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“Have you talked to Beomgyu today?” Hyunjin asked.
Jeongin made a sleepy noise, having dozed off on the couch in the lounge. He hadn’t even heard Hyunjin come at all, but he gave himself a minute to reinhabit his body before cracking an eye open, regarding his best friend.
The thing was that if anyone else asked, Jeongin would have a different answer. Chan asking as head trainer, or Changbin as their favorite lab tech, or even Felix (though goodness knows why he’d be asking for Beomgyu), these were all different decidedly separate situations than Hyunjin asking the exact same question.
Jeongin watched as Hyunjin fussed over the electric kettle, over his favorite mug, over what tea to use, the tension clear in the set of his shoulders. Jeongin had known Hyunjin long enough to know he wanted to fuss elsewhere but was unsure of how to do so – a Hyunjin out of his element, as it were.
“What about him?” Jeongin asked, instead.
“Can’t tell,” Hyunjin said, turning to grimace at Jeongin over his shoulder. “I was hoping he’d told you something.”
Mulling over that, Jeongin pulled himself upright, the sleep easing from his body back into the stitches of the couch, until they would reunite later that day, trying to recall if anything had cropped up recently.
(“– and it’s important that even as students, you reflect the high standards and values of our institution–” Jeongin was only half paying attention, having tuned out the instructor as they walked through a series of administrative office hallways towards one of the lecture halls for orientation.
Someone leaned in and whispered, “Do you think we’ll see one of them up close?”
Jeongin glanced to his side, at the handsome boy who was half in his personal bubble, taking in the mop of black curls falling into his eyes, the glinting mischief in his eyes, and a smile that spelled trouble in the playful curve of it.
Sensing his hesitance, the boy straightened up, left his space. “I’m Beomgyu.”
Still, there was a slant of clever to the devilry and Jeongin decided it wasn’t the worst thing to happen. “I hope we get to see them,” he murmured back, and then grinned. “I’m Jeongin.”)
“He’s with Kkami,” Hyunjin added, still facing away, and Jeongin was surprised that Hyunjin still felt the need to do that – still felt the need to hide how much it mattered to him. “They’re still in the pens though.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll do your dirty work for you,” Jeongin said with an exaggerated sigh, finally hauling himself up off the couch, heading towards the lockers to change back into his suit. He bumped shoulders with Hyunjin as he passed; a silent promise that he’d come back with answers.
Moments later, Jeongin snapped the Otachi around his wrist and stepped out onto the deck, making a beeline for the closest pens. Kkami was one of two pups in the Jeju base, with Chan overseeing the slightly older Berry across the way, both kept close for observation.
Kkami swam a lazy lap around the edge of the pen, a good kilometer off, but Jeongin sat down on the edge and flashed the Otachi his way. Come, he says, but as a request, rather than an order, since he could see that Hyunjin was right and Beomgyu was laid out atop the Reckoner.
There was a pause, and then Jeongin saw a returning flash of lights – okay, as Beomgyu gave permission.
Snorting a small geyser of water upwards, Kkami wheeled around and shot forward, slicing through the water as he barreled back to base, Beomgyu riding along with practiced ease.
Good job, Jeongin praised when Kkami made it to the mouth of the pen, pulling on his helmet before diving into the water, swimming across the way and clambering atop Kkami. He rapped his knuckles against the cetoid’s armor plating to make sure Kkami knew where he was.
“Hey,” Beomgyu said, throwing a hand out and helping haul him aboard.
“Hey,” Jeongin returned, and turned to regard their Reckoner charge. Kkami had grown to the size of an actual blue whale, but this was still only a fraction of his final growth. Still, even at this size, he required an incredible amount of upkeep. “I was thinking we should try and tire him out before we go through the submarine scenario. Take the edge off so he doesn’t get too risky.”
“Sure.” And maybe Hyunjin was right – Jeongin couldn’t quite place it just yet, and maybe it was just confirmation bias, but there was something in that word, something that struck a sour note. Beomgyu looked much like he always did, bright eyed and curious, but still...
But still.
“Let’s go,” Jeongin said, settling down, finding the best place to brace while Kkami was traveling.
There was a moment’s hesitation, the slightest balk in Beomgyu’s shoulders, and then Beomgyu settled next to him, arm outstretched with his Otachi, sending Kkami back the way he came, as well as signalling the outer pen gates to open for their escape out to sea.
Dive, and Kkami went, sweeping them along. The world dropped away, everything narrowing down to the hiss of Jeongin’s respirator, the slight static of Beomgyu’s breathing, and Kkami pulling them deeper and deeper.
(“Do you think if I give them a sob story, they’ll like me more?” Beomgyu whispered as another supervisor started covering specific company policies and guidelines. They’d stuck together for the first half of the day and Jeongin had found himself falling into a cadence. It was surprisingly comfortable – Beomgyu seemed prone to restlessness, but he was engaging, which was more than what could be said for the dipshits sitting in front of them.
