“Hyung?”
After calling for Yugeon once more and getting no answer from anywhere inside, Migeon tried to hurry outside the shop. He felt a bit uneasy wondering where he’d gone at this time. He also wondered if perhaps he’d secretly gone to find the Imugi again.
Migeon, who had been about to hurry off, suddenly stopped. Now that he thought about it, the shop door wasn’t locked. He was nearby, or inside the shop. Migeon looked at the small room behind the counter. His chest pounded with a strange unease.
“…Hyung?”
Migeon called for Yugeon again and slowly approached the small room. The door was wide open, but perhaps due to the angle, he could only see the TV next to the door. As he took one step, then another step closer, he could see feet.
Migeon stopped walking and chuckled. It seemed he was taking a nap.
Migeon stealthily approached, muffling his footsteps so as not to wake his hyung, and peered into the room—then ran into the room without even taking off his shoes.
“Hyung? Hyung!”
Yugeon lying in the room looked in bad condition at a glance. It absolutely wasn’t the appearance of someone taking a nap. Migeon’s eyes hardened completely as he panicked, pulled Yugeon into his embrace, and tried to check his condition.
His cheeks—torn skin, flushed red and swollen—and handprints on his neck, tear-stained and swollen eyes.
They were clear traces of violence.
“……Hyung?”
Migeon called for Yugeon in a low voice. But Yugeon’s eyes, which had closed in a faint, showed no sign of opening. Migeon’s face contorted with panic. He reached out his hand to properly examine Yugeon’s face, but couldn’t bring himself to touch it, only hovering above his face.
“Hy-hyung… Hyung?”
Not knowing what to do, Migeon touched Yugeon’s chest area and shook him lightly. But something wet and sticky got on his hand.
“?”
Migeon removed the hand that had been touching Yugeon’s chest and examined it.
It was blood and semen. Staring at it blankly, Migeon creakily lowered his gaze to look at Yugeon’s chest area. If you didn’t look carefully, you couldn’t see it well, but there was clearly saliva that had been rubbed and wiped, stuck all over the t-shirt.
Migeon examined the room with trembling hands. Only then did things that hadn’t been visible begin to appear. Someone else’s footprints, not his own, blood and semen remaining on the floor. The heavily scratched linoleum, Yugeon’s disheveled clothing.
For a moment, his mind reeled. His vision, spreading hazily, was consumed by blackness, all his senses instantly receding, then rapidly returning.
Migeon, staggering with a pale face, scooped up the limp Yugeon and ran toward home.
Migeon, who had hurried home so fast he couldn’t even remember how he got there, laid Yugeon on his room’s blanket and began carefully removing his clothes. The miserable state of his body, hidden by his clothes, was gradually revealed.
Migeon, examining Yugeon’s body here and there with deeply furrowed eyes, checked between Yugeon’s two legs, then clenched his fist tight and hung his head low. His whole body trembled. He’d hoped he was wrong, but…
Through his clenched teeth, a sob mixed with all kinds of emotions leaked out wretchedly.
Migeon, who had been clenching his fists until his palms bled while swallowing his anger, brought warm water and began carefully, meticulously wiping Yugeon’s body.
His whole body was covered in injuries. To inflict such severe violence on this small body…
Yugeon might find it unpleasant to learn that another person’s touch had reached him again, but he thought it would be more terrible to leave traces on his body. Rather than leaving someone’s traces on his body, it was better to be hated by him. Migeon swallowed his indignation and silently wiped and wiped again until no trace remained on Yugeon’s body.
As he wiped the body, he discovered there were severe injuries on his hands too. His fingernails were all lifted, split, and broken. It seemed to be the cause of the scratch marks remaining on the linoleum.
After wiping Yugeon’s body clean, Migeon brought the first aid kit and began examining Yugeon’s wounds one by one. He applied ointment to the torn and swollen cheeks, covered the handprints and bruises on his neck with gauze so they wouldn’t show, then wrapped them with bandages. He didn’t know what to do about the fingers, so for now he applied ointment where the nails had lifted and put on bandaids.
Only the anus remained. Migeon laid Yugeon face down, spread his buttocks, and examined the affected area.
“……”
His brow furrowed involuntarily. Migeon, who had closed both eyes tightly once as if swallowing his anger then opened them, began carefully applying ointment outside and inside, paying attention to the anal lacerations. Intermittently, Yugeon let out pain-filled moans, and each time, Migeon repeatedly stopped his hands urgently.
When all treatment was finished, Migeon’s body was soaked with sweat. Sweeping back his wet hair as he stood up, Migeon headed to Yugeon’s room to find clothes to put on him.
After choosing a loose-fitting t-shirt and shorts that wouldn’t cling to his body, Migeon was about to select underwear when he stopped his hand. Most of Yugeon’s underwear were drawers. The clinging type wouldn’t be good for the wounds. After hesitating for a moment, Migeon returned to his room without bringing underwear.
After changing him into new clothes and carefully covering him up to his chin with the blanket, Migeon touched his forehead with a face full of concern.
Now the problem was who had done such a thing to his hyung. He suspected Lee Jaeyeong, but he would be locked up tight… As he was continuing his thoughts, a loud noise came from outside.
