Setting the Trap
The months I spent living on Dalos Island were etching themselves clearly into my life.
I had come on this trip expecting to grow up like a proper adult, but in reality I was running away from all the big and small stresses of life back in Korea. I had loudly declared my independence from my parents, yet in the end I had no choice but to live off their credit card. So whenever I found them despicable, they would tighten the financial noose around my neck.
But as if mocking their calculations, a new person had latched onto me. And it was an unexpected piece of gum I couldn’t shake off. When the rolling waves reached mid-thigh height, I glanced behind me. There, sprawled out exactly where I had been sitting—taking out my notebook, checking my phone, or sipping a mango smoothie—lay Cha Jun-jae. The blanket I had covered him with earlier was nowhere to be seen. He was lying there completely exposed, and it worried me.
A long-awaited chance to go into the sea was right in front of me, yet conflict began. His blue shirt fluttering in the breeze, his limp arms, and the fallen blanket. If I went into the ocean and came back out, he looked like he would be collapsed on the dirt ground. The guy who had stubbornly followed me here despite still being sick, and me for allowing him to do so—we were evenly matched in foolishness. It weighed on my mind like leaving a huge gold nugget abandoned on the roadside. In the end, with my destination right before my eyes, I turned back.
The weather today was sunny enough to rival the dry season. Even the forecast showed no chance of rain. Such days were rare during the rainy season. Nevertheless, I left behind the sea that seemed to be calling me, trudged through the gritty sand and piles of shells, and reached him. I appeared before the sleeping Cha Jun-jae like a water ghost rising from the depths.
His sleeping face alone was that of a wingless angel. Even though he had completely tossed aside the blanket I’d given him. But I had renewed my resolve. What if I just tried being good to him without any agenda? I had grown tired of avoiding him, getting angry didn’t work, and leaving felt cowardly. Instead, I would be so kind to him that I would even dig out the heart buried beneath his chest and show it to him.
I realized the moment I decided to treat him well: liking someone was ten times easier than hating them.
I picked up the fallen blanket and covered him with it again. Even at that light touch, Cha Jun-jae’s sleep fled. He looked pale, not at all like someone who had just woken up. I squatted down in front of the hammock and wrung the water from my clothes. Still not fully awake, he stared at me with dazed eyes.
“You’re back.”
“If you’re going to sleep without the blanket, just go inside.”
“What if I cover myself?”
I had come back up both to cover him properly and to check on his condition. I hadn’t expected such a cheeky reply. With that ridiculously innocent, pure, and pristine face, he smiled crookedly. He hooked his fingers on the blanket I had just spread over him and shook it as if he might throw it off any second.
“Is something falling off me?”
My kind intentions had backfired. I froze in the middle of wringing out my clothes. Cha Jun-jae saw my expression, laughed playfully, and crossed his legs.
“I’m joking. You don’t have to look so serious…”
“You’re the one making me look serious. Following me out here when you’re sick.”
“People don’t die from a cold.”
“Your cold is special. Don’t you remember how many days you were laid up?”
“People don’t die from it…”
Cha Jun-jae grumbled all the way to the end, then closed his eyes and fled into darkness.
“It’s boring without you, Eun-dam. But it’s too hot. The weather, the blanket, everything.”
As he spoke, he lifted his fingers as if he would drop the blanket the moment I left. I had moved past exasperation and now felt only bitter.
“You promised me you’d try to get over your cold.”
“Not covering myself with the blanket won’t make it worse.”
“Jun-jae. When we were kids and even recently, I always thought that since you had everything, you would become someone as bright and unburdened as sunlight. An adult without a single wrinkle in his heart.”
Cha Jun-jae, who had been fiddling with the blanket as if uninterested in my words, lifted his eyes to look at me. It was only a fleeting glance, but he was clearly waiting for what came next.
“That’s what I think now. I want to see your life record, like the Record. I want to know at which point you veered off course, or whether you were in some strange place I never knew about from the very beginning. I can’t tell.”
