Still Alive, But Barely Breathing
Title: Still Alive, But Barely Breathing
Pairing: Kai/Kyungsoo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 7,500~ words
EXO | Oneshot
It had been ages since Kyungsoo has had a break from work.
For the past few months, he had been doing nothing but slaving away at his desk job as a columnist in the newspaper, struggling to complete the mounds of paperwork that seemed to get more and more complicated as the hours passed by. When he had finally snapped and thrown his cup of coffee at the new intern, Sehun, for making snarky remarks about Kyungsoo’s working methods, his boss had ordered him to take two weeks of paid leave.
“Off to the beach with you,” were the exact words of his boss. “You’re wound up so tightly and it’s not good for your health to be so stressed. You’re one of our best workers, and sometimes I forget that you’re still in your late teens. Sehun was wrong to provoke you, but if you had managed to actually hurt him, we would have been forced to punish you. You have yourself to thank for your terrible aim. Since I can’t have you blowing up at any of your other colleagues, I’m ordering you to go off and have a vacation somewhere. Go to the beach or something. Enjoy the sun while you can.”
And so Kyungsoo packed his bags and drove to the beach after booking a small room at a beachside motel. Now, facing the wide-open sea and the pale yellow sand of the beach, Kyungsoo couldn’t have felt more stifled.
He felt pressured to have fun, pressured to relax and enjoy himself like all the other tourists sunning themselves on the beach. When was the last time he had gone on an outdoor activity? It must have been a long time, judging from the pasty white colour of his skin.
Unlike the office environment that he was accustomed to, the sweltering sun and sandy beach were foreign territory to him. He didn’t know how things went here, and whether there were rules that he had to follow. What were the penalties of breaking the rule in a place like this? Kyungsoo knew next to nothing about this place and that set him on an edge. Everything wasn't organized the way he liked it, there were no designated sunbathing areas, no order in which way the sunbathers would lie, no one stopping the tall, gangly teenagers from running all over the place with netballs in their hands.
After a while, Kyungsoo realized that it wasn’t the layout of the place that bothered him, but the people. Compared to the small grey cubicle back at his workplace, this place was teeming with people. Back there, his job required minimal contact with people during working hours, and sometimes he would spend his lunch breaks holed up in his cramped cubicle, munching away on a sandwich that he had packed for himself.
Now that he was faced with the prospect of rubbing shoulders with so many strangers, Kyungsoo found himself breaking out into a sweat. He remembered that he once loved the company of people, and that he loved being in the limelight. But that was a thing of the past and the now mature Kyungsoo liked to keep away from crowds.
One thing about him had not changed over the years, and that was his inability to disobey. And so, despite his preference for quiet places, Kyungsoo found himself standing awkwardly on the boardwalk, clutching a beach chair in both hands.
(In hindsight, Kyungsoo realized that when his boss had told him to go the to beach, he probably hadn’t meant it literally.)
Kyungsoo searched the beach for a private place to set-up his beach chair. It was a long walk before he found a nice shady spot near a palm tree-he took special care to avoid coconut trees-and set down his things. Looking around, Kyungsoo realized that the reason why this corner of the beach was devoid of rowdy teenagers, noisy children and equally loud adults was because of the number of senior citizens settled on top of their own mats.
Many of them shot Kyungsoo curious stares, to which he merely shrugged in response. He couldn’t help it that the only relatively quiet place was in the midst of all the elderly. Maybe it was strange to the rest that a young man like him would choose to mingle with the oldest age group, but Kyungsoo didn’t mind, so long as no one approached him.
Now that he had found himself a comfortable spot, Kyungsoo wanted nothing more than to find something to occupy himself. He wasn’t used to having so much free time, and it disturbed him a little.
After an hour of him restlessly lazing around, Kyungsoo decided to go for a swim further out to sea, where there will be less people to bother him.
Standing up, Kyungsoo walked with purpose to the waves, finally glad that there was something to do, a mission to accomplish. The moment he reached the waves, he tested the water with a few toes for the temperature, a habit that he developed after visiting several different indoor pools with broken central heating systems in winter.
He allowed himself to wade into the water as slowly as possible, allowing himself to get used to the feeling of the sand between his toes. He shuddered when a small crustacean scuttled its way over his foot and jumped when he felt something brush past his legs. The water was crystal clear, and he realized that it was only a small tangle of seaweed that had come into contact with his calf. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed and began to swim out into the sea.
The even strokes calmed Kyungsoo down and nearly made him forget his troubles. He continued to swim for a long distance and only started to slow when he realized that it wasn’t safe to be so far out at sea without anyone with him. When he turned around to look at the beach, his jaw sagged a little in shock.
The coastline was far away, a small strip of yellow and white sand, peppered by a large number of people, who, from this distance, looked like little moving dots.
Kyungsoo had always been a strong swimmer, but he never knew that he could swim this far without stopping. It hadn't seemed that far back when he was doing laps in a small indoor pool.
Kyungsoo would’ve swum back to the beach, but by then his limbs felt sluggish from his swim out, and he needed to rest before heading back to the beach. Looking around, he spied a nearby cluster of black rocks stretching out into the sea. With his eyes fixed on the rocks, he began to swim towards them.
--
The rocks were gigantic, to say the very least. The topmost rock seemed to graze the lowest cloud that floated by. The gradient was gradual at the base, before becoming increasingly steep, almost passing off for a cliff. Varying shades of granite and limestone crammed next to each other in an irregular staircase at the bottom of the pile made it a convenient resting place. They stretched out of the water in an almost vertical column, an island on its own.
It didn’t take him long to reach the rocks, and he clambered up to rest on the largest rock near the bottom of the pile. Lying on his back on the rock, Kyungsoo basked in the warmth of the sun. This time, he wasn’t distracted by thoughts of work and he fell asleep quickly, lulled by the crashing sounds of the waves against the rocks.
--
Kyungsoo awoke with sunburned skin. At least he wouldn’t be a milky white again, he noted. Maybe once the redness wore off, he would even be a nice, healthy light brown.
Getting to his feet, he leapt off the edge of the rocks and dived into the clear water below. He cut through the water and deep below, a little over a meter and a half below the surface. Marveling at how cool the water felt against his over-heated skin, Kyungsoo failed to notice the pair of eyes watching him.
It was only when his eyes had gotten used to the sting of saltwater that he looked diagonally downwards and saw it.
It was a teenager, close to his age, probably a few years younger than him at the most. He floated in the water with ease, several more meters below the surface than Kyungsoo.
Letting out a bark of fright, Kyungsoo let precious air escape from his lungs… before inhaling a mouthful of saltwater. His chest began to constrict with panic and he kicked for the surface, desperate to get away from the strange person. Breaking the surface, he coughed vigorously before gasping for air. The saltwater burned his windpipe and brought tears to his eyes.
Still hacking away, Kyungsoo started to swim for the shore, trying not to think about the boy that was quite possibly coming after him.
--
“What the hell was that?” Kyungsoo sat on the edge of his bed in the motel room, eyes wide-open and staring at the carpeted floor.
He had driven back to the motel in a mad rush immediately after reaching the shore, abandoning the beach chair in the process. He didn’t care if it meant that he was possibly breaking some unknown social code for leaving behind his things, but he just had to get away from the boy.
It wasn’t possible. How could someone even manage to stay that far beneath the surface without rising to the surface? That boy had stayed at the exact same depth throughout the three seconds that they had stared at each other. Shouldn’t he have been crushed under all that pressure? The air would’ve been forced out of his lungs and the weight of all that water should’ve killed him. But it didn't.
But through the haze of his panic, there was a small voice in his head that grew progressively louder and blocked out the rest of his thoughts.
There was something about the boy that he hadn’t really noticed earlier. When they were both staring at each other, Kyungsoo wasn’t the only one in shock. The memory of the strange boy’s face flashed into his mind. His eyes were wide open in what seemed like surprise, and his mouth was slightly agape as he stared at Kyungsoo. No bubbles escaped from his open mouth, and the water had been completely still around him, unlike the flurry of air bubbles that Kyungsoo had created in his hurry to get away.
Through the coloured water of the sea, Kyungsoo couldn’t be sure, but he remembered the boy having skin a few shades darker than his. He probably spent a lot of time at the beach.
Now that Kyungsoo had time to think through what really happened, his sense of logic began to kick in to justify the boy’s presence. He was probably, like Kyungsoo, a rather strong swimmer and had managed to swim out into the sea. He had been exploring the sea when Kyungsoo had dived into water and spotted him.
No matter how flimsy his reasoning was, Kyungsoo decided to accept it as the truth, since denying it would mean that he was admitting that he had seen an illusion. And he felt that no matter how strange the situation was, he wasn’t willing to even consider the idea that he was off his rocker. Kyungsoo wouldn’t even entertain the idea of him going crazy. He felt that he was as down-to-earth and reasonable as anyone can get.
