The two brothers were silent for a moment. Migeon was still looking down at the floor with his hands clasped together, and Yugeon was looking at the yard beyond the windbreak.
“Can I ask one more thing?”
“?”
Migeon raised his head and looked at Yugeon. Yugeon’s gaze was still directed toward the yard.
“Why did you… call me to the island? Is it really true that you called me because you had no one else to rely on?”
“…What do you mean?”
“…Father, the head of the family, was against me coming back to the island. If Father had been alive, I still wouldn’t have been able to come back to the island. But suddenly Father passed away, and you became the head of the family and called me to the island…”
At Yugeon’s trailing off, Migeon’s face turned miserable.
“Don’t tell me… you think I might have killed Father? To call hyung? Is that why you’re asking about Father’s death now?”
At the heavily suppressed voice, Yugeon quickly turned his head to look at his younger brother.
“What? That’s not it, I wasn’t asking that!”
“Then?”
“It’s just… it seemed like you’d be fine without me. You actually did fine for 17 years, and on the island, there are relatives who are more like siblings to you than I am. But I wondered if there might be another reason why you specifically called me to the island and wanted me to stay…”
“Is that so important?”
“…What?”
“Can you only call hyung to the island if there’s a reason? Did you absolutely need a reason to come back here?”
“I, I…”
“Yes, I know you wanted to come back to the island because you were experiencing strange things because of the snake wine! But what if that hadn’t happened? If that hadn’t happened, would you have ignored Father’s obituary and pretended not to know about me being left alone on the island?”
“No!”
“…Hyung is the same. But do I need to have a specific reason to call you? Can’t I just want to be with hyung, want to lean on hyung, need hyung?”
His voice was filled with resentment. Migeon was angry and aggrieved. This was the first time Yugeon had seen his younger brother this angry, and he was completely flustered.
“No, Geon-ah… it’s not like that, I, uh…”
Had he scrutinized and questioned his younger brother’s desire to be with him too much?
No, was it even something that needed a reason in the first place? He suddenly felt terribly sorry for his younger brother.
“I’m sorr…”
Yugeon’s attempt to apologize out of regret wasn’t conveyed.
Because Migeon grabbed Yugeon’s arm and kissed him. The words he was trying to convey disappeared between their overlapping lips.
After ending the brief kiss and pulling away, Migeon whispered on Yugeon’s lips.
“We’re brothers… It’s natural…”
* * *
Yugeon didn’t sleep a wink all night.
It was partly because of the kiss his younger brother had given him the day before, but also because his younger brother, who had told him to sleep first and then left somewhere, hadn’t come back all night. Yugeon, who had been waiting for his younger brother all night, rushed out of the house and headed to the dock as soon as dawn broke. He thought he’d be able to meet his younger brother if he waited at the dock. But his younger brother’s boat was already gone from the dock.
As he stared at the spot where his younger brother’s boat had been in bewilderment, he heard a voice calling him from behind.
“Isn’t that Yugeon?”
When he turned around, it was Lee Seokyeong, Junghyeok’s father. He seemed to be fixing fishing gear on one side of the dock.
Yugeon hurriedly approached Seokyeong and asked.
“Ahjussi, um, by any chance have you seen Geon?”
“Geon? He went out at dawn.”
“……”
Even though the boat was gone, he had hoped, but it seemed to be as he thought. Yugeon let out a groan and crouched down where he stood.
“What’s wrong? Did you fight with Geon?”
Seokyeong stopped his hands and asked carefully. Yugeon kept his head down, then stood up and shook his head.
“No. I’ll get going now. Take care.”
“? All right… be careful.”
Seokyeong looked puzzled, but didn’t ask Yugeon, who was turning away, anything.
Yugeon trudged back home, sat blankly on the porch, then washed up and left the house again. With his younger brother gone, he didn’t even want to eat breakfast.
Even after arriving at the old market, Yugeon sat on the bench and blankly looked down at the dock. How long had he been like that? Someone tapped his shoulder.
“Hey, what are you doing here? Ring me up.”
When he turned around, Junghyeok was standing there. Yugeon welcomed Junghyeok and quickly got up and went into the old market, and Junghyeok bought a can of cola as always. Then he finished the cola while standing there, threw the empty can in the trash, and asked.
“Why are you so out of it? Is something wrong?”
“Huh?”
“Did Jaeyeong do something?”
The phrase “do something” reminded him of what happened yesterday, but Yugeon just shook his head.
“No.”
“Really? If anything happens, make sure to tell me or Geon.”
Yugeon, who had been able to brush off matters concerning Jaeyeong calmly, involuntarily flinched when his younger brother’s name came up. It was a really brief reaction, but Junghyeok didn’t miss that instant.
“What, it’s not about Jaeyeong?”
“……”
“Did you two fight?”
“We didn’t fight.”
“Oh, come on.”
Junghyeok jeered as if to say “you expect me to believe that,” and Yugeon sighed.
“I said no.”
