The sand had begun suffocating my feet a while ago. Sitting here so long, I don’t even know how much time has passed by. Either way, it was still night time and the stars were twinkling their silver glares down at me. A slight wind picked up a couple of minutes ago and now breathed through my shirt with a meager chill. My knees were curled up towards my face while my chin relaxed on them. I had wrapped my arms around the cuffs of my legs ever so tightly and kept my eyes low and rested on the small waves that kept re-introducing themselves to me with each push.

If not for my setting anger, the chill of the wind would have had me storming back up to the house a long time ago. But I didn’t want to go back up there. I didn’t want to have to face Kai again and let my anger grow all over. I needed time away from his face. Something I never thought I’d think after all this time I spent trying to find him. But there he was, and here I am. Sulking in the sand, trying to let it carry my sorrows out to the waves and let them send it off.

“Are you alright?”

At any other time, the sudden voice would have caused me to jump right out of my skin, but my arms were engrossed so tightly around my legs, that the jump my heart did make, did not create any movement in my body. It was an unexpected voice at that. Someone I definitely assumed to be asleep at an hour this late. He sat down next to me, crossing his legs into the sand while leaving an inch of space between us. The strands of his hair glowed with the moonlight. The night sky helped highlight the features in his face.

“Kai told us what happened.” Key continued. “You were out here for so long, we wanted to know what was going on. Even though we tried to stay out of it.”

He sighed out the last part like it was a burden clinging to his chest.

“It’s fine,” I mumbled.

I tried to make it where my voice held no anger or sadness, but even when I spoke, I felt my words quiver out with each syllable.

“You should be in bed.” I sighed, stretching out my legs.

“We all should be in bed with the day we’re having.” He smiled, kicking his legs out as well and leaning backward as if enjoying the vibrant feeling of the moon’s gaze. “But how can any of that happen when everyone in the house knows you’re still outside? I came to make sure you weren’t frozen.”

“Not from the wind.”

I saw the pursing lips and grimace expression from the corner of my eye.

“He shouldn’t have told you about anything.” I finally stated.

“No…he should have. Because if he didn’t, there would’ve been no one to come out here and see how you were doing. He sure as hell isn’t coming out here anytime soon. He’s scared to death of even looking at you.”

“You didn’t have to come out here. And he should be, especially after what he did.”

“What he did was give your sister rest.” Key retorted.

My neck snapped directly at him, a harsh reaction to his words. They stung my heart like a needle pricking skin. How could he say those words so clearly, so cleanly? There was not a bit of hesitation on his lips. No regret written on his face when I looked.

“You can stare at me like you did Kai all you want.” His face was indignant. “I won’t change what I said.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. It wasn’t your sister after all. So just keep your damn opinions to yourself.” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but his words stuck in my throat.

He changed his expression. Pushing himself back up to a seated position, he turned to face me and placed a caressing hand on my cheek.

“I get how upset you are Taemin.”

“No, you don’t!” I slapped his hand away.  Our skin met like lightning striking a tree.

I expected him to get angry. Expected him to be fed up with me and decide to go back into the house, leave me to my thoughts. But instead…he…he smiled. He straightened his back and placed his hands on his knees.

“Let me tell you something Taemin.”

I didn’t respond, but I did look back at him so that he knew he had my attention.

“August 5. Can you guess what that is?”

All I knew was that August 5 passed not too long ago. He knew I couldn’t guess what big event it was for, but he asked me anyway. I stayed silent and simply kept my eyes on him.

“It was my birthday.” He spoke in a subtle tone, the atmosphere of the conversation changing around.

So his birthday had passed not too long ago. But still, what did that have to do with anything?

“But do you want to know what else that day was?”

I nodded, ever so slightly.

“August 5 is also the day my mother died.”

My heart skipped a beat a little or stopped, I’m unsure.

“Y-You’re mom?”

Now that I think about it, I couldn’t even remember my own parents. It’s definitely something I would ask Kai about if I wasn’t so mad at him at the moment.

“On my birthday, my mother passed away. She suffered from a severe case of bipolarism like me but that’s not what killed her. She’d gotten ill a while back and had to be hospitalized. She spent a year in that hospital and just when she was getting better…” He created an explosion with his fingers as if he still couldn’t believe it had happened. “she died. There were no warning signs, no nothing. She was sleeping one day and her pulse just gave way. There was no goodbye, no what happened, no, how long was it going to take her to get back to her old self. She was just…gone. The doctors were so astonished that they couldn’t answer one question we had. All they could say was that these sorts of thing happen. Not all the time but it does. But what I’m getting at is, every time my birthday comes around I get anxious, my heart stings thinking about her, and because of all that, my condition gets worse. I cook a lot.” He chuckled.

