Archive of Our Own

Coffee Obsession closes at four in the off season. After that, the only place to get anything to eat or drink without driving to Falmouth is The Rusty Bucket. That means that by 5:30 they’re starting to fill up. The Bucket, as it’s known, is an institution; it’s been a key part of Woods Hole forever, or since the 1950s anyway, when the name counted as witty and original and not the hopeless cliche it is nowadays.

Yoongi first set foot in the The Rusty Bucket the summer after his freshman year in college, visiting Jin at his family’s house on the Point. He never imagined that a decade later he and Jin would be the keepers of the institution, and that Woods Hole would turn out to be his belonging-place. Not too many townie bars in seaside New England towns keep their clientele when taken over by a couple of Asian kids from Away, just a couple of years out of college, but Woods Hole is special, and the Rusty Bucket is special, and maybe Jin and Yoongi are a little bit special, too.

In the winter the clientele is research scientists and boat people and the occasional wanderer; in summer it’s all of those, plus summer people and the college kids who bus the tables of the summer people at all the other, more upscale restaurants. That mix had always been good, what gave The Bucket its loose, welcoming vibe. But Jin and Yoongi have improved things a little without ruining anything along the way. The food is really good now, still not fancy or uppity, but with its hearty simplicity brought into the 21st century, and somehow behind the bar Yoongi, despite his ‘not a people person’ persona, makes everyone feel comfortable and free to be themselves.

The door opens and it’s Namjoon. Yoongi smiles at him, looking up, and sees he’s not alone. Four strangers follow him in, two women and two men, and then Jungkook is bringing up the rear of their party. They come up to the bar for drinks, instead of heading to a table, and Namjoon introduces him, “Everyone, this is Yoongi, one of the most important people in Woods Hole, and my best friend.”

Yoongi makes his jokey, long-suffering, ‘oh Namjoon’ face.

“Yoongi, these are the spring semester Visiting Research Fellows. It’s my job to get them oriented and make them feel welcome, so of course we had to end our first day here.”

Yoongi is introduced to a British-Nigerian woman in her 30s; a skinny, older Danish man; a young woman with straight, serious brows, from Vancouver, and a Korean American man with a Southern California feel to him. He sets them up with, respectively, a vodka tonic, a Sam Adams draft, a diet coke, and “whatever your specialty is,” which is the Dark and Stormy this week, because it’s been, well, dark and stormy. Namjoon and Jungkook get their usuals and they all settle in a line along the bar. Yoongi mentally frames the photo he’d take of them: hands lightly touching glasses, knuckles and fingernails in six different shades of human, the gestures of the fingers as they talk reflecting the exchange of ideas.

Namjoon is sitting between Adaugo (“feel free to call me Ada”) and Jimin, holding court a little bit, as is his way. “Yoongi makes Woods Hole run,” he says. “He can answer any questions you might have, and tell you where to find anything you need, and he knows everyone. Oh, and he’s a matchmaker, too. Are either of you single?,” he asks, turning to both sides.

“Good grief,” mutters Yoongi.

“Not me,” says Ada, looking at Namjoon dryly and holding up her left hand.

“Guilty, I guess,” says Jimin, “But I’m here to work, not date.”

“All work is no good for you! Actually I think people work better when they’re in love. Yoongi introduced me to Laura two years ago, and I think it’s thanks to her that I got tenure in the fall. And he’s got at least three other successful couples he’s responsible for.”

Yoongi bears with Namjoon’s bragging about him patiently, not responding. Of course he gets to know a lot of people, tending bar at the local institution, and yes, he sometimes introduces people who he thinks might fit together in interesting ways, but it’s not like he’s deliberately matchmaking. Most of the time. It’s especially uncomfortable when Namjoon goes on like this because Namjoon is his most spectacular failure in the realm of romance promotion. They’d dated each other, and it had been a disaster of such massive proportions that it became amusing to Namjoon, once he’d put it behind him and they’d painstakingly rebuilt their friendship. Yoongi still has a hard time seeing the humor in it. He’s glad that he and Namjoon are friends again, and glad that Namjoon worked so hard to make that possible, tag-teaming with Jin to wear down Yoongi’s avoidance and wall of politeness. He still wishes there was some sort of potion he could mix up behind the bar that would erase the entire six-month debacle from his memory. He hasn’t had a serious relationship since.

“Joon,” Jungkook calls from the other end of the bar. “Knut wants to hear about the genetic work we’re doing with the large-clawed spiders!” Namjoon excuses himself and gets up in a hurry to go share his passion, and Ada turns to talk to the Canadian woman next to her, leaving Jimin and Yoongi alone together.

“So, are you in crabs too?” Yoongi asks.

“Oh, no, I’m not in marine biology at all. Oceanography. I write computer programs that model ocean currents and forecast changes in them due to global warming.” Jimin is good-looking, with an open, expressive face, and seems to have mastered the ‘30 second introduction to my research for non-specialists’ pitch, which is something fewer than half the scientists Yoongi meets can do.

“Post-doc?” Yoongi has learned all the ins and outs of the path of a scientific research career in the past decade. The visiting research fellowships are for any post-doctoral projects, but Jimin looks too young to be on the faculty someplace yet, unless he’s some kind of wunderkind like Namjoon (English isn’t his first or second language, but he graduated from Stanford at 19 and had a Ph.D. by 23).

“Yeah, I’m in San Diego, second year of a two-year gig. Applying for permanent positions right now, though. We’ll see.”

“Well, good luck with it.”

“If I can whip this project into shape this semester it will be my calling card, so I’m really going to focus on working hard,” Jimin says.

Just then Jin calls out from the kitchen, and Yoongi heads over to grab the waiting plates for the table in the corner; Monday nights in winter are quiet and they don’t keep any wait staff, so he’s covering all the customer activity in the room. Namjoon’s group of fellows eventually move to a table and have dinner, Yoongi serving as their waiter. Yoongi is kept busy enough moving between the bar and the tables that he doesn’t get much further conversation out of them.

As they gather their coats and prepare to leave an hour later, Jimin comes up to the bar. He holds out his hand to shake Yoongi’s.

“It was so nice to meet you! How late are you open?”

“This time of year, we close at 10 Monday through Thursday, sometimes earlier if it’s empty. One in the morning Friday and Saturday. But any time the lights are on, it’s basically okay to stop in. You the kind of guy who’s gonna be a regular?”

“Maybe,” Jimin grins, and his grin is pretty devastating. “I like to take a break in the middle of the evening. Seems like a good place to look up from the data wrangling for a few minutes.”

“This time of year it’s about the only place, but if we’re here, you’re welcome.”

“Thanks! And please thank the chef for the food - it was so good,” says Jimin, as Jungkook comes to collect him and herd him out the door with the rest of the group.

Jin comes out from the kitchen where he was lurking, watching the exchange, and perches on a stool at the end of the bar. “Well, that is a good-looking man who appreciates good food. Seems like he might be interested in getting to know you. Are you interested?”

“You are way ahead of yourself,” says Yoongi.

“But you think he’s cute, right?” Jin needles.

“Obviously he’s cute, Jin,” says Yoongi, enough annoyance in his voice that Jin lets it drop.

****

Two nights later at 8:45, Jimin ducks through the door, shutting it quickly against the spitting sleet, and becomes the fifth person inside The Rusty Bucket. Yoongi looks up and nods, and watches as Jimin pushes back the hood of his yellow slicker, removes his thick black-framed glasses, and wipes ice particles off his cheeks with his index finger. He looks around the room and spots a coat rack, and looks at Yoongi as if to say, “Here?” Yoongi nods again, and Jimin hangs up his coat and messenger bag and comes to sit at the bar, next to the only other person there, an older woman who has been chatting with Yoongi. She’s wearing a lanyard.

“Hi, I’m Jimin Park, one of the new Visiting Research Fellows,” Jimin says to the woman. His smile is like a goddamn ray of sunshine combatting this night of miserable weather. His hair is fluffy. He looks very young and dangerously cute.

“Jimin, this is Janet Lincoln, the head librarian and archivist,” says Yoongi. He passes over a napkin so Jimin can clean his glasses.

“Oh!” says Jimin, absently taking it. “You’re on my list of people to talk to! I’m working with historic ocean current data from the 1980s, from the Vladimirovich lab, but I’m wondering if there’s older data that I might be able to use also? You seemed like the person most likely to be able to give me leads.”

