Archive of Our Own

above me like a living sea

This is the spot where I will lie

When life has had enough of me,

These are the grasses that will blow

Above me like a living sea.

/

“O Soul,” I said, “have you no tears?

Was not the body dear to you?”

I heard my soul say carelessly,

“The myrtle flowers will grow more blue.”

Sara Teasdale

&

and god said, shall these bones live?

/

(the single rose is now the garden)

/

And pray to God to have mercy upon us

And pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

T. S. Eliot

The water was cold and biting. Junmyeon was at sea for ages, maybe even centuries; lost and waiting for death. The sad marine ship where he used to serve was destroyed on what felt like another lifetime entirely — he couldn’t think about it. The water was rising on the little boat, as it would. It was the work of an ant, really; he had to keep throwing the wayward water out, because if he didn’t then he would certainly drown. The question, though, was when would he give up on that meaningless task and embrace his fate?

He couldn’t think about it.

The sea was angry at him. He didn’t want it to, but it was. He kept looking around, tense for when the next big wave would hit; all around him was already a constellation of marine life forms, small fishes and seaweed, little precious things someone lost to the past — a necklace, a wine bottle, the sad remains of  what was once a dress. He wasn’t hungry; food was a very distant concern. You can die an agonizing death in less than three days without water; starving, though, you can do for months. You have to be very lucky to die of hunger in the middle of sea. You have to survive time enough for this to become something to worry about.

But even drinkable water wasn’t his top priority. Death was always just around the corner after a shipwreck, his Direct Officer used to say. You can die of so many things. You can drown, you can be eaten alive by a shark, and — the most probable — you can freeze to death.

Junmyeon couldn’t get warm, no matter what he did. His clothes were wet and there was no way he could dry them when his boat was always half empty, half full of water. Hypothermia can end you in hours, even minutes, so he was always worried about that. The life he was living was miserable, but he didn’t want to die.

Sometimes, at night, Junmyeon dreamed about his marine friends. He dreamed of companionship and voices carrying on the second deck of a turtle ship; about their uniform shining under the sun; about the familiar tone and sounds and faces — expressions where their fellowship was built. He dreamed about the small hours at dawn, when he would stare at the sea and miss home, so sharp and intense he used to put his hand above his belly and worry if that was what dying felt like.  

The water was dark blue. He could still see the fishes happily swimming, following the current and their biological calling. Nothing in the sea would ever make people think humans are welcome here. It was brutal and fierce and remote, and Junmyeon had dedicated his whole life to be a sailor and to honor the dying institution of Joseon Navy. It was fitting, he thought, that he would die betrayed by the only holy thing he ever loved.

Junmyeon looked at the clean sky, soft blue and yellow, the clouds like fancy cotton. It didn’t look like the kind of sky that would destroy big marine ships, but it did do it. He sighed. What was life, really, when everything was already gone.

The small boat was an antique thing, something forgotten that must have been older than Junmyeon himself. The turtle ship where he served was imposing, but didn’t have a lot of good way out in case of wreck. He was one of the very few sailors on his platoon to make it to the safe boats; all the others must have been long dead. Junmyeon felt guilty about that.

He really wished that things could be different.

Are you there, he asked the Sea God, can you hear me?

(I’m dying here.)

Junmyeon moved slowly around the small thing, throwing water out using a cup. The waves were soft at that hour, and he was tired and sleepy. He didn’t slept well at night, because he was worried he would wake up drowning or even not wake up at all. At the distance, an island remained hidden, just a little of its trees visible above the surface. Junmyeon gave that vision his back — everyone always warned him against hallucinations if he ever got lost at sea. Even without his spectator, the island didn’t disappear; on the contrary, it became more solid with every minute. Junmyeon, though, didn’t really know that.

He just didn’t believe in miracles.

//

“Are you dead?” a voice asked Junmyeon. He opened his eyes, slowly, and then coughed. His breath tasted like salt, which probably meant that he had drowned a little while sleeping. He looked at the stranger who was towering over his boat; the kid — he seemed to be very young — looked confused, but not frightened. He had some good inches on Junmyeon, as he could well see, and obviously knew where they were, so that made him the casual upside of the bargain. “So?” the stranger insisted. Junmyeon really wanted to know if he believed in ghosts.

“No”, that was all he answered. Talking hurted too much, because of the little water and little food and little sleep; he couldn’t — wouldn’t — engage in conversation with someone who could be just a mirage. He did that before, speak to this person who wasn’t really there; he was so lonely that when the projection finally went away he cried himself to sleep, as if he had any water to waste.

“You look like something the cat dragged in.” the stranger offered him, helpfully.

“Oh. Thank you.” Junmyeon coughed again.

“Where are you from?”

“Uh? Hanseong.”

The stranger didn’t blink. Does he even know that Hanseong is the capital of their little empire?, Junmyeon wondered. Did he know that Jeongjo, who some people called the Good Son, was reigning? “You should get out of this wet boat and wet clothes. If you stay like this then you will certainly die.”

“Where am I?” Junmyeon asked him, looking around for the first time. It was a beach, maybe, wet sand and some rocks, the water crashing and splashing on his sunburned face. A few hundred meters in the distance towered a dark lighthouse, so grand and removed it could be the palpable representation of god.

“Right now”, the stranger told him, a glitch on his brown eyes. “you’re on my beach. But if what you are asking is the island name, then we call it Mansai.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before.”

“Eh, your voice is terrible. Here, drink some water.” the stranger handed him a bottle. Junmyeon was so thirsty and grateful that he drank everything at once. The stranger shaked his head, the same way someone would do to a child endearing but a little stupid. “What’s your name?”

“Junmyeon. Kim Junmyeon.”

“Well, Kim Junmyeon. My name is Oh Sehun and I’m the keeper of Mansai’s lighthouse. It didn’t shine for ages now, but it’s my duty all the same.”

“Do you live there?”

“It’s as good place as any, and you can stay there if you want to. I’m assuming you don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“My ship… It wrecked.”

Sehun smiled sympathetically. “I imagined. There isn’t, unfortunately, any ships that are going to do anything but a small fishing trip on the whole island. You can wait, though; once or twice a year there is a boat who come here to take people to Jindo. From there you can go to the continent, or so people say.”

Junmyeon stared at him, lost. What was that with all the information? He just wanted to lay down. “Oh”, he answered. Sehun sighed.

“You should sleep a little. Can you walk? It a bit of a hike till the lighthouse.”

“I don’t think I can move right now.”

“Well, it’s okay, but you really have to get out of this boat. It looks like a grave, and everything is wet, including you. It’s a miracle you ain’t dead.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Being nice to a stranger.”

“Oh.” Sehun smiled. “It just looks like you really need someone on your corner right now.”

“You are always like this with people you never met?”

“Only to sailors half-dead, I’m afraid.”

Junmyeon sighed, and leaned against the side of the boat to get up. Everything in his body hurt. He didn’t remember the last time he was actively standing up. It must have been in the ship, but that was another life entirely. He felt like his body had just adapted to stay sitting all day and was now protesting violently against this change of tune. “Can you tell me what day it is?”

“The tenth? I wouldn’t know. I only measure time with a sandglass, really, and with the sun.”

“And this island, Mansai?”

“Yes, that’s the name.”

“How far is it from the continent?”

“Oh, a good deal. We are almost in the middle of the Yellow Sea. The only way I know of going to the continent is taking a boat to Jindo and then another one to the cities along the coast. But you really shouldn’t be bothering yourself with this now. You can barely speak, and there is no boat in this island. Not one good enough to endure such a long journey, anyway.”

Junmyeon looked at him, Sehun’s young face and high cheekbones, his brown eyes and brown hair. He was too tired to care, so he continued to try to get out of his boat. Sehun didn’t offer to help him, for which Junmyeon was glad. “How far is the lighthouse?”

“Maybe seven-hundred feet?”

“Well”, he took the necklace and the wine bottle from the mess of things that had become the place where he lived. “We should start walking then.”

//

They walked. Sehun was talkative, if very distant, and Junmyeon was just glad for being able to touch sand with his feet, and not the cold water of the sea as had become commonplace in his life. He wished that he could be of bigger use to the conversation — he couldn’t, though. His throat hurt terribly, and every time he tried to say something over the pain Sehun would make a tsk sound and shut him up with a gesture. He was glad, and also a little annoyed, because he was obviously the oldest, and Sehun hadn’t called him hyung once. He thought that maybe life was fundamentally different there, on the countryside of the smallest island in the peninsula, but how could it be? Weren’t they all koreans, spoke the same language, ate the same food? Shouldn’t Sehun be more deferential?

These questions and the bone-deep tiredness that Junmyeon felt sang him to a sort of meditative state, almost sleepwalking the seven hundred feet until the lighthouse. The beacon was dusted and looked one hundred years old, and like it hadn’t be light up in even longer than that. Sehun said something small and mundane, maybe about the kind of grass that was growing around the concrete, but Junmyeon wasn’t listening to him anymore. He felt as if close to passing out. How long had it been, lost there at sea? It felt like a lifetime, and he couldn’t precise the exact number of nights he endured the cold. Maybe it would be one of these mysteries one accumule in life, something to be avoided and forgotten entirely.

“And here we are”, Sehun said, opening the heavy-wood-made door. “Home sweet home.” He made a little flourish, as if a bow, but it couldn’t be. Junmyeon was pretty sure Sehun couldn’t make a respectful bow to save his life, and they only knew each other for an hour.

“It’s a nice place.” Junmyeon told him, politely. His voice hurt all the way to the vowels, the consonants sharp and angry, his intonation a mess. Perhaps Kim was a common enough surname that Sehun wouldn’t ask him if korean was his second language. Did Sehun even care? That was a question that even now Junmyeon wouldn’t know how to answer. If you put a gun to his head and said tell me how these first moments were, he wouldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t, really, because he couldn’t. At the time, and even later, nothing made the minimal amount of sense.

“I have three bedrooms. One is mine, obviously.” Sehun added in a hurry, as if Junmyeon would ask him to leave. “But there’s two extras, and they are kind of a little dusty, maybe, but we can clean it up. Or, well,” he stopped, a little reflexively. “I can clean them up, because you’re really half-dead on your feet, only alive by sheer stubbornness, and couldn’t clean anything to save your life. But you have to chose one first! And then you can go lay down on, well, anything, really. I just don’t want to clean a room that we will close immediately after.”

“The easiest.” Junmyeon answered. “It can be the easiest one to clean.”

“Oh! Aren’t we polite?”

Junmyeon blinked, a little startled. Was that irony, sarcasm or just genuine incapacity to filter anything between his brain and his mouth? He wasn’t an expert in how people raised outside harsh environments reacted to mundane things. Junmyeon was Marine, took an oath to defend and to serve and to honor the dying institution of Joseon Navy; so was his father, and his grandfather, and his grand-grand-father. His mother — with all her character faults — was a fierce fisherwoman, and his older sister, Soon-hee, followed the steps when she as much as could hold a piece of rope. The sea was the only thing he ever knew; he was born in Hanseong, but raised in Incheon — closer to the water, dreaming about sails and waves.

