Chapter Four – The First Mission

The snow no longer fell gently.

By the fourth week at the northern outpost, storms swept across the valley in violent bursts, coating the barracks and ridges in drifts taller than a man. The cold seeped into every crevice, turning water buckets into blocks of ice and numbing fingers until they barely obeyed commands.

Ji-won had learned to move with the cold pressed against his bones. He marched when told, drilled until his feet bled, and kept his head down to avoid the lash of a bamboo cane. Each day blurred into the next, the monotony punctuated only by the gnawing ache in his stomach and the constant weight of exhaustion.

But one morning, before dawn, the routine shifted.

---

“Squad Four, assemble!”

The voice cut through the darkness like steel. Ji-won stirred from his thin blanket, heart pounding. Around him, the other recruits scrambled upright, fumbling into their stiff boots and threadbare coats.

In the yard, a group of soldiers waited with rifles slung across their backs. At their head stood Ryu Kaito, his silhouette sharp against the lantern light. His breath smoked in the frozen air, but his posture was unbending.

“You will accompany me on reconnaissance,” Kaito announced. His tone carried no room for hesitation. “There are reports of resistance activity near the eastern ridge. We will confirm.”

A murmur rippled through the recruits. A real mission. Their first outside the endless cycle of drills.

Ji-won’s stomach tightened. The memory of the last battle still haunted him, the snow stained red with the blood of men who might have been his kin. He clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. He would not falter again.

“Prepare yourselves,” Kaito ordered. “We leave in ten minutes.”

---

The squad set out into the predawn dark, the world muffled by snow. Ji-won marched in silence, his rifle digging into his shoulder, his breath sharp in the icy air. The forest loomed ahead, its bare branches twisting against the sky like blackened claws.

Kaito led them with steady precision, his eyes scanning every shadow. He moved like a man accustomed to danger, his steps sure even on the ice.

Ji-won followed, watching the officer’s back, his mind a tangle of fear and reluctant curiosity. He still did not understand why Kaito had spared him in the forest, or why his words lingered like embers in his chest.

---

Hours passed. The snow deepened, the silence oppressive. The recruits shifted nervously, their eyes darting to the shadows between trees. Every creak of a branch, every gust of wind sounded like an ambush waiting to unfold.

Finally, Kaito raised a hand. The squad halted.

“There,” he said, voice low. He gestured toward a thin plume of smoke rising from a hollow between the ridges.

A campfire.

The recruits stiffened. Ji-won’s pulse quickened. Were they resistance fighters? Villagers? Or both?

Kaito crouched, motioning the others down. His eyes swept the squad, sharp and deliberate, before settling briefly on Ji-won.

“You, with me.”

Ji-won froze. He pointed to himself, uncertain.

Kaito gave a single, clipped nod. “The rest hold position.”

---

Ji-won followed as Kaito slipped into the trees. They moved silently, weaving through the undergrowth until they were close enough to see the hollow clearly.

A small fire flickered in the snow. Around it huddled three figures, their faces half-hidden by scarves. They looked ragged, their clothes patched, their rifles worn. Resistance fighters—or desperate villagers trying to stay alive?

Ji-won’s breath caught. One of them couldn’t have been older than fifteen.

Kaito crouched beside him, eyes fixed on the scene. His expression was calm and unreadable.

“What do you see?” he asked quietly.

Ji-won swallowed. “They’re cold. Hungry. Not soldiers… not really.”

“And yet,” Kaito murmured, “they carry weapons.”

The words cut like frost. Ji-won wanted to argue, to say that carrying a rifle didn’t make them enemies, but the memory of bullets splintering trees around him silenced the protest.

Kaito shifted slightly, his shoulder brushing Ji-won’s. “If we report them, reinforcements will come. They will be executed.”

Ji-won turned to him, startled. “Then why tell me this?”

For the first time, Kaito’s eyes met his, steady and unreadable. “Because hesitation is not always a weakness.”

The words struck deeper than Ji-won expected. He stared, uncertain, his chest tight.

“Stay here,” Kaito said at last. “I will decide.”

He rose and stepped into the clearing, his boots crunching against the snow. The three figures jolted upright, rifles clutched shakily in their hands.

Kaito lifted a gloved hand. “Lower your weapons,” he commanded, his voice calm but firm. “We are only two. You will not survive if you fire.”

The fighters hesitated. Their eyes darted between each other, between the rifles and the officer before them. Finally, one lowered his weapon. The others followed.

Kaito spoke in Japanese first, then shifted into slow, accented Korean. “You should leave this place. Tonight. If you are found here again, you will not be spared.”

The men stared, bewildered. One muttered a thank-you before they stamped out the fire and slipped into the forest, vanishing like ghosts.

Kaito stood still until the last trace of them was gone. Only then did he return to Ji-won.

“You… let them go,” Ji-won whispered, astonished.

Kaito’s face revealed nothing. “They were not worth the blood they would have cost.”

Ji-won opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He didn’t believe those words. Not fully. He had seen the flicker in Kaito’s gaze, the deliberate choice he had made.

For the first time, Ji-won wondered if the officer’s loyalty was as unshakable as he claimed.

---

They returned to the squad with no sign of the fire or its occupants. Kaito reported nothing. The recruits exchanged nervous glances, but no one dared question him.

On the march back, Ji-won kept his gaze on the snow, his thoughts racing.

The officer was not what he seemed. And if he could choose mercy once… what else might he be capable of?

---

That night, Ji-won sat on his bunk, the dried persimmons still hidden in his pocket. Around him, the others whispered about the mission, their voices low with suspicion. Some thought the officer had seen nothing. Others thought he was testing them.

Ji-won said nothing. He could not betray what he had witnessed.

But when he lay down, the memory of Kaito’s voice lingered. Hesitation is not always a weakness.

For the first time since being conscripted, Ji-won felt something stir in him that was not fear or despair.

It was dangerous, fragile, and unspoken.

But it was hope.

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