Island Fever
by Iztayul Tepes
*previously posted under an alias, entitled "I Believe in Happy Endings 2"

A/N: Before you start reading and thinking, "Oh, another story he'll never finish," know this: THIS STORY IS COMPLETE!!! Yes, complete, and it even has an epilogue. Now don't be afraid to read it, and please review, because I'm not going to waste my time--especially with HTML garbage--if no one's reading this. Thank you! Please enjoy my COMPLETE story. :P Oh, yes--and it's shonen ai/yaoi/slash. And now you have been warned.

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Chapter 1

"Oh, what a view!" the pretty woman sighed, smiling at the sea.

A man walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her slender waist. "Do you like it, darling?"

"Oh, JungHo, it's incredible! I can't believe we'll be living here all summer!"

Neither could I.

The couple was my parents, and I thought they were idiots.

I had taken off my sunglasses; useless, with no sun. I hadn't wanted to come to this stupid island in the first place, but after seeing the post cards, Mom was bought. "Come to beautiful, tropical Chejudo! Where the sun shines and the water sparkles fresh and clear..." Bullshit. It was so foggy off the beach that I couldn't even see the water. And it smelled--the whole island reeked of fish. I hate fish. My parents had taken me to an aquarium--once--for my tenth birthday. I had puked. Now, at seventeen, my feeling of repulsion to the sea scum had not lessened at all.

"SangHwan, come up here and check out this view!" my mother called to me. It was so misty and dark out, even in the middle of the day. I didn't expect to see much of a view, even from the wide deck of our large, rented beach house, but I certainly hadn't expected it to get worse. But worsen, it had, and now not only could I see fog and...fog, but I could see a bit of the beach right in front of the house, covered in slimy, putrid-smelling seaweed.

"What do you think, son?" JungHo asked excitedly (I never called him "Dad"). "I think I would have rather spent my summer vacation in Seoul," I replied harshly, turning away from them and walking back down the porch steps to towards the car. They ignored me, at least I assumed they did. As usual, I had simply turned my back on them and gone on about my own business. Back at the rental car, I grabbed my own two suitcases, then clambered back onto the deck, waiting impatiently for my dad to unlock the house. He took his time, of course, listening to the babble of that local, the guy who'd driven us to the house (we're from Seoul, you know; it's not like any of us had ever seen the inside of a car, let alone drive one!). Come on! Get lost, redneck! Your job's finished. Some of us have more important things to be doing than chitchatting with local yokels.

When at last the door was open, I unceremoniously trudged inside to pick a room. I assumed they didn't care which I claimed; there were four bedrooms, and only three of us, and my parents would be sharing their room, besides. I peeked into two different rooms before deciding they all must be tacky, and threw my suitcases on the floor in the larger of the two. I hit the play button on my portable CC player, and, resuming the track I'd been listening to in the car, flopped down onto the musty bed.

I'm not sure how long I lay there, listening to the same track over and over, but I must have fallen asleep, because I jumped when Mom came in to get me for dinner.

"Time to eat, sleepyhead! Let's go."

I groaned at her, acting more irritated than I really was, and followed her slowly to the kitchen. "What's for dinner?"

"Well," she said, her eyes twinkling as she turned to face me, "your father and I figured that since we're spending our first night in our beach house, the appropriate dinner would be--"

I moaned loudly, not bothering to let her finish. I could smell it from the hallway. It was fish.

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After half an hour of playing with the crust in my dish, I went out on the deck for a smoke. Probably my parents didn't like that; I really didn't care. I was a bit surprised to see that the night view was quite different outside than it had been earlier in the daylight. The stench of the sea creatures seemed to have faded, leaving behind a scent that I couldn't identify, but almost found pleasant. The fog had cleared, and by the light of the full moon I could see that the tide had come and washed away the seaweed. Probably why it doesn't smell so bad now, I figured.

I lit up a cigarette, and as I took a long, slow drag, I let my anger burn itself out. I hated this place already, and I wanted to go back to Seoul. It was my last summer vacation before my senior year of high school. I could have spent my days there, lazily getting up past noon and using transports to get to the hottest clubs in the evenings with all my friends. But instead I found myself on an island with no one I knew, and only my parents and hicks for company. Really, these island people live like savages, I thought. Their accents were strange to me, slow and slurred, like the whole place was trapped in some mass, drunken stupor. They didn't have a single transport on the island, but back in Seoul, things like cars were merely antiques in a museum. All one had to do was hop into a transport, and have their particles scattered and then mashed back together wherever they wanted to be! Of course, there were set distances that this could be done, and I supposed hopping ports on Cheju was just too complicated for these simpletons.

I flicked some ashes from my smoke, exhaling and letting my frustrations go. It was too late to do anything about it now, but I knew already I wasn't going to enjoy myself a bit, and I would show my parents what a mistake this had been.

