Of course, the other person wasn’t the type to pick up on any of that. And even if he did, he didn’t seem like the sort who’d play along.
“What’s so special about this that you’re dragging people around like sacks of rice at the crack of dawn?”
It is special, you little—. The village chief here is someone who chews dried pollock strips until they taste like meat because he can’t afford real beef. You know that?
The complaint that couldn’t quite make it out caught in his throat. He’d seen plenty of people mistake kindness for weakness before, but someone who received kindness as hostility — that was a first. Maybe that was why. At first he’d thought this guy was mysterious and pretty, but every time he opened his mouth, it was somehow off-putting.
Haeshin lowered his voice to barely above a whisper and murmured to Hwichan.
“Can’t you speak a little more nicely?”
“I do speak nicely.”
“Stop complaining. I bought this meat myself. I picked out something good, so at least pretend to eat it. Elders like kids who eat well.”
Haeshin then deftly wrapped a piece of boiled pork in a cabbage leaf with his bare hands and held it up to Hwichan’s mouth. Hwichan swatted his hand away in annoyance, but Haeshin steadfastly wrapped another leaf and held it out again. To the elders watching, it would have looked like affectionate care between peers — but in reality, it was closer to shut your mouth and eat.
“Go on. I washed my hands.”
Hwichan reluctantly took the wrap and shoved it into his mouth. The elders quietly kept an eye on him but made no warm effort to strike up conversation.
Like a dandelion that had randomly bloomed in a corner of a football field with nothing but grass, he remained an outsider throughout. Actually, in this setting, freshwater fish adrift in saltwater felt like a more fitting description. As though this wasn’t his home — and it genuinely wasn’t — Hwichan made no effort to hide his discomfort.
It left Haeshin’s hands doing all the work. If he kept making small talk, the elders’ attention would land on Hwichan. From the looks of it, Shin Hwichan was not the kind of person who would enjoy or welcome that. So instead, Haeshin said nothing and simply kept handing over thick cabbage wraps.
Part of it was a desire to plug up that disaster of a mouth before Hwichan could open it, and part of it was the thought that it was better to get something in him than to leave him sitting there like a sack of borrowed grain.
At first, Hwichan’s eyes had been sharp with suspicion — what is this, forced feeding? — but by the third cabbage wrap, they had shifted to a look of resignation.
“The little ones are eating well.”
“Did you add more salted fish paste to the kimchi this year? It tastes so much fresher than last year. It’s really good.”
“Oh yes. Himchan, you eat plenty too.”
“Grandma, he’s not Himchan, he’s Hwichan.”
“That’s right, Himchan.”
The only one watching the two of them with genuine warmth was Grandma Sooni. She picked up the largest of the steamed crayfish she’d brought out for dessert and held it out in front of Hwichan.
“I’m done eat—”
Hwichan had gotten as far as “I’m done” when Haeshin gave his thigh a quiet pinch. Hwichan ended up glancing back and forth between Grandma Sooni and Haeshin, then reluctantly took the crayfish tail and began chewing away.
That immediately drew the full attention of the village elders to Hwichan. This time it was the village chief’s wife, who had been busy the whole time trimming the meat and crayfish, who asked warmly.
“Come to think of it, I never got to ask where you’re from. Did you move here? Or just staying for a bit?”
“I don’t know either.”
Rather than answering easily as Haeshin had hoped, Hwichan shot back bluntly. At that, the village chief sitting nearby, well into his makgeolli, clicked his tongue and stepped in.
“He’s the nephew of Shin Gyeongcheol, who left for Seoul ages ago. Says he brought him here to rest and recover. Gyeongcheol came to the island yesterday too, just briefly.”
Haeshin thought back to the middle-aged man he’d seen arguing with Hwichan yesterday morning. That must be Shin Gyeongcheol. Their faces were quite similar — he’d assumed it was Hwichan’s father, but it turned out to be his uncle.
The adults around them began murmuring. Haeshin carefully asked, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“So you’ll be here for a little while and then go back? Of all times, the dead of winter — Samsam Island is prettiest in spring when the canola flowers are in bloom. How’s the pork? Is it good?”
As luck would have it, the village elders didn’t pick up on Haeshin’s gentle attempt to redirect. They only shifted their eyes discreetly, looking Hwichan over as though he were an exhibit or something deeply unfamiliar.
