Chapter Text
This isn’t Yonghoon’s finest hour.
The thin blanket feels misaligned around him, folded crookedly under one underarm, and he feels a strong swell of regret swimming along with everything else in his stomach.
He shouldn’t have eaten mushroom stroganoff for dinner, its rich creaminess sliding heavily down his throat. He certainly shouldn’t have eaten as much as he did, idly shoveling forkful after forkful into his face as he reviewed the paperwork for his new job. Honestly, he probably shouldn’t have eaten anything, not a single thing. He just wasn’t thinking, not even a little bit. The ferry had still been docked safely, then, its faint bobbing motions in the harbor so slight that Yonghoon didn’t think ahead, at all.
He realizes now that he should have known not to eat much at the start of this overnight journey. Hell, even back in Korea, he’d read all about the North Sea being home to some of the roughest shipping seas in the world. The high-speed ferry in which he suffers now tumbles back and forth, up and down, and side to side like some sort of demonic rubber duck caught in an enthusiastic child’s bathtub waves.
Prior to tonight, Yonghoon hadn’t even known there could be this many dimensions for his stomach to roll and tumble, to heave and bounce.
He’s never gotten motion sick before, but this new hell is seriously pushing the boundaries of his fortitude.
He faintly remembers reading that it’s worse in winter. It’s mid-May; he cannot even imagine what worse than this would feel like.
Yonghoon takes a moment to feel thankful for the advice to always book an inner berth. Sure, it means sacrificing ocean views, but in these conditions, he suspects he wouldn’t see much beyond chaotic spray against a salt-encrusted porthole, anyway.
As he rolls over in his bunk, he pulls the blanket closer to him, trying to straighten its awkward angles around his long legs.
He tries his best to sleep.
He’s fortunate in at least one regard; no other travelers booked a berth in this room. Now, he’s able to groan and sigh, rearrange his bedding to his heart’s desire.
Still, sleep doesn’t come.
It’s just past 3 o’clock in the morning when Yonghoon gives up. He slithers out of the bunk, throws on jeans, a thicker shirt, and a weatherproof jacket. He checks to make sure he has the key for the room, then opens the door, blinking blearily into the artificial lighting.
It’s nothing compared to the sunlight that greets him as he makes his way to an upper deck. He’s never experienced anything like this: full, white sunlight, hazed over only by the humid mist, before 4 o’clock in the morning.
Not that it’s warm, for all this luminescent sunlight beaming directly into his tired, squinting eyes. In Shetland, he remembers reading, Summer doesn’t mean hot. Summer just means you can set your heater to a lower setting.
At least the ferry isn’t swaying so much anymore. Yonghoon thinks they’ve slowed down a little; just as he’s about to ask one of the ferry’s crewmembers about it, he looks to his right – and does a doubletake.
There, startlingly close – like an iceberg, his tired brain fills in for him – is an island. Its sheer cliff edges glow pale in the bright sun, steep walls tumbling magnificently down to the ocean. Along the top ridges, Yonghoon sees bright green. Grass, he supposes, gawping at the sight of the vertical face of rock against the glittering blue ocean. It almost looks as though the sea cliff were vibrating, and he questions his own mental faculties before realizing that the cliff is covered in seabirds. Thousands upon thousands of birds, so close that it looks as though the cliff itself might be alive, pulsing, with a haze of white paper confetti swirling off the island cliff face.
All of the passengers on this level are chattering excitedly, most with expensive looking cameras in hand. “Fair Isle!” they tell each other, naming different bird species with increasingly vocal excitement. Apparently there are a lot of birdwatchers on the ferry. Well, fair enough, he thinks. Beyond seabird tourism, why else would people visit Shetland? Certainly not the weather.
Fair Isle is a small island, and as soon as they’ve cleared its waters, the ferry begins to speed up again. Not by much, but Yonghoon is still relieved to find that he’s becoming used to the rolling motion underneath him, the gravity buckling and bending as the North Sea expresses its utter disregard for the vessel plowing its surface.
Feeling somewhat refreshed by the sight of green-topped Fair Isle and its bird-covered sea cliffs, Yonghoon makes his way a touch unsteadily back to his berth.
This time, he falls asleep.
