Chapter 18
Doyoung realized Tora intended to knock him unconscious.
"Tora! Stop!"
Thud.
Birds startled by the loud, ringing sound took flight.
Tora's foot, about to reach Doyoung, halted abruptly. A gust of wind brushed Doyoung's face as the foot stopped just 1cm from his nose. A chill ran down his spine seeing it.
Gamal stood straight between the reeds, emanating an inexplicable dignity for the first time.
Tora turned and said:
"Matty."
Gamal shifted his gaze from Tora to Doyoung.
"Doyoung won't give up. He'll eventually find it out."
Before Doyoung could ask what he meant by "find," Gamal continued as if talking to himself:
"But it's okay because it's Doyoung."
Tora glanced at Doyoung once and lowered his foot.
"I agree."
Doyoung looked at Tora incredulously.
"Then why try so hard to stop me?"
Tora grinned widely.
"Because playing with the Captain is fun."
"Doyoung, come here."
Gamal spoke and walked ahead. When Doyoung looked at Tora, he gestured forward as if telling him to go. Doyoung followed Gamal.
They walked through the forest for quite a while. Doyoung glanced back at Tora following behind and said:
"If you're taking me somewhere to bury me where no one will find me, at least make it painless."
Tora looked amused by the remark.
"Outsiders can't find this place anyway."
What?
He wanted to ask but didn't, figuring they'd tell him soon anyway.
Gamal walked ahead in silence. Doyoung turned back to Tora and asked:
"What about you?"
"Me?"
"What's your relationship?"
Instead of answering, Tora countered:
"Isn't it obvious?"
If it were obvious, I wouldn't be asking, thought Doyoung.
Then Gamal turned and said:
"Tora is my son."
"Son...?"
Doyoung looked Tora up and down. He appeared several years older than Gamal. Though appearances were deceiving with vampires...
"I gave him my blood."
Gamal's follow-up explanation cleared things up.
"Ah, that kind of son."
A recipient who became a vampire by receiving blood—what they now call clientes. Of course, they couldn't be biologically related given their racial differences. Tora looked like a mix of native and Caucasian descent.
"So you have clientes," Doyoung muttered.
Tora asked with an amused expression:
"Did you think we were married or something?"
"We're here," Gamal said as he walked ahead.
Doyoung answered Tora and followed Gamal.
"Thought you might be the third one."
"Why specifically third?"
Tora grumbled from behind.
But Doyoung stopped hearing Tora's words due to the crowd appearing before him.
It must have felt like when John Smith was introduced to Pocahontas's tribe or when Jake Sully met the Na'vi.
The island's native inhabitants all stared at Doyoung—more with curiosity than fear.
Doyoung scanned the tribe from end to end. Now he understood. Gamal hadn't been hiding Tora. He'd been hiding these people.
Doyoung turned to Gamal:
"You hid these people? Why?"
"Because we couldn't trust you, Captain," Tora answered.
"You're different from other visitors. In fact, that's exactly why we couldn't introduce our tribe. We couldn't predict how you'd react."
That "to me specifically"...
Suddenly Gamal walked toward the tribe. Among them were occasional mixed-blood individuals like Tora.
Gamal helped an elderly woman step forward. Her eyes like ancient tree bark held blue irises that studied Doyoung. She too was mixed race.
"Angela. Johannes's granddaughter."
Johannes's granddaughter.
The meaning didn't immediately register until suddenly—
"He had a wife and children outside..."
Gamal shook his head.
"Johannes fell in love with Angela's grandmother. He said he didn't want to return."
"Then what about that letter?"
"I asked him to write it that way," Tora answered with a sly smile.
"Johannes was a writer after all."
While Doyoung stood dumbfounded, Tora also approached the people. He turned and announced among them:
"Welcome. We are the Satadi tribe."
Everyone seemed joyful. They laughed boisterously around the village bonfire, cracking peanut-like nuts.
Doyoung wondered what they found so funny seeing each other daily, but none spoke his language.
Gamal's original Satadi tribe had no connection, yet these people called themselves "Satadi," all sharing that surname.
Their language too—unrelated linguistically to ancient Satadi yet called "Satadi language."
Doyoung watched Gamal beside him, cracking similar nuts. Noticing Doyoung's gaze, Gamal offered some:
"Want some?"
Doyoung tried one—larger, grittier, but peanut-like.
Murmuring while observing everyone:
"Thought you lived alone all this time."
"No one was here when I first arrived. When I awoke, people were here. Few at first, but gradually more."
Likely migrants arrived while Gamal slept. With his easygoing nature, he'd never drive out settlers—just coexisted vaguely.
"But our side showed no human traces."
Even intentionally hidden, tracks should remain. Yet even professional tracker Doyoung found nothing.
"The tribe doesn't go there," Gamal said.
"Why?"
"Because it's my land."
"Got land deeds or something?"
Doyoung couldn't hide his sarcasm. But Gamal either gave up understanding difficult words or didn't care:
"I said they could go. But they don't."
Doyoung silently ate another nut. Then asked casually:
"Why live alone? Plenty of men in the tribe."
"They see me differently," Gamal answered unsurprised.
"Differently how?"
Shrugging, Gamal said:
"A god."
Indeed, tribe members avoided sitting near them—not rejection, but treating Gamal as supreme elder. With supernatural abilities and immortality, calling him god wasn't far-fetched. The only difference from other gods: he was flesh and blood. Alive enough to protect them reliably.
Actually, the tribe originally had other names before "Satadi." Multiple names actually—dozens of tribes once inhabited this small island. Unified now, they took their god's name.
Doyoung gestured toward Tora:
"What about him?"
At least another vampire wouldn't see Gamal as divine. But Gamal looked confused by the question itself:
"Tora is my son. Watched him be born, grow up."
Obviously—across the clearing, Tora sat on a large sack like a beanbag, nearly entwined with a young tribal woman. As he whispered in her ear (nothing profound), she giggled breathlessly. Their intimacy grew until even less innocent observers might blush. Yet no tribesfolk batted an eye.
Doyoung came from a world accepting human-vampire romance, but Satadi treated it as natural law.
"That guy goes outside often?" Doyoung asked knowingly. Though native-looking, Tora had civilization's scent.
Gamal nodded:
"Tora and Lato bring news. Flowers too."
Hearing "flowers" from Gamal felt surreal. Betraying somehow...
"You eat flowers raw?"
"None left lately."
"Who's Lato?"
"Tora's twin sibling."
Doyoung paused:
"Also a vampire?"
Gamal nodded:
"Yes. Tora, Lato—both my sons."
"There's another one like him?"
Hard to say if women would celebrate or mourn that news... Twins... Something tickled his memory but wouldn't surface.
So he cracked another nut:
"Where's the other twin?"
"Outside. They take turns. This was Lato's turn. Brings news and goods."
Explaining the outsider goods among tribe possessions.
Tora suddenly sat beside him:
"Heard anything about Lato?"
Doyoung eyed Tora stealing nuts from Gamal's lap quizzically:
"Why ask me about him?"
The woman left behind looked displeased by Tora's abrupt departure.
Munching nuts, Tora said:
"Lato hasn't contacted us. Unlike him—he never misses more than two weeks. Now it's over a month."
"Sorry, but I've been stuck here six weeks. How would you even contact me?"
Tora grinned widely:
"Exactly why I shouldn't tell you."
Doyoung sighed:
"Won't talk about the tribe then."
