Xion’s car is an eight year-old hand-me-down, and the air conditioning hasn’t worked in the damned thing for at least half that time. Which, in the southern heat, Ven’s pretty sure is a war crime. A crime against humanity, at least. No one deserves to live like this. Not in this sweltering humidity. His only salvation in this dead-end town is the local recreation center with its good-enough swimming pool and dirt cheap concessions and surly, mind-crushingly attractive lifeguard.

Naminé and Xion frequently drag him out at 1am for convenience store ice cream, as best friends do, so it’s only fair that they don’t complain as Ven pulls them along on his weekly—bi-weekly—almost daily—outings to the rec center. He definitely doesn’t have the lifeguards’ schedule memorized. He’ll vehemently deny it if anyone asks. Besides, Vanitas the hot lifeguard doesn’t even know that Ven exists.

Vanitas only moved to this sorry excuse of a town a year ago, and even then he didn’t go out of his way to make friends. As far as Ven knows, he doesn’t have any. Through their entire final year of high school, he never talked to anyone. He was only coasting by. Surviving, maybe, until it was over.

And now the only thing standing between Ven and the rest of his life is this one, last summer in his suffocating hometown. The hammer of university will soon burst the door of the birdcage wide open.

Ven has no idea where he’ll go after that, where Vanitas will go after that. Can he really afford to be such a coward? He chews on the stick of his finished ice cream bar as he watches the lifeguard’s stand. There’s only this summer. There’s only right now.

“Ven, you’re staring again,” Naminé says with a slight laugh.

He shakes his head to knock the thoughts loose, and spits the stick out onto the picnic table. Xion curls her lip and mumbles something about “couth and manners.” Ven sends her a side-eye. “Couth isn’t a word.”

“Sure it is. It’s the opposite of uncouth,” she insists, and Naminé reaffirms that logic. Figures.

Ven leans back and folds his arms over his bare chest, still pale despite the countless hours he’s
spent out by the poolside. Vanitas could probably spot him from a mile away—if he even wanted to. He could point out every blush and blemish along Ven’s skin as the embarrassment mounts. He would see that it’s truly possible for a person to blush from head to toe.

Nope. No, he can’t do it. He’s a coward, through and through. He can only hope to watch Vanitas from afar and wonder what he’s really like. If he’s as fierce and passionate as Ven thinks he is. If he’d ever give someone like Ven the time of day. He just looks so angry and out-of-place up on the lifeguard’s stand. It’s probably hot as hell up there, too. With no fan or anything, just a water bottle and the shade of that little red umbrella. If anything, he’s probably thankful that he doesn’t have to wear a shirt. Ven certainly is.

“Maybe if you pretend to drown he’ll save you and give you mouth-to-mouth,” Xion says over her smoothie. Ven physically jerks, and she grins with the straw between her teeth. “Hey, it worked in The Sandlot.”

“That was a movie,” Ven grumbles.

“Art imitates life.” 

“Not this life.”

Naminé giggles into her hand, and for a moment her face is obscured by the brim of her floppy hat. “Then, what are you going to do?”

“Who says I have to do anything?” he huffs. These two and their meddling.

Xion rolls her eyes so hard she wobbles. “Ven, you’re so hopeless! It’s been months now. I’ve never seen someone pine so hard! You keep staring at him and doing the Sad Schoolgirl Sigh.”

The what?

Naminé props her elbows on the table, chin in hand, and sends the distance a melancholy stare. She gives a deep, vocal sigh like a depressed Disney princess.

Oh. That. Ven pulls his arms over his chest to hide the growing blush. “I haven’t been doing that.”

“Ven. You can lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me,” Xion points at him with her smoothie cup. “And don’t lie to Naminé, either. Pretty sure that’s illegal or something.” Naminé nods her agreement. “Why don’t you just go talk to him?”

Ven reels back. “Are you kidding? I’ll die. He’ll probably put an end to me.”

Naminé starts laughing. “Oh, how romantic.”

“Enough!” Ven groans. He covers his head with his arms. Maybe if he makes himself as small as possible, they’ll let it go. His cheeks are already burning hot. He hopes they think it’s sunburn.

The pause is far too short. Xion’s cup claps onto the tabletop: “I bet you won’t splash him.”

Ven peeks over his arm-barricade. “What?”

“I bet you ten dollars you won’t go up and splash him,” she leans forward with some kind of challenging sneer. “You don’t even have to talk to him.”

“Just… splash him?” What kind of crazy idea is that?

“Yup.”

What an insane compromise. This will get Xion off of his case, right? It’s stupid. Stupid and crazy. Ven sits up. “Make it twenty and I’ll do it.”

Xion hits the table with her palm. “Done.”

And Ven stands, his chair scratching loudly against the concrete. He’s a fool. This is the worst idea Xion has ever had.

Well, no. The Sandlot idea was definitely worse. But at least if the Sandlot idea went awry, he’d probably just drown. Less mess that way.

Ven scoops some water into his hands and tiptoes up to the lifeguard’s stand. Vanitas isn’t paying a bit of attention to him as usual. He stays slumped in his chair, angrily chewing on his cuticles. Ven can’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but he’s sure they’re bright and glaring out over the water. The shifting light from the surface of the pool dances in lines across his face. The water is draining fast through Ven’s fingers. It’s now or never. Is he actually going to do this? He really shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. His brain is screaming as his body moves and tosses the meager amount of water up at Vanitas.

