TITANIC ~ A Yoonmin Story

The Heart of the Ocean

Jimin sits, flanked by people in heated conversation. Pilwoo and Mijeong are laughing together, while on the other side Lady Chwa Seong is holding forth animatedly. Jimin can't hear what anyone is saying. He stares at his plate, barely listening to the inconsequential babble around him. 

゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。

"I saw my whole life as if I'd already lived it...an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches... always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared... or even noticed."

゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。☆。・゛★゛・。

Jimin holds a tiny fork from his crab salad. He pokes the crab-fork into the skin of his arm, harder and harder until it draws blood. 

After the tedious meal was over, Jimin enters his room. He stands in the middle, staring at his reflection in the large vanity mirror. Just stands there, then with a primal, anguished cry he claws at his throat, ripping off his pearl necklace, which explodes across the room. In a frenzy he tears at himself, his clothes, his hair... then attacks the room. He flings everything off the dresser and it flies clattering against the wall. He hurls a hand-mirror against the vanity, cracking it. 

He then turns and leaves the en suite and runs along the B deck promenade. He is disheveled, his hair flying. He is crying, his cheeks streaked with tears. But also angry, furious! Shaking with emotions he doesn't understand... hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple watch him pass. Shocked at the emotional display in public.

Yoongi is kicked back on one of the benches gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead. Thinking artist thoughts and smoking a cigarette. 

Hearing something, he turns as Jimin runs up the stairs from the well deck. They are the only two on the stern deck, except for quartermaster Kim, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk. Jimin doesn't see Yoongi in the shadows, and runs right past him.

Jimin runs across the deserted fantail. His breath hitches in an occasional sob, which he suppresses. Jimin slams against the base of the stern flagpole and clings there, panting. He stares out at the black water.

Then starts to climb over the railing. He has to hitch his long blouse way up, and climbing is clumsy. Moving methodically he turns his body and gets his heels on the white-painted gunwale, his back to the railing, facing out toward blackness. Sixty feet below him, the massive propellers are churning the waves into white foam, and a ghostly wake trails off toward the horizon. 

He leans out, his arms straightening, looking down hypnotized, into the vortex below him. His top and hair is lifted by the wind of the ship's movement. The  only sound, above the rush of water below, is the flutter and snap of the big T'aegukki right above him. 

"Don't do it."

Jimin whips his head around at the sound of Yoongi's voice. It takes a second for his eyes to focus. 

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!"

Yoongi sees the tear tracks on Jimin's cheeks in the faint glow from the stern running lights. 

"Take my hand. I'll pull you back in."

"No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I'll let go."

"No you won't."