Realizations
Salty Lips & Late Night Dips05: Realizations
Kris’ blonde hair thrashed in the wind around a pair of dark Ray Ban sunglasses, smile crooked and pearly white as he spoke over the hiss and sigh of the ocean.
"As I'm sure you've all figured out by now, my name is Kris, and I'll be teaching you the basics of surfing today. I can tell by the wild look in your eyes that you're ready to dive straight into the action, but there are a few very important things we need to go over first."
Tao was standing awkwardly to the left of Kris, feeling slightly uncomfortable yet oddly amazed. He hadn't expected the guy to be quite so professional, because his first lesson with him had been much more laid back. Tao wasn't sure if he should be honored or offended by that.
"Can someone tell me what our first priority should be when we're in the water?" Kris asked as he tossed a small, cloth bag from hand to hand. The rustling contents piqued Tao's curiosity. Suddenly, a teenage girl on the back row shot her hand into the air with a hopeful smile. "Yes! You there, young lady!"
"Safety!" she called out.
"We have a winner!" exclaimed Kris as he opened the purple bag, grabbed a piece of candy, and tossed it to her. The girl missed catching it but quickly salvaged it from the sand and held it close to her heart. Her strawberry tinted blush did not go unnoticed.
Tao couldn't believe it. Kris was giving out candy like a third grade teacher trying to bribe his students with junk food. Why hadn't he received candy during is first surfing lesson? Tao shook that thought from his mind and clenched his jaw stubbornly.
"Alright! Next question!" Kris continued, pacing back and forth, "What is one of the most common dangers of the ocean that claims hundreds of lives every year?" Everyone thought for a moment before a young man in his twenties raised his hand hesitantly. "Yes! You there, sir!"
"Sharks?" the guy asked hopefully, to which Kris chuckled.
"Close! Actually sharks aren't one of the most common dangers. I've seen the occasional one here or there but usually they keep to themselves. But! They are still a danger so, here ya go!" Kris tossed another piece of candy and the guy caught it easily. "Anyone else?" A lady in her forties was the next to raise her hand. "Got an answer for me sweetheart?"
Tao wanted to knock Kris' lights out for being so greasy. No wonder the guy made decent money giving surfing lessons, he sweet talked his students and won them over with candy. Was that even ethical?
"Rip currents," replied the woman as she sat in the front row with her legs crossed. Kris carefully placed the treat into the palm of her hand and winked.
"Good answer!" Kris continued to ask questions pertaining to safety, and after a while, Tao realized that Kris was getting the class involved in the discussion instead of feeding them the information. He had an odd way of grabbing their interest, but Tao had to give it to him, it was definitely effective. A little over thirty minutes later, the moment Tao had been dreading finally came.
"I'm sure you're all wondering who this guy is and why he's standing here. This is my good friend, Tao, and he's going to helping me with my lesson today," Kris explained as he wrapped an arm around Tao's shoulders and tugged playfully.
Tao squirmed under the gazes and thought about running back into the surf shop. He didn't enjoy being the center of attention. In fact, he tried to avoid it, but he'd promised Luhan that he would play nice. Free arcade games were riding on his participation at the moment. Maybe he wouldn't feel quite so uncomfortable once things got rolling.
"H-Hi," Tao waved awkwardly as he attempted a smile.
"Alright, Surfing Model, if you would be so kind as to board the vessel please," Kris grinned like a dork and Tao rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long sixty minutes. It was a good thing Tao had woke up on the right side of the bed that morning.
Tao approached the surfboard that had been placed at the front of the class. It was sitting atop a mountain of sand to provide enough elevation to give a mock sensation of being in the water. Now this, Tao knew he could do. He was a floundering walrus when it came to being in the water, but he was confident he could handle land-based training. After settling himself onto the surfboard stomach-down, Kris began the next stage of Surfing-101.
"Alright everyone, I'm going to go over the basics with Tao as my model. He took a crash course in surfing with me just the other day, so I'm gonna test him to see how much he remembered." Tao didn't like the sound of that. "For starters, knowing how to paddle properly is essential. Unless you have good upper body strength, it's going to be a little tiring at first, but stick with it and eventually you'll get the hang of it," Kris looked down at the still idle Tao and kicked sand at him. "Don't just float out in the ocean like a jellyfish. Get to it!"
Tao ignored the hushed snickering from the students and started paddling, making sure to reach forward and pull back with strong through the air. If there was one thing he'd retained it was that. The repetitive motion had been engraved into his brain. Sometimes he even dreamed of paddling with Kris' voice telling him to paddle harder. Evidently he passed the test, because Kris began explaining the movements to the class as Tao continued to act them out.
