[super junior] the island of nowhere part two

[catskilt.livejournal.com]

Checking in at the hotel is a surprisingly smooth procedure; the room turns out to be another pleasant surprise. He'd hoped for the best when he booked a deluxe superior room, but he hadn't dared to hope for such a large, nicely furnished room with a cultivated rustic look. The sliding doors lead to a balcony that opens up a full panoramic view of the beach and sea that's comparable to all the lauded beauties of Europe and Asia. By the time he gets his face rinsed in the very nice, gleaming bathroom and has taken a few deep breaths of oxygen at his peaceful balcony, he's almost ready to add his positive testimonial to the Wikipedia page.

Then he hears someone yelling up at him. "Yo, Jungsu-sshi!"

He blinks and leans his head over the railings to see Youngwoon standing directly below his balcony, waving almost maniacally at him. "Oy, come down! Let's explore this place!"

"Where's Heechul-sshi?" Jungsu asks, wondering if this form of communication is going to be a regular occurrence and, if so, whether he should discreetly ask to be transferred to a room on a higher level.

"He says he wants to check out the business centre to see if there's internet provided. His email inbox is very important, you know." Youngwoon pauses to chuckle. "Whatever! I'll meet you at the lobby in five minutes." He disappears back into the hotel and Jungsu watches the glittering sea for a few more treasured minutes before deciding that Youngwoon will burst a blood vessel if he has to wait any longer.

Five minutes later they're walking on the beach. The initial plan was to check out the sea cliff two miles down that Youngwoon's wildly curious about, but halfway there they spot the honeymooning couple frolicking very indecently in the waves. Youngwoon says, with expletives, that it's not something he's too eager to see, and Jungsu is in agreement, so they hastily walk in another direction. This direction takes them up and away from the beach to one of the rolling hills which Youngwoon climbs with ease and Jungsu thinks are about to make his lungs explode.

"It's easy to see you haven't had much exercise for a long time," Youngwoon chortles.

"I told you, I barely saw sun for a year," Jungsu pants. He's definitely feeling a lot of sun now. So much sun, in fact, that he's actually perspiring. That's good to know; he'd thought that his sweat glands would have started malfunctioning by now due to long-term disuse.

"That's just inhumane and wrong," Youngwoon says as they plod over grass onto pastoral landscape. "If you don't get enough sun, you might get Vitamin D deficiency, you know. You'd better be out in the sunshine every day you're here. No sitting in the hotel room watching TV."

"They don't have KBS World anyway," Jungsu says, laughing. "Look, there's a road behind those trees."

They amble forward and Youngwoon's snapping pictures at a frantic pace when they become aware of a tightly clustered trio of boys squatting by the roadside peering at something. Jungsu and Youngwoon look at each other. "I believe they're our three cabin boys," Youngwoon says.

"I think you're right."

"Shall we venture to discover what they're doing on land?"

"I don't know, we might make them uncomfortable."

They're still debating when Donghae happens to look up. His entire face lights up and he waves at them so enthusiastically that they're charmed into walking over. "Youngwoon-sshi, Jungsu-sshi!" Donghae greets them, running to meet them and gripping hold of their wrists. "Come and see the flowers!"

He drags them forward and Jungsu sees a whole cluster of little umbrella-shaped purplish pink flowers in the grass. It's the perfect subject for photography, so Youngwoon's angling his camera like a professional photographer while Jungsu squats spellbound, examining the petals. "They look like crepe paper."

"They're called 'morning glory'," Kibum says.

"How did you know that?" Jungsu asks, nonplussed, as well he might be at a fourteen-year-old sailor knowing about wildflowers.

Kibum points towards a farmhouse about a mile away. "That place is owned by a farmer called Shin Donghee, we call him Shindong hyung. We stay with him whenever we're here. He teaches us about lots of things."

"Do you want to meet him?" Hyukjae asks, his eyes very bright. "He's really really nice!"

"Why not?" Youngwoon says, and before he can process what's happening, Jungsu finds himself with two boys on either side of him propelling him forward to meet a farmer named Shindong hyung who is really really nice.

Luckily, Shin Donghee, a nicely chubby man with a very smiley face, is indeed very nice. He introduces them to his wife Nari and his younger brother Jongwoon, whom Jungsu feels a special interest in because he looks like one of his finance officers back at the office. Jongwoon offers to show them around the farm and Nari offers to make them a nice afternoon tea, at which the boys start jumping around excitedly and Shin Donghee kicks them off to the bathroom to wash up before they eat.

"They're good kids, really," he says as they take a walk around the farm, Jongwoon showing Youngwoon the horse stables and Jungsu a few steps behind looking at the hills in the distance. "We put them up every time they come here, because they don't have anywhere else to go except that terrible ship and I think they deserve to have proper beds once a month. They don't seem unhappy but they don't have much in their lives, you know, serving all sorts of weird passengers and doing all the shit work that the other sailors don't want to do. So I take them in and it's not much of an imposition on me, really, both the wife and I like having them around."

"Yeah," Jungsu says. "They're nice boys. I like them very much."

"If I had enough money I'd adopt them as my own," Shin Donghee says. "But then again, even if I did, they might not want to be adopted by me! They'd all be farmers!" He laughs a big roaring kind of laughter that makes Jungsu laugh too.

When Youngwoon has photographed his fill of horses and cattle, they return to the farmhouse to a Mediterranean spread that, to Jungsu's mind, justifies the entire cost of the vacation. Youngwoon almost tears up in joy at the clams in white wine sauce and the boys get into life-defying squabbles over the tortilla and potato salad. Nari solves the problem by distributing portions to them herself and Jungsu shares a smile with her when Donghae immediately chucks half his potatoes onto Jungsu's dish demanding that he eat it because it's "really really delicious!"