Janet replies eagerly, and they’re headlong into discussion of archival notebooks from a sea voyage in 1913 within minutes. Yoongi makes Jimin a drink without asking what he wants and sets it in front of him, and Jimin looks up, surprised.

“Hot buttered rum,” says Yoongi. “Mandatory on a night like this.”

“Thanks,” Jimin beams. “I need to buy better gloves and some warmer socks if this is the way it’s going to be.” He turns back to Janet, saying, “So it sounds like I’d have to hand-code the locations from the latitude and longitude readings in the notebooks?”

“Yes,” she replies, “But my sense is the readings were very precise before electronic instrumentation, so they should be solid.”

Yoongi leaves them to it and wanders over to the table where Jungkook and Jin are sitting, each on a laptop and with headphones, attempting to kill each other and/or their enemies in some virtual world. He sets down two mugs of cocoa - extra mini-marshmallows for Jungkook - and looks at the screens idly before heading back to the bar. The players don’t break concentration.

Ten minutes later Yoongi is helping Janet on with her coat. “Are you okay to drive in this?” he asks, quietly.

“I’m 55, not 85,” she says, with a twinkle. “Also, I learned to drive on an ancient stick shift in Rockland, Maine. I can drive any vehicle, in any weather.”

“Well, be careful,” says Yoongi.

“I will, dear,” she replies. “I’ll stop by again soon. Jimin was charming and it’s an exciting project, but I wanted to keep talking to you about the exhibit.”

“Any time. You know where to find me,” replies Yoongi, and opens the door for her.

When he gets back to the bar, Jimin is setting down his mug. “This is great, thank you. Janet is great! I am so happy here, except for your ridiculous weather.”

“We save up this weather for when people come visit from California and Hawaii,” Yoongi replies.

“Right? I am pretty sure it has never, ever rained ice crystals from the sky in San Diego. At least, not in the Late Holocene.”

Jin and Jungkook, noticing Janet’s departure, have stopped their game and started packing up their laptops. Jin comes up to the bar to introduce himself to Jimin, and then says to Yoongi, “I’m going to drive Jungkook to Falmouth. You want me to pick you up on my way back through the village?”

“No, I’ll walk,” replies Yoongi.

“In this weather?” says Jin.

“It’s five minutes. I’ll be fine,” says Yoongi.

“You guys live together? Are you a couple, then?” Jimin asks, looking back and forth between them. They both respond at the same time.

“Us? No. Jin is straight,” Yoongi says.

“No, I’m saving myself for Emma Watson,” says Jin.

Jimin laughs. “This is not convincing me you’re not a couple.”

“Actually, we don’t even live together,” says Yoongi.

“You live over my garage,” says Jin, folding his arms and facing Yoongi. “That’s almost the same.”

“Except I don’t have to witness your 12-step skincare routine.”

“How many times have I told you that this face is a genetic gift? We were college roommates,” Jin confesses, turning back to Jimin. “And now…”

“Ah, I get it. Platonic soulmates. I have one of my own,” says Jimin. “I miss him like crazy, actually. He teaches third grade in LA.”

Jin goes for his coat and he and Jungkook say goodbye, and Yoongi listens to Jimin chatter on about the shenanigans he got up to with his childhood best friend, his undergrad years at CalTech when Taehyung was at UCLA, and how they’ve worked at staying close ever since, when Jimin’s been all over the world and Taehyung has stayed in Los Angeles. He has a nice voice, light and cheerful. Yoongi’s made himself a hot buttered rum as well, which is technically against the law, but it’s a sleety Wednesday in January and he and Jimin are the only people here. The buttered rum is not the only reason Yoongi’s finding himself so relaxed, though. Jimin just has a way about him; he’s pleasant, and carries himself easily, and somehow Yoongi feels like Jimin is a regular already, on his first night here.

After just a few minutes Jimin’s phone buzzes and he says, “That’s my alarm to head back and get some more work done.”

“They’re putting you up at Chandler House, right?,” asks Yoongi. “I’m going your way; I’ll close up and walk with you. Nobody else is coming by tonight.”

Yoongi flits around, doing the closing routine, and they bundle up, and five minutes later he locks the front door behind them both and they trudge off down Water Street, shoulders hunched and faces averted against the sleet. It’s dark and quiet, except for the hiss of the ice landing on the ground. The whole village seems closed up for the night.

“That’s a nice scarf,” Yoongi says. It’s chunky and looks hand-knit, and it’s made from a variegated purple yarn.

“Oh, thank you! Taehyung made it for me for Christmas. He knits, and teaches all his students to do it too. It’s good for fine motor development and also really calming, or so he says anyway. He tried to teach me, but I run too tense; everything ended up really tight and tiny,” Jimin says, laughing a little ruefully.

“If you need better gloves, there’s a good outdoor store in Falmouth,” says Yoongi.

“I had a good pair; I’ve done enough winter time at sea to know what’s good, but I think I lost them someplace, maybe Norway? And right now all I have is fleece.”

“Yeah, you need waterproof for here,” Yoongi replies.

They turn the corner onto Albatross Street, by the Aquarium, and finally the sleet is pinging off their backs, and not the left sides of their faces. None of the MBL buildings have any lights on.

“So, four different people have told me you’re their best friend in the past two days,” says Jimin, in the manner of an opening gambit.

“Huh,” says Yoongi. Suddenly the ease of the evening has evaporated; Yoongi doesn’t like the idea that people talk about him, for starters.

“And you’re clearly not an extroverted, social butterfly kind of guy, so that seems like it says something important about you.”

“Mmm,” says Yoongi.

“I’m just saying, you seem like an interesting guy, Yoongi. Best friend to half the town, secret matchmaker.”

“I’m not that interesting. And I’m not a matchmaker,” says Yoongi.

“Whatever,” says Jimin, grinning wickedly. “I am definitely looking forward to figuring you out.”

“Oh, god,” says Yoongi.

“Well, here’s me! Thanks for walking me, and for the advice about new gloves. I’ll see you around!” says Jimin, and he starts fumbling for his keys. Yoongi stands in the street until Jimin gets inside safely. Then he turns and starts down Bar Neck Road for home, head bent against the wind. He feels a little shaken up. Just now… was that flirting? It felt almost like a threat. And then Yoongi sighs. Jimin’s just a nice, friendly guy who likes people. And is way too charming and attractive for Yoongi’s peace of mind. There’s nothing to be afraid of here, except himself.

***

The second week of January sees Jimin settled into a routine. He comes by The Bucket at five or five-thirty, when people start leaving the labs, and eats a bowl of whatever Jin’s got going that day while sitting at the bar, with his laptop out, working. He seems completely unbothered by the bustle of the dinner rush, such as it is; in fact, he says he works better in a lively place than someplace quiet.

At 8:45 or 9, he closes the computer and asks Yoongi to make him something to drink. He’s given Yoongi free rein for creativity in beverage choices, and Yoongi has embraced the challenge. He’s even thinking about ordering some specialty mixers, or maybe, like, infusing vodka with ginger or herbs or something, to grow as a mixologist. He may be reading too many hipster bar Instagram posts, but he’s having fun with it.

Yoongi’s decided that Jimin as a regular is going to work out. They’ve developed an easy, casual relationship. Jimin is extroverted, but he’s as good a listener as he is a talker, and as Yoongi has spent more time with him he’s warmed up a little. They’ve shared enough to make it clear that although they’re both the children of immigrants from Korea, their families couldn’t be more different; Jimin is close to his and they’re proud of his accomplishments and accepting of his sexual orientation. Yoongi’s family, no on all counts. He doesn’t actually say much, but he’s pretty sure Jimin gets the picture. Yoongi is starting to think they could be friends.

At 9:30 every night Jimin’s phone alarm goes off and he heads to his lodging for another push of work. If it’s quiet, they close The Bucket and Jin drives Jimin and Yoongi and himself home; if it’s busy, Jimin just walks by himself. He can’t be convinced to stay any later, even on Fridays, when they’re open late and they’re as full as they get in January and cool nerdy conversations are swirling. “Gotta work!,” Jimin cries, cheerfully, and heads out the door.

On the second Saturday, though, he closes his laptop at 9pm and announces he’s staying, requests and receives a beer from the tap, and melts seamlessly into the crowd sprawling across three tables. Half an hour later Jin has emerged from the kitchen and is shoulder to shoulder with Yoongi, elbows resting on the bar, watching the scientists do their networking, socialization, and courtship rituals. “So,” he says, “Jimin is flirting hard with that woman with the eyebrows.”

