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Shun's not all that good of a swimmer.
It's not as if he can't do it– of course he can. In PE in junior high, for his class at least, you had to learn for the pool unit. He can swim just fine, got full marks in that unit and everything.
It's just that he doesn't like swimming, so he doesn't do it. He hates the feeling of water clinging to his skin, the waves odd when they hit him, the water cold in the wrong way when it laps at his feet. Worst of all, there's no… reason for him to swim. It's not like gym where he got a grade for it, when he's in the ocean, so why would he go and subject himself to that kind of work? It's not fun, swimming.
You don't even get that feeling of a job well done, in the water. Not like you do with a good bowl of hot food. You don't get much of anything, other than tired, and wet, and gross.
He doesn't like it, and so he's not good at it, and because of either or both of those two things, he kind of doesn't… get the beach. Why it's fun, that is. Why people like it.
Motoha's running around and jumping and splashing like a little kid, running back and forth and back again constantly, and Shun kind of almost wishes he could understand why. He just can't.
There's no fun in swimming, and there's certainly no fun in the sand, in the way it falls away under his feet and still sticks to the bottoms of them with the way his legs are wet from the waves.
He's cleaned his feet three times already, but the memory of the sand still itches at him through his flip-flops.
He's sitting with Tanemura-senpai and Lufel, watching Motoha kick at the water and cheer as she pulls along Noge, who barely seems to be able to stand up straight with how often she doubles over laughing. 50 metres away and almost disappeared over the horizon, Nagisa floats on the water dangerously far out from the coast.
He's weirdly just as excited as Motoha, it looks like. He's not so loud about it, because he's never as loud as her about anything, but Shun's barely gotten to say a word to him, considering how fast Nagisa had caught the waves.
It's just… weird. At least Motoha and Noge are playing. It makes it seem fun, even if Shun can't really understand why it would be on his own. Nagisa's just lying there, swaying with the tide. It's been almost three full hours, and Shun's only seen him move the once, when he drifted so far out he got yelled at by Tanemura-senpai. And only then, it was to swim closer in and then go back to floating aimlessly on the tide.
That's weird, right? It's weird how… well, maybe calm's not the right word, actually, because being calm's a good thing, but it's weird just how... chill Nagisa is. How he's not moving, not talking, not… reacting. He just rocks with the tide, and when Shun was still trying to entertain Motoha, he had gotten a glimpse at Nagisa, and there was something about the specific way his eyes were closed, or something, that just felt… off. It's weird.
It's weird how at peace Nagisa looks on the waves. Shun's never seen him like this before. Not even close. A weird that makes Shun's stomach feel all roily like he ate something off. Nagisa looks so at peace it's more like he's at rest. Like he could get buried like this and be fine.
Nagisa's off playing dead, anyways, and Noge's break lasts another 20 minutes and Motoha seems deadset on making her run around with her down until the last second, and Tanemura-senpai's sitting at the recliner chair, reading a book so thick and boring-looking Shun can only think of it as a tome, and Lufel's picking at his own feathers to get them to line up straight and Shun's just sitting. Watching.
He wishes there was anything fun to do. He can't look too bored sitting by himself because Motoha's already asked him to play with her and Noge, like, three times and Shun can't think of anything worse than actually being in the line of fire in the play-fights in the water. Just watching them makes his skin feel all pruny.
The breeze picks up, and Noge visibly calls a time-out from their battle, which, fair, because even from where Shun’s sitting all of Motoha’s obvious consistent and constant cheating at a simple splash-fight is starting to veer into genuine unsportsmanlike behaviour, but then Motoha points towards Shun and Tanemura-senpai and declares something and they’re racing at a breakneck speed.
Noge wins, but by barely anything, and at the cost of the both of them almost barrelling over Shun. She actually drops to her knees, giggling, and Motoha folds to set her hands on her thighs, laughing along too, and also like, one metre, max, from smashing Shun’s face in with her knee.
“Welcome back,” Tanemura-senpai says absentmindedly like Shun wasn’t just one misstep away from getting trampled to death.
Motoha sucks in a big breath, slightly winded, and grins brightly like she isn’t still well within killing-Shun range. “We’re baaack!” she sing-songs. “Tomoko needed water.”
You were just in the water, Shun almost nitpicks, sitting on the tip of his tongue, but Motoha’s still dangerously close, so he elects to stay quiet.
Noge goes and fetches her water bottle, already half-empty, and drinks it down completely, and before she’s even pulling away Motoha’s loudly propositioning her to go back out to the water.
“Let’s go already, let’s go, let’s–”
"I think I need a break," Noge interrupts gently, breathless and smiling but voice all hesitant and shy. "My shoulder's starting to hurt."
Everyone kind of freezes.
"Oh," Motoha says, putting a hand over her mouth as her eyes so all wide and a bit watery, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't think about– oh, sorry, yeah, we can stop, that's fine."
"It's okay, it's okay!" Noge assures quickly, waving her hands in the air. "It's not a big deal, really, I just need to rest for a bit…"
"Do you need any Tylenol?" Tanemura-senpai asks, putting her bookmark on the page and shutting her book as she sits up. "I have some in my bag."
