It’s the middle of the night, and it’s pouring; the kind of warm, dense downpour that only occurs during the monsoon season. The black asphalt of the highway is several centimetres deep in standing water. Driving in the middle of the night in such weather is treacherous, and the mangled wreckage of a car and a strip of guardrail twisted together like spaghetti across the road from where Jongdae is standing proves it. The flashing lights of two ambulances, a fire engine, and three police cars reflect off the sheeting rain lashing down from the dark sky.

Jongdae used to like the monsoon rains. There was something thrilling about the way the water came down so heavily it was like standing under a high-pressure showerhead, soaking him through in seconds. He used to go out in a t-shirt and shorts and just run through it, down the old cracked road that led past the orphanage and out between the rice fields, water splashing up around his legs and plastering his hair to his skull. It was like the rain could temporarily wash away everything that was wrong with Jongdae’s world.

He doesn’t enjoy the rain so much anymore. He has been deployed to too many scenes like this one, and it’s not like he can really feel the rain on his skin now anyway.

Two paramedics in heavy-duty rain gear are kneeling in the road, working on the teenage boy the firefighters have just cut from the wreckage. Jongdae crosses the road to get closer, skirting the police officers in yellow PVC directing traffic. The boy's right leg is bent at an impossible angle, splinters of white bone sticking out of his skin. Jongdae flinches at the sight. Even after six months of being assigned to scenes like this one, he still finds bad injuries hard to look at, and so he looks away and focuses on the boy’s face instead.

For a second he’s shocked, because the boy looks familiar. He wonders if he knows him, but then realises that he doesn’t. The recognition is because the boy reminds Jongdae of himself. He’s small and wiry in build, and his hair falls back from his bloodied face in tousled brown waves like Jongdae’s used to. He can’t be much older than seventeen.

The paramedics have started CPR. Jongdae kneels beside the male paramedic doing chest compressions and places his hand on the boy’s shoulder. It sinks in a bit, and he grimaces as he feels the boy’s pain flood through him. The broken leg is the least of his troubles; he has several broken ribs which have punctured his lungs, and his aorta is torn, blood pouring into his chest cavity instead of feeding his arteries. The paramedic doing his best to save the boy’s life with chest compressions is fighting a useless battle—there’s no point in manually pumping a heart if all the blood is leaking out. There’s no way to save him.

Except there is.

As Jongdae senses all the boy’s injuries, the jade ring on his finger begins to grow warm. He closes his eyes to focus on the energy starting to stir inside him, drawn by the ring’s activation. The ring draws the energy out from his core, down his arms and into his hands, and from there it floods into the boy. Jongdae keeps his eyes closed, knowing that the jade ring has lit up and is glowing like a beacon by the light that plays across his eyelids. He feels the healing power wash through the boy, pooling in the places he needs it most. The tear in his aorta melts back together beautifully, and the broken ribs poking into his lungs shift back into their proper places, the punctures they made sealing over.

Then the green light fades. It doesn’t heal the injuries that aren’t life-threatening. It only ever does what the victim can’t do without aid.

“I have a pulse,” calls one of the paramedics.

Jongdae opens his eyes in time to catch the last glimmer of light from his ring before it dims back to green stone. He lets go of the boy, staying on his knees in the road as the paramedics get him onto a backboard and carry him to the ambulance. He’s exhausted. Healing always takes it out of him, makes him feel faint and faded, as if a strong breeze could tear his insubstantial atoms apart and dissolve him into the ether.

He could rest now. His assignment is complete. If he closed his eyes and let himself drift, he’d find himself back in the courtyard of the ancient traditional house known as Still Waters, where he could regain his strength and wait until he received a new assignment. But he clenches his fists and forces himself to stay present, because the boy was not the only victim of the accident tonight.

He stands up and sees that the boy’s mother has now been cut free from the wreckage. Paramedics from the second ambulance are giving her CPR. Jongdae knows she’s not dead yet, because Kyungsoo is standing at her head, holding an envelope in his hands. Jongdae can’t see the writing on the envelope, but he knows it has the woman’s name on it. It’s her seal of death.

