Damn, I Should Have Heard It Then
Damn. I should have heard it then.
After we more or less scattered into our groups and claimed our spots, the five of us sat in a circle and stared at one another.
"First things first. We need a plan," I said.
My previous life's military experience floated up uninvited. Republic of Korea Army. 703rd Special Assault Regiment. Those absolute shit years of endless field bivouac training.
"We set a watch. Rotating. One person, two hours each."
"A watch?" Penelope asked.
"Staying awake at night on sentry duty. Wild animals, or something weirder, could jump us."
"You really think that's going to happen…?"
"Who knows. Anyone crazy enough to dump a bunch of sixteen-year-olds into that insane simulation is more than capable of it."
I was dead serious. Believing that bastard was anything like our professors would make me the real idiot.
"And we need to recon."
"Recon?"
"Scouting the area. Where the water is, what we can eat, what's dangerous. No telling what else that guy's going to pull. What if he suddenly starts lobbing artillery at us?"
Cedric shook his head.
"Eugene, isn't that a bit much? He already gave us food and water. And where the hell would artillery even come from, you lunatic?"
"He called it survival training, not camping. What if the rations are poisoned? Expired? What if we burn through the water? What if Bellatrix Lestrange drops out of the sky?"
"Percy, dig out this guy's meds. I think the paranoia's kicking in."
"Can't find them. Don't tell me he's out? Should we just tie him up with rope?"
Percy and Cedric bustled around, completely ignoring me.
"You absolute maniacs. Listen to me for once. You'll regret it later."
Percy cut in.
"But Eugene, the watch and the recon really do feel like overkill. Can't we just camp comfortably? Honestly, when I heard 'camping' I even packed a few comics. Those ones you recommended—Vagabond and Puppet Circus—weren't really my style. I just like One Piece better. The power systems are simpler and more—"
"You little shit. Why do we have to find a water source ourselves? You brought comics?"
"Eugene, calm down. No wands."
I almost drew my wand at that shameless bastard's words, but Penelope stopped me just in time.
"…Sorry."
Percy shut his mouth.
Karina caught my arm.
"Eugene."
Her voice was soft.
"There's something we need to do first. I think you're too tired and forgot."
I looked at her. Met her eyes.
Ah. That.
"…Sorry."
I sighed.
"I completely forgot about that."
"It's fine."
Karina smiled.
"Thanks for remembering now. Guys, ready?"
I nodded.
"Yeah. Then… first we beat the shit out of that bastard."
Cedric cracked his knuckles with a wet pop-pop-pop, and Penelope beamed as she cast a soundproofing barrier.
"Why… why are you all coming at me like that? You said it was fine, right? Huh? I'm not just going to sit here!"
"When did I ever say it was fine? I said we'd talk about it later."
Terrified Percy tried to argue with Karina, but she just smiled prettily and rolled up her sleeves.
"I… I guess if it's come to this, then at least that…!"
A little while later, surrounded by the four of us and getting thoroughly dusted, Percy mumbled something.
"…Man…hae…!"
"What? What's this bastard saying?"
"Dunno. Something about 'manhae'? Is he spouting more weeb crap again?"
Watching Percy mutter "manhae" with a grim, determined face, I instinctively took a step back.
"Stop… please… forgive me…"
He seized the opening, sobbing and clinging to our pant legs.
After we had sufficiently enlightened Percy, evening arrived.
Percy spent the whole time alone scraping water droplets off leaves and hiking all the way to the stream to fill the canteens.
"Hey, Percy. Isn't that a little too much professional pride? It's only one night. We don't need that much. Wait—is that your 'manhae'? Wasn't your manhae just kneeling and crying like earlier?"
"Shut up, please. You… spicy-handed bastards. I'm sorry, so cut me some slack. Anything else I can help with?"
"Either keep showing us your manhae over there, or stop getting in the way of the drainage work and go make yourself scarce. That's your best option."
The sun was setting. The sky bled orange. Tree shadows stretched long across the ground.
We kept working on the tent.
Or rather, something tent-adjacent. Branches and plastic sheeting woven together. Magic use was restricted to the bare minimum, so most of it had to be done by hand.
