Hiss.
Anne lit the firewood. Soon, a crackling sound emerged as red embers began forming on its surface.
Deon said, pointing to the map where he’d placed the compass. “We just need to move 47 km more from here.”
“How is that a ‘just’?”
“At this point, it is a ‘just.’ Think about how far we’ve moved already, dumbass.”
“Ha… I think my feet have gone numb.”
“I lost feeling in mine a long time ago.”
“Crazy, you hear that wind? We’ve been walking through that.”
Idle chatter passed between them. Their low voices hummed through the cave.
Hainer silently stirred the stew inside the tin can.
By regulation, forming personal bonds beyond a certain degree with comrades was forbidden. Private emotions interfered with operations.
Furthermore, the operatives themselves were reluctant to form such bonds. Survival rates during operations were generally not very high, so developing attachments to those you would soon part with was not a wise course of action.
However, this team consisted of those who had crossed life-and-death crises together in a previous long-term project. Regardless of intent or reason, they had inevitably grown somewhat close.
“Why does Hainer look so serious?”
“That’s just his face.”
“Did you drug our food? You’re actually a Franche spy, aren’t you!”
Anne cackled in reply. “I think we’d have a tolerance to drugs by now.”
“You’ve got a point. Didn’t we get a ton of shots at the training center?”
“That thing for suppressing emotions? But does that really work?”
“Well, it seems to have actually worked on Hainer, at least.”
“Do you think it really worked, Hainer?”
“Not really. Though I think my loyalty might have increased slightly.”
Hainer answered with a shrug. If the drug had truly succeeded in suppressing emotions, they wouldn’t have ended up in their current situation.
“Right. I don’t think it worked either. I have a lover, after all.”
“Why date if you can’t even get married?”
“What’s so special about marriage? It’s enough that I love her now.”
“What if your lover gets taken hostage during an operation?”
“Then… it can’t be helped.”
“You’ll abandon your lover?”
“I’d have to give her up, what else can I do!”
“You’ve still got your reason, at least.”
Anne and Jackson bickered continuously. Without any change in expression, Hainer portioned the stew into their bowls.
At a glance, it sounded like light, everyday conversation, but that was not the reality.
If anyone uttered words showing the slightest hint of disobedience, they would be reported to the Count immediately. And then they would face interrogation and torture.
Jackson took the stew and slurped a mouthful before speaking.
“If I were an instructor at Seodeorein, I’d never let anyone make something precious in their lives. It can become a weakness.”
“Only someone who doesn’t have a single precious thing in life would say that.”
“I do have one.”
“What? Not the motherland.”
“My dog.”
“How lacking in precious things do you have to be to use a damn animal as an example.”
“Animal lovers worldwide are going to come kill you.”
“Hey, hey, be grateful you have something precious. I can’t think of anything.”
Deon folded the map crumpledly and said sullenly.
Having put the compass in his inner pocket, he added in a low voice, “I’ll cherish anything precious very dearly. Such things are rare in our lives. So you all hold on tight to yours too. Don’t let them be taken.”
“You’re stating the obvious!”
Anne smacked Deon’s arm and turned to ask Hainer, “Hainer, what’s precious to you? A hidden lover?”
“Hey, like a blockhead like him would have a lover.”
“There are actually quite a lot of women who like that blockhead type. Anyway, don’t you have anything precious? What would you do if you found something? Would you cherish it? Are you maybe the obsessive type?”
Bombarded by Anne’s questions, Hainer replied curtly, “It’s no use cherishing anything.”
“What do you mean, no use?”
“Generally, what’s precious to me is precious to others too… and there are plenty of humans better than us. It’ll be taken from me anyway.”
“Coming from someone who’s lived their whole life having things taken, that’s a real tear-jerker. So what will you do? Just watch with your eyes open and let it be taken?”
Hainer stared vacantly at the stew and spoke as if muttering, “If I can’t hide it perfectly… it’s better to break it. So that it won’t be precious to others anymore.”
“What, then it won’t be precious to me either.”
“…Perhaps.”