“What are you thinking about?” Sehun asked him, suddenly. Junmyeon breathed, his lungs not full of salt for a change. I’m thinking about how far away I am, he could say, and it would have been true. I’m thinking about how everything here is so strange, so unfamiliar, and that also would be truthful. But he wouldn’t say that to someone who had just show him kindness, provided him with a place to rest. Instead, he smiled a little, around the corners of his mouth.

“It’s very nice what you’re doing.”

“Eh! I didn’t clean the room yet. Then, and only then, you can compliment me on my good heart.”

Junmyeon grinned. “It’s a deal.”

“Now”, Sehun added more gentle, “go take a nap. You look an awful lot like a corpse.”

//

It was an awkward night. Junmyeon couldn't sleep, having forgotten everything about the feeling of safety that came with solid ground below his feet. The comfy nature of the mattress against his face was also something of another incarnation entirely — familiar, but with the broken quality of a dream.

He was hopeless to do anything but listen to the sounds Sehun made while doing things outside the small room they were now calling "Junmyeon's space". It had only been half a day, but Junmyeon already had a place there, in their fragile ecosystem. He was under the impression Sehun could be feeling a little lonely, all by himself in that old lighthouse, every day of every week.

(It was true that Junmyeon knew all about duty).

He stayed there, motionless in the bed Sehun provided, more or less safe in a place other than a boat, and listened. He wanted to know how many of his people made out to safety; it was a pipe dream, though, made of smoke — he couldn’t let his mind go there. He thought about the sounds instead. Played a game he invented with Soon-hee when they were young, the 'what are they doing out there?' questionnaire. Are you listening to this? (Yes). Is like, running water? (I don't know. Maybe). You think they are aware we are here? (They must be). Should we talk to them?  (No).

Junmyeon missed her every day.

Outside the curtain separating his room from the world, Junmyeon heard Sehun yelling a little at the furniture. He did it lowly, thinking maybe that Junmyeon was sleeping, (which was very sweet), but also fiercely, angry at the small table for being in the way. Who put it here?, Sehun muttered to himself. Junmyeon wanted to ask if it was him, or someone else; if he were always all alone in the solitude of the old building. It felt like a cage to Junmyeon, being bound to taking care of something that would never move, and almost wouldn't change, but he was a sailor. In the end of the day he knew nothing about freedom.

He lay there, thinking little mysteries is this the secret for the silence of this place? The ghosts the only breathing thing?

Those were removed thoughts, daydreams. With the rocking sound of Sehun's small movements, Junmyeon finally went to sleep.

(Outside the curtain, Sehun smiled).

//

The day after started small. Junmyeon was up with the sun, as he did his whole life — before and after the Navy awarded that a good habit to have. Sehun was up and about, too, feeding small birds that could or could not be chicken. The kitchen was smelling of cooked eggs, some kind of bread and spice. "There is breakfast", Sehun called without turning from his task, "in the plate on the table. You should eat."

It was early, probably, the morning foggy with dusty mist. The animals — birds and cows and pigs — were all looking sleepy and sad, almost miniature under the watchful eye of the lighthouse. Among them, Sehun towered like a sentinel, busier and bigger than life.

"I can fish." Junmyeon said, between a bite and another. The water in the jar tasted stale, but he drank it anyway, barely noticing the flavor.

"What?" Sehun asked, absent, from the entry where he was dusting his shoe.

"I can fish, if you want. I've been doing it my whole life, and I saw that you don't have any in the kitchen."

"You can barely walk." Sehun told him, patronizing. Junmyeon thought really hard about punching him.

"I can fish." he repeated.

"You were half dead yesterday."

"I'm good now! I feel bad without doing anything; if I must stay here for a while, then the least I could do is help you however I can."

Sehun sighed. "You shouldn't, but do whatever you want. There is fishing supplies somewhere in that room." he pointed at the door that leaded to the smallest and dirtiest space in the lighthouse, if the tour he had the night before were to be believed. Junmyeon arched an eyebrow — surely someone must fish regularly in that house —, but didn't say anything. "You really shouldn't." Sehun added after a while; an afterthought. "You're looking like someone who just died. All sunburned and wanting to go back to the sea! That death trap."

"I've wasted my whole life at water," Junmyeon answered him. "It’s the only way I know how to live, and I should continue to do so."

"Ocean almost killed you."

"Eh, almost. One day it probably will finish the job. Till then, though..."

"You will fish."

"I will fish. And sail, too."

Sehun, then, made a dismissive gesture. "Do whatever you want. Just remember to do me this favor and not die under my watch."

"I will try not to." Junmyeon said, politely.

Sehun nodded at him, very unimpressed, and Junmyeon tried to resist the impulse to bow sarcastically. Just a little. Sehun acted as if any kind of courteous action was so beneath him that it was almost invisible. Junmyeon shook himself, then; he didn't like to think poorly of people, less of all of someone who had basically saved his life. It was just that Junmyeon was raised in this place where politeness went to die, and he couldn't help himself but look down, a little, on people that lived kind of apart of the way he thought commonplace or even acceptable. Everything in that place felt strange, just enough to be somehow weird without being right to frown upon. The dusty fishing supplies, the distant behavior of its keeper, the sad looking birds and the roar of the waves that were so close to the front door that they could almost be touched with a reaching hand. It was as if that beach was the last place standing after the end of the world, nobody around for hundred of miles, so far away they could be in another planet entirely. Bearing the kind of silence that you were afraid to be cursed if ever dared to break.

Living like that, Junmyeon thought, could make anyone end up looking so... uncaring.

Sehun, as if on clue,  left without a word, going down the steps made of rocks, in direction of the closed wall of trees that made the background of the left side of their shared geographic space. Junmyeon bite on the eggs, thoughtful. They tasted good, way better he could ever make for himself. The kind of good that insinuate someone teaching the ways, the secret of making food taste edible; a mother or a sister or an aunt, someone worried that their relative would end up alone and having to cook for himself. It wasn't common, at least not in the continent, to teach a boy how to cook. People thought all men would always have a sister or a wife to do something like that. If a woman ever taught Sehun, then she must have known the lonely life his existence would become.

(Of course, Junmyeon himself knew how to make in the kitchen something or another. A kimchi and a bowl of rice, the small things that stopped starvation. His mother taught him, the lessons between the ones where she demonstrated how to do the perfect sailor knot. She raised him to be a fisherman, the only possible choice. Together, he and Soon-hee were capable of surviving almost anything. Separated, though, they were flawed, maybe worthless; their mother was incapable of bringing herself to look the possibility that her children would end up away from each other — a reasonable belief, as long travels were unusual and jobs there weren't that scarce. She wished that they would stay around, close to home; when the time came and Junmyeon kissed her cheek goodbye, she wasn't capable of facing the solitary suitcase that he was carrying with him. Soon-hee, silent and austere, wished him good luck with the voice someone would use to say how could you?)

Junmyeon sighed, looking morose at the ceiling, that were removed and far away. The stairs spiraling so high he almost couldn't see the end sang something beautiful and decadent. The ones closer to the top weren't safe, Sehun said. Everything in that place was as old as you could get, and straight-up dying.

Out there, Sehun was fulfilling invisibles tasks, abandoning Junmyeon to his own devices, to do whatever he pleases without knowing that freedom was a sailor's most unimaginable curse. What to do with his time but to think and think and think again? What to do with himself but be found lacking?

Junmyeon finished his eggs, got up and went to the small room, looking for fishing supplies and answers.

//

Of course, the days passed — as uneventful as you would expect. The waves of the Yellow Sea were the only witnesses of their daily life; Junmyeon came to learn that the closest souls lived at the village hundred of miles north. Follow that direction for three days and you'll be there, Sehun told him one day. Junmyeon nodded, overwhelmed by the knowledge that he were almost entirely alone in that place, in that island, in that world.

//

Junmyeon's back rested against the hard texture of the rock he was laying on. The chill of the water flooding his shoes weren't enough to make him open his eyes against the sun, nor to make him move back to the lighthouse. Sehun was somewhere in the sand, looking for crabs. The sound of the waves, yellow and green with seaweed, was thunderous and close; intimate. His lullabye.

He looked at the sky, his eyes open nothing but a small fend, trying to pretend to still be sleeping. If Sehun realized he was awake then he would put him to look for crabs too, even though he knew that Junmyeon refused to eat it. The clouds were angry and petroleum, darker than the sky behind it. The horizon yelled at them — probably commanding to be left alone. Junmyeon thought to himself, Gladly. It was the kind of sky that could wreck strong ships; he was grateful that Sehun wouldn't want to stay close to the water when the storm finally arrived. They would be behind closed doors, the safest they could be.

(It was not like he was afraid. It's just that he had learned his lesson, and wasn't thrilled with the idea of tempting fate again. One time was bad luck; two would be just plain stupidity).

"We should go", said a voice above him. Junmyeon opened his eyes, slowly, faking waking up. Sehun didn't look impressed or even fooled, but did he ever?

"Did you get your crabs?"

Sehun shook a small kicking bag. "Yeah."

"Let's go, then. There is a storm coming our way."

"I saw it. I think it's going to be a bad one." Sehun told him, mildly, jumping the rock stairs two at a time. Junmyeon didn't answer him. He knew that if he opened up his mouth the only thing that could possibly come out was something as obvious and stupid as Did you know I died in a day like this? Storm, black sky and petroleum clouds?

(It was useless to say that because Sehun already knew that shit).

"One day the crabs are going to stage a strike against you." Junmyeon said, absent, his footprints clean against the wet sand.

"Oh." Sehun answered, thoughtfully. "Let them try."

//

The rain was soft against the windows, very mild for november in a place that was essentially a big beach from one side and closed off forest from the other. The fog rising from the boiling pot made invisibles patterns against the humidity. Sehun was there, watching the water making bubbles; Junmyeon wanted to drink tea, which was hard to come by his whole life. Sehun sweared that it was possibly to make it with some weed or another that grew around the edge of the forest. They were both bored, the days passing slowly against the backgrounds of the same activities, unrolling softly their shared little world, their shared little life.

"Do you think", Junmyeon started. "that it's going to taste good?"

"I guess." Sehun answered him, turning a little to be able to see Junmyeon and also the pan. "I did it like once. But my Ma used to do it all the time."

Ma. Sehun mentioned his family here and there, four times at most, always short small remarks of my grandma made this side dish once that was so bad we couldn't eat it even if we were hungry when Junmyeon made a shitty food, my aunt always was able of telling when it was going to rain when the sky closed off one day, my ma was buddhist you know. (I am too).

Junmyeon felt his building curiosity like a palpable weight on his throat. Sometimes he would open his mouth and almost say, If I tell you about my mother would you tell me about yours? I'm dying to know what kind of person raised someone like you.

He never said anything, though. Not in that early, foggy days. Sehun  wore neon signs around his body, every single one saying STOP RIGHT THERE. DO NOT APPROACH. REPEAT. DO NOT APPROACH.

(And Junmyeon had raised himself to be so accommodating).

A thunder in the distance almost gave Junmyeon a heart attack. He jumped a little and Sehun laughed. "City boy." he said. Junmyeon rolled his eyes.