It was hard.
Blisters rose on my palms. Sweat ran. My back ached.
"Yaaah, is this actually going to work?"
"I feel like Bear Grylls. This is training you shouldn't put sixteen-year-olds through even before you get to the whole wizard thing."
"Penny, that's the smartest thing you've said all year."
"Then give me a euro. Correct answers deserve rewards."
"Shut up and hold still. The pole's wobbling."
"Eugene, does this look like a pole to you? To me it looks like the stick I used for sword fights when I was little."
The noisy bastards kept shattering my concentration every few seconds, so finishing took way longer than planned.
"Cedric. You said you were a National Geographic superfan. What the hell are you doing?"
"Dunno. Something about making a bow and arrows out of wood and starting a fire. Penny, you know?"
"Like I'd know. Eugene Kim, any idea what that idiot's up to?"
Percy and Penelope whispered while watching Cedric furiously rub sticks together.
Karina watched his hands with worried eyes, afraid he'd scrape them raw.
"You asking if I know what that is? Me, who read Survive on a Deserted Island ten times? You think I wouldn't know?"
"Percy, we really need to find those meds. He's looking serious."
"I only have to walk twenty kilometers. I'll hike to Glasgow Mental Hospital and buy some."
It was true, though. It was in every survival series.
After a long struggle with friction, Cedric finally got a fire going.
"Cedric! That's amazing!!! You're so cool!"
Karina praised him with a radiant smile.
The rest of us, irritated by Cedric's goofy grin, said nothing.
"Can we eat already? I might actually die soon."
Penelope said.
"Pull out the stuff Karina brought earlier. It's stew, right?"
"A hundred percent. What else is there for camping besides stew? No way he was nice enough to give us barbecue meat."
Karina giggled and laid out the rations.
What's the recipe for stew again? Ah, needs a lot of water. That troll bastard Percy.
While mentally running through stew recipes, I looked at the food packs and nearly choked.
Rice. Curry powder. Powdered milk. Salt. Sugar. Pepper. Bay leaves.
"Huh?"
What the fuck is this? Kind Marcus must have gone full PC and thoughtfully considered the dietary needs of the Asian students.
Granted, I'd heard the rich Indian kids were a major cash cow for this academy. But this wasn't even Indian curry. These… ignorant British food sensibilities made my teeth grind.
"What the hell? Why'd you only pick this stuff? There were stews and canned goods earlier. What even is this?"
At Cedric's bewildered question, Karina carefully flushed and raised her hand.
"I… I picked it. My dad makes curry rice at home sometimes and I love it. And since Eugene's here, I thought maybe we could make it…"
"Korean-style curry rice? That's fine, but how do we even cook this? I've never eaten rice any way except risotto."
Penelope asked, holding up a mess tin.
The other groups had mostly taken cans and were probably boiling stew or soup right now.
Thinking about how much better they were eating because we'd skipped the cans made my stomach twist like I might collapse.
Of course only we end up with curry and rice… we're not even the Aramdan.
Stress made my head feel ready to split. Look at those pure, innocent eyes. I wanted to mercilessly crush the hope sparkling in them, but I was also starving.
While I hesitated, the newly minted Hunger Monsters were already pulling out the rice and losing their minds.
"Ah, how do you even open this?!"
"The fire's too strong!"
"The rice is burning!"
These bastards were boiling raw rice like it was risotto.
True to form for British culinary illiterates who'd only ever eaten Indian curry in their lives.
"Hey. Everyone stop. Just fuck off. Do not approach this area. If you do, you die and I die. Got it?"
I took the mess tin from the now-silent idiots.
This is on me. I cannot leave cooking to these British bastards.
Memories of getting wrecked at KCTC came flooding back. Field cooking had been pure hell. That crazy battalion commander who told us to suspect even the mess sergeants and inspect everything. Wonder how he was doing. If he was doing well I'd be weirdly disappointed, but the Korean military had always been the kind of place where those assholes got promoted.
