The smell of spoiled fish was getting strong, he notices. It was starting to seep from behind the basement door and creep its way into what used to be the studio. "He must not be eating his food again," he speaks thoughtfully. He puts his brush back into the jar of blue paint and leaves his half painted on canvas to check out the source of the smell. And sure enough, he walks down the dimly lit basement stairs to find a pile of spoiled fish sitting at the last stair. "Was it not fresh enough for you?"

There wasn't an answer.

"How long do you intend to starve yourself, Zitao?"

There still wasn't an answer.

And that was fine. It didn't bother him. It wouldn't be the first time that he has received the silent treatment from the younger merman. "You should know," he starts while cleaning up the mess, "that starving yourself dead won't free you from this--in the words of yours--hell. I will jump in that tank of yours right along with you and feed you myself if I have to."

Nothing. Not a stir, a look, nothing. Just a still, curled up, and quiet young merman resting on the floor of his tank.

"Well, I guess I will later. I have plans with Sehun in a bit anyways. Cute kid, that one. Not very bright though, I must say. Maybe I will invite him to stay over tonight and use it to my advantage."

This caused the other to rise from the bottom of the tank to above the water in a furious manner. "Don't you dare touch him!" He shouts at the top of his lungs, anger taking over his face. He holds on to the edge of the tank to keep himself up and takes a minute to steady his breathing. "Don't you ing dare."

"What language you have there, Zitao. What would your parents say if they heard you speaking in such a manner?"

"You keep away from him!"

“What can I do if he is the one that keeps coming back to me?” He walks over to the freezer and takes out another cooked fish. He tosses it into the tank and heads back upstairs. “Don’t let that one spoil this time.”

♥

Sehun looks down at the cloudy soup with chunks of questionable things and swears that it is a joke. “This can’t be edible,” he thinks aloud. Both Jongin and Hongbin agree. If he hadn’t brought up all that there was to bring up twenty minutes prior, he thinks that he might vomit again.

“It’s soup, not poison,” Jinki says and sits down at the table with him. “It only looks terrible because you three are sick to your stomach. It will make you feel better after you eat it, I promise you.”

“Or it might kill us,” Hongbin mumbles, not even attempting to try it.

“I don’t want to die as a high school student, hyung,” Jongin whines.

“Just shut the hell up and eat the soup.”

And they all do, slowly, but surely. By the end of the bowl, they all were running in different directions: Sehun to the bathroom, Hongbin to the garbage can, and Jongin outside. And Jinki sits there, amused, as the soup works on the three.

•

“What in the hell was in that, hyung?” asks Hongbin, who's sitting at the table again not too long after Sehun and Jongin. “I thought you said that that was supposed to make us feel better, not like ran over.”

“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you what was put in it.”

Hongin raises an eyebrow at him. “And that was…?”

“Vomit inducers.”

And that was when hell broke loose. Put shortly, Hongbin exploded and went for Jinki. Jinki seen it coming and put Hongbin on his back. Jongin and Sehun, however, left the room before it all went down. They ended up showering the gross feeling off of themselves while Hongbin and Jinki duked it out in the kitchen.

“What are you doing today?” asks Jongin as he slips on a graphic white tank and black shorts.

Sehun puts on a plain white shirt and a pair of blue jeans. “I have plans with someone I met yesterday.”

“Plans to do what?”

“I’m not sure, actually. I just remember telling him that we should hangout today and him agreeing. I vaguely remember him saying that he’d choose the place. Or something of that nature.”

“Did you meet him at that bonfire last night?”

“I didn’t stay there more than two minutes, Jongin, so no. I didn’t meet him at the bonfire last night.”

Jongin just pouts and shoves his feet into the flip flops he brought along with him. “If you care at all, me and Hongbin hyung are meeting up with a few people from the bonfire.”

Sehun nods while slipping into his own pair of flip flops. “Have fun. Those girls seemed... ...nice.”

"How did you know that they were girls?"

"You didn't have to say anything for me to know that they are who you meant."

"Why don't you sound as thrilled as we are?"