The window of his motel was a stone’s throw away from the beach, and he stared at the crashing of the waves against the shore. The low-lying clouds shrouded the mysterious sea in a purplish cloak, hiding the choppy waters from view.
But even as Kyungsoo sat in the motel room, he felt that he wanted to meet this boy. He wanted to figure things out and put his mind at ease. It was another goal for him to accomplish during this vacation of his, and he wasn’t going to let it go until it was resolved.
--
The sky was still dark on the next morning when Kyungsoo headed for the beach. He had rented a scuba diving suit and an oxygen tank for the rest of his stay at the motel the night before, after he had made up his mind to investigate.
The sound of his flip-flops slapping against the concrete sidewalk filled the air. No one was up and about at this time of the day, when the sun had only just begun to rise. The cool ocean breeze blew past Kyungsoo, raising the hairs on his arms and rustling the leaves on the palm trees lining the boardwalk.
After putting on his suit in a nearby changing room, he carefully made his way down the sloping shore and into the water, making sure not to trip over the scuba fins that he wore on his feet.
It didn’t take him long to reach the area next to the rocks now that he was well rested and eager. He dived down under the surface, eyes darting around to scan his surroundings. It was a lot darker without the bright rays of the sun, and the water had a chilling quality to it. Kyungsoo treaded water for a moment before diving further down to the seabed.
The seabed wasn’t extremely far from the surface, and Kyungsoo could still see weak beams of sunlight reflecting off the sea. The water felt colder down where he could mingle with fishes and examine corals up close.
He hadn’t expected to find much, and he didn’t. Sure, there were a few fishes swimming an arms-length away from him in a cautious manner, but apart from them and the moss that lined the seabed, there wasn’t much else.
Finally confirming his theory of the boy only being another swimmer who had somehow made his way there, Kyungsoo sighed in relief and began to head back to the surface.
It was when he made a cursory glance back at the quiet seabed behind him that he stopped in his tracks.
There, standing behind the seaweed swaying gently in an unseen current, was the boy from the previous day. This time, he no longer looked surprised, and instead swum closer to Kyungsoo.
“Who are you?” The boy’s voice rang loud and clear, cutting through the still water.
Kyungsoo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head in shock. How is it that he is able to speak so clearly in the water?
“Who are you,” the boy repeated. “And why are you dressed like that?”
He sauntered towards Kyungsoo as if he were walking on land, showing no signs of difficulty in moving against the water resistance. He waved his hand impatiently in front of Kyungsoo’s face. “Are you not able to talk?”
Up close, Kyungsoo could see the boy’s beauty. His features were almost symmetrical and his plump lips were pursed as he tapped his foot against the mossy rocks. He didn’t seem to look any different from the people that he saw on the beach the day before, apart from being extremely attractive.
The queerest thing about this boy was that, he didn’t seem to have difficulty breathing underwater. The rise and fall of the boy’s chest indicated that he was breathing. But it wasn’t possible. Wouldn’t the water fill his lungs and drown him?
Kyungsoo didn’t really know how to react. He didn’t get the sense that the boy was a threat to him, but he didn’t understand so many things about the current situation. And most of all, he didn’t know to reply the boy, who was now quirking an eyebrow at him in impatience.
Raising a finger, Kyungsoo gestured to the surface, and as he rose to the surface, he motioned for the boy to follow him.
Kyungsoo’s ascent was halted when the boy grabbed his ankle, pulling him back down. “Are you insane?” He cried out. “You’ll drown up there! I can’t have someone dying on me!”
Kyungsoo frowned. He didn’t understand what the boy meant by drowning above water, and he let the boy tug him back down until he had both his feet planted on a pile of dead coral.
Standing there with no means of communication, Kyungsoo was at a loss of how to reply the boy who was now narrowing his eyes at him.
Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind. Bending down as well as he could in his scuba suit; he picked up a broken coral and began to scratch messages into the sand.
‘My name is Kyungsoo. I happened to chance upon you yesterday afternoon when I was around this area. Who are you and how do you breathe and talk underwater?’
“What in the world are you going on about? Everyone can breathe underwater here. Get that stupid thing off your head and talk to me like a normal person, you idiot.”
Taken aback by his answer, Kyungsoo merely stared back at the boy, before stabbing vehemently at the questions that were beginning to fade away from the swirling motions of the water flow.
“I’m Jongin, and haven’t things always been this way? Everyone lives here and no one goes up there.”
Kyungsoo turned back to the sand, which had by now been washed empty of his previous message, to write a new message. ‘There’re more of you?’
Jongin snorted, rolling his eyes. “Of course there are! What about you? Why is it that you’re able to move around when you’re out of the water?”
Kyungsoo’s hands trembled in excitement and wonder as he swept his foot across his previous message to create a blank slate. Then, he carved another short text for Jongin to read. ‘I’ve always lived above the surface. No one has ever talked about living underwater. Where I come from, no one can breathe underwater. We drown instead. That’s why I’m wearing this suit, so that I won’t drown.’
By the time Jongin had finished reading, his jaw had dropped noticeably, and he looked from the fading message to Kyungsoo, and back to the sand again. “You mean… you… What the heck?”
Then, Jongin narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Kyungsoo. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”
Kyungsoo shook his head slowly, gaze fixed on Jongin in amazement. This discovery would be a breakthrough! He would be famous if he wrote an article on this. It would be his big break, and he would be in demand everywhere. He would achieve success in his career.
Kyungsoo was so wrapped in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Jongin moving towards him until he was caught in a headlock, and Jongin was pulling at the oxygen mask that covered his face.
Kyungsoo latched his hands onto Jongin’s arms and pulled hard, struggling his way out of Jongin’s grasp. While he managed to break free, the oxygen mask had managed to come loose and water gushed in to fill the space. Precious oxygen bubbled from the tube into the water, and Kyungsoo swum up to the surface as fast as he could.
The moment he broke the surface, he gulped huge breaths of air, and looked back down through the warped, glassy surface of the water and down below at the man standing on the seabed and glaring straight up at him.
“He… he tried to kill me.” Kyungsoo muttered, between gasps. He paddled through the seawater and clambered up the rocks, legs shaking as he did so. Finally, his knees gave way halfway through the climb and he sat on the edge of a mossy green boulder, murmuring to himself incoherently.
--
At around the same time the very next day, Kyungsoo sat cross-legged on his familiar perch, peering nervously into the choppy waters below. He was having second thoughts about going back down there, to where the man who tried to kill him was. But a job was a job and he had to get that article written by hook or by crook.
With trembling hands, Kyungsoo fastened the oxygen mask around his head securely. He tugged at it several times, making sure that it wouldn’t come loose. Then, taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and stood up, slowly making his way down to the water.
It was exceptionally cold, and it hit Kyungsoo in the gut as he dived under and swum down to the seabed. He didn’t like how it was too dark to see anything much, since the water was darker than the day before. With the knowledge that someone was out for his blood, it made him twice as cautious and a hundred times more afraid of his surroundings.
He proceeded down to where he had last seen Jongin, apprehensive of what he would see there. It was strange seeing the place empty, devoid of Jongin’s presence. A wave of disappointment engulfed Kyungsoo, and he floated around aimlessly, hoping to bump into Jongin somehow.
Although he couldn’t deny that Jongin was absolutely terrifying when he had Kyungsoo in a hold the day before, he couldn’t help but think that Jongin must have had his reasons. There was no way that a seemingly friendly person like him would suddenly turn violent without having some sort of explanation behind it. Maybe Kyungsoo had frightened him, and Jongin had acted on defense. Or maybe, Kyungsoo had said something that had provoked him. Running through their ‘conversation’ in his mind, Kyungsoo quickly eliminated that option when he recalled no offensive words.
As he drifted along, a current caught him and dragged him along wildly, tossing him through the water like a rag doll. Kyungsoo cursed under his breath as he was tossed from one current to the next. Whenever he thought that he was out of the current, he would heave a sigh of relief, only to get caught in an adjourning current that would bring him further and further away from whence he came.
As he was thrown from place to place, he thought of the time when he saw a cat catch a mouse. Before the mouse was eaten, it had been released and pounced on. The cat played the game over and over again until it tired, and then the cat killed the mouse in one fell swoop. Kyungsoo remembered seeing the tail of the mouse disappearing last. The cat licked its lips with relish, much like one would after enjoying a plate of spaghetti.
Just like the cat, the ocean was toying with him. And just like the mouse, he could be killed as easily without much effort.
--
He awoke to blue skies, the feeling of soft grass against his cheek and the earthy smell of the forest. He blinked away his drowsiness, and as the sleepiness went away, his head started to pound with a headache.
“You’re awake.”
Kyungsoo’s head snapped to his left, to where the voice had come from. His eyes widened and he scrambled backward and away from Jongin. The sudden movement caused a wave of vertigo to wash over him. Almost immediately, he was on his knees, retching onto the grass.
