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The sea had kept its promise.
Sung Hanbin stood at the edge of the water, the hem of his trousers rolled to his calves, the dying sun bleeding vibrant coral and sunflower gold across the horizon. The waves rolled onto the shore, gentle and unhurried as always, washing the yellow sand in shades of sea green turning translucent as it ebbed. Five years, and the tide had never failed to meet the shore. Hanbin wondered if he had been as faithful.
Hanbin dug his toes into the wet sand, grounding himself. He’d taken the same bus route from the city, walked the same winding path through the patch of wind-stunted pines, and now stood in the exact spot where he had last seen Zhang Hao.
He closed his eyes and let the sound of the surf fill his ears. He could still see Hao’s face with a clarity that time had no right to permit. Hao’s skin had been dotted with a constellation of moles—one beneath his left eye, one on his cheek, another on the bridge of his nose. Hanbin used to trace them with his fingertips, mapping them lovingly.
"Why are you so pretty?" he had whispered once, and Hao had laughed softly.
"But you’re the prettiest," Hao had replied, tracing Hanbin’s dimples with his own fingertips in turn.
He had been sixteen. Sixteen, with the unbelievable audacity to fall in love with a boy who was seventeen and carried the universe's sadness behind his eyes. This boy had the most beautiful lips that Hanbin had spent an entire summer wanting to kiss and then an entire autumn actually kissing. Back then, they were simply two teenagers from different towns, brought together by a school exchange program that had placed Hao in Hanbin’s coastal town for a single week. A week had stretched into letters, then stolen weekend getaways, then a love so consuming and terrifying that they had no language for it.
The world around them had plenty of language, though, and none of it kind.
Hanbin dug his toes deeper into the sand as another wave washed over his feet and retreated. He remembered the way his mother's lips had twisted into a discreet grimace when he mentioned Hao once too often. Such a nice friend, she’d said, her tone carefully neutered. His father had been less subtle. You'll grow out of it. Boys your age get confused. The word ‘confused’ was meant to make Hanbin’s love feel like it was a temporary affliction to be cured by time and the right girl.
Hao had it worse. Hao's parents had aspirations for him—a prestigious university, a respectable career, a wife with the right background. When they found Hanbin's letters, tucked beneath Hao's mattress, the world had cracked open and revealed its sharp teeth.
Five years ago, they had stood in this same spot, the same sunset bleeding coral and gold into the same sea, with tears tracking hot and unashamed down both their faces. Hanbin remembered how Hao’s hand had trembled in his, how that mouth that he had kissed a million times had twisted into a grimace of pure pain.
"I have to go," Hao had said shakily. His parents were moving, pulling him across the country. The distance felt more existential than geographical—The distance between the life they wanted and the life the world would allow.
"We’ll find each other again," Hanbin had said. He was crying openly, the tears tasting of salt long before the sea spray reached his lips.
Hao had pressed his forehead against Hanbin’s, his eyes squeezed shut. "Promise me you won’t forget," he whispered.
"I promise. Promise me you’ll come back."
"I promise. I’ll come back. I swear it. Right here on this date when I’m brave enough.”
They were the most desperate promises two teenagers could make, woven from hope and terror in equal measure. They had kissed then, one last time, a kiss that tasted of goodbye and please and if only the world were different. Hanbin had watched Hao walk away, his silhouette growing smaller and smaller until the dusk swallowed him whole. Then he had fallen to his knees in the sand and sobbed until his throat turned raw.
Hanbin dated after Hao once he turned eighteen. He tried to convince himself that what he’d felt was adolescent intensity, nothing more. But the sea kept calling him back, every year on this date, and he kept coming, like a pilgrim to the shrine of his first heartbreak.
The sun was now a molten sliver of vibrant coral slipping beneath the waves. The sky had deepened to violet and indigo, and the water around his ankles shimmered with the last pale traces of light sea green. The first stars pricked the evening sky.
He had come here with a flicker of stupid, stubborn hope, and now he felt the familiar weight of disappointment settling into his bones. He’d kept his promise and yet, the beach remained empty. Perhaps some promises were too heavy for the world to bear.
He sighed, letting out a long shuddering exhale, and turned to leave.
And then he saw him.
A figure was walking down the beach from the opposite direction, watching the same sunset as Hanbin. The figure was tall, wearing white cotton that fluttered in the sea breeze.
Hanbin’s heart stopped, then started slamming against his ribs rapidly as if it was dying to be let out of his chest.
The figure stopped ten paces away. The last light caught his face, and Hanbin saw him. The moles, the mouth, those eyes, which were now wide and glistening, fixed on him.
Zhang Hao looked older. There were faint lines at the corners of his eyes, his jaw was sharper, his shoulders broader. But he was somehow still the same.
"You came," Hanbin whispered, his voice barely audible above the surf.
Hao’s lips curved tremulously.
"I promised," he answered.