Ire stared into the mirror, mouth agape. He rubbed his canine with his tongue before picking up the small metal file in front of him. He put the rough end of the file in his mouth and moved it back and forth, making a grating sound.
He couldn’t understand why these canines kept growing even after he’d stopped growing. Sister Agape said it was because Ire was special, but no matter how he thought about it, the only explanation was that he was underdeveloped in terms of evolution.
“Michael, come help me.”
Coming outside, he found Matteo in the kitchen, busy preparing food. Food, in this case, was just hard bread, soup, and boiled beans, but he had to be grateful to have anything to eat at all. Because of the prolonged drought, food prices had skyrocketed, and there were noticeably more people begging for survival and selling their bodies on the streets than before.
“Where did you go during the day?”
Matteo asked casually as he put the soup in a bowl. Ire stared silently at his sickly face. Matteo had been by Ire’s side since he was born. So, he had once hoped that he might be his biological father.
“You weren’t loitering near District C again, were you?”
There was a hint of anxiety in his probing gaze.
Since getting sick, he had been getting thinner day by day.
“I didn’t go.”
Ire lied shamelessly, and Matteo smiled and flicked him on the forehead. Liar. Ire rubbed his forehead and pouted. Who do you think I went for? But if he told the truth, he might be confined to the house. So, even if it was unfair, he had to shut up.
“Say ‘ah’.”
He opened his mouth as told, and Matteo looked at his canines. Not only that, but he pressed down on them with his thumb. “You need to file them often. Don’t hurt yourself like before.” Ire tensed up involuntarily at the familiar touch of his canines.
Even though it was something he had done often since he was a child, Ire had felt strange whenever Matteo touched his canines with his fingertips. Gangsan said it was an erogenous zone. It made his stomach tickle and his thighs tense up. Other people had their necks or ears, so why did it have to be his canines?
Not wanting to reveal his feelings, Ire pulled away from his hand and avoided his gaze.
“Are you a child? I can take care of it myself.”
Matteo pressed down on his head and chuckled softly.
Belatedly, the children came rushing down from the second floor and carried the soup and bread to the table.
“Ire, why are your ears red? Do you have a cold?”
“It’s hot because I was in front of the fire.”
As he made excuses, the children gathered around the table. The children were of various ages, most of them picked up by Matteo from outside or abandoned at the doorstep. Even though the church had burned down and Father Joseph had died more than a decade ago, Matteo still took care of the children.
In the noisy atmosphere, Matteo raised his index finger to his lips. Shhh.
Soon, his prayer began.
Lord, bless this food and us, which you have graciously bestowed upon us.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Amen. As soon as the prayer ended and they picked up their spoons, the light bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered frantically and went out. He went to the fuse box and flipped the breaker, but it didn’t work. Looking out the window, he saw that the surrounding houses and streetlights were all off, and it was pitch black.
As it was a frequent occurrence, Ire brought a candle, lit it, and placed it in the center of the table.
“Again? It’s been happening a lot lately.”
A girl with her hair tied back, who was next to Ire, grumbled and sighed. She was Monica, and she was more sensitive than before, perhaps because she was going through puberty. As Monica said, the power outages had become more frequent recently. It wasn’t this bad when Ire was a child. He could vaguely guess that the situation was getting worse, even without anyone telling him.
They finished their meal in a quiet atmosphere, and then each took on a share of the cleanup. After that, Ire grabbed his coat, saying he was going out for a while.
“Michael, curfew is coming up soon.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“If you break your promise this time, you’re grounded for a while.”
Matteo leaned against the kitchen wall with his arms crossed, his eyes full of worry. Ire gave him his signature relaxed smile and went outside. If it were when he was a child, he would have been scolded, but now he was twenty. He was old enough to have become independent a long time ago, so Matteo was turning a blind eye to some extent.
After going outside, he hurried along the road. Even without lights, the moon was particularly bright that day, so he was able to reach his destination easily. As he approached, he saw several shady-looking men gathered in an alley, smoking cigarettes.
“He’s here?”
Hairy, who had a crude tattoo on his neck, waved his hand. He said he got the tattoo on his neck because there was less hair there. Hairy stared at Ire with a gleaming look in his eyes. Or rather, he was giving his body a sticky once-over.
