Chapter Two – Baptism by Fire

The first snow fell the morning after Ji-won’s arrival at the northern outpost.

The flakes drifted silently through the air, dusting the wooden barracks and the jagged peaks beyond. Ji-won stepped outside, his breath rising in clouds, his thin uniform no match for the biting cold. Around him, other conscripts huddled together, their faces pale and drawn. The silence of dawn was broken by the bark of an officer’s command.

“Line up!”

They scrambled into formation, boots slipping on the frost. Ji-won’s teeth chattered as he stood shoulder to shoulder with strangers who looked as frightened as he felt.

The officer was there again—Ryu Kaito. His presence seemed to cut through the air like a blade. Unlike the recruits, his coat was thick, his boots polished, his every movement precise. His voice carried without effort.

“You are not boys anymore. You are soldiers.” He let the words hang in the frigid air. “And today, you will learn what that means.”

---

The recruits were marched beyond the outpost, past barbed wire fences and frozen streams, until the camp disappeared behind the ridges. There, in a clearing ringed by skeletal trees, they were handed rifles. The weapons were heavy and cold, the barrels dark with oil.

Ji-won ran his fingers along the stock, the wood smooth but foreign. He had never held a gun before. He wondered how many lives it had already taken.

“Load!” Kaito barked.

The recruits fumbled with the bullets, fingers clumsy from the cold. Ji-won’s hands trembled as he pushed the rounds into place.

“Fire!”

The sound split the morning—a deafening crack that echoed through the valley. Birds erupted from the trees. Ji-won flinched, the recoil jolting his shoulder. The acrid smell of gunpowder stung his nose.

Again. Again. Until his ears rang and his body ached.

Kaito walked among them, his sharp gaze missing nothing. When a boy beside Ji-won failed to load quickly enough, Kaito struck him across the back with the flat of his hand. The boy stumbled, eyes wide with terror.

“Slower than death itself,” Kaito hissed. “You’ll be the first to fall.”

Ji-won clenched his jaw, forcing himself to focus. He hated the man’s cruelty. Yet he could not deny the way Kaito’s presence commanded obedience.

---

By midday, the recruits were marched to a ridge overlooking the valley. Smoke curled in the distance where another village burned. Ji-won’s stomach twisted. He thought of his own village, of Min-seo and his mother, and wondered if strangers had looked down on them the same way—watching as everything they knew went up in flames.

A Japanese sergeant strode forward. “Today, you will see the face of war,” he declared. “Scouts have spotted resistance fighters in the forest. You will flush them out.”

The recruits exchanged fearful glances. None of them had expected to be thrown into battle so soon.

Ji-won felt the weight of the rifle in his hands, heavier now than before. He wanted to run, but he remembered his sister’s face. If he fled, she would suffer.

So he marched with the others, heart pounding with every step.

---

The forest swallowed them whole. Shadows clung to the twisted trunks, the silence broken only by the crunch of boots on snow. Ji-won’s breath came in short bursts, each exhale a ghost before his eyes.

Somewhere ahead, a branch snapped.

“Down!” Kaito’s voice cut through the air.

Gunfire erupted. Bullets whined past Ji-won’s ears, splintering bark. He dropped behind a fallen log, clutching his rifle like a lifeline. Screams rang out as recruits fell. The acrid smoke of gunpowder mixed with the metallic tang of blood.

Ji-won’s vision narrowed. His hands shook so violently he could barely aim. A figure darted between the trees—one of the resistance fighters, his face set with grim determination. Ji-won froze, his finger hovering over the trigger.

The man looked young, not much older than himself. For a moment, Ji-won saw not an enemy, but a brother, a neighbor, a reflection of what he might have been if fate had been different.

Then another shot rang out—not Ji-won’s. The fighter collapsed, a crimson stain spreading across the snow.

Ji-won turned his head in shock. Kaito stood a few paces away, rifle still raised, his expression unreadable. Their eyes met briefly. Ji-won’s chest tightened.

---

The battle raged on. Ji-won fired blindly, each shot tearing something inside him. When the skirmish finally ended, the snow was littered with bodies. The resistance fighters had been crushed.

The recruits stood trembling, their faces pale. Some wept openly.

Kaito surveyed the scene, his jaw tight. “This is war,” he said coldly. “This is what awaits you if you hesitate.”

His gaze lingered on Ji-won again, as if he had seen the hesitation in his eyes. Ji-won looked away, shame burning through him.

---

That night, Ji-won lay in the barracks, staring at the rafters above. His body was numb, but his mind would not rest. The faces of the fallen haunted him.

He pressed a hand to his chest, where Min-seo’s bundle of dried persimmons still rested in his uniform pocket. The sweetness of the fruit had long since dried away, but its presence reminded him of home, of who he was before the war.

Across the barracks, Kaito’s silhouette passed the doorway. He paused for a moment, as though listening, then moved on.

Ji-won turned his face into the pillow, willing sleep to come. But he knew, deep down, that something had shifted.

Kaito’s shot had saved his life that day.

And yet, it had also bound them together in a way Ji-won could not yet name.

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