Chapter Text
Kang Seongjae had heard about the guard post, and he was not one to look for gossip. Talks about that unit spread like the plague, slipping quietly in the easy air of the mess hall — heavy, hushed, chilling. Something soldiers liked to use to feel the thrill of mystery when they started to get bored, to send chills running down spines and hair standing on end and nervous laughter bubbling. It was a way to feel better about the strict atmosphere that was always weighing down on them, because it was easier to know there’s people having it worse out there.
Seongje didn’t partake in those stories — didn’t partake in any stories at all, actually. He wasn’t really interested in the ghosts haunting other people’s lives, far too concerned with his own. But he had heard, still. There was not much else to do but hear when you keep your mouth shut.
There were two myths that people liked to tell about that base, and they usually told them with an enthusiasm that was almost out of place against the sheer morbidity of their words. The first one was the Bulgogi operation. Putting North Koreans in barrels and setting them on fire. The violent nature of it just had an effect on people. The second, Staff Sergeant Na’s death. People liked to speculate about it the way they do when a story is clouded in enough mystery to leave room for imagination. Reports said he died a heroic death, sacrificing himself for a cadet ; people thought otherwise, as they often did. The word that spread around was that it was all a cover up for murder. Some sort of nasty crime the military tried to sweep under the rug yet again in an attempt to keep its hands clean. They did that a lot. That story came about when family and friends of the Staff Sergeant started protesting against the lack of investigation following his death. But it was always like this. A clean report and buried truths.
Seongjae didn’t really care about it when he heard it. Or told himself he didn’t. He tried not to pay attention to that kind of thing, because it'd mean carrying a burden that was not his to bear, and he already bore more than enough. Those things were far away. Distant enough for him to be detached. He had his own problems to take care of, right where he was, both outside his mind and inside of it. The last thing he needed were morbid truths added to his piled up thoughts.
But now, sitting stiffly in that car, feeling the vibrations of the engine tickling his ribs and shaking his insides, those hushed discussions came back. Vividly, one after the other. Each slowly sinking in. Words of burnt flesh and spilled blood, of putrid air and grey skies. All of it knocked against his skull, hovered at the forefront of his mind, taking the form of a dull headache, constant and haunting. It sat heavy in his stomach, crawled back up his throat, tightened around his lungs. And the truths were all too close, suddenly. He couldn’t play blind anymore.
It made sense, really. The crazy one for the crazy guys. He was broken already. Can't break a fresh horse when there's a sick one limping around. Better a man down than two useless ones.
The silence bore its weight in the truck, the kind of weight you’d find in a cemetery, sacred and unnerving and just too big, bigger than people would ever be able to carry. None of them talked ; the superiors knew they were sending him to the slaughterhouse, and wouldn’t bother trying to lighten the mood. Good. He didn’t want them to.
That silence was defiled when a crow flew right beside the window, nearly crashing into it. The flash of feathers was too sudden and too loud, and his shoulders tensed up as he braced himself, for a second. The eye in the rearview mirror noticed — it knew. Seongjae kept his face straight as he always did. It was all he had left. He knew his own eyes betrayed him.
“Ah, really,” Corporal Kim’s voice resonated, finally, annoyance scratching against the inside of the car. “I can't believe they sent another one, these fucking bastards.”
Seongjae stared straight ahead, through the window. The tall trees loomed over them, ominous, curled over the road like mourning mothers, covering the muddy grey sky and casting crooked shadows on the empty road like stains. Their branches tangled and their roots slithered in the dirt. They pierced through the asphalt in places, like eldritch tentacles reaching towards flesh to feast upon. Past the trunks, obscurity bloomed. What would happen if he just jumped out ? Was it this easy, going from the one who chased to the one who was chased ? If he ran far enough, would he be left alone, at last ? The idea of getting lost in these woods left a bad taste in his mouth. He swallowed it down, because the dread already nestled between his ribs was more than enough. He already had his own eldritch tentacles to take care of. Those ones were so deeply rooted in his flesh there was no ripping them out of his body, no matter how hard he screamed, no matter how hard he clawed at his own chest, praying he could open it up and tear them away. Daydreams could wait. They’d have all the time in the world to plague him anyway.
He was starting to get lost in his thoughts again when the murmur of an engine grew in the distance, thundering in the overbearing silence. It had been a long time since they’d come across a living soul on these empty roads, save for the crows that gathered at the edge of the forest, their low cackles an eerie echo in the isolation. The vehicle caught up to them and slowed down as it passed their car. Soldiers. Who else ? The troop transport truck obscured the window Seongjae was facing, and Corporal Kim’s complaints died down between his teeth. Seongjae could swear he heard the grinding of his superior’s molars as his jaw clenched.
The soldiers seated in the back of the truck were probably back from a patrol. Their spines were curved as if the weight of the helmets was pushing on their necks, gravity stronger than their will. A few of them were slumped the way people are when they know nobody has a word to say about it. Their uniforms were covered in dirt, their faces in face-paint — black and red. The colors cut across their cheeks like warnings, intimidating, dangerous. It blended with mud and sweat, forming a grimy crust on their foreheads. They almost looked like they dug their way out of a grave. Seongjae’s attention was plucked by a flicker of light.
His eyes caught on an arm hanging off the side of the truck. A hand clenched loosely around a lighter flicked it. The spark came alive, once, twice, irregularly, never really turning into a flame. The nails were lined with dirt and gun oil. He let his gaze trace a path upwards, towards the wrist, the forearm, the shoulder. The sleeve of the uniform was soiled. Then further. The skin of a neck, a chin, a lazy smirk wrapped around a cigarette, lit up. It was tucked leisurely between dirty lips. Their eyes met.
If it wasn't for the darkness that clouded the inside of the truck, Seongjae could have sworn they pierced right through the window, those eyes. Too sharp, too assertive. Like they cut into his iris the way a shrapnel would, dug through nerves and bones until they reached the intimacy of his mind and all the thoughts he kept locked up there were gushing out like blood. Like they left the wound open and exposed and bleeding. They didn’t seem to care.
The light was bright against his muddy skin and it echoed faintly in that black gaze. There was no helmet on his head, just short black hair clustered with dirt and sweat.
