Archive of Our Own

They've all been there.

To push until collapse, be forced to take rest almost always too late and for too little, then return to work too early too.

At least that's how they first thought Seokjin ended up on the floor of the practice room on his first day back after taking just three days off from a serious bout with the stomach flu. At first he limped away to the side of the room, waving off assistance and muttering irritably under his breath at the inconvenience of a leg cramp during a dance routine, huffing and grunting trying to soothe it. But then its relentless and escalating assault soon had him sinking to the floor and then curling up and clutching uselessly at the rebellious limb, tears leaking from clenched eyes.

"Where, where..." his members, first to his side, asked. They've all been there too; to be the ones offering the familiar comfort of seasoned performers to each other, helping him stretch out, massaging, fetching water, offering calm, murmured reassurances.

But it wouldn't end. It wouldn't end, not even with the interventions of the onsite medical team. His right foot kept pushing, pointed downwards, leg stiff, calf frozen, the limb trembling from the strain. Yoongi felt it in his hand when he tried to help, the unrelenting tight coil of that leg, like it was all dense muscle.

It just wouldn't end, and that was before Seokjin's eyes snapped open - they looked alien for a moment, almost flashing golden, dilated, pupils pinpricks - with a kind of jarring terror and disbelief, because the debilitating cramps had started on the other leg too.

He bit back a cry but it returned with avengeance as a growl and then a despairing moan that resounded all over the massive, mirrored rehearsal room. It was like a mockery of his vaunted voice; it even sounded in haunting tune.

The members and staff watched him, collectively stunned, as the situation went from par-for-the-course among professional performers, to him being drugged near-senseless into pale whimpering quiet before getting borne away because clearly, there was nothing normal about this kind of pain for this long.

Later in the hospital, a kind-of answer: the torturous cramps were believed to be an offshoot of the stomach flu of the previous days, caused by dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and overexertion. A brief admission with some time on the drip and more days of genuine rest, and he was going to be as good as new.

But he wasn't - and so some things changed.

A pattern has emerged, claimed their internal health and wellness team. He's been getting sick more often more severely, and needing longer recovery time. He was having more cramps and strains, more movement and circulation issues. They had to look at ways of sustainably improving his stamina, mobility, flexibility and overall "longevity" as a performer.

They think maybe he had already reached the peak of his body's physicality and this was now the other side, like a pro athlete cresting. They were now at the point where they had to do everything possible so that the inevitable descent from that phyical summit was a crawl, rather than a tumbling, ungraceful fall.

In so many words, he was... aging?

Seokjin and Yoongi, mere months apart, were the first ones enrolled into a new, wholistic longevity program. Therapeutic massages and basic resistance, mobility and flexibility training as well as good, measured nutrition had been a constant for them and the rest of BTS for years of course, but for them it became "optimized" specifically for maintaining youthful vitality. It wasn't just what to do and eat, but in more specific measures and schedules.

The wellness team timed recovery soaks and massages and protein intake, and gave them a mind-boggling array of vitamins and supplements, as well as consistency tools to force better sleep habits (a particular sore point for the two night owls). And then came the more aggressive and advanced therapies - stem cells harvested and then injected into problem areas like aching swollen joints, and platelet-rich-plasma drawn from their bodies and processed and returned back into them. And of course there was the tedious data gathering - they were monitored all to shit!

It reminded Seokjin of that American film, Rocky, he'd once said laughing ("Because what else am I supposed to do - cry?"). BTS used to train like Rocky running around outdoors chopping wood and hauling rocks. Now they were Ivan Drago in a science lab. But they duly cooperated; it was just the newest part of the old job.

# # #

They'd all get there.

To feel the wear and tear of time. For the years to soften edges but sharpen myriad pains, for time to weigh just a little heavier on your body every time you got up in the morning, for the small things to be just a little bit harder.

For all the good-natured, years' long ribbing they'd been giving their eldest about his age, beneath it was an inescapable truth that they might as well laugh about because, again, what were they gonna do - cry? That truth: Seokjin being five years older than their youngest was quantifiably and objectively a lot of physical time.

Not perhaps for power relations, no; Seokjin had long since deftly made their culturally-borne age heirarchies somewhat porous. But for bodies in physically demanding professions like that of elite athletes and idols, the difference in expected performance within even just a year could be vast, much more for that age gap.

The difference was most stark in their early years, when they were rookies with some being adult men and some still minors growing into their bodies. At a certain point and for a few years they evened out, but now... the differences in age showed up again but in reverse; the younger ones were stronger. It was just life, going on.

But beneath that truth lay another: Pain. To bridge the gap between the limitations of age and the expectations of the public and keeping up with younger performers, there was harder and longer work underlied by pain and having to endure it. Actual, physical pain.

They've seen it, how Seokjin limped more often after particularly gruelling rehearsals and performances. How his muscles trembled and his hands shook, the tapes and patches here and there lining his neck, his back, his arms, his legs. 

He whined and moaned dramatically, hiding genuine hurt in plain sight within comical exaggeration. But they hear him cry out sometimes behind closed doors, when he's with his physical therapists.

That voice was clear as a bell, even in anguish... like a siren song, because they all knew they would one day follow.

# # #

Now where the fuck is this one going?

Seokjin, just as he had when they were trainees, got Yoongi to break the rules for a night of drinking.

Something was bothering him, Yoongi could tell, so he dropped everything and joined even in defiance of their new lifestyle restrictions. It's not the first time, wouldn't be the last... and they've traded spots many times before, being both the needy and the needed.

