SEASHORE. － k.yk + y.ty

03

One a light peach, with crimson veins encasing it like a fisherman's net, another a strong grey, solid in colour but irregular in its shape.

Youngkyun set the pebbles of the day in line with others previously collected, dotted all around the shack he had called home for some years now. Low ceiling and mainly constructed in dark wood, with no properly divided rooms for the area was too small to have such a luxury, one could consider it impractical.

The walls had shelves upon which were placed books, shells and pebbles, tiny trinkets he had bought with his previous part-time job's earnings, and rimmed with battery-powered fairy lights to offer illumination in the window-less shack.

He had a mattress he would occasionally sleep on, a chest of drawers he got from a flee market for his scant number of clothing items, and a wicker basket he kept human snacks and packets of dried fruit in.

Admittedly, it would be highly improbable that anyone would live in such conditions, but Youngkyun wasn't bothered, for whilst during the day he lived on land, the moment the moon fully rose and blackness painted the world, he'd walk back down to the beach and go into the sea from behind that massive row of boulders which conveniently hid him from sight.

He could never miss a night of going into the saltwater, more because he missed it than it being a true necessity, so even if he only entered to sleep in a safe spot, he would.

It wasn't a pleasant situation, at least for the first few years.

His life was one of loneliness, never having managed to integrate himself in human society nor really trying to out of fear, but he no longer had a place to go back to in the sea, the reef he lived in having been attacked and destroyed, and his search for any other community resulting to be fruitless.

He was merely a child when he was thrown into a whole other universe, alone and afraid - not that he had had any family back in the ocean, either.

No, Youngkyun's life was always just his.

After his best friend had moved away to some distant community when he was eight, he was left as the outcast in his own, too wary to trust others and too shy to even greet them.

Really, he should be used to sparking up conversations with himself since nobody was there to converse with. He should be used to only having his arms to hold him when he awoke, panting and trembling after having to endure numerous nightmares.

To a certain extent, he was. Youngkyun was fine, honestly. It had been this way for so long, he couldn't recall much of it any other way.

He was satisfied with watching families playing on the beach and those humans his age fooling around on the sand so freely.

He was satisfied with pretending he was a part of a group of friends and mentally partaking in their conversation.

Sometimes though, if only for a couple moments, he would feel a sense of despair at realising how alone he was. It was overwhelming, crushing, a sensation which mercilessly squeezed his heart until he'd shed a sole tear.

Was this how his fate was written? Was he destined to live and die, with no one to miss him and no one who could recall his name?

Youngkyun smiled at the new pebbles added to his collection, admiring how they shimmered in the yellow lighting of the miniscule bulbs around the rim of the shelf.

He couldn't wait to dive back into the sea.

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