Chapter Three – Shadows Between Them

The barracks reeked of sweat, damp wool, and unwashed bodies. Dozens of recruits slept huddled together, breaths rising and falling in ragged unison. But Ji-won lay awake, staring into the darkness above him.

The battle had ended hours ago, yet his ears still rang with phantom gunfire. He could see it all each time he closed his eyes—the flash of muzzle fire, the faces of boys cut down before they had time to scream, the young resistance fighter whose eyes had locked with his own heartbeat before Kaito’s bullet felled him.

Ji-won pressed his fists against his eyelids, as though he could scrub the memory away. But it clung to him, sour and heavy.

Around him, the recruits shifted in restless dreams. Some whimpered softly. Others clenched their blankets like lifelines. No one in that barrack had been spared. Even those who hadn’t been wounded carried invisible scars.

Ji-won turned onto his side. Through the crack beneath the door, a faint light spilled in, the glow of an oil lamp swaying in the wind. Footsteps passed outside, deliberate and steady.

Kaito.

Even without seeing him, Ji-won knew. The officer’s steps carried a precision that was unlike any other. Controlled, measured—yet heavy, as though weighed down by something unseen.

The footsteps halted outside the barracks. Ji-won held his breath, straining to listen. The silence stretched long, too long, before the sound of retreating boots faded into the night.

Why had he stopped? Why linger outside the place where broken conscripts tried to claw scraps of sleep?

Ji-won turned back to the ceiling, but the question burrowed into him.

---

The following morning brought drills. The recruits stumbled into the icy yard, their faces gray with exhaustion. The snow had hardened overnight, crunching underfoot like shards of glass.

“Formation!” barked the sergeant.

Ji-won’s arms felt leaden as he lifted his rifle. His body screamed with fatigue, yet he forced himself into motion. Every mistake earned a strike, every hesitation a barked insult. By midday, blisters burned on his palms.

He collapsed onto the barrack floor when the drills ended, too drained even to remove his boots. His head spun, and the world tilted into darkness.

---

When he awoke, the barracks were quiet. The others had drifted into exhausted slumber, but Ji-won found himself restless. His throat was dry, his mouth sticky with thirst.

Careful not to wake anyone, he pushed himself up and slipped outside. The air was sharp, biting into his lungs. He pulled his thin coat tighter and headed toward the water troughs near the supply shed.

As he bent to cup the icy water into his palms, a voice broke the silence.

“You hesitate when you fire.”

Ji-won jerked, water spilling down his sleeves. He spun around.

Kaito stood in the shadows near the shed, his uniform neat despite the cold, a thin trail of smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers. The glow of the ember lit the sharp planes of his face, casting his eyes into shadow.

Ji-won’s throat tightened. “Sir,” he managed, bowing stiffly.

Kaito stepped forward, the snow crunching softly under his boots. His gaze was steady, unreadable. “In the forest, you froze. Twice.”

Ji-won’s stomach clenched. The officer had seen. Of course he had seen.

“I… I wasn’t ready,” Ji-won admitted, the words sticking to his tongue like frost.

“No one is ready their first time,” Kaito said. He exhaled smoke into the frigid air. “But hesitation will kill you. And worse—it will kill the men beside you.”

Ji-won’s hands curled into fists. Anger flared, quick and sharp. “Those men weren’t enemies,” he blurted before he could stop himself. His voice trembled, but he forced the words out. “They were Koreans. Like me.”

Kaito’s eyes flickered in the lamplight, though his face remained composed. “And yet they fired at you without hesitation.”

Ji-won faltered. The truth in the words stung.

Kaito’s tone softened—not much, but enough that Ji-won heard it. “War does not care about who you are, or where you were born. War only demands that you survive it.”

The silence between them stretched, filled only by the whisper of snow falling from the eaves. Ji-won’s chest tightened, torn between resentment and a reluctant recognition of truth.

Finally, Kaito ground out his cigarette against the shed and turned away. “Go back to the barracks. Tomorrow will be harder.”

He started to leave, but Ji-won found himself speaking again, the words rushing out before he could swallow them. “Why did you save me?”

Kaito paused mid-step. The night air seemed to still.

“In the forest,” Ji-won continued, his voice low. “You shot the fighter before he could reach me. You saved me. Why?”

For a long moment, Kaito said nothing. Then, without turning, he answered.

“Because hesitation does not deserve to be punished with death. Not yet.”

And then he walked into the shadows, leaving Ji-won standing alone with the sting of those words seared into him.

---

The next day brought more drills, more punishment, more hours of stumbling through snow until Ji-won’s body felt hollow. Yet through the exhaustion, his thoughts kept circling back to the night before.

Why had Kaito lingered by the barracks? Why speak to him at all? Officers rarely waste words on conscripts. To them, recruits were replaceable, faceless bodies to be broken down and rebuilt as soldiers.

But Kaito had spoken to him.

Not with kindness, no—but with something sharper. Something that felt like recognition.

Ji-won caught himself stealing glances when the officer passed during inspections. Kaito’s face remained an unreadable mask, his commands as sharp as ever. But Ji-won thought of the faint flicker he had seen in the man’s eyes when he had spoken of hesitation.

Perhaps it was only his imagination. Perhaps he was desperate to find meaning in a place where meaning had been stripped away.

And yet… the thought clung to him.

---

That night, Ji-won dreamt of the forest again. Only this time, when the resistance fighter raised his weapon, Ji-won could not move at all. He stood frozen as the barrel leveled at his chest. But before the shot rang out, another figure stepped between them—Kaito.

The officer’s face was unreadable, but his hand reached out, steady and sure.

Ji-won woke with a start, his body slick with sweat. He lay in the dark, heart pounding, listening to the soft snores of the others. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the dried persimmons in his pocket, his only tether to home.

But another tether had been tied, fragile and confusing. One he did not understand.

---

A week passed, the days blurring into endless repetition of drills, patrols, and hollow meals. Yet small things began to shift.

When Ji-won stumbled during a march, it was Kaito who barked at the sergeant to give him another chance instead of lashing him.

When recruits whispered at night about escape, Kaito’s footsteps outside the barracks lingered longer, as though he already knew.

And when Ji-won caught his gaze across the yard, just once, there was something there. Something fleeting.

A crack in the mask.

---

Ji-won told himself it meant nothing. That he was imagining things.

But deep down, he knew this was only the beginning.

Kaito was not simply an officer.

And Ji-won was no longer simply a conscript.