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It was mid-August and the heat just hasn't decided it wanted a break. The A/C was constantly on, and where there wasn't an A/C, a fan was on. Imagine being in a submarine but you're driving through a pool of lava. A submagma. That's what the house always felt like in the summer.
"Stephen!" A familiar voice called out to him from the hallway, followed by a ratat-tat on his bedroom door, "Did you eat all the ice cream?" Stephen turned from his chair to face the door instead of his desk to say in sarcasm, "Definitely not, it was the cat,"
Just as sarcastically his friend responds, "Ha ha ha, Stephen. Since we have no ice cream I was thinking—" "You know you can open the door..." "Oh, okay," And there stood Stephen's silver shoulder-length haired friend Hosuh, the most bearable of his friends. Therefore making Hosuh his best friend.
Of course Hosuh isn't just bearable, Stephen doesn't harbour ill-will for any of his friends, and he knows they know that. Stephen and Hosuh have been stuck like glue to each other since Stephen's junior year of high school, becoming quick friends once Hosuh introduced him to DOTA. The thought comes easy about how they're inseparable, but Stephen wouldn't admit it out loud.
"Anyway, I was thinking—" "That's new." Stephen cut in, because bothering his most beloved friend is always fun, "Don't interrupt me! I was thinking about having a beach day." A beach day? Well, they haven't had a beach day yet this year, so it'd only make sense...
"What does that have to do with ice cream? If anything, it's way too hot to go outside." "I'm getting to it," Hosuh pulls out his notebook he usually has for drawing and shows Stephen the page he had it flipped to, it was a cute drawing of the two of them at the beach, wearing sunglasses and holding ice cream cones. "Ice cream, and we go to the beach. Going to the beach in the summer is a requirement for a good summer well-spent!"
"Hosuh, what makes you think I want to leave this nice, not scorching abode to go submit myself to the sun rays that will kill us all in like..." Stephen counts on his fingers for a number he doesn't know, "A couple billion years when it implodes?"
"You make a very good argument," Stephen doesn't think his argument was very good since it was just 'Too hot! Sun bad!', which means Hosuh might've expected this and had something to say already, "But I have a whole plan to make this one beach trip of the whole year worthwhile! You just have to say yes."
Stephen doesn't really have a reason to say no, I mean, they do need to get out a little more since it's summer. It's just that the weather is on the hotter side this week, but maybe that's as good of a reason as any to go do something? Stephen likes a little bit of excitement in his life anyway, and he can't say no to Hosuh either. Especially not when Hosuh seems to have planned some things out. So, I guess that's his decision.
"Alright, it's a date," Stephen wonders for a second if Hosuh looked surprised for a reason other than that he agreed, "Okay! Then start getting stuff you need now, we're burning daylight!" Stephen watches Hosuh leave his room and head down the hall to his own, shouting after him, "Daylight's gonna burn me!" And getting a distant shout back, "Vampire!" "Who are you to say?!" Hosuh stopped shouting back after that.
Stephen leaves his laptop in it's sleep state to pick up the backpack he hasn't used in a while from the corner of his room, deciding it's new use is to hold everything he needs. It's not like Stephen's going in the ocean, but he should definitely change clothes to be at least summer appropriate. No one wears sweatpants to the beach.
After a quick change of clothes, keeping the same t-shirt on but changing to some less-fitting shorts, Stephen found himself tossing sunscreen in his bag before throwing the strap of it over his shoulder. Leaving his room he heads to the kitchen to find Hosuh in the exact same t-shirt and shorts, already getting water out of the fridge to bring with them.
Stephen sets his backpack on the counter island, "I have a lot of empty space in my bag, what do you want me to carry?" Hosuh got startled for a second by the thump of the backpack, but recovered quickly, "Ah, these!" Hosuh puts two water bottles on the counter on top of a beach towel, which Stephen scoops into his arms and stuffs the towel into his bag before the water bottles.
Hosuh starts mumbling but Stephen isn't sure whether or not he's talking to himself, "And then I need to choose snacks..." Stephen decides to wait patiently and leans his arms on the counter. Also he wanted to make sure Hosuh brings food he likes.
-————-
By the time Hosuh was done picking snacks (with Stephen's input), they were finally ready to get going to the beach! Since Hosuh sat passenger in the car he was in charge of the radio, much to Stephen's dismay, but that's their rule. Hosuh played two Aimer songs on the aux so it wasn't that bad.
