Chapter 3 : A Vacation

About two months after Krystal had reached Maturity, the older Generation called everyone together for a discussion, but they didn’t say what it was about and nobody had any guesses. They’d already gotten the ‘You’re mature Guardians so make sure you remember it’ speech, and nobody had done anything bad recently (that they were admitting to anyway). So it was with caution and trepidation that they all gathered together in the library.

“Why do you all look so worried?” Kris asked.

“We’re waiting to be scolded,” Krystal said.

Suho immediately looked at them all closely. “Why? Should we be scolding you?”

“No!” They all shouted at once.

Now Suho, Kris, and Lu Han were all looking suspicious.

“Lu Han,” Amber said in a cutesy voice, “I swear we haven’t done anything.”

Yoona gagged exaggeratedly and Lu Han caved at once. “Oh, we were just teasing you,” he said, ruffling Amber’s hair. “We called you all here because we have good news for you.”

“Now that you’re all Mature young ladies,” Kris said, “We’ve agreed that what you need to do is work on your team bonding. You all operate very well individually, and it’s time for you to learn to work together as twelve.”

Tao jumped to his feet, looking excited. “So, we’re sending you all on vacation!”

The girls looked at each other in shock.

“Vacation?” they echoed.

“How does that help us work together?” Sunny asked.

“It’s a special vacation,” Baekhyun explained, “We strongly recommend Beihai’s Silver beach. It’s a place that we are intimately familiar with, and where we all got closer with each other and more in touch with ourselves.”

“You really should go now, before it becomes a popular place to go,” Jongdae said. “It’s beautiful, and while we’ve gone back many times, the place is not currently inhabited. It’s very hard to get to, many people don’t even attempt it.”

“So how do we get there?” Yoona asked.

“We said it was hard, not impossible,” Suho said quickly. “Jongin will be able to get you all very close, much closer than you could have ever gotten.”

“How?”

Jongin grinned. “Girls, have you forgotten that I can make portals?”

Well in a way, they kind of had.

Suho continued, “What will happen is this—You will all load up onto one of those RV things. Jongin will make a portal and you’ll drive right through it. From there, you’ll have a GPS that will take you where you need to go. It’ll be a day or two drive, but it will be better than the week it would take you otherwise.”

The girls were silent as the processed this. Beihai’s Silver beach was famous to them, they had heard so many stories about the older Guardians adventures there.

“Is the hotel in good condition?” Tiffany asked, “What about the boats? The electricity? We can’t fish, I mean we can but not seriously. What if something goes wrong, how will we deal with it?”

Kyungsoo held up his hands and gave her a fond smile. “We wouldn’t be offering you this opportunity if we didn’t think you could handle it.”

“And it is an offering,” Suho said. “You don’t have to go, but—”

“Of course we’re going,” Jinri said in disbelief. “Are you kidding? A vacation on a beach? No work, no reading, no memorization?!”

Kris stifled a laugh. “That’s right. You would be totally free, except for meditation, that should absolutely be a thing you do often.”

“I can deal,” Jinri said seriously. She looked at all the girls. “Guys. We will never get this chance again.”

“You really won’t,” Chanyeol said softly. “Traveling together will bring out the best and worst in all of you, and it will bring you so close together. And you’ll have so much fun. You should really take this and run with it.”

They were all starting to get excited—because it was finally starting to sink in. They could leave, they could have time alone!

Victoria asked what they were all thinking, “How long would this vacation last?”

Suho shrugged. “We’re giving you a year.”

Their jaws dropped.

“A year?!” Jessica squealed. “That long?!”

“You can come back sooner if you want to,” Yixing said with a grin. “But if you do decide to come back, or even to pick up and go somewhere else, you must do that as a group. And while you are welcome to spend some time alone or with one or two others, you really should do things as twelve as well.”

A whole year, to themselves! Krystal could hardly believe what she was hearing.

“It’s a lot to think about,” Suho said. He and the older Guardians stood up. “We’ll leave you alone to talk about it.”

And as soon as they were gone, Amber said, “Are we really going to refuse?”

“A year is a very long time,” Luna said quietly. “And we’ve never been on our own for so long before.”

