GB 1

“Quit.”

He was the superior officer. He had grown used to that by now, and it wasn’t as if he had entered this place unprepared. Yet, the abrupt strangeness of the situation felt like a bucket of cold water being dumped over his head.

“Quit school.”

It comes naturally to him, as if he was born to give orders. Perhaps he feels more comfortable with people who obey his commands.

But his fingertips and toes have gone cold. His shoulders ached as if they were being pierced.

“W-why?”

Even though he asked back with a pathetically trembling voice, the superior officer only shows his profile, flipping through documents. His response was cold and absolute, offering no room for negotiation.

It felt like rejection. No, how was this any different from rejection?

“It’s better if you quit.”

“How can you say that, knowing how much I wanted to be here?”

A sense of defiance welled up within him. After all the effort it took to get into this place, after everything he had endured to stay.

“This place doesn’t suit you.”

It would have been less painful if the school itself had rejected him. But this moment, being rejected by the person standing before him, was more agonizing than anything else.

He didn’t want to cry, but his voice grew damp with suppressed emotion.

“I want to be on the same ship as you….”

In the end, he mumbled like a child. He ended up pleading. But the officer’s cold gaze remained fixed on the papers, never once turning toward him, as if he weren’t worth the glance.

“You’ve already been on it.”

“That was…!”

“I don’t want you to board the ship.”

He closed the documents. The dull sound made his heart sink.

“I have no intention of letting you on my ship.”

The superior officer finally turned his chair towards him.

“Is there any value in you being here then?”

It felt as though he was asking if he had any value to him… He couldn’t answer that.

He thought he could hear the sound of waves. The massive roots of the mangroves began to wind around his feet. The past he had tried so hard to forget was still there. In the end, he spoke the words he never wanted to say out loud.

“Am I a hindrance to you?”

Please answer me.

“Am I a disgrace to you, Lieutenant?”

He remembered when they first met.

He had never once regretted saving this man, but now, did the officer regret taking him in? Did he seem like a burden, a nuisance, a shame?

The superior officer answered in that refined voice of his.

“The cadet is a hindrance to me.”

It hurt as if flesh and bone were being cut away. The words became a knife that cut him.

“Let go of your feelings, cadet.”

The superior officer stood up. The comfortable atmosphere created in this meeting room, specially arranged for their relationship, becomes useless.

“That’s an order.”

The cadet didn’t even dare to ask if he should let go of his feelings for the superior officer or his dream of being on the same ship. He was ruthlessly crumpled.

***

Number 8 was the best swimmer of them all. He could go the farthest and the deepest. That’s why he was good at catching fish and finding objects that were treasures to him but trash to adults. However, since his treasures were indeed truly trash, he never kept anything for long. They quickly rotted, broke, or fell apart.

Still, he never felt discouraged. Even feelings like discouragement would gently drift away when he immersed himself in the sea. It was what he did best—entrusting himself to the ocean.

That day was no different. Number 8, who had circled the island farther and faster than others, spotted a small boat in the distance. He was the first to notice it.

It was a boat he had never seen before. Its unfamiliar shape and shiny paint made it look new, as if it had been painted recently. Number 8 approached slowly and cautiously. Dripping with saltwater, he adjusted his grip on the harpoon in his hand.

Walking along the shallow shoreline where waves tickled his ankles, his footprints quickly disappeared. When the boat was clearly visible, Number 8 entered the sea again and circled around to the stern. There was no sign of anyone.

After confirming there was definitely no one around, he climbed onto the stern and saw a few fallen people inside. Only then did he notice the traces of bullets that had pierced through the boat.

‘It’s a captured boat.’

Number 8 nodded and circled the boat once.

Inside, there were corpses. The blood was still flowing, suggesting they hadn’t been dead for long. He kicked them lightly to turn their faces, revealing agonized expressions.

Number 8 lightly stepped over them and went to the stern.

He then leaned his body over the edge.