Migeon, who had suddenly raised his head, checked whether his hyung had woken up and hurriedly came out to the wooden floor. In front of the windbreak door stood Lee Dongha, clutching his side, breathing roughly with his waist bent. His eyes widened when he saw Migeon.
“Huff, hah. You… you? How?”
At the question of why he was home at this time, Migeon asked back while paying attention to what was behind him.
“What’s going on?”
“Shit, I went to the old shop but Yugeon hyung wasn’t there… I was so freaked out I looked everywhere…”
“Why are you looking for hyung?”
“Fuck, Lee Jaeyeong, that bastard disappeared!”
“…What?”
“According to the adults, he was there when they checked in the morning, but when they went to check before starting work after lunch, he was gone… Everyone’s in chaos looking for Lee Jaeyeong now. I went to the old shop in case that bastard was harming hyung, but the door was wide open and hyung wasn’t there.”
“……”
“But how come you’re already home? Did you come after hearing the news? Were you with hyung?”
“Yeah…”
“Damn… Thank god… Then I’ll go back to look for Lee Jaeyeong, so you stay next to Yugeon hyung.”
Lee Dongha turned around and left immediately, as if he didn’t need to hear an answer. Even after Lee Dongha left, Migeon’s face, standing blankly at the edge of the wooden floor, soon contorted terrifyingly.
“Lee Jaeyeong…!”
Migeon, who had been standing while chewing over the emotions rising unconsciously, shook his head a few times as if to shake off the uncontrollably spreading emotions and headed to the room. He wanted to find Lee Jaeyeong right now and tear him to death, but checking on his hyung was the priority.
If by any chance hyung woke up and he wasn’t there…
Migeon, who had been about to enter the room, stopped in the doorway.
Yugeon was lying down, looking at the ceiling with drowsy eyes—he didn’t know when he’d woken up.
“…Hyung?”
At the low call, the eyes that had been looking at the ceiling moved slowly toward Migeon. Just as Migeon was feeling anxious at the gaze that just looked at him without any reaction. Suddenly, Yugeon turned his body, placed his hands on the floor to get up, and staggered toward Migeon as if rolling.
Surprised, Migeon barely caught and held Yugeon’s body as it collapsed as if falling right in front of him, sitting down together. His heart was beating wildly from the shock, but his two arms holding Yugeon in his embrace remained firmly fixed.
“Hyung? Are you okay?”
When Migeon asked, Yugeon burrowed deeper into his younger brother’s embrace and buried his face.
“Ge… Geon-ah…”
Then a pathetically trembling voice called for him. At the somehow desperate call, something welled up and completely blocked his throat. Migeon hugged Yugeon even tighter and forcibly squeezed out a voice that wouldn’t come.
“It’s okay, hyung… It’s okay now.”
“Geon-ah…”
Yugeon also desperately wrapped his arms around Migeon’s back and gripped his clothes tightly. Both hands were trembling. He felt even more devastated. Migeon rather buried his face in Yugeon’s shoulder as if he were the one clinging.
Yugeon, holding Migeon in his embrace, wouldn’t let go easily. Migeon waited, holding him still and patting his back soothingly until Yugeon calmed down, until his anxiety subsided even a little.
How much time had passed like that—Yugeon slowly raised his head, having calmed down somewhat. Migeon quickly examined Yugeon’s face, not wanting to miss the opportunity.
“Are you a bit better now?”
Yugeon didn’t answer. He only shook his head slowly. Migeon looked at Yugeon with a complicated expression, then swept up the hair that had fallen down, worried it might touch his swollen cheeks. And he spoke, hoping it would be a comfort to him.
“Hyung, Lee Jaeyeong is… the villagers are looking for him now…”
“What?”
“When they find him, they’ll make sure he never approaches you again…”
“N-no… No!”
“?”
“It’s not Lee Jaeyeong!”
“What?”
Yugeon looked around anxiously, then murmured quietly, as if whispering.
“It followed me…”
“Followed? What are you talking about?”
Yugeon anxiously brought his hand to his mouth and began biting the tips of his bandaid-covered fingers. Surprised, Migeon exclaimed “Hyung, your hand!” and snatched Yugeon’s hand. And he tried to remove the bandaid to check his fingers, but he couldn’t.
“I… called the Imugi a dragon.”
“What?”
“Because I called it a dragon, it didn’t kill me.”
“Hyung? Wait, what are you saying…”
“The offering too—since I’m here, it doesn’t need more…”
“?”
“But it hates me. Because I called it a dragon, it hates me. So even though it was watching everything… it didn’t save me… While I was going through that… even though it was watching everything…”
Yugeon kept muttering without stopping. Migeon, listening to the rambling words, grabbed both of Yugeon’s shoulders and shook him once, hard.
“Hyung! Hyung? Just calm down for a moment… I don’t understand at all what you’re saying…”
“I… kept calling only for you.”
“……What?”
“I kept calling for you, only you, to save me, to help me…”
Yugeon’s two eyes looking at Migeon wavered, then tears poured down in a flood.
“Didn’t you hear? Why did you come only now?”