Sometimes Seokjin would tell him about what was on his mind and other times not, but each time he sought Yoongi in this mode, the answer was always going to be Yes hyung, just as it was always and forever Yes the other ways around.

They went and had a drink in the private room of a Japanese restaurant, sitting on tatami mats with a spread of food before them and bottles of premium Junmai Daiginjo.

It was a smooth, beautiful drink and mild, but the kind of diet the two of them have been on for weeks had turned them into lightweights. It didn't take them long at all to start talking about shit all anything.

"They always s-s-ssssaid," Seokjin slurred and drawled, "that one d-d-day. One day I would h-have to," he hiccupped, "... leave everything b-behind..."

"We went existential p-p-pretty quickly," Yoongi marveled, narrowing his eyes accusingly at the relatively few, small bottles of sake that had felled them so easily. Gently twisting branches of pink and orange flowers decorated the deep green glass containers. It had taken so little, to bring them to this line of thought. It wasn't a surprise that they'd stray this way though, what with all the aging-related activities shoved into their schedule lately.

"Th-there was always gonnnna be an expiration d-date," Seokjin went on. "Th-that's wha' 't was s'pposed to be. Th's what it alwaysss was."

Yoongi still had a small cup of sake before him. The clear liquid caught the lights from the ceiling above, making every swirl a wink of sparkle. He could stop now and start sobering up, or continue on and see where this drunk and wistful Seokjin was headed. He picked up the cup, placed it to his lips and drank - so that they'd be in the same head space.

"Before BTS," Yoongi said, knowing what he meant. "Thisss thing wassn't s'pposed 't go on like this."

Boy bands didn't typically become man bands. You made your money young, then you usually go on to become something smaller and quieter. Univetsity, sensible work, family, a peaceful semi-retirement. The lucky ones still played to decent crowds sometimes. But devoted fanbases of the size BTS could command, weren't supposed to follow the members' life cycle - into adulthood, first loves, first heartbreaks, success, more success, and maybe one day marriage, one day children- 

"Th-the fans sssay they're in 'this Bangtan shit for life,'" Seokjin said, wide-eyed. "You've heard that? B-but th-they d-don't say what else th-that means, do they?"

That they'd be around until... until the logical conclusions.

"So what if they'll w-watch us age," said Yoongi. "S-so what? They all age t-too. We're g-growing old together. 'S a good thing." He snickered in an attempt to lighten the conversation. "Well m-maybe not you, hyung. You n-never age."

He only looked sadder...?

"I'd know when," Seokjin said insistently. "They always s-s-ssssaid. I'd know when I need t-t-to go. I just d-din't think I'd h-have to. I thought we c-could quietly j-just d-diminissshh. Th's what's s'posed to happen. That I c-could jusssst sslink away. B-but now I need to... I din't th-think I'dd n-need t-to be the one..."

"You thinking of f-fucking quittin on uss, hyung?" Yoongi hissed at him disapprovingly. "No one's leaving. No one hasss to. We need to call it a night and rest, 's what. Get our mindsss straight."

"I'm nnnnot l-like any of y-you," Seokjin muttered, shaking his head. "Th-th-this f-form is f-f-failing. I n-n-nnneeed to go."

"Home yes," Yoongi growled, "quitting Bangtan - no. Annnnd you n-need to g-g-get that shshit outta your mind, finally. You b-b-belong with uss. W-we built this. All this self d-doubt... tha's the onlly thing gettin old 'round here."

"I need to go," Seokjin murmured softly, with the kind of soft finality that had Yoongi reaching for his wallet and phone with one hand, and his hyung's hand with the other. 

It was all that was left of his coherent thought for the night, and he clung onto them desperately: they had to sober up and leave these thoughts behind, they had pay to not get arrested, they had to call someone to come get them, and most importantly- he had to hang onto Kim Seokjin.

"I n-n-nnneeed to go," Seokjin said again, bleary drunken eyes set onto Yoongi's, as if speaking a foreign language and trying to get through and be understood. He clutched back at Yoongi, hard.

"Home, yeah..." Yoongi groaned, "But we need to pay first and tell the manager to come get us."

"I n-n-nnneeed t-to come home," Seokjin said again, a little more anxiously.

"Thass wha' I'm tryna do!" Yoongi groaned.

The next day, over a hangover, Yoongi learned what's gotten Seokjin so messed up the night before: all the medical monitoring they were under has revealed he wasn't improving as hoped or even plateuing or slowing in his physical performance decline. He was hurtling down the fucking idol mountain after his body had peaked.

He and Seokjin sat next to each other in the HYBE boardroom, sunglasses over their eyes, slouched in their seats, miserable from the previous night. They got a good teasing out of the hangover from the members at the start; Yoongi grunting and growling, Seokjin just quietly taking it all, reserved and withdrawn because he already knew what would be discussed during the rest of the meeting:

What to do about his diagnosis of (fuckingfatal) neurodegenrative disorder.

There was no more teasing after that.

# # #

Where are you...?

The shock diagnosis left everyone reeling. There was no known cure, it was miserably and severely degenerative, and the typical life span after adult onset of symptoms was pegged at around 15-20 years, with debilitating degradation of motor and cognitive functions in between.

15-20 years...

He'd barely be 50 by then. That's just half of a whole-ass fucking expected life span. Yet... almost all of them said some form of, "A lot can change in that span of time" in some fashion, rather than despairing.

Namjoon: matter-of-factly, "Because of recent studies and strides in science."

Hoseok: determinedly, "Because if everyone worked hard, that would certainly be the case."