_____
Harin, the man the Shetland Arts Council arranged to pick Yonghoon up from the ferry terminal at 7:30 this morning, turns out to be a tallish man with friendly eyes and a well-worn black leather jacket.
“You’re even taller than I am!” says Harin, after they’ve greeted each other. “I’m not sure why, but I somehow pictured a poet to be…” He pauses, suddenly looking a little embarrassed.
“You thought poets are short?” Yonghoon laughs. “I’ve heard all sorts of things when I tell people what I do for a living, but that’s a new one.”
Harin shrugs, grinning as he hoists Yonghoon’s luggage into a small, blue car. “I guess most of the people in the arts scene here are short, or something. Like the Trouble Twins. I dunno!”
“The Trouble Twins?” Yonghoon asks.
Harin waits until they’re both seated and buckled in before responding. “Yeah, it’s just a silly nickname for two of the other Korean guys here in town. There’s not a lot of us. Unless someone’s hiding in a croft or in some village on one of the smaller islands, you’ll be the fifth one! We all know each other. It’s… kind of a small place.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that already,” says Yonghoon. “But ‘Trouble Twins’ sounds a little ominous – are you telling me two of the four of you are up to no good?”
Harin grins. “Oh, they’re not that bad. Just mischievous, really. Dongmyeong is a fiddle prodigy and singer. He’s here on a Shetland Arts fellowship, like you, so you’ll probably see a lot of each other. Giwook is his best friend who followed him here from Korea. He’s a good musician in his own right – bass, mostly, though he produces some rap tracks also.”
Yonghoon wants to ask about the rap music – Shetland doesn’t really seem like that kind of scene – but his breath hitches as the car crests over a hill, revealing an amazing view of Lerwick harbor and islands beyond it.
Harin catches his reaction. “Pretty, isn’t it? Catch it now, while we have sun! It rains over 300 days a year here, and most of the other 65 are either overcast or so foggy you can’t see two meters in front of you.”
“It’s beautiful,” exhales Yonghoon.
Harin pulls the car off the road slightly and puts it in neutral. “You want to get out and snap some pictures? I’m telling you, this is a rare sight.”
“Yeah,” breathes Yonghoon. “Yeah, I… thank you, that would be amazing.”
He exits the car and snaps a few shots on his phone. In one picture, he captures what looks to be a far-away lighthouse on a neighboring island.
“That’s Bressay,” says Harin, following Yonghoon’s gaze. “Not much going on, but they have a decent little inn that serves nice dinners. You can take the ferry across and back, doesn’t take long at all.”
Yonghoon takes a couple more pictures before suddenly feeling the exhaustion of his travel and sleep deprivation settle into his bones. As he gets back into Harin’s car, it’s all he can do to stay awake for the rest of the short ride to his new home for the next year.
He gladly accepts Harin’s offer of assistance with his bags, as his apartment is up a flight of stairs from the street level.
“Okay, well, you have my contact details; let me know if you need anything before tomorrow morning!”
“Thank you, Harin!” Yonghoon says. “I’ll be alright; I’ll probably just pass out and sleep for a million hours, honestly.”
“Fair!” Harin looks sympathetic. “It’s been a while since I made the journey home, but it’s well over 24 hours of travel, right?” Yonghoon nods. “Yeah, that’s rough. Well, get some rest, and I’ll swing by tomorrow morning!”
Once the door has clicked shut behind Harin, Yonghoon takes a moment to look around his new apartment. It’s a cozy one-bedroom apartment. Nothing spectacular, but clean and in good repair. And – he can hardly believe it – there’s a view of the ocean from his new kitchen window.
That view would cost a fortune in Korea, he thinks. Probably my first and second-born children.
An assortment of basic foodstuffs has been set on the kitchen counter – bread, jam, and a few other tidbits. The Shetland Arts Council must have provided this as a welcome present.
He pokes at a small envelope; sure enough, it’s a note of welcome from his new employers, the Arts Council.
Yonghoon brushes his teeth and sinks into the clean sheets on his new bed. He has just enough time to feel gratitude for the miracle of furnished residences before sleep pulls him under, visions of sea cliffs and seabirds swirling in his dreams.
He awakens in the afternoon and decides to traipse to the convenience store around the corner before it closes.
Unsure what to make of the alien landscape of its crowded shelves, he buys a few drinks and a jar of something called lime pickle. He guesses it’s probably the closest local equivalent to the citrus tea blend he buys in Korea.