A hand came up to those lips, grabbed the cigarette that was stuck there. It crashed against the window. Red ashes erupted. The glass felt both like a shield and a display.
A wide, wicked smile replaced the cigarette that had been lying there. Seongjae realized his back was drenched in a cold sweat.
—————————————
There wasn’t much of a discussion. He was in Captain Heo's office by 1600, as instructed, standing straight, stiff. His cold feet were growing numb inside his boots, where they were rooted on the floor. The smell of smoke coiling against the ceiling and lingering in the still air would end up sticking to his skin.
He waited for fifteen minutes and felt each and every one of them deep in his bones before the officer granted his file an ounce of attention. He looked over it just once, in a deafening silence. The sigh he unleashed around his cigarette cut through it for a moment too long for it to be pleased. Seongjae thought of a smirk and wild eyes and a cigarette crashing against a window.
He blinked as the officer put the papers down and looked up to him. His eyes had started to water from leaving them open too long again. The strict stare caught onto the badge on his chest, then made its way back to his face, and stayed there just long enough for it to be uncomfortable. Restless, Seongjae repressed the urge to shift from one foot to the other or to look away or to scratch his neck. The itch only strengthened. He couldn't wait to be out of there.
“These fuckers… As if we needed another psycho,” Captain Heo muttered, loud enough for the word to unfold bitterly in Seongjae's stomach. Psycho. The word hung above him like Damocles’s sword. And every time that word landed on people's lips, the sword slipped closer. Fate, unrelenting and impending. A madness that sat on his future and stared back at him straight, leaving him with no way out. It was unfair. The injustice clogged his throat, and it took all of him not to choke on it.
Captain Heo stubbed the butt of his cigarette on his desk, threw it in the trash, then stood up. Older by a decade or two, he was around his height, but carried himself with a secure authority he knew belonged to him as much as he belonged to it. It was what the army was all about. Authority. Hierarchy. Seongjae hated it, because he knew. However it was done, whatever happened, there would always be the ones at the bottom of it all, the ones you stepped on to. And if it wasn't him, it would be another. The military, just like everything else, was a system that relied on its own failure. It relied on victims.
The officer rounded the desk and stepped closer, too close, right past the frontier of personal space. A way to intimidate. To see right in the eyes and past them. The smell of his breath reached Seongjae, and it took some effort and a clenched jaw not to jerk away. Seongjae directed his gaze to the captain's eyebrows and kept it there.
“The DP, huh ? Is that how you got all fucked up ?” Captain Heo raised a fist to Seongjae's forehead, knocked once, twice against his skull, then pushed him. The boots that had been stuck on the floor stumbled.
‘Private Kang Seongjae !” Seongjae enunciated mechanically, taking a step forward again, because that's what he was supposed to do and because any other word would get stuck in his throat, he knew it. Hoyeol’s blank face stared at him from the corner of the room. He blinked it away.
“Must feel like shit, going from strolling in the streets chasing deserters to being stuck here. Bet you had some fun with a face like that.”
Seongjae swallowed.
“No, sir.”
Most soldiers seemed to think of the DP unit as a bunch of lucky bastards who got to skip training to enjoy the outside world instead. Alcohol and bars and girls. That was all they thought about. Seongjae had never bothered correcting them, because it's not like it would have changed anything, and because it was always better to keep his mouth shut. And now he'd rather not think about it at all.
“So, what did they transfer you for ?”
Seongjae opened his mouth, inhaled, sharp, willed his mind to gather words, any of them, willed those words to spill past his lips. They didn't ; they stumbled and got stuck on his tongue, dragging like dead weights. Sticky and Bitter. His mouth closed. Opened, again ;
“I believe it’s written on my files, sir.”
Captain Heo sighed again, his annoyance openly hitting Seongjae's cheek. The distaste read easily on his face, tugged his mouth into a tight line and traced creases on his forehead. He didn't look like the kind to smile often. Not without alcohol and bars and girls. That look on his face told Seongjae he was lucky not to get pushed more — until he broke. It also told him Captain Heo knew the story anyway. They both knew he did. Because the guard post was the rug they swept everything under.
“We can’t let you hold a gun, so what use are you gonna be ?”
The question didn’t seek an answer. Still, the breath catched beneath his trembling lips.
“I…”
What use ?
“We needed someone to replace Lee Kyungho anyway, he's out in two months. Kitchen duty. If I see you playing with a knife, you get locked up. I'll cut your goddamn fingers myself.”
—————————————
The smiley face badge felt like a target. The knowing sneers it earned from some of the few soldiers he passed by in the corridors only seemed to confirm that.
The base was big and isolated. Trouble didn’t really get out of places like that, it got locked up the way Seongjae’s thoughts did. So all there was seeping out of it were whispers.
A lot of the site was buried underground and windows were a rarity, making it hard for light to reach it. The obscurity swallowed up corners and climbed up the damp stone besides the rusty pipes, persistent. That, along with the narrow corridors, made the walls close around Seongjae in a way that left his shoulders tensing up and his throat tightening around shallow breaths. It was suffocating. He felt the alert press up against his ribs, a constant apprehension taking root in his guts. He couldn’t brush off that feeling no matter how hard he tried. The feeling that he was doomed. That there was something coming, and that he couldn’t know what, couldn’t know when, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do anything but wait and see. He couldn’t stand that. He’d have preferred it to just come already, to eat him whole. He’d have preferred an open wound. That one, at least, he’d have understood. That one he would have been able to take care of.
Maybe it was just the proximity of past horrors getting to him. Maybe it was the anxiety that had found its home in his heart after all that happened, dug burrows, calling for his attention.
The humid air, this close to the frontier, felt heavier. It ran thick and corrupt in his throat and sat like a burden in his chest, clung onto his tongue like a poison. He didn’t know how much of it was just a result of his imagination — that one had been toying with him a lot, recently —, all he knew was that the cold humidity crawled up the walls and down his spine and left his palms clammy. That he hated it. He tried in vain not to think of the freedom he left behind. Or that they made him leave behind. It was cursed anyway.
The darkness was made worse by the power supply, which was old and busted ; it caused the electricity to go down from time to time, so there were candles stored in every room. He had wondered why when he saw them. They told him he wouldn’t have to wonder for too long. He didn’t. The barracks weren’t anything fancy, but he hadn't expected much more, and it wasn’t like they were supposed to be any more comfortable than strictly necessary in the first place — people weren’t meant to be enjoying military life, they were meant to be tested and wrecked and built up again until all that remained were obedient little soldiers. Listen. Don’t complain.