Taehyung: optimistically, "Because surely the fates wouldn't be so unkind."

Jimin-ah: defiantly, "Because this is Kim Seokjin-hyung we'ere talking about and he could always defy the odds, not to mention all the resources we have."

Jungkookie: quietly grim, nodding in agreement with everyone while clutching Seokjin's hand, wordless but so sure, because the converse was inconceivable and unacceptable. Hence - impossible.

Yoongi couldn't give them anything though, because 'Fuck' sort of just reverberated in his brain back and forth going around and around, reinforcing itself ad infinitum. 

Fuck.

And that was long before Seokjin went out fishing on his boat one day, and just never came back.

# # #

How do I get out of here?

The world stopped.

That was not BTS and their ARMY having an inflated sense of self-importance. As a matter of fact, Yoongi didn't even notice it for weeks, how the world had stopped with and for them.

One day Seokjin went off fishing in his luxury bluewater cruiser. It wasn't atypical; management had a whole ass breakdown about one of their prized idol assets owning and liberally using a shorthanded sailboat at the start, but there were few things Seokjin couldn't ask for and not get even before he got sick, not to mention celebrities and the ultra-wealthy always had a longstanding affinity for seafaring anyway; it was one of the few places they could exist freely. Thus, there were established ways to make it safer, as well as ways to mitigate financial risks in case of accidents. 

Seokjin got all the necessary credentials and expertise, insurance coverage, and even extra emergency precautions in case of any imaginable unfortunate circumstance. There was no way to disallow him other than to cajole and beg, and unfortunately for HYBE - Kim Seokjin was very much better at it than they were.

And so off he went that fateful day, just as he'd done many times before. Heck, he'd taken the members with him in various permutations several times, to the deep and profound horror of everyone else. And this last time, he was with his immediate family.

First came the distress call - something about a massive rogue wave. Then came the hasty rescue operations, where over the course of desperate days, one by one Seokjin's family was plucked from the waters weary, sunburnt, starving and dehydrated - but otherwise well. Every rescue was a flash of hope in a dire situation where the only one left missing, was him.

And then came days of silence and the recovery of ship debris. That wave, people kept saying, must have torn right into them.

And then came weeks.

And then came the shift in language, where "rescue" became "recovery," and all that it meant.

All that it meant.

All that it meant.

And all that it meant...

Yoongi made a living with words. And its words that bring him to life. And he gives life to words. And his words shape the lives of others. 

Thus he knew firsthand the power of changing a single syllable or letter or accent and tone. He knew the subtleties of language... but there was nothing remotely subtle about this one. Nothing at all. 

The operational reclassification shifted the priorities and deployable assets of official multigovernment resources. It meant the likelihood of survival after all this time in the environment within the logical search radius was extremely unlikely.

Somewhere in his mind he knew that it was more than fair to put a stop to all the intense official searching after all this time. He even knew that if he was to be truly fair, he should concede that it was clear the official channels had actually sent much more equipment and manpower than usual, and that they searched for much longer and far wider too.

Everyone went above and beyond for BTS Jin.

He knew that. He knew that. But again, there were subtleties and non-subtleties to language: to know and to feel were as vastly different as the mind and heart could be. He knew. But goddamnit, he was angry at them all just the same for fucking quitting.

The search continued through private companies with bills footed by HYBE, by the individual members, or even done gratis by businesses hoping to make a name from finding the lost, beloved idol. Some form of searching would always continue, Yoongi suspected. Like Amelia Earheart, it would always go on in some fashion, like a legend.

But when multiple governments shifted the language, they were saying he was as good as dead, and that was unacceptable.

Yoongi kind of trashed his studio. Then he mostly trashed his bedroom and the rest of his house. And then undoubtedly he trashed his body - didn't eat, or ate everything. Didn't sleep, or wouldn't get up. He drank though, the one constant. And everyone nearest to him who could understand was precisely the same, precisely because they understood. They understood the pain and helplessness and gaping hole left behind and the sheer rage of it all...

It was like a volcano spewing fire and ash from the core of him, fiery fiery destructive anger with nowhere else to go, covering everything until it ran out. And then the lava cooled and cast a cold, hard layer over him and all that was near him. All that's left was a fucking wasteland. The ash clouds have covered up the sun too, and now it was deathly cold. The kind of cold that could kill the world.

There was no memorial. No one dared. No one fucking dared say the idol was truly gone. The shift from rescue to recovery was as close as anyone would go. No one dared say it outright.

But then Jin's desperate fans started crowdfunding for continued search operations. And then some unscrupulous people started scamming others about fraudulent non-existent tips and searches and asking for ransom money and rewards for leads. And then some people started going out to sea on their own to conduct their own searches. And then some people who shouldn't have been in the water went, endangering themselves. And then a group of fans had to be saved from the waters themselves.

With no other choice, the only ones who could say 'Enough is enough,' called it: his grieving family.

The ones most hurting were the only ones who had the right and courage to pull the plug on all the searching madness. To hurt so deeply and brutally from their own loss and struggle with their own hopes, yet they were still the ones who had to say:

"We have to let him go."

It was like the first ray of sunlight peeking through ash clouds.

"He wouldn't want you to bankrupt or endanger yourselves," the family said in a recorded statement that went far and wide around the world. "We are begging you now - we have to let him go."

They used it, that word: "beg."

It was to humble others who should be suffering his loss less than his own family. To tell them, 'If we have to do it, so do you. If we can do it, so can you. If we have to get past it, so should you.'

"He wouldn't want any of this."

