The Things We Cannot Say

.1.

Taehyung's POV.

My village got its name in a special way, through a dream. There is a spot near the stream that flows past the vegetable field where, if you stand at the right time of day and in the exact spot, you can see, in the mountain face, a depression shaped like a tiger's paw.

A priest two hundred years ago dreamed of a white tiger and a white stag. A curious tiger and stag. If it wanted to, it could have swallowed us, the houses, the brick fence around the village, the crops, the fields, everything. It could have killed people with its antlers and destroyed people's houses.

Instead, it paced its emperor feet through our lanes, its long stripped tail swaying gently and carefully so as to not hit anything, and peeped in the doors which the villagers did not have enough time to close.

The white stag pounced to every house of the village and placed its hoof on the main doors of the houses. It imprinted its hoof onto every door and danced around while the people watched, hiding.

The Tiger and the Stag then made their way into the priest's house. This was the priest who was dreaming the very dream.

The tiger and stag came and left in peace. They walked to an open space in the village and disappeared into the midst of the mountains. A visit of blessings, this trail of its generous footprints.

In its honour, the creatures that sought us from the mountains, that we may never forget the source of the spring, we took on the name of the tiger and stag.

The biggest village in the South became Daegu, the middle-sized one, Ulsan and my village, at the foot of the mountains and nearest to sea, the smallest one, Busan.