He wouldn't have imagined that there would be much to talk about at the table of a farmer in a quiet, half-forgotten island, but perhaps Hyukjae and Donghae, freed from the constraints of the ship, are pushing the conversation forward at sixty miles an hour yakking about everything from their captain Minsung hyung to the scary steward to the unfamiliar flowers they'd seen on their tramp to the roadside for morning glory; or perhaps it's Youngwoon, talking almost as fast as the two boys with his hand resting fondly on Kibum's shoulder, or perhaps it's Shin Donghee, telling them about the kind of crops he raises and the maintenance of his farmland that's surprisingly interesting to learn about.

It's nearing twilight when they finally decide to leave. "You are welcome anytime," Shin Donghee says, standing at the doorway with Nari and Jongwoon. "You can even help out around the farm, if you want to. We like extra hands, especially if all we have to do is feed them in return."

"You can help to feed and clean up after my horses, too," Jongwoon says earnestly.

Shin Donghee laughs his big laugh at that and it sets both Youngwoon and Jungsu laughing like a conditioned response. They walk back over the hill and beach to the hotel and Jungsu finds himself holding Donghae's hand, small and sweaty in his, as Donghae chats about how he and Youngwoon should take a boat out to sail around the island sometime.

"And Heechul-sshi too!" Hyukjae pipes up from Donghae's other side. "It's great fun!"

"I wonder what that dude's been up to all day," Youngwoon says.

They part at the hotel, but he and Youngwoon don't go in until the three silhouettes have vanished up the beach. That night, Jungsu picks out one of the long neglected novels that he'd brought along on the trip and reads with his iPod blaring songs beside him until he falls asleep with his finger in the book and Lucid Fall in his ears.

… …

Heechul brings gloom to the buffet breakfast the next morning. "They don't have internet in their business centre," he says. "What use is a business centre without the internet?"

"So if there wasn't any internet," Youngwoon says, slicing his scrambled egg and toast into cubes, "what were you doing all day?"

"I went to another galaxy to have tea with green-faced pixies," Heechul mutters grouchily.

"What is so important about your inbox?" Jungsu asks, but when Heechul doesn't bother fabricating an answer, not even green-faced pixies, he doesn't ask again. There's a very icy aura about Heechul when he chooses to be icy and Jungsu thinks that maybe he should get some tips from him about how to develop it since it just might come in handy at the office when subordinates are being difficult.

Heechul thaws out a little when they're lazing by the swimming pool (Youngwoon had found out within the first five minutes of stepping into the hotel that they do, indeed, have one) and chugging down beer from the poolside bar. "So those kids are here too?"

"They're on their once-a-month respite from work," Youngwoon says. "We should take them out for dinner before they have to go back to the ship."

"We should," Jungsu agrees happily. Skinny boys should be fed. "They're nice to have around, aren't they?"

"I'd rather be around them than a lot of adults," Heechul says. "I had dinner at the hotel restaurant last night and there was a bunch of girls sitting at the next table yakking about the cute guys they've seen in this place."

Youngwoon perks up. "Were they hot?"

"Didn't notice. I was too absorbed in their brains. Or lack thereof."

"Ow," says Youngwoon, getting up from his chair and testing the temperature of the water with his toes. The next moment he's a bobbing head among ripples and Jungsu hears Heechul sighing, heavy with all sorts of sadness that he's not entirely sure he wants to ask about. The day is too nice for someone else's emotional baggage. But out of the force of habit of helming a company of two hundred employees and difficult subordinates, he asks, "Is there anything you want to talk about?" and immediately wonders at how his professionally sympathetic voice has become so ingrained that it came out even without him intending it to.

Heechul glances at him briefly. "No. You don't sound like you want to know, anyway."

Jungsu is a little offended. "What makes you think that?"

"You've probably used that voice a dozen times with your subordinates."

That is true, but somehow it's not very nice to have Heechul pointing it out. "I do want to know," he insists, so convincingly that he almost believes it himself. "People usually talk to their friends if there's something bothering them."

"Friends, huh," Heechul says. "I'm better off telling my troubles to the birds."

He doesn't want to share. Jungsu gets the point. "Well," he says, staring at Youngwoon's head bobbing up and down as he butterfly strokes down the length of the pool, "if you ever need a listener who can respond in human tongue, I'm willing enough."

Just then Youngwoon pops out and waves at them. "Oy! Come down for a swim!"

Heechul puts his sunglasses on and presumably goes to sleep, and it seems like a commendable thing to do but it's beautifully sunny and the glints on the water are calling his name in sweet, coy, melodious tones. Jungsu thinks he will answer. He hopes he remembers enough of swimming techniques to avoid drowning.

… …

It's past noon and Jungsu is trying his best to avoid getting seawater flung in his eyes. He isn't entirely sure how he ended up in this situation considering that he'd initially planned to spend his self-recovery holiday lazing in the hotel room or by the poolside, but before he can sigh for lost itineraries he's distracted by Kibum's yelling as Hyukjae latches onto his shoulders and doesn't let go. Kibum doesn't seem to be a very good swimmer so Jungsu wades over, extricates Hyukjae and draws the thin arms over his own shoulders instead. "Feels more secure than clinging onto Kibummie, doesn't it?"

"Hyungs who can swim well are so manly, unlike him," Hyukjae replies with a giggle, pointing at Heechul sitting on the beach wrapped in so much material that he looks like a desert sheik.

"Yah," Heechul yells. "I heard that, you little punk."

"Manly men don't have sensitive skin, hyung," Donghae calls out.

"Are you implying that I'm not a manly man? Don't talk to me ever again."

The boys had been so charmed by the free dinner at the island's most popular restaurant the previous evening that they'd offered to take them on a tour around the island's countryside. Heechul had insisted that there wasn't any obligation for them to do it, but Donghae just opened his big eyes with all their sadness and said that they wanted too, it would be so fun, and everything was settled because the purpose of Donghae's existence is apparently to be irresistible.