The red light-bulb buzzed above their heads at night and it flickered like the lighter Seongjae was welcomed by when he first arrived. He hadn’t seen it since then, hadn’t seen the guy that had been holding it either. Even without the war paint, he would have recognized the eyes. Those eyes. He listened to that buzzing like he’d do a prayer, reverently, latching onto it like an anchor, the only thing keeping his mind from wandering too far, too deep. It didn’t exactly work. Han Hoyeol’s shut lips. Ahn Junho’s torn scream. Oh Beomseok’s bloody face. They kept him awake. In another corner of his mind, his father’s ghostly smile stayed buried. He fought off grief like he fought off everything else.
Pushing it down.
More and more.
More and more.
Until it couldn’t be pushed anymore. Until it all came back up and exploded. Was it not what Oh Beomseok did too ? Pushing everything down until it all exploded.
Cook Lee Kyungho looked happy to have someone to organise the storage room, wash the dishes and sweep the floors. He had the loose posture and tired words of a soldier that knew he was almost free ; the confident stance of one that had been here long enough to be respected. He was only two months away from discharge. That didn’t mean he cut Seongjae any slack.
They didn’t exchange more than a few words a day and Seongjae was grateful for it. It was easier to follow orders quietly than to speak, and the work emptied his mind from the memories that were unveiled at night. Cook Lee didn’t seem to care much about his past as a D.P. soldier, and he probably didn’t even know about it. He didn’t care about the pin on his chest either, or didn't say anything about it, at least. He didn’t care about Seongjae at all, in fact, apart from the idea of another pair of hands to wipe the counters, and wash the dishes and it was better off that way, it really was. Work and orders, he could do. He needed that like he needed to scream. So when Cook Lee simply grunted at him to organize the supply in the storage room and left him there without a glance back, Seongjae just nodded without a complaint.
Finding his way through expired cans threw him back to his life before enlisting ; days spent in convenience stores, sorting through bags of chips or water bottles, bored and tired. A part of him wished he could go back there and forget about it all. Replace the hammering in his cranium with the repetition of routine and the ache pulling on his muscles after a long day. Replace it all with the exhaustion he carried around, because that kind of exhaustion was easier to deal with. No ghosts in his peripheral vision, no craziness, no blood and traumatized colleagues that stopped talking. Just physical pain, real and there. Blisters you covered up with cheap bandages. There was no way out of a broken mind.
Only six months had gone by since he enlisted, but it didn’t really feel like it. He wasn’t sure if the days flowed by too fast or too slow. Time felt like a weird concept. He wished he could have grasped its laws, just to find his balance back and stop feeling like he was stumbling on a loose line constantly, toeing at the void. One thing he did know for sure, however, was that too much had happened for his brain to catch up, and that he wasn’t sure it'd ever catch up. Maybe he'd stay lost forever and wander through life like those ghosts did. Barely there. A part of him found a wicked comfort in that concept.
He made sure the bags of rice were distanced enough from the wall not to get contaminated by the humidity, and clenched his fists when he felt a numb tremor walking down his cold fingers. Ahn Junho stood there, in a corner of his vision. He blinked him away. Work was good. Keep working. Work until his limbs fell off.
He put all of his brain power into checking the dates on the cans and sorting them. No other thoughts. Just numbers. The furthest from their expiring date in the back, the closest in the front. It wasn’t too complicated, he wished it was. So instead, he reveled in the way the weight of the heavier boxes pulled on his arms. Work is good, he repeated.
“Damn, it actually looks decent.”
It burst his bubble, and he startled, turning around. The words rolled on his lips easily as he saluted, “Private Kang Seongjae.” A habit. Obedient little soldier, nicely sculpted by harsh screams and rough slaps. His edges were starting to fray. Obedient little soldier.
It was getting late, he'd gone through most of the work. He hadn’t realized. A quiet relief found its way to his lungs ; time passed by quicker than he'd thought, and he managed to keep his sanity in check. Which shouldn't be an issue to begin with. That relief was smothered when it dawned on him that he’d have to stop working and let the night do its job, soon.
“You’re the newbie, right ?”
The guy put a box down on the floor with a loud, dramatic groan, and stretched obnoxiously. Park Seung. A first class private.
“Yes.”
Seongjae hadn't really talked to other soldiers yet. Well, he hadn't really tried to, but it wasn’t like he really had time for it, either. He'd have preferred to keep it that way if he could, because he knew what came with talking. Fake smiles and fake words. Straightforward insults. It didn't matter. It was all bad. And somehow, the off chance of finding someone nice filled him with more dread than quiet bullying and uncomfortable questions. He didn’t dwell on that. Oh Beomseok's awkward smile came to mind.
He couldn’t quite remember how he had felt about making friends, on his very first day.
“Nice,” Park Seung's tone was overly confident over the broken English accent. “Let’s get along, new guy.”
Seongjae didn’t necessarily want to get along, because that kind of guy got along until they didn’t. He knew that. But he also knew that getting into trouble on his first day didn’t sound like the greatest idea, so he nodded reluctantly, mechanically. Because that was what you were supposed to do. Agree and shut up. Seung beamed ; it only made the aversion stronger.
“People say you hear voices and stuff. Don’t go crazy on us, huh, wouldn’t want to have to beat you up or something. The last thing we need is another accident.” His lips formed a nasty sneer around that last word. The emphasis was exaggerated, as if he was sharing a secret they both had the key to but weren’t supposed to name. The only accident he knew of was Sergeant Na’s. Seung’s laugh scratched unpleasantly against Seongjae's ears. He hoped they wouldn’t see each other often.
It seemed his intuition was right, because the next time he saw Seung, he had a couple of friends with him, and they were like the cackling crows that went in circles in the cloud-saturated sky outside, hunting for some sick rodent, laughing about the bad omen they brought about. He was far enough not to catch their attention.
Seongjae had seen the guy once, though he didn’t remember his name. He was pretty sure they shared a barrack, but he hadn’t exactly felt the need to remember every face there. Still, his gaze wandered on the name tag this time. Seo Juntae.
