Those who lived on the island were provided with dormitories. Scattered across the island in the form of unnamed villas. Each person was given a single narrow room, four pyeong in size. Room 105, at the end of the first-floor hallway. That was where Yi-won stayed.
The moment he reached his own space, the strength left his legs and he collapsed onto the floor, lying flat. He dragged the blanket from the corner of the floor and wrapped it around himself like dumpling skin. He knew he needed to take off his wet clothes first, but the more he knew it, the deeper he burrowed into the blanket. He hadn’t had a drop of energy left to change.
His hair, soaked through with rainwater and sweat, alternated between drying and wetting again in the high fever. The howling wind and rain swallowed his groans of misery again and again.
He had nothing to hold onto but the corner of the blanket clutched tight in his fist. He drifted in and out of consciousness repeatedly, and while he did, the sky — which had been close to the color of mud — darkened again to a dim grey without ever growing bright.
……Ah.
……Yi-won…… look at me.
Get up……
Someone’s touch rocked his body gently. An expression that didn’t suit the pallid face that had registered the presence began to crease.
“Mmm…….”
The blurred voice calling to him grew gradually clearer. As if in response to the sound, the eyelids that had been firmly shut began to tremble faintly. Only after a long moment did unfocused pupils come into view.
“Yi-won?”
“Mm……. Auntie. When did you get here?”
“Your phone was off.”
“……Maybe the battery died. I hadn’t charged it so I didn’t know.”
Yi-won forced a smile at Shin Mi-sun as she placed her hand on his forehead, as if to say he was fine.
“My goodness, feel this fever.”
She had come during her shift, it seemed — she was in her uniform. She tried to stop him from sitting up, but he was slightly quicker.
“I’m like this because I got caught in the rain a bit. It’ll go down soon.”
His skin was breaking out in goosebumps from the chills even while he sat still. Over the cheek of Yi-won pretending to be fine, Shin Mi-sun’s warm hand came to rest.
“Your voice has gone completely hoarse.”
“…….”
“I expected a message saying you’d finished, but no matter how long I waited, nothing came. So I called, and once or twice it just rang, and after that it was switched off — my heart sank.”
“…….”
“I thought something might have happened to you.”
Yi-won shook his head.
“Nothing did. I was supposed to finish cleaning and get out before the Executive Director arrived, but I couldn’t manage it…….”
“…….”
“I hid in the basement and barely managed to sneak out. Luckily I wasn’t caught.”
“All right, then that’s what matters.”
Thank goodness. Shin Mi-sun murmured it like a thought to herself. She stroked Yi-won’s hair, soaked through with sweat, with a gentle hand. She couldn’t take her eyes off his swollen eyelids and the color drained from his lips.
“……Aigo…….”
There were no days off for the people who worked on this island. Their labor was directed entirely toward paying off debts, and everything beyond the bare minimum was taken from them.
With interest compounding on interest until the debt had grown to hundreds of times the original sum, sleeping was a luxury and rest was inconceivable for those trapped on the island trying to work it off with their bodies. Whether Yi-won had a debt or didn’t, living on this island made no difference.
Nobody knew how much Yi-won’s debt was or how long he was supposed to remain on the island. He had been born here, so he simply lived as though it were the natural order of things. No one had the nerve to think of getting Yi-won off the island either. If they’d known how, they would have escaped themselves long ago.
“I thought you might not have eaten, so I packed a lunchbox. You must be hungry.”
“I can take care of myself by now.”
“Who said you couldn’t? There’s food everywhere you look, and it’s not like it matters if I take a little of this. No one will even notice.”
“Still, though.”
“I didn’t know when you’d wake up, so I put it in the fridge for now. Take it out and eat. I can’t stay away from my post for long, so I’ll head off first. Rest well, and…… Yi-won.”
“I’ll get to Shizunami on time.”
Yi-won spoke up first, on behalf of the hesitating Shin Mi-sun.
“I have leftover cold medicine from last time. I’ll eat, take the medicine, rest a little more, and head over.”
