The only problem with Jinyoung’s family’s beach house was the sun, because if it weren’t for the sun, the cute lifeguard with the stupid glasses would’ve never taken off his shirt and filled Jinyoung with the sudden and overwhelming desire to drown himself, or at least make a convincing effort at it so that the gorgeous bastard would have no choice but to save him.

As it were, Jinyoung subtly spent the first few mornings trying to optimally place his towel so that he could be seen sunbathing from the lifeguard tower until he got sunburned and turned strange shade of orange and his mother decided he might as well make himself useful.

And so, without really meaning to, Jinyoung wound up working at the ice cream shop across the street from the beach, and honestly, cleaning sticky, sandy floors and serving screaming kids was hardly worth the minimum wage he was earning. Besides, he’d never woo the cute, bespectacled lifeguard in this stupid dorky apron.

It hurt his heart to be so close but so far away. His vague fantasies about sitting in the sun just a few hundred yards away while the lifeguard boy looked down upon him and smirked around his lollipop – where the lollipop came from, Jinyoung wasn’t entirely sure, but he didn’t really blame his subconscious – or winked behind his glasses were hardly enough to sustain him through the long hours of serving bikini-clad s and overweight families.

He was pondering actually drowning himself in melted ice cream spillage by his fourth hour on the job. He’d already seen enough sun poisoning and muffin tops to be completely put off his lunch and so spent the break casually walking back and forth in front of the lifeguard tower, which was sadly occupied by a bleach-blonde douchebag with buckteeth and the sort of ostentatious six-pack that wasn’t even cute.

Okay, maybe Jinyoung was a little bitter, and justifiably so. The sole potential highlight of his really ty day had been replaced with a stupid blonde imposter. But Jinyoung really did prefer a subtler body, lanky and tall like the other, better lifeguard with the long hair and thick glasses.

Like the other, better lifeguard who was just now walking into the ice cream shop, his hair tied up in a ponytail and his glorious biceps bare in his lifeguard shirt with the sleeves cut off. Jinyoung startled and jumped up, sprinting into the ice cream parlor door moments before he did.

Forcefully grabbing the ice cream scoop from his extraordinarily dull coworker Junghwan's hand, Jinyoung flashed the boy a giant and hopefully extremely charming grin.

"W-what can I get you?"

"Ah," the kid began, his lips as he surveyed the meager selection. Jinyoung tried his hardest not to hyperventilate. "Mmm, I'd like the, um, uh... do you recommend, uh... rainbow sherbet?" he requested, halfway making eye contact with Jinyoung and halfway staring at the ground.

It kind of half-hit Jinyoung that this might be the boy’s retarded lifeguard surfer way of making a pass at him – rainbows were gay and so was rainbow sherbet if you used the transitive property or whatever – but he snorted it off, probably managing to sound like a giant . He was delusional; it was just late-onset sun poisoning.

Still, he nodded. “Um, y-yeah. It’s really... delicious...” he sighed, silently cursing his own word choice and shoving back the just like you that threatened to spill out but not breaking the intense eye contact he’d just found himself trapped in with the bespectacled lifeguard. Every single flirting technique he’d ever secretly read in his sister’s magazines just fell out of his head until the lifeguard nodded.

“Cool. I’ll, uh, have some.”

“Waffle cone, cake cone, or cup?” Jinyoung asked, taking a deep breath and trying to sound businesslike but shaking a little in horror because suddenly everything he said suddenly sounded ual with those eyes glued to his lips.

“Cake cone.”

“Kid’s or large?”

“Large, please,” the boy chuckled, pushing his glasses up his nose and his lips and Jinyoung wasn’t sure he’d ever felt such a terrifying, electric feeling running through his body.

Or at least he hadn’t until the bespectacled kid took his cone and their hands touched, definitely lingering together. Jinyoung shivered slightly and smoothed the bills into the register, glancing up at the boy every now and again and completely forgetting where he was or what he was doing.

“Um... do you want to keep the change?”

Jinyoung blushed bright red and his heart exploded a little bit. He’d managed to look like a bumbling idiot in front of the prettiest kid on this side of the Pacific because he was a hopeless mess and oh, , there was some kid tipping his cone over and . .

“No, really, it’s cool. Don’t bother with the pennies and I’ll just – .”

And Jinyoung was suddenly assaulted by something sticky and cold as the prettiest kid on this side of the Pacific slipped in a three-year-old’s ice cream spill and spilled his own large cake cone of rainbow sherbet right on Jinyoung’s chest. They both spluttered for a moment until said dull coworker Junghwan pushed Jinyoung out of the way to clean up and the lifeguard kind of caught him as he was reeling from Junghwan’s shockingly forceful push, his hand into Jinyoung’s t-shirt to keep him upright.

The lifeguard would’ve gladly kissed Jinyoung then and there were it not for the fact that the front of Jinyoung’s apron and his shirt were both covered in sherbet and now so was his hand by proxy.

And so, chuckling awkwardly, Jinyoung beckoned him into the sink in the back of the stupid little ice cream parlor, exchanging profuse apologies with the bespectacled boy and not really watching what he was doing until they both wound up splattered with water and the lifeguard tugged off his shirt, laughing, and offered it to Jinyoung.

“You need it more than I do,” he insisted, and Jinyoung tried not to inhale its scent as he hesitantly took it.

“Th-thanks,” he murmured, his voice mostly gone. He was pretty positive he was dreaming, because there was no way someone this beautiful would be helping him untie his apron and then pull off his shirt and pushing his own cut-off tank top over his head, but even when he subtly pinched himself, everything stayed the same.

The lifeguard grinned. “It looks good.”

“Are you kidding – ” Jinyoung began, knowing he could never in a million years pull off such a shirt, considering the fact that he was a skinny bastard with a keen dislike for retarded hipster trends including but not limited to such cut-off sleeves as were prominent in the lifeguard’s shirt, but he remembered what his mother told him about accepting compliments and he gulped it down. “Uh, but yeah. Thanks.”

“I’m serious! And, uh, of course. Sorry for spilling my ice cream on you.”

“It’s no problem, I promise. I, um, I’ll be fine.”

Jinyoung offered the boy a shaky smile. The boy adjusted his crooked glasses and returned it with a radiant grin.

“So, um, is it cool if I come back later to get that rainbow sherbet? I have to go save lives and now or whatever, but I’ll be back at five.”

Jinyoung just nodded dumbly.

“Awesome. My number’s on the back of the shirt if you need it. I’m Dongwoo, by the way.”

.......

And so Jinyoung eventually decided that he didn’t entirely hate the sun, because if it weren’t for the sun, he would never have wound up making out with Dongwoo in the shade behind the ice cream parlor every weekday after work got out or tasting the sherbet on his lips as the sun set behind them every weekend night or driving along coastal roads, blasting bad music and stopping every few beaches to get frozen yogurt – Jinyoung refused to ever eat ice cream again – or admire the view with his delicious, bespectacled idiot lifeguard of a boyfriend.