Chapter Text
Jiwoong was carrying his suitcase by himself, even though it was almost as tall as he was. It was heavy, and he couldn’t easily drag it considering the sand-covered path and uneven cobblestones. It was warm, but thankfully, the surrounding trees shielded him from the heat. Sweat still traced down his face. They were walking on a narrow path lined with trees and old houses that someone might call barracks. He could hear snippets of conversations in languages he had never heard before. The closer they got to the beach, the more houses gave way to campers and tents. They were staying at a house, that’s what he knew, but it was on the first line, closer to the beach. There were bicycle stands with no bicycles, laundry lines with wet clothes, barbecues, and lost toys and balls. The place felt temporary but deeply lived in.
There were mostly families staying at this place, there were children running all around him, younger and his age. He tried not to look at them directly.
His grandparents were a few steps ahead of him, dragging even bigger suitcases and glancing back at him from time to time. He mimicked a smile rhythmically at every glance.
He still can’t get used to his grandparents' constant surveillance. He moved in with them a couple of months ago, after his life extremely changed its course. He had to move countries and was now officially living in Tokyo. He’d been struggling to learn Japanese. His every living minute was dedicated to the awkward in his mouth language. They were university professors and very prestigious academics in the medical field, but why they didn't teach in Korea was still a mystery to him. Their work was the reason his feet were covered in sand, and he felt sticky with sweat and salt in the air. They explained it to him, but he was half-listening, something about East Asians academics and researchers' program, something about networking. The only thing he fully understood was that other Asian families affiliated with elite universities would be staying at this campsite.
Something else he overheard, something he wasn’t supposed to hear, by the whispering voices of his mother’s parents, was that they didn’t actually care about the program. It was all for him. It was for him to get distracted and feel better. Oh, our poor boy. Our poor grandson.
He could feel the weight of the hours-long flight and subsequent train ride on his shoulders. He couldn’t wait to be inside a house with air conditioning, where he could finally sleep. He hoped to never wake up again, or at least to wake up in another boy’s reality.
Soon enough, they arrived at their house, and his grandmother made him unpack his bags. He silently cursed her and immediately felt bad afterwards. They continued to ask him questions: Was he hungry? Did he want to go out later? Where was this? Where was that? He just muted their voices, barely muttering an answer back. He felt the need to be polite, to show gratitude. He knew that they were doing their best, but the tiredness was taking over his body.
The house was smaller than he expected, but clean, with pale walls that reflected the light too well. The air inside felt stale and trapped, mirroring the air inside his lungs. There was no air conditioner, only a standing fan in the corner that hummed softly when his grandfather turned it on, pushing warm air from one side of the room to the other. Jiwoong stood there with his suitcase open at his feet, clothes folded neatly inside and tried to remember what belonged where. His hands moved slowly, like they didn’t quite trust the reality of the room yet.
His grandmother hovered behind him, commenting on the size of the closet, on the view from the window, on how lucky they were to be so close to the sea. Jiwoong nodded at the right moments. He knew the rhythm of it by now, when to listen, when to agree, when to smile. He had learned it quickly, the choreography of being a good grandson.
From the open window, he could hear the life outside. Laughter, footsteps on gravel, a door slamming shut somewhere nearby. A radio played a song he didn’t recognize. The sound of it all blended together, distant and close at the same time, like he was underwater. He wondered how many summers had passed through this place before him, how many children had dragged suitcases through the same sand, how many of them had arrived broken in all the ways he was.
When his grandmother finally told him he could lie down for a bit, he didn’t argue. He kicked off his shoes, grains of sand spilling onto the floor, and lay on the narrow bed without pulling the blanket over himself. The mattress creaked under his weight. He stared at the ceiling, counting the faint cracks in the paint, listening to his grandparents’ voices drifting from the other room as they discussed dinner plans, tomorrow’s schedule, the weather.
—
He slept the rest of the day and the bigger portion of the next day. His grandparents woke him up, full of worry. It was already dark outside. His grandpa reminded him of the football finale happening. Ah, right. The World Cup Finale. He was a big football fan, so obviously all three had to leave the comfort of the house and go to the nearby restaurant that was broadcasting the match on a big TV screen. Jiwoong didn’t want to be there, but what real choice did he have.
It was overcrowded, Asian families, other local-looking families, it seemed that the entirety of the campsite was at that restaurant. Jiwoong asked his grandmother if it would be possible for him to stay nearby; he didn’t want to be in the ocean of people. She allowed him to sit on the benches on the right side of the restaurant, where other children were playing around anyway. He was to always stay in her sight.
People were screaming. He felt the enthusiasm of everyone watching, loud and overwhelming, pressing against his ears. By the shouts alone, he could tell that most of the people were rooting for Spain, which let him give out a small smile. His grandfather, stubborn as always, was rooting for the Netherlands.
The air was heavy with heat and the smell of food, he wasn’t yet accustomed to. Jiwoong sat on the bench with his hands folded together, shoulders slightly hunched. Children ran past him, laughing loudly before disappearing again. He wasn’t really watching the screen, he followed the match through sound alone.
A shadow stopped in front of him.
“Hey,” a boy said in English, hesitant but friendly. “Are you watching the match?”
Jiwoong looked up. The boy was smiling, wide and open, like talking to strangers had never scared him a day in his life. He was shorter than Jiwoong, skinny, with a type of bowl haircut. When he smiled, faint whisker-like dimples appeared on his cheeks.
