“Hyung… calm down…”
“Tell me properly!”
When Yugeon shouted as if angry, both Migeon and Dongha flinched at the same time. Dongha surreptitiously checked Migeon’s expression, and Migeon pressed his lips tightly shut as if agonizing, then soon opened his mouth as if giving up.
“…Jaeyeong suddenly came at us with a knife. I only got grazed, but Dongha got stabbed while trying to block it…”
“Hey! I only got grazed too!”
“J-Jaeyeong? Where is Jaeyeong now?”
Yugeon looked around for Jaeyeong with a wary face.
“The adults already took him away.”
He felt like all the strength was draining from his body. The image of Jaeyeong attacking his younger brother with a knife on a boat with nowhere to escape came to mind. Just the thought that the tip of that knife had reached his younger brother made his vision go white and his legs wobble.
“Hyung!”
Migeon hurriedly caught Yugeon. Yugeon caught his breath while leaning on his younger brother’s arm. His whitened vision gradually returned, and he could see his younger brother’s face looking at him with worry.
“Really, it was really just a graze? W-where, you’re not badly hurt anywhere?”
His face crumbled miserably and tears helplessly leaked out. Migeon stared at Yugeon’s face as he began to cry, then smiled and hugged him.
“I’m fine, hyung.”
As the laughter-filled voice settled over his head, Yugeon hugged his younger brother back and desperately clutched his back. Yugeon’s two hands were trembling endlessly. The thought that his younger brother could have been harmed in a place where he wasn’t there made him scared to death. His suppressed crying was buried on Migeon’s chest.
Dongha grumbled “I’m the one who got punctured?” as if the two brothers were making a fuss.
A little later, as if they’d heard the news belatedly, Yerim and Jihui came running hurriedly to the dock. Dongha, who had been looking at the two brothers as if they were irritating, jumped up from his seat as soon as the two sisters arrived, expecting a tearful reunion, but what came back was a beating from the two sisters.
“What? You got beaten by Jaeyeong?”
“You couldn’t dodge a mere knife?”
“Ow! Ah wait, ah! I got punctured in my side!”
“Good for you!”
“Why don’t you get one on the left side too?”
“Ah really, why am I being treated like this! Look over there! Look at Yugeon hyung! He’s crying because his younger brother got hurt! Look and learn!”
“You’re crazy!”
“Go ahead and be crazy! If you were Migeon oppa, I would’ve cried for you too!”
“What? That kind of discrimination… Ow! My side’s bursting, bursting! Hyung! Yugeon hyung! I want to be your younger brother too!”
Regardless of what the three siblings were doing, Migeon, who had been hugging and patting Yugeon, seemed gradually worried about Yugeon and carefully separated him by grabbing his shoulders. And looking into Yugeon’s face, he said.
“Stop crying, hyung, you’ll collapse from exhaustion.”
Yugeon nodded with tear-stained, reddened eyes and pulled his younger brother’s hand.
“Let’s go home… Let’s go look at your wound.”
Yugeon walked unusually hurriedly, and Migeon obediently followed along. Though he was thinking he needed to quickly examine his younger brother’s wound, seeing the reaction of the three siblings having a brawl next to them, he wondered if he was making a fuss and felt a little embarrassed.
Just as the two brothers left the dock and entered the mountain path, they encountered Seyeong hurrying down the mountain path. Seyeong discovered the two brothers, opened her eyes wide, and came running.
Seyeong had also come running in a fluster after hearing the news that Migeon and Dongha had been hurt by Jaeyeong’s knife attack. Seyeong, who had approached in one breath, looked at Migeon and asked urgently.
“Hey! Are you okay…”
But the question didn’t continue to the end. It was because she caught sight of Yugeon rather than Migeon. Seyeong blinked her eyes, then looked closely at Yugeon and asked carefully.
“Oppa, are you okay?”
At the unexpected question, Yugeon had a puzzled face.
“Huh?”
Seyeong looked at Migeon.
“No, why does oppa look like he’s dying?”
“Hyung was really startled.”
Only then did Seyeong nod as if she understood.
“Ah, it is understandable to be startled… So you’re not badly hurt?”
Seyeong’s gaze as she asked that was on Migeon’s bloodstained right sleeve.
“I just got scratched.”
Only then did Seyeong look relieved.
“Phew, why did that crazy bastard Jaeyeong suddenly have a fit?”
“Who knows.”
“Anyway… I should go see Dongha too. Hurry and take oppa home. Oppa’s going to collapse.”
“Okay.”
Seyeong said to be careful and quickly passed the two brothers and headed to the dock. Yugeon watched Seyeong’s retreating figure, then touched his own face and asked his younger brother.
“What about me?”
“…Hyung, do you know the Corpse Bride?”
Yugeon frowned as if to say what kind of talk was that.
