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Yongsun has lost count of how many soldiers she has ruined or ‘decorated’, the term she has been told to use, the word having lost its original connotation in the military. A soldier being ‘decorated’ no longer means being given a medal, it means their flesh has been stolen. The word is foul in , sticking to her tongue, all rotten and sour. She spits it out, from time to time, when she barks responses at her superior, the blonde doctor, but is immediately reprimanded. Yongsun begins to resent her.

Now, when Yongsun places steel over wounded flesh, she tries not to touch the soldier’s skin, having become wary of it: skin to skin has become too intimate for her. Biting down on her bottom lip, eyes set on the stainless steel plate, she carefully slips it over the wounded red flesh, letting it sink in before she burns it into the skin to secure it, all without actually touching the soldier.

‘Decorating’, Yongsun keeps turning it over in her mind. She says the word sweetly when she reports to the doctor, just to spite her, but Yongsun’s sly expression falters when she sees the blonde doctor’s eyes, they are red and puffy from crying. There is also a slight hesitation in her hand as she tries to write. Yongsun does not ask but the blonde doctor says with a tired sigh:

«Mercy — that is what we are doing, Yongsun, we are showing mercy in a world where it is very much needed. But what is the use of saving lives when flesh is ultimately lost? In the process of healing, we are taking… I will never be able to feel my wife’s lips again.»