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It’s a lazy Wednesday afternoon when the familiar low horn of the cargo ship announcing its arrival shakes Yoongi out of his slumber. He frowns. It’s rare enough for the ships delivering the spartan amount of supplies the lighthouse keepers need to survive the month to arrive smack dab in the middle of the week like this, but bringing supplies more than the mandatory once a month is pretty much unheard of. Pulling his rubber boots on he wobbles, still groggy and sleep-addled, down the unevenly cobbled path to the small dock on the eastern side of the island.
Over the last three years, he’s grown to love the place despite the relative solitude, despite the wind always tugging at his clothes and the cold seeping in from under the windowsills at night now matter how vehemently Yoongi tries to bend the isolation tape to his will when covering up any and all crevices he comes across. Still. It’s familiar. It’s what Yoongi has.
It’s Hoseok jumping out of the boat to fasten it to the dock, Yoongi realizes as he peers towards the scene, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. It’s unusual for Hoseok to be the one doing these little supply runs, but, then again, everything about this afternoon is turning out to be. He greets Hoseok with a brief raise of his hand, earning a caffeinated wave back.
Working as a lighthouse keeper had turned out to be a far less lonely profession than Yoongi had expected it to thanks to Hoseok always checking in on him, chattering away on the phone for hours on end and paying him a visit or two a month. Yoongi had never really expected to like Hoseok when they first were acquainted. Hoseok with his loudness and bubbliness posed at a first glance a stark and insurmountable contrast to Yoongi’s more often than not mellow nature, and anyone could see that combination getting very tiring very quickly.
Despite a hundred fully rational reasons not to, Hoseok had come to visit Yoongi, and one glass of whiskey had turned into another had turned into another and before Yoongi knew it, he was waiting for Hoseok’s call by the phone every Thursday.
As it turns out, Yoongi and Hoseok never were so different to begin with. So yeah, Yoongi wasn’t exactly lonely. Not as lonely as one could expect. He had Hoseok, and he also had Namjoon, the keeper of the lighthouse a few nautical miles away, whom he’d only met briefly a couple of times but kept in contact with through long-winded letters they sent each other a few times a month. It’s nice, Yoongi thinks. He’s content.
Hoseok greets him with his trademark grin adorning his face.
Another head of hair peeks out from the cabin door and makes Yoongi stop dead in his tracks, right at the beginning of the dock. The boy lifts his hand up as well, wears a nervously hopeful look on his face, and despite the sun still blinding Yoongi, despite him barely being able to make out the outlines of the boy against the light, Yoongi knows it’s him.
He’s here, and he’s waving at Yoongi, and yes, this is still real life and not a post-nap hallucination, Yoongi confirms by biting at the inside of his cheek. He breathes in, breathes out. One step, another follows, making his way onto the dock. The boy stays on the boat as Yoongi walks up to Hoseok.
“Hobi-yah, hey, what’s this about,” Yoongi asks in a low voice, conscious of making sure the boy standing around fiddling with the cabin door knob only a few meters away doesn’t overhear.
“Hyung! You’ve been so overworked”, earning an eye roll from Yoongi, “I decided one night, you know, fuck it, you shouldn’t be. So, now Jeongguk’s here to help you with, you know, things. Whatever you need.” Hoseok near bounces up and down with excitement. “Don’t give me that look. You have been. I notice things,” He quickly adds scoldingly, gives no room for argument, but Yoongi tries anyway.
“You know, you’ve never sent anyone Namjoon’s way like this despite him complaining all the time about how busy he is” Yoongi points out. “Besides, I’ve been working this much for a while, what makes right now any different from, say, a year ago?”
“Ah, hyung, Namjoon is doing fine. His island is way smaller than yours anyway, it’s just in his nature to blow everything out of proportion. A poet’s curse, I’m afraid,” Hoseok exclaims, a bit of an unexpectedly dreamy twang in his voice underneath the silliness and exaggeration that throws Yoongi off for a second.
But I complain too, he could’ve said if he’d gotten the chance to speak. Not about anything that matters, he knows Hoseok would’ve replied. It’s really no use.
“And anyway, since you two know each other from before, you should get along fine.” Hoseok turns towards the boat, “Guk-ah, get down here already. Let’s get you two reacquainted.”
Knowing each other from before feels like an understatement. Yoongi’s head is spinning with how bizarre it feels, to have Jeongguk here, to be showing him to the guest room, showing him where to find the spartan linen closet and telling him he’s gonna make some dinner now, if he’d like some, after three years of what essentially was radio silence.
Three years after Jeongguk left, and never looked back, if Yoongi thought of it that way, which he didn’t. It’s water under the bridge, but it doesn’t make it not weird either. Yoongi throws the chopped onions to sizzle in the pan, jostles the pan a little too hard.