In fact, Jimin has Christine, the serious marine annelid expert, giggling like a schoolgirl. Yoongi thinks how nice it must be to find it so easy to make connections with people.

“It sounds like they’re making up silly names for polychaete worms,” says Yoongi. “Sillier than bone-eating snot flower, that is. You should get over there and contribute some terrible puns.”

“And maybe I will,” says Jin.

“Honestly, I don’t think he’s actually interested in anyone he’s like that with. Or I mean, he’s interested in everyone. He’s not meaning to flirt, I think. I think he’s just … friendly,” Yoongi says, trailing off a bit as Jimin laughs so hard he very nearly falls out of his chair, and grabs the thigh of the person sitting next to him, who happens to be Najmoon, to save himself.

“Friendly? What is this, friendly? We Yankees don’t have this,” retorts Jin.

“I guess it’s a California thing. Or, remember that woman from South Carolina who was a summer intern a couple of years ago? She was like this too. Half the people in her lab fell in love with her, and it turned out she was engaged to someone and just being friendly.”

“Hmm, very suspicious behavior,” says Jin. “I am going to go investigate this further.” He heads out to the floor and pulls a chair up next to Namjoon.

As the evening winds later, the crowd gets noisier, and then eventually starts to thin. At 11:30 Yoongi is still behind the bar, and Namjoon and Jimin are sitting on stools talking to him. Namjoon is fading fast.

“Laura, come and take this man home,” Yoongi calls, laughing. “I swear, get three drinks into him and he starts talking about the interconnectedness of the universe and it’s all downhill from there. If I serve him another drink he’ll tell me he loves me and that our souls are entangled or some shit.”

“I mean, I do love you,” says Namjoon, very seriously.

“Lauraaaa! Help!” cries Yoongi.

Jimin isn’t laughing hard like before, but his eyes are alight with amusement, and he helps Laura convince Namjoon that it’s time to go home and goes to fetch their coats for them. “I’m not drunk, guys, just philosophical,” says Namjoon, but his hands are clumsy enough that he can’t get the buttons to work, and Laura has to button him up. He insists on kissing Yoongi on the forehead, leaning across the bar to do it, before he goes.

Jimin sits back down and looks at Yoongi, eyebrows quirked, giving him an opportunity to comment on that little moment, but Yoongi meets his eyes and just smiles and doesn’t say anything.

Jimin tries another approach. “So, about this matchmaker thing,” he begins.

“It’s not a thing,” says Yoongi.

“It’s not a bad thing!,” says Jimin. “It’s totally something I do, too. Obviously we have very different styles, but I see you watching people, seeing how they fit together. I do that, too. So… who are you thinking about right now?”

“Hmm,” says Yoongi, noncommittally. Jimin waits him out for a while, and eventually he grudgingly says, “Well, Jungkook had a long-distance relationship that wasn’t working out since he moved here, and she broke it off with him over the holidays. So maybe in a few months…”

“I think I’m going to work on Jin,” says Jimin.

“Really?” asks Yoongi, a little incredulously. “He’s … very private.”

“I like him! And I like a challenge,” says Jimin, and winks. Yoongi suddenly becomes aware that if Jimin is charming to the point of flirtatiousness sober, when he’s been drinking he’s an actual menace. He’s just very friendly, he tells himself, but he blushes anyway.

He’s pretty sure Jimin notices. Goddamnit.

****

By the end of January Jimin seems to know nearly as many people in the village as Yoongi does, and Yoongi’s been living there year-round for seven years. He’s started a Sunday routine of brunches at the big old hotel in Falmouth, involving gossip and mimosas, with Ada, his British housemate, and Jin. Apparently they don’t discuss algal blooms or ocean currents at all.

On the Sunday evening after the second of these brunches Jin and Yoongi are catching up on the British Baking Show in their pajamas in Jin’s enormous living room, as heavy snow falls on the ocean outside the picture window. Yoongi’s grumpy and not hiding it well, and Jin knows Yoongi’s grumpy and is biding his time. He pounces right after handing Yoongi a big bowl of ice cream.

“Are you seriously jealous that I went out to brunch without you? You hate brunch. We stopped going because you hated getting up and you hate mimosas and you like to spend Sundays alone to compensate for spending most of your waking hours interacting with humans all week.”

“I don’t hate mimosas,” says Yoongi.

Jin just looks at him, snorts in disgust, and then goes back to his ice cream. “Grow up,” he says a minute later, with his mouth full.

Yoongi sighs. “Yeah, I’m being ridiculous. I just feel like. Like Jimin is so friendly and adorable he … he makes everyone else look bad. Everyone likes him, he’s outgoing but he’s not one of those people who makes it all about him - he listens. He’s a brilliant scientist, plus he’s so damned gorgeous. I think he goes to the gym.” He runs his hands through his hair. “Okay, saying that out loud makes it sound exactly as petty as it is. He’s a good guy. Me being an insecure asshole is not his fault.”

“You know,” says Jin, “You’re friendly and adorable. Although you don’t go to the gym.” He takes another bite of ice cream and looks out the window. “Also, have you considered that maybe you can’t decide if you want to be him or fuck him?”

“Shit,” says Yoongi. “Oh, fuck you. Goddamnit.”

“Anyway, you’re welcome to come to brunch next week. Jimin asked about inviting you in the first place, and I said you’d hate it.” Jin sets down the bowl. “Or you could ask him out.”

Yoongi makes a sort of frustrated growling noise. “I think I like him too much to date him.”

Jin laughs. “That would make no sense at all except for the fact that I understand you so completely. Oh, Yoongi.”

“I know,” says Yoongi. And he does know. The problem is, knowing yourself doesn’t necessarily automatically give you the ability to actually do anything to change the stuff that’s all backwards and wrong about yourself. It’s a first step, sure, but Yoongi feels like he’s been stuck in this place for years.

****

On a Tuesday towards the end of February Namjoon comes into the Rusty Bucket at about 8pm, sees Jimin on his usual stool, working, and deliberately sits at the opposite end of the bar. It’s pretty quiet; dinner is over, and there are a couple of conversations going over beers at tables on the floor, but nobody’s going to be clamoring for attention for the rest of the night.

Yoongi sees that he’s keyed up about something, in a good but nervous way, so he makes him an Irish coffee - warm and lightly alcoholic being a good beverage solution to that problem. Namjoon drinks half of it before he finally starts talking; he automatically drops into Korean, since it’s just the two of them.

“I’ve got something I want to tell you, hyung. And I’m not asking for your permission or anything, but I wanted to tell you first.”

Yoongi already knows where this is going. He kind of knew the minute Namjoon sat down and started fidgeting. He tries to make his face show what he wants it to, what Namjoon needs it to show: that he loves him, that he’s fine with this. Both of which are true, luckily, but Yoongi’s a little worried they may not show on his face as clearly as they ought to. He deliberately tries to make his eyes look soft.

“I’m going to ask Laura to marry me. I mean, we’ve sort of talked about it, but I’m going to officially ask, and she’s going to say yes.”

Yoongi laughs gently, genuinely. “I’m glad you know how it’s going to turn out,” he says.

Namjoon looks sheepish. “Well, it would be kind of offensive to put someone on the spot without being sure. But I still want to ask.”

Yoongi reaches out his hand and lays it on top of Namjoon’s hands, clasped together on top of the bar. “I am so happy for you both,” he says. “I love you, and I love Laura, and I love the two of you together. You make each other happy. You make each other better.”

“We do, don’t we?,” says Namjoon, relaxing. His small, secret, slightly worried smile expands into the big, bright, beaming, rivalling-the-sun smile of a man who is happy in love and planning to be so forever. Yoongi feels good that he’s been able to give Namjoon this.

And then Namjoon keeps talking. “I know I’ve probably said this literally a hundred times, Yoongi, but I do love you, and I have all along. But the way you said that just now … Laura and I do make each other happy, and better. And you and I were so the opposite of that. When we were together you always had this look on your face like you were trying so hard. You would do romantic stuff that you thought I’d like, but your heart wasn’t in it, and you’re a terrible liar, and it was killing you.”

“Shit. I’m sorry,” says Yoongi, quietly. It’s not like he didn’t know that he’d been trying his best to be worthy of Namjoon, and his best wasn’t good enough. He feels guilty about it all the time, although it’s not every single day any more.