He knew at once, by the way Seung had his fingers like claws around his nape, by the way they pushed him around, just enough to send him stumbling, by the way his shoulders were locked tight, by the way they joked too loud and their laughter resonated like the cruel clamor of thrilled spectators around an arena, waiting for the execution to happen. Seongjae watched. And at some point, the scene morphed into flashes, so entangled he wasn’t sure which were rooted in truth and which were just the mere handiwork of his imagination anymore. Everything that haunted him at night. Hits and vultures and blood and then nothing but a fury so wide it obliterated everything in its path.
The air came in short bursts in his lungs, sticking to the walls of his throat. His chest started rising beneath his shirt irregularly.
Park Seung’s eyes shot up. They met his own. He didn’t know what Seung saw there, but his grin widened right before it fell, just like a wave. Seongjae was out of the corridor before they could exchange a word. He stumbled in the bathroom as the bile rose in his mouth.
—————————————
The next few days passed by without much trouble. Not enough, anyway — it was all too calm, and he knew that only announced trouble. Some brewing storm waiting to strike. Seongjae kept himself busy, and didn’t really get to cook. The most he did was chopping up vegetables under Cook Lee’s watchful eye — probably making sure he didn’t go mad and stab someone or himself — and he was content enough with cleaning the kitchen and carrying whatever heavy load there was to carry.
The first time he was assigned to fill up the soldiers' trays, he had the confirmation something was waiting to happen. Most soldiers only cared about what was on the menu and the idea of getting their stomachs full. Others, though, made sure he knew what he was stepping into. Taunts and jeers, sneers that had yet to become something nastier. Eyes that noticed the target on his chest and visibly scoffed, because they saw weakness and weakness was food. They preyed on it like vultures. But it was still too calm. Too nice. All of it was like the distant roar of an engine, a crash waiting to happen. The buzz before a grenade hit its target and exploded.
For that very reason, when the first incident happened, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Seongjae had expected it, had waited and braced himself. It set the tone for what was to come. It wasn’t exactly an incident, more of a warning, a humiliation. Calling it an incident was just easier.
The mess hall was almost empty — empty enough, at least ; there weren’t any high ranking officials dining. People preyed on weakness but bowed in the face of strength. It was the way of the world. Harsh and unforgiving. Following no law but hierarchy.
The corporal that had been in the car on their way there — Corporal Kim — came back to him with a bowl still full of soup in his hands and a clenched jaw.
“Can you fuckers even cook, or do you just shit in our bowls and expect us to eat ?”
Seongjae gaped. He hadn’t even made the food ; Cook Lee was in the kitchen, but he probably wouldn’t have intervened anyway. Too close to freedom to cause trouble. It was disgusting, too salty, tasted like dogshit or vomit or something along those words. Seongjae apologized, loud and clear, bowed, one time, two, three, and again. The words were thick on his tongue, burdened by shame.
“You asshole, you think I care about your excuses ?”
“I’m sorry, sir. Do you want me to replace it with something else ? I think we have some beef radish soup left, I could—”
The corporal spat. It landed right in the bowl. Seongjae’s words died on his tongue, he clenched his teeth around their silent corpse. Ah. So that was how it was going to go. He stared at the bowl as a feeling of dread fell into the pit of his stomach.
“What ? What’s with the face ?”
And all Seongjae could do was apologize again, louder and clearer. Bow lower, five times and again. But that wasn't enough. Because the corporal didn’t care about the soup. He cared about giving a lesson, leaving a threat engraved in Seongjae’s skin. He cared about feeling his pride swell in a way it wouldn’t anymore once he was out of the military.
There was stillness. The bowl was pushed into Seongjae’s hands. He swallowed a sharp breath. It didn’t satiate his lungs. “I’ll get you-”
“Drink.”
“Sorry ?” He almost choked on the word.
“What ? Did you not hear ? You feed us dogshit, you drink. That’s how it goes.”
Wasting was bad. Not listening to a superior’s orders was worse. But Seongjae stayed frozen in place. And he didn’t drink.
“You drink the damn soup, you wimp, and you tell me how it tastes.”
He felt his thoughts shut off and stared at the bowl with eyes suddenly so saturated with exhaustion they felt dead. It was growing cold between his hands, the pleasant scent that swirled into his nose instilled in him a bitter nausea. He looked up to that irascible frown.
Following orders was easy. He didn’t have to think, didn’t have to make a choice. All he had to do was go with the flow, shut up, listen and do. Make a machine out of himself. Obedient little soldier.
Still, he thought. And he chose.
“I’m sorry.” The words landed flat in the silence, lacking the rush that had been inhabiting his voice just a few moments before. Not fiery. Not rebellious. Just low, just tired.
I’m sorry I won’t listen.
“Please stop.”
The unbelieving scoff that followed carried a muted threat. “Stop ?”
The bowl was out of his strained grip in a swift motion. There was a second during which he saw it come like a certain, straightforward truth. This is it. This is how it’s going to be.
He was too slow to react. His arms came up a beat too late. The mushy, lukewarm liquid slapped him in the face as he took a step back, and all of it, the salty smell, the tacky feeling, the clothes damp against his skin and the swarm of thoughts — all of it came like a punch — no, something worse than a punch. He’d have preferred the sting of it over the burn of humiliation. The scorching stares and snickers. Even with his eyes shut tight, he felt it all. It dribbled down his temples, dripped down his cheeks and rolled down his neck. Sticky. Gross. Violent and overwhelming.
He wiped his face with his forearm. He was glad he didn’t have his uniform yet, the stain on his black shirt would be easier to clean. His eyes opened to meet ones that held a burdening disdain.
“This freak, what’s with the stare-” The corporal was interrupted by the voice of a superior screaming in the hallway at some poor private.
He swore as it drew closer, and his expression twisted into something even uglier, a frustration on the brink of rage, just two steps away from exploding, all of it strained by restraint. A vein on his forehead looked ready to burst.
Eventually, he spat at Seongjae’s feet for good measure, muttering a last heated “I’ll have your fucking head,” under his breath before he reluctantly stormed off, flanked by a couple of lackeys.
That first warning, though he had been expecting it, left Seongjae with a sinking hollowness that anchored itself deep in his bowels. The bitter shame stuck to him the following days, as he continued to wade through life in that hellhole of a base.
