Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction

Bittersweet Dreaming

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     “You don’t have to sleep so far away, you know.”

     North did not glance over at South Gyeongsang, who had taken his place on watch. He hadn’t had to wake her this time. Good. They were all getting used to it.

     “I don’t have to sleep so close either,” he retorted.

    His scrap of blanket was indeed set apart from the provinces, at the mouth of the cave. It was still too near the watchwoman for his comfort, but was better than being pressed in amongst the others.

     “It’s so cold up here,” South Gyeongsang said, stating the obvious. It was December in the northern mountains. It was going to be cold. “No one would mind if you snuggled in.”

    North curled his lip. “No. I’ll try and get us better coats when it’s safe to return to the city.”

    Their stolen uniforms were starting to look worse for wear, even with Kangwon and South Gyeongsang's repairs. And most were summer-wear.

     “I hope it’s soon,” the pale-skinned Provincehuman sighed. “Even in the landlord’s shed in winter, South Chungcheong was never this frosty. The land, I mean.”

    North supressed a snort. Their newest recruit had been fairly unpopular since they had rescued her the previous month. His provinces resented her for making them enter such a dangerous situation to break her out, when she had the option to easily join with them at the beginning of the year. She would need some work. They all did, including him. But at least she had served as a sort of double-agent, passing them the information they needed to free Gyeonggi.

    It gave him a thrill of excitement. Extraction missions, people on the inside. It was the sort of work a proper organization would do. They were on the right track. And now that they were all together, they could soon start on intensive combat lessons, fighting as a unit, instead of the piecework training they had been doing between information-gathering, finding the provinces, and learning how to use the captured guns.

    “A few more months in the mountains,” he said to the girl. They had caused a commotion with their rescue. The Kempeitei would raise the bounties, and be searching for them more arduously than ever, as would Japan now that they were all free.

    ‘Not truly free. We won’t be free until our people are.’

    And until his other half was.

    He didn’t know why he had told Kangwon he had been alone in his prison. The others had been because it was too late to tell them the truth. It would just cause awkward questions.

     But he couldn’t quite place why, when his first province had asked if it had been he that had bandaged his chest, he had said ‘Yes.’

    He supposed it was the same reason. Too many awkward questions. Why are there two Koreas? Why didn’t he come with you?

    Why did you leave him?

    He couldn’t answer either of the first two questions, but he knew the answer to the third.

    ‘Because I had to.’

     He did not want to think of South alone back in their prison, at Japan’s mercy. He had tried at the beginning of this year to find him, when they had failed at freeing Gyeonggi that first time.

    He had failed. The shack where they had spent nine years together was empty, nothing left but the remains of the rickety old desk where they had used to sit, missing two legs, the chair next to it, as if waiting for them to return. North had made sure to destroy both before they had to flee.