It was a closed-off village that had ostracized the world.
The mere attempt to open its doors was tremendous progress.
Once exchanges with the outside had progressed to some extent, they would be able to leave with easier hearts.
Because they could not stay forever, they had worried about what would come next.
That worry was being relieved.
They could set aside the reality before them for a moment and smile.
After finishing a cup of tea, Raku returned to the temporary lodging that had been prepared.
He also promised he would come back before the food ran out, no matter how late.
As always, Raku’s promise would surely be kept.
Before they knew it, it was time for bed.
The three of them lay side by side in sleeping bags on field cots.
Inside the pitch-black house.
Taesu’s quiet voice rang out.
“Today was another hectic day.”
“That nap earlier was just dozing off. Haaam.”
“Let’s just sleep. Good night.”
Kim Hyeokgwon ended the conversation.
As if that was what they had all wanted, silence fell in an instant.
For now, it was enough simply to imagine a future filled with hope.
Thanks to that, the sharp edges that had made them prickly with each other all this time had been blunted.
And so, with smiles on their faces, the three of them quietly fell asleep.
The next morning.
Perhaps because it had been the first good, deep sleep in a long while, the faces of the three sleeping men looked relaxed.
But then, out of nowhere, came a bolt from the blue.
“Move quickly.”
“Everyone, hurry.”
Some loud noise outside grated on their ears.
Springing up.
The three of them instinctively kicked off their covers and shot to their feet.
“Just when I thought I’d finally get some decent sleep.”
“Sleep? With our lot in life?”
“Let’s go out. We’ll talk outside.”
The three of them hastily threw on whatever they could and ran out.
They roughly kicked open the wooden front door and emerged outside.
Bang.
But the sound beneath their feet was somehow strange.
Crunch.
Before they even had time to wonder about it, they came to an automatic stop at the pure white scene spread out before their eyes.
“It’s snow.”
It was the first snow in Kashmir, fallen overnight.
Unexpectedly, Kim Hyeokgwon was delighted at the sight.
“Wow, snow. There are plenty of winters in India where you don’t even get to see snow before they pass.”
Crunch. Crunch.
As if he enjoyed the feeling of stepping on snow, he walked this way and that.
It was deep enough to cover their ankles.
It had fallen just enough to be perfect for enjoying a first snow.
A smile full of pure innocence rose on Kim Hyeokgwon’s face.
It was not an expression one could easily see from him.
But there was no time to keep watching that smile.
Whoosh, whoosh.
Behind Kim Hyeokgwon, the villagers could be seen moving about busily.
Jeong Minsu followed them with his gaze and asked,
“Taesu, why does everyone seem so tense?”
“Yeah. It’s not enough to interfere with work… Hm? Isn’t that Kim Hyeongyeong over there? Songhui’s mother.”
“Yeah. Are the other women going to Changgyu’s place too?”
Just then, Kim Hyeokgwon, who had somehow stopped, looked elsewhere and said,
“Over there, the men are all rushing up the mountain in a crowd.”
“That’s not toward the worksite, is it?”
“What should we do?”
The moment Kim Hyeokgwon asked in return.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu quickly exchanged glances and said,
“I’ll go to the mountain.”
“Then I’ll go to Changgyu’s.”
“Split up.”
Thud-thud.
The moment they decided, Taesu and Jeong Minsu ran off in opposite directions.
But Kim Hyeokgwon had not been assigned anything.
His expression, as always, was carefree, and he even went back to stepping on the snow.
Crunch, crunch.
“The feeling of stepping on snow really is nice.”
Enjoying the leisure, he moved his hand to his waist.
Beep.
He was turning on his radio.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu had instinctively taken theirs with them as they left.
So he continued enjoying the snow a little more until a call came in.
Meanwhile.
Taesu followed the villagers along the mountain path.
He lost sight of them for a moment, but soon located them by the urgent voices that reached his ears.
“Clear it quickly, hurry.”
“You should go over there.”
The voices passing back and forth were sharper than ever.
With an even graver face, Taesu ran as fast as he could.
Crunch.
Fortunately, when he arrived in such haste, there were no patients to be found.
Village Chief Jeon Nosik, Gang Yeonghun, Jo Jeongmin, Lee Manseok, and others.
The men of the village were continuing their frantic, hurried work.
Taesu, who had been watching quietly, tilted his head.
“Graves?”
As Taesu muttered, there were indeed graves.
Judging by the several burial mounds, it seemed to be the village cemetery.
It was a place he had not even known existed.
The fact that there were graves near the village was not surprising.
Everyone was hurrying to clear the snow covering the burial mounds.
Step, step.
Taesu slowly approached, following the tracks someone had already made in the snow.
Unaware of Taesu’s gaze, everyone devoted themselves only to their tasks.
With several people moving swiftly, the snow on the mounds was swept clean in no time.
Only then did everyone let out rough breaths.
“Haa, haa.”
“Hah. Hah.”
“Whew…”
In the meantime, Taesu approached and calmly taught them how to steady their breathing.
“It may be hard, but breathing in as deeply as you can will calm you down faster.”
“Huuuum, fuuuu.”
Everyone immediately put into practice exactly what Taesu had told them.
Drip, drip.
Even in the subzero weather, beads of sweat had formed on their faces.
Taesu’s gaze had, at some point, turned to the burial mounds.
As he was looking around, Gang Yeonghun approached.
“It seems we woke you because of us.”
“That’s all right, but… I’m sorry, may I ask the reason?”
“Does it seem strange?”
