Episode 2: Daylily Flower
Two days later, I Juhyeok boarded a plane to Myanmar.
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t believe he had to carry out a ridiculous mission like destroying a time machine.
In a world where even individuals could launch spaceships, a time machine…….
After a tedious flight of about six hours, he arrived at Yangon Airport in Myanmar.
He had no checked baggage, so after immigration procedures, he exited immediately to the arrivals hall, where a familiar face was grinning from ear to ear.
“Hey! You just disappeared like that; is it okay to do this without even a transfer report?”
“Victory! Reporting, sir. Lieutenant Sin Yongho has been ordered transferred to the Myanmar embassy. I hereby report……”
Seeing him still sporting a mischievous expression while snapping to attention, I Juhyeok let out a short laugh.
“Enough. You’re late. I already reported it as an unauthorized absence from your assigned area and desertion.”
I Juhyeok always started joking around like this whenever he met Sin Yongho, who was his junior at the Naval Academy and had served with him in the UDT.
The two went outside the airport and immediately lit up cigarettes.
“We’ll go to the hotel first, right?”
“Yeah. I’ll be out quickly, so let’s go somewhere and have a drink together after a long time.”
The two arrived at the hotel after driving for about thirty minutes, tossed their luggage in, and came out to grab seats at a bar with a nice atmosphere playing soft pop songs.
“Team leader.”
“I’m a civilian now too, so just call me senior.”
“Senior. But is something like that really real?”
“Like what?”
“That time machine thing. It’s not like we’re filming some sci-fi movie……”
“How should I know? We just do what we’re told.”
“Seeing the Americans rush into this so seriously, it seems like there might be something to it……”
“We’ll find out when we go to the site together tomorrow.”
At I Juhyeok’s listless answer, Sin Yongho, who had been drinking silently for a while, read the mood and hesitantly opened his mouth.
“Your sudden discharge… it has to do with Seongguk, right?”
“……”
“We couldn’t do anything about it back then. It wasn’t the team leader’s fault.”
“……”
I Juhyeok and Sin Yongho had both participated in a hostage rescue operation from Somali pirates, and Sergeant Gim Seongguk, a team member, had died from a bullet fired by the pirates during the operation.
He was the only fatality during the operation.
I Juhyeok downed his glass in one gulp as if shaking off the miserable sight of Sergeant Gim Seongguk bleeding out on his shoulders that day, then lit a cigarette.
Seeing I Juhyeok smoking in silence, Sin Yongho seemed to regret saying anything unnecessary and changed the subject.
“But, Senior.”
“What now?”
“During the Hormuz deployment, our unit’s motto was ‘We stake everything.’ What does that mean?”
“Did this brat eat something wrong today?”
“……”
The simple guy who normally wasn’t curious about anything except women had too many questions today.
They say if someone changes suddenly, they die.
“It doesn’t mean much. I learned it while studying war history at the academy; apparently it was the charge cry of a Korean unit that fought for the US during the Pacific War.”
“Ah……!”
“I liked the resolve and grim determination contained in that word ‘everything.’ How desperate and fervent must they have been to stake ‘everything.’”
“Then why don’t we stake ‘everything’ over there tonight? Hehehe.”
Following Sin Yongho’s finger as he smirked lewdly, two slender Myanmar ladies were looking this way and shaking their glasses.
‘There it is. So much for people not changing easily.’
At least he didn’t have to worry about this guy dying anytime soon.
“I’m tired. We have an important matter tomorrow, so let’s rest early.”
I Juhyeok dragged Sin Yongho back to the hotel for the defector interview scheduled for tomorrow.
I Juhyeok had thought it was a joke to lighten the serious mood, but Sin Yongho wore a genuinely disappointed expression.
* * *
Early the next morning.
Upon arriving at the embassy, I Juhyeok found a familiar face.
“Kevin? Why are you at the Korean embassy…? Ah!”
“Hi! Captain Lee!”
Kevin hugged I Juhyeok fiercely, wearing a childlike smile that didn’t suit his bear-like build.
“I heard an agent from the CIA was coming on this mission too, so it’s you?”
Years ago, I Juhyeok had met Kevin, who led the American special team, when I Juhyeok led a Korean special team to participate in the RIMPAC training.
After finishing joint counter-terrorism training, a quarrel broke out between the Korean special team and the American special team.
The reason was a trivial one that didn’t even sound convincing—merely that their shoulders had bumped during training.
In truth, the reason was whatever they made it out to be; it was the usual battle of pride between special forces units.
Moreover, that day—though it was only a simulation—was the day a Korean submarine broke through the US military’s tight defenses, sank an American aircraft carrier, and then surfaced triumphantly right in the middle of the US carrier strike group.
Thus, the American special team, even more fired up, had been itching to get at the Korean special team.
As always, the two team leaders, I Juhyeok and Kevin, had faced off as representatives and finished things within the bounds of mutual respect for each other’s skills.
The two, greeting each other warmly after a long time, were immediately guided to an interview room.
In a room with one desk, two chairs, and a one-way mirror on one wall allowing the adjacent room to see inside, a gaunt middle-aged man sat alone with his head bowed.
“I’m I Juhyeok from the National Intelligence Service. This is Kevin from the United States.”
Gim Jincheol raised his head and gave Kevin a single emotionless glance, but said nothing.
“We’ll depart in thirty minutes.”
Gim Jincheol kept his gaze fixed under the desk.
“We’ll complete the mission you mentioned this afternoon, then take you to Korea on a plane prepared by the United States this evening.”
And silence flowed inside the interview room.
Gim Jincheol had already been living for months in a prison without bars, and must have been sick of interrogations with the same content.
Both I Juhyeok and Kevin had many questions, but in his current state, it seemed he wouldn’t answer anything.
