  It is to be drawn by me.  Number by number.”

Kai caught Sehun’s chin with his fingers, tilting his face towards him.  He whispered vows through the seam of Sehun’s lips.

“And Sehun, I will give you all the love that you need.”

That day, number eight appeared on Sehun’s clock, and the sea awakened late, leaving the city cold with no light and water to blanket it.

"When the clock strikes nine, the sea will sing you a lullaby

So lay your head down, for the sea will accompany you until you fall asleep;"

Night disappeared faster than it had ever been, and Sehun had made a song.

He brought home a small harpsichord he took from the toy store.  It was in a size of the spread of Sehun’s both hands.  Sehun placed it on the floor beside the chair where Kai seated himself, sitting in front of it with his legs crossed. 

“Welcome to Sehun’s recital!”

Kai had adjusted his chair to face Sehun, who promptly stood up to bow solemnly as he clapped his hands at the introduction.  Sehun sat back down, flipping the tails of the oversized coat.  Sehun wore it over his pajama shirt, his legs covered in knee-length pants, a pair of white socks warming his feet.  A few minutes earlier when Kai attached a bow tie to his neck, Sehun asked if he had already looked like a maestro.  Kai said yes.

Sehun straightened his back to form the proper manner of a pianist.  He gave a glance and a smile for the prelude.

“Title of the song: Of us.”

Sehun sailed his fingers on the keys, and clear chiming notes floated from the harpsichord.

The song was nothing like the one the clocks would sing when the sea came to deliver their story through seconds it ticked back.  But Kai could imagine pictures of moments depicted in every verse and refrain Sehun played, as easy as flipping through the pages of a fairytale book.

The song started in larghissimo, the notes played slowly one after another, like walking on stepping stones.  And Kai saw him following the faint tickings, leading him to find Sehun.

The song flowed into adagio, the notes drizzling unrushedly.  And Kai saw them walk together around the city, he took his time to get himself used to the new company by his side.  And it didn’t take too long.

The song walked in andante, the notes ambling at a relaxed pace.  And Kai saw how he grew a habit to look at Sehun every few minutes, learning meanings in Sehun’s smile and laugh and the effect it had on him.

The song burst into allegro, the notes cascading like a waterfall.  And Kai knew it was how his heart would have beat when he had Sehun in his arms, his lips on Sehun’s, and colors seemed to have condensed into a single being that is Sehun.

The song sprang into vivace, the notes bouncing merrily.  And Kai remembered the way Sehun’s eyes gleamed in blithe when he won a promise from him.  When Sehun fell asleep under his caresses, he swore to himself that he would grant anything Sehun wished him to do.

The song dashed in prestissimo, the notes pouring like a torrent of downpour.  And Kai realized it was how days seemed to pass with Sehun, so fast yet it felt like it had been going for forever.  Like it had always been the two of them in the sea from the very beginning.

The song slowed down with rallentando, the notes flitting gracefully into an ending.  Just like how they would return to their home at the end of the day, tangling their bodies under the warm blanket on Kai’s bed.

“Beautiful.”

When the song finished, Sehun took a place on Kai’s lap.  Three words uttered voicelessly in every brush of lips and of fingers.

For the first time, Kai wondered, how nice it would be to have a clock on his own.  How nice it would be if they had lives on the surface.  If they had times in Before.

Kai was sure his clock would be filled with Sehun’s name in most stories of it, as he wished Sehun’s clock would be with his.

That day, number nine appeared on Sehun’s clock, and the crack on the glass wall had deepened, a telltale of what might occur. 

If Kai didn’t find the answer soon.

"When the clock strikes ten, the sea will tell you a confession

So never miss a word, for it might be the truth you’ve been yearning to know;"

Morning greeted somberly, and Kai just remembered something he had forgotten.

There was still one clock hadn’t been placed in the Chamber of Chants.  It was the small clock with a broken number and hand he found in the morning on the day Sehun arrived. 

It was still sheated in his pocket, and Kai brought it to where it should have been.  He walked out of his bedroom in silent steps, not wanting to wake Sehun. 

The Chamber of Chants was filled with resonating hums of serenade from the clock.  The ticking stories would only be heard so vividly when the sea came to hug them.  Kai put the clock carefully in one of the highest stalls in the room, in hope its story would be afloat sooner.

Kai was on his way to leave the room, when a name he knew resounded as the clock began to tick back.

“Sehun, I can’t wait to meet you.”

A voice of a woman, gentle and loving like sunshine everytime morning came.

Kai stood there in front of the clock, hearing every story being revealed, Sehun’s name flew through each line of it.

“When you turn one, you might want to start befriending the nature.  I will carry you to my favorite park, where the leaves wear different color to dress themselves every season.  It was where I met your father for the first time.”

