“What is it?”
“You’re not the type to listen just because someone tries to stop you.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”
“It seems he knows it’d be hard to join you, so he’s satisfied with watching your back so you can stay safe.”
At Brad Kim’s serious words, Taesu smiled bitterly and nodded in agreement.
“I know. And I’m grateful.”
“Then even if I say something, it won’t get through to you.”
“To be honest, sometimes I worry about myself too.”
Taesu put on a serious face and spoke with absurd cheek.
At that moment, Brad Kim let out a laugh.
“Hah. What kind of nonsense is that?”
“What do you mean, nonsense? I do worry about my own health and well-being.”
“Forget it. Since you’ve already started, see it through so you won’t have regrets.”
Brad Kim forced himself to set aside his worries and offered his support.
Then Taesu smiled faintly and said,
“I think I understand a little why he kept looking after you, Brad.”
“Hmm… What is it?”
“Altruism.”
“You’re saying I’m considerate of others?”
Brad Kim looked as if he had no idea what Taesu meant. But Taesu spoke more firmly, with greater conviction.
“You were like that from the beginning. Even during Apbae’s surgery.”
“That was because I didn’t want to get cursed at.”
“When we were dispatched to Makut, and of course now too.”
As Taesu explained, Brad Kim tilted his head.
“Why now?”
“You came all the way here with beer after doing three surgeries in a row.”
“Those surgeries were all on the mild side.”
“Your hand has been shaking while holding that beer since earlier.”
Taesu lifted the corner of his mouth slightly and gestured with his eyes.
Brad Kim looked down at his own hand, following his gaze, and froze.
Tremble, tremble.
His hand really was shaking.
“Ahem.”
Whoosh.
He cleared his throat for no reason, set down the can of beer, and hid his hand behind his back, but Taesu had already seen everything there was to see.
The more he acted that way, the deeper Taesu’s smile became.
“That’s why I can’t help liking you, Brad.”
“What nonsense… If you’re tired, go in and sleep.”
Thud.
Brad Kim grumbled for no reason and abruptly got up, leaving first.
Two cans of beer were left in his place.
Even in the middle of all that, he had apparently left them behind.
“Hehe. See? I was right.”
Taesu smiled softly.
As he drank alone, Taesu suddenly murmured,
“Human connections really are interesting.”
He had never dreamed there was such a story between James and Brad Kim.
Both of them were tight-lipped, so what happened today would be quietly buried.
It was simply fascinating that, known or unknown, everyone was connected by a thread.
He had never once taken it for granted.
He was always sincerely grateful.
Thinking one by one of the people he was grateful for, Taesu slowly emptied the remaining beer.
And their first dispatch.
It had succeeded.
“For the future.”
He did not forget to celebrate by himself.
The next morning.
An untimely scream from Jeong Minsu rang out in the lodging tent.
“Aaaagh!”
Awakened by the sound, Taesu stared at him with bleary eyes.
“Why are you throwing a fit first thing in the morning?”
“I’m not throwing a fit. Look at this, look.”
Thrust.
Jeong Minsu hurried over and roughly shoved something at him.
Taesu answered with an indifferent expression and voice.
“It’s a beer can.”
“Be precise. There’s no beer, just a crumpled beer can.”
“So what?”
“Someone just sucked down the contents. We should’ve drunk it together.”
Jeong Minsu shouted furiously.
Taesu frowned at once and covered his ears.
“You’ve got quite the voice this morning.”
“Of course someone who had a beer last night would have a hoarse throat.”
Kim Hyeokgwon answered dryly as he tidied his bedding.
At the same time,
Tap.
Jeong Minsu stepped right up to Taesu, glaring as he growled.
“Was it you?”
“Would I just throw trash anywhere?”
“Of course not.”
“So I, thinking of the environment, properly collected the cans.”
Taesu spoke calmly, and Jeong Minsu’s gaze grew even darker.
“Therefore, you’re saying you drank it?”
“Correct.”
“You, you, you…”
Jeong Minsu’s face twisted violently as his anger gathered even more.
Sensing the fury that was about to explode, Taesu spoke first.
“What was I supposed to do when you were asleep?”
“Th-that couldn’t be helped.”
Psssh.
Jeong Minsu’s face, which had swollen full with accumulated anger, deflated in an instant.
Taesu pushed away Jeong Minsu’s face, which had come too close, and said,
“So I drank your share too yesterday.”
“My share too?”
“I think I did a good job too, but you don’t have to be too grateful.”
When Taesu spoke shamelessly, Jeong Minsu looked confused.
“What situation exactly am I supposed to be grateful for?”
“I know everything. I think of you that much too, you know.”
“Hey, Choi Taesu.”
“Yeah. Good morning. A real good morning.”
Pat, pat.
Taesu greeted him shamelessly and even patted his shoulder.
At that moment, Jeong Minsu exploded.
“You bastard with not even one shred of conscience.”
“Man, you’re incredibly noisy this early in the morning.”
“You little—”
Suddenly, Jeong Minsu attacked Taesu.
Whoosh.
The fist flying toward Taesu was incredibly fast.
It looked as if it would strike him directly in the face.
Just then, Taesu raised his leg.
Thud.
Blocking with a pushing kick, he grumbled with a bitter expression.
“Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“Nope. Take this.”
Spin.
Jeong Minsu moved cleverly and tried to grab Taesu by the collar.
It was a judo technique he had suffered from so much at the hands of Corporal Guspia.
At that shift in stance, Taesu changed as well.
Tap.
He quickly stepped back and created distance.