"Oh, no, no, that's not necessary at all…"
"It's not a bother if you need any," Tanemura-senpai pushes. "You do have to go back to work eventually, so if it's hurting now, it's best to nip it in the bud."
"That's really not–”
"We can find a cold pack for you or something, too," Motoha adds. "Someone's got to have at least a bag of ice… or–"
"She's fine, stop nagging," Shun interrupts, and all of them stop and turn to him.
"Huh?" Motoha asks.
"You said it's not a big deal, right?" Shun asks, glancing at Noge before looking back out at Nagisa. "So it's not a big deal."
A small pause. Noge's hands, which she had put in the air to wave dismissively at Tanemura-senpai and Motoha's pushing, lower, and then her head lowers very slightly with a smile as she fiddles with her own fingers.
"Mhm," she says. "Yeah."
There's another tense silence, and then Motoha does an exaggerated groan and drops onto one of the towels, kicking her legs out and tipping her head back.
"Well, I guess I could chill for a while, honestly," she says with that overly lax tone of voice she always uses when she's lying. "My arms are kinda tired."
“You two were playing around a lot,” Tanemura-senpai says, and shifts the book from one hand to the other, a lot more subtle than Motoha about the quiet worry in her eyes when she glances at Noge. “Maybe you should get something to drink and rehydrate?”
“Ooh, good idea!” Motoha says. “There was a stand near the pier that had juices and pop and stuff, right? Tomoko, is that okay?”
“Sure!” Noge says. “Ah– is it okay if we hit a vending machine, too, though? I saw one by the bathrooms…”
“Can-do!” Motoha’s back on her feet again, stretching like she’d been sitting any longer than 30 seconds. “Shun, Riko-senpai, either of you in on this?”
Tanemura-senpai breathes out, a small smile on her face. “Sure,” she says.
Well, if everyone else is. Shun shrugs and says, “Alright,” and pushes his shoulders back to stretch his back so he can stand as well, and Motoha’s barely let him respond before she’s bustling her way over back towards the coast.
She takes a big, cartoonishly exaggerated breath in before she cups her hands around her mouth and calls, "Nagiiiiii! We're going to get drinks!"
Shun watches the water.
The waves rock Nagisa’s otherwise completely motionless body.
No response.
"He looks dead," Shun says.
Motoha makes a disgruntled noise.
"Nagiiiiiii!" she calls again, somehow a bit louder, sharper. "Give me a sign you're alive or I'm coming over there!"
A pause, and Nagisa lazily waves a hand before letting it drop back to hit the water.
Motoha huffs, putting her hands on her hips.
"He did do as asked," Noge says in a placating kind of voice. "He'll be fine if we let him alone, I'm sure."
"I'll keep an eye on him!" Lufel declares, throwing out one wing. "It'll be fine!"
Motoha's head twitches like she's going to say something, but she stops, and glances back to Noge, who's gone back to watching Nagisa with a little frown. They're not supposed to respond to Lufel with her around, since she can't hear him.
There's a long pause, before Motoha sighs.
"Okay," she says. "It'd be more work to pull him out of the water than it would to worry about him while we're away, I guess."
And so they go, letting him alone.
Shun turns back at one point, just before they’re too far away to spot Nagisa. He watches him for a moment, sees him sway with the gentle waves, not at all bothered by them leaving for that long, stretching moment, until Shun takes one step too many away and all at once, Nagisa is swallowed by the horizon.
He turns back around to watch where they’re going, and pretends not to notice the queasy feeling in his gut.
"Kamishiro-kun!" Noge calls. "We got you a pop! Can you come back and drink it, at least?"
There's a long pause– enough that Noge's hands drop to her sides, brows furrowing and lips pursing– before slowly, visibly reluctant even from this far out, Nagisa turns to his side and slips under an incoming wave, disappearing from sight.
A few seconds later, he pops back up, swimming towards shore.
They watch in silence him reach the point where he can put his feet to the water, and once he stands he shakes his head like a dog, hair flying everywhere, and takes a moment before he wades out of the water, and once he's broken free of the waves his pace picks up to a leisurely jog until he reaches them.
"Welcome back," Noge says, holding out a towel, and Nagisa stares at it for a long moment, water dripping off his hair.
Then his head ducks, and he reaches out and takes it, seeming bashful. "Mhm," he says. "Thanks."
He throws it over his head and begins to roughly run the towel through his hair, and once it's dry enough he lets it fall to his shoulders, shaking his head quickly to get rid of any stray droplets he hadn't wiped off already, then uses one end of the towel to wipe at a spot under one ear as he looks back up at everybody.
"What'd you get me?" he asks.
"You like strawberry, right?" Motoha asks, and holds up one of the Ramune from the haul.
Nagisa visibly perks up, and he walks over and takes it, then walks back away to sit at the side of a lounger chair to slam the marble down and open the bottle in a smooth, practiced motion and taking a long drink, though he stops with the bottle still to his lips, and then pulls it away to look back up at Motoha.
