WeTried Translations

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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 19

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The Beast's Den (4)

Still clutching his face, Kim Tae-yang raised his head.

The Han father and son stood right in front of him. Their eyes seemed fixed on the soaked crotch of his trousers.

A jolt of fear shot through him.

'What if these bastards go around blabbing about this?'

A rumor that the great Kim Tae-yang had pissed himself on the mountain, bawled for his mama, and blubbered like a baby?

His vision went black. If he could just bury this humiliation, he felt like he'd do anything.

'Kill them? Just kill them outright? Tell Uncle Sun-dae, bury them out here on this mountain where no one would ever find them...'

Kim Tae-yang clutched his head.

'...does that even make any sense, damn it.'

Even Kim Tae-yang knew there was no way Pi Sun-dae would commit murder and a secret burial just to cover up some guy's embarrassment. It was only yesterday that he'd taken a dipperful of cursing about not causing trouble.

On top of that, if Pi Sun-dae found out, then his mom and dad would find out, and then his noonas[1] would find out, and then his noonas' customers would find out, and then the whole of Joseon, all eight provinces[2]...

[The next moving picture to be screened is 'The Bedwetter of the Kim Household.']

[Seorak[3]. A land where harsh nature lives and breathes. Here. A boy crouches behind a rock like a rat...]

'No!'

He wanted, violently, to die.

Should he just bite his tongue off right now? Did biting your tongue actually kill you? Why was dying such a painful, complicated process for humans? Couldn't you just say 'I wanna die,' and have the grim reaper pop up, go 'sure, go ahead and die,' and whisk you away?

Trembling, Kim Tae-yang squeezed his thighs together. The motion sent the stink of urine wafting up, and he had to cover his face again.

Han San looked down at him with dry eyes, the way you'd look at a pebble rolling around on the roadside. That gaze, which didn't even hold contempt, made Kim Tae-yang feel even more wretched...

That was when it happened.

Thump, press.

Han Man-seok, leaning on his cane, stepped up in front of Kim Tae-yang.

"Uh, uhh...! Why, why... I wasn't even thinking anything...!"

Kim Tae-yang scrambled backward on his rear in a panic. He wondered if the murderous thought he'd held a moment ago had been found out.

A grab.

That was when Han Man-seok's hand seized the waistband of Kim Tae-yang's trousers.

"Huh? M-mister?"

Kim Tae-yang flailed in confusion, but he couldn't move an inch.

It was as if steel shackles had been clamped on him. Han San's grip choking his neck yesterday had been horrifying too, but where on earth this scrawny old man's hand drew such strength from, he couldn't tell.

An overwhelming force, like a slab of rock bearing down on him.

'Th-this household... are they all monsters of strength?'

Riiip!

It was the sound of Han Man-seok pulling Kim Tae-yang's trousers down.

"Wh-whoa! Wh-what are you doing! Mama, mamaa!"

Kim Tae-yang screamed, but Han Man-seok carried on in silence. With his unhesitating hands, the trousers were stripped clean down to the ankles.

His lower half suddenly bared, all Kim Tae-yang could do was tremble and clamp his naked legs together.

Watching that, Han San stepped forward with a frown.

"Father. Why are you touching that filthy thing? Just leave a guy like that to crawl back down on his own..."

But Han Man-seok silently raised a hand. Han San started to say something, then had no choice but to shut his mouth.

Han Man-seok rolled up the urine-reeking trousers and gripped them indifferently, the way you'd handle the hide of game.

"Let's go."

"Y-yes?"

"Wash up."

Kim Tae-yang, who had been shaking, paused and raised his head.

The old hunter turned and began to walk.

"Follow me. You'll catch a cold."

The deserted streamside upriver of Meokbawi Valley.

Crackle, crackle.

The sound of a burning bonfire filled the silence.

Kim Tae-yang sat huddled beside that bonfire, wearing only his shirt. The thigh the badger had slammed into was crusted with crushed, nameless medicinal herbs.

"Ugh..."

Kim Tae-yang, who rarely kept his mouth shut and couldn't get out a sentence without the word damn when he did open it, was simply glum in a situation like this, where the mountain wind made his fully exposed balls shrivel tight.

'It's cold.'

Hugging his knees, Tae-yang kept his gaze fixed on the stream. Han San and Han Man-seok had settled in over there.

They seemed to be talking quietly about something, but the distance kept him from hearing, and Kim Tae-yang couldn't even tell whether he wanted to. He was scared it might be talk mocking him...

It wasn't, of course.

"Father, I'll do it."

"No need."

