With the end of one war comes the beginning of another. Allies become enemies with countries caught in between split down the middle while families are torn to shreds and left in heaps on either side. The cause is asleep and the strongest throats are choked with their own blood. The iron fist of justice is rusting away in a ditch alongside the bodies whose life is now gone for good, the dog tags remaining as the only way to identify the scorched faces and missing limbs.

Despite all this, the sun still comes out from its shield of clouds and stays for a bit, providing it’s warmth while the birds fly listlessly overtop the battlefields, singing a song of days gone by and providing nostalgia that sickens the soldiers and shakes them to their core.

The year is 1954. The Cold War has been running rampant for years now and there are no signs of the tensions ceasing. Korea is in the midst of a civil crisis with fighting being carried out between brothers with the only connection left lying in the fear they all share of that same inescapable death, a bullet to the head or a bit of shrapnel in the skull, it doesn’t matter which.

The South struggles for capitalism while the North finds solace in Communist idealism. Both routes hope for a better future in their own way, but not before enough blood is shed to show that one side is truly stronger than the other.

Daehyun and Youngjae were childhood friends. They grew up together in a small town near the mountainside with dreams of moving to the big city and starting theirs lives with a different backdrop. However, as the sound of gunshots and the distant smell of napalm replaced the once peaceful atmosphere of their homes, Daehyun’s family decided it was best to migrate north, towards his grandparents in Pyongyang.

Youngjae’s family retreated south instead, ripping the inseparable pair apart without even an apology left to give them an ounce of closure. The only answer ever given to them when they begged the question of why was that it’s a time of war, that sacrifices needed to be made, and that sometimes close ties take a backseat when survival is not entirely guaranteed.

With two separate drafts enacted, both boys were forced to become men at the ripe age of 18. Instead of university, they were given training camp. Instead of textbooks and professors, they were assigned guns and a drill sergeant.

Their dreams together were shattered beneath the weight of world issues, and slowly each of them willed their minds to forget about their closest friend waiting with a rifle behind enemy lines. Despite this, every now and again, when the full moon shone down over the countryside, they would be reminded of the smiling face of their youth, always situated right by their side, swimming in the streams at dawn and whooping in the black midnights of the forest around a campfire telling their deepest secrets and desires.

Over time, as these streams began to run red with the metallic crimson of blood, so too did the memories drift away with the current. Times of happiness were forgotten amidst the misery of reality and both boys learned to cope, meeting new people to curb their craving for each other and aging years in a single hour of combat.

During war, a murderer in a uniform is called a hero and crimes of unspeakable proportions are forgotten entirely along with all those families slaughtered for the cause.

As the conflict reaches a boiling point, missions become more deadly, with squadrons of hundreds returning back to camp with a mere fifty men whose spirit has been broken in the fight, their eyes glazed over with the permanence of death as their hearts strive to kill every last soldier who ruthlessly shot their brothers in the back of the head.

-----

Daehyun is a lieutenant in charge of a brigade and set to lead them into their untimely demise at the hands of the Southern forces. As they sit around a campfire, the thoughts of Youngjae don’t even cross his mind as they would have in the past. War has changed his happy-go-lucky attitude and instead left him hardened and full of spite. The only thing left for him to think about is survival and of somehow making it back home to his grieving mother.

He tries to write, but for some reason, he is still unable to bring himself to lie to her and tell her that everything is going okay, that he is okay. Because of this, he chooses to say nothing at all, mailing her blank sheets of paper signed with his signature at the bottom, letting her know that he is alive and nothing more.

There is a small range of mountains that run parallel to his campsite, and in the distance, Daehyun is sure that opposing forces are waiting for them to attack. He is also sure that his men are outnumbered, that they don’t have a chance of surviving, but orders are orders and he can do nothing but lead them willingly to their death.

Looking around his camp, Daehyun finds his eyes dwelling on the faces of two boys in particular. They can’t be much older than 16 and together they sit, knees touching, with the taller of the two lumping his arm over the other and resting his head on his shoulder.

Daehyun feels a slight twinge in his heart at the sight but decides to ignore it.

For a split second he envisions Youngjae and how they must have looked almost identical to the two young soldiers only about a year prior to the present, but then he wills the images away, allowing for his eyes to linger not on the heartwarming scene but instead the cool metal bodies of the guns that sit at their feet.