“Why would a sob story help you train a sea monster?” Jeongin whispered back.
“They won’t care about my flaws if they think I’m endearing,” Beomgyu pointed out, having scooted right up to Jeongin’s side so they couldn’t be heard easily. “Emotions are blinding and all that jazz.”
Jeongin just snorted and shook his head. “I’m not sure I’d use endearing on you,” he teased, and Beomgyu laughed loud enough that they both had to duck down low to avoid the supervisor’s glare, thighs pressed warm together and elbows knocking.)
The ride was quiet. Too quiet. Beomgyu had a tendency to settle down and get introspective during downtime, saving his energy for their more rambunctious friends, but this felt like dead oceans.
“Everything okay?” Jeongin asked, testing the waters.
“Yeah.” Again, just a touch too abrupt, just a touch too withdrawn. Jeongin turned, the gentle beam of his helmet illuminating Beomgyu’s figure, but Beomgyu was avoiding his gaze, pointedly looking ahead as Kkami started exploring the depths. While it was true that Kkami typically required a close hand, Jeongin knew that wasn’t the reason why Beomgyu was so concentrated.
“Okay,” he said, instead of pushing. They may be in the vast ocean, but he didn’t want to trap Beomgyu, knowing that the other could lash out like a frightened cat when cornered.
(“Oh, look at him,” Beomgyu whispered. It was nearly the end of orientation, finally. Chan had shown up, introducing himself as one of the senior trainers at this facility and explaining the training schedule – there was a surprising amount of theoretical work, along with things like Reckoner biology, before they’d even be allowed to work with a Reckoner hands on.
But Beomgyu wasn’t looking at Chan, he was looking towards one of the doorways. Tucked just inside of one of them, stood Hyunjin, gaze flickering between Chan and the soft glow of his screen.
Jeongin felt his phone buzz in his pocket and ignored it. “What about him?”
“I dunno. He’s pretty,” Beomgyu said, but he did so with a soft curiosity, leaning forward to try and get a better look from where he and Jeongin had sequestered themselves in the back.
“I look forward to working with all of you,” Chan said, grinning brightly. “Please don’t hesitate to ask questions. See you tomorrow.”
With the meeting finally over, Hyunjin made a beeline straight to the back, where the two of them sat. “Why do you never check your phooooone?” he complained as he flopped in the seat next to Jeongin, half-sullen. “Lets go get dinner, I’m starving.”
“This is Beomgyu,” Jeongin said in lieu of responding to any of Hyunjin’s petulence. Hyunjin was usually oblivious to the effect he had on people, but also Jeongin had long since grown immune. “Beomgyu, this dumbass is Hyunjin.”
Beomgyu looked positively startled. “Hi?”
Leaning past Jeongin, Hyunjin regarded Beomgu for a moment before grinning. “You wanna join us? We’re getting black pork belly to celebrate day one.”
“He’s paying,” Jeongin inserted, smug when Hyunjin huffed out a sigh and threw an arm around his shoulders instead of refusing.
For the first time during the day, Beomgyu seemed shy. “I… sure. Sure. I’d love to join you guys.”)
“Kkami’s been grumbling about Berry again,” Beomgyu said – it was a thinly veiled attempt to move past the awkward silence, but an attempt nonetheless.
“What’s he saying?” Jeongin asked, even if Kkami technically didn’t actually speak a language with them – he understood commands they taught him and knew how to signal certain things back, but Beomgyu liked to hold pretend conversations with the Reckoner, narrating their days together in a way that was childishly naive but charming.
“He thinks it’s unfair that she gets a partial red meat diet,” Beomgyu said, finally turning to smile at Jeongin, and it was so bright and playful, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“He’s not allowed red meat, it’d fuck with his digestion and that’s gross,” Jeongin snorted. While no Reckoner had managed at the Jeju facilities, there were tales of grown cetoid in Sydney who’d gotten a hold of a cow and then shat his pen to filth – Jeongin made a mental note to ask Felix next time they ran into each other if that had actually happened.
“He’s so sad,” Beomgyu cooed, slowly moving his way up to stroke over one of Kkami’s eye crests. The Reckoner warbled happily, suddenly overexcited, surging forward and nearly knocking Beomgyu into Jeongin at the sudden jolt.
Quickly, Jeongin wrapped an arm around Beomgyu, holding him close until Beomgyu could grip back onto the armor plating, before sending Kkami a firm scolding, the Reckoner keening softly, apologetic. Though Jeongin instinctively wanted to reassure Kkami, he let it go, knowing they needed him to stay more aware of his tiny, rather fragile handlers. They were still training this type of recklessness out of the young Reckoner – hence why they wanted to take the edge off before submarine testing.
