All the hair on his body stood on end. Yugeon froze without even being able to scream. The thought of running away didn’t even occur to him. His mind just went completely blank. The beast that had been staring intently at Yugeon as if searching lost interest, exhaled through its nose, turned around, and disappeared between the bamboo forest.
The body glimpsed between the stems had black stripes carved on it.
As soon as the beast completely disappeared from view, Yugeon exhaled the breath he’d been holding and immediately turned around and ran. Steadying his staggering legs, he came rolling down the slope path and emerged into the yard, where he ran right into his younger brother who was just coming up to the house.
“Hyung?”
“A tiger!”
“?”
“A, a tiger! I saw it!”
When Yugeon desperately pointed at the hill toward the backyard, Migeon glanced that way once, then said.
“Hyung… this is an island.”
“That’s why I’m asking why there’s a tiger on the island!”
“…I’ve lived on this island for 21 years, but I’ve never seen a tiger… I’ve never even heard that there are tigers on the island…”
“…Really?”
Migeon nodded.
“Didn’t you see wrong, Hyung?”
“No… It was really a tiger… Its body was this big?”
Migeon, who had been staring at Yugeon showing the tiger’s size with both arms, turned his gaze to look at the hill.
“The bamboo forest?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“I’ll go check it out.”
“What? That’s dangerous. What if it’s really a tiger? Let’s report it instead. Ah, the phone doesn’t work, does it? Does the signal always not catch like this?”
“No, it’s because the waves got rough. It was somewhat okay this morning, but it got rough again from the afternoon.”
“What? Then you can’t launch a boat? If a tiger attacks us, we’re trapped on this island and will die helplessly?”
A horror movie unfolded in Yugeon’s mind where one man-eating tiger caught and killed all the islanders with nowhere to escape.
At Yugeon’s face turning deathly pale, Migeon chuckled.
“No, I said there’s no tiger.”
“No, I said I saw it?”
Migeon erased his smile as if it had never been there and looked at Yugeon with a serious face, then touched his forehead.
“You don’t have a fever…”
“Hey! Do I look like I’m talking nonsense?”
“You might have gotten heat exhaustion, so let’s go inside first. There are no clouds today, so the sun is especially hot.”
“Hey, you punk!”
Yugeon swatted away his younger brother’s hand and threw a fit.
Migeon laughed as if finding it amusing and pushed Yugeon’s back.
“I’ll go check it out. Hyung, go inside. It’s hot.”
“Is the heat the problem right now? What if it gets really dangerous!”
“Then want to go together?”
“What?”
“Let’s just go to where Hyung says you saw the tiger.”
“Why there?”
“If it’s really a tiger, there should be footprints or something left. If there are footprints, we can check quickly and come down to report.”
“…Oh.”
The two took shovels and hoes just in case and climbed the slope path. They arrived at the place where Yugeon said he saw the tiger, and Migeon looked around from where he stood once, then approached where the tiger had been standing and examined the ground.
Migeon, who had been carefully and cautiously examining the ground, looked up at Yugeon.
“There’s nothing?”
Yugeon, who had been standing guard around the area instead of his younger brother, opened his eyes wide and asked back.
“Nothing?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing at all.”
Yugeon hurriedly crouched down and examined the ground. There really were no traces at all.
“Th-that’s strange… I really saw it…”
Migeon got up from his spot, straightened his back, and looked around once more. His slowly moving gaze stayed at one spot.
“By the way, did you go to the cliff?”
“Hm?”
At his younger brother’s question, Yugeon raised his head. His brother was looking somewhere. Yugeon turned his head following his younger brother’s gaze. The place his brother was looking at was the direction where the cliff was.
“You liked it there when you were little too, Hyung.”
“You remember that?”
Migeon looked at Yugeon.
“Of course. I remember everything about Hyung.”
An utterly serious gaze looked straight at him. It was quite a different atmosphere from the expression when talking about the obituaries of Father, Grandmother, and Uncle. Yugeon, who somehow felt awkward, naturally averted his gaze and looked toward where the cliff was.
“I thought the phone might work if I went up high… But it was exactly the same as before there.”
“Because there’s no one to go there except Hyung.”
“I guess…”
“…There doesn’t seem to be a tiger, so let’s go down.”
“Okay.”
Yugeon nodded and moved his feet. Just as Migeon seemed to be following behind Yugeon, he turned around and looked around once more. His slowly moving gaze stopped at one point, and he stared intently at something. Migeon’s eyes reflected in the sunlight glowed yellow for a moment.
The two brothers who returned home prepared and ate dinner together, chatted about this and that, then went to bed. At his younger brother’s words that there was only one set of bedding so they had to sleep together, Yugeon was flustered for a moment, but since he was too tired, he nodded, and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep as if passing out.
