SBB 2016 ENTRY #2: Green Grass and High Tides (As Far As the Eye Can See) (1/2)
Title: Green Grass and High Tides (As Far As the Eye Can See)
Pairing: Minho/Taemin
Rating: PG
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Warnings: None
Final Word Count: 14,262
The sand is the soft, fine kind that feels smooth and warm against his feet - not the gritty kind like from the beach closest to his city. That’s essentially pieces of glorified rock, Minho thinks as he slips off his sandals and shuffles closer to the path down to the water. Even up here, before he is on the beach proper, he can feel the sand sliding underneath the soles of his feet. Minho steps closer.
A shout from across the road draws Minho’s attention and he turns back to where his brother is waving at him, gesturing toward the rest of their family’s luggage piled in the trunk of the car. With a sigh, Minho tosses his shoes to the ground and slides his feet inside, still feeling some of the sand trapped against his skin. He crosses the road and helps his father pull a large box out of the car.
Summer has started.
-
The first time Minho had ever felt the ocean lapping at his feet was when he was six years old. By now he can’t remember how much of the trip was actual memory and how much he’d fabricated in his mind over the years, but he knows that the water was cold and he knows that his clothes had gotten wet when Minseok had pushed him into the waves. Their mom had yelled at Minseok and Minho might have cried - that part’s fuzzy, he’d mumble to himself - and they’d all gotten churros later that night on the boardwalk before the long drive home.
They have no pictures from that day, no video recordings or even that many stories to tell. Minho’s not entirely sure his parents would remember the trip unless he brought it up to them; he mentioned it to Minseok once, who leaned past the edge of the bed and looked up at Minho, staring down from the top bunk, before chucking a sock up at his younger brother.
“How do you even remember that?” he’d asked with a laugh. And then he’d turned back to his game and Minho turned back to the ceiling, a book resting on his chest.
That was when they used to share a room. Minho loves his brother but much prefers it this way now.
The whole day had been a blur of childlike wonder and the fantasy of some place exciting and new, and sometimes Minho thinks about it, a fleeting thought passing through his head as he recalls childhood or the shock of how cold water can really be. He’s been to the beach a handful of times since then, with friends who shove at each other and drink too much caffeine, feet coated in wet sand and a volley ball net strung up a few feet away, and with a girl whose hand he’d held as the sun dipped into the water beside them. She’d clutched at his jacket around her shoulders and turned away as he’d tried to kiss her.
Minho can’t imagine the beach without the stained glass collage of memories scattered about the waves or the feel of ice cream coated sticky fingers and the sun on his bare back. Maybe one day he’d move out by the ocean and let the pressure of finding a good job, of paying off his car, of not disappointing his father fade into the background. He’d let it all recede into the ocean like an abandoned shoe and maybe he’d learn how to surf or paddle board or waterski. Yeah, Minho would live on a house on a cliff and he’d be able to see the sea every day of his life.
He’d always wanted to be a pirate when he was younger after all.
-
The house is a pretty one with a stone path to the front door and large windows looking out over the ocean. Minho drops his bags in the room he’d be sharing with his brother and goes back out to the front room to drop himself on one of the plush couches. His parents had been to this house before, a few summers ago, and once both of their boys were finally back home together for the summer they announced their family vacation plans. With all of the camping trips he’d taken with roommates and the feebly funded trips he’d taken with the soccer club, Minho wholly welcomed this actual vacation.
And even though he should be relaxing, Minho finds himself unable to sit still. The car ride had been a few tiresome hours that he’d mostly slept through - jammed against the window with headphones in his ears - and now, brimming with unexplored territory and the prospect of doing whatever he wants, Minho calls out to his parents that he’s heading out to look around. With a quick assurance that he’s got his phone with him and a swipe of the extra house key, Minho’s out the door.
They’re a bit too outside of town for him to go look around, but with the miles of beach stretching out before him Minho can’t find a lot of effort in him to complain. He ambles down the driveway, warm sunlight cooling in the chilly evening breeze before it hits his face. Minho shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and watches the beginnings of the setting sun mixing watercolor in the clouds.
With a quick check for cars, he crosses the street and stops just before the sandy slope down to the beach, eyes trained on the sky. He takes a deep breath, lets the wind push at his clothes with gentle fingers, and tips his head back. The crash of the waves and the smell of the ocean surround him, wrap him up in a feeling of comfort that he never really felt back in the city. It surprises him almost, how calm he feels in this moment.
And then there’s a sound next to him, a quiet shifting noise and Minho’s eyes snap open.
There’s a boy sitting on the bench just next to Minho, sandals lying abandoned on the ground in front of him, a loose white shirt flapping around his thin frame. He’s got a blond halo surrounding his face, hair looking well and truly sun-bleached in the fiery light, and one leg is pulled up on the bench, his toes curling over the edge. From the look of him, the boy must have been sitting there well before Minho had walked over and he was doing a fair job of pretending that Minho wasn’t there, invading his space.
Minho clears his throat. When the boy turns slightly and catches his eye, he nods in acknowledgement.
“Hey.”
There’s a quiet huff of laughter from the boy. “Hey,” he replies, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he wraps his arms around his knee.
That’s it.
They don’t say anything more after that; the boy turns back to the ocean and Minho turns back to the sky. The silence is only broken some time later by Minseok sticking his head out of the front door and shouting for Minho to come back in.
“Who were you talking to?” He asks as Minho jogs up the front steps.
Minho throws a brief look back to the boy who was sitting on the bench. At Minseok’s questioning look, he shrugs.
“No one.”
-
So while the beach is a great reprieve from fast life in the city, Minho is still largely a social kind of guy and, with no one to talk to or hang out with aside from his brother, he quickly grows bored. He establishes a routine: get up in morning and go for a run, laze around with Minseok on the sand for a few hours, maybe stop by one of the nearby towns with his mom in the late afternoon, and retire to the couch to watch TV when the weather starts getting chilly at night. It’s fun enough, but Minho can’t shake the restlessness and the need to get out and really do something.
Minho oversleeps one morning - as much as you can when you’re on vacation anyway - and the sun is already shining high in the sky by the time he laces up his shoes and races out the door. There are more people out as his feet pound against the street, a steady, rhythmic thump as Minho greets each pleasantly smiling face through the tinny rumble of the music pouring from his headphones. In just a few days he’s already established a route, so when he misses a turn and forgets to double back until he’s already gone a block past it, he thinks well, what the hell, and keeps going.
The road takes him to a rocky little path surrounded by bushes, fancy looking houses towering on one side. He runs past an elderly couple going for a stroll, a young man walking an enthusiastic dog, a little girl racing away from him on a bright orange bike. It’s nice back here, he thinks, not exactly secluded but just tucked away enough that Minho feels like he’s found his own little place despite the small number of people he’s already seen.
When the bushes taper off, the path opens up a bit and Minho’s surrounded by fields of grass and - are those goats off in the distance? He crosses a small, sturdy wooden bridge and keeps going, the path widening even more until he arrives at a tiny park. Slowing down, Minho circles around the path until his legs are cooled down and takes a seat at one of the picnic tables on the outskirts of the playground. There are no children on the play structure but a young couple plays fetch with their dog in the middle of the grass circle.
Minho watches them, absentmindedly stretching his legs, until movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention. Someone sits down at the table next to Minho’s, his eyes turned down toward his phone, and Minho’s about to turn away when he realizes that it’s the boy he saw the other day, when his family first arrived. He makes a small, involuntary noise of recognition that causes the boy’s head to snap up. His eyes meet Minho’s.
“Oh, hey,” Minho says a bit lamely.
“Hey,” the boy says, that secretive smile hovering over his lips again.
Minho should leave it at that; he should turn away and head back home and stop accidentally bothering this boy at random occasions. He can feel the embarrassment prick at the back of his neck as the boy turns back to his phone, fingers tapping away steadily.
But Minho wants a friend.
His family will still be on vacation for another few weeks, living in that beautiful house just across the street from the ocean, and Minho wants a friend. He’s not particularly used to being alone and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his trip with only his brother for company. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Minho makes a fool of himself and come August he’ll be miles and miles away and, if it all goes to hell, he can pretend it never happened. He’ll never have to know if this boy laughed at him and told all his friends about the dork he met at the park and Minho will go on with his life.