By the time they got to the nearest beach it was 4:00pm and the sun was still high and beating up the land below with it's deadly sun rays. Of course, because it was summer, finding parking space wasn't fun so Stephen is regretting the impulsive decision to go along with this. But only for a second.
Hosuh hastily unbuckled his seatbelt the second Stephen parked the car, chanting "Let's go let's go let's go!" as he grabbed his backpack at his feet and lightly kicked the passenger door open. "Alright, alright! One second,"
By the time Stephen grabbed his own backpack from the back seat, Hosuh was waiting outside the car hopping by moving his heels up and down with a smile on his face, despite today's conditions. Hosuh's excitement is contagious, so Stephen's regret is pushed away for debate later as he exits the air conditioned car to the harsh conditions of outside.
Stephen locks the car and looks to Hosuh and tries to hold back the smile contagion he's catching from him, "What's first, captain?" Hosuh puts his hands on his hips and looks at Stephen like the answer is obvious, "We're going down to the sand, duh, most of my list has to do with that."
Hosuh starts walking but motions with his hand out behind him to either follow him, or to hold his hand. Stephen is unsure which. So just to make sure he holds his hand, because holding hands with the homies is fine. Hosuh doesn't react oddly, he just continues to lead them down to the beach. Looks like Stephen guessed right! As per usual. Stephen is never wrong.
Stephen could see it from above this staircase, but there's a little waterpark on the concrete platform before you go down another staircase to reach the beach. It tempts him, it really does. Even though there's already a lot of people there, majority being kids.
"Hoooos?" Hosuh mockingly responds with "Steeeeph?" If the whining tone wasn't already in his voice, it is now, "I wanna run through the waterpark sprinklers!" Hosuh laughs, probably feeling like a parent right now, "We can do that later! You don't wanna get your clothes wet already, do you?" Already? Stephen questions, since he didn't actually plan to go way in the ocean. Stephen grumbles nonsense before forming actual words, "I guess not."
Hosuh nods and continues to lead them down the last flight of stairs to the beach, but Stephen remembers half-way down the stairs, "But they're gonna turn off later!" Because it's probably owned by the province and they're preserving water, something like that.
Hosuh says casually with no sorrow in his voice, "Oh well." "But Hosuh!" "Hey, if you want to get wet, be my guest!" Stephen has the funny bone of a 12 year old, so he can't hold back his laugh. Hosuh laughs too, "It's just the wording, it's just the wording! Do you want to go or not?" Stephen nods with a gummy-type smile, and Hosuh lets go of his hand to run free.
Going back up the stairs as fast as he can, he can hear Hosuh following behind him, he runs back to the little waterpark and no hesitation runs through the first set of sprinklers he set his eyes on, getting streaks of water on his clothes. He laughs to himself and looks for Hosuh, who's waiting patiently at the top of the stairs and laughing at him.
Stephen goes to a spout of water and cups his hands to get the water, and runs at Hosuh who was already backing away, expecting the worse. He tried to splash Hosuh but all the water must've spilt out, because he basically splashed Hosuh with air.
Stephen's the first to laugh, laughing in-between words, "I thought- I thought- There was water—" and Hosuh's laugh follows, "You've had your fun, come on," Hosuh nudges him with his hand on his back towards the stairs and they walk down together, this time with their hands unlocked.
There's a lot of people on the beach too, so choosing a place to non-officially claim as their zone is gonna be tricky. "Let's walk down this way, there'll be less people." Hosuh walks to the right, opposite of all the stands along the beach. Which confuses Stephen, because wasn't ice cream a part of the plan? There's a perfectly good ice cream stand right there!
Finally, after a couple minutes, they reached a part of the beach where the people start to thin out. "The perfect place!" Hosuh announces, taking his backpack off to pull out one of the towels.
"It's still hot though, and there's no shade." Stephen complains, dropping his backpack on the ground next to where Hosuh is laying out a towel, "You're so negative." Stephen knows Hosuh means that lovingly, so he lovingly mocks him. "yOU'rE sO NeGATivE." Hosuh just laughs, and flattens out the unfolded towel. He pats at the corner adjacent from him, "Sit down here, this is where the list really starts!"
Stephen does what he wishes, ready to finally get into beach stuff, since apparently "Waterpark" wasn't on Hosuh's list. As Hosuh gets out his notebook to presumably check his list, Stephen proceeds to be more of a general menace by complaining, "It's so hoooot, when are we getting ice creaaam, when are we going hooome—" "We're gonna build a sandcastle!!" Hosuh ignores everything Stephen said and pulls out a familiar looking trowel and small plastic bucket from his backpack.