When he looked back, Jongin was dipping his head into the water so that he could take a deep breath before lifting his head to talk to Kyungsoo. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before wiping his hand on the thick trunk of a large tree.
“What happened?” Kyungsoo asked. He waited patiently as Jongin turned back to the water once more to breathe.
“The current brought you to my city. And there was an order to feed you to the sharks so that you wouldn’t bring news of our city back to where you came from. I broke you out of your prison cell and hid you in the coral until I noticed that you were turning blue from a lack of oxygen. I guessed that your oxygen box had run out of this strange air,” Jongin broke off for air and when he resurfaced, he continued. “You were unconscious throughout, but you never woke until today, three days after it happened.”
Kyungsoo shook his head, confused. “You wanted to kill me the last time we met, and now you’ve saved me? What in the world are your intentions?”
Jongin bit his lip. “After you had run away, I… I thought about what had happened and I realized that maybe I’ve been too hasty in my judgment of your character. It’s just that, you people have been known to hurt our homes with oil and toxins. I just… I saw red and I couldn’t think of anything else but of all my people who fell sick one by one when there were toxins released into our homes. But when you first approached me, you didn’t seem to want to hurt me. So my saving you is a form of an apology.”
He looked up at Kyungsoo from where he floated in the water, his hands gripping the banks where the forest stopped and the sea began. Kyungsoo stared hard at Jongin, whose face was vulnerable, and noticed that the latter’s lips were turning blue.
Kyungsoo knew that Jongin wouldn’t go underwater until he replied. And so, Kyungsoo stood up and walked over to the water. He placed one hand on Jongin’s head and pushed the tanned boy back underwater, disregarding the look of surprise on his face.
Through the water, Kyungsoo could see Jongin inhaling deeply, a small smile on the younger boy’s face.
--
“You’re crazy.”
Jongin whirled around, shoving the book that he had been reading into a large cabinet that he had nicked from a shipwreck. It was covered with moss and was falling to pieces due to the decomposing wood. But he loved it. It was a piece from the surface and he loved it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his lower jaw jutted out and he crossed his arms across his chest.
His sister stood in the doorway, seething at him. Her short choppy hair stuck up in all directions, and she looked frazzled.
Walking up to him, she pointed an accusing finger at him. “Yes, you, do! I know all about him, Jongin, and I think you’re absolutely off your rocker.”
“You followed me.”
“Well, what can I do when you’re off doing these stupid things? It’s a good thing I followed you too, or I would never have known. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just be content with who you are? Why do you grasp so desperately at anything that has to do with the surface?”
“I’d rather be up there than down here. Everything’s so… limited here.”
“But it’s safe, and that’s what matters. You know that the surface people are horrid to one another, don’t you?”
Jongin pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his index finger, and he closed his eyes on his sister’s pleading face. “My dear sister, what does it take to get you to wrap your mind around the fact that I’m strong enough to fend for myself?”
“How can you support yourself in an entirely different world? You’re a baby out there. Besides, can you really live with youself when you know that you’re betraying your people?”
Jongin flinched, and he strode quickly out of his room, eyes evading the disapproving stare that his sister sent his way.
--
Over the next few days, Kyungsoo had managed to get many things done. He had refilled his oxygen tank and met up with Jongin frequently. He would head for the sea in the wee hours of the morning, and once he had swum out a reasonable distance, Jongin would appear and bring Kyungsoo on a grand tour of his homeland. By night, he would work on his article, bright screen of the computer lighting up the dark motel room.
They went everywhere except for the areas near Jongin’s home and the city itself. There were people patrolling the city’s borders to protect the city from the arrival of any men from the surface, and they would be caught if they come too close to the city.
“We used to live on land too. A long, long time ago.” Jongin looked wistfully at the sky just beyond the surface of the water.
“Have you ever heard of the lost city of Atlantis? The people there learnt to adapt to their surroundings, using different contraptions to allow them to breathe underwater. A few generations down the road, they found out that they no longer needed to depend on these devices to breathe underwater, and everything began to change around then. People travelled across the seas because they no longer had to stay in one place to make sure that their breathing devices would be maintained. Cities started appearing in many different areas, seas and oceans began to be populated with our people.”
At this moment, Jongin’s face darkened. “But that meant that we could no longer survive above water. Back then, we couldn’t breathe underwater independently. Now, we cannot breathe on land independently. This meant that we couldn’t stay updated with the people on land. And no matter how different we may be, we were originally land dwellers, and our roots are forever intertwined with people who live above us, people who walk through air and breathe air.”
Kyungsoo was completely riveted, hanging on to every bitter word that passed Jongin’s lips.
“Our sources of books were cut off. All we have now are some waterproofed hardcover books on gods and legends. But they’re from so long ago, I doubt that people even believe in them anymore.”
“Once upon a time, there was music in our society. Once upon a time, there was knowledge and peace, and trust and everything that makes a place good was present. But when people don’t learn how to pass these things on, they are lost amongst the generations that die out. I have never heard music before. I don’t even know what it means.”
Kyungsoo thought back to how easily he could switch on the radio, how easily he could think of a song and belt out the lyrics without a care in the world. He could do all these things if he wanted to, but he chose not to. On the other hand, Jongin could never do these things even if he wanted to.
“We’ve been forgotten by society, Kyungsoo. It hurts to be so close to something that you can’t have.”
--
They were huddled close together on the hull of a sunken ship at nighttime, and the only source of light they had were the crystal jellyfish floating a few meters away from where they were seated. Kyungsoo was fine with the darkness. It was much like watching fireflies at an open field.
“I wish I could hear your voice.” Jongin suddenly said. “I’ve only heard you speak once, and it’s not enough. I’m the one who’s always talking. Don’t you get sick of me?”
Kyungsoo shook his head. No, it isn’t tiring. Not when he needed to gather information for his article. The more information, the better.
Sighing, Jongin smiled wanly. “It’s just that… it seems like you know everything about me now, but I know next to nothing about you. You’re a stranger in my world.”
He wound his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees, leaning against Kyungsoo.
--
“Take me to the surface.” Jongin gripped Kyungsoo’s wrist, pleading.
Kyungsoo shook his head, surprise and confusion and fear flitting across his face one after the other.
“I don’t care.” He dug his nails into Kyungsoo’s skin, leaving half-moon marks on his arm. Then, he rose to the surface, pulling Kyungsoo along behind him. He hesitated for a moment when he neared the shimmering layer of moonlight that graced the top of the sea. He took a deep breath to steel himself and he shot towards land.
The moment the both of them broke the surface, Jongin’s instinct was to gasp for oxygen, and instead inhaled the air. Kyungsoo watched in concern as he doubled over, coughing hard as the atmosphere’s air replaced the water in his body. He quickly sank underwater and coughed, air bubbles leaving his mouth before he popped back into the air, careful not to breathe in.
“Are you… are you okay?” Kyungsoo asked, taking off his oxygen mask as he sat on the banks of the forest that he had found himself at a few days before.
Jongin nodded, looking up at Kyungsoo through the wet hair that was plastered to his forehead. “It’s just a nice change, being able to hear you speak.”
“How about… to hear me sing?” Kyungsoo murmured.
“What’s that?”
Taking a deep breath-it was good to have fresh air tinged with the scent of the ocean in his lungs-Kyungsoo opened his mouth and began to sing, melodies pouring from his lips.
Jongin had never felt or heard something like that before. It was as if he were cruising in the middle of a warm current, without problems to bother him. This thing called singing cleansed him like nothing could, and he was more than content to bask in the sound of Kyungsoo’s voice wrapping around him in a comforting embrace.
The song ended, but Jongin’s eyes stayed close as he listened to an echo of the last note.
Throughout the song, Jongin had never once gone underwater, and alarm bells began to ring in Kyungsoo’s head.
“Aren’t you… don’t you need to breathe?”
Jongin’s eyes flew open, and he nodded, his skin already tinged a pale blue.
For the second time since they had met, Kyungsoo shoved Jongin’s head underwater.
(For even though they had just met, Jongin seemed to need Kyungsoo to continue breathing.)
--
“Funny. I always thought of you as the inquisitive type.”
Jongin prodded curiously at a small bush by the banks, darting back in surprise when a bird shot out of it. The bird screeched indignantly, hovering around Jongin’s head as it tittered noisily before flying off into the sky, over the tops of the woods. He laughed, turning rounds in the water with an agility that Kyungsoo admired, legs cutting through the water gracefully.
It was strange that they didn’t have tails, like how the stuff of underwater legends, the mermaids, did. When Kyungsoo had asked about that, Jongin had merely huffed in response. “Just because we can breathe underwater doesn’t mean that we’re completely different, you know!”
“I am.” Kyungsoo stated, huddling on rough rocks, not caring that mud would stain the scuba suit that he had on.
