Chapter 9
Chapter 9
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Juni
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No humans she'd met until now had ever looked at Gamal so straightforwardly. Even when they did look, they did so with fear and unease.
To humans, she was one of two things.
A god or a monster.
But to this man, she was...
Not quite a fellow person, but maybe on the level of a dog.
Doyoung would be shocked if he knew, but surprisingly, Gamal was pretty quick on the uptake.
"All done?"
Doyoung asked.
"Yeah."
Gamal tied the final knot and reached out a hand to help Doyoung to his feet. Doyoung, already quite accustomed to it, took her hand and stood.
But the rock surface where he planted his foot was uneven, and Doyoung wobbled slightly. Gamal quickly steadied him. In the process, her shoulder slotted into his armpit like a bump in the road.
Their eyes met at the suddenly close distance.
Gamal's eyes widened slightly in surprise.
Doyoung lifted his arm draped over her shoulder.
"Let's go."
He had to keep reminding himself. This was a survival game, not some shojo manga.
***
When he woke in the morning, he was stuck to Gamal's back again. Doyoung looked at her.
"Why does someone who looks so disconcerting have to be built like this?'
Statistically, people with good physiques had a higher chance of surviving infection and becoming Ruas, which was why so many Ruas were good-looking. But even among them, Gamal was top 1 percent material.
If she'd lived out in the world, she might have had a harem. Even if she hated it, guys would have clung to her and refused to let go.
Gamal slowly opened her eyes. Her eyelashes lifted, revealing crimson irises in a sight that almost felt miraculous.
Gamal just looked back at Doyoung without saying a word. And so the two stared at each other. Light leaking through gaps in the trees washed over them, rippling.
Then, faintly, the sound of waves reached them.
His blood seemed to pulse in time with the crashing and receding of the surf.
"Major..."
Gamal spoke in a low, husky voice. With that same voice that raised faint goosebumps along his spine, she asked,
"You hungry?"
***
As he watched Gamal tidy up the pottery, Doyoung asked the question that had been nagging at him.
"Who taught you French?"
She could handle basic communication, but the occasional words she used sounded like something out of a textbook—archaic, even—and her pronunciation was a bit off. It didn't seem like she'd learned from a native French speaker.
"Johannes."
"Johannes?"
Her real name, out of nowhere.
Gamal nodded.
"Drifted in. Ship went glug-glug."
It seemed to mean his ship had sunk, stranding him. Doyoung asked,
"When?"
"A long time ago."
"How long ago, exactly?"
Gamal stared blankly at Doyoung.
"Major asks a lot of questions."
"Look. I got shipwrecked and washed up on this island."
More precisely, 'I jumped out of a plane and swam here.' But Gamal didn't need to know that much.
"My family's got no idea if I'm dead or alive, I don't even know where 'here' is. Can't you cut me some slack for asking questions just to figure out if my situation is 'total disaster' or 'barely survivable'?"
Only then did Gamal answer, with a reluctant air of 'fine, whatever.'
"Don't know exactly. Don't count days. Very long ago."
If his name was Johannes...
"German?"
"No, Dutch."
Then he must have been with the Dutch East India Company on a voyage. Which meant no later than two hundred years ago, at the earliest.
"Johannes spoke a little French. Taught me."
Then Gamal's face suddenly brightened, like she'd just had a great idea.
"Oh, I'm good at Dutch. Talked a lot with Johannes."
"I can't."
Doyoung, half-French and half-Korean, had solid skills in his two native languages—French and Korean—plus decent English, intermediate Spanish, and beginner Russian. But Dutch was out of the question.
A translator device would have helped, but sadly, gadgets from the civilized world were a luxury here.
So that's how she ended up with this old-fashioned, foreigner-tainted French.
At least that curiosity was satisfied. Doyoung asked the next question.
"What happened to Mr. Johannes?"
"Died."
Doyoung paused. Gamal's face looked so innocently serene, it was hard to believe she was talking about death.
"How?"
"Got old. Died in his sleep."
It should have been funny, but in that moment, Doyoung realized anew that the beautiful being before him was something else entirely—like a stone. Untouched by time, neither rotting nor fading.
Even after the shipwrecked human had grown old and died, Gamal had remained here.
For some reason, a chill unease crept down Doyoung's spine, but he shook it off. He would find a way back somehow.
"No one else ever washed up?"
He needed to gather information. As much as possible.
"All done."
But Gamal picked up the basket of pottery and stood. No intention of continuing the talk. Doyoung called after her bluntly,
"Don't you ever want to live out in the world?"
Gamal turned back, as if hearing the word for the first time.
"Out?"
"Yeah. Off the island."
Truth be told, if he helped Gamal escape, leaving the island right now wouldn't be a big deal. With a vampire's stamina and strength, she could swim or build a raft or whatever. But Gamal shook her head.
"No."
Doyoung held back the urge to snap 'why the hell not?' and asked calmly,
"Why?"
"I like it here."