"Thanks," he says belatedly.
Motoha snorts.
"Yeah, you're welcome," she says with a teasing smile on her face. "Tomoko, which one do you want? I'll open it for you."
"Melon, please," Noge responds. "And thank you."
Nagisa blinks quickly, brows furrowing, and he looks over at Noge with a confused expression, before turning it back to Motoha as she goes to open the Ramune, then he looks up at the sky.
Then he seems to get something, and looks back at Noge.
"Oh," he says. "Shoulder acting up again?"
"Just an ache," Noge says with a light laugh. "It'll go away soon, once Motoha's done pampering."
Nagisa hums, and nods, and takes another drink of his Ramune. It's already half-gone.
"While you're here, Kamishiro-kun, it's getting time for us to need to reapply our sunscreen," Tanemura-senpai says. "Tomoko, will you need to, as well?"
Noge taps her smartwatch awake. "I'm good for another hour and a half," she says. "Thank you, though, Riko-senpai."
"Do we really have to?" Nagisa says in a little grumble. "I'm out in the water anyways."
"Which means you probably need it more than the rest of us," Tanemura-senpai says. "The water reflects UV rays. It just means you'll have to wait here for 20 minutes to make sure it doesn't wipe off once you go back out."
Nagisa's face crumples further.
"Okay," he says reluctantly.
"It's more of a bother to deal with sunburns than it is to apply sunscreen," Noge says. "You really should do it everyday, too, especially now that you joined the soccer team."
"It's annoying," Nagisa says. "And it feels gross."
"And smells terrible," Shun agrees.
"Well, okay, yeah, I guess, but what do you mean, feels gross?" Motoha asks. "Does it feel like anything?"
"When you rub it," Nagisa explains, miming the motion on his upper arm. "It's all sticky and heavy and weird. It's bad."
"It's basically the same as applying moisturiser," Noge says, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "That's not so bad, is it?"
"Not everyone has a skincare routine," Tanemura-senpai says. "But even if you don't like the feeling, Kamishiro-kun, it's good for your skin."
"Mmn."
"Have you tried a sunscreen spray?" Motoha asks. "It's not as thick."
"A what? I haven't."
"Hold on," Motoha says instead of explaining, pushing herself up to her feet, and scurrying off to her bag.
She digs around for a few seconds and pulls out a spray that's a bunch of different bright colours and pop-font text, then walks back to them, shaking the can ominously the entire way.
"Here, stand up," she says. "And put your arms up. Like a T-pose."
To his immense credit, Nagisa only gives everyone else a glance as his expression wavers into something apprehensive, but he hoists himself to his feet and does as asked.
Motoha sprays his back first, then his arms and legs– at that point, Shun puts a hand in front of his face to as politely as possible cover his nose– before walking to the other side of him to get his chest with an offhand warning to close his eyes and keep his mouth shut.
Then she says, "I can't spray your face, so I'm gonna spray your palms and then you'll have to rub it on."
Nagisa hums an affirmation and holds his hands out. The uneasy expression on his face has cleared, even as he rubs the formula onto his face and neck, so Shun figures he prefers this to sunscreen lotion.
Still. Eugh.
"You want to try the spray too, Shun?" Motoha asks, rattling the can again as she turns her head to him. "You were agreeing with Nagi, right?"
"Pass," Shun says, feeling his nose wrinkle. "I can smell that from here."
"Is the smell that bad?" Noge asks.
Shun shrugs dismissively, and she hums, brows knitting, before she taps her finger against her chin in thought.
"I know there are scented lotions and moisturisers that have sunscreen qualities," she thinks out loud, "but I wonder if there are any actual sunscreen lotions out there that have a different fragrance."
Shun shrugs again.
"I'm not Nagisa," he says. "I'm not broken up about it, it just sucks."
"Rude," Nagisa mutters.
Noge frowns at him.
"If you say so," she says.
The rest of them put on sunscreen, and the entire time Nagisa is waiting for them he sits with his head propped up on his palm, elbow set on his knee and legs drawn up towards his chest, staring out at the waves.
He doesn’t glance even once at any of them. His eyes stay glued to the water, like his fingers aren’t still visibly pruny from how long he had stayed out there floating already.
Shun thinks the smell of the sunscreen is making him sick.
Once they’re all done, and the noxious scent of the chemicals begins to ease back into the smell of salt and seawater, Motoha walks over to Nagisa, and, when he doesn’t look up or seem to notice her standing next to him at all, bends down to tap his shoulder lightly.
"Do you want anything to eat, Nagisa?" she asks. "You were in the water while the rest of us ate lunch, so you're probably hungry, right?"
Nagisa thinks on something, before shaking his head.
Motoha smiles. "Okay," she says. "One more time. Hey, Nagisa, what do you want to eat?"
Nagisa's lips press together.
"'m really not hungry," he mumbles out, looking at the ground.
"You should probably get something, though," Noge says gently. "It doesn't have to be a meal or anything, especially if you're going back in the water once the suntan's settled, but something light'll be good for you? Even if you don't feel all that hungry now, not eating will bite you in the butt later."