“You okay?” Jeongin asked, though this time there was less caution, more concern.
“I’m fine,” Beomgyu whispered back, but he stayed close to Jeongin’s side for the rest of their jaunt in the ocean, pressed shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.
Anyone else, Jeongin would probably try and nudge some space back between them, but it was Beomgyu, and so he let it be.
(“So what’s the story with you two?” Beomgyu asked, a few days into training bootcamp. He’d gotten over his original mortification that Jeongin knew Hyunjin, and instead reverted back to his expected inquisitiveness.
“There’s not really… a story?” Jeongin hazarded. “We’ve known each other since high school, when he came down here on a placement, I figured I’d give it a shot too, once i got all the pre-reqs out of the way.” It was a fairly straightforward story, much like the rest of Jeongin.
“And you two live together?”
They did, in a cozy little apartment five blocks away from the Reckoner base, subsidized since Hyunjin was a trainer. “Yeah, it just made sense.”
Beomgyu tilted his head to the side, clearly considering his words. It was a surprisingly restrained motion on his part – Beomgyu was keen, insightful, thoughtful, but also prone to being blunt and impulsive, something Jeongin had learned when Beomgyu had started arguing with their biology instructor over philosophical differences on their first real day, as the rest of their training pod sat back and watched, wide eyed as the discussion grew heated, until the instructor forcefully returned to the lesson materials and Jeongin tugged Beongyu back into his seat.
Jeongin’s phone lit up from where it was resting on the table. [Wanna come see Bambi? Bring Beomgyu!] came from Hyunjin.
“Are you two like… together?”
This was hardly the first time the question had been asked – it was something that had been following the two of them for years, though Jeongin had never found the assumption unreasonable. He wasn’t cold, but he was selective and that made him come off as unapproachable at times; Hyunjin with his more freewheeling disposition and charms wasn’t as discerning, but had learned a lesson or two after a couple bad breakups.
It was easy to look at them and think that, but.
But.
“It’s not like that,” Jeongin said, shaking his head, reaching out to pocket his phone.
Beomgyu watched him for a moment longer and it was such an interesting thing, to see a curiosity so ravenous. Beomgyu wanted to know the answer to everything, even the things that scared him. “You two just seem really…”
Jeongin’s phone buzzed again but Jeongin didn’t text back just quite yet. “It’s easy, the two of us,” he explained. “I think more than being in love, it’s just… like your childhood room? Like being home.”
There was a pause and then Beomgyu nodded, smiling faintly. “Yeah… Yeah, I see what you mean.”)
It went like that for the rest of the day, with Beomgyu still closed off even after submarine training. Jeongin hadn’t wanted to say something was clearly wrong, but it was hard to ignore when he came home to find Hyunjin staring glumly down at the pot on the stove that wasn’t even on. Beomgyu had gotten home earlier than Jeongin, and was nowhere to be seen.
“Well?” Hyunjin said, poking at the pot that had standing cold water.
Jeongin leaned over, flicked the dial so the ignition clicked obnoxiously and then blue flames blossomed out. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
Hyunjin stared down at the pot, now heating, and then turned to Jeongin. “He wouldn’t even look me in the eye,” he said quietly, glancing back towards the bedroom doors. “He just said he was tired and… like… I get it, but it feels wrong.”
And that was how it was with Hyunjin. He wanted to leave it alone, leave it be, but it also bothered him. It was written all over his face, in the furrow of his brow, in the downward curve of his smile. Jeongin was reminded of the one fight Hyunjin had gotten in with Changbin, how Hyunjin had insisted that he’d let Changbin cool off and it’d be fine, but he’d been miserable the entire time – it had taken Chan sitting them both down for it to pass, and that had been fine, but Hyunjin had still worried so much first.
Chan wasn’t here now – he didn’t live with them, and he was probably off in the city since Felix had flown in for a few days, wanting to savor that time he had with his sweetheart before Felix jetted off to somewhere else in the world – and so it fell to Jeongin.
“It’ll be fine,” Jeongin said, and then looked at the pot. “Just… don’t burn anything.” Hyunjin was, after all, literally the only one who could cook in the apartment.
“I hate you,” Hyunjin grumbled, but flopped over onto Joengin’s shoulder anyway.
They stood that way, for a time, just listening to the soft hiss of heating water, the soft click of the thermostat. Somewhere, out of sight, Beomgyu was hiding, hiding away from them both.
(“We should just ask him to move in with us,” Hyunjin said as he set down two bowls of rice. “He’s over here all the time anyway, and we could fit another bed in your room.”
Strangely, this question did not come as a surprise, and Jeongin pondered that while he stole some of the batter-fried mushrooms. They had friends, some even separate from each other – Hyunjin liked going out for coffee with Sanha and Jeongin thought he was okay but would usually pass, Jeongin liked gaming with Minkyu when he had the time. They overlapped a fair amount too – Chan and Changbin with the Reckoners were easy examples, they usually went out to dinner together on Fridays, sight-seeing on the weekends. Chan liked to hike and the others could usually be persuaded to go along.
