If he were to put it into words — it felt like stumbling upon a flower that had bloomed in the wrong season, by the side of a road. He worried that a single touch might make it melt or crumble, and yet he couldn’t stop watching, drawn to the way its leaves swayed with such stubborn, tenacious life. He found himself hoping it would make it through the winter without wilting.
What month does the aster on the hill bloom? He’s got such a clean face, like someone from the city. Like a flower.
The moment Haeshin finished fawning inwardly, the weather began to turn without fail. A moment later, lightning struck — louder and more violent than the day before.
“Very nice weather for an island, I’ll say.”
Hwichan glanced outside with a look of pure exhaustion, then curled a playful smile at the corner of his lips. It was the first smile that carried the roguish mischief of someone his own age.
“Something got you excited?”
Haeshin couldn’t bring himself to confirm or deny it, and simply pressed his lips together.
Then, with a thundering crash, the storm properly announced itself.
That year — it was the beginning of a short-lived storm.
2
Hwichan poked at his phone, which had become little more than a glorified paperweight thanks to the internet that refused to connect no matter how desperately he tried.
The only leisure activity he had left was scrolling through the handful of old photos in his camera roll. Thanks to that, he’d opened every default app on the phone — ones he’d never once touched since buying it.
“Ha……”
A sigh, heavy with irritation, sank to the floor of the empty room like sand settling in water.
Could it get any worse than this? A short winter break of less than three months. In all his years of university life, he had never longed this desperately for the semester to start again. He even found himself missing his supervisor’s nutritionally bankrupt rambling, which he’d once found insufferable.
How many years had he spent walking through life like a breathing machine, tuning everything out. He’d expected this break to pass the same way — grey, ashen, like an old black-and-white film. Without incident. Just as it always had.
If he’d known he was going to be cornered by his insufferable uncle and stranded on an inhabited island off the peninsula, he might have spent last semester a little more carefully.
If he’d known he was going to meet someone on that island who waded into the ocean over and over again like a habit — someone at high risk — he would have been even more careful.
In the end, he let go of the hope he’d been clutching like a phone signal teetering on the edge of cutting out.
Whatever his uncle had or hadn’t done — the fact remained that he was stranded alone on this island, and what he needed now wasn’t escapism but a plan going forward.
Whether he liked it or not, leaving the island as things stood meant going head-to-head with that man all over again. Hwichan no longer wanted to spend any more emotional energy on his uncle.
Someone once said — you avoid filth not because you fear it, but because it’s filthy. And to Hwichan, his relationship with his uncle was less like dirt or an obstacle and more like a wall. Walls aren’t meant to be broken through or climbed. You go around them.
His plan was to comply in silent obedience, and once his diploma came through, slip away quietly as if nothing had ever happened — as if they’d never had anything to do with each other — and drift off like something unmoored on the current.
He got up and stood with his arms crossed, looking out the window at the dark night sea below.
Staring quietly at the pitch-black sea — like the screen of a cinema with the lights off — the image of Haeshin’s face floated to mind unbidden, pouting and indignant as he pleaded that it wasn’t fair.
— Diving for seafood again?
— Hey, it’s how I make my living, what am I supposed to do!
— You’d better not die on me.
— I’m not going to die! I’m not going to die, I said!
For the past several days, Hwichan had been heading to the shore at the same time Haeshin went out to dive, like clocking in for work. He was uneasy that Haeshin might do something reckless and end up in the water again.
Once Haeshin started diving, he could easily last a solid hour out there. In the early morning, his hair was a softly bright wheat-gold, and his eyes were a strange shade of brown.
By strange shade of brown, he meant — brown, yes, but with something faintly greenish-blue breathing through it. The kind of color that resisted easy description. If he were to find its closest real-world equivalent, it might be the borderline where sand and sea met.
His behavior was just as hard to make sense of as those strange eyes.
He’d get a mouthful of scolding for staying in the water too long, and still smile like an idiot. His body looked like it would topple if you so much as flicked it — delicate as a paper doll — and yet he moved through the water with the ease of a competitive swimmer.
More than anything, whenever Haeshin finished his early morning dive and pushed his damp fringe back from his forehead, a thought crept in unbidden: maybe he actually is a merman.