"We have thunders in the city."

"I bet they are muffled and sad."

"No, they are not!"

"How could you know? Living there your whole life."

"How could you know? Living here your whole life."

Sehun sighed, as if Junmyeon had the most tiresome personality someone could ever have. "I think it's ready." he told Junmyeon at last. "Go grab the honey, would you? It's in the small cupboard over there."

"How do you have honey? I never saw you going to the village."

"My Ma used to go all the time. She left it there, and honey never rot."

(Ma.)

Junmyeon made a noncommittal noise, looking for the honey hidden in the middle of all that junk. "Found it!"

"Great. Let's drink, then."

They nodded at each other, approving. They were both very proud of successfully killing the boredom, at least for that afternoon; they would be riding the high of their accomplishment for three hours. The tea was dark green, kind of bitter even after Junmyeon put honey on it. It tasted as great as it could, all things considered, and Junmyeon grinned at Sehun. "It's great, thanks."

He made a dismissive gesture, as was usual. "You're welcome."

They nodded and smiled, drinking tea and listening to the raindrops colliding against the walls of the lighthouse. Junmyeon felt very safe in that moment, the kind of safety that came with successfully hiding from the world. He didn't have a clue of what Sehun was thinking, though. His expression was as mild as ever.

Junmyeon drank a sip of the bitter tea to make go away the disturbing thoughts — the ones that kept singing him the same story, do you really know him? Like,  at all?

//

Behind the lighthouse, going north, there is a small graveyard. It's sad, and little, but flowers grow everywhere — heritage of years of putting them over the dirt of the ground, small ceremonies of death. There is nothing but unassuming pieces of rock and wood, names and dates and little else. Oh Seulgi, 1780. Oh Ae-Kyung, 1783. Kang Young-Sil, 1787.

One after the other.

//

November came to an end during a storm. Sehun was missing, probably asleep, but Junmyeon couldn't bring himself to relax or even to think about anything else. Instead, he was leaning against the window, staring at the angry waves in the sea, looking past the small drops of rain. The day his ship wrecked, it started like this. An angry storm, the ins and outs of the Sea God.

The waves were so close that maybe, if Junmyeon raised his hand high enough, he could touch them without leaving the relative safety of the lighthouse.

He sighed.

Junmyeon left his spot, walking to the front door and then beyond. The heaviness of the rain accumulated on his shoulders, his arms, his legs. His face was numb from the piercing feeling the cold water left after hitting it. All in all, nothing new. He walked, one step after the other, hoping for something. When he arrived at the beach, he stopped there, at the edge. Probably dangerous, but he couldn't help himself. It was almost a siren calling.

"Do you remember me?" he asked, softly, his voice lost under the roaring wind. "Do you remember me?" he repeated, stronger. He hoped for acknowledgement, for validation. Water was the only thing he ever thought holy, and don't people say that their gods talk to them?

The wind grew noisier and noisier and noisier — closer. Junmyeon smiled.

(at the lighthouse, leaning against the same window junmyeon once were, sehun watched him talk to the sea, as quiet and as removed and as far away as a gargoyle could ever hope to be)

//

December is soft white, blurred greenish waves and the infinite hard yellow of beach sand. Junmyeon managed to convince Sehun that they should go to the village, just for a few days, looking for things they didn't have at the lighthouse. Exchange a chicken for a bag of thin sugar cubes, maybe, or for what Junmyeon hoped is red fabric, the kind that would go great with Sehun's skin. Small dreamy things.

Sehun is very silent for the whole trip, walking surrounded by their things, distant as the moon. Junmyeon wanted to touch his arm, call to himself his attention, take him away from his worries, but he couldn't.

Sehun wouldn't let him anyway.

"We can go back, if you want", Junmyeon said, softly, breaking the silence. Sehun shook his head, once and then twice, as if ordering a ghost to go away.

"It's just that it's been a while." What he didn't say — I'm afraid of what I can see there — I’m afraid of the people and of the past —, Junmyeon heard anyway.

"How long?"

"It's easier to live alone."

(and then — then! — they walked in the middle of that snowy scene, silent and small under the silence that the wildness made roar)

They camp at the edge of the main road — the only road — the two nights they spent before arriving at the village. They light a fire, small and detached, just enough to not to die in the middle of the frozen vegetation and hard soil. Junmyeon isn't used to deserted places, and is terrified of burglars trying to steal their things at night. Sehun isn't in the mood to laugh or to call him off on his bullshit, so Junmyeon wastes his nights in worry. After the second day, though, he is too exhausted to care.

He wanted to ask, as if he was child, How much longer will it last? How much longer will we ride, will we walk? How much longer will it last — how much, how much? but he can't, really, because it was his idea to begin with. He never before was so mad at someone for not turning him down.

At the afternoon of the third day, the low ceiling houses of the edge of the village made themselves visible at last. The smallest one, soft blue, almost blurred with age, was bubbling with activity. Junmyeon opened his mouth to ask What? but Sehun shook his head, walking faster to the entry of the house.

(It must belong to a doll, Junmyeon thought to himself, since it's so small.)

"Taeyeon nonna!" Sehun called, and people inside stopped talking, startled, before resuming their conversations — way louder and way buzzier.

"Sehun, is that you?" a female voice yelled from inside the house, sounding surprised. "Wait a minute, I will be just there!"

"Where are we?" Junmyeon asked him, trying for mild and missing for about a mile.

"The village, like you wanted." Sehun answered, rolling his eyes.

The front door opened, with a low, bell like noise, and behind it was a woman blinking at them. She was pretty and maybe in her thirties, a child leaning against her hip — a boy, probably. She radiated the kind of soft glowing pride most mothers of boys did, especially in smaller towns.

"Who is that?" another female voice yelled. "Who is that, little sister? Is that Seulgi's child?"

"Yes!" Taeyeon yelled back. "It's him, and another boy — a stranger!"

"Well, send them in!"

"You two should come in", Taeyeon said, kindly. "You know how Hae-young can be."

"Of course, noona." Sehun nodded, seriously. Junmyeon resented his sudden politeness to the moon and back. They entered the house, low ceiling and crowded as it were, the front door closing with a bang behind them, as if a sentence.

Seven pairs of eyes blinked at them, more curious than startled, if the second at all. Sehun bowed lowly at them, respectful, and so did Junmyeon.

"Look at him!" a man said. "So grown up!"

"How long has it been since the last time he showed his face here?" Hae-young asked, a little bitterly. "Five seasons, at least."

"Since Old Woman Kang's death." a young woman who looked a lot like Hae-young added, helpfully. Her aunt slapped her cheek, though, and she screamed.

"Nothing of this nasty business, Hae-kyung!"

"Aunt! It's true!"

"Do not speak of it!"

"Aunt!"

"Noona", Sehun started, interrupting Hae-kyung yelling. "Please, let me introduce all of you to Kim Junmyeon. He is a sailor that is staying with me at the lighthouse."

"All the way there?" a child asked, awed.

"Yes."

Taeyeon bowed at Junmyeon, politely. "It's a pleasure, Kim-ssi. My name is Kim Taeyeon, and I'm the baker at this village. This is my daughter, Heri."

"A daughter?" Junmyeon asked her, surprised at her pride.

"Yes. Isn't she beautiful?"

"Very lovely."

The girl grinned at him.

"I'm Hae-young, the midwife. These are my children, Hae-kyung, the oldest, Changmin, my middle child, and Yeri, the baby." they all bowed. Obviously lack of education isn't this island fault; Sehun was the only one to blame. "The man over there is my neighbor, Lee Donghae", the man waved a little. "and his children, Young-hae and Tae-hae."

Junmyeon bowed deeply and greeting. "It's a great honor."

After the common politeness were exchanged, they sat to eat small pieces of sweet bread.

"What are you doing here, Sehun?" Changmin asked, his mouth full of food. Haeyoung slapped him for his manners.

"Junmyeon wanted to take a look at the village. We also wished to exchange a few birds for fabric and food I don't currently have at the lighthouse."

"How a sailor ended up in that side of the island? The port there isn't any good for years."

"My ship wrecked." Junmyeon answered, curtly. Everyone nodded, probably sensing a sore subject. They ate more of the bread, small talk washing over Junmyeon like a blanket.

"Are you two going to stay long?"

"Just a couple of days." Sehun told her.

"If so, you must sleep here!" Taeyeon told him around her own piece of sweet bread, sounding very determined.

"I don't know, noona. Isn't Hae-young noona and her children sleeping here too?"

"Don't be a fool, Oh Sehun." Hae-young slapped him at his head (she was a very touchy kind of person). "I can go to sleep in my own home."

"It's settled, then." Taeyeon said, drowning out any protests. Junmyeon just watched, a little overwhelmed with the noise after a month of Sehun tactical silence.

He wondered, Is that how Sehun was raised? In the middle of laughter and people?

Junmyeon couldn't believe. It sounded just too weird to be true.

//

The days passed small. People came and went at Taeyeon's house, and they almost never left. Junmyeon insisted they should at least go to Kim Heechul, the fabric seller, because Sehun's clothes had definitely seen better days. Like, all of them. So, they went, and bought the softest ones they could get, colorful and good enough, all for the cost of two chickens and a few breads Taeyeon gave them.

Three days later, they kissed Taeyeon, Hae-young and the children goodbye at their harsh (because of all the salt in the air) cheek, bowed and left to another hellish 4-days 3-nights trip back to the lighthouse.

All in all, at the second day sleeping in the snow Junmyeon started to doubt that the whole thing — people and noise — had ever really happened.

//

[The beach, if you could call it that, was made of rocks, wet sand and a century-old shore trying to keep the sea at bay. The lighthouse rose silent at the distance of seventeen feet, dusty and broken as something would be after a lifetime of neglect.

The angry waves were yellow, green and blue, with white fog and unreal currents. Junmyeon liked to lie down in the rock closest to the shore, curled a little to fit over it, and look at the sky while the ocean sounds roared on his ears. It felt a lot like home, the same salty smell with the same horizon made of water, water, water.

Sometimes Sehun would find him there, moving so quietly that Junmyeon would startle when his soft, almost unassuming voice would mutter his name. In the good days, they would stay like that for hours, under the weak sun and surrounded by snow, for as long as they could stand the cold. In the bad ones, though, they would go back to the house, taciturn as graves, and they wouldn't need words to know that it was time for each one of them go to their own room.

They had dozens of ghosts living with them. Junmyeon's navy friends and the names on the graveyard behind the lighthouse. All the women's laughter and sailor songs, they made the air unbreathable. It felt like suffocating, and that's why Junmyeon would run as far as he could, wishing to be anywhere else.

Sehun understood — he really did.

(this feeling didn't mean that he would resent junmyeon any less, though; not when he would be the one left entertaining the past).]

//

Junmyeon was awake before the sun even started to rise. He leaned against the window, trying to make sense of the green blur that was the sea behind the mist; trying to see its currents. Everything was so quiet, the air so soft, you could hear yourself breathe.