"What the- Did you just take those from around the house?" "If it works, it works." Stephen is almost in shock of how scuffed this beach expedition is gonna be. But this is coming from Stephen of all people, he has no room to judge.
"Shovel or bucket, choose now, quick!" Stephen is caught off by the urgency but his gut is usually right, "Uhhh, shovel!" Hosuh hands him the trowel, "I'm on bucket duty then! What kind of sandcastle do we make?" Hosuh sounds like he had most things planned, but didn't have even an inkling of a sandcastle idea in his brain.
"Well you have the bucket, and I'm superior, so you need to go get me wet sand and we'll wing it!" Hosuh salutes before getting up, "Yessir!" and Stephen watches him run down to the shoreline with the bucket before starting to create a circumference of a moat around where there sandcastle will be.
-————-
It wasn't a particularly GOOD sandcastle. But it was hard work, and teamwork! Stephen wanted Hosuh to stack the sand up with his bucket into a tower, but the second it fell apart when it was abnormally tall, they decided they were being too ambitious and downscaled their tower idea. So they ended up at a little castle with four corners and the center has the tallest point, and it had a nice moat and drawbridge. Stephen made Hosuh fetch the sticks for it. Now they were snacking on some chips, but the heat was starting to get annoying.
"When are we gonna get ice cream?" Stephen asks without overexaggerating it through whining this time. "I'm glad you asked, because that was the next thing on my list!" Hosuh yanks a chip clip out of his backpack and closes the bag of chips, putting them away for later.
He left his notebook unattended, so Stephen grabs it and was about it open it to find the list for a sneak peek, but Hosuh snatched it back, "Don't look in there! I draw in there too, you know!" Hosuh seemed to actually panic which made Stephen laugh, "Why is that your first reaction and not 'Don't give yourself spoilers!'?! What are you drawing in there?!"
Hosuh puts the notebook in his backpack before crossing his arms at Stephen, "I don't think we're getting ice cream anymore." Stephen knows he's fake-mad, but no one should ever put ice cream on the line, "NO, I revoke my question, I'll just make the most bizarre assumption instead."
Hosuh sighs and lets a smile return to his face "Do I want to know it?" Stephen didn't have an assumption ready, so whatever comes to mind does? "First assumption that comes to mind, just drawings of me and you kissing." The fact that that was the first thing to come to mind is not a good look.
Luckily Hosuh laughs, "Your jokes about us are so restricted to us hypothetically dating!" He didn't think too deep about it, unlike Stephen. Good. "It's funny! If it's a joke that works every time, why do I need another?" Hosuh gets up, dipping his head to where his hair blocks his face before whipping it up and over to fix it, "Let's go get that ice cream."
Now that Stephen sees Hosuh's face, he thinks his face is a little too red for it to be just from laughing. He shakes it out of his mind, focusing on something else, "Your parents don't know you dyed your hair silver yet, do they?" "What they don't know can't hurt them!"
-————-
Hosuh's research shows itself once again, because Stephen didn't even have the slightest clue that a Dairy Queen was around here. Well it wasn't from the way they came, so of course he didn't know, it's that Hosuh planned this so intricately that continues to surprise him. I guess Hosuh wanted this to be perfected to a T with purposeful holes, but why would he want it to be? Ah, probably just the perfect summer plan thing, he shouldn't question how much Hosuh cares about things.
Other than Stephen's chocolate ice cream and Hosuh's vanilla ice cream, they got some food while they were at it since eating chips is not a sustainable food source for the rest of the day. The very second they were done, Hosuh wanted to get up and take him back to the beach. Stephen tried to say "No, I am full and so tired," however, Hosuh's the leader. What he says goes. They were on the walk back to the beach when...
"Hold on hold on, I need to save this snail!" Hosuh crouches down to the sidewalk to coax a snail into his hand, "It's just a snail, Hos." Hosuh, taking his sweet time with the snail snaps back at Stephen, "Snails are friends! You're gonna regret disrespecting snails when the ecosystem is on it's last legs!" Stephen quietly laughs at the bit of passionate aggression he got out of Hosuh, and it was about snails of all things.
When the snail crawled into Hosuh's hand, he raised it up and put his hand in a patch of grass, nudging the snail to go on it. "There you go little guy! Touch that grass! Yeah!" Stephen thinks the baby voice Hosuh is doing over a snail is hilarious.