“When you turn two, you might already walk on your own, and your father and I will hold your hands along every path you want to explore into.”

“When you turn three, you might have learned your first word, and your father and I will shower you with many words of love so you’ll know how to voice your affection.”

“When you turn four, you might begin having wishes and hopes of your own, and if you’ll be a good boy, your father and I will tuck presents under your pillow and in the big socks you’ll hang on the fireplace.”

The story went on to every year after, told in a peaceful pace and in a lilt of a storyteller.  Of Sehun’s first struggle to read, of his first try riding a bicycle, of his first day of school, of many following years spent with and accompanied by friends he made.  Every passage ended with a promise of ‘your father and I’, of how they would always be there for him nevertheless.

“When you turn fifteen, you might have developed opinions on your own, and you’ll start ignoring what we think is best for you.  But that’s okay.  Your father and I will hug you when you make a right choice, and we will still hug you when you make a mistake.”

“When you turn sixteen, you might embark in your chase of dreams, and your father and I will never stop cheering for you, with arms always opened for you to lean into every time you’re tired and feeling like giving up.”

“When you turn seventeen, you might have grown as tall as your father, and you’ll look just as charming as him.  I will probably start to feel jealous of every friend you prefer to be with on some holidays, but you’ll always love me the most, right?”

“When you turn eighteen, you might have chosen someone to stay with forever, one who would complete you the way we couldn’t.  And your father and I will give you our blessing, as your happiness is our happiness.”

Kai felt immense warmth sprang forth in his chest, it grew bigger and bigger at every line being cited.  He waited for another imagery of Sehun’s life being elicited, but it never came.  A long pause stretched out after the last line, like a poem being left unfinished, letting the rhyme hang.

When the voice finally came again, it was in a cry.

“I’m sorry, Sehun.”

The voice shattered into despair and lament.  Coldness abruptly crowded the room behind his ribcage.

“He lied.  He broke his promise.”

Strings of sobs pushed its way between every word.  It clawed invisible scars inside of him.

“Your father left.  He left me.  He left us.”

The voice was getting softer and softer, but the anguish in it was becoming so shrill, numbing his senses.  Other sounds around him seemed to be drowned in the cacophony of misery.

“I’m sorry, Sehun.”

He wanted to stop it.

He wanted to stop her.

But there was nothing he could do, but to hear the haunting echo of unceasing apologies.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sorry.”

There was a sound of waves hitting the shore.

Then silence.

That day, number ten appeared on Sehun’s clock, and Kai couldn’t hear any song in the sea.  He couldn’t see any light.  It was dark and silent.

As if the sea had had its soul being seized away.

"When the clock strikes eleven, the sea will knock on your window

So open the curtain, for the sea comes to pick you up;"

“Sehun, you’re an unborn.”

Kai couldn’t find the right time to tell Sehun.  It kept replayed and replayed in his head, the voices and the sounds getting louder and louder every time, urging him to spill it there and then.  Sehun’s radiant smile and jovial chirps of laughter always stopped himself from telling.  He didn’t want to hurt Sehun.

But the truth escaped his lips when they shared the most serene time of the day.  Sehun was playing the song on the harpsichord with one hand, another one entangled in Kai’s fingers.  Every note of the song brought enormous pain to Kai, knowing that the moments written into the melody weren’t suppose to be there in the first place.

And once he began, words after words pouring down from him like unstoppable streams.

Your mother killed herself in the sea.

While you were still inside her.

“No, that is not true.”

It is, Sehun.

It might be only a few hours or minutes before you came to life.  Your time had already on the way to be lent to you, when it’s being thrown away even before you could reach it.  You born and died in the sea.  The flow of your time was disturbed, ruined.  That’s why you’re here.  In Between.  Because you didn’t have a place in Before, but you lost on your way to After.

“No, that is not true!  If I’m an unborn, why do I exist?  Why do I have this body?”

Because your mother had pictured years of your life.  Her hope shaped you this way.

“No, that is not true.  Please tell me that is not true.  I’m a gift sent for you.”

The song had long forgotten, being cut in the middle right before it entered the part Kai adored the most.  The part with the moment that made Kai finally able to name the feeling he had towards Sehun.

“No, Sehun.  You’re not supposed to be here.”

The words he then said hurt him like a rain of shards.

“You have to go.”

Because the sea had gone haywire, too.  It had been telling you to leave.

“Let me stay.”

“I can’t, Sehun.  You can’t stay.”

“Let me stay, please.  Please let me stay here with you.  I want to stay here with you.”

“You can’t, Sehun.  You can’t stay here.  Here is not where you belong.”

“Don’t you want me to stay?”

I do.

I do, Sehun.

You are everything I have ever wished to keep.

