The ocean is different from what Kihyun had thought it would be.

Born and raised in what locals and tourists alike called the City by the Lake, Kihyun has seen his fair share of beaches and water that stretched as far as the eye could see. It’s one thing to stand at the edge of Lake Michigan and look out across calm water and distant boats, but it’s another thing entirely to stand at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and stare out into the darkness, not knowing where the water ends and the sky begins, save for the occasional glimpse of a white-capped wave.

The ocean is different from what Kihyun had thought it would be.

It’s louder, for one. Despite the many movies and tv shows he’s seen over the years, all of them portraying the ocean quietly in the backs of the sets, the physical act of standing there on the beach as the waves closer and closer to where he stands is deafening. At nearly eleven at night, the beach is technically closed. At this time of night, there’s no one around but him, the sandy expanse of the beach devoid of tourists and their luggage. The seagulls, iconic in their own right, have settled for the night. All Kihyun can hear is the water, coming and going, and washing over itself in its haste to reach land.

Kihyun can also taste the salt in the air. When he tilts his head back to look for the stars and take a deep breath, he can taste the salt in the air on his tongue. He knows that if he were to step forward and meet the line where the ocean kisses dry sand, he’d be able to feel it, too, the grit of the salt in the water on his skin.

But, in his haste to escape the quiet of his apartment and the disquiet of his thoughts, Kihyun hadn’t changed out of his sneakers. While Kihyun knows they’ll dry out eventually, he doesn’t want to be stuck wandering around barefoot until he finds the flip flops he’d packed in with his luggage.

Kihyun adjusts the strap of the bag he’d brought with him, settling it a little more carefully over his chest before reaching into the back to pull out his camera. He treats it gently, with the care one would give to something precious. After another quick check to make sure nothing had been damaged during the flight -- his third at this point -- Kihyun removes the cap on the lens, sets it in the bag, and brings the camera up to eye level.

Everything looks different from this new viewpoint. But at the same time, it’s all the same, somehow familiar and foreign all at once. Kihyun doesn’t expect to get any good shots when it’s this dark, but he takes them anyway, focusing on the near-invisible horizon, the whitecaps of the waves, the line between wet and dry sand, and the shells embedded in the sand around him. Kihyun has the inspiration to get a picture of the line of his footprints in the sand, and he turns with a muted noise of pleasure.

It’s then that he sees it, the lone figure standing a ways down the beach from him.

Kihyun stiffens, surprised, and he lowers his camera to peer more openly at them for a moment.

There’s little more than a fingernail of a moon overhead, but the figure seems to glow a little nonetheless, the top of their hair -- his hair, Kihyun thinks, vague and detached as he lifts his camera to eye level once more -- is brightened to a cerulean that makes Kihyun think of Lake Michigan at midday under the sun. Without the moon there to brighten it, it’s probably more of a midnight blue, deep and dark and unrelenting, and Kihyun wishes it were daylight so he could know for sure.

He snaps a picture of the figure, then ducks his head to study the shot saved to the camera roll.

Kihyun’s camera chooses that moment to die.

It’s frustrating, because Kihyun could have sworn it had a full battery when he’d left Chicago that afternoon, but he accepts that maybe he’d made a mistake in his haste. Even so, he attempts to turn the camera back on, fingers tapping against the side as he waits.

It takes a moment, a long enough moment that Kihyun is prepared to pack up and leave, before finally booting back up.

The battery icon flashes in the corner of the visual display, showing it’s nearly empty. It earns a frown, because Kihyun could have sworn--

But the camera can’t lie, and Kihyun had been busy packing and making sure he’d taken care of everything at home so he could leave. Forgetting to charge his camera is better than forgetting his camera entirely.

Admitting defeat, Kihyun opens the camera roll, hoping the picture hadn’t been blurred in his snap decision to capture the image. But the last picture in the roll is one of the water marking a new line over once-dry sand and washing over a half-buried shell.

There’s no sign of a lone silhouette, hair lit by the crescent moon and eyes on the water. And when Kihyun looks out down the beach in hopes of trying again, the male is gone, the tide washing up over the sand where he’d been standing.

Kihyun registers the disappointment he feels, frustrated at his carelessness for having lost a picturesque moment, and turns his camera off again.

By the time the waves finally reach where he’d been standing, Kihyun has tucked his camera back into his bag and is heading back to where he parked his car. When he gets back to the apartment he’s rented for the summer, Kihyun puts his camera on the charger, washes his face, and doesn’t bother to change before dropping onto his bed.

That night, Kihyun dreams of the ocean, of the crash of the waves and the cries of gulls in his ears. When he opens his mouth, he can taste the salt on his tongue.

The waves lap at his knees and, as they retreat, Kihyun can feel the way the sand shifts beneath his feet as it’s pulled out to sea.

It feels like he’s being pulled out to sea, too.