If screaming were a song, it would be an angry song. It would be filled with so much anger, so much fear, and so much confusion. It would be Tao’s song, Sehun thinks. For who knows how long, Sehun has had multiple dreams of Tao caught in the same net, trying his damnedest to get free. And each time, Tao would scream at him with flashes of ‘help’ in his eyes. Those eyes that were crying out to him, pleading for him to just do something–anything to just free him from the net he was tangled up in.

Sehun wanted to help; wanted to free him. And twice he tried, but it didn’t do any good. Tao was still trapped and Sehun was still unable to free him.

When Sehun is woken up, the car is stopped, and only he and Jongin were left sitting in it. Sehun takes the chance to take in his surroundings and he sees that they are stopped at a gas station in what appears to be a small town. “Where are we?” he asks Jongin who looks like he just woke up himself. “And where is Hongbin hyung?”

“We are in some part of Jeju island that doesn’t bring in much attention,” he answers and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes in attempt to rub the sleep from them. “And Hongbin hyung went to pay for gas and grab us some breakfast.”

“How long have you been asleep for?”

“Since your last dream which was around three in the morning, so about four–maybe five hours.”

“I’m sorry that I kept you up…”

Jongin finds Sehun’s bare thigh with his hand and pats at it gently. “Don’t worry about it. What are friends for, right?”

Sehun couldn’t find the words to thank him. He couldn’t even say 'thank you’. He didn’t even really want to talk. It seemed far too exhausting to. Jongin seemed to understand that because he gave his thigh a comforting squeeze before leaning up against the door and using his arm as a pillow to fall asleep again.

Sehun decides to take the chance to empty his bladder before they were on the road again. Leaving Jongin to catch up on the hours of sleep that he lost, Sehun gets out of the car and makes his way around to the side of the gas station where he knows that a men’s bathroom should be. He walks into the restroom and is greeted by the strong smell of some sort of citrus. It wasn’t a horrible smell, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt if someone laid off the air freshener.

“Excuse me,” a rather tall guy politely says to Sehun who was blocking the sinks.

Sehun steps off to the side and lowers his head in a small bow of apology. “Sorry.” Sehun heads for the only available stall, but stops to look back at the guy. He took notice in the white hair that stuck to his forehead and the larger than normal ears that poked through the dampened strands. “You wouldn’t sweat so much if you put your hair in ties.”

Why did I say that?

He looks over in Sehun’s direction and laughs slightly. “I know. I just don’t have any.”

“You have nice eyes too. You shouldn’t hide them.”

Stop talking, Sehun!

“Thanks, I think…”

“I should probably get in there before I pee myself.”

Kill me.

“I’m leaving now.”

He gives Sehun one last laugh before leaving the restroom and Sehun promises to keep from talking to anyone he doesn’t know.

Meanwhile, Hongbin is in the gas station trying to con the owner into selling everything he intends to buy for a lower price. “Fifty is a little much considering all these are a day from expiring,” he argues calmly. The owner shrugs and holds out his hand, waiting for the money. Hongbin shakes his head, still refusing. “I’m not even paying for gas… Come on, mister! Twenty-five.”

“Fifty and you can take it all.”

Hongbin looks at him and clicks his tongue. “I bet all these items are damn near spoiled. One call and I will have this entire place shut down.”

The owner’s glare changes into worry and Hongbin smirks at the clear victory he has won. “Leave the money and go before I change my mind.”

“Thank you kindly, mister,” Hongbin says with a childish grin and gathers up all three of the bags. He turns on his heels and his mood goes from good to annoyed in three seconds flat when he sees Jongin asleep in the car again. He storms out of the gas station and drops the bags in the passenger seat before walking around to Jongin’s door and opening it. Jongin jerks awake and flails to keep himself from falling out of the car. “I thought that I told you to stay awake?”

“You did, but Sehun kept me from getting any good amount of rest, so…”

“Where is Sehun?”

“I went to use the restroom,” Sehun says as he comes around the corner. “It’s a mess in there, so I wouldn’t chance using it.”

