Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

I intend to tell the story of the tiger hunt. Though called a tiger hunt, it was no farcical lion hunt like that of Mr. Tartarin of Tarascon. It was a genuine tiger hunt. The location was in Korea—mountains barely twenty ri from Keijō—and though one might laugh today at how tigers could possibly appear there now, after all, until about twenty years ago, even in Keijō itself, cattle and horses from Hirasan Ranch near the East Small Gate outskirts would often be carried off in the dead of night. However, this was not a tiger but rather a nukute (a type of wolf), but in any case, walking alone through the suburbs at night was still a dangerous practice back then. There was even the following story.

At the police box outside the East Small Gate, one evening when a police officer sat alone at his desk, something suddenly made a terrifying noise—clawing and scratching at the entrance’s glass door. When he looked up in surprise, there it was—astonishingly—a tiger, or so they say. The tigers—two of them—rose on their hind legs and kept clawing frantically at it with their front paws. The officer reportedly turned pale, immediately propping a log from the room against the door as a makeshift barricade while piling every available chair and table against it from within to reinforce the entrance—all while drawing his sword and standing ready, yet trembling uncontrollably as if life itself had abandoned him. But after chilling the officer’s resolve for about an hour, the tigers finally gave up and wandered off somewhere, so the story goes. When I read this account in the Keijō Daily, I found it unbearably comical. That police officer who usually swaggered about so self-importantly—for Korea still endured that era when officers could lord it over others—just picturing how he must have panicked then, heaping chairs, tables, and every scrap of junk before the door like during spring cleaning—I, as a boy, couldn’t suppress my laughter. What’s more, those two companionable tigers—the very ones that reared up to claw and intimidate the officer—never seemed like real tigers to me at all. They struck me rather as creatures from some fairy-tale realm brimming with naiveté—as if they might swagger about in long boots like their terrorized quarry, twirling waxed mustaches while growling things like “Hey there!”

II

Now, before I tell of the tiger hunt, I must first speak of a friend. That friend’s name was Cho Dae-hwan. As his name made clear, he was Korean. Everyone said his mother was from the mainland. I feel as though I heard this directly from him, but perhaps I simply convinced myself through wishful thinking. Despite our closeness during all that time, I had never once seen his mother. At any rate, his Japanese was exceptionally skilled. Moreover, being an avid reader of novels, he even knew Edo-period expressions that Japanese boys in the colonies had never heard. At first glance, no one could have discerned he was Korean. Cho and I had been friends since fifth grade in elementary school. It was during that fifth-grade second term that I transferred from the mainland to Ryūzan Elementary School. Those who changed schools frequently in childhood due to their father’s work will recall: There is nothing more unpleasant than those initial days at a new school. Different customs. Different rules. Different pronunciations. Different textbook readings. And those multitudes of spiteful eyes seeking to torment the newcomer without reason. Truly, no matter what I did, I was driven by a shrinking timidity—perpetually anxious that every action might provoke laughter.

A few days after transferring to Ryūzan Elementary School, during another reading class, when I began reciting the lines of a poem inscribed on a cherry tree in the section about Kojima Takanori, everyone burst into raucous laughter. The more I blushed and desperately tried to reread, the more everyone dissolved into laughter. In the end, even the teacher wore a faint smile around their mouth. I became completely fed up, and when the period ended, I hurriedly slipped out of the classroom. Standing alone at the edge of the still friendless schoolyard, I gazed dejectedly at the sky, feeling like I might burst into tears. I still remember how that day, an intense sandstorm hung over the area like a thick fog, and the sun faintly leaked a pale yellow light—moon-like—from within the murky veil of sand. I later found out that across Korea and Manchuria, such days occur about once a year on average. In other words, winds would rise in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, carrying its sand and dust over great distances. That day, dumbfounded by the ferocious weather I was witnessing for the first time, I kept spitting repeatedly from my mouth where sand immediately gathered with a gritty crunch, all while gazing at where the tall poplar treetops at the edge of the schoolyard disappeared into that white haze of dust.

Then suddenly, from the side came a strange, strained laugh tinged with mockery: “Hey! Look at you—so embarrassed you’re spitting everywhere for no reason.” When I looked up, there stood a rather tall, slender boy with narrow eyes and flared nostrils, his smile brimming more with derision than malice. True enough, while the dust had made me spit initially, his remark made me realize I’d indeed been spitting excessively—peh peh—to distract from lingering shame over my earlier “Heaven does not abandon Goujian” blunder and the awkwardness of standing alone. Called out like this, I felt two or three times the earlier shame flare up at once. Burning crimson, I lunged at him blindly, my face crumpling as I charged. To be honest, I hadn’t thought I could win. As a scrawny coward, I’d never won a single fight before. So this time too—resigned to defeat—I’d rushed in half-blubbering from the start. Yet shockingly, the opponent I’d braced to be pummeled by turned out pathetically weak. When we tumbled into the mechanical exercise sandpit at the schoolyard’s edge, wrestling in the grit, I pinned him effortlessly. Though inwardly startled by this outcome, I kept frantically jabbing at his collar, eyes squeezed shut. But noticing his utter lack of resistance at last, I snapped my eyes open—only to find his narrow gaze peering up through my fingers with an unreadable expression, half-serious and half-smirking like a sly fox’s. Some vague insult prickled through me. I jerked my hands back and scrambled away. He rose after me, brushing sand from his black serge uniform while avoiding my eyes—instead twisting his face into an awkward grimace for the boys who’d come running at the commotion. Strangely, I slunk back to class feeling like the defeated one.

After two or three days had passed, that boy and I walked home from school along the same path side by side. At that time, he informed me that his name was Cho Dae-hwan. When he told me his name, I reflexively asked him to repeat it. Even though I had come to Korea, it had never once occurred to me that there might be a Korean in the same grade as me—and moreover, no matter how I looked at that boy, he didn’t seem Korean at all. When, after asking several times, I finally realized his name was undeniably Zhao, I felt guilty for having pestered him with my repeated questions. Apparently, I was a precocious boy back then. I made efforts to ensure he wouldn’t become conscious of being Korean—not just at that moment, but continuously even after we began spending time together—taking great care in how I interacted with him. But those efforts appeared to have been unnecessary. This was because Zhao himself seemed entirely unbothered by it. In fact, from how he had voluntarily told me his name of his own accord, I concluded that he wasn’t troubled by it at all.