"Now as you're paddling out," Kris continued, "You're going to encounter some pretty big waves, right? So what do you do? Depending on how large the wave is, you can either try to make it over the top of it, or dive underneath it. Unfortunately, diving is sort of hard to explain on land, so we'll save that one for the water."
Thank Jesus. Tao was hoping they would skip that one. He'd like to avoid eating sand if at all possible.
"Let's assume you've made it past the breaking waves and into less choppy water. You've located an incoming wave and you start paddling because there's no way you're gonna miss it. That wave has your name on it. But! You've gotta know how to surf it. This brings us to our next position," Kris motioned towards Tao.
Tao took that as his sign to slip into the next position. This was where things got hairy. He stood up on the board, making it wobble before sliding into what he thought was the correct form--left leg back, front knee bent, and arms splayed apart for balance. Kris cleared his throat, slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, and eyed Tao over the top of them with disdain.
"Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is an example of poor posture and crappy footing," Kris concluded as he extended a foot and kicked Tao's back ankle. Tao felt his foot give way as he was jolted into a wider position, disrupting his center of balance. He waved his arms to and fro, trying desperately to regain the stability he'd lost as the surfboard suddenly tilted.
"And make sure you catch your balance early on, or else, this will happen--" Kris extended his foot again and connected it roughly to Tao's rear end. This resulted in a grunt and yelp as Tao lost his footing and fell face first into the sand.
Tao pushed himself up and spat the sand out of his mouth. The uproarious laughter from Kris' students did little for his merit or confidence, and it didn't help that Kris had joined in on their laughter as well. Tao wanted to dig a hole in the sand, crawl inside of it, and bury himself alive. He could feel the flush creeping up his cheeks. Kris was an , plain and simple. The more Tao got to know him, the more he realized Kris liked to push his buttons. And today, all of his buttons were being smashed.
Kris pushed his sunglasses back into place and helped Tao to his feet, ignoring the evil glare he received in the process. "Excellent job, Surfing Model. Now that we've showed them what not to do, it's time to do it properly this time." The way Kris said "properly" had Tao glancing about for a nearby sea shell to jab into Kris’ jugular. Too bad there didn't appear to be any sharp ones. The beach was not on his side today.
With damaged pride, Tao reclaimed his spot on the surfboard, taking care to be extra vigilant as he took up the correct position. He awaited Kris' criticism, but was assaulted by the one thing he did not expect--a pair of strong hands gripping his hips to help steady him. Tao's pulse kicked up a notch and he turned without thinking, soon drinking in the beach-ruffled surfer standing behind him. The steady press of fingertips through the sweaty fabric of Tao's shirt sent him catapulting straight toward panic. Tao started counting the number of fronds on a nearby palm tree.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine--ten fingers. No! Fronds! Ten fronds! Fronds goddammit!
Thankfully, Kris remained none-the-wiser of the reaction he'd received from his surfing model as he continued with the lesson. Tao didn't hear a word of it. He was too busy listening to his heart pounding in his ears like a tribal drum. He didn't snap out of his reverie until Kris removed his hands, leaving him with an unexpected sense of emptiness that picked at his nerves. How in the hell was he supposed to survive in the water with Kris at this rate? His first crash course in surfing had been nothing like this. In fact, Kris hadn't touched him at all.
Tao tried his best to shake off Kris and powered through the remainder of the lesson. He was surprised when class came to an end without so much as one toe dipped in the water. Then again safety, posture, and etiquette were the three key points in surfing. Since Tao had been given a crash course, he hadn't had time to absorb all of the information, so the class had served as a learning experience. Perhaps that had been Kris' motive from the beginning.
Tao stood off to the side, leaning against a palm tree while Kris conversed with a few of his students. It wasn't surprising that the female students had decided to linger longer than necessary. Tao scoffed, plucked few grains of sand out of his teeth, and spat them out. Kris would definitely be paying for his heartless transgressions at the arcade later that night.
Finally, Kris excused himself and began collecting the extra surfboards he'd used for teaching. Tao stood back and watched with narrowed eyes. He didn't even flinch when Kris looked at him curiously from a distance, as if to inquire as to why he was receiving such a pointed glare. One lopsided smirk from the surfer was all it took to send Tao over the edge.
While Kris was busy shelving the surfboards in the storage area on the back side of the surf shop, Tao picked up a recently fallen palm frond and grinned rakishly at his makeshift weapon. He crept across the sand, waited until the precise moment, and swung with all his might right for Kris' precious face. The surfer stumbled back with surprised umph!
"What the f--" Kris was cut short by yet another smack from Tao, this time to the ear.
"I swallowed sand you jerk!" Tao yelled as he took several swings, missing Kris twice but managing to catch him right across the crotch region.