After I finished speaking, I stood up and properly tucked the blanket that kept threatening to slip off back around his body. Cha Jun-jae smiled rebelliously, his lips looking ready to let the blanket fall the moment I turned away. Strangely, I didn’t mind. His eyes, which watched me as if satisfied that I wasn’t going anywhere, felt the same. When he realized I wasn’t returning to the sea, he stretched lazily and acted spoiled.
“You’re being incredibly sweet because I’m sick, Eun-dam.”
“…Do you like that?”
“I don’t want to get better. Not when Eun-dam isn’t going to the sea and is staying right by my side. Why should I bother getting well?”
“Yes, you should.”
My firm answer made his eyes dim as if the wind had been taken out of his sails. It wasn’t disgusting or hateful—it was simply pitiful. Me feeling pity for Cha Jun-jae. It was tremendous progress. And now that I had progressed, the calm gaze and slow way of speaking I used to ignore looked different. This guy really, truly, would probably suffer from a cold for three hundred and sixty-five days a year if I just took care of him and gave him a little attention.
“Eun-dam.”
“What.”
“My head hurts… Can’t you stay a little longer instead of going into the sea?”
“How does your head hurt?”
“Like it’s going to split open. I think it would feel a little better if you stroked my forehead.”
Even though he knew it was an obvious trick, his eyes held no expectation. He was used to my rejections. That was why he threw out such a hopeless line first, like a gamble. Only now could I see that he was trying to hold onto me even if it meant hitting me from behind. Once all the anger, doubt, and the emotions tied to them had gently settled, I could see it. How he had always followed in my footsteps, always tried to make contact with me—whether through Aunt Swimming or by coming himself. All those moments that had once annoyed me could, in an instant, look heartbreaking.
I ran my palm over Cha Jun-jae’s forehead as he pretended to be sick. Then I pressed my lips to the spot I had wiped clean of sweat. With a soft smack, I pulled away from his forehead, the sound embarrassingly loud. The place my lips had touched flushed bright red. It was funny how his face could be so vividly colored while his eyes grew hazy. He would have no choice but to lose to me. Until I left the island, I planned to treat him with no ulterior motives, no past weighing me down. Because of that, I was beginning to see things I hadn’t noticed before. Things that someone as full of motives, thoughts, and secrets as him could never see.
“Still hurts?”
Cha Jun-jae gently brushed the spot I had kissed with his hand. Suddenly the corners of his eyes turned red. It took him a full five minutes to move again, his face caught somewhere between smiling and not. I watched him silently, expressionless, yet without the slightest hint of spite or anger. Perhaps that was unfamiliar, because his voice was filled with disbelief.
“Can lips hurt from a cold too?”
“Why? Do your lips hurt?”
“Yeah…”
His body was listless, but his eyes shone with clear greed. He was such an easy man—why had I ever thought he was difficult? I had only taken one step back, yet the desire in his eyes kept speaking to me.
“Should I kiss your lips too?”
The way he swallowed hard, the way his eyes—which had looked like he was dying moments ago—suddenly came alive. Cha Jun-jae, biting his lower lip, was reviving in an instant. It was the most energetic I had seen him since arriving on the island.
“Once you’re all better, I’ll kiss you and do whatever you want. You have a lot to do too. You can wait on me, help me with the scenario work.”
His trembling eyes looked especially beautiful for the first time in a while. I used to think only I agonized, calculated, and racked my brain because of the other person. But now that I was moving forward in a straight line, he was the one falling into complete chaos. I had no choice but to admit that it was rather amusing.
It felt like I had set the perfect trap in just the right spot to catch a fox.
“Aren’t you going to cover yourself with the blanket?”
Cha Jun-jae shook his head, then immediately pulled the blanket over himself. Unlike before, he clasped his hands together as if excited and lay there without trying to stop me as I headed back to the sea. I put on my snorkeling mask at a leisurely pace and smiled.
If I wanted to, I could become even kinder. Cha Jun-jae had started to seem a little more manageable.