South Korea, 1951.

“Unity Starts With US”, read the fliers plastered all over the village—many of them, now in mere fragments scattered in the mud. Just less than a decade ago, we gained our freedom from the Japanese, only to be dragged back to hell again.

This time, though, the enemy wasn’t foreign. They were our brothers and sisters. We hoped this would be over quickly. My father, though, feared the worst.

A hero of Korean independence, my father was a liberationist and took me to witness the Japanese ships leave our shores. He told me stories of how horrific combat was, and only after drowning himself in alcohol would he be able to speak of the atrocities that humans were capable of. Soju was the only thing that seemed to release the weight on his heart.

One night, I’d heard that under Japanese rule, a goat would fetch a higher price than a woman, and that many of our sisters were sent overseas to become sex slaves during the war. Most of them still haven’t returned, he said. 

I couldn’t ever imagine looking at Youngmi like that.

“In war, people are guaranteed to die,” he’d say, “But it’s better to go down fighting than to die as someone’s dog. That’s why we held out hope.”

 It’s thanks to people like him—the fighters- that we were even able to dream of a united Korea. 

Even if it was only for five years. Even if it was only a dream.

With the war breaking out, though, men of all ages were dragged from their homes, my father, one of the first to go. The forty-five-year-old man wasn’t against fighting again, but one night, he’d said something about hoping to meet his ‘brother’ on the battlefield. 

When he usually spoke of the Japanese, his eyes would glaze over with rage, and his breath would become heavy. It was like he was recalling the scenes in real time. This time was different, though. Instead of rage, worry and dread swam in the depths of his tired, Northern-born eyes.

For the military, though, two eyes were just enough. If you’re a man, have two eyes and a heartbeat, then you’re good enough for the military. “To die in battle while defending the motherland is every patriot’s dream!” or so they said, but I’m selfish.

I have my own dream.

Raising three scoundrel kids with my wife, and running a small restaurant together with her. Though Youngmi’s cooking isn’t all that great yet, I still eat it well. 

I won’t let anything, not even this war, take that dream away from me. Or us from each other. The moment I do, I die. 

As close friends of Youngmi’s parents, my mother and father seemed to have the same idea.

Along with myself, a few young men had decided to stay back in the village to take care of the women and the elderly, but I assumed the same to be true for them, too. They have lovers. Mothers. Grandmothers. Younger siblings. While our mothers want us at home, our fathers dread us fighting next to them. 

This is the beast of war.

An only child, I was lucky to escape conscription this year, thanks only to my mother hiding me and the village keeping quiet. 

I mean, what mother would want to send her eighteen-year-old off to die? 

She screamed and cried until words no longer came out when Father was taken, so you think she’d willingly let her only son go?

She and my father had agreed that they’d bide as much time as they could, but protest as we may have, the reality was that I was due to be dragged away at any time. 

Who knew, though, that the next soldiers on our doorstep weren’t those from the conscription units, but the North Koreans.

I won’t let them separate us.

…

“H-how much…longer do you think?” Youngmi pants, her head dangling in exhaustion. Her eyes are almost completely closed, as sweat floods her brows.

“Just over that ridge, I think… should be the plateau,” I respond between breaths,

“Are we… going back… there?” Youngmi asks, wincing as she turns towards me.

“Mm.” 

On a regular day, it was about a two-hour hike up to ‘The Plateau’—a lookout about halfway up the mountain, but the adrenaline seemed to have carried us here in no time at all. 

My arm throbs wet and hot, the sensation of lead ripping through it imprinted into me like it had happened just seconds ago. The reality is, it has almost been an hour. Time flows differently on the mountain today. 

The Plateau is a relatively sparsely populated area when it comes to trees, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it’s my favourite place in this village. It’s our place for many reasons. 

The sunlight here shines through the wide gaps in the canopy brighter than anywhere else on Mt. Jinsan, making the afternoon that we discovered Lover’s Falls feel like it was a dream. 