With the snail in a nice patch of grass, Hosuh offered his snail hand to Stephen, "Hold my hand." Hosuh wasn't even trying to hide that it was bait with how blatant he said it. "No! A snail was just on it!" "C'mooon, hold my hand! You're scared of some slime?" With that taunt, Stephen grabs and holds Hosuh's snail slime hand. It's definitely a bit sticky.
"It says a lot about you that you actually did it. You'd do anything for me." Hosuh says in a condescending tone, he's joking, but he's right. Stephen wouldn't hold just anyone's slimey hand. "You challenged me, so I went for it! Stephen is no pussy!" Hosuh, the master actor, looks at Stephen's shirt, "There's a spider on your shirt." Stephen flinches, breaking the hand-holding, and shakes his shirt frantically. Annoyedly saying "Don't say that..."
Hosuh just laughs at his arachnophobic-fueled reaction and pats his back in a way of saying sorry for joking like that. Stephen looks at the sun starting to hang a little low, not realizing he had followed Hosuh's gaze since Hosuh was looking over the horizon too. "Stephen, you know what I realized?" Hosuh turns back to Stephen, and now he has to make it look like he wasn't staring at Hosuh. "What's up?"
Hosuh pokes his own arm and the coloration change is subtle but there, "We didn't put on sunscreen." "Oh. Uh oh." Stephen's probably gonna look like a tomato tomorrow, huh? "It's not too late, we'll get back to our beach spot, and then we'll get sunscreen on!" Stephen hopes it's not too late...
-————-
"Stephen, you're a science guy, how does sunscreen screen the sunrays?" Hosuh asks, rubbing sunscreen onto his arms. "Uhhhm. Hm." Stephen genuinely thinks about it, trying to remember if he's learnt anything about this before.
"Well sunscreen reflects the UV rays off with whatever chemicals are in it, I think? It's an educated guess." Stephen ends it assuring that he isn't confident in his answer, but he knows a lot of things about the sun and chemicals, so he could come up with something sensible. "You're a good analyst, I believe you! Though you could've put a bunch of weird words together and I'd say 'Yup, sounds right'."
Stephen's laugh is practically just breaths, "You're a med student, you know chemicals, you could've come up with that answer too..." It almost seems like Hosuh is buttering him up... However, "How are you humble about the things you're actually good at? Bad at games, boasts about skills—" "Well EXCUSE ME!" Hosuh ignores Stephen's interruption, "Good at science, talks about it only when asked. The common pattern? Consistent confidence rate."
Stephen's not over the shade thrown at his amazing gaming skill and is not letting Hosuh brush past it, "I'm gonna throw you into the sea." "Oh? Let's go?" No, is that actually on the list? Is that why Hosuh didn't want him to get soaked beforehand at the waterpark?
After a breath in, rather dreadingly he says "What is it you've got planned?" Hosuh's face turns into a smug smile the second Stephen asks. "You. Me. In the ocean. Water up to our thighs. We both have our hands up, and we push with our hands on the other's hands. Whoever falls loses." A simple game. Stephen can follow along with it.
"No prize for the winner?" No hesitation, with a head shake, "Nope. Only punishments." Impressed at the ruthlessness from his sweet friend, Stephen says "Damn, okay Hosuh..." They finish applying sunscreen, even if it gets washed off, and find themselves heading into the ocean.
They're standing facing each other with some space between them, up to their upper-thighs in the water. They really are lucky that not many people were around this side of the beach. No one will see them make embarrassments of themselves.
"Okay, like this?" Stephen holds his hands up like Hosuh said, "Yeah, and all you do is push like this," Hosuh demonstrates a light push with his hands on Stephen's. "But more aggressively. Also you have to stay in place. No moving!"
It sounds easy, Stephen's taller, surely this is an advantage, but... "You aren't gonna play nice, are you?" "Hmm..." That answer alongside Hosuh's smile meant that Stephen is right. Stephen will have to bring some fight in him too. "Okay, you ready?" Hosuh seems a little too overconfident, Stephen notices. "Ready as I'll ever be?" "Then on go! 3, 2, 1, go!"
Hosuh gets the jump, or rather the push on him, and it wasn't forceful enough to knock Stephen back. Stephen goes in for a push, but Hosuh meets him in the middle and pushes back harder. Competitive instinct is kicking in. Stephen, still choosing to play the offense, keeps going in for pushes. But quickly realizes that Hosuh is keeping his hands slightly limp every time, so there's no stable impact.
Hosuh goes in for a push first this time, so Stephen tries to get that stable impact by pushing back, but Hosuh must've put his all into that push because it knocked Stephen off his feet. Trying to keep balance, he moves his weight forward and falls into Hosuh, dragging him down into the water with him.