It’s just one summer and he wants to take a chance.
Swallowing his nervousness, Minho asks, “do you live here?”
The boy looks up in surprise for a moment before his face melts into a smile. “Yeah,” he says. “But you don’t.”
Minho blinks. “How’d you know?” He asks, earnest and a little impressed. It’s coloring his voice and his face and it must be funny because the boy in front of him breaks out into laughter, his phone now abandoned on the table before him.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, I’d have seen you before,” he explains, once his laughter has subsided. He fixes Minho with a grin. “Plus you’re not nearly tan enough.”
That pulls a laugh out of Minho and he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Gathering up his courage, he thrusts his hand out. “I’m Minho,” he says steadily.
The boy takes his hand and his grip is sure and strong. “Taemin,” he supplies with another smile.
The sun is warm at Minho’s back.
-
Minho and Taemin had parted shortly after their introduction the day before when Taemin received a call from his mother asking for help with some errands. Taemin had left a little sheepishly, with a quick, “sorry about this” and then he was off. It wasn’t until Taemin had been completely gone from sight that Minho realized he hadn’t asked for Taemin’s number. How were they supposed to be friends if he had no idea how to find the other boy?
As it turns out, Minho doesn’t need to worry about that - he runs into Taemin again the next morning, almost quite literally. He’s out for a run again and takes the path back to the park this time. Minho’s not particularly searching for Taemin or anything, but the run is nice and a family of four let Minho play with their dog for a minute after it gets away from them and nearly barrels him over in an attempt to play.
There’s a light breeze this morning and it pushes Minho’s hair off his face. He feels like he’s flying.
When he rounds the path into the park, he’s planning to head straight for the benches this time. But as he turns, he nearly collides with Taemin who steps out from a small dock that Minho hadn’t noticed the day before. Minho pulls up short, his momentum almost toppling him into Taemin anyway, but he’s able to regain his balance as Taemin takes a surprised step back.
Minho’s breathing hard but there’s a grin on his face as he huffs out, “whoops, sorry!”
He reaches a hand out to steady Taemin who looks up at him with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow. Minho releases his arm, wiping off a slightly sweaty hand on his athletic shorts as Taemin pulls earbuds out of his ears and stuffs them into his pocket.
“Morning, Minho.”
“Good morning. What are you doing out so early today?” He asks, casting a glance around.
“I’m always out this early.” Taemin slips his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “You’re the one who’s early today.”
“No, I usually run at this time,” Minho says as he gestures to his clothes.
“And I usually feed the ducks,” Taemin says with an easy nod to the side.
“Ducks?”
“Yeah,” he says, already beginning to turn. “Come here.”
Taemin leads him towards the dock he just came from and at the end of it there is a pond filled with tall reeds reaching toward the sky and, scattered about the water behind them, ducks. When the ducks see them, they all rush to the strip of land in front of the dock, quacking loudly as they crowd around.
“Here.”
Taemin produces a small bag of something and hands it to Minho.
“What’s this?” He asks, accepting it.
“Sunflower seeds.” Taemin leans his arms against the railing. “Throw some out to them.”
Minho opens the bag and dumps some sunflower seeds into his palm, nervously eyeing the sign posted in front of them on the dock. The ducks are staring expectantly, a few more swimming to the shore as they see movement. He glances over at Taemin, a little unsure, but the boy gestures at him to throw the seeds and so, right in front of the "don't feed the wildlife" sign, Minho does, casting his arm out in an arc over the ducks. They swarm immediately, quacking even more loudly than before. They watch the ducks, Taemin amused and Minho slightly enamored with the sight, until the ducks have finished all the seeds.
“Here,” Taemin says, grabbing the bag. He dumps another pile into Minho’s hands. “I fed them earlier too and they’re gonna get fat and lazy if we keep at like this. Or they’ll get greedy.” He addresses the last part directly to the ducks, narrowing his eyes at them.
Without fanfare, Minho tosses the last handful of sunflower seeds over the ducks and they all rush at them again, like they understood that they wouldn’t be getting anymore. Two drakes fight over a seed, pecking and flapping their wings wildly. Minho watches another small black bird swoop in and take the seed from the unsuspecting ducks. Well then.
After approximately four fights have broken out, Minho comments, "wow. Ducks are jerks." He leans against the railing and shakes his head.
"Quack. I'm an asshole, quack." Taemin says casually, arms crossed over the wood and watching the ducks swim aimlessly.
Minho looks at Taemin, surprised for a beat, before he snorts and resettles himself against the rail.
“So, what is there to do out here?” he asks.
Taemin raises an eyebrow at him. “What, bored already?”
With a smile, Minho shakes his head. “Not exactly. But I only just got here and you’re the one who’s a local. I figure that you probably have more ideas than I do.”
The other boy laughs and turns towards Minho.
“Well,” he says after a moment. “I guess that depends on what you want to do.” At Minho’s nod, he continues. “There’s a couple of towns that are really close, you could even walk to them if you really wanted. And then there’s a few more that are within driving distance. If you wanna stay on the beach, then you can surf or whatever.”
Minho hums, looking out at the ducks. “I’d ask if you could show me around, but I’m not sure if there’s too much you could show me.”
Taemin nods slowly, his cheeks puffed out a little. “Well…”
“What?”
“I could show you the secret spot?”
Minho perks up at that. “Secret spot? What’s that?” He pauses. “Wait. If it’s a secret, then why would you want to show me?”
He’s not expecting Taemin to laugh.
“No, no - that’s just what me and my brother called it when we were little! It’s not that secret at all.” He laughs again. “It’s got a great view though.”
The secret spot turns out to be a large log nestled up on the rocks near the ocean. It’s not secret in the slightest and, if Minho’s being honest, there’s nothing particularly special about it either. But they lounge against the smooth wood, the sound of waves wrapping around them, and he’s got to admit Taemin was right - it is a pretty great view.
-
A pounding sound jerks Minho from sleep. He sits up in bed, sheet slipping into his lap, and stares blearily at the wall across the room. There is light tap tap tap and Minho turns his head, staring at his brother’s empty bed before he flops back against his pillows once more. The tapping sound returns in a steady rhythm that lulls him into an almost trancelike state. Just as he’s about to fall back asleep, the window just above his bed rattles a little as the pounding makes a sudden resurgence.
Set into a confused state of panic, Minho flies back up in bed and pulls on the blinds so hard he nearly yanks the cord out of the frame. Taemin’s impatient face meets him on the other side of the glass. Minho shoves the window open and the other boy scoffs.
“It’s about time,” he says, hands on his hips.
“Taemin. What the hell.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you just knock on the front door?” Minho asks grumpily, still a little disoriented from being pulled so roughly out of sleep.
Taemin shrugs.
“Would you have heard me anyway?”
Minho frowns at him. “Guess not.” He cuts into Taemin’s smug look with, “and anyway - what if I hadn’t even been here? Or what if my brother had?”
A bird screeches somewhere in the sky.
“Then I guess I’d ask for you.”
“Taemin…” he groans.
Minho crosses his arms on the sill of the window, sheet still wrapped haphazardly around his legs. The breeze wafting in feels nice, light and cool as it hits his face. He closes his eyes and figures that if Taemin waited - however long it was - that he could stand to wait a little longer.
“You’ve got bedhead,” Taemin says after a long moment, poking Minho’s forehead through the screen. Minho grumbles and turns his head away.
“It’s cute,” he teases, trying to poke Minho’s cheek this time. Minho grumbles more, burying his face in his arms so that Taemin can’t see the way his face gets warm.
-
The water is just as cold as he remembers - thinks he remembers - from the first time he ever went to the beach.
Minho buries his toes in the sinking wet sand, correcting his balance every time he sinks a little lower, feet uneven under the surf. A few feet away, Taemin’s inadvertently doing the same thing, his feet getting covered with sand each time the tide recedes, as he searches for stones to skip.
“I’ve never been able to do it,” he told Minho.
“Then I’ll teach you,” Minho had said as he’d wrapped an arm around Taemin’s shoulders.
But instead of rocks, Taemin comes back to him with a collection of strange shells.
“Look,” he says, thrusting them in front of Minho’s face.