"Yeah!" Motoha says. "I'm not gonna make you eat yakisoba or a frankfurter or anything if you're not hungry, but a snack'd be good, right? We could get watermelon, or there was a shop that sold fruit cups, right? Maybe a salad– oh, no, let's get some shaved ice! That'll be good, right?"
"What?" Shun says. "We just got back from getting drinks."
Motoha turns to him to give him a blank stare. "But shaved ice, Shun," she says seriously. "They have blue raspberry. And piña colada."
…Shun hadn't previously considered that information.
"Shaved ice sounds good," he agrees.
Motoha grins, turning back to Nagisa. "See, see? Shun wants some, too. Let's just all go together while you wait for the sunscreen to absorb, okay? You don't even have to get some, we can share mine!"
Nagisa's still making a disgruntled face.
"Can we get yuzu," he asks in a sulky voice.
Motoha's nose crinkles just a little.
“…okay," she agrees. "But we're putting extra fresh fruit on it, too. And sweetened condensed milk."
"Okay," Nagisa says. "Then sure."
They get shaved ice. Shun's piña colada is, honestly, pretty underwhelming, which is messed up, but he picks at it while Noge eats her strawberry-cherry-matcha concoction that hopefully doesn't taste as bad as it looks or sounds but has either way turned a disgusting muddy brown colour because of the way the syrup mixes. Motoha demolishes the granola and fruit she had stacked dangerously high over hers and Nagisa's, has three uncharacteristically small bites of the shaved ice before passing it to him with a grossed-out expression on her face.
Shun is surprised she doesn't like yuzu– Ashoken and Toraiken both use yuzu extract for their ramen, and Motoha goes nuts for it every time. She also likes lemonade from what Shun can remember, and isn't yuzu just a kind of lemon at the end of the day? What makes it so different she can't stand it?
Also, yuzu is really good. She's crazy for not liking it.
Tanemura-senpai gets shirokuma– ("What, not plum? You're a traitor to the company, Senpai." Motoha teases, and gets a scalding look in response before Senpai rolls her eyes and smiles.
"I'm spoiled," she says. "No one does plum flavour as well as UMETANE, and I won't settle for second best.")– but she's barely finished the azuki by the time Motoha has given Nagisa the rest of theirs to go and make goo-goo eyes at the rest of theirs, so with a sigh and a one last scoop of mochi, Tanemura-senpai's exchanges hands with Motoha. Noge offers Tanemura-senpai hers, but is politely and firmly denied.
Nagisa finishes the yuzu one just as quickly as Motoha eats Tanemura-senpai's, and both of them very inconspicuously look back at the shop's menu with longing in their eyes. Nagisa is pouting when he turns back to the rest of them.
"Do you want mine," Shun asks him, holding out his shaved ice to him. Nagisa perks up, but then looks confused, so Shun says, "I'm not really that into this piña colada syrup so I was gonna throw it away."
Nagisa brightens again and takes it wordlessly.
Not hungry, Shun's ass. Nagisa picks the bowl clean in a matter of two minutes.
"Shun," Nagisa calls.
Shun hums an acknowledgement as he looks over. Nagisa waits for eye contact, and tilts his head.
"That bucket you had when you and Motoha were making sand castles," he says. "Where'd you put it?"
"Huh? It's by our bags," Shun says. "I set it near mine and Senpai's, I think?"
"Okay."
"What do you need with it?" Shun asks. "You making a castle?"
Nagisa shakes his head.
"Seashells make good souvenirs," he says. "Saw a cove when I was floating. If I can forage some, it'll save money."
Shun hadn't even thought about souvenirs. He wonders if he should get something for Pops and Masa-san. What would be a good gift? Is it even necessary to get one? Who wants a souvenir from some boring old beach less than two hours away by train? But if he doesn't get something and he's supposed to, he'll be tugged at the ear for the next week.
Whatever. He'll find some good luck charm for the store or something before they leave. It's not a big deal.
"I can come with you," Shun says.
Nagisa looks back at him, and Shun doesn't know if he should feel insulted about how genuinely confused he seems that Shun volunteered.
"Why?" he asks.
"To hang out?" Shun says back, unable to keep the questioning tone out of his voice. "I can help you. Unless you wanna go alone?"
Nagisa blinks.
Then looks away. "Together is good," he says. "Let's go."
They don't really talk as they go get the bucket, or the entire time Nagisa leads him a dozen-odd minutes' walk off the coast. Nagisa's not really a talker, after all, and Shun doesn't have much to say.
The sand grows dotted with rocks and eventually Shun is playing hopscotch on the rocks trying to keep up with Nagisa who doesn't seem at all bothered by all the water he's stepping in, and a few left turns later the stony coast opens back up to a little inlet carved out by the waves.
He sees a few dozen shells of different shapes, sizes and colours dotting the sand, and Nagisa breaks ahead silently, speeding up to a light jog until he reaches the closest one, a red-pink colour and half-buried in the sand.