Junmyeon never stayed more than two hours in complete silence before. There, though — in the lighthouse —, the trees could be the ones to blame for the heavy kind of quiet that surrounded the space. (Even the waves broke quietly in the morning). Sehun, too, was usually stoic. He tumbled around his circle — his cycle — of distant-close-distant. Away and there and then away again. You could see but you couldn't touch, couldn't understand. Couldn't talk.

It was like words were the forbidden religion of something long lost.

Sehun stopped beside Junmyeon after what felt like two hours (which meant that it could be any amount of time between five minutes and half-a-day), leaning against the window frame. He was quieter than usual, a little softer around the edges.

“How long have you been awake?” Junmyeon asked, without as much as looking at him. He was feeling lost, buzzing with anxiety. It was probably a delayed (by a couple months) reaction to the fact that he was lost in an isle located at the exact middle of nowhere, with little to do and no perspective to ever go home. He wasn’t brave enough to stare directly at the face of the situation; Junmyeon was used to step carefully around the kind of bombs that could take everything apart.

“I just woke.” Sehun answered after awhile. He sounded a little groggy, the usual way around the mornings. It would last until he ate something (seaweed soup with turnip, some kind of fish that were lying around the lighthouse, a little bit of rice. He — and, indirectly, Junmyeon, who was terribly at everything food related — would never eat kimchi at the mornings. It was one of his weird behaviors that Junmyeon tried not to pry upon, since it looked like the kind of shit Sehun would end up yelling at him about), which then would lead the way to his morning ritual of tending over the fishing net. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” Junmyeon said, sighing a little. “It just that the sea looks particularly yellow today.”

“I thought you served around here.”

“I did, for the past three years or so. Before that, I was stationed at Ulchin, and I guess I’m still more used to the sight of the japanese sea. I always thought it way green-er than this one; I had a superior that used to say that it was because of sea shells. It doesn’t sound true now that I said it out loud, though.” he smiled, a little self-depreciative.

“How distant is Ulchin?”

“A lot. It’s hard to measure. Our travel lasted many, many months before we arrived at the Jinchi base, which is what looks like my last one in my navy career.”

Sehun stared at Junmyeon (and it was really the only way to put it, he stared), looking a little murderous. “Did you give up on your life?”

“Uh.” Junmyeon blinked at him, startled. “I don’t think that I’m leaving this place any time soon, Sehun.”

“I thought we talked about this. There is a boat—”

“Which comes once a year—”

“—sometimes even twice—”

“—and that will leave me to Jindo, a place that I know nothing about—”

“—people in the village say all the time that you can go to continent from there!”

“Sehun.” Junmyeon touched him lightly on the wrist, just enough to make him shut up. “I don’t want to fight over this. I’m not changing my opinion. We’ll only get very, very frustrated very, very fast.”

“Are you giving up on entering that boat? Is that what you’re saying? That you will stay here at this ghost island, walking around in the sand, helping me trade fabric at the village?”

“It wouldn’t be so bad... Look, what I’m saying is that I’m tired of waiting for this miraculous boat. I’m just lowering my expectations. Is that so terrible?”  

“You hate this place.”

“I do not hate this place—”

“You think it’s boring.”

“It’s quiet, which isn’t the same thing at all—”

“You wish you could leave.”

“You’re putting words on my mouth that aren’t mine!”

Sehun looked at Junmyeon, square into his eyes, and said, very clearly, “You have a shot at leaving all this behind. Take it, or don’t. In any case, just be sure that you know what you’re signing your whole life for.”

“Why don’t you leave? You clearly wish you could be anywhere else!”

“I’m tied to this place, Junmyeon! I will never, ever leave, but you can! You can be better than this.” Sehun was so angry, he was shaking like a leaf born too close to the ground. Junmyeon wished he could strangle Sehun, then resuscitate him, then strangle him again. He was so angry over Junmyeon making his own decisions, he was blind to the ones that he were making since before that stupid shipwreck.

“You are not the boss of me, Sehun. And I sure as hell am not the boss of you.”

“You’re making a mistake. I can’t believe you aren’t seeing it.”

“I’m not saying I will not jump on that fucking boat as soon as it arrives—”

“You’re leaving behind the hope of it ever coming to you!”

“Again, my choice to make—”

“You can’t see you’re on a road to end up like me?”

They stopped there, in the middle of the butter-yellow mid-morning light, heavy breath and shaking a little, ready to throw the other over the window, all the while hoping that he would die. “You can’t keep making everything about you. It’s not fair. ”

“Life isn’t fair, Junmyeon. Get over it.”

Junmyeon shook his head, giving up on the matter entirely. “I’m leaving.”

“Forever?”

“I will just be walking around in the fucking sand — wasn’t it what you said I’m doing with my time all day long?”

“Why are you doing this? It was not what I meant at all—”

“Goodbye, Sehun.”

He left, wishing he could slam the front door to make the message even clearer.

(God surely knows that Sehun, so trapped on his own minefield, would need it).

//

Junmyeon wasted his night walking around in the sand. At the distance, what passed as the shore looked ominous, as if judging every single one of Junmyeon’s choices. He was probably projecting, but he just couldn’t make himself stop. He felt as if the news had finally broke to him: he was trapped on a desert island, with only a very ill-disposed cellmate as company. He probably would die there, no matter what Sehun said — he was as bounded to that sad excuse of a place as someone could ever be. If he left, would go where? His friends were all dead, and his family had long before given up on him. He never visited them. Why would he? The air of his childhood home suffocated him.

He thought about going back. Knocking at Sehun’s door, saying I’m sorry. He wouldn’t, though. For once, he wished that Sehun was the one to try to make peace. Junmyeon was tired, his life was shit. Is it so terrible to want to keep a little bit of pride? Hadn’t he let go of so many things? Wasn’t them enough?

Sadly, he already knew how that song was going to play out.

Junmyeon tripped over a rock and almost fell over his ass. It was embarrassing not only for him, but also every single one of his ancestors, who lived close to the sea since the beginning of time. They would never do something so silly; Junmyeon was the worst marine out of all of them.

He ended up sitting close to the edge of the sand, his feet touching the cold water of the sea. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it was going to. He could tell. The sky was so dark, and so sad; things he always associated with winter.

Rain, mud, waves.

Junmyeon leaned behind, until he was resting on the wet sand and rocks of the beach — was it really a beach? or was it just wishful thinking? —, trying to look for shapes on the stars. They shined freely all alone; the moon was away, hidden somewhere. Junmyeon asked himself can I be happy here?

The stars didn’t answer. The water kept moving, freezing his toes.

//

“Uh”, Junmyeon muttered, “my cousin’s wedding dress was this color. Like, exactly.”

Sehun turned, looking confused; Junmyeon pointed at the deep emerald of some leaf that were, indeed, the ideal color for a traditional wedding clothing. “What is her name, again?”

“Sinn-sil.”

“Does she have any children?” Sehun asked, since he was sure it was the polite thing to say after someone mentions a married woman (or, well. It was what his grandmother used to say to him, which probably meant that it was a little old-fashioned and not at all the current norm).

“I haven’t heard of her in such a long time… Even before I went to serve at Jinchi, it was already two or three years since I knew what was happening in her life. She is my first cousin, of course; her mother is my mother’s sister. We aren’t that close, though, or even at all.” he paused. “Honestly, now that I think about it, it was probably at her wedding the last time I saw her.”

Sehun picked up a fruit that looked like a very wild strawberry and bit on it. “So, you must as well have second cousins.”

“I guess. My sister probably knows.”

“Too bad you can’t send her a letter.”   

Junmyeon laughed at that, happy that they were so light on their mood, which wasn’t always the case. In all honesty, they liked to fight more than anything else. It would become endless boring with only small talk to fill the void; Sehun, who lived there all alone for at least one year, probably exhausted all the options while talking to the chickens.

“Did you attend someone’s wedding recently?”

“Eh.” Sehun answered, non-committing. “Chae-yeong’s maybe seven months back.”

“At the closest village?”

“No, the other one. It’s a very long trip, maybe two weeks. I went there because her great-uncle was my grandma’s childhood friend.”

“How did you even know about it?”

Sehun waved absently, as if trying to show the full intensity of his lack of interest. Why are we even talking about this?, he could have said, Since it’s so trivial, and happened so long ago. He didn’t understand, though, that Junmyeon wanted to know everything about him. After all, how could he? “Donghae came down here, looking for some fish we only have in this beach; he passed down the invitation, since Chae-yeong had seen him a few days before — she went there for the tailor, who she wanted to be the one sewing her dress — and, after hearing about his trip, said that he should invite me, passing down the exact date, worried that I could lose the trip.”

“She sounds like a nice lady.”

“She is. Is Sinn-sil nice?”

“Oh, not at all.” Junmyeon laughed a little at that. “I never once met anyone who would use such a kind word to describe my cousin. She is more like extremely intense.”

“Do people hate her?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then she must be nice, no matter what you say.”

Junmyeon sighed, starting to lean against the tree. He stopped, though, since there was such a weird insect living there. “What is this?”

“A beetle, probably.” Sehun answered him, unconcerned.

“Is it poisonous?”

“I highly doubt it’s dangerous.”

“So you don’t really know.”

Sehun threw a berry at Junmyeon’s head. “Just don’t touch it if you’re so afraid.”

“What if it jumps on me?”

“I once saw you holding a struggling fish like it was the most normal thing in the world.”

“Yeah, but it’s an insect we’re talking about.” Junmyeon pointed wildly at the beetle. “This small demon could jump at me!”

Sehun nodded. “It sure could happen.”

“Can we go back?”

“This hike was your idea.”

“I take it back.” he said, already going back down the road. Sehun sighed, exasperated, but followed him, worried that Junmyeon would end up lost and dead on some hole in the ground.

At the tree the beetle watched them go, insensible as the world often is.  

//

Junmyeon’s face was smashed against the pillow, his eyes firmly closed. It would go away if he tried hard enough; the ghost of Kyungsoo smile, muted as is usual with the memory of people who died. He could feel the phantom touch of the last time he tried to hold his hand, to keep him from falling in the water, that was dark and cold and remote. It was so far away. Sometimes, the faces in the windows were closer than reality could even dream of be. In others, though, it was as if it had all happened to someone else. Like he was hearing about it, detached and sympathetic, for the first time.

He counted his good days, trying to will the bads away. Sung-aah, Junmyeon’s mother, liked to say that one should always count their blessings, and not their faults. If someone did the inverse, would end up insane. Junmyeon agreed with her wholehearted, as was usual, but he just couldn’t help himself. There is so much he wished that he could have made different.

Once a day, maybe, he stopped what he was doing and entertained the notion of going back in time, to his boat, or to his job in Ulchin (so long ago), and doing every single thing again. Again and again until it became right. Until he could look at it and not wish to rip the very fabric of what he were, and what he did, in pieces so small someone wouldn’t recognize it for what it was (Junmyeon’s own self). Making everything so different that no one would recognize. He felt as if his misfortune, and the one of his friends and colleagues, was set in motion long before. Is it fate?, he would ask himself in that lifeboat — the tiniest, coldest lifeboat. Am I destined to suffer here, dehydrated, burned, all alone?