Eight days after his arrival, as he headed towards the showers, he came across Seung again in the corridors. He was surrounded by a bunch of other privates, loud laughter echoing through the narrow space, scraping the ceiling, and it once again reminded Seongjae of the surrounding crow’s cacophonous caws that breached the silence from time to time and only seemed to enhance the austere atmosphere that tainted the place and made bad moods fester. He let himself hope they'd let him go through without issues, because all he needed right now — and always — was a warm shower and to be left alone.
They didn’t. He should've known. He did know, deep down.
“Hey, Kang Seongjae !”
“Private Kang Seongjae.” he said, tone flat but loud enough not to be disrespectful. Get through this graciously. Maybe, if he was taciturn enough, they'd get bored of him and leave him be.
“Come on, don't be so stuck up, let's talk a bit.” The arm that slipped around his shoulders left a trail of unease creeping down his tensing shoulders. It smelled like cigarettes. Seongjae pushed down the urge to step away, or worse.
Just this once. Let it go.
Let it go, let it go, let it go, just this once. He repeated it over and over in the burrows of his mind like a mantra, an everlasting, frantic echo stemming from his precarious levelheaded self, or whatever was left of it — a cadaver, trampled upon by the preordained condemning boots of madness. Rotting corpses were the home of new seeds. Of rebirth, grand and wild.
“Guys, doesn't Sergeant Shin come back tomorrow ? He left right when you arrived, didn't he, Seongjae ?”
The silence dragged as they waited for the answer he caged behind a tight-lipped mouth. He’d overheard the name a few times, hushered like a curse, but still couldn’t put a face to the calamity it seemed to represent. The mess hall usually overflowed with gossip, to entertain the bored minds — either that or complaints of sore muscles, bad food or drills to come —, and ladling meant he was privy to a lot of whispers, so, just like before, he listened. That meant he knew. That name came up daily, like one that couldn’t be forgotten, and it usually sailed amid a sea of swears.
He acquiesced reluctantly. “Right.”
“You should be careful around him, you know what they say ?”
The four of them shared deceitful glances, then looked back at him with grins, scornful.
“They say he was the one who killed Staff Sergeant Na, two years ago. He's all fucked in the head.” One of them sneered.
That, he hadn’t heard. Well, he’d heard things — that Shin Ahwi was the squad leader of the search company, that he was crazy, that he’d gouge eyes out if he heard, that he’d be the first to blow their brains off if a war began, even before North Koreans had the chance to — but he didn’t think there were actual foundations under all of that bullshit. Speculations. Whatever it was.
“That scary bastard, he thinks we don't know they covered it all up.”
“Apparently, they didn’t get along at all.”
“Some think he harassed Na.”
“They say he pushed him on a landmine.”
“Yeah, he…” the words died down in Seung's throat. The guys’ incessant cackling suffocated.
Seongjae frowned where he had been zoning out and looked up. His eyes landed on a silhouette, roughly cut in the ever-present darkness.
Basked in the flickering bleak light of the corridor, shadows staining his sharp face, stood a man. He was close enough to hear, barely eight feet away. A wicked smile hung from his lips and a kind of effervescent folly festered in his eyes. It took Seongjae a few seconds to recognize them — the eyes. He’d seen them before, had felt them thread through his own pupils towards the confines of his soul. They were the ones he got a glimpse of back on his first day, in that truck. Once again, they sent an uncomfortable chill down his spine.
A bag hung from his shoulder over a simple black long sleeved shirt. The military pants and boots he had on were relatively clean and his short black hair wasn’t sticky with sweat ; he hadn’t crawled through the dirt all day. The man pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and stretched his neck — it rolled lazily and swelled around a tired sigh before he stepped forward, slowly, idly, like he knew he had them cornered. Seongjae didn’t need the name tag to guess his name ; the others’ aghast reactions and jumbled words said enough. Sergeant Shin Ahwi. The calamity that plagued every soldier’s tongue, a presence so deafening it screamed even louder in his absence.
“Ah, seriously. Aren't you gonna greet me ? Did you forget everything while I was gone ?”
The angry rasp of his voice dripped down from a smile, and it was all it took for them to stand up straight and salute. Seongjae followed, too. The weight of Seung’s arm lifted off his shoulder, he used the opportunity to take a subtle step to the side, away from all of them. The narrow corridor was even more suffocating when it was crowded ; anxiety pushed against his chest.
Sergeant Shin’s smile fell off. “You're lucky I'm tired. Next time I'll blow your heads off, fuckers.”
The threat seemed too honest, and Seung stuttered. It was all it took for that smile to come back, and a laugh spilled from Shin Ahwi's lips, low, twisted. His tongue ran against his teeth angrily. Someone took a step back. Perhaps Seongjae.
The wild eyes found him. They were still as stabbing as they were the first time, still as scalding, and the ghost of a cigarette’s spark resonated there, a honed picture etched in Seongjae’s memory briefly rekindled. It brought back the feeling of a cold sweat and a tremble of fingers under the desaturated hues of a gloomy sky. It was as if they could see past the stoic shell, venture down his closed up throat to reach his churning insides. See the phantom faces that haunted his nights. Peel off each and every layer of skin until everything was bare.
None of them spoke. It lasted more than it should. Seongjae swallowed awkwardly around the lump in his throat and fought off the urge to flee. His boots were planted so firmly in the ground they might as well be rooted in place anyway. He kept his face straight, again. Still, as if carved in wood. Even if his lightly widened eyes ended up betraying him.
The irises descended, slowly, carefully. Mouth, neck, name-tag, pin, belt, all the way down to his feet. And then back up. As if gauging. Shame curled in Seongjae's stomach, thick, but he stayed frozen through it all, wishing he could have buried himself six feet under. The yellow target on his chest was too bright.
Finally, Shin Ahwi looked up to his eyes one last time. Seongjae waited for words — mocking, mean ones, orders or criticisms, even just his name, anything, because that's all there was, that's all that ever came. He braced himself mentally even though he shouldn't, not anymore, not now that he was used to them.
