From morning, the two brothers were sitting facing each other on the wooden floor.
“The wound is shallow. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like it’ll scar.”
Migeon said while looking at Yugeon’s arm. Yugeon also looked at his wound and nodded.
“What’s wrong with having a scar?”
“I don’t like it.”
When Migeon grumbled with a sullen face while applying medicine to the wound, Yugeon smiled. It seemed like a young brother throwing a tantrum. After applying medicine to Yugeon’s wound and even wrapping it with a bandage, Migeon carefully let go of Yugeon’s arm and asked.
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“It throbs a little.”
“……”
“Um, Geon.”
“?”
“That… is there some kind of connection between Jaeyeong and me?”
“…Huh?”
“Yesterday, that ahjussi named Lee Sanghoe said.”
‘If only you had died…! If only you had just died properly back then! My Jaeyeong would…!’
“That I should have died…”
Migeon’s face furrowed deeply.
“Last time the kids… they said Jaeyeong was unlucky and stuff. It seemed like he’s ostracized on the island…. Is the reason he’s ostracized related to me? Sanghoe ahjussi acted like it was all my fault…”
“What does that have to do with you, hyung? There’s nothing like that.”
“…Then why is he ostracized?”
“…It’s because of Sanghoe ahjussi. It’s his own doing, so hyung doesn’t need to worry about it.”
“That’s why I’m asking what the reason is…”
“It’s internal island affairs. I can’t tell outsiders. If hyung decides to stay on the island, I’ll tell you then.”
Migeon drew a clear line. Lee Yugeon just uses the same Lee surname, but he’s not yet an insider of the island.
“……”
For the first time, he felt like his brother had pushed him away. Yugeon couldn’t say anything in the futility creeping up from his toes.
Perhaps because both fell silent due to Yugeon’s silence, an awkward atmosphere swirled around. But the silence didn’t last very long. It was because a loud voice calling for Migeon began echoing from the edge of the yard.
At the sudden noise, both brothers sitting on the wooden floor simultaneously looked beyond the windbreak. Dongha was running hurriedly across the yard. His expression looked quite urgent. Migeon immediately put on his shoes and went out to the yard, and Yugeon followed behind him.
When the two brothers came out, Dongha shouted loudly in a panting voice.
“Geon! Sa-Sanghoe ahjussi is dead!”
* * *
Villagers were crowded in front of Lee Sanghoe’s house. Lee Jaeyeong’s wailing could be heard leaking from inside the house, but not a single person was thinking of going inside. They were just murmuring beyond the fence.
The murmuring voices that had been going on for a while suddenly stopped with a thud. The gazes that had been glancing at Lee Sanghoe’s house all turned elsewhere at once. In the distance, Dongha and the two brothers were approaching. Fearful gazes momentarily clung to Yugeon then fell away.
“What happened?”
Migeon, who had approached with long strides, asked Lee Eunhan. Lee Eunhan seemed to glance at Yugeon for a moment, then shook his head as if he didn’t know either.
“This morning Jaeyeong came crying asking for help. Said his father seemed to be dead.”
“Did you go in?”
“Why would I? Tsk, how unlucky.”
Perhaps because Lee Eunhan’s voice was louder than necessary, the wailing coming from inside the house stopped. And Jaeyeong, whose face was a mess with tears and snot, instantly burst out and rushed at Lee Eunhan.
“Unlucky! A person died, how can you say that!”
Horrified by the sudden situation, Lee Eunhan wildly swung his arms and struck Jaeyeong away, and the pushed Jaeyeong tumbled to the ground. Perhaps because he hit his forehead when falling, blood flowed. It was the spot where he’d had blood-stained gauze yesterday. The fallen Jaeyeong couldn’t even think of getting up and burst into loud tears while clutching and pounding the ground. It was crying filled with anger, injustice, and resentment.
After wailing for a while, Jaeyeong looked at everyone with eyes filled with spite.
“It’s because of you all! You all…!”
Among them, he especially glared at Lee Eunhan, Lee Yongseon, and Lee Woongin as if to kill them. The three people received Jaeyeong’s resentment fully and frowned deeply. Faces furrowed not with apology or guilt but with displeasure and annoyance.
“Bring him back! Bring him back to life!”
Jaeyeong grabbed fistfuls of dirt and gravel within reach and scattered them wildly at the three people. Jaeyeong, who had been crying, resenting, and pouring out curses, soon spotted someone and opened his eyes wide.
It was Yugeon standing next to Migeon. Jaeyeong’s eyes that had widened greatly furrowed more than ever, then he rushed at Yugeon in one breath.
“Lee Yugeon!”
The moment he felt the gaze reaching him was unsettling, when Jaeyeong rushed at him, the startled Yugeon instinctively pulled back and covered his face with both arms. But Jaeyeong couldn’t lay a finger on Lee Yugeon. Because everyone near Yugeon blocked Jaeyeong in unison.
When everyone blocked him as if they’d planned it to protect Yugeon, Jaeyeong had blank eyes for a moment, then burst into tears and struggled.
“Why! Why only me! It’s not because of me! It’s not because of my dad, it’s because of him! Why only me! Why only us!”
Jaeyeong, who had been struggling while screaming, gradually began going limp. The people holding Jaeyeong didn’t seem to think of supporting him and dumped the limp Jaeyeong on the ground.
