GB 20

Haero was so startled that he couldn’t even think to scream. His light body was suddenly half-lifted and dragged away. His breath quickened and his heart raced. Before he could even calm his startled chest, the person who had dragged Haero spun them around.

“…Number 3?”

The one who had pulled Haero was none other than Number 3.

Number 3’s eyebrows were raised high, his expression twitching, yet his eyes were moist.

He looked troubled, as if he had much to say but didn’t know where to start, then suddenly pulled Haero into a tight embrace. “Where on earth have you been!”

The hands holding Haero were trembling, and the breath on their neck was warmly pungent. Haero realized that Number 3 had been desperately searching and truly worried about him.

At that moment, Haero transformed from Haero back to Number 8.

Overcome with emotion and choked up, Haero hugged Number 3 back, sobbing, “Hyung…”

He should have asked where Number 3 had been or if he also had escaped the island and come here, but no words came out.

The two children hugged each other and cried loudly. Noticing passersby watching and about to say something, Number 3 roughly wiped his face and pulled Haero into the bathroom.

The stalls were spacious enough to fit both children with room to spare.

“Where have you been all this time?! Where did you go that I haven’t seen you even once until now!” Number 3 urgently asked what he had been curious about.

“I, I was, I was here. Just, just here from the beginning…” Haero rambled, knowing that even he didn’t understand what he was saying.

In truth, there was no other way to explain it.

Number 3’s eyes widened. “You didn’t call those monsters, did you?”

“Monsters?” Haero shuddered and looked up at Number 3 with frightened eyes.

Number 3 lowered his voice and pressed, “The navy! I mean the navy!”

“But, but now you know too, right? You saw. Those people aren’t monsters. They look just like us, and maybe…”

The words “maybe the monsters are the adults we knew” couldn’t quite come out.

“The other adults…?”

As Haero hesitantly asked without finishing his sentence, Number 3 softened his glare a little. “…I don’t know. Me neither.”

“Then what about the babies?”

“The babies came with me but went somewhere else.”

“What ship did you come on? Did you ride a big ship too?”

If Haero had been a little older, he might have remembered Yoon Moo-hwa waiting for him, but being inevitably still a child, he could only process one thing at a time. Right now, the biggest immediate issue for Haero was Number 3.

“I did ride a big ship too…”

“Then did you get seasick too? Like throwing up and stuff. I thought it would be just like swimming, but it wasn’t. I got really seasick.” Haero excitedly blurted out words rapidly.

Number 3 had also been severely seasick. In fact, worse than Haero. Even medication didn’t help, which was troublesome.

However, honestly sharing such a story would hurt his pride, so Number 3 boasted with a lie. “I wasn’t sick at all. I guess I’m a true seaman after all.”

Haero looked somewhat shocked at Number 3’s words.

Then am I not a seaman?

As Haero still wanted to ride a ship with Yoon Moo-hwa again, those words caused him considerable distress.

In any case, Number 3 had a more important issue than ships. “Did you see the adults?”

“No, no.” Haero shook his head.

Number 3 grabbed his shoulders and shook him while asking, “You didn’t call those monsters, did you?”

That question was terrifying.

Haero didn’t understand why Number 3 thought that way, but when Yoon Moo-hwa reappeared, he wasn’t with the adults he had left with. He was with the navy, whom they had been taught were monsters. If Yoon Moo-hwa had called the monsters… does that mean I called Yoon Moo-hwa?

Overwhelmed by fear, Haero could barely meet Number 3’s eyes. “Then let’s go find our adults.”

No matter how much Number 3 pretended to be an adult in front of Haero, he was still just a child of thirteen or fourteen years old. He may have been seasoned on the island, but not at the base. If he had grown up at the base, he might have had more social knowledge, but having grown up in an almost wild environment, Number 3 moved on instinct like an untamed beast.

“Let’s find them, and since adults can operate ships, let’s go back.”

Number 3 seemed to have already made up his mind. However, contrary to his resolute words, his eyes were trembling with great anxiety. It was just that Haero was still too young to notice.

“You’ll come with me, right?” Number 3’s eyes flashed with that question.

It was because he was crying. Number 3’s eyes were brimming with tears, glistening in the bathroom light. And he was even more desperate. The frightened child was afraid to act alone. He needed at least one more person and wanted to see even just one familiar face. When he accidentally encountered Number 8, Number 3 wanted to scream and sob at the same time.

And Haero, also just a child, couldn’t refuse Number 3’s words. That look in his eyes, the hands gripping him tightly – seeing all this, Haero couldn’t just turn away.

The fear, the new environment surrounding them, the immense loneliness it brought, the sense of being out of place.

Haero was still too young to understand and process all of this, and could only grasp the hand of someone familiar.

When Haero took his hand, Number 3 visibly relaxed. While smiling brightly, Number 3 slipped out of the bathroom with Haero and evaded the childcare worker who had brought him, leaving the hospital. 

As he was pulled along by Number 3’s hand, Haero kept looking back, wiping away tears when the other wasn’t watching. The shrinking hospital building seemed as distant as a sandcastle being washed away by waves.