Jongin gave him a look that could only be described as skeptical. “Doubt it,” he snorted.
As he watched Jongin go underwater, he spoke louder this time. “I am.”
While one side of him itched to ask countless questions for his ongoing article, but another side told him to shut up. He wanted to ask Jongin about so many things so badly.
Just that, Jongin was making it so, damn, hard to ask. It fucking hurt to ask and Kyungsoo didn’t know why.
(The document on Kyungsoo’s computer stayed untouched.)
--
The times that they chose to go up to the surface became more and more frequent, enough so that Kyungsoo stopped wearing the scuba suit and waited for Jongin at the rocks. Now, there was less of that hesitation that Jongin had the first time they came to the surface.
Jongin even once tried walking around on land. The moment he had stepped foot on the soft, ticklish grass growing between the cracks in the rocks, his knees buckled, and he clung onto Kyungsoo for support.
It didn’t take him long before Jongin dived back into the water, body curving in a perfect arc and streamlined like a fish, slicing through the water and disappearing down below for a long while before he resurfaced.
For some reason, Kyungsoo felt a wave of disappointment wash over him.
It would take a while for his sea legs to adjust, Kyungsoo promised.
--
It was when Kyungsoo was talking to Jongin while sitting on the rocks where they had first met that it happened.
Jongin’s eyes bulged, and in less than a fragment of a second, he had been pulled under the surface.
Kyungsoo’s shout reverberated across the eerie, inky-black surface of the water and he paced around the edge of the rocks, peering into the dark waters below. When half a minute passed and Jongin didn’t reappear, he bent his knees and prepared to dive into the water.
He cut through the water, heart beating loudly in the deafening silence. The water pressed against his eardrums, and he heard nothing but the screams that echoed in his head as he searched for Jongin in panic.
He felt like he was flailing around blindly. All his senses were on hyper alert, and he strained to catch sight of Jongin.
After a ragged breath, Kyungsoo continued squinting through the ominous waters. He whimpered, and bubbles of air escaped from his lips and rose to the surface just as he spotted the figures a short distance away from him.
He recognized Jongin’s face, but he didn’t recognize his slumped posture and the girl floating alongside him, an arm wound around his waist.
He sped towards them as fast as he could, and the girl turned around and fixed him with a chilling glare. But he didn’t care.
And then Jongin turned, and Kyungsoo stopped in his tracks.
On Jongin’s face was a mix of confusion, fear, hatred and pain. Kyungsoo could almost feel the emotions roiling inside Jongin like an angry ocean during a thunderstorm.
Jongin took a hesitant step towards Kyungsoo, but changed his mind and turned away, gliding slowly but surely down towards the depths of the ocean. Kyungsoo could see the decision in the firm set of his shoulders. In the end, he just floated there, staring at Jongin’s fast disappearing silhouette.
He barely noticed the girl slowly shake her head, before turning to follow her brother down to where he couldn’t follow.
Kyungsoo thought of betrayals and heartbreak as he gasped for air the minute he lunged out of the water and onto the rough, unforgiving surface of tough granite.
--
Kyungsoo avoided the beach as much as possible for the next few days. He ignored the numerous calls and emails from his boss regarding his return to work.
It had barely been three days since he’d been down at the beach, but Kyungsoo already found it hard to breathe, without the familiar humid air of the ocean, tinged with salt spray. The dry air in the motel seemed to be sucking all the moisture from his skin and his lungs. The beach called out to him; the wind a wail of longing.
When the phone rang for what seemed like the thousandth time, Kyungsoo opened the window of his room and threw the phone with all his might into the shallows waters at the shore, even when he knew that it might cost him his job.
He could almost hear Jongin complaining.
“From oil spills to annoying beeping devices, all sorts of strange things are thrown into the sea.”
A sense of guilt seized him, and he headed back out to the shore to search for his hand phone.
He never did find it.
--
“There you are.”
Kyungsoo’s head snapped up at the familiar voice. Somehow, he had wondered to the banks where Jongin had hid him when he was unconscious.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Kyungsoo kept his gazed fixed on the ground, on his own feet that were clad in leather sandals, toes peeking out from behind the straps.
He knew that, to meet Jongin’s eyes, would ruin everything. It would destroy the walls that he had built up against the younger man. So instead, he turned around, walking into the shadows of the trees.
“Hey wait up, I-” scrabbling motions were heard, and a few heavy steps, before a loud splash.
Kyungsoo didn’t have to look back to know that Jongin hadn’t gotten over his sea legs yet.
--
Kyungsoo found that he couldn’t avoid Jongin. The stubborn man continued to follow Kyungsoo around, seeming to know where he would be.
Maybe it was because Kyungsoo was a creature of habit, but he realized that Jongin knew his patterns too well, and he found himself changing it. But Jongin would figure it out soon enough. It was a never-ending cycle.
He wanted to forget about the times that they had spent together. He wanted to erase the moments that they had created together. And most of all, he wanted to rinse away his emotions for Jongin down the drain. Or even better, to delete it, with no way of ever remembering.
And so, before he could change his mind, Kyungsoo transferred his document to the trash bin and emptied it without making a copy.
Click. Delete.
(Nothing ever happened.)
--
“You can’t run away forever!” Jongin cried out, desperation roughing out the edges in his tone of voice.
It was mid-afternoon, and the beach was crowded with people. It was the first time Jongin had ever approached Kyungsoo when he wasn’t alone.
Kyungsoo found it funny that he would choose to do that on the day that he was going to be heading back inland, where his city was landlocked and there were no beaches around to be found. He could, in fact, run away from Jongin forever.
He took shaky steps to the car, finding himself focusing on the simple task on not falling over. Every grain of sand on the beach seemed to be intent on tripping him somehow, the shape of the sand bars shifting with every step that he took.
“I’m sorry, I really am!” The sound of wet footsteps following him made Kyungsoo balk, and he realized that Jongin was attempting to walk up the beach to him, in broad daylight.
He hurried along, picking up his pace and pressing down the concern that welled up in him, forcing close the lid on the glass tank that held his emotions.
He heard Jongin’s wheezing, the rhythm of his footsteps faltering.
The sun shone. It was a beautiful day, and a dry breeze swept past them.
It was a beautiful day, and a fisherman cried out in triumph as he hauled a huge fish out of the water and onto the wooden planks of the jetty.
It was a beautiful day, when Jongin choked on the air that swept down his airway and fell to his knees on the sand.
Yelling erupted behind him, and Kyungsoo spun around, left foot catching behind the right, causing him to fall face first onto the harsh, rough sand.
They dug into his palms and left red marks behind as he pushed himself up and ran to where the commotion was.
“He can’t breathe!”
“Does anyone know CPR?” Another screamed.
The crowd parted to let a lifeguard through, and the public’s knight in shining armor began to work with quick precision, emptying Jongin’s lungs of water.
“No!” Kyungsoo threw himself against the wall of people. “Put him back in the water, damn it! PUT HIM BACK!”
Murmurs rippled round the crowd and several men grabbed hold of him to prevent him from reaching the lifeguard and Jongin. He was turning a terrifying shade of blue, and Kyungsoo lunged forward against the wall of people that were blocking him.
He broke away from the crowd for the shore to fill his mouth with water. Then, he barreled back through the crowd and to Jongin. He pushed the lifeguard away, amidst outraged roars.
He didn’t care. He needn’t to make sure Jongin could breath. Bringing his mouth to Jongin’s lips, he forced water into Jongin’s lungs.
Kyungsoo watched as Jongin’s eyes fluttered and barely managed to focus on his face before he was pushed away by the lifeguard and yanked back by the surrounding crowd.
“Are you crazy?” One yelled, throwing him to the side.
“No, Jongin, I-” Kyungsoo cried out. The taste of the saltwater burned the cuts on his lips where he had bit them. He watched helplessly as the lifeguard undid whatever good he had done. And he watched as Jongin ceased to notice the people around him.
Jongin was always right. The people on land did end up killing him after all.
--
“Don’t you want some salt with that?”
Kyungsoo was having a dinner with his new colleagues. He had found a job at a smaller newspaper after he was fired for his lethargic work and unmotivated attitude.
“No thank you,” he replied, smiling politely at the puzzled man sitting next to him.
He heard a colleague behind him whisper to someone else about it being extremely tasteless, since the hostess had forgotten to add in the salt.
But Kyungsoo ignored it, and ate his dinner the way he had been doing for the past eight years after that beach vacation: bland.
Jongin was always right. He could never run away forever, but he could try.
(After all, the salt reminded him of the taste of seawater, of tears and of Jongin’s lips all rolled into one.)
A/N
-Thanks so much to dee_i_cide for beta-ing this piece over and over again. I cannot thank her enough.
-The idea for this story came to me when I was just daydreaming during one of my Geography lessons.
-This is really crappy I'm so sorry. It's my first time writing yaoi.