However, in reality, I came to realize this had been my misunderstanding. Zhao was actually deeply preoccupied with this point—not so much with being Korean himself, but rather with how his friends remained constantly aware of it and played with him through condescending charity. At times, even the teachers' and our well-meaning efforts to keep him from developing such awareness left him irredeemably sullen. In truth, precisely because he himself fixated on the matter, he conversely displayed an attitude of complete detachment, even going so far as to deliberately pronounce his full name. But this understanding only came to me much later.

In any case, that was how our bond was formed. The two of us graduated elementary school at the same time, entered Keijō Middle School together, and began commuting every morning by train from Ryūzan.

III

Around that time—specifically from the end of elementary school to the beginning of middle school—I knew he admired a certain girl. Our elementary school class had both boys and girls, and that girl served as vice class representative. (The class representative was chosen from among the boys.) She was tall—not particularly fair-skinned, but with thick hair and long, beautifully shaped eyes. I had heard classmates compare her to illustrations by an artist named Kasyō in the frontispiece of Shōjo Club or similar magazines. Zhao had apparently liked that girl since elementary school days, but when she too began commuting by train from Ryūzan to a girls' school in Keijō—leading them to frequently cross paths during their daily commute—his feelings grew more intense. There was a time when Zhao seriously confided this matter to me. He said that while he hadn't been particularly affected at first, after hearing an older friend praise her beauty, he suddenly began finding her unbearably noble and beautiful. Though he never voiced it aloud, one could easily imagine how someone as sensitive as him would have agonized over this matter too—newly fretting over distinctions between Koreans and Japanese.

I still remember it clearly. One winter morning at Namdaemun Station’s transfer area—when that girl unexpectedly greeted him head-on (she must have been acting out of sorts, impulsively deciding to do so)—the look on his face as he flusteredly returned her greeting, his nose tip red from the cold. Then there was another time around then when all three of us—the two of us and that girl—ended up sharing the same train car. As we stood before where she was seated, someone beside her vacated their seat. She shifted sideways to make space for Zhao—though one could interpret this as being for my sake too—and oh, what an expression he wore then: equal parts awkwardness and barely suppressed delight………… As for why I remember such trivialities so vividly—no, truly, this matters not at all—it was of course because I too had secretly nursed aching feelings for that girl. But eventually, his—no, our—melancholy adolescent affection faded away somewhere as time passed and pimples gradually multiplied across our faces. It would be more truthful to say our sad young love lost its shape amidst life’s mysteries that kept tumbling forth before us one after another. From around this time, we gradually began directing sharp, inquisitive gazes toward the many strange yet enthralling facts of this richly textured life. The two of us—guided by adults, of course—set out on that tiger hunt precisely during this period. But since I’ve broached the subject—though it reverses the chronology—I’ll postpone the tiger hunt and first speak a little more about what became of him afterward. When it comes to what I recall of him after that, only two or three fragments remain.

IV

By nature, he was a boy fascinated by strange things and showed almost no enthusiasm for the tasks imposed at school. During kendo practice, he would typically claim illness and observe from the sidelines, watching us—who earnestly donned protective masks and swung bamboo swords—through those narrow eyes of his that always bore a mocking smile. But one day during fourth period, after kendo had ended, he approached me while I still wore my mask and began recounting his visit to see tropical fish at Mitsukoshi's gallery the previous day. With intensely excited tones he extolled their beauty, insisting I must see them too and that he would gladly accompany me again. That afternoon after classes, we stopped by Mitsukoshi on Honmachi-dori. This was likely Japan's earliest exhibition of tropical fish. Entering the third-floor display enclosure lined with aquarium tanks along every windowed wall, we found the space bathed in an aquatic blue twilight reminiscent of an aquarium's depths. Zhao first led me to a central tank by the windows. Within water made azure-translucent by reflected sky swam two paper-thin fish—delicate as silk-covered hand fans—gliding serenely among five or six water plants. Their forms resembled flounders held vertical to swim. More striking still were their triangular dorsal fins, near-equal in size to their bodies and splendid as ship's sails. Across pearl-gray torsos that shifted hues like jewel beetles' wings ran vivid stripes of purplish-red, bold as gaudy necktie patterns.

“How about that!” Zhao said triumphantly beside me, who was staring intently.

A procession of bubbles rose green through the thick glass. Fine white sand lay spread across the bottom. Narrow-bladed waterweed grew from there. Between them swam a diamond-shaped fish, carefully moving its decorative tail fin. As I gazed at these things, I gradually felt as though peering through a spyglass at some South Seas ocean floor. Yet I simultaneously found Zhao’s enthusiasm excessively theatrical. Though long familiar with his taste for “exotic beauty,” I now detected much exaggeration in his fervor and resolved to puncture it. When we finished viewing and left Mitsukoshi, walking down Honmachi-dori together, I deliberately told him:

“It’s not that they aren’t beautiful, but even Japanese goldfish are that pretty, y’know.” The reaction was immediate. His face—silent as he stared back at me head-on, that pockmarked face with its perpetually narrow eyes, flared nostrils, and thick lips—instantly filled with a complex blend of expressions: a pitying smile at my failure to grasp delicate beauty, but more than that, a protest against my mean-spiritedly cynical attitude. After that, I recall he didn’t speak to me for about a week.

…………

V

There must have been far more significant events between him and me during our friendship, yet I find myself clearly remembering only these trivial incidents like a fool, while most other things have faded from memory. Human memory seems to be generally structured in such a way. Now, as for other things I clearly remember—yes, there was that night during our third-year winter exercise.

It was certainly a day of cold winds at November's very end. That day, third-year students and above conducted live-fire exercises near Yeongdeungpo on the Han River's southern bank. When sent on reconnaissance and peering down from a low hill through sparse woods, we saw white sand plains stretching into the distance, bisected by a winter river flowing bleakly in dull blade-metal hues. High above, the familiar jagged bones of Bukhansan Mountain scored bluish-purple gashes across the sky. Through these winter-withered vistas we raced all day, our noses catching leather from backpacks, gun oil's metallic tang, and gunpowder's acrid sting.