Jiwoong nodded. “Yes.”
“Can I sit here?” the boy asked, already gesturing at the bench.
“Yes.”
The boy sat down, turning toward him. “What’s your name?”
“Jiwoong.”
“Jiwoong,” the boy repeated slowly, then blinked. “Wait, are you Korean?”
Jiwoong hesitated, then nodded again. “Yes.”
“Oh,” Hanbin laughed. “Perfect! I’m Korean too. I’m Hanbin”
He had already switched to Korean, the conversation settling into something easier. Jiwoong felt how the initial anxiety dissolved.
“I’m from Cheonan,” Hanbin said. “What about you?”
“Wonju.”
“Nice. Are you here with your family?”
“My grandparents,” Jiwoong replied. “I just moved to Japan to live with them.”
“Woah,” Hanbin said, eyes widening a little. “Japan? That’s far.”
Jiwoong shrugged. “Yeah.”
Hanbin didn’t ask why. He just nodded and kept going, like he could sense the edges of the things Jiwoong wasn’t saying.
“My parents are professors,” Hanbin said. “That’s why we’re here. Some academic program thing. It should be the same one.”
“Probably,” Jiwoong said.
There was a brief silence, filled by the roar of the crowd inside the restaurant. Jiwoong thought that would be the end of it, but Hanbin didn’t seem bothered at all.
“I dance,” Hanbin said suddenly.
Jiwoong glanced at him. “Dance?”
“Yeah,” Hanbin said, grinning. “Hip-hop mostly. I will be starting a new course after the summer. I’ve been dancing since I was a kid. I think if I ever had to stop, I’d go crazy.”
“You’re still a kid.”
Hanbin laughed. “You have a point.”
“I don’t know much about dancing,” Jiwoong admitted.
“That’s okay,” Hanbin said easily. “I could teach you one day.”
Jiwoong almost smiled.
It felt unfamiliar, the muscles in his face tightening in a way they hadn’t for a while. He looked away before Hanbin could notice, fixing his gaze on the bright rectangle of the TV screen. The crowd was restless now, voices rising and falling, anticipation pressing down on the humid night air.
They sat like that for a while, shoulder to shoulder but not touching. Hanbin hummed under his breath, some rhythm only he could hear, tapping his fingers against his thigh.
“Who are you rooting for?” Hanbin asked.
“Spain,” Jiwoong said after a second.
Hanbin’s eyes lit up. “Me too.”
“My grandpa’s cheering for the Netherlands,” Jiwoong added quietly.
Hanbin laughed. “That’s dangerous.”
Jiwoong watched his grandparents from afar. His grandfather stood stiffly near the back of the restaurant, arms crossed, already muttering under his breath whenever Spain came close to scoring. His grandmother kept placing a calming hand on his arm, murmuring something into his ear. Jiwoong knew that gentle, warning tone.
Extra time began. The air felt thicker somehow, like it was pressing against his chest. Jiwoong shifted on the bench, suddenly too aware of his body, of how tired he was, of how long it had been since he’d slept properly without dreaming.
Then it happened.
The roar was immediate and deafening.
Spain scored.
Hanbin was on his feet before Jiwoong could even process what he was seeing.
“Yes!” he shouted, pumping his fist into the air, laughing so hard he almost stumbled back into the bench.
People were hugging, yelling, some standing on chairs. Jiwoong flinched at the sudden noise, then found himself smiling despite it.
He looked back at his grandfather just in time to see him throw his hands up in dramatic disbelief.
“Oh no,” Hanbin said, laughing harder. “Your grandpa looks furious.”
Jiwoong let out a soft breath. “He’s going to argue with the TV.”
As if on cue, his grandfather began gesturing wildly at the screen, speaking fast and sharp. His grandmother sighed deeply, already preparing herself.
Hanbin sat back down, still glowing, cheeks flushed, hair sticking to his forehead. “This was fun,” he said, softer now. “I’m glad I came over.”
“Me too,” Jiwoong said, and this time, the smile stayed.
His grandmother appeared in front of them moments later, her expression amused and exasperated at the same time. She gave Hanbin a warm, polite smile, then rested a hand on Jiwoong’s shoulder.
“Jiwoong,” she said gently, “let’s go back to the house fast, before your grandpa gets into trouble.”
Jiwoong stood, nodding. He glanced at Hanbin, unsure what to say.
“I’ll see you around?” Hanbin asked, hopeful.
Jiwoong nodded. “Yeah.”
As he followed his grandparents away from the noise and the lights, the cheers still echoing behind him, Jiwoong realized something small but strange. For the first time in months, the world hadn’t felt completely unreachable.
—
The next day, they went to the beach. It wasn’t exciting, it felt like something that was expected of them since they are at this place anyway. Jiwoong followed his grandparents down the sandy paths, carrying a towel that wasn’t his, wearing sandals that rubbed slightly at his heels. The sun was already high, bright enough to make the world look flat and unreal, like someone had turned the contrast too high.
The beach opened up suddenly, wide and blinding. The sea stretched endlessly in front of them, blue folding into lighter blue, the horizon too clean to look at for long. The sand was hot, coarse, slipping between his toes in a way that made his skin prickle. Everywhere there were bodies, people lying close together, families shouting, children crying, laughing, digging holes that would collapse as soon as they stood up.