He gently unearths it, and turns it in his hands thoughtfully, before grinning and turning to look back at Shun over his shoulder, holding it up like it's a prize.
Shun catches up, and holds out the bucket, and Nagisa sets it in in the same motion as he pushes himself back up to his feet.
"Who are you grabbing souvenirs for?" Shun asks. "Like, how many do we need?"
Nagisa thinks about something, and then lifts up one hand and begins counting on his fingers.
Shun watches the number go up, up, up, and eventually Nagisa stops, and smiles awkwardly.
"We'll just grab as many as we can carry," Shun suggests. Nagisa nods.
"Probably a good idea," he says with a little laugh, and turns away to go fetch the next shell.
Shun sets the bucket down where he’s at and goes to do the same, picking up the different shells dotting the sand. Most of them are kind of boring-looking, and half of them are really small, but Shun figures there’s probably still some use for them, and he’d rather have overcollected than not helped Nagisa enough, since they can always toss the ones Nagisa doesn’t want back out at the end.
They work in silence for a few minutes, and then a few more, and a few more after that, until the bucket is pretty much entirely full and Shun is having to squint to find anything worthwhile.
“That’s probably it, right?” he says out loud. “Do you need any more than this?”
No response.
“Nagisa?” Shun calls, and turns over his shoulder to where he had last saw Nagisa inching closer to the coast in his search.
And there he is, standing with his feet sunk in the seafoam, staring out at the horizon.
That look in his eyes is back. Shun can’t see his expression all that much but it’s clear in his posture. Something Shun doesn’t get, doesn’t think he’ll ever get, doesn’t think he wants to get.
He swallows around the rock in his throat, and calls again, “Nagisa!”
Nagisa jumps, and spins to Shun.
“Yeah?” he asks, cool as ever again, and there’s not a trace of that expression anymore.
“Did we get enough shells, or should we go find another cove?” Shun clarifies, and Nagisa hums, tilting his head to one side as he thinks.
It all happens at once.
The receding waves roil, and lift, and Shun doesn’t even get a chance to warn him: the wave crashes in, and Nagisa is gone.
It takes a second for Shun to realise what just happened, and by the time his brain kicks into gear, the tide has receded again and Nagisa's just not there, and–
and out in the water, far enough to surprise him, he sees the water ripple oddly, and somehow he just knows exactly what's going on.
Shun's underwater before he even thinks to take a deep breath in, and his lungs burn before he even reaches Nagisa, lying still as he sinks lower, lower–
Shun grabs him by the abdomen and finally Nagisa startles, eyes flying open– were they closed? What the hell?– and limbs jerking awkwardly as he thrashes, yelling something that Shun can't hear through the water, not that he'd listen, anyways, too focused on trying to swim back up one-handed, not to mention with the extra weight in his other arm.
For probably the first time in his life, he wishes he was a little better at swimming.
He breaks to the surface and tries to breathe air, gasping like a dying fish and accidentally getting more water in his mouth with the way he's splashing awkwardly trying to tread water when he doesn't know how, leaning back to try and get himself to float and it's just not working, he doesn't know how to–
The wave crashes over them again, and Shun and Nagisa are sent back under.
Shun can barely think past the water he's swallowed in the impact, vision dim and eyes burning with salt, and Nagisa is a rock at his side and he feels his grip slip slightly as he forgets himself and claws at his own throat, longing for air, but with a rush of adrenaline and something a little too painfully sharp to be called clarity, Shun decides he's not going to die here if it kills him, and kicks and kicks and kicks until his head breaks the surface again, and shifts Nagisa so his head is on Shun's shoulder as Shun leans onto his back to stay above water and awkwardly kicks to swim backwards until the water's shallow enough he can set his feet on the ground and turn around.
Shun half-drops, half-throws Nagisa out away from the water and in front of him, collapsing over him with his arms on either side of Nagisa's torso, shaking so bad they can hardly keep him up as he coughs, spitting up water on the sand next to them.
He feels like no matter how hard he coughs– even though it's wracking through him until he's lightheaded and seeing stars– he can't get the last of the seawater out of his chest, and he's stuck there, choking on it for so long time escapes him, but eventually the hacking turns to heaving turns to normal heavy breathing, and after a while Shun blinks back the swaying lights of unconsciousness that had begun swimming at the corners of his vision and realises all at once Nagisa hasn't moved an inch since they got to the shore.
His eyes are closed again. Not a purposeful closed, the way people shut their eyes when they're conscious, but a limp, sleepy kind of closed, like he's–
Shun shakes him, heart sinking.
"Nagisa," he says, voice rough from coughing and thin and panicked, "Nagisa, wake up! Hey! Hey, wake up!"
Nagisa's eyes remained closed, even with Shun shaking him back and forth as hard as he can without beating Nagisa's head into the ground to do it.
"Nagisa!" he calls again. "Nagisa!"
No response. For one long, terrible moment, Shun thinks he's going to have to figure out how to perform CPR, even though he doesn't know anything past what it is and his hands won't stop shaking and he's having trouble breathing himself and–
and then Nagisa full-body shudders, jerking oddly, and sits up and turns to the side and with a heaving, painful-sounding cough, vomits a bunch of seawater onto the sand.
