Yugeon and Lee Jaeyeong were sitting side by side on the wooden bench. Yugeon had an ice cream bar in his mouth, while Lee Jaeyeong held a drink in his hand. There were no words exchanged between them. Only the loud buzzing of cicadas filled the air.
Yugeon looked up at the hackberry tree creating shade beneath the bench, then shifted his gaze to the distant sky. It was an afternoon where the sunlight felt particularly harsh. The sunlight stung, and the soles of his feet throbbed.
“Hey.”
“?”
At Yugeon’s call, Lee Jaeyeong turned to look at him. Yugeon was still gazing at the distant sky.
“What the hell is wrong with my little brother?”
“What?”
Lee Jaeyeong asked back at the sudden question. Yugeon withdrew his gaze from the distant sky, let out a sigh, and shook his head.
“…Never mind. It’s hot today.”
Yesterday’s Migeon had been a little scary. Did he really hate it that much that I was meeting the Imugi? Enough to reopen a wound that had barely started to heal? Yugeon looked down at his feet.
They hurt a bit when he walked, but not enough to prevent him from getting around. If he pushed himself a little, it would be possible to go see the Imugi. His little brother surely knew that. And yet he acted that way… Was it a warning? Not to meet the Imugi?
Did he hate it because the Imugi might harm me? Was he worried I might die? But it was his little brother who said the Imugi wouldn’t kill me.
And if the Imugi really intended to kill me, it would have done so already. It’s been quite a while since I came to the island.
“What are you thinking about?”
Perhaps because Yugeon’s face looked so serious as he was lost in thought, Lee Jaeyeong asked cautiously. Yugeon raised his head to look at Lee Jaeyeong, then turned his gaze to look around the surroundings. He could see the island’s uneven ridgelines and one particularly towering peak. Yugeon pointed at it with his hand.
“There.”
“?”
Lee Jaeyeong also shifted his gaze following Yugeon.
“Is the Dragon Pond there?”
“What?”
Lee Jaeyeong, startled, turned to look at Yugeon again. Yugeon was also looking at Lee Jaeyeong.
“Can you take me there?”
Lee Jaeyeong’s face turned pale.
“Th-there… Why?”
“I want to meet the Imugi.”
“The Imugi? Why… Why?”
Lee Jaeyeong seemed extremely flustered.
At Lee Jaeyeong’s repeated questions of why, Yugeon slightly frowned. Why?
“I don’t know either…. I don’t know, so I’m going to go find out.”
“Wh-what if something happens…”
“The Imugi won’t kill me.”
“What?”
“Geon-ah said so. He said the Imugi won’t kill me.”
“…How can you believe that?”
At Lee Jaeyeong’s words full of distrust, Yugeon instead made a face that said he couldn’t understand.
“He’s my little brother.”
There wasn’t a shred of doubt in his voice or gaze. Only pure faith. Realizing that this feeling was directed toward Migeon, Lee Jaeyeong felt like his insides were turning. Something ugly welled up in his chest, rising and rising. How wonderful it would be if that position, that unconditional trust, belonged to him.
“Are you… going now?”
“Not now. The day after tomorrow… Around the day after tomorrow? Can you come around 11 o’clock the day after tomorrow?”
Lee Jaeyeong nodded briefly. When Lee Jaeyeong agreed, Yugeon looked up at the sky with relief.
“I hope the weather is good the day after tomorrow…”
Because then his little brother would take the boat out.
Yugeon saw off his little brother going to work and looked down at the dock once. The weather was clear without a single cloud. The weather forecast said the weather would be good for the time being. Yugeon hummed as he opened the store.
The day flew by again as he served the villagers who occasionally passed by and stopped in. Yugeon checked the time and went outside to look down at the dock. He could see the mint-colored boat coming in. If he started preparing to close soon, he could match the timing with his little brother coming up.
Yugeon waited for his little brother while tidying up inside and outside the store. But even after the time when he would normally have arrived passed, his little brother didn’t come. Yugeon opened the door and looked outside with a puzzled expression.
No one was in sight. Even when he stuck his head out and looked at the path leading up, there was no sign of his little brother. Thinking he might still be at the dock, he was about to leave the store to look down at the dock when he heard faint voices from somewhere.
Yugeon paused for a moment to listen, then walked toward where the sound was coming from. It was because he heard his little brother’s voice. When he went down the road a little, he saw his little brother and Lee Seyeong standing under a large tree.
“We need to start preparing the year after next.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“What are you talking about? We don’t have much time.”
“We don’t need to do it anymore.”
“Your attitude is like an immature child. Is this something that ends just because you say you don’t want to? Would you say that in front of the people who have faithfully kept this all along?”
“I’ll talk to them, then.”
“That’s! That’s not the point! How can you guarantee we don’t need to do it? What if we trust your word and don’t do anything, and then another problem arises? Are you going to lock the barn door after losing the cow in a rush?”
