Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction

Burn

1919

     How many days had it been?

     It had to have been at least a month. A month of lying in this dark, windowless room with his back burning like it was on fire. A month of staring at the unseen concrete ceiling, his eyes straining for some kind of detail in the shadows, something to interrupt the endless boredom of his imprisonment.

     South had once been upset that North’s acting out had gotten their window taken away. But he had taken even those little slats of light that made their way through the boards for granted. Without them it was like… It was like he was floating in a void, alone, bodiless.

     If it weren’t for the stinging pain as he rolled onto his back, reminding him that he did still have a body, and that it hurt bad.

   A month of being tended to by those quiet Japanese nurses, their dark eyes downcast as they avoided every attempt to make conversation with him.

     How often did they come? Once a week? They brought light from the dim bulbs in the hall, and from their little lamp, and they brought something. Pretty faces and soft hands and the smell of antiseptic. Japan had never sent nurses for them before, all those times he had beat North half to death. But he was sending them for South, because he had promised to be good.

    They never talked to him. Never even acknowledged him. No matter how much he begged and pleaded, they kept their shuttered eyes on their task of washing and bandaging his back. Like he wasn’t saying anything. Like he didn’t even exist.

    It was almost worse than if they didn’t come at all.

     It was unfair. Every time North had gotten himself beat up, South had been there to patch him up. To tear pieces off their blanket and wash his cuts, to sing to him while he lay unconscious, or to- to… That time with his hip.

     South clenched his fists on his thin cot, squeezing his eyes shut.

     Now that he had been the one to really get it bad this time, where was North?

   ‘Gone.’

    Over a month since he had last seen his brother. Since he had called him a coward and fled off into the night, leaving South behind. Abandoning him.

     He was hurt so bad, in a way that he just knew would leave long, ugly scars forever because North had left. If he had just stayed, it would have been fine. South had managed to escape ‘something worse’ and his brother had survived it. They could have been fine!

    Now, what had been the point of any of it? South had killed that guy, and for what? He’d still gotten hurt.

    And North was gone.

     He couldn’t stop thinking of the moment he had pulled that trigger and the man’s head had exploded. He hadn’t looked directly at it, but he had seen the spray of blood splatter the wall, the floor.

    How could North say that killing that Japanese soldier had felt good? It had felt terrible! That poor man had just wanted to feed his family, and South had- South had-

   He curled up on the cot, squeezing his head in his hands, trying to hold back the memory.

    And what had been the point?

     He didn’t even have his brother here to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. And… And thinking of how North had looked at him after…

    He wasn't sure that he would.