“I mean, it was sweet, in a way, but it also made me feel like I was responsible for your slow disintegration and possible eventual death. I have never been more relieved about anything in my life than when we finally broke up. Well, except when we finally got back to being able to really be friends again.”

Everything in Yoongi is crying out to run away from this whole conversation immediately, and then immediately behind that impulse is the need to hide that he’s feeling this way from Namjoon. He manages to pull a weak smile and some words from somewhere deep inside and say, “I’m glad we’re friends, too. But tell me how you’re going to propose to Laura. I know you have a plan.”

Namjoon does, of course, and is happy to talk about it, and about how happy he is, and how wonderful Laura is. This way all Yoongi has to do is listen well and be Namjoon’s best friend. When Namjoon has to go - not that he’s talked himself out, he could easily have gone on for a couple of hours in the rich vein he’d started mining, but he’s running an experiment and the equipment needs to be looked at every three hours or something - he takes Yoongi’s hands in his and tells him he loves him again and manages to resist kissing him on the forehead, but Yoongi can see the effort he’s making to resist.

Jimin at the end of the bar has apparently been engrossed in his work this whole time. Yoongi does a circle of the room to check if anyone at the tables needs refills. Then he ducks into the kitchen, where Jin is making scribbled notes that are the start of tomorrow morning’s last-minute shopping list.

Jin looks up at him and smiles slyly and says, “How do farmers party?”

Yoongi gives him the hairy eyebrow.

“They turn-ip the beets.”

Yoongi laughs like a loony five-year-old and heads back to the bar, a little light-headed. Thank god for Jin, who can be counted on to be himself, exactly what Yoongi needs at a time like this. He knows Jin saw the whole conversation and realized it was stressful for Yoongi, even if he doesn’t know what they were saying. But he’s not going to bring it up tonight, or possibly ever. He’s leaving that power to Yoongi, trusting him to ask for it if he needs anything.

When he gets to the bar Jimin’s just closing his laptop, so Yoongi makes him a drink - a sea breeze. It’s sort of too summery for leaden February, but Yoongi has been thinking about cranberries lately, and he’s feeling tart tonight.

As Yoongi sets the drink down in front of Jimin, he sees Jimin watching him carefully, with kind eyes, and he’s suddenly afraid, because he realizes Jimin saw, and probably at least partly understood, that whole conversation, too, and he doesn’t know Yoongi well enough not to say anything. He’s probably going to ask Yoongi if he’s all right, or how he’s feeling, and Yoongi will have to stop being friends with him, or rather, still have to act like friends, but stop feeling easy with it.

Jimin says, “You did a great job.”

Yoongi, confused, says, “What?”

Jimin smiles very softly and Yoongi can practically see care pouring out of his eyes. “You’re such a good friend, Yoongi.”

And Yoongi feels the prick of actual tiny tears in his own eyes, because Jimin gets it. He doesn’t say anything more. Yoongi feels… seen. Understood.

“Thanks,” Yoongi says, and ducks his head. “You’re doing a pretty good job yourself.” He looks back up just in time to catch Jimin blushing.

****

The week of the exhibit opening Jimin breaks his routine, and doesn’t come by The Bucket on Wednesday or Thursday. Yoongi is a little bit worried, but also pretty preoccupied, spending his mornings at the library gallery with a tape measure and pencil and hammer and nails, driving the facilities staff member who is the one actually supposed to be doing the install slightly crazy. On Thursday afternoon after his basketball game at the Youth Center in Falmouth he makes sure to remind Hoseok, the after-school program director, about the opening, and confirms that he’s going to be bringing some of the kids from the league. Thursday night when Jimin’s not there again, he frets a bit while trying not to. Maybe he has a cold. He’d have heard, probably, if anything serious had happened.

The opening itself, late on Friday afternoon, goes very well. Yoongi wears a jacket and khakis and feels a little self-conscious, but a lot of people have dressed up, so he knows he made the right choice. Plus Jin told him what to wear, and Jin knows about these things. Janet introduces him, and he says a few words about the meaning of the images and thanks everyone who sat for their portrait, and everyone who came. He’s nervous but also proud, and his little grin keeps breaking out while he speaks.

Afterwards there are hors d’oeuvres and glasses of wine and the usual milling around and looking at the pictures. He manages to introduce Jungkook to Hoseok at just the right moment, as Hoseok is trying to corral a couple of rowdy fifteen year olds into behaving, and they start talking about the importance of sports and getting energy out and learning to work together in teams and youth mentoring, and the kids get bored and wander off but stay out of trouble. Yoongi fades back and watches from a distance, satisfied. Even if this only turns out to be getting Jungkook looped into the Youth Center’s routine as a volunteer, it will be a good thing, but he thinks he sees a spark of interest in the mixture of pink-cheeked shyness and determination to overcome it that Jungkook is showing as the conversation goes forward.

Yoongi feels a tap on his shoulder and turns and it’s Jimin. Yoongi thinks to himself that this is the first time Jimin has touched him, and Jimin’s a touchy guy. He looks a little the worse for wear, and he’s not dressed up, just in jeans and a sweatshirt with raggedy cuffs and rubber boots. His thick glasses magnify the bags under his eyes. “I’m really sorry. I missed your speech,” Jimin begins. “I’m so sorry. I had an alarm set, but I hit snooze, twice, without even really being conscious. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s not a big deal,” says Yoongi. “Are you okay? You been sick?”

“No, just working on some stuff. It’s been a tough week. I’m sorry.” Jimin seems a little bit wavery on his feet, and Yoongi puts a hand to his elbow to steady him, but then Jimin visibly pulls himself together and Yoongi drops his hand. “I’m fine, really!” Jimin says, more brightly, but there’s a brittleness to it.

Neither of them say anything as they look at the pictures. Jimin looks, really looks, at each of them, and his shoulders drop as they move along the wall. He starts to smile by the time he gets to the fourth one, and at number five he turns to Yoongi and says, “This is amazing. These are amazing.”

“Thank you,” says Yoongi.

“I mean, the pictures are beautiful. Technically, like, great, I mean, I don’t know actually know anything about the technical piece but they look great, but you’ve also captured this sense of - of pride and warmth in everyone’s face. And gosh, his hands in that second one!,” Jimin says, gesturing back behind them.

Yoongi’s little proud grin is back out. He stuffs his hands into his pants pockets.

“But … the title is ‘I am a scientist.’ And none of the people are the PhDs or the students. The people are Allyson who makes the travel arrangements and handles the visa paperwork for internationals - she is SO nice, by the way - and the mechanic who maintains Alvin and the shuttle bus driver and even Maria who cleans Redfield! You included everyone who makes this place work but never gets their photo on the wall!”

“I mean, it’s a little obvious,” says Yoongi, shyly.

“No it’s not! It’s wonderful. I love it,” says Jimin. “Wow. I am feeling so much better than I have all week. I think I’m going to go send flowers to the grants coordinator at Scripps, actually. She’s been dealing with my meltdown for the past three days. She might literally be an angel.”

“Ah, not sick, just a grant,” says Yoongi.

“Yeah, it’s possible funding for next year, since this fellowship is done in May and then I’ll be at sea all summer but in September I don’t actually have a job or anything lined up yet, so obviously it’s really important. The deadline was noon Pacific time today, and I got it in, but I stayed up two nights in a row to get it perfect, except of course it’s not perfect, but anyway Emily took like, twelve phone calls from me and even gave me her cell number and I can’t believe I called her at home at 10pm her time. I am such a jerk. I definitely need to get her something to thank her.”

“So you haven’t slept since…”

“Um, Tuesday night I got about five hours? But I had a nap just now, which is why I was late. I apologize again. I’m sorry, I’m rambling and not making any sense. This event is supposed to be about you and your wonderful photographs and I’m telling you all about my, um, near meltdown.”

Yoongi’s smile quirks to one side. “I mean, I know a lot of research scientists; it’s not like I’ve never seen a grant breakdown before. I’m really grateful you came, but maybe you should go get some sleep now. The pictures still will be up tomorrow.”

Jimin pushes back and says he wants to at least look at all the pictures today, now that he’s up and actually here. Yoongi lets him, and goes to get him a glass of something non-alcoholic and a little plate of food from the catering table to keep his strength up. Jin is over there critically assessing the canapes, but he’s been keeping an eye on Yoongi, who sometimes needs a buddy in a crowd, and says, “Is Jimin okay?”