Shun feels himself slump in relief, for only a moment before he realises Nagisa's still coughing, and he shifts to give him more room and rubs his back as Nagisa doubles over where he sits, legs drawing towards his chest and hand wrapping loosely around his throat, tears in his eyes as he coughs and hacks.
Nagisa's choking finally turns to rasps, and he takes a moment to gather the spit in his mouth and hock it on the sand. Then, after a moment of silence, he groans, and drops to lay flat on his back again, rubbing his face tiredly.
Shun rolls off of him, stands up and realises his legs are shaking so bad he has to crouch again, and then while he's sitting he does his best to wipe off the sand clinging to every part of his body from rolling around while still dripping wet from the waves.
It sticks to him, and makes his skin feel too tight and the world a bit too cramped, and maybe it's the fact that he's so narrowly out of the water but it still feels like he's drowning, breath short and shallow and not delivering nearly enough oxygen to his brain. He tries and tries to take bigger, fuller breaths, but the sand is stuck to his skin and everything aches and he curls in on himself a little like it'll block out the fear that's finally gnawing on him, now that there's nothing to do to distract him.
And still–
"Shouldn't–" Shun's voice comes out choked, but he has to force out, "Aren't you supposed to move, when you're drowning?"
“…huh?" Nagisa rasps.
"You're s'pposed to at least kick your feet, right?" Shun asks. "Why– why'd you just go still?"
There's a long, long pause. Shun picks his head up to make sure Nagisa's even there, and doesn't know how to feel about the blank look he's getting, like Nagisa isn't understanding him, or the question, or why he even asked it. Like he doesn't get that he just almost drowned and died without a peep or a fight and Shun would've had to watch.
Then Nagisa's head lowers, just slightly, and he glances away.
"I guess I wasn't thinking," he says. "Sorry."
Shun opens his mouth, but nothing he wants to say quite forms into real words, and so he stays quiet, even with all the things he wants to scream.
He wants to grab Nagisa by the shoulders and shake him again, wants to ask "Why do you need to be thinking to try and stay above water?" and "What if I couldn't reach you, would have you have never come back up?" and "I've seen you fight, you couldn't have even flailed?" and a thousand other things and…
and Nagisa's not even looking at him, head turned back out to the waves to watch them crash along the shore like he didn't just get swept in and only barely come back. Shun can see his expression, and there's that weird… a weird longing in it, he guesses is the only way he can describe it, still. He looks out at the ocean like there's a part of him out at sea.
That roiling feeling's back in his stomach again. Shun wonders if he swallowed seawater. He feels like he could puke.
"Let's just pick up the shells and go back," he chokes out.
Nagisa startles before turning back to him, and some weird expression crosses on his face before he glances back at the ocean, then over at the sand around them with the shells scattered from the tide.
“…right," he says. "Sure."
They don't say anything more, Shun turning his back to Nagisa as he picks up the assorted shells and only ever catching glimpses of him when he goes back to set stuff in the bucket. Sometimes Nagisa is looking at him, brows furrowed slightly and expression a little too confused-seeming for Shun to not be a little angry at, but most of the time–
Most of the time Shun sees him in his periphery, and he's crouched down to pick up a seashell and his eyes are out on the waves and that longing expression is back, even though Shun can barely see his face at all.
There's a churning feeling in his stomach and a sickly-warm sensation in his chest, and as Shun sets seashells into the bucket he sees his hands shaking even though he can't feel them at all.
Eventually the shore is clean of shells, and it's just sand and wave and a conspicuous damp spot where Nagisa had thrown up the water that had gotten into his lungs and Shun grabs the bucket by the handle and snaps, "Let's go," and can't even make himself wait for Nagisa to respond before he's speedwalking back towards the main beach.
Even though Shun knows he's being rude, Nagisa doesn't say a word against him, and Shun hears the sound of footsteps against sand behind him, just slightly off-time with his.
The rocky cove turns to open air and Shun sees nothing form to dots form to the outlines of their friends out in the distance, and he breathes in deep and out slowly, relaxing with the space between them and the water growing and between them and people who can maybe help shrinking.
After a few breaths like that, Shun hears himself blurt out a sudden, "Do your lungs hurt at all?"
Nagisa is so quiet Shun has to strain his ears to hear his footfalls behind him just to check to make sure he's still being followed.
"No," he answers Shun eventually. "My throat's a little raw from coughing, but I'm fine."
Shun hums.
They walk in silence a little longer.
"Are you okay, Shun?" Nagisa asks.
Shun feels his grip tighten on the plastic handle.
"Whatever," he says instead of answering, shoulders rising towards his ears as they tense, and Nagisa doesn't say anything else at all.
They walk like that, for longer, and Shun's sure the trip there didn't take half as long until eventually the blue and pink of Motoha and Noge's swimsuits makes them distinct enough to properly see, and Motoha spots them too, shouting something lost to the distance and breeze and hopping to her feet at the same time.