-I've always had a thing for The Script's 'Breakeven' lyrics.
Pairing: Kai/Kyungsoo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 7,500~ words
EXO | Oneshot
It had been ages since Kyungsoo has had a break from work.
For the past few months, he had been doing nothing but slaving away at his desk job as a columnist in the newspaper, struggling to complete the mounds of paperwork that seemed to get more and more complicated as the hours passed by. When he had finally snapped and thrown his cup of coffee at the new intern, Sehun, for making snarky remarks about Kyungsoo’s working methods, his boss had ordered him to take two weeks of paid leave.
“Off to the beach with you,” were the exact words of his boss. “You’re wound up so tightly and it’s not good for your health to be so stressed. You’re one of our best workers, and sometimes I forget that you’re still in your late teens. Sehun was wrong to provoke you, but if you had managed to actually hurt him, we would have been forced to punish you. You have yourself to thank for your terrible aim. Since I can’t have you blowing up at any of your other colleagues, I’m ordering you to go off and have a vacation somewhere. Go to the beach or something. Enjoy the sun while you can.”
And so Kyungsoo packed his bags and drove to the beach after booking a small room at a beachside motel. Now, facing the wide-open sea and the pale yellow sand of the beach, Kyungsoo couldn’t have felt more stifled.
He felt pressured to have fun, pressured to relax and enjoy himself like all the other tourists sunning themselves on the beach. When was the last time he had gone on an outdoor activity? It must have been a long time, judging from the pasty white colour of his skin.
Unlike the office environment that he was accustomed to, the sweltering sun and sandy beach were foreign territory to him. He didn’t know how things went here, and whether there were rules that he had to follow. What were the penalties of breaking the rule in a place like this? Kyungsoo knew next to nothing about this place and that set him on an edge. Everything wasn't organized the way he liked it, there were no designated sunbathing areas, no order in which way the sunbathers would lie, no one stopping the tall, gangly teenagers from running all over the place with netballs in their hands.
After a while, Kyungsoo realized that it wasn’t the layout of the place that bothered him, but the people. Compared to the small grey cubicle back at his workplace, this place was teeming with people. Back there, his job required minimal contact with people during working hours, and sometimes he would spend his lunch breaks holed up in his cramped cubicle, munching away on a sandwich that he had packed for himself.
Now that he was faced with the prospect of rubbing shoulders with so many strangers, Kyungsoo found himself breaking out into a sweat. He remembered that he once loved the company of people, and that he loved being in the limelight. But that was a thing of the past and the now mature Kyungsoo liked to keep away from crowds.
One thing about him had not changed over the years, and that was his inability to disobey. And so, despite his preference for quiet places, Kyungsoo found himself standing awkwardly on the boardwalk, clutching a beach chair in both hands.
(In hindsight, Kyungsoo realized that when his boss had told him to go the to beach, he probably hadn’t meant it literally.)
Kyungsoo searched the beach for a private place to set-up his beach chair. It was a long walk before he found a nice shady spot near a palm tree-he took special care to avoid coconut trees-and set down his things. Looking around, Kyungsoo realized that the reason why this corner of the beach was devoid of rowdy teenagers, noisy children and equally loud adults was because of the number of senior citizens settled on top of their own mats.
Many of them shot Kyungsoo curious stares, to which he merely shrugged in response. He couldn’t help it that the only relatively quiet place was in the midst of all the elderly. Maybe it was strange to the rest that a young man like him would choose to mingle with the oldest age group, but Kyungsoo didn’t mind, so long as no one approached him.
Now that he had found himself a comfortable spot, Kyungsoo wanted nothing more than to find something to occupy himself. He wasn’t used to having so much free time, and it disturbed him a little.
After an hour of him restlessly lazing around, Kyungsoo decided to go for a swim further out to sea, where there will be less people to bother him.
Standing up, Kyungsoo walked with purpose to the waves, finally glad that there was something to do, a mission to accomplish. The moment he reached the waves, he tested the water with a few toes for the temperature, a habit that he developed after visiting several different indoor pools with broken central heating systems in winter.
He allowed himself to wade into the water as slowly as possible, allowing himself to get used to the feeling of the sand between his toes. He shuddered when a small crustacean scuttled its way over his foot and jumped when he felt something brush past his legs. The water was crystal clear, and he realized that it was only a small tangle of seaweed that had come into contact with his calf. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed and began to swim out into the sea.
The even strokes calmed Kyungsoo down and nearly made him forget his troubles. He continued to swim for a long distance and only started to slow when he realized that it wasn’t safe to be so far out at sea without anyone with him. When he turned around to look at the beach, his jaw sagged a little in shock.
The coastline was far away, a small strip of yellow and white sand, peppered by a large number of people, who, from this distance, looked like little moving dots.
Kyungsoo had always been a strong swimmer, but he never knew that he could swim this far without stopping. It hadn't seemed that far back when he was doing laps in a small indoor pool.
Kyungsoo would’ve swum back to the beach, but by then his limbs felt sluggish from his swim out, and he needed to rest before heading back to the beach. Looking around, he spied a nearby cluster of black rocks stretching out into the sea. With his eyes fixed on the rocks, he began to swim towards them.
--
The rocks were gigantic, to say the very least. The topmost rock seemed to graze the lowest cloud that floated by. The gradient was gradual at the base, before becoming increasingly steep, almost passing off for a cliff. Varying shades of granite and limestone crammed next to each other in an irregular staircase at the bottom of the pile made it a convenient resting place. They stretched out of the water in an almost vertical column, an island on its own.
It didn’t take him long to reach the rocks, and he clambered up to rest on the largest rock near the bottom of the pile. Lying on his back on the rock, Kyungsoo basked in the warmth of the sun. This time, he wasn’t distracted by thoughts of work and he fell asleep quickly, lulled by the crashing sounds of the waves against the rocks.
--
Kyungsoo awoke with sunburned skin. At least he wouldn’t be a milky white again, he noted. Maybe once the redness wore off, he would even be a nice, healthy light brown.
Getting to his feet, he leapt off the edge of the rocks and dived into the clear water below. He cut through the water and deep below, a little over a meter and a half below the surface. Marveling at how cool the water felt against his over-heated skin, Kyungsoo failed to notice the pair of eyes watching him.
It was only when his eyes had gotten used to the sting of saltwater that he looked diagonally downwards and saw it.
It was a teenager, close to his age, probably a few years younger than him at the most. He floated in the water with ease, several more meters below the surface than Kyungsoo.
Letting out a bark of fright, Kyungsoo let precious air escape from his lungs… before inhaling a mouthful of saltwater. His chest began to constrict with panic and he kicked for the surface, desperate to get away from the strange person. Breaking the surface, he coughed vigorously before gasping for air. The saltwater burned his windpipe and brought tears to his eyes.
Still hacking away, Kyungsoo started to swim for the shore, trying not to think about the boy that was quite possibly coming after him.
--
“What the hell was that?” Kyungsoo sat on the edge of his bed in the motel room, eyes wide-open and staring at the carpeted floor.
He had driven back to the motel in a mad rush immediately after reaching the shore, abandoning the beach chair in the process. He didn’t care if it meant that he was possibly breaking some unknown social code for leaving behind his things, but he just had to get away from the boy.
It wasn’t possible. How could someone even manage to stay that far beneath the surface without rising to the surface? That boy had stayed at the exact same depth throughout the three seconds that they had stared at each other. Shouldn’t he have been crushed under all that pressure? The air would’ve been forced out of his lungs and the weight of all that water should’ve killed him. But it didn't.
But through the haze of his panic, there was a small voice in his head that grew progressively louder and blocked out the rest of his thoughts.
There was something about the boy that he hadn’t really noticed earlier. When they were both staring at each other, Kyungsoo wasn’t the only one in shock. The memory of the strange boy’s face flashed into his mind. His eyes were wide open in what seemed like surprise, and his mouth was slightly agape as he stared at Kyungsoo. No bubbles escaped from his open mouth, and the water had been completely still around him, unlike the flurry of air bubbles that Kyungsoo had created in his hurry to get away.
Through the coloured water of the sea, Kyungsoo couldn’t be sure, but he remembered the boy having skin a few shades darker than his. He probably spent a lot of time at the beach.
Now that Kyungsoo had time to think through what really happened, his sense of logic began to kick in to justify the boy’s presence. He was probably, like Kyungsoo, a rather strong swimmer and had managed to swim out into the sea. He had been exploring the sea when Kyungsoo had dived into water and spotted him.
No matter how flimsy his reasoning was, Kyungsoo decided to accept it as the truth, since denying it would mean that he was admitting that he had seen an illusion. And he felt that no matter how strange the situation was, he wasn’t willing to even consider the idea that he was off his rocker. Kyungsoo wouldn’t even entertain the idea of him going crazy. He felt that he was as down-to-earth and reasonable as anyone can get.
