“Are you okay?” Sungjin asks.

“People really need to stop asking me that question,” I answer, looking away from Sungjin and out to the wide expanse of beachfront.

Despite my earlier worries, I can feel it. Something good is about to happen. I feel it in the way this neon summer wraps around me. In the wink then steady gaze of the ocean before me. This is home to me, after all. This. Restless youth and boundless energy deep in this realm of musicians and music lovers, and those just as in love with the people who make the music. The beachfront is loud, colorful, and busy with jagged notes and beating bass lines, tided over by kicks from a snare and through and through to the night bleeding into the morning sun.

The feeling creeps up on me again, of being here last year and performing for the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen beyond my table. Of people dancing, happy and careless in their merriment and in the intoxication of the moment. Heat blankets me in a sultry haze, bullets of sweat pushing down into my tank top, and the sand underneath my feet begins to warm. And right there, running at the shoreline are boys tearing off their shirts and jumping into the water. There’s sunlight and crystal blues, and also ropes of muscles and low-hanging board shorts.

Hello, summer. Yes, I missed you.

“People will stop asking that question if you answer truthfully for a change.”

I don’t forget Sungjin is right next to me, not in the way his voice hovers just behind my ear and above me. I turn to him and whatever sarcastic remark I have at the tip of my tongue just dissipates into the warm air. The sight of him under the sun leaves me speechless and feeling like I can melt into a puddle on the sand. Even now, somehow, it always feels like the first time I’m seeing his face.

“I’m okay now,” I say.

“Just for now, or…?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “For now for sure. For later, at least I hope so? I’m sorry, I wish I could be more certain.”

“For now is good enough,” he says, his voice wrapping around me like a hug. “Let’s look around?”

I wait for him to offer me his hand, but he doesn’t. So we walk side by side taking in the sights and the sounds. Three stages are set across the area, each with their own set of bands playing throughout the afternoon and the night. DAY6 performs tomorrow at one of the minor stages, but it’s already such feat for an unknown band who’s barely started out. I can’t wait for everyone to hear them play.

I wish I can play on the same stage.

The thought stabs at me.

“Did you get to sleep well?” Sungjin asks, softly. So soft, I feel like we’re on a cloud instead of the walking in the hot sand.

“What do you think?”

“I would’ve let you sleep. Do you want to nap a bit?”

I stifle a yawn. After we arrived, we headed into our respective rooms and laid down our stuff and settled in. Once that was out of the way, the rest of our group wandered out to the beach to swim and look around. I ran into Sungjin not too shortly after that. “Are you tired? You must be. If anyone should be sleeping, it’s you.”

“I’m fine,” he answers, “Don’t worry about me.”

Sungjin, always the manly man. “You don’t have to—“ I lose my nerve before I can even finish that sentence.

He raises a brow at me. “I don’t have to what?”

I take a breath and avert my gaze. I can’t look him in the eye like this so I stare at my sneakers. “You don’t have to always be strong or try to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. It’s okay to be tired, too. If I can cry in front of you, you can be tired in front of me.” I look up, and, staggered by the intensity in his eyes, I almost back away. Almost. “I want to be that person for you.”

Sungjin never tells me what stresses him out even though there are times when I know he’s upset, or anxious, or not-okay. Not just with school stuff but with other things too. He never tells me anything. I don’t ask because I know he probably won’t talk to me about it and I don’t want to be shot down.

“I don’t want you to worry about me. You don’t have to do that. You already have so much on your hands.”

“It’s too late for that,” I say, “I’m already worried about you.” He can’t possibly think that even after all this time I haven’t come to care for him.

Sungjin runs his fingers through his hair and studies me. “A nap sounds good.”

Even though I know he won’t take to the touching, I take his arm and lead him back to the resort rooms. Slowly. As slow as conceivably possible. Because I also know that if I let him sleep, that’s time away from each other which defeats the purpose of being here at all. Kind of. I just tell myself no one wants to witness a sleep-deprived Sungjin go all aggro-mode on his bandmates because the rest of us will be collateral damage.

The walk is silent, and when we get to the hallway where we part ways the silence has become deafening. I hear my heart pounding in my ears, and his bicep tenses under my palm. I look up into his eyes and in there is a volatile brew swirling with both warmth and seriousness and something else.

“Your door is over there,” he says.

I nod, but don’t make a move. I glance at the opposite direction. “Yours is over there.”

I wonder if I’m about to get a kiss, but he just looks like he’s turning something over in his mind. He’s going to make me go to my room probably. He’ll stand by the door, remind me to set an alarm, and say that we’ll meet up before the festival starts or whatever. That is decidedly not what I want.

“What is it?” he asks, the dark husk of his voice scraping something raw inside me.

“I really want you to rest but…” My voice is shaky.

“But what?”

“It’s just that…I’ll be over here and you’ll be over there…”

“And that’s a problem?” His eyes spark with heat.

“Isn’t it?”

“It is.”

I don’t know how to ask for what I want, even though I know what it is. I’m sure Sungjin can tell. But because he’s Sungjin, he won’t just assume. He’ll make me say it. Out loud. There are a lot of things I want, so many things I can think of exploring with him, but I’m too chicken to take the first step. I can’t bring myself to ask out loud, so I stare at him hoping he’ll take it to mean that even though I’m not saying or doing anyt