“Yeah, he had a grant.”

“Ah,” says Jin, “But he came anyway. That was kind of him.”

“Yeah, he is so damn nice,” says Yoongi. “I’m getting him something to eat. He hasn’t been taking care of himself. Which of these are the best?”

Jin picks out a plate of the good ones, and Yoongi tries to ignore the look on his face that’s both thoughtful and somehow so gentle as to be almost pitying.

****

Two weeks later on Saturday night when Jimin closes his laptop he requests a summery drink, saying, “God, I miss California sometimes.” (It’s just started April, but on Cape Cod that means daffodils and mud, and fifty degrees if you’re lucky.)

“You need me to go searching in the cabinet for my bottle of Malibu?” Yoongi asks, quirking his eyebrow.

“Yoongi, are you implying that I am a man of poor taste in alcoholic beverages?”

“We aim to provide a judgment-free drinking experience in this establishment, sir,” says Yoongi, internally cringing at himself, because he’s flirting, goddamnit. What kind of witchcraft does this man have that he can get Yoongi to flirt back at him?

He turns his back to get a grip on himself and gets busy making a Fuzzy Navel. Dumb name, simple mix, but actually a really nice drink, if you like it sweet. Jimin seems to like it sweet. It’s too bad Yoongi is a single-malt, neat kind of man.

“Did you hear Jin is ditching Ada and me for brunch tomorrow?” Jimin asks.

“Yup,” says Yoongi. “Feeling pretty proud of yourself, huh.” Jin is ditching Ada and Jimin for brunch this Sunday because last Sunday they drove up to Boston to have brunch with Ada’s younger sister Ngozi, who works in development at an international healthcare nonprofit. Then they all went to hear a string quartet at Berklee. Then they went for coffee and pastries. And Jin came home Sunday night looking kind of dazed, and spent the week kind of subdued and quiet in person but doing a lot of texting, and on Friday night after they closed he’d talked to Yoongi for nearly an hour about Ngozi and had even gone so far as to say things like, ‘This might be it for me.’ Today Yoongi spent the whole day feeling kind of dazed, because Jin has never been like this about anyone he’s dated, ever, in ten years, and he and Ngozi aren’t even technically dating yet, because they literally just met. And the whole thing is Jimin’s fault, because he met Ngozi on an earlier day trip to Boston and decided to introduce her to Jin. Yoongi isn’t sure whether to be really happy or kind of mad at everyone involved, honestly. He’s still in the ‘generally bowled over’ phase.

“I am!” says Jimin. “I think I’m going to go find him and see how many times I can get him to blush without making a direct reference to the situation in a ten-minute period.”

“If I may channel my dear, possibly-soon-to-be-departed, friend Jin for a minute, ‘With fronds like you, who needs anemones,’” says Yoongi.

Jimin giggles, and takes his drink, and sips, and says, “I think this means I won the matchmaking contest though, don’t you?”

“Oh, there was a contest?” asks Yoongi.

“There was. And I think maybe today I get to claim my prize,” Jimin replies, looking smug and mysterious, and he turns and goes to pull up a chair and sit at the end of a booth where Jin is chatting with some people he’s known forever, who have a summer house and are just down for the weekend.

Close to midnight Yoongi looks up from the tap to see Jimin has appeared at the bar again. He looks a little fancier than usual tonight, Yoongi suddenly notices. He’s done something with his hair, maybe. He runs a hand through it, brushing it off his face, and his mouth is a little open, and Yoongi needs to look away. It’s too much.

“Hey,” Jimin says.

“Hey,” Yoongi responds, continuing to fill a pint glass with Sam Adams, watching the amber liquid pool into the glass slowly.

“You have really beautiful hands,” Jimin says. “Sometimes I’m trying to work and I have to go sit at a table because if I stay at the bar I get distracted by watching them, when you make drinks or pour draft beers.”

Yoongi almost drops the now-full glass he’s holding, and beer slops onto the bar. He sets the glass down and grabs a towel to wipe up the spill, and then twists it in his hands before finally gathering his courage and actually looking at Jimin. He looks calm, almost serene: warm eyes, gentle smile.

Looking at him was a mistake, though, because the next thing Jimin says, making eye contact, is, “Also, you have a really pretty mouth.”

Yoongi jolts again. “Jesus Christ, are you trying to kill me?”

“Maybe,” says Jimin, a wicked twinkle appearing in his eyes, but then it fades and his face turns quiet again. “No. It’s just, I’m tired of trying to pretend I don’t want to be with you.”

“How much have you had to drink tonight?,” asks Yoongi, a little desperately, looking around the room as if someone is going to appear to rescue him from this attack.

“I’ve had three drinks in three hours. You made them! I’m barely even buzzed. I am fully capable of consent, and I want you to take me home with you tonight. Um, if you want to, of course,” Jimin says, looking for the first time a little unsure of himself.

“Shit,” says Yoongi. “I mean, uh, yes.” He starts to fumble with the tie of his apron. “Uh, I need to go deliver this beer. And ask Jin if he can close alone or something. You can’t say something like that and expect me to keep serving drinks for the next hour.”

“I already asked Jin to close for you. Who do you think gave me the pep talk? He literally said ‘go get ‘im, tiger.’”

“I’m going to kill him,” says Yoongi, and grabs that pint of beer and heads out into the room. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

When they get outside they hold hands and run to Yoongi’s house, laughing.

****

Yoongi is not much of an outdoor kind of guy, a fact he feels guilty about sometimes, given that he lives in a place where people pay lots of money to come spend time in the outdoors. But in the morning he wakes and slips out of bed, a bed that has a sweet, gorgeous, naked human still asleep in it, and bundles up warm and goes to sit on the dock and look at the ocean. It’s early, or early for Yoongi to be awake anyway, but Jin’s car is already gone.

Yoongi is thinking about how frightened he is. It’s a blustery morning, and the ocean is dotted with whitecaps, and the daffodils by the house are tossing in the wind. Last night he was brave and took the hand held out to him, but this morning he’s afraid. The sea is good to look at, when you’re feeling like this. It’s so big and cold and impersonal, it can make your stupid feelings feel very small.

He’s out there for a long time, he thinks, before Jimin appears, bundled up, too, and sits down next to him, and sets down a mug of coffee on the dock between them. Jimin kicks his foot over to knock against Yoongi’s, companionably, and sips from his own mug.

“So, regrets?,” asks Jimin.

“Not about you,” says Yoongi, very quickly indeed.

“Ah. I was a little worried I’d pressured you into something you didn’t want,” says Jimin, quietly.

“No, I definitely wanted it. I want more this morning, too,” Yoongi says, frankly. “If you want. Once I get some coffee in me. Thank you for making it. I’m sorry, I should have.”

“I feel like.” Jimin is silent for a long time, and Yoongi turns and watches him, feeling a reckless urge to reach out and smooth that furrowed brow. “I feel like I don’t really have anything to offer you. My fellowship is up in six weeks. Then I have to touch base with people in San Diego, and then I start June by flying to Chile to get on a boat for a ten-week research voyage. And I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing when I get back.”

“Oh my god, you’re as bad as me,” says Yoongi, taking Jimin’s hand. “Let’s be a pair of horny idiots and go back to bed and not worry about things for a while.”

So they do.

****

Their routines don’t actually change very much at all. Jimin still works in The Bucket in the early evenings. Every couple of nights he goes to Yoongi’s when they close, and works for a few hours at Yoongi’s little kitchen table while Yoongi curls up on the couch and listens to music or reads a library book or messes with a camera, and then they go to bed. Yoongi can’t believe how lucky he is to get to look at, let alone touch, this incredibly beautiful person, and he can’t stop saying so, and when he says so it makes Jimin wriggle with pleasure, which is so endearing but also exciting (god, the motion of his bare golden skin in the light from Yoongi’s bedside lamp) that it just makes Yoongi want to say so more often.

The weeks slip by easily, and suddenly it is the last week. Jimin is working extra hard to prepare for the Fellowship seminar presentation he’s going to give. People are coming from Boston and Providence, a whole lab from MIT is coming, and Jimin is nervous and sleeping less, and goes four nights without spending the night at Yoongi’s. At two in the morning on Wednesday night, Yoongi texts Jimin to ask if he’s still up and working, and when Jimin texts back, “yes” with six cry-face emojis, Yoongi gets out of bed and gets dressed and walks to Chandler House and texts Jimin to come open the door and then is so turned on by Jimin’s fluffy hair and fuzzy baby blue fleece he jumps him right there in the entryway (very quietly, so as not to wake up the rest of the fellows) and then tries to wear him out enough that he’ll sleep for a couple of hours.

