When the salty sea breeze hit my face along with fine sand, I realized I had been standing on the reef clutching my phone for ten minutes. My skirt fluttered wildly in the wind, the mint-green fabric sticking to my sweaty back, much like my flustered heartbeat at the moment. Until that figure in a white shirt crossed the golden beach, shaking two sea-salt ice creams with melting edges in his hand. I hurriedly turned around, pretending to look at the sea, yet amidst the sound of the waves, I could hear my heart pounding like a drum.
As the tide rose to cover our ankles, we chased small crabs by stepping on each other’s shadows. The way he rolled up his trouser legs made him look like a teenager, his bronze calves splashed with water. When I let out a cry of pain as a shell pricked my foot, he almost instinctively squatted down to check. The warmth of his palm through my skin made me quickly retract my foot.
When twilight gilded the sea with a honeyed hue, we lay on a moisture-proof mat and counted the seagulls returning to their nests. The rising tide quietly covered the footprints we had left. He stretched out his hand to shield me from the oncoming waves, and the scent of Chinese honeylocust in his clothes mixed with the salty sea breeze, becoming exceptionally clear at the flutter of my eyelashes. In the distance, the lighthouse emitted its first beam of light, and the shell wind-chime jingled. But more enchanting than the twilight was the starlight reflected in his eyes when he turned around.
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