Minho almost falls in the water, feet still stuck in their little sand hole that has quickly sunk him up to his shins. He grabs Taemin’s arm and the other boy nearly loses all of his shells as he tries to help Minho regain his balance while not losing his own. Twenty seconds of childlike panic later, Minho finally extracts his feet from the sand, beach shorts thankfully clear of sand and dry (for now, at least).
Taemin holds his cupped hands out again. “Here.”
They’re not particularly pretty shells - in fact, Minho would go so far as to call them ugly. Most of them are broken or covered in tiny holes or fractures, and several of them have impressive civilizations of barnacles stuck to them. The lone sand dollar lying in his palm is covered in dry purple fuzz.
“Uh...that’s nice Taem.”
Taemin catches the look on his face and scowls. “You don’t like them, do you?”
He takes a step back, hands raised to try to placate Taemin. “No, I’m just wondering why you didn’t pick any, well.” He pauses, hand waving in a messy circle, trying and failing to think of a nicer way to say it.
“Pretty ones,” he finishes.
He needn’t have worried though; Taemin scoffs and says, “that’s boring. The pretty ones are all anyone ever takes.” He shifts the shells into one hand carefully and bends down, searching for more. “I’ve lived here my whole life, I don’t need any more pretty shells.”
Taemin pulls a piece of petrified wood out of the sand and holds it up. “These are more interesting anyway.” There’s a bright smile on his face as he holds it out in Minho’s direction.
Minho steps forward and turns the wood around in his hands contemplatively. It’s large, spanning nearly the length of his hand, and it’s surprisingly firm and heavy in his grip. It’s smooth though, and Minho runs his thumb along it as he thinks about all of the beautiful shells his mother has laid out along the counter in the backyard that will probably break before they get them home.
“Yeah,” he agrees, looking up. His own smiles grows, unbidden, to match Taemin’s. “You’re right.
-
There’s a huge rock - a mini mountain really - that’s about the only thing Minho can see when he wakes up that morning. The sea fades into the sky and, with the rock as his focal point, he makes his way down to the shoreline and heads towards it. He doesn’t wander aimlessly, but his legs carry him mindlessly in that one direction while his head takes off on its own.
The air is far chillier than it has any right to be during the height of summer at the beach of all places, and Minho curses himself for not bringing a jacket even though he’d been trudging around wrapped up in a blanket while he was still inside. But it’s too late to turn back now and he’s not particularly sure he wants to anyway, goosebumps and frozen nose aside.
He was feeling restless somehow, wanting to move but too lazy to go for a run. Instead, he’s shuffling over the damp sand, sneakers leaving behind clean footprints, the bottoms of his shoes pressed neatly into a trail that leads right to him. They almost look like they could stay there forever, a record stamped into the earth that Minho was here, a reminder for the rest of time. But they’ll be washed away when the tide rises, brushed out of existence by the feet of birds or dogs or other people.
Still, with no one else around, Minho likes to think he’s leaving his own mark on the world.
The rock grows closer the longer he walks and the fog starts to break just enough that he can see the distant outline of house lining the beach off in the distance. When blue sky starts to peek through the gloom, Minho figures he must have been gone for over an hour. Something flashes in his periphery, catching his attention, drawing his eyes and stilling his feet.
About forty feet out, there’s a small, dark head that pops out of the water just in front of a cresting wave; he thinks it might be a sea lion. But then it ducks under, body slipping through the wave like an underwater surfer, and it’s gone. No problem, he thinks, a smile pulling at his mouth as he turns. It’s time for me to go too.
-
It’s getting late when Taemin suggests that they dig a pit.
“…Why exactly?” Minho questions with a grin.
“Why not?” Taemin gets on his knees and starts shoveling away with his hands. Their towels and shoes are safely out of sand-flinging range several feet up the beach so Minho turns back to Taemin just in time for him to say, “Maybe we could sleep here tonight.”
Minho joins Taemin in the sand. “I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.”
Taemin makes a dismissive noise and shakes his damp hair out of his face. When Minho nudges him with his shoulder, Taemin gets the hint.
“Okay, so maybe we’re not allowed to, strictly speaking,” he says, his face downturned. But Minho can see the mischief in his eyes anyway. “But I’ve done it loads of times and there’s gonna be fireworks tonight so tons of people will be down here after dark anyway.”
Minho pauses in his digging to look at Taemin. “Fireworks?”
The other boy hums, no other answer forthcoming.
“How come?” Minho prompts.
“I’m not sure, really. It’s just something the city does every year. There’s no reason, I think.”
They keep digging the pit, deepening it as Taemin talks about the year he caught the most crabs ever, widening it as Minho tells Taemin about a camping trip that went fantastically wrong and ended up with Minseok in a cast. When it gets too dark to see, Taemin turns the light on his phone on and props it up against their towels so that they can see. It’s starting to get a little chilly but since Taemin doesn’t say anything, Minho refrains from mentioning it.
The pit is starting to look like a mini swimming pool by the time Taemin declares that it’s finished.
“You sure?” Minho asks, studying it.
Taemin fixes him with a blank look that he interprets as come on, who’s the expert here?
They lay their towels out in the damp sand and it is cooler in the pit, but they’re surrounded in darkness with the sound of the waves cushioning them and it’s kind of amazing. Minho taps out a quick message to his dad to let him know that he’s still with Taemin and they’re going to watch the fireworks, he’ll be back later. He adds a silent maybe in his own head.
With no other lights, his screen seems too bright, so Minho slips it into the pocket of his shorts and lays back, stretched out across his towel. Something warm bumps against his arm as Taemin shifts on his own towel next to him. Minho’s breath stutters quietly in his chest for a moment and it’s too dark to see Taemin at all but it’s like Minho can imagine him lying there, clear as day. He crosses his arms over his stomach and listens to the sea.
It’s not long before Taemin starts pointing out constellations to him. Minho’s seen stars before; maybe not this many, but he’s seen them. But there’s something about the way Taemin points them out, lazily ignoring the ones he doesn’t know and rambling off stories about what his grade school teachers had taught him. Together they make up stories for each of the constellations, grand tales more exciting than the ones they’d learned, and even create a few constellations of their own.
Taemin’s laughing at Minho’s brontosaurus constellation and why it symbolizes health and Minho’s gripped with a terrifyingly strong urge to wrap Taemin up in his arms and never let him go. He tries to quell it, listening intently as Taemin earnestly describes the meaning behind his soldier constellation and why it’s different than the warrior.
The feeling burns away strongly in his chest anyway but Minho pretends it’s not there.
The conversation stops mid-sentence at the first crack ringing through the air, Minho’s eyes opening just in time to see the flash of green light up the sky. Taemin looks at him excitedly, his grin as wild as his hair, and Minho has just enough time to see the way his eyes sparkle before the sky goes dark again. But just a minute later, another loud boom sounds and the sky is painted blue, white, and gold for a moment.
Small smatterings of conversations, impressed oohs and ahhs gather on the edges of Minho’s consciousness. The fireworks display gets into its rhythm and pops and crackles fill the air as light dances above them. They’re so close that when Taemin gives a little shiver, his eyes still trained upwards, Minho can feel it. He hardly thinks before he’s slipping an arm behind Taemin’s head and pulling him close. For his part, Taemin doesn’t seem particularly surprised, just murmurs that that kind’s my favorite when a sparkling gold firework flares through the sky.
Minho’s inclined to think that kind is his favorite too.
It gets colder the longer the fireworks continue. The two of them shuffle close and drape one of the towels over themselves and, when the sky finally stays dark and the chattering around them fades, Taemin stays tucked against Minho’s side and tells him about the two dogs he had when he was younger and all of the lizards he’d found in the garden and tried to keep until his mom had found one of them in the cupboard.
“She screamed so loud,” Taemin chuckles. “It was just sitting on one of the shelves and ran away when she opened it.”
Minho hums, eyes closed as he focuses on the sound of Taemin’s voice and the warmth of his body next to Minho’s.
“I wasn’t allowed to keep any after that. But I still caught them anyway.”
“My brother gave me a lizard tail when I was five,” Minho says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It was still twitching when he gave it to me.”
Taemin laughs. “Oh no.”
“Yeah,” Minho says darkly. “I cried and ran to my mom and he got grounded for a week.”
