After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 24

The breeze was chilly and salty, but the warmth of the midday sun made it a rather welcomed breeze. His legs were baking in the heat of the sand, the tiny little grains finding their way into crevices of his body he didn't even realize existed before now. The horizon seemed to stretch for miles, depicting nothing but bright blue waves that clashed with the color of the bright blue sky, moving slowly and gently with the breeze. The sun made the skin on his face, shoulders and chest feel hot, like he was sitting too close to an indoor fireplace on a chilly fall day.

Behind him, he could ever so faintly hear the sounds of kids laughing far off in the distance. Or perhaps they were arguing, it was hard to know for sure. The only distinct sound came from the way that gentle breeze pushed against the leaves of the trees and bushes. Somehow, it managed to drown out that of the voices in the distance when he wasn't listening for them. It was just him, the waves, the sun, and the breeze.

It was starting to feel real.

As he stared out at the ocean, he was at peace knowing that for hundreds of miles upon miles in front of him, there was nothing but more and more ocean. The only living things within a range larger than any human being could comprehend were people he knew by name, and birds, bugs, and bees that would never need one. In that harmonious moment, he didn't think life could get any closer to perfect than this.

That was, until the quiet was interrupted by an unmistakable sound; footsteps dragging through the warm sand. He turned his head just enough to identify the owner of the approaching footsteps; an owner who, once identified, had found a way to make life even closer to perfect just by existing.

"Hey" the approaching boy broke the spell of silence, reminding the other what humanity sounded like for the first time since he wandered off hours ago.

"You came looking for me?" he asked, keeping his blue eyes on the brunette boy as he sat down in the hot sand beside him.

"No" the brunette answered, his gaze fixated on the tranquil image of the still ocean before them. "I came looking for a break from the senseless arguing."

"Ah" the blonder boy nodded once, knowingly. So it was arguing he'd been tuning out for the last... hour? Two hours? Twenty minutes? It was hard to say, time wasn't as easy to tell as it used to be. But the more time that passed, the less it seemed to matter.

"Y'know, there's a shit ton of shoreline around here, an entire loop of it around the island, I hear" the blond added after a beat.

"So?" the brunette looked to him to inquire.

"So, why here? You could've very easily found someplace else to take your break from the senseless arguing, as you put it. Someplace you'd be totally alone, so you could really bask in the silence. So again I ask: why here?" he expanded upon the thought.

The smaller but well-built brunette boy turned to study the other for a moment, his body language, his features; facial and all. He smiled weakly, realizing that the blond was acting in a way that seemed out of character. He was tense, uncomfortable, nervous maybe even. He wouldn't look at him, focusing his gaze on the ocean as he spoke, and continued to hold it there as the brunette focused his gaze on him.

"Do you want me to go?" the younger boy finally asked, staring at the other still.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that" the blonder boy scoffed warmly in his immediate response.

"Well, good" the other smiled, but dropped his gaze to his lap as he did so. The blond watched this with amusement, not realizing that a smile was creeping up on his own face.