Jungsu's pretty sure he heard 'countryside', but the boys had turned up that morning at the hotel lobby with towels and swimwear draped over their arms and so here they are, Heechul sitting on the beach and Kibum paddling about and Donghae trying to douse Youngwoon completely unsuccessfully because Youngwoon's a hefty twenty-something who has a third-degree black belt in taekwondo (as revealed in yet another sharing time) and Donghae's just a skinny kid who only knows how to swim a very bad freestyle.

"Somehow I thought you boys would be good swimmers," Youngwoon says. "You spend so much time at sea."

"But we're on a ship," Kibum points out. "We're not actually in the water or anything."

"We only get to go swimming when we're here," Hyukjae adds. His fingers are clenched tight on Jungsu's shoulders and it's nice, kind of, having this boy hanging on to him so trustfully. Jungsu bends over until his head is underwater to let an oncoming wave splash into Hyukjae's face.

"How can you be happy when you only get to do the things you want once a month?" he says when he surfaces.

"It's still fun," Donghae says, too busy laughing at Hyukjae's damp gaping face to say anything else, but Kibum answers more seriously.

"There isn't any other choice for us, so we just have to enjoy what we have."

"Hmm," Youngwoon says, and gets a queer, life-revelation sort of look on his face, but he doesn't say anything more. Half an hour later they're out of the sea, much to Heechul's gratitude, and tramping over the countryside in the general direction of Shin Donghee's farm. Donghae says that there's a really nice creek just behind it that everyone has to go and admire.

They're halfway up the hill walking along a winding road when Jungsu catches sight of a white-washed building perched on the slope about a mile or so away facing the sea. There's something on top of it and he stops, squints, thinks he can make out a cross. "Donghae-yah," he says, "what's that building over there?"

"That's the chapel," Donghae says. "We go there to pray sometimes."

"For what? Who to?" Heechul asks.

"God, I guess," Kibum says. "Don't people go to chapels to pray to God?"

"They used to make us recite the Lord's Prayer before every meal at the orphanage," Hyukjae puts in. "Kibum doesn't like to say it anymore, but Donghae and me, we say it every time when we're there. It feels so holy. And then we pray, but we don't really know how to because the orphanage matron never prayed unless it was the Lord's Prayer and Kibummie's cousin – our captain Minsung hyung, you know – doesn't talk about God unless he's cursing, so we just say, 'Dear God, thank you for everything, and please, er, er…'"

"Please make Hyukjae's feet less smelly!" Kibum suddenly jumps in. Hyukjae yells his offense taken and Heechul laughs and Jungsu's wondering why Heechul bothers to frown so much when his laughter is perfectly nice.

They delight Donghae by going into raptures over his creek (which is a very pretty creek) and that night they have a barbeque out in Shin Donghee's backyard, piles of chicken wings and sausages and prawns and fish and all sorts of things that make Hyukjae's eyes water with joy. Jongwoon and Nari are expert cooks. Shin Donghee tells them true stories about the farm that make them laugh and Youngwoon tells them fake stories about sea life that enthral the boys. There isn't the lavish spread of food that Jungsu has gotten used to over the past two years, nor mellow music from a live band, nor the finest selection of wine accompanied by the expert services of a sommelier, but between the laughing faces of Nari and Youngwoon and opposite the obscenely huge sausage that Heechul is attempting to fit into his mouth, Jungsu realises that he hasn't thought about his email inbox all day.

… …

Over the next few days, the boys make their way over to the hotel every morning to pick them up for some grand adventure that they have planned for them. The first afternoon it's paddling around the east coast in a rowboat that has Heechul in a constant grip of fear that it will overturn and they'll all go overboard and he'll dissolve or something because he is apparently water soluble. Kibum and Donghae turn out to be surprisingly good and steady rowers, however, and Youngwoon doesn't get to see his amiable wish of witnessing a dissolving Heechul. Jungsu gets sunburn on his cheeks that day.

The next day, his cheeks are peeling and miserable, but he goes out for a hike along the coastline to admire a cove with sand so white and fine that it slips through his toes like grains of silk. There are various fishing boats bobbing up and down in the water and Youngwoon's wondering if they'll mind him taking any pictures until Donghae solves his quandary by conveniently recognising one of the fishermen, a 'Dongmin hyung' who usually takes them out for fishing trips if they so want.

Dongmin hyung offers to take them out that day, but Jungsu, still feeling a little wobbly from the rowboat of the day before, declines it. He'll like to stay at least one full day on solid, non-moving land. While Youngwoon and Heechul admire the fishing boat, Kibum takes him on a walk around the cove and tells him about the miles and miles of beach all around the island and the beautifully colourful houses of the richer islanders perched along the hills facing the sea. "I always wanted to go into at least one of them," he says. "I've never been into a really rich house. But rich people don't like to make friends with cabin boys."

Jungsu thinks of his family mansion back in Seoul that he'd grown up in, three floors of echoing bedrooms and entertainment rooms that hardly anybody had ever used; a sprawling garden that he had never done any gardening in; a huge library filled with books that few of them had read until they had sold the entire lot to the national library when they'd had to put the mansion on sale. He thinks of his own luxurious apartment in Cheongdam-dong now, the minimalistic interior done by a renowned French designer, the rich rugs and 50" LED television set and all the other expensive commodities that he's barely at home long enough to enjoy. "Maybe you might be able to come to Seoul and see my apartment one day," he says. "Though it's not a huge house."

"I wish I could go back to Seoul!" Kibum says with a yearning in his voice that Jungsu finds strange to associate with crowded, stressed, impersonal Seoul.

On the third day they have a picnic on Shin Donghee's land where they watch the watering of the fields and drink milk so rich and creamy that even Heechul wants a refill. Hyukjae announces proudly that he'd done the milking of the cows that morning without getting stamped on by any of them. "If I ever quit being a sailor, I can come to Shindong hyung's farm and spend the rest of my life milking the cows," he says quite happily.

"But you'll never find a girl who wants to go out with a cow milker," Donghae objects.