Like Jongdae, the rain falls right through Kyungsoo without affecting him. Also like Jongdae, he’s wearing traditional silk robes, but that’s where their similarities end. Kyungsoo’s robes are black instead of white. Jongdae’s long hair is in a half-ponytail and held back with a strip of white silk around his forehead, but Kyungsoo’s hair is in a topknot, hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat with a beaded string. His face is impassive, as always. Jongdae has never once seen Kyungsoo smile, not in all the six months they’ve been assigned cases together. Kyungsoo is a reaper, and he’s waiting for the woman to die so that he can seal her body and guide her spirit to Still Waters. Jongdae supposes that if it was his job to take people away from their loved ones, he wouldn’t smile very much either.

He takes a step forward. The woman isn’t dead yet. He could heal her. The power exists, right there in the ring on his left hand. He could save her life, and save her son the pain of losing his mother. It’s a pain Jongdae knows intimately.

But he’s not allowed to. He was assigned to save the boy. Kyungsoo was assigned to seal the death of his mother. Jongdae has tried to ask why it works like this. Why are some people allowed to be healed and others have to die? But he never gets a good answer. Junmyeon told him, rather vaguely, that it’s something to do with the Balance, something far beyond their ability to understand. They just have to trust that the people who give them their assignments know what they’re doing. Junmyeon seems quite content to do just that, to do as he’s told and not break any rules, but faced with a person dying right in front of him, Jongdae just can’t do it. He takes another step forward.

“Don’t come any closer,” Kyungsoo says, without moving, without even looking up. He was aware of Jongdae all along, of course.

“I could heal her,” Jongdae says. “I could save her. Can’t you just let me—”

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo says wearily. They’ve had this argument dozens of times. “You do your job, and let me do mine.”

“She’s not dead yet,” Jongdae says. His frustration rings in his voice. “I was allowed to heal her son. Why can’t I heal her too?”

“Because I have her seal of death,” Kyungsoo says, still not looking away from the woman’s still form. “Stay back. Do you want to be suspended again?”

No, Jongdae doesn’t want that. The last time he broke the rules and healed someone he shouldn’t, he’d had his ring confiscated for three weeks. Healing some people is better than healing nobody. And maybe next time they won’t be so lenient. They might take his job away from him for good. He clenches a fist, but he doesn’t come any closer.

After a couple of moments, Jongdae notices that the onyx ring Kyungsoo wears on his left hand is starting to heat up, slowly turning from black to a clear, glowing orange. Kyungsoo notices too. He extends his hand over the woman’s body, and the woman dies. Her spirit rises from her body like a wreathing mist and slowly begins to take the shape of her old body. They always do that, Jongdae included. It’s the familiarity, Junmyeon has told him. In times of confusion and change, people cling to what’s familiar.

The woman appears confused, as most people who have just died do. Kyungsoo’s voice, when he speaks to her, is gentler than Jongdae ever hears him speak to anyone but the newly dead. “Come with me,” he says. His ring has passed through orange and yellow and is now glowing a pure, bright white.

The woman’s spirit firms up enough to reach out and take Kyungsoo’s outstretched hand. Jongdae hears her ask him, in a voice like an echo of falling leaves, why she has to leave her son. His heart aches, the sensation so acute that he can barely believe what Junmyeon says about the physical sensations they feel as spirits being only memories of what they used to feel as humans.

He knows that Kyungsoo will now place the seal of death on her chest, where it will sink in, and that will mean her body can't be re-entered. Then he’ll take her to Still Waters, and from there she’ll move on. He can’t bear to watch Kyungsoo seal the body, so he turns away and closes his eyes. He’s so tired that it’s hard to keep a hold of his shape and not slip back to Still Waters himself, but he doesn’t want to go back yet. If he goes back he’ll be given another assignment, and he’s hurting too much to bear the thought of being sent to another terrible accident.

