SBB 2010 Entry #1 - Ocean Master

[phasera]

Title: Ocean Master
Pairing: Jonghyun/Key
Rating: PG
Word Count: 10,430



Kibum looked out at the wide expanse of blue that lay before him. The breeze that smelled of salt ruffled his neatly styled hair ever so slightly as the waves slipped past below. It was a freezing cold day and he was only on a pleasant day out with his dear friend, Jinki. It was their friends’ idea. They were always trying to push Jinki and Kibum together. The two always humored them because they never saw each other as more than friends.

“Kibum, are you hungry?” Jinki’s voice called from somewhere close by. “They’re serving lunch if you want some.” Kibum turned around to discover his friend with a plate of food piled high. He couldn’t help but smile when he noticed a few pieces of chicken hiding underneath the veggies and fruits.

Instead of answering the question, Kibum just smiled at him and said in a teasing tone, “You’re so weird.” Jinki smiled sheepishly before turning his back to go back inside. He had known Kibum long enough to recognize the tones in his voice and his body language. When he asked questions, he knew when Kibum was going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without the younger having to say a word.

Kibum turned back to the ocean and just watched the clouds and the waves roll by together. There seemed to be a few storm clouds in the distance, but Kibum wasn’t too worried about it. He let his chin fall down on his arms that were resting on the railing of the cruise ship. For a while, he continued to just stare out at the dark blue ocean and the light blue and white sky, but as the ship rocked ever so slightly, it lulled him into a slight trance, then into a peaceful sleep.

He didn’t know how long it had been since he had fallen asleep, but when Jinki shook him awake, it was dark. It was dark, but it was neither evening nor night. The dark clouds had descended on the ship and the waters that kept it afloat. He looked sleepily at Jinki who was trying to make Kibum more aware of his surroundings. His friend’s face was filled with worry.

“Kibum, we have to move.” he said in a shaking voice. His brown eyes seemed like they were trying to look in every direction all at once and were filled with a nervousness that Kibum hadn’t seen from his friend in a long time.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kibum as he pulled himself upright. His usually perfectly styled hair was slightly mussed from sleeping in such an odd place. Jinki probably would have laughed if he hadn’t been so tense.

“The ship is sinking.” Jinki answered. It was then that Kibum’s senses finally woke up and he heard the collective clatter of feet on the decks around him. Some were running, others looked scared but tried to stay calm. He heard the calls of crew members who were under crowd control and the shouts of a frightened passenger as he fought to be the first onto a lifeboat. Luckily, nothing happened that was big enough to panic all the other passengers more than they already were.

“We have to get in line for a lifeboat.” Jinki’s voice broke into Kibum’s mind suddenly. Kibum nodded slowly and followed Jinki. His heart had suddenly started to pound like crazy, but he knew he couldn’t throw a fit - that would only make things worse for everyone. He held tightly onto Jinki’s hand as they waited. The deck gradually became more and more slanted as its lower levels filled with water.

There was a sudden jerk, and people everywhere screamed in surprise. That was when the people became alarmed even more than previously. People pushed harder, more shouts began to ring out and Kibum and Jinki watched as the crowd became unruly and aggressive.

“Remind me to kill Jungsu-hyung when we get home.” Jinki murmured in Kibum’s ear. Kibum would have laughed on any other day. He knew Jinki was trying to calm him as well as himself with those words. It clearly wasn’t working because Jinki was still shaking as badly as ever. The two finally made it to the front of the deteriorating line when another shudder shook the sinking boat.

Water splashed into the faces of all those at the front and the screams of people were heard again. This time, the screams didn’t die away. They continued and people began to surge forward more than ever and people began falling over the sides without a lifeboat. Jinki was being pushed away from Kibum through all the bodies. Their grip grew desperate on each other as they fought the crowd to stay together. They failed. Their hands slipped from each other and they were tossed around by the crowd.

“Jinki!” Kibum called as loudly as he could. For a moment, he lost sight of his best friend.

“Kibum! Where are you?” Jinki called back. It wasn’t long before Kibum saw Jinki’s head stretching up as far as it would go to look for him. Kibum stuck his hand up to show him where he was and called to him.

“Over here!” Jinki’s head snapped into his direction and he tried to fight through the crowd to reach Kibum. They were almost within reaching distance when more people pushed Kibum back again. Before he realized what was happening, the ground was gone from under his feet and he was falling. He screamed. Just before his back hit the water, he heard Jinki call his name and he caught sight of the mop of brown hair leaning over the side.

When he hit the water’s surface and began sinking, Kibum was sure everything was over. He had no energy to swim upward and he had no air in his lungs. He could see dim light above him from the sinking ship and could see splashes of nearby lifeboats and more splashes as people fell into the water. It wasn’t long before his vision began to fade.

-----

Kibum began to awaken when he heard a soft humming sound. It was a very pleasant sound and it was just as calming. He guessed he must have been in heaven because it was so calm that he couldn’t be still on the ocean after the storm. He tried to open his eyes, but they were too heavy to be lifted.

As Kibum’s senses were becoming more and more awake, realization struck that he was still in the water. The unmistakable feeling of clothing sticking to your skin and the chilled water that flowed in small waves around his waist and all over his legs. The currents pushed and pulled Kibum’s nonresistant body and whatever he was half clinging to along with it.

The humming continued. It was all too happy for what had just happened. He was absolutely positive that people had died. However, it appeared that he wasn’t dead this time around. But what about Jinki? Kibum finally found the strength to force his eyes open.

A pair of shining, almond shaped black eyes stared back into Kibum’s still adjusting chocolate brown ones. Kibum blinked a few times to clear his vision. When he lifted his head to get a better view, he saw blonde tipped hair, the handsome face surrounding those black eyes, and the body that was clinging to the same piece of wreckage that he was. It was a boy; maybe around his and Jinki’s age.

“So you’re finally awake?” asked the boy. For a moment, Kibum just stared at him. He certainly didn’t look like he had just been cast into the ocean after that storm. He was too clean, and way too cheerful to have just had a run in with near death. The humming he had heard a little bit ago was coming from the boy, and it was getting really old really fast.

“Who are you?” Kibum asked weakly. He was still very tired and very confused. He had no idea where he was, or whether Jinki was safe, or if he would ever make it home. He didn’t even know the boy in front of him. The humming boy didn’t show any sign of having heard his question either. “Who are you?” Kibum asked again, with a little more force behind the words.

