Before his seventeenth birthday, Yong Woo-jin was a member of the force that invaded and conquered South Korea. He marched the one hundred twenty-miles from Pyongyang to Seoul on foot as a part of the “cleanup” crew, who meticulously collected and documented all North Korean casualties. He managed to march the entire distance without taking a single life — doing so would have violated the most basic tenet of Buddhist ethics, given that his crew was ordered to kill any South Korean soldiers they encountered. He covertly let that duty fall to the other soldiers in his unit, though on more than one occasion he popped a round or two into an already dead soldier just to keep up the appearance that he was obeying orders.
After Seoul was conquered, Woo-jin was assigned to light duties, including serving as an ambassador of sorts. His task was to blend in with the South Korean people as much as possible and disseminate rhetoric that portrayed Marshal Kim Jong-un as sympathetic to their plight as new citizens of North Korea. He was good at it, a slender young man with an affable face and a genial, soft-spoken demeanor. One night while on patrol, he rescued a South Korean girl, quite by accident. Woo-jin had just completed his patrol of the Sajik-dong administrative district when he heard a muffled cry coming from a dark alleyway between two of the neighborhood’s tall office buildings. He quietly investigated the sound, thinking it was a wounded animal. He was surprised by what he actually found — a drunken North Korean soldier attempting to rape a young girl. Unfortunately, rape was a common tool of war, still used prolifically throughout the world. An anger Woo-jin had never felt before swelled and burst in an instant as he pulled the soldier off the girl with such violence that the soldier soared ten feet, his face slamming against the corner of a dumpster so hard that his left eye exploded from its socket, taking the optic nerve with it. Woo-jin checked the soldier, who was rendered unconscious, and when he turned back to assist the girl, she was gone. He’d had a good look at her face and vowed to remember it until the day he died.
For the next week, Woo-jin searched the Sajik-dong administrative district for the girl; he wanted to make sure that the soldier hadn’t hurt her. A few days later, he discovered that the soldier, Dong-joo, was a member of his own division. He hadn’t seen the soldier previously, and he only recognized him by the fresh bandages on his left eye when he barged into their barracks one night. The entire company crowded around the soldier, who told an elaborate story about how he came upon a young girl being violated by a hostile and how he fought off said hostile, and after delivering the girl to safety, he was jumped by several others who took his eye. Woo-jin slipped away, knowing the truth of the matter, relieved that Dong-joo had been too drunk to recognize him now as a comrade, and went back out on patrol.
It was one month before Woo-jin and his company were scheduled to deploy to Tampa, Florida. He walked gleefully through the Sajik-dong administrative district handing out propaganda material and spoke casually to the residents of Seoul about their reclassification as North Korean citizens. South Korea had no caste system — no songbuns — and Woo-jin appreciated feeling equal to the South Koreans he met. In North Korea, he couldn’t speak to anybody outside of his low songbun — not even the majority wavering class. He made his way up a long rice line, speaking and smiling to everyone he met, even those who spit at his feet or called him waygook, a derogatory name for someone who is not Korean.
And there she was, standing with her mother and two sisters in line. Woo-jin acted as normal as he could, though the girl’s radiance and beauty caused him to slightly tremble. He spoke to the mother first, who didn’t exactly warm up to him. She made a shuddering, guttural noise in the back of her throat, and spit out a tremendous wad of phlegm at Woo-jin’s feet. Still, he pressed on, respectfully introducing himself to the girl and her two sisters. He didn’t mention the incident, knowing that even though the assault was not her fault, it would bring shame upon her family. Woo-jin was shocked when she spoke to him.
“My name is Park Seul-ki.”
“I am Yong Woo-jin.”
“I recognize you from…”
Her remark was somewhat coy, but cautious as not to bring attention to the attack, which she had kept to herself. While her mother and sisters accepted their family’s rations, Seul-ki whispered a thank you for coming to her aid that night and instructions to where and when they could meet again — if he wanted. Seul-ki’s mother bellowed for her, and then she was gone again, not looking back.
It was an oddly pleasing sensation for Woo-jin. He had never been in love before, and wondered if this was what it felt like. He marched back to the barracks, which were just outside Sajik-dong in a park near what was once the U.S. Korean Embassy. There was certainly a spark, but North Korean statutes were strict about soldiers fraternizing with the enemy, or for that matter with North Koreans associating with South Koreans, especially now that they had begun the process of assimilation under Marshal Kim Jong-un’s supreme leadership. Forbidden love, in this instance, meant a death sentence to Woo-jin, Seul-ki, and both families.
Love always triumphs authority though, and in the few weeks they shared together, Seul-ki and Woo-jin met every day in secrecy until he shipped off to America as a member of the PLA’s Tampa invasion force. In that brief time, she became everything to him — his love, his confidante and friend — even though his North Korean army had conquered, subjugated, and occupied her country. But Woo-jin was unlike other North Korean soldiers. He protected her and her family, supplied them with extra provisions, and promised to return to her.
The evening before he left, he confided to Seul-ki that he had never killed a man — not a single one — and that when he fired his weapon, he always aimed above his enemy’s head because of his desire to become a Mahayana Buddhist. He even considered fleeing North Korea if he wasn’t chosen to attend the Buddhist College, but that was before he was pressed into military service. Woo-jin did not believe that violence solved problems — he spent many days at temple begging Buddha to forgive him for taking the eye out of that soldier — and vowed to never take another man’s life. His military career was nothing more than a means to survive, because deserting North Korea for any intention was an act of treason punishable by death. Now, he wasn’t sure that he still aspired to become a Buddhist monk, having found love in Seul-ki’s heart. Woo-jin was the most honorable man she had ever met, and she pledged to remain faithful to his memory while he was away. He promised to stay safe and send word back when he was able. Then, the two kissed. It was their first. They were both nervous. Woo-jin touched Seul-ki’s hand softly and pulled away, apologizing profusely for kissing her while not married. She sensitively explained to him that because she permitted it, the kiss was acceptable. And she liked it. They ended up making quiet love while Seul-ki’s sisters and mother slept in the next room. The next morning he was gone, with only the memory and her photograph to worship.