[Y/N] breathed in the salty, ocean air and dug her toes onto the soft, white sand. The sand had an unusual texture and it tickled her feet, but she liked it a lot. She closed her eyes shut and listened to the roaring waves down below. So this was the beach. It was beautiful and she couldn't believe she had never been here before. She opened her eyes again. Hitoshi stood beside her, looking at her with an amused face.
"Won't it be a bit cold if we go swimming? It's not exactly summer yet," she pointed out.
"True," the purple haired boy chuckled. "But I think we should. This is the first time you're here and I want you to have an amazing experience. Besides, after a while, you get used to the water and it doesn't feel as cold anymore."
She nodded and decided they she would try it out. Hitoshi grinned happily and dug into the sand as well.
"We should also make a sand castle. If you want, that is," he suggested.
She felt excited at the mention of that and nodded. "I've seen pictures online before. I've always wanted to make one."
"Well that's good since we're going to make one no matter what," he declared. He marched up to a beach table and she followed. He placed their bags there and instantly started to strip his clothes. By the end of that, he was only left with his swimsuit on. [Y/N]'s face warmed up when he was finished and didn't understand why. She had seen him half naked before, during that time at his basketball game and that didn't bother her at all. So what'd changed?
"I didn't know we're going swimming right away," she muttered, ducking her head down to avoid looking at Hitoshi's toned body.
"Oh, you didn't want to go swimming yet? I'm sorry. We can go later on," he assured her. He was about to grab his shirt to put it back on, but she stopped him in time by holding onto his wrist. Realizing what she was doing, her heart thumped and she quickly let go.
"It's fine, we can go now. I was just a little surprised, that's all," she explained.
"Surprised by my muscles?" Hitoshi joked. She widened her eyes. Was he able to see through her?
"No, of course not."
"Then why are you looking away? You weren't doing that a few months ago," he continued to tease her.
"Let's just go swimming," she desperately tried to change the topic. Being the nice, sweet boy that Hitoshi was, he dropped the topic easily and talked about the beach instead. As he was doing that, she quickly took off her clothes, revealing her swimsuit underneath.
Right away, she felt incredibly self conscious of herself and almost started panicking. There were a lot of people here and never had she worn anything so revealing in front of so many people. She thought she was going to be okay with this swimsuit, but that was only when she was with her mother.
She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched over.
Hitoshi noticed what happened and crouched down to look at her face. Her heart jumped at the sight of him and she almost wanted to run away. "[Y/N], what's wrong? Tell me."
"They're all going to stare at me," she trembled, her eyes scanning out into the open area.
His eyes softened at her words and gently wrapped his hands around hers. The warmth of it calmed her a bit. "They're not going to stare at you. They're all going swimming as well and they shouldn't care about our business. If they do and start staring at you, I'll punch them in the face. Okay? You'll be fine and I'll be with you."
She took a deep breath and slowly stood up. Hitoshi helped her and guided her steadily towards the ocean. His hands were on her shoulders and he made sure to watch out for people who would stare at them. [Y/N] looked at him while he did so and mentally thanked him again. She thanked him all the time, but she didn't know how to owe him back for everything he'd done for her.