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The clouds hung low and the wind was strong, as if it would pour rain at any moment. As was usual on days they didn’t go out to fish, his grandfather and uncle had each gone out early in search of someone to share a bottle of soju with. On days like this, both men tended to return late, so his aunt had also taken the rare opportunity to visit a neighbor, leaving only Yeehyeon and his father at home.
Yeehyeon spent the whole day sketching. Since coming here, he had already filled his third drawing notebook. It was the art he had once given up to protect himself, but now, he found himself clinging to it.
What if he had made a choice like this back then? He knew it was a futile regret, but the thought of the years his hands had lain idle made him feel anxious and resentful.
He had to admit that his passion for art hadn’t disappeared; he had just been unnaturally suppressing it. It wasn’t a desire in the relative sense of wanting to draw better than anyone else. He wanted the freedom to express the subjects he wanted to draw in the way he wanted to draw them. Yeehyeon, who had never wished for brand-name clothes or a generous allowance, had only ever shown greed and obsession for his art.
No, it wasn’t the only thing he had ever coveted.
At first, Liu had seemed like someone with whom he wouldn’t even have a connection as slight as brushing past each other. It was Liu, not him, who had closed the distance, and it was Liu who had brought certainty to their hazy relationship. Looking back, he hadn’t had to try very hard; before he could even languish in the yearning for what he wanted or the pain of not having it, Liu’s heart was, at some point, in his hands.
It had taken time for Liu’s wariness toward him to soften, but just as he had been cautious in giving his heart, he never caused anxiety or hurt with an ambiguous attitude afterward.
The chill that sought to blame him and the warmth that tried to defend him still wrestled back and forth dozens of times a day, unable to declare a final victor.
As his thoughts strayed, his hand slowed. Yeehyeon, who had been sketching the Boston scenery from a photo saved on his phone, turned around at the sound of his father, who had been reading behind him, getting up. His father was taking down a jacket hanging on the wall and slipping his arms into it.
“You should probably skip your walk today.”
“…”
His father didn’t stop, zipping up the jacket.
Yeehyeon slid the door open a crack and peered outside. Jindol, a mixed-breed dog his grandfather had gotten from a neighbor while Yeehyeon was away, was lying with his body halfway out of his doghouse. Seeing Yeehyeon open the door, he perked up his ears and rose. The friendly dog had started following Yeehyeon around less than a day after he arrived.
The weather had grown even fouler in the meantime. But his father wouldn’t be swayed. Perhaps even this daily walk, repeated at the same time every day, was a form of self-punishment for his father.
Just as he gave up on trying to stop him and was about to close the door to prepare for the walk himself, he heard a knock on the main gate.
They didn’t usually latch the gate until everyone was home for the night, so the wind must have blown it shut. Pushing the door further outward, Yeehyeon called out to ask who was there.
“…Is the old man in?”
Yeehyeon flinched at the reply that came after a brief pause. For a fleeting moment, he felt a flash of hope, then disappointment. Though no one had seen it, the feeling left him abashed and bitter. Who had he been hoping it was?
With a wry smile, he slipped on his sandals and stepped down into the yard. When he pushed the gate open, he found Mr. Lim standing there awkwardly, an unwilling expression on his face, as if he had just swallowed something with a bad aftertaste.
Yeehyeon bowed his head in greeting first, then squinted against the strong wind, bracing his shoulder against the gate that kept trying to swing shut.
“My grandfather isn’t here.”
“Could you… spare me a moment?”
Mr. Lim said, smacking his lips bitterly. It seemed he had come to see Yeehyeon from the start, not his grandfather. Yeehyeon stepped aside to let him in. It was a moment he had been prepared for since deciding to come here, so there was nothing to be flustered about.
He was about to guide him to the detached room his grandfather used, but Mr. Lim said he had to leave soon and perched on the edge of the wide wooden veranda. The only beverage they had to offer guests was instant coffee mix, and he considered offering a cup, but quickly decided against it. He opened the door to his room to tell his father to wait a bit, then sat on the veranda himself, leaving enough space for two or three people between them.
The edge of the tarp covering the assorted yard tools—washbasins, buckets, brooms—flapped violently, the items gathered in one corner to keep them from rolling around the yard in the merciless sea breeze. Watching the dog’s innocent face as it tilted its head, not even barking at the stranger, Yeehyeon fiddled with his lightly clenched fist with his other hand.
“Is Morae… healthy?”
“…”
“I’m not trying to do anything. I just… want to know if she’s healthy.”
He glanced at Yeehyeon, who was looking back at him with wary eyes, and added, as if making an excuse.
“I’m sorry, but as long as I believe you could be a threat to the two of them, I have no intention of answering any of your questions.”
Feeling Mr. Lim’s gaze on his profile, Yeehyeon kept his eyes fixed on the dog. After a long moment, Mr. Lim averted his gaze with a long sigh, took out a cigarette, and lit it.
