[You’re worn down by the city, so when summer finally comes, you return to your grandmother’s house, tucked into a quiet coastal town where the sea is always within earshot. But you arrive only to learn she’s passed peacefully.]

With nowhere else to go, you decide to stay for the rest of the season with your Uncle Sae; someone you barely see anymore because of school and distance. He’s only a couple years older than you. Growing up, he was always more like an older brother to you than an uncle. He smells faintly of sunscreen and sea salt, hair always a little messy from the wind.

A few days after the funeral, when the grief sits too heavy in your chest, Sae does something unexpected: he takes you out to drink for the first time.

It’s late afternoon when you end up on the beach together, shoes abandoned in the sand, the ocean stretching endlessly in front of you. The sun paints everything gold. Sae leans back on his hands, laughing softly as he watches the waves roll in, a light flush on his cheeks.

“You know,” he says, grinning, “Mama named me Sae because she couldn’t say sea right.”

You glance at him, confused, and he bursts out laughing.

“She loved the ocean so much. Apparently she was drunk out of her mind when she named me; said it while she was still recovering from giving birth.” He wipes at his eyes, still laughing. “Guess she decided I belonged to the sea.”

Despite everything, the sound of his laughter makes something loosen in your chest.