GB 57
by Emerlyn‘It felt as if a huge hand had entered my body, grabbing my lungs and heart at once and yanking them downwards. Was gravity always this heavy? My body felt as heavy as the deep sea.’
“Cadet Haero, can you hear me?”
‘A cadet has a status akin to a soldier. The instructors treat cadets as soldiers, not students. I should be used to this by now, but why does it feel so unfamiliar with Yoon Moo-hwa? As if I’m standing before him for the first time.’
The word “cadet” chokes Haero’s throat. ‘His words traveled through my ears and blocked my throat. I couldn’t breathe or speak.’
Seeing that Haero couldn’t answer, he spoke again, “If this is puberty, should I say it’s quite a rebellious phase, or that a late-blooming crush is scary?”
His muttered words had thorns like stakes embedded in them, “Eyes swollen, lips split, cheeks so bruised I can’t tell the original skin color. And even a broken arm.”
“……”
“At this point, I can’t quietly cover this up anymore.” Yoon Moo-hwa slammed his hand on the desk decisively. He leaned back in his chair. His gaze was utterly dry. If only he had gotten angry or glared instead. “I heard that you couldn’t tolerate insulting remarks about me and started a physical fight.”
“… How could I endure that? That insult. They were insulting you.”
Yoon Moo-hwa’s eyebrows rose slowly. “Do you think I would have endured it?”
To that, Yoon Moo-hwa replied without a hint of amusement, “No one would dare to insult you openly in front of me. That’s my position. Even indirect chatter will be more cautious now. I’ve made an example. But what about you? What can you do, and why should people hide their hostility in front of you? You should have at least protected yourself. I don’t care what kind of filth I’m covered with when I’m not around. I’m disappointed that you didn’t protect yourself.”
“……”
If only he had sneered instead.
This wasn’t something I could dismiss as showing off. Every word he said was correct. The only way to counter would be to throw a childish tantrum. Because there was nothing else. Just as Yoon Moo-hwa said.
A moment of silence passed. Haero stared silently at his feet. There was a soft creaking sound. Seeing it coming from in front of him, it seemed Yoon Moo-hwa had shifted his position.
“Quit.”
An unfamiliar tone and voice.
Haero realized that Yoon Moo-hwa had given him an order.
‘It was the first order that awakened a fact I had been overlooking.
He is a superior officer.
I realize now that I hadn’t truly understood it, no, not even in my mind.’
“Quit the school.”
He was very accustomed to giving orders. Probably familiar to those who receive orders too.
That’s natural, but even knowing that I should follow orders since he called me “cadet,” Haero felt unbearably sad. While vaguely understanding why Yoon Moo-hwa had tried to prevent him from entering the Naval Academy, if he hadn’t come this far, he would never have seen this side of him.
Yoon Moo-hwa had always shown only a part of himself to me.
‘He was used to giving orders, and I have to listen to those words… I know it in my head, but still…’
Yoon Moo-hwa turned off the ringing communication device completely. It was something he shouldn’t do, but he did it without hesitation. He had already done things he shouldn’t have. This much more is fine. What Yoon Moo-hwa didn’t want to do was something else.
Haero, feeling distant and dizzy, blankly asked Yoon Moo-hwa, “W-why?”
“It’s better if you quit.”
“How, how can you say that when you know how much I wanted to come here?”
The tips of his fingers and toes felt cold. The most painful thing was that this came right after Haero had momentarily regretted enrolling. His already shaken heart became even more vulnerable at Yoon Moo-hwa’s words.
“Did you really want to enroll as a cadet?”
Haero shouted as if screaming at the ruthless question that seemed to deny his feelings, “This is what I wanted!”
“……”
“This is what I wanted! What I desired. It’s my dream. I … I have to stay here. This is my dream…”
“It’s not your dream.” Yoon Moo-hwa pulled over a file folder beside him and opened it. He turned the pages one by one. Haero didn’t know what kind of documents they were. “This isn’t your dream, is it?”
That’s right. Haero’s dream isn’t exactly to become a soldier.
“I can fulfill your dream. In a different way.”
A different way? A cruise ship? A docked training ship? That wasn’t what Haero wanted. It couldn’t be satisfied with such things. His desire had matured earlier than his age and was waiting for him. His dream wasn’t simply to be on a ship or at sea. It was connected to Yoon Moo-hwa, so wherever he went, Haero’s dream followed.
Was Yoon Moo-hwa rejecting not only his feelings but also his dream?
“Why do you say it’s not … Who are you to…”
Even though he asked back with a pathetically trembling voice, Yoon Moo-hwa, showing only his side profile, continued flipping through documents and coldly cut him off, as if he couldn’t give an inch of concession.
“Quit school. It’s not the place for you.”
Haero’s gaze moved from the red commissioning ring shining on his finger to his face.
Even after 10 years since they first met, he’s still impressive.
“Why? Because I want to be on the same ship as you…?”
“……”
“Do you … hate it so much that I’m following you?”