“My first granddaughter was born last month.”
“…”
Offering congratulations seemed ridiculous in this situation, so Yeehyeon sat silently, rubbing the inside of his fist.
“Usually… you can’t tell until they present during puberty… but the hospital said so. That there’s a pretty high chance she’ll present as an Alpha.”
“…”
Yeehyeon’s hand stilled. His head turned toward Mr. Lim on its own.
“They say some children are born with signs, though it’s very rare, and that a high probability doesn’t guarantee she’ll be an Alpha… but I can’t just ignore the odds.”
The bluish smoke Mr. Lim exhaled scattered chaotically before Yeehyeon’s face like a ghost dancing a mad jig. With his brow furrowed into deep wrinkles, Mr. Lim stared at some point in the yard with a troubled gaze.
“I’m trying to prepare myself now, just in case.”
This was the same Mr. Lim who had hidden Morae’s gender all this time, arguing that a female Alpha would be treated as a grotesque mutation in this conservative fishing village, the same man who had opposed her relationship with Yeehan, a Beta male. For him to come to Yeehyeon and confess a family secret was as good as an indirect request to relay his change of heart to Morae.
Yeehyeon carefully studied Mr. Lim’s profile, which in just a few months had aged and grown weary, as if he hadn’t seen him in years.
“I don’t know what kind of resolve she made… but the trail is completely cold, impossible to follow. She’s not that heartless of a child… to leave her mother and father behind like that…”
His voice trailed off, and he brought the cigarette to his lips instead, inhaling deeply. The image of Morae overlapped with Mr. Lim’s.
“Don’t you think your father will forgive you someday, with time? He’s always doted on you since you were little.”
He remembered Morae’s tears as she finally broke down at his uncle’s words. She had chosen the path to decide her own happiness, but that didn’t make her an immature child who denied her parents’ love for her.
Everyone loves in their own way. They make choices based on their own way of loving, and in the process, they sacrifice something. As far as Yeehyeon had seen and heard in the real world, there was no such thing as perfect love.
If he were to admit it, he realized that somewhere in his subconscious, he had believed that Liu’s love alone was flawless and whole, that there were no faults or weaknesses in his precious love that had even compensated for his own past.
“Could you tell her… to at least call once in a while? If she hates me, then for her mother’s sake…”
Mr. Lim stubbed out the cigarette, which the wind seemed to have smoked more than half of, on the side of the veranda and pushed himself to his feet. For a moment, his heart softened, and he felt the impulse to at least tell him that she was healthy and well, but he felt it wasn’t his place to interfere.
As Mr. Lim stood, the dog trotted over with light steps and sniffed at his feet. Mr. Lim glanced down at the dog, then hurried out of the yard as if he had stayed too long.
The dog, which had followed Mr. Lim to the gate, now ran back to Yeehyeon and circled his feet. Bending down, Yeehyeon stroked the fur of the dog as it nipped and shook the toe of his shoe. Only then did he feel the chill and rub his arms as he returned to his room.
His father, who had been waiting, sitting with his back against the wall, got to his feet. Yeehyeon hurriedly put on his jacket, then rummaged through a drawer, pulled out a shabby muffler, and carefully wrapped it around his father’s neck.
“The wind is harsh.”
His father stood with impassive eyes, and as soon as Yeehyeon withdrew his hands, he turned his back and left the room. Yeehyeon grabbed two umbrellas, one for his father, and followed him.
The wind, which seemed to blow not from one direction but from all sides, could not stop his father’s march. Heedless of the wind’s resistance, his father climbed the hill at his usual fast pace and sat on the bench as he always did, facing the biting wind that made him squint and hunch his shoulders.
Yeehyeon sat beside him and looked down at the sea below the cliff, saying nothing. The story of him and Liu had ended yesterday; there was nothing more to tell.
The sea, churning and foaming white as if howling ferociously, reminded him of Liu’s blue and white eyes.
He couldn’t believe it was a lie… Liu’s empathy, which had made him feel pain for his past, and his love, which had opened up the possibility of forgiveness, of faintly understanding his own father.
But paradoxically, it felt like it would be less painful if it had all been a lie. The reason he was so confused was that Liu had given him love and betrayal, empathy and silence, all at the same time.
He wished it would just pour rain and get it over with, but even as they descended the hill and passed through the center of the village, the sky only continued to rumble low. It was only when they reached the entrance to the northern slope that led to his grandfather’s house, where the crude murals began, that Yeehyeon felt a drop or two of rain on his cheek and the bridge of his nose.
And then he saw the white SUV parked in front of the shark family mural. Yeehyeon’s steps slowed. His father, who would normally have moved on at his own pace without a care, matched his stride and slowed down.
Liu got out of the driver’s seat.
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