Han Man-seok was crouched at the streamside, washing Kim Tae-yang's trousers.

Scrub, scrub. He laid the trousers flat on a broad slab of rock and, gripping three pebbles in his knobby-knuckled hand, worked them so the wide stains below the crotch faded little by little.

Han San was dumbfounded.

"No, why are you the one washing that delinquent's piss-soaked trousers, Father..."

"Aren't you the one who set this up?"

At Han Man-seok's flat remark, Han San shut his mouth.

Opened it.

Shut it again. Started to open it, shut it once more, went "Ah," and scratched the back of his head hard.

'There's no way he doesn't know.'

There was no way his father didn't know he'd done it on purpose, that he'd used Kim Tae-yang as an obstacle to block the badger's path.

'An excuse...'

Should he say that guy had nearly ruined their hunt? That he'd tried to snatch the wire yesterday. That he'd surely come along today with no good intentions, either.

Or, actually, that he'd already set a wire snare in front of the badger's back den, so if the badger had been caught there he wouldn't have needed to use him, and if the thing had bolted in his own direction he wouldn't have needed to either...

'Forget it.'

Maybe at eighteen, but at seventy-four, whining things like "He's the bad guy!" or "I had it all planned out!" in front of his father — no way, never.

He lowered the hand scratching his head and simply said,

"Let's do it together, Father."

Han Man-seok didn't refuse. He shifted his rear to the side, making room for his son.

Splash, splash.

The two men's hands took turns dipping into the cold valley water and coming back out.

Scrub, scrub. For a while only the sound of scrubbing the delinquent's piss-soaked trousers echoed through the valley.

They rinsed until the stains were gone, wrung the water out tight, and laid the trousers on a rock in the sunlight.

Only then did Han Man-seok speak, with a certain weight.

"Well done."

Han San paused.

When he turned to look, his father was watching him.

Han San had thought he'd sorted out his head while washing the trousers, but hearing those words tangled it up again, and only after a moment did he speak.

"You're not angry?"

"The hunter caught his game, and no one got hurt. Then you did well."

Han Man-seok gripped the cloth-wrapped stick.

"The method."

Han Man-seok rose to his feet.

"You handle that yourself."

Pat, pat.

It was the sound of one hunter's hand tapping another hunter's shoulder.

"I won't have to worry anymore."

Han San drew in a deep breath.

There was no long-winded praise, no grand speech, no nitpicking interrogation about what he'd done, no lengthy footnotes to his own words.

But Han San understood all of it, and didn't misread a single corner of it.

He understood perfectly that "well done" was not some childish line like "you tamed that fellow who dared try to harm us," and that "handle it yourself" was not some heartless line like "I don't know anything about it, so you take responsibility."

His father had just said "you've grown up now"!

His judgment, his method, even the part of it some might call cruel — his father had decided to respect all of it.

Equal companions, each with his own way.

Because that was how a grown man treated another grown man.

'Father.'

Han San felt a deep wave of emotion. Being "no longer seen as a child" was far more gratifying than anything like "the good son in his father's eyes."

At the same time, a feeling of guilt welled up.

It wasn't some cheap sentiment like "I'm sorry I'm not a good son," of course.

In what had just happened, there was at least one thing he clearly owed an apology for.

"Next time we do this, I'll tell you beforehand."

He should have said in advance that he was going to use one stupid guy as bait, before he gave the signal to push smoke into the den.

Sharing every variable ahead of time, as much as possible. Wasn't that, too, the courtesy a companion owed a companion?

"Mm."

Han Man-seok nodded. The corners of his mouth, which hadn't been all that downturned to begin with, this time clearly turned up.

Han San felt the back of his throat grow hot.

That was when it happened.

"Um..."

A small voice came creeping over from the bonfire.

"The trousers... uh... wouldn't they dry better if you hung them near the bonfire...?"

It was Kim Tae-yang. The guy who'd been huddled there pitifully had apparently worked up the courage, and he was watching them with cowed eyes.

The Han father and son looked at each other.

Han San scrunched up his brow hard.

"You got no hands, no feet? Come get them yourself and hang them up, punk."

[1] Noona (누나) is the Korean kinship term a younger male uses to address or refer to an older sister or older woman; here it points to Kim Tae-yang's sisters, who work serving customers.

[2] The "Eight Provinces" (팔도, 八道) were the historical administrative divisions of Joseon-era Korea, used idiomatically to mean the entire country.

[3] Seorak (설악) refers to Seoraksan, the rugged mountain range in Gangwon Province that forms the story's setting.

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