“Your name…?”
Three syllables of a name. Isn’t it the most common thing humans meeting for the first time exchange? Right, the man had only asked something like that. What his name was. Whether he knew his name that had never once been uttered from those lips…
But why had Lee Woonghee broken down to that extent?
Like a power outage, like a fuse burned up in flames, Lee Woonghee stopped all movement. Greatly dilated pupils, slightly parted lips… He wore an expression never seen before. His white body trembled.
What on earth was he thinking with that small head? Was he trying to remember his name, not knowing when he’d heard it, or was he trying to gauge his intention for suddenly asking his name?
“……”
The surrounding air chilled in an instant. A truly biting silence flowed.
Lee Woonghee’s eyeballs looked like they’d pop out of their sockets any moment. Red flesh would hang dangling from them. Then the man would pluck that flesh like violin strings.
“That’s…”
Lee Woonghee rolled his eyes around anxiously. He kept biting his reddish lips as if to crush them.
“Gi…”
Beads of sweat formed on his round forehead. His entire white body glistened with sticky sweat.
“Ah, Gi, Gi-i, I think it was something like that.”
His jet-black eyelashes fluttered slowly. Beneath them, he kept rolling his eyes as if watching his mood.
“I’ve never particularly been curious…”
Having blurted that out, he pressed his lips tightly shut.
Ah, someone so kind didn’t know his three-syllable name. Just as he didn’t know Paeng Hana’s manager’s name, he had no intention of storing his name or anything like that in that small head.
The man pulled his oil-slicked lips into a smile. But soon it twisted and fell again. Though he could control his facial muscles at any time, now nothing was listening to him.
Not his zygomaticus, not his orbicularis oculi, not his pupils, not Lee Woonghee in front of him.
Everything was betraying his will. It was truly a filthy feeling.
***
In the eerie forest, stab—staab—sounds of something being pierced burst out repeatedly. A sharp blade kept stirring the mud.
Whip—Managing Director Gi threw the blade in his hand to one side. Bright red blood pooled between his fingers and flowed down in streams. He tapped the back of the cigarette pack with his hand and put a cigarette in his mouth.
Someone spun the lighter wheel next to him, offering him a light. Huuk—the man drew in a breath. The taste spreading in his mouth was pungent.
“Lee Woonghee made contact with him.”
Clink—closing the lighter lid, Daehyung blurted out.
“I read his lips and it seems he said escape, jewel, Managing Director Gi. And…”
The man’s eyes moved sideways. He pressured him with a sidelong glance.
“And?”
“Psy, psychopath…”
I’m sorry—Daehyung immediately buried his head in the dirt. Thud—with his crown plunged into the mud, both arms gathered behind his back. The man tapped his trembling calves with the toe of his shoe.
“The mother bird around us was crying so much that I couldn’t approach closer. Maybe because she just hatched eggs, she acted sensitive even if I approached a little. I thought about twisting her neck, but if I did that, it seemed Lee Woonghee would notice.”
Yesterday he saved those sinners, and today he saved freshly hatched eggs from a crow. Pfft—the man sneered.
Whether you want it or not, you save others.
“So much.”
“…Pardon?”
Daehyung, who couldn’t hear properly from the side, bent his waist deeply and shouted loudly, but the man didn’t continue his words.
Are you that benevolent?
Stupid thing. To think you can’t use your head that much. Should he really stir up your brain to stimulate it? Not knowing that the opportunity you should seize is right here.
The man looked at the pit before his eyes. The eyes of a dying beast stared at him.
Kuuh, ngh…
Gasp gasp—its breath was fading. If he didn’t take his hand, Lee Woonghee would also end up like that on this dog-like island.
He felt filthy. The man’s grip, clenching and unclenching his fist, was covered in sticky blood. This sticky thing was also leaving a sticky trail inside his chest.
And that filthy feeling had continued from the banquet hall until now.
Wild boars are originally caught by the smell of their own kind’s corpse. Because they’re sensitive to the smell of blood. You dig a pit and place a wild boar that gives off the smell of blood. Soon wild beasts gather to devour it. Then the man just had to stab and catch the beast that fell into the pit with a spear.
