When he blinked, the tears clinging to the ends of Lee Migeon’s eyelashes poured down like rain from eaves.
“Will you… stay on the island? Will you stay with me?”
His choked voice slowly enumerated the words. Yugeon continued wiping his younger brother’s face roughly as he spoke.
“You said you’d only tell me about that damn island’s internal circumstances or whatever if I stayed on the island. Strange snake dreams, sleepwalking. It doesn’t seem like something completely unrelated to me, but you won’t tell me anything, so what choice do I have?”
Lee Migeon grabbed both of Yugeon’s forearms and pulled them close to himself.
“Will you… stay with me?”
Yugeon frowned at the grip strength squeezing his forearms and the closeness of the distance, but he didn’t shake off his younger brother’s hands, only turning his head to show he was uncomfortable with the closeness.
“Why do you keep asking if I’ll stay with you… Hey, it’s because you’re young now, but after you get married, our living together will end too…”
“I’m going to live with hyung.”
“…What?”
“I’m only going to live with hyung forever.”
“You’re going to live with me without getting married?”
Lee Migeon let go of Yugeon and slowly lowered his gaze, then smiled while looking at the floor.
“Yeah, I’m going to live with hyung.”
His face looked as if he was glimpsing a happy future.
Flustered by the feeling of having seen something he shouldn’t have, Yugeon hurriedly averted his gaze and blurted out anything.
“Wh-what about me? What if I get married?”
He could feel his younger brother’s gaze landing on his face.
“……”
But Yugeon couldn’t look at his younger brother. A strange tension flowed.
“Even if hyung gets married, I’ll live with hyung.”
Only then did Yugeon slowly look at his younger brother’s face. His younger brother had a somewhat sulky expression. The tense atmosphere broke in an instant. Yugeon dropped his shoulders as if tired, dry-washed his face, then rubbed both eyes while muttering.
“What an incredible dowry…”
A low laugh flowed from above his head. After letting out a sigh, Yugeon looked at his younger brother.
“So, tomorrow… will you take me off the island?”
The face of Lee Migeon, who had been smiling, quickly turned displeased.
“…Can’t you just solve it with a phone call?”
“Why? Don’t you have time tomorrow? Then I’ll ask other people…”
“I don’t like you leaving the island…”
“Still, they’re people I’m indebted to, so I should say goodbye to them face-to-face.”
Lee Migeon didn’t answer. He remained silent with a completely unwilling expression. Yugeon couldn’t understand his younger brother’s reaction. It would only take a day to go and come back, so what was so bad about it? It wasn’t like he wouldn’t come back. Or was he anxious that he might not come back?
“Or do you want to come with me?”
“Huh?”
Lee Migeon looked surprised at the unexpected suggestion.
“I want to introduce you to them too. As my younger brother.”
He could already picture their surprised faces. Asking if he had a younger brother like this.
“…I can’t.”
Yugeon waited for his younger brother’s answer with a face full of anticipation. But the answer that came back was unexpected.
“I can’t go…”
“Huh? …Why?”
“…There’s a pasi tomorrow. I have to go there.”
“Pasi? What’s that?”
“A fish market held at sea.”
Yugeon asked back in great confusion, “A fish market?” and Lee Migeon only nodded silently.
He was worried about him not coming back, yet he was rejecting the suggestion to go together and saying he’d go to a fish market?
“Uh…”
He couldn’t figure out how to react. Since he was responsible for the household’s livelihood, prioritizing the pasi where he could buy and sell fish was in a way natural, but…
“Does that… pasi happen every day?”
“No.”
“Th-then whenever you have time, anytime is fine, so let’s go together.”
“I…”
Lee Migeon bit his lower lip as if troubled, lowered his head, then briefly shook it.
“I won’t be able to go with you. Tomorrow… I’ll take you to the mainland. Go and come back.”
“……”
“But… you have to come back for sure.”
His younger brother’s face as he said this was filled with anxiety. Why wouldn’t he go with him when he was so anxious? He felt somewhat hurt, but he couldn’t bring himself to show it.
That night, Lee Migeon lay staring blankly at the ceiling. Next to him, he could hear the even breathing of Yugeon sleeping on his side with his back turned.
Lee Migeon raised both hands to look at them, then dry-washed his face as if in pain.
“I can’t go… Hyung…”
There was resentment in his softly murmured voice. His breathing naturally became rough. Lee Migeon clutched his chest, took a deep breath, then pressed close to Yugeon’s back, placed his forehead against it, and steadied his ragged breathing. Then he wrapped his arms around his waist, pulled him into his embrace, and gritted his teeth.
“I can’t go anywhere…”
It was unclear whether he was talking to himself or to Yugeon.
The next day, Lee Migeon was silent the entire way to the dock. Because of his younger brother’s strange atmosphere from the morning, Yugeon’s steps felt heavy. He wondered if it was okay to leave him and go.