"First we boil water. Ah, for fuck's sake, stay back. I'm not saying do it with me—I'm explaining. You lot just sing songs nearby or something. Try loitering around here and see what happens."
I filled the mess tin with water and set it over the fire. It began to boil. Bubbling, burbling sounds rose.
Top three favorite sounds of my previous life. First: Senior Harin's voice saying "You're leaving on time today." Second: the sizzle of rain on a hot grill. Third: this exact bubbling of ramen water.
I needed extra hands while prepping the other ingredients, so I called over Cedric, who at least had some experience boiling ramen. Thirty seconds later I wanted to strangle myself.
"Add the rice. Just put the rice in. Wash the whole thing and dump it. Ah! You fucking moron. Cedric, you absolute lunatic. Why are you washing the grains one by one? Before I shove them all down your throat, just dump them in the tin and wash them. Please. Just do exactly what I say."
Cedric was carefully washing each individual grain of rice. Crazy bastard. His hands were uselessly delicate, and he was even sorting them well. I had a premonition that if Snape's hair-loss research didn't produce results soon, I'd be bald before twenty.
"Boil it for about fifteen minutes."
"And then?"
"Add the curry powder. Then the curry's done."
"Wow…"
Karina marveled.
"Eugene, how do you know this stuff?"
"Uh… learned it before."
Actually learned it in my previous life. I was ROK Army class of '14. Died right before civil defense after finishing reserve duty. Luckily COVID meant I never got mobilized.
I wanted to blurt it out, but of course I never could.
"Karina, this bastard's pretending he served in the Korean army again. His mind's all over the place."
I genuinely wanted to drop Cedric into Nonsan Training Center.
"Ah, Penny, you crazy bitch! Just please do nothing!!!!"
While I was focused on Cedric, Penelope had poured cold water straight into the boiling curry.
"What? It wasn't spicy enough! You looked busy and the seasoning seemed off, so I was trying to help."
British idiots who didn't even know how to reduce a sauce. No—these particular bastards were the problem. Gordon Ramsay was British too, after all.
Fifteen minutes later.
The curry was finished.
A rich aroma spread. Nutty, spicy, warm.
Plus about two spoonfuls of the smell of my soul burning.
"Wow…"
Penelope's eyes sparkled.
"It looks really delicious."
"If you hadn't fucked around it would've been Michelin two-star."
"How do you get a Michelin star with curry, Eugene? Snap out of it. Eat the curry and take your meds."
"Shut up and try it."
Everyone lifted their spoons.
I took a bite too.
Hmm—the rice… is fucked. This is all Cedric Diggory's fault. I'm not Lee Jung-jae from Age of the Wilds with a hobby of deliberately making three-layer rice, but that idiot Cedric Diggory wasted so much time washing grains one by one that he ruined the rice.
"It's good!"
Cedric shouted.
"This is actually really tasty?"
I think I'm going to throw up? This? Compared to this garbage curry, K-reserve army lunch was a masterpiece by Marco Pierre White.
"Hey, not curry but this… Eastern-style curry…? What's it called?"
"Curry rice."
"Right, first time having curry rice. Is this the Korean style?"
"Dunno? I think it was originally Japanese food. And Korean style needs kimchi too."
"Ugh. Kimchi's too garlicky. The smell sticks to your clothes after. Eugene, when we went to your place that white broth Raul made—dongchimi? That was actually pretty good."
Thank god these bastards were tongue-dead Brits. If they'd been Italians they would've tied me up and Crucio'd me.
Meanwhile Karina looked at me and grinned. Good kid. She'd noticed the three-layer rice and was still quietly eating it with relish for the sake of these dense, dull British idiots.
"Eugene Kim, you don't live up to your face, but you're surprisingly good at cooking?"
Penelope said with a smile.
"Why wouldn't I live up to my face? I dress the best at Hogwarts."
"That's not what I meant. Why have you never dated? Oliver has a girlfriend, Cedric here has one too."
Cedric heard that, whistled, and took Karina's hand.
Karina giggled, laced her fingers with his, and asked me,
"Yeah, Eugene. Why aren't you interested in girls? Angelina's had a crush on you forever. Wait… are you… that way?"