His grandmother laid out towels with careful precision, smoothing the fabric as if it mattered. His grandfather adjusted the umbrella, muttering to himself when it refused to stay where he wanted it. Jiwoong stood there, towel draped over his arm, watching them like they were part of a film he wasn’t participating in.
“You should sit,” his grandmother said.
He sat.
The sand beneath him was uneven. He shifted, then stopped trying to fix it. The sun pressed down on his shoulders, heavy and insistent. Somewhere nearby, a group of teenagers were playing a card game, screaming at each other.
His grandparents talked quietly beside him. Japanese, then Korean, then back to Japanese. He caught pieces of it without really understanding the whole. Something about lunch plans. Something about sunscreen. Something about how good the sea air was for one’s health. They were talking more and more in Japanese around him, the goal being of him getting used to the language faster. He just felt them moving further away every time they spoke in it.
Jiwoong stared at the water.
The waves came in steadily, endlessly, like they had nothing better to do. He watched them break and retreat, over and over again, and felt a strange sense of jealousy. They knew exactly what they were supposed to do.
At some point, his grandmother pressed sunscreen into his hands.
“You’ll burn,” she said.
He nodded and applied it mechanically, rubbing it into his arms, his legs, the back of his neck. The smell was sharp and artificial, cutting through the salt in the air. His skin felt slippery, unreal, like it didn’t quite belong to him.
He wondered briefly if this was what it meant to be alive now. Going through motions. Responding when spoken to. Sitting where you were placed.
A child ran past him, shouting, nearly tripping over his legs. Jiwoong flinched, his body reacting faster than his mind. His heart thudded once, hard, then settled again into something dull and slow.
His grandfather stood up. “I’m going to swim.”
His grandmother sighed. “Don’t go too far.”
“I won’t.”
Jiwoong watched him walk toward the water, his figure slowly swallowed by brightness and movement, until he was just another body among many. For a moment, Jiwoong felt the faintest spark of panic, the irrational fear of losing sight of someone important, and then even that faded.
He lay back on the towel and closed his eyes.
Behind his eyelids, the light was red and pulsing. The sounds didn’t stop. They just became distant, like they were happening in another world. He focused on his breathing, on the rise and fall of his chest, on the way the towel scratched faintly against his back.
He thought, vaguely, that this was supposed to be nice.
The sea. The sun. A vacation.
He tried to remember the last time he’d been at a beach with his parents. The memory wouldn’t come. Or maybe it did, but it stopped just short of becoming clear, like a word on the tip of his tongue.
Instead, his mind drifted somewhere else entirely — to the weight of suitcases, to the echo of airports, to rooms that weren’t like his. To the constant awareness of being watched, measured, worried over. To the quiet expectation that he should be grateful.
He opened his eyes again.
The sky was still there. Too blue. Too big.
His grandmother sat beside him, reading, occasionally glancing up to make sure he hadn’t disappeared. Jiwoong met her eyes once, gave her a small nod to reassure her. She smiled, relieved.
He looked back at the sea.
He felt like he was watching his own life from a distance, like if he concentrated hard enough, he might float up and away entirely. Part of him thought that wouldn’t be so bad.
Jiwoong noticed two figures that kept his focus.
At first, it was only movement near the waterline, two boys bending and straightening again, their shadows stretching long across the wet sand. He followed them with his eyes absentmindedly, the way he’d been watching waves or passing clouds, until something about one of them felt familiar.
Hanbin.
He recognized him not immediately by his face, but by the way he moved. He laughed with his whole body, leaning forward, hands flailing slightly as he talked. Even from this distance, Jiwoong could tell when he was smiling.
The boy with him stood close, close enough that their shoulders brushed as they worked. He was taller than Hanbin, slender, with dark hair that fell into his eyes when he bent down. He listened more than he spoke, head tilted, occasionally nodding before saying something that made Hanbin burst into laughter again.
They were building something together.
A sandcastle, Jiwoong realized after a moment. The walls were uneven, collapsing in places, rebuilt immediately with no frustration. Water crept toward it in thin, foamy fingers, threatening to erase their work at any moment. Neither of them seemed to mind.
Jiwoong thought, distantly, that they looked alike.
Not just their physiques. Not just their faces or their height. But in something harder to define. The ease between them. The way they existed next to each other without effort.
Hanbin said something and pointed toward the sea. The other boy followed his gesture, squinting, then shook his head, smiling. Hanbin nudged him lightly with his shoulder. The boy nudged him back.
Jiwoong felt something twist in his chest.
They looked alive.
They were present. They belonged exactly where they were, like the sun and the water and the people around them were things to be engaged with, not endured.
Jiwoong looked down at his own hands, resting uselessly on the towel. Pale. Still. They didn’t look like the hands of someone who built things. Or laughed without thinking.
He looked back up.
A wave reached the sandcastle and washed part of it away. Hanbin yelped, exaggeratedly upset, while the other boy immediately dropped to his knees to fix it. They worked quickly, fingers digging into wet sand, their heads touching.
Jiwoong watched until his eyes started to sting.
He wasn’t sure why.
He told himself it was nothing. Just people. Just kids at the beach. Just a moment that didn’t belong to him.
Still, he kept watching, like if he looked away, whatever they were carrying with them, that lightness, might disappear entirely.
Hanbin noticed him suddenly.
“Jiwoong!” he called out, waving one arm over his head like he was afraid Jiwoong might disappear if he didn’t make himself obvious enough.
