Scene 1. The Spoon
The spoon struck teeth.
Tok.
A wooden spoon. The one the partisans had handed him. On its tip sat the cloudy yellow liquid. Lee Kang brought it to Yeonhwa's lips. Yeonhwa's lips were closed. Blue lips. Bloodless.
His hand pushed the spoon between Yeonhwa's lips.
It would not go in. The lips would not part. His other hand took Yeonhwa's jaw. Pulled it down. The mouth opened a little. Teeth showed. Closed teeth. The spoon's tip struck the teeth.
Tok.
He tilted the spoon.
The yellow liquid ran between Yeonhwa's closed teeth. A little went through the gaps. Most ran out past her lips. Down her jaw. To her neck. Onto the cot.
His eyes watched it.
The yellow thing running down. Down Yeonhwa's neck. The medicine was not going in. Not going into the mouth but flowing out.
Inside Lee Kang's chest, something quickened.
"You have to swallow."
Lee Kang whispered.
Into Yeonhwa's ear. Tenderly. With a mouth that had killed people. With a mouth wearing dried blood at its corners. With a mouth with flesh caught between its teeth. From that mouth came the tenderest sound in the world.
"Just a little. Try to swallow just a little."
His hand spooned the medicine again. Brought it to Yeonhwa's lips. This time he parted the lips with his fingers. Let the medicine pour in. Into the mouth. Onto the tongue.
Yeonhwa did not swallow.
The medicine pooled on her tongue, then ran out the corner of her mouth. The yellow thing dropped down Yeonhwa's cheek onto the pillow. A yellow stain spread across the pillow.
Lee Kang's breathing grew labored.
The interval between breaths shortened. His chest moved up and down quickly. The edges of his vision began to tremble. A high sound rang inside his ears. Tinnitus.
Did I feed it wrong.
His hands shook.
The angle. Was the angle off. Did I pour too fast.
Lee Kang spooned it again. Slowly. This time more slowly. He cupped Yeonhwa's head in one hand and lifted it slightly. To make swallowing easier. To let the throat open. Was this how Doctor Jang fed the medicine. Lee Kang groped at his memory. How had Doctor Jang fed it. No. It was not Doctor Jang who fed it. Lee Kang had swallowed it himself. From the canteen. Himself.
Yeonhwa could not swallow it herself.
His hand stroked Yeonhwa's throat. From top to bottom. To make her swallow. The way one strokes down an animal's throat to feed it medicine. Yeonhwa's throat was cold. Beneath his palm there was no movement. No movement of swallowing muscle.
The medicine ran out the corner of her mouth.
Again.
His hand stopped.
He looked down at Yeonhwa's face. The yellow medicine had run from the corner of her mouth to her cheek, to her neck. Yeonhwa's face was stained with the yellow thing. Eyes closed. Bloodless. With no telling whether breath was there or not.
The bunker was quiet.
Only Lee Kang's breathing rang harsh. The hand trying to feed the medicine, and the stillness of Yeonhwa that would not receive it. A corpse-like stillness. That stillness closed around Lee Kang's throat.
"Why won't you swallow."
Lee Kang whispered.
His voice trembled.
"Just once. Try to swallow just once. Then you'll get better."
Yeonhwa did not answer.
She could not answer.
Lee Kang did not know it.
He tried not to know it.
Scene 2. The Bait
Lee Kang's hand trembled, gripping the spoon.
His head turned. Slowly. Toward the physician. The physician standing in the corner of the bunker. Lee Kang's amber eyes turned toward him. The physician received that gaze and stepped back. His back met the earthen wall.
That one made it wrong.
A cold thing rose in Lee Kang's chest. The physician had made the medicine wrong. That was why it did not work. The physician's fault. Lee Kang's hand set down the spoon. He started to rise. Toward the physician.
"Comrade."
The voice came from the side.
It was the search party leader. He had drawn close to Lee Kang's side. The kerosene lamp's light cut his face on a slant. One half bright, one half shadow.
Lee Kang's eyes turned toward the leader.
"That medicine." The leader said, glancing at the yellow stain on the cot. "It was made in haste. It's not a proper medicine."
Lee Kang's hand stopped.
"The real medicine." The leader continued. Carefully. One word at a time. "A doctor at a Western hospital can make it. There's a Western-trained physician connected to our organization. A Westerner. The genuine article."
A Western doctor.
Lee Kang's brain seized the words.
The doctor he had dragged from Severance. That doctor had said there was no hope. But that doctor had been a doctor who could not make the medicine. The one this leader spoke of was a different doctor. A doctor who could make the medicine. A real doctor.
