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BY NOON, the rain had left like it was never there.
monday was the taste of the burning sun and pepsi cola against swollen pink lips. instead of being home on the sand, beach towels were laid down against warm, sunlit grass that were still damp and dewy from the earlier rain. they fell into the illusion that they were at the beach, but the smell of chlorine stained swimsuits rubbing against the fabric reminded the teenagers that it wasn't smooth white sands where they settled, but the prickly green grass of sehwi's front yard.
jungha liked to invite her and her boyfriend over. she preferred sunbathing in sehwi's front lawn rather than the back because of how the sun hit the grass more. her skin rested upon jeongguk's, intertwining the smell of coppertone and honeysuckle. baby hairs and sunglasses stuck to her forehead. cherries burst underneath their teeth and rose flavored kisses melted between the lines of their lips. as the couple laid on the grass, sehwi sat on the homemade swing that hung on their elm tree, popping candied mandarins in her mouth as she read the remaining chapters of the scarlet letter that she had left.
she wasn't actually reading, of course. she was more half-reading, she called it. half reading, and half peeking at the two between the pages. she studied how im jungha laid herself on the coarse beach towel beneath jeon jeongguk, holding her hand up above her face to block the bright blue light of summer's day. her boyfriend laid beside her on his stomach, propped up on his elbows with his face hovering over hers, just smiling silently as he listened to her words. sehwi could never catch what their conversations were like. the words shared between the two were always held only for them; the words were intimate. she could only imagine the things jeongguk would say as jungha giggled beneath him.
sehwi could admit that jungha and jeongguk were cute together (the cheating with taehyung aside). she was always jealous of how they treated each other, how he took care of her and how she took care of him. just like how he held himself above her no matter how bad his arms were starting to ache just to protect her face from the sun, and how she always kept his hair out of his eyes, never hesitating to tell him that his bangs were getting too long every time.
sehwi's eyes were so glued to the words on the page she had been on for 20 minutes that she didn't even notice when jungha sat beside her on the swing. "whatcha doing?" she sang, startling sehwi.
"hm?" sehwi looked at her best friend. "nothing. just trying to finish this. i can't seem to get through this chapter." she held her thumb between the pages as she twirled the book to the front cover. jungha only pouted in response as she tucked sehwi's hair behind her ear. sehwi held up a mandarin slice in front of jungha's mouth, which immediately opened to invite her to pop it in her mouth. jungha's eyes smiled along with her as she chewed on the sweet, honeyed orange, humming out a satisfied "mmm!" at her friend.
jungha's head rested itself on sehwi's shoulder, her warm, sun-stained hair rubbing against sehwi's cool skin that was protected by the branches above her. she sighed into her neck. "i love summer, sehwi."
"me too." sehwi caressed the girl's head, popping another mandarin in her mouth. "i think seha's coming tomorrow."
"you think?" jungha laughed at her friend.
"yeah. she never really tells us exactly when she's coming but my mom said that she would be here sometime this week. and she started preparing her room today."
jungha suddenly sprung up from sehwi's shoulder and out of her seat. "we should go to the lake then!" sehwi shielded herself from the sun with her hand as her eyes followed jungha. "i need to swim in something that isn't filled with chlorine." she quickly reached beside jeongguk to grab her can of pepsi before saying aloud, "who wants to dip in the pool?"
jeongguk remained on top of the beach towel, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed against the blinding sun. "i'll stay here, thanks."
jungha turned to her friend, with a "sehwi?" to which her friend shrugs in response. sehwi wasn't really up for swimming that day. mondays felt too slow for her, the kind of day when you can finish a book. "suit yourselves," jungha says before leaving to the backyard through the house's side gate.
and then it was two.
sehwi went back to reading her book, or pretending to, while jeongguk remained in the same position. sehwi tried not to stare at the sun's kisses on his bare chest or how his skin adorned itself with golden hues by the minute. colored inside the lines of his plump lips were sunburnt tints and leftover cherry juice, with his cheeks of faint freckles that seemed as if they were perfectly placed upon his skin. just the sight of his hands held behind his head and his closed eyelashes feathering against his cheek made sehwi want to count each and every mark on his face and rearrange them like constellations in the hazy night sky.
her secret smiles behind the book were sinful; in her mouth was only the taste of the apple of temptation. she knew how wrong it was for her to feel what she felt towards her best friend's boyfriend. but when she was alone with him, she felt as if she could defy all ten commandments and submit to his and only his touch. it was so foul of her, ungodly, but she couldn't help but feel those type of things when she looked at him. and looking at him felt vile.
"why don't you go in with her?" jeongguk turned his head towards sehwi, opening his eyes only slightly, triggering her to immediately look down at her book.
her feet began to push herself in a gentle swing in an attempt to look natural, but she could feel her nervous legs stagger with every movement. but her eyes remained locked on the same page that she had been struggling to get through the whole afternoon. "i'm reading."
in her peripheral, sehwi could see jeongguk turn onto his chest with his back against the bright light, propping himself back on his elbows and this time looking at her with his eyes the size of sirius. "are you sure?" sehwi caught the corner of his mouth slightly curl up in a delicate smirk, and she refused to cave in. "guess not." she replied to him with such nonchalantness.
"what are you really doing?" jeongguk asked with persistence. sehwi could tell that he was determined to get it out of her, like he was trying to get her to reveal all of her secrets, or he wanted her to trust him enough to be frank with him. she finally broke her cold, lifeless stare into the book and looked up at him, but not with defeat. she liked to think of it as with conviction. she said gently, "i'm thinking, then."
"of what?"
of you.
that's what she wanted to say to him, what her insides begged to say aloud. but instead she looked back down at her book, giving them both enough time before she says almost faintly, "of how the sprinklers are coming on in three . . two . ." by this time she's already gotten up and began running until she finally hit "one," successfully getting through the front door just a millisecond shy of being hit by the water. she didn't even notice jeongguk running closely behind her.
