Sweet D-64: The Harang Who Can't Be Touched
"Harang."
"Mm... Superhuman Seo Harang, reporting."
Deep night, when even the trees and the birds had gone to sleep. At my senior's voice I snapped awake and forced my eyes open.
I managed to haul my mind into something resembling consciousness. Still, no matter how many times I pulled night watch, the duty itself never quite became familiar, and I remained half-adrift between sleep and waking.
My body, though, had already been drilled into habit. It rose from the bed on its own and began preparing for duty.
Tonight's night-watch senior was Yeon Byeori.
After waking me, my senior moved toward Byeori's bunk and carefully reached out to rouse her—
"I'm already up. You don't have to wake me."
"Hic!"
My senior startled and stumbled back a step. Byeori had been awake for some time.
More likely she had never really slept at all. The faint dark circles under her eyes looked exactly as they always did.
I glanced her way and caught a soft glow leaking from her hands. She was on her phone.
Don't tell me she started again? Is that why she's been staying up all night?
Even after a full recovery, the terror of addiction was that a person could always reach back for it. If that really was what was happening...
No sharp solution came to mind. Freshly woken and still half-asleep, my head couldn't hold a proper thought if it tried.
I should at least ask. I stepped outside the living quarter and waited for Byeori.
Click. The door opened and Byeori appeared.
She looked at me, gave a faint nod, then a small jut of her chin. Toward the Situation Room, then.
"Superhuman Yeon Byeori."
"Hm?"
"Is there something else you're working on?"
"Out of nowhere? Why?"
"You don't seem to be sleeping well at night. I just wanted to ask, just in case."
"Ah— you're asking if I started gambling again."
"Th-that's right. If it isn't overstepping..."
"Overstepping? I'm grateful you're looking out for me."
So I hadn't touched a nerve. Good.
We walked in silence for a while before Byeori pulled out her phone.
"I cut that off completely. But after so many nights of not sleeping, it's hard to fall asleep easily anymore. And I've got something else to focus on, so I've just been staying up."
"You mean the game?"
"That too. But there's something else."
"Something else? What is it?"
"Secret."
If it was a secret, there was nothing I could do. Relieved that at least it wasn't the thing I'd feared, I opened the Situation Room door.
We did the usual shift change and settled in to wait. Without a night sortie, the post was leisurely; there was nothing particular that needed doing.
We were chatting idly when the officer at the computer let out a low groan.
"Is something wrong?"
"Mmm... having a little trouble putting the duty roster together."
"Trouble, sir?"
"Yeah. Ah! Harang and Byeori are First Barracks, right? Next week's living-quarter duty!"
"That's correct."
Byeori flicked a glance our way, then looked off again. She was at least listening.
"Could I get a sense of how the First Barracks people get along? Ideally I'd pair people who are close, but I don't really know the details. And you're short one slot on the TO, right? I have to pull someone from the fill-in pool."
"Close relationships, sir?"
"For starters, Harang and I are close."
"Really? I would have guessed Seung-a. Direct senior and junior, after all."
"I'm closer with Harang."
"Uh, right, okay. That doesn't sound very Byeori of you. Were you always this assertive?"
Byeori, who had half-risen from her chair, slumped back down again.
"I may look like this on the outside, but inside I'm a person overflowing with passion."
"Ah, um... sure? If you say so. Harang, anything else you know?"
"Hmm... maybe put Hero Han Jihye and Superhuman Kim Heejin on the same team?"
"Yeah, those two have been synced for a long time. They're also why people have a hard time talking to First Barracks in the first place."
"A hard time talking to them, sir?"
"Yeah. Jihye and Heejin are pretty intense. Even the officers don't approach them lightly—they're career types. Just dealing with them isn't easy."
The officer glanced at Byeori. Byeori seemed to feel the same way about the situation.
If you actually talked to them, you'd find out they're just ordinary people. And it's not like you're a junior or anything. You could just drop the formality and chat, couldn't you?
My position and an officer's were different animals, though, so I couldn't say that with any certainty. Better to let it pass than start showing off like I knew something special.
I picked out people who wouldn't feel awkward left alone together. The officer hummed and nodded, writing names onto the roster.
"I'm saved. Really glad you're here, Harang. First Barracks especially is packed with people who are hard to approach."
"Isn't Superhuman Jeong Seung-a fine? She's kind and warm."
"Seung-a's support-line, so she's hard to deal with too. She doesn't seem like it, but she's got a fiery streak. If something goes wrong and she snaps, it gets dangerous. Which is why it's a relief you're here, Harang. You saved me. Ah! Can't just let this slide."
"Wow! Thank you!"
I accepted the mileage points with both hands. Collect enough of these and they turned into leave!
"Ah, right. Harang."
While I was still beaming, the officer spoke up as if something had just occurred to him.
"Superhuman Seo Harang?"
"Ever thought about pulling duty officer?"
"Duty officer, sir?"
Byeori's gaze locked onto me. A little too intently—enough to feel the pressure.
"Uh... Byeori? Did you want to say something?"
"No. Please continue."
Even if she said to continue, staring like that would make anyone hesitate to keep talking. You'd start wondering whether you'd said something wrong and watch your words.
As if confirming my prediction, the officer carefully circled back to the earlier topic. Whether I'd thought about standing duty officer.
Right! Duty officer! What exactly did that word mean?
I didn't know the precise definition, but I had a rough idea. I'd been living in this unit for months already; I ought to have picked up that much by now.
I looked at the senior standing beside the officer.
"Is there something you wanted to say?"
"Nothing, sir!"
I turned my eyes away again.
"What? Harang isn't allowed to look at you for no reason? Does standing duty put you in that foul a mood?"
"No, sir!"
With Byeori's assist, I looked back at my senior. She was wearing a yellow armband on her arm with the words Duty Officer written on it.
Duty officer. That was a kind of power.
The ruler of the night, sovereign over a base where every light had gone dark.
The most perfect way to offer up one day as sacrifice and pass another day without incident.
And! A special duty granted only to people with a certain amount of seniority—and among those, only to a very select few!
Being selected for something that special moved me a little. So my time in had finally reached that level!
Byeori, though, didn't seem to share the feeling. The expression that ought to have been celebrating a junior's growth looked instead like she was turning something over carefully in her mind.
"Is there something you're worried about?"
"Hm? A little?"
"Is duty officer a bad thing?"
When I asked that, the senior with the armband answered for her.
"Duty officer is hard. It's a hassle. If something kicks off, there's a lot to keep track of."
"Hey, don't say it like that! What if Harang decides she doesn't want it!"
"I'm telling her the truth. She shouldn't feel like she got hit with an insurance scam."
"If Harang comes onto duty officer from here, that lightens your load!"
"Harang. The truth is, duty officer is a leech post. Think of it as a job where you can suck up every drop of honey and every free ride the world has to offer. You just sit, poke at a computer a little, mess with your phone a little. Kill time like that and you're done."
"Is that what it is? I thought the manuals were brutal and there was a mountain of work..."
While we were trading stories about the hardships of duty officer, Byeori tapped my shoulder. She seemed to have finished thinking.
"Superhuman Seo Harang?"
"I don't think it's a bad idea."
"You mean duty officer?"
"Yeah. Don't you want to experience as many different things as you can, Harang?"
"I do!"
As always, Byeori and I seemed to be on the same wavelength. That feeling of clicking into place without needing to spell everything out.
She understood perfectly—the part of me that wanted to go through as much as possible, feel as much as possible, and grow.
"Even if Byeori says yes, you'd still have to ask the others, right? You're pulling manpower from your living quarter either way."
"That's right. We're already short one person. If another one drops out, the other living quarters will feel a little of the strain."
"I'm sorry..."
I bowed my head under the ripple effects of what I myself had accomplished.
"It isn't because of you, Harang. If anything I want to praise you for it. You cleaned out that eyesore Ji Yuna. Sometimes you have to drag things into the open like that."
"I'd love to flip our living quarter a little too, but there's really no sign of anything. If she just slipped up once... but she's surprisingly good at reading the room."
After a stretch of idle talk, the officer started clacking at the keyboard again.
"So can I take it that Harang is looking at duty officer positively?"
"Yes, sir."
"And Byeori's in the yes camp for now?"
"I don't really mind either way."
"Got it. I'll leave it in the handoff notes. Talk it over with the living quarter tomorrow and let me know."
"Understood."
Tension and anticipation for a new kind of duty. Holding both close, I waited for the next day to break.
And then—
"No."
"I'm a little against it too..."
Shot down. I hadn't even gotten to the main point. I'd only said the words duty officer!
Hoping against hope, I looked at Han Jihye. As top senior of the barracks, she held the voting power of three other seniors all by herself.
Tap, tap. Jihye poked my cheek with her index finger instead of her own while she thought, then finished and lifted her head.
"No."
"Why not...!"
"Why not? You think you've got the seniority to ask that right now?"
"I'm sorry!"
I apologized at once, then carefully raised my head again.
"Still, I'd like to know why it isn't allowed."
"I'd like to ask you something. Why do you want to do it? You're straight-up throwing away a whole day. On a weekday maybe, but if it lands on a Saturday or Sunday, you're stuck planted in the Situation Room for a full twenty-four hours."
I knew that. I'd seen seniors with thoroughly ruined faces glued to the Situation Room straight through a full day.
"There are plenty of other reasons besides that, but there's one most important reason I don't want you on duty officer. What do you think it is?"
I shoved the automatic I don't know back down my throat. Even a wrong answer mattered more than none.
"...Because while I'm on duty sleep, you wouldn't be able to talk to me... I think."
I said the first thing that rose up, but even I could hear how stupid it sounded. Refusing to put someone on duty officer just because you couldn't talk to them. There were limits to being a lovesick fool!
"Correct!"
"Eh!"
"If Unnie can't touch our Harang, I might get so bored I start crying. The others probably feel the same, don't they?"
I looked at Kim Heejin.
"What."
"Is that true?"
"...What, why. You came charging at me begging to work out together. Is there some law that says I'm not allowed to want the same thing?"
Agreement seeping through the gruff tone.
I looked at Jeong Seung-a.
"What about you, Superhuman Jeong Seung-a? My duty officer shift?"
"Absolutely not."
A refusal so firm it was, in other words, full agreement with Han Jihye.
Unanimous, with Yeon Byeori as the sole exception. Putting me on duty officer was going to need some serious reconsideration.