While they were spending that awkward time, something Gim Jincheol was clutching tightly in his hand caught I Juhyeok’s eye.
In his hand, which had been under the desk the whole time, he held an orange flower that had been carefully pressed and cleanly laminated.
“The thing you’re holding… could it be a daylily flower?”
“You know this flower?”
“It’s my favorite flower.”
Seeing I Juhyeok’s bright smile, Gim Jincheol relaxed his previously expressionless face and opened his mouth for the first time.
“It’s a common flower that blooms everywhere on the Korean Peninsula, but a beautiful one.”
But unlike I Juhyeok’s bright smile, Gim Jincheol’s face looked like he would burst into tears at any moment.
I Juhyeok wanted to talk more with Gim Jincheol, who had finally opened up, but at Sin Yongho’s signal that they had to leave now, he had to exit the interview room immediately and get in the car.
Sin Yongho took the wheel, Kevin sat in the front passenger seat, and I Juhyeok and Gim Jincheol sat side by side in the back seat.
As the embassy gates opened, I Juhyeok’s heavily tinted car departed, and three other cars waiting inside the compound left simultaneously.
It was to prepare for any possible tail.
When the car carrying I Juhyeok had driven for about thirty minutes and was leaving Yangon city, the remaining three cars split off in different directions as planned.
* * *
Despite all their caution, I Juhyeok’s party arrived safely at the point designated by Gim Jincheol without any significant hindrance.
The place they arrived was a spot deep in the tropical rainforest.
All sorts of foul odors wafted about—the smell of rotting vegetation and animal excrement.
It was such a remote place that one wondered how he had ever found it, and Gim Jincheol seemed amazing for having passed through such a place to defect.
Gim Jincheol looked around for a moment, then, as if finding his own marker, dashed forward as though he might fall and began digging at the ground.
Everyone rushed in to dig, and before long, they unearthed a silver metal box from the ground, slightly smaller than an instant noodle box.
“…This is it. Whew.”
Gim Jincheol carefully opened the box as if handling a precious treasure, checked that the machine was intact, and let out a breath of relief.
Only then, finally able to see the so-called time machine sample with their own eyes, I Juhyeok and Kevin couldn’t help but tilt their heads at the unexpectedly shabby form of the device.
Inside the box, several wires scattered here and there from a small bell-shaped object, and all the wires were connected to a cylinder-shaped glass bottle containing purple liquid.
There was also a red button, presumably to operate it.
For a moment, I Juhyeok and Kevin looked at each other simultaneously and showed awkward smiles.
They hadn’t believed in its existence from the start, but to think it was such a crude contraption.
He just had to destroy the machine together with the Korean and American officials waiting at the airport, then take Gim Jincheol safely to Korea.
Turning his eyes away from the crude machine with effort and reminding himself of the mission, I Juhyeok simply wanted to get to the airport quickly.
“Let’s depart for the airport now.”
“…Please give me a moment. Just about ten minutes.”
Gim Jincheol staggered over to the place he had just dug up, stroked the tree branch erected beside it and the ground, then began to sob.
Shortly after, Gim Jincheol returned with reddened eyes and rather urged the two on.
“It’s done now… let’s go.”
Inside the car heading to the airport, they all simply gazed out the windows without a word to each other.
“That place earlier is where I buried my daughter with my own hands.”
Gim Jincheol, who had been silently watching outside the car window for some time, spoke in a voice filled with regret.
“She was a poor child who lost her mother when she was young.”
Gim Jincheol took a deep breath as he continued.
It was a weak breath, as if containing deep resentment.
“I was so immersed in my work that I didn’t even know that poor young thing was sick……”
Gim Jincheol wiped his tears again.
“How did your daughter……”
“It was pneumonia.”
“If it was pneumonia……”
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a disease that could be easily cured in the South, but in our Republic, everything was lacking. So they said if I succeeded in this task, they would send her to Russia for treatment… phew.”
Gim Jincheol let out a long sigh.
“I shouldn’t have believed those State Security Department bastards……”
“……”
“A few State Security agents noticed the development was successful and tried to use it secretly for their own greed. So I defected, taking my daughter with me. And along the way, my daughter……”
Gim Jincheol’s eyes were still red.
“Then, before your daughter’s condition worsened, with that time machine… no.”
Sin Yongho, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, cut in, then hurriedly trailed off, perhaps thinking it might sound derisive to Gim Jincheol.
“You don’t believe me. I understand. But as a scientist, I am certain. This time machine definitely works.”
“Then why……?”
“The thought that something I developed could throw the world into even greater chaos suddenly terrified me. It’s a prototype, so it could malfunction……”
Gim Jincheol, meeting Sin Yongho’s eyes, suddenly bowed his head.
“I am a worthless father who threw away his daughter’s life for scientific convictions not worth half a penny.”
He looked as if he were trying to shake off his past.
“Didn’t this gentleman say he likes this daylily too?”
Come to think of it, Gim Jincheol was now clutching the laminated daylily he had shown at the embassy tightly in his hand.
“Yes, it’s the flower of the woman I loved most.”
“This flower was also the last birthday gift my daughter gave me.”
The orange daylily.
It was the flower most loved by the orphanage director who had cherished and loved I Juhyeok, who grew up as an orphan.
And the orange jade ring the same color as the daylily the director had given him during her lifetime had become his necklace in place of military dog tags.
“I also have a necklace of the same col——”
Screech.
Crash!
The moment I Juhyeok pulled the necklace with the jade ring from inside his clothes, a collision rang out and the car the party was riding in began to spin sideways.
Struck by a vehicle that had suddenly darted out from the right alley, it spun several times to the side and only stopped after crashing into a utility pole.