“……”
“Do you think I’m doing this because I like it? It’s because you’re the best option! Because we don’t share a drop of blood!”
“If it’s about not sharing blood, there’s also Lee Jaeyeong.”
“Are you crazy? Do something with that unlucky bastard?”
“It’s not like we’re going to play lovers, so what’s the problem?”
As soon as Migeon finished speaking, a sharp friction sound rang out sharply. Lee Seyeong had forcefully slapped Migeon across the face. Shocked by the sight of his little brother being slapped out of nowhere, Yugeon involuntarily let out a high-pitched scream, “Hik!” and both Migeon and Lee Seyeong looked at Yugeon simultaneously.
Looking flustered, Yugeon covered his mouth, then soon smiled awkwardly and asked haltingly.
“D-did I interrupt something?”
“No.”
Migeon immediately denied it and approached Yugeon. But Lee Seyeong was a little faster.
“Oppa!”
“Uh, uh…?”
Lee Seyeong, who came over in one bound, glared at Migeon, then linked arms with Yugeon and pulled him away.
“Give me a pack of cigarettes.”
“Huh? Uh, uhh….”
Yugeon, practically dragged back to the store by Lee Seyeong, handed cigarettes to Lee Seyeong, and Lee Seyeong immediately unwrapped the packaging, put one in her mouth, lit it, and took a deep drag.
“Phew… I feel alive now. That stubbornly obstinate bastard.”
Muttering sharply as if talking to herself or venting, Lee Seyeong paid for the cigarettes and left. When Lee Seyeong left, Migeon came in.
“Let’s go, hyung.”
“What happened? Did you fight?”
“No.”
“Or… are you two… dating by any chance?”
At Yugeon’s question, Migeon scrunched up his face as if he felt really bad.
“No.”
It was a firm answer that left no room for doubt.
* * *
The next day, as promised, Lee Jaeyeong came to the store at 11 a.m. Yugeon put up a notice at the entrance of the store saying he’d be away for a bit and locked the door.
“Where are we going?”
When Yugeon asked with a ready face, Lee Jaeyeong made a complicated expression for a moment, then stretched out his hand and walked ahead.
“This way.”
Yugeon quickly stuck to Lee Jaeyeong’s side and held something out. It was a vitamin drink.
“Thanks for today. It’s small, but it’s my sincerity.”
“It really is small.”
“Geez…”
Yugeon deliberately glared at him, then opened and drank his own vitamin drink. Lee Jaeyeong also smiled and drank his drink.
“But… why didn’t you ask your little brother to take you and asked me instead?”
“You think I didn’t try? He said no.”
He wanted to add, ‘Not only that, he messed up the soles of my feet.’
“Besides, it seemed like no one on the island would take me there.”
“……”
Lee Jaeyeong couldn’t deny it.
“It seemed like you were the only one who would take me there.”
At the words “you were the only one,” Lee Jaeyeong’s eyes widened. The only one—it felt like he had become someone special to Lee Yugeon. Lee Jaeyeong blushed, secretly pleased.
“Oh, right, Jaeyeong.”
“Hmm?”
“Are our Geon-ah and Seyeong… dating by any chance?”
“? This is news to me? Are they dating?”
“Really? So they’re really not…”
“Why? Are they dating?”
“No, no. I guess I was mistaken.”
Lee Jaeyeong, who had been looking at Yugeon with a puzzled face, suddenly pointed at a house that appeared ahead.
“Hey, that house.”
“?”
“That was your grandmother’s house.”
Yugeon stopped without realizing it. Then he stared blankly at the house Lee Jaeyeong pointed to, then walked toward it as if entranced.
“Let’s stop by for a bit before we go.”
Maybe there were talismans that his grandmother had left behind.
The house where his grandmother had lived had weeds growing thick in the yard and around the house, as if to prove that no one lived there anymore, and dust was piled high inside the house.
Yugeon looked around various places inside the empty house, then discovered a half-open wardrobe and opened the door. The dust that had accumulated between the door cracks all scattered at once.
“Cough!”
Yugeon quickly covered his mouth and took a step back. And when the dust had dispersed somewhat, he swept away the remaining floating dust with his hand and looked inside the wardrobe. Inside the wardrobe were neatly folded blankets and hanboks.
“……”
Yugeon looked at the hanboks and silently stroked them.
Hair neatly styled in a chignon and elegant hanbok. The grandmother he remembered always looked like that. After silently stroking the hanbok for a while, Yugeon discovered something deep inside and reached out his hand.
What Yugeon pulled out was a picture frame.
“?”
It seemed to contain a photo, but it was hard to see because of the accumulated dust. Yugeon brushed off the dust with his hand and looked at the photo again. There were five people in the photo. A middle-aged couple and three young people. The middle-aged woman seemed to be his grandmother. Then the middle-aged man must be his grandfather, and the young men were his father and uncle. But the woman positioned between them was a face he’d never seen before.
He didn’t know who the woman was, but he could tell one thing. That this photo was a family photo.
