Survival Dream Team (7)
The rain poured without a break for three straight days, and our boredom was on the verge of bursting. Whether it counted as a blessing was another question, but our lives were growing a little more comfortable because of it.
Kwon Seol-do and Kim Son, unable to endure the tedium of having nothing to do, had started bustling this way and that. Out of the bamboo, vines, and heaps of other materials we'd stockpiled in advance, they began making things.
The first thing Kim Son finished was a hammock—vines loosely woven over a frame of bamboo. With one for each of us, we suddenly had remarkably comfortable beds. She turned out plenty besides: bowls and all manner of tableware, even umbrellas decent enough for a short wander nearby.
Kwon Seol-do, meanwhile, laid roofs around the place so the camera crew could film in comfort, built covered passages out to the latrine, and was turning the house into something like a massive fortress. He was also putting up shelters for the animals, whose numbers grew by the hour.
Unlike those two, who could actually make things with their hands, the rest of us—myself included—had no choice but to kill time in boredom.
Unable to stand it any longer, I turned my attention to the cameramen at work. They filmed in camouflage-colored clothes that barely stood out against the background. There was, however, something unusual about them.
"...Director. You all right?"
"Huh? With what?"
I'd asked the cameraman holding the camera if he was okay, and he answered as if he couldn't imagine what the problem might be.
Is he seriously asking because he doesn't know? I mean the bird of paradise on your head and the tree kangaroo hanging off your back!
I stared pointedly at the bird of paradise perched on his head and the tree kangaroo clinging to his back, and only then did understanding cross his face.
"Oh, I'm fine. If anything, it feels like some kind of incredible experience. It's actually fun."
He said he felt as if he'd become the star of those photos you sometimes see—wildlife documentary cameramen with animals draped all over them—and he was delighted about it.
"Fluffy bird nest!"
Whether or not he realized the bird of paradise sitting on his head was treating him as its nest, he just kept grinning as if he couldn't be happier and went on filming, and all I could do was shake my head. Well, if he was happy with it, what did it matter?
I looked away, lay down in the hammock, and let the hours pass in a daze. I had my phone, but we were out of service range, and with no internet there wasn't much I could do with it.
I was just about to drift off when I saw the producer come over and start an interview. With the rain pouring and nothing else to do, he was seizing the chance. He began with Kim Son.
"You've been surviving out here so far. How has it been?"
"Hmm... At first I worried it might be a little rough. But it's more doable than I expected. I think that's thanks to all of you, though."
"So you could stay even longer, then?"
"Ah, that might be a bit..."
At Kim Son's awkward smile, the producer let out a light laugh.
"Suppose you could have someone else's superpower instead of your own. Which one would you want?"
"Suhwan oppa's, obviously! Honestly, the only reason we can lounge around this peacefully is because of him. Even that wild boar over there is basically a predator to the rest of us, right? Putting a boar like that to work is all thanks to Suhwan oppa. Though what I envy most is being able to actually talk to the cute animals!"
Cradling a baby tree kangaroo in her arms, Kim Son stamped her feet, declaring she was dying of how cute it was.
I snorted a laugh at the sight, and the interviews went on in order—Kwon Seol-do, Geum Ba-ri, then Ha In-du. Asked the same question, if they could have someone else's superpower, which would it be, every single one of them named mine.
"I envy Suhwan hyung-nim's superpower the most. No matter how much of a Construction superpower I have, the only reason I could build a house this size out of bamboo is that Suhwan hyung-nim was there to help."
"I want Suhwan oppa's superpower too. Then I could team up with dolphins or orcas and land some really big fish..."
"The others all figured Suhwan's superpower was the best one, right? I'm the same. Being able to find food, or spot a threat, matters a great deal for survival, but the truth is Suhwan's superpower pretty much takes care of all of that anyway."
Listening to my teammates, I felt unaccountably embarrassed. Plenty of people envied my superpower, but hearing it said so directly, right beside me, was awkward no matter how I looked at it.
And then the interview that had caused all that embarrassment came around to me.
"Survival's about halfway through now. What are your thoughts?"
"Hmm... How do I put this. I feel like I owe you an apology, Producer."
"Me? Why?"
"This probably isn't the footage you wanted, and I feel like I ruined it. You must have been after a castaway survival story on a deserted island, but what we're filming looks more like some eco-friendly vacation video."
The producer burst out laughing, then gave a light shake of his head.
"It isn't necessarily like that, so you don't need to worry. From the start, the concept was basically about finding which superpower would be most useful if you were stranded on a deserted island. The main point is satisfying the viewers' curiosity—which superpower actually helps you survive?"
Rather than ruining the footage, he said, we were producing exactly the picture he'd hoped for, and he seemed pleased about it.
"If anything, I'm the one who should be grateful. Where else in the world could I film something like this?"
In the little hammock Kim Son had whipped up during the others' interviews, a tree kangaroo was rocking back and forth, and above it a bird of paradise was chirping away. I snorted and shrugged at the sight, and the producer moved on to other questions.
What did I most want to do right now, what would I do once I got back—question after question followed. And at last, one final question remained.
"I've asked everyone else this once already. If you could have someone else's superpower, which would you want?"
I couldn't answer right away. I'd been turning it over ever since the others were asked, and I still hadn't decided.
"Honestly, I've thought about it a lot. But I just can't settle on an answer. They all have clear strengths."
