He'd just spent the entire day at the ing beach and felt like a complete idiot for doing so. This had got to be his what, tenth time already? And nothing. Not a ing thing. No boy or scorpions or lightning storms. Even though every one of those days had been gloomy and raining. And every time he had walked back to his car defeated and soaking wet. He was beginning to doubt what Jongin had told him. He was even more certain that his dreams were just that. To hell with the repetition. Maybe he just had a thing for beautiful boys with upturned smiles that shot lightning out if their hand. Into the ground. Yeah. Some sick and twisted wet dream he was having. 

 

 

He got out of the car close to his father's office. Even though it was night, Kyungsoo knew he could go inside, take a shower and make himself a pot of coffee. And search again through the files they held there. 

 

"Well?" Jongin asked as he appeared and fell into step beside him. 

 

" off." Kyungsoo angrily replied to his friend. All his clothes clung to him and he smelled like the sea. Not an entirely bad smell, but it was now embedded in his car seats. And his brain. He could always smell it in the dream no matter what. 

 

"Hey, don't give up." Jongin protested. "Weird things aren't always fake. Look at us. We're as messed up as they come."

 

Kyungsoo wasn't in the mood to be joked with. Jongin had been his friend since they were in middle school, but he wasn't even sure he could trust the guy. It seemed like sometimes he didn't even understand Kyungsoo at all.

 

"And you know your dream boy is really out there. I have a good hunch, okay?" Jongin went to the computer and turned it on. It made a beep and whirring sound as it started up. And his face was lit up with a greenish glow from one of the only light sources in the room. "Wow. Your dad has a really nice computer." He exclaimed.

 

Kyungsoo harrumphed as he put in the coffee pot. Of course his dad would have all of the latest technology. He worked for the biggest technological company in the country. And that was how he and Jongin were able to do such deep research. They're were thousands, tens of thousands, of files in the company's databank. But nothing pointed them in any definite direction. They always ended up getting a bunch of pages on the legend of the red force. As if it were something more than a children's story. 

 

Kyungsoo left his friend and plodded down the hallway and downstairs not feeling creeped out by the shadows in the dimly lit corridors anymore. He practically lived here. He could probably find the shower room in the ing dark if he had to. 

Once inside, he stripped, the water as hot as he could stand it and stepped under the spray. In here he could cry as much and as loudly as he wanted and no one would ever know. 

 

*

 

 

 

*

 

Kyungsoo knew that they had to find another way. The computers in the office didn't hold any useful information. But he knew of a place where he could maybe find answers. And if he could find the key to the doors he wouldn't have to break down the whole thing. He'd been putting off going down there. Sure that whatever was behind the doors wasn't of any use. But he knew he had been lying to himself the whole time. Scared of what he would find. Maybe the answers to everything they had been trying so hard to figure out.