That night, we were to pitch tents on the sandy bank of Noryangjin along the Han River. Dragging our weary legs and feeling the rifles’ weight dig painfully into our shoulders, we trudged through the difficult riverbank sand with steps that crunched underfoot. We likely reached the campsite around four o’clock. Just as we prepared to set up the tents, the previously clear sky suddenly clouded over, and large hailstones began pelting down violently. The hailstones were alarmingly huge. Unable to endure the stinging pain, we scrambled beneath the tent that lay spread unassembled on the sand, each vying to be first. The fierce sound of hail pounding against the tent’s thick fabric roared around our ears. The hail ceased after about ten minutes. We who poked our heads out from under the tent—seven or eight of us crammed together—looked at one another’s faces and burst into simultaneous laughter. At that moment, I realized Cho Dae-hwan too was among the comrades now emerging from the same tent. But he wasn’t laughing. He stood looking downward with an anxious pallor. Beside him stood a fifth-year student called N, reproaching him with a severe expression. When everyone had rushed under the tent, it seemed Zhao had elbowed this upperclassman and knocked off his glasses. By tradition, upperclassmen at our middle school wielded immense authority. We were required not only to salute them when passing on paths but to obey them absolutely in all matters. At the time, I’d assumed Zhao would offer a meek apology. Yet unexpectedly—or perhaps because we were watching—he showed no inclination to apologize properly. He merely stood there stubbornly silent. N glared down at Zhao with palpable hostility for a while before shooting a glance our way, then turned fully around and strode off.

To tell the truth, Zhao had long been targeted by upperclassmen—not just on this occasion. First of all, it was said that even when encountering them on the road, Zhao rarely saluted them. This seemed often due to the fact that Zhao, despite being nearsighted, did not wear glasses. But even setting that aside, Zhao inherently acted mature beyond his years and could not help occasionally leaking a mocking smile at the upperclassmen’s pompous behavior. Moreover, given how he was already devotedly reading Kafū Nagai’s novels by that time—making him appear somewhat too “soft” in the eyes of those hard-liners—it was only natural he became a target of their animosity. According to Zhao’s own account, he had apparently been told “You’re being impertinent” about twice. “If you don’t change your ways, I’ll beat you up,” he had apparently been threatened. Particularly two or three days before this exercise, he had been dragged to the front of Chongjeongjeon—the site of the former Yi Dynasty palace ruins behind the school—and was on the verge of being beaten when, fortunately, the student supervisor happened to pass by, allowing him to narrowly escape. As Zhao recounted this to me, that familiar mocking smile played around his lips, but then, suddenly turning serious, he said the following: “I’m not afraid of them at all, nor do I find being beaten scary. Yet despite that, when I stand before them, I tremble.” “No matter how foolish I think it is, my body naturally starts trembling in small, rapid shivers. What on earth is causing this?” he asked me with a serious face then.

He would always wear that smile that seemed to belittle others while remaining constantly on guard against being seen through, yet at times would blurt out moments of startling honesty like this. To be sure, without fail, immediately after exposing such honest aspects of himself, he would assume an expression as though regretting his actions and revert to his usual sneering demeanor—though he did.

Because there had already been such history between him and the upperclassmen, that was likely why he couldn’t bring himself to apologize sincerely at that time. That evening, even after the tents had been set up, he still wore an uneasy, restless expression. Dozens of tents were set up across the riverbank, and after laying straw inside to complete the preparations, they each began lighting fires within. At first, the firewood smoldered thickly, making it unbearable to stay inside. When the smoke finally settled, they began their meal of rice balls that had turned rock-hard in their backpacks since morning. When that ended, they first went outside for roll call. After that was done, they would return to their respective tents and rest upon straw spread over the sand. The sentries standing outside changed every hour, and since my shift was scheduled from four to five at dawnbreak, I could sleep soundly until then. Inside that same tent were us five third-year students—Cho Dae-hwan included among us—with two fourth-year students added as supervisors. None of us seemed likely to fall asleep at first. Gathered around the makeshift stove we’d fashioned by digging into the sand at the center—our faces flushed crimson in the firelight yet still hunching against the cold seeping through raised coat collars—we lost ourselves in idle chatter. That day’s trivial boasts included stories about how our drill instructor Lieutenant Mannen had nearly fallen from his horse; how we’d trespassed into a farmhouse backyard during march and quarreled with farmers; how a fourth-year on reconnaissance had slipped away to secretly drink pocket whiskey before filing a half-hearted report—our talk inevitably shifting to boyish jokes that now seem laughably innocent. Naturally, being a year older, the fourth-years mainly supplied such topics. We listened wide-eyed to these stories—whether experience or invention unclear—erupting in raucous laughter at even lamest quips. Yet amidst this revelry, only Cho Dae-hwan sat silent with an unamused expression. Not that Cho lacked interest in such talk. Rather—I’m certain—he detected “servile flattery” in how we roared at upperclassmen’s feeble jokes, and this bitter awareness gnawed at him.

As we grew bored with the talk and the fatigue from the day began to set in, each of us lay down on the straw, pressing our bodies together to ward off the cold. I too lay there shivering beneath three woolen shirts layered with a jacket, tunic, and overcoat as the cold pressed in relentlessly—yet despite it all, I must have drifted off to sleep before I knew it. I woke what must have been two or three hours later, thinking I’d heard some high-pitched sound. The instant my eyes opened, I felt certain something bad had happened. Straining my ears, I heard another strangely shrill voice ringing from beyond the tent— —a voice that unmistakably belonged to Cho Dae-hwan. Startled, I looked for his figure where he’d been lying beside me that evening. Zhao was gone. He’d likely gone out for his sentry duty shift. But that strangely menaced voice—what had that been? Then his voice came again through the tent fabric—now clearly trembling—

“I don’t think it was that wrong.” “What? You don’t think that’s wrong?” —Then a different, gruff voice resounded oppressively. “You’re being impertinent! You bastard!”