In the back of his mind, Daehyun knows that these two won’t last long in combat. He remembers when they first joined the squadron and came to introduce themselves to him, but he waved them away, saying that if they were alive a week from now, then he would learn their names.

With this thought, Daehyun walks to his tent and lies down, looking up at the nylon covering and willing the images of dying men away from his dreams, but to no avail.

-----

Youngjae sits on the opposite end of the mountainside. As the moon shines down on him from above, unlike Daehyun, he doesn’t attempt to stop the memories from infiltrating his state of woe.

He holds a small notebook in his lap, weathered over the months of hardship, with pages falling every which way, held together only by a stretched-out rubber band. Youngjae has never allowed any other person to see this notebook of his, it’s something too personal, too close to his heart.

Inside, the letters are dated throughout a year’s time, each written in careful handwriting and addressed My Dearest Daehyun. These ramblings speak of everything that has happened to Youngjae over the lapse in time in which he has not seen his friend. It speaks of him being drafted and taken away from his family and of him receiving the notification that his family had been killed by rebel forces who believed them to be part of the resistance.

But more than anything, Youngjae writes of his memories, of his boyhood days spent with Daehyun by the stream where they fished for carp and basked in the sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees.

Reminiscing always helped Youngjae to get through the hardest times, the times when he felt the most alone and hoped without fail for death to reach its pale hand out to him and lead him away from all his troubles and heartache.

Youngjae hated the war and refused to allow himself to lose his humanity because of it. He killed when killing was absolutely necessary and afterwards, he wouldn’t sleep for days, the sight of the anonymous man’s fear-stricken eyes haunting his dreams and awakening him in a cold sweat. He couldn’t help thinking of the families, left alone without a provider, waiting patiently on the front step and hoping to see his body come into sight around the bend in the road before realizing that no one was ever coming back.

Youngjae is almost thankful that on this night, sleep is not a necessity. He was informed of the sneak-attack operation planned on the enemy forces who expect them to charge at the awakening of the dawn. Instead, the soldiers have already begun cleaning their weapons and preparing for battle in an hours time.

Silently, Youngjae picks up his own gun that lies beside him and begins cleaning it as well, hoping desperately that he won’t have to use it. On his back, he carries ammunition and four grenades, ready to be unleashed at any moment. Carefully, he places his notebook in the front-pocket of his shirt, directly overtop of his heart, and loses himself in the sound of the crackling fire.

-----

Daehyun is awoken in a start by the sound of a grenade bursting nearby. Wide awake, he begins blowing the whistle that hangs from a shoestring around his neck, entering each of the sleeping quarters and ripping every man out from the grip of slumber. The entire camp is in a state of panic with many half-asleep and running aimlessly from one side to the other searching desperately for some sort of protection from the bombs and bullets dropping from the sky.

Daehyun, however, finds himself running forward, a bullet nipping his arm and allowing for a string of blood to seep into the dull-green of his uniform. The medals decorating the shoulders of his jacket reflect the large areas alight by fire with the screams of the men caught in them heard echoing over the mountaintops.

Soon, these sounds are drowned out by another deafening explosion and for a split second all is silent. Daehyun takes a look around him and finds that only a few of his men are remaining. To his left, in the burning stockpiles lie the bodies of the two young boys who just hours earlier were laughing lightly to one another and writing letters to their families. Before the second round of shelling begins, Daehyun approaches their lifeless figures and removes their dog tags with a rough yank of his wrist.

Although he said he wouldn’t, Daehyun proceeds to learn the names of the two boys whose souls are now leaving the waking world and going on to explore the darkness of the universe. Choi Junhong and Moon Jongup, both only 16 and already having been forced to see the short time of their lives flash before their eyes.

Daehyun shakes his head and returns back to his spot on the front line, firing his gun at anything that moves as the hot tears begin to gather behind his eyes and the taste of revenge is left lingering in his mouth. He’s fighting for the death of his innocence now and nothing more.

When the Southern forces run out of bombs, he watches as a swarm of men run across the battleground. Daehyun keeps firing, feeling the clicking of the trigger becoming his heartbeat as he watches man after man fall to the earth gasping for the air that will never again fill their lungs.

In time, there are no more men left approaching, only dead bodies lying in piles in the middle of the now-empty field. Daehyun finds himself left alone with about a dozen other men. Waving them forward, they all begin their own trek across the war-zone, stepping over the deceased bodies as if they were mere puddles of flesh on the sidewalk.