“……It looks like the rain might keep up through tomorrow. The wind is really cold. Dress warmly, all right?”
“Yes.”
The front door opened and closed, and the space was left with only Yi-won in it. Only then did the state of the room register. From the wet paper bag Shin Mi-sun had brought in with her, to the towel flung into a corner with muddy water stains dried stiff on it.
With a body heavy as lead, he cleared things away one by one. Every time he moved, dizziness swept through him, but he pushed through on sheer willpower. The room grew clean, little by little.
Yi-won, who had no one but himself to look after himself, took out the lunchbox Shin Mi-sun had said she’d left in the fridge. I’ll eat, sleep a little, and get up. He turned that plan over in his mind quietly, and let out a soft breath to the sound of rain that was still pouring down.
Eight in the evening. Shizunami.
Shizunami, the Japanese restaurant on Cheongun Island, was a place not easily accessible even within an island where entry itself was strictly screened.
The hall, rooms included, was on the smaller side. For that reason, the policy was to limit the number of patrons while providing the highest level of service. Shizunami carried a traditional atmosphere blended with the modernity of the present day, and it attracted a particularly colorful crowd of young presented individuals.
The deliberate intimacy of an enclosed space was enough on its own to heat the air just by its atmosphere. The vivid primary-colored lights flashing from every direction were enough to intoxicate the vigorous presenteds without any substance at all.
Choi Woo-hyuk folded his black umbrella and stepped inside Shizunami. The hall was quiet, but amid the stillness, the busy movements of the staff wove through. Following the trail of their steps, his gaze came to rest at the end of the line — a pair of designer shoes placed in front of a closed sliding door.
“Welcome, sir.”
A server in a pale pink kimono approached as he shook the rain from the shoulders of his coat. Instead of responding, Choi Woo-hyuk gave a slight nod.
He was shown to the room and stepped inside. Kang Seon-ho was seated at the center of a table laid out lavishly. But before that scene even fully registered, the rush of sweet scent mixed with pheromones hit him, and Choi Woo-hyuk’s brow drew together on its own.
“Oh. I was a little lonely waiting for you, so just for a bit. There was a decent one around so I had them spread some pheromones. Good pick, right?”
Twenty-five, apparently. If you’d said you’d be even a little late, I’d have been eating that omega as the appetizer right here. Kang Seon-ho rattled on as he poured liquor into an empty glass.
“I’m sure you would have.”
With a friendship that was thin yet layered in its own way, no formal greeting was necessary. Choi Woo-hyuk looked away from the fried rockfish being dismantled in Kang Seon-ho’s hands and accepted the glass.
“Maybe I should settle down on an island like this too.”
Kang Seon-ho, who had specifically asked for an omega to be seated with him, called back the omega who had earlier filled the room with pheromones and sat them beside him.
“Why didn’t the old folks at my place just study all day and think to buy an island like this?”
From the hand extended under the table, moving busily, and the omega hunched over with their head bowed low not knowing what to do, it was all plainly obvious.
“You’ve got it good. Everything on this island down to every last tree is yours, they say.”
“I suppose it is. Not that I’ve ever particularly wanted it.”
“Makes me so damn jealous it just makes me hate you more, you bastard.”
Kang Seon-ho was the only black sheep among the children born to a couple of well-known university professors. He ran a reasonably sized fusion restaurant in Seoul, but he didn’t have any great ambition for the operation. Kang Seon-ho, who had nothing but a pretty facade, hadn’t grown a day in all his years. Untalented in any direction, nothing ever seemed to go his way.
Fairly drunk by now, Kang Seon-ho didn’t hesitate to do the discourteous thing of opening his pheromones right in front of Choi Woo-hyuk. Between an alpha and an omega, it was something that could reasonably occur. But in front of another alpha, that was an entirely different matter.
“Lately I’ve been having alpha, beta, omega — no distinction, I’ll take anyone — but this one is genuinely fucking my type.”
“Then take them with you.”