Jiwoong flinched, instinctively glancing toward his grandmother. She was already looking at him, following Hanbin’s line of sight. Her expression softened immediately.
“That’s the boy from last night,” she said. “Why don’t you go?”
Jiwoong hesitated. His body felt heavy, like standing up required a decision he wasn’t sure he was ready to make.
She nudged him gently in the back. “Go on.”
So, he went.
The sand was cooler near the water, damp beneath his feet. Hanbin was grinning when Jiwoong reached them, crouched beside the half-ruined sandcastle. The other boy stood up more slowly, brushing sand off his hands.
“This is Hao,” Hanbin said, gesturing between them. “He’s Chinese.”
Hao gave a small wave. “Hi.”
“Jiwoong,” Jiwoong said.
“How old are you?” Hanbin asked suddenly, like it was the most important thing in the world.
“Twelve.”
Hanbin’s eyes widened. “No way. I’m ten.”
Hao hesitated, then added quietly, “I’ll be eleven soon.”
Hanbin laughed, delighted. “Our ages are in a row. That’s kind of perfect, right?”
Jiwoong nodded, even though he wasn’t sure why it mattered.
Hanbin and Hao slipped back into English easily, words moving fast, overlapping sometimes. Jiwoong caught pieces — about the waves, about how high they could make the tower before it collapsed. He tried to follow, but the sentences blurred together, sounds more than meaning.
He drifted in and out.
Sometimes Hanbin would turn to him and translate a sentence quickly, summarizing it in Korean before jumping right back into English. Other times, he wouldn’t. Jiwoong didn’t mind. He was used to missing things.
He crouched down and started packing wet sand onto the base of the castle, pressing it flat with his palms. The texture grounded him a little. It felt cold and heavy, and most of it — real.
Hao worked beside him, quiet, focused. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, it was soft, thoughtful. He handed Jiwoong clumps of sand without looking at him directly, like it was already understood that they were building this together.
Jiwoong liked him.
There was something about Hao’s stillness that felt familiar. The way he listened more than he spoke. The way he seemed present but slightly removed, like he was standing half a step back from the world.
Hanbin kept narrating everything, what they were building, how tall it would be, how it would survive the next wave. He laughed when the water crept too close, shrieked dramatically when part of the wall collapsed, then rebuild it with renewed enthusiasm.
Jiwoong’s mind floated in and out of the moment.
Sometimes he focused on the sound of their voices. Sometimes on the way sunlight reflected off the water. Sometimes on nothing at all. He felt distant, but not alone.
They were good company.
—
The days began to blur.
Jiwoong slept as long as his grandparents allowed him to. Sometimes he woke to the sound of his grandmother moving quietly through the small house, sometimes to his grandfather’s voice on the phone, speaking in careful, academic tones. He would lie still until someone came to check on him, until he was reminded that staying in bed too long was not something people liked.
Then they would go to the beach.
The walk there became familiar. The same trees. The same uneven stones. The same children running past him with no sense of direction. The same smell of salt and sunscreen and something cooked drifting from a place he never bothered to locate.
He looked for them first.
Hanbin and Hao were almost always already there, close to the water, close to each other. Sometimes they were building castles. Sometimes they were just sitting, talking. Hanbin usually noticed him before Jiwoong did, waving too big, smiling too wide.
They played whatever came to mind.
His favourite moments were when they were throwing small stones into the sea and guessing which one would sink first. Or when they just stayed in the water with no particular rules or games in mind.
Hanbin talked the most. Hao talked when he had something to say. Hanbin would translate for him, but Jiwoong mostly learned how to follow tone instead of words. He learned the difference between Hanbin’s excited voice and his thoughtful one. He learned when Hao was joking even if he didn’t understand the joke.
Some days Jiwoong felt more present than others. On good days, he laughed without thinking. He forgot to watch himself. On bad days, he drifted again, watched everything like it was happening behind a glass. Hanbin didn’t seem to notice the difference. Hao might have.
They always went back later, when the sun started to lower and Jiwoong’s grandparents called for him from afar. He never wanted to leave first. Hanbin never wanted anyone to leave at all.
They ate dinner with his grandparents. His grandmother asked him questions he answered in short sentences. His grandfather talked about the program, about other families, about how impressive everyone was. Jiwoong listened and nodded and tried not to think about how none of it felt like it belonged to him.
Then he slept again. And woke up. And did it all over.
The days stacked on top of each other until it was hard to remember which things had happened yesterday and which had happened a week ago. Everything felt like one long afternoon that never ended. Jiwoong wasn’t sure if he wanted it to end at all.
It was few days before Hao’s birthday.
By then their routine had settled comfortably, it had turned into something reliable. They met at the same place every day, close to the water, where the sand stayed dark and cool, where the waves reached them easily. That day the sea looked restless, white foam constantly tearing itself apart against the shore. It was decided that they had to go in.
They waded in together, and even in the shallows they got almost instantly submerged. The water was colder than normal, cold enough to take his breath away for a second.
“Let’s go deeper,” Hanbin shouted, already moving ahead of them.
Hao hesitated, but followed him, like he always did. Jiwoong was few steps behind. Hanbin was yelling every time a wave crashed into him. He fell dramatically into the water, Hao grabbed him by the arm, trying to save him, mocking a tragic looking face. They both laughed.
Jiwoong was also laughing, watching them from a distance. He was glad they weren’t including him in their games. He preferred watching, stepping back into his own imaginary world.