“Then why did you?” asks Hongbin who shuts Jongin’s door rather hard and gets into the driver’s seat after.

“I had to pee, hyung. It felt like my bladder was going to explode right in your car. It wouldn’t have been pretty.”

“My father would kill me,” he grumbled and drops a bag in the back. “Now get your 'pretty’ in this car so that we can get to my friends house before he decides to make us do things.”

•

'Do things’ is exactly what this friend made them do. He introduced himself as Lee Jinki, 'the man who gives boat rides for a low price’. When they arrived at his beach house, he made them clean out his storage room that they are now using as a bedroom.

“Well, at least he didn’t ask us to do anything else,” Jongin tells Hongbin in attempts to calm him. “That’s something right?”

“That’s only because he had to give a couple a boat ride,” he reminds them and lays down on his futon. “The probably would have made us cook him lunch too.”

“You seem to have some issues with Jinki hyung,” Sehun points out and Jongin snorts, but doesn’t say anything. Hongbin makes as if to throw his pillow at Sehun, but doesn’t when Sehun throws his hand up in surrender. “I’m just saying that because you talk about him with resentment. Why come here if you don’t want to be here?”

“You really should stop hanging around Yixing.”

Yixing is their other friend, from China. He moved to South Korea when he was in elementary school with his parents and he and Hongbin met him in middle school. He is a really nice and kind guy who gives more than he takes. He will bend over backwards to help anyone that needs it and in anyway he can. But most importantly, his pain doesn’t matter so as long as he is making people happy and bringing happiness.

“Where is he anyway?”

Hongbin shrugs and rolls over on his side. “I haven’t heard from him since the start of summer.”

That is really odd, Sehun thinks. Yixing isn’t one for not keeping in touch with people. Even on his frequent trips to China, he always made sure to call at least one of them. For him to not have called anyone in almost two months… It was odd.

♥

Something was different, very different. He isn’t under water this time, but he is still in water. An ocean or sea maybe? He isn’t sure which, but he could see two people not too far away from him. One, he could see, is Tao who has worry caked on his face. He is talking a mile a minute and the other person is just floating there, seemingly not saying a word.

He needed to get closer.

And getting closer wasn’t a problem. What is the problem is that he can’t hear what they are saying and he can’t see the face of the person that he is talking to. It’s like the person was a blur in his vision that he can’t seem to rub clear. As much as he tried, he couldn’t. Maybe it was on purpose? Maybe he couldn’t see a face because he isn’t supposed to see one.

There’s a flash of light in the distance and suddenly the scene changes from day to night. He is floating near a mess of docks where boats are tied up to posts, vacant, and unused. He sees Tao near a rather large and expensive looking boat, looking up at the same blurred face. He looks sad, worried, and maybe even angry.

“I don’t understand why you keep coming and then going.”

This Sehun could hear. He could hear Tao speak his language as clearly as the water hitting the sides of the boats.

“That’s not an excuse. Your place is here, with family, with me. Not with those blobs of flesh that trash our home with their trash they call food and their bodily fluids.”

“That’s harsh,” Sehun thinks, but doesn’t completely disagree.

“He can come and ask him himself,” he yells in a whisper. “If that human is so worried about him, he knows where we are.  We aren’t stopping him or keeping him from talking to him.”

Sehun wonders who he was talking about. Whoever it was, Tao definitely doesn’t like him.

♥

Sehun woke up to Jinki standing in the doorway of their room with a glass of water in his hand. Not only is he lying in nothing but his briefs, he is also wrapped up in a blanket, and curled up with his back against the wall. It’s weird that Jinki is just standing there without explaining why he is standing there. “Did you need something?” asks Sehun as he moves to sit up. “Or are you just going to stand there and stare at me the entire time?”

“Sorry,” Jinki says finally before walking off.

Sehun still didn’t understand his purpose of standing in the doorway if he wasn’t going to say anything, but he didn’t ponder on it. There wasn’t a need to, honestly. But it was really weird.