Along with that came the distinct sound of a sharp slap, followed by what seemed to be a gun clattering onto the sand, and then two or three heavy, dull thuds—like bodies being struck violently—in quick succession. In an instant, I grasped everything. I had harbored a bad premonition. Given that Zhao had always been disliked and considering the incident that had occurred during the day, I had felt since evening that he might be targeted on an occasion like tonight. That very thing now seemed to have truly occurred. I sat up inside the tent but could do nothing, my heart pounding as I stayed perfectly still for a while, listening intently to what was happening outside. (My friends outside were all sound asleep.) Before long, after sensing two or three figures departing, the outside returned to a hushed silence.

I prepared myself and quietly stepped out of the tent. Outside spread an unexpectedly pristine moonlit night. About two ken from the tent, on the moonlit white sand plain, a solitary dark figure crouched motionless like a small dog—a boy with his face bowed low. His rifle lay fallen beside him on the sand, its bayonet tip glinting silver under the moon. I approached and looked down at him. "Was it N?" I asked—N being the fifth-year student who'd quarreled with him that afternoon. Zhao kept his face lowered, offering no reply. After a moment, he suddenly cried out and threw himself onto the cold sand, his back quivering as he began wailing like an infant. I froze in shock. The sentry from the neighboring tent stood watching ten meters away. Yet Zhao's weeping—so uncharacteristically raw and sincere—compelled me to move. I tried lifting him up. He resisted stubbornly. When I finally managed to raise him, not wanting the other sentries to witness this scene, I dragged him toward the nearby stream. The moon of around the eighteenth night hung sharply in the frigid sky, its oval shape resembling a rugby ball. Rows of triangular tents stood on the white sand plain, seven or eight bayonets stacked outside each one. Sentries stood exhaling white breath, coldly cradling their rifle butts. We walked away from the tent clusters toward the Han River's main current. Only then did I notice I'd unconsciously picked up Zhao's fallen rifle and now carried it for him. Zhao trudged forward with gloved hands dangling limply, face still lowered—when abruptly, without raising his eyes, he began to speak.

Because he was still crying, his voice breaking into sobs at times, he said—in a tone that seemed to reproach me: “What does it even mean… I wonder. This whole business of being strong or weak—what does it even mean?—”

Because his words were too plain, I couldn’t clearly grasp what he meant to convey, but their tone struck me through. Not a trace remained of his characteristic self.

“I—”(here he broke into childlike sobs)“I... even if those bastards beat me, getting beaten doesn’t mean I lost.” “Really.” “Even so,”(here he sniffled again)“I’m still... still frustrated.” “And yet—even though I’m frustrated—I can’t confront them.” “I’m too scared to confront them.”

—

When he stopped speaking after saying this much, I thought he might burst into tears again then. The tone of his voice was that intense. But he did not burst into tears. I walked along in silence, regretting my inability to find suitable words of comfort for him, my eyes fixed on our jet-black shadows cast upon the sand. Truly, ever since we wrestled in the elementary schoolyard, he had been a coward.

—What does being strong or weak even mean… I wonder. Truly. —And then, at that moment, he repeated those words once more. Before we knew it, we had reached the bank of the Han River’s main stream. Near the bank, a thin sheet of ice had already spread across the entire area, while even in the midstream’s swiftly flowing sections, several sizable chunks of ice drifted. The exposed water gleamed beautifully in the moonlight, but across the frozen stretches, the lunar light was extinguished as if by frosted glass. As I gazed at the water’s surface, musing that within a week it would likely freeze over completely, I suddenly recalled his earlier words and—feeling as though I had discovered their hidden meaning—was struck with astonishment. Zhao’s words—“What does it even mean to be strong or weak?”—and at that moment I was struck by a sudden realization—that this was not merely a lament about his own current circumstances—that was what I thought then. Of course, looking back now, this may have been my overinterpretation. Precocious though he was, to read such profound meaning into the words of a mere third-year middle school student—it seems I had overestimated him all along. But given that Zhao—who always pretended not to care about his origins yet was deeply troubled by them, and who seemed to attribute part of the reason for being bullied by upperclassmen to that very fact—was someone I knew intimately, my having thought that way at the time was not entirely unreasonable. Having considered this, when I then saw Zhao’s wilted figure walking beside me—I who had already been at a loss for words of comfort—now found myself even more uncertain of what to say, and could only stare silently at the water’s surface. But even so, I felt somewhat happy deep inside. That cynical poseur Zhao had completely discarded his usual outward persona—and though, as I mentioned before, there had been occasional moments like this in the past, never before had he shocked me with such raw, unguarded intensity as tonight. The fact that he had been revealed to me in this naked, cowardly, Korean—not Japanese mainlander—form had given me satisfaction. We stood like that for a while on the cold riverbed, gazing at the pale nightscape—stretching from Ryūzan on the opposite shore through Dokumura County to Cheongnyangni—illuminated by the moon.…………

Apart from what happened that night during the encampment, there was nothing else I could recall about him. This was because, not long after that—before we had even reached our fourth year—he suddenly, utterly without warning, disappeared from school without giving even me a single word of notice.

Needless to say, I immediately went to visit his house. His family was, of course, there. Only he was missing. Beyond his father’s reply in broken Japanese—that he had gone to China for a short while—I could obtain no clues. I was utterly furious. He should have at least given me some word of farewell. I tried to think of various reasons for his disappearance, but it was futile. Could that incident from the bivouac night have been the direct motive? That alone didn’t seem reason enough for him to leave school, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling it was somehow connected. As I dwelled on this, those earlier words of his about being “strong” or “weak” began to take on deeper meaning.

Before long, various rumors about him began to circulate. For a time, I heard rumors that he had joined a faction involved in a certain movement and was active within it. Next came stories that he had gone to Shanghai and ruined himself—though this came somewhat later—which I also heard. Both possibilities seemed entirely plausible to me, yet at the same time, I could also think that neither had any basis in reality. And so, having left for Tokyo immediately after finishing middle school, I have heard nothing of his whereabouts since.

VI

Though I claimed to be telling the story of the tiger hunt, it seems I’ve gotten rather ahead of myself. Well then, I must now return at last to the main subject. Now, this tiger hunt story—as I mentioned earlier—occurred about two years before Zhao disappeared, around New Year’s, during that period when he and I were gradually—almost unconsciously—beginning to forget the Vice Class Representative from our elementary school days: that girl with the long-lashed, beautiful eyes.