And then his BTS brothers and HYBE and the fans perforce followed, even if it was like wrenching out their own hearts. 

"We have to let him go."

Yoongi outwardly toed the company line, but he couldn't do it genuinely. He was like an empty vessel mouthing comforting words, meaning none of them, feeling none of them. 

Seokjin's family may be the sunlight after the ashclouds but he was hardened lava, cold and stuck.

I'm stuck here.

I can't do it.

I can't leave.

Seokjin's family's heartrending call for everyone to stand down was sobering, after the months' long madness that followed his disappearance at sea. But for his part, Yoongi couldn't move on. He watched the people around him make tentative steps that way - a light in the eye, a quirk of the lip, the seeds of a smile because, "It's what he'd want for us."

Sure. Fine. Whatever.

But as these small things turned to bigger things over time like, god forbid, a soft laugh down the hall at the HYBE offices after months of forbidding murmurs, he felt increasing anger again. The fucking core of him churning back to heated life, simmering, aching to explode. 

How dare anyone be happy.

How dare them.

# # #

You can't be here.

He fixates on something he knew he shouldn't but couldn't help it: Seokjin's family didn't seem so sad anymore.

It irked him because it was too soon. It irked him because it invalidated his consuming hurt - if they can move on, what right did he have not to? It irked him because he couldn't and it forced him to try, and he didn't want to. He couldn't even want to try. He couldn't even conceive of wanting to try.

Especially since... he's been seeing Kim Seokjin from the corner of his eye. 

Here and there Yoongi sees him - backseat of the van rides they used to share, group photographs that for a hot second looks to include seven not six, on the periphery of his vision as they stood in a line, tooling around in the kitchen, a shadow in his studio, a reflection on the glass.

Glimpses of Kim Seokjin was popping around everywhere. Sometimes his voice lay beneath recorded songs, and Yoongi would tear off his headphones looking around like a madman. And damn it all he even heard him laughing once but it was just the company driver switching on the windshield wipers during the rain because for crying out loud, it really did sound too fucking similar.

And yet here was Seokjin's family, and they looked fine. They looked fine. They looked happy sometimes too. And so Yoongi soon latched onto another thought:

Something's going on here.

It consumed him.

Theory #1: Seokjin's disease was progressing and he wanted to go out on his own terms, so his family helped him make an early exit. They went out to open water and let him go. That's why they're at peace. They helpe him exit, before things got too bad.

Corollary to this was Theory #2: Same premise of worsening disease but instead of dying, he just staged it and retired early, away from the public eye, off to live the rest of his short life on some fancy idyllic private island somewhere. But he was alive.

Theory #3: Seokjin-

TAPTAPTAP!

A rapt knock against his car window interrupted Yoongi's train of thought. It was Seokjin's older brother standing there, apparently having had enough of Yoongi following him around and watching him like a creep, as he'd been doing for some hours now. Discreetly, he'd thought. Clearly not.

He rolled down his window.

"Yoongi-ssi," said the other man, "Did you wanna come into the restaurant and join us?"

He gulped. He was both highly suspicious of them and also somewhat ashamed of himself for it. He wasn't sure at all.

"I will go in there then," said the older man with a heavy sigh. He moved around the front of the car and slipped into the passenger seat. From the corner of Yoongi's eye - he could only stare straight ahead at the road in front of them - he could almost swear it was Seokjin there.

"What are you doing?" the other man asked gently; even Seokjin's voice and tone lay beneath it. He was everywhere. 

"You can't just be out here," he went on. "Either come in with me and we can have a meal or a drink, or you should go rest at home-"

"Did you euthanize him out there?" Yoongi asked suddenly. He wanted to think it was strategic like ripping out a bandaid so he could get an honest reaction or answer, but mostly he just couldn't keep it to himself anymore.

"What are you even talking about...?"

"Did you mercy kill him out at open lawless sea and get rid of him?" Yoongi asked, feeling his throat constrict.

"You've lost your mind-"

"Is he maybe in some secret private island somewhere and all of this is just staged?" Yoongi went on. "He faked his own death?"

"Please listen to yourself..."

"Is he still alive somewhere and you're just not telling us?"

"Yoongi..." Seokjin's brother said softly, and he dared look at him then, at the welled eyes that his own soon matched.

"Please just tell me," Yoongi said, feeling his wet face crumple. He lowered his head in shame and sadness and pain. His heart hurt. It actually, physically ached in his chest.

He felt himself pulled into an embrace. Seokjin was in there too, that forceful pull and generous embrace, his older brother feeling of him and smelling like him from the same shampoo and soap and fabric conditioner...

"I see him everywhere," Yoongi said in a harsh whisper.

"That's not him," said the other man. "I'm sorry."

# # #

"No one's going anywhere!"

The company freaked the fuck out.

It was a brief but admittedly amusing break from everything going on, even if a reasonable reaction because, of all things and of all people, Jung Hoseok had up and decided he would learn shorthanded sailing on his own sleek sailboat, too. Just like Jin-hyung.

A board meeting was called to dissuade him. The lawyers were called. The shrink was called. Their mothers! were called. But he was clearly mentally fit, his decisions sound, and his rights unquestionable. He couldn't be convinced otherwise.

"He'd always..." Hoseok said quietly, trying to explain to the only people whom explanations were really beholden to: his just-as apprehensive, remaining five members.

"He'd always try getting me into things..."

A lump formed immediately in Yoongi's throat, rendering him speechless. 

"Trouble?" Namjoon choked out a joke, his voice catching. He pressed at his eyes - sad, angry, worried - but couldn't find it in his heart to dissuade the other man.