Junmyeon could see everything playing behind his eyelids, so common it was part of his body, of the chemistry of what he was, what he were, what he would be, maybe, if he survived. He could see the last moments of his friends’ life. He could see them drowning in the dark, sad, distant, claustrophobic—

He opened his eyes.

Sehun was there, staring at him.

Junmyeon almost jumped out of bed, so startled he was. He also was feeling a little proud of himself, because Sehun was being this creepy and even so he refrained himself of trying to strangle him, which had happened before. (Sehun obviously couldn’t take a hint). He wished to yell at him, at least, or maybe hit him in the ankle, something to make him realize that it was not okay, because Sehun couldn’t maintain the knowledge of basic social skills for more than three hours. He took a deep breath instead and tried to go to his happy place, which was far away from that lighthouse.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Sehun asked, curiously.

“No.” Junmyeon answered him, lying from head to toe. “You just took me by surprise, with all this glaring right after I opened my eyes.”

“I was here before.” Sehun told him, helpfully. “You were screaming.”

“I disagree.” he tried to say very calmly, because once upon a time Junmyeon had an older sister and she taught him how to stand his ground. “I was just sleeping.”

“I think you had a nightmare.”

“Can you drop it?”

“You don’t need to be angry about this!” Sehun snapped at him. “I was just trying to be considerate.”

“Invasive would be a better word.” Junmyeon muttered to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” he answered, regretting his harsh tone. Sehun was trying, probably still upset about their screaming match of the other day. “What are you doing?”

He looked at Junmyeon over his shoulder, glancing behind in an attitude that was entirely unimpressed. Junmyeon thought, very fond, what an asshole. “I’m making breakfast. Someone has to, if we want to eat.”

“I made breakfast yesterday!”

“Yeah, you made once. This will be the good deed that’ll send you to heaven.”

“That isn’t fair.” Junmyeon kicked him, which made Sehun promptly kick him back. “I did it more than once.”

“Are you going to eat or not?”

“I am! Let me just get out of bed.”

“It’s past noon.”

“I went to sleep very late yesterday. I was walking around in the beach.”

“You’re always walking around in the beach. You love it there. I don’t get why, since it’s very ugly.”

“The shore behind the house where I grew up was also terribly uninspired. I liked it, though, and I guess I like the one here for the same reason. Looks so unassuming.”

“You like unassuming?”

“I love it.”

Sehun sighed. “Please, just eat your rice.”

Junmyeon smiled — a lot happier than before —, and ate his breakfast, while Sehun kept muttering unflattering things under his breath.

//

Junmyeon's sister, Soon-hee, was four years older than him, being born during the terrible summer of 1758. She was very attached to her gods, and, as was said for King Yeongjo, believed catholicism to be an evil practice. His speech in the autumn of her year of birth was very dear to her; Soon-hee would turn her face from every single one of her catholic neighbours. She couldn't avoid them entirely, though, because she moved back to Hanseong after her marriage. She had a daughter, A-Yeong, named after her good looks, and a son, Baek-Yeon, because he was the older brother.

During his time serving at Ulchin, he received thirty seven letters from her. It was during the period of four years. The mail was slow, and sometimes she would send five letters before the first one arrived. Even so, it was the most contact he had with anyone in their family, and he was happy on hearing from her. She sent drawings of her kids, small stories about her dog, stuff like that. When he was twenty-one, he received a brief shore leave, that he used to stay at her place, and to see his nephew and niece properly. Junmyeon thought his brother-in-law very dull, but good enough as husband and father. When he left again, he was reassured.

When he arrived at Jinchi, after a long trek for the country, he had two letters waiting for him, both from her. In them, it was a small doodle of A-Yeong, her face happy, wearing one of Soon-hee’s bonnets. After a while, thought, he stopped hearing from his sister at all. He thought that the mail was becoming worse, since he was further into the peninsula. He thought that the kids were all growing and being a nuisance, and she didn't have the time to write her baby brother anymore. She was, after all, a married woman. She was more adult than he could ever be, in all the senses of the word.

During the three years of his service at Jinchi, he got six letters from her. The last one being very short, and written during his birthday; there was a drawing of Baek-Yeon, too, looking very grown-up.

And that was it.

Two weeks later, the wreck happened, and Junmyeon stopped hearing from her altogether.

//

Sehun leaned against the frame of the window, his hands red and angry-looking because he had spent half a day working on some fishing nets. They got ruined during the storm that happened the night before, and it could surely wait for a day or two, at least, but Junmyeon knew that Sehun liked to keep himself busy. He had that glint on his eyes that meant he was thinking hard about shit, and wished to ask something that he was afraid to be ill-received.

“Just say it.” Junmyeon told him, trying to project calm and welcoming-vibes in waves.

“What was your mother’s name?” Sehun answered him, promptly, proving to Junmyeon that he was really just waiting for the smallest clue.

“Sung-aah.” Junmyeon said, softly. “Kim Sung-aah.”

“Mine was Seulgi. Oh Seulgi.” he offered, and Junmyeon nodded. He knew Sehun was an orphan in all the senses of the word; he knew his family had died close one of the other. Junmyeon had an alive mother, at least of his knowledge, but it didn’t mean anything anymore. She was as far away as the moon; even before that, they weren’t on the best of terms. He still missed her, though. And Soon-hee, and her kids. His father, sometimes. His cousin. He had a family, once upon a time. Sehun had one too.

“How long has it been—?”

“Eight years.” Sehun interrupted him. “Eight years for my mother, five for my grandmother, one for my aunt. All the women in my family, gone.”

Junmyeon breathed, trying to be quiet. He always felt that way when Sehun reached out; as if he never expected for it, so he didn’t know what to do. “I have a sister. She has children.”

“How many?”

“Two. A girl and a boy.”

“They must be very clever.”

“And pretty, too.”

“Do you miss them?”

“My sister’s family?”

“Everyone.”

Junmyeon blinked, a little startled. The truthful answer to that question was so very ugly. “Sometimes.” he compromised.

“I guess it would be hard remembering them being trapped here.”

Junmyeon thought, Oh. Did you ever believed you could leave? And then they went and died? “It’s more like I hadn’t seen any of them in a long time.”

“Why not?”

“They were far away from me.”

“They must have written letters.”

“Sometimes.” he repeated. What could he say? That his parents walked out on him, and then his sister did the same?

“You were so far away…” Sehun muttered to himself.

“The other side of the country, yes.”

“Your mother. Did she—?”

“A few times.” Junmyeon lied to him. He did that to spare his feelings, truthfully; Junmyeon had an alive mother who didn’t care, and Sehun had a dead mother (and grandmother, and aunt) who tried her best. “Isn’t Taeyeon like, your relative?”

“A little.” Sehun answered, sounding distant. “Sometimes.”

Junmyeon nodded, and then Sehun did the same. They let the matter drop and be washed away with the water, each of them thinking about their own ghosts.

//

December came to an end in a succession of colder days. Even if Sehun insisted that the coldest day of the year would be at least a few weeks ahead, Junmyeon didn’t feel reassured. The rain was like small rocks hitting the skin of his arms, of his face; he couldn’t stop going to the beach and walking there the same way he couldn’t help himself but to put his feet on the water. They had snow for two days in a row, which Junmyeon used to prove his point: it was, indeed, becoming insufferably cold. Sehun wasn’t impressed.

Mostly, they kept busy. Sometimes Junmyeon would find himself looking for things to fix. The table, the pot, the window. He spent a whole day trying to snow-proof the door, which looked like a lost cause at the beginning, but end up looking way better than he could hope. Sehun smiled at him, mostly indulgently. It’s okay if you want to waste your days away on things like that, the look on his eyes said, the winter will be long, and you would be very bored, even sad without it. He didn’t say that, though; it would be very mean.

Somedays, Junmyeon would look at the sea, and long for it. He would rest his hand on the cold glass of the lighthouse’s biggest window, the one that had the pretty view, and talk himself out of going there and just… jump. Sehun would hit him with something (usually a piece of cutlery), looking knowing and annoyed, and then Junmyeon would just let it go. He would follow Sehun into the place, and try to come up with things to do. He would cook, a few times, but he wasn’t any good at it, and Sehun would kick him out soon enough.

Mostly, though, he spent his days trying to not go crazy. He was bored, depressed and generally exhausted, and he didn’t know for how long he could keep the pretense.

//

The Navy — as an institution — was in its dying bed way before Junmyeon came along. Any sensible person would realize this and change their plans, maybe fishing, or tailor, or doctor, or lawyer, or scholar. The importance of the military was declining steady since the 15th century, even with the usual efforts of bringing modernization that happened once every two kings. The constant Japanese invasions held the joints for a while, with the help of the awe inspired by ships Geobukseon and Panokseon towering on the waters of the Yellow Sea.

In 1779, the year that Junmyeon left home to be a Marine, a little over a hundred years before the definite extinction of the Joseon Navy, the Captain looked Junmyeon straight in the eyes and asked, very clearly, Are you sure [of this job, of this life, of this misery, of this every single thing]?

Junmyeon was very sure, though. He almost didn’t blink while answering.  

(He had never been surer of anything in his life.

After all, his family was one of sailors, and fisherwomen, and sea all around.

Honor and duty was all he ever knew, and the only thing he could hope for himself).

//               

Sehun inclined over Junmyeon, trying to reach the milk. He couldn’t, obviously, just ask Junmyeon to get it; the humiliation would be too great. Sehun had to do everything by himself, the small and the big, the casual and the meaningful, so no one ever thought him as anything but self-sufficient. His attitude was enough to drive people away, and the haunted house wasn’t exactly helping his case.

“Sehun”, Junmyeon rolled his eyes, reaching for the milk and handing it over to Sehun, who looked murderous. It was his bad, really, since Junmyeon was busy eating his strange fruit (what was its name?) and ignoring him completely.

“I could’ve gotten it.” the petulance in his voice was the same as a child’s. Earlier in their shared life, Junmyeon would probably try to understand Sehun’s bad mood; maybe even do something about it (out of fondness or out of guilt). The Junmyeon sitting on that chair, though, almost four months after, knew better than that. Sehun was in one of his moods, and it was better to leave him be.

“I’m sure you could have.” Junmyeon answered him, very mildly.

“Then why did you get it?”

“You were almost hurting your back.”

“My back!” Sehun yelled, indignantly.

“I was only trying to help. Next time I’ll let you get the milk all by yourself, if that’s what you want.”

“You can’t let me do anything.”

Junmyeon sighed, looking for more fruit. “That’s true.”

“What are you doing, anyway?”

“Eating.”

“No, not that! I mean generally.”

“Uh.” Junmyeon blinked, surprised with the sudden change of tune. “I don’t really know?”

“You should go to the village.” Sehun told him, condescending.

“Why? We just went there…”

“No, not we. You.”

“Are you kicking me out?”

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s just that when the boat comes to take you to Jindo, it sure as hell won’t be making a stop here. ”

“ Here is the lighthouse.”

“That is broken since my grandmother was a child.”

“You can’t break a lighthouse.”

“Look around.”