The boy looked startled for a moment. He let go of the piece of wood from the ship and just let himself float around in the water that surrounded Kibum. “I’m Jonghyun.” said the blonde as he swam circles around the floating mass. “I found you just floating out here. You’ve been sleeping for a long time. I thought you were dead!” The boy - Jonghyun - continued to babble for what seemed like ages to Kibum. He already had a headache, he wasn’t feeling particularly well, and he really wasn’t up to listening to a noisy, talkative person.

“I’m sorry.” Kibum interrupted. Jonghyun looked at Kibum curiously as he shut his mouth quickly. His blonde bangs fell in his eyes and his lip came out in an adorable pout that Kibum almost cooed at, but he wasn’t in the mood. “I’m really tired and I don’t feel well. Could you please stop talking unless it’s to tell me that there’s land ahead?”

“But there isn’t any land ahead for a couple hundred miles.” Jonghyun said nonchalantly. Kibum stared at Jonghyun uncomprehendingly for a while as Jonghyun continued, “There isn’t any behind us either for an equally long ways. But we could always-”

“How could you know that?” questioned Kibum.

“Know what?” asked a perplexed Jonghyun.

“That there’s no land nearby.” Kibum clarified.

“There’s no land nearby? Of course there is!” laughed Jonghyun as if what Kibum had just said was the most ridiculous thing in the whole world. This confused Kibum.

“But you just said-” Kibum cut himself off unintentionally when he felt his stomach empty itself into the water around him. The murky substance for the most part began to sink and disappeared from Kibum’s sight. A few chunks remained on the surface and made Kibum feel sick all over again.

“Don’t do that!” yelped a surprised Jonghyun. “You’ll poison my friends!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” Jonghyun wasn’t listening and chose to dive under the water’s surface. Kibum lost sight of the boy right away and just continued to cling to his piece of wood. He expected Jonghyun to come back up quickly after doing whatever he was doing, but Jonghyun stayed longer than he expected. It was getting to a worrisome point.

Kibum held his breath above water to see how long he could keep it. He counted the seconds just to make sure he was holding to his personal records from school. Just over two minutes. When he finally let out his breath and gasped for air, Jonghyun still hadn’t come back up. Kibum remembered reading somewhere that the world record for holding one’s breath was over seventeen minutes. That was an incredible feat, and to witness someone hold their breath that long was unlikely. Kibum wondered if Jonghyun had drowned.

He laid his head down on the piece of wood when another wave of sickness hit him. He felt kind of bad. He didn’t really know Jonghyun, but after having just gotten away from a shipwreck, he was already sympathetic to anyone who drowned. He said a silent prayer for the boy and then turned his focus back to his predicament.

“What now?” he asked himself. He was still cold and he was tired and he needed to find land and shelter soon. So he began mindlessly kicking his feet in the forward direction. Jonghyun had said there was nothing that way for a long time, but what did Jonghyun know? He was just as lost as Kibum was, right? “Idiot. Drowning himself and leaving me here on my own.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Kibum nearly jumped out of his skin and found himself letting go of the piece of wood. He fell all the way back into the water and his mouth filled with a sweet taste. Kibum thought that was a bit odd. Why would the water taste sweet when it was supposed to be salty? Either way, Kibum spit it out. He turned around to see Jonghyun’s head above the water’s surface.

“Who were you talking to?” he repeated without a thought as if Kibum was alright after falling off of the piece of wood.

“How did you-” Kibum didn’t finish his thought before he remembered to find his piece of wreckage. To his dismay, when he turned around it had already disappeared. He frowned. “Shit.” Kibum cursed.

“What is it?” asked Jonghyun curiously as he stared off in the direction that Kibum was facing. Kibum turned back around and glared at Jonghyun menacingly. Jonghyun just continued to stare off into the distance for whatever Kibum was looking for.

“If you hadn’t popped up like that I would still have an eye on that piece of wreckage.” Kibum accused.

Jonghyun put a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun and squinted into the distance. His mouth was in the shape of a small, slightly puckered ‘o’. “You can’t see it from here.” he said, stating the obvious. “Maybe it’s over that wave!” Then to Kibum’s amazement, Jonghyun pulled himself up out of the water and stood on top of it like it were solid ground.

“Who are you?! Jesus?!” hollered Kibum in surprise. But Jonghyun wasn’t listening; he was too busy looking for Kibum’s piece of wood. When he spotted it, Jonghyun pointed excitedly and shouted.

“There it is! I see it!” he yelled. Then his smile faltered just a bit as he said, “But it’s too late to catch it now; it’s way too far away.”

“Great…” mumbled Kibum sarcastically. Jonghyun didn’t seem to catch the tone.

“It’s a good thing that it’s gone, it was keeping you on the surface. You need to meet my friend!” Jonghyun jumped down from the surface of the water and submerged himself. He came back up a second later to Kibum who had resorted to treading water. “Well? Are you coming or not?” he demanded.

“Coming where?”

“To see Minho of course!”

“Who’s that? And where is he?” wondered Kibum.

“I’ll show you!” Jonghyun shouted in excitement. Then he grabbed Kibum’s arm and yanked him down into the depths of the ocean without giving him time for a breath. Kibum became frightened and struggled to hold onto what little breath he had as Jonghyun charged deeper and deeper into the ocean with Kibum in tow.

When they were God knows how deep, Jonghyun finally stopped and called through the water, “Minho! Minho! Come out, come out wherever you are!” Kibum almost dropped his jaw and let loose all his air when he heard how clear Jonghyun’s came out. He expected it to be garbled by the water flowing into his mouth at least.

After waiting for a half minute, Jonghyun turned to Kibum and gave him a confused expression. “If you hold your breath like that for much longer you’ll pass out again.” Kibum glared at him and wanted to tell him that he wasn’t a fish, but that would involve opening his mouth. “What did you say your name was again?” Jonghyun asked. When Kibum refused to open his mouth, Jonghyun resorted to tickling the breath out of Kibum.

Kibum couldn’t help but laugh as he fought to defend his sides and his stomach from Jonghyun’s attacks. He completely forgot that he was underwater for a split second, but that was enough to let go and breathe in. However, the sweet water rushed into his mouth, but be found that he could breathe just fine anyway. His eyes widened in surprise and his mouth fell open as he stared at Jonghyun in pure amazement.