He had never been on a boat before. The adults said that only they could ride boats, and that it would take more time before Number 8 could ride one. But he had been told many times that being too big wasn’t good for moving nimbly inside a boat, so he should build strength but not grow too much.

Number 8 lightly touched the stern with a body that hadn’t grown as much as the adults would like, with less developed muscles. Then he pushed with his arms and stretched his upper body forward.

Because of the height of the boat, it felt like he was flying.

Leaving the corpses behind, Number 8 smiled brightly as he lifted his feet into the air, looking around at the view of the island, when suddenly he lowered his head.

And he discovered something squirming.

“Huh?”

Number 8’s eyes widened as he lightly jumped down. It was a dangerous height, but for Number 8, who had grown up on this wild island full of giant roots, vines, and grass that grew so tall it looked like trees, it was no problem.

Below the stern was a man lying face down, twitching as if he had barely escaped. He was alive.

Number 8 used his hands, not his feet, to turn the man over.

The man, frowning in pain, was clutching his side. It seemed the bullet had grazed him rather than going through.

“Oh?”

Number 8, who hadn’t expected to meet a living person, was flustered and circled around the man.

“Hey.”

But the man didn’t respond. He seemed to have lost consciousness.

If left like this, it was clear that the adults would come and take him away. Number 8 noticed the man’s neatly cut clothes and short hair. His features were very delicate, clearly defined on his white skin. Unable to take his eyes off the man’s face, Number 8 touched and felt his own face.

Having only seen his reflection in rippling water until now, he didn’t know exactly what he looked like. Number 8 squatted down next to the man and shook him.

“Ah… ugh…”

The man let out a groan.

“Hey.”

Number 8 called out to the man.

“Are you alive?”

The man didn’t answer.

Instead, his face grew even paler, and the faint groans he had been making stopped.

Is he dead?

While he had picked up countless objects and fish before, this was the first time he had picked up a living person. He hoped the man wasn’t dead. He wanted to take something that wasn’t dead. Growing anxious, Number 8 pressed his head against the man’s chest.

Thump… thump…

Fortunately, the man’s heart was still beating. As he lifted his head in relief, suddenly the man half-raised his upper body. Almost simultaneously, Number 8’s neck was caught in a large hand.

It happened in an instant.

“Ah, ack…!”

As the startled Number 8 struggled, the man’s eyes, which had been barely open, widened and focused.

“A… child…?”

The man muttered, seemingly confused, but didn’t loosen his grip.

Number 8’s knees lifted slightly off the ground. Just as he was reaching for the harpoon with his flailing hand, the man let out another faint groan and collapsed backward, eyes shutting again.

“Huff… Huff…”

Number 8, whose neck was freed, gasped for air, clutching at his throat.

The man now lay motionless, his face as white as paper. He seemed to have completely lost consciousness.

He’s a living person. Clearly not from the island. Unless he had come with the adults, he was an intruder. A threat, which meant Number 8 should immediately report him to the adults or kill him.

I should kill him.

He’s dangerous. He scared me.

I have to kill him.

Just as Number 8 gripped his harpoon and his eyes glinted, the thick clouds that usually covered the sun in the island’s humid climate briefly parted.

At that moment, sunlight poured onto the man.

Number 8 had seen countless times how salt crystals sparkled on bodies.

But this man was simply shining.

There were dried salt crystals in his hair, but that wasn’t why he was shining. It was the buttons attached to his unfamiliar clothes. They were what was shining.

Number 8’s lips twitched, and he impulsively stripped off the man’s clothes. The man was very heavy, and Number 8 grunted as he barely managed to pull out one arm. At that moment, he discovered the wound that had been hidden by the clothes, and as if entranced, Number 8 ran into the island.

He plucked a wide leaf from a banana tree at the entrance, chewed some medicinal herbs and spat them out, then bundled it up and ran back to the man, who by then looked almost dead. Number 8 pressed his ear to the man’s chest again. The heartbeat was slow but audible. Number 8 wrapped the leaf around the man’s side and then hugged the man’s clothes around him.

