It was hot—unbearably so. The kind of heat that clung to your skin, heavy and sticky, no matter how close the ocean was.

This was supposed to be fun.
 At least, that’s what Gojo had said, flashing that annoyingly confident, toothy grin of his before dragging everyone out here. But where exactly was the fun?

Was it sitting under the relentless sun while sweat gathered at your temples?
 The gritty sand that somehow found its way everywhere?
 The murky beach water, constantly churned up by screaming children who seemed determined to pelt anything and anyone?

At least Megumi and Nobara seemed unbothered.

Megumi sat quietly beneath the shade of a beach umbrella, shoulders relaxed, gaze half-lidded as he read his book. Nobara lay beside him on her stomach, soaking up the sun like she belonged there, completely at ease as she tanned skin that already looked perfect.

Gojo, on the other hand, had vanished ages ago.

He’d muttered something about ice cream—“Be right back!”—and hadn’t returned since. You could already picture him holding up the line, demanding samples of every flavor just to kill time.

Yuji, meanwhile, had not stopped moving once. In the water. Out of the water. Sprinting along the shore. Kneeling in the sand to build an impressively tall sandcastle—only for it to collapse spectacularly when a volleyball from a few yards away hit it dead-on.

And then, inevitably, Yuji came back to you.

“Heya!” he said cheerfully, plopping down right in front of you with a little puff of sand. He turned around and gestured over his shoulder. “Can you put some sunscreen on my back? I cannot get sunburned like last time….”

He leaned forward, already trusting you with the task, his skin still warm from the sun.

Again.


You’d already done this three times—and you hadn’t even been here that long.

“Nobara said something really scary about sunburns,” he continued, completely unfazed, “so now I’m kinda paranoid—oh! By the way—” He twisted around just enough to grin at you.

“Why’re you moping around? Wanna dig me into the sand?”