Nagisa's footsteps pick up, and he passes by Shun wordlessly, before he slows again, to a stop just a few steps ahead of him, and turns back to Shun.
"Hey, Shun?" he says.
Shun hums, and looks from their friends over to Nagisa.
He smiles gently, slightly lopsided, and extends his pointer finger to tap it against his lips.
"Don't tell them about the wave thing, okay?" he says. "It'd just be a hassle."
"If I'm supposed to keep mum about you almost dying, what else are you keeping from us? What don't I know?" Shun almost asks, but the words die in his throat just before he can form them.
He looks away.
"Sure," he says. "You're the boss."
Nagisa's eyes thin slightly even though his smile doesn't shift, and then turns and walks away, saying something that Shun can't catch.
He wonders if maybe there's some seawater left in his ears, or something. All of a sudden, all he can hear is roaring waves, too turbulent to be the ocean behind him.
He jogs to catch up with Nagisa, and sees Motoha bouncing on her toes, waving obnoxiously with both her arms.
"Heeey, Nagiiii! Shuuun!" she's calling as they draw closer. "There you two are! Where were you?"
"Sorry," Nagisa calls back, and Shun can't see his face but can hear that easy, carefree smile on his face like they didn't just almost– "We were collecting seashells."
They reach Motoha– or at least get close enough that she stops actively flagging them down, leaning back on her heels and folding her arms behind her, and Shun sees Noge sitting on one of their leisure towels next to her, an ice cream cone in her hand, and he spots Tanemura-senpai back on the recliner chair under the umbrella just a few metres away from them, with Lufel sat next to her like he's reading the book in her hands along with her over her shoulder.
"What, really?" Motoha is asking as they close the distance, and she visibly turns her head and spots the bucket Shun's carrying, expression lighting up. "Hold on, actually?" she says in a brighter voice. "Wait, hold on, that's so cute! Lemme see, lemme see!"
So begins a long conversation in which Nagisa sorts the seashells out for Noge and Motoha, detailing which he thinks he's going to give to who in his laundry list of friends and acquaintances.
Shun sits down and listens to Nagisa's spiel and knows if he says anything, he's going to spill about what happened, so he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't say a single word.
Nagisa is gone basically as soon as the shells are back in the bucket again, and then Noge finishes her ice cream and gets called back by her manager within the span of a minute. As soon as she's gone, Lufel replaces her in a flash of wings and hotly informs Motoha and Shun that it's terrible to be ignored all the time like they hadn't previously agreed as soon as Noge asked to go on her break to hang out with them that Lufel couldn't be responded to while she was in earshot– like Lufel didn't say that himself– and then he gets all huffy and stomp-y when they remind him of that.
Shun barely hears any of it go down, staring out at the little blip that is Nagisa as he rocks on the waves, heedless of the fact they almost killed him not 30 minutes ago.
Every time he moves, Shun feels himself tense, waiting for the moment the water swallows Nagisa whole and he disappears forever. At some point, it stops even being about drowning– Shun sees the waves move him and gets scared Nagisa's going to be lost at sea forever and never ever found again.
He barely processes Motoha getting up and leaving, and certainly doesn't hear what she tells him she's doing, just sees her move around in the corner of his vision with his eyes locked on Nagisa's body.
He looks at peace again. Like the water's not dangerous, like it didn't just almost take him. He looks calm, and relaxed, and Shun can't help but think he looks dead.
No one should seem that still and peaceful out at sea unless they're already–
Shun doesn't finish that thought. He doesn't dare let the idea form.
Traitorously, his body still twitches to run and fetch Nagisa's corpse every time the water rocks him just a little too much.
Motoha comes back, and leaves, and comes back with food and sits and eats and then leaves and comes back again. Shun sees her staring more and more each time, and still he can't himself look away from the horizon.
Finally, Motoha comes back one more time and unceremoniously kicks Shun in the side. Not a fun kick, either. Like, an actual one, enough that he hisses in pain, putting a hand where she kicked.
"You okay?" she asks like she hadn't just fully attacked him. "You seem a little, like. High-strung."
Shun makes a face at her and goes back to watching Nagisa and considers telling her. He wants to. He really wants to, wants to put this weird gnawing fear in her court because he can only imagine she can actually handle it, or either way wants to share what happened, just to have it out in the air.
But Nagisa asked him not to, and when he remembers that, the right words to explain it seem to fall away out from under him.
"I'm fine," he says. "Stomach kinda hurts."
It's not exactly a lie, because the waves rock Nagisa and for just a second it almost looks like he's slipped under the water again, and the thought of it makes Shun almost vomit then and there.
Motoha's silent for a while, and when he looks back over, she's watching him, hands on her hips brows furrowed.
Eventually, she looks away.
"Well," she says, "lemme know if I can do anything to help."
She turns and starts to walk away. Shun can't tell if that means she's called him on his bullshit or not.
"Hey, Motoha!" he calls, surprising himself, and she stops, just a few metres away, and turns back around.
"Yeah?"
Shun opens his mouth, and closes it.
He feels his shoulders raise towards his ears, and he looks out at the shore.