“What?” asked the strange boy as he tilted his head to the side. His blonde tipped bangs followed the movement and just swayed with the current in front of his eyes.

“I can…breathe underwater.” Kibum said in wonder.

Jonghyun raised an eyebrow. “Duh.” he said, like it was the most normal thing on the entire planet. “Are you going to tell me your name again now?” he asked as he moved onto a different topic.

“Again?” asked Kibum once he had recovered from the initial shock of being able to breathe underwater. “I don’t think I ever told you. You never asked.” Jonghyun wrinkled his nose at having forgotten. Kibum just sighed. “I’m Kibum.”

Jonghyun’s irritation faded in an instant as he smiled and grabbed Kibum’s hand before shaking it up and down with a little too much power. “Pleasure to meet you!” he yelled excitedly. As he gave in to the overdramatic handshake, Kibum wondered why Jonghyun was all over the place. He was very strange indeed. Not that he was all that different from his friend Jinki. Jinki was equally strange sometimes.

“So where is this Minho person?” asked Kibum.

Jonghyun finally released Kibum’s hand and scratched his head in confusion. “I’m not sure actually. Usually he’s around here somewhere.” Jonghyun babbled. “Maybe he’s on land seeing Taemin.”

“Who’s Taemin?”

“Only the cutest kid you’ve ever seen in your entire life!” Jonghyun shouted this enthusiasm. “He’s really nice too, but he’s a bit crazy.”

“Crazier than you?” Kibum muttered to himself.

“Did you say something?” Jonghyun asked absentmindedly.

“Nothing.” muttered Kibum. “So what now?”

“To land we go!” Jonghyun once again grabbed onto Kibum’s wrist and yanked him in some direction.

“But you said there was no land nearby. This could take ages!” Kibum protested as Jonghyun pulled him along. He was a fast swimmer. A lot faster than anyone Kibum had ever met before. He was sure that if anyone tried to race Jonghyun, they would lose miserably.

Jonghyun laughed at Kibum’s words and for the second time and said, “There’s no land nearby? Of course there is!”

“Then were you lying to me when you said there was no land in front of us or behind us?” asked Kibum angrily. But as he thought about the words, he realized the loophole and nearly slapped himself.

“I didn’t lie about that.” Jonghyun said as he continued to swim. “You never asked about land to our left or right.” He laughed. Kibum was pretty sure he was going to hate Jonghyun even more if he always acted like this.

Kibum spent the next stretch of time in silence. About the only sound that could be heard was the sound of Jonghyun’s kicking through the water and his constant humming. It was actually getting quite annoying. He was humming the same constant tune the whole time. It was like when people would sing the song that never ends.

Kibum could hear the kids from elementary school singing the song in his head. “It’s the song that never ends. It goes on and on my friends. And some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and wound up singing it forever just because, it’s the song that never ends. It goes on and on my friends…” over and over and over and over again. Just thinking about it drove Kibum up a wall, and Jonghyun’s own version of the song was making it worse.

They randomly came to a halt in the middle of open water. Kibum’s momentum carried him into Jonghyun’s back, but Jonghyun didn’t seem to have felt it as he stared ahead of him with a large smile. He stared at a large tropical fish in front of them.

“Minho!” called Jonghyun. The fish stopped and turned around as if to face Jonghyun. It swam closer and Jonghyun released Kibum’s wrist to grab the fish once it was within arm’s reach. He pulled the poor fish into a tight embrace, nearly squeezing the life out of it. Then he turned to Kibum and thrust the large, colorful fish into his face. “Kibum, meet Minho!”

“Um…Minho is a fish?” asked Kibum confusedly. But Jonghyun didn’t get a chance to say anything when the tropical fish in his hands grew larger and changed shape. In a matter of moments, Kibum was face to face with a tall skinny boy instead of the fish that had been there a second ago. He squeaked in surprise. The strange boy swam around Kibum to look him over once and took a long moment to stare directly into Kibum’s surprised eyes before looking to Jonghyun for an explanation.

“This is Kibum.” he told the boy. “He’s my new friend!” Minho just rolled his eyes and began to swim off again. Apparently, Jonghyun always went around claiming people as his new friends when they were not new or didn’t really want to be his friend in the first place. Jonghyun leaned over to Kibum and whispered through the side of his mouth, “Minho doesn’t talk. He’s also a cool shape shifter!”

Kibum turned to Jonghyun with wide eyes. This place was getting stranger and stranger by the minute. His tired mind couldn’t take much more, and his stomach was still very upset with all the ocean water he had swallowed. He needed to rest. “How much longer until we get to shore? I’m really tired.” Kibum whined. He didn’t mean to whine, usually he hated when people would whine, but he really needed to get some rest.

“Not much further.” Jonghyun answered. Then he grabbed Kibum’s wrist once more and yanked him along after Minho. Kibum was sure that there was going to be bruises around his wrist the next day. It was already sore.

Before Kibum realized it, there was sand visible not far below him. He looked up and the surface was right above his head. They were almost to shore, and Kibum couldn’t have been any more relieved. He was so exhausted and thoroughly upset at the day’s events. Losing track of your best friend after a disaster and getting stranded in that strange place was not a good day. He hoped that when he fell asleep, he would wake up and discover that he had merely fallen into a strange dream.

When his feet scraped the sand, he forced himself to stumble into a standing position and continued to run when Jonghyun kept going and refused to let go of Kibum’s arm. Minho was only a little ways ahead of them, but for some reason, even thought they were running and Minho was walking, he seemed to be getting further and further away. Jonghyun’s humming seemed to grow in volume as time wore on. Kibum’s feet became slower and slower and he tripped over rocks and holes in the sand.

“Jonghyun, I really need to stop.” Kibum said as loudly as he could. It didn’t amount to much.

“You’ll be fine.” Jonghyun said as he continued to laugh. His voice was really grating on Kibum’s senses at that point. He didn’t want to hear it again, if only for a few hours. “We’ve almost caught up with Minho!” Kibum lifted his head to look at Minho’s figure. But the tall, stick thin boy appeared to be even farther away than he was previously.

