It was a starry May night, and the distant laughter of adolescents rang through the neighborhood.

    Chanyeol bowed his head to avoid a low tree branch. The soft evening breeze brushed his cheek, and the faint taste of sea salt lingered in the air. His feet hit the ground in quick and even strides. If he were to close his eyes, he could hear the choir of horns of the ships by the pier, the symphony of crickets in the grass, and the occasional applause of car tires against the blacktop.

    He hummed alone to the rhythm of his footsteps.

    It was not a long walk to the beach. He spent most of his evenings there, with a notebook of manuscript paper and a pen in his hand, looking to the sea for inspiration. If Odysseus encountered sirens at sea, Chanyeol hoped he, too, would find such a muse. Melodies and harmonies have ceased to come to him since the news came that his childhood home had burnt down, and he desired something to bring his ability to create back-- at any cost.

    The waves rolled onto the shore in cautious rumbles. The moon glittered on the surface of the water and the ocean became a mirror to reflect the dancing stars above. The only sounds were the tentative murmurs of the liquid galaxy before him.

    It often went like this. Chanyeol would come to the sea to ask for inspiration, and the sea would never answer. It was indifferent to the torment of a creative mind. It would jeer on as his lanky figure turned to leave with hunched shoulders, a blank manuscript book, and an empty heart. Yet, Chanyeol always returned the next night and the next. He felt deep down that he was missing something, and for some reason, he also believed that the sea knew what that something was.

    “What must I give to be able to compose again?” Chanyeol whispered.

    The waves withdrew and almost became silent.

    Chanyeol sighed. It was unrealistic of him to expect an answer.

    “Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses…”

    Chanyeol jumped. His notebook and pencil landed without a sound onto the soft sand. He scanned the beach to find the source of the voice and his eyes landed on a slender man about a hundred feet away from him. He wore a deep blue silk shirt that highlighted just how black his hair was. The moonlight cascaded over his figure, giving him a heavenly glow.

    The man was staring at the water. Lyrical tenor notes escaped his lips and resonated in the summer eve.

    “Et qu'un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé,

    Un conseil d'être heureux semble sortir des choses

    Et monter vers le coeur troublé.”

    Chanyeol stared. The language was foreign to him, and the voice carrying these syllables to him was just as unearthly. He tried to step closer, but his legs did not move. The suaveness of this stranger’s song held him captive.

    The edges where the sand met the water and where the water met the sky began to fold into each other and the soft murmur of ocean waves diminished into the background.

    There was only him and the stranger.

    Although the clarity of his voice reached out and stirred something within Chanyeol, he felt as if there were an invisible barrier between him and this stranger singing to the sea.  The man he was observing could not be real. Chanyeol feared that if he made the slightest sound, the man would fade into the night sky, or be reclaimed by the waters where he must have come from. He feared that if he made the slightest movement, this elusive portrait before him would come crashing down like a wave at high tide.

    “Un conseil de goûter le charme d'être au monde…”

    The melody was building slowly.

    Chanyeol’s chest began to ache.

    “Ce pendant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau…”

    There was no way this was a mortal voice.

    “Car nous nous en allons, comme s'en va cette onde…”

    Chanyeol held his breath.

    The stranger paused, then sang the last line. “Elle à la mer, nous au tombeau.”

    Everything was out of the air. It was an eternity before Chanyeol exhaled.

    The young man turned and noticed Chanyeol’s gaze. He raised his eyebrows, and Chanyeol turned his reddening face away. He brushed the sand off of his pants and his notebook and took quick steps to walk away.

    “Wait,” the stranger called.

    Chanyeol froze. He turned cautiously.

    The stranger caught up to him. His height barely made it above Chanyeol’s shoulders.

    “Were you really listening that entire time?” he asked, looking up at him.

    Chanyeol stared at the stranger.

    Up close, this man was even more dazzling. His eyes sparkled like the sea did at night, and his pink lips moved in the most peculiar way as he spoke. He smelled faintly of strawberries and his silk shirt was perhaps one button too loose, revealing his porcelain collarbone.

    Chanyeol blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

    “You were staring. I assumed you were listening?” he asked earnestly.

    Chanyeol scratched his head sheepishly. “Yes,” he admitted.

    “Oh, God.” A look of horror crossed his face.

    Chanyeol frowned. “What? I thought you were…”

    “Don’t say it,” the man cut off. “I know. I’ve been practicing for months and I still can’t capture the depth of the song.”

    “No, I meant to say that you were beautiful.”

    The man tilted his head.

    “Your singing,” Chanyeol added.

    The man narrowed his eyes. “You’re just saying that because you’re also embarrassed that you were caught listening. And you probably feel guilty for thinking it was bad as well.”