“Yes, well heard, that psychopath-like answer.”
Hainer smiled dryly and lifted his stew.
As a child, he had continued to keep the broken music box. No one coveted the broken thing any longer, but to him, it had still been precious.
Perhaps he was truly a human broken somewhere deep inside. All trainees on Seodeorein Island were bound to live with creaking minds, but might he not be broken even more than them?
So much so that he could not even cherish what was precious.
His heart toward her was probably not normal either. The reason he grew more unhappy the more he thought of someone precious was likely because everything had been wrong from beginning to end.
Hainer set down the stew and took out a cigar. He touched the tip to the firewood to light it, then placed it in his mouth.
Pale cigar smoke spread out together with the smoke from the firewood. He leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Warped thoughts with twisted ends rose like heat waves. She was always there in their cause and effect.
I know you, but you do not know me.
I look at you, but you do not look at me.
I think of you, but you do not think of me.
A heart malformed from the very beginning grew more twisted and crude as it grew. The image of the young boy who had purely loved her performance had long since faded.
Hainer slowly exhaled the cigar smoke he had held for a long time. A bitter taste lingered on his tongue. He tapped off the ash.
Precious things always made him unhappy. Like the broken music box. And like her, whom he could not even reach.
If this was what it meant to feel something was precious, it would have been better to have nothing from the start.
***
The operation was heading toward almost certain failure.
Their spy activities had been discovered through someone’s tip-off, and all members of the task force except Jackson had been captured by Franche’s Labor Party members.
The place where Hainer was imprisoned was a dark, damp solitary cell. It was also a place quite familiar to him. The only difference was that the screams and sobbing of others from the torture chamber reached him vividly.
At times, Hainer could recognize his comrades. The sounds were closer to animals than humans, yet he could clearly tell whose they were.
Hainer tried to stay calm. Torture itself was an effective means of breaking a person, but creating fear through not knowing when the torture would begin was also one of the ways to drive someone mad.
This was especially effective in a place where he could vividly hear the screams of his comrades.
It was impossible to know how much time had passed in the darkness. At some point, the solitary cell door opened with a grating sound.
There were three figures standing before the cell. They were neither officers nor interrogators. They were guards dressed in brown uniforms, carrying batons.
Their legs crossed into the solitary cell. Hainer looked forward without a change in expression. They neither moved him to the interrogation room nor dragged him to sit on a cold chair.
Without a word of explanation, they began to beat Hainer.
A foot flew into his stomach, bending Hainer’s body. A choked sound burst from his throat. One of the guards kicked him again.
Before long, he had collapsed to the floor. Fists, feet, batons, palms, clubs, chairs—anything and everything flew into his body.
He was struck by countless blows. Hainer curled up like a dying beast, letting out stifled groans and screams.
His whole body felt like a rag torn to shreds. He wished he would lose consciousness, but with each blow, his mind became clearer instead.
Perhaps he had been hit in the wrong place, for his stomach churned madly. Hainer retched violently onto the bare floor. But having eaten nothing, only bile came up.
After the lengthy beating, the guards spat and left the solitary cell. Hainer was thrown onto the cold floor like a sack, his body twitching intermittently. Slam. The door closed.
His consciousness flickered on and off. Hainer’s eyelids fluttered as if convulsing. He breathed in shallow, labored breaths, then closed his eyes.
He repeatedly lost and regained consciousness. By the time he came to for the last time, the guards had entered the solitary cell.
They began to beat Hainer again. His unrecovered body screamed. The pain, which he could never get used to, devoured his brain.
The stone floor was soaked with blood and water. Hainer was beaten, lost consciousness, slowly regained awareness, writhed in agony, and then was beaten again.
Words begging for his life surged to the tip of his tongue. But he ultimately did not let them out. The moment he spoke those words, everything would end.
At some point, the guards dragged Hainer out of the solitary cell. He was seated in a cold iron chair in the interrogation room. However, his consciousness was hazy, and he could not properly grasp the situation.
An interrogator wearing rimless glasses sat across from him, clasping his hands. “Let’s have a little chat now.”