"Games and fishing and this book or that food," Hoseok went on, voice a little wet. "And yes - trouble too."

"It always worked out somehow," Jimim agreed softly.

"Maybe there's something to this too," Taehyung said.

"Or even just to be nearer him," Jungkook added softly.

"We're not all buying a boat and learning how to sail, suddenly...?" Hoseok groaned.

"Maybe Namjoon-hyung will have an easier time getting a licence on the open sea," Jimin teased ruefully. "Less stuff in the way."

The subject of the barb sighed, turning to Hoseok. "You don't mind us tagging along on your grief exercise or whatever this is?"

The other man sighed too. "Is that what this is?"

"The shrink said it might help," Taehyung pointed out.

"Well I'm not joining," Yoongi said flatly.

# # #

Nowhere.

The smartypantses up in HYBE came up with a compromise: they would be the ones to foot the bill for a company-owned sailboat that the members had sole privilege to use. That way the members wouldn't have to spend and buy their own vessels as Seokjin had, but the company (plus their risk assessors, security team and insurance providers...) had control of what unit to buy, how it was maintained, and knowledge of who was using it where and when. The five intended users - Hoseok, Namjoon, Jimin, Taehyung and Jung Kook - found it fair.

HYBE contracted the world's finest luxury shipmakers for top-of-the-line, securest among the most secure, most anally maintained and monitored, high-tech sailboat they could possibly make. Construction kicked off while the members used their downtime to work on their respective seafaring skills and licenses.

Whenever Yoongi ran into them at work, each member tended to look a little better each time: sun-kissed, hardier, healthier, happier from the time spent outdoors learning seafaring and survival skills. It was like Kim Seokjin was calling from his watery maybe-grave, reminding everyone to get some wind and sun and seafood sometime (which was super annoying).

Then they started returning from trips with blitzed expressions and tall tales. Like that time Namjoon was visited by a non-native purple crab that somehow found its way in their waters. Or the double rainbows for Taehyung's whimsical travels, and the fucking dolphin pod that trailed Jimin's boat and kept returning the towels he kept dropping. Jung Kook caught a fish that had a golden coin in its mouth. Hoseok's ship had been visited by a lonely, purplish, deep blue whale. And they all went home with a big fucking (some would say, "super") tuna.

It was Taehyung who worded the unthinkable - that they were gifts from the sea, "Maybe because it took from us."

Yoongi had scoffed at that. What a singularly ridiculous thought. But then Jung Kook's stupid gold coin turned out to be a doubloon from a historic, still-missing wreck worth thousands of dollars, and he thought he might as well get in on the action, just in case.

Besides, Yoongi decided it was about time he heeded Seokjin's sea call at least once - anyway he was stuck on a song and had found productiviy being on a boat, sometime back. Maybe some fishing and fresh air could jog his brain, even if he didn't land pirate treasure.

He had his manager charter him something simple and small manned by a discreet skeleton crew. He also asked for a few fishing tools, and then set off at sea on an ungodly hour just as Seokjin would (make him) do.

They set off before sunrise, toward the wide open horizon. He suddenly felt like crying, but hid it in a yawn; he'd learned how to do shit like that because thoughts of Seokjin tended to come and go now and then and here and there, and he'd had to find ways.

The boat rocked gently with the dawn tide. The sounds of soft splashing against the deck and the quiet breeze and the smell of the sea would have been soothing also, except he kept seeing Seokjin in the corner of his eye. 

His hyung would be wearing a safety jacket and a cap and beat-up designer slides misplaced on a fishing vessel but somehow perfect because they were on him. He'd be fiddling with a game or book on his phone or his fishing things, or be taking a power nap to rest before they went to their guide's go-to secret fishing spot. He'd need his strength, he'd half joke, because today was the day he was going to be reeling in a Big Fish "for real this time, Yoongi-ah!"

He sighed. 

What the fuck am I doing here?

I changed my mind, I don't wanna be here.

I don't wanna be here.

He got up and was just opening his mouth to tell someone, anyone, to turn the ship around and head back to land.

But then the boat came to a stop.

An actual stop, which was weird because motorized boats at sea didn't just usually do that. There was always something moving; the currents and waves, the breeze, the life beneath the water, the marine birds above. It couldn't all just come to a complete halt.

But there they were. 

Like being in the eye of the storm, where the air pressure was staticky and weird and atmospheric sound died, and it was just still.

Like a breath, held.

Yoongi frowned and looked around him, if anyone thought it was weird too. But he knew for sure he was in trouble when he realized everyone with him was asleep, save for the Captain and navigator who stood unmoving and unresponsive, blank-eyed, at the controls of the small bridge.

"What the fuck," he breathed out.

Had he finally gone and lost his mind for sure, now? Was this it?

"Don't freak out," someone suddenly said behind him, which was one of the worst things anyone could say in the circumstances they were in: the odd setting of course, but mostly because the words came from a (supposedly) dead man.

Yoongi couldn't breathe.

That heart-hurt of the last days and weeks and months reared its head anew, and his chest tightened, too small a cage to contain it. His ribs felt too narrow, his body too small to hold what he felt -

Seokjin tossed a sprinkle of seawater on his face. 

What the heck?!

The sheer absurd stupidity of it, the audacity, the ambiguousness of what it meant, and the sensation itself - wet, cool, salty enough for his eyes to sting - brought him back down to Earth.