“Well,” Taemin says casually, lying his head against Minho’s shoulder. “I can assure you that any and all lizards I give you will be fully intact, tail and all.”
Minho can’t help himself. He laughs, pulling Taemin to him and keeping him close.
It’s dark and quiet and Taemin is warm. Minho likes to listen to Taemin talk, but he’s happy for them to just listen together too. He’s not really sure when or where the conversation trails off, if they just stop talking or if one of them falls asleep first. But they do sleep there in that little pit they dug and when he wakes up he’s made aware of two things: Taemin is still lying curled up against him and it’s freezing.
Minho can feel a layer of water - the fog and the ocean spray - coating him and freezing him down to his bones. It’s still early. He doesn’t know how he knows this but when he checks his phone, the time shows that it’s barely past six. The sun is rising, brightening the beach enough to have woken him, but it’s hidden enough behind the dense roll of coastal fog that makes the sky look grey and overcast. With a groan, he gently extracts his arm from underneath Taemin’s head. He shakes it out, feeling pins and needles pricking uncomfortably at his fingertips, and looks around.
Predictably, they are the only ones stupid enough to have stayed on the beach overnight. Minho runs a hand through his damp hair, feeling the grimy tangled mess left over, a combination of the day before and the sand that had been blown through it overnight. He desperately needs a shower. Yeah, a hot shower sounds absolutely fantastic.
Taemin rolls over, his hands clutching at hard-packed sand, and Minho decides that they should probably leave now before Taemin dies of hypothermia or something. He pats at Taemin’s cold cheek but the boy doesn’t respond until Minho starts shaking his shoulder.
“What?” He groans, drawing out the word as he turns over once more.
“Come on,” Minho says, shaking him again. “Get up. It’s cold and we need to leave.”
Taemin sticks his face against the towel, deadweight as Minho hauls him up on his feet. He leaves the boy swaying there as he gathers up the wet towels and convinces Taemin to slip back into his flip flops. Taemin leans against Minho heavily, eyes hardly open, and nonsense complaints leak from his mouth the whole walk back up the beach. Minho keeps a steady grip on him as they climb up the path.
He’s not a morning person either, but really.
They’d stayed closer to Minho’s house so he decides it’s easier to bring Taemin back with him than walk him an extra few blocks when Taemin’s feet seem to drag more with every step. He’s practically asleep at Minho’s side already.
Minho unlocks the door quietly, hoping and praying his parents aren’t up yet. He slips off his shoes and pulls Taemin’s off for him as the boy leans against the wall. He briefly contemplates depositing Taemin on the couch but decides against it. Minho’s not sure if his parents knew he didn’t come home last night or not but either way, they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to the surprise of a bedraggled, waterlogged boy lying all over the couch of their rented house. So, back to Minho’s room it is.
After dumping Taemin in his room (as quietly as possible), Minho heads out to the bathroom. The cold has sunken down into his bones, making him shiver even as the hot water washes over him. The water pressure is low, the spray too wide to really warm him up as much as he’d like, but the hot water running down the back of his neck, the warm steam enveloping the room, all of the grime finally falling out of his hair - it’s heaven. He tries not to take too long, but if he spends an extra five minutes under the spray, well. Who could blame him?
Taemin makes his bed all messy and gross. Minho makes a face when he walks into the room, hair still dripping, to find that Taemin had taken over his bed, his nasty hair rubbed all over Minho’s - previously - clean pillow. At least he’s on top of the sheets, Minho thinks with a sigh.
He looks over at his brother’s bed and catches Minseok’s eye. Minseok raises an eyebrow and Minho just shrugs in response. His brother turns back to his phone and it’s for the best, really, because Minho needs to get Taemin out of his bed and into the shower.
In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that Minseok had already woken up because, as it turns out, Taemin is really resistant to moving a second time.
By the time he’s finally convinced Taemin to get up and take a shower, Minho’s ready to go back to sleep, himself. He stares forlornly at his bed, sadly taking in the wet spots and the sand scattered about the sheets. Minho really hopes they didn’t track in too much sand. His mom is going to kill him.
“So.”
Minseok’s voice is so casual that it makes Minho turn around in suspicion.
“What?” He asks, eyes narrowed.
“Where were you last night?” The question is a clear double edged sword and there’s a hint of a leer in his voice now that he knows Minho’s back in one piece.
Minho could spin him a tale, he could make up any sort of lie to make last night dangerous or fantastical or otherworldly. Instead, he tells the truth because it’s easier and Minseok is bound to make his own conclusions no matter what Minho tells him. Sometimes he thinks his brother has an even bigger imagination than he does.
“Me and Taemin watched the fireworks on the beach last night and then we fell asleep.”
Minseok stares at Minho, his eyes boring through Minho so intensely that he’s actually a little taken aback. He blinks, head tilting and face falling into confusion the longer Minseok stares at him. After what must be a full minute, he gives a little nod.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Minho is more than confused.
“Okay,” Minseok repeats. He turns back to his phone and Minho rolls his eyes, deciding that he needs coffee and at least two doughnuts to get through the morning.
Minho leaves a set of clothes out for Taemin in front of the bathroom and Taemin’s helping him strip the bed when his parents wake up. This isn’t the first time they’ve met each other but Taemin is just as polite when he greets them and Minho can’t help but be happy at the way his mother smiles at the boy. Once the sheets are tucked away in the washing machine for later, Minho flops on his bare mattress and complains about wanting doughnuts.
Before Taemin can even open his mouth, Minseok generously offers to make a doughnut run. Minho turns to look at him, eyes squinting in suspicion because this is very rare. But Taemin cheers and Minho’s hungry so he lets Minseok off without a word.
Truthfully, the room is cold in the morning and Minho shrugs on his hoodie, tucking his hands away in the front pocket almost immediately. When he sees Taemin eyeing his brother’s vacant bed, he tosses a spare blanket at him and waves Taemin back over to his side of the room. Minho leans against the wall, Taemin soft against his chest, and their phones are produced once more. Taemin shows him funny videos and Minho shows him pictures of his friends and they are decidedly not cuddling, no matter what it may look like. But with Taemin so close, Minho breathes deeply, smelling his shampoo in Taemin’s hair and his soap on Taemin’s skin, and tries to suppress the distressing tremble that shocks through him.
When Minseok comes back with two boxes of doughnuts, Minho and Taemin take one all for them and park themselves on the floor in front of the television to watch cartoons. The box is halfway empty when the sun finally breaks through the fog and they race each other out the door.
-
Minho walks up the paved incline that leads to the cliff. Taemin has disappeared off somewhere, sprinting off in the dusky light while Minho follows at a much more sedate pace. He’s in no particular rush to get there - he knows Taemin will be waiting for him.
A little boy and his mother amble past with a great big dog and Minho spares them a smile, so used to the friendly nature of everyone, local or vacationer, that’s stopped to say hello to him or offer a smile of their own. It’s different than back home, different from the faces downturned to focused straight ahead and the rushing, bustling, busy nature of a city. It’s nice and he’s going to miss it, but he shoves those unwanted thoughts out of his head as he reaches the top of the cliff.
There’s a dirt path surrounded by bushes to his right, but Minho ignores it in favor of staring out over the vast expanse of ocean in front of him. It’s cloudy, the sky blending together in a muddled mix of hazy, warm color as the setting sun burns behind it. It’s beautiful and casts a striking orange glow over the tips of the waves. And Minho wants to cringe at the thoughts leaking from his own head because it’s cheesy and cliché, but he feels like he’s on top of the world.
Then he spots Taemin.
There, down on the wooden stairs leading to the stand, Taemin stands on the railing, hands in his pockets, still as a stone. The sun sets him afire like the waves, a glowing golden mist surrounding his lone figure, bracketing him against the crashing waves. Minho’s breath catches in his chest and he watches the other boy until Taemin looks over his shoulder, tossing his head to invite Minho over.
He climbs down from the railing and stands with Minho, and together they point excitedly as they spot the dolphins peeking through the waves further down the coast. But the picture of Taemin on the railing with a fiery glow covering the world sticks with even as they later head back down the street and split off to return to their respective houses.
When Minho walks into his room and sees the jacket Taemin had tossed on his bed and forgotten earlier in the day, he picks it up to move it and, without thinking, brings it up to his face and inhales deeply. It smells like the ocean spray and something in Minho's heart clenches, stuttering unevenly.