One day after school, as Zhao and I reached the tram stop together as usual, he said to me: “I’ve got something good to talk about—let’s walk to the next stop.” Then, as we walked, he asked if I wanted to go tiger hunting. This coming Saturday, his father would be going on a tiger hunt, he explained, and on that occasion Zhao himself was to be taken along too. “Since I’ve already mentioned your name beforehand,” he continued, “Father will surely allow it—why don’t you come along?” Having never even considered something like tiger hunting until then, I apparently stared back at him for a moment with a look both startled and doubtful of his words’ veracity. Truly, the notion that a tiger—a creature I had only ever encountered in zoos or children’s magazine illustrations—might materialize before me in reality, and moreover that it could appear within three or four days if I merely consented, was something beyond my wildest imaginings. First verifying repeatedly—to the point of slightly irritating him—that this wasn’t some trick, I then proceeded to inquire about the location, companions involved, and expenses required. And needless to say, after all that—or rather after I had implored him with “Please—you must take me along by any means necessary!” regardless of paternal consent—it was I who had initiated this plea.

Cho’s father was by birth a gentleman from an old aristocratic family and had apparently been a high-ranking official during Korea’s sovereign era. Even now, after resigning from his position, he remained what they called a Yangban, and his economic affluence was evident even from his son’s attire. Yet Zhao—likely because he did not want his life as a Korean in his household to be seen—disliked having visitors to his home, and so I had never been to his house—though I knew its location—and consequently had never met his father. Apparently, they went tiger hunting almost every year, but this was the first time Cho Dae-hwan was being taken along. So he was excited too. That day, until we got off the train and parted ways, we talked at length about our expectations for this adventure—particularly discussing to what extent we might be exposed to danger. Well then, after parting with Zhao and returning home to see my parents, I carelessly—for the first time—had to discover the immense obstacle lying at the very start of this adventure. How could I obtain my parents' permission? The difficulty first lay there. In our household, my father himself was always going on about Japanese-Korean harmony, yet he took little pleasure in my closeness with Zhao. Let alone going to such a dangerous place as a tiger hunt with that friend of mine—they would never permit it from the start. After agonizing over various possibilities, I resolved to take the following approach. Near our middle school in Seodaemun, there was a relative of mine—the home where my cousin had married into. On Saturday afternoon, I would leave home under the guise of going there to play, and at that time mention that I might stay over tonight. Neither my house nor that relative’s house had a telephone—at least this would completely deceive them for that night. Of course, it was bound to be discovered later, but I didn’t care how much I’d be scolded when that time came. At any rate, I thought I just had to somehow deceive them for that night and go through with it. I was, at heart, a minor hedonist who didn’t care about something as trivial as parental scoldings if it meant gaining a rare and precious experience.

The next morning at school, when I asked Zhao whether his father had consented, he retorted with an irritated expression: “Obviously.” From that day onward, our minds became impervious to mundane matters like schoolwork. Zhao regaled me with hunting lore absorbed from his father—how tigers only forage at night; how leopards scale trees while tigers cannot; how our destination might harbor both species; technical details about Remington and Winchester rifles—all delivered with the affected authority of someone who’d supposedly known these truths since antiquity. Ordinarily I’d have countered with “What nonsense—just recycled rumors!”, but intoxicated by visions of adventure, I hungrily absorbed his posturing lectures.

On Friday after school, I went alone to Changgyeongwon (this was kept secret even from Zhao). Changgyeongwon was the former royal garden of the Yi kings and is now a zoo. I went to the tiger’s cage and stood there. In the steam-vented cage, at a distance of no more than one meter from me, the tiger lay with its forelegs neatly arranged and eyes narrowed. It didn’t seem to be asleep, yet it wouldn’t even deign to glance toward me as I stood close by. I approached him as closely as possible and observed him carefully. Indeed, the bulging musculature of his back appeared about the size of a calf. The back was dark, fading toward the abdomen; black stripes flowed vividly across that yellow ground like dye bleeding through cloth. The white hairs growing above his eyes and at the tips of his ears. His head and jaw were sturdily built to a size proportionate to his body. He lacked the decorative absurdity seen in lions’ proportions, instead exuding a ferocity perfectly suited for practical use. When I thought that such a beast would soon come leaping out before my eyes in the mountains, I couldn’t suppress the pounding that rose naturally in my chest. After observing him for some time, I discovered something I hadn’t noticed until now—that his cheeks and jawline were white beneath their stripes. Moreover, his jet-black nose tip looked as soft as a cat’s—so temptingly touchable that I longed to reach out—and this delighted me beyond measure. Satisfied with these discoveries, I turned to leave at last. But during that entire hour I had stood there watching him through iron bars—this creature who hadn’t so much as glanced my way once—a bitter sense of insult swelled within me suddenly like steam pressure building inside some forgotten valve until finally bursting forth into action without thought or plan beyond primal provocation—I growled deep from my throat like one possessed by jungle spirits themselves! Yet even then he remained unmoved beneath closed eyelids—not even twitching those regal whiskers—as though dismissing both challenge and challenger alike beneath contemptuous indifference made flesh through striped fur stretched taut over living muscle carved from mountain stone older than kings or empires or boys who dared imagine themselves hunters rather than prey before such majesty incarnate...

At last, Saturday arrived. Unable to wait for fourth-period math to end, I hurried home. After finishing lunch, I put on two extra shirts over my usual layers, thoroughly prepared my cold-weather gear—a hood, ear muffs, and such—then went out front declaring, "I might stay over at my relative's house," exactly as planned. Although it was a bit too early for the four o'clock train, I couldn’t bear to wait quietly at home. When I went to the first and second-class waiting room at Namdaemun Station as promised, however, Zhao was already there. He wasn’t in his usual uniform but wore what looked like a ski suit—an all-black, warm yet lightweight outfit from head to toe. His father and his friend were supposed to arrive soon. As we talked, two gentlemen appeared at the waiting room entrance—wearing hunting attire with gaiters and carrying large hunting rifles over their shoulders. When he saw them, Zhao raised his hand slightly toward me from where he stood, and when they came near, he introduced me as "Nakayama-kun" to the tall, beardless gentleman. That was my first time seeing his father. He was a man in his late forties with a sturdy build, a ruddy complexion, and narrow eyes that resembled his son’s. When I silently bowed my head, he responded with a smile. The reason he didn’t speak was undoubtedly because, as Zhao had forewarned me earlier, his Japanese wasn’t very proficient. To the other man as well—one who had grown out a brown beard and whom one could tell at a glance wasn’t a mainland Japanese—I gave a slight bow. The man also responded in silence—listening to Zhao’s explanation in Korean as he looked down at my face and smiled.

