Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction

An Old Friend (And Who He Left Behind)

   Kangwon waited with the guards several metres away as the American officer- Gillies, as Adolfo had told him- approached the gates of the compound.

    Behind the barbed wire fence stood four men armed with metal pipes and pieces of wood. They watched the Americans with great suspicion. Kangwon caught the eyes of one of them, nodding as he smiled reassuringly. The Korean nodded back, expression not wavering.

    The situation had been explained to him tersely on the way over. Five days ago, a group of women soldiers had been brought in, captured in Gangwon province. They had immediately refused to be transferred, barricading themselves inside their compound with the guerrillas already there. And now they were refusing food until they had spoken with Kangwon. 

   It was easy to tell that none of the Americans were really happy with the fact that their wish was being fulfilled.

    “We brought him!” Gillies yelled, the force of it moving his bristling moustache. “Get out here!”

    The door to the lodge swung open, and a woman in a KPA uniform strode out, flanked by two more men, also armed with metal rods. Her black hair was cropped at her neck, and her handsome face was stern.

    “Open the gates!” she ordered in English, her voice ringing over the yard. Despite being a prisoner, she held herself tall, looking like she was still commanding soldiers on the field.

    The officer backed away, and Kangwon was brought forward, the men around him shuffling, hands on their firearms. They glared spitefully at the soldier, no doubt not used to receiving orders from a woman, let alone one on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence.

     There were no eyes on them beyond those in this compound, the fourth down on the left of the camp. The prisoners in the other yards had been forced inside, probably so they wouldn’t see that their fellow internees’ demands were actually being met.

    Kangwon got the sense that if America had his way, the men would have already stormed the compound, breaking up the resistance and forcing them to go south.

     This was mostly motivated by the fact that when he had been being prepped to come here, the American had whispered to him, ‘I’m not in the business of dealing with commies. Don’t get smart, or we’ll switch to handling things my way.’

   'Not a very subtle man.'

    “He comes in alone!” the Korean woman yelled as they came within a few paces of the gate. “Leave him and back away, all of you.”

    One of the guards leaned over to whisper something to the Gillies. He nodded, then looked back to the prisoner.

   “We won’t send him in alone,” he called back. “If it’s alone or not at all, then you won’t be speaking with him.”

   The woman listened to something the man next to her said, then shouted, “One escort can come in with him! Only one.”

    The American officer turned to the guards. “Is there anyone here that can speak Korean?”

    The soldiers all looked amongst each other, shaking their heads.

  "Want me to go get one of the translators?" one asked.

   Kangwon didn't know whether he was talking about the reactionaries or one of the Japanese that the UN kept around to translate, but either wouldn't be very appreciated by the POW women. He went to protest, but the American officer beat him to it.

   "I'm not sending a fox into a henhouse." He ‘tch’ed. "Any volunteers then?”

    “Rivera should go,” one of the men spoke up, and Adolfo Rivera-Campos jolted. “He’s chummy with the gooks, ain’t he? Whaddya say, Rivera- you’ve picked up a little Korean, haven’t ya?”