It is then that Daehyun spots Youngjae lying in a pool of blood. Running towards the younger, Daehyun nearly collapses as the adrenaline wears out of his system and leaves him weak in the knees. When he reaches Youngjae, he flips him over and sees that the boy’s eyes are still open, blinking slowly and attempting to focus on Daehyun’s features and not the enemy uniform that he wears so proudly.  

Youngjae knows he doesn’t have long with the iron that is currently lodged in his stomach, so he only smiles up at Daehyun through his tears. Youngjae feels nothing more than excruciating pain and understands that by the state he’s in, it could take hours of agonizing torture before he finally bleeds out and is released from his shell of a body. Noticing that his own gun was lost somewhere in the midst of the fighting, Youngjae decides to ask Daehyun for one final favor.

“Kill me, D-Daehyun. Please, I’m begging you.”

Daehyun can only shake his head as his body becomes wrecked with uncontrollable sobs. Youngjae’s smile slowly morphs into a grimace as he reaches his hand out and takes hold of the gun in Daehyun’s hand.

“Please. Please let me die.”

Youngjae holds his other hand up to Daehyun’s cheek and begins wiping away the tears with his thumb before his begins coughing up blood and lets it drop to cover his mouth. With his last bit of strength Youngjae takes hold of Daehyun’s arm and attempts a grip.

With that, Daehyun looks into the eyes of his friend for the last time before he lifts his gun to Youngjae’s head and pulls the trigger. The shot resounds again and again in Daehyun’s eardrums, tearing through his body and leaving him incomplete.

Daehyun is enraged by the unfairness of the situation. Youngjae is gone and for what? What did all these men die fighting for? War is an old man’s game that uses the poor and youthful as nothing more than pawns to be thrown away from the board of the world, easily replaceable and easy to forget.

Daehyun screams at the top of his lungs but still an unbearable sorrow remains situated in his chest. When he reaches for Youngjae’s dog tags, Daehyun instead finds the notebook situated in the chest pocket of his uniform, so he takes it as the only bit of  Youngjae he will have left to show he was ever around at all.

When he returns to the camp, Daehyun reads and rereads through every letter that had been written and never sent, every word that Youngjae never imagined would be read by the very man they were meant for.

As he does this, Daehyun mourns for the lost life of his friend, of the boy he will always envision as 10 years-old and fearless, with rosy pink cheeks and squinting eyes reflecting themselves in the sparkling winter snow.

-----

Following the conclusion, Daehyun set off for the town of his youth, hearing his mother had returned there from Pyongyang. Upon returning home, the woman greeted him with a hug and a smile but he couldn’t look her in the eyes. She radiated so much love that he knew he could never return. She had no idea of the things he'd done, the people he'd killed.

Entering his room, Daehyun finds it is still exactly as he left it all those years ago. Inside, he almost feels as though the war had yet to begin and that in minutes he would look out the window and find Youngjae skipping down the lane and up to his front door.

On his desk is a fading picture of two young boys huddled close together with arms around each others shoulders.

At first glance, the smiling faces in the picture are nearly unrecognizable. Their eyes show so much joy, no trace of the evils that will later penetrate their lives and Daehyun can do nothing but weep at the sight. Their naïve looks know nothing of the horrors to come, have no idea that soon, they will be killed and this part of their life will remain left in the dust in the darkest corners of their minds to be brought out like an old book on a rainy day.

In his right chest pocket, Daehyun carries the tattered notebook just as Youngjae had all those years before. Taking it out, he places the picture in between the pages and closes it, securing the pieces before setting the item back in its place.

Daehyun then begins to build a small fire with the chopped wood that he finds sitting in the corner. As the flames begin to take hold of the space, he drops the notebook into the heat, watching as the picture is incinerated alongside all those other aspects of Youngjae left behind in the rubble of days gone by.

When the flames die out, only ashes remain and Daehyun leaves the room, closing the door behind him and never looking back. He wishes his mother goodbye and takes the familiar path down towards the stream where he and Youngjae used to fish, watching the house he grew up in slowly become engulfed by the fire.

When he reaches the water, Daehyun doesn’t stop and walks right in, refusing to allow his head above the surface to gather a breath and ending up face down in a current of sorrow. In time, his body bloats and sinks to the bottom, becoming nothing more than a washed up soldier left without a reason to fight.