It certainly was a sobering thought, and Krystal’s heart broke as she thought about being away from her “fathers” for so long. She had a very special bond with Kris, Suho, and Tao, and she would miss them dearly.

“But a year isn’t so long when you think about the rest of our eternal lives,” Amber said. “I know for you guys it seems like a long time. To me, I mean I’m technically over 40. It won’t seem so long. And we’ll be able to figure it out, we can always go back if we feel like we can’t handle it.”

“And it’s a beach,” Hyoyeon said wistfully. “Guys, hardly any of you have been to the ocean before. It’s going to be so much fun!”

“You really think we can do it?” Sooyoung asked. “Be alone, the twelve of us, for a whole year?”

“I think we can do it,” Krystal said. “I think we should do it. They’re right you know, we need to do things as a group. We need to be together. And like Amber said, we can always come back, or even call them if we really need help. I’m sure we can think of a way to send messages even phone service isn’t available.”

“Light,” Luna blurted, “We can send light. Baekhyun and I can use a system, like Morse code, if we need to send a message.”

“Brilliant,” Tiffany said, “So we’re going then? It’s just, well, Kyungsoo’s been giving me driving lessons, in a truck. I didn’t understand why until now, and I did not spend the last three months practicing how to drive a monster car for nothing!”

Sunny laughed. “If you do the driving, then sure, we’ll go anywhere.”

They were advised to not bring too much stuff with them, since they’d be bringing back a lot of shells. Clothes could be washed, but bathing suits, sandals, and sunblock were most important. They needed a lot of those things. Krystal stuck to the basics for the most part, but she snuck along copies of her favorite books, and her old stuffed bunny.

The night before they were set to leave, every girl seemed to realize that they would miss their mentors terribly. There were a few tears at dinner, and a lot of hugs. But the morning brought only excitement. All twelve girls piled into the RV, and listened as Jongin explained how the portal would work. There was a final goodbye, and then it was time to go.

Tiffany gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands, and took a deep breath. She began to drive, and Jongin used his power to create a large rip in time and space. It looked like a wavering wall of light, through which Krystal could see flashes of grey and green. Tiffany drove right through the light, and in seconds they emerged on a tree-lined road, none the worse for wear.

The RV came to a halt, and Tiffany slumped over the wheel. “Oh my god,” she sighed, “That was more stress than I really needed.”

The other girls were similarly relieved to have made it through unscathed, but their nerves had not yet gone away, as evidenced when they all jumped at the loud ringing of Tiffany’s phone. It was Kyungsoo, calling to make sure they were okay. After assuring that they were, and more goodbyes from everyone, the group continued along the way. According to their map, they were about a six hour journey from the beach.

The more they drove, the more relaxed everyone got, until the RV was buzzing with conversation. Jessica was in the passenger seat up front, and Krystal sat in her lap and chatted with her and Tiffany. She kept hoping that Jessica and Tiffany would talk about their relationship—so obvious that even a stranger could tell—but so far neither had said anything. She didn’t know what they were waiting for.

They stopped for lunch, and explored a little. Hyoyeon said they were getting really close—the trees were less forest-like and more tropical, and she inhaled deeply and said that she could almost smell the ocean. It was the look on her face that made everyone realize just how much this trip meant to her. She had, after all, grown up in a small coastal town. The ocean was home for her.

There was a distinct air of excitement among the girls, and something else that Krystal couldn’t put her finger on. It was getting obvious as they drove that they were getting near. Houses were spaced further apart, then closer together, then high-rise apartments and crumbling billboards appeared, then they saw the road level off and they knew they were mere miles away. The excitement proved to be too much for poor Tiffany—as the volume among the girls grew, she cried, “Guys, seriously! I can’t drive if I’m distracted by everything you’re saying!”

It got very quiet, and Tiffany grumbled to herself, “Honestly am I driving with a pack of wolves or a bunch of girls?”

Sunny laughed. “After all these years, don’t you know that wolves and girls are the same thing?”

Tiffany laughed loudly and then yelled for Sunny to stop making her laugh while she was driving.