But they never came. Staff Sergeant Shin shrugged, scoffed again, and his blistering stare shifted elsewhere in a bored dismissal. It left Seongjae bracing against nothing and somehow, for once, surprisingly for the man that reveled in the stillness, the lack of words felt worse. Because he couldn’t know what to expect next. Shin Ahwi shoved Seung out of the way and just like that, he departed, leaving Seongjae with an anticipation that went nowhere. He should have been relieved by the lack of comment. He wasn’t sure he was.
“This crazy- He wasn't supposed to come back today.”
The rest of their hushed, cursing voices got drowned by his thoughts as he stared distractedly at the wide back disappearing at the end of the hallway, the shirt stretched against seasoned muscles, the roll of shoulders under a layer of cloth, the sliver of a dog tag rubbing against a nape, disappearing beyond the collar, right where skin was sweaty and tissue slightly damp.
And as a cold shiver wormed its way down his spine again, Kang Seongjae had the feeling he was fucked.
—————————————
Waking up before the morning bugle call meant he didn’t have to face other people too early in the day. It was another thing he was thankful for, and that moment of respite before every voice crowded his ears was a welcomed sanctuary. He didn’t get much sleep anyway, and trading a few hours for a moment of quiet seemed like a good deal even though it meant he had to drag himself to the kitchen at five in the morning. He pulled on the hem of his black shirt, making sure he was presentable enough. He still hadn’t gotten his cook uniform.
This time, he got to cook, which felt like improvement. Lee Kyungho trusted him enough around a knife by now, it seemed, and Seongjae tried his best not to fuck this up. He could do this. He knew this. This was what he knew best, what he grew up with, cooking. The army was the last place he thought it’d come to use.
The soybean stew turned out good, even though he hadn’t actually cooked for a while. It was good enough for Kyungho, at least, seeing how the cook granted him a single nod of approval and what looked like an impressed raised eyebrow. Seongjae felt the tension seeping out from his frame as soon as the spoon touched the counter and, for the first time after what felt like an eternity, allowed himself to feel proud. The smell was nice. This was nice. Work was nice. Anything but too much time on his hands and ghosts in a corner of his mind. But even that was a lie, because his father was here, in the scent of good food and the warmth of a used kitchen.
Just before 0600, soldiers slowly started to filter through the doors. Sergeant Shin was one of the first few, and his commanding presence caught Seongjae’s gaze as soon as he entered. He looked as unpredictable as the day before, teeth clenched under tight lips as if a bunch of screams were piled up on his tongue, waiting for the right moment to burst. The air seemed to shift under the slam of his boots against the floor, going thick and tense, and the mess hall, almost empty, felt as awfully full as loudly silent.
He stayed quiet as his tray was filled, and spared Seongjae a single glare as he ladled the soybean soup. The chair he sat on scraped against the floor. All the eyes in the room darted up to him. By 0630, people flooded the mess hall, and a couple of soldiers had joined him and chatted loudly — it seemed that even in the midst of all those speculations, he was still surrounded by allies, if not friends. He left without having opened his mouth once.
A feeling akin to relief brawled with the instincts that kept his mind alert. Maybe he’d escape that storm.
The one storm he wouldn’t escape, though, was Corporal Kim.
Seongjae was busy washing his hands in the bathroom when the door opened, and their eyes met in the reflection of the glass. He had managed to evade Corporal Kim’s wrath since the soup incident ; perhaps the man found someone else to step on, perhaps the occasion just hadn't presented itself. But seeing him in that mirror, Seongjae knew something was bound to happen. Because he carried misfortune around like a convict carried chains, and because he’d spent his whole life wading through adversity. So he resigned himself to it and turned around to salute with hands that were still wet, cursing whatever sick fate placed them on this crossroad, same space and same time, a mirror for sole witness.
“What was it, again…”
Seongjae released an exhale. It shivered into the damp air.
“Ah, they said you got transferred because you beat up five guys. Is that true ?” The mocking tone rubbed uncomfortably against his ears.
He opened his mouth and closed it again. The jumble of words lingered behind his lips but didn't escape and stubbornly stuck to them instead. He bit down his tongue.
With that, the corporal scoffed, took a step forward, and again, until the space between them shrunk to an uncomfortable handful of inches. It sent Seongjae back to his first day in Captain Heo’s office. The breath hitting his cheek. He hated it. He hated it so much that relief flooded him when the corporal pushed him rather harshly and suddenly there was space he could breathe in. It took him a second too long to tear himself from its comfort and step forward. The proximity fell down on him again.
“Private Kang Seongjae,” he said, loud, with the tone of a man that knew no fear. He knew all that fear was buried in his eyes.
“Is it true, huh ? You think you scare us ? You know, we play by our own rules here. You guys have it easy. I don’t care how many assholes you beat up. Fucking wimp.”
When the corporal pushed him again, Seongjae stumbled and slammed into the sink. The pain that blossomed against his thigh was quickly weathered. That kind of pain was dull when it clashed against the sharp edge lodged in his chest — the one that was not made out of wounded nerves nor open flesh but forged in the mind, deceptive and ungraspable, unbreakable even. It barely put up a fight before dying. Seongjae wished the battle had lasted longer.
His fingers gripped the edge, hard, harder than necessary. He swallowed the reaction that threatened to betray him, let go of the breath that scraped at the cell of his lungs, said his name and stepped forward, again. Obedient little soldier. Just let it go. Just wait for it to pass. He looked up, right into those angry eyes. Thought about Shin Awhi’s own angry eyes and wondered if he , — Kang Seongjae — too, could dig through people’s facade if he just tried hard enough. If instead of putting all of his energy into keeping his own emotions nicely caged, he could slip behind the bars of others’.
“That damn stare like you’ve never done anything wrong, you just get on my fucking nerves.”
Seongjae had been told this a million times in his life, even before he enlisted. That he was so clueless and lost he’d probably live a life without remorse — if not because he was kind and innocent, because he just wouldn’t realize when the time came that he failed at being good, and hurt people, cluelessly or not. For some time, he thought it was a good thing. The ahjummas that hung out at the restaurant playing go and called him a sweet innocent angel would pinch his cheek and tell him to live life without regrets, so wasn’t it better to live a life free of any guilt, regardless of the wrong you had done ? Then he learnt that there was a difference between remorse and regret. He also learnt you had to avoid creating those regrets in the first place rather than vainly trying to silence them once they were there.