Hanbin was now trying to dunk Hao’s head underwater. Hao was fighting back, but it was obvious he wasn’t trying hard enough to escape.
Jiwoong just let himself being pushed and pulled by the waves. He felt alive in a way he only felt at this place, at this present moment. He was only a body, experiencing the water. He didn’t have a heart, no brain to distract him, no soul to push him in another direction. It was him as only his body, as only the shallow peel of his essence, and the pure form of nature wrapping him up in comfort. The only feeling present was the pure form of love. Love for the sun, the water, for the fact that he is breathing even after his whole world stopped breathing. Love for the laughing two human beings in his proximity. He didn’t know the simplest things about them; half of the time he had no idea what they were talking about. But oh God, he loved them. It was the only real emotion he could feel.
Reality snapped back into his vision, after he saw, or heard at first, the voice of his grandmother calling him from the shore. He was still in a daze, murmured something to his friends and just followed his grandma’s voice.
She was waiting for him with a towel to dry him off.
“I prepared food for you and the other two little heroes, but I forgot them at the house. Could you go and bring it here?” She asked, honey in her voice.
Jiwoong nodded. He didn’t trust his mouth to do much more than that. She wrapped the towel around his shoulders, rubbed his hair once like he was still small, then let him go.
He started walking.
The path back felt unreal. His body moved, but his mind stayed somewhere else. He was still in the water, still in the light, still in that place where he didn’t have to be anything but breathing skin. Sand stuck to his ankles. Water dripped from him in slow, quiet lines. He watched the drops hit the ground like it was someone else’s body leaking away.
He didn’t think about anything.
He didn’t think about his parents. He didn’t think about his grandparents. He didn’t even think about Hanbin and Hao, even though they were still warm in his chest. His thoughts were just fog — soft, shapeless, drifting without direction.
The houses of the campsite appeared in front of him one by one. Old little buildings, campers, tents, everything looking temporary and eternal at the same time. His house was close now. He could already see the door.
“Hey!”
The voice cut through the fog.
Jiwoong turned.
The boy standing a few steps away was shorter than him, a little chubby, with cheeks that lifted high when he smiled. His eyes curved upward sharply, fox-like, bright and curious. He looked like he was always about to laugh.
“Hi,” the boy said in English, loud and fearless. “Do you know where the beach is?”
Jiwoong pointed behind him. “That way.”
He thought how silly this question was, you could literally see the sea from where they were standing.
“Oh. So I walked in the wrong direction,” the boy laughed. “That makes sense. I do that a lot.”
They stood there for a second, just looking at each other. The boy tilted his head.
“Your name is Jiwoong, right?”
Jiwoong frowned slightly. “How do you know that?”
“I heard some kids talking,” he said. “They said there’s a Korean boy named Jiwoong staying near the front houses.”
Jiwoong nodded.
The boy hesitated, then switched to Korean, awkward and careful, like he was afraid the words might break. “I heard you’re from Korea. I’ve never been there.”
“I am,” Jiwoong said quietly.
The boy’s face lit up. “I’m Matthew. I’m Korean too, but I’m from Canada. My Korean is kind of bad.”
“It’s okay,” Jiwoong said. “It’s really good.”
Matthew smiled like that meant everything.
“I have two other friends here,” Matthew said. “They’re Korean too. If you want, you can meet them later.”
Jiwoong didn’t want to meet new people. Even the idea made his chest feel tight, like he’d have to become someone again. He just got used to Hanbin and Hao.
But Matthew was standing there smiling at him like kindness was the easiest thing in the world.
“…Okay,” Jiwoong said.
Matthew clapped his hands once, excited. “Then I’ll come find you later.”
Jiwoong nodded, then continued toward the house.
He didn’t say anything about Matthew when he came back.
He handed his grandmother the bag, took the food from her, and carried it back to the shore like nothing new had happened. Hanbin was splashing Hao with water, laughing. Hao tried to look annoyed but failed, his mouth betraying him with a small smile. Jiwoong sat down beside them and watched them for a moment before joining in, letting the water touch his toes and pull him back into that soft, empty place again.
They ate together, sand sticking to everything. Hanbin talked the most, switching between English and Korean without even noticing. Hao listened more than he spoke, nodding, adding a sentence here and there. Jiwoong mostly watched, answered when spoken to, and stayed quiet when he wasn’t.
The sun slowly leaned toward the water. The wind sharpened. Parents started calling names from different directions.
By the time they left the beach, it was already late afternoon.
Jiwoong walked with his grandparents, Hanbin and Hao with their families close by. Their shadows stretched long in front of them, thin and strange on the sand. The sky had started turning soft colors —orange, pink, quiet blue, like someone had painted gently and then stopped.
He saw them immediately when they entered the campsite.
Three boys stood near one of the wider paths, where bicycles were usually parked. One of them was bouncing in place, arms moving too much, too fast. Jiwoong recognized him even from far away.
Matthew.
Next to him were two boys he didn’t know. One was about Matthew’s height, maybe a little taller, standing straighter, quieter. The other was clearly younger — shorter, softer, his steps small and careful like he was still deciding where to place his feet.
Jiwoong’s eyes stayed on them longer than he meant to.
The two unfamiliar boys stood close to each other. The younger one kept drifting nearer to the taller one, like he was tied to him with an invisible string.
They must be brothers, Jiwoong thought.