The seminar is a success. Each fellow presents their research for half an hour, with questions, and it lasts all afternoon, and there’s a reception, and then dinner for them at one of the fancy restaurants in Falmouth. Yoongi ducks in and catches Jimin’s talk (and Christine’s polychaete worms and half of Ada’s algae) between the end of lunch and the start of dinner, and he thinks Jimin doesn’t see him in the back of the auditorium, but he’s glad to be there anyway. Jimin looks serious and oddly sharp, all dressed up in a suit, with the sunny California part of him pushed down. He sounds very smart; there’s a lot of math in the talk. Yoongi almost gets a little misty when everyone claps at the end of the questions and catches himself and mutters out loud, “What the fuck.”

And that’s the start of Yoongi feeling like everything’s weird. He knows he’s the one making it weird, but he can’t seem to stop it. He tries very hard to keep both his unravelling thoughts and his actions under some kind of control. The result is this fake Yoongi who seems to be playacting his way through the last 36 hours before Jimin leaves. He’s overly jovial at The Bucket on Friday night, some kind of glad-handing caricature of a bartender from a middling 1940s movie. Luckily Jimin is out at the fellows’ dinner and doesn’t see this; Jin keeps shooting him looks of alarm.

On Saturday, the day before Jimin’s flight, they haven’t made any special plans; Yoongi has to work. They’re starting to ramp up staffing for the coming summer push, as college kids are just getting out of school, but they’ve only got a couple of people on board so far and they’re not in any way ready to be left alone, at the bar or in the kitchen. He tries to be very, very busy, training the two fresh summer kids, as Jimin hangs out at the bar all afternoon and smiles at him and acts like this is any regular day. Yoongi’s jumpy and nervous and he knows his smile looks as fake as it is.

Jimin ends up drunk pretty early in the evening, drunker than Yoongi has ever seen him. He’s a happy drunk, and physically affectionate, sitting in the occasional lap and hooking his chin over shoulders as he invites himself into conversations. He kisses Namjoon on the nose and at one point has Jungkook in a headlock and is giving him noogies. He’s still careful to only be touchy with touchy people and respect boundaries: Vladimirovich gets a bear hug and smacking kisses on both cheeks, but Janet from the library drops by and gets a Disney prince-style bow and a light kiss on the hand. He’s the most fucking adorable thing Yoongi has ever seen, and occasionally he forgets to be a nervous wreck and is just a gooey mess, watching.

Eventually Jimin comes behind the bar and wraps himself around Yoongi from behind and murmurs in his ear, “I am so happy. You make me so happy,” and starts nibbling at Yoongi’s neck. Jungkook comes to try to rescue Yoongi, and starts talking about how maybe Jimin needs to go home and go to bed. Jimin pouts and makes little fists and stomps his feet and says he wants to go to bed with Yoongi, not Kookie, and Yoongi is both helpless with laughter - Jin is taking a video with his phone for future blackmail purposes, and they catch each other’s eyes and both throw their heads back and cackle at the same moment - and a little shaken.

Jin tells Yoongi to forget about the bar and collect his man, they can cope, and Yoongi walks Jimin back to his apartment over the garage, spotting him carefully up the stairs. He makes him drink water and peels him out of his tight jeans with really very minimal groping and tucks him into bed. Jimin makes grabby hands at him so Yoongi takes his pants off too, and gets in, and Jimin holds onto him very tightly and murmurs, “I don’t want you to go away.” He falls asleep for a bit but then wakes up and looks at Yoongi and says, “Oh, good,” and goes back to sleep. Yoongi doesn’t fall asleep for a long time.

In the morning Jimin is hungover but laughing at himself and not too grumpy, as he drinks his coffee at Yoongi’s table and eats the slices of an orange that Yoongi is peeling for him. “I guess I said a lot of dumb shit last night,” Jimin says, ruefully, “But it was pretty much all true. I’ve been happy. I’m sorry I have to go. Let’s stay friends. Okay?” He looks up at Yoongi with soft, entreating eyes.

“Okay,” says Yoongi, feeling a little empty but also somehow relieved. He hands Jimin another section of orange and is quiet for a long time and finally says, “I was happy, too.”

Then they go get a real meal at Coffee Obsession and go back to Jimin’s room and he showers and finishes packing while Yoongi sits on his mattress, stripped bare of sheets, and looks at the light playing across the wall, wishing he had his camera with him. Jin and Yoongi and Ada and Jimin all drive up to Boston together. At Logan Jimin tells Jin not to park, just to drop him curbside at Departures, so they do, but Yoongi gets out and takes his suitcase out of the trunk and sets it on the curb for him. They hug, and then kiss goodbye, just softly and briefly, and that’s that. Yoongi has dinner with Ada and Jin and Ngozi, who is wry and lovely and delights in keeping Jin on his toes, and they leave Ada with her, because they’re spending a few days together before Ada flies back to Bristol. As Jin drives across the Bourne Bridge close to 10pm, Yoongi’s phone buzzes, and it’s Jimin reporting that he’s landed safely in LA and his parents have picked him up.

****

Yoongi’s not much of a texter, but Jimin is, and so Yoongi gets a lot of quick little updates, all exclamation points and emojis, as Jimin visits Taehyung’s third grade class to talk about the ocean, and reconnects with his parents’ dog, and visits his younger brother, and then drives down to San Diego to rejoin his life there. Yoongi finds himself lacking words to respond with, but it occurs to him he can reply with pictures. He’s set up an Instagram for The Bucket, and vowed to post every day all summer, as part of a low-key community-building campaign, so he’s taking a lot more cell phone pictures than he ever has before. For a while every day or two when Jimin texts stuff like, “they remembered my order at my favorite coffee shop!!! [coffee mug emoji x3, smiley face with crescent-moon eyes emoji]”, Yoongi will reply a few hours later with a picture of Eel Pond starting to fill up with boats, or the lichen growing on the street sign by the drawbridge, or a regular at The Bucket’s gnarly old boots.

After a couple of weeks Jimin sends a series of texts about his upcoming sea voyage. He’s flying to Chile, and spending two nights before getting on the boat. The big news is the phone and internet service at sea is all satellite, and very expensive, so there will be strict limits on personal use. They’ll be updating a blog for the research group weekly, and Jimin will be able to get email at his work address, but mostly the precious satellite connection can only be used for the important stuff, like nightly backups of the data they’re collecting, as well as actually operating the boat, navigation and weather tracking and such. Jimin asks if he can call Yoongi on Tuesday night, the day before he embarks, and Yoongi texts back to set a time.

His phone rings at 10pm on the dot, and Yoongi answers it and leaves the bar in the capable hands of one of their summer staff, one who’s been with them a couple of years and is now over 21 and can serve alcohol. As Jimin talks lightly about his travel adventures and what the port city of San Antonio, where he’s spending the night, is like, Yoongi wanders down the street to the little waterfront park and sits down on the bench next to the statue of Rachel Carson.

“So how are things with you? Starting to get busy?,” Jimin says.

“Yeah, we’ve picked up. All the new hires are on board - school got out last Friday so the kids from the Youth Center started this past weekend, and it’s going okay so far. It’s nice to have a few people from last year. They all seem like good kids.”

“New interns and summer students at the labs?,” asks Jimin.

“Tons. It’s so much more crowded in the evenings than when you were here. I haven’t really met a lot of them personally yet. Namjoon has six in the Crab Lab alone. They put the undergrads up in bunk beds in Ebert Hall, you know. It’s like nerd summer camp. Jungkook’s the head counselor. They follow him around the village like baby ducks.”

Jimin laughs, then says, wistfully, “I wish I could see it.”

They’re both quiet for a minute.

“Well, I’m going to be getting really great data, and the rest of this research team seems pretty decent. I downloaded a ton of movies for boring evenings at sea,” says Jimin.

“Yeah,” says Yoongi.

“Hey, I want to say,” Jimin begins abruptly. “Um, you know I would be really happy for you if you met someone this summer, right? If some tall, good-looking lifeguard wanders in, you should jump on that, okay? I mean, only if he’s nice, too.”