"Are you certain."
Lee Kang said.
"I'm certain." The leader answered. "But."
The leader stopped. One beat.
"You must help us."
Lee Kang's eyes looked at the leader.
"There's a man in the Imperial Army who must be put down. In Gyeongseong. If you help us strike him, then in return we'll bring you the Western doctor. To see to your person."
Within the leader's words were several terms. Put down. Empire. Operation. Comrade. But what reached Lee Kang's ears was one.
We'll bring you a Western doctor.
In Lee Kang's head, only that one sentence remained. The rest fell away. Who the Imperial Army figure was, why he must be put down, what the operation was. No meaning. Western doctor. Medicine. Yeonhwa.
"If I kill that man."
Lee Kang said.
"You bring the doctor."
The leader's eyes blinked once.
"...That's right."
Lee Kang stood.
Scene 3. Deployment
Lee Kang looked down at the cot.
Yeonhwa lay there. With the yellow stain drying on her face. Eyes closed. His hand wiped the yellow thing from Yeonhwa's face. With the back of his hand. Slowly. He wiped away the medicine that had run down and hardened.
"I'll be back soon."
Lee Kang whispered.
"I'll bring the real medicine. The kind a real doctor makes."
His hand swept Yeonhwa's forehead once. A cold forehead. He arranged her hair. The hair smeared with yellow medicine.
Lee Kang stood.
A partisan held out a black coat. To cover Lee Kang's bare body. His blood-soaked half-nakedness. Lee Kang took it. Threw it over his shoulders. The coat met the burns. Met the shoulder where the sutures had torn. The cloth pressed the festered flesh. It stung. He ignored it.
Another partisan held out a rifle.
Lee Kang looked at it. Did not take it. He had no need of a gun. Hands were enough. Teeth were enough.
Lee Kang spoke without turning his head.
Toward the cot. Toward the whole bunker. To no one in particular.
"If you touch her."
Lee Kang said.
"I'll kill all of you."
The bunker went quiet. The wounded too. Those cleaning rifles too. The physician too. They all heard it. They understood that it was not a threat but a fact. They were people who had seen the flesh caught at the corner of his mouth.
The leader nodded.
"No one will touch her. Our comrades will guard her."
Lee Kang believed those words.
Not that he believed them, but that he chose to believe them. Because to leave Yeonhwa behind, he had to believe. Because if he did not leave her, he could not get the medicine.
His feet moved away from the cot.
One step. Two. At the third he stopped. He looked back. At Yeonhwa. At the face where the yellow stain had dried. At the small body on the small cot.
Inside Lee Kang's chest, something pulled.
It was a strange thing. Taking Yeonhwa off his back. The disappearance of the weight he had carried on his back for days. His back being empty. That empty place was strangely cold.
Lee Kang turned away again.
He walked.
Toward the passage.
Scene 4. The Empty Back
The aboveground air was cold.
It was dawn. The smoke had cleared. The slum's fires had gone out. It had all burned away. Cold air struck Lee Kang's face. Came into his lungs. Clean. The first clean air in days.
Lee Kang breathed it in.
The leader and the band of partisans walked surrounding Lee Kang. Through the dark. Through ruined streets. Toward the target. The leader led. He spoke low as he walked. How the operation would go, who the target was, what the route was.
Lee Kang's ears did not hear it.
Lee Kang's back was empty.
There was no weight of Yeonhwa. The weight that had pressed his back for days. The chin that hooked over his shoulder. The fingers that hung before his throat. All gone. His back was light.
The lightness was strange.
Lee Kang's gait was uncannily light. Though his body was wounded. Though his shoulder was bored through, his side split, his burns festered. With his back empty, his feet floated. With no weight, his body was light.
That lightness made Lee Kang uneasy.
There should have been weight on his back. There should have been Yeonhwa. A cold weight. That had been the anchor holding Lee Kang to the ground. With no anchor, his body seemed to drift.
His feet stopped once.
He started to look back. Toward the bunker. Toward Yeonhwa.
"Comrade." The leader called. "This way."
His feet, stopped in their place, moved again.
Forward. Following the leader. Into the dark. Toward the target.
Lee Kang's amber eyes glowed in the dark.
There was no expression. No anger and no sorrow. It was emptiness. The empty stillness of a beast going to clear away an obstacle. For the medicine that would save Yeonhwa. For the doctor who would make the medicine. For the slaughter that would bring the doctor.
Lee Kang's feet walked into the dark.
Among the sounds of military boots. One bare foot walked mixed in. To a different rhythm. Foreign to it.
The dawn of Gyeongseong was slowly brightening above them.