The departure was exactly at four o'clock. In addition to the four of us in the group—myself included—there was another man who had tagged along; I didn’t know which of the servants he belonged to, but he shouldered their cold-weather gear, provisions, ammunition, and such.

Even after boarding the train, Zhao and I—who had taken adjacent seats—continued talking privately between ourselves, hardly exchanging a word with the adults. Zhao seemed reluctant to use Korean much in my presence. To what sounded like occasional admonishments from his father across the aisle, he would only offer terse replies.

The winter day darkened completely inside the train. As the railway entered mountainous terrain, snow became visible piled outside the window. The train reached its destination station—I believe it was somewhere before Sariwon, though I can't recall the name now. Every scene remains vivid in my memory, yet strangely that crucial station's name has slipped away. When we arrived at ——, it was already past seven. Stepping down before the dimly lit wooden station, wind sweeping from black skies over snow made us instinctively hunch our necks. No houses stood near the station. Beyond wind-scoured fields under moonless starlight loomed only mountain-shaped shadows. After walking two or three chō along a single path, we stopped before a solitary low Korean house on our right. Knocking brought immediate opening—yellow light spilled across snow. Following others inside, I stooped through the low entrance. Oiled paper lining every surface marked ondol heating; stifling warmth struck us suddenly. Seven or eight Koreans smoking inside turned and greeted us in unison. From them emerged a red-bearded man—likely the owner—who spoke briefly with Zhao's father before withdrawing inward. Preparations clearly made beforehand: after tea, two professional hunters and five-six beaters—indistinguishable except by gun size per Zhao's note—followed us outside. Four dogs waited there.

After walking about two kilometers along the narrow country path illuminated by snowlight, the road finally began to approach the mountains. Through the sparse woods, the beaters led the way up, their straw boots crunching through fresh snow with each step. The dogs—their coat colors indistinct in the snowy glow, none particularly large—darted ahead and fell behind, sniffing around tree roots and rocky outcrops along side paths before trotting off. We then formed a tight group slightly behind them, following in their footsteps. With my heart pounding at every thought—What if a tiger leaps out from the side? What if it attacks from behind?—I continued walking in silence, barely speaking to Zhao anymore. As we climbed higher, the path gradually deteriorated until it disappeared entirely, forcing us to scramble over jagged tree roots and protruding rock ledges. The cold was brutal—my nostrils froze stiff, and though I wore a hood with fur pressed against my ears, they throbbed as if about to tear off. Each gust of wind rattling the treetops made me flinch. When I looked up, stars shone vividly through the sparse branches of bare trees. Had we been traversing such mountain trails for nearly three hours? After circling a boulder as large as a small hill, we—already thoroughly exhausted—emerged into a small clearing in the woods. Then the beaters who had arrived there slightly before us spotted our group and raised their hands in signal. Everyone rushed toward them. Startled into action, I ran forward without lagging behind. Where one of them pointed, clear imprints lay in the snow—footprints resembling a cat's but measuring seven or eight sun in diameter. These tracks crossed the clearing at a right angle to our approach, spaced at intervals as they continued from one grove to another. Moreover, as Zhao translated from a beater's words, these footprints were still very fresh.

Both Zhao and I were rendered speechless by extreme excitement and fear. The group followed those footprints for a while, proceeding through the grove while vigilantly keeping watch both ahead and behind. Before long, when those footprints led us to another clearing among the trees, we found two large pine trees at the edge of the woods, standing amidst many leafless trees. The guides spent some time comparing both trees, then climbed one of the gnarled ones and, affixing the poles, planks, and mats they had carried on their backs between its branches, swiftly constructed an improvised platform there. It was probably about four meters above the ground. They spread straw inside it, and there we waited. It is said that a tiger will always return along the same path it took when leaving. Therefore, by waiting there among those pine branches, we would ambush the tiger upon its return. The straw-covered platform stretched between three thick, twisted branches was surprisingly spacious, allowing not only the four of us mentioned earlier but also two hunters to fit inside. When I climbed up there, thinking that at least the worry of being pounced on from behind was gone, I felt relieved. Once we had climbed up, the beaters took the dogs, shouldered their guns, readied torches, and disappeared deep into some part of the woods.

Time passed steadily. The whiteness of the snow made the ground appear quite bright. Below our eyes lay a clearing of about fifty tsubo, surrounded by sparse woods stretching endlessly around it. The trees that hadn’t shed their leaves seemed scarce except for the one we had climbed and the neighboring pine. The trunks of the bare trees appeared starkly black as they crisscrossed against the white ground. When occasional strong winds blew in, the forest would suddenly roar, and as the wind eventually subsided, that sound too would gradually fade like distant ocean waves, vanishing into some part of the cold sky. The starlight filtering through the pine branches and leaves was sharp, as if to intimidate us.

As we kept up our vigil like that for a while, the earlier fear gradually faded away. But in its place came an unforgiving cold now. From the tips of my feet in woolen socks rose a sensation—neither quite chill nor pain—creeping upward. The adults kept talking among themselves, but beyond the occasional word like "tiger" (Horangi) reaching my ears, I understood nothing. I too, forcing myself to rally, stuffed caramel into my cheeks and began speaking to Zhao through chattering teeth. Zhao told me of a Korean attacked by a tiger near here the previous year. They said a single swipe from the beast's forepaw had sheared off half the man's face—from crown to jaw—as though gouged out. Zhao recounted this tale—clearly secondhand from his father—with such fervor he might have witnessed it himself before our very eyes. His manner suggested he desperately wished such tragedy would unfold before him this very instant. And truth be told, listening to him, I secretly hoped such an event might occur—provided I remained safely out of harm's way.