“Guys,” Amber cried, making everyone jump, “We’re exactly where the mentors were, hundreds of years ago. This is the exact road they walked on! Oh my god, I’m getting chills.”

Tiffany drove a bit more, then pulled the RV to a stop along the side of the road, under a large palm tree. “We should walk,” she said quietly. “Like they did.”

It was almost eerie, getting out of the RV and hearing nothing. The town was still abandoned, but the silence meant that they could hear the ocean.

“We’re so close,” Krystal said.

They unloaded their bags and set off, and after only a few feet Jessica cried out, and pointed to the side of the road. “Look! Oh my gosh, is that one of their bags?!”

It sure looked like it could be. It had been discolored by sun and rain, but the wheels were intact and it looked like it was pretty full. They all ran over to the abandoned suitcase. Nana got there first, and ped it. She gasped and pulled out a handful of shells.

“They’re beautiful!” She cried, “They just left these here?”

“Probably didn’t have enough room,” Victoria said. Then she smiled. “Let’s put it in the RV, and bring it back for them.”

So they briefly doubled back to drop off the suitcase, and then continued down the road to the ocean, laughing as they imagined the looks on their mentors faces when they saw the old suitcase. Their laughter was cut short when they rose over the hill, and found themselves facing the ocean. The sun was just barely starting to set, the sky slowly getting lighter, and the gentle breeze and low waves made it seem like they were on a movie set. For a few seconds, there was silence. Then Hyoyeon started crying.

“It’s just like home,” she sobbed, turning to look at the view from all angles. “It’s so beautiful!”

Amber dropped her bags and screamed, “Last one in the water makes dinner!”

All of them shrieked and dropped their bags, and ran to the water, kicking off their shoes and shouting at Nana not to cheat. But of course she did, and she was the first one at the water’s edge. She stopped to strip out of her jeans, and Sooyoung, hooting with laughter, pulled her dress over her head and let it fly away behind her. By the time they had all reached the water, half of them had stripped down to their underwear, and the other half had been wise enough to wear clothing they didn’t care about.

Nobody really knew who had gotten there last, it really didn’t seem to matter. They dashed into the waves, laughing and splashing each other. Someone grabbed Krystal’s hand and she realized it was Jessica. She scooped Krystal into her arms and carried her deeper.

“Hold your breath!” She cried. Krystal had just enough time to plug her nose and close her eyes, and then Jessica dunked her beneath the waves.

When Krystal broke the surface again, it felt like time stopped for an instant. The water was warm, and the breeze felt cooler now that she was soaked. She could hear the surf pounding at the shore, the shrieks of her friends, and the calling of gulls, but it was all muted. Her sense of touch, however, felt magnified by a thousand. She could feel every rough grain of sand under her feet, the harsh drag of wet cotton against her skin, and the soft touch of the water. Her vision felt sharper, and she looked up at the sky and saw colors more vivid than she’d ever seen before. She caught her breath, and looked around in wonder. But the sensation lasted only a second, and then everything returned to normal. Krystal was left gasping, slightly confused but totally exhilarated. She’d read legends of something called baptism, where people were dunked into water and reborn into a new faith. Krystal felt like she was being reborn into a new world.

Jessica’s laughter reached her ears, and she turned to see her sister, dripping water and smiling more widely than she had in years.

“Isn’t it magical?!” Jessica cried.

Krystal laughed and hugged her sister tightly. “It is, it’s magical!”

The sun had set by the time they left the beach, gathered their clothes and bags, and finally headed to the old hotel. They decided to find rooms, change, and then cook dinner together. They had some frozen food, enough for that night and the next morning. They all ended up choosing to sleep on the fourth floor, because they didn’t have the energy to go higher. Their mentors had said that they left signs with their names on the doors of rooms they had stayed in during their past visits, and the girls knew enough to avoid those rooms, but they found none on the fourth floor and figured they must have been higher up.

Krystal really hadn’t known if Jessica would want to share a room with her on the trip, and she felt a slightly selfish thrill when her sister grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the room at the far end of the hall.

“Fight you for the shower?” She asked, but Krystal shook her head.

“You go first, I don’t mind.”

