The first class lounge in the most elegant room on the ship, done in Yi Seong-gye Joseon style. Jimin sits on a divan, with a group of women around him. His mother, the Countess Wang and Lady Chwa Seong are taking tea. Jimin is silent and still as a porcelain figurine as the conversation washes around him.
His mother is rambling on about something or other. "Of course the invitations had to be sent back to the printers twice. And the bridesmaids dresses! Let me tell you what an odyssey that has been..."
Jimin is not listening in on the boring conversation, as it is a story he has heard countless of times, and each time it never gets interesting. Instead, he is focusing on a nearby table where a mother and daughter are having tea. The four-year-old girl, wearing white gloves, daintily picking up a cookie. The mother correcting her posture, and the way she holds the teacup. The little girl is trying so hard to please, her expression serious. Jimin is reminded of when he was her age - the relentless conditioning, the pain to become an Joseon geisha.
Jimin calmly and deliberately turns his teacup over, spilling tea all over his clothes. "Oh, look what I've done."
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
The Titanic steams forward in the dusk light, as if lit by the embers of a giant fire. Yoongi is there on the bow, right at the apex of the railing - his favorite spot. He closes his eyes, letting the chill wind clear his head.
Yoongi then hears his voice, behind him. "Hello, Hyung."
Yoongi turns and Jimin is standing there.
"I changed my mind."
Yoongi smiles at him, his eyes drinking the slender male in. Jimin's cheeks are red with the chill wind, and his eyes sparkle. His hair blows wildly about his face.
"Hoseok said you might be up-"
Yoongi cuts him off. "Shhh. Come here." He puts his hands on the younger males waist, as if he is going to kiss him. "Close your eyes."
Jimin does, and Yoongi turns him to face forward, the way the ship is going. He presses him gently to the rail, standing right behind him. Then he take Jimin's two hands and raises them until he is standing with his arms outstretched on each side. Jimin is going along with him. When Yoongi lowers his hands, Jimin's stay up, like wings.
"Okay. Open them."
Jimin gasps. There is nothing in his field of vision but water. It's like there is no ship under them at all, just the two of them soaring. The Atlantic unrolls toward him, a hammered copper shield under a dusk sky. There is only the wind, and the hiss of the water fifty feet below.
"I'm flying!" Jimin leans forward, arching his back. Yoongi puts his hands on Jimin's waist to steady him.
Then Yoongi starts singing softly. "Come Josephine in my flying machine..."
Jimin closes his eyes, feeling himself floating weightless far above the sea. He smiles dreamily, then leans back, gently pressing him back against Yoongi's chest. Yoongi pushes forward slightly against him.
Slowly Yoongi raises his hands, arms outstretched, and the meet Jimin's, fingertips gently touching. Then their fingers intertwine. Moving slowly, their fingers caress through and around each other like the bodies of two lovers.
Yoongi tips his face forward into Jimin's blowing hair, letting the scent of the younger boy wash over him, until his cheek is against Jimin's ear.
Jimin turns his head until his lips are near Yoongi's. He lowers his arms, turning further, until he finds Yoongi's mouth with his. Yoongi wraps his arms around Jimin from behind, and they kiss like this with Jimin's head turned and tilted back, surrendering to him, to the emotion, to the inevitable. They kiss, slowly and tremulously, and then with building passion.
Yoongi and the ship seem to merge into one force of power and optimism, lifting Jimin, buoying him forward on a magical journey, soaring onward into a night without fear.
In the crows nest, high above and behind them, lookout Frederick Fleet nudges his mate, Reginald Lee, pointing down at the figures in the bow.
"Wish I had those bleedin' binoculars."
Yoongi and Jimin are embracing at the bow rail.
His mate laughs and says "Well, at least they're warm."
Frederick, pushing Reginald playfully says, "Well if that's what we've gotta do to get warm, I'd rather freeze."
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
Jimin blinks, seeming to come back to the present. He sees the wreck on the screen, the sad ghost ship deep in the abyss. "That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight."
Kyong Tonghyon changes the tape in the mini-cassette recorder. "So we're up to dusk on the night of the sinking. Six hours to go."
"Don't you love it?" Lewis says. "There's Kye, he's standing there with the iceberg warning in his fucking hand..." Remembering Grandpa Jimin, he corrects himself. "Excuse me. In his hand, and he's ordering more speed."
Tonghyon replies. "Twenty-six years of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship they're going to see in time to turn. But the ship's too big, with too small a rudder, it can't corner worth shit. Everything he knows is wrong."
Jimin is ignoring the conversation. He has the art-nouveau comb with the jade butterfly on the handle in his hands, turning it slowly. He is watching a monitor, which shows the ruins of Suite B-52/56.
