"Agh, my feet are burning!" Yeosang says, walking like a monkey onto the hot sand, trying to lift his feet up to not get burned.

Eunsang giggles and holds onto Yeosang's shorts, "Yeoooo, mom and dad told you to go back and get your sandals!"

Yeosang keeps yelping and eventually takes his brother's hand, running towards the blanket their parents just finished laying down in their usual spot on the beach. Yeosang sighs with relief as soon as his feet touch the coolness of the blanket, thankful to get his feet off of the sand.

"Gosh, it's so hot out today," Yeosang complains, falling down onto the blanket with his family, Eunsang sitting in his lap.

"Did you two put on sunscreen?" Their mother asks, coming over to them with a bottle of sunscreen in her hand while their father sets up their beach tent.

"Yes, mom," The two brothers say in unison.

Yeosang didn't notice because he was too busy worried about getting off of the scorching sand, but a certain boy playing volleyball caught eye of Yeosang coming onto the beach.

Wooyoung smiles when he sees Yeosang and Eunsang coming out onto the sand, but he bursts out laughing when he sees the way Yeosang runs to the blanket barefooted, getting distracted from the game and he doesn't realize until he's knocked into by San.

"Jung, get your head in the game!" Jongho calls from the other side of the court.

Wooyoung's eyes widen, stumbling from San bumping into him in an attempt to recover the ball, "Ahh, I'm sorry guys."

San smirks at Wooyoung, rubbing his shoulder, "Got a crush, do you?"

Wooyoung's eyes narrow in annoyance, "I literally just met him, San. Why is it that every time I meet someone new, you guys wanna hook me up with them?"

"We just find it odd you've never really dated anyone before. We want you to find someone, silly," Seonghwa says, coming to brush the sand off of Wooyoung from when he stumbled.

Wooyoung crosses his arms, "What if I just wanted to be friends with him?"

San shakes his head, picking up the ball and tucking it under his arm, "You look at him differently, Woo. I don't know. You look at him the same way I look at Seonghwa," San chuckles and Seonghwa gives him a playful push.

The two are newly coupled, having only admitted their feelings for each other halfway through senior year, but they're lucky. They're the only ones out of the seven of them that are going to the same university. They don't have to worry about leaving each other like the rest of them do.

Wooyoung sighs, his eyes drifting over to Yeosang laying down on the beach blanket while he rubs sunscreen onto his chest. He quickly looks away and looks back to his friends in front of him, hoping they don't notice his slightly rosier cheeks.

"I'm going to ask Yeosang to play with us, that cool with you guys?" Wooyoung decides, wanting to try and show his friends just how normal and friendly the two are together and that there's nothing romantic going on. Even if Wooyoung were to view Yeosang in that light, he wouldn't know what the boy would think of it. Boys liking boys and girls liking girls aren't the most accepted in their society. Wooyoung hopes that in the future, society will be more accepting, but as of now in 1989... It doesn't look so good, especially since the general public associates it with AIDS and that's all they think of.

Wooyoung does start to wonder what Yeosang thinks of gay people though... Would he still want to be friends with him if he knew? Wooyoung brushes those thoughts off as he walks over to where Yeosang is laying down.

"Hey, stranger," Wooyoung smiles brightly, showing his teeth as he covers his eyes from the sun beating down on them.

Yeosang is wearing sunglasses, but he had his eyes closed so he wasn't aware of Wooyoung's presence until he heard his warm voice. He sits up and ruffles his hair up since strands were sticking to his forehead, "Wooyoung, hey!" He returns with just as much excitement in his voice.

Yeosang's been looking forward to the next time he saw Wooyoung, knowing that he had high chances of running into him today.

"Do you maybe wanna, uh, play volleyball with us?" Wooyoung asks, playing with the drawstrings on his swim trunks, suddenly becoming kind of nervous from his friends putting all of those ideas into his head.

"Ah... I'm not too sporty, the sportiest I get is skateboarding or riding a bike," Yeosang says, knowing he seems lame, but he's afraid of potentially embarrassing himself in front of Wooyoung.