Yoon Moo-hwa’s hand paused briefly before turning more pages. The silence was so short that Haero couldn’t notice it.
“Is the desire to be together not even a valid reason? Is that feeling so childish?”
He never dreamed he’d have this conversation on his way here. He expected scolding, but not like this. No, being scolded would have been better. This was a rejection, complete rejection.
“I want to be on the ship together…”
In the end, he mumbled like a child. He ended up begging. But those cold eyes, still fixed on the documents rather than on him, never turn to look at him. As if he’s not worth it.
“You’ve been on one before.”
“That’s not enough…”
“I…”
He closed the document. With the thud, Haero’s heart sank.
“I won’t let you on my ship.” He finally turned his chair towards Haero after tossing the file folder on the desk. “There shouldn’t be a place for you on my ship. I’ve always thought that.”
“……”
“Is it still worth being here, then?”
He thought there couldn’t be a rejection worse than being ignored, but there was. He realized in a very cruel way that Yoon Moo-hwa had been considerate of him all this time.
He seems to hear the sound of waves. The giant roots of mangroves begin to wrap around his feet. The past he tried so hard to forget was still there. He ends up saying the words he never wanted to utter.
“Am I a hindrance to you?”
“……”
“Am I a hindrance to you, Colonel?”
Knowing it wasn’t that, Haero still asked. Even while knowing that wasn’t the essence, he desperately wanted to hear a different answer.
“……”
“Is the reason I’m a hindrance … because I come from a pirate group?”
‘Answer me. Just tell me it’s because of that.’
“Because I’m a disgrace to you, Colonel?”
Yoon Moo-hwa answered while lowering his gaze and flipping through documents, “As a superior, I have no reason to fall for a cadet’s self-deprecating leading questions.”
Haero took a sharp breath. He needed oxygen, as if he was about to dive deep into water.
“Then … then… Is it because I like you, Colonel… you?”
‘In the end, what I throw out is my heart.’
Yoon Moo-hwa, still as impressive as when he first picked me up covered in blood and practically a lump of salt, raised his head to look at me.
He answers Haero in his impressive voice, “The cadet is a hindrance to me.”
‘Since leaving the island, my sea only has meaning when I’m with you…’
“If you still insist on staying in school, put aside your feelings, Cadet.”
He stands up. The comfortable atmosphere created in this specially arranged meeting room, knowing our relationship, becomes useless.
“That’s an order.”
‘Whether he means to set aside my feelings for him or my dream of sailing together, I can’t even ask, feeling cruelly crumpled.’
Haero, who had been looking down at his feet with clenched fists, raised his head.
“What if I refuse?” Haero asked back, “What will you do if I disobey orders?”
Yoon Moo-hwa avoided Haero’s gaze, which was staring at him intently with clenched fists.
Even an artificial eye that’s good at analysis but can’t empathize would avoid that gaze.
―There’s serious discussion within the military about anti-pirate sentiment. I can’t guarantee what will happen after you enter the naval academy.
His father’s voice comes to Yoon Moo-hwa’s mind.
―I’ve never been affectionate, but I care for that child in my own way. If I adopt him now, he might escape some of the anti-pirate sentiment…
“The rumors about me would disappear too.”
Yoon Sang-won closed his mouth at Yoon Moo-hwa’s pointed remark.
Yes. That seems like it would solve everything. The way forward was simpler than expected.
When Yoon Moo-hwa heard that Haero’s arm was broken in a fight and he had other bruises, his mind seemed to go blank. At that moment, Yoon Moo-hwa felt he might lose control of himself. Haero will never know what, how, and how much he endured on the way here.
The last farewell was by no means gentle. Yoon Moo-hwa thought of Haero more frequently. He even made rare mistakes at sea. It takes only a moment for a rare mistake to become a fatal one.
‘The cadet is a hindrance to me.’
That was sincere.
But it’s cadet Haero who’s a hindrance, not Haero himself. It has to be that way. What he wants to remove is the Haero who could board his ship and be exposed to much higher risks than others.
‘I want to push you.
I’m worried about things much bigger and heavier than what you’re worried about. Even if the time we don’t see each other is much longer than the time we meet, it’s better than even a slightly higher chance of never seeing you again.’
It’s clearly an excessive feeling. Clearly a feeling that goes beyond normal. Yoon Moo-hwa’s strong stance against the rumors surrounding them this time contained his personal feelings. Those rumors were very uncomfortable. Too much to dismiss with a sneer as nonsense.
‘If you really became my brother, all these cumbersome issues and problems shaking me would disappear.’
―Let’s start the adoption process.
‘I wonder if he cried when his arm broke.’
“No.” However, Yoon Moo-hwa immediately spat out an answer completely opposite to all his rational judgments. “That won’t happen.”
Yoon Sang-won on the screen looked very bewildered.
―I thought you’d like it.
He even stammered, which was rare for him.
―Isn’t this what you wanted?
‘What I want.
What is it that I want?
I don’t know that myself.’