Filled with new purpose, I decided to take a walk along the water, despite that it was a bit chilly and the wind had picked up. So I cast down the butt, leaving it to smolder itself out, hoping against hope I would return to find it'd burned the house down. Not bothering to mention I was going out, I jumped over the railing of the deck, falling a good four feet or so to the sand below. The fall was gentle on my bare feet, and I took off at a mad dash for the shoreline. It felt good to use the pent-up energy; I knew there were no basketball courts here to keep me in shape. I figured once I got back to school in the fall, they'd kick me off the team, anyway, because I'd forget how to play.

I slowed to a jog, the breeze then not whipping quite so harshly through my longish purple hair. I was very thin, in great shape, but still a bit winded by the time I reached the water. Maybe it was the view; I hadn't expected it to take my breath away. The moonlight reflecting on the waves made the water seem to glow ethereally, and the sight of it rushing out to meet me was exciting. I actually stood close enough to wet my toes, and was pleased at the feeling of the soft sand turning to mush right under me. But suddenly I felt...dizzy, like I was being swept away. Next thing I knew, I was face-down in the mud.

I laid there for a moment, waiting for the water to recede, before crawling to my hands and knees. The ocean was laughing at me--no, quite literally, I heard the sound of laughter. Only it was coming from behind. I staggered clumsily to my feet, dismayed to see my mud-soaked shorts and T-shirt, and spun around to face the joker. And I stared.

Standing behind me was some kind of sprite or elf, or so I thought at the time. It had to be some kind of siren right out of the sea. He stood there, eyes shining in the moonlight like a cat's, a silly--nonetheless cute--smile on his full lips. His hair was wild and untamed, puffing out around his head like a halo. He was wearing a sweater over baggy pants, its sleeves so long they completely covered his hands. He looked the perfect vision of innocence, a child in a man's clothes. And this little kid was laughing at me.

"You think that's funny?!" I shouted at him.

His laughter subsided, but his smile remained, almost friendly, but I would have none of it.

"I may have fainted, you know! I could have just lain there and drowned and nobody would have known! And you're laughing!!!"

But he wasn't laughing, not anymore. His expression had become serious, though his eyes still shone like the stars. He shook his head quickly, his fluffy hair becoming more wild with the wind. "You didn't faint," he said in that slow, Cheju drawl. But for some reason, it didn't sound quite so bad when he said it. "You're not used to the ocean is all. First time to the beach?"

I simply stood there, speechless, just as mesmerized by the music of his voice as I was reluctant to admit the truth.

He smiled again. "I could show you..."

He came closer, moving as though to embrace me, and suddenly I was scared. I didn't know what of, or why, but the thought of him touching me was terrifying and exciting at the same time. I backed away, mumbling something like, "I have to go," then ran as fast as I could towards the lights of the beach house, never turning back.

When I opened the front door and stepped inside, my parents were sitting on a very uncomfortable-looking straw couch, watching the DV. (Ha! My parents; the nature lovers.) JungHo glanced up, then did a sharp double-take. He grinned. "Been down to the beach?"

"Shut up!" I hissed, but he only laughed. I told him to "shut up" so often he probably thought I was joking. But, if ever I had, tonight I wasn't.

"It's your first time to the ocean," he went on casually. "It takes a little time to find your feet, that's all. I remember the first time your mother and I went to the beach. Honey, do you remember?"

"Of course!" Mother smiled. "We came to Chejudo for our honeymoon. We'd never seen the water look so beautiful..."

"Fell flat on our faces, we did!"

"But it wasn't so bad after that... And remember that Frisbee game when we..."

I let the sound of their voices trail away as I stomped loudly down the hall, hoping to disturb their program, if they were even watching it at all anymore. I brushed sand off my clothes right in the hallway, smirking a bit at the thought of my mom having to clean that up in the morning. No robotic maid here! And I wasn't about to help with housework. That was the job of machines and servants.

Back in my room, I was further infuriorated to see that Mom had been in to straighten up a bit. My clothes were all folded neatly on my bed, ready to be put into drawers, and the suitcases I had crammed them in were stacked in the corner. I growled, ripping the top blanket off the bed and throwing the clothes all over the room. I hated it when she messed with my things. I saw that someone had already set my stereo on the desk, and I popped in Novasonic's first album, a classic and my personal favorite, and turned the volume all the way up. Banging my head a few times to "Sun's Country," I began shoving my clothes into random drawers, making more of a mess than even I was used to. I liked my place to look lived-in, and the robotic maids were not even allowed near my door at home. They'd ignored the specialized program at first, but after I'd shoved my dad's screwdrivers up their robotic rectums, they got the point.

Once my room was thoroughly trashed, I pulled off the rest of the covers from the bed and opened the window wide. I preferred to sleep in a cold room with nothing but a sheet. Does that sound masochistic, to want to suffer that way? Maybe so, but it made me most comfortable.

After I'd settled down, and turned the volume down for my own benefit, I drifted off to a troubled sleep, dreaming of magical, mystical mermaids with starry eyes, trying to drag me into the sea.