Splash, splash. The sound of vigorous waves wandered around the empty dock. The pitch-black waves shining in the moonlight moved and undulated ceaselessly, and a chilling wind that hadn’t cooled from the heat wave blew in eerily.
At some point, another sound began to mix with the splashing wave sounds. And something stepped up onto the empty dock with a splash.
Perhaps because of the cold moonlight, or dyed by the pitch-black waves, it was a naked man with a dark bluish body all over and gaunt. He looked around in all directions as if searching for something, then slowly moved his feet and walked into the island.
* * *
“Hyung, let’s go.”
At his younger brother’s voice calling him, Yugeon hurriedly left the house. Perhaps because he slept well, his body felt refreshed and light. Perhaps because he came to the island, he didn’t have strange dreams or get sleep paralysis. Today, he decided to greet the relatives living on the island with his younger brother’s guidance.
Though they were called relatives, he didn’t remember many people. He only remembered the two adults who had come to see him until he became an adult. Though they said he lived seeing them until he was 10, there was no way he could remember the titles and faces of all his adult relatives at that age. Even if he had remembered the titles, it was natural to forget the faces after living without contact for 17 years.
“But how many people are living on this island now?”
“About 40.”
It was more people than expected.
“Then you’ve memorized all those relatives’ titles?”
“Mm… I called direct relatives by their proper titles, but for collateral relatives, I just call them all Grandmother, Grandfather, Ahjussi, Ajumma. It’s too complicated to figure out one by one and many of the same titles overlap. Kids find it even harder.”
At his younger brother’s words, Yugeon felt relieved. He had been worried about titles anyway, so he felt reassured.
As they walked while talking about this and that, a house appeared ahead. As the two approached near the house, a man happened to walk out from inside. When the man spotted the two brothers, he flinched and stopped walking. Yugeon looked at that man and exclaimed.
“Oh?”
It was a face familiar to Yugeon too. Because he was one of the adults who had come to see him until he became an adult and also the person who had driven the fishing boat to pick him up yesterday.
“That’s Ahjussi Hangil. He’s your great-uncle.”
Lee Hangil, who was introduced by Migeon, looked at Yugeon with a somewhat uncomfortable face. Still, perhaps because he was a face he’d seen a few times, Yugeon felt affinity and greeted him.
“Uh… Hello, thank you for coming to pick me up yesterday.”
But Lee Hangil frowned while looking at Yugeon, then silently went back inside the house.
As Yugeon just stood there blinking at the colder reaction than expected, Migeon carefully said.
“He’s probably like that because you’re unfamiliar to him, Hyung.”
Only then did Yugeon look at his younger brother and scratched his cheek.
“No… well, the reaction is exactly the same as when he came to see me, so it’s not surprising…”
“Probably… most of the adults will have the same reaction.”
“What? Really?”
“It’s a closed island, so they’re wary of outsiders.”
“No, I’m not an outsider… ah… am I not? Am I?”
“Plus, it hasn’t been long since Father passed away, so they seem more on edge. It’ll get better after a little while.”
“Okay…”
Migeon’s words that most adults would have the same reaction were exactly right. The adults they visited without exception didn’t like Yugeon. They showed attitudes of disapproval and wariness. However, some adults who came from outside and didn’t have the Lee surname, like his great-aunt-in-law and great-uncle’s wife, remembered Yugeon and welcomed him.
Having visited all the houses, Yugeon grabbed his collar and shook it as if hot, letting out a long sigh. At that sight, Migeon fanned him with his hand and asked.
“Are you okay?”
“I was too nervous…”
“What’s there to be nervous about.”
“They’re all not friendly, so of course I’m nervous… Cough. …Cough!”
After a few light coughs burst out, severe coughing followed continuously. Yugeon covered his mouth and coughed while bending at the waist. His back heaved with each cough.
“Hyung? Hyung?”
Migeon seemed flustered as he touched Yugeon’s back and bent down to try to see his face.
“Hyung, are you okay? Hyung?”
After coughing several times, Yugeon waved his hand as if he was fine and raised his head. A couple more light coughs followed.
“Hyung, are you still sick? You left the island because of pneumonia…”
A voice full of worry asked. Yugeon still looked at his younger brother while covering his mouth, then smiled.
“No, my bronchial tubes are a bit weak. I cough often, so you don’t need to worry.”
“Still…”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Is there medicine you need to take? Did you bring it?”
“I don’t have anything like that.”
Yugeon waved his hands and laughed. But Migeon still just looked at Yugeon with worry. Yugeon thought he should change the subject.
“But why aren’t there any kids? Wasn’t there quite a few our age?”
“…Around this time…”
“?”
The place they arrived at with his younger brother’s guidance was a small house with a steel sliding door. And on the bench in front of that house, five or six young people were sitting around.