“Uh, thanks,” says Yoongi, uncertainly. Yoongi has, in the past, kind of had a lifeguard habit, in fact, and Jimin must have heard about it from somebody. Lifeguards are perfect summer flings: carefree, tan, leaving in two months. Oh, shit, thinks Yoongi. Jimin was a lifeguard. His voice keeps working, his brain perfectly split in half, as he continues, “Well, you too, of course. Not that there are lifeguards on a boat, but, uh, a cute engineer, or whatever.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll just be data massaging at night,” says Jimin. “And rewatching Ghostbusters.”

They’re quiet again. It’s a cool evening; Yoongi is in a zip-up sweatshirt and jeans. The breeze off the harbor ruffles his hair and he shivers.

“It’s been good to talk to you, Jimin. I hope your trip is a success,” he says, feeling like a character in a comic strip from the 1950s, or maybe his own father.

“It’s good to talk to you, too, and thanks. You’ve got my work email in case you want to get in touch, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, have a good summer.”

Yoongi sits for a few minutes, looking out across the water and thinking about the prospect of lifeguards. “Goddamnit,” Yoongi says, out loud, louder than he meant to.

Yoongi gets up and goes back to teach the nice new kids working tonight how to deal with some of the more unpleasant customer stuff that happens in bars, i.e. drunk assholes 101.

****

Yoongi decides he is kind of relieved to not be hearing from Jimin any more. He’d been feeling a little guilty about not being chatty over text, not really having anything to say. Anyway June is when things really get going in Woods Hole, and Yoongi is busy. Since it’s summer, Jin’s house is often full of people; his parents come down for a week here and there, and his brother and his wife and their toddler visit from Connecticut. Ngozi comes down most weekends (although not at the same time as Jin’s parents, yet), and Yoongi really likes her. Summer people Yoongi has gotten to know over the years fall back into being summer regulars at The Bucket.

In July the Children’s School of Science starts up and Yoongi has a little morning side gig teaching photography to the oldest students, 14-16 year olds. He’s also going to be taking some shots for their brochures and their website, and he’s contemplating a new portrait series of children interacting with nature. The trick will be to keep it from being sentimental, but the class of 7 year olds he’s been having the photography students tag along with is a good antidote to sentimentality: the kids are frank and funny and often kind of mean to each other. He kind of loves them.

The summer’s going well when, about the middle of July, Yoongi notices that he keeps thinking about Jimin. He sees a graceful golden shoulder at the beach and is surprised it isn’t Jimin’s. He looks up from the tap in the bar and thinks he sees a bright smile flashing at him from the crowd but when he blinks of course it isn’t there. One Sunday morning, near the end of their time together, Yoongi had been propped up on his elbow in bed, looking at Jimin, who was laughing up at him. He had suddenly said, “I never took pictures of you” and gone to get his camera, and taken photo after photo, of Jimin lazy in bed and making sultry faces and then laughing, of Jimin drinking coffee at his kitchen table, hair all messed up and glasses on, with a small, quietly happy smile. Yoongi finds himself opening that folder on his laptop almost every day, just to look.

One day Jin comes in at four to take the reins of dinner prep and finds Yoongi at the bar making notes for their weekly order from the alcohol distributor. Two of the Youth Center kids are in theory filling salt and pepper shakers and napkin holders, in practice horsing around. It’s been a warm and sweaty couple of weeks, the two weeks of the year where they wish they could afford to upgrade the air conditioning unit, which is probably older than they are. Jin is in shorts with whales embroidered on them. He finds out-prepping the preppies amusing.

“Did you get an email from Jimin?” is the first thing Jin says.

“Haven’t checked email today,” says Yoongi. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, fine. Just interesting news. He’s been invited for the all-day interview with NOAA.” Jin crosses his arms and looks at Yoongi expectantly.

“Oh,” says Yoongi. “Isn’t he on a boat in the Pacific? How is that going to work?”

“He says they’re willing to wait until he gets back. He’s going to be able to come the last week of August, and manage to make it to Namjoon and Laura’s wedding after all. You look confused. Haven’t you been talking to him?”

“No? He’s on a boat?” Yoongi is confused, and Jin looks like he’s starting to get angry at him. “What?”

“He has email, Yoongi. I’ve been writing him. He’s on a boat, with a small group of strangers whose common language is one he’s not very capable in, and he’s a people person, so he gets lonely. Have you really not been emailing him?”

“I … I thought it was an ‘emergencies only’ kind of email,” says Yoongi.

“Oh good grief, come in the kitchen and explain yourself while I start getting things together,” Jin says, putting on an apron. “Is this why you’ve been so mopey all summer? You really haven’t talked to him since…?”

“Um, the day after Memorial Day,” says Yoongi.

Jin stares. “Really. Okay. Okay, I can fix this. Come here, and dish us up some ice cream. I need my hands; you can feed me.”

In between chopping tomatoes and onions, and bites of chocolate ice cream, Jin fills Yoongi in on Jimin’s activities at sea and career prospects. He’d applied to the NOAA job in early June, but the federal hiring process is generally ridiculous and unfathomable, and he hadn’t heard anything until this week. One satellite-phone interview later, they want him to come in person. The job is at the NOAA office in Woods Hole, doing deep-sea current work. Jimin has met a couple of the people who work there, and they know most of the people he spent the spring working with. He thinks he has a good chance.

“So, where did you and Jimin leave things? You know I don’t ask things like this unless it’s important, but…” Jin is holding a big sharp knife, and Yoongi is kind of mesmerized by the way he’s waving it around, and the light playing on the blade. He feels compelled to answer.

“The last time we talked he told me to jump a lifeguard.”

“Jimin? Wow. Huh. That’s … not what I was expecting you to say. Okay. Um, how did that make you feel?”

“Guilty for spending my life jumping lifeguards.” Yoongi eats a big bite of ice cream.

“Well, as long as the lifeguards are okay with it, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that... Look, you know the real question here. I thought you guys were happy. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” says Yoongi, slowly. “I mean, we knew from the start that he was leaving. It made everything so straightforward.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Jin says, skeptically. “And now he’s coming back. Maybe for good.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, get yourself together and figure out what you want, okay? And if it’s not Jimin, please be very clear, and as kind as you can be,” Jin says, beginning to ferociously dice another onion.

****

That night after closing, Yoongi walks home slowly out Bar Neck Road. There’s a group of teenagers on the dock at the yacht club, probably smoking up, and their low chatter and sprawling bodies make Yoongi think back to his teenage self. He’d been so lost; out of sync with his family, with his peers, feeling completely unable to be the person it felt like the world wanted him to be. Thanks in a large part to the miracle of landing Jin as a roommate, and the surprising embrace of Jin’s whole family, he’d found himself, slowly, in this place, over summers of quiet and space to learn who he really was. He’d begun to trust himself. He’d trusted himself enough to fall in love here, once, and it had been such a mistake.

No, he thinks, for the first time, the mistake was that he hadn’t trusted himself enough. He’d tried to be the person he thought Namjoon wanted. That was the mistake. They might have muddled through if he’d stayed true to himself; they might have found a way they fit together that wasn’t Namjoon talking about his feelings over breakfast and Yoongi pretending he could stand it. He looked at everyone else and saw how they could fit together, but he’d looked at himself and thought he needed to change for anyone to fit with him. Even Namjoon, who was his friend, and who had loved him.

He walks slowly up the crushed-shell driveway, goes up the steps, and sits on the top step, unwilling to go in yet. It’s still almost warm at 1:30am, muggy despite the light breeze off the water. He looks out at the sea, vast and cold and not caring about his stupid feelings. He wonders if Jimin is leaning on the railing of his boat, somewhere off the coast of Chile, looking at the sea too. It’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere; he hopes Jimin still has his good gloves.

Yoongi unlocks his door and putters around, stripping down to his underwear and washing his face and brushing his teeth. He gets in bed and opens his laptop. He opens the folder where he keeps the pictures of Jimin, and flicks through them, lingering on his favorites. There’s one where Jimin is looking at him, and something in his eyes… Yoongi pulls up his email and starts typing. He’s a slow learner, Yoongi is, it takes time for him to realize things, but he doesn’t make the same mistakes twice.