There’s another place he can go. He’s not meant to go there so much, but he can’t stay away. He’s constantly drawn to that place, that person, like a wave flows to the shore. He closes his eyes, visualizes the place, and slips.

When he opens his eyes, he’s not at the scene of the crash anymore, but standing on a steep, narrow street with brightly painted houses on both sides, all crammed up against each other as they cling to the hillside above the bay. It’s not raining here, though there’s still a moist, warm heaviness to the air, and the sky is starless and ominous with cloud. 

The door in front of him is locked, but locks are for people who have bodies that can be kept out. Jongdae steps straight through. There’s a feeling of faint resistance, like pushing through a waterfall that isn’t falling, and then he’s standing in the narrow hall. The wall clock ticks the seconds through the darkness. Jongdae glances at it and finds that it’s nearly three am. Chanyeol and his family should all be asleep, and yet there’s a thin rectangle of light falling from the slightly ajar door to Chanyeol’s father’s office down the hall.

He drifts down the hall towards the stairs at the end, glancing into the office as he passes. Chanyeol’s father is asleep at his computer, the screen shining blue light onto his face and reflecting off his glasses. There’s a strong family resemblance; both Chanyeol and his older sister have inherited their father’s height, big eyes and delicate features, as well as the unmissable large ears that stick out through their hair, but their father is a worn-down, faded version of his beautiful children. Jongdae drifts on, up the stairs, past the closed door of Yoora’s bedroom, following the pull in his chest. He is the tide, and the moon is Chanyeol.

Chanyeol’s door is open. Jongdae pauses at the threshold. He knows he shouldn’t be here. He’s stepping way over the accepted guidelines for working spirits to look in on their people every now and then, on the way to or from assignments. He's coming dangerously close to haunting Chanyeol. But he can’t help it, and he doesn’t care. He needs to see Chanyeol. 

He’s not sure why it’s so impossible for him to stay away. Maybe it’s because Chanyeol was the last person Jongdae saw before he died, or maybe it’s because Jongdae knows Chanyeol still thinks about him, when barely anyone else does. Whatever the reason, as long as nobody stops him, Jongdae will keep coming. When he’s with Chanyeol, he feels a little relief from the restless tide of emotions that constantly moves through him, the turbulent anger and confusion and grief that make it impossible to stay anywhere else for long.

Chanyeol is asleep. The blankets are all twisted up around him, and he’s twisted inside them, legs going one way and torso the other, one arm flung out across the pillows. He’s restless, frowning as his head shifts minutely, his breathing shallow and rapid. From the way he looks, Jongdae would think he was feverish, but he knows better. He knows what Chanyeol looks like when he's having a nightmare, and it’s enough to draw him through the doorway and across the room.

He hates that Chanyeol has nightmares, and it’s made worse because there’s nothing he can do. He can’t call his name, can’t shake him awake and tell him it’s not real. He can’t do anything to save Chanyeol from the terrors that plague his sleep. Frustration and unhappiness well up inside him, and when Chanyeol whimpers faintly, Jongdae feels like his heart is going to break. Chanyeol is the kind of person who should always be happy; bright and smiling and full of life. It hurts to see him like this.

He turns away, looking around the room for a distraction. Chanyeol is a typical messy seventeen-year-old, clothes strewn across the floor, the desk covered in schoolbooks, laptop and phone charging at the end of their cables on the floor like strange plants with long thin roots. There’s a guitar in the corner, but it’s dusty with disuse. Underneath his bed is a skateboard, the underside beautifully painted, but similarly neglected. Jongdae has been visiting Chanyeol enough to be aware that these used to be his hobbies, music and skateboarding. But Jongdae has not seen Chanyeol touch his guitar or his skateboard in all the six months he’s been visiting him.

There’s a notebook lying open on the desk. Jongdae steps towards it, trying to ignore how Chanyeol’s faint cries tear right through him. Chanyeol’s messy handwriting scrawls along the top of the page.

Why can’t I remember his face?