"Hey! Watch where you're swinging that thing!" Kris bellowed as he protected his goods from destruction.
"YOU - smack! - ARE - smack! - THE - smack! - BIGGEST JERK - smack! smack! - THAT I - smack! smack! - HAVE EVER MET!" Tao roared, taking pleasure in each bulls-eye that he landed.
"WOULD YOU STOP ABUSING ME WITH YOUR FREAKING PALM TREE FROND!"
"WHY? YOU ASKED FOR IT!" smack!
"Tao," Kris warned as he held up an arm to shield himself, "I swear to god, if you hit me with that thing one more--" smack! "YOU'RE DEAD."
Kris moved faster than Tao had time to think. In that split second, the surfer had somehow managed to lock Tao under his arm and dig his bony knuckles into Tao's scalp.
"OW! OW! OW!" screamed Tao as he tried in vain to escape Kris' rock solid headlock. When that didn't work, he resulted to desperate measures and sunk his teeth into Kris' arm.
"AAAAAHHH!" cried Kris while trying to release Tao, only to find that the guy was latched onto him like a stubborn crab. It was all out war after that. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a tangled mess of arms and legs. They wrestled in the sand--pushing, pulling, shoving, kicking--neither one of them willing to accept defeat despite how ridiculous they must have looked. Right as Kris managed to get the upper hand and straddled Tao, a blast of freezing water put an abrupt and shocking end to their wrestling match.
"If you two wanna get , do it somewhere else," said Luhan with one hand on his hip while the other held a plastic bucket, "I don't pay you two to flirt on the clock. Now get your asses inside of the house."
Kris and Tao stared wide-eyed at their boss, both dripping wet, before Kris responded. "H-House?"
"Yes. House. Make sure you clean up first. I need to teach Tao how to close the register."
"But... I thought I was only working for today," replied Tao as he pushed Kris away.
"Tomorrow is going to be another busy day. I'll be needing your help. Can you be here by 11?"
"I guess. But--"
"Great! It's settled then!" Luhan turned and walked away, flicking a carefree hand into the air, signaling his dismissal of Tao's impending rebuttal.
"Congratulations!" exclaimed Kris, smacking the middle of Tao's back way harder than necessary.
"KYAAK!" whelped Tao. He raised a fist to knock the dummy's lights out but dropped it with a hiss instead. "I really hate you sometimes," he snapped before stomping off.
"That's a shame!" Kris replied, "Because I like you!" Tao halted and whipped around with a horrified expression.
"That's not funny!" Tao shouted, his face turning beet red.
"By the way! You forgot to wash up! The water faucet is on the other side of the shop!" Kris pointed.
"I KNOW!" roared Tao as he headed in the direction Kris had oh-so-kindly pointed out. Actually he didn't even know there was an outdoor water faucet.
Tao tried his best to ignore Kris as he turned the squeaky nob. The water sputtered before a steady stream came out and he started rinsing the sand off of his arms. While he rinsed, he noticed Kris leaning against the wall out of the corner of his eye. When Tao stuck a leg under the stream, Kris pushed off of the wall and squatted at Tao’s feet.
“What are you--“ Tao was cut short by Kris’ next actions. The surfer cupped his hands, filled them with water, and began rinsing the sand off of Tao’s legs and feet.
“Turn around,” Kris swirled a finger in air, “You’ve still got some on the back of your calves.”
“Huh? Oh. Okay,” Tao turned around because he didn’t know what else he should do. He wasn’t used to this kind of care and attention from anyone else besides his mother. Come to think of it, Kris had shown a similar level of care after the bar the other night. It was Kris who had helped him into Lay’s house. It was Kris who had brought him some pain reliever and made him drink water before bed. It was Kris who had helped him stumble into the bathroom when the nausea rose up in his throat. Tao felt the telltale signs of guilt swirl in his gut and bit his bottom lip.
“Done. My turn,” said Kris. Tao moved out of the way, bent over, and shakily reached out for Kris’ leg. He started from the knee and worked his way down, cupping and releasing the water, washing away the sand with a gentle hand. Once he was finished, Kris turned off the water and flashed a pearly white grin. “Come on. Let’s go inside before Luhan finds another way to punish us.”
“Something tells me I’ll be working here for while,” admitted Tao as they walked around to the employee entrance.
“You’re probably right,” Kris chuckled, “But hey, at least you’ll have a little extra cash this summer. Right?”
“I guess.”
Kris held the door open for Tao and motioned like a butler, “After you, Surfing Model.”
“Damn right,” replied Tao. He didn’t even try to stop the laughter that bubbled from his throat.
8/26/15 - SL&LND is now complete. Extra side stories will be added soon. [RuinedReverie]
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