****

Namjoon’s official bachelor party involves golf and a country club, because Laura’s family has had a house on the Point for 75 years and her brother is Namjoon’s best man. Yoongi doesn’t go, pleads the press of work at The Bucket, and privately apologizes to Namjoon, who understands. (Jin goes and wears pink pants, and he’s not the only one.) But they plan an unofficial bachelor/bachelorette get-together on the Wednesday before the wedding weekend, at The Bucket, which will involve a lot of late-night heavy drinking by scientists and other year-rounders, plus a fair amount of preventing Namjoon from playing darts lest he face involuntary manslaughter charges. Laura wears one of those t-shirts that looks like a tuxedo, and Namjoon wears a white tank top and a veil.

Yoongi’s off-duty for the night, sitting out on the back deck watching Jungkook and Hoseok continue to be painfully, obviously enamoured of each other and also not ready to do anything about it. Well, he thinks, they’re adults; they’ll figure it out some day. Jungkook came straight to Yoongi when he arrived, to let Yoongi know that Jimin seemed confident and well-prepared for his NOAA interview; he’d picked him up from Logan on Tuesday afternoon and got him settled in his generic business hotel in North Falmouth.

Yoongi hasn’t seen Jimin yet. They decided it was better for Jimin to focus on the interview first, not risk getting put off his stride by trying to sort out his personal life at the same time as he was trying to nail down an honest-to-goodness, full-time, not-even-grant-funded, permanent research position. Yoongi’s been chewing on the skin by his left thumbnail all day long, a terrible habit he’d managed to break after college that has somehow resurfaced from the depths of his id this week. He’s almost amused with how transparent he’s being.

Jin comes by with two plates of small bites - bruschetti and fried artichokes - for them. Jin’s a nervous wreck himself. His parents are coming down for the wedding, since they’ve known Laura and her family since Jin and Laura were teenagers. But Ngozi is coming too, so it’s the Big Introduction. They’re all staying at Jin’s house, which is technically actually his parents’ house, of course. Yoongi knows that everyone involved is good people and will probably behave, and a bunch of extra people are staying at the house, who can serve as buffers in case everything is horrible and awkward. Jin knows all this, too, but he’s still spending every waking moment cooking unusually elaborate new recipes to work out the stress. The fried artichokes are kind of a revelation.

Of course Yoongi has his mouth full when Jimin comes out the door from inside, brushing his hair off his face as his eyes dart all around. He finds Yoongi right away, and his face lights up and Yoongi’s poor stupid heart flutters like he’s some kid. Before he can really even process what’s happening, Jimin’s hugging him and then cupping his cheeks and rubbing noses with him and basically acting like a happy puppy whose dad has come home from the war. He doesn’t kiss him. He falls into Jin’s arms next, as Laura comes over to say hello and a bunch of people jump up, and it’s all a confused mass of greetings and happiness and Jimin is wiggly and giggly and Yoongi finally finishes chewing his mouthful of food.

Yoongi decides to get up and give Jimin his seat, and goes inside to get him a drink from the bar. When he comes back, he hands over the drink and settles on the railing behind Jimin’s chair, resting his knee lightly on the back of Jimin’s shoulder. Jimin looks back at him over his shoulder and grins. He takes a sip of the drink. He looks back again, this time with a sly little smile. “Fuzzy Navel?” he says. Yoongi tries to make an innocent face, but he’s too pleased with himself, with everything, to keep it in place, and it falls into a bit of a smirk. Jimin puts his hand on his own shoulder, fingers just brushing Yoongi’s knee.

****

Yoongi is talking quietly with Laura and Namjoon on the deck when shouting erupts from inside. It transpires that Jungkook has won round-robin darts, surprising nobody - he always wins at everything - and Jin is acting like he’s deeply devastated by this defeat, also surprising nobody. A group of people bursts through the door and Yoongi looks up to see the flash of Jimin’s grin aimed at him before he turns to wrestle Jin away from aiming haphazard blows at the innocent victor.

Laura says, jokingly fanning herself, “You’re a lucky man, Yoongi.”

Namjoon says, loyally, “I think Jimin is the lucky one.”

“You guys,” says Yoongi, quietly. “I’m not even sure this is going to work out.”

Both Laura and Namjoon look a little shocked, but it’s Namjoon who says, “Well, from the outside, it looks pretty good. I mean, in the spring… everyone was so happy for you. Maria in Redfield would stop me every day to say how happy she was to see those two sweet boys so in love.”

Laura says, “Look, don’t pressure them,” to Namjoon, but after he gets up to try to get everyone to settle down, she says to Yoongi, “I hope you can figure it out.”

Jimin comes over, a little out of breath and sweaty, and Yoongi gets up and takes his hand and says, “Come with me,” and walks him out to the end of the dock, past where the halo of lights from the building fades out. They sit and dangle their legs, listening to the quiet clanking of tackle on the boats as the tide comes into the pond, now audible over the chatter coming from the bar behind them.

“Is it too soon to talk?” Yoongi asks.

“No, we should talk,” Jimin says, playing with Yoongi’s fingers, head bent, hair obscuring his face from the angle Yoongi can see him.

“I know I already said this, but I’m sorry for not being a good friend to you while you were at sea. I should have stayed in better touch,” Yoongi says. “And, I wasn’t… well, I wasn’t honest about my feelings when you left. I wasn’t honest to myself, I mean, not just you. I got scared and sort of froze up. I felt like everything was unreal, like I was pretending to live for a while there.”

“I could tell something was wrong,” says Jimin, looking up. “One of the things I love about you, besides how kind you are, and how observant, and the fact that in bed you’re like a whole level hotter than anyone I have ever been with -”

“Jesus Christ,” Yoongi breaks in.

“You know I said that on purpose to make you say that, right? I mean, it’s still true, how are you so sexy. But the thing I love most about you is your honesty. You don’t lie, even to be kind, and you are terrible at faking it, about almost anything. So when you started acting all stilted, those last few days, I thought it meant that you didn’t want to have to tell me that it was just a fun thing, and we should let it go and move on. I thought you were trying to be kind, trying to lie to me. Just, being terrible at it,” he laughs. “So I tried to let it go, and move on.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted,” says Yoongi. “But I do know, now.”

Jimin looks up at him, hopeful. “You do? Because I want you. Even if this job doesn’t happen, and I end up someplace else for a while, I want to work hard to make it back here, to you.”

Yoongi is pretty sure he’s making a very stupid face when he says, “Jimin, I love you.” He sees Jimin’s eyes go wide, and continues, “I do. You’re sweet and open and friendly, but also secretly conniving and a little mean and I love that too, and you’re brilliant and you work so hard, and you’re beautiful.”

Jimin laughs, “Okay, telling the truth! Secretly mean and you love that. No starry-eyed confessions here!”

“Isn’t it better to be loved for who you are?,” says Yoongi, a little indignantly.

“It is. And I love you even though you’re shy, and need a lot of quiet and time to figure things out. Because you work hard to be good to people despite all that, you quietly give people love and support and push them together; everything you do is about loving people and making connections.”

Yoongi ducks his head, blushing. “And you can’t take a compliment,” Jimin says.

“Shouldn’t we be kissing by this point?” asks Yoongi, gruffly.

“Please,” says Jimin.

****

On a dark, stormy late afternoon right after the turn of the year, the door of The Rusty Bucket almost blows open, and two figures come in, one a little taller than the other. His coat is a bit tight across the shoulders and hits too high at the hip, like it’s borrowed. The men shuck their coats and hang them on the rack, and come up to sit on stools at the bar.

“Hello, welcome to The Rusty Bucket. What can I get you?,” Yoongi says, grinning like a loon.

“I think this day calls for a Dark and Stormy,” Jimin says, equally loony. “Yoongi, this is Taehyung, whom I have successfully not killed across the entire United States, even though he is a terrible driver and also almost got us arrested in Las Vegas.”

“It was my birthday!” says Taehyung, and reaches across the bar to shake hands with Yoongi. “Hello. I am so happy to meet you.”

Jin comes wandering out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron, and says, “There’s a ‘man walks into a bar’ joke here someplace, but I’m ashamed to admit I can’t find it right now.” He folds Jimin into a hug. “Did you find a good place to park the truck?”

“We left it at yours, and walked back here,” replies Jimin.

“Brave men,” says Jin, and moves to greet Taehyung. “I promise it’s not always this horrible here.”

Jimin goes behind the bar and wraps himself around Yoongi from behind, significantly hindering his ability to make the hot buttered rums he’s decided are actually the right drink for this evening. He nuzzles Yoongi’s neck. “Honey, I’m home,” he murmurs, low enough so only Yoongi can hear.