Salt Fields (4)
“I hated you, hyungnim. The more pathetic I felt, the more jealousy and resentment I harbored toward you. Why does that guy get to succeed while I can’t?”
Tears edged into the kid’s voice.
“...I’m this worthless piece of shit. And now you’re telling me to run away again? I hid once because I was scared of those monsters, and you want me to run again and become even more pathetic? No, I can’t do that!”
His final cry dissolved into outright sobs.
“...Gwang-il-ah.”
“......”
The heaving of his shoulders gradually subsided. After a long silence, the now-calmer kid finally spoke.
“Anyway, I’m not going! You think I’m doing this because I’m worried about you? I’m just sick of feeling ashamed. I don’t care if you die wherever, but I can’t take this anymore—me, like this. ...Not that a guy like you would die even if they tried to kill you a hundred times.”
He grumbled low, shooting me a glance.
“Let’s do this together. I can’t leave you behind.”
Memories of our ten years—known only to me, not to Gwang-il—flashed through my mind. He’d never once abandoned me. I thought I knew him well enough, but I’d been a shitty mentor and brother.
I extended my hand to him.
“Then let’s do it together. No crying or begging to back out later. No turning back once we start.”
“Of course!”
Gwang-il’s pot-lid hand clamped onto mine.
“Alright, then shall we do some proper fishing now? We’ve come this far—I’ll show you how the fish taste.”
Maybe it was because he’d poured out all that emotion, but Gwang-il’s face turned sheepish as he popped open the lid of the new bait box. The fishy stench of krill shrimp assaulted my nose.
Ding.
Right then, my phone chimed with a text. It was from Sun-mi-ra.
[I left the item you requested inside the rock behind the reef I mentioned. Don’t trust anyone. That man isn’t just your average village head.]
* * *
“Yeah. Nothing else unusual?”
“No, village head. They seemed like your typical nice Seoul boys. I was worried when that Sun-mi-ra girl brought them here, but today they didn’t act like they suspected anything. Honestly, who gives a damn about other people’s business these days? I bet they’ll head back to Seoul and forget all about it.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
Choi the village head crossed his arms and leaned deeper against the wall. The corner of his mouth twitched upward in what looked like nonchalance.
As expected, that damn woman’s useless. Can’t do shit except yap her mouth.
Sun-mi-ra, that sly bitch, wouldn’t have dragged just anyone to the guesthouse. She must’ve judged them trustworthy first. If they’d come at me hot after hearing her story, they’d be easy pickings. I knew a hundred ways to smother that hot-blooded sense of justice in twenty-somethings.
But pretending not to know? Hiding their claws, that’s what it was.
“Alright, good work. Presentbok’s mom.”
“Yes.”
“When those guys finish fishing today, let’s have them over for dinner at my place. The village has been feeling a bit too quiet lately anyway.”
Once the guesthouse lady left, Choi the village head gazed down at his vegetable patch where native leeks were sprouting. He’d pulled all the weeds recently, and even without fertilizer, the stalks were thickening up nicely.
Weeds have to be yanked out the moment you spot them.
Choi the village head lifted his head toward the village’s lone mountain.
“Thanks to them, I’ll get to see Cheon’s face too. That stubborn bastard can’t even manage a proper greeting.”
A cigarette dangled from his thick fingers, packed solid like crab legs.
* * *
“Whew, the fishing’s pretty good today. Your cooler feels nice and heavy.”
“Haha, yesterday’s dud was all because of the tide.”
Gwang-il straightened up under the guesthouse lady’s warm welcome.
“Oh, right! You two don’t have other plans, do you? The village head wants you to join us all for a meal.”
My hands paused mid-reel on the fishing rod.
They’d already caught on?
Well, Choi the village head’s real terror wasn’t just his iron grip on this tiny island. With only a middle-school education, he manipulated the mainland’s offices and businesses crawling with master’s-degree holders. A man of astonishing organizational control and crisis management.
A guy like that wouldn’t miss the whiff of suspicion from outsiders. His test had already begun.
“Sounds good. No reason to turn it down.”
The chorus of crickets swelled louder.
* * *
Over twenty village men had set up a drinking party in the yard, while a few ladies grilled meat off to the side. Choi the village head sat in the center on the raised wooden platform.
Like bamboo unbroken after decades? Even past sixty, his back was ramrod straight. His shrewd, tiger-like eyes calmly sized me up as I took my seat.
No—his gaze had been peeling my skin layer by layer from the moment I stepped through the door. It stung.
So this is his level.
Not the aura of some ordinary old villager. Only then did I vaguely grasp how this absurd cartel had formed.
“Here, have a drink, mainland sir.”
The soju glass came my way. Along with it stabbed blatant hostility, plain as day.
He was probing how much I knew, what moves I’d make next. He’d already marked me as the enemy.
If I knew, there was no point pretending otherwise.
“I wouldn’t dream of refusing a drink from a village elder. But!”