The rest of the page is covered with scribbles. Not doodles, but angry black slashes, hard enough to wrinkle the paper. Jongdae knows the writing is about him, because it is Jongdae’s face Chanyeol doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know what Jongdae looked like or how old he was when he died. He doesn’t even know Jongdae’s name.

Chanyeol jerks awake with a gasp. Jongdae turns back to him and watches as he fights himself free of the covers. He’d woken already crying, and his breathing doesn’t slow down when he understands that he’s awake. Instead, he curls in on himself, shoulders hunching as he grips his upper arms hard enough to bruise. His breathing hitches, and he drags his fingernails down his arms, scratching livid red streaks into his skin.

If Jongdae wasn’t already dead, seeing Chanyeol like this would kill him. He wants to grab Chanyeol’s hands and pull them away from his arms and grip them tight. He wants to hug him and tell him that everything will be okay. He kneels on the bed next to Chanyeol and tries to take his hand, but he just slips through his fingers like water.

As Jongdae’s hand passes through Chanyeol’s arm, he feels his pain. He can’t read his mind or tell the reasons behind it, just the feeling. It’s like sinking. Drowning.

“Breathe, Chanyeol,” he whispers helplessly. “I’m here. Breathe.” But of course, Chanyeol can’t hear him. The only audible sound in the room is Chanyeol sobbing for air.

The weight of Chanyeol’s despair presses over Jongdae, pushing him down, down, down until he can barely hold himself together enough to not sink through the bed. He sometimes tries to tell himself this isn’t his fault, but he knows it’s not true. Chanyeol is suffering because of Jongdae. His depression, his nightmares, the scratches multiplying on his arms, it’s all because of Jongdae.

He wishes with all his heart that he was able to talk to Chanyeol. To make him hear. He wants to tell Chanyeol that he doesn’t need to grieve over Jongdae. That he doesn’t regret saving his life, even though it meant losing his own. That Chanyeol deserves to live and be happy, and that all Jongdae wants is to see him smile again, like he does in the family photographs lining the hall.

Slowly, Chanyeol’s breathing calms, and the tears finally stop rolling down his face. He curls up on his bed, exhausted by the attack. Jongdae slips off the bed and sits on the floor as Chanyeol closes his eyes and drifts towards sleep again, his body still shaking every now and then with leftover sobs, and buries his head in his arms.

He feels so helpless. He has the power to heal, but the jade ring only works on physical injuries and illnesses. It doesn’t heal wounds of the soul.

Jongdae hates feeling helpless. It reminds him too much of his childhood, when he really was helpless, until he'd learned that if he wanted anything to change, he needed to take matters into his own hands. To fight with everything he had, because no one would fight for him. He’s dead now, but that doesn’t mean the rules have changed. If Jongdae wants Chanyeol to be happy, he needs to do something about it. He needs to stop being invisible and intangible. He needs to be seen and heard.

It’s not the first time he’s thought this. He’s had the idea from the moment he asked Junmyeon what his job as a guide involved that was different to Jongdae’s job as a healer, and Junmyeon had taken out a beautiful blue pendant on a silver chain from the pocket of his robes and explained that wearing it gives him enough density to be seen and heard in the physical world. But there’s no way Junmyeon will let Jongdae borrow his pendant. That would break the rules, and Junmyeon never, ever breaks the rules. So the only way Jongdae can get hold of the pendant is to steal it. He doesn’t want to betray Junmyeon like that, because Junmyeon is one of the very few people who still cares about Jongdae, and that’s what has stopped him from trying before.

