Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction

Burning Bridges

     South paced anxiously back and forth in the carpeted hallway of Gyeongmudae, unable to understand what was happening.

    He couldn’t believe it. North had actually attacked him!

    Well, okay. Maybe he could believe it.

   He thought of his brother’s face on that awful day he really tried not to think about too much. The way the pain on his bloody features had been nothing compared to the fury.

    Yeah. He could definitely believe it, actually. He had told America doing that would just egg North on. He really shouldn’t have drank so much on the night that idea had been proposed.

    The door to the meeting room opened, and South whirled.

    “Well?” he demanded, ignoring the way his voice cracked.

    “They’re almost here,” his President, Syngman Rhee, declared. He was a wiry man with thinning white hair, and a long, smug face. You could never really tell what his expression was since his eyebrows were translucent.

    But right now they did nothing to obscure the fact that he was pi-issed.

    “I know they’re-“ South took a breath. America had told him to be cordial with Rhee, something that grew proportionately harder compared to the amount of time he spent around him. “What do we do?”

    “I advise you to evacuate, sir,” the American Military Advisor said. “Promptly. The Korean army is retreating too swiftly before the Reds. The fighting will be here soon.”

    “What gives?” South asked, miffed. “Does our army suck that much? And I thought you told me Mr. Dulles’ group said the border looked fine last week!”

    “It did,” Rhee said before the American could respond. The foreigner glared at him from behind his back, as did the Chief of Staff of South’s army. “Things change. And the Communists are using dastardly tricks, the element of surprise and all that, just like the rats we’ve had to put down.”

    South winced at that. “Okay, yeah, fine. But I thought we weren’t evacuating?”

    Just yesterday, they’d made an announcement that South, his president, and his government wouldn’t flee before the enemy.

    “A smokescreen,” the man explained. “If the commies are too busy looking for us where we weren’t, they won’t go where we are.”

    “Alright,” South said uneasily. It wasn’t like he wanted to stay in the city anyways, but still… Running after telling people they wouldn’t felt a bit… cowardly.

    Then he thought of the Communist army dragging him off to North and decided that being a coward was alright in this circumstance. He didn't think his brother would hurt him, but who knew what his soldiers would do.

     “Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

    “There’s a bit of a problem,” Rhee said, a glint in his muddy brown eyes.

    “What is it?” South asked warily. The glint was the same as the one the man had when he’d told him about what was happening in Jeju last year.
 
    And what had to be done about it.

    “The Reds are advancing much too rapidly,” the American swiftly interjected. “Their troops have almost reached Seoul.”

    The chief with them- what was his name again?- chimed in. “We won’t be able to get you out in time, sir.”