On the second day since Chanyeol arrived on Jindo Island yesterday afternoon, he already had all of his things unpacked and arranged, thanks to Kyungsoo and even Jongin helping him out even when they didn’t have to.

Chanyeol hadn’t brought a lot of things with him because he wasn’t planning on actually permanently moving to the island. It was just a temporary stay for three months. It was early July now and Chanyeol’s rental agreement would end on the last day of October.

Until then, Chanyeol needed to produce at least one original song which would sweep the charts and stir the nation, in a good way of course. It needed to be good enough that Chanyeol would redeem himself in the eyes of the public, artists and his label mates.

Chanyeol had woken up a bit late that morning on his second day on Jindo Island. He hadn’t set an alarm and all the traveling and moving things around yesterday had tired him out.

Chanyeol didn’t sleep that well last night because of how tired he was, or maybe because he was still trying to get adjusted to the new place. Whatever it was, it was something to do with him and not the place itself.

By the time Chanyeol got up, the sun was already shining outside and peeking through the semi-opaque curtains covering his windows. The time on his phone showed that he was more than an hour late from his usual waking time.

It was already warm and Chanyeol got out of bed to reach for the remote on the wall, to turn on the air-conditioning, sighing in relief when the room finally started to cool down.

Chanyeol crept back into bed, took out his phone and spent almost an hour scrolling through social media and news sites until he was satisfied at being caught up with everything.

The media had moved on fast from his plagiarizing scandal because they were now more focused on the person Chanyeol plagiarized from and had yet to make an apology to.

This young aspiring songwriter had blown up from all the attention Chanyeol had given by plagiarizing him, and was now being offered to write and produce tracks for South Korea’s top idol groups and solo artists.

While Chanyeol wasn’t brave enough yet to make a formal apology to this songwriter, Chanyeol was at least glad that it had somehow paid off for him in a good way.

On the wooden desk in the small room, he was now renting, Chanyeol had set up a makeshift home studio equipment he brought all the way from Seoul, such as studio monitors, microphones, an audio interface, a keyboard, a guitar and his custom built laptop with the studio software.

There was actually not enough space for the keyboard so it was temporarily stored under the bed, and would only be brought when he needed it.

The equipment Chanyeol brought with him had been the bulk of all the things he brought to Jindo.

Kyungsoo and Jongin had never seen most of the recording equipment and had gone “ooh and “aah” when they were helping Chanyeol unpack and setting it up.

Before Chanyeol started recording that morning, he left his room for a while to tell Kyungsoo or Jongin to keep down their noise while he was working. Chanyeol didn’t want to risk any of the background noise being caught on the recording and the island’s quiet nature had also been one of the reasons which attracted him there.

But when Chanyeol entered the living room just outside of his room, it was empty and there was no one home.

It was a weekday so Chanyeol assumed that Jongin was at school because the summer holidays would only start in late July.

Chanyeol slid open the front door and popped his head outside, looking out through the wooden fence to see that Kyungsoo’s truck was not parked there at the side of the road. There was a bicycle though, leaned against the wall outside just near the door. Seeing that, Chanyeol just assumed that Kyungsoo had gone out to sea or something.

The sun was shining bright and warm that day, without much cloud cover. It was hot outside and Chanyeol was able to feel that by just putting his head out from the door.

Shrugging to himself, Chanyeol slid the door back shut and locked it before padding off back to his room and to begin recording.

Just as Chanyeol was about to enter back into his room, he finally noticed the post-its that had been posted on his door. Written in marker on the post-its, it appeared to be a note telling him that there was rice in the rice cooker and dishes in the fridge he could reheat and eat if he was hungry.

Chanyeol wasn't hungry yet but he did think that it was rather thoughtful and considerate of Kyungsoo to do that for him. 

Back in his room, Chanyeol pulled out the keyboard and placed it on his bed, sitting in front of it with his legs crossed as he attempted to find a key, chord, or a tempo he could begin working with. Chanyeol didn’t only work with his keyboard. He also fished out his guitar pick from his wallet so he could attempt composing on his guitar too.

While at it, Chanyeol would scribble the notes down on his sheets, humming the notes to himself to see how it would sound like.

Chanyeol didn’t really have anything in mind or in particular that he wanted to compose. He didn’t even have a general idea or theme of how the song should be. He only cared about making the song popular, well received and even fantasized a perfect-all-kill if given to the right artists.

Chanyeol spent hours, hunching over the keyboard and occasionally getting up to pace around his room as he stormed his brain for any ideas, anything to help him compose something.

It proved to be harder than he expected, even though he had done this countless number of times before. Every formula and method seemed to have been tried and tested before, and Chanyeol wanted to show that he could create something original and fresh this time.

It appeared as if the writer’s block that was plaguing him in Seoul and led to him plagiarizing, was still affecting him even here.

Chanyeol couldn’t say that he didn’t expect a sudden flood of inspiration and ideas to suddenly come to him when he set foot on the island. It was wishful thinking and maybe a bit delusional but Chanyeol did realize now that it wasn’t going to just come out of anywhere, even in a new place he had hoped would help him.

Lee Soo Man’s scolding still rang through his head. Like the founder of SM Entertainment had said, Chanyeol was a veteran in this industry and had almost two decades of experience in composing music.