But this is too much. He’s been watching Chanyeol sink since the day Jongdae saved him, and it’s not getting any better. He’s scared that if he doesn’t do something soon, Chanyeol is going to drown.

~~~

Chanyeol sits cross-legged on the smooth concrete walkway at the top of the skate bowl, leaning back against the metal railings. He and Baekhyun basically grew up here, first learning on the smaller ramps and rails across the stretch of grass, before graduating to the skate bowl with its vertical blue walls, dropping ten feet into the ground at its deepest. They’d been fearless back then, thinking themselves indestructible. Baekhyun was the first of their crowd of skateboarding-obsessed friends to “break in” the bowl when they were nine with a fractured radius, Chanyeol going one better a year later by snapping both the bones in his left arm clean in half, but even broken bones hadn’t taught them that they were, in fact, mortal.

Back then, Chanyeol would never have dreamed that one day he’d put his skateboard away and never take it out again. He would have thought it would take nothing less than a crippling injury to stop him skateboarding. But it’s been six months since he last dropped down the vertical wall of the skate bowl and shot up the other side to spin and flip in the air, and it wasn’t a physical injury that crippled him.

The sky overhead is a blazing blue, the morning sun already hot on his hair. The angle as it rises over the hills behind the bay casts long shadows from the rails. Chanyeol watches Baekhyun swoop around the bowl below him. The whooshing roar of his wheels against the blue-painted concrete is such a familiar sound, and it’s oddly soothing, even though Chanyeol doesn’t skate anymore.

Baekhyun, unlike Chanyeol, never lost that cocky assurance of his own immortality. He rockets up the wall in front of Chanyeol, flying into the air and flipping his board beneath his feet, showing Chanyeol a glimpse of the custom-painted underside of his board, too fast to really take in the detail, but Chanyeol knows it intimately; it’s a design like light splitting as it strikes through multi-faceted prisms. It suits Baekhyun’s style; small and light, almost floating in the air, like if he just jumped high enough he might never come down again. Chanyeol’s style was much more aggressive, attacking the walls and curves of the bowl with fiery determination. His board is decorated with flames.

The fire has gone out now. Quenched in the salt water that closed over his head that day. They’re close to the ocean here, only the grassy strip and the carpark separating the skate park from the beach. Chanyeol can’t see the water from here, but he can smell it, and hear it. It’s okay, though. It’s okay so long as he doesn’t see it.

Baekhyun finishes his set and soars up the side of the bowl, jumping off his board and kicking it up to catch it in the air as he lands lightly on the concrete beside Chanyeol. He’s panting a little, and when he unbuckles his helmet and tosses it down, his hair is damp with sweat. He flops down beside Chanyeol and gives him the bright, boxy grin that Chanyeol has known since it had no front teeth.

“That was awesome,” Chanyeol says. “You nailed it.”

“Nah,” Baekhyun says, stretching his legs out and rubbing at an itch under his left knee pad. “I had to take three runs before I nerved up to the 720. Kept chickening out.”

“It’s smart to be careful,” Chanyeol says. “You can’t mess around with 720s. No time to heal a broken wrist between now and the festival.”

“Yeah, last time Mom nearly chewed my head off for skateboarding in a cast,” Baekhyun says, grimacing. “I’m not risking getting grounded in summer again. I can’t wait till we’re out of here and in college. Freedom!” He stretches his arms towards the sky.

Chanyeol stares out over the empty skate bowl. Next March is supposed to see them both out of Sanha and off to college in Seoul, three hours’ drive north. Six months ago, Chanyeol couldn’t wait, but all he feels now is the weight of sadness and guilt, bowing his shoulders and crushing his heart. He can barely remember how it felt to be happy and carefree, like Baekhyun is now.

Baekhyun has noticed his silence. “Yeol,” he says, a little more quietly than usual, “are you really not entering?”

Chanyeol and Baekhyun have always entered the summer skate festival together. Skateboarders from all over the country and even some foreigners come to compete at Sanha’s skate bowl, which happens to be one of the best vert bowls in the country. Chanyeol and Baekhyun never place, of course, neither of them are prodigies or professionals, but they grew up on this bowl and there’s a prize for best local. Chanyeol’s friends are wildly competitive over it, and once Chanyeol was the most competitive of them all, but it all seems so pointless now.