"There's phlox out there too, and tons of stuff that makes life easier. At least by the time you were born, it wasn't the era of firing pottery and cutting with stone knives anymore. Doesn't living like this feel inconvenient?"
"Not inconvenient."
Gamal started to leave again. But Doyoung pressed on without giving up.
"I don't know the last time you left this island, but even ten years would change the world massively. I guarantee it—it's a totally different place now. Don't you want to see it?"
Gamal turned back and said, like a sullen teen annoyed with adults,
"Major's annoying. I'm staying here."
With that, Gamal really left. Doyoung sighed.
"That stubborn rock-headed idiot. Why is she so impossible to reason with?"
Gamal took a few steps, then glanced back. Doyoung was still standing there, apparently having given up.
Tree shadows draped over her feet. When she looked up at the treetops, the sunlight beyond stung her eyes.
***
Night fell, but there was no sign of Gamal coming in. Doyoung waited, then peeked outside. Gamal was sitting on the wooden steps at the entrance, just like a runaway teen. Doyoung asked,
"Not coming in? What're you doing?"
"You want to go outside, Major?"
But instead of answering, Gamal suddenly asked,
"Home."
Doyoung corrected her.
"You want to go home."
Gamal hugged her knees, lost in thought. Doyoung secretly hoped. It felt like she might say something like 'then let's go see the outside.'
Gamal gazed at the distant sky.
"I had a home too. Ma-ti did, Ta-wa did."
Unfamiliar words, but he guessed they meant mom and dad.
"Adaui too."
Gamal added.
"Adaui?"
Doyoung asked, since it was unknown. Gamal answered flatly,
"Married her, Adaui."
Doyoung shut his mouth. Early marriages were common back then, so it wouldn't be strange if Gamal, when human, had already been a husband—even with kids—at around twenty-five.
And yet, for some reason, it felt like someone had punched him in the solar plexus.
Rustle.
Hearing the sound, Gamal turned to see Doyoung sitting beside her. In a casual tone, he asked,
"You had kids too?"
Gamal shook her head.
"Adaui died. On our wedding day."
Doyoung furrowed his brow.
"How?"
"Accident."
Gamal said no more, just that. She changed the subject.
"Tree bloomed in my hometown. Lots. Fruit tasty, liked it. Still remember."
"What kind of tree?"
Doyoung asked to keep the conversation going. But Gamal shook her head.
"No more. Haven't seen it anywhere, sometime ago."
"It went extinct?"
"Extinct?"
"All gone."
Gamal nodded.
"Yeah. All gone."
Even without humans actively destroying them, the vast majority of species that once lived on Earth vanished for various reasons—food shortages, weather, predators. It was the way of nature, an unstoppable flow.
So the tree Gamal mentioned had simply followed nature's course.
And yet, for some reason, Doyoung found her matter-of-fact tone even sadder. Probably because Gamal, like it or not, had escaped that natural order. Everything slowly vanishing around her, except herself.
"Not just that tree—nothing's left of my hometown now."
Suddenly, Gamal spoke in a grammatically perfect sentence.
"Ma-ti, Ta-wa, even Adaui's grave."
A chill wind blew, tossing Gamal's fallen bangs and revealing her forehead, which gleamed with a foolish light.
Doyoung quietly asked,
"So that's why you live here alone?"
"I..."
Gamal opened her mouth, swallowed her words, and said something else.
"People came sometimes. Ships went glug-glug."
"Johannes?"
Doyoung was curious what she'd swallowed, but pushing might make her clam up, so he let it slide.
Gamal nodded.
"Others before too. Rodriguez twisted his ankle. Thought small wound. But swelled up. Died days later. Bill died from wound too. Couldn't heal them."
Even as a vampire, without medical knowledge, her ability to treat wounds was no better than a human's. She'd handled Doyoung's injured leg pretty well, so Gamal had some knowledge, but it was folk remedy level at best.
"Mira couldn't accept being here alone. Looked away a moment, she threw herself off cliff."
Gamal looked genuinely sad telling that story.
"Soya..."
Gamal talked about the people who'd come to the island. More had washed up than he'd thought, but only about ten had made it alive. Or more precisely, only that many that Gamal had met.
Others probably drifted in while she slept. But without her, some died of wounds like Rodriguez or Bill, some suicided, and maybe one or two lucky ones got rescued.
But this sea was full of islands, hard to navigate. Even in the modern era with advanced tech, spotting one specific island among countless from an airplane was tough. Rescue odds were low.
In that light, this place was a sad island.
"Graves there."
Gamal pointed toward the mountains.
"Buried them all. Don't want to meet anyone anymore."
Her eyes, rippling with moisture, looked ready to spill over.
He realized something: despite being a vampire, Gamal had a kindness and fragility that made you wonder how she'd even become one. Her humanity, untouched even by her vampiric instincts, poked through now and then.
At first, he'd thought it was an act or setup, but no matter how cunning a vampire, those types were often too confident in their slyness and let things slip.
"Humans weak. Die quick."
Gamal murmured sadly.
"No."
But Doyoung said.