Krystal waited on the balcony, watching the moon rise over the water. She already felt so different after coming here, and it was only the first day.

By the end of the first week, the Guardians had settled into a routine. They’d found a good boat and taken it out for some deep sea fishing, and decided to go out at least once a week to catch big fish. Amber’s gift was strong enough that she could locate fish and even pull them out of the water once they got close to the surface. They still had to use traditional poles and nets for larger fish, but Amber could catch shrimp and crabs by the hundreds in one day, and she had. They decided that their daily group activity would be cooking dinner—breakfast and lunch were a free for all, but they would always eat and cook dinner together.

Hyoyeon was in her element and easily the most relied on member of the team. She was raised knowing how to kill, cook, and eat sea animals, but she also knew how to find land dwelling food-animals.

“You know,” Sooyoung said as she stirred a pot of crab-filled stew, “Part of me feels like I could eat fish for the rest of this year, seeing as there’s so many ways to eat them. But then the other half of me feels like I’m going to get sick of it very soon.”

“It’s fortunate that no one here is allergic to shellfish,” Victoria said, “Considering we haven’t really bothered to look for anything else.”

Jinri piped up, “I’ve seen evidence of chickens, but no actual chickens. I’m sure they’re around somewhere though.”

Hyoyeon nodded. “We’ll look for them in the next few days,” she said. “Sooyoung’s right, you get sick of fish after a while.”

Tiffany laughed, “You know what we haven’t seen that I’m really interested in finding? Coconut crabs. I’ve heard from Tao-oppa that they look like spiders.”

“You hate spiders,” Jessica scoffed, “Why would you want to find one of those creatures?”

“Just to see if it’s true,” Tiffany said. “Besides, I like being scared. You know I love horror movies.”

She and Jessica shared a smile, and Krystal resolutely fought down a wave of jealousy, reminding herself that so far, Jessica hadn’t been away from her for more than two or three hours at a time.

But that would soon change, and she knew it. She couldn’t always have her sister to herself, no matter how much she wanted to. When Tiffany and Jessica inevitably started to disappear for hours at a time, Krystal would usually hang out with Yoona and Jinri, or else she would go off by herself and meditate, or rather try to.

Meditation had always been something Krystal enjoyed, and she thought that she’d have no problem doing it in a beautiful place like this, especially after her moment in the water that first day. But that feeling was hard to regain, no matter how many times she dunked herself beneath the waves or how often she sat under the shade and tried to lose herself in her mind.

Frustrated, Krystal ended up calling her mentor to complain about it.

“Figures you would call about this, not to tell me about how much fun you’re having,” Kris said.

Krystal rolled her eyes and made a face at the phone. “It’s hard to get service over here, of course I’m not going to call just to chat.”

“Tone down that sass, young lady,” Kris said. “Now, when did you start having problems meditating?”

“I don’t know,” Krystal sighed. “A few days after we got here?” She considered telling Kris about her moment in the ocean, but that felt too personal to disclose. “I just can’t get into it.”

Kris chuckled. “You know, maybe that’s because subconsciously, you don’t want to. I think there’s something bothering you, and you don’t want to think about it. Too often, that’s why I personally have trouble meditating. It’s not easy to confront a problem you know is there.”

Krystal tightened her grip on her phone. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, I have a sibling. At least I think I do, unless my mother…well, unless something happened to her or the fetus. But I’ve never had reason to doubt that I have a sibling back home. I’ve never met him, or her, so I don’t know what it’s like to have one, but watching you with Jessica, I can only imagine that it’s painful to think you might be growing apart.”

A wave of fear and anger washed over Krystal, making her feel cold and then hot. “You don’t know anything, you just admitted it. Don’t say things like that,” she snapped, and then she hung up. It had only been a few weeks, she was probably just homesick. She didn’t have a problem with Jessica.

Jessica held a hand over her face, squinting in the sunlight. “Did you bring an umbrella?”