Hyukjae blinks for a moment. "I don't need a girl."

"How are you going to have babies then?" Donghae looks googly-eyed. They have learned, quite early, that Donghae goes gaga over the mere mention of babies.

"I don't want babies," Hyukjae says with a very firm conviction. "Remember that baby that we had to take care of last year? It puked all over me three times."

"But she had such big cute eyes and fat little legs…"

"But it puked on Kibummie, too…"

"It is practically touching," Heechul says in an aside to Youngwoon, who's gobbling down his third helping of potato salad, "when a boy is young enough to say 'I don't need a girl'."

"I don't remember ever being that young," Youngwoon says. "I pulled a girl's skirt when I was six and the teacher made me sit beside the dustbin for the entire lesson."

"Loser," says Heechul amiably. "I never got caught."

Hyukjae and Donghae are laughing now, poking and stealing tomato slices from each other's sandwiches, and Jungsu enters the let's-steal-food contest too just because it's sadistically fun to see how flustered Hyukjae gets when he loses any portion of his food.

Those summer nights, Jungsu has no trouble falling asleep.

… …

An exact week after they came ashore, the boys are called back to the ship and Jungsu goes along with Heechul and Youngwoon to see them off. They watch Nari kiss each of the boys' foreheads and Shin Donghee shake their hands and they laugh when Hyukjae and Donghae descend onto Jongwoon, tackling him to the ground and pummelling him as he thrashes about.

"See you next month," Kibum says politely, tugging his backpack into place on his shoulders, but Donghae spoils the dignity of the moment by letting big shiny tears splash down his nose. He's still crying when they finally reach the pier where the rickety ship is docked, looking extremely disreputable and cranky against the harmonious seascape.

"I'll miss everyone so much," he sniffs. "I wish Nari noona and Donghee hyung would come with us."

"That's what you say every time we have to leave," Kibum says patiently. "They can't come with us, you know that."

"Come on," Youngwoon says, ruffling up Donghae's hair, "you're going back on the ship, and you love it, don't you? Cheer up. You'll be back here next month."

"I don't love it," Donghae says suddenly, with so much vehemence in his voice that both Jungsu and Heechul fall back a couple of steps. "I hate it! I wish I never had to step onto a ship ever again!"

Hyukjae grabs onto Donghae's arm and slides his other hand through Kibum's. They all look so young and desolate that for several moments Jungsu wants intensely to put his arms around them and hug them and maybe put them into his pocket so he can keep them safe and happy always. But Hyukjae's thanking them now, Heechul hyung, Youngwoon hyung, Jungsu hyung, thank you for taking care of us and being so good to us and we'll see you again on the return trip.

"Take care of yourselves," Youngwoon says. "Don't let any babies puke on you. Drop them on their mothers."

"Don't let any passengers treat you badly," Heechul says. "And if that steward throws his weight about, sock him in the eye. He can't very well throw you overboard, so you're safe."

Hyukjae smiles at that, big and genuinely delighted at such a suggestion. Jungsu's still seeing the sun reflecting on Hyukjae's teeth when the boys walk up the gangway, one after the other, turning back time and again to wave like they're bidding farewell to their nearest and dearest. He says as much, and instead of the sarcastic, half-bitter replies that he has come to expect from Heechul, he only gets a "I'll miss having them around" as a reply.

"They're really good kids," Youngwoon says sadly. "They make so much out of the little they have and they almost never complain and they're such sports to be with. Makes you feel sort of – small and, you know, mean."

There's a strange sort of feeling in Jungsu's chest as they trudge up the hill back to the hotel. He can't figure out what it is; squeezed and hollow, a little tingly, a whole lot of warm. He wonders if he should ask Heechul and Youngwoon if they can identify this feeling, but neither of them seem disposed to talk and he doesn't entirely want to talk either. He goes back to his hotel room and spends the rest of the day reading Animal Farm, a book he'd enjoyed back in college but never got the opportunity to read again until now. He ponders a little on the two-legged humans and the four-legged pigs before his thoughts scatter off to Donghae patting the snout of the big queen pig on Shin Donghee's farm, the one they reared and reared and then decided not to slaughter because Donghae christened her 'Emily'.

The rush of warmth comes back into his chest, so strong that it almost knocks him over, and in the back of his mind he's still thinking about the pigs, the four legs good, two legs bad, but really he's wondering, figuring, remembering, that this is what it feels like to love another human being.

… …

He has loved before, of course. He loved his mother, or at least, had loved her up till the time her cancer made her deliriously vicious and his love took a beating until her death acted as an anecdote. He loves his sister, who remains to him the prettiest and most intelligent woman he knows; he used to love his group of buddies, who shared so many silly and hilarious times with him from high school through college until the intensive, day-draining hours of the workplace pulled them all apart.

There are others, blurred faces of girls that Jungsu thinks he probably did love at certain times in certain places, loves that he can't remember, loves that he has tucked at the back of his mind for tender reminiscences from time to time. He wouldn't say that he is a human being particularly starved for love, even though there hasn't been anyone special in his life, platonic or otherwise, in the last two years (his sister would argue that point; she would say that the reason why he's so burned out is because he hasn't loved and cared for anyone in a long time, but it's not compulsory to agree with your sister even though she might be the prettiest and most intelligent woman you know).

Jungsu wouldn't say that he's a stranger to the emotion of love, but this is the first time that he has loved people so completely beneath him in station, so much lower than him in every way, so needy of love in return. He recognises it, fully and without censure, for what it is; he has learned to love Kibum, Donghae and Hyukjae, to care for them, to recall that there are people in this world who are entirely deserving of such love and care.

He gets up from his bed and walks out of his room in search of Youngwoon and Heechul. They'd come by earlier that evening asking if he wanted to join them for dinner, but he'd been halfway through the book and so hadn't felt inclined to leave it. He finds them now sitting together at the beach, surrounded by beer bottles and tall stories. Youngwoon's boasting of how he'd once parachuted off an airplane. Heechul says fat chance, he must have been watching too many army shows.