* * *

The base was too big for two children to wander around. Moreover, most areas were military zones. To avoid people asking if they were lost, they hid in alleys whenever possible, quickly becoming dirty and sweaty.

“Number 8,” Number 3 called Haero in a tired voice.

Haero wanted to say that he now had a name, but fearing it would greatly upset Number 3, he couldn’t bring himself to speak up.

“The adults here are strange.” Number 3 walked slowly, their joined hands hanging limply.

The sun was already setting where they were heading. If they were on the island, it would be time to go to the cave. Before the long night came, to retrieve his souvenir.

Yoon Moo-hwa.

Haero bit his lip hard, feeling like they might burst into tears. Yoon Moo-hwa had told him to wait. But Haero couldn’t ignore Number 3 either. Right now, Number 3 seemed like sea foam – as if he might disappear with just a moment’s distraction.

“Everyone here is kind. Even though I haven’t earned my keep, they don’t hit me and even give me food. The clothes are clean to a strange degree, and when they ask what I do all day, they say I can do whatever I want.” Number 3, who had been muttering monotonously, stopped walking.

There were many ships lined up. Number 3 and Haero, who didn’t understand the meaning of harbored ships or that this was a port, felt somehow deflated. At the sight of so many ships – the very things they had longed for, that had seemed like a dream.

“They say the adults were pirates. Do you know what pirates are?”

Haero knew a little now. If he hadn’t known, even after hearing that the adults were pirates, he might have thought, “Oh, I see. Then I can become a pirate when I grow up too.”

Haero hesitantly stood beside Number 3. After turning his head to look at him, Haero saw Number 3’s face contorted with eyes tightly shut and tears falling steadily.

“You don’t need to know.”

Number 3 pushed Haero aside with a gentle hand. Though he had realized he was actually too young to board a ship and needed protection, he still wanted to act like an older brother in front of Number 8. He didn’t want to worry Number 8 too. He turned his head and quickly wiped his face. But it only made him dirtier. It only made him look more pitiful. 

Seeing this, Haero began to sniffle too.

I actually know that too, hyung. But I don’t want to be on the bad side. Haero wanted to say that, but he couldn’t because he thought Number 3 would burst into tears if he did.

“Go back,” Number 3 mumbled. “Go where you belong. I’ll go to where I belong too.”

“Hey, hyung, where are you going?” Haero asked urgently. “You’re not trying to return to the island alone, are you? That’s a long way. You’ll need a big ship. You know, like the one we came on.”

“Then…” Number 3 looked at Haero with a face soaked in tears. “Then will you come with me?”

Haero stopped wringing his clothes, unable to keep still due to anxiety. “How can we go by ourselves… without adults?”

“Will you come with me? Just us, without adults.”

Haero couldn’t answer.

Number 3 looked at the distant sea. The sunset was dyeing the sea crimson, and it was unbelievably vast. Although he had always seen it while on the island, it now felt unfamiliar. 

Yes, it was scary. Number 3 was afraid of that place. The newfound kindness and warmth, the seasickness that assured him he would never become a sailor… were throwing the island where he grew up into a distant memory.

“I think I wouldn’t be scared if you said you’d come with me.”

Haero couldn’t answer Number 3’s somewhat dazed voice. He hesitated.

“Why? Are you scared of the sea now too?”

“No. That’s not it.”

It wasn’t that… it was because Haero was thinking of what he had left behind.

There was nothing left behind on the island. Haero had nothing there. If Yoon Moo-hwa was still in the cave, Haero would have found a way to go back. But Yoon Moo-hwa was here. Back there, along with the house with the radio playing the sound of waves and the big pajamas.

Haero kept looking back.

Would Yoon Moo-hwa be waiting for him? Or would he have left him behind for not listening? Would he scold him if he went back? Like the adults he knew.

“Number 8,” Number 3 murmured, still gazing across the sea. “I’m sorry.”

“…”

“I got a name. It’s not a name given by the adults. Well, it is from adults, but different adults. The grown-up monsters, I mean.” Number 3’s face looked somewhat relieved as he spoke mischievously. He must mean the navy adults. “My name is Suhee. Not Number 3.”

Haero blinked, looking at the crimson-glowing eyes of Number 3, no, Suhee hyung.

“I, I got a name too.” It was the first time he was introducing his name to someone other than Yoon Moo-hwa. He was glad that the first person he was introducing himself to was Number 3, no, Suhee hyung.

“My name is Haero. Not Number 8…”

“Haero,” Suhee murmured, grinning again. “Haero.”

At the sound of his name being called, Haero felt an unbearable longing to see Yoon Moo-hwa. Just as there are paths on the vast ocean, even at the edge of an enormous unknown base, Haero felt he knew the way back. Not to the empty island, but to Yoon Moo-hwa.

Their two shadows stretched endlessly in the sunset.

No matter how long the shadows grew, there were only two small children there. Despite pretending to be adults and believing themselves to be grown up as they were raised, it was just a shadow. In reality, they were children who deserved protection, lost children.