The window of his motel was a stone’s throw away from the beach, and he stared at the crashing of the waves against the shore. The low-lying clouds shrouded the mysterious sea in a purplish cloak, hiding the choppy waters from view.
But even as Kyungsoo sat in the motel room, he felt that he wanted to meet this boy. He wanted to figure things out and put his mind at ease. It was another goal for him to accomplish during this vacation of his, and he wasn’t going to let it go until it was resolved.
--
The sky was still dark on the next morning when Kyungsoo headed for the beach. He had rented a scuba diving suit and an oxygen tank for the rest of his stay at the motel the night before, after he had made up his mind to investigate.
The sound of his flip-flops slapping against the concrete sidewalk filled the air. No one was up and about at this time of the day, when the sun had only just begun to rise. The cool ocean breeze blew past Kyungsoo, raising the hairs on his arms and rustling the leaves on the palm trees lining the boardwalk.
After putting on his suit in a nearby changing room, he carefully made his way down the sloping shore and into the water, making sure not to trip over the scuba fins that he wore on his feet.
It didn’t take him long to reach the area next to the rocks now that he was well rested and eager. He dived down under the surface, eyes darting around to scan his surroundings. It was a lot darker without the bright rays of the sun, and the water had a chilling quality to it. Kyungsoo treaded water for a moment before diving further down to the seabed.
The seabed wasn’t extremely far from the surface, and Kyungsoo could still see weak beams of sunlight reflecting off the sea. The water felt colder down where he could mingle with fishes and examine corals up close.
He hadn’t expected to find much, and he didn’t. Sure, there were a few fishes swimming an arms-length away from him in a cautious manner, but apart from them and the moss that lined the seabed, there wasn’t much else.
Finally confirming his theory of the boy only being another swimmer who had somehow made his way there, Kyungsoo sighed in relief and began to head back to the surface.
It was when he made a cursory glance back at the quiet seabed behind him that he stopped in his tracks.
There, standing behind the seaweed swaying gently in an unseen current, was the boy from the previous day. This time, he no longer looked surprised, and instead swum closer to Kyungsoo.
“Who are you?” The boy’s voice rang loud and clear, cutting through the still water.
Kyungsoo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head in shock. How is it that he is able to speak so clearly in the water?
“Who are you,” the boy repeated. “And why are you dressed like that?”
He sauntered towards Kyungsoo as if he were walking on land, showing no signs of difficulty in moving against the water resistance. He waved his hand impatiently in front of Kyungsoo’s face. “Are you not able to talk?”
Up close, Kyungsoo could see the boy’s beauty. His features were almost symmetrical and his plump lips were pursed as he tapped his foot against the mossy rocks. He didn’t seem to look any different from the people that he saw on the beach the day before, apart from being extremely attractive.
The queerest thing about this boy was that, he didn’t seem to have difficulty breathing underwater. The rise and fall of the boy’s chest indicated that he was breathing. But it wasn’t possible. Wouldn’t the water fill his lungs and drown him?
Kyungsoo didn’t really know how to react. He didn’t get the sense that the boy was a threat to him, but he didn’t understand so many things about the current situation. And most of all, he didn’t know to reply the boy, who was now quirking an eyebrow at him in impatience.
Raising a finger, Kyungsoo gestured to the surface, and as he rose to the surface, he motioned for the boy to follow him.
Kyungsoo’s ascent was halted when the boy grabbed his ankle, pulling him back down. “Are you insane?” He cried out. “You’ll drown up there! I can’t have someone dying on me!”
Kyungsoo frowned. He didn’t understand what the boy meant by drowning above water, and he let the boy tug him back down until he had both his feet planted on a pile of dead coral.
Standing there with no means of communication, Kyungsoo was at a loss of how to reply the boy who was now narrowing his eyes at him.
Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind. Bending down as well as he could in his scuba suit; he picked up a broken coral and began to scratch messages into the sand.
‘My name is Kyungsoo. I happened to chance upon you yesterday afternoon when I was around this area. Who are you and how do you breathe and talk underwater?’
“What in the world are you going on about? Everyone can breathe underwater here. Get that stupid thing off your head and talk to me like a normal person, you idiot.”
Taken aback by his answer, Kyungsoo merely stared back at the boy, before stabbing vehemently at the questions that were beginning to fade away from the swirling motions of the water flow.
“I’m Jongin, and haven’t things always been this way? Everyone lives here and no one goes up there.”
Kyungsoo turned back to the sand, which had by now been washed empty of his previous message, to write a new message. ‘There’re more of you?’
Jongin snorted, rolling his eyes. “Of course there are! What about you? Why is it that you’re able to move around when you’re out of the water?”
Kyungsoo’s hands trembled in excitement and wonder as he swept his foot across his previous message to create a blank slate. Then, he carved another short text for Jongin to read. ‘I’ve always lived above the surface. No one has ever talked about living underwater. Where I come from, no one can breathe underwater. We drown instead. That’s why I’m wearing this suit, so that I won’t drown.’
By the time Jongin had finished reading, his jaw had dropped noticeably, and he looked from the fading message to Kyungsoo, and back to the sand again. “You mean… you… What the heck?”
Then, Jongin narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Kyungsoo. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”
Kyungsoo shook his head slowly, gaze fixed on Jongin in amazement. This discovery would be a breakthrough! He would be famous if he wrote an article on this. It would be his big break, and he would be in demand everywhere. He would achieve success in his career.
Kyungsoo was so wrapped in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Jongin moving towards him until he was caught in a headlock, and Jongin was pulling at the oxygen mask that covered his face.
Kyungsoo latched his hands onto Jongin’s arms and pulled hard, struggling his way out of Jongin’s grasp. While he managed to break free, the oxygen mask had managed to come loose and water gushed in to fill the space. Precious oxygen bubbled from the tube into the water, and Kyungsoo swum up to the surface as fast as he could.
The moment he broke the surface, he gulped huge breaths of air, and looked back down through the warped, glassy surface of the water and down below at the man standing on the seabed and glaring straight up at him.
“He… he tried to kill me.” Kyungsoo muttered, between gasps. He paddled through the seawater and clambered up the rocks, legs shaking as he did so. Finally, his knees gave way halfway through the climb and he sat on the edge of a mossy green boulder, murmuring to himself incoherently.
--
At around the same time the very next day, Kyungsoo sat cross-legged on his familiar perch, peering nervously into the choppy waters below. He was having second thoughts about going back down there, to where the man who tried to kill him was. But a job was a job and he had to get that article written by hook or by crook.
With trembling hands, Kyungsoo fastened the oxygen mask around his head securely. He tugged at it several times, making sure that it wouldn’t come loose. Then, taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and stood up, slowly making his way down to the water.
It was exceptionally cold, and it hit Kyungsoo in the gut as he dived under and swum down to the seabed. He didn’t like how it was too dark to see anything much, since the water was darker than the day before. With the knowledge that someone was out for his blood, it made him twice as cautious and a hundred times more afraid of his surroundings.
He proceeded down to where he had last seen Jongin, apprehensive of what he would see there. It was strange seeing the place empty, devoid of Jongin’s presence. A wave of disappointment engulfed Kyungsoo, and he floated around aimlessly, hoping to bump into Jongin somehow.
Although he couldn’t deny that Jongin was absolutely terrifying when he had Kyungsoo in a hold the day before, he couldn’t help but think that Jongin must have had his reasons. There was no way that a seemingly friendly person like him would suddenly turn violent without having some sort of explanation behind it. Maybe Kyungsoo had frightened him, and Jongin had acted on defense. Or maybe, Kyungsoo had said something that had provoked him. Running through their ‘conversation’ in his mind, Kyungsoo quickly eliminated that option when he recalled no offensive words.
As he drifted along, a current caught him and dragged him along wildly, tossing him through the water like a rag doll. Kyungsoo cursed under his breath as he was tossed from one current to the next. Whenever he thought that he was out of the current, he would heave a sigh of relief, only to get caught in an adjourning current that would bring him further and further away from whence he came.
As he was thrown from place to place, he thought of the time when he saw a cat catch a mouse. Before the mouse was eaten, it had been released and pounced on. The cat played the game over and over again until it tired, and then the cat killed the mouse in one fell swoop. Kyungsoo remembered seeing the tail of the mouse disappearing last. The cat licked its lips with relish, much like one would after enjoying a plate of spaghetti.
Just like the cat, the ocean was toying with him. And just like the mouse, he could be killed as easily without much effort.
--
He awoke to blue skies, the feeling of soft grass against his cheek and the earthy smell of the forest. He blinked away his drowsiness, and as the sleepiness went away, his head started to pound with a headache.
“You’re awake.”
Kyungsoo’s head snapped to his left, to where the voice had come from. His eyes widened and he scrambled backward and away from Jongin. The sudden movement caused a wave of vertigo to wash over him. Almost immediately, he was on his knees, retching onto the grass.