“No really,” insisted Kibum desperately. “I need to stop right now.” Then without warning, Kibum’s foot got caught on one final rock and he collapsed into the soft dirt. At first, Jonghyun continued to run, but it took only seconds before he stopped and released Kibum’s wrist. Kibum heard his voice next, but he could not make out what he was saying. It was very calm though, and Kibum could hear the humming echo to the back of his mind as his sight faded.

-----

He woke up in a very similar way to the first time. Someone was staring at him with eyes he did not recognize. However, he was forever grateful that he was not stuck out in the middle of the ocean on a piece of wreckage this time.

When his vision cleared a little more, he saw a boy with a mushroom type haircut. It was dyed an interesting reddish orange color. His face was round like a child’s and it made him look absolutely adorable. The boy was about as thin as Minho was, but he was just a bit shorter. Kibum knew this because Minho was standing right next to him.

“Oh look!” cried the boy in absolute joy. “He’s awake!” The boy practically jumped on Kibum without further notice, but Kibum didn’t seem to be completely aware of the people around him yet. He was more preoccupied with the strange room he was laid in. It looked like a room made of dirt and mud; like he was underground or something. The room was also filled with masks. Masks like you would see in the symbol for drama: the happy mask and the sad mask.

The masks sat together in large piles and had many different expressions painted onto them that were not just happiness and sadness. They all looked like the boy’s face though, and it was kind of creeping Kibum out because they all looked a little bit too real. When Kibum turned his gaze back to the boy that was still clutching to him, he realized he still didn’t know who the person was.

“Who are you?” he asked. It might have come out a little less than polite, but Kibum was still very tired. “And where am I?” The boy didn’t seem to be irritated by Kibum’s tone; he just smiled and opened his mouth to speak.

“My name is Taemin!” he said happily. “And you are currently in my house.” Kibum let his eyes wander the walls of the dirt room again and wondered what the rest of the house was like…or if there was much else to it.

“Where’s Jonghyun?” Kibum asked when he realized that the strange boy with blonde tipped hair was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, he’s-” but Taemin cut himself off as he reached up to the edges of his face and pulled his skin off. Kibum nearly had a heart attack and screamed. But all Taemin appeared to have removed was a solid mask like the many that littered the room. Behind the ‘mask’ was Taemin’s apparently normal face, but now there were tears in his eyes. “-at the w-water p-p-practicing.” Taemin finished as his voice cracked all over the place.

Kibum was even more frightened and confused. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why are you crying?”

“What, this?” asked Taemin as a fat tear rolled down his round cheek and his bottom lip trembled. “I have t-to change my expression every f-five minutes or I’ll explode.” He threw his mask of happiness onto the pile with the other expressions when he said the last part. Kibum took another look at the piles of masks around the room and found them more disturbing than ever.

He turned his head to look back at Taemin and found Minho’s long arms wound around the boy’s petite waist. He was kissing the back of Taemin’s head and his eyes were closed as Taemin cried and didn’t speak. Kibum took that as his cue to leave. He didn’t really want to stick around for Taemin’s next expression change anyway.

He left the room made of dirt quietly and found his way out of the hole in the ground that Taemin called home. As soon as he saw sunlight, Kibum could smell the sweet ocean. The unfamiliar scent filled his nostrils and he couldn’t help but follow it. It led him down a dirt path that lay directly in front of the burrow and within half a minute, Kibum could see the water.

“What did Jonghyun do?” Kibum mumbled to himself. “Take me the long way around?” Kibum wondered why the idiot had dragged him around until he passed out from exhaustion instead of finding the quickest route to a resting place. But it was too late to figure that out now. Not like Kibum expected to get a real answer out of Jonghyun anyway. He huffed and pushed the matter to the back of his mind.

Walking farther out onto the beach, Kibum scanned his surroundings for any sign of the blonde haired boy that hummed continuously. Taemin said Jonghyun had gone down to the water to practice something. But what was he practicing at the beach?

At first glance, Kibum didn’t see Jonghyun. However, something else did catch his eye. It shown in the brightness of the sun and had an odd shape, so Kibum naturally went to investigate. Upon closer inspection, Kibum realized it was just an ordinary music stand with nameless, folded music sitting on it. It was standing in the shallows of the water as if someone had forgotten to take it away before the tide came in.

“Looking for something?”

Kibum nearly jumped out of his skin when the voice came seemingly out of nowhere. After a moment, he recognized the smooth voice and loosened up. When he turned his head, Jonghyun was at his shoulder with a soft smile on his face. He was humming again.

“I wanted to get away from Taemin and Minho, so I came looking for you.” Kibum answered. “But you’re just as odd as they are.”

“Odd?” inquired Jonghyun as he tilted his head to one side.

Kibum raised his eyebrow in disbelief. “You swim at an inhuman speed and walk on water. Minho changes into anything he wants. Taemin removes his face to change his expression. You’re all the strangest people I have ever met.”

“You’re a strange person yourself, Kibum.” Jonghyun pointed out. It was Kibum’s turn to look confused. Jonghyun just continued. “You act like everything is unusual when it’s not.” Kibum scowled at the accusation. Everything was unusual there, it was a fact. Instead of responding, Kibum changed the subject.

“So, Taemin said something about you coming here to practice something.” Kibum said with an interested tone. “What exactly are you practicing?” Jonghyun just smiled and stepped up to the music stand and faced the open ocean. He opened up the music and lifted his hands into the air like a conductor might. In fact, that was exactly what was going on.

Jonghyun began to count irregular beats with the movement of his arms. He seemed to be happy with whatever he was conducting, but Kibum couldn’t hear anything except for Jonghyun’s humming. Maybe he was conducting a small orchestra in his head that was always playing that song. Kibum opened his mouth to ask, but Jonghyun sensed it and only held up a finger to Kibum without actually looking at him. So Kibum shut his mouth once again. He just sat in the sand and waited for Jonghyun to finish. He did a few minutes later.

“So what did you think?” Jonghyun asked as he turned to Kibum once more with a wide grin on his face.

“What did I think of what?”

Jonghyun made a face. “You really don’t notice much do you?” he asked rhetorically. Kibum folded his arms and pouted. “Come here.” Jonghyun said as he reached for Kibum’s hand. When Kibum didn’t give him his hand, Jonghyun just grabbed his arm and yanked him to his side. “Lift your arms to conduct.” instructed Jonghyun. “Whenever you feel like it, go ahead and set the beat.”