Tiffany nodded, and dug around in her bag for it. She pulled it out with a triumphant laugh, and shook it open. It was white with pink polka-dots, and she’d had it since she was a little girl. She linked her arm with Jessica’s and tugged her close, so they could walk under the shade together. It wasn’t much farther to their little spot—a place on the beach where a large swath of rocks formed tide pools at this hour every day. They would go and inspect the pools, sometimes finding stranded fish to bring back, or else sea urchins and starfish, which they would leave behind to be washed back out to sea (after playing with them a little).

There were also a lot of oysters, and they would waste hours prying them open and eating them. They always brought along a cooler full of fresh water, so they could wash the critters before eating them, and then when they were full Jessica would freeze the water so they could bring all their finds back to the hotel.

Today there was an extra surprise in the tide pools.

“It’s a mantis shrimp!” Tiffany cried, peering into the water. The little guy scuttled around the bottom of the pool, and Tiffany quickly scooped a lone starfish off the bottom. She didn’t fancy watching the temperamental crustacean kill it.

“It’s pretty,” Jessica said, looking at it over Tiffany’s shoulder. “What do we do with it?”

It had begun to investigate an oyster, and Tiffany decided it would be best to remove the pest—she wanted those oysters. “Can you freeze him and get him out of the way?”

“I can try,” Jessica said. She held her hand over the water, and huffed as the shrimp ran away. She tried several more times before she got frustrated and just made a kind of flicking motion at it. Surprisingly, the animal was suddenly surrounded by a block of ice.

“Damn,” Jessica gasped, staring at her hands, “I must use this power for good!”

Tiffany laughed and pulled the block of ice from the pool. She tossed it into the cooler, figuring she could let Hyoyeon have the shrimp. Jessica sat down and picked up the oyster that the shrimp had been so interested in. She rinsed it off and cracked it open, and then she gasped.

“Oh my gosh!”

“What?” Tiffany asked.

Jessica turned the oyster over in her hand and then tossed the meat aside, so that all that was left was a small, pink pearl.

“Oh my gosh,” Tiffany echoed. They had found pearls before—nobody had been around to harvest them in hundreds of years, not in this part of the world, so they while they weren’t common, they weren’t rare. But a pink pearl…they’d never found one of those before.

Jessica took Tiffany’s hand and placed the pearl in her palm. “A present for you,” she said happily.

Tiffany was stunned. “For me? But you found it!”

Jessica smiled at her. “And I want you to have it, my pink monster.”

Tiffany found herself shaking her head. “No I…I couldn’t. This is special, it’s precious.”

“So are you.”

Tiffany felt her face get hot, and her hand started to shake.

Jessica picked up the pearl and held it over Tiffany’s finger—her ring finger. “It would make a nice ring, don’t you think? It’s the perfect size.”

Tiffany thought she might faint. “It…is…what?”

Jessica giggled. “Too soon for that?” She reached into her bag and took out the box they used to hold their pearls. “Then I’ll put it away for now, and ask again later.”

Still reeling from what she knew was a marriage proposal, Tiffany could only nod. But even though she was stunned, she could feel how big her smile was. She leaned over and kissed Jessica, and it was a long time before either of them wanted to stop.

“Jessica and Tiffany never explicitly said they were dating,” Krystal grumbled to Yoona. “I guess they just kind of figured that everyone would figure it out. Still, I am her sister. She should tell me these things.”

Yoona pulled down her sunglasses so she could glare. “She probably did tell you, and you weren’t listening. A dog would be able to recognize how possessive you are of Jessica.”

“And why shouldn’t I be?” Krystal asked. “I already lost her once.”

And it was like she had just been punched in the gut. All the air left her lungs and she was left gasping, clutching at her chest. It was like she was back in the ocean, except now instead of being reborn, she was drowning.

It took a while for her to snap out of it. Krystal knew she wasn’t drowning, and she could breathe whenever she wanted. She forced herself to focus on what she knew was real, like Yoona’s hand on her back. Then she focused on Yoona’s voice, and then the pain of her own nails digging into her palms, and then she took a deep, harsh breath and slowly let it out.

She finally said it, and all she could think was that she really, really owed Kris an apology.

Wow, only took me 3 weeks to update this time! It doesn't really cover all that I wanted it to but I don't want it to be much longer. Next chapter will pick p where this left off, and you'll get to see more of the girls growing up.