"Absolutely not. Just doesn't click. They're too kid-like? Percy doesn't have a girlfriend either. Not curious about Percy?"
I pointed at the chewing Percy. He confidently shoved his face forward.
"…Percy wrote his ideal type as an anime character at last year's year-end party. That… Boa Hancock? Sadly I don't know any women on the 2D side. Percy, move your face. I'm eating."
Karina made a face and covered Percy's with the pot.
"What else are teenage girls supposed to talk about if not handsome guys? You boys rank pretty girls too, right? While we're at it, spill. Is there a Hogwarts Top Three Beauties or something?"
Cedric got excited and started to answer, then saw Karina's eyes as she linked arms with him and sat back down quietly.
Percy swallowed his food and spoke.
"Well… there's no official Top Three Beauties title, but there are people everyone agrees on?"
Penelope's eyes changed as she leaned toward Percy.
"Who? Who are they? Am I one?"
"You're not. Karina over there comes up a lot. Seventh-year Helene Young is someone everyone says is pretty. Right, Eugene?"
"Dunno. You guys mess around like that? I wouldn't know."
"That bastard only watches League so he doesn't know anything about girls."
At Percy's words a vein stood out on my forehead while I was eating curry.
"Percy, you only watch Japanese anime. Watch e-sports like me instead."
Wrinkles filled Percy's forehead too.
"Clicking a mouse is a sport? What country calls that a sport? And I don't only watch Japanese anime. I watch masterpieces and some of them happen to be Japanese. Is there a better tool than animation for boosting magical imagination? And fuck, you're the one who dragged me into watching Naruto together when I was minding my own business, you bastard. Until then all I knew was Spider-Man."
"Don't talk so aggressively, Percy. It makes you look weak."
After bickering we finished eating and sat around the firelight.
A dark but bright night.
Stars were out. No clouds, the sky clear. Stars glittered. The Milky Way was visible.
"Pretty…"
Karina murmured.
"Yeah."
Penelope nodded.
Cedric stared into the fire. Flames danced. It was warm.
Karina rested her head on Cedric's shoulder and hummed softly.
"Those two… for an arranged match set by their families, don't they fit way too well? They look like a couple who met on a blind date."
"Even without the engagement they would've dated."
Penelope muttered while watching the Karina-Cedric couple. I answered too.
Percy was writing in his diary. I'd have to steal it later and report to Fred and George.
Percy still didn't know, but his diary was being live-broadcast to the Weasley twins through me every day.
I delivered laughter and mockery to the Weasley household and in return got all sorts of things from the twins, so it was a true win-win.
I looked at my friends.
"You absolute idiots."
I like this moment.
"What? You bastard?"
Sometimes the words and the inner monologue came out reversed.
It happened now and then.
"Hey."
My friends looked at me.
"The day our academy ends."
"The day it ends, what."
"August 30th, 2014."
"Huh?"
"Let's meet at my place that day."
Cedric grinned.
"Sounds good. What are we doing?"
"Drink and mess around. Behind Raul's back. We're third-years now. Time for a drink."
"Ooooh." Penelope's eyes lit up. "I second that!"
"Me too. We're sixteen now. If anything it's overdue."
Karina raised her hand.
"I agree too. But what if Raul finds out?"
"Then we just don't get caught."
"Aren't you going to get cut out of the inheritance?"
"You lunatics, coming all the way out here just to talk about a drinking party."
"Percy, you not coming? Going to do that magical-imagination-enhancement activity again? Just say you like anime, man."
Everyone except Percy burst out laughing.
Percy shook his head.
"You guys really… no point trying to stop you, is there?"
"Of course not." Cedric clapped Percy's shoulder. "You're coming too, right?"
"…Of course."
Percy laughed as well.
The five friends shared the laughter.
Just before sleep, Cedric whispered quietly.
"Tobias, that Auror. Never thought he was the instructor's older brother… I was shocked. I should've saved him. I watched him die over and over right in front of the instructor."
"…I saved him. Just once, though."
"What? For real? When?"