“Ah, yes yes. Anyway, so you guys do fight.”
“……”
“Well, it’s not really my place to butt in, but wouldn’t it be less awkward if you make up quickly? You two are living together anyway.”
“…Hey, by any chance.”
“?”
“Does Geon… normally have a special attachment to relationships between siblings, brothers and sisters?”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
“Well… should I say the kid seems to have some kind of obsession with the word ‘brother’… he’s not shy about physical contact and has no sense of distance or anything like that…”
Junghyeok’s face hardened for a moment.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh? No… nothing. I should get going.”
Yugeon was baffled that he suddenly said he was leaving in the middle of their conversation. But seeing his stiff face, he couldn’t grab him or ask what was wrong.
“Huh? Oh… okay, take care.”
“Yeah.”
Junghyeok left as if running away without looking back. Yugeon just watched Junghyeok’s retreating figure with puzzlement.
Lunchtime came, but Yugeon still wasn’t hungry. To be precise, he had no appetite. It seemed to be even more so because he was worried about his younger brother all day. As he sat with his chin on the counter, blankly looking outside the door, he heard giggling laughter. Children were passing in front of the store. Then they noticed Yugeon inside the store and waved their hands.
Yugeon also smiled and waved back. As he smiled at the children scurrying past, a question suddenly occurred to him.
Come to think of it, why are the sacrifices all children?
It’s not even a long cycle, they offer sacrifices once every 10 years, so where do they get all those children?
Imokdo was clearly a family village of the Lees, and even if the existence of the Imugi and the sacrifices was their secret, there weren’t only Lees on the island. There were definitely outsiders too, so he wondered how they could keep hiding such things.
An island where the Imugi actually exists and where they periodically make human sacrifices of only young children to that Imugi. If it had been discovered, there would have been a huge uproar.
Lost in thought, Yugeon suddenly seemed to remember something and hurriedly took out a picture frame from the drawer.
“Grandma…?”
Come to think of it, what’s Grandma’s surname? If she was someone who married into the island from outside, how did she know the island’s secret? No, no. Like Seonhwa noona, Grandpa could have been the outsider.
As he was thinking about which of Grandma or Grandpa might be the outsider, he felt a gaze.
“?”
Wondering what it was, Yugeon raised his head and immediately caught his breath.
Far away, under a tree on one side of the road, Jaeyeong was standing.
Yugeon instinctively stood up. The chair pushed back violently fell over with a loud noise. Startled by the noise, Yugeon looked at the chair, then quickly came to his senses and ran to the door and locked it from the inside. At Yugeon’s frantic and flustered behavior, Jaeyeong tilted his head as if puzzled, then slowly waved his hand and smiled.
A chill ran down his spine and goosebumps rose. Yugeon sat down below the door and lowered his head to avoid looking at Jaeyeong. Both hands were firmly gripping the locked door.
He wanted to check whether Jaeyeong had left or come closer, but he absolutely couldn’t raise his head. The act of checking itself was frightening. He rather wished someone would come. After being like that for a while, there was a tap tap sound of knocking on the door above his head.
“Hiik!”
Yugeon fell backward, startled as if having a fit.
“Hyung?”
It was his younger brother’s voice. Yugeon quickly raised his head.
Standing outside the door was his younger brother. It was Migeon.
Migeon was looking at Yugeon with puzzled and worried eyes.
“Hyung? What’s wrong? Open the door.”
Migeon knocked on the door again, and Yugeon barely managed to raise himself up, pressing his trembling hands on the floor.
“Out, outside…”
“?”
Migeon looked behind him once as if puzzled, then asked.
“What about outside?”
“Is, is there no one?”
“There’s no one.”
At his younger brother’s words, Yugeon peeked outside and slowly unlocked the door. His hands were shaking so badly that he struggled with the simple lock, but Migeon didn’t rush him and waited quietly.
When the door opened after a moment, Migeon carefully opened the door and entered. Yugeon’s face, seen up close, was ghastly pale. Migeon looked outside again, but there was no one else.
“Wh, why did you come at this time?”
Yugeon tried to act nonchalant when he asked, but his voice was terrible. His gaze also seemed to be directed behind his younger brother rather than at him. Migeon looked at Yugeon, then completely blocked the door with his body. Only then did Yugeon’s gaze turn to his younger brother. When their eyes met, Migeon slightly turned and lowered his head as if avoiding his gaze and said.
“Just… because of yesterday and all, I was worried about hyung…”
“You… where were you last night? Where did you sleep?”
“On the boat.”
“…Are you crazy, why sleep on the boat when there’s a perfectly good house?”
“……”
Migeon looked at Yugeon with a face that said “you’re asking that?” and Yugeon finally realized.
This time it was Yugeon who lowered his head as if avoiding his gaze, and the two brothers were silent for a moment.
An awkward silence flowed. In the end, Yugeon, unable to bear it any longer, squeezed his eyes shut with the feeling of “to hell with it” and shouted.
“You, why did you do th-that to me!”
