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They pick a sunny day with a light breeze, when the water is warm and placid. There's no surf, only light ripples that lap at the pebbly shore.
Waiting for them to get ready, Choi Yoon stands at the shoreline. He finds himself watching the glossy wet rocks turn matte as the summer heat dries them. How quickly things change.
"Hey," Gilyoung says, elbowing him. "This is a fun outing, remember? Fun. We're having fun today."
It is impossible not to think of a similar shore bleached with moonlight. She must consider it as well, as they stand side by side at the edge of the sea. They'd screamed into the darkness together.
Then Hwapyung barrels into them from behind, throwing his arms around their backs, making Gilyoung stumble forward.
She swears and smacks his arm. "My shoes are wet now."
Hwapyung ignores the blow and takes a deep breath. "Okay. Who's going to teach me how to swim?"
He'd felt so empty that night, so helpless. Only able to shout, and barely able to hope. Now Hwapyung is here. The emptiness is a memory. A silvered scar.
Choi Yoon offers Gilyoung his arm so she can slip her wet shoes off. He is already barefoot, and the rocky shore hurts the tender bottoms of his feet. It has been a long time since he's played barefoot outdoors.
Gilyoung throws her shoes farther up the beach, away from the water. She wears men's board shorts and a sports bra that looks as if it's been through the wash a thousand times.
Struck by how uncomfortable she looks, he nearly asks her if she's sure she can swim. Then he recalls that she dragged him from the sea and beat the life back into him — more stubborn than his desire to stay in the dark.
Hwapyung swears and starts wading into the water without them. "I knew this was a bad idea. You both look like you're at a funeral."
In reality, it likely is a bad idea. Choi Yoon is not particularly well-equipped to teach a grown man how to swim. He isn't even sure how it works when someone is re-learning. When their body simply forgot how to be light in the water.
But he is a strong swimmer. It's the only kind of physical activity he's ever enjoyed. Swimming laps has always quieted his mind. No one bothers him in his lane. Nothing is unpredictable.
The sea is another thing entirely. He hasn't been in the open water often. As a child, he'd been forbidden from swimming without supervision, and no one ever had the spare time to watch a boy play.
Hwapyung, despite his insistence that he doesn't know how to swim anymore, looks at home knee-deep in the water. He's in sun-faded red trunks a few sizes too small. His scars can't be seen from the back. His shoulders are freckled from sunburns past. He looks happy. A child of summer and salt.
Gilyoung kicks water at Choi Yoon. "I'm serious," she snaps. "You're going back to the car if you keep lurking and thinking. Go teach him to swim."
He wants to argue. But he also wants to touch Hwapyung, so he follows his meandering path through the shallows. It isn't the first time he's waded after him.
Hwapyung looks over his shoulder with a grin. "Do you have to wear a black bathing suit? Is that a rule?"
"No," Choi Yoon says. "Modesty is encouraged," he adds, looking down at his long trunks and rash guard. As is often the case, he feels abruptly out of place. An outsider.
Hwapyung takes his hand. His skin is warm, but there's tension in his fingers. The grip just a little too tight.
It makes Choi Yoon's breath hitch when Hwapyung makes him feel at home once more. In his body. Beside him. Even in the vast, warm sea. All Hwapyung has to do is smile.
Choi Yoon swallows. "I think we should stand where it's deeper. You can hold onto me and get used to how it feels when your feet aren't touching."
Gilyoung throws a rock. It lands with a distant, hollow splash. "Are you calling him short?"
"I think he is," Hwapyung says.
They're both grinning at Choi Yoon and looking impossibly young. Choi Yoon only feels young when he's afraid. He wonders how he looks to them.
Holding hands, they make their way deeper into the water. The color darkens to a jewel-tone blue. Their feet look distorted and pale against the bottom. Hwapyung releases Choi Yoon's hand and clings to his forearm instead — with both hands, grip so tight it will leave bruises.
"Do you want to get out?" Choi Yoon asks gently.
"No." Hwapyung presses his lips together stubbornly. They're chest-deep. Or Choi Yoon is, anyway. The water is up to Hwapyung's armpits.
Gilyoung swims lazy circles around them, ducking under and surfacing with her hair sleek and glistening. "You're doing well," she says.
"I'm not doing anything," Hwapyung argues, a little strained. It's the way he sounds when he's frustrated with himself. His hair falls into his face, covering the opaque white of his right eye. It makes him look boyish in a way he rarely appears these days.
Choi Yoon puts his arms around Hwapyung and pulls him close, dislodging his frantic grip and giving him more to hold. Giving him all of himself to hold.
Hwapyung wraps his legs around Choi Yoon's hips, and for a moment, Choi Yoon almost slips under the surface, the way he might if a wasp landed on his cheek.
"Your face," Gilgyoung giggles, turning onto her back to float. "Fuck, that was funny."
"What is your face doing?" Hwapyung mumbles against Choi Yoon's neck.
It takes Choi Yoon a long time to answer. For a while, he can only breathe, feeling the sea sway his body and feeling his heart race. The vulnerable bulk of Hwapyung's penis nudges against his middle. "I don't know," he finally says, throat very dry.
"Should I try letting go with my legs?" Hwapyung asks, without a hint of teasing. For once, he seems unaware of what his body does to Choi Yoon.
No, Choi Yoon wants to scream. "Yes," he says. "Put your hands on my shoulders and let your lower body drift up."
"I've got you," Gilyoung says. She must be on her tip-toes, half-treading to help Hwapyung raise his legs.
"This is stupid," Hwapyung mutters. "I used to swim all the time, you know. I learned how to swim when I was three."
"You're not going to sink," she tells him. It's the voice she uses with children. She can be so gentle. "We've got you."
