Until Midnight
In the loft, Jiyeon lay down on the bedding Ella had prepared, closed her eyes, and went searching through her own heart. Why was she waiting this long for that arrogant man? He was a hypocrite—a man who never gave a proper explanation, who planned as he pleased and moved as he pleased. Thomas said it was only that Louis was cautious, but Jiyeon had never wanted caution of that sort.
The more she turned it over, the hotter her blood boiled. Worry for his safety, regret that she ought to have gone after him, and a pain she could not name were all brewing into rage. Sleep would not come, however she tried.
Past midnight, she would go looking. She could not wait any longer than that. Once the night grew deep enough, the search parties would have no choice but to withdraw. Jiyeon made up her mind. Midnight. She counted down toward that hour, cooling her unreasonable head, and cooling it again.
It wrung her chest as hard as the hours when she had not known whether Ella was alive—perhaps harder.
She called up Louis Kane as he had been in combat training. By rank he need not have joined the drills at all, yet he never missed a single one, and within the unit he was the best there was.
His knife work and his marksmanship, above all, were superb. They had taken one pistol off him, but he would still have a dagger on him. Rebel or ally, no one was going to harm the man easily.
It was absurd. Only yesterday she had kept a carefully honed toothbrush hidden in her sleeve so she could kill him, and now she was praying with everything in her that he would not die.
I'm not worried. It's only that owing him my life sits wrong with me. That's all it is.
She even tried that shabby excuse on herself. Time passed without mercy. Midnight. The clock reached twelve, and the man had not come back. Jiyeon fought not to let herself break. She rose slowly, took a pistol, and slid a dagger into the small of her back—weapons the cabin kept in reserve.
Ella was asleep in one corner of the loft. Careful not to wake her, Jiyeon went down to the ground floor.
Thomas would be sleeping beyond the screened partition. She decided not to take him with her.
If something happened to her, someone would have to look after Ella. It was strange, settling on a decision this senseless, and still she could not stop her feet.
To protect Ella she had become the rebels' dog. For her own blood she had resolved even to die, and beyond that she had clawed and thrashed simply to stay alive. Now she was walking into a killing ground to save a man who had never been written into her fate.
The night forest lay wrapped in silence. Not even the ordinary sound of insects. Only the stream went on without ceasing. Jiyeon set her course. For now she meant to climb slowly back along the path they had come up. If Louis Kane was alive, he would find the markers and follow the trail.
She looked back at the cabin one last time. Her little sister caught at her heart, but she set her foot down, resolute. After their parents died she had neglected her younger sister, thrashing only to survive. Having to leave her alone again tore Jiyeon's chest open.
Just as she was about to cross the stream, she caught a presence from a direction she had not expected. At first she thought it was the wind. Then the brush close by shivered, and she realized someone had drawn near the cabin.
Jiyeon loaded quickly and waited for the intruder to show. Hope and tension took turns. Cold sweat gathered down her back. The wish that it would be Louis Kane warred with the certainty that, if it were Louis, he would never have come down on the cabin by some other path.
"Come out. You've already been spotted. I'll give you five seconds. Try anything and I shoot."
She gave the warning low. The intruder did not come out. Her heart was cracking apart again, piece by piece. If it were Louis Kane, he would have stepped out at once. She set a quiet pressure on the trigger, the will to fire brimming and ready.
Then the brush shook hard, once, and a black shape came out. At the same moment the moon, hidden in cloud, lifted its face. The man's features stood clear before her.
"So this time you've actually got the chance to kill me."
Her mind went blank. As if some spirit that lived in the forest had worked a spell, there was Louis Kane. His face was clean, his frame so much larger than hers, and to all appearances he was perfectly sound.
Jiyeon could not manage a single reaction. She only stared at him, dazed.
"……You really do want to kill me, don't you? Before I die, could I at least have a piece of bread? I've been starving all day."
The troubled crease of his brow, the jokes that slipped out one by one only when he stood in front of her—listening to them, her senses slowly returned. Jiyeon jammed the pistol into its holster any which way and strode toward him.
Her expression must have been savage enough that even Louis, calm until then, gave a step. The stream between them was no obstacle. Each time her combat boots struck the water they splashed. Curses kept climbing her throat.
Damn bastard. Reckless son of a bitch. Idiot…….
The instant she was close, she seized him by the collar as if he might bolt somewhere.
"Why are you so late?"
She demanded it, growling like a beast.
"Calm down, Jiyeon. We had to erase our trail completely. I wiped the tracks as I came along the path, and I had to leave a false one on the mountain opposite. I knew the lieutenant wouldn't be able to wait it out and would come looking, so I hurried as much as I could……."
Don't call me Jiyeon.
She wanted to scream it like someone gone mad. She wanted to rake him with questions. She wanted to curse him for devising a plan like that and toying with her.
But she could do none of it. She only hauled the major closer by the collar he was still using for excuses and kissed him, rough. Chapped lip met chapped lip. She bit Louis's mouth as if to spend her anger on it, and tasted blood.
Louis, thrown for a moment, at once caught her by the waist, drew her in tight, and tangled his tongue with hers, slow and clinging. A familiar hand. Familiar heat. A familiar kiss. Only then did Jiyeon understand. What she had wanted was not to interrogate him, or to blame him.
She had wanted to ask if he was hurt anywhere. To check him over, every inch, to lock her arms around him and prove that he was real. She had been afraid of losing him. Afraid she might never see him again.
The truth was…… she had wanted to say thank you.
For protecting Ella. For keeping Jiyeon safe. "Forgiveness" and "understanding" did not suit the two of them, and yet she had forgiven him long ago, and she understood him. For a long while they shared, and gave shape to, a whole language too vast for words.
Brought to this, she had no choice but to admit it. Lieutenant Yu Jiyeon trusted Major Louis Kane. Beyond trust, she relied on him. At some point she had let this foolish man into her heart.
"The bread will be in the cabin."
The moment their lips parted, Jiyeon shoved him away, rough, and turned her back. Her cheek and the nape of her neck, where his hand had rested, burned. The moon had already slipped into the clouds. A mercy, she thought. Otherwise Louis would have seen her face gone red all over.
She felt him following as she strode on ahead. At least tonight she would be able to sleep. Jiyeon rubbed the heat at her neck. Again she could not tell him not to call her Yu Jiyeon. She had the feeling she would not be able to, for a long time yet.