Eunsang sees Wooyoung talking with Yeosang and he hops over, "I want to play!" He whines, jumping up and down while holding onto Yeosang's shoulders, "Yeo can I come play too?"

"Eunsang, I'm not so sure-" Yeosang starts, but is cut off.

"Sure, Eunsang," Wooyoung says happily, "Both of you can come play volleyball with us," he continues, giving Yeosang a teasing smile.

Yeosang furrows his brow and gets up from the blanket in a huff, finally giving in to the peer pressure, "Fine, fine... Come on, Eun."

"Volleyball! Volleyball!" Eunsang chants loudly while they all walk back over to the group of boys.

One of the taller boys smiles at Yeosang and Eunsang, "You two ready to play the best game of beach volleyball you've ever played?"

Yeosang's face clearly shows how nervous he is, but Eunsang continues jumping around and goes running towards the taller boy. Yeosang is about to go after him and tell him to be careful, but a hand rests on his shoulder.

"He'll be okay. That's Mingi, he loves children," Wooyoung chuckles and shows the brightest smile that Yeosang thinks he's ever seen. He can almost feel his cheeks turning rosy and heating up, but he mentally blames it on the scorching heat of the sun.

It's getting harder to blame it on the sun when Wooyoung's hand trails down Yeosang's arm and grabs onto his hand before he runs to the rest of the boys, "Yeosang will be on my team!"

Yeosang accepts his fate of playing volleyball at this point, he just hopes he doesn't make an absolute fool out of himself in front of all of these people -- especially Wooyoung.

"Little Eunnie here is going to be on my team!" Mingi calls out cheerfully, having Eunsang in his arms to give him a spin.

The teams fill themselves out to be Wooyoung, Yeosang, Seonghwa, and Jongho on one side and Mingi, Yunho, Hongjoong, San, and Eunsang on the other.

Yeosang was put in the front by the net and he can feel his heart rate speeding up already at the anticipation of the ball. He keeps an eye on Eunsang throughout the game and it causes him to miss a few hits, being distracted by his brother, but Eunsang seems to be having a good time.

A beach photographer comes around to all of them and yells, "Cheese!" Before snapping a photo of the group of boys having fun playing volleyball. When the boys notice the photographer, Wooyoung calls out to him before he leaves, "Can you take a photo of all of us grouped together, too?"

The photographer nods with a warm smile on his face as the group of boys gather around, Wooyoung wrapping an arm around Yeosang and San. Yeosang gets startled by this and turns his head to look at Wooyoung.

Click!

"Thank you so much!" Hongjoong says.

"No problem, y'all! These will be going on a memories board at the end of the beach once I finally get them developed," The photographer explains and then he wishes them a good day before running off to get more photos of the beach-goers.

Yeosang mentally scolds himself, knowing he wasn't even looking in the photo. The group of boys separate and Eunsang comes up to tug on Yeosang's swimming trunks, "Yeo, can we go swimming?" He asks in a whining voice.

Yeosang ruffles his hair and nods, "Sure, let's go, Eun!" He says, just about to walk towards the water before Eunsang whines once again, going and attaching himself to Wooyoung's leg.

"I want Wooyoung to come too!"

Yeosang rubs the back of his head, looking at Wooyoung with a defeated look, but Wooyoung doesn't seem to mind at all. A smile comes across Wooyoung's face as he bends down to pick up Eunsang, "I'll come swimming with you guys," he chuckles, going up to Yeosang with Eunsang in his arms.

Yeosang starts walking down to the water with them, "You really like Wooyoung, don't you, Eunsang?" He asks, sitting down on the shallow shore of the beach.

Eunsang hums as he's let down, "You really like him, Yeo!" He playfully pushes Yeosang's chest before plopping down in the shallow water as well, instantly digging his hands into the sand.

Wooyoung smirks, sitting down next to Yeosang, "Ahh, so you both really like me, huh?" Wooyoung makes a swooning action, putting his hand up to his forehead, "How did I ever get so lucky to have two brothers fighting over me?"