But why had the man dug the pit only a little that day?
Suddenly the dirt stirred and a wild boar popped out. The wild boar, raising its head upward, bit the man’s forearm with its teeth. The left arm was becoming almost a tattered lump of flesh, but the man just stared down expressionlessly.
Everything was like a ridiculous skit.
“That fucker doesn’t know my name…?”
“Managing Director-nim…!”
Daehyung, who belatedly screamed, picked up a sledgehammer from nearby and smashed the thing’s head. Brain matter splattered—puk—and blood poured onto the man’s face. Hot blood. The surroundings were stained with a fishy smell. Pieces of shirt torn by the wild boar’s large teeth were caught on it.
‘…Does it hurt?’
Even in this situation, the man hardly felt pain. Because his brain was broken. In the end, he took steps toward base camp with a face devoid of much emotion.
“Managing Director-nim, please, please, you must get treatment quickly…”
“It’s annoying so stop whining.”
When about 100 meters remained to base camp, a voice was heard from behind.
“…Managing Director-nim.”
A voice that always pierced into his ears penetratingly, whether small or loud.
The man frowned and turned his back. As expected, it was Lee Woonghee. Desperate to somehow backstab him. Had he just returned after plotting conspiracy? The man looked down at Lee Woonghee while leaving his twisted lips as they were.
“Are, are you alright?”
In the eyes of the one who ultimately couldn’t guess his name, shock was contained. For a moment, a different light appeared in the man’s eyes and his body swayed. Lee Woonghee quickly approached and caught the man’s body.
“Ho, how…”
He didn’t know how much blood he’d lost. One arm was tattered, but he was numb to pain as if paralyzed. But now the man frowned his thick eyebrows as if in agony. He was imitating Lee Woonghee. Of course, the naive Lee Woonghee couldn’t know that. Not knowing anything, he supported the large body with even more strength. While gasping in small breaths urgently.
“Managing Director-nim, you have a high fever. Your body is a ball of fire.”
The man gasped and leaned his crown against Lee Woonghee’s nape. Huk—a sweet fruity scent wetted the man’s nose.
“The, the bone is all exposed. I think we need to close this.”
Lee Woonghee said he needed to stitch it up right away and dragged the man’s body toward the bungalow. Blood dripping from the man’s forearm followed the two. Then he laid the man against one wall.
“Fi, first I’ll disinfect the needle… and stitch the wound.”
After that, he organized the treatment steps methodically. Rather than to inform the man of the treatment process, it seemed he was memorizing so as not to get the order wrong or miss anything.
“It would be good to disinfect too… ri, right, I can use the wine bottle.”
At first it was acting, but gradually his body collapsed and his vision blurred. His body, unable to overcome the pain, was pumping out adrenaline. The oversecretion of adrenaline even swallowed the man’s brain. His reason had dulled.
Now all that was reflected in the man’s eyes, barely holding onto consciousness, was only Woonghee’s white body. What should be in his arms, beneath him. What should rightfully be there.
“Just a moment, Gi, Managing Director Gi-nim, lean on me.”
The man buried his lips in his nape. The slender nape gleamed white. This soft texture wrapping around his fingers…
Ah, you’re the swan that died when you were young. The man blurted out without realizing.
“Why did you do that?”
He wasn’t even properly conscious of what he was blurting out.
“…Why did you die with your head buried after leaving me?”
“What on earth are you saying right now?”
Woong woong. He heard the sound of that foolish thing blurting something, but it didn’t properly register in the man’s ears.
“You keep saying strange things… Does it hurt a lot, Managing Director-nim?”
The man moved his lips in succession.
“…Gi Junhyuk.”
“…Yes?”
“Gi Junhyuk, that’s my name.”
Beyond the dimly covered vision, utterly confused pupils came into view.
“Yes, Managing Director Gi…”
And Lee Woonghee, who was about to call him out of habit,
“No, Gi Junhyuk-ssi.”
Finally called his name.
The man laughed—pfft. In his muddled head, thoughts flowed slowly like snakes.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t given that swan a name. If he’d given it a name then, would the result have been a little different? Was this why everything has a name?
For the first time in his life, he realized that obvious truth in such an unusual way.