"Because, Jongin," Sehun begins as he shoves his wallet into his back pocket, "you two didn't care enough to want to spend your time with me at that bonfire last night, so I don't care who you spend your time with today."

Jongin takes a step back, as if this were a battle and he just got defeated. "Ouch."

"Imagine how I felt." Sehun's phone buzzes as he slides it into his pocket, but he ignores it. He stands there for a moment to make sure that he didn't forget anything. "Ah, sunglasses."

He walks back over to grab his sunglasses from his duffel bag and he puts them on. Without saying anything else to Jongin or giving him the chance to say something to him, he leaves the room and heads outside where he is greeted by harsh winds and smoldering heat. If it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t want to spend the day with Jinki, he would have walked right back inside the air conditions house. So dreadfully, he walks his way in the direction of Chanyeol’s and hope to the heavens above that wherever Chanyeol is taking him is somewhere cool and not outside.

•

It took him far too long to get to Chanyeol’s. The further away from the ocean that he got, the hotter it felt, and the more he hated himself for leaving the house. But he didn’t turn around regardless because the more he got closer to Chanyeol’s, the excitement to be seeing him again got stronger and stronger. And it’s ridiculous because the both of them just met and are practically strangers. Who feels so strongly for someone that they just met?

“Whatever,” he says aloud and walks up to the entrance of the building. “It’s not like I’m crushing on the guy, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Not that crushing on a guy would be bad or anything… Because it isn’t.”

What am I even saying right now?

“Why are you having a conversation with yourself?” asks Chanyeol from a window not too far above the door Sehun stands in front of. “Has the heat gotten to your head?”

Sehun coughs and stupidly pulls his phone out to act as if he was using it. “Yeah, okay, hyung. You two have fun! Mm~”

Chanyeol looks at him as if to ask if he really just played that off as a phone call and disappears back inside. Sehun hears the sound of the window shutting and stands there, embarrassed, while Chanyeol comes down to let him into the building. A minute later, the door opens and Chanyeol appears carrying a basket of small tubes of paint.

“Come in before you pass out,” he urges and leaves the door open for Sehun to come in. He drops the basket of paints beside a blank canvas and goes in search of some brushes. “I have a painting that is due this weekend and the buyer just gave me the notice right before you got here. I told him that there was no way that I could start it on a tuesday and have it done before at least saturday, but he insisted that I do it anyway. He says that it’s an anniversary gift that absolutely can’t be put off any longer. Can you believe that? Like, who buys paintings as gifts?”

“I suppose people that want an artistic touch to a memory for the person receiving the gift.”

Chanyeol finds some brushes in a drawer behind a big abstract painting and brings them back over to the canvas. “I suppose that that makes sense if you put it that way.”

Sehun looks around at all the paints as if he is seeing them for the first time. “I didn’t even think that this building was still a business… I thought that it was just something that you used for the single bedroom apartment upstairs.”

“I mean, it’s not really. Not like other businesses in this town. I’m the only worker and my customers are rich people from around jeju that are into rookie artists. No one recommends me or knows where this place is. They have a number to reach me at places that have my paintings  in or on them. They call me, tell me what they want and when they want it, arrange a meeting place and buy my work if it meets the picture that they had in their head.”

“So… ...like a business?”

Chanyeol laughs and drops the brushes into some empty glass jars. “I guess so.”

“How much do they pay you on average?” asks Sehun as he walks around to look at the paintings up close. He stops at one that grabs his interest, one that resembles someone that he has seen before. He goes to move smaller paintings in front of it, but is pulled away from them just as he catches shimmers of gold.

“There are a few loose floor boards over there, so stay away from that area.” He lets go of Sehun’s arm and takes a few steps back. “And on average, my paintings sell for two or three hundred. Depending on the size, they sell for a bit higher.”

“Well then that’s not too bad considering most rookie artists would be lucky if someone even took interest in their work.”

“It’s enough to pay the rent on this place, so I’m not complaining.”

“I hope to have a career in something that I am good at once I graduate high school.”

Chanyeol slides on his shoes and shoves his things into his back pockets. “What are you good at?”

Sehun looks down at the floor and doesn’t pay any mind to the eyes trying to read him. “I don’t know. My mom would say that I’m good at ruining her life.”

