The boy came every summer at the beginning of July. Jongin remembered him very clearly because he always wear a scowl on his face. People that come to the beach for vacation were always smiling from ear to ear but that was not the case with the boy. Why did he seemed so sad? So...lonely?

For the past few years, Jongin merely watched the boy from afar. His brothers had warned him about the dangers of humans and how they were all scumbags. Jongin wasn't so sure. From what he'd observed, there were good humans and there were bad humans. The human boy, however, was in a category all by himself. The boy walked a tightrope between the good and the bad. The boy was an undefined equation, an entity that leaps among the shadows and the light, and that reason alone intrigued Jongin.

It was the sixth of August when they first met face to face. The boy was trying to build a sand castle but his attempts always end up in failures. The sand was either too dry or too wet. He couldn't find the perfect combination. The scowl on the boy's face deepened with each passing failure.

Without thinking, Jongin crawled out of his hidey hole and helped the boy. They exchanged a long glance but neither of them said anything as they build the castle bucket by bucket. 

"Building a sand castle is a lot like going through life. There are failures and there are sucesses. In the end, our hard work and the experiences we gain during the processes make us stronger, smarter, and a whole lot wiser." Jongin noted as he placed a tiny shell on top of the castle.

The boy became crestfallen as high tide came and swallowed parts of the castle, "What if everything just fades away?"

Jongin smiled, "There's always tomorrow."

Opening the palm of the boy's hand, Jongin handed him the shell that'd fallen off the half-washed castle.

The corner of the boy's lips lifted. It was the first time that Jongin had ever seen him smile.