Hwapyung flails a moment, starting to stiffen and fight the water instead of working with it. He swears, profusely, and gets seawater in his mouth. In a moment, he will become too agitated to make even the barest attempt at swimming.
Choi Yoon presses his palm to Hwapyung's chest, spreading his fingers wide. Buoyancy is a fascinating thing. Like this, he can hold him. All of him. In his hand.
"Don't let me go," Hwapyung whispers, face wet from splashing helplessly. But there might be tears there, too.
"I won't. You know I won't," Choi Yoon says, giving him time to breathe through his body telling him he's in danger.
Gilyoung touches Hwapyung's back and shoulders in light, soothing strokes. "You're kind of floating a little. Relax your legs."
"I don't want to go under," Hwapyung snaps.
"Bullshit," she says. "I bet you could stay under for a minute when you were a kid."
His eyes flash with anger that subsides as soon as it appears. And in its wake, there's wry amusement. "Two minutes. One time. But I was grounded for trying it."
He needs to keep talking, Choi Yoon realizes. When he speaks, he doesn't think about his body or the imagined threat. "Did you get in trouble often?" he asks.
"No," Hwapyung says, lifting his chin. The water laps at his lower lip. His hair falls into his eyes again. Gilyoung brushes it out of the way for him. "I didn't."
"I did," Choi Yoon says, abruptly feeling the need to confess. It is good to be known by them. Only by them. "All the time, really. I didn't like being told what to do."
"Do you still dislike being told what to do?" Hwapyung asks, breathless with exertion. He's kicking his legs, just a little, in an awkward facsimile of treading water. His golden-brown eye focuses on Choi Yoon with intensity that feels like being clung to.
"I have more practice at it now," Choi Yoon says, avoiding the truth: He doesn't like being told what to do, but the life he chose for himself is structured in every way. All he can do is keep practicing.
"It's a good thing you don't always do as you're told," Gilyoung says, meeting his gaze. She's smiling. There's a shorthand to their interactions now, forged in the year they grieved shoulder to shoulder. She, too, feels like home to him now.
"Pay attention to me," Hwapyung says. He is half-serious. The half that isn't kidding makes Choi Yoon's chest tighten.
"I told you," he says. "I won't let you go. Tell me what you liked best about swimming."
Hwapyung's breath whistles as he exhales hard from his nose. When another brief bout of flailing subsides, he says, "Being underwater. It isn't silent, but it's quiet. I don't know how to explain it."
"Like the womb must have been, I suppose," Choi Yoon says.
"That's weird," Gilyoung says. "And I read that being in the womb was actually loud. All the talking, the heart beating. It was never quiet in there."
"I wish I could remember," Hwapyung says. His body has begun to relax. He feels feather-light against Choi Yoon's steady palm. He pushes his hair out of his eyes, seemingly unaware he'd let go of Choi Yoon with one hand to do so.
"The womb?" Choi Yoon asks, glancing at Gilyoung. She's looking at the cloudless sky, where there's nothing to see.
"Yeah," Hwapyung says. "Her heartbeat, anyway. I wish I could remember."
"Me too," Gilyoung says lightly, scrubbing her wet hand across her face.
To Choi Yoon, there is only one mother now. But he imagines that she and the sea are one and the same. Unknowable and knowing. Limitless. "The water," he says, struggling to articulate it. "I feel that way when I swim laps. That the water is holding me."
"You swim laps?" Hwapyung asks, blinking owlishly. "When?"
"When the public pool opens. At five am," he says.
"All the time? Is this a thing you do all the time and we didn't know?"
"We are not often in contact at five am," Choi Yoon points out. He does not point out that Hwapyung's grip has loosened, or that his legs have begun to undulate in the water like seaweed on the current.
"I can't believe this," Hwapyung says. His mouth forms a small pout. "What other secret lives do you have?"
Choi Yoon shakes his head, biting back a smile. "It's a membership to the pool, not a wife and children in another town."
Gilyoung has been listening, her lips curved in a soft smile. Unlike Hwapyung, she has clearly noticed that he's nearly swimming on his own. Like a seal, she dives under Hwapyung to surface on the other side of him. Choi Yoon is reminded of the way dolphins swim close beside their young, both guiding and sheltering them.
"So you just swim back and forth?" Hwapyung asks. "That sounds boring."
"It's meditative. Sometimes I pray the rosary while I'm swimming."
Gilyoung rolls her eyes. "You're making this worse."
Choi Yoon is startled by his own laugh. He shakes his head and curls his fingers just a little, showing Hwapyung that he's barely holding him now. If he let go, Hwapyung would float, at least for a moment. But he made a promise, and he won't break contact first.
"Do you wear a Speedo?" Hwapyung asks, eyes widening.
"No," Choi Yoon says, cheeks heating. "That would not be modest."
Gilyoung laughs so hard she leaves a trail of bubbles in the water when she swims. Hwapyung laughs too, and surges forward, in what is suspiciously close to swimming, to press his wet lips to Choi Yoon's cheek.
Overcome, Choi Yoon drags Hwapyung closer, crushing their bodies together and finding Hwapyung's shocked mouth with a deep, salty kiss. He feels Gilyoung's arms snake around Hwapyung from behind, her hands brushing his arms affectionately. She rests her cheek on Hwapyung's shoulder with a contented sigh. Her toes touch Choi Yoon's shins.
Anchoring them, his feet gripping the rocks on the bottom, Choi Yoon kisses Hwapyung until his chin stings from the friction of his stubble. He kisses him until they both have to stop to breathe, held in place by the sea that cradles them, all three of them, like children rocked to sleep in safe arms.