"Oh, you," they say in unison when they notice him.

Jungsu sits down beside them and accepts a bottle. "Where did you get these from?"

"We went down to the town after dinner and bought up two cartons," Youngwoon says. "Because we're feeling so depressed, you know."

"Like we've just lost our babies," Heechul agrees with a swig.

"Fatherhood instincts," Youngwoon sighs. "Never thought I'd get it at twenty-eight. I'm too young to deal with this."

"At least you get them in full talking and walking shape," Heechul says. "You don't have to clean up their shit or anything. You don't even need to make funny googly faces at them."

"You two, too?" Jungsu says, and the two of them turn to quirk their eyebrows at him, but a quick flash of understanding passes between them. Youngwoon grins and flops down onto the sand.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" he says. "Caring for someone other than yourself."

"Yeah," Heechul says. "Keeps me from thinking about my own problems."

"Makes you feel like your problems aren't that big," Jungsu concludes quietly.

They sit in a beatified, enlightened sort of silence until a sudden onslaught of passionate moaning drops down on them.

"What the hell…" Youngwoon begins, getting up to look around, and they realise that all this while they've been sitting a bare twenty feet away from the silhouettes of the half-forgotten honeymooning couple, now coming full force back into their consciousness with their energetic gyrating in the darkness.

"Fuck you and your exhibitionism kink," Heechul yells in their direction, and for his pains gets an increase in volume of the moaning.

"Well," Jungsu says resignedly as they start packing up the bottles to leave, "that's a kind of love too."

"The kind of love that is better shoved up their asses," Heechul says.

Youngwoon almost gets bubbles up his nose with his laughter. "Dude, you went there."

"Watch me," says Heechul, and doesn't pull away when Youngwoon drapes his arm over his shoulder as they hasten back to the hotel.

… …

They've been little more than casual acquaintances before, just travellers thrown together with no other option for company, but there's something deeper now. It's as though their love for the boys has brought them together somehow, given them a bond to hold onto. Heechul and Youngwoon begin buying all sorts of little gifts from the few shops for the boys; a little carved ship for Kibum, because he likes being out at sea; a Swiss army knife for Hyukjae, who thinks it's immeasurably cool to have knives popping out everywhere; a silly looking model of two fat fish with gaping mouths for Donghae, who, for some reason, associates himself with fish because his name means 'east sea'.

There isn't any sense to these gifts, not even logic, but as Youngwoon says, you don't have to do things based on logic all the time and Heechul remarks that everybody likes gifts.

They settle into a sort of routine on the island; having breakfast in the hotel restaurant in the mornings, going for a quick dip in the swimming pool nearing noon, and walking over to Shin Donghee's farm in the afternoons. Youngwoon likes to groom the horses with Jongwoon; Heechul and Jungsu prefer helping Shin Donghee whitewash the hen coop and drive the farm tractor along the fields of wheat and grain. The sun is dazzling sometimes, so Heechul puts on designer sunglasses by the end of the first week and claims that this is the Modern Farmer look.

In the nights they roam the town for any and all restaurants, and Youngwoon insists on his daily ration of three bottles of beer. He's able to hold his liquor so well that it makes Heechul disgruntled and one night he lures Youngwoon into drinking so much that finally Youngwoon starts sprouting rubbish and calls Heechul 'Sohee'.

"Your eyes are so beautiful, Sohee," Youngwoon groans.

"I know," Heechul says, drinking complacently.

"I'm sorry Sohee I nevermeant to."

"Never meant to what?"

"Nevermeant todothat."

"To do what?" Heechul raises an eyebrow at Jungsu.

"So sorry Sohee." Youngwoon starts crying, and for some reason it feels awful, probably because there's so much heartbreak in his sobbing.

"God, he's a sad drunk," Heechul says, and looks sorry for having induced this sad drunkenness. "What are we going to do with him now?"

"Get him back to his room, I guess," Jungsu suggests.

"What, eighty kilograms of thick-boned male?"

"If you take one arm and I take the other, it shouldn't be a problem."

Heechul gives him a queer look. "You like helping people, don't you?"

"No, well, I don't know." Jungsu pauses to think about it. "Do I?"

"You can be such a mother sometimes. You probably don't realise it."

"It's just normal to help your friends, isn't it?"

Heechul shrugs.

"Sosorry Sohee." Youngwoon moves over and pours himself into Heechul's lap, rubbing his face into Heechul's thighs.

"You know what," Heechul says, "let's just get him back to his room before he tries to have sex with me out of apology."

"Can't sex the unwilling," Jungsu says, and for his piece of witticism gets Heechul's foot on the back of his thighs.

… …

Youngwoon tells them about Sohee a few days later, when they've teased him so much about it that he gets frustrated. They'd been going out for a couple of years, he says, and Sohee's parents never liked him much because his degree was from some lousy university and he couldn't seem to hold down any jobs for a suitable length of time.

"I bet it's because you drank all night and reported late for work in the morning, you bastard," Heechul says, and Youngwoon sighs, says yes, that was really the case, and Jungsu bites his lip. Drinking was a serious addiction for him, Youngwoon goes on, and everyone told him that he'd better kick it but he refused to listen to them. He got engaged to Sohee despite objections from her family, and their wedding was to come off in five months' time when he got overly drunk one night and crashed into a cab. Jungsu and Heechul sit in silence through the next few minutes' details of arrest, court, damages, broken engagement.

"I had to get away after that," Youngwoon says. "Straighten myself out. I've cut my drinking down to just three bottles a day, and maybe by the end of the year I'll be down to two."

"Maybe you'll be able to reconcile with Sohee, too," Jungsu says, but Youngwoon just shakes his head, says that it's over. He doesn't offer more details on why, and they know better than to ask.