Part Two
Pairing: Minho/Taemin
Rating: PG
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Warnings: None
Final Word Count: 14,262
The sand is the soft, fine kind that feels smooth and warm against his feet - not the gritty kind like from the beach closest to his city. That’s essentially pieces of glorified rock, Minho thinks as he slips off his sandals and shuffles closer to the path down to the water. Even up here, before he is on the beach proper, he can feel the sand sliding underneath the soles of his feet. Minho steps closer.
A shout from across the road draws Minho’s attention and he turns back to where his brother is waving at him, gesturing toward the rest of their family’s luggage piled in the trunk of the car. With a sigh, Minho tosses his shoes to the ground and slides his feet inside, still feeling some of the sand trapped against his skin. He crosses the road and helps his father pull a large box out of the car.
Summer has started.
-
The first time Minho had ever felt the ocean lapping at his feet was when he was six years old. By now he can’t remember how much of the trip was actual memory and how much he’d fabricated in his mind over the years, but he knows that the water was cold and he knows that his clothes had gotten wet when Minseok had pushed him into the waves. Their mom had yelled at Minseok and Minho might have cried - that part’s fuzzy, he’d mumble to himself - and they’d all gotten churros later that night on the boardwalk before the long drive home.
They have no pictures from that day, no video recordings or even that many stories to tell. Minho’s not entirely sure his parents would remember the trip unless he brought it up to them; he mentioned it to Minseok once, who leaned past the edge of the bed and looked up at Minho, staring down from the top bunk, before chucking a sock up at his younger brother.
“How do you even remember that?” he’d asked with a laugh. And then he’d turned back to his game and Minho turned back to the ceiling, a book resting on his chest.
That was when they used to share a room. Minho loves his brother but much prefers it this way now.
The whole day had been a blur of childlike wonder and the fantasy of some place exciting and new, and sometimes Minho thinks about it, a fleeting thought passing through his head as he recalls childhood or the shock of how cold water can really be. He’s been to the beach a handful of times since then, with friends who shove at each other and drink too much caffeine, feet coated in wet sand and a volley ball net strung up a few feet away, and with a girl whose hand he’d held as the sun dipped into the water beside them. She’d clutched at his jacket around her shoulders and turned away as he’d tried to kiss her.
Minho can’t imagine the beach without the stained glass collage of memories scattered about the waves or the feel of ice cream coated sticky fingers and the sun on his bare back. Maybe one day he’d move out by the ocean and let the pressure of finding a good job, of paying off his car, of not disappointing his father fade into the background. He’d let it all recede into the ocean like an abandoned shoe and maybe he’d learn how to surf or paddle board or waterski. Yeah, Minho would live on a house on a cliff and he’d be able to see the sea every day of his life.
He’d always wanted to be a pirate when he was younger after all.
-
The house is a pretty one with a stone path to the front door and large windows looking out over the ocean. Minho drops his bags in the room he’d be sharing with his brother and goes back out to the front room to drop himself on one of the plush couches. His parents had been to this house before, a few summers ago, and once both of their boys were finally back home together for the summer they announced their family vacation plans. With all of the camping trips he’d taken with roommates and the feebly funded trips he’d taken with the soccer club, Minho wholly welcomed this actual vacation.
And even though he should be relaxing, Minho finds himself unable to sit still. The car ride had been a few tiresome hours that he’d mostly slept through - jammed against the window with headphones in his ears - and now, brimming with unexplored territory and the prospect of doing whatever he wants, Minho calls out to his parents that he’s heading out to look around. With a quick assurance that he’s got his phone with him and a swipe of the extra house key, Minho’s out the door.
They’re a bit too outside of town for him to go look around, but with the miles of beach stretching out before him Minho can’t find a lot of effort in him to complain. He ambles down the driveway, warm sunlight cooling in the chilly evening breeze before it hits his face. Minho shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and watches the beginnings of the setting sun mixing watercolor in the clouds.
With a quick check for cars, he crosses the street and stops just before the sandy slope down to the beach, eyes trained on the sky. He takes a deep breath, lets the wind push at his clothes with gentle fingers, and tips his head back. The crash of the waves and the smell of the ocean surround him, wrap him up in a feeling of comfort that he never really felt back in the city. It surprises him almost, how calm he feels in this moment.
And then there’s a sound next to him, a quiet shifting noise and Minho’s eyes snap open.
There’s a boy sitting on the bench just next to Minho, sandals lying abandoned on the ground in front of him, a loose white shirt flapping around his thin frame. He’s got a blond halo surrounding his face, hair looking well and truly sun-bleached in the fiery light, and one leg is pulled up on the bench, his toes curling over the edge. From the look of him, the boy must have been sitting there well before Minho had walked over and he was doing a fair job of pretending that Minho wasn’t there, invading his space.
Minho clears his throat. When the boy turns slightly and catches his eye, he nods in acknowledgement.
“Hey.”
There’s a quiet huff of laughter from the boy. “Hey,” he replies, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he wraps his arms around his knee.
That’s it.
They don’t say anything more after that; the boy turns back to the ocean and Minho turns back to the sky. The silence is only broken some time later by Minseok sticking his head out of the front door and shouting for Minho to come back in.
“Who were you talking to?” He asks as Minho jogs up the front steps.
Minho throws a brief look back to the boy who was sitting on the bench. At Minseok’s questioning look, he shrugs.
“No one.”
-
So while the beach is a great reprieve from fast life in the city, Minho is still largely a social kind of guy and, with no one to talk to or hang out with aside from his brother, he quickly grows bored. He establishes a routine: get up in morning and go for a run, laze around with Minseok on the sand for a few hours, maybe stop by one of the nearby towns with his mom in the late afternoon, and retire to the couch to watch TV when the weather starts getting chilly at night. It’s fun enough, but Minho can’t shake the restlessness and the need to get out and really do something.
Minho oversleeps one morning - as much as you can when you’re on vacation anyway - and the sun is already shining high in the sky by the time he laces up his shoes and races out the door. There are more people out as his feet pound against the street, a steady, rhythmic thump as Minho greets each pleasantly smiling face through the tinny rumble of the music pouring from his headphones. In just a few days he’s already established a route, so when he misses a turn and forgets to double back until he’s already gone a block past it, he thinks well, what the hell, and keeps going.
The road takes him to a rocky little path surrounded by bushes, fancy looking houses towering on one side. He runs past an elderly couple going for a stroll, a young man walking an enthusiastic dog, a little girl racing away from him on a bright orange bike. It’s nice back here, he thinks, not exactly secluded but just tucked away enough that Minho feels like he’s found his own little place despite the small number of people he’s already seen.
When the bushes taper off, the path opens up a bit and Minho’s surrounded by fields of grass and - are those goats off in the distance? He crosses a small, sturdy wooden bridge and keeps going, the path widening even more until he arrives at a tiny park. Slowing down, Minho circles around the path until his legs are cooled down and takes a seat at one of the picnic tables on the outskirts of the playground. There are no children on the play structure but a young couple plays fetch with their dog in the middle of the grass circle.
Minho watches them, absentmindedly stretching his legs, until movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention. Someone sits down at the table next to Minho’s, his eyes turned down toward his phone, and Minho’s about to turn away when he realizes that it’s the boy he saw the other day, when his family first arrived. He makes a small, involuntary noise of recognition that causes the boy’s head to snap up. His eyes meet Minho’s.
“Oh, hey,” Minho says a bit lamely.
“Hey,” the boy says, that secretive smile hovering over his lips again.
Minho should leave it at that; he should turn away and head back home and stop accidentally bothering this boy at random occasions. He can feel the embarrassment prick at the back of his neck as the boy turns back to his phone, fingers tapping away steadily.
But Minho wants a friend.
His family will still be on vacation for another few weeks, living in that beautiful house just across the street from the ocean, and Minho wants a friend. He’s not particularly used to being alone and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his trip with only his brother for company. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Minho makes a fool of himself and come August he’ll be miles and miles away and, if it all goes to hell, he can pretend it never happened. He’ll never have to know if this boy laughed at him and told all his friends about the dork he met at the park and Minho will go on with his life.
It’s just one summer and he wants to take a chance.