But Beomgyu…
But Beomgyu.
“You’d never ask Changbin to move in with us,” Jeongin remarked after some thought.
“I wouldn’t,” Hyunjin agreed, though there was amusement laced in his voice, along with the ghost of fondness.
Jeongin shrugged, and stole the rest of the mushrooms because Hyunjin would let him. “Sure. Let's do that.”)
The room was dark when Jeongin slowly crept in, with just barely a beam of golden lamplight peeking through their blackout curtains, illuminating the room just enough for Jeongin to make out the lump of Beomgyu on his bed, buried under the covers.
He made his way over, lifting up the covers and sliding in behind Beomgyu, curling an arm around the other’s chest. Beomgyu wasn’t asleep, confirmed when he shifted so his arm matched Jeongin’s, their fingers tangling over the soft thud of his heartbeat.
Jeongin tucked his nose against the nape of Beomgyu’s neck, just holding him for a moment before, “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. But I’m hoping you do.”
Because this was how Jeongin preferred it. Unambiguous, without the danger of misunderstanding, without the risk of misconstruction.
The silence that blanketed them was tenuous at best. Beomyu had a proclivity for loud, tangled thoughts, ones that filled in the absence of his words. By now, Jeongin could see when the other was lost in thought, needing a beacon to follow out – like a lighthouse on a stormy shore.
Beomgyu twitched his fingertips, tapping out a mindless rhythm with Jeongin’s fingers.
“... Do you ever wish Hyunjin had stayed on with Kkami?” he finally asked.
Ah.
As before, with Hyunjin, Jeongin’s answer would have been acutely different had anyone else asked – Hyunjin had passed Kkami’s training on because he was taking Chan’s position since Chan was getting promoted to head trainer, of course he couldn’t have stayed on with Kkami.
But he knew that wasn’t the question Beomgyu was really asking, knew that it was something else layered beneath and Beomgyu just couldn’t form those words instead, either out of anxiety or timid embarrassment or maybe even shame. Though Beomgyu could be bold, tempestuous even, he was much like Hyunjin in that his heart was in his hands, fragile and bared, and so very vulnerable.
Beomgyu had never questioned Jeongin and Hyunjin’s relationship before, and even now he wasn’t questioning them.
But he was questioning.
(“Why didn’t you tell me to fuck off that first time?” Beomgyu asked, the two of them on the rooftop garden, staring up at the clouds as they took a blessed break from Kkami’s infancy monitoring. “I was so sure you would.”
Jeongin stared up at a cloud that looked like a bunny. You were interesting, he thought about saying. You were different. You did something to me. You were the gentle zephyr and I was the sea foam on the ocean waves.
“I didn’t want to.”)
Jeongin tightened his arm around Beomgyu, squeezed his fingers so Beomgyu knew his heart was protected.
“I want to do this with you,” he said. It was plain, without the flourishes such a statement maybe deserved, but Jeongin preferred it this way – unambiguous. Hyunjin was his best friend, would always be closer than maybe friends ever normally were, but he wasn’t Beomgyu and Jeongin thought that was an important distinction.
That Hyunjin wasn’t Beomgyu just as much as Beomgyu wasn’t Hyunjin.
“Won’t you miss him?” Beomgyu pressed, his voice barely above a whisper. “Won’t you miss home?
Jeongin’s answer came with calm surety: “Those two statements can be true at the same time.”
He knew it worked when Beogyu curled in tight around their hands, balling up and holding tight. Jeongin followed, shifted so he could wrap both arms around Beomgyu, curving his world around this strange and enchanting boy who’d found him.
“You have to mean that,” Beomgyu said, though it wasn’t a question, or even a warning. It was soft, glowing, whispered to their tangled fingertips, Beomgyu’s lips barely brushing against Jeongin’s skin. “You really have to mean that.”
“Okay,” Jeongin agreed.
They both knew he never would have said it if he didn’t.
Later, Jeongin awoke to an empty bed, having fallen asleep at some point, content under the blankets and tangled up with Beomgyu. The door was open just a crack, and he could hear the sizzle of something frying, along with a soft huff of laughter and soft conversation. Jeongin couldn’t make out the words, but he could hear the ease, the comfort of it.
Smiling, he tugged the blankets back up to his shoulder, soaking up the residual warmth left behind, along with the softened scent of Beomgyu’s favorite laundry detergent. He wanted to just stay a while longer, let the moment linger on his skin.
Soon, he’d get up, he’d join the two of them, and Beomgyu would flick water in his face and laugh while Hyunjin would flop over on him so hard he’d stagger.
And it’d be perfect.