Columns of soft yellow light stretched from the ground and up through the treetops, and the melodies of the local Meadow Buntings echoed from all around. The smell of damp foliage from the night before lingered in the air, and visions of Youngmi’s long, silky hair caught in the breeze flash in my memory. She grinned as she skipped through the leaves, occasionally stopping for any red squirrel she saw.

After wandering together in awe of our discovery, we found the falls. It was the first day we’d held hands. I remember the warmth of her palms on mine—the sensation enveloping me like a wave. I don’t know how to swim, but I imagine that euphoria, that weightlessness, is how it feels. My heart was on fire. The heat of that Spring day couldn’t compare.

This time around, though, I’m going numb. 

Our hands violently tug at each other as they slip with sweat, and I’ve become keenly aware of the disgusting sensation of mud and splinters under my fingernails. The increasingly dark, omnipotent shadow of death that looms at our backs becomes heavier with each step, and makes the skin on the back of my neck crawl. 

I’m simply praying that I remember the way, despite knowing we’re heading towards a dead end.

What are we going to do…jump?

“...You still remember the way?” Youngmi responds.

Of course I do. I’ve been back every week. I’d cut down the thicket like I’d promised, and to make sure I never got lost, I marked some of the trees. 

With the little daylight we have remaining, ahead of us, I see a slightly larger than normal gap to the right of the trail come into view. 

The first tree on the right should have a notch on it. 

One day, here… I was going to…

…

“Hyeon-woo?” Youngmi questions me once more. 

“...Huh? Oh…” I mutter, coming back to my senses. “Y-yeah. I think I remember it being around here.”

“You even… remember that long ago?” she inquires, seeming genuinely shocked. 

“Yeah, of course.” 

I know my memory isn’t the best, but I couldn’t forget this place if I wanted to.

The truth is, I’d come here each week to prepare for our next date—one that I hoped would be our last as a couple. When the time was right, I had planned to ask Youngmi to spend her life with me, but it seems like it’s too late for that. 

I shouldn’t have waited.

“Oh…,” she replied, wearily facing ahead once more. I could tell her energy was almost spent, and we’d have to stop soon, whether we wanted to or not. There’s no point dropping dead from exhaustion first.

The chilling wind lapping at our backs pushes the faintest of distant cries into my ears, my stomach, sinking further at the thought of us losing each other here. The wind pushes and ebbs, and I thrash my head around to disturb the creeping dread.

As I do, I lift my head and notice the sign of hope I was praying to see.

The tree I had marked almost a year ago. 

A long, thin notch is carved into it at waist height. I had debated at the time to make it an arrow, but something in me didn’t want to risk anyone else finding this spot. Only we would know about Lovers Falls, or so I’d hoped, anyway.

I guess we could rest here…

I slow down, making sure not to loosen my grip on Youngmi, as we approach the tree that is now only a few metres away. Her hand is almost limp in mine, and she doesn’t even seem to notice our sudden change of pace. 

I have to keep her alert.

“Oh! It’s here! We turn here, Youngmi!” I cry in relief, hoping to rouse her attention. I stop in front of its tall, thin trunk and lean against it.

Youngmi falls hands first against the base of the tree, heaving in the mud, and grasping at the dying leaves. I’m barely hanging on myself, but I’ve got no choice but to keep it together. Father said that whoever loses their composure first in a fight is the one who fails, and it’s not just my life I have to worry about now.

I haul air in deeply through my nose, propping my back up against the tree so my legs don’t give out. If I go down, I won’t get back up.

For the first time since we started our ascent, I can finally take stock of our surroundings. The crimson hue of the sky has all but completely died as the dusk envelops it, and a full moon blinks only briefly through the thick smoke clouds passing overhead. 

We can only rest for a few minutes. If we stay too long, we’ll be completely unable to move. 

