GB 29

Yoon Moo-hwa took off his glasses, rubbed his face with his hands folded, and rested his chin on them. His gaze shifted to the vintage television with the volume turned down low. On the small screen attached to the wall pillar, footage of a giant cephalopod sea monster that had appeared in the management area of Sector 2 was playing.

“……”

Legs with countless giant suction cups were wrapping around a medium-sized fishing boat. The diameter of each suction cup alone was about the average height of an adult man.

That ferocious appearance was like a materialized plague. No matter how many harpoons were fired from nearby fishing boats, it didn’t budge at all. For such cephalopod sea creatures, aiming for the eyes was the quickest way to attack. However, it wasn’t easy for untrained civilians in a state of panic to accomplish this.

Soon after, the surrounding fishing boats that had been filming while firing harpoons also began to retreat, screaming as they tried to avoid the tentacles reaching out towards them. The video ended in that chaos.

The anchor of the military-exclusive newsroom, with a troubled expression, informed that the scene just played was submitted from a file automatically uploaded to the ship owner’s hub, and that the boat that filmed this video was also completely destroyed with no survivors.

“That place should have been Blue….” Yoon Moo-hwa frowned and turned on the sea chart.

After checking the security level, it was indeed an area set as a safe zone. After Blue, it gradually transitions to Green and then to Red, but with something that big appearing, it would be immediately elevated to Red.

Yoon Moo-hwa furrowed his brow and rubbed his face.

The safe zones were rapidly shrinking. The sea was changing faster than technology could keep up. More officers were hoping for land-based assignments. It was almost like being in a constant state of war. Thanks to that, Yoon Moo-hwa, who had quickly become a colonel, was feeling these changes even more acutely.

He had no intention of transferring to land duty. Knowing the sea was dangerous and feeling fear were two separate things.

However, Haero going out to sea was a different matter. That was something that could make Yoon Moo-hwa hesitate to board a ship.

Haero was Yoon Moo-hwa’s only hesitation.

As he thought about his hesitation, time passed aimlessly. It was a time where nothing had been accomplished. Yet it didn’t feel useless. The wooden bird came out of the antique clock—which the bar owner said he wouldn’t sell even if offered a warship—and chirped to announce the hour. Yoon Moo-hwa quietly stood up from his seat.

The area in front of Haero’s school was quiet. Thanks to the graduating class adjusting their schedules according to their individual needs, their dismissal time was noticeably earlier than other grades. In the distance, students began to appear, leaving the building.

While others were forming small groups, Haero was completely alone.

Come to think of it, he had never brought a friend home or heard him talk about friends.

Yoon Moo-hwa watched Haero silently as he crossed the playground, hunched over the steering wheel.

It felt a bit unfamiliar.

Surprisingly, Haero alone had quite a chilly impression. Beautiful but frozen, one might say, or perhaps he looked sad.

In any case, it was a face he had never shown in front of Yoon Moo-hwa.

As if sensing his gaze, Haero suddenly looked up. Upon discovering Yoon Moo-hwa’s car, Haero constantly changes to his usual expression and starts running.

Unaware that his own face had also changed into one that only Haero knew, Yoon Moo-hwa stretched out his arm to open the passenger door.

“Hyung!” Haero called out to him with a bright face, excited.

It always feels strange to be called “hyung“. Perhaps because it’s a sound he can only hear in Haero’s voice.

“Look at this!” However, when Haero, who had climbed into the passenger seat, spread out a paper in front of Yoon Moo-hwa’s face, his expression awkwardly froze.

I can’t believe this still exists.

While waiting for Haero, Yoon Moo-hwa examined the pamphlet Haero had been holding. There were faces he recognized and others he didn’t.

The public affairs officer who had been the face of the Navy for three years was now the main anchor of the military broadcast run by the Navy.

In the pamphlet, Yoon Moo-hwa was wearing a pristine white summer uniform, gazing straight ahead. Behind him, a newly constructed warship from that year was superimposed, showcasing its grandeur.

Yoon Moo-hwa had also participated in the launching ceremony. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Allied Forces presided over the main event of the ceremony. Since she was a woman, her husband took her place in the tradition of breaking a champagne bottle at the launching ceremony, typically done by the wife or daughter of a VIP.

However, for the sake of some very elderly sailors who still believed in old-fashioned superstitions, he remembered naming a bundle of straw with seaweed, glutinous rice, and salted fish spread on it ‘Mary’ and setting it on fire before throwing it into the sea separately.

