“Kgk!”
As his airway was instantly constricted, Yugeon struggled and clawed wildly at Lee Sanghoe’s hands.
“Why did you come back! Why come now!”
Lee Sanghoe not only choked Yugeon’s neck but even slammed him against the ground with thuds.
“Sto…! Ugh! Kkeuk…!”
Yugeon lost his breath from the shock and his head began spinning dizzily. His back of the head, shoulders, and back hurt. The strength gradually left his desperately struggling limbs, and his vision blurred.
“That’s right, even now, even now if you die! Then everything will go back to normal…!”
Just before Yugeon’s breath gave out and his eyes rolled back, Dongha came running with a shout and slammed his whole body into Lee Sanghoe, pushing him away.
Dongha and Lee Sanghoe tumbled across the ground in a tangle, and Yugeon clutched his neck in agony, coughing heavily.
“Cough, cough!”
Dongha quickly got up, glanced worriedly at Yugeon who was coughing violently as if to vomit out his intestines, then snapped fiercely at Lee Sanghoe.
“Ahjussi, are you really crazy?”
“Kgk… You stay out of this!”
As Lee Sanghoe sluggishly got up, Dongha hurriedly went to Yugeon’s side and forcibly stood up Yugeon, who couldn’t properly control his body.
“Stay out of what? Ahjussi almost killed Yugeon hyung just now!”
“He should have died anyway!”
“You have no right to say that, ahjussi!”
For a moment, Lee Sanghoe’s actions stopped. His eyes slowly turned toward Dongha, then soon became miserably distorted.
“You… what do you know!”
Lee Sanghoe came rushing with reddened eyes as if to swing his fist. Dongha tried to block Lee Sanghoe, but soon realized his strength was no match and began running away with Yugeon.
Glancing back as if to confirm while hurriedly coming down from the yard, Dongha turned pale and urgently pulled Yugeon’s arm.
“Cr-cr-cr-crazy, hyung, run, fa-faster, run faster, crazy, that crazy man!”
When Yugeon, who nearly fell from the pulling force, barely regained his balance and tried to look back, Dongha blocked Yugeon’s action and just urged him to run faster.
That was because in the hands of Lee Sanghoe, who was chasing them down the slope, was a shovel that came from who knows where.
Without hesitation, Dongha ran in the direction of the dock. Because there were always people at the dock. Dongha ran with all his might, practically dragging Yugeon to avoid being caught by Lee Sanghoe, but soon had no choice but to slow down.
It was because Yugeon’s breathing became rough as if mixed with impurities, and wheezing sounds began to be heard.
“Huk, heok, hyung? Are you okay?”
Dongha slowed down and asked urgently, but Yugeon couldn’t answer. The best he could do was clutch his chest as if holding onto breath that seemed about to give out at any moment, panting in a hazy state of mind.
Dongha looked back and forth between Yugeon who seemed about to pass out and Lee Sanghoe who had already caught up closely, then hurriedly looked around. And began shouting loudly.
“Wahhh, wahhhhh! Mom, Dad! Hyung, noonas, neighbors, wahhhhh!”
At the commotion, villagers began appearing one by one, and started running over in horror at the sight of Lee Sanghoe chasing Yugeon with a shovel. But most of the people who came running at the sound were women. The men had gone out to sea on boats or were at the fields. The number of people increased, but they arrived at the dock without being able to stop Lee Sanghoe.
When five or six people arrived at the dock causing a commotion, the small number of men at the dock began sticking their heads out to look at the disturbance.
“Help, someone help!”
Dongha shrieked and cried as if he’d been waiting for it, and before the men could even assess the situation, they began running over in surprise wondering what was happening. And they just happened to see Lee Sanghoe swinging the shovel at Yugeon.
Before the men could even approach, Dongha and the women, shocked by what happened, screamed and barely managed to hang onto Lee Sanghoe’s arm to block the shovel. Yugeon’s face was deathly pale as he clutched his chest and panted, backing away as if having difficulty breathing. Despite being restrained by many, Lee Sanghoe approached Yugeon step by step with reddened eyes.
Dongha pulled at the shovel in Lee Sanghoe’s hands and shouted.
“Stop Sanghoe ahjussi, ahjusshis!”
The women also shouted in succession.
“What are you doing! Hurry and stop this man!”
“At this rate you’ll kill the kid!”
“Is he crazy, why is this person doing this?”
As the men began approaching urgently, Lee Sanghoe also seemed to become desperate, knocking down Dongha again and wildly swinging the shovel at Yugeon. The women who had been barely hanging on also fell off one after another.
Yugeon, who had been backing away in horror dodging the shovel, was startled by the feeling of his heels not touching anything and looked back. Before he knew it, he’d been driven to the edge of the dock. There was nowhere left to retreat. If he backed away, he’d fall into the sea.
Yugeon hastily looked forward. His gaze met Lee Sanghoe’s reddened eyes. Everything seemed like slow motion. Lee Sanghoe approaching right in front of him swinging the shovel, Dongha running in surprise behind him, villagers running with arms outstretched around them.