When he asked, Taesu answered cautiously.
“It doesn’t feel like something I should speak carelessly about.”
“It’s only right that it looks strange. It would melt even if we didn’t go out of our way to do this.”
Gang Yeonghun spoke in a bitter voice.
The fact that they knew that and were doing it deliberately stirred Taesu’s curiosity a little more.
“I’m becoming more and more curious.”
“Hmm.”
“If it’s difficult to tell me…”
Just as Taesu subtly took a step back, intending to look for another chance later.
Gang Yeonghun, who had been thinking deeply, suddenly opened his mouth.
“A few years ago… there was a terrible avalanche.”
“An avalanche?”
“Yes. After we moved here, it was the first avalanche that large.”
Gang Yeonghun’s voice was heavy.
Through experience, Taesu instinctively sensed that something had happened.
“Mm.”
“These are the people who died while protecting the villagers then.”
“I… see.”
When his guess proved correct, Taesu grew even more solemn.
But there was something even more important than that.
“The reason the villagers don’t go outside. No, the reason they couldn’t go outside… was because of that incident.”
“What do you…”
“It was the day the people who had gone outside were coming back.”
“…”
Taesu reduced even his responses and listened intently.
As if he was now recalling that time, Gang Yeonghun continued speaking with reddened eyes.
“The people who had walked for days through the cold were the first to discover the avalanche.”
“I see.”
“They ran into the village and shouted for everyone to get inside their houses.”
“Yes.”
“But they themselves did not go inside.”
At those words, Taesu flinched and looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because someone had to block the front doors.”
“When an avalanche happens, a tremendous wind rushes in first. The latches on several houses were broken, so doors were flapping open here and there.”
Perhaps because he had already begun speaking, Gang Yeonghun continued.
Even imagining it made Taesu dizzy, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“…”
Even so, he could not stop Gang Yeonghun’s voice from flowing into his ears.
“They blocked the broken doors with their whole bodies. Until the end… until the avalanche stopped.”
“Ahem.”
“You asked me before, didn’t you? What had happened to Changgyu’s mother.”
“I did, but…”
Just as Taesu trailed off.
Slowly.
Gang Yeonghun pointed to a nearby grave.
“That is Changgyu’s father’s grave. Lee Gyojin. He was the older brother I liked most.”
“Don’t tell me…”
“The latch on Changgyu’s house… was broken.”
“Hh.”
Taesu’s eyes shook violently.
As if Gang Yeonghun could no longer speak, he turned his head to the side.
“Kh-hh.”
Village Chief Jeon Nosik, who had approached in his stead, opened his mouth.
“He held out with his own body. In the middle of it all, he shouted to Changgyu. He told him to take good care of his mother. To live well and not make things hard for her.”
“…”
“When the avalanche ended, Gyojin was found right there.”
“Huuup.”
Taesu let out a rough breath.
Even at that sound, Village Chief Jeon Nosik spoke again.
“Changgyu’s mother gathered him up with her own hands then. Without even knowing how her own leg had been twisted, crying and crying all the while.”
“So that’s…”
“Yes. Since that day, both her body and her heart… fell ill. Whew.”
Village Chief Jeon Nosik also found it difficult to say more.
Kim Gwanghyeon spoke the rest in his place.
“They say Changgyu cried out for his father until he fainted. That’s why his memory of that day isn’t very clear.”
“…”
“But ever since that day, he became a child who would wake from sleep for anything involving his mother, and do whatever it took.”
“I see.”
Taesu answered in a subdued voice.
It was the moment the very first question he had had upon coming to this village was answered.
But the more he heard, the heavier his heart became.
At some point, the villagers had gathered around them.
“We do this every time snow falls so these fellows won’t get snow on them.”
“Juyeong has a fit whenever it snows.”
“Changgyu also becomes very sharp, very irritable.”
“We should have tended to it in advance, but, sigh.”
Everyone was filled with complicated feelings.
Taesu felt the same, so he could only imagine how much worse it must be for them.
His heart grew heavy, filled to the brim.
Taesu, who had been standing still, suddenly flinched.
He quickly took out his radio.
It was off.
Taesu hurriedly turned it on and called for Jeong Minsu first.
Beep.
“Minsu, Minsu.”
—Beep. Why are you only turning on your radio now?
“What happened?”
—Beep. For now, I administered sedatives and sleeping pills to both of them. It was chaos.
Jeong Minsu’s voice, fierce at first, gradually quieted.
With a bitter face, Taesu apologized first.
“Sorry. I forgot because I ran here.”
—Beep. But wait, how do you know what’s going on over here?
“Let’s talk later. Anyway, there’s no problem right now, right?”
—Beep. Yeah. Kim Hyeongyeong and a few others said they’d watch them here. I’ll give them the call bell and head back to the house.
“Okay. See you at the house.”
Taesu answered and lowered the radio.
Because everyone was standing nearby, they had all heard the transmission.
Perhaps because of that, their complicated expressions had at least calmed somewhat.
Then Village Chief Jeon Nosik said to everyone,
“The snow’s all cleared, so let’s go down.”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
“Doctor Jeong did something we’re grateful for.”
“He did. It’s a relief they’re people of our village.”
Step, step.
Everyone trudged toward the village, their shoulders drooping.
As Taesu followed behind them, the last words lodged clearly in his ears.
They meant it because Taesu and the medical team were members of the village.
It was an expression of goodwill, and Taesu understood it that way.
Even so, with each thing he learned about the past, his heart only grew heavier.