When they arrived home, before treating his younger brother, Yugeon went into the bathroom to wash his hands, saw his own appearance in the mirror, and understood his younger brother’s question about knowing the Corpse Bride. Yes, he was the Corpse Bride.
As if remembering his disgraceful behavior at the dock, Yugeon grabbed the sink and hung his head deeply, then sighed and even washed his face before coming out. When he came out, his younger brother was sitting in the middle of the porch disinfecting his wound by himself.
Yugeon sat in front of his younger brother and snatched the disinfectant.
“I can do it myself.”
“What’s the point of having a hyung?”
“To marry me.”
“……”
He almost dropped the disinfectant.
“Don’t say things like that even as a joke.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Stop it…”
“…Does hyung dislike me?”
“What?”
“Then why did you cry earlier?”
“…My only younger brother almost died and came back, so should I smile? Stop talking nonsense and give me your arm.”
Migeon obediently held out his arm. After glaring at his younger brother once, Yugeon began carefully applying disinfectant to the wound. As he was concentrating, his younger brother asked.
“So? Do you dislike me?”
“……”
Yugeon pretended not to hear and kept applying the disinfectant.
“Do you dislike me?”
This time too, Yugeon didn’t answer. Then Migeon asked “Do you dislike me?” repeatedly like a parrot, and Yugeon, unable to bear it any longer, answered through gritted teeth.
“I don’t dislike you, so just shut up.”
“But you dislike marrying me?”
His younger brother didn’t stop asking questions. He was just like a young child who had learned the word “why.” Yugeon sighed, stopped his hands, and looked straight at his younger brother.
“It’s not a matter of liking or disliking in that sense.”
“Why, do you dislike it…?”
“I never said I dislike it.”
“But you won’t marry me.”
“Right.”
At Yugeon’s firm answer, Migeon pouted his lips, then lowered his gaze and mumbled.
“Then… is it okay to not marry but live together forever?”
Yugeon shook his head at his younger brother’s sulking appearance and answered while applying disinfectant again.
“Yeah. Whether you get married or I get married, let’s live together forever.”
“I’m not going to get married.”
“Whatever you want.”
“I won’t let hyung get married either.”
Yugeon quickly raised his head.
“What?”
“……”
His younger brother deliberately turned his head as if avoiding his gaze. Both cheeks were full of mischief.
“You bad kid? Didn’t you say you’d follow as part of my wedding gifts?”
“…I don’t know!”
Migeon kicked off from his spot, went into the room, covered himself with the blanket and lay down. Yugeon had a bewildered face at his younger brother’s antics, but soon followed him into the room and pulled off the blanket.
“Hey! Don’t you have to finish the treatment?”
Migeon bolted upright, then covered himself with the blanket that Yugeon had pulled off again and shouted.
“I don’t know!”
“Hey! It’ll get infected! What if you get tetanus or something?”
“I don’t know!”
“Are you a child? Aren’t you getting up?”
“If I’m five years younger than hyung, I am a child!”
“Argh…!”
He had nothing to say. He had certainly often thought of his younger brother as a kid. He just wanted to hit him once, but he couldn’t hit an injured kid, so as he stood there with clenched fists trembling, one arm suddenly popped out from the blanket. It was the injured arm.
As he looked at it wondering what this meant, a small mumble was heard from inside the blanket.
“Hyung, it hurts…”
He was so dumbfounded he couldn’t even speak.
What is all this?
After swallowing his anger and struggling through the treatment, Yugeon ultimately couldn’t hold back and smacked his younger brother’s head once. His younger brother, who was startled, stuck his head out and whined, but he threatened that if he didn’t want to get hit more, he should shut up and sleep, then came out.
He came out to the porch, organized the things he’d spread out while treating his younger brother, made porridge to feed his younger brother, and went to check on the room to find his younger brother, who had been acting like a seven-year-old he wanted to kill, sleeping peacefully.
He felt mischievous for no reason. He was thinking about hitting him one more time since he wouldn’t know while sleeping, when someone knocked on the windbreak door. Startled by the sudden noise, Yugeon checked if his younger brother had woken up and hurriedly went out to the porch.
Seyeong was standing outside the windbreak door.
“Seyeong?”
When Yugeon called her, Seyeong opened the windbreak door and came in, and Yugeon quickly approached the end of the porch.
“Oppa.”
“What brings you here?”
Seyeong glanced at Migeon’s room, whose door was slightly open behind Yugeon.
“I was wondering how Migeon was doing. Dongha received treatment well.”
“Ah, Geon is fine too. The wound wasn’t deep either.”
“That’s a relief.”
Seyeong sat on the edge of the porch with a relieved face. Yugeon also settled next to her.
“But, um, Jaeyeong is…?”
At Yugeon’s question, Seyeong’s face hardened in an instant.