"We'll help you kick it," Heechul says. "Anything more than three bottles and we'll throw you into a bathtub of freezing water."

"It helps when you have people in it with you," Jungsu says, feeling vaguely proud of himself for saying such a wise thing.

"Yeah?" says Youngwoon, giving both of them an odd look.

They're crossing the fields back from Shin Donghee's farm that late afternoon when Youngwoon suddenly stops and tells them to look. He doesn't point, but they follow the direction of his gaze and they see the reddish golden late afternoon light stroked across the sky, reflecting itself on the glints of the sea below. Jungsu remembers that someone had told him once that the few minutes of transfiguring sunset makes his day worthwhile.

"Think the kids are seeing this out at sea, too?" Youngwoon says.

Jungsu smiles, picturing their rapt expressions. "Wish I could see their faces."

"Maybe that's why they're happier than we are," Heechul says. "They take time to smell the roses."

"Roses smell yucky," Youngwoon objects.

"Whatever," Heechul says.

They run into the honeymooning couple humping each other against the sunset, and let the magic slide away into a pleasant vestige of sensation for later enjoyment as they rush away before the woman can proceed into her screaming stage.

"I'll get back at them someday for the amount of times they've traumatised me on this trip," Youngwoon vows.

… …

He meant that.

Four nights later Jungsu finds himself crouched behind the bushes, listening in on live porn with Youngwoon and Heechul. The couple had discovered a nice little nook behind a line of tall trees in a park and was going at it with much vigour and enjoyment, and Youngwoon had located them with his expert ears ("like a hound on a trail," Heechul had said). Jungsu's not very sure what Youngwoon has in mind, and he doesn't know if he really wants to get involved, but Youngwoon and Heechul look so gleeful that he decides to stick around out of curiosity.

"Oh baby, baby, you're the best!" the woman shrieks, and Youngwoon almost dies trying to keep his laughter silent.

"Come on," Heechul hisses, poking him in the side.

"What are you two planning to do…" Jungsu just manages to say before they pounce on him, Youngwoon holding his legs and Heechul grabbing his arms, and he yells a "What are you…" before Heechul claps his hand over his mouth.

"Mmmmph!" Jungsu muffles against Heechul's palm. Youngwoon is yanking off his shoes and he feels a gust of frightening cold air on his soles. "Mmaht youguysh do…!"

And then he yells, and Heechul's cackling laughter into the grass beside him, and Youngwoon's alternately pinching his toes and tickling his soles and Jungsu pretty much wants to die.

"Come on, baby!" Youngwoon howls in a deep, would-be husky voice. "Tell me how you like it!"

"Nurrughhh!" Jungsu grumbles into Heechul's palm, and he tries to say 'fuck you guys' but it comes out as a long incoherent sounding groan thing and Heechul whoops, "Show us what you want, baby!"

They're making so much noise that they almost miss the guy yelling, "Shut the fuck up!"

"Same to you!" Youngwoon yells back. "Glad to see you enjoyed our little display of asshole-ism!"

They collapse into laughter when the couple finally slinks away, such breathless uncontrollable glee that Jungsu doesn't even care that Youngwoon has slammed his feet into the ground and soil is creeping between his toes.

"Oh god," Heechul says, wiping his eyes, "let's go get some alcohol."

"My treat," Jungsu sputters.

"What? Say that again."

"My treat, bastards."

"You're saying that only because you know I can only take three bottles," Youngwoon accuses. "Can we defer your treat to tomorrow's lunch?"

"Shut up!"

"I'll take the treat even if that idiot doesn't," Heechul says, standing up and peering through the bushes. "Yah! Humpers! Call us anytime you want to listen in!"

He starts hooting again. "He flipped me, that sad asshole."

Jungsu gets drunk that night, high on laughter and satisfaction. He doesn't remember much of what happens, but he has a vague impression of the shape of Youngwoon's shoulders and Heechul's muffled incessant chatter and Youngwoon grumbling about how heavy he is, damn you will you stop drooling on my shoulder.

… …

"I've been thinking," Youngwoon announces one evening at Shin Donghee's dinner table as they stuff themselves with Nari's seafood paella.

"Good for you," Heechul replies, attacking a huge prawn.

"No, really," Youngwoon insists with such earnestness that they look up to listen. "I've been thinking about the three boys, and it's really rotten luck for them to be stuck on that boat year in and year out having no chance at a better life when I'm rolling in privilege. Well, I mean, in comparison."

"What about it?" Jongwoon asks.

"I can't exactly help them to roll in privilege, but you know, I was thinking, maybe I could give them a hand's up. Pay off their captain for them, enrol them into a proper school."

"But where are they going to live?" Nari says.

"One of my cousin's kids used to go to a boarding school in Yongin," Youngwoon says. "I can't put them up in my apartment, but if they attend the boarding school, they can come back to my place for the holidays, if they're okay with squeezing for about three months."

"Do you think they'll accept your charity?" Heechul says.

Youngwoon frowns thoughtfully for a moment. "I'll have to explain to them that it's not charity. I'm doing this purely because I want to see them having a better life doing what they want to do. And…" he hesitates, looking at them. "In a way it'll be good for me too. Having people whom I need to be responsible for. Not just living for myself."

"You won't have enough money to pay for all their school fees," Jungsu says.

"If I find a job when I get back to Seoul and stick with it for a few months…"

"You still won't have enough."

"Goddamn it, I can try, can't I?"

"But that's irresponsibility too," Jungsu points out. "You don't take in three boys just because you want to, without considering the financial part of it. If you're going to be responsible for them, you have to be responsible for them all the way."

"Much as I want you to take them in," Shin Donghee says, "Jungsu-sshi is right. That's the one thing that's been holding me back from adopting them."

"What I'm trying to say is," Jungsu goes on, "if you're serious about this, then I'm going to chip in and help. I have enough in my bank to last me four lifetimes, and I'm not going to be alive for four lifetimes, so I might as well transfer three of those lifetimes to the boys."