"Even so, if you absolutely had to pick just one, which would it be?"
"Hmm... If I really had to choose only one, it'd be Kim Son's superpower. She's the one who made most of the tools we're using, after all."
The production crew had been downright ruthless, confiscating every tool on the premise that we were ordinary people stranded with nothing—and the fact that we could still live in comfort owed a great deal to Kim Son. She'd cracked stones into shape, made stone knives and stone axes, and furnished us with tools.
The interview ended with the producer grumbling that taking the tools away had hardly been worth it. Survival, of course, was only about halfway done, so ours would have to go on for several more days.
When the rain that had fallen without pause for days finally stopped, the sky cleared so completely it was hard to believe it had ever rained. The traces of the storm vanished one by one, as if the rain had never come at all.
The animals that had arrived with it, however, did not vanish. Broad shade, roofs that kept the rain off even when it fell, and good food easily had—this was not a place they felt any urge to leave.
They weren't relying on us completely, of course. I'd made it clear we would be leaving soon, and so they showed signs of foraging for food on their own.
At any rate, after being more or less forced to stay shut inside through the rain, we roamed the area again, restocking the food we'd only been consuming and repairing walls the wind and rain had knocked askew.
Once all of that was done, we gathered on the beach once more. As if determined to make up for the boredom of being stuck indoors, we played with genuine passion. Swimming with the dugong that had come back was a given. We also caught the saltwater crocodile that had slunk up to startle us and put it to work as a crocodile boat, and we even rode surfboards woven from a few lengths of bamboo.
Whether it was because we'd fully accepted how far this had drifted from a deserted-island survival show, we started playing without a shred of restraint. One day we played in the sea; the next we toured the habitats of the animals in the forest. That was how the pleasant hours went.
A survival in which hardship and suffering were nowhere to be found, search as you might, carried on until at last the final day arrived. It was time to escape the deserted island.
"All right, shall we start by building a raft and getting out of here?"
We immediately tore down some of the bamboo that had served as the house's outer walls and started building a boat. Calling it a boat was generous—it was nothing more than something wide and flat. We lashed the bamboo together with vines until we had a raft sturdy enough for all five of us, and just to be sure we set it on the water. It bobbed gently along with the waves.
Once we'd confirmed it floated well, we climbed aboard with the few belongings we had. We didn't forget to say goodbye to the animals in the house, which by then had little left but a roof to keep off the rain and its walls. Many of them clung to us, sorry to part, but we managed to soothe them and say our goodbyes.
"Oppa, don't we need something like oars, though?"
The problem was that we had no oars. We'd built a raft, but we hadn't made any. That, of course, was my doing.
"It's fine. I made arrangements ahead of time."
"Arrangements...?"
"Yeah. They ought to be showing up any minute now."
From the raft I turned my gaze out over the open sea, and far off, something was approaching.
"Saltwater crocodiles!"
Geum Ba-ri, who a few days earlier had climbed onto a saltwater crocodile's back and enjoyed a ride on her crocodile boat, spotted them and shouted.
"Oppa! You're going to make them do it?"
"It's the finale. We've got to give them at least this much, or the shot won't land."
I said it while pointing at the fixed camera set up beside us, and my teammates nodded. I gave them a light smile, then looked at the several saltwater crocodiles that had already drawn close. I'd asked them for this when we'd met a few days ago and spent a pleasant while together—to come today and tow the raft.
"Here. This is what I promised."
Since we weren't carrying on with the survival any longer anyway, I shook out every last remaining fish and tossed them into the crocodiles' snouts. They chomped the fish down, then carefully took, one by one, the thick, tough vines I held out.
"Let's head that way."
I started steering the saltwater crocodiles toward the ship waiting a fair distance off. Having eaten what I'd given them, they followed my words readily enough. Thanks to them, we easily overcame the waves heaving up and down and the current pulling us back toward the island, and made our way toward our destination.
After the crocodiles had cut through the sea for a little over ten minutes, we reached the ship.
"Bye, saltwater crocodiles! You worked hard!"
Once we were aboard, we gave a light wave along with Kim Son, who was swinging her arms wildly to see them off. And just as the saltwater crocodiles left us, we too left the deserted island and set out on the way back to Korea.
"Appa!"
"Suhwan!"
When we arrived in Korea and took a domestic flight back to Gimhae Airport, someone was waiting to greet me in the arrivals hall. It was Noona and Soeun, who had gone off to Jeju to play while I was away on the deserted island.
Whether they meant to advertise that they'd been to Jeju or not, the two of them were wearing matching tangerine hats, and the moment they saw me they threw their arms around me. It had been nearly two weeks since I'd seen them, and a wave of gladness rose in me as I hugged them back. Soeun especially wouldn't let go, and I held her for a long while.
We fell into a lively exchange of stories—the deserted island on my side, Jeju on theirs—and then returned to the home we'd missed.
And after the footage from the island aired, there was a shift in the ranking of superpowers people considered most essential if stranded on an uninhabited island.
That I was in first place hadn't changed, but the numbers had shifted enormously. The vast majority chose Druid, while Handcraft and Construction—superpowers not easily replaced by a Druid's abilities—came to be chosen a little more than the rest. You could escape the threat of predators, spur the growth of fruiting plants until they bore large fruit, and even have the animals build a shelter or search out food. Of course the numbers looked like that.