Kibum was about to do as he was instructed, but then his sanity returned. He turned away from the ocean and began to say, “This is stupid-”

“Just do it!” Jonghyun said with force as he took Kibum’s shoulders and redirected them towards the ocean. Kibum groaned in defeat and raised his arms again. He absentmindedly began swaying his arms to a made up beat.

Without really realizing it, he began to come up with random tunes in his head that might go with that beat. The beat that his hands swayed to changed at random intervals and he felt like he was leaving his body behind as his mind was getting lost in his thoughts. However, he did not see what Jonghyun was seeing in the ocean.

“Hey, you’re missing the point.” Jonghyun’s voice echoed his thoughts. He stopped moving almost instantly and brought his mind back to his body. Then Kibum made to walk away, but Jonghyun grabbed him and pulled him close once more. Their lips met, and for a brief moment, Kibum was paralyzed on the spot. When Jonghyun didn’t let go, Kibum snapped back to reality and pushed roughly away.

Kibum stared at Jonghyun angrily as he wiped his lips off with his sleeve, but Jonghyun just seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the entire world. He started laughing. “You really do react to everything.” Jonghyun chuckled.

“Only because people don’t just go around kissing others they just met less than a day ago.” Kibum spat.

“What planet do you live on?” Jonghyun wondered aloud. “Taemin and Minho kissed the minute they met. What’s wrong with me kissing you after a couple of hours?”

“I don’t want you to!” yelled Kibum.

Jonghyun tilted his head in confusion. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t even like you! Why would I want to kiss you?” reasoned Kibum. Jonghyun just sighed and took Kibum’s hand in his. “Come with me.” he said as he led the protesting boy farther into the water.

“Where do you want to go?” questioned Kibum with a raised eyebrow. Jonghyun didn’t answer him, but Kibum stopped resisting. As soon as they were both under the sweet tasting water, Kibum could hear the clear sound of Jonghyun’s humming again. It was really getting on his nerves. “Would you stop that?” Kibum asked as Jonghyun continued to swim at his inhuman pace.

“Stop what?” asked Jonghyun

“Your humming.”

“What about my humming?”

“Would you please stop humming?” Kibum clarified with an annoyed sigh. He wished he was around Jinki again. That boy knew Kibum so well that all Kibum had to say was one or two words before he knew what he was going to say or complain about. Jonghyun wasn’t like that at all.

“Don’t want to!” giggled the blonde. “I like it too much.” And just from Kibum’s impression of Jonghyun, there was nothing he could do to change the strange boy’s mind. “We’re almost there!” Jonghyun announced excitedly. “You can see it now.” He lifted his arm that was not holding onto Kibum’s hand and pointed at the sandy bottom ahead of them.

Kibum looked in the general direction and saw something on the ocean floor. It looked like a beat up old teepee. It was certainly shaped like one, but what was it doing so far under the water? The fabric that surrounded its support beams was tattered at the edges and fragile looking. Kibum realized just how huge it was when they finally came within a short distance of it.

“Jjong, what is this?” asked Kibum. Jonghyun’s head snapped around to face Kibum with a large smile. It surprised Kibum a little bit. “What?” he asked as he Jonghyun refused to look away.

“Oh, nothing.” Jonghyun said with a slight dismissive wave of his hand. “This is my special submerged teepee. I keep everything I find that’s interesting in here. Come on, I’ll show you.” Then he was pulled along again without a moment to think.

Once inside, Jonghyun proceeded to show off all his treasures to Kibum. There was an old suit of armor, a diamond ring, a painting, an old violin, and so much more. But Kibum was more interested in the artwork on the inside of the fabric of the teepee. There were animals all over it and there were depictions of spirits. Kibum reached up to touch them, but Jonghyun grabbed his hands to stop him.

“You must never touch the walls.” Jonghyun informed him.

“Why not?” asked Kibum.

“Bad things will happen.” Jonghyun informed.

“Like what?” Kibum’s curiosity was getting the better of him as the oddities of the people and things around him continued to unfold. Whenever he thought it was over, there was always something more.

“I don’t know.” answered Jonghyun truthfully. “Let’s go back to Taemin’s house.”

-----

“So there you are!” shouted Taemin angrily. “You told me you would be back a long time ago! I’ve had dinner ready for ages already and you’re going to have to deal with it being cold because I don’t feel like heating it up.” Taemin took his place at the table next to a grinning Minho. A moment later, Taemin took off another one of his skin masks and he was suddenly very shy. “Um, I h-hope you like it. I’m not a very good cook.” he said as he blushed and ducked his head in a cute way.

Kibum took a bite and smiled. It was the best food he had ever had in his entire life. “It’s delicious, Taemin.” He wished Taemin had been around when his nanny had burned everything. Kibum thought it was especially funny when she burned the tofu the day Jinki was over. The poor boy nearly had a heart attack.

Kibum really missed Jinki. But he was stuck in a strange place with strange people. He looked at his wrist for the first time. It was completely black with bruises from all of Jonghyun’s tugging and tossing him around. This place was interesting, but it was also a disaster in Kibum’s eyes.

“I’m not hungry anymore.” muttered Kibum as he got up from his seat at the table. They all just stared at him oddly until he left. As Kibum walked out of the house, he could hear Taemin change his expression again. Every time he did that, Kibum’s skin crawled.

“Hey want to go practice with me again?” came Jonghyun’s voice from behind him. Kibum turned around to see Jonghyun tossing a piece of meat into his open mouth. He practically swallowed it whole without bothering to chew it even once.

“If I say ‘yes’, will you not drag me with you?” asked Kibum.

“I suppose not.” provided Jonghyun. “But can I hold your hand?”

Kibum sighed. “If you must.” So he held out his hand for the blonde to take. Jonghyun did so gently for the first time. Kibum found it weird, and he didn’t think that would ever change. In a matter of moments, they were on the dirt path once again towards the beach.

Kibum sat off to the side this time and just watched Jonghyun take his stance behind the music stand that stood in the water. When he began moving his arms in that slow and irregular fashion, Kibum almost drifted off to sleep. The break of waves on the beach echoed in his head as his eyes drooped closed and the ever present humming never ceased as his head nodded forward and back.

“Do you want to try again?” Jonghyun’s voice pierced through the hazy veil that clouded Kibum’s senses. They woke up to a hand in front of his face.