Stephen had his arms around Hosuh when he fell, so when surfacing, he brings Hosuh up with him. It may had felt deep because it was nearly up to their entire legs, but it really wasn't that bad. Hosuh shakes his head to get some water off, "You didn't have to bring me down with you!" "I'm sorry, I love you!" Though that's Stephen's go-to apology response, it hits a little different looking at Hosuh soaked, throwing his hair back. Uh oh.
"No you're not, that was deliberate wasn't it?! If you wanted a hug you could've just asked!" Hosuh laughs after jokingly interrogating him, "It wasn't, really!" but Stephen feels like stirring shit on purpose. So he starts splashing water at Hosuh. "No one's a winner here!!" "Cruel! You're cruel!" Hosuh says as if he's in pain, before splashing back.
-————-
After the war of water they had, they're physically exhausted. After a bathroom break, where Hosuh tried to get as much water out of his hair as possible, something about how "The saltwater is bad for my hair", The sun was reaching sunset quick.
Stephen wasn't sure what else Hosuh had up his sleeve, but they've been drawing pictures into the sand. Mostly Hosuh has, Stephen just drew the funny S. Is Hosuh stalling for something? Nevermind it. Stephen really likes how Hosuh looks when he's focused on something. Sometimes he smiles like the doodles he's making does, mimicking the facial expression.
What snaps Stephen out of his gaze is Hosuh reaching for his phone, turning it on, turning it off, then saying "Stephen, I have something cool to show you." So he was stalling. There was still people hanging around on the beach, but definitely less than before since the tide went up by a bit. Mostly relocated up to where seating was.
The sky was lightly orange as they picked up everything from their spot, and Hosuh makes extra sure their backpacks are zipped closed for some reason. Stephen followed Hosuh to the "cool thing", passing by where they entered, through the densest area of people, to the complete other end of the beach, where rocks are PLENTY. The more eye-catching thing was these rocks nearly as big as a two-story house.
"Now I know what you're thinking. This is a completely normal giant rock, right?" Stephen eyes the giant rock again, "It isn't a normal giant rock?" Hosuh readjusts his hold on his bag, "C'mon!" he says, excitement prevalent in his voice as he motions with his hand for Stephen to follow him. Stephen follows the leader to the coast, where the water meets the big ol' hunk of stone, and then a little bit more so into the water. This is suspicious, and if Hosuh murders him behind this giant rock, he wouldn't like that.
But navigating the side of the rock, up to their waists in the water, the rock almost seems to open up. It has this hole in it, whether or not it's natural is up to debate, but it's hollow on the inside with a bit of rock on the bottom to stand on, and thick walls.
"Hooolyyy crap." The sight is astonishing either way, some sunset light was leaking into it after all. "Good, no one else is here, yes!" Hosuh quietly celebrates to himself as if Stephen can't hear. "C'mon, into the rock!" wading out of the water and onto the rock platforms inside the rock.
They're a little difficult to get on since the edges are so rounded, but that's what erosion does to a bitch. The rock is the bitch. No offense to rocks. Stephen gets his footing up to the surface and looks at the sunset behind him. It honestly feels like he's in a movie, because how many people can say they looked at the sunset from inside of a giant rock?
"Stephen," Hosuh only said one word but something sounds different in the tone, so Stephen gives Hosuh his full attention. Hosuh continues when Stephen looks at him, "I have a genuine question. You're allowed to laugh at first." Stephen nods, but the concern is probably on his face, "Okay..."
Hosuh takes a breath and avoids eye contact when starting his words, "Okay. The question I had to ask is... Are you dumb?" A single laugh punches itself out of Stephen's mouth, "Huh?" Hosuh looks like he's trying not to laugh too, but he probably wants to keep serious, so Stephen calms any other laughs threatening to show.
"Stephen, I want you to think for a second about everything we did today and see if you notice anything." Stephen was supposed to notice something? What?! "Wh- What am I supposed to be looking for?! We're having a beach day, are we not?!"
Hosuh smiles and holds his face with his fingertips on his forehead, "Oh my god, you are an idiot..." Stephen's laugh jar opens up again, "No, really, what did I miss? You need to tell me these things Hosuh." They're in a back and forth of amused and serious, but Stephen tries to keep it together for Hosuh.
Hosuh stares Stephen in the eyes, "You aren't trolling me? You don't have even the slightest assumption?" Stephen shakes his head like he means it, "I'm not trolling, just tell me." Hosuh takes another second to be disappointed in how Stephen missed whatever he was supposed to catch. The build-up is killing him.
