The laughter that fills your bedroom after Ace finishes the great recollection of his youngest brother's journey of being permanently banned from the local deli is sweet, it mingles with the warmth of Ace pressed close next to you— the heat is unbearably sticky, but you don't move away from Ace and he doesn't make any move to get away from you. The AC in your room is loud, annoying with every toss of cold wind that it passes into your room, but it's a lot better than Ace's, whose doesn't even work— not after he and Luffy accidentally threw a football at it and some strange piece of plastic fell from it.

Calming down a little, you turned your head. Your chin rests on his chest, his arm around your waist loosely as he laid on his back; his hair is greasy against his temple with sweat but you don't find yourself too disgusted. Offhandedly, you wonder how you've even managed to befriend Ace this summer. You've been attending the same school for two years now, and you knew Ace just from the stories that went around campus, you're sure that he didn't know you before this summer. You know that something had happened, just from the odd gossip that's been going around, with his adoptive father— which is why he hadn't gone home this summer, opting to stay on campus instead.

It'd started with just seeing each other around, bumping into each other in odd places off campus for Ace to slowly become a habit. You started making plans with him, going to see movies that you've been wanting to see with your friends, driving around with no destination in mind only to see the moon settle into the sky— then, started the kissing, the touches, the flirting.

"Hey, you zoning out on me?" His arm bends, moving from your waist to hang his hand over your head and sweep your hair away from your eyes. You didn't mind the flirting, the attention was nice, and so was he. You stare into his eyes a little more, until you feel your heart stutter upwards into your throat. Will he still want this, want you, after the delirious heat of summer ends?