Junmyeon sighed. “It’s early, anyway. Didn’t Taeyeon say that the boat to Jindo would come only at the end of February?”

“The village is far.”

“Not one-month-trip kind of far.”

“I just don’t want you to lose your chance to leave.” Sehun answered, leaning his head against his hand. He looked sad around the edges, and a little lonely all around. Junmyeon wished he would stop. He wished Sehun didn’t project his unhappiness and urge to fly on Junmyeon like that.

He couldn’t say anything, though. It would be very mean.

“Even if I lose this one”, he told Sehun, “there is another this year.”

“Yes. It’s in August.”

“And there’s always next year…”

“No.” Sehun said, emphatically. “You must go this year. If you stay here very long then you’ll never leave.”

“Fine, Sehun.” Junmyeon told him, mostly lying. “I will go to the village soon.”

Sehun didn’t understand that Junmyeon didn’t have anything to go back to. He couldn’t see that life in that lighthouse, lonely, remote and close to the sea, was as good as it was ever going to get.

It was almost as if he was a sailor again.

//

The waves were yellow when they broke against the sand.

It was possible to Junmyeon to see a small fishing boat in the middle of the sea, so far away that it looked like a toy. There were small villages down the coast, maybe six or seven at this side, and eight or nine around the mountain. Deep in the middle of the island, though, Sehun didn’t know if there was anything at all. The rumors said that it was all trees and birds. Junmyeon didn’t really believe that, though; there must be someone out there, maybe even a village by itself. He wished he could go there, just to give a look; but he knew it was a bad idea even without saying it out loud.

The weather was very cold, since it was already almost the end of January. The coldest day of the year had already come and gone — unfortunately, it didn’t mean that the winter was over. Small pieces of ice mended with the sand, making everything look wet and sad, reeking of mud. Closer to the sea, though, the remote aspect of the water angrily breaking its waves against the land made a prettier picture. The deep blue that become a closed white and then, finally, the yellow of last thinking. An afterthought.

The clouds were gradient gray, so close that the idea of raising a hand and touching it was too much to Junmyeon to resist. He tried it two times before giving up. The closeness was an illusion, as was everything else.

“What are you doing?” Sehun voice was loud against the silence. Junmyeon didn’t answer him, of course; he went to that same place, that same hour, for four months. He liked to watch the waves. They made everything look smaller. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“Because of the cold?”

“That too. I can hear you thinking. You’re so worried that I’m surprised you can even breathe.”

“You’re right.” Junmyeon answered him, sitting down on the wet sand. “I’m thinking. Do you want to make me company?”

“Do you want me to sit on the ice?”

“You’re grown man. I’m sure you can survive it.”

Sehun sighed annoyed, sitting dramatically, as he did with anything else. “You like it here, uh?”

“It’s quiet.”

“You told me you lived most of your life by the sea.”

“Ah, yes. I was basically raised on the water. Sailor-fishing family.”

“But weren’t you born on the capital?”

“I didn’t stay there for long. It wasn’t my parents’ home city, anyway.”

Sehun threw a little rock at the water, and they both watched it drown. Then he threw another, and another, and another, until it became an automatic exercise. Junmyeon didn’t have to ask what Sehun was doing, since he already knew.

(Filling the void with waves, the first lesson of a lonely child).

They sat there, in silence, until started raining, the once-soft clouds suddenly angry looking. Junmyeon knew they should go back to the lighthouse; the sea was unpredictably during storms at the best of times, and that one wasn’t any good. They stayed there for four, maybe five minutes, though, until they were both soaking wet and shivering. Then, and only then, they rose up and began the tedious trek back home.

//

With the beginning of February, the sky became cloudier and cloudier, while the temperatures started to get higher. The ice around the lighthouse, that was there since December, begun to melt away and, with it, Sehun’s patience over Junmyeon’s reluctance every time the word leaving was mentioned. Don’t you want to leave?, he would ask, angrily, to no effect. Junmyeon would always change the subject, or downright refuse to answer. What could he possibly say, anyway? He wanted to go back to the continent, of course, but was that really the best choice?

(For obvious reasons, Sehun would never be capable of understand this kind of struggle, since everything he always wanted to do was fly, fly, fly. Junmyeon’s cage was open, waiting for him to step out, while Sehun’s was still very much locked. Isn’t it cruel to say to the caged bird, You don’t understand, you won’t ever get it, can’t you see that I’m afraid of what the world can do to me, I’m afraid of leaving and then dying on the door?)

Sehun was passive-aggressively watching Junmyeon chop some carrots. They had reached the stage of perfect chores division, which was a thing both of them were internally proud of. They were always a little busy, just enough to not be thinking useless things all around the place, and it had a fair distribution, almost half to half. Junmyeon always tried to make dinner (and, with the practice of week after week, was almost passable at it), and Sehun made lunch, and so on. Junmyeon mend the fishing net on Mondays, and Sehun checked them again on Thursday or Friday. Things like that, the ones that made Junmyeon feel almost at ease — kind of looked like a home.

“There’s something you want to say?” Junmyeon asked, without looking away from the knife. Sehun was leaning against the left wall, projecting frustration and impatience. Junmyeon already knew what he was going to say; what he didn’t know was how to make Sehun stop ranting just enough so Junmyeon could try to explain himself.

“I don’t get you”, he started, “I don’t get why you’re still here, chopping carrots.”

“Sehun—“

“You have to understand that I know how terrible this place can be. I don’t want it to you, can’t you see? You should leave. Today, even!”

“You can’t make decisions for me.” Junmyeon reminded him, but it was useless.

“Huh! You are here for, what, four, five months? How many more can you take before the boredom, the loneliness, and the deep-bone tiredness finally wear you out? I lasted almost twenty years before giving up.”

“Twenty years it will be, then.”

“You should go.” Sehun told him, head held high. “You can stay with Hae-young until the boat arrives.”

“I can’t understand why you insist in kicking me out. Do you want to be alone so badly? Just you and your ghosts in this haunted lighthouse?”

“You’re right, you can’t understand. If you think I’m trying to make you leave because of me, for me, then you know nothing at all.”

“Have you ever thought that I may not want to leave?”

“Nonsense.”

“Heaven! Sehun, if you want to be away from this place so badly, then leave yourself!”

“I can’t leave and you know that!”

“Why? Are you the keeper of their ghosts?”

“Yes!” Sehun yelled at him, looking red on the cheeks and the neck. Angry, Junmyeon thought. He is angry. “Yes, I am the fucking keeper of this ruined place!”

“Then”, Junmyeon looked him right in the eyes. “Then it’s not my fault.”

“I never said it was your fault—“

“You did. You really, really did.” Junmyeon sighed, trying to make the carrots look like a small mountain. To keep doing the dinner he would have to go closer to Sehun, to pick up the pan, and he didn’t want to do that. Sehun was right; he was deep-bone tired. “You can’t keep doing this. You can’t make me the projection of all your broken dreams. I’m my own person, Sehun, and I make my own decisions. You chose to stay, and so did I; there’s no turning back.”

Sehun looked at Junmyeon without saying anything for maybe thirty seconds before nodding twice. His expression was mild, almost thoughtful; Junmyeon dared to think that he would stop trying to put together some baggage to Junmyeon to go away in the middle of the night. “Are you really staying?”

“I’m really staying.”

“Eh. I guess that if you change your mind, the boat to Jindo is twice a year.” he said, with the tone of someone that is thinking let’s see how long it’s going to last, but just as a scientific curiosity because I already know the answer.

Junmyeon didn’t mind.

Sehun went, very careful, as if handing Junmyeon some time to run away, and kissed him softly on the mouth. He nodded to himself, agreeing with something, and did it again, surer this time. Junmyeon smiled, quietly, forgetting the carrots and the dinner entirely. He wanted to ask Sehun if that meant that they were okay. Wanted to ask if that meant that they would continue that way.

He couldn’t, though.

He was really too busy kissing Sehun back.

//

The peace went on for two weeks; enough that Junmyeon felt like everything would always be great. He thought that maybe every single thing that held them back before was now in the open. It was, of course, a naïve way of thinking; unfortunately, it wasn’t one that Junmyeon could make stop.

In a lot of senses, nothing was really changed. Life went on mostly as before, with the occasional exception of a more romantic air of things — if you could call it that way, which Sehun, for instance, wouldn’t. Suddenly, Junmyeon could see that they were already living a shared life, under the same roof, doing roughly the same things, spending at least 70% of their time together while busy with something or another. Their morning routine was timed to perfection, the chores were all well distributed, and it was all so domestic.

The long hours spent staring at the sea, one of those habits that Junmyeon always had; he now noticed that Sehun went with him, almost every time, and that somehow along the way it become something Sehun would do by himself.

We have each other’s ways, Junmyeon would think, over and over and over again while those weeks went on, we have each other’s moods.

It wasn’t really a surprise, though, to realize that they were more or less together since the first month. Sehun, at least, didn’t look shocked at all, which, to Junmyeon, meant that he should just shrug it off. No one in the entire world had a worse case of overthinking shit than Sehun. If he saw that coming, and made peace with it, Junmyeon would just sigh and move on.

In a way, the sea taught him how to let go.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Sehun would ask randomly during the first days after The Kiss (that was how they were calling it). Junmyeon would say something useful, the first three or four times, and then proceeded to make vague noises of agreement to the rest. Sehun didn’t mind. He was looking for reassurance, and a gesture was as good as a yes.  

They would stay under the sad, weak sun during the first hours of the afternoon, lying over a blanket to protect them for the cold grass, and talk about anything at all. It was how Junmyeon learned, for example, that Sehun’s aunt was the only one in their small family whose surname wasn’t Oh. Her name was Kang Young-Sil, and it looked almost weird on her grave because it was side by side with her sister’s, Oh Seulgi, and their mother’s, Oh Ae-Kyung.

“Why was it Kang?”, Junmyeon asked one day. “Was she married?”

Sehun shook his head, saying, “None of the women in my family ever married; she changed it when she was very young; I think maybe eighteen. Wouldn’t answer if someone called her Oh Young-Sil, and, after a while, it looked to everyone like she had always been Kang, and never once Oh. I guess that, in the end, it was a favor they did to her. She was very loved. ”

“Why?” Junmyeon was, perhaps, afraid to ask; he did it anyway, though, because he never learned the right time to stop.

And then Sehun answered him, almost blankly — and was then that Junmyeon learned the valuable lesson of never ask anything you aren’t prepared to hear the answer —, “Eh?, it was because she hated my mother, of course. You can’t live in this cage and keep on loving the prisoner next door.”

//

It was raining terribly when Junmyeon left his bed (where Sehun kept sleeping soundly, because it would be necessary the lighthouse to fall over his head to make him awake before mid-morning) and went out. Since it was still pretty far from dawn, the wind was angry and loud, trying to say something in a language Junmyeon couldn’t understand. (He would wonder sometimes about the difference it would make if he could translate the words of the spirits that lived in the air. He couldn’t help himself — would it help? Or would everything remain just the same?)