Matthew spotted him then and started waving both arms.
“Jiwoong!”
Hanbin turned first. “You know him?”
Jiwoong nodded. “I met him earlier.”
They walked closer together, sand crunching under their feet. Parents slowed naturally behind them, watching with a distant interest.
Matthew rushed forward. “You came!” he said, like it had been a promise.
“I said I would,” Jiwoong answered.
Matthew turned to the others, proud. “This is Jiwoong. He’s from Korea.”
Hanbin stepped forward easily. “I’m Hanbin. I’m ten years old.”
Jiwoong thought how silly it sounded to always introduce yourself with a number.
“I’m also ten,” Matthew said quickly.
The taller unfamiliar boy spoke next. “Taerae. Ten too.”
They all looked at each other for a second, like that mattered more than anything.
“I’m Hao,” Hao said. “I’m turning eleven in two days.”
Their eyes shifted to the smallest one.
“I’m Yujin,” he said softly. “I’m eight.”
It showed. In the way his clothes looked a little too big, in how his hands stayed close to his body, in how he kept glancing at the taller boy beside him.
Jiwoong looked between Taerae and Yujin again. They still stood close, not touching, but not far either.
“So you’re brothers?” Hanbin stole the question out of his head.
Taerae blinked. “No.”
Yujin shook his head quickly. “No, we just met here.”
“Oh,” Jiwoong thought, a little embarrassed at how sure he had been.
Matthew laughed. “Yujin just follows people he likes.”
Yujin’s ears turned red.
“I like Taerae,” he said quietly in Korean.
Taerae smiled, a smile that was even bigger than Matthew’s. “We are easy to like.”
Yujin’s mother appeared then, resting a hand on his shoulder, smiling politely at everyone and at the parents gathered behind them. Soft greetings passed between adults, voices low and gentle.
“You can all walk around the campsite together,” one of the parents said.
“But don’t go far,” another added.
They all nodded quickly.
The parents slowly drifted away after that, voices fading into other paths, other worries. Only Yujin’s mother stayed, watching them with an easy smile, like she already trusted them.
“Do you want ice cream?” she asked.
Six heads turned at once.
She laughed and pulled some money from her bag, placing it into Taerae’s hand. “Go. But come straight back.”
They promised loudly, all at the same time, and started toward the small store near the center of the campsite.
They walked in a loose line, sometimes splitting, sometimes bumping into each other. Matthew walked in front, talking the most, pointing at things that didn’t matter — bicycles, a dog, a flag someone had hung.
Hao kept glancing around, shoulders slightly tense, like he was afraid of being seen doing something wrong. Taerae did the same, more subtle, eyes flicking back toward where the adults had gone.
Jiwoong noticed it without really understanding it.
The store was small and smelled like something sweet and sunscreen. The freezer hummed loudly. They crowded in front of it, glass foggy, hands pressing against it as they argued over flavors in English too fast for Jiwoong to fully follow.
“I want strawberry.”
“Chocolate is better.”
“No, melon.”
“Vanilla is boring.”
Jiwoong waited until someone asked him.
“What do you want?” Hanbin said, already holding two different kinds.
“Anything,” Jiwoong answered.
Hanbin picked for him without saying another word.
Outside, they tore open wrappers and ate too fast. Ice cream dripped onto fingers, onto the ground, onto shirts. Yujin got some on his nose and didn’t notice until Matthew laughed and wiped it off for him.
They sat on a low wooden fence, legs swinging.
Hao still looked around, like he expected someone to call his name sharply. Taerae leaned closer to him without touching, like he was trying to say something without words.
“They won’t see you,” Matthew said, reading them easily.
Hao nodded, though he still checked once more.
They started talking more easily after that. About where they were from, about school, about things they missed and things they didn’t. Taerae was actually from Scotland which explained the funny way he talked, even though his Korean was almost fluent. Yujin and Hanbin were both attending international schools, which explained their good English. But still most of the things said, stayed a mystery to Jiwoong. Matthew, Taerae, and Yujin talked like people who had already known each other their whole life. They had met on the very first day, they said. All six of them had arrived on the same day, but those three had found each other faster.
After that afternoon, it just… happened.
No one said, Let’s meet again tomorrow. No one made plans. They simply started being together.
Every morning, Jiwoong would wake up slowly and heavy, the way he always did, like sleep didn’t really leave him, it just loosened its grip. He would eat quietly with his grandparents, nod at their questions, and then drift toward the beach. And every day, they were already there.
Hanbin running into the water first. Matthew shouting something loudly. Hao standing close to Hanbin. Taerae sitting with Yujin, legs buried in sand, not talking much. Jiwoong found himself going to Taerae and Yujin the most.
Taerae spoke to him in Korean when he could, slower than with the others, careful not to lose him. Yujin barely spoke at all, but he listened. When he smiled, it felt like he meant it with his whole body.
They spent their days at the beach. Swimming, floating, building things that the sea destroyed without apology. They argued about whose fault it was when a sandcastle collapsed, even though it was always the water.
Then, before dinner, there was always that one hour.
An hour where parents were tired, where rules softened, where the campsite belonged to them. They ran between houses and tents, played with broken balls and lost toys, invented games that had no rules and no winners.
Jiwoong was the only one there with grandparents.
Yujin had only his mother.
No one ever asked about Yujin’s father. The question hovered sometimes, in the way adults avoided certain words, in the way Yujin never mentioned him. But it was never spoken out loud, and so it stayed harmless.