"What the fuck, hyung?!" he demanded, even as he shot forward and reached to try and engulf the other man in a tight embrac-

"Hang on a second," Seokjin said with a laugh, stepping back, ears turning bright red in that achingly familiar way, "Hand me that towel first, will 'ya?"

Yoongi looked at him beyond the long-missed, famously handsome face, then. And promptly felt a flush of embarrassment himself. 

"Right," he said, turning his eyes away, grabbing one of the large beach towels randomly strewn about the chartered boat, and handing it more or less in the naked!? man's?! direction.

"Thanks," said the other with a laugh. "Okay you can look. You can hug too I guess, but it's a bit awkward now, isn't it?"

Yoongi winced, as he turned to do as he was now allowed. He looked at the - man? - that stood before him, towel around the waist but otherwise bare. Yoongi really looked.

There was no doubt about it; this was Kim Seokjin, soaked in seawater and dripping it everywhere, standing in front of him. But there was also no doubt that... it wasn't. Not quite.

He looked bigger, for one. It was the same perfect inhuman proportions he's always had and been envied for - wide shoulders, narrow waist, all lean muscle and long powerful limbs - but he was like, like, just slightly but noticeably enlarged. Like he belonged to a different and next species of man, it's next evolution. World Wide Wide Handsome in Final Form. His face also had some slight differences - smooth as ever with the same chiseled, elegant lines of course but... the warm eyes that used to look hazel in the light were almost golden even in the shade of the boat. And his canines were sharp, almost like fangs. He was also wearing his thick, soft jet black hair a bit longer, edges almost to his collarbone.

Yoongi stepped forward uncertainly. This Seokjin quite simply didn't look real. The thought prompted him to kind of just raise a curious finger up and poke the other man on the chest, experimentally.

They both yelped in surprise at the intrusive thought that had won out.

"What are you doing?!" Seokjin exclaimed.

"I don't know!" Yoongi yelled back. Seokjin's skin felt as smooth as it looked, but pressing his flesh felt like touching a marine predator... his body felt cool to the touch, dense and powerful, like all coiled muscle. Yoongi recalled the sensation; it was close to how Seokjin's cramped legs felt, that fateful day in the rehearsal room before everything changed.

Also, having come so close, Yoongi had spied on Seokjin's side near his "7" mark and marring the otherwise (again) inhumanly perfect, skin - deep scars.

"You're hurt-!" Yoongi said, only for the other man to cut him off with a casual wave.

"Those are just bodychecks," he said easily. "Some of my... shall we say playmates?... can get kind of rough."

They looked like shark bites.

They looked like fucking shark bites...

Yoongi's head was spinning. He sank to his rump on the wooden deck. It stung a little, so surely this was real and he wasn't just dreaming. This was real. Seokjin before him in whatever incarnation this was, was real.

"I don't know what's going on..." he said, voice wavering. "I don't even know if... if my mind is right."

Seokjin sat down across from him, his powerful form large but graceful and soundless, giving the other man some berth. They sat quietly for a long moment.

"I'm sorry for my part in that," Seokjin said softly.

From the side of the boat, a slim column of water rose, making a gentle swooshing sound. It went over the barrier then curved down to Seokjin's open palm, where it then rested like a tall glass of water without being encased by said glass. There was a baby turtle and a fish inside, pearly white, gently winged, wide-eyed, puckering in Seokjin's direction, as they apparently do. 

They caught each other's gaze past the water, and Yoongi knew what Seokjin meant when he nodded and tilted his head just so, inviting Yoongi to do the same as he was. Yoongi hesitantly opened up his palm in Seokjin's direction.

The column of water elongated and curved again, jumping to Yoongi's palm and settling there, as it had for Seokjin. His hand felt wet, but the seawater somehow contained itself. The fish wouldn't look at him though, staring mournfully over at Seokjin instead (fucking typical).

Yoongi moved it closer to his face, inspecting theapparently magical? little handheld acquarium.

"So you're some sort of sea... being," he finally said.

"Something like that," Seokjin conceded. "You can ask me anything, you know... I uh... I owe you at least that much, I think."

Huh. It was a heck of an invitation, and there were so so many things Yoongi wanted to ask. So many. Or maybe he didn't want to ask things as much as he just wanted Seokjin around nearby, to answer or lie or not answer them at all. Just - Seokjin. Nearby. For that, he'd never stop talking.

One question won over the rest though, and absolutely had to be asked, and answered:

"Don't your fish friends get mad at you for eating them?"

Seokjin didn't even blink at the line of questioning, considering they both knew Yoongi could very well ask about the secrets of the unknown world but instead went with the relative inanity of this one.

"It's just the circle of life," said Seokjin mildly. "And out here, we hunt only necessarily, fight fairly, kill painlessly, and do so respectfully with regard to the value of life. Besides - there's little to begrudge if your sacrifice sustains your gods."

So yikes - not quite just a sea being after all...

"When you talk like that," Yoongi gulped, "it makes me kind of have to take you seriously, for once."

Seokjin defied that perception by snorting at him.

"So - a god," said Yoongi. 

"Not 'The'," Seokjin pointed out.

"Are you like more... Poseidon-y? Not... not Little Mermaid or Aquaman or a Siren or I don't know... Shark Boy...?"

"I'm a little bit of all of that," Seokjin said. He flushed pink. "My legs can transform into um, fins for example. Like a merman? We don't swim around the ocean buck naked in the human sense, you know. The uh, protrusions are not um, a good evolutionary adaptation for hydrodynamics. You have to minimize the drag..."

"'We...?'" Yoongi asked, latching onto the idea that there were others like Seokjin. It was better than latching onto the notion of any kind of naked swimming in the open sea, obviously.