When he looked back, Jongin was dipping his head into the water so that he could take a deep breath before lifting his head to talk to Kyungsoo. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before wiping his hand on the thick trunk of a large tree.
“What happened?” Kyungsoo asked. He waited patiently as Jongin turned back to the water once more to breathe.
“The current brought you to my city. And there was an order to feed you to the sharks so that you wouldn’t bring news of our city back to where you came from. I broke you out of your prison cell and hid you in the coral until I noticed that you were turning blue from a lack of oxygen. I guessed that your oxygen box had run out of this strange air,” Jongin broke off for air and when he resurfaced, he continued. “You were unconscious throughout, but you never woke until today, three days after it happened.”
Kyungsoo shook his head, confused. “You wanted to kill me the last time we met, and now you’ve saved me? What in the world are your intentions?”
Jongin bit his lip. “After you had run away, I… I thought about what had happened and I realized that maybe I’ve been too hasty in my judgment of your character. It’s just that, you people have been known to hurt our homes with oil and toxins. I just… I saw red and I couldn’t think of anything else but of all my people who fell sick one by one when there were toxins released into our homes. But when you first approached me, you didn’t seem to want to hurt me. So my saving you is a form of an apology.”
He looked up at Kyungsoo from where he floated in the water, his hands gripping the banks where the forest stopped and the sea began. Kyungsoo stared hard at Jongin, whose face was vulnerable, and noticed that the latter’s lips were turning blue.
Kyungsoo knew that Jongin wouldn’t go underwater until he replied. And so, Kyungsoo stood up and walked over to the water. He placed one hand on Jongin’s head and pushed the tanned boy back underwater, disregarding the look of surprise on his face.
Through the water, Kyungsoo could see Jongin inhaling deeply, a small smile on the younger boy’s face.
--
“You’re crazy.”
Jongin whirled around, shoving the book that he had been reading into a large cabinet that he had nicked from a shipwreck. It was covered with moss and was falling to pieces due to the decomposing wood. But he loved it. It was a piece from the surface and he loved it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his lower jaw jutted out and he crossed his arms across his chest.
His sister stood in the doorway, seething at him. Her short choppy hair stuck up in all directions, and she looked frazzled.
Walking up to him, she pointed an accusing finger at him. “Yes, you, do! I know all about him, Jongin, and I think you’re absolutely off your rocker.”
“You followed me.”
“Well, what can I do when you’re off doing these stupid things? It’s a good thing I followed you too, or I would never have known. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just be content with who you are? Why do you grasp so desperately at anything that has to do with the surface?”
“I’d rather be up there than down here. Everything’s so… limited here.”
“But it’s safe, and that’s what matters. You know that the surface people are horrid to one another, don’t you?”
Jongin pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his index finger, and he closed his eyes on his sister’s pleading face. “My dear sister, what does it take to get you to wrap your mind around the fact that I’m strong enough to fend for myself?”
“How can you support yourself in an entirely different world? You’re a baby out there. Besides, can you really live with youself when you know that you’re betraying your people?”
Jongin flinched, and he strode quickly out of his room, eyes evading the disapproving stare that his sister sent his way.
--
Over the next few days, Kyungsoo had managed to get many things done. He had refilled his oxygen tank and met up with Jongin frequently. He would head for the sea in the wee hours of the morning, and once he had swum out a reasonable distance, Jongin would appear and bring Kyungsoo on a grand tour of his homeland. By night, he would work on his article, bright screen of the computer lighting up the dark motel room.
They went everywhere except for the areas near Jongin’s home and the city itself. There were people patrolling the city’s borders to protect the city from the arrival of any men from the surface, and they would be caught if they come too close to the city.
“We used to live on land too. A long, long time ago.” Jongin looked wistfully at the sky just beyond the surface of the water.
“Have you ever heard of the lost city of Atlantis? The people there learnt to adapt to their surroundings, using different contraptions to allow them to breathe underwater. A few generations down the road, they found out that they no longer needed to depend on these devices to breathe underwater, and everything began to change around then. People travelled across the seas because they no longer had to stay in one place to make sure that their breathing devices would be maintained. Cities started appearing in many different areas, seas and oceans began to be populated with our people.”
At this moment, Jongin’s face darkened. “But that meant that we could no longer survive above water. Back then, we couldn’t breathe underwater independently. Now, we cannot breathe on land independently. This meant that we couldn’t stay updated with the people on land. And no matter how different we may be, we were originally land dwellers, and our roots are forever intertwined with people who live above us, people who walk through air and breathe air.”
Kyungsoo was completely riveted, hanging on to every bitter word that passed Jongin’s lips.
“Our sources of books were cut off. All we have now are some waterproofed hardcover books on gods and legends. But they’re from so long ago, I doubt that people even believe in them anymore.”
“Once upon a time, there was music in our society. Once upon a time, there was knowledge and peace, and trust and everything that makes a place good was present. But when people don’t learn how to pass these things on, they are lost amongst the generations that die out. I have never heard music before. I don’t even know what it means.”
Kyungsoo thought back to how easily he could switch on the radio, how easily he could think of a song and belt out the lyrics without a care in the world. He could do all these things if he wanted to, but he chose not to. On the other hand, Jongin could never do these things even if he wanted to.
“We’ve been forgotten by society, Kyungsoo. It hurts to be so close to something that you can’t have.”
--
They were huddled close together on the hull of a sunken ship at nighttime, and the only source of light they had were the crystal jellyfish floating a few meters away from where they were seated. Kyungsoo was fine with the darkness. It was much like watching fireflies at an open field.
“I wish I could hear your voice.” Jongin suddenly said. “I’ve only heard you speak once, and it’s not enough. I’m the one who’s always talking. Don’t you get sick of me?”
Kyungsoo shook his head. No, it isn’t tiring. Not when he needed to gather information for his article. The more information, the better.
Sighing, Jongin smiled wanly. “It’s just that… it seems like you know everything about me now, but I know next to nothing about you. You’re a stranger in my world.”
He wound his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees, leaning against Kyungsoo.
--
“Take me to the surface.” Jongin gripped Kyungsoo’s wrist, pleading.
Kyungsoo shook his head, surprise and confusion and fear flitting across his face one after the other.
“I don’t care.” He dug his nails into Kyungsoo’s skin, leaving half-moon marks on his arm. Then, he rose to the surface, pulling Kyungsoo along behind him. He hesitated for a moment when he neared the shimmering layer of moonlight that graced the top of the sea. He took a deep breath to steel himself and he shot towards land.
The moment the both of them broke the surface, Jongin’s instinct was to gasp for oxygen, and instead inhaled the air. Kyungsoo watched in concern as he doubled over, coughing hard as the atmosphere’s air replaced the water in his body. He quickly sank underwater and coughed, air bubbles leaving his mouth before he popped back into the air, careful not to breathe in.
“Are you… are you okay?” Kyungsoo asked, taking off his oxygen mask as he sat on the banks of the forest that he had found himself at a few days before.
Jongin nodded, looking up at Kyungsoo through the wet hair that was plastered to his forehead. “It’s just a nice change, being able to hear you speak.”
“How about… to hear me sing?” Kyungsoo murmured.
“What’s that?”
Taking a deep breath-it was good to have fresh air tinged with the scent of the ocean in his lungs-Kyungsoo opened his mouth and began to sing, melodies pouring from his lips.
Jongin had never felt or heard something like that before. It was as if he were cruising in the middle of a warm current, without problems to bother him. This thing called singing cleansed him like nothing could, and he was more than content to bask in the sound of Kyungsoo’s voice wrapping around him in a comforting embrace.
The song ended, but Jongin’s eyes stayed close as he listened to an echo of the last note.
Throughout the song, Jongin had never once gone underwater, and alarm bells began to ring in Kyungsoo’s head.
“Aren’t you… don’t you need to breathe?”
Jongin’s eyes flew open, and he nodded, his skin already tinged a pale blue.
For the second time since they had met, Kyungsoo shoved Jongin’s head underwater.
(For even though they had just met, Jongin seemed to need Kyungsoo to continue breathing.)
--
“Funny. I always thought of you as the inquisitive type.”
Jongin prodded curiously at a small bush by the banks, darting back in surprise when a bird shot out of it. The bird screeched indignantly, hovering around Jongin’s head as it tittered noisily before flying off into the sky, over the tops of the woods. He laughed, turning rounds in the water with an agility that Kyungsoo admired, legs cutting through the water gracefully.
It was strange that they didn’t have tails, like how the stuff of underwater legends, the mermaids, did. When Kyungsoo had asked about that, Jongin had merely huffed in response. “Just because we can breathe underwater doesn’t mean that we’re completely different, you know!”
“I am.” Kyungsoo stated, huddling on rough rocks, not caring that mud would stain the scuba suit that he had on.
Jongin gave him a look that could only be described as skeptical. “Doubt it,” he snorted.
