1919
The freezing air of the Kangnam mountains invaded North Hamgyong’s lungs, taking his breath like someone had gut-punched it out of him. He should have been fit from hauling iron and lugging shit around all day, but since he barely ever got anything to eat that wasn’t chaff or garbage scraps, his muscles weren’t well-fed. And he wasn’t used to inhaling oxygen that wasn’t choked with smog.
Behind him, his sister was suffering even more. Considering the most exercise she ever got was- She hadn’t left that little house in six years. She had no muscles, no endurance, and no stamina, all things she had insisted were keeping her in that damn prison.
Ahead, the boy in the military cloak had noticed them flagging. He dropped back, circling them like a damn herding dog.
“Do you need someone to carry you?” he asked South Hamgyong. “South Pyongan can.”
“I can carry both of you, if you want!” the blue-skinned girl called back from the top of the next ridge, her grin just annoyingly visible in the moonlight. “At the same time, even.”
Next to her stood the darker blue boy with the straw hat, and the russet one. The last boy must have been working his way up the forested slope still. It pissed North Hamgyong off that that skinny four-eyes was ahead of him.
He opened his mouth to say that if anyone was going to carry his sister, it was him, and not one of these strangers, but South Hamgyong spoke first.
“I’m alright,” she puffed, waving a hand. “I can keep going.”
Korea thought for a moment, observing her, then nodded, slipping by North Hamgyong again. “We’ll break at the top of this peak. You can rest there.”
“What about you, big guy?” the blue girl- South Pyongan, he thought she had said as they ran through the foothills- called down, smirking. “Need me to carry you?”
He glowered up at her. He could already tell that she was the mouthiest woman he had ever met. And that he hated her.
“Screw off.”
She laughed, spinning around and disappearing down the side of the ridge with the boy in the hat.
“Be… nice,” South Hamgyong panted, catching up.
Why should he? Just because they were other provinces? So what?
“That bastard didn’t even offer to let you rest here,” North Hamgyong grunted, eyeing Korea’s back bobbing ahead of them as they climbed through the forest of leaflets trees. He kept looking back every few seconds with a paranoid look on his white face, either checking that they were still there or making sure that they’re weren’t coming up on him with a knife.
“Language,” the other Hamgyong scolded disapprovingly, like she had used to. Before things had gotten so tense that she had understood it would be a bad idea to nag him over useless shit. “And don’t call him that.”
His teeth grit at the defensive edge in her voice for this boy they had met less than three hours ago.
“We… can’t rest,” she huffed, reaching for the ledge he had used his longer legs to easily climb. “They were… kind enough to come rescue us. We can’t-“
Her arms trembled as she tried to hoist herself up, her teeth gritted with effort. Korea had stopped ahead of them, turning back to watch clinically as South Hamgyong struggled. North Hamgyong crossed his arms, waiting for her to learn her lesson and let him carry her.
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Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction
FanfictionThe Koreas were victims of Japanese Imperialism for thirty-six years, deprived of freedom in their own country. With the defeat of the Japanese Empire after the second World War, you would think that their problems would be solved. But things rarel...
