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It is seven o’clock at the Omi-Maiko beach. The sun yawns gently, stretching its arms over the horizon and blanketing it with a soft, golden hue. There’s just enough time for them to turn back before it gets dark.
It’s just the two of them today, walking along the seaside on a rare, quiet Tuesday with the occasional introduction of company. Suna doesn’t mind it. The sound of the waves rolling against the sandy shore is a strange kind of calm and comfort. He’s tempted to just close his eyes and listen to the sea, but he keeps walking.
The thing about the sensations of summer is that he never really knows that he’ll miss them until they’re gone. Year after year he makes that same mistake of forgetting the feeling, and when summer comes around again, he remembers. It comes back when he unwraps his first ice pop of the season and it touches his tongue, and everything is cold and deliciously numb; it comes back when he steps outside and feels the scorching heat on his skin, tastes the saltiness of the sea in his mouth as he makes his way across the sand.
Maybe it’s not so bad that he needs to refresh his memory every year. Anyway, every year is different. Every year he visits different places, tries a new summer flavour, ends up at a new beach.
This year, he has Osamu.
“You’re thinking again,” Osamu says from next to him, voice soft like the foam fizzing against his ankles with each sweep.
“When am I not?” Suna’s retort is feeble and he knows it, but he lets it out anyway, and Osamu laughs in response in the same way the water’s surface glimmers, light and pleasant and somehow mesmerizing. His fingers brush against Suna’s as he lets his left arm swing a little, and Suna swears he almost forgets about the remainder of the ice pop he’s still holding.
“I dunno. Sometimes.” Birds caw faintly in the distance as they trail along, and Osamu continues to speak. “When you’re fixated on something and ya don’t think about anything else.”
“Ha.” Suna’s sandals dangle from his other hand and bounce against his thigh. “I don’t fixate.”
“You do every now and then,” Osamu replies simply, “When you’re in the heat of a game or focused on a problem ya can’t solve.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Small talk, is this small talk? Suna thinks as they continue to walk along the coast. Both of them are barefoot, and Suna is acutely aware of his every motion: the way his feet sink into the damp sand with each step; the way his hair tangles in the wind and hits his cheek every now and then; the way his hands swing back and forth loosely as though without a care, although in reality he is being very, very careful.
Osamu’s slippers are tucked into the side-pocket of his small backpack, so his hands are free to stretch upwards into the sky.
“The sunset’s pretty,” he comments.
Suna’s gaze remains on the sea’s shimmering surface as he nods, opting to stick his ice pop in his mouth. The ocean in its calm state moves slowly and smoothly, rising and falling as the waves push forward and recede in rhythmic motions, and the movement captures the sun’s setting rays in bits and pieces, scattering them across the surface like a shimmering dust.
Suna doesn’t believe in romance, not really, but this might very well nearly be close to it.
Just then, Osamu stops in his tracks.
“Hey,” he says, “Rin.”
Suna peels his gaze away from the glittering ocean to properly glance at Osamu, and oh, he doesn’t think he can look back anymore. Osamu’s hair is black, now, no longer the steel grey which he sported in high school, but it shines just as brilliantly against the light of the setting sun, and Suna comes to a halt, too, waves crashing against his ankles as he sucks in a breath.
It flows through him like a warm summer breeze. Everything that he wants in the moment is right here with him: a half-eaten ice pop in his hand, cool seawater lapping at his feet, someone familiar by his side as he walks down the shore, one who’s smiling at him as the sun quietly dips itself into the sea.
Osamu leans forward and nudges his cheek with his fingers. Suna thinks his ice pop may be making his brain go numb.
“I had fun today,” Osamu says, and suddenly he’s looking away, like he has the audacity to be shy, now. “Thanks for comin’ out with me like ya always do.”
Suna’s ice pop melts rapidly in his mouth, and he swallows at once.
“Thank you,” he mutters, “for bringing me out. Like you always do.”
Osamu lets out another small laugh, and now they’re facing each other. Osamu’s fingers continue to linger at Suna’s jaw, and Suna’sarm drops to his side, the sound of the surrounding waves filling his ears until it’s all that he can hear.
“Is this—” Suna’s throat goes dry, and he can feel his cheeks burn. “Is this the part where you kiss me?”
“I…” Osamu leans in closer, and Suna can see, now, the warmth of the sunset reflected in his irises. “Can I?”
It’s a silly question. Suna closes his eyes and leans in to close the gap. Cool meets warm, ocean waves meet sun rays, Suna kisses Osamu like he’s been thinking about it for the past hour, and Osamu cups his cheek and does the same.
“I like you a lot, y’know,” Osamu says as they break apart, and Suna doesn’t know whether to laugh in his face or kiss him again.
“Idiot,” he murmurs, kicking water at his feet, “So do I.”
“Okay.” Osamu’s smiling again, and Suna thinks he may be smiling back. “Okay, then.”
“Yeah.” Suna leans in and presses a kiss to Osamu’s cheek, where it’s warm and soft, like it’s the easiest thing—and maybe it is, because the past year has been building up, quite precisely, to this. “C’mon, let’s get back to the rest before it gets too dark.”
Osamu sighs, but he turns back with Suna anyway, choosing to grab the popsicle stick from Suna’s right hand to slip his hand in its place. “Shoulda come with just the two of us,” he mumbles.
“Next time,” Suna replies, and then he thinks, with a fluttering sensation in his chest, there will be a next time.
Nobody tells you that summers are different after you graduate from school. Nobody reminds you that once you move into the working world, summers are no longer the same lazy vacations you had as a child, no longer the long afternoons of sitting around on tatami flooring and playing old video games. Nobody says that you have less time to enjoy yourself or the feelings which summer brings. Summer is just another season, another few months which pass by.
But that doesn’t mean summer is gone. Summer is always there for the taking. Sometimes you must grab the chance to experience that same freedom again, that same salty taste on your tongue, that same warmth on your face and coolness at your feet. Sometimes you may find someone to share that feeling with, even after the summer is over.
In his first summer after graduation, in the wake of high school, Suna and Osamu take that chance.