Main characters featured in this chapter:

♡━━━ July | Sana's PoV ━━━♡

I never imagined that my first time back in Japan would be on a summer vacation with all of my friends, but here we were. The sun was shining on the sea and the warm, fluffy sand enveloped my feet. I missed the feeling of being on a beach.

I couldn’t wait to get in the ocean, so I loudly asked, “Anyone wants to go in the water with me?”

“Can you even swim?” Jeongyeon jokingly asked, and I squinted my eyes in response.

“I don’t plan on going too deep,” I pouted.

“Wait, so you really don’t know how to swim?” Jeongyeon chuckled, seeming a bit surprised.

“No,” I sheepishly admitted, raising my shoulders.

“Aww, you can’t swim?” Jihyo suddenly asked, hugging me from behind. “It’s okay, Tzuyu-ya won’t let you drown.”

“Huh?” Tzuyu voiced upon hearing her name mentioned and I took the opportunity to smile at her.

“That’s right, you need to come with us so you’ll make sure I won’t drown,” I pleaded, looking at her with puppy-dog eyes.

Seemingly confused, the tall 1st year was blushing. “I-I never said I wanted to actually get in the water though… but if Sana-unnie doesn’t know how to swim, I guess it won’t hurt to go too.”

“Yay, thank you, Tzuyu-ya,” I cheerfully said, clinging to the other girl’s arms and dragging her to the ocean with me.

Before turning my body around, I could see Jihyo wink at me and a very amused-looking Jeongyeon. I giggled as I moved closer to Tzuyu, further embarrassing the other girl.

She was so red and couldn’t look me in the eye, it was a really adorable sight. I happily sighed and said, “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she shyly responded.

The cold water slowly started covering our feet as we reached the shore. “Ah!” I exclaimed, shocked with the temperature. “The water is so cold!”

Tzuyu laughed and shook her head, saying, “It’s not that cold, unnie… you’re just too sensitive.”

“Oh really?” I challengingly said, using my feet to splash water on her and laughing when I saw her surprised face. “It shouldn’t be a big deal, right? You said the water isn’t cold.”

The taller girl kept laughing and trying to cover her face with her hands, protesting, “S-Stop it! I take t-that back, the water is cold!”

My laughing decreased as I stopped splashing her with water, innocently smiling at Tzuyu, whose expression was unreadable. She cracked a rather evil-looking smile and grabbed my wrist, dragging me further inside the water.

“Tzuyu-ya, w-wait!!” I exclaimed, my body starting to shiver with the cold temperature of the water. “I’m n-not ready to go in that far yet!”

She kept giggling but stopped pulling me once our waists were all covered. “T-Tzuyu-ya, we’re getting a bit too deep,” I said, a small burst of fear beginning to creep up.

She pulled me into her arms, and I gasped in surprise, lightly blushing. “It’s okay, I said I won’t let you drown,” she soothingly whispered as I glanced up to look at her just in time to see her soft smile.

“Wanna dive to see if we can find any fish?” She asked.

I nodded, alarmed by how fast my heart was beating and she let go of me.

“I’ll go first and then you go in,” she said, and I consented. Tzuyu held her breath and dived her head in the water. I felt her hand tugging on mine, as if asking me to join her, so I mimicked her previous actions and dived in.

When she saw me, a smile formed on her face as she pointed to a small fish shoal that was swimming nearby. The underwater world was certainly a beautiful sight. Even though we weren’t deep, it was already possible to see a lot of variety of sea life and adorable fish swimming around.

But certainly, the cutest sight I saw when we were diving was Tzuyu smiling at all the fish like a little kid.

♡━━━ July | Nayeon's PoV ━━━♡

Things didn’t look good as Mina and I were playing a game of volleyball against Jihyo and Jeongyeon. We had lost the first round and the second one wasn’t looking very promising either.

To be fair, Mina was a rather good player, but I was never known for being good at anything that requires motor coordination so unfortunately, I’m the cause of our loss.

“YES! We won again!” Jihyo cheered as she scored a point that secured their victory.

“Great job, partner,” Jeongyeon said, high fiving Jihyo and smiling in a smug way at us.

“Aw, c’mon,” I whined, crossing my arms in frustration. “I’m sorry you got stuck with me,” I added, looking at Mina and pouting.

She giggled and shook her head, approaching me. “It’s okay, I had fun anyway,” she said, and I smiled in relief.

“I’m gonna go see what the others are doing and grab a drink,” Jeongyeon said, wiping the sweat off of her forehead.

“Oh, I’ll go with you,” Jihyo said, following the taller girl towards where the others were.

My eyes followed where they were going, and I laughed upon seeing that Dahyun and Chaeyoung had buried Momo in the sand. The Japanese girl didn’t seem to mind, though, as Dahyun was feeding her some fresh grapes we brought from Tzuyu’s house, and Chaeyoung was building a sand castle.

“Those three are really something,” I said, feeling both amused