A few pieces fall to the ground, and Yoongi crouches down to scoop them up. Jeongguk is there when Yoongi gets up, because of course he is, hanging around in the door opening again, looking desperately out of place. Yoongi can’t seem to catch a break.
“You know how to debone a fish?” Jeongguk nods, glances over to the countertop where a freshly caught bass lies. “There’s a pair of tweezers in the top drawer, if you need them.” Jeongguk doesn’t. He grabs a knife from the counter instead. If Yoongi wasn’t preoccupied with being distraught he’d be impressed.
The silence, which Yoongi so often welcomes - has to welcome in his profession - is a new kind of unbearable sitting at the table across from Jeongguk. They eat the stew in silence. Yoongi scours his brain for where to start, but comes up empty-handed. It’s not fair of him to sit here and be bitter about things past, to want to demand answers from Jeongguk who doesn’t owe him any.
At the other end of the table, Jeongguk sits just as silently, unenthusiastically sloshing the stew around a little with a spoon. If Jeongguk is still the Jeongguk Yoongi remembers, and why wouldn’t he be, Yoongi scolds himself, he’s probably doing the same thing as he is right now. Wondering where to start, if maybe this was a mistake. If it’s too late to call Hoseok and tell him he’s changed his mind. That type of thing.
“Y’know, I graduated recently”, Jeongguk tells him. Yoongi knows and Jeongguk knows he does, but he accepts the olive branch anyway.
“Yeah? How was it? Did it turn out to be just a buncha snobs and boring people, anyway?” Yoongi recalls Jeongguk complaining for months before leaving about how his parents managed to talk him into applying to the school he did, how everything had seemed so fake and boring, so endlessly tiring on orientation day. About how he was gonna miss Yoongi so so much, every day. How he was going to call him.
“Well, mostly” Yoongi snorts a bit at that, a bit of the snort also letting out a relief at being able to fall into a familiar pattern of comfortable enough conversation. Alleviating the fear Yoongi didn’t realize he had, that they’d grown too far apart to have this. “Some good people, but mostly just snobs, to be honest.” Jeongguk grins. It’s a little forced, but it’s something.
The tension dissipates little by little. Yoongi smiles back at him. He only needs to prod a little bit, gently, for Jeongguk to go on telling him about sneaking out of the dorms with his little group of friends his freshman year, some weird senior talking them into it. The senior had shown them all the best places around that don’t card despite them being blatantly underage and thus earned his rightful spot in Jeongguk’s little posse. He had communicated almost exclusively in puns and dad jokes, Yoongi learns, and wonders idly if he’d ever manage to get along with a person like that. It’s not like he hasn’t been surprised before.
He learns about two of Jeongguk’s friends getting together sophomore year and about the drama it caused for a while because of the shift in the group dynamic. Not because of him, Jeongguk insists, according to him it was just a matter of time anyway and everyone knew it, but still, there was a change, he admits quietly. Yoongi listens, hums in the right places and lets out surprised snorts at the most bizarre parts, absorbs aimless stories about the ridiculous sex schedules that ensued (it’s not easy, rooming with someone that’s in a relationship, Yoongi gathers), about Jeongguk’s first detention ever for some seniors prank gone wrong (Yoongi forgets the details right after hearing them, but it definitely involved lizards somehow) and how he felt so bad for it when they eventually got caught (despite the lizard prank being so worth it. Probably.). Jeongguk inevitably notices Yoongi’s record player in the living room and nearly bounces off the walls when Yoongi grants him access to it whenever and gives him the brightest smile in return, a genuine one this time. It’s a fair trade, Yoongi thinks.
He goes to bed that night a little fuzzy after a couple of glasses of whiskey, head full of Jeongguk’s stories. He smiles to himself a bit in the mirror while brushing his teeth and immediately feels a little silly, especially with the knowledge that this is the happiest he’s felt in a long time bubbling to the surface.
As it turns out, Jeongguk is a quick learner. He’s attentive and listens with utmost care when Yoongi explains how to put out the shellfish traps, what oils are used to keep the lighthouse running smoothly and where to get more firewood for upholding the functions of the surprisingly intricate machinery of the lamp that’s solely Yoongi’s responsibility to maintain, no, seriously, I’ve got it. An added thanks, though.
Jeongguk learns through insistent poking and prodding that Yoongi likes to put on old ABBA records sometimes while cooking, learns that Yoongi won’t protest too much when his arms are grabbed in order to shimmy around in the kitchen together to the tune of said records. Jeongguk’s a menace, Yoongi relearns and wonders how he could ever have managed to forget.
Jeongguk learns that while Yoongi doesn’t mind sleeping alone, he also doesn’t mind it when there’s a hesitant knock at his door and an uncertain Jeongguk in his doorway who’s forgotten what to do with his hands. He learns not much has changed between then and now, that fitting Yoongi into his arms still feels just as natural as it ever did. The ever-present wind tears at the windows, wants in so desperately. Underneath the whining of the wind, a soft but steady rumble of the earth, content. Secure.
