seaside serenity
rowan
Chills thrilled down his back and up his arms as Rowan listened to Sef speak. The way he spoke, conviction and tragedy laced into every word… he didn’t deserve this, the laying bare of something so intimate so completely. And yet there Sef was, offering up the soul of the town on a silver platter. He didn’t know what to make of it. Had it really happened to other people? It was true that there was a certain inexplicable something to the events leading up to his settling here, but he’d always rationalized it as a facet of his own aimlessness. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go, right?
He nodded along to Sef’s explanation but said nothing—he didn’t know what to say, couldn’t trust himself to find the right words. Thankfully, Sef changed the subject, giving him an out. Rowan soon pushed away thoughts of ghosts to the cobwebbed part of his mind and replaced it with the knowledge that Sef had welcomed him. It warmed his heart more than he expected, and he found himself curling up beside that feeling, basking in it. Was it really a family he sought? And if so, would he find it? Did he even deserve it?
“It’s not bad news,” Rowan said at last, after an uncharacteristic bout of silence. “How can a town full of so many good people be bad? You’re not the first to welcome me like this, you know. Kindness just… flows out of people here. I don’t deserve it, but they share it with me nonetheless. I’m grateful for that.”
His expression lightened up as Sef laughed, and his shoulders lost much of the tension they’d been holding. “The first, really?” That genuinely surprised him: the boat had drawn him in with a siren’s song like no other on the docks. It had been impossible for him not to check it out. Did other people just not notice, or did they not care? But then he heard that word, a word he’d heard far too many times, slip from Sef’s mouth:
Special.
It was a word he’d chased his whole life. His parents used to coo it at him when he was younger, certain that he would be a special child, a golden child. When they came to understand the reality of his mediocre existence, he’d sought it out in others, craving it like a drug, desperate for another hit. He caught glimpses of it in Cassie’s eyes sometimes, lids heavy with fake lashes, lips rimmed cherry-red, but the high only lasted so long before he needed to jump a little higher, run a little further, an endless dog-and-pony show with him as the unwitting star.
Yet even when he did earn that warmth in her eyes, it was always conditional, flaming out as quickly as it sparked. But what had he done to earn that from Sef? Admired at a damn boat? He found himself wondering what he’d have to do next to sustain Sef’s interest but squashed the thought almost as quickly as it arose. Though he’d said people weren’t like that here, he obviously had some work to do to believe it.
Sef handing him a fishing rod distracted him from his own dangerous thoughts. A smile grew as Rowan examined the rod, marked with the same wear and tear of a fruitful life that had first caught his attention when he saw the boat. Listening carefully to Sef’s instructions, he tried his best to thread the line through the hook’s eye, despite never having threaded a needle before. The rocking of the boat made it even more difficult, but he did eventually do the job, though it took embarrassingly long. He watched as Sef made some sort of complex knot to secure the hook and did his best to replicate it.
Hook supposedly secure, he leaned over the live well and frowned at the sight of the shrimps and small fish wriggling within. Rolling up his sleeve, he plunged his hand into the well and exclaimed at the freezing water. First he grabbed a fish, but the slippery scales made him want to gag; instead, he went for a shrimp, gripping it firmly despite feeling its little legs scrabble against his fingers. He held it at arm’s length as he watched Sef bait his own hook. He grimaced, looking at those little beady eyes, and set the hook against the meatiest part of the shrimp.
“Really?” he gasped when Sef mentioned sharks, then felt silly when he realized Sef was joking. Of course he was. Rowan knew he’d make a fool of himself doing this, and Sef was probably enjoying the hell out of it… but it would bother him more if it weren’t exactly what he deserved.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the hook through the shrimp’s flesh and felt its carapace give with a pop.
“Eugh!” he exclaimed as the shrimp’s legs wriggled erratically against his fingers. But it was done. He’d actually done it, and it wasn’t… that bad. His hand was fucking freezing, of course, but a strange sense of accomplishment came over him, not least of all because he hadn’t acted like a complete idiot in front of Sef.
He was about to declare his success when Sef began to speak again. Brought back? What did that mean? Rowan thought the “haunt” only took children. What did his dad have to do with it? He gazed at Sef for a long moment, wondered what hidden pains lurked behind those eyes. Questions bubbled up from his throat, pressed against his tongue, yet he trapped them behind his lips. This whole situation was tenuous at best, and he didn’t want to test its strength with inappropriate questions. That was a story for another time.
“I’m done,” he said softly, feeling the energy change between them yet again. “So you just… hang out here all day, every day? Alone? Don’t you ever get, I dunno, bored? Or… lonely?”
He frowned. He just couldn’t keep the questions light, could he?
