I want to bathe with you in the sea
"Come on Matt, the water isn't that cold."
Matt looked up at the dark eyed boy crouching next to him under a giant orange umbrella, staring out at the endless sea before them.
"I don't see you rushing into the sea though, L" Matt said, eyeing the swirling blue cautiously. He never trusted the ocean; as calm as it looked, Matt was far too aware of the dangerous tsunamis and typhoons capable of destroying huge cities. Then again, the odds of a typhoon suddenly forming to crush all of England were a tad far-fetched. But the red head didn't like to take chances.
"Sea water lowers my deductive ability by 29%." L murmured, eyes still locked on the blue ocean.
"You made that up," Matt stuck his tongue out at the older boy, but was prevented from saying anymore as a blinding force barreled into him, overturning Matt as well as the umbrella. Bright sunlight seared the boy's eyes as he looked up at his attacker.
"You know, L took the effort to take us to the seaside, again, mind you, since you missed out the first time. The polite thing to do would to try and have some fun, Mr Jeevas." Mello stuck his nose in the air, absentmindedly twirling a bar of Kinder Bueno between his fingers as he looked down at the flustered red head.
"What would you know about politeness, Mr Keehl?" Matt snarled, brushing off the sand from his too-long swim pants as he got up to face the bossy blonde.
"A fat lot more than you know about fun, Mr Crouch-in-the-shade."
"I hope you're not talking about me, Mello." L answered quietly, the shadow of a smile tugging at his lips as he watched the two boys face off once again.
" 'Course not, L. I'm just saying, Matt should be grateful to have been taken out of his musty cupboard under the stairs and brought to the beach, and therefore should be running around like a normal child would. Even the white sheep is having more fun that you."
The three boys looked over to see a white-haired boy surrounded by giant sand castles twice his height. Paying no attention to the small crowd of children he had managed to gather with his buildings, Near worked on building an ornate buttress on one of the towers.
"Who says I'm not having fun?" Matt countered. "Maybe I like sitting under the shade watching the rest of you live your lives?"
"Not a sadder sight if I saw one." Mello shook his head. "Check it out, I found an island a little out to sea. Bet you ten bars of Cadbury that I can swim there before you." There was a spark in Mello's eyes as he looked out to sea, Matt noticed.
"An island, Mello? Are you sure it's not just a bay or something? Besides," Matt looked at L, "Isn't this the part where you as the responsible adult in charge forbid us to swim that far into the sea?"
L merely smiled at the two boys. "Be back by 5. And Mello, be sure Matt comes back in one piece."
"Wait, what? L you can't be ser-" Matt felt himself being dragged on the sand as Mello took off for the shoreline. "Why do you always drag me around?"
" 'Cause you move too slow!" Mello jumped into the sea, sending salty spray all over the poor sand-covered boy. "Come on, the water's fine!"
Matt watched as Mello did lengths in the sea; finally deciding it was safe for him to go in. Matt walked into the water slowly, letting the water rush to his little feet and back. Slowly, he felt the water getting deeper as he waded further and further into the sea, until he was partially submerged in the water. Matt exhaled slowly, unaware he had been holding his breath as he went in, and carefully began to tread water.
"Geez, you really take your time, don't you grandpa?" Mello swam off, leaving Matt in the (metaphorical) dust. "Catch me if you can!"
Matt shook the water out of his hair and swam. And swam. And swam. However far this island of Mello's was, Matt was sure he'd swam further today than he had run in an entire year. And Matt ran quite a bit, thanks to the need to escape whenever one of Mello's antics resulted in Rodger's footsteps thudding down to whatever location was the set to another one of Blondie's hare-brained ideas. "Stop it with the random thoughts, Matt. Swim!" Matt chided himself as he continued to paddle his arms after Mello.
"Are….we….. ARE WE THERE YET?" Matt yelled over to Mello, as his arms began to ache. It wasn't long till Mello yelled back excitedly, "Yeah!"
Matt could see it, the sandy shoreline calling out to him tantalizingly. He swam with all his might, until he felt the sea bed rising up to meet his feet. He pulled himself out of the water, staggering onto the sand before flopping on his back to face the sky.
"I am not leaving this spot. You cannot make me enter that blue death trap, Mello, not for all the games in the world." Matt closed his eyes and felt the warm sunlight dance on his pale skin, slowly drying his skin and hair.
"Please, it wasn't that far, lazy ass." Matt ignored the voice as he laid there in the sun. It seemed like he had only been soaking up the sun for a couple of seconds before he heard the same annoying voice insisting they had to leave the sandy heaven, or else L was going to come after them with a meat mallet.
"Are you okay? Did the sun bake your brain, blondie?" Matt pushed himself up reluctantly and brushed sand off his pants. A rough kick in his rear landed him face down in the cold salty sea water.
"Don't call me Blondie, dumbass!"
Twenty minutes later (though it felt like 2 hours to Matt), the two boys dragged themselves out of the water back onto the beach. Matt ran with whatever strength he had left to the shady umbrella safe zone, where L crouched, unmoving since the boys had left.
"You're back. You didn't panic in the water, did you?"
"I don't enjoy swimming L, but it's not like I'm the Wicked Witch of the West." Matt shook water out of his hair, spraying the brunette with salty water. He sat down on the fuzzy mat and allowed himself to be toweled off by L. "So I guess taking you here was a total loss then, Matt?" he heard L ask.
"Well-" Matt looked over to Mello; the blonde strutting over to Near's castle to brag about how he would have made the colossal sandy monument bigger, all the while twirling another bar of Kinder Bueno between his fingers.
"Okay, maybe it wasn't a total loss, L."
