Minho felt someone sit down beside him. He could tell it was Jonghyun. Jonghyun gave off an energy, completely unique to him, like tiny rifts in the atmosphere. Minho couldn’t explain it but he knew it was Jonghyun.
His theory was proven when he heard a grunt and felt the polaroid he was holding onto for dear life being plucked out of his hands.
Minho opened his eyes slowly, the sun reflecting off of the water a little too bright. He glanced over to Jonghyun’s hands.
Jonghyun tilted his head back onto the chain link fence behind them. “You don’t know? Or you didn’t ask.”
The beachtown they were at was a speciality resort–total anonymity as a rule–sharing was only allowed through trust and consent. Otherwise people went by their first initials. Minho was M, Taemin had been T, and Jonghyun, J until a mishap at the ferris wheel had them all revealing their first names over gut busting laughter. There had been a woman at a seashell shack who went by the name A and a pair of lovers who went by Y and Y.
Minho’s gazed shifted to the polaroid. “O,” he thought.
People visited to get away, to be someone else for a weekend, to leave all of their troubles behind. Minho had come to escape the harsh demands of sports journalism. Taemin, because he would soon set off on a grueling tour and Jonghyun had come to get over his cold feet.
O had come to be relieve himself, temporarily, of the pressures of taking over his father’s company, he’d said. His dream was to sing; his father wanted him in mergers and acquisitions. They’d met one night on the fishing pier. It was O’s voice that had him drifting down the wooden planked walkway, the voice, deep and rich–it seeped into his bones, under his skin, made him feel warm, warmer than he’d felt in years. They’d spent the entire night talking, even taking their conversation from the pier to the beach. O held his shoes in one hand and Minho’s hand in the other. Minho had draped his jacket over him when it got chilly. O blew in his eye when a piece of sand got caught there.
O had given him a picture from a magazine article, just the picture, to prove that he really was the son of a chaebol. Minho didn’t have a picture for him so instead of that he tried something different. Minho thought a night under the stars, baring your soul to a stranger was enough to exchange names, so he gave O his…but…
“I asked,” Minho said quietly, looking back over the water.
“Ouch,” Jonghyun muttered. “But that’s the glory of this place. On Monday you’ll be back in your original "skin”. Shapeshifting is only temporary…we always have to return to what means the most.
Minho grunted. He didn’t have anything back home that meant the most. All he had was an empty apartment, a job that demanded too much of him, wanted their pounds of flesh too quickly. He had his family, he adored them but…he wanted…
“Stop looking so down. Try the docks. The first ferry leaves in fifteen minutes. Maybe you can catch your Sandy, Danny.”
The pier wasn’t far but with a festival in town, it was crowded. He maneuvered through the throng thinking maybe if he stood at loading zone he could find him easier.
Minho didn’t realize what his shoulder had checked was a person and he turned around quickly to apologize.
“Oh, it’s you.” The anger bled from the man’s voice, the richness and soft warmth quickly taking over. “Figured I’d never see you again.”
“Yeah…” Minho scratched the back of his head. “I thought that too. I thought and thought about it and I don’t like it. I didn’t like the fact that I would never see you again. So, I want to see you. I want to see you outside of this place. I want to know the real you.”
O frowned. “You met the real me.”
“How could I have if I don’t know your real name? Can I have your real name?”
O’s eyes narrowed and he began to worry his bottom lip between his teeth. “I…I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Minho wasn’t deterred. He didn’t have anything back at home waiting for him, truly waiting for him. He didn’t like to think of his past, so he concentrated on his future. O was in his path for a reason. He just wanted to feel that warmth again. “How did you feel when I gave you my name?”
O looked away, his cheeks tinting red. “I…”
Minho boldly grabbed his hand, threaded his fingers in between the grooves of O’s. “I may not have your name but that picture you gave me? It made me feel good. Like…I ’d done something right, for once. That I was supposed to come here.”
“Minho…” O looked left and then he looked right before he slowly removed his hand from Minho’s. “I’m sorry but I can’t give you my name–”
Minho’s shoulders slumped.
“–here. But…” O grabbed Minho’s hand again. He dug in his pockets and withdrew a pen. “It felt like summer loving so writing my number on your palm feels right…”
Minho waited exactly two weeks before he contemplated calling. A million reasons why O didn’t trust Minho with his name ran through his head and he wondered if O was telling the absolute truth. Maybe he wasn’t on the island to ease his mind, maybe he was running from something or someone. Did Minho want to get involved in that?
If it meant feeling warmth again… then…then yes.
He grabbed his phone and punched in the numbers he’d memorized on his trip home.
“Hello, this is Lee Jinki.”
Lee Jinki. His name was Lee Jinki.
“Uh…hi Jinki…this is Minho.”
There was silence on the line before a warm chuckle and a soft sigh.