While walking, he thought about his mother. She was a sad excuse for a parent, too engaged with her own life; even so, Junmyeon didn’t want to think ill of her. Even if he returned to the continent, he probably won’t see her ever again. The prospect of his death wouldn’t be enough to make her travel such a long distance, especially since there was no body to burn. She would shrug the pain off and keep on living her life. Yes, Kim Sung-aah was a fighter; a very difficult person to like. She was also a survivor, which was the strongest character trait on all the women in Junmyeon’s family. Soon-hee was like that, too, detached of things she couldn’t change; her daughter A-Yeong, who was only six, was as stubborn as her mother. Even Sinn-sil, who was Junmyeon’s cousin, could bend a mountain to her will.

The men, though, were weaker.

Do you love me?, a smaller Junmyeon asked his mom, once. Would you love me if you tried? She didn’t answer, barely moved; the silence went on for a long time — it was, probably, for Junmyeon’s whole life.

(Love was really such a strong word).

The weather was freezing, since it was this kind of hour that nobody sensible would risk be outside, under the rain, feet buried in mud and dirt. It was a repeating pattern in Junmyeon’s steady life: went close to the sea, enough to see the waves breaking against the sand, enough to numb his head with the angry sound of water, absolutely anything, no matter how stupid or ill-advised, to drown that muttering feeling you are dying, dying, dying, and it won’t ever stop.

Contrary to what Sehun would imply if he knew of this line of thinking, though, it wasn’t about boredom, regret or even the isolated tune of their days; instead, it went more on the line of deep-bone tiredness, nightmares ugly with the sounds of ships and dead bodies colliding. He couldn’t invoke his friends’ faces without seeing them blank-eyed, staring unseeingly at the sky. He couldn’t remember a single nice thing they did together, because they were, now and forever, painted with the grey coloring of death.

This sad, rocky beach, Junmyeon thought to himself, is finally the perfect analogy to my life, my death and my living: this dangerous thing that I chose to worship didn’t care about me at all; I would have died, and probably I did, and it didn’t mean a thing; I am now living here, close to the sea, tending to fishing nets, trying to convince the man I love to low his guard a little. And if it could be just a little! If it could be just enough!

He walked around a little, but there was just as many times someone could keep with that boring pace, looking at the same sand, tripping over the same rocks, before the whole exercise becomes insufferable. After a while, Junmyeon went back home, thinking about a bath, since he was nearly freezing to death after being under the rain for such a long time. It was a February one. Not exactly hypothermia material; maybe just a cold.

Inside the lighthouse, Sehun was already awake, looking like a small, angry cat; Junmyeon knew it would be like this, and that was why he left so early, and hoped to come back in time to return to his bed and act as if nothing ever happened. Of course, his plan was busted, and what else was left to do beside confess?

“You can’t keep doing this”, Sehun started, voice very controlled — he always had this quality about his fury; hard to notice until it hit you on the face. “It isn’t safe, and it isn’t smart.”

“I’m fine now.” Junmyeon told him, helpfully. “I needed to think about some things.”

“It’s raining! The roof is almost breaking and killing us both, that’s how terrible the wind is today!”

“It was safe enough…”

“No, it wasn’t. ”

Junmyeon sighed, exhausted of the constant tension in their conversations. It was like they were trying really hard to suppress any form of conflict, since this thing between them — living together, sleeping together, being each other’s only companion in a week-trip radio — was still so tentative. But Junmyeon isn’t stupid, and he knew that Sehun was almost at a breaking point. He thought, then, shouldn’t we just get this out of our way?

“What do you really want to talk about?”

“I can’t do this”, Sehun answered him immediately. “I can’t do this domestic shit; I’m tired of waking up terrified that you left, that you’re leaving, that you died, that you’re dying, that I’m alone, that I’ll be alone, that you’ll go away, that you’re here for pity, that you won’t be here for pity, everything. Everything.”

“Sehun—“

“Also, we have, like, zero boundaries? At all? Every time you’re angry or tired or sad you just walk away, go to the beach, almost kill yourself in some freezing rain, come back here; every time I’m angry or tired or sad I just disappear a little, go to the mountains, almost kill myself in some stupid turn, come back here, and then we start all over again this sad cycle because we are trapped here.”

“You can’t understand that I’m not leaving, not now, not tomorrow, not ever?”

“No, I can’t. I really can’t, because this is hell. This place is hell. It’s haunted. We’re sharing the space with ghosts.”  

“We can have boundaries. We can put in place things we can do when being close is too much. We just have to try. ”

“Try? Why try? Why try when you can just leave?”

Junmyeon sighed, exhausted. How many discussions would they have, sentences over sentences over sentences he already heard — and dismissed — before until Sehun finally stopped? Was there anything more terrible than having to explain his motives over and over again, every five minutes, without ever being permitted to stop? “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s the end of February and I’m still here. I could go away entirely; I could stay in this island, far away from you; I could do a lot of things that I never did, and never will, because I made a choice, and this choice was you.”

“You can change your mind.”

“And so can you. But isn’t it tiresome to always wonder when the next disgrace is going to hit?”

“It’s survival—“

“It’s nonsense.” Junmyeon said, looking too tired to keep handling that mess. Sehun had so many trust issues that, if you could pile it, would reach the moon. There was nothing to do about that. At least, Junmyeon thought, he was actually talking.

They looked at each other, out of breath; Sehun was blinking, almost crying. Junmyeon had wasted all his tears on that boat, a lifetime before that moment, and couldn’t cry anymore.

“Then, is this it?” Sehun asked, quietly. “You’re staying, and that’s it?”

“Easy as that.”

Junmyeon reached for his hand, tentatively. When Sehun didn’t immediately run away in any other direction, he held it, his heart so loud that it could be beating on his ears. It was a decision that he would made again, every year, forever, if that was what it takes: Sehun and their little life, the lighthouse, the ghosts and the sea.

//

There’s this softness in their kisses that Junmyeon wasn’t expecting.

They’re in each other’s space all the time, like magnets that can’t stay away for more than a second. It’s weird, because — individually — they aren’t affectionate people. But I guess that living alone in a lighthouse, with only the water as company, must have changed things along the way.

Still, Sehun touched Junmyeon’s cheek like the world was not going to end someday. He looked into his eyes like they weren’t fighting an hour before. And there was something there, which Junmyeon couldn’t quite grasp, couldn’t quite think, and couldn’t quite get — his only choice was staring back.  

They kissed.

Usually, Sehun wouldn’t accept anyone so all over his space for such a long time. And they shouldn’t want each other close anyway; there’s only so much a person can stand before trying to drown themselves.

The truth of their boredom washed away with the sand, though, and with the rocks.

They were always close — the distance of a breath. Just far enough they wouldn’t want to strangle their proximity with a piece of rope. And they kissed.

And they kissed, kissed, kissed.

Quietly.

Softly.

(There’s this softness in their kisses that Junmyeon couldn’t really touch).

Sometimes was painfully obvious how they tried to stay mute. To not speak at all. Their words started small civil wars in their domestic space — this one were they couldn’t run from; run to where? —, and it wasn’t worth it.

But you can’t live your entire life in silence.

So they kissed.

They leaned against each other’s body, looked into each other’s eyes, and asked — yes? or no?

(can we live in this quiet?

can we live with our choices?)

//

“So”, Sehun started, trying for nonchalant, “what is your mom’s name again?”

“Eh”, Junmyeon said, without raising his eyes from the fire he was trying to start, “it’s Kim Sung-aah.”

“And do you miss her?”

“Not always.” he answered him, too busy celebrating the fact that he finally lighted the wood on fire to pay Sehun any mind.

“And you have a sister, right?”

“Soon-hee.”

“And does she have any children…?”

Junmyeon sighed, put out of his self-congratulation moment to glance at Sehun, who was walking around in circles looking very upset. “What is it that you’re trying to ask me?”

“Nothing! I just want to know more about you, and like, your family. Is it so bad?”

Junmyeon didn’t thought it bad at all, but he couldn’t help but wonder for some other reasons, since Sehun was making such a fuss about it. “My sister has two children, a boy and a girl.”

“And do you miss her, at least?”

“Yes, of course. We used to be very close.”

“What about the kids?”

“They’re wonderful. Of course I miss them.”

Sehun sighed, unhappy. Junmyeon wanted to hit him with a piece of wood. “I’m sorry.” he said, distracted and not sorry at all. “I don’t know what I wanted.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“It’s just that I was there, by the graves”, he said, as if it was a perfectly razonable to pass some time, around the buried bodies of dead relatives, “and I realized that my aunt was the last one to die — two years ago, when my mom’s death is almost making a decade —, and she’s still the one I miss the most. So I wanted to know if you miss your family.”

“Is this leading to the same old fight about me leaving?”

“No, not this time. I just thought I should ask. Offer some words of wisdom about grief and all that.”

“You don’t need to; as far as I know, my parents, my cousin, my sister and her kids, they are very much alive.”

“Were you close to them?”

“No, not really.”

“Is this a sensitive subject?” Sehun asked, knowingly. Junmyeon wished he could kick him.

He end up just rolling his eyes. Sehun never cared about politeness in all those months they knew each other; it was just like him to try to be more sensible only when it wasn’t needed. “It’s fine. They have their life, and I have mine. I made peace with that.”

“But you said you were close to your sister!”

“Soon-hee married.” Junmyeon laughed, a little bitterly. “There wasn’t any space left in her life for me to curl in. Best thing I could do for her was go away.”

“And you did.”

“Oh, yes. She is older than me; I wasted my whole life trying to please her. Why would I stop now? Anyway, enough about me. How about your aunt? You never talked much about her. Her name was Young-sil, right?”

“Yes. Kang Young-sil. She was very nice.”

“How so?”

“Always made me feel like I wasn’t alone.” Sehun told Junmyeon, his voice perfectly still, like a lake. “Raised me after my mom passed, since my grandmother was too old.”

“I thought you said she didn’t get along with your mother.”

“Eh, she really didn’t. They hated each other, I guess, or maybe they loved each other and didn’t know how to act about it. Anyway, she never held my mom against me. It was all forgotten after she put Ma in the ground. The gravestone, you saw that? It was auntie’s doing. My grandma didn’t know how to write. Anyway, I was too young and it wasn’t like we had any other relative she could’ve send me to. The duty was hers to bear.”

“I’m happy you were close to her.” Junmyeon said to Sehun, trying to use the proper voice tone that such an information deserved, “We should put some flowers at her grave tomorrow. And, since they’re side by side, we should put some at you mom’s and at your grandmother’s too.”

“It would be really nice.” Sehun answered, quietly, “because I do miss them so much.”

They stood there, nodding at each other, glad that they talked about something more meaningful than the usual mundane shit (which was the only kind of subject they seemed to agree on); they were also very uncomfortable, though, and awkward, since it was still weird to have a heart-to-heart — even if it were the forth or fifth time.

“I will go check on the chickens”, Sehun said, suddenly, and Junmyeon finally breathed with relief, “they shouldn’t be left alone all this time.”

“Yeah, of course!” Junmyeon exclaimed, hoping that the fire would be the one blamed for his red cheeks, “See you soon!”