The military taught him there was still cluelessness in his eyes. It taught him it was bad, and that you were supposed to know. Well, he had learnt that before. So he knew. He just learnt it again with a rougher lesson, one that made sure he wouldn’t forget. Even if he knew. What he didn’t know was how people saw that in a simple gaze. When he looked in the mirror and watched, really watched, searching those eyes for whatever key they had all found, all he saw was hollowness and a crowd of thoughts. That crowd might have been a battlefield.
Some people seemed to dislike the idea of one who was without any wrongdoing. Because they were washed in sin, because humans were bad, and because they couldn’t stand the idea of someone with a morality that had stood against every trial. Because that would have been proof of their own lack of determination, and they would’ve had to face the fact that they just didn’t try hard enough to be good. Because they couldn’t stand feeling lesser and dirtier. But Seongjae wasn’t without any wrongdoing. Seongjae knew because he had learnt you had to know, and no matter how blind he wished he was, he couldn’t escape his past actions, his every mistake, even the tiniest ones, even the ones that’d stay buried in secrecy. They disliked him still, blamed him for the one wrong he hadn’t done — feeling innocent in a life lived in culpability.
So when Seongjae felt a hand on his neck, he didn’t feel surprised or clueless. All he felt was the bitter taste of injustice. He thought of the ahjummas pinching his cheeks and wondered when time had turned him from a sweet innocent angel to a clueless looking asshole. And suddenly there was water — filling up his vision, biting his cheeks, running up his nose, into his mouth and down his throat until it was all he could think about and it was all he could feel, breathe, water, water, water. Adrenaline clouded his mind. Think. No, act. His skull hit the tap when he tried to escape the grasp that was pushing him there, and the violent sting left him shocked for a second. Water, still. The hands gripping the edge of the sink were his own. He wasn’t sure when they found their way there again. They flew up as he reached behind him and found the rough hand tightened around his nape, but he couldn't get the claw-like grip to loosen. So he went further ; clothes, skin, what seemed to be the face — his nails scratched against the chin, pulled at the mouth, reached for the eyes as he grasped for anything he could find, trying to breathe and choking again. That seemed to do the trick, somehow, because the hand loosened, and he tore himself away from the corporal's hold swiftly, letting his elbow sharply crash against the man’s ribs. The collision was harsh. There was a scream and the mess of limbs untangled.
Air met his burning lungs and Seongjae swallowed it down in mouthfuls as his back slid down painfully against the sink. His body collapsed on the floor. He blinked, tried to find his legs, his arms, his hands, the world tilting around him. “Let it go”, he said quietly, sentence wrecked by a coughing fit, “let it go,” and he spit the rest of the water that was pooling in his mouth. Some of it still clogged his nose. He sniffed and coughed again. His throat ached, and the sting from the tap remained. The pains were battling inside him, body and mind. He knew which would win.
“Damn freak,” the corporal’s voice was breathless, dulled by the buzz of adrenaline shaking Seongjae’s fingers and roaring against his skull. Though the surge of energy had evaporated, the tension lingered and sent ants marching down his numb limbs. He saw the silhouette stumble, “Are you fucking crazy ? Do you want to die ?”
The question was rhetoric, yet it resonated in his soul. Do you want to die ? He stared at the twitching fingers in his lap, their silhouette rendered blurred. Thought of the breath sailing to his lungs and dropping its anchor there, before drawing back with the tide of life when the time came. And then all over again. In. Out. Do you want to die ?
The corporal was about to take a step forward when a loud noise exploded in the taut silence. Seongjae startled, his own breath still heavy in his ears. It was the door of one of the stalls, now open wide.
“Won’t you let a poor guy pee in peace ?”
Shin Ahwi’s voice rose in the bathroom, resonating against the tiles. It was bored as it had been the first time they met — no, the second, but there was the usual madness simmering just below. Creeping up and baring its ugly teeth. Seongjae took another breath, and looked up. Ahwi stepped right next to him without sparing him a glance. Or maybe he did. Seongjae didn’t dare look into his eyes. The Sergeant opened the tap wordlessly, and washed his hands as if no fight had occurred, as if Seongjae wasn’t spitting water all over the floor like a drowned dog, laying at his feet. As if he didn’t exist. Just a ghost, stuck at the place his pride died.
“Ah, Sergeant Shin…”
The corporal’s tone wasn’t as loud anymore. It lacked its confidence, and grew thinner like thread pulled from a tissue, unraveled. Eventually, it got cut short by fear or shame.
Ahwi dried his hands. “Kim,” a tense sigh, “Do I look like a damn joke to you ?” The end of the sentence erupted into a scream. It detonated and echoed in the space in a deadly blast and Seongjae flinched and frowned, feeling it echo inside his skull, too. The breath in his ears quickened.
“No sir ! I’m sorry, sir !”
The sergeant laughed, manically, and now he was the one that was all in the corporal’s space, pushing him against the wall roughly. He hit it like Seongjae hit the sink a moment before, except the pain probably didn’t feel as dull, because it didn’t have a sharper, sturdier sword to clash with. Seongjae found himself jealous of that.
“What, I leave for a week and now you guys just do whatever the fuck you want ? Now you’re all that ? You fuckers won’t ever greet me properly. Do you all just want to die ?” The words were so imbued with anger they sent a freezing chill trickling down Seongjae’s spine that overdid the cold water that had seeped beyond his collar. He thought about getting up, about doing anything, but it was like all common sense left along the entirety of his strength, and his body was just there, heavy, empty. What use was there training when you couldn’t even escape a storm charging towards you ?
A fist flew, and the punch crashed against Corporal Kim’s stomach with enough force to send him stumbling until he collided with the wall a second time. He doubled over, clutching his abdomen with a pained grunt. And apologized, again, in a way Seongjae hadn’t.
“You fuckers just piss me off.” A kick followed, right in the shin. Corporal Kim cried out. Seongjae winced. Ahwi rolled his shoulder, stretched and sighed again. “Kang Seongjae.”
The night before, Seongjae had wished he’d never see the day where he heard his name shooting from Sergeant Shin’s lips. Once they knew your name, there was no escaping wrath by laying low, and there was no living like a ghost. There was no unknowing what people knew. He wished he could remain unknown. Misfortune really did enjoy his company, it seemed.