“Wait,” he says to himself, and looks around at the room that doesn’t have his two friends sleeping in it. “Where did they go?”

Several minutes and aimless walking around later, Sehun finds himself staring at a painting of a woman on the side of a brick building. It wasn’t completed, but he can already tell that it’ll look amazing. Maybe it’s the way the artist used colors to compliment the life around it? Or maybe it’s the emotion and love that you can clearly see in piece?

He is so mesmerized by the painting that he doesn’t even notice the man standing just a few feet away from him until he clears his throat.

“You’re that kid from the gas station bathroom,” he shouts slightly, and drops some white paint into a small pint sized cup.

Sehun blinks at him and nods even though it wasn’t a question. “And you’re the man that obviously thought my advice was worth taking.”

He has his hair pulled back in a way he could wrap a hair tie around and it further proves how nice his eyes are.

“It’s really windy today and I can’t focus with hair flying in my line of vision, so it’s more convenient this way.” He sets the can of paint down on the ground and picks up a brush. He dips it into the cup and takes the brush over to an empty space that appears to be the start of a dress. “Anyways. What brings you all the way out here for?”

“I was looking for my friends, but I gave up, and started walking around instead.”

“They are probably at that bomb fire on the beach that some rich kid is throwing. You could try there.”

“I could, but beach parties aren’t really my thing.”

“They aren’t bad if you are going to get wasted.”

“Then why aren’t you there?”

He stops on a particular rough part of some bricks and tilts his head to the side. “I don’t really enjoy spending my time around people that I’m never going to see again. It’s a waste of time that I can be spending on something far more important.”

“Like painting a woman on the side of a building that isn’t yours?” asks Sehun who didn’t mean to ask the question out loud. The man snaps his head around looking quite insulted and Sehun’s steps back a few steps in fear of whatever this guy might do. “I didn’t mean to say that… I just- I’m sorry!”

And he is running away from other situation that he caused; no thanks to his uncontrollable urge to say whatever he is thinking.

•

He eventually finds Jongin and Hongbin by a couple of girls who are hanging all over them and shoving their chests in their faces. Jongin just laughs it off and Hongbin seems far too into it. Which is odd because he has never acted like that around girls or let girls act like that around him. But then he seen a can of beer in his hand and it all made sense.

“Sehun,” he calls out to him once Sehun finds a spot near the fire to sit. He says something to the girl that was now on his lap, but Sehun doesn’t catch it due to the loud music playing. “Sehun come say hello to my friend, Yena.”

Sehun just shakes his head, reluctant.

“Why don’t you go grab something to drink?” asks Jongin who shouts at him over the music. “Relax a little and have some fun!”

“Drinking and falling over myself is not my idea of fun,” he says and looks around at all the people dancing. They were having fun, out of their minds wasted, and careless about the world around them. He envies them. To be able to do these things without worry… “I think that I’m just going to go for a swim before it gets too dark.”

They’ve stopped listening to him, he notices. They were too wrapped up in their own form of fun to even notice him sitting just a few feet away from them. It’s really downing, he thinks.

•

Despite what he said, he doesn’t go swimming. He isn’t in the mood for it anymore. He ended up back in front of the brick building with the painting instead. “It’s actually pretty nice,” he says in an approving tone. From what he can see with the remaining daylight, all but a few parts of the woman’s dress is finished. It must be someone the man cares about for him to have painted her on the side of a building that he doesn’t own.

“Are you back to further insult me?”

Sehun turns around as the man comes up behind him and shakes his head. “I just ended up coming back here somehow. And I didn’t mean to insult you or offend you. It just sort of slipped out before I could stop it.”

“It didn’t sound like a slip to me,” he says and continues walking toward the building.

Sehun doesn’t know why, but he got up and followed behind him at a distance. He felt awkward walking into the building, but after seeing so many paintings of the same woman outside, he just felt like an . “You own this building,” he realizes, feeling guiltier by the minute.

