When he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar ceiling. Yugeon frowned and blinked, then pressed his forehead and sat up. His head was heavy and his body felt stiff. Feeling tired with the sense that he hadn’t slept well, he was stretching when suddenly an unfamiliar voice flashed through his mind.
– Me…
At the same time, scenes passed by intermittently like a fragmented short film. It seemed like he had seen and heard something, but he couldn’t remember well. The more he tried to recall, the more it faded. Yugeon tilted his head, then suddenly looked at the space beside him. His younger brother’s spot was empty.
“Huh?”
Yugeon urgently looked around the room. His younger brother was nowhere to be seen. Remembering his younger brother who had fallen asleep with a pale face last night, he tried to get up hurriedly when the area under his feet felt gritty. When he pulled back the blanket, the blanket at his feet was a mess with dirt and grass.
“What is this?”
Looking at the blanket in bewilderment, Yugeon immediately checked his own feet too. His feet and the hem of the pants he was wearing were a mess with dirt and grass. He seemed to know where the dirt and grass on the blanket came from.
Yugeon was flustered, but thinking he needed to clean up, he went to the bathroom on tiptoe, washed up, and changed clothes. The problem was the blanket.
“Damn it… What is this? He said there’s only one blanket…”
Yugeon muttered as if troubled, then first removed the blanket and put it in the washing machine, and also cleanly swept up the dirt and grass that had fallen on the floor. If he washed and hung the blanket now, it would be dry by evening. After roughly cleaning up, he was worried about his younger brother’s whereabouts again.
“By the way, where did he go?”
Just in case, he checked the kitchen once, but his younger brother wasn’t there. Yugeon came down from the wooden floor and went out to the yard. But then he saw his younger brother coming up from the end of the yard.
“Hyung?”
Before Yugeon could even open his mouth, Lee Migeon called out to Yugeon first. Yugeon hurriedly approached his younger brother.
“Hey! Where did you go?”
“I had some business… Where are you going so early in the morning, hyung?”
“Where would I be going? You weren’t here, so I came out to look for you.”
At Yugeon’s voice full of irritation, Lee Migeon laughed helplessly.
“Am I a child?”
Unlike his absurd tone, he looked quite happy. At that sight, Yugeon asked emptily,
“How’s your body?”
“I slept well and woke up fine.”
Even at his younger brother’s light voice, Yugeon looked at his younger brother with dubious eyes, scanning him, then touched his forehead.
It was neither hot nor cold. It was warm.
Yugeon let out a sigh without realizing it and patted his chest in relief, then frowned at the hot sunlight beating down from the morning, and Lee Migeon immediately made a hand visor with his large hand to block the sunlight.
“Even though it’s morning, the sun is hot. Let’s go inside, hyung.”
His gentle voice expressed concern. Yugeon looked up at his younger brother silently. His gaze, expression, voice, and even actions definitely had a different temperature from yesterday. Just as if yesterday he had been a different person. Perhaps because of that, he felt strangely reassured.
When Lee Migeon opened the door, Yugeon asked as he entered the house,
“By the way, where did you really go?”
“To consult.”
“Huh?”
“We agreed that if you decided to stay on the island, I’d tell you about the island’s internal circumstances. But that’s not something I can decide alone. I had to consult with people.”
“…And?”
“There were a few adults who opposed it, but the island’s major affairs usually follow the head of the family’s decision.”
“?”
Lee Migeon smiled lightly at Yugeon, who was looking up at him anxiously, and pointed to the wooden floor.
“Sit down, hyung. I’ll tell you.”
After the two brothers sat side by side on the wooden floor, a short time passed. After sitting down, Lee Migeon remained silent the whole time. He seemed to be organizing his thoughts and words. Yugeon didn’t rush him and just waited quietly. The sunlight extending through the windbreak was particularly stinging from the morning.
“Hyung.”
Lee Migeon opened his mouth after a long while. Yugeon looked at his younger brother as if he had been waiting.
“First, there’s something you need to know.”
“?”
“An Imugi lives on this island.”
“…What?”
“At the top of this island, there’s a huge lake and cave called Yongso.”
“What are you… saying?”
“You heard from Grandma that this island was the Imugi’s island from the beginning, and we’re borrowing that land to live on, right?”
“So?”
“That’s all true.”
A hollow laugh came out.
“You’re calling that…”
“And you were a person who was offered as a sacrifice to that Imugi 17 years ago.”
“…What?”
“Our island has been offering sacrifices to the Imugi once every 10 years. The sacrifices always died from the Imugi’s curse.”
“……”
“But 17 years ago, for the first time, a sacrifice came back alive.”
“…And that’s me?”
“Yeah. Thanks to that, the island was turned upside down. Your existence was too big a variable for our island. So Father and the adults consulted and decided to send you off the island.”
“……”
“Some agreed to send you away because they were afraid your existence would bring disaster to the island, and some agreed to send you away because they were afraid the sacrifice that came back alive would suffer harm from the Imugi again.”
At his younger brother’s story told matter-of-factly in a flat voice, Yugeon couldn’t continue speaking. The one who agreed to send him away because they were afraid the sacrifice that came back alive would suffer harm from the Imugi. Because it seemed like that was his father.
“The talisman Grandma gave you was a talisman to hide your existence. In case the Imugi found you again and harmed you. We couldn’t know whether the Imugi would find you again or not. We spent 17 years safely though anxiously, but…”
Yugeon recalled the pair of eyes that had opened inside the bottle and looked at him.
“The snake wine…”
“Yeah, because of the snake wine, the Imugi discovered you and burned the talisman.”