"It's not, like, important or anything," he says. "But I'm curious. Why do you like the beach so much?"
"Huh?" Motoha says.
A pause.
"Well," she says, "I like being out in the sun. And it's nice and hot out today, and I like street food like yakisoba and frozen foods like popsicles and beaches are good for both of those. And the water's nice and blue and pretty and I like playing in the waves and with the sand, and I'm spending time with you guys so anything's fun. Besides, it's nice to get a change of scenery, right? A break from the boring old everyday? Especially if I get to splash around in the ocean for it, too."
Shun's stomach keeps twisting.
"What's so great about the ocean, anyways?" he asks, unable to make himself speak above a mutter.
In the corner of his vision, he sees Motoha tilt her head to one side.
She takes a few steps forward to close the distance, and crouches down, not quite sitting but drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms loosely around her shins so that she's more or less eye-level with Shun.
"What do you mean?" she asks. "Do you not like being here?"
Shun shrugs. "I like hanging out with you guys," he says. "I just don't really get the appeal of the place."
Why does Motoha keep going back to the water? What was the point of her pulling Noge in with her, why had they shrieked with laughter as they splashed and threw water at each other?
Why does Nagisa just lie there, floating aimlessly for hours and hours? Why is he going back, even though he just almost drowned? Why didn't he fight to keep his head above water? Why did he seem so at peace even when he was drowning? What's so good about the water, that it pulls him to it like that?
Motoha leans back slightly, lips twisting up in a thoughtful kind of frown on one side of her face.
"Well," she says, "I like the ocean because it's pretty and it feels nice."
"I guess," Shun says.
She stares at him for a moment, then turns to look past him over his shoulder.
"Riko-senpai!" she calls, so sudden and loud Shun's shoulders jump, and he looks over to his other side to look at Tanemura-senpai, still on that same lounge chair but visibly quite a bit further in her book even from where Shun is.
"Yes?" she asks.
"Is there a reason people like the ocean so much?" Motoha calls.
Tanemura-senpai blinks, then looks up and to the side as she thinks, running her thumb along the edge of the cover of her book idly.
"Well," she says, "it's been commonly observed that humans are drawn to large bodies of water, in general. It's partially a natural survival instinct, since we need water to survive, but there are other likely reasons people tend to gravitate towards water. For one, we have a natural disposition towards the colour blue, as our brains tend to think of it as calming or relaxing.
"The soundscape of water as well as the visual effect of the tide can invoke a meditative state, and large, natural bodies of water can also produce a feeling of awe due to their mass, which can provide a feeling of connecting to nature. For beaches and oceans specifically, the surf creates a type of molecule referred to as a negative ion, which oxygenates our brains and produces serotonin. Salt water also has various health and therapeutic effects on the skin, and can feel uniquely refreshing because of it, especially with seawater's cool temperature compared to beaches which are generally warm in the season they're visited."
A pause as Tanemura-senpai considers something.
"On a less simply biological level," she adds, "being in water takes pressure off the muscles, which is great for both exercise and idle relaxation, so people can often feel comfortable in it. Also," and she turns back to them, tilting her head as a small smile flickers on her face, "people like to be rocked, generally. Being moved by the tide simulates that."
She nods her head towards Nagisa, still floating on the rolling waves.
"Huh," Motoha says. Shun turns back to her, and she's watching Nagisa, but when she notices Shun looking at her, she straightens up and puts her hands on her hips again. "Yeah!" she says. "What I said."
"You didn't say any of that," Shun says. "You just said you like it and it's pretty and feels nice. None of that ions crap."
"Well–” Motoha flounders, before stamping one foot and insisting, "It's basically sort of what I said! Just... science-y!"
…Shun doesn't get her sometimes.
"Sure," he says, because whatever, and Motoha nods like she's just won an argument before she pauses, thinking about something, and her hands fall to her sides.
"So, that answers your question?" she asks, in a carefuller voice.
Shun shrugs.
"I guess," he says, and looks back out at Nagisa.
So it's a relaxation thing? Is that why he's so weirdly calm, too, because of that "meditative state" or whatever?
Was he in that "meditative state" still when the wave had swallowed him? Was that why he didn't fight the tide?
Was it the colour blue that he let pull him down, or those negative ions, or what?
Despite the near-unbearable heat, Shun shivers.
"You okay, Shun?" Motoha asks.
Shun stands before he can think any more on it.
"Fine. I dunno," he says stiltedly. "I'm– I'm gonna get a drink. I need… yeah."
“…um," she says, "okay. Do you want a friend?"
Shun shakes his head jerkily. "I just wanna take a lap," he says. "I think– yeah. I think the heat's just probably gettin' to me."
"Okay," Motoha says, frowning. After a long moment, she purposefully looks away. "Grab something for me, too. I'll pay you back."
Shun can't even formulate a response, busting his ass towards the beachfront shops in the distance in a desperate attempt to put some space between him and the churning in his stomach.
He does not, as he speedwalks away, ever once even consider turning back around and risking seeing Nagisa floating on the tide.