"Stephen, why would I suddenly come to you with this beach day idea and not invite anyone else?" Hosuh's trying to spoon-feed him the answer. This won't go well, will it? "Because we're best friends. We should've invited some friends though." Hosuh turns away from him, disappointed and frustrated, hitting both his hands flat on the inside of the rock. "What?!" Stephen is genuinely lost in this conversation.
Hosuh turns back around and keeps going, "Stephen, why would I plan this whole day out? Why would I not let you look at the list? Why would I bring you here, into this rock, at sunset?" Stephen thinks something is clicking but he doesn't want to assume anything.
"Hosuh, I admit, I am an idiot. Put the answer in layman's terms, please." Hosuh seems to be contemplating as he looks away, tapping his foot, Hosuh mumbles loud enough for Stephen to hear, "You're as dense as the rock we're in..." Stephen would usually yell at him, but he keeps his mouth shut to be patient.
Hosuh carefully yanks Stephen over, the stone is a bit slippery, to where the sunset leaks in light the most. The sun is right in Stephen's peripheral, so his eye is irritated a bit. But he keeps looking at Hosuh, who is still holding him by the wrists. Maybe it's just Stephen's brain making this out to be whatever, but something clicked.
"You want the answer? Or do you have it?" Hosuh is staring Stephen down again, but it isn't a stare like earlier, it feels different... "I might, but I wanna hear what it is." Stephen tries to hold eye-contact as Hosuh gathers words silently, but the more dominoes that topple over each other in his head over his assumption, the more nervous he gets.
Hosuh takes a strap of his backpack off to reach the zipper, and when he opens it he takes out the notebook. He flips to the list and stares at it before hastily handing it to Stephen to read.
Stephen's eyes immediately notice what Hosuh labelled the list. 'Beach Date Plan (Don't tell Stephen though)'. "I was really hoping you'd catch on, but this wasn't a beach day, it was a beach date." "I..." Stephen stumbles on the words he hasn't yet found and looks for anything more in the list, the bottom says that this confession was the end goal.
I suppose Stephen looking for more made Hosuh nervous, "There's nothing else to it, I'm in love with you and you're so dense!" Hosuh seeks eye-contact so Stephen gives it, as shell-shocked as he is at this realization, "Sorry, I don't mean to make you nervous, I... It's setting in, how I didn't get it. I feel the same." Stephen's face starts to feel hot admitting his feelings and understanding everything now, all of it hitting him all at once.
Hosuh breathes a sigh of relief hearing that the feelings are reciprocated, "Good, then me catching you staring at me today didn't mean nothing..." Stephen doesn't think he can count on his fingers how many times he was staring, "You caught that?!" Hosuh smiles and shakes his head as if Stephen's staring was obvious, "Every time." Stephen can laugh about it since they both know, and Hosuh joins in.
Stephen's laugh calms so he's gets an apology in before anything else, handing his notebook back "I'm genuinely so sorry for being so dumb..." Hosuh dismisses it, closes the notebook and puts back in his backpack, "No, I'm not even mad about that, I'm just confused that it got to the point where I had to make the first move!" Hosuh zips the backpack up tight as Stephen exclaims, "Me too! What! I guess I felt weird about it since we've been best friends for so long, and I honestly could've kept ignoring my feelings..."
Hosuh groans annoyedly and when he situates his backpack he grabs Stephen's face by the cheeks with both hands. "You're perfect for me, it's just that we're missing one thing... Would it kill you to be more courageous for the both of us next time we have something to communicate?" Stephen smiles, holding back a laugh at the confrontation, "I'll definitely try not to die." Hosuh stares at him, smiling with his lips and eyes for a couple seconds before letting his face go, "Good. Let's get out of here before the tide gets higher."
-————-
By the time they got back to the car the sky had lost most of it's orange color and a lot of people had left the beach. The water at the waterpark had been turned off, as Stephen suspected, so he hit Hosuh's arm with his fist lightly when pointing out how he could've missed out on it. Hosuh brushed it off, saying it wasn't a big deal, but when Stephen gets his hands on dollar store water guns, he won't be smiling about it for long.
They got home that night knowing a lot more about each other, and with a lot more to learn about each other. And definitely stuff to work on. When Stephen wakes up with his skin a lot redder from sunburn, burning all over, he's quick to compare it to how Hosuh makes him feel now that they've made their feelings clear.
Looks like this beach date was their last 1%.