He shakes his head. Baekhyun sighs a little, but to Chanyeol’s relief, doesn’t push it any further.

“You’ll have to beat Minseok for me,” Chanyeol says after a pause that was far too long, but Baekhyun seizes on the topic with obvious relief, sitting bolt upright and telling Chanyeol with great indignation about some show-off trick Minseok is practicing for the festival. After that the first of the local kids turn up, running up with great excitement when they spot Baekhyun and Chanyeol at the top of the skate bowl.

“Yo, kids!” Baekhyun calls cheerfully, holding up his hand for high-fives. Chanyeol does the same, and finds himself smiling as Taeyong and Amber enthusiastically slap his palm. It’s not his old smile, so wide his friends used to joke they could count his teeth, but it is spontaneous. If there’s anything that can lift his mood a little, it’s kids and animals, and he’s known this pair since they were tiny. Now they’re both ten, permanently covered in bruises and band-aids, and well into the stage of utter fearlessness that has them learning terrifying new tricks like they’re nothing. They remind Chanyeol of himself and Baekhyun at that age.

Taeyong and Amber show off their latest tricks, and then Chanyeol and Baekhyun have to go to their summer jobs. They walk a couple of blocks into the town centre, Baekhyun hopping on and off his board to keep in pace with Chanyeol, until they reach the main street. There they part ways, Chanyeol heading for the bookshop his family owns, and Baekhyun going towards the surf and skate shop. Baekhyun turns back and yells something about remembering the beach party tonight, and Chanyeol’s brief lift in spirits crashes back down.

Right. The beach party tonight. He’d forgotten, or perhaps just put it out of his mind because he didn’t want to deal with it. It’s Seohyun’s birthday and Chanyeol couldn’t think of any good excuse not to go. Seohyun would be hurt, and Baekhyun would be sad, and he doesn’t want his depression to hurt other people any more than he can help.

It’s not quite ten yet and the front door will still be locked, so he enters the bookshop through the back door. He picks his way through the disaster zone of the back room and into the shop itself. He starts the opening routine on autopilot, turning on the lights and the computer, tapping his fingers on the counter as he waits for the POS system to start up.

When Chanyeol’s mother arrives a few minutes later, she greets him and then tells him that there’s a gap in the monsoon predicted to last four days before they get the next load of rain. Chanyeol nods, thinking that Baekhyun will be pleased. It’s hard to get enough practice when the skate park is slick as ice with water.

He tries to talk himself up to the party as the day goes on. Yes, it’s on the beach, but he doesn’t have to go near the water. His friends are good people, nobody will pressure him. It’s to be held after seven when the lifeguards have gone so that they can build a bonfire and play kickball or volleyball and put music on, all of which are banned during the daylight hours, and the ocean will be dark. If he can’t see the ocean, maybe he can pretend it’s not there. Maybe he can even procrastinate long enough to arrive after the sun goes down.

This plan fails. Baekhyun turns up at six and drags him home with him to eat rice and stir-fried veggies in the tiny, messy kitchen with his mom, who has always treated Chanyeol like a second son, much the way Chanyeol’s mom treats Baekhyun. After the meal, Chanyeol flops on Baekhyun’s bed while his best friend changes into board shorts so he can go swimming later. He’s exhausted from the nightmare that woke him last night as well as the general depression, and he almost falls asleep right there on Baekhyun’s bed despite all of the endless chatter flowing over him. But Baekhyun drags him up again, down to the convenience store to buy cheap soju from one of Baekhyun’s brother’s friends who doesn’t care that they’re underage, and then off to the beach with the bottles clinking in their backpacks, hidden from any particularly diligent cops that might be hanging around. Unlikely, but always possible.

When they reach the skate park, Chanyeol finds his steps slowing. They’ll cross the carpark, go down the grassy slope and jump down from the concrete wall that lines the back of the beach, and then they’ll be on the sand. The ocean will be right there. He can already hear the crashing of the waves as the sky slowly turns orange above them. The cool evening breeze is picking up, ruffling their hair and tugging at their shirts. It’s peaceful and beautiful, but Chanyeol feels goosebumps rise up on his arms as cold dread pools in the pit of his stomach.