Youngwoon stares at him slack-jawed. "You've been thinking about this, too?"

"I want to help those boys as much as you do."

"Well, look what just happened," Heechul says brusquely, and they turn to see him stabbing his prawn with his fork. "Don't go around thinking that you're the only do-gooders in town. If you're going to be planning on giving those kids a better shot at life, then hell I want to be in on it too. I may not be rolling in cash like Jungsu but I do have a proper job though it's not entirely sure now that I may be re-employed when I get back to Seoul, but I have money coming in every month and a portion of that will go to them. It can be their pocket money, dating money, whatever."

"Are we really doing this, then?" Youngwoon looks shell-shocked. "We're really, seriously, doing this?"

Nari and Shin Donghee are looking at them, one face after the other, such hopeful looks in their eyes that it makes Jungsu smile, and smile so hugely that it hurts his face. "Yeah, guess we are."

They catch sight of the little white chapel on their way back to the hotel. It's a way down the slope, so nobody suggests going down to it, but Youngwoon sits down on the grass and they follow suit.

"This isn't going to be easy, you know," Jungsu says, feeling the need to merge their headiness with a bit of earth. "We still need to see if they'll be willing to come along with us."

"I know," Youngwoon says. "But damn it, thinking of what it might be…"

He lapses into silence, staring at the white chapel with a look of content in his eyes. Jungsu doesn't want to break into his happiness. He doesn't want to break into his own either. He glances over at Heechul, and finds that Heechul's smiling.

It feels like a prayer.

… …

They spend the better part of the next week discussing details with Shin Donghee, figuring out possible adoption or legal guardianship procedures, planning the boys' living arrangements during their holidays. Heechul wants them to rent an apartment for the boys so they'll be able to go to a day school, but Nari objects that it's too much to expect three fourteen year old boys to live alone together without setting something on fire.

In the end they draw up Plan As, and Bs, and Cs, and while sometimes it feels like premature planning, Jungsu senses a constant sort of excitement in the air, a yearning and a desire completely unlike anything he has felt before.

"I want them so much," Youngwoon says once, after several hours of planning and dreaming, "that I'm beginning to be terrified that they won't want us back. Do you get that feeling?"

"It's like loving this really hot girl who doesn't even see you," Heechul says.

They pause for a moment to roar at the thought of Hyukjae as a really hot girl.

"I'm sure they'll want you," Nari says. "They're so much in need of love and care, and when a person needs love so much, he won't turn it down when it comes along."

"I did," Heechul says.

"So you can help them not to do the same," Jungsu says gently. Heechul has never given them the details about the 'bad thing' that had happened to him, but he and Youngwoon have decided not to pry it out of him. You don't always have to share about a problem in order to get over it, Jungsu says. Sometimes it's enough just to push it to the backburner and let it die a natural death. Sometimes it's enough to just have the knowledge that there are people whom you know are willing to listen to you if ever you should need to talk about it.

He is, he thinks, beginning to understand more and more each day about what it means to love.

… …

The ship docks six days later and they're waiting at the pier for the boys to come ashore. Youngwoon's stressing about the possibility of the boys having forgotten them entirely, and Heechul tells him to shut the fuck up, your jittering is making me stress too. Jungsu manoeuvres himself in between them so it doesn't erupt into an all-out fight and minutes after the last passenger has alighted on shore, most of them looking exhausted and green, they see the three boys moving down the gangway with huge backpacks.

Donghae charges at them the minute he catches sight of them, throwing himself on Heechul and grabbing his neck so hard that Heechul almost chokes. Hyukjae and Kibum follow more sedately, but the smiles on their faces are so wide and, in Hyukjae's case, so gummy that Jungsu holds him close, breathes in the smell of his boy's hair.

"We missed you so much, hyung!" Donghae says, turning around in Heechul's embrace to hug Youngwoon's arm. "One night Hyukjae was totally crying for you. He won't admit it, but he really was."

"I wasn't," Hyukjae says indignantly, but sniffles anyway.

"We have lots to tell you guys," Youngwoon says.

"Ooh, what?" Donghae wants to know, but Jungsu, feeling that it would be incongruous to break the guardianship news to them at the pier, insists that they go up to Shin Donghee's farm for a proper meal and wash first. Kibum grins in relief at that; he's more hungry than anything else, and Jungsu slips his arm around his shoulders as they walk up the hills.

"It's good to see you, hyungie," Kibum says as the other four clatter on ahead, Hyukjae's loud squeal of joy at his Swiss army knife sending a few birds scrambling out of their tree perches. "It was so lonely on the ship, and the steward was so mean this time round. He wouldn't even let us have our dinner together. He said we had to work in shifts."

"You won't have to be lonely anymore," Jungsu says, and Kibum looks at him quizzically. "You have us for hyungs, and we love you."

"But there are so few people who love us," Kibum says with a sigh, "and we won't have you around all the time. When you go back to Seoul, we won't see you ever again."

"Not if you come with us."

Kibum looks so startled that he doesn't say anything else, and he still doesn't say anything when they tell them, over lunch, their plans for them. Hyukjae, Donghae and Kibum, so eagerly planned for and awaited, sit in complete silence with their eyes stretched to the maximum as Jungsu explains that they can come back to Korea and attend a top grade boarding school. "We'll take full financial responsibility for you," he says, "and during the holidays you can choose who you want to be with, Heechul or Youngwoon or I. Our homes will always be open to you."

"Because we want the best for you," Youngwoon adds.

Hyukjae gulps, and Jungsu feels Youngwoon beginning to jitter nervously beside him again.

"If there's anything you don't like about this, you can say so," Nari says.

"Is this…" Kibum hesitates for a moment. "Are you…doing this because you pity us?"

"We're doing this because we care for you," Jungsu says. "There's a difference. Caring means that you want to do things for that person to make him happy."

"But we'll be taking hyung's money," Donghae says, his big eyes very serious and sad.