The droplets strike him, and Ven swears Vanitas almost jumps right out of his chair. Whether it’s from being startled or because he somehow managed to stop himself from coming down and drowning Ven himself, Ven doesn’t know. “What the hell was that for?” Vanitas hisses.

Ven sees himself looking shocked and dumbfounded through the reflection on Vanitas’s  sunglasses. Oh, fuck. He should’ve ran. Why didn’t he run for it!? “I… I just…”

“What do you want?”

To talk to you.

But he can’t say that. Not when he has nothing to talk about. There’s no way Vanitas would go along with a meaningless conversation like that. Vanitas’s brows furrow behind the rim of his aviators, and Ven realizes in a sudden rush of dread that he still hasn’t answered him. “I, uh… wanted to ask you something,” he lies.

“There are better fucking ways of getting my attention.”

“Oh. Well, I thought you might be hot, so—”

“Of course I am. It’s fucking June.” Yeah… fair point. “So what the hell did you want to ask me?”

Shit. He didn’t think this one through. “I was just… uh… well… Have you ever seen The Sandlot?” Curse Xion. Curse her and her stupid ideas!

Vanitas leans back. “… What is that?”

It turns out Xion is a genius. “It’s a movie.” Ven explains, and his horrendous attempt at smalltalk somehow, miraculously, segues into him inviting Vanitas to a movie (because seriously, how has he not seen the Sandlot!?), and Vanitas, miraculously again, agrees.

Xion is a beautiful friend. What would Ven ever do without her? Die pining and alone, probably.

Summer spirals out of control then. Silly movies and annoyances and nighttime walks through the empty streets and impromptu trips to the corner store for sweet, slushy drinks blur together as June burns beneath the dawn of July, and Ven still can’t believe a silly dare lead him here: with Vanitas in the back of Xion’s sweltering car.

Xion and Naminé sit on the hood, leaning on each other’s shoulders as the last of the summer fireworks shimmer into ash. Ven glances over and finds Vanitas with his eyes closed, his foot propped up on a mostly empty bottle of soda that’s been rattling around the floorboards since at least April. Ven ducks into the backseat alongside him, and Vanitas sits up a little straighter. “What are you hiding back here for?”

Vanitas rubs his face with his hands and groans: “I told you—I’m tired. I want to sleep.”

“C’mon, it’s not so bad,” Ven laughs. Vanitas only grunts in response. He leans his head back against the seat. His eyes are already shut. Ven settles down next to him, close enough to feel the body heat radiating from strong, exposed arms. “Today was fun,” he says.

“Mm.” That sounded like an agreement. Totally.

Ven cranes his head back as well, studying the tears and inexplicable stains on the headliner of the car. “I’m… really glad you came along.” Vanitas says nothing. “It’s nice to not be a third-wheel… and see you having fun for once. I think.” Nothing. “You had fun, right?” Still silence. “Are you already asleep?” Ven glances over and catches Vanitas’s eyes. He stops breathing. In the dark of night, in the shadows of the backseat of Xion’s car, they’re a dark honey amber. He’s close enough for Ven to count every freckle in those eyes. Vanitas still doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move, either.

Xion’s stupid comment about The Sandlot comes rushing back to mind. Why? That shit never works. It’s not that simple. It’s never that simple.

Ven has to remind himself to breathe. It sounds like a gasp. There’s barely a flicker across Vanitas’s face. Still so close. Maybe—if Ven asked—Vanitas really would help him catch his breath. Breathe air into him because Ven is so very clearly struggling. And Vanitas still isn’t saying anything! Won’t he just say something—

Vanitas tilts forward, and Ven’s vision goes dark. His lips are chapped and taste like candy and sunscreen. The rough scent of chlorine still clings to his hair. His skin. Ven thinks he’ll probably smell of it until October.

Ven’s hands tighten into fists. They reach for Vanitas’s shirt—his hands face shoulder—he can’t decide. His chest swells with fire and he’s so overwhelmed he can’t breathe. “I like you!” he blurts. Vanitas makes a confused noise, and Ven’s mouth clicks shut. Fuck. Why did he say that? He tries to catch his breath again. “Sorry.”

Golden eyes search over Ven’s face for an eternity. “Why?”

“I’ve made it weird. Sorry. Just forget I said—”

“No, I mean, why do you like me?” he murmurs, and Ven jerks. “No one likes me. Why would you ever like someone like me?”

“I… I don’t know,” he stammers, and he sounds so defeated. “I like… how passionate you are?” That’s a compliment, right? Ven has no idea. Vanitas doesn’t react. “How if you dislike something, you dislike it with your whole heart. And I’m sure if you like something… you like it with your whole heart. Everything you do is at 100%. I wish… I could be like that, ya know?” he chuckles beneath his breath. It’s weak. “I like the face you make when you eat sour candy. The way you glare at me from over your sunglasses. How you bite your cuticles when you’re mad… I like all of those things.”

Vanitas’s hand is trembling as it curls around the base of Ven’s skull. He nervously wets his lips and says: “You’re an idiot.” Ven laughs like a cough. “I can’t stand you.”

He leans in again, kissing sunscreen lips still stained with blue food coloring. Vanitas presses back. Artificial raspberry and orange sugar sticks.

Vanitas is breathless as they pull apart. The irony of it almost sends Ven into another fit of laughter. “I’ve never met someone with as shit taste as you.”

“I’m getting a lot of mixed signals here…”

“Shut up, Ventus,” Vanitas says, and pulls him in like oxygen. “You talk too much.”