Then one of the elders, who had been knocking back soju with crayfish as a snack, remarked offhandedly.
“Young lad, must be ill somewhere I suppose. Looks fine to me — what’s there to recover from?”
There was a subtle barb buried in those words.
“It’s not recovery, it’s exile. There’s nothing wrong with me. He just finds me a nuisance and can’t stand the sight of me, so he dumped me here. Why else would he leave his nephew alone on an island with no connection, no internet, no phone signal?”
The barbs woven into Hwichan’s words were far more vivid and vicious than the elder’s subtle jab.
“Living with my uncle, I’ve now been exiled to an island too — what an experience. I’d thought at least it wasn’t Ulleungdo, but then I find out there’s no phone signal here.”
The air froze over in an instant. Everyone was watching Hwichan, only moving their eyes — so in an attempt to smooth things over, the village chief let out a hearty laugh.
“Aw, come on. Gyeongcheol cares about you so much, Hwichan!”
“Please don’t speak so casually about things you don’t know.”
“What do you mean I don’t know — I’ve known Gyeongcheol for nearly fifty years!”
“Then if you know him so well, you should have gone and lived with my uncle instead of me.”
In the end, Hwichan lifted the rear he’d barely been keeping planted and got up and left. On the low table in front of where he’d been sitting, a single pair of unused, clean chopsticks sat all alone.
“My goodness, had to go and say all that right in the middle of a meal. Haeshin, go after him and calm him down!”
An elder promptly pushed at Haeshin’s back.
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought him. Looking at it now, Hwichan really is a walking disaster — but that didn’t mean the island elders were being warm to him either.
The elders glanced sideways at the empty seat Hwichan had left, then carried on drinking and talking loudly. There had been a thin edge of hostility in the brief gaze directed at that empty spot.
A hostility as hazy as sea mist — blunt yet poking at something deep inside. Haeshin scratched his cheek awkwardly and set down the scissors he’d been using to trim the crayfish shells. It felt like he’d unintentionally prodded something that was already bruised, and his chest sat uneasy.
***
How long had he been looking around? Fortunately, Hwichan hadn’t gone far.
Haeshin spotted Hwichan crouched down in front of the drying rack by the shore and broke into a quick run. He’d been about to call out Hwichan loudly by name, but thought better of it — if he did, the other person, already in a foul mood, might bolt.
He approached slowly and spoke. They weren’t close enough from the start to be on a first-name basis, let alone sprint toward each other calling out names without any title attached.
“Why are you sitting out here in the cold.”
“……”
“You’ll catch a cold.”
He was still in the same state he’d been in when he’d rushed out — the sleep pants with the ridiculous design Haeshin had lent him the night before, and a short-sleeved t-shirt he hadn’t had time to layer over. His pale forearms were turning red in the winter wind. It was cold enough to warrant a coat, yet he’d planted himself stubbornly in the shaded corner of the drying rack with a view of the shore.
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. The elders have lived here their whole lives, so they can be blunt. They shouldn’t have asked about family like that. I’ll have a word with them.”
Hwichan fired back as if he’d been waiting for it.
“What are you sorry for? My uncle adopted my dead mom’s kid, and once he’d wrung out all the use he could get, he dumped me on this island and ran? Don’t worry. That’s not something you need to be sorry for.”
Haeshin shut his eyes tight. He’d already suspected Hwichan’s inner world was somewhat twisted, but actually hearing him speak so harshly about himself out loud made his chest ache.
You’re not supposed to hammer a nail into the same spot twice — but Hwichan seemed almost desperate to keep driving the hammer into the same place, right where the mark was already left.
You’re someone more used to being hurt than hurting others. Haeshin realized it quietly, on his own. The way he laid bare that painful family history, like he was punishing himself for it — it started there.
In the end, he let go of any thought of pressing him further and quietly crouched down beside him. In the shaded corner, next to Hwichan, only one side of Haeshin caught the sunlight. Fortunately, Hwichan said nothing when Haeshin came and sat beside him.
At the end of a heavy silence, Haeshin slowly opened his mouth.
“You know. I’m an island kid who’s lived here his whole life. But maybe because my hair color is kind of washed-out, whenever fishermen come by, they treat me like some kind of city delinquent the moment they see me. Go on and on asking me for cigarettes, if you can believe it.”