It’s early September, and the middle of Jeongguk’s third week on the island. Yoongi is dizzy with how easy everything is with Jeongguk. They’ve fallen into a comfortable routine, attending to their respective chores on the island as they wake up and when they’re done, cooking together and eating together, hunched over the table, sharing stories and thoughts.
Sometimes Jeongguk draws, sitting out by the dock in the afternoon sun. Some other times Yoongi is talked into playing something for him on the piano and Jeongguk comes to sit next to him on the bench that’s quite frankly already on the small side for one person, but Yoongi can’t bring himself to mind all that much when it means hyung, what’s that chord? and it means gentle hands brushing over his as he nudges Yoongi’s hands out of the way to experimentally push down the keys himself. It means Yoongi huffing at Jeongguk for being demanding, and cursing at his brain for reacting like a teenager. It’s just Jeongguk. And it’s easy, easy, easy.
Jeongguk comes back inside from another lazy afternoon of being out drawing on the dock in his worn out notebook and lets Yoongi, who’s already getting started on dinner in the kitchen, know that he’d dipped his toes into the water and discovered that the water out there’s really warm, actually. That maybe we could go swimming, or at least go into the water for a little bit? That, after sensing Yoongi’s wordless hesitation when he joins him in chopping up the onions - bumping into Yoongi’s side a little bit, throwing him off his balance - it’s gonna be too cold to soon anyway, and then you’ll regret it, hyung. It’ll be fun. And Yoongi gives in, wonders if he’s physically able to do otherwise at this point, and doesn’t mention how he’s been here for three years and the water has not once been warm enough to go swimming in, that it’s probably just the lazy late summer sun warming the surface. He wants Jeongguk to be right.
When Yoongi finally succeeds in locating his swimming trunks (stashed away at the bottom of the old coffert in his room under a few surprisingly funky-smelling blankets) it’s already dusk and the warmth and kindness of the afternoon sun is long gone. Jeongguk remains just as excited, so Yoongi tries to be, too, and doesn’t make a fuss about how cold the ground is under his bare feet or a comment about the ominous presence of suspiciously rain-heavy-looking clouds hanging over them, ready to burst.
There’s palpable electricity in the air when Jeongguk takes Yoongi’s hand, dragging him along whilst complaining about him being slow and old. Yoongi’s anything but in the moment, he’s fully back to being a teenager again, tongue heavy in his mouth, limbs feeling out of place and awkward, hand awfully sweaty in Jeongguk’s tight grip. Jeongguk gets in first, one step at a time from the shore, confidently submerging himself into the water when he’s far enough out. Yoongi follows him from the dock, watches his floppy hair floating by his face as he goes further, taking a few experimental strokes. Huh.
“‘s warm?” Yoongi skeptically asks the head of hair disappearing underwater as he sits down on the dock, toes barely in the water, comfortably warm. He repeats the question when Jeongguk emerges.
“Yeah, ‘s fine!”, comes the response along with hands reaching out for his, beckoning Yoongi to join him. It’s like something out of an old sailor’s tale, what with sirens luring unsuspecting young men into the depths with their beauty and trickery. Yoongi has never entertained any delusions of being above falling to the sailor’s fate, especially not right now, so he lets his hands get grabbed and slides off the dock into the water, with Jeongguk’s hands finding his waist, steadying him - and of course, the water is beyond freezing, what else, of course he got tricked by the siren. He knew this. Yoongi channels it all into as intense a glare as he can muster up whilst simultaneously processing still being held up by Jeongguk’s big, steady hands on his waist as well as the debilitating coldness seeping further into his bones by the second.
“You okay?” Jeongguk giggles, scrunching up his face. Clearly happy with himself, the bastard, probably thinks he did something.
“‘m fine”, Yoongi grunts in response, holds his glare the best he can but he’s suddenly hyper aware of how close they are right now. It’s not like it’s anything new, physical affection comes easy to Jeongguk, like most things, making Yoongi an avid victim of it by default.
This feels different, though. It’s not sleeping in the same bed, Jeongguk’s nose nuzzled against Yoongi’s nape, slow breaths against his skin that makes him shiver a bit, nor is it anything like Jeongguk holding Yoongi’s hand when he gets excited about something or when he’s quietly seeking comfort. This is deliberate, it’s intimate, electric, it’s Jeongguk falling silent, mouth slightly agape, looking right at him. All the easiness is washed away with the gentle waves lapping away at their bodies, more and more lost the longer they stand there looking at each other, and Jeongguk really is right there. Yoongi feels infinitely small, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t know what to call what it is he’s feeling right now. It’s too big. It’s the ground rumbling under both of their feet, fat droplets of rain one after another starting to disrupt the surface, it’s Jeongguk’s eyes going slightly out of focus, it’s -
“a thunderstorm. We should head inside,” Yoongi breathes out when he suddenly remembers how to. Jeongguk nods.
