A person mourning separation
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is comfort
in the heaven that eternalizes
these encounters on earth.
The eyes of a pond
looking up at faraway stars.

- 겨울들녘에서서 - 오세영

There is gunfire in the darkness, exploding like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. Pop! Pop! Pop! It’s followed by a zipping sound beside him that ends in the dull thump of something weighted hitting the ground. Zzzp-flump! Zzzp-flump!

There’s sweat in his eyes and he can’t really see through the pitch black but panic seizes Eric in a way he has never felt before.

He doesn’t know where Andy is.

“Mun, keep down!” someone hisses (or maybe yells, he can’t really tell now) at him, and it could be Joonho or Woohyun or any of the members in his platoon, but Eric is already on his feet, crouching in the waist-deep grass, desperately attempting to locate Andy in the velvet darkness they’re enrobed in.

“Andy!” he shouts. Andy had gone ahead to lead the unit for the ambush, and it was supposed to be incognito, so how were they found out? He should have fought harder to stick close to their youngest but Andy was already several grades up and actually trained as a soldier and was generally more skilled so…so…

Hyung, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it so much.

How can I not worry, you dolt? Anything can happen. This isn’t a game.

Hyung. Drop it. And that’s an order.

Another round of artillery fire jolts Eric out of his thoughts and instinctively he drops to his knees. Fear paralyzes him and roots him to the spot when he hears the sound of more bodies falling to the ground like sacks of meat. Oh God, oh God, oh God…

“Surrender, South Korean pigs! Or we’ll shoot you like dogs!”

It’s in Korean, of course, and Eric is almost shocked. But of course, North Korea is still Korea, its people still the same race as them, sharing the same language and food and blood, and yet, here they are, killing each other like animals over invisible property lines and jealousies formed and harbored for half a century past.

It doesn’t make sense. It will never make sense.

Why are they here? And where is Andy?

“Andy!” he calls again, and his throat his tight as his desperation grows. He wishes for someone to be there to hold his hand, like there always had been during simpler, happier times, but the only thing against his palm now is the slick cool metal of the gun they’ve been tasked to carry and are never allowed to be parted from. He can barely breathe from the weight of his pack and the rapid thundering of his heart. Everything is thick with pain, fatigue, and fear.

“Andy!” he hisses, uncaring that he’s giving away his position. He never should have let Andy go.

He can hear the collective rustling of dead grass as the North Koreans close in on them, but he keeps resolutely crawling forward. In the darkest, most secret part of his heart he knows there will probably not be another tomorrow, not for them, and that this cloying darkness may very well be the last thing he will see. At the very least…at the very least…he has to make sure Andy is not alone.

“Mun, fall back!” someone shouts, and there is gunfire again, accompanied by the whistling of bullets as they cut through the still air.

(Mommy. Appa. Noona-deul. I love you and I’m so sorry)

Tears gather in Eric’s eyes. Overhead, the sky is bursting with stars, unknowing that below them, the earth runs with rivers of blood, thousands of dreams and futures dashed and splintered under soldiers’ boots like glass.

“Eric hyung, fall back! Please!” a voice suddenly shouts, small and circular in the endless night. He’d know Andy even if he called from a universe away, and the raw fear now tinging the edges of his voice makes Eric’s blood run stone-cold.

NO!

“It’s over, South Korean pigs! Surrender, or your beloved brothers will be slaughtered before your very eyes!” a voice says, and it’s coming from the same direction Andy is. In seconds, Eric is on his feet, his limbs working faster than his mind ever could.

(Minwoo. Dongwan. Hyesung. Choongjae. Be safe. Please be safe)

“MUN, I TOLD YOU TO KEEP DOWN!”

(Andy, hyung is coming)

“Hyung, no!”

The firing starts, the explosions enough to light the field ablaze as though it was morning.


tbc