As he watched Jongin go underwater, he spoke louder this time. “I am.”
While one side of him itched to ask countless questions for his ongoing article, but another side told him to shut up. He wanted to ask Jongin about so many things so badly.
Just that, Jongin was making it so, damn, hard to ask. It fucking hurt to ask and Kyungsoo didn’t know why.
(The document on Kyungsoo’s computer stayed untouched.)
--
The times that they chose to go up to the surface became more and more frequent, enough so that Kyungsoo stopped wearing the scuba suit and waited for Jongin at the rocks. Now, there was less of that hesitation that Jongin had the first time they came to the surface.
Jongin even once tried walking around on land. The moment he had stepped foot on the soft, ticklish grass growing between the cracks in the rocks, his knees buckled, and he clung onto Kyungsoo for support.
It didn’t take him long before Jongin dived back into the water, body curving in a perfect arc and streamlined like a fish, slicing through the water and disappearing down below for a long while before he resurfaced.
For some reason, Kyungsoo felt a wave of disappointment wash over him.
It would take a while for his sea legs to adjust, Kyungsoo promised.
--
It was when Kyungsoo was talking to Jongin while sitting on the rocks where they had first met that it happened.
Jongin’s eyes bulged, and in less than a fragment of a second, he had been pulled under the surface.
Kyungsoo’s shout reverberated across the eerie, inky-black surface of the water and he paced around the edge of the rocks, peering into the dark waters below. When half a minute passed and Jongin didn’t reappear, he bent his knees and prepared to dive into the water.
He cut through the water, heart beating loudly in the deafening silence. The water pressed against his eardrums, and he heard nothing but the screams that echoed in his head as he searched for Jongin in panic.
He felt like he was flailing around blindly. All his senses were on hyper alert, and he strained to catch sight of Jongin.
After a ragged breath, Kyungsoo continued squinting through the ominous waters. He whimpered, and bubbles of air escaped from his lips and rose to the surface just as he spotted the figures a short distance away from him.
He recognized Jongin’s face, but he didn’t recognize his slumped posture and the girl floating alongside him, an arm wound around his waist.
He sped towards them as fast as he could, and the girl turned around and fixed him with a chilling glare. But he didn’t care.
And then Jongin turned, and Kyungsoo stopped in his tracks.
On Jongin’s face was a mix of confusion, fear, hatred and pain. Kyungsoo could almost feel the emotions roiling inside Jongin like an angry ocean during a thunderstorm.
Jongin took a hesitant step towards Kyungsoo, but changed his mind and turned away, gliding slowly but surely down towards the depths of the ocean. Kyungsoo could see the decision in the firm set of his shoulders. In the end, he just floated there, staring at Jongin’s fast disappearing silhouette.
He barely noticed the girl slowly shake her head, before turning to follow her brother down to where he couldn’t follow.
Kyungsoo thought of betrayals and heartbreak as he gasped for air the minute he lunged out of the water and onto the rough, unforgiving surface of tough granite.
--
Kyungsoo avoided the beach as much as possible for the next few days. He ignored the numerous calls and emails from his boss regarding his return to work.
It had barely been three days since he’d been down at the beach, but Kyungsoo already found it hard to breathe, without the familiar humid air of the ocean, tinged with salt spray. The dry air in the motel seemed to be sucking all the moisture from his skin and his lungs. The beach called out to him; the wind a wail of longing.
When the phone rang for what seemed like the thousandth time, Kyungsoo opened the window of his room and threw the phone with all his might into the shallows waters at the shore, even when he knew that it might cost him his job.
He could almost hear Jongin complaining.
“From oil spills to annoying beeping devices, all sorts of strange things are thrown into the sea.”
A sense of guilt seized him, and he headed back out to the shore to search for his hand phone.
He never did find it.
--
“There you are.”
Kyungsoo’s head snapped up at the familiar voice. Somehow, he had wondered to the banks where Jongin had hid him when he was unconscious.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Kyungsoo kept his gazed fixed on the ground, on his own feet that were clad in leather sandals, toes peeking out from behind the straps.
He knew that, to meet Jongin’s eyes, would ruin everything. It would destroy the walls that he had built up against the younger man. So instead, he turned around, walking into the shadows of the trees.
“Hey wait up, I-” scrabbling motions were heard, and a few heavy steps, before a loud splash.
Kyungsoo didn’t have to look back to know that Jongin hadn’t gotten over his sea legs yet.
--
Kyungsoo found that he couldn’t avoid Jongin. The stubborn man continued to follow Kyungsoo around, seeming to know where he would be.
Maybe it was because Kyungsoo was a creature of habit, but he realized that Jongin knew his patterns too well, and he found himself changing it. But Jongin would figure it out soon enough. It was a never-ending cycle.
He wanted to forget about the times that they had spent together. He wanted to erase the moments that they had created together. And most of all, he wanted to rinse away his emotions for Jongin down the drain. Or even better, to delete it, with no way of ever remembering.
And so, before he could change his mind, Kyungsoo transferred his document to the trash bin and emptied it without making a copy.
Click. Delete.
(Nothing ever happened.)
--
“You can’t run away forever!” Jongin cried out, desperation roughing out the edges in his tone of voice.
It was mid-afternoon, and the beach was crowded with people. It was the first time Jongin had ever approached Kyungsoo when he wasn’t alone.
Kyungsoo found it funny that he would choose to do that on the day that he was going to be heading back inland, where his city was landlocked and there were no beaches around to be found. He could, in fact, run away from Jongin forever.
He took shaky steps to the car, finding himself focusing on the simple task on not falling over. Every grain of sand on the beach seemed to be intent on tripping him somehow, the shape of the sand bars shifting with every step that he took.
“I’m sorry, I really am!” The sound of wet footsteps following him made Kyungsoo balk, and he realized that Jongin was attempting to walk up the beach to him, in broad daylight.
He hurried along, picking up his pace and pressing down the concern that welled up in him, forcing close the lid on the glass tank that held his emotions.
He heard Jongin’s wheezing, the rhythm of his footsteps faltering.
The sun shone. It was a beautiful day, and a dry breeze swept past them.
It was a beautiful day, and a fisherman cried out in triumph as he hauled a huge fish out of the water and onto the wooden planks of the jetty.
It was a beautiful day, when Jongin choked on the air that swept down his airway and fell to his knees on the sand.
Yelling erupted behind him, and Kyungsoo spun around, left foot catching behind the right, causing him to fall face first onto the harsh, rough sand.
They dug into his palms and left red marks behind as he pushed himself up and ran to where the commotion was.
“He can’t breathe!”
“Does anyone know CPR?” Another screamed.
The crowd parted to let a lifeguard through, and the public’s knight in shining armor began to work with quick precision, emptying Jongin’s lungs of water.
“No!” Kyungsoo threw himself against the wall of people. “Put him back in the water, damn it! PUT HIM BACK!”
Murmurs rippled round the crowd and several men grabbed hold of him to prevent him from reaching the lifeguard and Jongin. He was turning a terrifying shade of blue, and Kyungsoo lunged forward against the wall of people that were blocking him.
He broke away from the crowd for the shore to fill his mouth with water. Then, he barreled back through the crowd and to Jongin. He pushed the lifeguard away, amidst outraged roars.
He didn’t care. He needn’t to make sure Jongin could breath. Bringing his mouth to Jongin’s lips, he forced water into Jongin’s lungs.
Kyungsoo watched as Jongin’s eyes fluttered and barely managed to focus on his face before he was pushed away by the lifeguard and yanked back by the surrounding crowd.
“Are you crazy?” One yelled, throwing him to the side.
“No, Jongin, I-” Kyungsoo cried out. The taste of the saltwater burned the cuts on his lips where he had bit them. He watched helplessly as the lifeguard undid whatever good he had done. And he watched as Jongin ceased to notice the people around him.
Jongin was always right. The people on land did end up killing him after all.
--
“Don’t you want some salt with that?”
Kyungsoo was having a dinner with his new colleagues. He had found a job at a smaller newspaper after he was fired for his lethargic work and unmotivated attitude.
“No thank you,” he replied, smiling politely at the puzzled man sitting next to him.
He heard a colleague behind him whisper to someone else about it being extremely tasteless, since the hostess had forgotten to add in the salt.
But Kyungsoo ignored it, and ate his dinner the way he had been doing for the past eight years after that beach vacation: bland.
Jongin was always right. He could never run away forever, but he could try.
(After all, the salt reminded him of the taste of seawater, of tears and of Jongin’s lips all rolled into one.)
A/N
-Thanks so much to dee_i_cide for beta-ing this piece over and over again. I cannot thank her enough.
-The idea for this story came to me when I was just daydreaming during one of my Geography lessons.
-This is really crappy I'm so sorry. It's my first time writing yaoi.
-I've always had a thing for The Script's 'Breakeven' lyrics.