“I don’t think another try is going to help.” Kibum informed. “I don’t think the way you do.”

Jonghyun reached for Kibum’s hand to pull him up anyway. “You don’t have to think like me to do it.” Jonghyun said. “You just have to be able to hear what I hear, just try it.”

So Kibum did. At first, it was just like the last time. Jonghyun gave him the baton and Kibum began moving his arms in fluid waves. But he tried to listen. He tried so hard to hear whatever Jonghyun was hearing. He wanted to understand.

“Just wanting to hear it is making it sound beautiful.” Jonghyun complimented from Kibum’s left. “I’m actually really jealous. I can’t believe you have this talent and you can’t even hear it just yet.”

“Could you tell me what exactly I’m supposed to be hearing?” asked Kibum as he stopped moving his arms to look at Jonghyun. Jonghyun just pouted when whatever he was hearing stopped.

“If I just tell you, you don’t really hear anything.”

“Then I give up.”

“Just a little longer?” Jonghyun request lightly. “I’m sure you’ll get it soon.” Kibum sighed but continued. He lifted his arms again and continued his constant beat. He still wasn’t hearing anything, but he was trying as hard as he could to understand.

At last, he heard it. With every wave of his arms, the waves crashed against the shore. Every few waves, there was the call of a gull. Half way through a wave, fish jumped. Everything was following the steady beat he created with the wooden baton. So he began spicing it up a bit. He sped up his beat and the waves sped up with him and the birds that flew by began to sing to another beat and tune.

Next he slowed his arm movements down and everything became quieter. The birds only sang every once in a while and the waves slowly crawled up around Kibum’s ankles and then pulled sand away as they receded. It was very relaxing, and the sounds were soothing to the ears.

Then he swore the sun began to sing as it sank lower in the sky. It was such a familiar tune. It was so familiar that he began to hum along with it. He matched it note for note and closed his eyes to sink further into the music that surrounded him. It was beautiful and intoxicating, and Kibum could feel himself getting lost. He began to tremble and he stopped waving his arms subconsciously.

Jonghyun was up in a second. “Kibum.” He called to Kibum’s trembling figure. “Kibum, wake up.” There was a seriousness in Jonghyun’s voice that Kibum could not ignore. He opened his eyes and saw traces of worry in the blonde’s eyes. Kibum collapsed in the sand and dropped the baton. “Kibum, are you alright?” asked Jonghyun.

Kibum didn’t answer, he just stayed still in the sand for a while, trying to gather some strength in his limbs, and then tried to get up again. He suddenly felt so drained.

“Kibum, about what almost happened to you...” Jonghyun began.

Kibum’s head snapped up to stare at Jonghyun. “What do you mean, ‘almost happened to me’?” he demanded.

“You were almost sucked up by the sun.” informed Jonghyun. “You tried to get too close to the Song. I’m the only one that can do that.”

Rage filled Kibum for unknown reasons. He sat up and slapped Jonghyun hard across the face. “You could have killed me! The least you could have done was warn me!”

“It completely slipped my mind.” said Jonghyun calmly as he ignored the stinging in his cheek. “I never have to worry about it.”

“If you don’t think about everything, why did you tell me to try it?” asked Kibum.

“Weren’t you happy?”

Kibum bit his lip when he had no response. He was happy, very happy, when he had discovered the rhythmic sounds around him. That didn’t stop him from being angry at Jonghyun however. He stood up from his spot on the sandy beach and stormed off. Jonghyun followed after him confusedly.

“Aren’t you going back to Taemin’s?” he asked.

“No.” muttered Kibum. “He’s crazy and creepy. I don’t think he even sleeps because he has to ‘change his expression’ every five minutes. I’d be up all night.”

“You’re right.” Jonghyun confirmed. “He doesn’t sleep.” But neither of them had anything to say after that. Kibum didn’t even try to start conversation, and Jonghyun just followed Kibum for the sake of staying with the younger. His constant humming echoed in his ears. He was humming the Song. That was why it had been so familiar when he had heard the sun itself singing it. But now, it was somewhat scary. He tried to block out the tune.

It was after dark when Kibum finally stopped walking through the trees of the forest and sat down and gathered leaves for a crude bed. He had hoped that Jonghyun would finally leave him alone, but no luck. Jonghyun tapped Kibum on the shoulder. When Kibum turned his head, Jonghyun kissed him for the second time. Kibum pushed away quickly.

“Quit doing that!” demanded Kibum as he wiped his lips for the second time.

“Why?” laughed Jonghyun. “I like you.”

“Well I don’t like you!” hollered Kibum angrily. “Could you leave me alone?” Jonghyun didn’t answer and just smiled as he sat down a few feet away from Kibum. Groaning, Kibum lay down on his bed of leaves and curled up. He hoped that this time, if he went to sleep, he would wake up and he would be back home where Jinki was and where everything made sense.

He thought about everything that had happened since he arrived at that strange place: every strange thing that Jonghyun had spouted, the faces Taemin had removed, Minho’s transformations, the Song of the sun and nearly being sucked into it, Jonghyun’s kisses…

Jonghyun’s humming wormed its way back into Kibum’s ears. No matter how hard he tried, he could not push it back. “Would you please, please, PLEASE stop humming.” begged Kibum as he covered his ears with his hands.

“I don’t want to. I like-”

“I don’t care!” spat Kibum in a rage. “It’s all I’ve heard since I got here! I nearly got killed by that tune and I want to stop hearing it! I want you to shut up! I-”

“Okay.” Jonghyun said softly. If Kibum hadn’t been so angry, he would have heard the hurt in Jonghyun’s voice. But Kibum only lay back down and went to sleep in silence.

“Good night.” whispered Jonghyun. Tears welled in his eyes, but he held them in as he lay down on his own bed of leaves.

-----

When Kibum awoke, Jonghyun was gone. Kibum suspected that he had gone down to the beach to conduct his surroundings again. After stretching a bit, Kibum breathed in the silence. It was kind of lonely. His mind wandered to thoughts of what he had said to Jonghyun the previous night. He felt kind of guilty.

It didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that he needed to apologize as soon as possible. He got up and brushed himself off. He didn’t even bother with his usually tidy hair; at this point, he felt so covered in dirt that there was no point in trying to look clean.

