bikers & beaches | tk ✓

❧34

a/n: the finale :')

❧ Bikers & Beaches ❧

The sun had just risen, sunrise colors fading and leaving the dull blue of the sky in its wake. The waves were darker than the ones he'd surfed in the day before, but they looked calm and peaceful in the low tide.

As Taehyung crossed the wood planks to the other side of the main floor, towards the patio door, he watched his feet move without a shadow. Where light hardly came from a clear source and his shadow blurred away in the lack of direction.

It felt like he was floating for a moment. Like he wasn't actually standing on his own two feet. And he didn't get a grasp of touch until his hand was gripping the handle of the door and sliding it open.

The air hit him like a revelation rushing into his head. The smell of salty shores intensified with the lack of some barrier and Taehyung stood in the doorway for a moment as he saw the colors of sunrise begin to fade with the sun rising further past the horizon.

He closed the door behind him and trailed down the patio steps. The sand was cold when he stepped into it, waking him up more and somehow relaxing as he strolled towards the tide line. The coolness of the grains felt therapeutic, almost, with the rising heat of morning filling the air as he approached the shore.

Taehyung stopped short just a foot from the furthest reach of the waves and crouched down to be closer to the ground.

His arm reached forward, catching the very edges of the water and wetting his fingernails before the wave receded.

"Hi," he whispered, smiling at the ocean like a long lost friend that had been found. In fact, it was just that.

Taehyung waddled forward enough such that his toes hit the next wave and shivered at the cool temperature.

"It's just me today." He informed, like the ocean truly listened. Like he'd never had Jeongguk's ear to hear him out and only had the water to be an unresponsive companion. "Jeongguk's going to be busy working on his bike this morning and hyungs are sleeping in 'cause high tide's later."

He scooped up a handful of the salty ocean and let it slip through his fingers, droplets trickling down his hand and catching onto his bracelets.

"Can't believe I thought I'd never get to dip my toes in the sea again not too long ago."

Taehyung simply spoke his thoughts aloud as the sun, a deep orange, shone over the lip of the horizon and dragged up into the sky, shining light onto his skin.

"Even harder to believe I was willing to let all of this go." He added, voice quieter. "The water, surfing, just feeling the breeze and mist of a wave on my skin without falling into an endless pit inside my head."

Taehyung cocked his head. "I hated you at one point. And somehow it feels like that's exactly what had to happen."

"Not just because of finding Jeongguk through it all," he saw a shell in the shallow depth and picked it up before the next ride dragged it elsewhere. "But because it made me a lot stronger. Helped me find out things about myself that I didn't know before."

He chuckled softly and let the shell fall back in after admiring the purple color on the inside. "Had to learn what the beach meant to me besides surfing. Learned to fall in love with painting again when I painted the ocean... it all happened for a reason, didn't it?"

"After years of fun. Years of vacations and not a worry in sight. I thought this place was my second home my whole life, but now I feel even closer to it than ever before."