Swallowing his nervousness, Minho asks, “do you live here?”
The boy looks up in surprise for a moment before his face melts into a smile. “Yeah,” he says. “But you don’t.”
Minho blinks. “How’d you know?” He asks, earnest and a little impressed. It’s coloring his voice and his face and it must be funny because the boy in front of him breaks out into laughter, his phone now abandoned on the table before him.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, I’d have seen you before,” he explains, once his laughter has subsided. He fixes Minho with a grin. “Plus you’re not nearly tan enough.”
That pulls a laugh out of Minho and he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Gathering up his courage, he thrusts his hand out. “I’m Minho,” he says steadily.
The boy takes his hand and his grip is sure and strong. “Taemin,” he supplies with another smile.
The sun is warm at Minho’s back.
-
Minho and Taemin had parted shortly after their introduction the day before when Taemin received a call from his mother asking for help with some errands. Taemin had left a little sheepishly, with a quick, “sorry about this” and then he was off. It wasn’t until Taemin had been completely gone from sight that Minho realized he hadn’t asked for Taemin’s number. How were they supposed to be friends if he had no idea how to find the other boy?
As it turns out, Minho doesn’t need to worry about that - he runs into Taemin again the next morning, almost quite literally. He’s out for a run again and takes the path back to the park this time. Minho’s not particularly searching for Taemin or anything, but the run is nice and a family of four let Minho play with their dog for a minute after it gets away from them and nearly barrels him over in an attempt to play.
There’s a light breeze this morning and it pushes Minho’s hair off his face. He feels like he’s flying.
When he rounds the path into the park, he’s planning to head straight for the benches this time. But as he turns, he nearly collides with Taemin who steps out from a small dock that Minho hadn’t noticed the day before. Minho pulls up short, his momentum almost toppling him into Taemin anyway, but he’s able to regain his balance as Taemin takes a surprised step back.
Minho’s breathing hard but there’s a grin on his face as he huffs out, “whoops, sorry!”
He reaches a hand out to steady Taemin who looks up at him with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow. Minho releases his arm, wiping off a slightly sweaty hand on his athletic shorts as Taemin pulls earbuds out of his ears and stuffs them into his pocket.
“Morning, Minho.”
“Good morning. What are you doing out so early today?” He asks, casting a glance around.
“I’m always out this early.” Taemin slips his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “You’re the one who’s early today.”
“No, I usually run at this time,” Minho says as he gestures to his clothes.
“And I usually feed the ducks,” Taemin says with an easy nod to the side.
“Ducks?”
“Yeah,” he says, already beginning to turn. “Come here.”
Taemin leads him towards the dock he just came from and at the end of it there is a pond filled with tall reeds reaching toward the sky and, scattered about the water behind them, ducks. When the ducks see them, they all rush to the strip of land in front of the dock, quacking loudly as they crowd around.
“Here.”
Taemin produces a small bag of something and hands it to Minho.
“What’s this?” He asks, accepting it.
“Sunflower seeds.” Taemin leans his arms against the railing. “Throw some out to them.”
Minho opens the bag and dumps some sunflower seeds into his palm, nervously eyeing the sign posted in front of them on the dock. The ducks are staring expectantly, a few more swimming to the shore as they see movement. He glances over at Taemin, a little unsure, but the boy gestures at him to throw the seeds and so, right in front of the "don't feed the wildlife" sign, Minho does, casting his arm out in an arc over the ducks. They swarm immediately, quacking even more loudly than before. They watch the ducks, Taemin amused and Minho slightly enamored with the sight, until the ducks have finished all the seeds.
“Here,” Taemin says, grabbing the bag. He dumps another pile into Minho’s hands. “I fed them earlier too and they’re gonna get fat and lazy if we keep at like this. Or they’ll get greedy.” He addresses the last part directly to the ducks, narrowing his eyes at them.
Without fanfare, Minho tosses the last handful of sunflower seeds over the ducks and they all rush at them again, like they understood that they wouldn’t be getting anymore. Two drakes fight over a seed, pecking and flapping their wings wildly. Minho watches another small black bird swoop in and take the seed from the unsuspecting ducks. Well then.
After approximately four fights have broken out, Minho comments, "wow. Ducks are jerks." He leans against the railing and shakes his head.
"Quack. I'm an asshole, quack." Taemin says casually, arms crossed over the wood and watching the ducks swim aimlessly.
Minho looks at Taemin, surprised for a beat, before he snorts and resettles himself against the rail.
“So, what is there to do out here?” he asks.
Taemin raises an eyebrow at him. “What, bored already?”
With a smile, Minho shakes his head. “Not exactly. But I only just got here and you’re the one who’s a local. I figure that you probably have more ideas than I do.”
The other boy laughs and turns towards Minho.
“Well,” he says after a moment. “I guess that depends on what you want to do.” At Minho’s nod, he continues. “There’s a couple of towns that are really close, you could even walk to them if you really wanted. And then there’s a few more that are within driving distance. If you wanna stay on the beach, then you can surf or whatever.”
Minho hums, looking out at the ducks. “I’d ask if you could show me around, but I’m not sure if there’s too much you could show me.”
Taemin nods slowly, his cheeks puffed out a little. “Well…”
“What?”
“I could show you the secret spot?”
Minho perks up at that. “Secret spot? What’s that?” He pauses. “Wait. If it’s a secret, then why would you want to show me?”
He’s not expecting Taemin to laugh.
“No, no - that’s just what me and my brother called it when we were little! It’s not that secret at all.” He laughs again. “It’s got a great view though.”
The secret spot turns out to be a large log nestled up on the rocks near the ocean. It’s not secret in the slightest and, if Minho’s being honest, there’s nothing particularly special about it either. But they lounge against the smooth wood, the sound of waves wrapping around them, and he’s got to admit Taemin was right - it is a pretty great view.
-
A pounding sound jerks Minho from sleep. He sits up in bed, sheet slipping into his lap, and stares blearily at the wall across the room. There is light tap tap tap and Minho turns his head, staring at his brother’s empty bed before he flops back against his pillows once more. The tapping sound returns in a steady rhythm that lulls him into an almost trancelike state. Just as he’s about to fall back asleep, the window just above his bed rattles a little as the pounding makes a sudden resurgence.
Set into a confused state of panic, Minho flies back up in bed and pulls on the blinds so hard he nearly yanks the cord out of the frame. Taemin’s impatient face meets him on the other side of the glass. Minho shoves the window open and the other boy scoffs.
“It’s about time,” he says, hands on his hips.
“Taemin. What the hell.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you just knock on the front door?” Minho asks grumpily, still a little disoriented from being pulled so roughly out of sleep.
Taemin shrugs.
“Would you have heard me anyway?”
Minho frowns at him. “Guess not.” He cuts into Taemin’s smug look with, “and anyway - what if I hadn’t even been here? Or what if my brother had?”
A bird screeches somewhere in the sky.
“Then I guess I’d ask for you.”
“Taemin…” he groans.
Minho crosses his arms on the sill of the window, sheet still wrapped haphazardly around his legs. The breeze wafting in feels nice, light and cool as it hits his face. He closes his eyes and figures that if Taemin waited - however long it was - that he could stand to wait a little longer.
“You’ve got bedhead,” Taemin says after a long moment, poking Minho’s forehead through the screen. Minho grumbles and turns his head away.
“It’s cute,” he teases, trying to poke Minho’s cheek this time. Minho grumbles more, burying his face in his arms so that Taemin can’t see the way his face gets warm.
-
The water is just as cold as he remembers - thinks he remembers - from the first time he ever went to the beach.
Minho buries his toes in the sinking wet sand, correcting his balance every time he sinks a little lower, feet uneven under the surf. A few feet away, Taemin’s inadvertently doing the same thing, his feet getting covered with sand each time the tide recedes, as he searches for stones to skip.
“I’ve never been able to do it,” he told Minho.
“Then I’ll teach you,” Minho had said as he’d wrapped an arm around Taemin’s shoulders.
But instead of rocks, Taemin comes back to him with a collection of strange shells.
“Look,” he says, thrusting them in front of Minho’s face.