    “That’s ridiculous,” Chanyeol snapped indignantly. What reason does he have to lie? Why must everyone question his sincerity? “You can keep convincing yourself of whatever you like. I know what I heard.”

    He turned to leave.

    It was a rather curt and unceremonious goodbye, but as Chanyeol walked back, a smile formed on his lips.

    He had rediscovered music that night.

***

    At six thirty, when he finished instructing his last guitar student, Chanyeol swiftly grabbed his notebook and pen from the piano, slipped on his shoes, and headed out the door.

    For reasons unknown to him, he anxiously checked his reflection on the surface of his analog wrist watch every so often as he made his way down the block. He tousled his hair and straightened his back, inviting the evening air and all its surprises to come into his embrace.

    There were a few people still chasing waves on the south end of the beach.

    Chanyeol made his way to the north end where rocks that blended into a cliff curved into a dead end. He plopped down into the sand. It was still scorching, even through his trousers.

    The sun was nowhere near setting, the sea refused to yield any ideas-- all was as usual. The night before suddenly felt like a distant dream.

    Of course. What more could it have been?

    Sighing, he leaned back and allowed his hands to sink into the hot sand, and his face to tilt towards the sun. The metronomic chanting of the waves against the land lulled him into a trance. A low melodic hum resonated deep in his chest. A slow smile spread across his lips and he took the pen tucked behind his ear and began writing.

    What appeared to be simply scribbles, arbitrary combinations of dots and lines were a stream of emotional substance to him. They poured themselves onto the page and each musical phrase rose, swelled, and descended into a continuous churn of momentum, just like the rise and fall of waves at sea or the sinusoidal patterns of one’s breathing as one sits and daydreams or the perpetual motion of life itself. Each blot of black ink on the white paper was a kaleidoscope of sound in his mind, blooming in beautiful fractals and shifting from one shape to the next. A burst of euphoria overcame him. Every nearby noise became sound-- music. He became acutely aware of every whisper of the breeze, each crackling sound of wave upon the sand, and his skin tingled with how intensely he could feel-- once more-- how delicately life moved around him.

    The scribbling and page turns blended into the sounds of the water. He worked uninterrupted until the light of day gave way to the enchantment of night.

    Chanyeol set down his pen and stretched. He peered across the horizon and watched the sun sink into the water and the sky change from fuchsia to crimson to deep violet and finally, to the familiar and comforting navy blue.

    The moon was high in the sky. He squinted at his watch and made out that it was nine o’clock.

    His work was done. He was able to begin a composition after what seemed like an eternity. Yet, he was unsatisfied. His soul still lingered at the edge of the water, searching for something, and he stared hopelessly at the sea as if it would ever give an answer.

    And then he heard it.

    “Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses…”

    He found the young man who owned that voice. He was in the same outfit, slowly walking Chanyeol’s direction as he stared at the stars above. Chanyeol looked up.

    Perhaps it was not the sea that answered, but the stars above that did.

    The singing stopped and Chanyeol looked down. The man was standing a couple yards from him.

    His gaze bore into Chanyeol’s, and Chanyeol was afraid to breathe, for it could send this ethereal being away.

    The man’s face broke into a smile and he continued walking towards him.

    “Did you come here to listen to me practice?” he laughed as he approached Chanyeol.

    “No, I always come here in the evenings,” Chanyeol said.

    The man eyed the notebook and took the space in the sand next to him. “What’s that?”

    “Just some music,” Chanyeol said.

    “May I see it?” the man asked.

    Chanyeol felt the blood rush to his face and his stomach turn. “It’s not finished--”

    He did not complete the sentence when the stranger had reached over and grabbed the notebook from his hand. He opened to the most recent composition, angled it in the moonlight to see, and scanned the page with a noticeable sense of intrigue. When Chanyeol tried to take it back, he blocked him with his elbow.

    “For voice and piano…” he muttered.

    “Can I have it back?”    Chanyeol asked urgently.

    The stranger looked up at him with earnest eyes that shone in the moonlight. “Do you play piano?”

    Chanyeol tilted his chin curtly. “And guitar and drums. May I please have it back now?”

    The man ignored him as he stood up. He took a step closer to the water, with his nose still in the notebook. A sweet mellow voice escaped him, and once again, the unearthly voice broke into the night’s indifference.

    Chanyeol stared. For a brief moment, he forgot that he wanted the book back. He watched the stranger translate the notes into music right before him, each pitch as perfect as one could ever hear them being sung. Not only did the stranger sing, he seemed to have pulled an impromptu performance right there before the sea. His vo