You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

‘Go!’ I yelled.

Instead of running, he immediately started spraying pellets at me. A pre-emptive ambush. It was a tactic I used often, though that day I’d decided not to. I wasn’t going to shoot until I got closer to the tower. I fled down the left side of the path, dashing through the crab apple trees until I stopped behind a long rock. I surveyed the damage. My goggles were cracked, my lip was split, my nose was bruised and my jaw throbbed. The smell of blood filled up my body in a flash. I was angry. I’d foreseen all kind of things; how had I not anticipated my brother imitating me? I took off the stupid goggles and hurled them against the rock. I rubbed the tip of my nose with my thumb. The spring breeze gently tickled the back of my neck, as if to soothe me.

Of course I didn’t believe that all competition had to be fair. Winning was the goal for everyone. But I couldn’t stand it if someone else won. Then they deserved to pay for it, even if it was my brother.

I took my shirt off and tied it around my waist, and my body sprang into gear. I ran onto the ridge of the field piled with dried corn stalks, my first stopover spot. Yu-min began firing from the opposite side. I didn’t return fire. I focused only on running until I got past the yellow water tank and fertiliser shed, behind a thick grove of trees. I ducked my head and lay on my belly behind a tree. The gunfire stopped immediately. I heard faint clicks, the sound of Yu-min refilling the magazine. He was down forty pellets.

The next stop was the beehives. It was quite a distance, across an open meadow. I would have to focus and trust my cheetah legs. I bent over, my head ducked low, and sprinted through the pellets raining down on me. A few sailed above my head, some grazed my face, and others hit me elsewhere, but I wasn’t dealt a finishing blow. Yu-min refilled his magazine twice. He was now down to eighty pellets.

I ran towards the abandoned village. Using the beehives as cover, I made up the distance towards Yu-min. Pellets began whizzing past my ears again but by the time I got to the steel-roofed house at the edge of the village, I had finally overtaken him. Yu-min arrived on the opposite side a few seconds later. I plastered myself against the flapping, rusted wall and heard him change his magazine for the fourth time. He was down to his last forty pellets.

I stuck my head out, trying to get him to use up all his pellets. He didn’t disappoint. Forty pellets instantly blasted towards me. I heard a clicking sound and everything became quiet. Now he was all done. He would be grimacing and looking in the last magazine. He was so consumed by his desire to take me out that he’d probably forgotten how far we were from the bell tower, otherwise he wouldn’t have used up all his ammunition this early.

I smiled. I hadn’t even used my weapon yet. I moved away from the wall, pointed my gun in front of me and walked carefully out to the middle of the path. It was my turn now.

When I got to a small creek in front of a thicket, I heard something whizzing towards me. Before I could react, something had exploded at the centre of my forehead. My head snapped back and my knees folded. I fell, holding my forehead. Something warm trickled through my fingers. I heard someone running towards me, giggling. A moment later, a pair of eyes was looking into mine. They were innocent and happy, asking, You’re still not dead? ‘See ya!’ He waved and took off. I saw his slingshot waving in the air. The world turned dark. Blood was covering my eyes. I managed to sit up. I took my shirt off my waist and wiped my eyes and face with it.

I felt my way down to the creek. I sat in the icy water and washed the wound. I thought back to how he’d bugged me to join in the game and how he had played along until he’d let the pebble fly into my forehead. Of course. He was, after all, experienced at this game. Using up all his pellets was just a cover so that I would walk into his trap.

The bell clanged. It wasn’t the wind. It was clear that someone was ringing it. It announced the end of our game and declared Yu-min the winner.

I crawled out of the creek, tied my shirt back around my waist and picked up my gun. I started running towards the cliff. The soles of my feet burned. My sweat dried up and I tasted sourness in my mouth. I didn’t feel any pain. I even forgot I was hurt. A solution was bubbling up from somewhere deep in my heart. I had to correct this unfair result.

The bell stopped ringing when I got near the tower.

‘Stop there,’ Yu-min commanded.

I didn’t. I didn’t stop there and I didn’t stop running. Panting, I kept racing towards the bell tower.

‘I said stop!’

The blood kept flowing down over my eyes, making it harder and harder to see. The boundaries between sky and sea and cliff were disappearing. The bell tower loomed like a long red ladder. In the middle was Yu-min, who looked like a shadow.

‘Stop, I said!’

Something flew past my ear. I was sure it was a pebble. It grazed the side of my head. Then another whizzed overhead.

I kept going, nearly leaping, as though readying myself for a run-up for the long jump. One step, two step… I grabbed the railing and vaulted up and over. I leant forward and yanked the slingshot out of his hand. He gasped and tipped back towards the ocean. Before I knew what was happening, everything was over. He wasn’t in front of me any more. Only his scream rang out in my ears. ‘Yu-jin!’

His voice slowly vanished. A terrifying, dreadful quiet. I couldn’t breathe. Blood whooshed in my ears. My head was burning, and my body felt as if it was being ravaged by spreading wildfire.

I heard Mother calling, ‘Yu-jin!’

Gripping tightly to the slingshot, I glared out at the ashy sea. It wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even touch him. Mother called again, right behind me. ‘Yu-jin!’

On the morning of 16 April, a father from Seoul trying to rescue his son, who had fallen into the ocean, lost his life in Tan Island, Sinan-gun, Jeonnam Province. Both Han Min-seok (40) and his son Yu-min (10), who were staying at a lodge on the seaside cliff with their family, drowned. Han jumped into the water to save his son, who had been playing on the bell tower of an abandoned church and had fallen fifteen metres. Both were caught in the rough tide. The police said they were investigating the precise details of the accident.

I kept rereading that sixteen-year-old newspaper article at the pergola table. I’d found it stuck on the last page of the journal. Mother must have cut it out and saved it. Why did she want to keep this? As a souvenir to look back at the incident? To remind herself that it was a lie? To remind herself that I’d killed my brother? If she had believed me, if she’d believed that it was an accident, would everything have turned out differently? Would I have become an average harmless person in her eyes? Would we have lived together for a long time?

I flicked the lighter and set fire to the article. I threw it in the barbecue. I pushed the pages of the journal on top of it, one by one, taking my time. I burned it all. I felt as if I had cremated myself alive. The past lives to which I couldn’t return bobbed above the dying fire. Rage and despair and self-pity churned violently in my head. The sorrow that had been pressed deep in my stomach erupted like heartburn. My body grew limp. All of it was awful.

Reality opened up once the embers died down. The moment I could no longer put off had arrived; I had learned all there was to learn and got all the answers I could. I had to make a decision. What was I going to do? A chill ran down my back. I closed the barbecue and came down from the pergola. I stared at the ground as I walked, moving slowly to delay the moment of decision by even a few seconds. What would Hae-jin do if he were me? I leant my head back and squinted at the sky. Light snow flurries were coming down. The pale winter sun was sinking below the heavy clouds. I drew in a breath and let it out in a long sigh, and I could see my breath before me in the air. Another chill went down my back. The cold dug into my teeth. Darwin’s maxim came to mind: adapt or die.