Delivery Complete
Looking back now, it seemed that the language Baek Yuri had been speaking was Korean. Even while watching Yuri converse casually with humans, Neoul had not realized it, despite the fact that he, too, was communicating with them in the same language.
That was because everyone on land sounded as though they were speaking the same tongue.
Neoul could not tell the difference between the loanwords and foreign expressions woven through the Korean, either.
He did not know which words belonged to rabbit speech and which to human speech. Every sound that reached his ears was automatically translated and entered into his mind.
Besides, the language of the sea, heard only when he submerged his head beneath the water, and the language of land, heard only above it, were so utterly different that there was no comparing them.
To Neoul, all of it was simply strange, wondrous, and marvelous. The things were so unfamiliar that he accepted them without question.
But while talking with Daiki, who did not know Korean very well, he finally realized that the languages were different.
Then the various languages used by the sea witch, Baek Yuri, and the other contestants and staff alike seemed to gather into one inside his head, and only then did Neoul begin to suspect that something was odd.
He had certainly swallowed two pills, one for rabbit speech and one for human speech.
So had everything he had heard until now been only the language of humans?
He had never once seen Baek Yuri speak any language other than human speech.
Then why doesn’t Baek Yuri speak rabbit speech?
Baek Gi-yeom and Baek Yuri were cousins, so when they talked, couldn’t they use rabbit speech?
Was he disguising himself as a human? Like how the sea witch told me to hide my identity, was the rabbit trying not to be exposed as something other than human?
But that seemed unlikely, because...
Neoul recalled the moment Baek Yuri had detached the large, long ears that had been attached to the top of his head and handed them to the production staff. He also remembered the other animal contestants casually tearing off and handing over round ears, triangular ears, and the like.
Was that really the behavior of animals trying not to be discovered?
It did not seem so.
Are they truly other animals disguised as humans?
Or was it the opposite?
Had the humans been the ones disguising themselves as animals?
Could the Rabbit Teacher not actually be a rabbit?
Once the thought began biting its own tail, it spread uncontrollably, spinning out into a new theory.
Then everything Baek Yuri has said until now... was it all a lie?
Why?
Why tell me such a lie?
The color drained steadily from Neoul’s face. A bad feeling was never wrong. But Baek Yuri had surely...
“He knew about Jesting Tortoise.”
At Neoul’s muttered words, Woo Cheong jerked his head up.
“Huh? The Tale of Jesting Tortoise?”
“Jesting Tortoise... ‘tale’?”
Come to think of it, Baek Yuri had spoken that way too, just like Woo Cheong.
— Um... it is the Tale of Jesting Tortoise, right?
While Neoul was mired in confusion, Woo Cheong brightened and chattered on.
“That kind of concept is fine too! It strangely matches the lyrics! In the chorus here, they say they’re coming to take you away and telling you to hold their hand and follow them, right? You could totally interpret that as the tortoise luring the rabbit and dragging him off to the sea, couldn’t you?”
“Indeed. Since there’s a story behind it, the stage could be dressed up a lot more richly. Since it’s a classic tale, it would be cool to add a little hanbok and some Korean dance.”
Baek Gi-yeom chimed in approvingly. Neoul stared blankly and thought to himself.
Classic?
Something from long, long ago? Like the old stories the sea witch used to tell him?
“Wow. Neoul-hyung. How did you come up with that? Hyung, are you a genius? I love stuff like that. This is going to be fun!”
The middle schooler, Ko Un-gu, exclaimed in admiration and piled praise on Neoul.
Since Daiki had asked him to translate, Neoul rendered his teammates’ words exactly as they were. Then Daiki, too, chimed in as if he understood.
Ah! Japan has a similar story too! I’m for it.
Neoul looked around at the team in a daze. Everyone knew the tale of Jesting Tortoise.
It was not that Baek Yuri had known it because he was the “Rabbit Teacher” Neoul was searching for... it was actually a story everyone knew?
Neoul swallowed a groan and said, “I would like to hear whether the tale I know and the tale you all know are the same. Could you tell me the story in detail?”
* * *
After the team meeting ended and Woo Cheong and Baek Gi-yeom went off together to relay the arrangement direction, the production staff gave the leader the dinner budget and told the team they could eat together tonight.
“Ten thousand won per person, I see.”
“Let’s go eat pork kimchi stew!”
Neoul tried to skip dinner.
“I have something I need to ask Baek Yuri-hyeong for a moment...”
“Yuri probably went out to eat already, didn’t he? You can ask him when he gets back. But you’ve kept calling him Rabbit Teacher and now it’s Baek Yuri-hyeong? Your way of addressing people keeps getting stranger.”
Baek Gi-yeom snickered and laughed.
Since his words were reasonable, Neoul had no choice but to follow them.
When Neoul found kimchi stew too spicy, the others dumped the meat dumplings and rolled omelet they had ordered with the stew onto his plate. But Neoul only pretended to eat the non-spicy, delicious food before setting his spoon down.
During the little more than ten days they had been roommates, Baek Gi-yeom and Woo Cheong, who had eaten with Neoul, were stunned.
“Why aren’t you eating more?”
“Raccoon-hyung, is something wrong?”
Neoul was usually a glutton who, whenever lunchboxes were handed out, would demolish at least two of them by himself. Even though the production staff had deliberately prepared generous portions, taking into account that the contestants were all at the age when they ought to be eating heartily.
What was more, he would also clean up every last grain of rice that Woo Cheong, who had a small appetite, and Lee Gal-chae, who had drifted over at some point and was eating with them, generously gave him.
He ate everything so well, as long as it wasn’t spicy. He had no pickiness at all. After eating that much, he still got hungry and went after Baek Yuri’s chocolate bars and protein bars.
