Page 64

I barely dodge him, trying to scramble up the beach. He gives chase, pivoting so lightly on his feet that you’d think he was on grass instead of sand.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!” I scream, like that will deter him.

“Yeah, sure,” he retorts as he almost gets a hold of my arm.

I try to race down the beach. But as predicted I’m awkward and slow on the terrain. I feel that lightheaded fear of being caught, but I also have the strange urge to let out a loud screaming laugh. Like the thrilled noises children make during a game of tag. I make the foolish mistake of pausing to look back.

Just as I do, he takes me down with a tackle.

My scream is cut short as I land with a hardOomph. But at some point in our drop, Minseok managed to spin us, so I fall on top of him.

I try to push off to escape, but he rolls us to trap me under him. As his body presses mine into the sand, some of it seeps into my collar.

“Okay, okay, you win!” I admit.

“Do I?” he asks, poking at my ribs where I’m the most ticklish, an unfortunate fact he learned when we were younger.

“Yes, yes, you win!” I’m laughing so hard my eyes are watering. I’m so breathless from it I probably look red as a tomato. And I’m so desperate to escape that I’m squirming like a worm to get free. Sand gets into places I don’t even want to think about. I’m certain I’ve destroyed both my hairdo and the dress. Not the calm, professional image I try to maintain on-camera. But I also haven’t had this much fun in a long time.

“Do you give up?” Minseok demands with another tickle.

“Yes!” I grab his hand to stop him.

The sheen of laughter tears in my eyes turns the rays of sun into a hazy halo behind his head as he hovers over me.

I blink hard to clear my vision, but it just brings his face into focus.

His lips are open on the end of a breathless laugh of his own. His warm brown eyes are glowing with triumph at winning our arbitrary wrestling game. This close, I catch the scent of him, sea and sugar and just a bit of his aftershave. The same kind he used when we were trainees.

It makes me viscerally remember being fifteen again, anxious to prove myself and desperate for him to aim one of his smiles in my direction.

The barrage of sense memories must be why my body is tingling everywhere. Why my heart is racing like it used to every time he’d send me a wayward smile in the company hallway.

There’s a bit of ice cream still at the edge of his cheek and in his sideburn. I reach up with my free hand and wipe it away.

I feel him tense when I touch him. Does he not like this? I start to snatch my hand back, but he catches it in his and glances down at the drip of ice cream I wiped off.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, and now it’s my turn to tense as strange shivers slide down my spine.

“Hey, ease up a bit, I need to catch my breath.” I push at him and he sits back, letting the sea breeze sneak between us. It replaces the smell of him with that of the ocean. I’m both disappointed and relieved.

“So, what’s my prize?” he asks.

“Prize?”

“Yeah.” He stands up and the sun he previously blocked shines into my eyes. I squint, lifting my hand against the glare, and he grabs it to haul me up too. “I should get a prize for winning,” he says with a grin that plays havoc with my already confused brain.

“What prize do you want?” I focus on wiping sand off my arms and hands instead of on that brief, indefinable moment that passed between us.

“I’ll think about it,” Minseok says. “Tell you during dinner.”

He reaches toward me, and I pull back before I realize I’m acting like a scared animal and stop myself. Minseok gently wipes at the sand stuck on my cheek, then neck. I focus everything on standing still as he does it.

“Okay, yeah, at dinner,” I agree quickly.

“Okay, cut!” Han-PD calls out. Immediately, I stumble back in retreat, pretending it’s because of the uneven sand and not my need to create distance between us.

Hongjoo hurries over, brushing at the sand on my back with a towel.