“Uh, anyway. I guess the next step is to catch a fish, huh?”
Sef looked at Rowan for a split second, somewhat perplexed. So he had listened. He had grown so accustomed to being the one on the listening end. It wasn’t the exact opposite now with Rowan, but his observations made Sef feel as though all those years of silence had suddenly faded away. Days could go by where Sef didn’t utter a word, his own thoughts and words consuming one another before even being uttered. A silent battle unfolded within him every day, and now, with a simple comment, the fight was over, thanks to Rowan.
“Right. Right, it’s not all bad,” he blushed, somewhat ashamed of his poor choice of words. “See? It’s one unique town, I’m telling you.” ‘You’d be surprised’, he’d been told, once, years and years go by someone whose features he couldn’t quite recall, ‘to see that those who’ve lost and grieved the most are the kindest ones you’ll get to meet’. The saying stayed true, especially in the town they lived in. Sef bowed his head lightly, so as to say ‘I told you’ to him.
“Yeah, the first! Most tend to find it boring, or they get grossed out by the fish. You get used to it when you spend years at sea, I guess. Besides, it’s not like it’s the town’s golden job or anythin’,” he joked, an underlying appreciation for the simplicity and repetition the job had provided him - sheltered him with, even - shining through the words. Not once had Sef questioned his place in the ever-growing chain of fishermen his family was comprised of. He couldn’t complain, and he didn’t, yet that didn’t mean he couldn’t poke fun at it from time to time. As children, Rhys, Sef, and the rest of the cousins would get on their parents’ boats, and purposefully make it rock wildly to scare one another. The trick had seen the kids grow less bewildered year after year. “Does that surprise you? Being the first guest, I mean.”
The sight of Rowan struggling with the bait pushed a childish chuckle out of him. Having finished his part fairly quickly, he waited patiently for Rowan to be done with his. His curious, amused stare remained fix on the other the entire time. Deep down, he had expected someone as built and intimidating as Rowan would have no problem with the shrimp and fish. The brunet laughed yet again, and even louder this time, at Rowan’s exclamation. He didn’t have any lighthearted moments like this one left, so the chuckle filled his insides with sweetness and lightness. Not having allowed himself to remain innocent for long, it undoubtedly feel good to laugh like this once more. He hadn’t noticed how much he’d missed this part until he felt his stomach hurt. “Look at that! You’re doing a damn good job so far. You know, I bet most of them would’ve dropped the shrimp in disgust.”
Not wishing to let the tense silence between them drag on, he shook his head and subdued all the noise in his head. His cheeks were stinging with heat, yet he was sure it could easily be covered up by blaming it on the cold air. The voice at the back of his head looked down at him in disappointment, cursing him for having slipped. Then came the guilt. It suddenly almost did not matter that Rowan had opened himself to him, that he’d picked at his wounds and allowed them to bleed and throb before Sef’s eyes. No, as much sympathy as he’d develop for the other in this short span, Sef’s troubles were his own. He clung unto them and protected them, locking them in isolated marble castles with walls so high, no intruder would be able to step in. He’d collected enough pity from the people in town to last him for a year. He didn’t blame them anymore, and he still thought them to be well-meaning, but the child he was back then did not see it the same way. Days after his father’s boat had failed to return to the docks, Sef would be woken up by knocks on the door. He’d throw the patchwork blankets to the floor without thinking it twice, rushing to the entrance hoping to see his father’s smile as soon as he opened the door. Time after time, he’d be flooded with disappointment, for it was simply yet another stranger looking to extend their condolences. He could only take so much knocking before he stopped answering the door altogether, and moved out of that godforsaken house. No, he didn’t want any pity, especially not Rowan’s. He would rather have Rowan look at him the way during their first encounter, with a raging fire burning behind his pupils, than to have him give him a look heavy with pity.
“Then you’re halfway there,” he shrugged, offering Rowan a small, yet reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ his eyes pleaded. He’d thread the stitches on his own and put himself back together. And even if he couldn’t, he had to.
“Yes, all day, every day,” Sef chuckled, touched by Rowan’s disbelief and naïve inquiries. “Do you see anyone else on the boat with us?” He gestured, right as he finished preparing the rod. “Only sometimes. At the end of the day, they’re occupational hazards. But it’s nice here. I don’t know, I guess there’s something comforting in being on your own in the middle of the sea, and knowing that none of the troubles on land can get to you. No one can bother you here; you’ve only got yourself.” Right after the last word was uttered, Sef gripped his hands tightly around the rod, moved his arms backwards, and released them forwards to cast the line. “Give a try yourself. It’s easier than it looks.”
“Anyways, enough about my job. What do you do? How does Rowan Kim spend his time?”