“Not that it’s any business of yours, but yes, yes I do.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to people I don’t know. Kind of like how I shouldn’t let people I don’t know in here.”

Sehun fight back the urge to yell and bows quickly. “I’m Oh Sehun. I’m seventeen and I don’t like alcohol or girls who shove their s into guys faces.”

The man just stops after dropping a bag, and a pizza box on the only table in the room, and turns to face Sehun entirely. He doesn’t say anything for the longest before he bursts into laughter. “You are one funny kid, Oh Sehun,” he chokes out and takes a seat on the nearest chair. His laughter dies down soon after and it leaves him breathless. “I’m Park Chanyeol.”

♥

Sehun is under water again, moving his hands, and his feet to stay in place. He isn’t seeing anything this time and it worries him, but not for long because soon Tao appears before him; scared, tired, and concerned. In ways he can’t be sure of, Sehun feels that Tao is afraid for him rather than concerned, and he wishes that he could ask why. But he can’t and even if he could, Tao doesn’t give him a chance because he is taking Sehun by the arm, and dragging him further down than where they were.

Sehun tries to pull his arm free, but Tao tightens his grip, and swims into an opening in a mess of rocks. This takes them to a cave that seems to be used as a home and Sehun feels relieved to see that he can breathe here. And it’s more than that, he can talk here.

“You need to stay away from Chanyeol,” Tao says firmly with warning when they both rise to the surface. He lets go of Sehun’s arm and reaches down to take a scale from his tail. He places it in Sehun’s hand and makes him close his fingers around it. “I will give you as many of these as you want, just please, stay away from Chanyeol.”

“Why?” asks Sehun who had moved to a safe spot to sit. “More importantly, how do you know about Chanyeol?”

“Don’t ask questions that I can’t answer and that you don’t want to hear. Just heed my warning, Sehun. Chanyeol isn’t the best person to be hanging around.”

“You are making absolutely no sense right now…”

“I don’t need to make sense, I just need you to stay away from him.”

♥

Sehun wakes up just as confused as he was in his dream. What Tao had said made absolutely no sense and it gave him a headache. But it was a dream after all and dreams often tend not to make sense. “God…” He groans and cradles his head in his hands. “What in the hell did I do to cause such a massive pounding in my head?”

“That would be all from the alcohol you drank,” comes Jinki’s voice from the doorway. He carries with him a glass of water in one hand and a bottle of aspirin in the other. “I don’t condone underage drinking, but I’m glad to see that you had fun with someone responsible last night.”

“I wasn’t drinking though,” Sehun clarifies, and holds his hands out for the glass of water when he looks up at Jinki. “I went down to the beach where that party was at and left because I don’t find drinking yourself wasted fun.”

“Well according to the guy that brought you home,” Jinki begins and takes Sehun the glass of water, “you were drinking so much that you passed out. I mean, at least you were able to tell him how to get here.”

“I never told him where I am staying though…”

“He said that you just freely say anything when you’re drunk.”

“Oh god. Not again…”

Jinki hands him to aspirin and raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Well, okay then. If you feel up to eating, I will make you some breakfast for that hangover of yours. God knows you and those other idiots need it.”

Sehun watches him walk out of the room and wonders for a split second if he had to do this often. But he soon forgot it when his stomach turned and he was all too quick to run to the bathroom.

Author's note:

Okay, let me be clear on some things here. One, I have not even a little bit of knowledge about s.korea or jeju island. So because of that, this town is my way of doing whatever I want because it doesn't actually exist on jeju? Idk? (I couldn't really find much on it besides the obvious so I went with this. Also, I don't feel comfortable writing about planes (idk what happens in one to be able to write the trip to jeju lol I'm sorry), so I went with driving. (At least I think you can only get there by plane idk again I pact knowledge.) So if you could ignore that I'm actually dumb, it'd be great. 

And I don't really make a point to say this, but Sehun didn't just start having these dreams about Tao. I can't say more because spoilers, but he had them even before the start of summer.