Jaeyeong curled up sobbing on the dirt ground.
Migeon glanced once at the trembling Jaeyeong as if glaring, then turned to his hyung.
“Hyung, go home first.”
“Huh? How can I? Still, an elder of the family passed away. I should help too.”
“What can you do with that arm? Go home with Dongha.”
Dongha pointed at himself with an expression of ‘Me too?’
“No, even so…”
“Hyung, have you ever seen a dead person?”
“…What?”
“There’s a dead person in there, asking if you can look at it.”
Migeon gestured toward the house behind him, and Yugeon glanced behind Migeon and swallowed dryly.
“I’ve never seen one but…”
“A funeral home joking around that it’s a place to store corpses is different from this.”
“……”
“I’m saying this in case you misunderstand, it’s not that hyung wouldn’t be helpful, but that there’s nothing to help with. There’s nothing for hyung to help with, we just go in, arrange the body, and do a sea burial.”
“Wh-what about the funeral?”
“He’s not someone worth doing that for. Besides, hyung almost died because of that person yesterday, why would you worry about such things?”
“……”
“Go home. I don’t like it.”
Migeon turned his head with a stiff face as if he didn’t want to talk anymore. Yugeon seemed a bit flustered and hesitated, then pulled his brother who was standing straight and whispered in his ear.
“Are you… are you okay?”
Migeon made a puzzled face, then asked back quietly.
“About what?”
Yugeon glanced once at Jaeyeong who was still lying on the ground sobbing, then opened his mouth hesitantly.
“Seeing… a dead person…”
It wasn’t a complete stranger, but sending off one of the relatives who had been alive until yesterday. Yugeon was more worried about his brother Migeon than Jaeyeong. Because he was still young.
Migeon stared at Yugeon, then showed a faint smile and bent down even more to whisper close to his ear.
“I sent off grandmother, uncle, and father. It’s okay.”
In the end, Yugeon decided to go home with Dongha. Mixed in with the two of them, most of the villagers also seemed to be going back. Those who remained were Migeon, Lee Eunhan, Lee Woongin, Lee Byeongchan, and Lee Junghyeok. Unlike Migeon’s face without feeling, the other four looked like they’d been stuck with a troublesome task.
While going home with Dongha, Yugeon kept looking back as if worried about the brother he’d left behind. Dongha pulled Yugeon’s arm telling him not to worry, and Yugeon asked while being dragged along as if giving in.
“That Sanghoe ahjussi… did he originally have a chronic illness or something?”
“What? No way, there’s no way he had something like that.”
“Then why did he suddenly… pass away?”
Instead of answering, Dongha stared at Yugeon. As they faced each other, it was a gaze that felt like the shallowly filled water surface was gradually deepening. Nameless anxiety and tension ran down his spine.
“Dongha?”
When Yugeon carefully called Dongha, Dongha snapped to attention and acted casual.
“Huh? Haha, well? I don’t really know either. It’s hot, right hyung? Let’s hurry.”
Dongha hurriedly walked ahead as if avoiding his gaze. For the first time, Yugeon felt that Dongha’s receding back was suspicious.
Dongha dropped off Yugeon and went straight back. Yugeon felt a strange relief that Dongha had left and sat on the wooden floor waiting for his brother. He thought he might have gone to work after performing the sea burial, but his brother came home before lunchtime.
When he saw his brother coming up the yard, Yugeon ran out in his socks to greet him. Migeon seemed flustered for a moment at Yugeon’s appearance, then smiled.
“I’m back.”
But Yugeon abruptly threw a handful of salt at Migeon’s smiling face.
“……”
Thanks to that, Migeon froze with his smile intact, and Yugeon fumbled out excuses in embarrassment.
“Um, th-they say you’re supposed to do this when you come back from a funeral home…”
“O-okay…”
“Did you… see him off well?”
“Yeah, well.”
The two walked side by side across the yard toward the house.
“But, that person… when I asked Dongha, it doesn’t seem like he had a chronic illness, so why did he suddenly pass away?”
“…I don’t really know. Jaeyeong said when he woke up in the morning, it was already like that.”
Migeon answered while opening the windbreak door, and Yugeon stepped inside the house.
“Then, yesterday… why did he do that to me?”
When Yugeon sat on the edge of the wooden floor, Migeon also took a seat next to him. And he thought about the wound on Jaeyeong’s forehead. It was probably harm done by the villagers. It was something that happened quite often normally too.
Whenever that happened, Lee Sanghoe would always go find the perpetrators to protest, and depending on the situation, intense physical fights would break out. But from Lee Sanghoe’s perspective, what could be called the root cause had returned to the island, so it was in a way natural that the resentment turned toward Lee Yugeon.
“I should have been more careful…”
“Huh?”
Migeon held Yugeon’s hand and examined the bandaged wound.
“I didn’t think he’d shamelessly come directly to hyung.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Migeon didn’t answer. He just looked at the wound with a sad face.
Yugeon stared at his brother who was giving an irrelevant answer, then swallowed a sigh.
“Is that also internal island affairs you can’t tell me about?”
As if Migeon’s fingertips flinched, he raised his gaze to look at Yugeon.