Minho almost falls in the water, feet still stuck in their little sand hole that has quickly sunk him up to his shins. He grabs Taemin’s arm and the other boy nearly loses all of his shells as he tries to help Minho regain his balance while not losing his own. Twenty seconds of childlike panic later, Minho finally extracts his feet from the sand, beach shorts thankfully clear of sand and dry (for now, at least).
Taemin holds his cupped hands out again. “Here.”
They’re not particularly pretty shells - in fact, Minho would go so far as to call them ugly. Most of them are broken or covered in tiny holes or fractures, and several of them have impressive civilizations of barnacles stuck to them. The lone sand dollar lying in his palm is covered in dry purple fuzz.
“Uh...that’s nice Taem.”
Taemin catches the look on his face and scowls. “You don’t like them, do you?”
He takes a step back, hands raised to try to placate Taemin. “No, I’m just wondering why you didn’t pick any, well.” He pauses, hand waving in a messy circle, trying and failing to think of a nicer way to say it.
“Pretty ones,” he finishes.
He needn’t have worried though; Taemin scoffs and says, “that’s boring. The pretty ones are all anyone ever takes.” He shifts the shells into one hand carefully and bends down, searching for more. “I’ve lived here my whole life, I don’t need any more pretty shells.”
Taemin pulls a piece of petrified wood out of the sand and holds it up. “These are more interesting anyway.” There’s a bright smile on his face as he holds it out in Minho’s direction.
Minho steps forward and turns the wood around in his hands contemplatively. It’s large, spanning nearly the length of his hand, and it’s surprisingly firm and heavy in his grip. It’s smooth though, and Minho runs his thumb along it as he thinks about all of the beautiful shells his mother has laid out along the counter in the backyard that will probably break before they get them home.
“Yeah,” he agrees, looking up. His own smiles grows, unbidden, to match Taemin’s. “You’re right.
-
There’s a huge rock - a mini mountain really - that’s about the only thing Minho can see when he wakes up that morning. The sea fades into the sky and, with the rock as his focal point, he makes his way down to the shoreline and heads towards it. He doesn’t wander aimlessly, but his legs carry him mindlessly in that one direction while his head takes off on its own.
The air is far chillier than it has any right to be during the height of summer at the beach of all places, and Minho curses himself for not bringing a jacket even though he’d been trudging around wrapped up in a blanket while he was still inside. But it’s too late to turn back now and he’s not particularly sure he wants to anyway, goosebumps and frozen nose aside.
He was feeling restless somehow, wanting to move but too lazy to go for a run. Instead, he’s shuffling over the damp sand, sneakers leaving behind clean footprints, the bottoms of his shoes pressed neatly into a trail that leads right to him. They almost look like they could stay there forever, a record stamped into the earth that Minho was here, a reminder for the rest of time. But they’ll be washed away when the tide rises, brushed out of existence by the feet of birds or dogs or other people.
Still, with no one else around, Minho likes to think he’s leaving his own mark on the world.
The rock grows closer the longer he walks and the fog starts to break just enough that he can see the distant outline of house lining the beach off in the distance. When blue sky starts to peek through the gloom, Minho figures he must have been gone for over an hour. Something flashes in his periphery, catching his attention, drawing his eyes and stilling his feet.
About forty feet out, there’s a small, dark head that pops out of the water just in front of a cresting wave; he thinks it might be a sea lion. But then it ducks under, body slipping through the wave like an underwater surfer, and it’s gone. No problem, he thinks, a smile pulling at his mouth as he turns. It’s time for me to go too.
-
It’s getting late when Taemin suggests that they dig a pit.
“…Why exactly?” Minho questions with a grin.
“Why not?” Taemin gets on his knees and starts shoveling away with his hands. Their towels and shoes are safely out of sand-flinging range several feet up the beach so Minho turns back to Taemin just in time for him to say, “Maybe we could sleep here tonight.”
Minho joins Taemin in the sand. “I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.”
Taemin makes a dismissive noise and shakes his damp hair out of his face. When Minho nudges him with his shoulder, Taemin gets the hint.
“Okay, so maybe we’re not allowed to, strictly speaking,” he says, his face downturned. But Minho can see the mischief in his eyes anyway. “But I’ve done it loads of times and there’s gonna be fireworks tonight so tons of people will be down here after dark anyway.”
Minho pauses in his digging to look at Taemin. “Fireworks?”
The other boy hums, no other answer forthcoming.
“How come?” Minho prompts.
“I’m not sure, really. It’s just something the city does every year. There’s no reason, I think.”
They keep digging the pit, deepening it as Taemin talks about the year he caught the most crabs ever, widening it as Minho tells Taemin about a camping trip that went fantastically wrong and ended up with Minseok in a cast. When it gets too dark to see, Taemin turns the light on his phone on and props it up against their towels so that they can see. It’s starting to get a little chilly but since Taemin doesn’t say anything, Minho refrains from mentioning it.
The pit is starting to look like a mini swimming pool by the time Taemin declares that it’s finished.
“You sure?” Minho asks, studying it.
Taemin fixes him with a blank look that he interprets as come on, who’s the expert here?
They lay their towels out in the damp sand and it is cooler in the pit, but they’re surrounded in darkness with the sound of the waves cushioning them and it’s kind of amazing. Minho taps out a quick message to his dad to let him know that he’s still with Taemin and they’re going to watch the fireworks, he’ll be back later. He adds a silent maybe in his own head.
With no other lights, his screen seems too bright, so Minho slips it into the pocket of his shorts and lays back, stretched out across his towel. Something warm bumps against his arm as Taemin shifts on his own towel next to him. Minho’s breath stutters quietly in his chest for a moment and it’s too dark to see Taemin at all but it’s like Minho can imagine him lying there, clear as day. He crosses his arms over his stomach and listens to the sea.
It’s not long before Taemin starts pointing out constellations to him. Minho’s seen stars before; maybe not this many, but he’s seen them. But there’s something about the way Taemin points them out, lazily ignoring the ones he doesn’t know and rambling off stories about what his grade school teachers had taught him. Together they make up stories for each of the constellations, grand tales more exciting than the ones they’d learned, and even create a few constellations of their own.
Taemin’s laughing at Minho’s brontosaurus constellation and why it symbolizes health and Minho’s gripped with a terrifyingly strong urge to wrap Taemin up in his arms and never let him go. He tries to quell it, listening intently as Taemin earnestly describes the meaning behind his soldier constellation and why it’s different than the warrior.
The feeling burns away strongly in his chest anyway but Minho pretends it’s not there.
The conversation stops mid-sentence at the first crack ringing through the air, Minho’s eyes opening just in time to see the flash of green light up the sky. Taemin looks at him excitedly, his grin as wild as his hair, and Minho has just enough time to see the way his eyes sparkle before the sky goes dark again. But just a minute later, another loud boom sounds and the sky is painted blue, white, and gold for a moment.
Small smatterings of conversations, impressed oohs and ahhs gather on the edges of Minho’s consciousness. The fireworks display gets into its rhythm and pops and crackles fill the air as light dances above them. They’re so close that when Taemin gives a little shiver, his eyes still trained upwards, Minho can feel it. He hardly thinks before he’s slipping an arm behind Taemin’s head and pulling him close. For his part, Taemin doesn’t seem particularly surprised, just murmurs that that kind’s my favorite when a sparkling gold firework flares through the sky.
Minho’s inclined to think that kind is his favorite too.
It gets colder the longer the fireworks continue. The two of them shuffle close and drape one of the towels over themselves and, when the sky finally stays dark and the chattering around them fades, Taemin stays tucked against Minho’s side and tells him about the two dogs he had when he was younger and all of the lizards he’d found in the garden and tried to keep until his mom had found one of them in the cupboard.
“She screamed so loud,” Taemin chuckles. “It was just sitting on one of the shelves and ran away when she opened it.”
Minho hums, eyes closed as he focuses on the sound of Taemin’s voice and the warmth of his body next to Minho’s.
“I wasn’t allowed to keep any after that. But I still caught them anyway.”
“My brother gave me a lizard tail when I was five,” Minho says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It was still twitching when he gave it to me.”
Taemin laughs. “Oh no.”
“Yeah,” Minho says darkly. “I cried and ran to my mom and he got grounded for a week.”
“Well,” Taemin says casually, lying his head against Minho’s shoulder. “I can assure you that any and all lizards I give you will be fully intact, tail and all.”
