After the commotion passed, Yugeon explained to everyone the reason he had returned.
“So you’re leaving for good now?”
Han Yunyeong asked. Her face was full of regret.
“Yes. It feels good to go back to my hometown. I’m going to live with my younger brother.”
Yugeon smiled bitterly. Han Yunyeong felt a flutter in her chest for no reason. It felt like sending a young son off to be independent, and also like having to leave a child abandoned by dangerous waters.
Han Yunyeong looked at Migeon. Would it be okay for her to say this? Wasn’t it overstepping? Han Yunyeong hesitated for a moment, but thinking it was better than leaving regrets, she opened her mouth.
“Please take good care of our Yugeon.”
At the unexpected request, Yugeon’s eyes widened.
“I-Imo?”
The others seemed to be the same, looking back and forth between Han Yunyeong and Migeon with flustered faces.
She worried whether Migeon might be displeased, but Migeon looked at Han Yunyeong silently, then bowed at the waist to convey his answer instead.
At the sight of the two, a brief silence fell. But soon the others also added a word each, asking him to take good care of Lee Yugeon.
Yugeon watched his younger brother conversing well with the others, then approached Choi Jacheol.
“Ahjussi, I’m going to give up the house, but the island doesn’t have good phone reception. Can I have related contacts go to you? I’ll call often.”
“Hm? Go ahead.”
With his ready permission, Yugeon immediately called the landlord to tell him he was moving out, gave his account number, and told him to contact Choi Jacheol for related matters, giving Choi Jacheol’s phone number. When the call ended, Migeon approached.
“All done?”
“Yeah.”
Yugeon nodded with a regretful face, then looked at Choi Jacheol. Choi Jacheol hastily intercepted his words as if he knew what he was going to say.
“You’re not leaving already, are you? How about staying a bit longer, having dinner with us, and leaving tomorrow?”
“Ah…. I’d like that too, but both my younger brother and I are working. We have to go to work tomorrow.”
“Really? …That’s too bad.”
“I’ll come visit with more time later.”
“We’ll come visit sometime when we get the chance too.”
“Really?”
When Yugeon brightened up, Choi Jacheol laughed and ruffled Yugeon’s hair.
“Yeah, you punk.”
Yugeon fully accepted Choi Jacheol’s touch, which might be the last. Migeon just stared intently at Yugeon from a step back. Below his faintly furrowed eyes, a strange emotion rippled faintly.
The two brothers left the rural village with everyone’s farewell. Throughout the bus ride to the dock, Migeon was silent. He just looked out the window. Yugeon stared intently at his younger brother’s profile, then looked around the inside of the bus. Just like when they came, there weren’t many people. No, not just “not many”—the only passengers were him and his younger brother.
Yugeon pondered something for a moment, then called his younger brother in a small voice.
“Geon-ah.”
At the call, Migeon only turned his eyes to look at Yugeon. At that moment, Yugeon flinched without realizing it. Because his younger brother’s eyes reflected in the sunlight looked yellow for an instant. Moreover, even his pupils seemed to be stretched vertically.
“You….”
He was about to say something when suddenly sunlight shot into his eyes. Yugeon covered the sunlight with his hand and turned his head, squinting. After soothing his stinging eyes for a moment, when he looked at his younger brother again, his younger brother’s eyes had returned to the same black color as his.
“?”
Yugeon thought he must have seen wrong and stared intently at his younger brother’s eyes, and Migeon turned his body to face Yugeon and asked, “Why?” The gaze that met his was strangely rigid. As if it held no emotion at all.
Yugeon slightly frowned. The strange sense of dissonance he’d been feeling all day. It seemed to be because of that gaze.
“You… by any chance, are you angry at me about something today?”
“Huh?”
“Like, you didn’t actually want to come but had no choice, were forced to follow? Or something unpleasant happened….”
“No way. There’s nothing like that. How could there be?”
Migeon, cutting off Yugeon’s words, smiled prettily with his eyes crinkling. But the gaze directed at Yugeon had become a bit colder and more rigid. Yugeon got goosebumps down his spine. He felt like his younger brother wasn’t his younger brother.
Yugeon kept his mouth shut the entire way back to Imokdo. He couldn’t understand why his younger brother was suddenly acting so uncomfortable. He quickly regretted his decision to stay. If his younger brother continued to show this attitude, they would both become uncomfortable, and their relationship would quickly become twisted.
‘Could it be… the reason he was being nice all this time was to make me stay on the island? Now that I’ve decided to stay, his business is done? No, what reason would there be to go that far to make me stay on the island? Internal island matters? Is there really such a thing?’
Yugeon let out a small sigh and turned around to look at the mainland they had left. He wanted to say he was going back. But the mainland was already out of sight.