"It's money that we want to give to you," Heechul says. "If we keep it all for ourselves, we'll just buy more beer and do more stupid mindless things with it. But with you, it means that you'll get a good education and a home, and when you're older you'll be able to start out in life like everyone else. You'll never have to fetch and carry for people again, and you can go to that steward and tell him to jump into the sea."

"But will hyung…" Hyukjae pauses, and grips both Donghae and Kibum's hands presumably for courage. "Will you get tired of us halfway through, and leave us?"

Jungsu leans forward and reaches out his palms, and the boys grab at his hands so quickly that he feels the rush of warmth again, so overpowering that it almost makes him dizzy. "Friends don't get tired of each other," he says. "And if you come to live with us, we won't only be friends. We'll be your real hyungs."

"You'll probably get tired of us before we get tired of you," Heechul says.

"We'll get to go to school, and learn everything, and I'll be able to…to learn how to dance?" Hyukjae asks, and they blink at him for a moment because they hadn't known that he wanted to learn how to dance.

"You can take dance lessons if you want," Jungsu says. "It'll be part of the deal."

Hyukjae starts to cry, and Donghae immediately follows his example.

"I never thought…" Donghae begins, and blows his nose. "That anyone would want us enough to do this for us."

"We're just three stupid boys," Kibum says, looking at Jungsu.

"You're smarter than I am, in many ways," Jungsu says. "And, Kibummie, it's not about whether you're worthy to be loved. Life is about sharing; we can't live for ourselves or we'll become completely selfish and unfit for society. You'll be saving us from becoming monsters."

They sit in silence for a while, and Jungsu sees the beginnings of a smile mount on Kibum's face.

"I'll never have to step onto a ship again?" Donghae says. "Never again?"

"Well," says Heechul, "just one more time, to go back to Nice with us."

And then they're laughing, and the boys are whooping, and Nari is crying, and for the first time since he'd arrived, Jungsu wants to go home.

… …

The boys take them to the chapel the night before they leave the island. Kibum's cousin, a dour man whose speech is almost entirely made up of nautical talk and foul words, has been paid off and the boys' air tickets from France to Seoul have been booked with the help of the hotel's front office. Donghae says that they need to go to the chapel once before they go, and although Youngwoon and Heechul trade awkward looks at the thought of going somewhere remotely religious, Donghae makes it sound so important that they indulge him.

Kibum leads them onto a barely visible goat track along the slopes of the hill, past trees and fallen branches and stunning sea views through the leaves until they come out, almost suddenly, right before the backdoor of the chapel.

"Are we trespassing?" Heechul says, looking around as though he expects an enraged priest to burst out on them.

"No," says Hyukjae. "It's open to the public."

He pushes open the door and they file after him into the smallest sanctuary that Jungsu has ever seen. A tiny pulpit, with two unlit candles; about five rows of rough wood pews; wooden boards for a floor; and a silence so palpable that he hears the call of the gulls circling above the sea at least half a mile away. This is where the imprisoned soldiers of over a half-century ago had found refuge.

The boys sit down on a pew, and as they take up the entire length of it, Jungsu sits down on the pew next to it. Youngwoon and Heechul wander about examining the candles and frayed edges of the pulpit cloth.

"Did anyone tell you that prayers are really heard here?" Kibum asks.

"Uh, the travel agent told me," Jungsu says. "It was on the Wikipedia page too."

Hyukjae giggles. "We put that thing on the Wikipedia page ourselves, about two years ago when we docked at Nice for a couple of days. Kibummie said it would be funny if people took it seriously."

"For real?" Youngwoon says. "You little brats."

"Good to know that there's already a foundation for all the bad things I'm going to teach them," Heechul says, very pleased.

"But you know," Kibum says, "we used to pray, 'Dear God, thank you for everything, and please give us a family.'"

"Seems like it was heard after all, wasn't it?" Donghae says.

Jungsu laughs at them and turns to look at the pulpit. Who would imagine that sad bastards like him, Youngwoon and Heechul could be answers to a prayer? Stranger things have happened, but he would beg to differ.

…. …

He still meets up with them for beers once a week. Youngwoon still drinks three bottles per day, but he says he'll be cutting down to two starting next week. Heechul still prefers grouching as a method of telling them about his life.

They sometimes discuss Kibum, Hyukjae and Donghae's progress at the boarding school, the fees and expenses to be settled, the amount of money to be deposited into the bank account opened for that purpose, and the emails that they get from them every fortnight. Hyukjae and Donghae are doing fine, Kibum reports, they've joined the hip hop dance club and they're getting lots of girls crushing on them (especially Donghae; apparently girls like big eyes, he adds in brackets), but he's missing the sea. Can they go to the seaside when their summer holiday comes around? Jungsu writes back and copies Youngwoon and Heechul to say yes, he'll look around for some seaside resorts.

"I don't know if I can take time off work," Youngwoon says. He has just started his probation period as a sales personnel at a hotel, and summer is only two months away.

"It'll just be for a couple of weeks, anyway," Jungsu says. "You'll have them squeezing in your cramped apartment for a week before they go back to school."

"True," Youngwoon says, looking happy at the reminder.

"How adorable. You're such a softie when it comes to the kids," Heechul says.

"No more than you," Youngwoon retorts.

Other times they talk about their own lives, or the lives of other people, or about everything and nothing at all. Of shoes and ships, Heechul says, but in their updated version, of property prices, over-boiling attempts at making soup, news from the Island of Nowhere about Nari's pregnancy, the latest Apple technology in the market, the stubborn clients that Youngwoon encounters on a near daily basis, the new girl groups in the showbiz industry, the ranking of the drivers in the latest F1 race. Sometimes it feels like they've gone back to their college days. Most times it feels like they're men moving ahead.

When he goes back to his office in the morning and opens up a screen of unread emails and excel spreadsheets of numbers, Jungsu remembers how rich life is out there.

… …

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes?