Chapter 1: Little souls who thirst for fight
Chapter Text
❝ Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie. ❞
— Stephen Crane.
*
Time flies quickly when you’re a kid having fun, but sometimes, the past catches you up when it runs faster.
*
“Please—Help me!”
One afternoon, a foreign woman rushed into his station doors shaking violently, tears pouring from her half-crazed eyes.
She clung to his shirt with a trembling death grip and screamed and screamed and screamed — It’s him! It’s him! The murderer — incoherently raving in an unfamiliar accent about receiving justice at last.
He’d first sat her across his desk behind his computer, supplying her with the standard box of tissues and a cup of cold water.
This wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to witnesses suffering grievous distress.
He eased into the investigation when she’d visibly calmed, her face ghost-pale, gaze more haunted and darker than a cellar.
His fingers clacked away on his keyboard as he began to write the crime report, requesting she start at the beginning.
Who she was.
She tenderly cradled the paper cup, peering into her reflection in the crystal-clear liquid like a looking glass into an old, agonizing memory.
Her name was Maria. Aged thirty-two. Former photographer.
Born in a small, perpetually war-torn region called Grian.
According to her, it was governed by militant groups, ‘infested’ by mercenaries.
Never heard of that place before.
He waved over his partner, interrupting her briefly to ask him to stay at the other computer and do the investigative work to confirm her claims.
She told the truth that far.
Then—
“I’m a widow.” She whispered shakily, hunching forward, “My husband was murdered.”
He recalled her screaming vividly and inquired, in a gentler tone, because this never got easier.
No matter how many years a detective spent on the job, many law enforcement officers still sympathized with a victim’s pain:
“Do you know who the culprit is, Ma’am?”
“A child.” She slowly raised her head, glowering at someone only she could see. His large frame tensed. His fingers stilled on the keyboard, mouth parting open, but before he could ask her to elaborate, “A child soldier killed him three years ago.”
Confusion gripped him. Sadness bottomed out of his stomach because it was likely that this could be out of their jurisdiction.
South Korea couldn’t convict people in other countries unless it were under specific circumstances, and it became more complicated when the culprit was a minor, but he shouldn’t make assumptions yet.
His caution was warranted.
“But I saw him! I saw the boy here!” She sounded almost relieved, but her chest was heaving, “After I saw him, I hired a private investigator. He is well-known in the area as a bodyguard at SW Corporation.”
That complicated matters, but even that powerful company was not above the law.
“Do you know this child’s name?”
But he was getting an odd and vague intuitive suspicion he couldn't grasp yet that he already knew, remembering the little investigation he carried out on a kid avoiding being caught by security cameras during every run he made around the neighborhood that had fallen under the police’s radar as a suspicious person of interest not long ago.
A child with a tie with the mob boss Cha Dushik, given that the Detective saw him in the gangster’s club.
Who was also protected by Major Kang, who interfered when Inuk Ko interrogated him during a murder investigation involving a former soldier.
Her eyes darkened to pits of black hellfire.
“Yu Ijin.”
He swallowed, glanced at his partner, “Can you supply any evidence—“
She rummaged in her purse, pulled out, and slammed a hunting knife with old, dried blood coated on it onto the table.
“This blood is my husband’s and that boy’s that you can test for DNA. If that is not enough…” She carefully removed an additional item from a leather wallet and set it down just below the detective’s chin, “I caught him on camera.”
Detective Inuk Ko couldn’t stop the frown from working its way onto his lips, the set of his jaw tightening, or the worry lines wrinkling his forehead.
He leaned down, scanning the battlefield behind a familiar child, taken at a short distance.
His young, Korean features speckled with blood glowed in firelight and sparking smoke, clear as day.
The boy was in military combat gear, with a long rifle gun clutched in his blood-stained hands.
Inuk Ko had only seen this kid’s face once.
Even though Inuk Ko had seen him up close, he couldn’t be sure it was him, but he recognized those cold eyes from how he’d noted Yu Ijin's stare had been eerily calm while he’d interrogated him.
The kid was difficult to forget.
Then, Yu Ijin was associated with Major Kang.
His mind raced as he twisted in his chair, a silent signal for his partner to put on gloves, take out an evidence bag, and wrap up the knife, which he did.
“Take it to the forensics lab.”
“Yes, sir.”
The woman slumped in her chair as if the god of mercy had finally heard her prayers.
*
He couldn’t rule out that this grieving widow or Detective Inuk Ko were mistaken.
Either way, he had to follow up on this.
And investigate Yu Ijin.
*
The next thing the detective knew, he flashed his badge at the security guards outside SW Corporation Headquarters, explaining his purpose there.
They let him in.
Inuk Ko had left the Widow at the station, but she’d somehow slipped away and followed him to the building.
That was how his investigation began.
As a mess.
Chapter 2: And the affrighted steed ran on alone
Notes:
This chapter is from Shin Yeona’s POV.
Thank you for reading, and to all of you who shared your interest and support in my story! <3
Chapter Text
❝ Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie. ❞
— Stephen Crane.
*
Niccolo Machiavelli once said,
'If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.’
*
Standing by the railing, she observes the bodyguards training from the upper floor.
Ijin, in particular.
As usual, he is good at everything. Compared to the older veterans around him, there is no drill he can’t complete with ease.
Even Seokju can’t keep up with his competitive spirit and earnest effort alone.
Her childhood friend has only won a higher rank in gaming against Ijin.
Right now, they are vigorously running laps around the center of the training facility.
Ijin is in the middle, trying to blend in and keep pace with the others effortlessly.
Yeona grips the railing, peering at his handsome, concentrated features with a small, fond smile.
From beneath the fluorescent lights, his skin is not gleaming. While his colleagues are panting, Ijin doesn’t appear to have broken a sweat.
SeokJu tells her that Ijin’s skills surpass all the seasoned professionals he’s trained with in SW corporation.
It’s incomprehensible. She wouldn’t believe it if watching him work wasn’t astonishing, no matter how often she watched.
It’s difficult not to admire him. For all his mysterious skill, he’s charismatic and endearing.
Her ocean-blue gaze tracks Ijin as he enters the ring with the ace of Team One, adorned in blue headgear and gloves.
Ijin acts differently in this setting than he is when at school.
From the way he enjoys convenience store food, reserved but warm handfuls of smiles, interacts with friends, struggles with games, and generally reserved nature, there’s just so much fascinating about him.
“Don’t you have any dignity, Yeona?” Shin Jiyeh, her cousin’s smooth voice, breaks her from her thoughts, and she whirls around as if she’s been caught red-handed, “You’re practically making moon eyes at him.”
Yeona’s tongue nails to the roof of her mouth, cheekbones heating to a bright scarlet.
Jiyeh smirks knowingly at her, about to drive the stake she pierced in her heart a little deeper until something — rather someone — catches her attention.
A man in a conspicuous uniform shows what she recognizes as a police badge at the leader of team two in the training facility's doorway.
“Ijin Yu? I’m detective Inuk Ko. I want a word with you.”
The training comes to a stop.
Every bodyguard sets down their workout equipment, ends their sparring sessions, lowers themselves from the climbing ropes, and forgets their obstacle courses.
Yeona’s pulse flutters nervously, her brow furrowing, and she and Jiyeh share a brief, meaningful glance.
Why are the police here to see Ijin?
The same question swims in their eyes, and they return their focus to Ijin and the detective.
As if this were an ordinary situation, Ijin removed his headgear and gloves and set them on a side table as calmly as ever.
Before Ijin can approach the detective, a figure in what looks like a black funeral dress storms past him and rushes toward him.
“Ma’am, stop!” Two bodyguards run after her.
But she doesn’t stop until she is just outside the ring, one of the SW building doormen bodyguards resting his hand on her shoulder to guide her out of the facility.
“I knew it! It’s you!” the woman shrieks, mad-eyed, her features contorted in rage.
When Ijin blinks at her rapidly, looking as confused as the rest of the onlookers, she jabs her pointer finger at him.
Glaring at Ijin, she bellows, “You’re the child soldier who killed my husband!”
The room hushes to the silence of a graveyard.
Yeona’s stomach bottoms out, her heart rate picking up speed.
Jiyeh pales beside her, and her bodyguard, Mr. Park, joins the cousins by the railing, staring at Ijin and the woman with a disturbed expression.
Every eye in the facility shifts to Ijin, whose lashes fling open wide and lips part as if he recognizes her.
How can he recognize her unless —
The Detective peers at Ijin’s face gravely. The men can’t take their eyes off him. No one looks more disturbed than Seokju.
Her classmate and crush has just been identified as a killer, a child soldier, and is making no effort to defend himself.
“You must recognize my face!” the woman continues to wail, tears welling up in her agonized eyes and pouring down her cheeks.
Nobody moves. The air is still. The atmosphere is tense and thick enough to be cut.
“You must!”
Her shrill, painfully furious voice echoes through the facility.
Yeona stops breathing, white-static noise buzzing in her ears.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The detective is the first to speak, grim-faced, “Please let me escort you back to the station—“
“I was there!” she cries, futilely struggling to get free from the doorman’s grip, “You stabbed him in the heart, let him bleed out in the dirt like he was nothing! Nothing!”
“I—“ Ijin Yu takes one step toward her. She flinches violently, and he takes a step back, swallowing down whatever he is going to say.
Is it an apology?
Impossible.
Yeona doesn’t want to believe he can be a killer in any universe or doubt Ijin. Such an accusation is unthinkable.
But…given how young Ijin is, how skilled, how lethal he handled the knife when he rescued Yeona from her kidnappers…
...Isn’t this the only thing that makes plausible sense?
“Please remove her.” The detective says softly, but she hears it from the upper floor.
“Remove her now!” Jiyeh snaps, pointing at the exit.
The bodyguards finally awake from their stunned stupors and grasp the woman’s arms.
“Say something, Yu Ijin!”
The woman's half-mad demand echoes off the walls in an explosion of grief and palpable agony Yeona can feel from here.
“SAY SOMETHING!”
Before Ijin can speak a word, Seokju grips his shoulder with ice-pale features, a grim expression, and whispers, “Don’t. Anything you say could incriminate yourself.”
They gently drag her, kicking and screaming, from the facility while she continues to let out blood-curdling screams.
“My name is Maria! Wife of Darian, and I will have justice for your crime! Child Soldier!”
The front door slamming shut sounds as loud as a gunshot to Yeona’s ears.
Ijin bows his head.
“I will call Grandpa.” Jiyeh recovers, pulling out her phone, “Wait here, Yeona. Do not go to Ijin or speak to the detective.”
The Detective takes out a pair of silver handcuffs from his belt. “I need to take you down to the station for questioning.”
Surprisingly, the men protest in Ijin’s defense while Yeona can’t breathe, “What evidence do you have beyond her word?!”
“Ijin is a minor,” Another bodyguard points out angrily, “you can’t just—“
“Back off if you don’t want to come down to the station too—“
The Detective snarls with a threatening glower, severely outnumbered by trained men belonging to SW Corporation but not intimidated.
“That won’t be necessary, Detective.” Ijin murmurs with his eyes lowered in an alarming display of...defeat?
Stepping up to the detective and holding out his wrists. "I’ll go with you.”
Seokju shakes his head jerkily, “Ijin? Why would you go willingly—”
It is as if her childhood friend can’t believe it, either.
Perhaps…like Yeona, Seokju doesn’t want to consider the possibility that it can be true.
Once again, silence falls like a curtain on the last act.
The metallic zing of handcuffs unlocking and locking around Ijin’s wrist splits through the air.
Her heart stops.
“I appreciate your cooperation,” The Detective says, almost tiredly, “Let’s go.”
No one but Jiyeh stands in the Detective’s way before Ijin can reach the doorway.
Jiyeh's arms are crossed, her eyes like forged steel.
"Detective, I want to see your arrest warrant before you take Yu Ijin, a minor, into your custody."