When the talisman burned, he had even been tormented by ghosts. But why did the ghosts swarm him as if they had been waiting the moment the talisman burned?
“Then, why did you… call me to the island? According to your concerns, when I returned to the island, I could have died to the Imugi again, right?”
“…The Imugi won’t kill you, hyung.”
“Why? How can you be sure?”
“The sacrifice offered 7 years ago also came back alive. They said the Imugi didn’t appear at all. The Imugi doesn’t kill sacrifices anymore.”
“…Then what’s the reason for offering sacrifices to the Imugi? Why do you have to offer them?”
“…It’s what the Imugi wanted.”
“……”
It was a story he couldn’t believe at all. An Imugi in this day and age? Sacrifices? He wondered if they were all living in some collective delusion, or if some terrible cult religion had spread. But he couldn’t simply dismiss it as nonsense.
He himself had directly experienced things that couldn’t be explained in words, had seen that Imugi countless times in dreams, and had even met it in person once, though briefly.
“Then, Lee Jaeyeong… what about Lee Jaeyeong? What does he have to do with me? Why does he get treated like that on the island… and why do you hate him so much?”
* * *
It was a moonless night.
Lee Migeon was sitting by his sleeping hyung’s side. Near the bedding were a medicine box, a basin filled with water, wet towels, and other things spread out. Lee Migeon stared intently at his hyung’s face as he breathed roughly, then touched his forehead with his small hand.
At the same time, the door opened and a man walked in. The man who entered with a face full of worry looked down at Yugeon, then sat across from Lee Migeon and asked,
“How is your hyung?”
Lee Migeon took his hand away and answered gloomily,
“He’s hot.”
“…I’m worried.”
The man carefully swept back Yugeon’s sweat-soaked bangs.
“I wonder if we’ll be able to set sail tomorrow…”
“Cough, cough!”
Yugeon, who had been breathing laboriously, started coughing, then soon twisted his body while clutching his chest. The startled man hurriedly sat Yugeon up and leaned him against himself.
Lee Migeon looked at his hyung with a terrified face, then sobbed.
“Dad, is hyung going to die?”
The man, Lee Jonghak, the father of Lee Yugeon and Lee Migeon, deliberately hid his anxiety buried deep inside and stroked Lee Migeon’s head while speaking in a gentle voice.
“He’ll be fine once we go to the hospital tomorrow.”
Lee Migeon nodded while shedding tears.
Lee Jonghak silently raised his head and looked out the window. A night when even the moon didn’t rise. If we just get through today safely…
After coughing for a long time, Yugeon regained his composure. Lee Jonghak tried to hold his young son suffering from pneumonia in his arms rather than laying him down again. Because it would be easier for him to breathe if he held him rather than laying him down. But he couldn’t hold his son because of the commotion heard from outside the door.
“?”
Lee Jonghak, who looked back at the yard once, stacked pillows high to lean Yugeon against them and stood up. When he opened the windbreak door and went out to the yard, he could see people gathered near the yard entrance.
It was Lee Hangil, Lee Seokyeong, and Lee Sanghoe.
It looked like Lee Hangil and Lee Seokyeong were stopping Lee Sanghoe, who was struggling. Lee Jonghak checked the children once more, then closed the door and approached the three people.
When Lee Jonghak approached, Lee Sanghoe shook off Lee Hangil and Lee Seokyeong and came rolling up to cling to Lee Jonghak’s feet.
“I can’t do it… I absolutely can’t do it!”
Lee Jonghak seemed to flinch for a moment, then frowned deeply. At Lee Jonghak’s reaction, Lee Hangil hurriedly pulled Lee Sanghoe away.
“Stop it! Lee Sanghoe! What’s wrong with you?”
But Lee Sanghoe paid no attention to Lee Hangil’s touch and clung even more to Lee Jonghak.
“How can I! As a father, how can I!”
The words shouted as if in agony were like a scream.
Lee Seokyeong seemed to bite his lower lip for a moment at Lee Sanghoe’s desperate appearance, then closed both eyes tightly and shouted at him in a loud voice.
“It’s already been decided!”
At Lee Seokyeong’s shout, Lee Sanghoe glared at Lee Seokyeong and Lee Hangil with eyes full of venom.
“You can say that because it’s not your business! It’s my son! My son Jaeyeong!”
“……”
The two couldn’t say anything. Because they weren’t unaware of Lee Sanghoe’s devastating heart. Lee Sanghoe clung to Lee Jonghak as if he were a lifeline and began to beg.
“Please, Jonghak! Just once… Just save me once! Please!”
Lee Jonghak closed both eyes and sighed, then looked down at Lee Sanghoe.
“What do you want to do?”
At that moment, perhaps because Lee Jonghak had responded to his words, a thread-like hope shone in Lee Sanghoe’s eyes.
“Yugeon… Yugeon!”
A strange madness appeared in Lee Sanghoe’s eyes.
“…?”
“I-instead of our Jaeyeong, Yugeon…!”
Lee Sanghoe shouted with all his might with an expectant face. Lee Hangil and Lee Seokyeong looked at him in shock, and Lee Jonghak swung his fist at Lee Sanghoe’s face.
With a loud thud, Lee Sanghoe fell to the ground. But Lee Jonghak didn’t stop there and grabbed the collar of Lee Sanghoe, who had fallen on the ground, pulled him up, and drove his fist into him several times. His reddened eyes were full of anger.
Lee Sanghoe, who was being hit by Lee Jonghak without proper defense or resistance, suddenly reached out his hand to grab Lee Jonghak’s collar, pulled him right in front of his nose, and shouted.
“He’s dying anyway!”