"I'm not the only one," came the answer followed by a more telling, quiet one: "Thankfully."

Yoongi stared at him, and figured out what it meant: that this existence would have undoubtedly been a far lonelier one, otherwise. This existence, and all the actions that it necessitated. Among them...

"Why did you leave us?" he asked, trying (failing) not to sound too accusatory.

Seokjin looked away, then. "I had to. I would have died up there. I already was dying. We can only stay away from our real home for so long."

Yoongi swallowed thickly. "Why didn't you just tell us about... about all this? We would've helped you in any way we could."

"You would have needed to believe me first," Seokjin pointed out. "And I couldn't reasonably imagine anyone doing that. I would have been medicated to incapacity or, or committed to an institution and be watched all to shit. I couldn't have been able to escape to leave and I needed to do it quickly. I was weakening fast and barely able to leave, as it was."

"Your magic tricks would've helped us believe," said Yoongi. Seokjin turned back to him then, confiscating the little acquarium in his palm and taking it back. Seokjin then started toying with it from one hand to the other, like it was just a toy slinky. The fish and baby turtle danced around each other, making Seokjin smile even if his glinting eyes still held his loneliness over this line of inquiry.

"I lost the ability to do this many years ago from my extended time on land," he said. "I'm just getting my old self back. This is child's play, still." He made a small wave and with a flick of his wrist, the column of water went jumping out of the boat and back to the sea.

"How old is your old self, hyung?"

Seokjin shrugged. "I don't know."

"But if you're so old and wise," Yoongi asked, "why were you on land still doing stupid shit all the time?"

The joke made Seokjin's wistful smile widen and warm up. "It's fun. And you know - the older you get, the more valuable whimsy and silliness is, after all."

"Do your kind die?"

"Not typically," he said. "And we barely age once we reach our adulthood. But I would have on land, like I told you. There are energies the human adaptations cannot bear. I had to go. I was always going to go. I'm sorry."

"Have you done all this before?" Yoongi asked. "You know, spend extended time out of the water and just come back and then do it again years later?"

"A few cycles," Seokjin admitted. "I can't answer you in years. Time is different for us. We follow biological imperatives, you know? Like migrations, mating, hybernating. We are tied to the great cycles of the world. I've been land-based before, sure. First time I've ever been a global superstar, though."

Yoongi snorted. "Right."

"I told you, didn't I? I always knew I had to go, and for the longest time I thought I could do it quietly. I was wrong. And then I left... I left how I had to."

Yoongi definitely remembered that drunken conversation. He understandably! thought it was about celebrities going past their prime. How was he supposed to know Seokjin was yapping about a sea god faking his death to return to his real home?

"Was your family in on all of it?" Yoongi asked. "They helped you vanish?"

Seokjin rolled back his eyes. "Yes. And you need to stop being weird with them. My brother told on you."

"I was right though!" Yoongi said indignantly.

Seokjin sighed. "Yeah, yeah - but still weird."

"They always knew what you were?"

Seokjin nodded. "Yeah. And they also always knew we'd have to say goodbye." His eyes welled, and he cleared his throat. "Didn't make it any easier though. For eomma, especially. She left me an outdoorsy solar powered phone, can you believe it? It's barely hanging on. It's all busted up and I misplace it often but that's how I received a message from my brother about you. Months late, but - here we are."

"Well in that case why does it even have to be goodbye?" asked Yoongi quietly, eyes welling too. "They know the truth. I know it now too. Can't we... I don't know, like, stay in touch and visit every once in a while? Surely that's doable. You have a fucking phone, for crying out loud."

"It's not that simple," Seokjin said softly. "I have duties to my people here and the living things that rely on us. That work takes us far and wide and deep, and there's not very many of us to begin with. My sense of time and space is different too - the scope is wider and slower. I don't even lose track of all that down there; it almost simply doesn't compute, like a whole other language. It's a whole other existence. We can forget appointments when we both know you can't make them - you never have time being who you are, and I'll stop conceiving of it soon, being what I am. Even if we could meet again... your fame is an exposure risk for me and everyone like me. This here now - is risky as it is."

"How did you even know I'd be here...?"

"I have an ecosystem of informants," Seokjin said wryly, before softening: "And maybe I was waiting for you. I was hoping for you, after everyone else had come to the water and I saw they were doing better."

"I'm doing poorly," Yoongi admitted, fidgeting uneasily. "As you can see. 'S probably why you went up to me, huh?"

"But better now, after this...?" Seokjin asked. "Surely better after this?"

"It depends on your answer."

"It has to be goodbye," Seokjin said gently. "For all the reasons I've said, and this one too- I'll be more feral over time you know, and... and forgetful. If I wasn't forgetful, living like this would be very hard, don't you think?"

"Do you uh... do you remember them?" Yoongi asked hoarsely. "Your land lives, before? Your other selves? Your... your families from before? Your... your friends?"

"Not very well," Seokjin whispered, hurting them both.

You will forget me too, Yoongi thought, bitterly.

"It would hurt very much, wouldn't it?" asked Seokjin. "If I remember all I lose."

"Well I wouldn't wish that on you," Yoongi said, and meaning it with all his heart. "You've always said how it's good to be forgetful sometimes, especially of bad stuff. I couldn't have imagined this conext though."

"I remember... sensations though," said Seokjin. "Like wonder and joy. I've always remembered love. And now I think I'll also... I'll remember ... I'll remember your music."

Yoongi rubbed his hands over his face. "Damn it, Jin. Damn it."