The liquor sloshed right to the brim. I dumped the precariously full glass onto the dirt floor.
“I’m afraid that if I drink this, I might forget everything I’ve seen.”
“Heh heh, I don’t know where you heard what from, but you’re a funny one. Sometimes forgetting’s the best for life, young man. You’re still too green to get it.”
Choi the village head’s yellowed eyes wriggled like a brat eyeing a new toy. As if rising, he swung the soju bottle through the air.
Crack!
It smashed into the paws of a dog drooling toward the meat from afar. Ten meters, dead accurate.
The startled mutt bolted without looking back, tail tucked.
The village men chuckled like it was routine and resumed passing drinks.
“Damn, I just can’t stand the sight of that mutt’s mug.”
Pouring himself another, he continued.
“...About a year ago, a young couple from the mainland came down to live in the countryside. But life here ain’t easy. Couldn’t hack it after six months and hightailed it back. Tch, tsk.”
His gaze followed the fleeing dog’s rear.
“That mutt wagged its tail at them. Begging for scraps, for someone to save it. They pitied it at first, fed it leftovers a few times, raised it like that. Then they up and left for the mainland—leaving the dog that’d grown dependent on humans behind.”
Choi the village head slowly turned his head toward me.
A stern warning: Don’t invade my kingdom.
“Live long enough, and you learn things without being taught. Goodwill you can’t follow through on? It’s not medicine—it’s poison. So...”
His voice turned sly.
“How about taking this drink and calling it even? You’ve got your own world.”
That’s when it happened.
“Kekeke, hyungnim. Pouring with that thimble of a glass? Where’s the fun in that?”
With a crash like shattering pottery, a burly fifties man who could’ve been Choi the village head’s twin barreled through the gate. His face was already flushed from pre-gaming somewhere.
The drinking men cleared space one by one.
“Aigoo, so you’re the mainland folks!”
Thud! Dust billowed as the giant plopped onto the platform, shrinking its generous space in an instant.
“Do-seong, I told you to stay quiet—why crawl in here? Trying to stir up trouble?”
“Come on, hyungnim, why say it like that and hurt my feelings? I’m a Sinseon Island man too! Anyway, these are the outsiders?”
His sweeping gaze challenged me oddly.
“That guy’s skin is pale like a girl’s—looks real nice.”
“The hell, you, talking that crap in front of guests...!”
He scolded his brother, but his lips curved up. Pure provocation.
In that moment, a low chuckle escaped Gwang-il.
“Why’s everyone in this village pushing drinks we don’t want? These days aren’t for forcing booze anyway.”
Silent till now, Gwang-il stood. He cocked his head, glaring at the giant.
“You look like the village head’s brother—mind if I take that drink?”
“Kekeke. Better than that pasty scholar type!”
Choi Do-seong’s bushy brows wriggled like caterpillars. Soju overflowed a beer glass.
“Ka! Here, take my glass too.”
“Good stuff, mainland boy—no refusing a pour.”
Gwang-il downed it in one go and thrust his glass at Do-seong. Blue veins pulsed on the back of his hand. They looked alike, yet different.
Gwang-il wasn’t small by any means, but this guy loomed a full head taller.
The drinking racket died down. Only the wind rustling the bamboo fence filled the yard.
The villagers held their breath, watching the bizarre standoff.
That’s when it came.
“Gwang-su’s mom. Mind if I grab a piece of meat too?”
A voice rang out indifferently, as if the two giants’ tension and the yard’s stifling air meant nothing to him. A man in his late forties, not tall—almost scrawny. For the first time, a flicker of genuine pleasure crossed Choi the village head’s waxen, unchanging face.
“Well, well, who’s this? Cheon? Come join us—why skulk off alone?”
I hadn’t noticed him until he spoke. He blended into the crowd when quiet, but the moment he asserted himself, he dominated the space.
Instinct told me: this was the shadow from the tabloid, the one enforcing Choi the village head’s brute force.
“Care for a short walk? Young friend.”
Cheon had sidled up, murmuring low.
* * *
We climbed a hill overlooking the village. Following the low ridgeline, the sea soon came into view. Seagulls wheeled precariously between cliffs not twenty meters apart. Wildflowers stung my nose with their sharp scent.
Too beautiful a backdrop for assaults, forced labor, and murder.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“......”
Cheon spoke as if reading my thoughts.
“...And suffocating.”
He turned his back to me, facing the sea. Wide open.
“You heard about this island from Teacher Sun-mi-ra, right? Just play dumb. It looks corrupt to you, but this little island’s a society too—with its own order. Outsiders who’ll leave eventually can’t shatter it.”
Waves crashed distantly.
“...That Hwang guy you think is slaving away? Even his family abandoned him. Should this society—this village—nurse him out of humanitarian pity when his own blood won’t? Isn’t that a bit naive?”
Cheon’s lips curled slowly. A demonic glint chilled his face.
This guy’s even crazier than Choi the village head.