That day, the champagne bottle broke spectacularly, and that ship is still operating well. Specialized in dealing with giant sea creatures, especially the cephalopod type often called ‘Kraken’, it was coated with expensive paint that made suction cups slip off its surface. There were only a few such ships in the world, and Yoon Moo-hwa could count on one hand the times he had actually seen one. He didn’t even know such a ship had been superimposed behind his face in the image.

“I was young,” Yoon Moo-hwa mumbled, fluttering the paper.

He must have been around twenty-one. He barely remembered. Amidst being incredibly busy, he vaguely recalled being asked to attend this time without fail, so he reluctantly showed up and had his picture taken. He had special training that same afternoon, so he left within 30 minutes of taking the photo.

It felt strange to think that Haero had been holding onto this.

Yoon Moo-hwa tried to imagine Haero in a summer uniform. Although he had never seen it directly, he thought Haero in a white uniform would look more like a young groom than a soldier.

As life expectancy decreased, the age of marriage also became younger. The trend shifted from minimizing wedding ceremonies for convenience to holding increasingly grand celebrations.

Yoon Moo-hwa had attended many weddings of his peers and juniors. Marriages between navy personnel were frequent. There were often cases where both wore white uniforms. Those who promised to accompany each other in life and chose a life at sea together sometimes lived happily ever after, but as time passed, there were also many cases where only one remained, or both disappeared in the vast sea or ended their lives.

For Yoon Moo-hwa, the uniform left such mixed emotions. There were times when it held no special meaning as it was worn daily, and times when it held a bitter significance. The latter tended to leave a more intense image.

He wished Haero would stay on land and do simple work rather than joining the navy. Even if he were to wear white clothes, they didn’t necessarily have to be a navy uniform. More precisely, he hoped Haero would never have to wear one at all. 

Was it a selfish decision made because he didn’t know Haero well? Or was it because he knew Haero too well and didn’t want to lose him?

“He’s certainly grown a bit,” said the tailor favored by Yoon Moo-hwa’s family, emerging with a pleased smile while Yoon Moo-hwa was lost in thought. “His shoulders have broadened too. He’s all grown up now.”

Yoon Moo-hwa retorted, “He’s still not fully mature. He easily gets hurt.”

“But also easy to heal,” the tailor replied.

Yoon Moo-hwa glanced at the tailor. His inscrutable face with its knowing smile was top-notch.

Somehow, even people who had known him longer seemed to take Haero’s side at some point.

Suppressing a sigh, Yoon Moo-hwa put down the pamphlet. Looking towards the door, he saw Haero awkwardly fiddling with the hem of his clothes as he came out.

“This one seems to fit a bit tighter,” Haero said awkwardly, turning towards the mirror.

Yoon Moo-hwa stood up. Indeed, it was a slightly tighter style compared to last year’s design. Haero usually preferred clothes much larger than his body, so even a moderately fitted one would feel constricting to him.

“It looks fine, why?” Yoon Moo-hwa said, reaching out to adjust Haero’s tie while suppressing a smile. “The tie still doesn’t suit you. Let’s go with a bow tie.”

“Ah, no!” Haero protested. 

A bow tie would make him look too young. He hated that.

However, his protests fell on deaf ears with Yoon Moo-hwa. After readjusting the tie, he ended up removing it and handing it to the tailor. When an assistant brought over a few bow ties, he chose one and held it up to Haero’s neck. The jade color didn’t suit him. In the end, he chose white.

“This suits you well.”

“…Sometimes you act on your own, hyung. You do everything as you please, even when it’s my business.”

Despite the grumpy grumbling, Yoon Moo-hwa didn’t let it slide. “Everything I do is for your sake. I don’t care about others.”

He was sincere. For example, even if it were Seon Ik-hyun, he wouldn’t have cared if the guy walked around naked.

“It’s cute. Let’s go with this.”

“Deciding on your own again.”

“You like it too, don’t you?”

“I told you I want to wear a necktie….” Haero muttered, tugging at his bow tie.

He still didn’t like it. It felt like he was at a child’s graduation ceremony.

Especially when he was among the partners at the gatherings Yoon Moo-hwa attended, it made him feel even more like a child observer.

“Um… Can you just pack the necktie…”

“I said no.”

He had whispered quietly to the helper who came to assist with his undressing, but somehow Yoon Moo-hwa heard it again.

Haero grumbled, wondering if Yoon Moo-hwa had not only artificial eyes but also artificial eardrums implanted, as he took off his clothes.