“Hyung, I heard Lee Jaeyeong came to see you today.”
Migeon, who came after getting off work, asked without any preamble. Yugeon, who had been organizing the cash register, looked at his younger brother with a face asking how he knew, then closed both eyes as if resigned and let out a sigh.
Which bastard already snitched?
“Yeah.”
“Nothing happened…?”
“What would happen? He just came to buy something.”
“…Does Lee Jaeyeong come often?”
“Huh? No, that’s not….”
“…Hyung, I heard you had the shop closed around lunchtime yesterday.”
“……”
Yugeon unconsciously stopped his hands.
“Where did you go?”
For some reason, he couldn’t look his younger brother straight in the face. Yugeon started organizing the top of the cash register, moving his stopped hands even more busily.
“I-I was… at the shop. I wasn’t feeling well, so I was resting in the room….”
Migeon grabbed Yugeon’s hand as if to block it.
“Even if that’s a lie, if hyung says so, I’ll believe it. But… I don’t like hyung hiding something from me. Just… can’t you tell me honestly?”
At the pleading voice, Yugeon raised his head to look at his younger brother. Seeing the eyes looking at him carefully and the completely dejected face, he felt like a criminal.
Besides, it seemed like he clearly knew he was lying, so he thought what was the point of hiding it any further?
“I went to the dragon pond.”
Migeon’s hand seemed to flinch, then gripped Yugeon’s hand tightly.
“You didn’t go alone, right?”
“Huh?”
“The dragon pond is at the very top of the island, so it’s not hard to find, but the path to get there is on the back side of the island, so it’s not easy to find. I don’t think hyung, who’s unfamiliar with the route, found the way alone.”
“That’s….”
“Someone guided hyung, right?”
Yugeon couldn’t readily answer. Migeon stared intently at Yugeon, then slowly muttered.
“Even if hyung asked, the islanders wouldn’t have readily told you the way to the dragon pond….”
“……”
“…Was it Lee Jaeyeong?”
A troubled look appeared on Yugeon’s face. It was because he thought Lee Jaeyeong might catch unwanted trouble again, but Migeon seemed to take Yugeon’s expression differently and suddenly embraced him.
“I’m not trying to blame you, I’m just worried….”
“Huh?”
Migeon’s body embracing Yugeon was trembling faintly.
“Just, from next time, if you want to go to the dragon pond or anything, go with me….”
“…You wouldn’t let me go, so I went with Lee Jaeyeong.”
“Yeah, sorry…. From now on, I’ll go with you.”
“……”
“So from now on, never go with anyone else. Don’t go alone either. Only go with me.”
Yugeon leaned his face against his younger brother’s shoulder, then put his hand on his back and patted it.
“Okay.”
The trembling felt from the body in contact was too pitiful to refuse the request.
Yugeon, who had been embracing his younger brother until his trembling completely stopped, pushed his younger brother away as if he had thought of something and took out a frame from the cash register drawer.
“Geon-ah, do you know who this person is by any chance?”
Migeon, who had been pushed away obediently with a regretful face, tilted his head while looking at the frame Yugeon held out.
“…Where did you get this?”
“From grandmother’s house.”
“……”
Migeon looked at Yugeon with a face that had a lot to say. But Yugeon didn’t care and pointed to the woman in the frame with his finger and asked again.
“Do you know this person?”
At Yugeon’s urging, Migeon lowered his head to check the frame.
“…It’s our aunt.”
“Aunt? We had an aunt?”
“Yeah. I heard she passed away the year hyung was born.”
“Ah, really?”
Instead of answering, Migeon nodded.
“So that’s why I never saw her…. Lee Jaeyeong said she looks a lot like me.”
Migeon slightly frowned, then looked at the woman in the photo once more.
“I suppose so.”
* * *
For several days after that, Lee Jaeyeong didn’t come. He didn’t show up at all, so he was worried, but they weren’t close enough to deliberately go looking for him, so he just spent each day as it came.
Yugeon turned his head to look at the bench outside the shop at the sound of children’s laughter ringing in his ears. Five children who didn’t even look to be ten years old were sitting on the bench chattering. Looking at the children, Yugeon muttered blankly.
“Is it among them…?”
The child who will become the sacrifice in three years?
“……”
For some reason, it bothered him. Yugeon grabbed five ice creams from outside the shop and approached the bench.
“Isn’t it hot?”
On the bench, sketchbooks, crayons, colored pencils, and such were spread out. The children who had been playing while drawing something in their sketchbooks greeted Yugeon and added that they were fine.
Yugeon gave each child an ice cream and slyly pushed his butt in. The children were nice and quick-witted, so they quickly made room for Yugeon to sit.
“What are you drawing?”
When Yugeon asked while looking at the sketchbook, the children giggled and answered.
“A puppy. I want to raise one.”
“A flounder. Dongha hyung showed me one he caught yesterday.”
“My dad’s boat.”
“A watermelon cart.”
“Mom!”
They were all different. Moreover, they hadn’t just drawn one thing on each page of the sketchbook—various drawings were mixed together in a jumble. Yugeon smiled and carefully examined each drawing the children showed him, when he discovered an animal drawn in one child’s sketchbook. From its winding body, it seemed to be a snake, but it had wings on its body.
“Is this a dragon?”
When Yugeon asked, the children all looked at Yugeon at once.
“Dragon?”
