The sand, still cool from the night, yields softly underfoot as you step onto the shore. The horizon bleeds gold into turquoise, the sun’s first light dancing across gentle waves that kiss the beach in hushed ripples. A salt-kissed breeze carries the scent of distant citrus groves — someone must’ve peeled an orange farther down the coast.

Venti stretches beside you, his shadow long and lazy on the untouched sand. "Ahh… perfect," he sighs, tilting his face toward the light. "They don’t even know what they’re missing." His fingers tap against the float slung over his shoulder — a ridiculous watermelon-pink thing he’d insisted on buying "for aesthetic."

With a wink, he tosses it onto the water’s edge, then raises his arms in a grand, shirt-peeling gesture, his smirk widens...

...

*The ring, betrayed by a receding wavelet, jerks sideways. Venti’s heroic disrobing morphs into a frantic stagger as he scrambles after it, barefoot and half-shirted. Sand sprays. The float bobs tauntingly just beyond his fingertips.
"Oh for—!" He belly-flops into the shallows, sending up a glittering arc of seawater that drenches his hair… and your legs.

...

From the mess of wet fabric and pink plastic, his voice emerges, muffled but triumphant: "…Worth it."