When he gets back home, he stays awake long enough to discover, with a horrified puckering of his lips, that lime pickle is in fact nothing at all like jarred citrus tea blends.
He wolfs down a slice of bread with the jam from his welcome present, then sinks quickly back to sleep.
_____
Jet lag snaps like a rubber band in Yonghoon’s brain, and he wakes with a startled gasp. It’s the middle of the night – he thinks, anyway. It’s hard to tell, in the murky half-light of a not-fully-set sun.
He’s going to need some blackout curtains. These subpolar latitudes are not, it seems, fucking around.
_____
Harin knocks on the door at 9 in the morning, and Yonghoon welcomes him groggily inside, one eyelid stuck more closed than the other, even after his shower.
“You might want to bring a good jacket,” Harin says, watching Yonghoon put on his shoes. “Fog’s rolling in.” His mouth quirks in an apologetic half-smile. “Like I said, the sun doesn’t last long around here.”
Yonghoon nods. He’s tired and hungry enough that he currently doesn’t trust his metabolism to keep him warm, anyway.
Sure enough, as they walk to breakfast, a dense, silvery gray cloud rolls in from the ocean, its thick fog nearly an opaque wall.
“This is crazy!” says Yonghoon. “That side of the street is clear,” and he points to his left, “But this one, I can hardly see the front doors of the houses!”
“It is crazy, right?” agrees Harin. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.”
The buildings along the street are not picturesque. Rather, they look… a little bleak, really. The macadam and concrete faces are clearly designed for durability in the harsh climate, not ornamental beauty.
They arrive at a café. The Peerie Draatsi is written on the front door.
Yonghoon pauses and looks at Harin. He points to the name of the café. “What does that mean?” Yonghoon’s English is excellent, but he’s stumped by this one.
“You know… I’m not sure!” admits Harin. “I know ‘peerie’ means small; you’ll hear that word a lot. But I just… I dunno, The Peerie Draatsi is just the name of the café, to me. I’d never really stopped to consider it. My English has gotten a lot better in the last few years, but this might be Shetland dialect. Well, we can ask Hyungu.” He opens the door for Yonghoon.
“Hyungu?” Yonghoon asks as they step inside, warm humid air immediately fogging up his glasses. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that Harin picked a café where a Korean works. “Wait, is he one of the Trouble Twins? I can’t remember their names – ”
“I should hope not!” chuckles a soft voice. A Korean voice. “Don’t lump me in with those two.”
Yonghoon tries to see the speaker through his foggy glasses but can only really tell that the man is blond.
“You must be Hyungu,” says Yonghoon, wiping his glasses on the hem of his shirt, exchanging one form of blurred vision for another.
“Nice to meet you,” says Hyungu. He pauses only slightly before saying, “You can sit wherever you like.” He nods, then walks to the back of the café, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.
Harin and Yonghoon choose a table in the window, overlooking the cobblestones.
Yonghoon tries to make sense of the menu items. “What is coronation chicken?” he asks.
Harin thinks for a second. “I guess the best way to describe it would be chicken chunks covered in a curried mayonnaise sauce. With little bits of fruit in it, too.”
It sounds revolting; Yonghoon turns his attention to other options.
He focuses fully on trying to figure out which of the many unfamiliar food choices to order, so the sudden appearance of a person right at their table startles Yonghoon into knocking his elbow against his silverware with a surprisingly loud crash.
He looks up from the table to see the most beautiful young man he’s seen in a long, long time. His giant, sparkling brown eyes peek out from a bleached blond fringe, and his plush lower lip quivers suspiciously, as though he might be trying not to laugh.
“You must be Hyungu,” says Yonghoon, for the second time. Like an idiot. An absolute idiot.
His dislodged spoon clatters to the floor like a punctuation mark to his embarrassment.
“Yes,” says Hyungu. He looks at the spoon on the ground, then picks it up. “I’ll get you a new one. Are you ready to order?”
Yonghoon panics. “I’ll have the coronation chicken sandwich, please.”
The silence of Harin and Hyungu’s stares is broken only by the metallic clattering of Yonghoon’s dislodged fork falling to the ground, apparently leaping off the table in a tragic attempt to join its spoon friend.
Fuck. So much for good first impressions.