“That sounds really terrible…”

“You would think, but I know that she doesn’t mean it.”

“Sehun?”

“What?”

“Have you ever had what American’s like to call ‘fried twinkies’?”

Sehun looks up at him and gives him a weird look. “What in the is a fried twinkies?”

♥

“I must say,” Sehun begins with a mouth full of fried twinkie, “this is really ing delicious.”

Chanyeol chuckles and nods while chewing a bit of his own. “It really is delicious, but so bad for you.” He looks up from his half eaten twinkie to see Sehun with a messy face and he snorts. “You have such a mess going on on your face,” he says after swallowing what he had in his mouth. “I don’t even know how that is actually possible.”

Sehun grabs his napkin and begins to clean his face of said mess. “Did I get it all?”

“No, you actually didn’t. Here.” Chanyeol takes his own napkin and reaches out to clean off what Sehun didn’t. “There.”

“Thanks…” he mumbles and finishes off the last of his twinkie without making a mess. He sits there quietly and rather awkwardly and catches Chanyeol staring at him, but he doesn’t say anything.

“So,” Chanyeol starts, “why are you on Jeju and not vacationing somewhere else?”

Sehun swallows the last bits if his twinkie down with his soda and holds back a belch. “My mom doesn’t trust me in a different country, so this was the deal breaker. And it was cheaper.”

“You’re mom seems overprotective.”

“She cares about my well being, so I deal with it most of the time.”

“And the other times?”

“I’m eating American carnival food, with a guy that I just met, on a date.”

“So hanging out became a date, huh?”

Sehun stops in the midst of cleaning up his mess to stare blankly at Chanyeol. “Did I say date?” Chanyeol nods and Sehun blinks. He clears his throat and slowly gets up to throw his trash away. Did he really say date? Did that really leave his mouth? He drops the trash into the bin and stands there staring at the mess residing in the bin. Why did he say date instead of hanging out? “It was a slip of the tongue. Yeah, a slip of the tongue.”

“Do you talk to yourself often?” asks Chanyeol who had walked up beside him just moments before. “Or is this a new thing that you’ve started doing?”

Sehun jumps slightly and tries to laugh it off as if it never happened. “It would seem like that, huh?”

“I want to show you something.”

“What else is there to show me?”

•

What Chanyeol had shown him was unlike anything that he has ever seen. And he has seen some pretty amazing things in all his seventeen years. “I don’t know what to say.” he tells Chanyeol as the both of them stare down at a realistic painting of what would appear to be a massive hole in the road showing a large body of water a long ways underneath it. It’s absolutely beautiful. “This is unlike any of the other paintings in your studio. And it’s actually good.”

“That didn’t sound offensive at all.” Chanyeol says with a tad bit of sarcasm lacing each word. He looks down at his artwork and smiles at it. “But in all seriousness, I understand what you mean. The paintings in my studio--while most of them are unfinished--lack emotion. They are simply me not knowing what to feel to be able to paint anything to represent a certain emotion.”

“And this one?” Sehun looks over each and every inch of painted tar and takes in the art literally at his feet. “What is the emotion behind this one?”

“This one says that no matter how strong the road you walk on is, it could break at any given moment and you’ll fall into the endless waterfall of emotions that you’ve built that road up to hide.”

Sehun nods, truly understanding the painting and it’s meaning. “Wow, Chanyeol ssi, that’s deep.”

Chanyeol laughs and slides his hands into his pocket. “I painted this about a couple of weeks after I moved here. I didn’t have a place to stay actually, so I went around trying to find means of making any sort of cash that I could, so that I could rent a room at the very least until I could find a steady job. I found this American woman sitting in this very bookstore and she was reading a book on how to speak better in Korean. Which was funny considering you can find at least three out of six people that speak English in this town.”

“I felt the need to mention that to her, so I walked in and introduced myself to her. And I remember the startled expression she wore when I spoke in English for her. Her Korean wasn’t so great and she was pleased to find someone that could speak English. I ask her, ‘why are you even in a country that you can’t communicate in?’ She answers, ‘I was left an entire house and this bookstore by a grandparent that I don’t remember ever knowing.’”

