Chapter Text
As he stares at the brilliant blue expanse of sky visible above the high gate before him, Hoyoung’s vaguely aware of Yeonho’s friendly voice saying “Four students, please.”
“Will that be day passes, or for the week?”
There’s a brief pause as the ashy-haired man in the admissions booth stares at them, a wide, unmoving grin splitting his face in two. The cheap, plastic name tag clipped to his t-shirt reads ‘Yongseung’.
“Uh-” Yeonho freezes, and elbows Hoyoung in the ribs as subtly as he can manage. Hoyoung drags his attention back to them, his pulse spiking, but Yongseung's eyes swivel to him without his smile so much as twitching. Something about his face is robotic, and he barely moves as his wide eyes blink, blankly. Hoyoung gulps.
“For the week, please,” he says.
Yongseung slides wristbands beneath the glass screen as Yeonho pays, and then they’re moving away from the booth and handing the backpack slung over Hoyoung’s shoulders to one of the guards at the side. It’s searched and handed back without a word, and Hoyoung has to stop himself from all but running towards the shadow of the water park's entrance, where two figures are leaning against the blue-painted wood, waiting for them.
“We good?” Minchan asks, as they rejoin him and Kangmin.
“Yeah.” Yeonho hands over strips of plastic that the other two slip onto their wrists.
Minchan looks at Hoyoung and murmers, “No one saw it?”
Hoyoung exhales deeply, and shakes his head. He can still feel the camera pressed into his stomach, and takes the chance now they’re in the shade to turn and slip it out from under the red hoodie he’s wearing and into the backpack. He rolls up the hoodie too- feeling instantly better without the sun burning through the thick fabric at his back- and shoves that in after it. Yeonho shakes himself, as if he’d been hugely inconvenienced, but Minchan just smiles. Hoyoung feels more relieved, with Minchan at his side. They'd been friends for years- Minchan had never cared much about his oddities.
Still, the rest of the gang he’d somehow accumulated over the long stretch of summer the year had offered accepted him well enough- hell, they’d agreed to this, hadn’t they- and they follow his lead as he slings the bag over his shoulders and pushes into the water park. Kangmin and Yeonho let out excited woops the minute the scent of chlorine hits them. Okay, so maybe they’d agreed to trail along for different reason.
This far into summer break, the park is packed, the fence around the whole area so full of people it seems both to swell and push inwards towards them. The crowds consist of mostly young children and accompanying, bored looking adults, but there are some students, too, taking advantage of the last few weeks before the school year starts again, savouring the sun and the air and the time, when all of it still feels theirs. Hoyoung glances back to see Yeonho and Kangmin smothering themselves with sunscreen; Minchan has his head thrown back, facing the sun. It’s enough to make his hands itch for his camera, but he swallows the urge- Minchan has never cared about his sudden, unexplained snaps before, but it isn’t why he’s here. He can’t risk getting caught with a camera already.
“So,” Yeonho sighs, “where do we start?”
Hoyoung looks round too see him at his side, ridiculous neon goggles over his eyes, hands on his hips.
Hoyoung chuckles shortly, and touches his nose. “Well, today I just wanted, you know, a brief look over the place, first. It, uh, might be best if I do this part alone. Less eye catching. Easier to get through crowds.”
Minchan eyes him, taking a sip of some iced drink he’d bought along the way. Yeonho almost manages to sound sincere as he asks “Are you sure?” but Kangmin’s practically shaking behind him, he looks so excited.
“Yeah, yeah. I- I wouldn’t even know what to tell you to look for yet, so” Hoyoung shuffles away a pace, gesturing over his shoulder with a notebook he’s pulled from his bag, “have fun, guys. I’ll meet up with you later.”
Yeonho and Kangmin wish him good luck kind-heartedly, and then turn, and race away towards the flumes as fast as they can, dragging each other and yelping as they go. Minchan smiles after them, but stays in his spot. He raises his brows at Hoyoung, wearing his usual lazy, sunshiney expression.
Hoyoung rolls his eyes. You really don’t need to stay , he wants to say. Go have fun like a normal person, like you must want to . But he doesn’t- Minchan wouldn’t listen, and he wouldn’t want him to, anyway. Instead, he finds himself saying: “Start here and circle back round to the pool?”
Minchan nods, just once, and starts cutting through the crowd swaying around them. Heads turn towards him constantly, inches above the rest of the crowd, eye-catching even in his washed out jeans and t-shirt, his hair a messy, long mop of dark brown, but he doesn’t seem to notice, like always. He makes small, light chatter as he walks at his languid pace, and occasionally throws a question to Hoyoung: why this place? What exactly should we be looking out for, again? Is this important? Mostly, he stays out of the way.
Hoyoung looks over everything- fliers stuck to the sides of the booths curving around the edge of the park, making notes on the workers, the weather, the types of people making up the crowd around them, the rides and stalls and anything else that catches his eye. Minchan stops every time he dips to peer into a flower bed at the side of the path, or read the small text stuck to the booths’ sides for opening hours, or employee rotations, all the time continuing his easy conversations. Halfway around the park, and he's gotten into the habit of stepping in front of Hoyoung whenever an employee or park-goer throws a wary look his way, shadowing him under his slightly taller frame. He draws Hoyoung to his side just before he accidentally steps into a kids pool whilst writing something down. His comfortable, content demeanour stays firmly stuck, and Hoyoung finds the day far more pleasant than he’d been expecting. Minchan has a way of making nerves slip away.
By the time the crowds have started to thin, it’s drawn close to the time they’d decided to meet Yeonho and Kangmin. They’d spotted them whilst doing their rounds a few times, but every time had simply been given a fast wave before their heads would dip into another ride and disappear from sight, or Yeonho would chase after Kangmin’s darting figure, laughing wildly. They’d be by the pool now- the biggest one, at the very centre of the park- having exhausted all the park’s amusements, and themselves.
Minchan leads them there gradually, and then the wide outdoor pool, full of coloured rings and jets and people, is opening out in front of them. Yeonho and Kangmin leap up from where they’d been lounging in the low chairs placed around the edge, and skip over to them. Hoyoung has long been drawn into Minchan’s good mood; his earlier nerves forgotten, his steps lighter. He greets the others, feeling some of their left-over excitement get to him, and smiles. He’s gotten so distracted that by the time the last of the crowd before them parts, and falls away into the flurry of the swimming pool, he’s forgotten himself. So, when his eyes catch on something across the water, on the other side of the hot, white tile underfoot, he stops short, sharply. Minchan, who had been raising another iced, sugary thing to his lips, splutters on his drink. Yeonho hits him on the back violently, but his eyes just fly to Hoyoung’s.
Shit shit shit.
Across the water, a man sat in a high lifeguard seat yells at a group of children running around the pool. He runs a hand through dark, raven hair, letting it fall back over his forehead. His face is turned away from them, but there’s enough of it visible for Hoyoung to recognise him instantly, and, judging by the sound of Minchan’s sudden, goofy giggling, so has he. Hoyoung feels his face start to burn. Great.
Well, there goes his good mood.