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I. Jisung has been crouched down for long enough that the tide has peaked, the water centimeters from his feet. It’s hot today. His skin is shiny with sweat and three layers of sunscreen, which his mom keeps calling him over to reapply. She hasn’t stepped foot from beneath the umbrella because she doesn’t like the beach or summertime—sand irritates her skin and the heat makes her lightheaded—but she always brings Jisung out because she knows how much he enjoys it. Most of his time is spent playing: grabbing handfuls of wet sand and seeing how tall he can stack it on top of itself in blobby structures that don’t really look much like any castle he’s ever seen before, digging a moat around the perimeter of the drip castle and watching it fill with water, and squealing anytime something wiggles in the sand. Once the fifth tower crumbles, he leans forward onto the mound of sand with open palms to squish the rest of it down, being sure to fill the holes back in and flatten it the way his mom taught him to. He walks into the shallow waves to wash the sand off of his arms and legs, then looks back at where his mom is sitting. She waves, and Jisung waves, and the day is good.
II. Jisung is the only guy in the group with his shirt still on. The rest of his classmates are talking and laughing, having a conversation he stopped following as soon as everyone started stripping down to their swimsuits. A few of them run to the ocean, walking through the shallow waves and strugging through the crashing ones until the water reaches up to their chests, no hesitation. Someone in their group asks him if he’s coming and Jisung stutters out an excuse. It’s less shame and more discomfort. An early-teens growth spurt has left him unfamiliar with his own body, lanky and awkward like he’s suddenly outgrown the bit of space he was meant to take up, and everything feels wrong, even just standing out of the way, here but as far away as he can be for the term to still apply. When a few upperclassmen join them, Jisung avoids looking, but one of them walks over and introduces himself—as though Jisung wouldn’t recognize the senior class president. Chan isn’t as intimidating as Jisung imagined he would be. He’s friendly. He smiles a lot and sticks by Jisung for a while before dragging him out to the water, both of them still wearing their shirts, and he doesn’t make Jisung feel stupid when he admits that he can’t swim. It’s no problem. They don’t go beyond knee-deep in the water and when a few of their other classmates join them, Jisung stays by Chan’s side, finding he fits rather easily there.
III. Jisung doesn’t know Felix well enough for the guy to offer to put sunscreen on his back, but Jisung has never seen Chan happier than he was the moment he spotted Felix walking toward them through the crowded subway station, so he turns around. Felix has small hands. They’re always on someone, too—have been, at least, since he arrived. Usually it’s Chan, a willing target who reciprocates all the touches because they, ‘go way back’, which is Chan-speech for being childhood friends. Jisung doesn’t point out that they’re also childhood friends, and when he really starts to think about it he has to admit to himself that, with Chan being four years older, they hardly even qualify as high school friends. Chan has old family videos of him and Felix running around someone’s yard, laughing and screaming while their parents speak casually in the background, years before Chan even thought of moving to Seoul—years before Jisung left and came back. Jisung watches little Chan with his dimpled smile and adorable laugh and little Felix with his freckled face and equally as adorable pout and wonders how many videos like this there are of them. Jisung can’t remember the last time he and Chan took a photo together. Looking through his camera roll, he finds it’s been months.
When Chan takes off toward the water, Felix is right there behind him. Neither of them stop. They hold hands through the breaking waves, inviting the water all the way up to their necks, and suddenly Jisung feels like he’s gotten bigger than the bit of space he was meant to take up again. Overgrown like a weed.
IV. The beach is a lot different at night. Its deep shades of blue-black make it hard to see, which is maybe why it sounds louder, or maybe that has more to do with the fact there are less people around making noise over the sound of the waves. The water gapes from Jisung’s feet to the horizon he can only vaguely make out—curtesy of the light of the full moon, which Minho tilts his head back to howl at. His arm is hooked around Felix, who doubles over as he laughs then stands upright to howl, too. Chan goes next. Then, Jeongin and Changbin. Jisung is thankful Seungmin and Hyunjin don’t join in because it means he’s not the only one—he’s not ruining anything by just standing there.
Jisung wants to walk fully clothed into the salt water. It’s late. They’ll miss the last train, but that was part of the plan from the very start: to make it an all-nighter. The older they get, the less time they spend together. College made meeting up easier—they were always on campus, one call and a few minutes’ walk from one another. It’s strange to think of how much has changed and how much hasn’t. Jisung watches Felix jump onto Chan’s back and thinks of the first summer they spent together, of how he convinced himself they’d be happier without him. Insecurity is an odd thing. Would’ve been a self-fulfilling prophecy if his friends were any less lovingly stubborn.
“You’re staring,” Minho whispers from behind Jisung and laughs when he jumps.
“Fuck.” Jisung scowls. “Don’t do that.”
“Just trying to be helpful.” Thoughtfully, he adds, “Unless your plan was to confess tonight under the moonlight? That would be romantic. I’d be more than happy to clear out the extras for the pivotal getting-together moment of the main couple.”
“Shut up,” Jisung complains, embarrassment thick in his voice as he glances over at where Chan and Felix are play-wrestling dangerously close to the water for two people with no change of clothes. Pointlessly, he mumbles, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Minho hums, looking straight ahead into the ocean. “There’s this quote—”
“Do not recite whatever quote your web search gave you before coming over here, especially when you’ve yet to tell—” Jisung cuts himself off with a pained yelp as Minho twists his ear.
“You kids,” Minho sighs, “are so ungrateful these days.” After making a disapproving sound, he releases Jisung’s ear and concedes, “But you’ve made a fair point.” He looks to their left and stares, seeming to think something over before nodding. Decisively, he says, “Alright.”
Jisung doesn’t get the chance to ask what that means before he’s left standing alone, watching the back of Minho’s head as he walks straight over to where the rest of their friends have gathered in a slightly-scattered group and splits away from them with Chan by his side, ears already burning red.
Felix looks from the pair walking further and further down the beach to Jisung, and Jisung is certain his ears must be in the same condition.
V. Hardly awake, Jisung stands with his hands in his coat pockets and his eyes half-closed, squinting out at the untouched snow, an odd, out-of-place blanket over the sand. It’s too early to be out of bed. Jisung would much rather be curled up in the comfort of the hotel’s sheets, warm and relaxed, but Felix had jumped onto their shared bed to shake Jisung awake, excitedly whispering, It snowed. Hey, it snowed! The beach is covered, come on, get up, and so here Jisung is: freezing in his thrown-on, inadequate-amount-of-layers outfit watching Felix make the first track of footprints through the fresh snow, grinning like it’s the best thing in the world. He walks a design into the white before stopping at the water’s sandy edge, and when he turns back to beam at Jisung from across the beach, Jisung finds that it’s enough to warm him through.