For a moment, he considered beating him up, money or no money, but he tried to calm himself down. Hairy’s father was an influential figure in District B-3, so there was no need to create trouble.
“Payment is upfront.”
Besides, he was giving him money.
Hairy scoffed as Ire held out his hand.
“Asking for money before even doing the job? Since when did our pretty boy become a robber?”
“If you’re not going to give it, forget it.”
As Ire turned to leave without hesitation, Hairy grabbed his arm. Ire gave him a cold look, and he grinned, released his arm, and shoved his hand into his pants.
“Such a temper. I’ll give it to you. Just wait a minute.”
He could hear snickers from around him, and then Hairy pulled out a crumpled bill from his underwear and held it out. “Here. I’ll give you the other half when the job is done.” Ire stared at it silently, then snatched it away and shoved it into his back pocket.
“Keep the dick smell on it as a souvenir. Or use it when you jerk off. Huh?”
Hairy’s right-hand man burst out laughing at the vulgar joke, and Ire turned around, raising his middle finger instead of answering. All the way, they rattled on about who they slept with last night, and whose breasts were the biggest.
With only the sound of footsteps in the darkness, they walked for a long time and arrived at an inn at the edge of the village. The inn was just as dark due to the blackout, but a faint light was leaking from the second-floor window, as if candles were lit.
Hairy rubbed his hands together, took a deep breath, and approached Ire, handing him a lantern.
“Pretty boy, this is precious. Take good care of it.”
Ire took the lantern in his hand and held it tightly.
“Keep watch, and if the innkeeper shows up, whistle right away. Got it?”
Then he took out a hatchet from his coat. The atmosphere was ominous. He thought they were just going to steal something, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case. He thought about calling it off and going back, but he couldn’t help but feel bad about the remaining payment he was supposed to receive. He nodded reluctantly, and Hairy and his gang went upstairs.
As he stood alone guarding the entrance, someone walked out of the darkness. When he shone the light on him, a man who seemed drunk staggered past, muttering an unintelligible song.
Ire looked up at the dark night sky and sighed in relief.
At that moment, there was a crash and a scream from above. The moment he turned around, he couldn’t help but doubt his eyes. A dark mass smashed through the second-floor window and bounced out. With a thud! The man who fell to the ground was Hairy’s right-hand man, who had gone up earlier.
“What the…!”
The man writhed in pain with his arms and legs twisted, and then fierce shouts and curses shook the street. What should he do? Should he go upstairs? What if he got caught up in something troublesome? If he left like this, what about the rest of the money? He needed money to get proper medicine.
There was a sound on the stairs, and when he quickly shone the light, a man rushed out with a terrified look on his face, as if he had seen a ghost, and collapsed. Blood gurgled from the man’s neck, soaking the floor. The noisy second floor was now as quiet as a mouse.
Ire quickly turned off the lantern and glared upwards. Someone was looking down through the window in the darkness. He knew instinctively that it wasn’t Hairy. And that he had to run away.
As soon as he sensed the danger, he jumped like a spring and started running in the opposite direction from his house. How far had he run? The lantern he had stuck in his back pocket fell to the ground with a thud, and Ire stopped. He couldn’t leave it behind, as he could trade the lantern for a good amount of food.
As he bent down to pick up the lantern, he heard footsteps approaching from afar. Ire stayed in that position, only raising his head to stare straight ahead.
“…Who is it?”
The other person was silent. Was it a passing drunk? Or was it one of Hairy’s gang who had run away? Or maybe… He slowly picked up the lantern, straightened his back, and pressed the button, and a bright light shone forward.
A pair of black shoes, which were hard to come by here, came into view first.
Calming his rapid breathing, he tried to put strength into his trembling hands. The moment he slowly raised the light, Ire’s eyes widened. The man standing in front of him was holding a familiar head in his hand.
Then, the head rolled and stopped at Ire’s feet. Hairy, his neck severed, met his death without even closing his eyes, as if he had been wronged.
“How disloyal. You shouldn’t abandon your friends.”
A chillingly low voice.
Immediately followed by the sound of feet kicking off the ground.
Instinctively sensing the danger, he pointed the light upwards. The man was falling from the air with a gleaming hatchet in his hand. To survive, Ire grabbed the handle of the hatchet with one hand and the man’s arm with the other. The other man pushed relentlessly, and Ire put all his strength into resisting.
“Ha, you’re blocking?”