Chapter One – Drafted

The letter came on a gray morning, tucked between the rice sacks stacked in the storeroom.

Han Ji-won almost didn’t see it. He had been helping his sister, Min-seo, brush the husks from the grains, when the corner of the folded paper peeked from the wooden crate. At first, he thought it was a scrap left behind by the merchant, but his heart clenched the moment he saw the red ink seal pressed at the bottom.

He didn’t need to open it to know what it meant.

“Oppa?” Min-seo’s voice carried the softness of her sixteen years. She tilted her head, her braid falling across her shoulder. “What is it?”

Ji-won slid the letter into his sleeve before she could see. His hands shook despite his effort to stay calm. “Nothing,” he lied. “Just a slip of paper.”

But he could not hide it forever.

That evening, when the oil lamp sputtered on their low wooden table, Ji-won finally broke the seal. His mother’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the Japanese characters. She had seen such letters before. Too many young men from their village had received the same.

“Han Ji-won,” the notice read in clipped, formal strokes. “You are hereby conscripted into the Imperial Army. Report to the provincial station within seven days.”

Silence fell heavier than any words could. The crackle of the oil lamp seemed unbearably loud.

His mother pressed her lips together, fighting tears she could not afford to shed. Widowed five years earlier, she had carried the burden of both parents for her children. Her gaze moved from Ji-won to Min-seo, then back again, as though weighing which child she could bear to lose less.

Min-seo reached for Ji-won’s hand, clutching it so tightly her knuckles blanched. “You can’t go,” she whispered. “There must be a way—hide in the mountains, or—”

Ji-won shook his head. “If I run, they’ll punish you both. They’ll take the house, or worse.” His voice sounded distant, even to himself. “I have to go.”

The day of departure came quickly.

A procession of conscripts—boys from the village, some barely old enough to shave—marched toward the station under the watch of Japanese soldiers. Their boots clattered against the dirt road, raising a cloud of dust that clung to Ji-won’s throat.

He carried no weapon, only a small cloth bag his mother had packed: a change of clothes, a pouch of rice, and the old silver hairpin that had belonged to his father.

The air smelled of smoke from the cooking fires they left behind. Women clutched at their sons’ sleeves, children cried, and men forced themselves into silence. Ji-won felt Min-seo’s hand slip from his as the soldiers shouted for them to keep moving.

When he glanced back, he saw her running to keep up, her cheeks streaked with tears. She shouted something he could not hear over the noise. Then, in a rush, she shoved a bundle into his hands—dried persimmons wrapped in cloth.

“For when it gets hard,” she said breathlessly, before a soldier pushed her back.

Ji-won’s chest tightened. He wanted to promise he’d return, but the words caught in his throat. Instead, he gave her a single nod and forced himself forward.

The provincial station loomed like a fortress. Rows of recruits stood in the yard, stripped of their names and pressed into identical uniforms. The fabric itched, reeking of mothballs and sweat.

“Line up!” barked at a Japanese officer, his voice sharp as a blade. “You are soldiers of the Empire now. Forget your old lives. You will obey without question.”

Ji-won clenched his jaw. He felt the weight of the uniform settle on his shoulders like chains. Around him, boys shifted nervously, their eyes darting to the bayonets gleaming in the sunlight.

The days blurred into drills and shouts. They were taught to march, to salute, to fire rifles that felt alien in their hands. Any hesitation was met with the lash of a bamboo stick. Ji-won learned to keep his face blank, his body obedient, even as his heart rebelled.

At night, when the barracks fell silent, he lay awake listening to the snores and muffled sobs of other conscripts. He thought of Min-seo’s braid, his mother’s tired smile, the rice fields glowing green in summer. He tried to hold those memories close, fearing they would fade too soon.

Three weeks later, the recruits were loaded onto a train bound for the northern front.

The carriage reeked of coal smoke and unwashed bodies. Ji-won sat by the window, watching the countryside roll past in endless blur: mountains rising like shadows, villages shrinking into specks. Somewhere beyond those ridges, the war raged.

Beside him, a boy no older than seventeen clutched a charm tied to his wrist. “Do you think we’ll die out there?” he asked, his voice trembling.

Ji-won hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we’ll endure as long as we can.”

The boy nodded, though his eyes betrayed no comfort.

When the train screeched to a halt at a military outpost, the recruits spilled into the biting wind. Snow dusted the ground despite the lingering autumn. The air smelled of iron and blood.

Here, Ji-won’s path first crossed with Ryu Kaito.

The officer stood apart from the others, his posture rigid, his uniform immaculate. His features were sharp, his expression unreadable. He moved with the cold precision of someone who had long ago learned to bury his hesitation.

When his gaze swept over the recruits, Ji-won felt it like the touch of a blade—piercing, assessing, dangerous.

“New arrivals,” Kaito said, his Korean tinged with an accent but clear enough. “You are here to serve. If you falter, you die. If you run, you die. Remember this.”

The recruits shifted uneasily under his stare.

But for the briefest moment—so quick Ji-won almost doubted it—Kaito’s eyes lingered on him with something that was not mere scrutiny. Something that flickered, then vanished behind the mask of command.

That night, Ji-won lay awake in the barracks, the wind howling outside like a warning. He thought of the officer’s gaze, sharp and unreadable.

He did not yet know that this man would become the fulcrum of his fate.

That between them, trust and betrayal, hatred and something far more dangerous, would soon take root.

For now, Ji-won only knew the bitter taste of fear, the weight of the uniform, and the unyielding truth:

He was no longer free.

But somewhere, hidden beneath fear’s crushing weight, a seed had been planted—the first stirrings of a story neither he nor Kaito could have foreseen.

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