Minho can’t help himself. He laughs, pulling Taemin to him and keeping him close.
It’s dark and quiet and Taemin is warm. Minho likes to listen to Taemin talk, but he’s happy for them to just listen together too. He’s not really sure when or where the conversation trails off, if they just stop talking or if one of them falls asleep first. But they do sleep there in that little pit they dug and when he wakes up he’s made aware of two things: Taemin is still lying curled up against him and it’s freezing.
Minho can feel a layer of water - the fog and the ocean spray - coating him and freezing him down to his bones. It’s still early. He doesn’t know how he knows this but when he checks his phone, the time shows that it’s barely past six. The sun is rising, brightening the beach enough to have woken him, but it’s hidden enough behind the dense roll of coastal fog that makes the sky look grey and overcast. With a groan, he gently extracts his arm from underneath Taemin’s head. He shakes it out, feeling pins and needles pricking uncomfortably at his fingertips, and looks around.
Predictably, they are the only ones stupid enough to have stayed on the beach overnight. Minho runs a hand through his damp hair, feeling the grimy tangled mess left over, a combination of the day before and the sand that had been blown through it overnight. He desperately needs a shower. Yeah, a hot shower sounds absolutely fantastic.
Taemin rolls over, his hands clutching at hard-packed sand, and Minho decides that they should probably leave now before Taemin dies of hypothermia or something. He pats at Taemin’s cold cheek but the boy doesn’t respond until Minho starts shaking his shoulder.
“What?” He groans, drawing out the word as he turns over once more.
“Come on,” Minho says, shaking him again. “Get up. It’s cold and we need to leave.”
Taemin sticks his face against the towel, deadweight as Minho hauls him up on his feet. He leaves the boy swaying there as he gathers up the wet towels and convinces Taemin to slip back into his flip flops. Taemin leans against Minho heavily, eyes hardly open, and nonsense complaints leak from his mouth the whole walk back up the beach. Minho keeps a steady grip on him as they climb up the path.
He’s not a morning person either, but really.
They’d stayed closer to Minho’s house so he decides it’s easier to bring Taemin back with him than walk him an extra few blocks when Taemin’s feet seem to drag more with every step. He’s practically asleep at Minho’s side already.
Minho unlocks the door quietly, hoping and praying his parents aren’t up yet. He slips off his shoes and pulls Taemin’s off for him as the boy leans against the wall. He briefly contemplates depositing Taemin on the couch but decides against it. Minho’s not sure if his parents knew he didn’t come home last night or not but either way, they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to the surprise of a bedraggled, waterlogged boy lying all over the couch of their rented house. So, back to Minho’s room it is.
After dumping Taemin in his room (as quietly as possible), Minho heads out to the bathroom. The cold has sunken down into his bones, making him shiver even as the hot water washes over him. The water pressure is low, the spray too wide to really warm him up as much as he’d like, but the hot water running down the back of his neck, the warm steam enveloping the room, all of the grime finally falling out of his hair - it’s heaven. He tries not to take too long, but if he spends an extra five minutes under the spray, well. Who could blame him?
Taemin makes his bed all messy and gross. Minho makes a face when he walks into the room, hair still dripping, to find that Taemin had taken over his bed, his nasty hair rubbed all over Minho’s - previously - clean pillow. At least he’s on top of the sheets, Minho thinks with a sigh.
He looks over at his brother’s bed and catches Minseok’s eye. Minseok raises an eyebrow and Minho just shrugs in response. His brother turns back to his phone and it’s for the best, really, because Minho needs to get Taemin out of his bed and into the shower.
In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that Minseok had already woken up because, as it turns out, Taemin is really resistant to moving a second time.
By the time he’s finally convinced Taemin to get up and take a shower, Minho’s ready to go back to sleep, himself. He stares forlornly at his bed, sadly taking in the wet spots and the sand scattered about the sheets. Minho really hopes they didn’t track in too much sand. His mom is going to kill him.
“So.”
Minseok’s voice is so casual that it makes Minho turn around in suspicion.
“What?” He asks, eyes narrowed.
“Where were you last night?” The question is a clear double edged sword and there’s a hint of a leer in his voice now that he knows Minho’s back in one piece.
Minho could spin him a tale, he could make up any sort of lie to make last night dangerous or fantastical or otherworldly. Instead, he tells the truth because it’s easier and Minseok is bound to make his own conclusions no matter what Minho tells him. Sometimes he thinks his brother has an even bigger imagination than he does.
“Me and Taemin watched the fireworks on the beach last night and then we fell asleep.”
Minseok stares at Minho, his eyes boring through Minho so intensely that he’s actually a little taken aback. He blinks, head tilting and face falling into confusion the longer Minseok stares at him. After what must be a full minute, he gives a little nod.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Minho is more than confused.
“Okay,” Minseok repeats. He turns back to his phone and Minho rolls his eyes, deciding that he needs coffee and at least two doughnuts to get through the morning.
Minho leaves a set of clothes out for Taemin in front of the bathroom and Taemin’s helping him strip the bed when his parents wake up. This isn’t the first time they’ve met each other but Taemin is just as polite when he greets them and Minho can’t help but be happy at the way his mother smiles at the boy. Once the sheets are tucked away in the washing machine for later, Minho flops on his bare mattress and complains about wanting doughnuts.
Before Taemin can even open his mouth, Minseok generously offers to make a doughnut run. Minho turns to look at him, eyes squinting in suspicion because this is very rare. But Taemin cheers and Minho’s hungry so he lets Minseok off without a word.
Truthfully, the room is cold in the morning and Minho shrugs on his hoodie, tucking his hands away in the front pocket almost immediately. When he sees Taemin eyeing his brother’s vacant bed, he tosses a spare blanket at him and waves Taemin back over to his side of the room. Minho leans against the wall, Taemin soft against his chest, and their phones are produced once more. Taemin shows him funny videos and Minho shows him pictures of his friends and they are decidedly not cuddling, no matter what it may look like. But with Taemin so close, Minho breathes deeply, smelling his shampoo in Taemin’s hair and his soap on Taemin’s skin, and tries to suppress the distressing tremble that shocks through him.
When Minseok comes back with two boxes of doughnuts, Minho and Taemin take one all for them and park themselves on the floor in front of the television to watch cartoons. The box is halfway empty when the sun finally breaks through the fog and they race each other out the door.
-
Minho walks up the paved incline that leads to the cliff. Taemin has disappeared off somewhere, sprinting off in the dusky light while Minho follows at a much more sedate pace. He’s in no particular rush to get there - he knows Taemin will be waiting for him.
A little boy and his mother amble past with a great big dog and Minho spares them a smile, so used to the friendly nature of everyone, local or vacationer, that’s stopped to say hello to him or offer a smile of their own. It’s different than back home, different from the faces downturned to focused straight ahead and the rushing, bustling, busy nature of a city. It’s nice and he’s going to miss it, but he shoves those unwanted thoughts out of his head as he reaches the top of the cliff.
There’s a dirt path surrounded by bushes to his right, but Minho ignores it in favor of staring out over the vast expanse of ocean in front of him. It’s cloudy, the sky blending together in a muddled mix of hazy, warm color as the setting sun burns behind it. It’s beautiful and casts a striking orange glow over the tips of the waves. And Minho wants to cringe at the thoughts leaking from his own head because it’s cheesy and cliché, but he feels like he’s on top of the world.
Then he spots Taemin.
There, down on the wooden stairs leading to the stand, Taemin stands on the railing, hands in his pockets, still as a stone. The sun sets him afire like the waves, a glowing golden mist surrounding his lone figure, bracketing him against the crashing waves. Minho’s breath catches in his chest and he watches the other boy until Taemin looks over his shoulder, tossing his head to invite Minho over.
He climbs down from the railing and stands with Minho, and together they point excitedly as they spot the dolphins peeking through the waves further down the coast. But the picture of Taemin on the railing with a fiery glow covering the world sticks with even as they later head back down the street and split off to return to their respective houses.
When Minho walks into his room and sees the jacket Taemin had tossed on his bed and forgotten earlier in the day, he picks it up to move it and, without thinking, brings it up to his face and inhales deeply. It smells like the ocean spray and something in Minho's heart clenches, stuttering unevenly.
Part Two