 But he didn’t say those words out loud.

He choked it back, leaving silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

Sehun didn’t cry.

Not a single tear fell on his cheek.

But every star in Sehun’s eyes had perished.  Leaving an abyss of hopelessness and agony.

Never once in his life had Kai felt such pain.

Number eleven appeared on Sehun’s clock, and it’s time to say goodbye.

The glass wall shattered with tumultuous sound, the force shook the entire room.  Water gushed in unforgiving strength and speed, threatening to swallow anything came in its way.

Kai grabbed Sehun’s hand and bolted to the door, escaping the rage of the sea.  Sehun snatched his clock as he ran passed it, right before a wave rolled and gulped down the table he had placed it on earlier.

Kai dragged Sehun through doors and corridors, never once looking back or slowed down.  The relentless wave coiled behind them in thundering rumble, aiming its arms right at their feet.  Kai ran faster, hand gripping on Sehun’s wrist tighter.

Sehun wasn’t meant to live in the sea.  He wouldn’t be able to breathe surrounded by water.  He would be drowned.  He would be evanesced.

Kai didn’t want to create more nightmare for Sehun.

They avoided the grip of the waves as they turned to the glass corridor connecting parts of the house.  The sea followed them closely, insistently, and Kai forced his legs to move faster, faster, faster.  Sehun panted heavily behind him, nearly stumbled down.

“A little bit more, Sehun, just a little bit more.”

But when he had only just stepped a foot in the room at the end of the corridor, the glass beneath them broke down, plummeting them right into the depth of the sea.  The currents hit them mercilessly.  Kai lost his grip on Sehun’s hand, the whirl of stream took Sehun away from him, further and further away from his reach.

He saw Sehun choked, strangled by the thick water confining him.  He struggled to breathe, his arms and legs moved frantically.  His eyes filled with loud fear.  He screamed in a muted voice.

Kai.  Kai.

Kai pushed himself against the strong currents, making his way to Sehun.  With his legs being held back by the hurtling undertow, he reached his arms towards Sehun.

He caught Sehun’s hand as Sehun lost his clock.

"When the clock strikes twelve, the sea will hold your hand

So prepare your heart, for the sea will lead you to where everyone is waiting for you;"

“Sehun, wake up.”

Sehun opened his eyes.  He was on a boat.  And Kai was there, holding the hand he had reached under the sea. 

Sehun sat up, he was dry and painless, leaves and petals in various shapes and colors trickling down from his hair and face, adding to the pile covering the bottom of the boat.

He looked around.  The boat was afloat, the water beneath them was unrippled.  The water stretched out to infinity, as if they were on a sea with no end or shore.  

He looked up.  The sky was hanging so low until the clouds seemed to float on the water.  He felt like he could actually touch the sky if he lifted his hand.  The sky was wearing a gradient of all colors that ever existed, reflected by the silent sea under them like a giant mirror.

There was no sound in the air, not even a blow of wind, or echoes of birds.  The silence was tranquil, like a hushed lullaby inviting him into a deep sleep.

“Where are we?”

Kai smiled, taking his other hand into his hold.

“You’re on your way to After.”

Kai was there with him, sitting on the boat right in front of him.  His skin, hair, eyes were exactly like he had always remembered it to be.  But there was something different in the way he held his hand, in the touch.

It felt too light, too distant. 

As if he was a fata morgana soon vanished once he closed his eyes.

And he said ‘you’.

Not ‘we’.

“You’re not coming with me.”

Kai smiled, thousand unspoken words written in the way he gazed at Sehun.  His eyes were black, but it seemed to convey all colors of the sea, from red to violet.  Blue spoke the loudest.

“I’m not.”

He ran his thumbs over the ridge of Sehun’s knuckles, before bringing it to his lips to plant a chaste kiss.

“I have always belonged to the sea.”

His kiss was so soft that Sehun wasn’t sure if it was really there or not.  And his presence seemed to fade away slowly.  Sehun could barely catch the line of his figure.

He reached out his arms and leaned in for a hug, fingers clinging to the faint feeling of warmth still remained.

“Kai, you owe me a promise.”

Kai pulled Sehun closer to him, hands rested at his shoulder and waist, lips leaving trails of kisses from the top of his head to the side of his face, then rested at his ears.  The feeling lingered.

“Anything, Sehun.”

Sehun could hear the sound of waves and winds from within Kai.  It seemed so far away.  Sehun wanted to listen to it forever.

“Promise me we’ll meet again someday.”

Sehun could feel Kai smiled, and soundless ripples started to arise around the boat.

“I promise.”

The boat started to move, and Kai disappeared into a scatter of songs, flying back to where it belonged.

Number twelve appeared on Sehun’s clock, and he left it in the sea.