He walked back down the path he had first traveled to get away from the water and Taemin and Minho. When he reached the ocean, he looked up and down the beach for Jonghyun, but the strange blonde boy was nowhere to be found.

“He must be at Taemin’s place.” he muttered to himself. As he walked down the beach towards the path to Taemin’s burrow, he came to the music stand and stopped. He looked at it for a moment and thought about the previous day. Everything had been so wonderful up until he had heard the Song. But he assumed that nothing was ever meant to last in the real world, so why would this strange new place be any different.

That was the one thing that ever made sense.

He walked on and finally came to Taemin’s burrow. Taemin was standing outside by himself, so Kibum approached him cautiously just in case his current expression was something spontaneous. “Taemin, have you seen Jonghyun anywhere?”

Taemin jumped like he hadn’t seen Kibum standing there. “Um, n-no.” he stuttered in fright. “He’s not here anymore.”

“What do you mean ‘he’s not here anymore’? Did he just leave?” asked Kibum. Taemin reached up to pull another mask of skin away. Kibum winced. No matter how many times Taemin did that, he would never be used to it.

Hysterical laughter erupted from Taemin as he tried to speak. “He’s dead! You killed him!” laughed Taemin. “You killed him! You killed him! You killed him!”

Kibum looked completely shocked out of his wits. “He’s…dead…?” Taemin continued to laugh at what was obviously not very funny. How could anyone laugh at the death of their friend? Unless it was a horrible joke.

“You’re joking right?” Kibum laughed nervously. Taemin just shook his head as uncontrollable laughs escaped his lips.

“You killed him! You killed him!” hollered Taemin in between laughs. “You actually had the nerve to tell him to stop doing something he loved so much.”

Suddenly, it clicked. “Wait, this wouldn’t have anything to do with his continuous humming would it?” asked Kibum frantically. But Taemin couldn’t find breath right away to answer through his laughs. “Please, Taemin!” Kibum yelled as he shook the thin boy’s shoulders.

“Yup! That humming kept him happy and living!” shouted Taemin. “Because you stopped him, he ceased to exist! It’s your fault! It’s your fault! It’s your fault!” Taemin pointed the finger directly in the center of Kibum’s chest. The guilt that Kibum had felt earlier was back. However, it was more than one hundred times stronger than before.

The laughing continued. It never seemed to end. Kibum shut his ears to the loud noise and the random repeating words that spilled from Taemin’s mouth. “He’s gone!” cackled the boy. “It’s your fault! It’s your fault! It’s your fault!”

Kibum tried to ignore the words. He really did, but he was so scared and so upset that even the muffled words that got through his hands to his ears make him want to shut Taemin up for good. He just wanted to feel less guilty and he wanted quiet. The tears were spilling from his eyes without him even realizing it.

“It’s your fault!” Taemin yelled again. Then he reached up to his face to pull the next layer of his expressions away. Kibum lost whatever was left of his self-control and tackled Taemin to the ground. He pinned the boy’s stick thin arms to the dirt and refused to let him move. Taemin struggled to free his arms so he could change his expression, but it was no use.

“Shut up!” Kibum screamed. “How was I supposed to know this would happen?” The struggling from the boy below him became as wild as his laughing when the need to change his expression. For a brief moment, Kibum considered a second murder. If he held Taemin from changing his expression for long enough, he would kill him.

Kibum howled in pain as he felt sharp claws rake down his back. Jumping off of Taemin, he swiped at whatever was on his back. Moments later, a cat fell to the ground and hissed at him as it ran to Taemin’s side. When it grew and took on human features, Kibum realized that the cat was Minho.

Minho put his hands to the side of Taemin’s face and pulled away the laughing expression. It was replaced by crying. Taemin buried his face into Minho’s chest right away and let his tears flow without end. “He’s gone.” muttered Taemin. “He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.” Minho looked up from Taemin to Kibum and just stared. It was not a stare filled with anger or reproach or questions, but it made Kibum feel uneasy. So he ran away.

He ran back to the beach and found himself falling down next to the music stand that stood in the water. He looked up at it as it shined in the bright sun and thought about how Jonghyun would stand behind it and conduct the waters and creatures and even the sun.

Then the humming.

Kibum missed the sound now that it was gone. It was like background noise that kept the space around him bright and not quite so lonely. Now, everything was a bit too quiet, and it was unnerving to be so alone. He had no Jonghyun. He was pretty sure he had just lost Minho and Taemin. And his best friend Jinki was dead, lost at sea, or home and not there when Kibum needed him.

Nothing felt safe anymore. Jonghyun was sort of an invisible pillar that kept Kibum standing when he was too frightened to do it on his own. Now that pillar was gone, and Kibum felt strangely lonelier than he ever had in his life. “Jonghyun, come back…” he muttered to the air. But no one heard him.

He looked once more at the music stand and stood up to stand behind it. He took the baton and began swaying his arms in a controlled beat. But he heard nothing. Not the sound of waves moving to his beat, not the birds resounding their calls in any kind of pattern, not the jumping of fish, not the sound of the sun singing the Song, nothing.

Suddenly, Kibum burst into tears and dropped the baton. He wondered why Jonghyun didn’t say anything to him about the nature of that place. But even though Jonghyun had obviously known he would disappear when he kept his source of joy inside, he had listened to Kibum’s whining anyway. It was sweet in a way, but Kibum wished he hadn’t done it. There was only one more way to get in touch with his memories of Jonghyun now. He had to go back to Jonghyun’s underwater teepee.

He left the music stand at the edge of the water and went deeper into the ocean waters. It took Kibum a lot longer to get there without Jonghyun, but he was determined to visit that place once more. Jonghyun had been so excited when he brought Kibum there, but Kibum had just brushed it off as nothing.

The teepee seemed to be in a lot worse shape than before. It was almost as if it was mourning the loss of Jonghyun too. The colors it had displayed not long ago were faded, the edges of the cloth that made up the teepee were even more torn and frayed, and the wood that made the support and shape of the teepee were distorted into a weird crooked shape that Kibum didn’t like.

When he entered the large teepee, Jonghyun’s treasures greeted him. The suit of armor, the painting, the diamond ring, the violin; it was all still there. Everything took on a new shape in Kibum’s eyes. What had not been interesting previously was seen with new eyes that only yearned to understand what Jonghyun had tried so desperately to teach him.