Yugeon squeezed his eyes shut, covered his face with his arms, and leaned back.
“Dad!”
Someone’s voice was heard, and along with the feeling of his arm being cut by something sharp, his body tilted backward.
“Hyung!”
Dongha’s high-pitched voice soon became submerged and inaudible in the gurgling sound of water.
“Dad!”
At the voice calling him, Lee Sanghoe, who had been swinging the shovel at Yugeon, flinched. At the same time, the men who rushed in took the shovel from Lee Sanghoe, pressed him down to the ground to subdue him, and Dongha approached the edge of the dock as if rolling and looked down.
There were only countless bubbles and noisy waves, but the person he was looking for was nowhere to be seen.
“Hyung! Yugeon hyung!”
Dongha began calling for Yugeon desperately. The women also hurriedly approached and looked into the water.
“Yugeon!”
“Yugeon! What happened? Why isn’t he coming up?”
“Is he hurt? Shouldn’t someone go in the water?”
Behind them as they didn’t know what to do, someone came running and jumped into the water. And soon surfaced holding Yugeon, who had lost consciousness and gone limp.
“Geon!”
It was Migeon.
After first checking the condition of Yugeon limp in his arms, Migeon reached out his hand as if asking to be pulled up, and Dongha and the women grabbed Migeon’s hand and pulled him out of the water.
Coming out of the water, Migeon carefully laid Yugeon on the ground. Dongha crawled to the side of the two.
“You, how did you know… when did you get here?”
“Just now.”
Without even turning his gaze, Migeon jerked his chin toward somewhere. When Dongha looked back, he could see Migeon’s boat. Only then did Dongha lie down on the ground in great relief and catch his breath.
“Wow, what a relief… If it weren’t for you, it would have been terrible…”
As if he’d been watching, Migeon first examined Yugeon’s arm. Blood was flowing from a long laceration. His neat brow furrowed deeply. Migeon took off his clothes to stop the bleeding on Yugeon’s arm and raised his head.
Not far away, he could see Lee Sanghoe subdued and pressed down by the men. And Lee Jaeyeong was there. Jaeyeong was holding his forehead with a flustered and troubled face, and blood-stained gauze was slightly visible under his hand. Migeon looked at Lee Sanghoe and Lee Jaeyeong with cold eyes for a moment, then picked up Yugeon and passed by them.
When Migeon left, Dongha, who had been lying on the ground, got up and began organizing the situation. When the men released Lee Sanghoe, Jaeyeong came running tearfully and checked on Lee Sanghoe. No one at the dock looked kindly at those two father and son. Rather, they spat harsh words filled with anger and resentment at them. As Jaeyeong shrank and shuddered at the clear malice, Lee Sanghoe, as if unable to bear it, pointed at his son and appealed for something, but there was no one to sympathize.
Arriving home holding Yugeon, Migeon laid out bedding in his room and immediately laid Yugeon down. The blanket would get wet with seawater, but he didn’t care. The unconscious Yugeon’s eyelids trembled intermittently. Migeon reached out and touched his cheek. It was cold.
“Tsk.”
Clicking his tongue irritably, Migeon prepared clothes to change into for both himself and his hyung, stripped off all his hyung’s clothes, picked him up, and headed to the bathroom.
Water sounds and steam leaked out of the bathroom where the two brothers had entered for quite a while.
A while later, Migeon, who came out naked holding his naked hyung, dressed his hyung with quick hands and also put on his own clothes. Then after laying his hyung on the wooden floor and seeming to enter his room, he came out shortly after with something in his hand and headed to Yugeon’s room.
What Migeon brought out was a key. The key to Yugeon’s locked room. With familiar hands, Migeon unlocked it and opened the door. Cool air brushed past his nose. The inside of the room was neatly organized. As if not a speck of dust had ever settled on the floor.
With familiar steps, Migeon entered the room, took out a set of bedding that looked exactly like his own, then locked the door again. After removing the wet blanket and laying his hyung on the bedding brought from Yugeon’s room, Migeon looked at his hyung with worried eyes, then lay down next to him, pulled his waist close, and closed his eyes.
In the darkened room, the sound of even breathing echoed. Migeon, who had been sitting beside the sleeping Yugeon, raised his head and looked outside the window. A night when even the moon didn’t rise. It was a new moon. After looking up at the night sky for a moment, Migeon slowly turned his gaze again to look at Yugeon.
Yugeon’s face in the pitch-black darkness wasn’t clearly visible, but Migeon seemed not to care. Because there was nothing that wasn’t reflected in those vertically-slit pupils glowing yellow.
The gaze looking down at Yugeon in the darkness was cold. It seemed to contain no emotion. No, beneath the pupils, at the base of the gaze, a faint emotion occasionally rippled slightly. Sometimes cold, sometimes hot.
At dawn, until the faint new moon revealed itself, Migeon watched the sleeping Lee Yugeon like that.