And yet Neoul was now pecking at his food?
He was putting down his spoon before even finishing the bowl?
At his startled teammates, Neoul simply shook his head and said he had no appetite. In truth, he was not in the mood to eat anything.
When he returned to the lodging, Neoul discovered that Baek Yuri’s bed and Kim Ji-rok’s bed were empty.
“Where is Baek Yuri-hyeong? Where is Baek Yuri-hyeong?”
At Neoul’s panicked voice, Baek Gi-yeom answered as if it were nothing.
“Huh? Oh, he must’ve already moved his things.”
“Moved his things? Where to?”
“Huh? Neoul didn’t know? They said to move rooms after dinner, but you must not have heard. The roommates changed. To the team members. Because of the competition, everyone on the same team shares a room now.”
“Then where is Baek Yuri-hyeong?”
“That room over there. At the very end of the right hallway.”
Neoul headed straight for the room at the end of the right hallway.
“Huh? Yuri-hyung went outside.”
The teammate who came out after opening the door scratched his head. From inside, someone’s voice could be heard shouting.
“Why? Who is it? Is it Gaeneoul?”
“Yeah.”
“Yuri-hyung said to tell you to come to the beach if Gaeneoul came by!”
Neoul went out without thinking and wandered around the lodging. After circling the area and seeing that no one was looking, he made for the beach where he had once released Sangsangi and Byeoldtongi.
There, he found Baek Yuri clutching a white Styrofoam box.
Neoul hurried over and asked, “Baek Yuri-hyeong. Is it true that you lied to me all this time?”
Baek Yuri, who had been sitting on the steps and staring blankly at the sea, looked up in surprise.
Neoul looked very unsettled.
— Jesting Tortoise is Jesting Tortoise. Are there different versions of Jesting Tortoise? Do the details change from region to region? The broad outline is probably the same, though.
Neoul had made Baek Gi-yeom tell him the entire story of Jesting Tortoise.
In the end, he had learned that the rabbit was not a creature that could casually take its liver out and put it back in, or detach and reattach its ears whenever it pleased.
“When you came to the Dragon Palace fourteen hundred years ago, did you deceive my father and Jesting Tortoise? Did you lie and say you had left your liver on land in order to survive?”
“......”
“Then when you told me that if we succeeded in debuting together, you would give me your liver, was that also a lie? That you had left it at home?”
At the sight of Baek Yuri’s wavering pupils, Neoul’s face hardened in a way that was almost frightening.
So it really was all a lie.
He had believed those words without question and even sacrificed sleep to work for them, and it had all been a waste of time. He had spent too much time already.
The joy he had felt while learning difficult dances and singing now seemed like a sin.
Even now, his father’s illness might be worsening.
“Fourteen hundred years ago, that may have been understandable. I understand that you felt your life was threatened and did what you had to do to live. But to me... you should never have made a promise you had no intention of keeping.”
On the beach where Neoul and Baek Yuri had first met, Neoul had not even known how to walk. If he had wanted to run, the quick-footed Baek Yuri could have fled at any time.
It had not been a threatening situation at all, and Neoul had only pleaded politely. So why?
“Why did you lie to me?”
Cold resentment came crashing down like waves over Baek Yuri’s head.
“Neoul-ssi. I didn’t mean to do it on purpose...”
“Or was even being a rabbit a lie?”
Baek Yuri, who had been trying to defend himself, fell silent at once.
Under Neoul’s ice-hard expression, the desperation hidden beneath it stirred a pang of guilt in Baek Yuri.
“I don’t have time. Tell me honestly. Was it a lie?”
“......”
After hesitating, Baek Yuri parted his lips.
“Yes. I’m not a rabbit. I’m human.”
For a moment, a sense of embarrassment washed over him, making him wonder why he had to say something so obvious out loud...
“I never intended to fool you. I was just filming, and I thought you were acting out a role-play situation, so I misunderstood.”
Who could have imagined that a mermaid would climb up at that exact moment and start babbling about rabbit liver?
He had thought it was just part of the production’s setup.
“Only later did I realize that everything you said was real. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. I couldn’t tell whether you were safe or dangerous... I was afraid that if you learned the truth, you might kill me. But I can’t die.”
Baek Yuri watched to see whether Neoul had truly understood him.
Looking at Neoul’s black eyes, which seemed to ripple as though they might spill over at any moment, Baek Yuri came to a sudden realization.
Ah. So I’m not about to become shark food or be sunk to the bottom after all.
Strangely enough, all the fear he had been carrying seemed to lose its meaning. This mermaid did not feel like someone who could hurt another person. The thought simply came to him.
Good.
Neoul seemed to understand at least some of what Baek Yuri had said. His rigid expression had softened a little. Baek Yuri quietly pressed a hand to his chest and let out a relieved breath.
But Neoul was deeply disheartened by the fact that Baek Yuri had not been a rabbit and that he had been stumbling around pointlessly all this time.
A deep shadow fell across his face.
“Since the promise is void, I will take my leave. Thank you for everything up to now.”
Neoul turned as if he were about to depart at once. Baek Yuri sprang to his feet in surprise and asked, “Where are you going?”
“I must look for another rabbit... no, a real rabbit.”
“......!”
“If I were to take out its liver, it would die, so I would not casually demand it. But if I am fortunate, perhaps I will find a rabbit that is already dying.”
He could not harm a living rabbit, but taking away a dead one would not be a sin.
Neoul, taking long strides with the proper walking posture he had learned from Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom, began to run off somewhere aimlessly.
Baek Yuri hugged the Styrofoam box and ran after him.
“There’s no need for that! The rabbit liver is right here! I ordered it online!”