“Hey, you son of a bitch….”
Stuck in this place, he couldn’t see that damn bastard’s face. The pink raincoat covering the guy’s entire body was hiding even his face. Within the pitch-black shadow cast by the raincoat. It seemed like the corners of his mouth were grinning.
“Fuck, so what! What the hell do you want from me!”
Why the hell did you fuck me over like a dog! You stabbed the Captain to death and made me roll all the way to this deserted island…!
His eerie cry echoed through the mountains like lightning. There was no response from the guy. He just looked down at him.
And the next moment, the guy turned his back on him. Woonghee’s eyes widened greatly. His reddish lips trembled faintly, shaking.
“…Don’t go.”
Words leaked out hazily without him realizing it. Woonghee muttered while pressing his clenched fist against the cliff as if crushing it. If even that bastard left this place, he would truly be left alone in these mountains.
“Don’t go, I said don’t go!”
Really, truly alone. Woonghee didn’t have the strength to die lonely in the prison created by that terrible solitude. Please don’t go, he’d give everything he had—the tuna cans, the canned corn, the wild boar meat, everything—just please don’t leave this place….
He was in a state of mind where he wanted to grab onto even his pant leg and cling to it.
However, the raincoat with its painfully vivid colors quickly disappeared from his view.
“Don’t go, you son of a bitch!”
Hey, hey, hey…!
His loud shout echoed noisily through the mountains. The only sound that bounced off somewhere and returned to him was Woonghee’s own voice.
He really was left alone in this place. He was just pounding the cliff with his fist in despair. Thud, something heavy dropped onto the top of his head.
What came down whipping through the air was a green, hard, long vine.
“I, I’m saved….”
Rope climbing was literally child’s play. He could do it with his eyes closed. With a bit of exaggeration, if there was just a place to stick his foot, he was confident he could easily climb up even the 63 Building.
But.
Woonghee’s bright face suddenly darkened. As soon as he took one step, a sharp sensation shot up all the way to his thigh.
Barely, fuck, to think he’d become a body that couldn’t even climb this kind of cliff….
His ankle still hadn’t fully recovered from the poison. Uh, what should he do. Despair familiarly squeezed Woonghee’s ankle.
To make matters worse, as if adding insult to injury, bullet-like raindrops fell on the bridge of his nose.
“Fuck….”
It was a thoroughly fucked situation. The rain even quickly thickened and began pouring down all over his body. There was a deeply hollowed space beneath the cliff. He hurriedly buried his body there, but his body temperature dropped in an instant.
“Cold….”
Swoosh swoosh swoosh, he rubbed his forearms like a madman. A truly ice-cold chill covered him. Goosebumps covered his entire body and his thoughts gradually froze.
Heat rising from his body—it didn’t seem to be just because he was enduring in this cold rain. Now even just enduring was exhausting.
Even this deserted island where no one comes, and now he’d fallen into an even deeper precipice.
Fuck, really… am I going to die like this?
“…Ah.”
Woonghee hurriedly pulled out his phone from his pocket. He pressed and held the power button to turn on the phone. Recording, he wanted to make a final recording. He wanted to leave a trace, however clumsy, that a person named him was buried here.
“…Woongju-ya, it’s me.”
He cupped his palms small. He whispered so the sound of rain wouldn’t mix in.
“If, if oppa can’t go back… there’s life insurance so make sure you take it and use it. If those insurance company bastards try not to give it to you, report them.”
Did he need to be this shabby and miserable even when dying?
“And they say funeral costs are fucking expensive, so if possible don’t hold one. There won’t be anyone to come anyway. Cremate the bones and scatter them in the sea….”
At the words asking to scatter them in the sea, Woonghee bit down on his lower lip. Fuck, that damn sea!
“No, just bury me in the mountains. Scatter them from somewhere high.”
He was sick of seeing that damn blue color anymore. But after spitting out those words, it felt terribly futile. To be buried even in the mountains, he’d have to be found first, wouldn’t he?
“…Woongju-ya.”
And oppa has something to say. Woonghee drew out his last words. Now at most the remaining battery was 7 percent. Woonghee panted without being able to continue.
“I’m sorry, oppa is.”
Oppa is sorry, fuck, for being just this kind of bastard…. I should have listened to you. You’ve had damn good instincts since you were young. That’s why I always listened to your smart words, but I acted stupid and ended up meeting such a futile end.
“But in the next life….”
Woonghee bit down on the tip of his tongue, unable to spit out the next words. He wanted to babble that he’d definitely make her live in luxury in the next life, but his mouth wouldn’t open.
While Woonghee stuttered with his words. During those precious 10 seconds, only the sound of rain was being recorded.
“Be born as a rich family’s daughter.”
Woonghee’s recording ended like that. The app closed and naturally returned to the home screen. On his phone’s wallpaper was a family photo.