Yeosang holds back a snort and nudges Wooyoung in the shoulder, "Oh shut up, you're not that cool," Yeosang says, shifting his eyes away from Wooyoung and back to his little brother who is now running around and jumping in the water and digging into the sand, starting to play with some of the other children down by the shore as well.

"See, Eunsang is already tired of you," Yeosang chuckles and looks back over to Wooyoung, seeing him already staring back and it catches him off guard, making him look down at the sand.

"Well, you're still here. Aren't you?" Wooyoung says, resting back on his arms as he basks in the sunlight shining down onto his bare chest and face, "And I quite enjoy your company, 'Yeo'" He giggles, mocking him by using the nickname his brother calls him by.

Yeosang groans and lays back like Wooyoung is, "Why must you always mock me?"

Wooyoung continues giggling, "Because it's fun, of course. Look at that face!" He squeezes Yeosang's cheek, "You look so pouty, it's amusing. It's hard not to mess with you, you know."

Eunsang shakes Yeosang's shoulder, interrupting the boys' conversation, "Yeo, I'm tired... I'm going back to the blankie," he says, rubbing his eyes.

"You know where the blanket is from here, right, Eunsang?" Yeosang asks, wanting to make sure his brother can get back safely.

Eunsang nods and goes off, walking back to the blanket where their parents are resting.

Yeosang looks over to Wooyoung with a smile, his eyes squinted from the sun shining in his eyes, "You wanna go in the water now? We can go further out now that we don't have to watch after Eunsang."

Wooyoung hesitates for a moment before nodding, "Yeah, sure!" He says, getting up from the sand and he reaches his hand down to help Yeosang to his feet. Yeosang takes his hand and stands up, making his way into the sea with Wooyoung.

Wooyoung is okay for a while, but when the water starts getting up to his torso, he becomes more reluctant to go any further. Yeosang sees that Wooyoung is starting to lag behind and he stops, "Are you okay, Woo?"

Wooyoung blushes at the nickname as he timidly rubs his upper arm, "Everything's okay... Yeah, it's fine," He says quietly, trying to take a few more steps towards Yeosang.

Yeosang sees Wooyoung's eyes go wide, so he turns around to see a large wave heading right for them. Wooyoung feels himself freezing up at the sight and his heart starts racing, fear evident on his face.

Yeosang seems to realize something is wrong, so he rushes through the water, splashing the water out of his way as he makes it to Wooyoung, making it in time to wrap his arms around his body, "Hold your breath!" Yeosang yells out right before the gigantic wave hits them like a bunch of bricks, sending them under the water together. Yeosang holds tightly onto Wooyoung, making sure not to let him go.

Soon, the two boys rise back up from the water, and Wooyoung is clinging onto Yeosang for dear life, almost shaking. Yeosang rubs Wooyoung's back, breathing heavily after having just been underwater, "A-Are you okay, Wooyoung?" Yeosang asks, looking at the boy in his arms.

Wooyoung lifts his head, eyes previously full of fear, but as soon as they connect with Yeosang's, they brighten up.

"I'm okay... Thank you... Sorry about that, I'm just-- don't like going out so far," Wooyoung mumbles, his words getting caught in his mouth as the two boys finally pull apart from each other, both of them nervously looking around at the other people in the surrounding waters.

Yeosang nods, "It's okay, you should've said something, silly," He winks, deciding to try and lighten the mood from the frightening situation they were just in. They both start making their way back to the shore when Wooyoung's friends start calling out to them.

"COME ON, WOOYOUNG, WE'RE GOING TO GO GET DINNER!"

Wooyoung chuckles at his friends' booming voice, turning back to Yeosang with a happier smile on his face, "I'll see you sometime soon, right, Sangie?"

Yeosang feels his cheeks heat up at the new nickname Wooyoung's thought up for him and he takes a moment before he starts nodding, "Y-Yes! For sure!" Yeosang says a bit too eagerly.

Wooyoung smirks and gives him a small wave before running through what's left of the shallow water to get back to his friends. Yeosang stands still in the water, knowing no one is able to see his reddening ears, but he feels the need to cover them.

Why is he feeling like this...?

End of Chapter Three