Matthew and Hanbin grew close fast. Too fast, maybe. They were loud together, dramatic, always touching, pulling each other’s arms, leaning into each other when they laughed.
Hao stayed by Hanbin’s side like it was where he belonged.
Jiwoong watched that, quietly. He didn’t envy it. He just noticed it.
Taerae and Yujin stayed near each other too, in their own way.
And Jiwoong… Jiwoong became something like a wall.
Parents spoke to him differently than they spoke to the others. They looked at him and Hao like they were already older, already responsible. When someone scraped a knee, they looked at Jiwoong first. When someone ran too far, Hao and Jiwoong were called.
He didn’t mind.
He liked carrying something.
He liked being trusted with bodies that were smaller than his, with voices that were louder than his, with chaos that didn’t belong to him.
The days felt endless. Not in a heavy way. In a soft way. Like time had decided to stop moving foward.
Mornings didn’t feel like beginnings. Nights didn’t feel like endings. Everything in between blurred into one long stretch of sun and salt and voices. Sometimes Jiwoong couldn’t remember if something had happened today or yesterday or three days ago. He only knew that it had happened here, and that was enough.
The sun rose and fell, but it didn’t matter when. Lunch came when someone’s stomach hurt. Dinner came when the sky turned orange. Sleep came when his body stopped carrying him.
There were no clocks in his head anymore. Only patterns. How the light reflected in the water in the morning. Sand and salt on skin. How the noises of leaves brushed by the wind sounded like. Laughter that wasn’t his, but somehow, he was still a part of it. The quiet weight of standing slightly behind the others, watching them exist.
Some days he forgot to be sad. Not because the sadness was gone, but because he was tired of the internal screaming. It curled up somewhere deep inside him and slept while the rest of him learned how to float.
—
The day before they had to leave arrived quietly. At first, it seemed almost ordinary. The sun rose over the horizon in the same soft gold, spilling light across the water and the sand. The waves rolled in rhythmically, and the wind rustled through the trees with a sound that had become familiar, comforting, and necessary. Yet beneath all that ordinary, something in Jiwoong’s body shifted. He moved more slowly than usual, each step feeling heavier and softer at the same time, like the world was stretching out beneath him. His limbs felt reluctant, as if they already knew what was coming and wanted to remember the moment before it slipped away. The air smelled of salt, sunscreen, and warm wood from the old beach houses, and it carried the faintest trace of laughter and shouting from the other campers, a sound that had begun to feel like part of the background of his life here.
He had said his goodbyes in pieces. No farewell at the end, no dramatic moment that would force the goodbye into memory. He had moved between them quietly, awkwardly, a little stiff in his skin. To Hanbin first, because it felt impossible not to, awkward and short, words catching in his throat as though he might break if he lingered too long. Hanbin hugged him without hesitation, too tight and too long, and then laughed as if nothing mattered at all, as if this was only another afternoon that would continue tomorrow. Hao stayed slightly behind, keeping his hands in his pockets, eyes careful, calculating the words he would speak and the ones he would leave unsaid. When he finally said goodbye, it was measured, restrained, as if he were reserving the weight of his true feelings for another time, another place. Matthew had promised, loudly and confidently, that they would meet again. Taerae had smiled in the way he always did, wide and warm, the kind of smile that made the world feel brighter even when everything else seemed dull. And Yujin had just waved, a small hand lifted.
The adults spoke over them, quietly. Parents and grandparents exchanged words that meant little to Jiwoong in their weightless form. They thanked each other, offered polite nods, murmured reminders, and reassurances, all passing over him without pause or notice. It sounded like clouds moving overhead. His own grandparents stood near him, their expressions polite but firm, like they had already rehearsed this moment a thousand times in their minds and now only needed to perform it.
It was after dinner when Jiwoong found himself alone. The sky had lost its warmth but hadn’t yet reached the black of night. He found a piece of old wood lying near their house. Maybe it had been part of a fence, maybe a long-forgotten bench; he didn’t know. He lowered himself onto it and stayed still, letting his weight sink into it, letting the roughness of the wood press against him, grounding him in this moment that already felt like the last.
Somewhere far off, near the center of the campsite, laughter drifted toward him, loose and uncontained. Children and adults mixed together, voices overlapping and rising and falling into a rhythm he could not predict. Plates clinked somewhere, footsteps crunched over sand and gravel, and someone called a name that he could not identify. The sounds were not intrusive, they wrapped around him instead, filling the space of the night that had begun to press close.
His chest felt heavy at first, then strange, then full. He didn’t feel a weight pressing down. At least not in a way that emptiness hollows a space. It was full. Like he was a container finally holding something, even though he didn’t know what. The sadness he had carried since that terrible day was there, but it was softer. It wasn’t screaming at him anymore. It had curled itself into a quiet corner of his chest and gone to sleep. He let himself feel the rest of the world, let himself float in this temporary calm.
He was sad. Deeply sad. The sadness could have swallowed him whole, it had left him hollow and cold for months, but it coexisted now with something else. A fragile, quiet peace had settled into the same room as the grief. They did not fight. They did not push against each other. They simply existed in a parallel.
He pressed his feet into the sand, letting the grains slip slowly between his toes. The wind brushed at his skin, brushing through his hair, carrying with it the smell of water, salt, and the soft decay of leaves. He could hear it all, the breathing of this place. He could feel it all. And for the first time in a long time, he let it exist in him without trying to escape it.