“We need to go soon. If we wait any longer, we’ll…” I say to Youngmi, glancing down at her, still on her hands and knees.

She turns her head up towards my voice, too weak to open her eyes.

“S-sure…p-please…help…me up,” she asks, her breathing still disrupted. I extend my hand towards her and pull her up with as much strength as I can muster while still leaning on the tree. 

“They’re probably…not far away… either…,” she continues, looking back down the trail we came up. There was only a single trail up and down Mt. Jinsan, so we’d certainly cross paths with the men following us if we stayed here. 

Whilst called a ‘mountain’, Mt. Jinsan is not so complex a hike or full of dense vegetation, so hiding would be a poor strategy. Our only hope is that they’ve either given up or they don’t find this small path to the plateau that a year’s worth of work has forged. 

Please… mountain spirits… anyone… let us make it out.

My head throbs as I feel the blood and adrenaline coursing through my body. I can hear it pump through me. I gaze over at Youngmi, who, now standing, is still bent over with her hands on her knees, shovelling air into her lungs. Her dishevelled hair obscures her eyes.

I scan the plateau area ahead that we have to cross through, hoping we can make it to the falls before dark. If we leave now, we might still make it in time.

“It’s not much further… let’s go…” I say, my thoughts resigned to trusting that my feet will remember the way. 

“Okay...” Youngmi responds, but this time, something about her response seems off. 

“Youngmi?”

I look her up and down. 

In the midst of our escape, I never once had the chance to look at her properly. It was like we’d been battered by a typhoon the whole time, and only just now, in the eye of the storm, did I have the presence of mind to notice the damage. 

Youngmi’s normally predominantly white, silk Hanbok is stained all over. The hem near her ankles is tattered, and dark splashes of mud line the entirety of the bottom. 

Most shocking, though, was the other colour painted in great volumes across her bust and stomach—the reddish-brown hue of blood. 

“!!!”

A shiver shoots straight up my back, and I feel my whole body instantly sweat cold.

“Wh-what’s that on your chest?!” I panic, as I feel my face contorting with worry. 

Has she been shot? Did she get hit, too?! 

In her daze, Youngmi wearily inspects her hanbok, her eyes quickly widening with horror at the overwhelming amount of blood that stains her clothes. Whatever she was going to say, the sight alone forced the words straight back down her throat. She averts her gaze down towards the ground in shock for a moment before her expression sinks into one that I’ve seen her wear once before—grief.

“B-blood?! H-hey! Look at me!” I scream, my eyes frantically scanning her body over. 

I worriedly cup Youngmi’s face with my hands and turn her eyes to meet mine. My hands fuss over her like a worried parent checking her for injuries. The pain in my shoulder fades instantly, as my anguish spills out along with my panting breath.

She looks up slowly, the stray clumps of hair clinging to her face. It’s flushed and drenched. I can’t tell at first if sweat or tears are pooling around her eyes, but her next words tell me all I need to know.

“Mother is…”

“Mother is…”

“She’s…dead,” she sobs, her voice breaking at the final word. 

“...”

“...wh-what?”

I don’t want to believe it.

I can’t.

If it weren’t for Mrs. Kim, I never would have had the opportunity to meet Youngmi. She introduced her daughter to me and treated me like I was her own. She knew all about my plans with Youngmi and also gave her approval in her husband’s absence. 

“He’d be relieved it was you who was looking after her,” she’d said.

She can’t… be gone.

I left my house, stealing a glance at my mother’s back, but she was certainly alive. 

By that time, though, Mrs. Kim had probably already…

I stumble a step back in shock, my hand slowly falling from Youngmi’s face. A wave of guilt torments me, and my mind begins to spiral. My breathing staggers, and my vision begins to go dark. 

Does that mean… that my mother is gone, too? 

Please… be okay. Please… be okay. 

Stunned by this realisation, the fibres in my chest begin to wring and contract at the thought of my mother, as I vividly recall my final moments with her.