At the same time, he charged at Jeong Minsu in the boxing stance that had left his lips split open again and again at the hands of Private Antony.
“You think I’ll back down if we’re really doing this?”
“Hand over the beer.”
“Who told you to sleep?”
Papak, papapak.
The hands and feet of the two men crossed in a dizzying flurry.
Their punches and kicks carried tremendous force, as if they had met mortal enemies.
Even so, it did not end.
Neither of them looked like they intended to stop.
At this rate, both of them might get hurt.
No, they were on the verge of it.
That was when it happened.
Swish.
Kim Hyeokgwon had approached from the side before anyone knew it.
At the same time, with both hands, he disrupted the trajectories of Taesu’s hand and Jeong Minsu’s foot.
Papak.
“Ugh.”
“Tch.”
Swish.
Taesu and Jeong Minsu quickly stepped back and adjusted their stances.
But what had just happened was extremely astonishing.
A single clash, and even Kim Hyeokgwon joining in.
It had literally happened in an instant.
Their reflexes and techniques were no worse than those of professional fighters.
Just from this brief glimpse, one could tell how harshly the three of them had trained all this time.
Kim Hyeokgwon snapped at the two of them.
“If you’re going to make a racket, go outside and fight.”
“…”
Taesu and Jeong Minsu flinched at the same time.
When Kim Hyeokgwon got angry, things became troublesome.
In conclusion, the mood demanded that they end it here.
But if there was no physical fight, there was still a verbal one.
Barbs full of lingering resentment went back and forth.
“Hyeokgwon saved you again today. Shouldn’t you bow deeply to the man who saves your life every day?”
“Don’t make me laugh. If I were you, I’d be so grateful for my new life that I’d carry Hyeokgwon around on my back.”
“Oh? You want to smell incense from behind a funeral screen today?”
“I guess I can skip exercise today. I’ll have to dig your grave.”
Grrrr.
After trading sarcastic remarks, the two eventually bared their teeth like wild beasts again.
At that exact moment,
Step.
Kim Hyeokgwon wedged himself between them and asked coldly,
“Did you just ignore what I said? Is that what happened?”
The atmosphere was so chilling it felt as if an Arctic cold wave had swept in.
At once, Taesu and Jeong Minsu hurried back to their places, making unnecessary remarks.
“I-I should hurry and tidy up my bedding first.”
“The round sun… has risen. Now, from your… from your place… get up…”
Kim Hyeokgwon glared at the two of them as they pretended to do other things and snapped,
“I’d rather put knives in the hands of little kids.”
Hearing that, Taesu paused and protested.
“We’re not that bad.”
“I think so too.”
Jeong Minsu quickly joined in.
Then Taesu, as if they had never been fighting, sided with Jeong Minsu.
“Dr. Jeong, isn’t it a bit much to compare our flashy action to a kids’ fight?”
“Of course. Do you know how much we got beaten up while learning this?”
Jeong Minsu was the same.
At that moment, Kim Hyeokgwon turned his gaze toward the entrance of the tent.
Looking far into the distance, he murmured quietly,
“Mother, I’m sure that place is free of worries.”
In that moment, one could feel his desperate wish to simply leave, far, far away.
One hour later.
After breakfast, Taesu was inside the large medical tent.
An oil stove was adding warmth to the place.
Taesu held his hands out in front of the oil stove.
On the opposite side, Dr. Schmidt stood in the same posture and said,
“In the morning, you need to warm your hands thoroughly like this. It makes it easier to move.”
“It feels good because it’s warm. I feel like I’m loosening up a little too.”
“After all the trouble you went through yesterday, no one’s going to say anything if you loosen up a bit.”
At Dr. Schmidt’s gentle praise, Taesu smiled awkwardly.
“What trouble? You must be more tired, Dr. Schmidt. You operated until the very last patient.”
“What are you talking about? Everyone was still talking about that when we were eating earlier.”
“About what?”
The moment Taesu asked,
Dr. Schmidt raised his thumb and winked as he said,
“Mission complete.”
“Huh? I was just glad to see everyone, so I did it as a joke.”
“It seems it left quite an impression on everyone. They said it was like a scene from a noir film.”
Only after hearing that did Taesu recall the famous scene.
“It really was similar. I had no intention of that at all, though.”
“If you’d done it intentionally, it would’ve felt awkward.”
“We’re shameless, so we might actually do surprisingly well.”
“Hehe. Anyway, putting that aside, it seems your emergency treatment skills have improved even more than before.”
When Dr. Schmidt suddenly praised him, Taesu flinched despite himself.
“What are you talking about?”
“Hmm, no. I think it would be more accurate to say there’s less waste.”
“I’m not sure. It was my first time handling burns that severe in particular, so I don’t really know.”
At Taesu’s answer, Dr. Schmidt looked at him with a subtle gaze and said,
“You said that yesterday too. But I still don’t believe it.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I mean it wasn’t the level of emergency treatment someone would perform for the first time.”
“I was so frantic then that I don’t really know how I did it…”
Taesu deliberately trailed off.
Since truth and lies were cleverly mixed together, it was best to muddle through.
That was the least courtesy he could show Dr. Schmidt, who trusted him.
Dr. Schmidt smiled softly and said,
“You said the same thing yesterday.”
“I did. Though you didn’t seem to believe me much.”
“When things get too urgent, sometimes what you’ve stored away in your head comes out without you realizing it.”
“That’s exactly it. It just came spilling out.”
Taesu quickly agreed and bluffed with easy charm.