Tomorrow he would leave. Tomorrow this place would become memory. Tomorrow he would have to step back into a life that demanded him to be someone again, to put on the masks he had been learning to wear since that day.
He couldn’t help but think about his parents.
He had tried not to. Since the day everything had broken, since the world had tilted sideways and never righted itself, he had learned how to step around that thought, how to treat it like a corner of the room he didn’t need to notice. He had walked past it every day, pretending it wasn’t waiting for him everywhere he went. But now, sitting alone on the rough wood, wrapped in the stillness of the evening, there was nothing left to distract him. No waves to drag him along, no voices close enough to catch, no laughter that he could cling to. There was only him, the dark settling around the edges of the horizon, the cool press of sand under his feet, and the hollow space inside his chest that had been waiting for months to open fully.
Their faces came to him slowly, softly, like they were afraid of scaring him away.
His mother’s hands, gentle and quick, smoothing his hair in the morning before school. The way she always brushed it away from his forehead, careful not to tangle it. His father’s voice, calling for him to come to dinner, warm and teasing, the kind of voice that could make him feel safe even when he didn’t want to. The way their shoes always stood together by the door, side by side, small and ordinary, a quiet proof that they were there, that they existed, that they were his.
He swallowed, a dry, tight sound in his throat. The memory he hated most didn’t come gently. It never did.
He was home. Everything was the same. It was quiet. The knock at the door. He opened the door. Two men stood there. Faces he had never seen, but they had already formed around a sorry before words had passed their lips.
The words came, jagged and sharp before they even reached his ears: Car. Accident. Hospital. Too late.
His mouth moved, forming a word he didn’t feel. Okay. His body moved, standing there, while the world tipped sideways, disoriented and endless.
He had called for them anyway. Even after the words had landed, even after the truth had settled in the quiet spaces of the house, he had called their names. Over and over. As if repeating them might bring them back, as if the sound of his voice could anchor them to him.
Then his other grandparents arrived. Faces red, raw, and broken. They hugged him so tightly it hurt. Their hands trembled when they touched his hair, as if they were afraid, he might disappear too, afraid he would vanish the same way his parents had. They also carried anger. Anger from the way Jiwoong had found out. As if delivering the news another way was going to change what had happened already.
The house had filled with adults whispering, crying, murmuring his name like a prayer, like it might break if said too loudly. The walls had smelled of flowers and antiseptic, of paper and leather, of grief that could suffocate.
And then, finally, there had been quiet again. Not the quiet of the campsite, of soft waves and evening air. This quiet was heavy, oppressive, stillness that made him small and invisible.
He hadn’t cried much at first. Not the way people expected him to. He had gone still instead. Like if he didn’t move, nothing else could.
Now, sitting on the wooden plank, Jiwoong finally let the sadness move through him. It didn’t crash in like a storm. It didn’t explode. It didn’t shatter. It rose slowly, steadily, filling his chest first, then his throat, then stinging his eyes.
He pressed his hands together between his knees, trying to hold himself still, but his body shook anyway.
He saw them everywhere now. In the dark, in the spaces between sounds, in the laughter that wasn’t his but felt like it could be. He saw the edges of their lives in the sky, in the smell of salt, in the way the sand clung to his feet. He missed them with an intensity he could not name. It felt like something inside him was tearing, slowly, like it didn’t want to finish him all at once.
“I’m still here,” he whispered, though he didn’t know if it was to them, to himself, or to the world.
Tears ran down his cheeks.
He cried for the warmth of his mother’s voice. For the laughter of his father in the kitchen. For the life that had ended without asking him, without warning, leaving him behind to hold all of the pieces.
He cried because he was tired of being strong. He cried because he had no other place to put the feelings, he had been carrying for so long.
The tears didn’t stop. They ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his hands, and for a moment he couldn’t even feel the sand beneath him, couldn’t feel the plank holding his weight. His chest constricted in a way he hadn’t noticed until now, tight and sharp, and the thought of tomorrow, of leaving this place, struck him with a force that made him want to curl up and disappear.
He tried to push it away at first, tried to tell himself it was only the sadness lingering, that it would fade in the morning like it had so many other nights. But this wasn’t just the sadness anymore. This was panic, raw and urgent, clawing at him from inside his chest, whispering that he couldn’t go back. That he didn’t want to go back. That the life waiting for him outside this campsite was unbearable.
His hands trembled. He pressed them to his face, tried to muffle the quiet gasps, tried to control the way his shoulders shook. The waves in the distance, the smell of the sea, even the faint laughter of other children far off, they could not soothe him now. Nothing could. He realized, suddenly and horrifyingly, that all the distractions, all the small joys of this summer, had been shielding him from the truth he had been running from for months.
He was going home. Back to Tokyo. Back to the city that demanded he move through it without pause, back to school, back to the routines that would remind him of everything he had lost. The weight of it pressed on him, suffocating, urgent. He tried to breathe. He tried to slow it. But the panic rose, hot and sharp, and he could not stop it from overwhelming him.
He pressed his hands into the sand again, feeling the grains between his fingers, listening to the rhythm of the waves, trying to anchor himself, trying to remember that here, for now, he could still exist in this space, separate from the reality waiting for him. He could still feel the sun, still hear the laughter, still be part of this fleeting, fragile life that had let him breathe.
This place didn’t hurt as much as home.