The silhouette of his waterlogged body was nothing but smooth curves — not a single hard edge. The radiant smile that caught the sunlight was more vivid than the sunlight itself. Maybe it was because he was small — but he had the look of a plaster sculpture carved entirely out of curves.
And so a little over a week had passed. And Hwichan was beginning to suspect the other was quietly enjoying all of this. Just that very morning, Lee Haeshin had grinned his loose, easy grin while shaking the sand from his feet, as if being watched over was a source of delight.
— Ah, but it’s actually kind of fun having someone around when I dive. Nice to have someone to show off to. Want to see this?
And then he’d jabbed something that looked like a small hoe into a pen shell bigger than his own face and held it out.
— Look at this. Huge, right? You won’t find one this big in Seoul. Slice it fresh and drizzle some vinegared chili paste on it — it’s a real treat.
Honestly, Hwichan couldn’t muster much enthusiasm. Whether a clam was half the size of a palm or twice the size of a face. Whether you drizzled vinegared chili paste on it or sand.
What had Shin Hwichan on edge wasn’t the shellfish that had been buried in the seafloor — it was the pale, slight fishing village resident standing right in front of him, with his history of attempts.
At first he’d wondered if he was overstepping, but whenever he tried to ignore the situation and just leave it alone, he couldn’t make himself walk away. It was because the image of Lee Haeshin’s face, turned toward the sea on that storm-battered night, kept flickering back in front of his eyes.
How can someone be that serene while falling into the ocean? In the middle of a storm, no less.
What kind of thoughts did a person live with, to be able to smile that unburdened with death right in front of them? He was curious, and at the same time, he didn’t want to guess.
If I don’t stop him now, he might disappear for good. That was the thought he’d repeated to himself as he sprinted toward the rain-soaked sea like something wild — and it surfaced every single time he saw a waterlogged Lee Haeshin.
“He’s really getting under my skin.”
Hwichan’s face hardened as he recalled the incident on the day he’d arrived at the island. At the same moment, the lightbulb dangling from the ceiling — which had been flickering on the edge of giving out — finally died.
Nothing on this island works properly. Not the people, not the things.
He stood alone in the now-dark, cool room for a long while before cramming his feet into his shoes and heading up to the part of the village where the signal was at least marginally better. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained again today, and given the late hour, not a single resident was looking out their window.
At the very top of the village where it met the sea — on the bench at the trailhead leading up into the hills — Hwichan called Jeongsub, a classmate from university. One of the few people he could talk to without putting his guard up.
After a long stretch of ringing, a voice came through the phone, thick with sleep.
[Who’s calling at this hour.]
“It’s only one in the morning.”
[Are you insane. One in the morning is the dead of night. Life on the island not agreeing with you?]
Not agreeing with him was an understatement. Instead of answering, he let out a long, heavy exhale — and the drowsy voice on the other end cackled as if mocking him.
[Stop being difficult and just breathe in the fresh air while you’re there. While you’re doing a digital detox, throw in a temper detox while you’re at it. Other people pay good money for that, and you’re getting it for free.]
With respect, neither his lungs nor his brain were polluted enough to need a detox. He wouldn’t want one even if someone paid him.
[When are you coming back to Seoul?]
“I’ll be there in about two months.”
[Tough as nails, aren’t you. Staying the whole break? Will your uncle just let you do that?]
“I’m thinking of getting my own place when I leave. Next semester’s my last year anyway, and once I start my graduation project I’ll be up all night — no reason to go home.”
Come to think of it, he also needed to start planning his graduation project for the senior showcase. He didn’t have the luxury of wasting away on this godforsaken island. Hwichan clicked his tongue in fresh irritation and raked a hand through his hair.
The two of them went back and forth with the kind of talk that was both trivial and not entirely light — trading complaints like two people venting to each other. Apparently a classmate was dating someone new. Their supervisor had gotten a divorce. Some classmate who’d been all bluster had started a YouTube channel……
None of it was particularly interesting — but it was at least more interesting than picking up clams or sorting through a drying rack.
Somewhere around two in the morning, a sound came from the low hills of Samsam Island behind him — a wild animal cry. The sound sent a chill down his spine, and Hwichan wrapped up the conversation quickly.