Mom, Dad, Woongju, and him too…. Woonghee soon sat down in despair. Thunk, he struck his forehead down with the corner of his phone.
“Do you think I fucking want to die like this….”
No one will even know about my final moments.
“On this shitty island.”
A few days ago he almost died from being bitten by a water snake, and last time he fainted after a jellyfish stung his head.
To think the result of barely surviving like that was only this much.
Why the hell.
Woonghee looked up at the sky as if resenting it. Patter patter, thick raindrops hit his face painfully.
Black clouds had already draped over the sky like a curtain. If only one person, just one would appear from up there.
Did they really hear his prayer? White light poured down like a miracle.
Woonghee gazed at that scene as if entranced. And he looked up at the beam of light descending on him as if it were a savior.
Behind it, he saw distinct facial features.
Jet-black eyebrows like a tiger’s stripe pattern, sharply drawn eyes, a nose bridge that seemed like it would cut you if you touched it, lips that always held mockery and a sinister smile.
It was Managing Director Gi.
Why did this man appear radiating that kind of light when Woonghee was at his most desperate? The cigarette light, and that white illumination too were far too exquisite.
Whoooosh, the rain and wind were raging all around. The man who had been sitting like a rock taking it all opened his lips. His shirt fluttered.
“My Baekjo died with his head smashed into a rock.”
His voice was small and low enough that if you didn’t listen carefully, you wouldn’t hear it properly. Like the mere sound of wind.
“No, that’s not it….”
However, to Woonghee, each of those words was so desperate that they sounded like thunder. He was in a state of mind where he wanted to grab onto even his pant leg. He wanted to immediately climb up this cliff, kneel before him, and earnestly beg.
“It was an accident, right?”
“…….”
“I fed him well, washed him, let him sunbathe, but in the end he betrayed me.”
He deliberately slowed down one beat and asked leisurely.
“Did you try to die on purpose?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Did you try to commit suicide like my Baekjo too?”
“That’s not it…. I want to live, please save me.”
The man cracks his neck left and right once each. Crack crack. He fixed his sharply lowered eyes on Woonghee.
“Now?”
Woonghee’s fist that had been pounding the cliff dropped down with a thud. Just look at those emotionless eyes. It was as if he wasn’t looking at him even as much as a passing dog.
“Woonghee-ssi. Life doesn’t get solved just by begging like that.”
Things don’t end that easily, he heavily dragged his tongue.
“Wasn’t it strange?”
The subject and everything else wasn’t clear, but with that sinister gaze and tone, Woonghee could figure it out. The identity of the sense of incongruity Woonghee had felt. What he had ignored and passed over in the momentary peace and tranquility….
His mouth corners rose upward as if drawing an arc.
“Weren’t you curious where all the other humans went?”
He was curious. He had felt very strange and peculiar. However, on the other hand, it was also a story he didn’t want to hear.
Woonghee didn’t want to lend an ear to stories about others. Because his own pit was already too deep…. Because he couldn’t even stick his neck out, he had tried to avoid it as much as possible.
Like the past few days.
However, the man shouted from above his head like a thunderstorm, as if he had to hear, as if Woonghee had to know.
“Those people got caught trying to steal the raft and run away.”
CRAAACK, the sky split in two with lightning. A golden dragon drawing rippled and the world suddenly brightened. For an instant, the man’s facial features jumped into his view.
He was definitely smiling.
Sure, he might be treated as a parasite who just wastes food, but wasn’t Managing Director Gi their leader?
However, the words that followed immediately resolved the question that had filled Woonghee’s head.
“It seems Ijun started it first.”
Woonghee furrowed his brow. All the rain was pouring into his eyes, so he had to wipe away the rainwater with his fist, wipe it again and again.
“Did you hear from Director Hwang that I killed the Captain?”
“Huk….”
Woonghee gasped. Director Hwang, he thought that crazy bastard had only babbled it to him, but it seemed he had spread his speculation to everyone as if it were fact. Probably because of that damn inferiority complex.
“After that, Paeng Hana’s Manager instigated Paeng Hana and Kim Daesik. Well, that was the sequence, I suppose.”
What if, what if he hadn’t fallen asleep. By now he would have ended up in a similar situation as the people who disappeared like ghosts. He shuddered at the creepiness. He had to hide the lifeboat from that man no matter what.
“Woonghee-ssi, why aren’t you asking?”
His voice was as sweet as ripe fruit, but Woonghee just felt creeped out. He knew the fate of those who were seduced by that sweetness and bit into the forbidden fruit.
“What happened to everyone.”
So….
At a point where he had been driven to the edge of a cliff and even fallen off, what other choice did Woonghee have?
In the end, Woonghee asked as the man told him to.
“…What happened to everyone?”
Then the man whispered like a snake.
“I punished them.”