"When you went off to play with Fleur. And I'm going to save them all. Everyone I want to keep alive, I'll keep alive from now on. Doesn't matter if their death is already decided."
"Bullshit, are you Captain America? Why are you suddenly getting serious? Go to sleep. You're giving me chills. In movies something always happens right when people talk like this."
"Don't jinx it and shut your mouth, Cedric."
"Hey, Eugene. I ran away again in the end. The second I saw that guy's face, even knowing it was a simulation, my body locked up."
"Bartemius Junior?"
"Yeah."
"…It's not your fault. That bastard's the one who did wrong. Why are you the one shaking?"
"I kept seeing the moment that man killed my mum right in front of me. Mum… she must've been in so much pain. I wanted to put him away with my own hands. Even in the simulation I couldn't succeed."
"If we can't do it this time, we try again next year. If not then, the year after. That works. I'll keep coming with you."
"Really?"
"But starting next year you're paying the tuition."
"You crazy bastard. Are you actually obsessed with money?"
"Cut the nonsense and just sleep already. Since we decided against a watch, we should at least get good rest and stay in shape."
"…Hey. Penny's still rubbing her neck. Romulus cut her throat over and over. She keeps touching it."
"We're all the same. Jihyun was still shivering like she was cold. Percy threw out every thin, string-like thing he owned. You were shaking your leg during the briefing earlier too."
"Guess the body remembers the fear. After two months of chaos dying like that, how could you forget? You're the same."
"Cool Dark Knight Eugene Kim doesn't have that problem. I'm completely fine."
"Then who was the bastard begging to be saved every night? Eugene Park? Eugene Choi? Eugene Lee?"
"Shut up. Go to sleep already."
"Okay. See you tomorrow."
"Yeah. Get lost to dreamland."
Even while saying good night I was uneasy inside, so I slipped outside alone and sat down.
"Cedric won't become Tobias and I won't become Marcus, so don't get sentimental, Eugene Kim."
Separate from the vow not to get sentimental, the stars in the sky tonight felt especially bright.
I clearly knew and had seen and heard this world's history and settings—the 2002 Sirius Black incident, Bellatrix Lestrange's arrest, the clashes between the U.S. military and the Death Eaters, the Dragon Slayers. We had a TV at home, it was in the textbooks, everyone knew those obvious facts.
But another me knew nothing about this world's altered history and settings. In the Harry Potter world I'd read and watched, magic wasn't explained as particle waves, and the U.S. military or government never appeared.
This world's history that I both knew and didn't know. And among its victims, one was Marcus Weybridge, another Cedric Diggory. Cedric was the original's greatest sacrifice, and even in this world he had watched Bartemius Crouch Junior murder his mother and survived the Cruciatus Curse himself. Yet this upright, decent bastard kept cracking dumb jokes, laughing, comforting us, leading us forward. As if he intended to break the cycle of hatred in his own generation.
Marcus had shoved us into his hatred. It was obvious he wanted to turn us into the vanguard of his revenge. Yet after seeing our results he must have changed his mind, because he honestly confessed that Tobias was his older brother.
The Triwizard final I would face someday. Could I save Cedric? Could I kill someone to save Cedric? Could I literally commit murder? And if so, could I bear someone else's hatred?
Or… what if. Just in case I failed to save Cedric. If that happened I would… no. That possibility doesn't exist. Even if my limbs get cut off I'll save that bastard's life. And then I'll live out my days as a happy rich idiot enjoying the world Harry saves. Definitely.
Kuuu-guuuu-gwang-kwang-wang-kwang—!
My brief dip into sentimentality was shattered by that idiot Cedric Diggory snoring inside.
"I came out to listen to the forest sounds alone at night, and even here all I can hear is that snoring."
The snoring truly buried every other sound.
Including the one I should have heard.
Not the rustle of dry leaves, but the sound of something wet scraping across the ground.
Sha-sha-sha-shak—
And after that, the faint sound of heavy things bound by something should have reached me too.
Marcus would have been smiling faintly in the dark, quietly releasing something.
But none of us heard it.
Damn. I should have heard it then.