“Well, that makes sense,” Sehun says thoughtfully. “I think.”

“It didn’t make sense to me either and I mentioned that to her. But she didn’t share much more with me on the subject. So I ask her about her reasonings for learning a language that she didn’t intend on using if she didn’t seem like she was going to stay?”

“And her answer?”

“She didn’t have any reason back in America to stay, so she figured, ‘why not make a fresh start in a place that sparks my interest.’”

“But none of this explains why she is related to this painting.”

“She is related to this painting because she hired me to paint it.” He turns toward this bookstore that is closed and sighs as his mind is filled with a pleasant sense of nostalgia. “She wanted people that were or are having a hard time to use this bookstore as a momentary means of escape. She told me that while she was trying to learn a language foreign to her, she found living here hard, but she found a haven in this bookstore and it kept her sane and wanting to strive for the people who had it just as rough, if not worse than her.”

“I guess that the painting makes a tad bit more sense now.” Sehun tells him after a few minutes of taking all of what he was told in. He looks over at the bookstore as well and notices a picture hanging in the window that he can see is of Chanyeol and a woman that he can only believe to be the lady in which Chanyeol was talking about. “Do the two of you still talk?”

Chanyeol nods. “Not as much now that she has gotten married and is expecting her first child, but I do see her a few times a month and make sure to email her once a week if I don’t talk to her over the phone. She recently hired someone to man the bookstore being that she doesn’t have time to do it right now. Her husband talked her into it. He cares about her a lot and she absolutely loves the hell out of him.”

“Is she the person that you are painting on the outside of your studio?”

It is a prying question, but Sehun is curious and can’t help but to ask.

“No, she isn’t. Like I said, she is just a lady that I wanted to help. And somewhere down the road, we became good friends that look out for each other. That’s it.”

“Then who is the person that you are painting-”

“I understand your curiosity to know everything there is to know about me, but you don’t need to know everything.”

It wasn’t a light hearted comment, but a heavily threatening one. A threat that Sehun didn’t dare ignore. “I’m not curious about everything you have yet to let me know.” And it wasn’t a lie. He really didn’t want to learn anything more than what he is going to learn because he won’t be staying long enough to make much of a relationship with him. “I’m just curious about her because you seem to really care for the owner of this bookstore.”

“I care for her like I care for my older sister.” he sighs heavily and walks away from the painting and the bookstore. He stops when he is on the other side of the street and he breathes in the warm summer breeze. “She isn’t anything else to me than that. And the same thing goes for her.”

“Then why tell me about her?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted you to see the very first painting that I did for money. The one painting that I’m really proud of.”

“It’s really beautiful, Chanyeol ssi.”

“I thought we were passed formalities?”

Sehun follows him over to the other side of the street and bumps into him gently. “Will you let me call you ‘hyung’ then?”

Chanyeol peers down at Sehun before shrugging. “So as long as you drop the ‘ssi’, you could call me ‘oppa’ for all I care.”

“You’d let me call you ‘oppa’? Do you have some weird kink that I should know about?”

“Do you have any kinks that I should know about?”

Sehun looks at him in disbelief that he really just asked him that question. “I’m only seventeen, dude.”

“I was fifteen when I first had , dude.”

“Well, I’m not you, so…”

“I bet that you have thought at least once what it would be like.”

The grin that is plastered on Chanyeol’s face right now tells Sehun that he is implying something that he has never even not once thought about. Never. Not even a little.

“Oh my god,” he mumbles before breaking out into an amused laughter. “You seriously just thought about it at this very moment.”

Sehun doesn’t say anything because he is honestly too damn embarrassed to even look Chanyeol in the face. And what is worse is that for a hot second, he thought of Chanyeol and what it would be like to engage in such actions with him. The thought of it dancing in his brain makes him dizzy--he is so embarrassed and he breaks into a run to escape the laughter and calls coming from Chanyeol not too far behind him.

Author's note:

Well, there is chapter three. I gave you a glimpse into Chanyeol's life when it invovles Tao and there will be more of that to come. I don't know what else to say about this update lol. So until the next~