Contrary to Yugeon’s heart, the fishing boat quickly reached Imokdo’s dock. The adults at the dock helped moor the boat, and Yugeon got off the boat relying on the village adults’ hands, not his younger brother’s hands.
Setting foot on Imokdo’s dock, Yugeon felt as if being on the mainland just moments ago was a thing of the distant past. The town center of the small rural village. He wanted to go back there.
Heavy footsteps approached from behind. It wasn’t difficult to tell it was his younger brother. Yugeon deliberately didn’t turn around. He was just thinking he should walk ahead at his own pace and was about to move his feet when the approaching footsteps stopped abruptly. And didn’t move for quite a while.
Should he go first? Should he wait? As he was thinking, his younger brother, who hadn’t moved at all for quite some time, seemed strange, so he slowly turned around.
“?”
His younger brother was standing blankly, looking at empty air. There was no sense in his eyes. Like someone whose soul had left them. Startled by the unusual appearance, Yugeon hurriedly approached his younger brother and grabbed his arm, shaking it.
“Migeon?”
At that moment, his younger brother’s tightly closed mouth seemed to open slightly, then the eyes that had been stopped in empty air shook faintly and slowly headed downward. And the moment their eyes met, life returned to the eyes that had no sense, and warmth slowly seeped into the gaze that had been cold and rigid throughout.
“…Hyung?”
At the dazed call, Yugeon frowned with worry. He wondered what was wrong with him. Migeon, who had been blankly looking at Yugeon, seemed to realize something and suddenly came to his senses, then hastily looked around.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
When Yugeon asked worriedly, Migeon’s complexion turned pale. He seemed to have received some kind of shock.
“Geon-ah?”
When Yugeon called again, Migeon looked at Yugeon with a haggard face, smiled with effort in a trembling voice, and shook his head.
“…No, it’s nothing. Let’s go home.”
“What?”
Migeon, pretending to be fine, took Yugeon’s bag for him and pushed his back. Yugeon looked at his younger brother with a dubious face but obediently moved his steps, and Migeon walked hurriedly, sticking close to Yugeon’s side. Unlike his face that smiled as if hiding his emotions, his two hands clenched as if hiding them were trembling.
Arriving home, Migeon said he was going to wash and headed to the bathroom as if fleeing. As soon as the door closed, loud sounds of water began to be heard, and Migeon didn’t come out of the bathroom for a long while.
Around the time he was worried whether he was washing or had drowned in the water, the bathroom door opened. Migeon came shuffling out with a towel wrapped around his head, looking quite tired.
Migeon saw Yugeon sitting on the wooden floor and said with an apologetic face.
“Hyung, dinner… you can eat alone, right?”
“Huh?”
“I’m so tired… I want to sleep a bit early.”
“You’re going to sleep without eating dinner? I’ll prepare it for you. Eat and then sleep.”
“I don’t feel like it…. I’ll just sleep first.”
“Are you sick somewhere?”
Yugeon hurriedly got up from his seat and felt his younger brother’s forehead. And pulled his hand away in shock. Far from being hot, it was chillingly cold.
“What, why is it so cold? Did you wash with cold water?”
Instead of answering, Migeon smiled weakly.
“I’ll rest first. Sorry I can’t prepare dinner.”
“Is that the problem? Hurry and go lie down. I’ll at least make you porridge.”
Whether Migeon didn’t even have the strength to refuse, he staggered into the room, laid out his bedding, and lay down. Yugeon confirmed his younger brother lying down, then immediately headed to the kitchen.
A little later, he brought white porridge, but his younger brother was sleeping like the dead, so he couldn’t bear to wake him.
* * *
Rustle rustle, the sound of grass being pushed aside was heard in his ears. He could feel leaves and branches brushing against his skin, and his vision swayed up and down.
It seemed he was walking.
Yugeon, who had been walking somewhere as if being led with a dazed mind for a while, slowly slowed his steps and stopped. His dazed mind gradually cleared. Yugeon slowly looked around.
A large lake came into view. The moon floating in the cloudless night sky was fully reflected on the lake’s surface, and around it, silver grass was abundant. It was a scene he seemed to have seen somewhere.
“Where is this?”
Yugeon, muttering quietly, thought he was dreaming again and tried hitting his cheek.
Smack!
Along with a sharp sound, his mind rather became alert.
“It’s not a dream…?”
Flustered, Yugeon rubbed the cheek he had hit and looked around. Then he discovered something. Not far away, a man was standing.
He was as tall as his younger brother.
He had skin as white and pale as his younger brother.
His long hair was hanging down, so his face couldn’t be seen.