But even after waiting two hours, then three, there was no sign of anything resembling a tiger. In another two hours, dawn would break. According to Cho’s father’s account, even when coming tiger hunting like this, finding fresh tracks so suddenly was exceptionally good luck—usually you’d be made to stay two or three days at farmhouses near the mountain’s base. So it might be that tonight, it simply wouldn’t show up. In that case, given my school and family obligations preventing me from staying, I would have to return without seeing anything. If that happened, what on earth would Zhao do? Does he intend to stay here with Father for however many days it takes until the tiger appears? Returning alone would be so dull. When I started dwelling on such thoughts, the tension that had gripped me since nightfall gradually began to ease.

At that moment, Zhao took out a bunch of bananas from the bag he had brought and shared some with me. While eating those cold bananas, I came up with a strange idea. Looking back now, it’s truly laughable, but at that time I became serious and thought about scattering these banana peels below to make the tiger slip. Of course, I didn’t firmly believe the tiger would certainly slip on banana peels and thereby be easily shot—but still, I held just enough hope that such a thing wasn’t entirely impossible. And I threw the banana peels from what I’d eaten as far away as possible toward where I thought the tiger was sure to pass. Because I thought I would surely be ridiculed, I kept this idea hidden from Zhao as well.

Now, the bananas were gone, but the tiger still hadn’t appeared. From the disappointment of unmet expectations and the easing of tension, I began to feel somewhat drowsy. Shivering in the cold wind, even so, I began nodding off. Then Zhao’s father—who had been sitting apart from Zhao—lightly tapped my shoulder and cautioned me in broken Japanese with a laugh: “A cold is more fearsome than a tiger.” I immediately responded with a smile. But before long, I had apparently started dozing off again. And then—how much time had passed, I wonder— In my dream, I seemed to be watching the scene from Zhao’s story—a Korean being attacked by a tiger.…………

Now, how did that happen? Unwittingly, I did not know how it occurred. But when a sharp scream of terror pierced my ears and snapped me back to my senses, I saw— Right below my eyes, no more than thirty meters from our pine branches, a scene identical to the one from my dream. A black-and-yellow beast stood crouching low on the snow, presenting its flank to us. Before it, three or four ken away, a man who appeared to be a beater had thrown his gun aside, propped himself up on his hands behind him with legs splayed forward, collapsed in a posture resembling that of a paraplegic—only his eyes fixed vacantly on the tiger. The tiger—not in the crouched, pouncing stance one might imagine—was advancing forward like a cat playfully batting at something, raising its right forepaw as if to deliver a teasing swipe. Startled yet still feeling this might be a dream continuation, I rubbed my eyes and tried to look more carefully. And then— A fierce gunshot exploded by my ear with a bang, followed rapidly by three more: bang-bang-bang. The acrid smell of gunpowder suddenly stung my nostrils. The tiger that had begun moving forward roared wide-mouthed as it briefly reared on its hind legs, then collapsed with a heavy thud. All this—from my awakening to the gunshots echoing, the tiger rising and falling again—must have transpired in barely ten seconds. I simply gaped dumbfounded, feeling as though I were watching distant film footage, staring blankly all the while.

Immediately, the adults climbed down from the tree. We also climbed down after them. On the snow, neither the beast nor the human lying before it moved. We first poked at the tiger’s fallen body with the ends of our sticks. Since there was no sign of movement, we finally felt relieved and all approached the carcass. The vicinity was stained crimson with fresh blood across the snow. The length of the tiger lying fallen with its face turned sideways was likely over five shaku (approximately 1.5 meters) just in its torso alone. By then, the sky was gradually brightening, and the colors of the surrounding treetops had become faintly discernible, so the yellow with black stripes strewn across the snow were indescribably beautiful. Yet the area around its back—darker than I had expected—struck me as unexpected. Zhao and I exchanged glances, let out a relieved sigh, and—though we knew there was no longer any danger—still trembling nervously, tentatively touched the tiger’s sharp claws, which until moments ago could have torn through even the thickest hide in an instant, and its white whiskers, identical to those of a pet cat.

As for the man who had collapsed, on the other hand, he had simply fainted from sheer terror and bore not a single injury. Later, I heard that this man was indeed one of the beaters who had returned to our group after struggling to track the tiger, but while relieving himself in that clearing, the tiger had suddenly emerged from the side.

What surprised me was Cho Dae-hwan’s attitude at that moment. When he came to where the man lay unconscious, he roughly kicked the body with his foot and said to me—

“Tch! He’s not even injured—” This carried not the slightest hint of a joke—it resonated with genuine resentment at the man’s unscathed condition, an indignation that he hadn’t become the tragic victim Zhao had evidently anticipated. And his father, watching nearby, did not even attempt to stop his son from tormenting the beater with his foot. Suddenly, I thought I caught a glimpse of the warlords’ blood flowing through them—the warlords of this land. As I watched Cho Dae-hwan glaring down at the unconscious man with that acrid expression hovering between his eyes—a look of sheer spite—it occurred to me that this must be what they meant in those old heroic tales by “the countenance of unfulfilled ends.”

Before long, the other beaters also heard the gunshots and gathered. They bound two of the tiger's limbs each, inserted a thick pole through them, hung it upside down, and descended the brightening mountain path. After descending to the station and resting for a while—the tiger would be transported later as cargo—we immediately took that morning's train back to Keijō. Though unsatisfied by how disappointingly simple the conclusion proved compared to my expectations—particularly regretting having dozed off and missed seeing the tiger emerge—I nevertheless returned home satisfied with the thought that I had embarked on a proper adventure.

About a week later, when my lie was exposed through relatives in Seodaemun, it goes without saying that I was severely scolded by my father.

Seven

Now, with this, I had finally concluded the story of the tiger hunt.

And so, about two years after this tiger hunt—not long after that night of the fire drill—he quietly vanished from among us friends, just as I mentioned before. And then for fifteen or sixteen years thereafter, I never once encountered him. No—to say that would be untrue. In truth, I did meet him. What’s more, it happened just recently. That very fact compelled me to begin this account—yet our manner of meeting proved so exceedingly strange that I remain uncertain whether it can truly be called an encounter at all. The circumstances unfolded thus.