Kibum felt like he had learned nothing at all. And that was the worst thing ever.

When Kibum’s eyes fell on the walls, Kibum gasped. Colors more vivid than anything he had ever seen had been freshly painted. Animals and people and trees and the sun and waters were all painted into a gorgeous scene of peace and harmony. He also recognized some of the human figures.

Minho and Taemin stood together next to their burrow of a home and just held hands. Taemin had a mask in his free hand. Jonghyun however, was standing by the water behind the music stand. His arms were lifted and he was smiling. Kibum reached forward sadly to trace the blonde’s painted figure. But the moment the pad of his finger touched the colors, the teepee’s cloth walls shattered like glass.

Kibum had forgotten Jonghyun’s warning to never touch the walls.

Everything began to swirl together. The ocean that Kibum was floating in faded from its blues to blacks and the things that Jonghyun kept in the teepee burst into purple and blue flames before disappearing. Kibum saw things fly past him as he swirled out of control: trees, globs of sand, animals. Then the music stand that had stood in the shallows of the water flew past and Kibum wanted to cry all over again.

“Kibum! What have you done?” demanded a scared voice from behind him. He turned his head to see Taemin and Minho desperately trying to hold onto each other as they and everything else was swept away. “You’ve destroyed everything!” screamed Taemin. He clung tighter to Minho as they were thrown around by some force that none of them could see and then the two of them were devoured by dark flames. Taemin screamed as he disappeared from existence along with everything else.

“Taemin! Minho!” Kibum cried. But he could not think long on them, the flames quickly came for him as well. He wanted to scream as he saw the flames climb up his torso, but he was too scared to even make a sound. And even if he had made a sound, no one would have heard it.

His vision became edged with black and then he blacked out entirely before he was consumed by flame.

-----

Kibum opened his eyes slowly to see a figure leaning over him. Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?

“Are you alright, Kibum? You were thrashing around like you were having a bad dream or something.” It was Jinki. He was back on the ship. It was all a dream Kibum practically threw his arms around his friend’s neck and began sobbing uncontrollably. “Kibum, what’s wrong?”

“I had the worst dream ever!” Kibum sobbed. “The world was so strange and you weren’t there and then people blamed me for the disappearance of somebody and then I destroyed their world because I didn’t know the rules. I was so scared and it all seemed so real!”

“Calm down, Kibum.” Jinki said as he rubbed his friend’s back. “You aren’t making any sense.” But Kibum couldn’t calm down. After having been stuck in his own dream for so long, it felt almost too good to be true that he was back where he belonged. He cried into Jinki’s shoulder until he was sure that his best friend was not going to disappear.

Then he heard something that made him stop crying in disbelief. He lifted his head off of Jinki’s shoulder and looked around without bothering to wipe his tears away. Someone was humming a very familiar tune. “Where is that coming from?” Kibum wondered aloud.

“Where’s what coming from?” asked Jinki next to him.

“That humming.” Kibum clarified. But he had already found the person. It was someone whose back was turned to him as he leaned over the side of the boat’s railing; just soaking in the sun and the breeze. Kibum left his confused friend for a moment as he approached the humming man.

Hesitantly, Kibum tapped the man on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me.” The man turned his head to regard Kibum with a calm smile. If it wasn’t the blonde tipped hair that Kibum was glad to see, it was that smile. It took everything Kibum had to not collapse in relief. Jonghyun turned around the rest of the way and leaned in to kiss Kibum on the mouth like he had those few times in Kibum’s dreams. When Jonghyun pulled away, Kibum just smiled.

Jonghyun raised an eyebrow in interest. “No comments about kissing right off the bat or kissing someone you don’t like?” he asked. “And no yelling either? I’m impressed.” Kibum just blushed a little.

“It’s not right off the bat anymore. We’ve know each other for two days now. And Taemin and Minho kissed the minute they met.” Kibum reminded Jonghyun with a smart smirk. “And I think I do like you after all. I just didn’t realize it until you disappeared.” They stared at each other for a moment before Kibum leaned his forehead into Jonghyun’s chest. “Jjong, I thought I lost you forever.”

“You’ve called me that before.” Jonghyun said softly with a smile.

“What?” asked Kibum confusedly.

“You’ve called me ‘Jjong’ twice now.” Jonghyun laughed.

“Have I?” wondered Kibum aloud. After a moment, he smiled again and said, “I guess I have.” Then a thought crossed his mind. He pulled away and looked around for a moment. “By any chance, are Minho and Taemin here?” As if right on cue, the door from the lower deck opened and Taemin walked out as he tugged Minho behind him. The taller was trying to walk at his own pace, but it obviously wasn’t fast enough for the younger.

Just then, Jinki walked over and said to Kibum, “Do you mind explaining who this guy is? I am your best friend and I would like to know who you’re in love with.”

Jinki’s playful smile made an appearance and Kibum blushed further before muttering almost inaudibly, “This is Jonghyun.” In the background, Taemin and Minho had been sharing kisses and almost completely forgotten where they were. People were getting up and leaving after having enough of the intimate couple. It was cute at first, then it was just gross.

“I’m a bit hungry,” Jinki said suddenly. “I’m going to go get something to eat. Talk to you later.” He was really leaving because he wanted to give the new couple some time to themselves. It was, after all, his job as Kibum’s best friend to make sure Kibum was happy at all times. So he always did his best.

Jonghyun leaned in and kissed Kibum. Kibum didn’t resist. He never would from that day forward. Jonghyun smiled and said, “Don’t ever push me away again.”

“Never.” Kibum answered with a smile.

Kibum wondered if everything after was still a dream, but he always told himself that if it was a dream, he never wanted to wake up. He would forever be stuck in the world of shape-shifters and facemasks and music stand and Songs and submerged teepees filled with armor and gold and paint and music. He would forever be stuck with breathable water and paths where no matter how long you ran everything seemed to get farther and farther away.

He would be forever stuck with stolen kisses and borrowed hugs and learned love for the ocean. Forever stuck with a man who commanded the ocean and everything in it. Who forever sang the Song of the sun without fear of being sucked up by it and captured the melody so that he could hear it every day.

Kibum would gladly hear the song that nearly killed him in his dream if it meant that Jonghyun was alive for him to love. Kibum needed his Ocean Master and Jonghyun needed Kibum just as much.