Sehun left, then, a little mortified; Junmyeon stayed, though, wishing that he could feel less like he was dying.

//

It’s March and the clouds are mostly white; it was finally possible to put a feet outside without being all wrapped like a present with the necessary winter clothes. Junmyeon was very satisfied with the change, since he had been risking frostbite while walking around — a habit he couldn’t shake off, no matter what Sehun said. It was unhealthy and he knew that; since he was so well aware, Junmyeon was on his right to keep doing the same mistake over and over again. After all, it was the real prerogative of every person conscious of their fault.

Junmyeon was staring in despair to a medium-sized rip on one of his rain tunics, trying to remember every single thing he ever knew about sewing fabric and so on. It was sad because he always sucked at it; like a lot of other things, though, he had to own up to the task and do it with the biggest amount of dignity possible, since there was no one else who could do it for him in that forgotten place he chose to call home. Nothing could be harder or more of a failure than the time he tried to fix a wall closer to the top of the lighthouse, precariously holding to a rope who could’ve been at least fifty years old.

“We should go for a swim. You know. On the sea ”, Sehun said from the door, leaning casually against the frame. He told it using the tone of someone saying the most casual thing; the one they do all the time. Like we should breathe or we should eat or even we should have a screaming match about something we thought that we had already agreed on. “I think that it would be very nice.” he added, as if trying for nonchalant.

Junmyeon stared at him for maybe thirty seconds, trying to grasp what Sehun was thinking under that unimpressed face. It wasn’t easy, though; even after all those months he couldn’t really guess what Sehun would come up with next. It was like trying to predict the sea; you had some pretty good clues, more of them if you knew what you were doing, if you were used to it — it didn’t mean, though, that it would always work. (Or even usually). You shouldn’t bet your life on it.

Ideally, you wouldn’t bet your life on anything, though.

“Well, sounds good to me.” Junmyeon said at last. Sehun smiled, a little relieved around the edges, the way someone would be if they weren’t really sure about what would happen. Junmyeon didn’t understand that. Had he ever said no to Sehun when it mattered?

After that, they walked quietly to the edge of the water, taking off their clothes, folding them in small squares and leaving it on some dry spot behind a big rock. That small beach was theirs in everything but name; they could do whatever, and no one would be the wiser.

They could swim naked, for example.

Sehun’s skin against the cold water was dark even after the winter, the proof of a lifetime trying to stay away from the inside of that lighthouse for the most time possible. Most hours, most days, most weeks. He looked small there, swimming so quietly; like somehow he had left all his worries on the sand and could finally retreat into himself. Junmyeon wanted to say You can trust me. You can be like this always, because I got your back now, and I always will.

He didn’t say anything, though. He spent half of his life actively trying to not make anyone else’s shit about him; all those years later and it was like a second skin.

(One that was could be useful).  

“You’re being quiet.” Sehun muttered, his voice low because he was under water till the chin, and sometimes the small waves would muffle his words. Junmyeon thought that it was fitting, since there were those moments when Sehun would look like he wished that all his words were carried away with the wind before they could be even free.

“I was just thinking.” Junmyeon told him, and looked at the sky. It was blue — really blue. Like a gift.

“About what?”

“You, mostly.”

“Nice thoughts?”

Junmyeon smiled at him, looking so very soft. “The best.” he answered, almost overwhelmed with fondness. “Only the best.”

Sehun grinned and threw some water at his face, looking juvenile in his happiness. Junmyeon thought, then, for the second or third time, I love you. I love you so very much.

//

Sehun rolled over and hugged Junmyeon, sighing content against his shoulders. Junmyeon smiled, hugging him back, their legs tangled under the blankets and their body still cold from being outside. “I was dreaming.” Sehun said, suddenly.

“Really?” Junmyeon curled a lock of Sehun’s hair around his finger, distracted by the color — it was an unusual shade of brown, since he spent all his life under the sun. “And it was about…?”

“Before.” Sehun answered him, shrugging. “I don’t remember much about it.”

Junmyeon grinned against Sehun’s face, suddenly realizing what it was all about. “Are you trying to do some pillow talk? ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sehun answered, promptly. “I don’t do that kind of shit, as you well know.”

“I will indulge it, Oh Sehun.” Junmyeon told him. “Since it’s my sacred job.”

“Eh! Just shut up, please. Forget I said anything.”

Since Sehun didn’t move an inch, and his breath went on as before, Junmyeon knew he wasn’t really bothered about being busted. It was a new thing, this softly curling around in their shared bed — their shared life —, talking about nothing in particular. They felt, to Junmyeon, like a real couple; not something that happened out of chance, or proximity.

They felt like people who were in love.   

“Did you dream a lot growing up? Someone said to me that it’s the time that it happens the most.”

“Uh? I don’t know.” Sehun answered him, absently. “I used to see a lot of flowers whenever I closed my eyes; asters, camellias, roses, hibiscus. A kaleidoscope of colors, some of those I hadn't seen in years; it was like I had this garden in my head, forever remembering what I had seen once.”

“That sounds very beautiful. I dreamed of stars.” Junmyeon told him, proudly. “Every single dream that I could remember, it was this way: I was alone in the middle of this sea of light”, he paused, checking if Sehun wasn’t asleep again. Since he was awake, and impatient about the rest, Junmyeon went on, “and I knew someone must be there with me, since I was a child, but I never saw anyone and it didn’t really matter. Well, that’s what I guess I thought. I don’t remember this kind of detail, since it was so long ago. Anyway, I would be there, these multi-colored stars all around me; it wasn’t overwhelming, though, just happy. And then I would look at the sky and it was so close, I would touch it, just a little, and suddenly the entire universe was there, and I could see everything, all the small stars and the bigger ones. I would always wake up after that, though.”

“Did you like those dreams?” Sehun asked, and there was something that looked a little like awe in the very deep of his eyes; Junmyeon smiled, because that was the feeling he always got when he thought about these kind of things.

“I loved them.” he answered, then. “It was the best part of my day.”

Sehun nodded, solemnly, and yawned. “Well, it was nice, but I’ll go back to sleep now. Good night, Junmyeon.”

“Good night, love.” he said, so low the wind could have carried it away.

//

The waves were white and green when they broke against the sand.

Junmyeon could see the light turning blue turning dark in the distance, since he was standing on one of the biggest rocks of the small beach. Before it happened, though, the emerald was bold and strong against the ominous sky; and the sand was so wet it looked almost black. He knew that if only he could see far enough then it would be the beige and brown of another island’s shore, and he could — maybe — feel less alone. In that place, staring at the unmovable will of the ocean, Junmyeon could believe he was the last person on Earth.

The clouds were gradient gray, so close that the idea of raising a hand and touching it was too much to Junmyeon to resist. He tried it two times before giving up. The closeness was an illusion, as was everything else.

Is this a dream?, he wanted to ask, but he was too afraid of the answer. Did I die in that boat, in the middle of the sea, all alone, left behind?

Behind him, the lighthouse towered like an omen he couldn’t quite grasp. He gave up on that pointless task, though, many months before.

(He was no priest).

//

In the end, June came around with a kiss.

Junmyeon was watching Sehun sleep — and, okay, it was a little creepy —, trying to figure out how to ask him to just trust Junmyeon (was it too much to ask?). Their days seemed like a battle camp, the bodies of past discussions pilling around them, their remains festering and making the air hard to breath.

They never go to bed angry at each other. It’s as good policy as any, Junmyeon guessed, and it’s been proving itself really effective, forcing them both to actually talk about shit, and not just dance around the mine forever, waiting for the other to touch it and then explode. (The freedom of successfully avoiding a conversation that you wish could never happen). The problem is that Junmyeon couldn’t seem to be reaching Sehun, kind of; they talked, fine, but they never left behind the issues that they resolved. It’s like the space is becoming too small for their shared frustration.

“Stop staring at me”, Sehun muttered, opening only one eye. “You woke me with the intensity of your thinking.”

“That’s not true.” Junmyeon complained, his voice the louder he could possibly be without being kicked out of their bed. “You can’t feel my thoughts.”

“I can when you’re glaring at me so fiercely…”

“Please.”

Sehun laughed a little, something soft around the edge of his face, quiet and fragile like a small piece of glass that was once someone’s memory. “What is it about, Junmyeon?”

“Nothing.” he answered, “It’s nothing. I missed you, that’s all.”

“You see me every minute of every hour of every day”, Sehun told him, condescending, “how could you possible miss me?”

“I miss you when you sleep. You get so quiet! It’s almost like you’re another person entirely.”

“I’m asleep, of course I get quiet.”

“You’re not quiet now.”

“I’m not sleeping either.”

They smile — cheeks hurting —, soft on their conversation, living inside the bubble of that bed where they’re connected, where they made sense, where they kept the peace under the pressure of all the fights and all the bitter faces they will make at each other along the day. It’s hard to live like that, having only Sehun for company. Junmyeon was raised inside a bigger sphere, more diverse day to day. He chose what was made of his life, though, and he didn’t really regret it.

“We should go to the village this month.”

“Do we need anything?” Sehun asked him, looking more awake. He would always jump on any opportunity to be concerned about something.

“Nah. It’s just that it’ll be nice to see people. You know, other than us.”

Sehun paused for a moment before saying, lowly as if speaking of a terribly secret, “Sometimes I think about living closer.” then he added, barely words. “It can be so lonely here.”

“Since your aunt passed?”

“No, even before. The silence is too great and the ghosts are too many, you can’t possible compete with their whispers.”

“Didn’t you say that Young-sil hated it here? Why didn’t she move after your grandmother died?”

“She was the keeper of this place.” Sehun told him, as if it made all the sense. “She couldn’t possibly leave. Now that she is gone, I’m the one who have to stay.”

“Are you bounded to this lighthouse?” Junmyeon asked him, and he wasn’t frustrated, really; he had variations of this same argument since the day he set his foot on this place for the first time. Sehun wouldn’t ever leave, and that was okay; all he wanted was to Sehun to realize it too, and make his peace. Junmyeon wanted for them to be happy, which would never happen while the idea — the daydream — of changing everything kept pairing over their heads.

“You know I am; it’s the graveyard. I can’t possibly unbury my entire family and take them with me to my new home.”

“It was a bad idea for the beginning to bury them all around the back of this place. Like, a real monumentally bad idea.”  

“Do you think?”

“At least you were still here when I showed up.” Junmyeon told him. “Because I would be dead without you.”

Sehun smiled at him, and raised his hand to touch, so very lightly, a small scar Junmyeon had above his right eyebrow; he got that one when he was sleeping in the boat and some bottle crashed against his face. He woke up with the blood and thought he was blind. “I would miss you terribly if you had died.”

“You wouldn’t have known me...”

Sehun grinned, happy. “I would miss you anyway.”

Junmyeon inclined a little (since he had this habit of sleeping curled around himself, while Sehun always woke up on the exact same position that he had while falling asleep) and kissed Sehun’s cheek, his forehead, the edge of his mouth.

They loved each other, they really did; fought a lot, too, but Sehun always went back, and Junmyeon always forgave his faults; they made a bridge between the abysm of their differences and they lived well in tents around their shared fate.