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
Jimin has taken Yoongi back to his suite, and Yoongi is overwhelmed by the opulence of the room. He sets his sketchbook and drawing materials on the marble table.
"Will this light do? Don't artists need good light?"
Yoongi replies in a bad French accent. "Zat is true, I am not used to working is such 'orreeble conditions." He then clocks Jimin's paintings. "Hey. Monet!" He crouches next to the paintings stacked against the wall. "Isn't he great? The use of colour? I saw him once, through a hole in this garden fence in Giverny."
Jimin goes into the adjoining walk-in wardrobe closet. Yoongi sees him go to the safe and start working the combination. He's fascinated.
"My father insists on lugging this thing everywhere."
Yoongi raises his left eyebrow. "Should I be expecting him anytime soon?"
"Not as long at the cigars and brandy hold out."
With a clunk, Jimin unlocks the safe. Glancing up, he meets Yoongi's eyes in the mirror behind the safe. Jimin opens it and removes the necklace his fiancee got him, then holds it out to Yoongi who takes it nervously.
"What is it? A sapphire?"
"A diamond. A very rare diamond, called the Heart of the Ocean."
Yoongi gazes at wealth beyond his comprehension.
"I want you to draw me like your French girl. Wearing this." Jimin smiles at Yoongi. "Wearing only this."
Yoongi looks up at him, surprised.
Jimin heads towards his bedroom and draws the butterfly comb out of his hair. In the sitting room Yoongi is laying out his pencils like surgical tools. His sketchbook is open and ready and he looks up as Jimin comes into the room, wearing a silk kimono.
"The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like a china doll. As a paying customer, I expect to get what I want." He hands Yoongi a ₩100 coin and steps back, parting the kimono. The white stone lies on his creamy chest. Jimin's heart is pounding as he slowly lowers the robe.
Yoongi looks so stricken, it is almost comical.
"Tell me when it looks right to you." Jimin poses on the divan, settling like a cat.
"Uh... just bend your left leg a little and... and lower your head. Eyes to me. That's it."
Yoongi starts to sketch. He drops his pencil and Jimin stifles a laugh. "I believe you are blushing, Mr. Big Artiste. I can't imagine Monsieur Monet blushing."
Yoongi is sweating slightly. "He does landscapes." His eyes come up to look at Jimin over the top edge of his sketchpad.
This is an image Jimin will carry for the rest of his life.
Despite his nervousness, Yoongi draws with sure strokes, and what emerges is the best thing he has ever done. Jimin's pose in languid, his hands beautiful, and his eyes radiate his energy.
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
"My heart was pounding the whole time. It was the most erotic moment of my life... up till then at least."
Everyone in the room is gathered around Jimin in his wheelchair, staring in rapt, frozen silence. The story of Yoongi and Jimin has finally and completely grabbed them.
"What, uh... happened next?" Lewis asks.
Jimin smiles. "You mean, did we 'do it'?"
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
Yoongi is signing the drawing. Jimin, wearing his kimono again, is leaning on his shoulder, watching.
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
"Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Bodine." Jimin gazes at the lost drawing the marine biologists had found. Yoongi has X-rayed his soul.
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
"Date it, Hyung. I want to always remember this night."
Yoongi does: 4/14/1912. Jimin meanwhile scribbles a note on a piece of Titanic stationary. He accepts the drawing from Yoongi, and crosses to the safe in the wardrobe.
He puts the diamond back in the safe, placing the drawing and the note on top of it, then closes the door with a clunk.
Namjoon enters from the Palm Court into the First Class Smoking Room through the revolving door and crosses the room toward Yuni and Pilwoo. A fire is blazing in the marble fireplace, and the usual fatcats are playing cards, drinking and talking. Pilwoo sees Namjoon and detaches from his group, coming to him.
"None of the stewards have seen him."
Pilwoo says, low but forceful, "This is ridiculous, Kim. Find him."
゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。
Titanic glides across the unnatural sea, black and calm as a pool of oil. The ships lights are mirrored almost perfectly in the black water. The sky is brilliant with stars. A meteor traces a bright line across the heavens.
On the bridge, Captain Kye peers out at the blackness ahead of the ship. Quatermaster Cha brings him a cup of hot tea with lemon. It steams in the bitter cold of the open bridge. Second Officer Ka is next to him, staring out at the sheet of black glass the Atlantic has become.
"I don't think I've ever seen such a flat calm, in twenty-four years at sea." States Ka Soojin.
"Yes, like a mill pond. Not a breath of wind." Replies the Captain.
"It will make the bergs harder to see, with no breaking water at the base."
"Mmmm. Well, I'm off. Maintain speed and heading, Mr. Ka."
"Yes sir."
"And wake me, of course, if anything becomes in the slightest degree doubtful."