The shining buttons clinked softly.

Since he had taken something, he figured he should return something in kind… Number 8 muttered to himself, unable to take his eyes off the man’s face for some strange reason.

Just then, Number 8’s keen ears caught a faint sound calling him. And from the opposite direction, in front of him, he heard the adults’ voices along with the clanking of metal.

Without realizing it, Number 8 slipped his arm under the man’s armpit. And he dragged him into the forest. Knowing the island’s geography like the back of his hand, Number 8 knew where there was a small cave that might once have been a winter den for bears or wolves.

After leaving the man at the entrance to the path leading to the cave, Number 8 hurriedly returned and erased the marks left on the beach with his feet. After wiping away all traces of dragging the man, only his own footprints remained on the dirt. As he darted back into the forest, the adults’ voices became clearer behind him.

“Damn it! How could they attack this!”

The adults were in a highly agitated state.

“No. Look closely. It’s a patrol boat. Seems like it was on a reconnaissance mission. It’s common for scout ships to sink. They won’t send out the main force just because one of these is missing.”

The grumbling voice belonged to the unit leader.

“They might think it was torn apart by sea beasts. One ship is fine. Come on, let’s go search it. Take anything we can use. The fuel tanks too.”

“What if there are survivors?”

Number 8 flinched and crouched lower, hiding in the grass.

The unit leader’s voice was clear as he answered with a sinister laugh.

“Of course we’ll deal with them. Is that even a question?”

Number 8 hurriedly pushed through the grass and returned to the man.

The man was still pale, and Number 8 dragged his large body to the cave.

During the journey, branches left small scratches on the man’s lifeless body.

After hiding his catch, his first ‘living thing’, in the cave, Number 8 searched the forest. In the dense, jungle-like areas, there were fruits as big as a baby’s fist. Among them were fruits whose juice was given to people in treatment whenever they complained of pain. Number 8 lifted his ragged top over his stomach, filled it with fruits, and returned. He began to chew and spit them out one by one. Whenever a small amount of transparent liquid and chewed pulp collected in his cupped hand, he poured it into the man’s mouth.

“Don’t die.”

Number 8 muttered urgently.

“You’re the first living thing I’ve ever picked up.”

Number 8 massaged the man’s body with his small, fern-like hands. Color had not yet returned to his face.

“Don’t die… I’m tired of dead things now.”

Things that rot, crumble, break, and rust.

That’s all he had ever picked up as so-called treasures. But this one wasn’t rotten, it was solid and shiny. This was a real treasure. His treasure…

“If you die, I’ll kill you.”

Number 8 threatened.

The man didn’t open his eyes.

* * *

“What! Why are you empty-handed!”

Just before sunset, as Number 8 returned to the village, Number 3 ran up to him. Seeing that Number 8’s hands were empty, Number 3 cried out in shock.

“I thought you were dead since we hadn’t seen you, or that you’d caught something good, but empty-handed!”

“Uh… I caught a big fish, but I dropped it while dragging it back.”

Number 8 mumbled an excuse.

Number 3, the senior among the children who was set to board a ship next month, glared at Number 8.

“Do you think that’s an excuse?”

He knew it wasn’t, but he couldn’t say he couldn’t find anything else because he was picking up a living person. Nor could he say he picked up a living person to avoid getting scolded. If he did, the living treasure would become a dead treasure. Again.

Number 8 fidgeted with the hem of his clothes, trying to hide the stains from picking the fruits. Number 3 roughly grabbed his small body, which barely reached his stomach.

“Whatever. Just try to take care of yourself. The adults are in a good mood today because they harvested something good.”

Though his tone was a bit sharp and his touch rough, Number 3 was fond of Number 8.

It might be because Number 8 was the only survivor after all his younger siblings, Numbers 4 through 7, had died, or because Number 8 was a good swimmer and could easily memorize and find medicinal herbs and fruits in the jungle.

Anyway, Number 3 hid Number 8 behind him and headed towards the center of the village where a large bonfire was blazing.