Bring It On! - Chapter 15

Chapter 15.

Jay ultimately failed to catch the squirrel.

The only food we had managed to secure today was the rabbit we caught in the morning and a handful of acorns that the squirrel had stored. As for the acorns, Jay returned from chasing the squirrel, absolutely covered in dirt and leaves, face and body alike. Then he pulled the acorns from his pocket.

Had he struck some dramatic deal with the squirrel? I didn’t ask for details. Judging by the state of him, it hadn’t been an easy battle.

Still, despite the effort, our food shortage remained unresolved. We hadn’t seen any large animals like deer on this island, and the small animals were far too agile and quick to catch easily.

So, only one option remained.

“…Do we really have to do something that shameless?”

Jay clasped his hands together, looking deadly serious.

“Why ask when you already know the answer?”

We stood side by side at the long dining table we’d made by splitting a log in half. All that sat on the table was the rabbit and a small pile of acorns. As the sun neared the horizon, the sea waves turned golden with the colors of dusk. The world was ablaze with red light, like it had caught fire. Jay stood with that blazing sea behind him, quietly murmuring,

“Alright. Let’s go.”

He lifted his head, eyes filled with resolve. He seemed to have finally accepted that, in the face of survival, things like sympathy and morality had to be shelved, at least temporarily.

“Suho, stay by the fire.”

“Okay.”

With the sunset at our backs, we walked into the forest deeper and deeper.

***

“Let me see your hands.”

When I gestured, he laid both his hands on my palm side by side. I’d just meant for him to show me, but I ended up taking his hands and flipping them over to see his palms. A long piece of cloth was wrapped securely around them. A cloth that, just thirty minutes ago, had been part of his homewear.

“Let’s rewrap the left one.”

Apparently, tying a knot with just one hand had been too difficult. The left hand’s wrapping was messier than the right. I rewrapped the cloth starting from between his thumb and index finger, winding it down below his wrist and tying it off.

“Try moving it. Too tight?”

His long fingers slowly clenched and uncurled a few times. Watching them, I suddenly thought how unusually long and beautiful Jay’s hands were. With a face like his, wasn’t it only fair that something, hands or nails, be slightly off? But no, from head to toe, this guy had nothing out of place… except maybe his personality and his brain. Ah, maybe that was his fatal flaw.

“It’s fine,” Jay said with a completely innocent expression.

“The key to succeeding in this mission isn’t anything complicated. We just need to be good at climbing trees.”

“Right.”

“Do you know what the most important part of tree climbing is?”

“Arm strength?”

“It’s getting down safely. You remember when you rushed down last time and scraped your thigh?”

I lightly tapped the inside of his thigh, and I could feel the way the muscle instantly tensed under my touch.

“That was because I was tired and hadn’t eaten enough to concentrate,” he muttered, sounding unfairly accused.

Honestly, I didn’t think it would’ve gone any better even if he’d been in perfect shape. Jay lacked knowledge in everything from small habits to how he treated people. But the way he picked things up quickly once he got the hang of them showed that he wasn’t completely hopeless. He’d just lived a life that didn’t require finesse. He was used to a world where he didn’t need to read the room or move carefully.

“Alright, then. Look over there.”

I pointed to one of the trees surrounding us. There was only one reason Jay had to climb it. To steal the eggs from a bird’s nest perched up in the branches.

A distant memory came to me, a scene from a documentary I must’ve watched as a child. A starving snake coiled its way up a tree and swallowed the eggs a bird had been carefully brooding. The way its mouth stretched wide to gulp them down had looked so greedy, so vile. Back then, I’d felt something like rage. I thought the snake was evil.

But now, standing in the snake’s place, I finally understood. This wasn’t born of malice, but a desperate theft driven by the will to survive.

Jay tilted his head back to locate the nest. His sharp eyes locked on it for a long moment before he rolled up his sleeves.

As I watched his determined profile, I gave him some final instructions.

“Push with your feet and alternate your hands as you climb. Step on the knots here, or here. It’ll make it easier.”

“Got it.”

“And the most important thing. Don’t get hurt. Got that?”

Jay shook out his hands, just like a weightlifter dusting off chalk before a big lift. I stepped back, watching him with anxious eyes as he grabbed the trunk and started to climb, one step at a time.

I was ready to catch him on my shoulder if anything went wrong, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Really, he was good at climbing trees. Maybe it was because he was strong.

Despite his huge frame, he climbed like a monkey. As he got higher, I started to feel nervous. If he fell, it’d be bad. I couldn’t take my eyes off him for even a second.

Even though the sun was setting, the air was still hot and humid. I could see the sweat glistening on Jay’s temples and the back of his neck even from below. He stretched his arm toward the branch with the nest. And that’s when it happened.

Screeech—!

A long-bodied bird, black feathers fluttering, returned swiftly to the nest. The mother bird! Jay, startled by the sound, fumbled to grab the nest. He stretched his long arm desperately, but his fingertips only brushed the edge of the nest precariously perched on the thin branch.

I looked around for something to scare the bird away. Just as I picked up a suitable branch….

“Ack!”

The bird pecked the back of Jay’s hand. I jumped up and down, waving the branch.

“Jay! Come down!”

Even at my shout, Jay didn’t give up. Gritting his teeth, he endured the bird’s wild flapping and vicious pecking, pulling the nest toward him. In the process, one of the eggs fell.

Instinctively, I reached out and caught the egg.

That’s when it happened. I locked eyes with the bird.

With a scream more like a banshee’s wail than a bird call, the mother bird turned its flight toward me. Taking advantage of the moment, Jay grabbed the rest of the eggs and practically slid down the tree. I told him to come down carefully, didn’t I?! But this was no time to calmly worry about Jay.

“Sun Woo-ri!”

Jay, who had landed from the tree quickly, threw me over his shoulder and started running. But no matter how fast Jay was, he couldn’t outrun a bird flying at full speed. Dangling from his shoulder, I swung the branch to block the bird’s attacks.

But in this desperate moment, the bird, whose intelligence had suddenly skyrocketed from the crisis of losing its offspring, grabbed the branch with its beak and flung it aside.

I stared in shock at the branch soaring through the air in a perfect arc.

“Huh?”

For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating. It couldn’t be… right? But even when I blinked hard, it was still there, clear as day. I swallowed hard and yelled at Jay.

“Run!”

“What? I am running!”

“Run faster!”

The branch the bird threw had landed squarely in a beehive.

A swarm of bees erupted like a black cloud. With furious energy, they surged toward us.

Did that bird seriously hit the hive on purpose?! If I ever get off this island and someone dares to compare a stupid person to a bird, I swear I’ll punch them in the mouth.

Bzzzzzz—!

Jay must’ve heard the swarm getting closer, because I felt his grip around my waist tighten.

Even in this panicked moment, the bird didn’t stop attacking. It yanked at my hair, tried to peck my head, and I blocked it with my arms.

“Sun Woo-ri, hold your breath!”

“What?!”

Jay suddenly shouted. Before I could even grasp what was happening, my body was lifted into the air. His grip loosened under me, and I slid down from his shoulder.

Then, just as I hit the ground, Jay threw his arms around me and held me tight.