It’s pouring by the time they’re back inside, although there’s no longer any signs of a thunderstorm to be found. Yoongi heads straight up the small metal staircase to his room, ridges digging into his feet as he mumbles his goodnights to Jeongguk, avoiding looking at him at all costs. Yoongi really doesn’t want to know, can’t think of a scenario where Jeongguk’s expression wouldn’t make him feel worse about this. He sits down at his desk after changing into dry pyjamas, usually the most effective cure to a shitty mood but right now barely having any effect at all on him. Water drips from his hair onto the wood.
He writes. He writes something, loosely in the form of a letter to Namjoon, because he sometimes seems to know Yoongi better than he does himself, and Yoongi so desperately needs to have someone else ravel him out, unspool him from his hinges and tell him, look, here’s how it is, and this is what you can do. Because Namjoon is good at that, Yoongi has found. So he writes.
He writes about the past, about how he never did anything despite years of bursting at the seams with wanting to, about how it was too late when he knew he should’ve. About the regret and the bitterness and the coming to terms with it all, accepting things for the way they were and finally moving on only for it to come crashing down and Yoongi falling into the exact same trap once again three years later. About how it felt too easy at first, and then too hard and how Yoongi doesn’t know where he stands right now and how the ground always seems to rumble lately and how Yoongi always seems to be too late, but maybe this time he isn’t and maybe it means something or maybe it doesn’t and it’s stupid and he’s seeing what he wants to see. About how Yoongi is terrified of not knowing the difference.
Yoongi finally goes to bed, every worry of his sealed away in a neat envelope stashed in the case of a vinyl record borrowed from Namjoon that Yoongi’s gonna convince Hoseok to return for him the next time he shows up anyway. The rain has stopped smattering against his window, leaving only the low rumbling behind. Yoongi becomes aware of it as he lies in bed, duvet up to his chin. A slow sloshing of the waves against the shore, a quiet whine of the wind, but, unmistakably, a consistent rumble of the earth. It unsettles Yoongi, makes him feel like trying to ignore it is no good.
It’s nearing midnight but there’s a soft pink summer evening’s glow washing over the barren island and the air smells fresh in the way it only can after a heavy bout of rain. Yoongi doesn’t really know what he’s looking for, shuddering a little in his sweater in the doorway. He starts walking, takes uncertain steps at first but the ground doesn’t seem to open up under him, only vibrates a little, tickling Yoongi’s feet through the thin soles of the sandals he’d pulled on, and so he goes on.
Jeongguk is sitting out on the cliff overlooking the northern shore of the island, and somehow Yoongi feels like he knew, subconsciously, that it’d be him. The waves crash gently against the jagged rocks underneath, Yoongi observes as he sits down next to him. He dangles his legs a little bit over the ledge. There’s a strong urge to let one of his sandals go, just to see it fall. The rumbling stops for a moment and Jeongguk looks at him.
And, hm, Yoongi really doesn’t know what to do with the look on Jeongguk’s face, shame-filled and so utterly sad it makes Yoongi’s chest feel too tight. And what else is there to do, faced with a sad Jeongguk, being a Yoongi who’s tired of thinking too much, than to grab Jeongguk’s hand, the angle a little awkward and the palm a little cold with dew but the point definitely being made. Yoongi can feel it through the earth.
Jeongguk keeps looking at him, won't look away but neither will Yoongi, not this time. This is all he can give Jeongguk right now, he still doesn’t quite have the words to express whatever has been brewing inside of him for a while, but he thinks Jeongguk might still get it.
Jeongguk just might, with the way he hesitantly places his free hand on Yoongi’s cheek, fingers trembling in unison with the earth. With the way he leans in, mouth slightly agape, the slight pinch to the bridge of his nose Yoongi knows to stem from worry especially prominent. They finally slot together so perfectly, so easily. Jeongguk pulls away too soon, his breath quivering a little.
Yoongi doesn’t falter, not when it’s so easy for his hand to find a nest at Jeongguk’s nape, to slip in among the long strands of hair, and to lean in again, this time with more certainty, more purpose. With knowing that this is real, and that this is right now, and that they’re allowed to have this. Jeongguk lets out a little sob, a noise of relief from all the tension built up at last being released. Yoongi turns his hand over so their palms face each other and slots his fingers between Jeongguk’s, squeezes tight. The ground stops rumbling.
A week later an envelope finds its way to Yoongi’s lighthouse, tucked safely into the case of a new vinyl record, a jazzy one Namjoon felt Yoongi needed hear. In it, there’s a letter that among many other things says something along the lines of to me, it just sounds like he found his way back to you.