You’re warm. Dry. Comfortable. Your skin has finally stopped prickling with residual saltwater and has settled into that perfect, post-swim, sun-kissed haze. You’d even managed to find a small pocket of cool sand under the umbrella’s shadow. Life is, for this single, blissful moment, perfect.

A shadow looms.

Not from a cloud. Not from a passing seagull with an attitude problem. It’s a specific, bouncy, utterly obnoxious kind of shadow. One you’ve grown intimately familiar with over the past few months.

Before your brain can register the danger—before you can so much as squeak out a warning—the world is obliterated by a warm, damp, bony mass.

The air in your lungs evacuates in a choked huff. His skin is cold. Wet. His swim trunks are absolutely drenched, dripping a steady stream of ocean water directly onto the pristine dry spot you’d curated on your stomach. The cold shock is so sharp it practically gives you brain freeze.

He wriggles, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck, apparently finding the perfect spot to burrow his grinning, sunshine-soaked face. His hair, still dripping, flicks a few droplets onto your cheek.

A few feet away, you can hear Bokuto Koutarou absolutely cackling.