Chapter 27: To The Beach! Part 3

|Chaerin's Perspective|

            Dara and I had just changed and we walked back towards the beach where Jiyong was waiting. Mr. Lawrin had given a strict warning about wearing any suggestive clothing on the beach—in other words, no bikinis. I'm sure the guys weren't too happy about that. It didn't really matter to me though because that kind of stuff wasn't really my thing. I had my bathing swimsuit underneath my clothes: a white tank top and black shorts with my hair in a ponytail. Dara was also wearing her swimsuit under her clothes, but opted for a more girly look. She had on a short blue sundress and had her hair in a fishtail braid.

            We spotted Jiyong at the edge of the water and both of our jaws literally dropped to the floor. There he was standing there: wind blowing his hair to the side like a freaking model, his loose red swimming trunks hanging off of his waist . . . and his shirt . . . or should I say lack their lack of one. HE WASN'T WEARING A SHIRT. HALLELUJAH. PRAISE THE LORD. His bare chest was exposed for the whole world to see, the sun shining perfectly on every muscle. I swear to god, this could be every girl's heaven.

           I turned over to Dara who was just as smitten by him as I was. I took a deep breath and we both walked over. He saw us coming and waved.

            “You guys look nice” he said with a smile.

            'AND YOU LOOK SO FREAKING HOT' was what I wanted to say, but thank goodness, “Thanks” was all that came out.

All three of us walked slowly into the water until it was up to our knees.

            “IT'S SO COLD” Dara screamed as the waves kept pushing water higher up her legs.

She was right. I felt like I was going to die. Jiyong was eyeing us with an evil smile and I could tell he was up to no good. I saw him about to lunge forward and push Dara into the water so I grabbed her and pulled her towards me sending Jiyong flying face first into the salty ocean water.

My and Dara were dying of laughter. Obviously, that didn't work out the way he had wanted. He slowly stood up, soaked from head to toe as water formed little droplets and splashed back into the water, and he looked back at us.

            And that's when we started laughing even harder. There was a long piece of seaweed hanging from his head that looked like really badly cut hair. It looked so ridiculous, but for some strange reason, not half bad on him. He noticed it and pulled it off whipping it back in the water before looking straight at me.

“Sorry.” I said quietly, but he headed straight towards me.

“Your turn” he shouted while wrapping his arms around my waist picking me up and the next thing I knew, I was underwater. Shocked from the cold, I resurfaced as fast as I could.

“YAHHH” I yelled at Jiyong who simply walked away towards Dara.

 I looked over at Dara who did not seem pleased. The splash had covered her in water and now all 3 of us were soaking wet.

“Well, at least we are all used to the water temperature now...”

            Dara's anger changed quickly into excitement.

“Let's play a game.” she suggested, “have you guys ever played mermaid?”

My jaw dropped at her suggestion. Mermaids? What the heck does this girl do when she's alone?

“What do you do?” Jiyong asked, genuinely curious.

“You have to swim but keep your legs together like a tail. It's pretty hard, but I'm really good~ hehehe”

“Alright. Let's do this. First one to that buoy wins. Loser gets a punishment.”

            I stared at Jiyong in disbelief. He actually wanted to do this? Did hell freeze over or something? Never in my life did I imagine Jiyong pretending to be a mermaid. He looked at me and noticed my facial expression.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing...I just didn't expect you to want to participate in something like this...”

“Well, I am. The nerve for you to say that I would not! You do know that mermen exist too young lady” he said with one of those snobby accents.

            Dara laughed and Jiyong smiled. I just rolled my eyes at the two and didn't bother saying anymore. We all lined up and got into position for our race. Jiyong hadn't decided a specific punishment so I was kind of afraid. Even though I thought this whole thing was stupid, the competitive side of me wanted to win, no, needed to win. Dara started counting down.

            “3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . GO!” and we all started swimming furiously towards the gloating buoy. To my surprise, Dara was right. It was hard to swim properly when you couldn't separate your legs. We all probably looked like dying fish as we wiggled our way across the water. I wasn't doing too badly; we were neck and neck.

            I took a deep breath and sprung forward with a big kick when something nibbled gently on my foot, and that was when all hell broke loose...

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! MY FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!” I screamed as I started flailing around and kicking—I think I ended up kicking a fish in the process. I was half drowning while grabbing my foot to protect it. I suddenly didn't trust this water anymore. When I looked over, Dara and Jiyong were already at the end just watching me and laughing.

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