TITANIC ~ A Yoonmin Story

Falling Apart

Jimin splashes down the hall to a stairwell going up to the next deck. He climbs the stairs, his long coat leaving a trail like a giant snail. The weight of it is really slowing him down. He shrugs it off himself and shimmies quickly out of the thing. He bounds up the stairs in his short sleeve shirt and suit trousers, to find himself in a long corridor - part of the labyrinth of steerage hallways. He is alone here. A long groan of stressing metal echoes along the hall as the ship continues to settle. He runs down the hall, unimpeded now.

"Hello? Somebody?"

He turns a corner and runs along another corridor in a daze. The hall slopes down into water which shimmers, reflecting the light. The margin of the water creeps towards him. A young man appears, running through the water, sending up geysers of spray. He pelts past Jimin without slowing, his eyes crazed.

"Help me! We need help!" Jimin cries.

He doesn't look back. It is like a bad dream. The hull gongs with terrifying sounds.

The lights flicker and go out, leaving utter darkness. Then they come back on. He finds himself hyperventilating. That one moment of blackness was the most terrifying of his life.

A steward runs around the nearest corner, his arms full of lifebelts. He is upset to see someone still in his section. He grabs Jimin forcefully by the arm, pulling him with him like a wayward child. "Come on, then, let's get you topside, sir, that's right."

"Wait. Wait! I need your help! There's-"

"No need for panic, sir. Come along!"

"No, let me go! You're going the wrong way!"

He's not listening and he won't let him go.

Jimin shouts in his ear, and when he turns, Jimin punches him squarely in the nose. Shocked, he lets him go and staggers back. "To Hell with you!"

"See you there, buster!" Jimin snaps back.

The steward runs off, holding his bloody nose. Jimin spits after him. Just the way Yoongi taught him.

He turns around and sees a glass case with a fire-axe in it. He breaks the glass with a battered suitcase which is lying discarded nearby, and seizes the axe, running back the way he came.

At the stairwell, he looks down and gasps. The water has flooded the bottom five steps. He goes down and has to crouch to look along the corridor to the room where Yoongi is trapped.

Jimin plunges into the water, which is up to his waist, and powers forward, holding the axe above his head in two hands. He grimaces at the pain from the literally freezing water.

Inside the Master at Arms office, Yoongi has climbed up on the bench, and is hugging the waterpipe. Jimin wades in, holding the axe above his head. "Will this work?"

"We'll find out."

They are both terrified, but trying to keep panic at bay. He positions the chain connecting the two cuffs, stretching it taut across the steel pipe. The chain is of course very short, and his exposed wrists are on either side of it. 

"Try a couple a practice swings." Yoongi says. Jimin hefts the axe and thunks it into a wooden cabinet. "Now try to hit the same mark again." Jimin swings hard and the blade thunks in four inches from the mark. "Okay, that's enough practice."

 He winces, bracing himself as Jimin raises the axe. He has to hit a target about an inch wide with all the force he can muster, with Yoongi's hands on either side.

Sounding calm, Yoongi encourages his lover. "You can do it, Jiminie. Hit it as hard as you can, I trust you." 

Yoongi closes his eyes. So does Jimin.