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and in the middle of the ocean i saw your face
i had no choice but to let you go
Jinyoung has this dream sometimes.
The sea is pitch black and he’s drowning. Cold water piercing his skin all the way to the bones. The water is so incredible quiet it deafens him, filling his lungs until they burn. His eyes sting, but he keeps his eyes open because it’s always to see nothing than to not see anything. He tries to fight his way to the surface, but every movement just sinks him deeper into the stomach of the ocean, and he’s so, so afraid.
After a while, there comes a light from afar, so bright it’s almost blinding, and it closes in on him. He squints, through stinging eyes, and sees the silhouette of a person. A girl. Long dark locks, porcelain-like skin and red lips, with eyes so dark and inviting like the sea. Something made out of dreams, and then he remembers than this is a dream. A dream within a dream.
And then he wakes up. And he hears her voice ringing in his ears, whispering something that he can’t hear, like a promise that he’s supposed to remember but doesn’t.
Jinyoung’s first love is the sea.
He loves the pristine blue water that hides more secrets than a person does, stretching on seemingly for eternity. The waves, collapsing over each other and lapping tirelessly on the shore, lulling him to sleep at night. He loves the white foam bubbling up at his toes, licking up to his knees. His feet, buried underneath the warm sand. And the sky, so blue.
He loves the salty scent that the breeze carries all the way from the ocean. He can smell it wherever he is, wherever he goes. He loves the way it sticks on his skin, like a proof that he’s beloved child of the sea.
The winter after Jinyoung turned 14, the sea swallowed his father.
His father was a fisherman. He spent most seasons out in the ocean, and he would come home just when Jinyoung was about to forget what he looked like. Jinyoung remembered his father’s back better than his face, the defeated line on his shoulders and his rough fingertips. His gruff voice that used to tell Jinyoung, never trust the sea, it’s not what it seems.
And one night, the calm sea that he loves so much bared its fangs and turned violent in a split second. Jinyoung felt the ghost of his father’s hand on his shoulder as he stared at the extra bowl of rice and empty seat the next morning, and for some reason before the news even arrived to the shore, Jinyoung already knew he wasn’t coming back.
“Does it make you sad?” Jaebum asks. “The sea.”
“Sometimes,” Jinyoung says as Jaebum rakes in the scattered hay on the grass, leftovers from today’s feed.
Jaebum doesn’t live by the sea like Jinyoung does, but deeper into the mountains. His skin doesn’t smell of the sea. But Jinyoung remembers that they used to walking along the beach everyday as kids, picking up fragments of shells and trinkets that the ocean washes ashore.
Jinyoung’s still in love with the sea, as twisted as it sounds. The sea that now his father is a part of. The sea that calls for him in his sleep.
“Remember what your old man used to say about the sea?”
Never trust the sea. He remembers it clearly. “The sea is full of secrets,” he says. “I remember.”
“It hides more secrets than you know,” Jaebum reminds him. He wipes the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand while flashing a smile like the ocean itself. He doesn’t visit as often anymore, too busy helping his parents at the farm.
Jinyoung returns the smile. There’s soil underneath Jaebum’s fingernails, and Jinyoung thinks, but you don’t know the sea .
Sometimes his dreams go like this:
The sea is pitch black and deafeningly silent. Cold water piercing his skin all the way to the bones, filling his lungs until they burn. He’s drowning.
There’s no light, but there’s that voice, sharp and chilling like the water. She leans in, lips brushing against the tip of his ear. A whisper.
Remember the sea. Remember me.
And then he wakes up.
Jinyoung stands on the edge of the rocks overlooking the ocean. The moon hangs in the sky. It’s a full moon tonight, its glow reflecting on the dark surface of the sea. But Jinyoung is not looking at the moon.
She rises to the surface not too long after. Her eyes are as he remembers them to be. Her smile is not.
“What did I forget?” he asks. The winds are colder tonight. He didn’t take his jacket with him.
But she offers no answer. “The sea is a dangerous place.”
“You say that now, but you call me in my dreams.”
“I know.” Her smile is enticing, like the ocean that hides all of the world’s secrets. Like she knows all of his. “You shouldn’t be here, Jinyoung.”
“I know.” He smiles back. His first love is the sea, and she—
She is the sea.
Sometimes he thinks his father would wash up ashore. Sometimes he thinks if he walks along the beach, he would find him lying there amongst the fragments of shells and other souvenirs from the sea. Sometimes as he eats his breakfast all by himself, he thinks his father would just walk into the house through the front door, hang his raincoat by the door and join him at the dining table.
Sometimes when he dreams, Jinyoung hears his father’s voice instead.
His mother slips away in the summer before he turns 18. She hadn’t been herself since her husband disappeared into the ocean, so it’s more or less expected. Jinyoung doesn’t blame or resent her for that.
“You know,” Jaebum begins, the day after the service. The house is a lot quieter now, even though neither Jinyoung or his mother had been much of a talker. “You drowned once, some time after your old man died. You said you heard a voice calling for you.”
The sky is grey today, with no sign of the sun. It looks like it might rain. The waves have been rough since morning, and Jinyoung wonders if the sea might spit something out from its belly. Or swallow something else.
“You forgot all about it when you woke up later, so your mother said not to talk about it. But now she’s gone. I thought you should know.”
“Oh.” He thinks about his dreams about the sea. His first love that hides more secrets than a person does. “I think I remember.”
Jaebum doesn’t seem surprised when he looks at him. “Don’t trust the sea, Jinyoung,” he says.
“I know,” says Jinyoung, looking up at the sky. It’s so, so dark.
Jinyoung drowned when he was 14.
He woke up at night and headed to the beach. Took the boat and took off to look for his father. The sea swallowed him but spit him back out. They found him on the shore, his clothes hardened from the salt and sand, fingertips all pruned. Or at least that’s the version he was told.
He remembers it differently, now that the memories have returned to him.
There was a voice that called for him in his sleep. In his dreams. It wasn’t his father’s voice, but a girl’s. A girl with long dark locks, porcelain-like skin and red lips. A girl with eyes like the sea. A girl whose name was—
Remember me.
His first love.
She rises to the surface like she knows he would be there. Maybe she’s been waiting for him all along.
“The sea has many secrets,” she tells him. He’s standing at the edge of the water, metres away from her. The waves are strong tonight, crashing violently and tirelessly against the rocks. The sea glitters under the moon.
“So I’ve been told,” he says. “Why did you return me to the shore back then?”
“You weren’t ready then.”
“What about now?”
She gives him the same alluring smile that hints absolutely no answer. “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong to the sea.”
“I know,” he tells her. “But I want to.”
Her eyes are dark and inviting like the sea.
His heart rises and falls like the tide.
“Do you trust me?”
He remembers her name now, or perhaps he never really forgot. A human’s heart is an ocean—it holds too many mysteries that no one can truly understand. The cold water tickles at his foot. His chest is tight and his throat dry, but he’s not afraid. Not anymore.
Jinyoung smiles at her. “I trust you, Suzy,” he says quietly, a whisper meant only for her. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then lets himself go.
The sea is warm.