On the afternoon about three days prior, having scoured the used bookstores along Hongō-dōri in search of a certain book a friend had asked me to find, I was walking from Akamon-mae toward Sanchōme, feeling considerable eye strain. As it was exactly lunch hour, lines of university students, high school students, and other pupils overflowed across the entire street. When I reached the alley near Sanchōme—the one curving alongside a thicket—within the pedestrian waves, my eyes were drawn to a tall man—so tall his head alone protruded conspicuously above the crowd—a gaunt figure in his thirties wearing Lloyd glasses, standing utterly motionless. Not only was his height extraordinary, but his striking appearance demanded attention. Beneath an old caramel-brimmed fedora drooping low over his forehead gleamed large Lloyd glasses—one temple missing, replaced by string—while his stain-speckled high-collared uniform lacked two buttons. His grimy elongated face bore sparse unkempt stubble around pale parched lips, lending vacant dullness—yet something about his tightly drawn brows suggested unsettling vigilance. His countenance blended a country bumpkin’s guilelessness with a pickpocket’s wariness. Approaching from five or six ken away, I’d already spotted this bizarre figure—his gangly frame ill-suited to itself—amidst the crowd and fixed my gaze. Though he too seemed to have been watching me, when I came within one ken’s distance, a faint easing surfaced between his slightly furrowed brows. Then—as that imperceptible softening instantly suffused his face—his eyes abruptly turned toward me (still unsmiling) and nodded as if acknowledging an old acquaintance. I startled. After glancing around to confirm this gesture was meant for me, I began desperately combing memory’s recesses. All while maintaining puzzled scrutiny, I sensed—in some heart-corner—something indistinct yet achingly familiar surfacing after long dormancy. By the time this unnameable sensation had spread through me, my eyes were already nodding back. By then I knew with certainty this man was an old acquaintance. Only his identity remained unclear.

When he saw my nod—seeming to think I had remembered him—he began approaching me. But without exchanging words or offering smiles, he silently fell into step beside me and began retracing his path in the opposite direction. I too remained silent, endeavoring with all my might to recall who he was.

After walking five or six steps, the man—in a hoarse voice I had never heard before—said to me, “Give me a cigarette.” I searched my pocket and held out a half-empty box of Bat cigarettes to him. He took it, thrust one hand into his own pocket, then suddenly made a strange face—first staring at the Bat box, then at me. For a while he maintained this foolish expression, looking back and forth between the cigarettes and myself, before silently trying to return the box directly to me. Silently accepting it, I looked up at his face with tangled emotions—both a lingering sense of having been tricked and flickering indignation at being mocked. Then, for the first time, he curled something resembling a faint smile at the corner of his mouth and spoke as if muttering to himself—

When I rely on words for memory, I often make such mistakes. —— Of course, I couldn’t comprehend what he was talking about. But this time, he began his explanation in an energetic, hurried tone—as though discussing a matter of great interest.

According to his account, after receiving the Bat from me and putting his right hand into his pocket to retrieve matches, he found—there too—an identical cigarette case. At that moment, he started and realized what he had truly wanted wasn’t cigarettes but matches. At that point, he tried to consider why he had made such an absurd mistake. To dismiss it as a simple misconception would settle it—but then where had that misconception come from? After turning it over from every angle, he arrived at this conclusion: it was because his memory had relied entirely on words. When he first discovered he had no matches, he thought that if he met someone, he would get matches from them—and stored that thought as words in his memory: “I must get matches from others.” The practical desire of genuinely wanting matches—a full-body sense of demand (an odd phrase, he added then, but one that made things clear in this context)—he had not preserved in his memory as such. This was the root of the mistake. Sensations and emotions might fade but never grow confused; however, memories stored as words or characters, though precise, could sometimes transform into entirely different things. The word “matches” or its characters in his memory had imperceptibly been replaced by the related word “tobacco” or its characters… So he explained it. He recounted this discovery with a manner suggesting he found it utterly fascinating—even appending an unexpected conclusion at the end: such habits were the universal failing of intellectuals who thought solely through concepts. To tell the truth, throughout this time, I paid little attention to his explanation of this problem that so captivated him. Yet as I listened to his hurried, rapid-fire speech—certain this quirk existed somewhere in my memory despite his changed voice—I kept desperately trying to recall who he was. But much like struggling to remember a frustratingly simple character—feeling on the verge of grasping it completely—my thoughts kept circling the issue like debris swirling at a vortex’s edge, never quite plunging into its center.

Amidst this, we arrived at Hongō Sanchōme Station. When he stopped there, I followed suit. He might have been planning to board the train. We stood side by side, gazing absently at the pharmacy’s display window ahead. He seemed to have spotted something there and strode over to the window. I followed him and peered in as well. It was an advertisement for newly released sexual devices, with what looked like samples arrayed on black cloth. He stood before it, a faint smile playing on his lips as he peered for some time. I stood beside him watching. Then—at that moment when I glimpsed his smirking half-smile from the side—it all came rushing back. Until then, my memories had been circling in my head like debris around a whirlpool’s edge—but now they plunged straight into its vortex. That faint smile with sarcastically curled lips. The narrow eyes peering out from behind glasses. That gaze blending guilelessness and suspicion. Oh—who else could it be but him? Whose gaze could this be but his—the one who’d spitefully looked down upon the beater who’d narrowly escaped death by tiger, kicking the man back with his foot? In that instant—as tiger hunts and tropical fish and fire drills tumbled chaotically through my mind—I marveled at myself: Why had it taken me so long to recognize him? And now, with heartfelt joy, I moved to clap his shoulder from behind.

But at that moment, a streetcar from Masagochō arrived and stopped at the station. Upon seeing it, he—before my hand could even reach his tall shoulders, and utterly oblivious to my movement—swiftly turned around and ran toward that streetcar. Then, nimbly leaping aboard, he faced me from the conductor’s platform, raised his right hand slightly in acknowledgment, and folded his lanky frame into the car. The train began moving at once. And thus I lost sight of my friend Cho Dae-hwan—whom I had encountered after over a decade—once more in the crowds of greater Tokyo, without exchanging a single word with him as Cho Dae-hwan.