He should surely know this by now but since the scandal erupted, Chanyeol felt like he didn’t really know anything about his trade anymore.

Unable to come up with anything he was even remotely satisfied with; Chanyeol moped around, lying down on his bed while wasting his time by watching random funny videos and comedy skits on YouTube.

Chanyeol also ended up clicking on the videos that the YouTube algorithm recommended to him. Some of the videos were music related and Chanyeol soon found himself mentally trying to figure out which chord progression and keys were used in the songs.

In the midst of it, Chanyeol even tried to figure out how to make a full song from snippets of different parts of the song he was listening to.

When Chanyeol realized what he was doing was blatant plagiarizing and copying, he jolted up into a sitting position from his former lying position and quickly closed the video he was watching.

Chanyeol whined to himself, lightly punching a pillow out of frustration.

He hated himself for even thinking of it. It wasn’t supposed to get this bad, up to a point where copying from others become like an almost natural thing to do when faced with such a predicament.

Chanyeol hadn’t always felt like this. Ideas and new inspiration used to come easily and naturally to him. Right now, even thinking of something new he could be satisfied with, was proven to be a difficult task for him.

Chanyeol immediately got up from bed when he remembered where he was now, feeling a bit more eager and excited than he had been earlier on. He was on Jindo Island now, the place he had moved to in hopes that it would help inspire him.

Everywhere around the island were a new sight and a new place for him, just waiting to be discovered, and Chanyeol realized that he couldn’t achieve all of that just by sitting in his room all day.

He realized he needed to do something new and different if he was going to create something original. He needed new methods and he had to discard the old ways.

Chanyeol decided to put this island to use, by exploring it as much as he could and going around finding anything that would help inspire him.

Chanyeol changed and dressed into a light-colored t-shirt and a pair of jeans before he left the house, slipping his phone and wallet into the pockets and not forgetting the house keys too.

Borrowing the bicycle leaned up against the wall outside the house which he assumed to belong to Kyungsoo, Chanyeol cycled all the way to the port, where most of the shops and people on the island were.

From when he arrived yesterday, Chanyeol already remembered the way to the port from the house because it was just a straight road with no turns all the way there.

It was cloudier in the afternoon so it wasn’t too hot or sunny for Chanyeol to be about cycling down the small road flanked by acres upon acres of rice fields and farmlands. There was also a pleasant breeze that constantly blew in his face as he cycled down the straight and flat road.

Jindo Island itself was actually quite big when compared to the number of people living there. By vehicle and traveling at average speed, it would take over two hours from one end of the island to the other.

The houses and buildings that were far from each other, interspersed with many farmlands and open space in between only made the island seemed bigger and even more isolated.

Chanyeol eventually made his way down the port by the sea, where the heart of Jindo Island was. This was where the markets, shops, businesses, district offices, and lodgings were at.

Even though it was only his second time there, it wasn’t really hard to get around at all because of how small and straightforward the place was. Signboards sure did help a lot too of course.

Chanyeol cycled all the day down to the fishing port where the boats were docked in the harbor, with the fishermen seen on the boats or around the docks up to their own business. Not far from the fishing port was a fish market, where the fish was sold, freshly caught from the sea.

There was quite a crowd of people near the fish market and along the dock by the sea, who appeared to look like tourists from a tour group.

Afraid that someone might recognize him, Chanyeol steered away from the crowd and cycled down towards the fishing harbor instead.

Down at the fishing harbor, Chanyeol saw some of the fishermen carrying around large cooler boxes with freshly caught fishes that had been put on ice. Some of them were on their boats, scrubbing the decks and rolling up nets.

Chanyeol thought that as someone new on the island, his presence would be odd to the residents of the island. But no one seemed to mind him and carried about their work. 

Chanyeol looked around the harbor, trying to see if he could find Kyungsoo’s boat there among the others. Chanyeol wasn’t sure if Kyungsoo was there, or if he was out at sea but Chanyeol thought he might as well look while he was there.

Chanyeol remembered how Kyungsoo’s boat looked like although he didn’t really know how to differentiate it from the other fishing vessels there.

To him, they were all boats which floated on water.

Kyungsoo’s boat was actually a purse seiner commercial fishing vessel used for fishing in the open sea within the 200-mile from shore fishing limit. Any further than that, Kyungsoo would require a larger fishing vessel and a different type of fishing license which was more costly and couldn’t be operated alone.  

Slowly cycling down the concrete-surfaced harbor on the dock that extended out to sea, passing by the other fishing vessels, Chanyeol was pleasantly delighted to see Kyungsoo’s boat docked at the harbor, second-to-last down the line of docked ships.

Sure enough, Kyungsoo was there too, wearing a different colored wife beater that day, bending down on the deck of his boat as he was inspecting the heap on the deck that was his fishing net.

“Hey! Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol called out from the harbor, still on and straddling the bike he was riding.

Kyungsoo looked up when his name was called. He was sweating lightly and looked a bit flushed from the sun. He was probably used to this, after all, since he appeared to be rather tanned too.

“Oh, hi, Chanyeol. Were you sightseeing?” Kyungsoo smiled wide, waving back to Chanyeol as he wiped the trails of sweat on his jaw.

“Yeah, kinda,” Chanyeol answered, dismounting from the bike and walking towards the edge of the dock, nearer to where Kyungsoo was on the boat.

“Seen any places you like so fa