“And…I cry a lot.”

I thought back on my first time meeting the couple and the night I spent with the ocean in which I endured the sound of Key’s distant crying and Onew’s assurance that everything was going to be okay no matter what. Though his birthday had passed a little while back, he still held that lingering tear of losing a loved one.

“What I’m trying to say is this: sometimes the best of us never get a goodbye. Sometimes the best of us never get a choice. And sometimes the best of us just has to deal with it. I hated Onew for so many days after my mom died. He tried to cheer me up and act like everything was going to be okay.  At one point I kept telling myself that his hugs were just making things worse for me. Presenting to me the reality of my mother’s death. But then again, I feel like that’s what I needed; a reality to be brought to my attention.”

“Look, you might hate Kai for what he did, but look at it from his point of view: he had to make the two hardest decisions with neither side having a good outcome.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Key smirked.  Not a cunning smirk but a gentle and warm smirk that told me I was being too dense.

“He either let you keep visiting your sister while having to constantly retell you what happened and how she got to this state, all the while knowing that what she really wanted was to rest. Or, he could let her rest and keep the guilt of telling you a lie so that you wouldn’t hate him, knowing how much pain you’d go through not seeing her anymore. And no matter how much you try to justify your anger, you can’t be completely angry at him. It’s what your sister wanted, whether you liked it or not. She wanted it for you, but also for herself. Ya know,” he shifted his position a little, “when he said you guys were engaged, I was surprised.”

“So was I,” I mumble.

“But then he said something out of the blue, thinking of your sister perhaps, because of the conversation. He looked down at his lap and for a second, was on another planet. And you know what he said?”

“What?” I whispered.

“He smiled and chuckled a little bit then said it was your sister that gave him the ring to give to you.”

The statement shocked me, and that pang of guilt crept up into my heart. Key pushed himself to stand and dusted off the sand from his pants.

“I know you’re angry at him Taemin, but you should remember something. You might have the burden of forgetting everything, but he has the burden of remembering it all.”

Before I could say anything, Key turned to walk away. When he was but a mere few steps away from me, I heard his footsteps stop and his voice say a name I was dreading to hear; now for my own guilt in the matter and not for being upset.

“Kai.”  He shocked.

After a small pause, I heard footsteps going away and coming towards me and before I could protest, Kai had seated himself next to me facing the ocean.  He flattened his hands out against the sand and buried his toes in a bit.

There was silence between us. I expected him to speak, but nothing came out of his mouth. He simply stared at the water. I wonder if he’d heard what Key said and was simply ignoring the fact altogether.

Either way, Key was correct. In my own right, I was being petty. I knew that from the moment I stomped out of the house and onto the sandy beach. But I didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself. So I decided to be the one to speak up.

“Did my sister really give you the ring to give to me?” I muttered.

He smiled that warm and loving smile I was used to in my dreams while still staring at the water.

“She came to me one day,” he began, “and told me to place out my palm. I did and she forced the ring onto it, made me close my hand.”

I saw the glistening in the corner of his eye starting to return. But unlike last time the tears just started to stream down like pouring rain.

“Before I could even object she shook her head and laughed. She said: don’t even think of giving this expensive ring back to me. You can’t even begin to understand how much this cost. At least let me get my money’s worth. Marry the damn fool.”

He began to laugh and I too began to laugh as a tear streamed down my cheek.

“The day I gave it to you, your eyes lit up. Your sister clapped like a damn fool and you kept putting your ring up to the light to make sure it wasn’t a fake. When you did, Rain slapped you in the back of the head and called you an idiot. She took a picture of us and you couldn’t stop smiling.”

I watched him as he spoke. His eyes stayed on the ocean but the tears never stopped raining down. Key was right, Kai remembers everything.

I scooted closer to him and walked my hand over to his outstretched one. He closed his eyes to stop the tears from showering his cheeks just as I intertwined our fingers together.

Sorry this chapter is so short, but I wanted to give a little something to those still reading this story. I know because I started my other story that I've been extremely slow updating this one. But still, I hope you all enjoyed it and my next chapter I will try to make much longer as used to in this story.