“Yeol?” Baekhyun is peering up into his face. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says. He shakes his head hard, like he can shake the darkness out of it. God, he hates this. He doesn’t want to go to the beach. He doesn’t want to see the ocean. He hates that he doesn’t want to, because it feels so damn pathetic. But he has no reason to run away. People would think he was crazy if they knew how scared he was.

It’s that thought that has him moving grimly on. Cowardly is one thing. Crazy is another entirely. Chanyeol knows crazy only too well. He knows how it can change a person, turn them into someone entirely different, almost unrecognizable even in the same body. Crazy is something Chanyeol would rather die than be. So he follows Baekhyun across the car park and down the grassy slope, jumps down with him onto the sand. He keeps his head down, right down, so that he won’t see too much of the water ahead of him.

The bonfire is already blazing, and they’re greeted with happy calls of their names. Seohyun bounces up, already tipsy, and demands a birthday kiss from both of them, which Chanyeol gives her on the cheek and Baekhyun on the tip of her nose. She’s collecting kisses, she tells them, and when two more of their friends arrive behind them she rushes off to get her birthday kisses from them too. Chanyeol walks over to the bonfire and sits down in the sand, turning his back firmly to the ocean. He takes off his backpack and gets out the bottles of soju, to the delight of those who just want to get drunk, and groans from those who care that it’s the cheap, fruit-flavoured kind that tastes like a mixture of mouthwash and bubblegum.

He gets a bit of attention from some of the kids there, because he’s been kind of AWOL lately. Not that he hasn’t been around. He was at school until the end of term a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been working at the bookshop since then. He’s just not been social. They’ve not seen him skateboarding, he’s not been to parties. He’s not the enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky Chanyeol they used to know.

Baekhyun hangs with him at first, fending off the most tipsy and inconsiderate interrogators, but before long he’s tipsy himself, and he and Jieun start enjoying themselves together in a rather touchy-feely way. The sun sinks down into the ocean behind them, and the flames of the bonfire grow brighter, and Chanyeol isn’t sure he can tell anymore where Baekhyun ends and Jieun begins.

He doesn’t drink. Before he wasn’t sure if he wanted to, and now he fears the loss of inhibition. He needs to be in control, especially here, where he’s in a place impossible to relax. He can still hear the ocean. Some of the others have been running in and out of the water, skimboarding and bodysurfing in the small waves near the shore. Then Jieun stands up and strips down to her swimsuit, announcing that she’s going in, and Baekhyun stands up to join her. Chanyeol worries at his lip as they stumble towards the water, shoving each other playfully, giggling and shrieking loudly. They’re not really drunk, but he doesn’t like them going in the water even tipsy. It’s dangerous. They should know better. But he also knows Baekhyun is not going to listen to Chanyeol if he tells him not to go. Baekhyun is the type of person who will do something he’s warned is dangerous just to be contrary, especially when he’s been drinking. Rebellion is his instinct.

Chanyeol gets tenser and tenser as their voices grow more distant. His breath gets shallow, and his hands start to sweat. He feels a strong need to watch Baekhyun and Jieun and make sure they don’t get into trouble.

Nobody here is being sensible. They’re all idiots, he thinks angrily as he scrambles to his feet and spins around, keeping his head down as he walks towards the ocean. Why are they like this? Don’t they understand how easily a person’s life can be doused like a candle with a bucket of water?

The sand grows hard and damp beneath his feet. It’s past sunset, the light going lilac and velvety as the sky paints in watercolours. It will be too dark to see the water properly, Chanyeol tells himself firmly. It won’t set him off.

A particularly loud shriek and splash from Jieun makes his head jerk up. His gaze locks onto his friends. They’re waist deep, hand in hand as they jump through the breaking waves. They’re not far away at all, because the tide is high. They’re not even at the sandbar. Chanyeol scours the waves for any sign of a rip current. He knows where the two usual rips are on this beach, one by the rocks and one opposite the youth hostel further down. They’re not an