Now the other man did scoot forward, and put a hand on Yoongi's shoulder. 

"I'm so sorry for all this, Yoongi."

He raised his head up, to find they were both crying. Seawater in the eyes...

"I'm sorry too," he said, gripping Seokjin's hand over his shoulder and sliding their hands down over his heart. "I'm so sorry."

"I gotta go soon," Seokjin said softly.

"You live an eternity you can stay five minutes more with me," Yoongi snapped, without much heat.

Seokjin snorted at him, but pulled their foreheads close to touch. "All right," he said softly.

"I know you can't promise anything," said Yoongi, "but I won't discount it so - don't say 'bye. Say, 'See you later' instead. And if you do, I'll go out to sea every once in awhile and maybe we'll see each other. Who knows, right? That - I can live with. I think."

"Who knows," Seokjin echoed.

"I'll even bring a video game next time," Yoongi said to sweeten the deal. "Bet you miss those."

Seokjin pulled away and groaned. "Ah fuck - Yes. Damn it. I thought I'd already forgotten."

Yoongi snickered through his tears, then sighed. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slow.

"Is this really for real?" he asked. He picked at his clothes. "Because what if, when it's all done, and I'm not sure? Because lately it's like - I'm just not sure. I keep seeing you everywhere..."

"I'm pretty sure those aren't me," Seokjin chided gently. "So I think that one... that one you'd need to see someone for. Those aren't me, and I'm sorry to have a part in your troubles."

"But are ghosts of you much diffefent than this?" Yoongi pointed out, motioning at him. "Aren't they both just as unlikely? So how can I know I'm mot crazy...?"

"True," Seokjin conceded. "But -"

He raised up his hand, then turned his wrist and closed and opened his fist to reveal something resting on the palm of his hand.

It was a single, perfectly round pearl of a deep aubergine and greenish black.

"Why don't you ask your made-up phantoms for a present, Yoongi-yah," he said, offering his hand up to the other man. "Then you'd know, hecause only your real hyung can give you something so fine. The others are useless - they're just really good looking."

Yoongi laughed, picking up the pretty little treasure carefully and holding it before his eyes. It looked like it held secret universes in there.

"This is beautiful hyung," he said. "Thank you." He blinked at a consuming realization though, saying: "You came over naked, though. Where did you even keep this?"

"Magic," Seokjin said wryly.

"I read somewhere that pearls are actually like oyster pimples," he rambled on. "Debris or damage enter the shell and cause irritations that they cover up and build over. It's just that they're pretty by accident. So are these what your pimples look like? Never seen those all these years, after all..."

Seokjin laughed at him. "No, Yoongi. My pimples, in the rare occasions I ever got them, were perfectly human."

"Doesn't answer my question, though..."

"Magic!" Seokjin insisted, still laughing. He breathed deeply, sighed and settled, then nodded to himself as if satisfied. He pushed to his feet, and offered his hand to pull Yoongi up as well. He hauled him to stand with barely any effort.

"It's like you weigh nothing," he said, displeased.

"It's not me," said Yoongi. "That's all you. You've grown stronger, like The Hulk."

Seokjin rolled his eyes. "No, it's not just that. You really do have to look after yourself better. I'll send you a good sized meal, Yoongi-yah, just like I did for the others. Cast your line out after I leave, okay? You'll see."

They walked to the boat's stern, Seokjin with wide powerful strides and Yoongi dragging his feet. At the edge of the vessel and closest to the water, Seokjin stood waiting for him patiently. He was tempted to stop walking altogether to extend their time.

Seokjin watched him with those perceptive, near-golden eyes, not rushing him, not fetching him. Just... expecting him to come over and do the right thing and get what needed to be done, done.

I have to go there, Yoongi told himself, taking it step by step by step until his resolve ate up the distance between where he was and where he needed to be.

Seokjin gave him a big embrace when he arrived; tight and warm and generous, encompassing. Yoongi closed his eyes and cherished the feeling of being so cherished, and gripped the other man back just as tightly.

"See you later," Seokjin said, breaths warm against his ear.

"You know I love you, right?" asked Yoongi.

"Yeah show it properly and bring video games next time," Seokjin teased him. "I love you too."

"See you later," Yoongi said, releasing him and attempting to step back except Seokjin, for all this peace he was projecting about how things simply had to be and the goodbyes they had to make, held him just that one telling beat longer and tighter. He felt Seokjin's chest rise shakily, but then fall like a sigh.

"See you later," his hyung finally said, making his own step away.

Then Seokjin's ears and neck turned that familiar, humanizing silly little pink again, as he divested himself of his borrowed towel and tossed it to Yoongi, who caught it but kept his gaze stubbornly upward, settling on the other man's eyes.

Seokjin tossed him a wry grin, then a World Wide Handsome sort of flying kiss, before diving back into the ocean.

# # #

It was like a spell broke.

Not just with the sudden sound and movement of the environment around them, and people on the boat stirring awake and coming alive, no. It was like a spell over Yoongi broke. He blinked and it was like his vision became clearer. 

I'm here.

I'm still here standing, after everything.

I'm here, now.

I can be here (without you) now.

He held the pearl in his hand though, tight - a reminder that what had just happened was real. He raised it up and looked at it again. He still thought it looked like it held secret universes in there.

"I think this is a good spot!" he called out to his fishing party. "Let's get those lines out!"

He had, after all, been promised a good meal. And knowing Kim Seokjin... Yoongi was expecting nothing less than a super tuna.

THE END 

23 March 2026