Seongjae just stared at that back and the uniform draped over it, air rubbing against parted lips. He tried to speak, to salute, but his throat was still burning and his tongue was still too heavy in his mouth and the words just got stuck, yet again.
“Kang Seongjae,” Ahwi repeated, dragging each syllable, letting each of them breathe in a way Seongjae wasn’t — slow, settled, definite —, before he turned around. The eyes saw him, this time. Seongjae wished they didn’t, wouldn’t, he wished he could remain unseen. That’s all he wanted.
His name was layered with a warning that hovered on the brink of threat. But he just panted, his tongue curling uselessly against his teeth when he tried again, and he coughed. Shin Awhi’s boots slammed against the tiles, and before Seongjae knew it, he was standing right before him. “Get up.”
The boots were worn and a bit dirty. They’d known better days. Seongjae’s looked better, but that was because he hadn’t been wearing them when he went out to chase those people, and now he was stuck in the kitchen most hours of the day. He didn’t mind. But he did wonder vaguely, seeing the efficiently tied laces, if there existed a world in which he traded his ruined mind for boots as used as Shin Ahwi’s, one where he never chased anyone and was never chased in return, and he was just a regular soldier, hurt by kicks in the shin and collision against a sink more than by words and nightmares. One where he didn’t see a friend of his blow his face off because he was too blind to act, because he made the wrong choice, one where that friend didn’t appear in every corner of his consciousness, haunted his every night. One where his mind didn’t become clouded by hate.
“Get up.”
He looked up. His head sat heavy on his neck. His lashes were wet, his whole face was — a drop trickled down his hair, on his forehead, he followed the course of its coldness and the chill it left behind. Shin Ahwi’s eyes held no pity. Not like Seongjae could read them anyway, those eyes. All he saw in them was his miserable reflection. The one of a man gone mad, eaten by his own regrets, swallowed by his own bad decisions. He thought of the ahjummas and their warm smiles again. Sorry. Sorry, I’ve lived a life filled with remorse. I’ve lived a life filled with regrets. The words were so silent against his lips it took him some time to realize he’d hushered them, that his lips had mouthed against his will.
“Get the fuck up.” Shin Ahwi’s screams felt like eldritch galaxies above the microscopic dust of his whispers. Another chill. The world hadn’t actually stopped tilting. Its angle grew, and all that was heavy felt light, all that was light heavy. How much time was he there, gasping underwater ? Or was it the ache at the back of his skull that rang, harder and harder, still ? He latched onto it. The pain. Held it tight, tighter than he’d held the sink, tighter than Corporal Kim had held his neck.
Seongjae didn’t reply, he didn’t get up. He wasn’t sure he could. Or maybe he did, but just didn’t want to. Instead, he just stared. Ahwi reached out. A hand found his hair. And it pulled, hard. That finally got Seongjae’s lips to unlock and let out a cry, one that carried, one that was a planet against Shin Awhi’s galaxy. The weight holding onto his arms evaporated, they shot up to grip hard onto Ahwi’s forearm as the pain rose and grew stronger. The sergeant yanked him up and Seongjae had no choice but to follow as he pushed him out of the bathroom, abandoning the corporal there. The corridor was empty, he didn’t know if he was thankful for that.
They reached the door at the end of the hallway. The fresh air hit him awake ; it was cold against his wet forehead, water catching the night breeze. Ahwi’s calloused fingers finally left his scalp when he threw him to the ground, Seongjae’s ribs crashing onto it, the gravel scraping his forearms and digging in his skin. He pushed on his arms, letting whatever strength was left in him flood them again. His knees ached against the dirt.
“You’re new around here, aren’t you ?”
Seongjae inhaled. Prayed for the ground to open up and end this. It didn’t, so instead, he spoke.
“Yes, sir.” His voice was just a little too low and breathless. He realized it after it’d left his mouth, but it was too late to take it back. He dreamed of a world where you could unspeak and undo. Where you could bend time instead of struggling against it.
“Then listen to me carefully, you asshole. When I talk. You listen.”
Awhi wasn’t screaming anymore, but the words carried more weight, came in like his sure stride, the slam of his boots against the tiles, back in that bathroom. The anger was still there.
It felt like a kind of trade. A scream for silence. A speech for a speech. A found balance. The world had become less tilted. Would Shin Awhi meet him in the middle, if Seongjae were to speak confidently ? Would he go quiet if Seongjae were to scream ? He doubted it.
Seongjae swallowed, feeling the thoughts go down his sore throat. When his voice slipped out, it still wasn’t exactly steady, “Yes, sir.”
He kept his eyes on those boots, once again , the dirt that climbed up one side, the laces that were barely uneven. That tidiness clashed with its owner's personality. Harsh and chaotic. Unpredictable. It was fascinating. He stared at them until Shin Awhi lowered himself to a crouch in front of him, grabbed his hair again and yanked his head up. Then they stared into each other’s eyes and his attention was trapped.
“I tell you to get up, you get up. I say your name, you repeat it twice as loud. I tell you to jump from a fucking bridge, you jump from the goddamn bridge,” a breath, and a crescendo, like an orchestra growing louder, more dissonant by the second “I tell you to kill, you ask which weapon. I don’t care that you’re a fucking cook. You listen, and you take the damn knife.”
The intensity of it rang in his core.
“Yes, sir.” His reply was breathless. It came as a murmur, sailing quietly through the tension, like a logical resolution.
Listening to orders was easy. He knew it. It was simple. Familiar. It didn’t require thinking, didn’t require making decisions, didn’t require having regrets and going back down memory lane thinking of advice you’d betray, of cluelessness you didn’t have. It was work, and work was easy. Work didn’t allow space for ghosts who weren’t even dead, for words you’d never heard yet that whispered in the hollowness of your soul. Work was work. Obedient little soldier. Well sculpted.
Drifting along the order of the stream.
He breathed in. The scream burnt his throat like the water that had flooded it, tore through the silence, sharp like the undefeated edge in his chest. “Yes, sir !” And it held all of the bottled up emotions, spilled them in the air like a wild storm let loose. The water holding onto his lashes and scalding his cheeks turned salty.
It curled against the night sky. And right there, where the the scalding eyes cut through his own, Shin Awhi smiled, satisfied.