That day started like any other. The sun was beaming down on me as I made my first cast of the day. The line made a little splash into the sea. Things were good.
…Well, not that what happened made things not good. In fact… he probably made then ten times better.
It started when I heard footsteps running on the pier. It scared me at first; for some reason, my mind went to "killer running up and stabbing me". Without even realizing it, I started reeling my line in as quickly as possible. In retrospect, one would probably drop the pole altogether and dive into the water if there was a killer cornering them on a pier, but… I can't explain where my mind goes.
Pretty quickly, though, I learned who it had been and stopped. It was actually someone I didn't see all that often, Vincent. The running must have been out of excitement, because the grin on his face was the biggest I'd seen on anyone's in a long time.
"H-Hello," I greeted him, still trying to calm my heartbeat down.
"Hey," he said. "…Cod I borrow you for five minutes?"
You could say the absurdity of this whole situation caved in on me in this moment. I'd thought there was a killer after me, but it was actually this kid who I hardly ever talked to… who just so happened to be my crush's little brother… and that's what he said to me. He'd arrived to ask if he could… sorry, cod borrow me for five minutes.
I… I fucking lost it. Before I knew what was happening, I was doubled over and laughing my guts out. Once I realized what was going on, it felt really good to laugh like that!
"Whale, that really got you, didn't it?" Vincent followed up with.
I laughed a little more before finally coming to my senses. What's more… a little something of my own had crawled into my brain.
"…You really schooled me," I said.
It was Vincent's turn to start laughing, maybe not as hard as I had, but it was still decent laughter.
He then said "I couldn't pass up the oppor-tuna-ty." We both cracked up at that one. It was probably the best one so far.
We only quit laughing when a different voice entered the foray.
"Why did the fish get bad grades?" he asked. "Because it was below sea level!"
Sam had arrived. Somehow, I felt like I should have expected that. Regardless, we were all laughing now.
This went on for a few more minutes, actually. Puns and jokes went back and forth, garnished with the heartiest laughter I, at least, had laughed in a while. Just when I thought I
could breathe, someone threw something new in there.
I also felt something unique: an overwhelming gratitude for the fact that those two existed. Like… maybe I'd finally found my people. A… family, maybe? Something like that.
The puns only stopped when I found it hard to breathe with all the laughter. Once I could breathe again, though, the air I took in was fresher, cooler, and more invigorating. It was like nothing I'd felt before.
This entire experience, having played out over a matter of minutes, was going to go down as a core memory, I could feel it. I once again felt eternally grateful I'd decided to move here.