“What’s that?”
“What’s a dragon?”
“This is a snake though?”
“A snake with wings.”
“…Huh?”
Yugeon made a puzzled face. What do you mean what’s a dragon? Could it be they don’t know what a dragon is? The children were tilting their heads and looking at Yugeon with faces full of curiosity. Just as Yugeon was getting flustered, an unfamiliar voice was heard from behind.
“Hey, you guys stop playing and go home to eat. It’s already lunchtime.”
When he turned around, a girl with short hair who looked to be about 17-18 years old was standing there. At the girl’s scolding, the children packed up their things and went down from the bench in a line, then ran away giggling.
When the children went away, the girl plopped down next to Yugeon.
“You really are an outsider, oppa.”
“Huh?”
“Little kids don’t know the word dragon.”
“…Why?”
“Because they don’t teach it.”
“Huh?”
“Anyway, that’s how it is.”
“…Who are you?”
“Me? I’m Lee Jeongyeon. Haven’t you heard of me? I was the sacrifice after you, oppa.”
“Ah!”
Come to think of it, he had heard from Lee Jaeyeong. He had thought about going to visit once, but he didn’t know he’d meet her like this.
Lee Jeongyeon stared intently at Yugeon, who seemed extremely surprised, then laughed as if dejected.
“You’re just ordinary.”
“What is?”
“You, oppa. Among us, you’re unknowingly a historical figure. You were the first to come back alive as a sacrifice. I thought there might be something special about you…. But really, how did you come back alive?”
“I don’t know…. I have no memory of that time at all….”
“Hmm….”
“Do you remember?”
“What? When I was offered as a sacrifice?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes, sort of. It was night, and the sky had no moon, only stars packed densely. I remember crying because my mom brought me to the dragon pond and left. I was scared. She told me to watch whatever appeared, but how could I watch when nothing appeared? I wanted to go home, but it was too dark and I didn’t know the way down, so I just sat there crying all night. And when morning came, my mom came looking for me. When she saw me sitting there blankly, she suddenly wailed loudly—what a sight.”
Lee Jeongyeon even shrugged her shoulders.
“So you didn’t see the imugi at all?”
“No, there was nothing. I even doubt whether something called an imugi really exists, you know? Oppa, have you ever seen the imugi?”
“Yeah.”
“What? Really? For real? The imugi on our island?”
“Yeah….”
“Wow, amazing, what does it look like?”
“Just… pitch black. Huge.”
“Amazing, amazing…! There was something unique about you! No one among us has seen the imugi! Next time you see it, can’t you secretly take a picture?”
“…Huh?”
“Ah, would you get caught? Ah really, I want to see it too! I was supposed to be a sacrifice, but does it make sense that I didn’t even see the ‘i’ of imugi?”
Lee Jeongyeon chattered away incessantly like a sparrow. Unlike Lee Jaeyeong, she didn’t seem to have any shadowy aspects at all.
“Were you… okay after you came back alive?”
“Huh?”
“That… the islanders….”
“Ah, like Jaeyeong oppa?”
“……”
“I didn’t have that. Maybe it’s because I’m not the culprit?”
“I suppose….”
Lee Jeongyeon looked around unnecessarily, then sat even closer to Yugeon’s side and whispered.
“But I didn’t hate Jaeyeong oppa and Sanghoe ahjussi that much. If you think about it, I’m alive thanks to those two people.”
“Really…?”
“Yeah, when there were no people around, I had normal conversations with those two. After I came back alive, my mom also secretly became lenient toward those two.”
“……”
“But why did you come back to the island, oppa?”
“Huh? I got a call that my father had passed away….”
“Ah~ But why aren’t you leaving?”
“My younger brother was left alone. And Geon-i wanted me to stay too.”
“And you just stayed like that? I’m dying to get out.”
“Hm?”
“I want to leave the island. Someday I’ll definitely leave with my mom.”
“If you want to leave, can’t you just leave?”
Lee Jeongyeon stared at Yugeon, then shook her head.
“You really don’t know anything, oppa.”
“What?”
“What do you think is absolutely necessary to leave the island?”
“…A boat?”
At the naive answer, Lee Jeongyeon laughed while making a deflating sound.
“That too, but the most necessary thing to leave this island is the head family’s permission.”
“What?”
“Naturally, you need the head family’s permission to enter the island too.”
Lee Jeongyeon’s words overlapped with his younger brother’s voice at the same time.
‘Only Father could contact hyung. Only Father could call hyung to the island.’
‘Because he’s the head of the family. Father had the decision-making power over all general matters of the island.’
Father, who was the head of the family, opposed his entry to the island. That father suddenly died, and as his younger brother inherited the position of head of the family, he was able to return. To the island where his younger brother who said he had missed him for 17 years was.
Is this really just a simple coincidence?
This series of events so improbable yet so perfect?
‘I sent grandmother, uncle, and father too. It’s okay.’
Suddenly, those words of his younger brother felt meaningful. An anxiety like drying up blood flowed down his spine. Yugeon looked at Lee Jeongyeon while clenching his cold fingertips.
“Our… father, do you happen to know how he passed away?”
‘He went out on a boat.’
His younger brother had said that. Please, please.
“He went out on a boat.”
“……”
It matched what his younger brother said. Yugeon unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.
“He had an accident and came back. And didn’t he pass away at home within a few days?”