When they arrived at the dock, he could see the mint-colored boat his younger brother had mentioned. Lee Migeon untied the rope that had been tied to the mooring post, crossed over to the moored boat, and held out his hand. Yugeon glanced down at the gap between the dock and the moored boat. Perhaps because of the shadow, the black sea was surging with the waves. After swallowing dryly for a moment, Yugeon took his younger brother’s hand and boarded the boat. His honest and solid hand was incredibly stable. When Yugeon got on, Lee Migeon headed to the wheelhouse, and Yugeon followed his younger brother.
“What should we do when you come back? Should we set a meeting time? The phone might not work.”
Lee Migeon looked at Yugeon as if asking what he was talking about while starting the boat’s engine.
“I’m going with you too.”
“Huh? You said you were going to the pasi?”
Lee Migeon smiled with sparkling eyes.
“I don’t need to go to something like that.”
His smiling face was strangely unfamiliar.
The boat that left Imokdo ran for about 40 minutes and arrived at the mainland. Yugeon frowned at the particularly hot sunlight as he set foot on the quiet dock he was visiting for the second time.
“It’s hot.”
Yugeon grabbed his collar and flapped it as he headed to the bus stop. To get to the neighborhood where he used to live, he had to transfer buses from here and go for about another two hours. Lee Migeon followed Yugeon’s back without any particular reaction. Though he was in a place he was seeing for the first time and could have looked around curiously, he looked only at Yugeon with dry eyes as if he had not the slightest interest.
Since it was a rural bus without two-seater rows, the two brothers sat at the window seats in the very back. Lee Migeon was strangely silent. However, whenever Yugeon spoke to him, he answered right away, so the two brothers had various trivial conversations. Perhaps because they were traveling through quiet rural roads, or because of the floating time between morning and lunch, even though they transferred buses twice, the buses they rode were always nearly empty.
After traveling like that for about two hours, they arrived at the small rural town where Yugeon used to live.
The first place Yugeon headed was the basement room where he had lived.
“This is where I used to live.”
Yugeon brought Lee Migeon inside with an awkward face, and Lee Migeon looked around from the entrance as he entered the house. A dark basement studio that didn’t get much light and smelled musty with mold.
He worried if he had shown him too shabby a place, but Lee Migeon had no particular reaction and just looked around here and there with eyes that seemed to be viewing a familiar place.
“Let’s throw away what needs to be thrown away and pack what needs to be packed before we leave.”
“…Okay.”
Lee Migeon answered roughly and nodded. Yugeon felt a strange sense of dissonance from his younger brother’s slow-moving gaze, but deliberately ignored it and began to move.
Yugeon, who had been busily moving around organizing the house, stopped his hands while looking at the TV. Then he turned his gaze to look somewhere. There were blankets he had taken out from the wardrobe and stacked.
It would be nice if I could take those.
“…Sigh.”
Yugeon shook his head with a sigh. The TV was originally in this house, and the blankets would be difficult to pack because of their bulk. The sooner you give up, the better.
After throwing out various household items he had used in the house and finishing the cleaning neatly, Yugeon picked up the bag containing his clothes. He staggered because it was quite heavy, but Lee Migeon only gave him a glance and asked,
“Where are we going now?”
“Huh? Uh… I have to go to the mart where I worked and greet people. There’s an ahjussi there named Choi Jacheol, and I want to ask him about moving out of the room too.”
Lee Migeon only nodded silently and walked ahead out of the dark room.
The people at the mart seemed quite surprised at Yugeon’s visit, which came suddenly without notice, but soon everyone came running out to welcome him. However, the attention directed at Yugeon soon turned to the tall man standing next to him.
“Yugeon, who is he?”
Park Seongjoo sidled up and asked. Only then did Yugeon look at his younger brother. Though his strangely unfamiliar younger brother today bothered him, he still had to introduce him, so he hesitated a bit before opening his mouth.
“Ah, this is my younger brother.”
Eyes widened in surprise simultaneously turned to Lee Migeon. Yugeon worried that his younger brother might show a cold attitude to everyone, but Lee Migeon bowed politely.
“Hello, I’m Lee Migeon.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Yugeon again.
He’s really your younger brother?
You don’t look alike at all?
Isn’t he your older brother?
It felt like silent shouts were coming.
Everyone couldn’t take their eyes off Lee Migeon. The rapid-fire questions were a bonus. Lee Migeon answered everyone’s questions one by one with a polite and friendly attitude, and everyone looked at Lee Migeon with enchanted eyes. A tall, well-built, handsome, friendly young man. Who wouldn’t show favor?
Yugeon felt relieved inwardly while also feeling proud. His gradually rising shoulders had no intention of coming down at all.
