The Roots He Protected
Baek Geun-su did not hate all Koreans.
He still had room to breathe.
“Young Master, is it because of your father again?”
Late at night, as Geun-su sat on the veranda of the sarangbang staring at the sky, the household servant Gil-su approached him.
Though there was a considerable age gap, Gil-su was the only person Geun-su could confide in—an uncle-like figure and trusted companion.
“Gil-su. I just don’t understand why Father is like this. He bends over backward to please the Japanese, yet he’s dead set against me studying abroad in Japan.”
Unable to contain his frustration, Geun-su kicked a stone on the ground.
His father, Baek Il-han, had been strangely adamant about preventing Geun-su from crossing to Japan. His reasoning was that Koreans would only be treated as second-class citizens there, so it was better to live comfortably under his father’s protection in Korea.
“It’s because he cares for you, Young Master. You know the saying about keeping a child close.”
“Care? What care? Live comfortably? Is this what that looks like? Even if groveling to the Japanese for scraps is supposedly the best life, do you think I don’t know how the Korean people see our family?”
Geun-su shuddered with revulsion.
He would rather die than live like his father—despised as a traitor by Koreans and treated as a loyal dog by the Japanese.
The hypocrisy filled him with shame and resentment.
I will go, no matter what. Even without Father’s help, I’ll get there on my own strength.
Baek Geun-su hardened his resolve.
And to achieve it, he decided he would use every card he held.
“Takeshi……”
In the garden behind the school.
He turned at the shy voice calling his name.
It was Fumiko.
The Japanese girl who had looked only at him since elementary school.
Her father was a high-ranking official in the Government-General of Korea.
Geun-su knew that Fumiko’s father would soon be transferred back to Japan.
“Fumiko.”
Unlike usual, Geun-su approached her with a gentle smile.
Fumiko’s face flushed red.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it? If it’s something I can do, I’ll do anything.”
“Take me to Japan with you.”
“That’s…… not something I can decide on my own.”
Geun-su took both of Fumiko’s hands firmly.
“I heard you’re leaving for Japan soon. That means I’ll never see you again. Are you really okay with that?”
“I don’t want that.”
His eyes were desperate.
“We can’t be together in Korea. You know that. But Japan would be different. No one would interfere with us there.”
“Takeshi……”
“Speak to your father. Ask him to help me get into Tokyo Imperial University. Then…… I’ll marry you. I’ll look only at you for the rest of my life.”
It was a blatant lie.
Baek Geun-su did not love Fumiko.
To him, she was simply Japanese—someone whose helping hand he dismissed as pity.
But she was Japanese. The daughter of a high-ranking Government-General official, no less.
That was exactly what Baek Geun-su needed.
Fumiko was silent for a moment.
She wasn’t foolish enough to believe Takeshi loved her with all his heart.
She could see it in those ambitious eyes.
Yet the girl’s one-sided love was blind.
If he stayed by her side, even a lie was enough.
“……All right. I’ll speak to Father. Your grades are excellent, so…… I’m sure he’ll agree.”
Fumiko accepted with a trembling voice.
Geun-su let out a sigh of relief inwardly.
This settles it.
He could finally escape his father’s shadow and the contempt of his fellow Koreans.
Even if it meant selling his soul.
***
The fateful day was approaching.
It was the night before Fumiko’s family was to leave for Japan, the night she had promised to take him with her.
Geun-su packed his belongings in secret, planning to run away without his father’s knowledge.
Fortunately, his father was unusually late coming home that day and had not yet returned.
It’s finally over. Goodbye to this suffocating house and this foul-smelling Korean soil.
Just as he was about to close his suitcase—
Thud!
A loud noise came from the courtyard.
The sound of something heavy falling was followed by hurried footsteps.
“Master! Master! Please wake up!”
At Gil-su’s urgent voice, Geun-su instinctively flung open the door and looked outside.
On the veranda of the sarangchae lay his father.
The always immaculate Baek Il-han in his crisp suit was nowhere to be seen.
His usually starched white shirt was soaked in crimson blood, and dark red blood bubbled from his abdomen.
“F-Father……!”
Geun-su froze in place.
Unlike him, the elders and servants of the household moved in perfect unison.
As if they had known this would happen, no one screamed or panicked.
They locked the gate, extinguished every light in the house.
In the darkness, only his father’s ragged breathing could be heard.
“Gil-su……”
“Yes, Master. I’m here.”
With trembling, bloodstained hands, his father pulled something from his robe.
It was a bundle of documents wrapped tightly in oiled paper.
“You must protect this at all costs.”
“Do not worry, Master. I will deliver it even at the cost of my life.”
As if entranced, Geun-su picked up the bundle his father had placed before Gil-su.
Under the faint moonlight, the contents were shocking.
[Midway Naval Battle Situation Report]
Fluent in Japanese, Geun-su read through it in one breath.
It contained none of the “uninterrupted victories of the Great Japanese Empire” that filled the streets’ newspapers and radio broadcasts.
Defeat…… Annihilation……?
Four of Japan’s main aircraft carriers that had dominated the Pacific had been sunk, along with hundreds of planes and veteran pilots.
Japan had suffered an irrecoverable blow, and the war had already begun tilting toward defeat—a devastating revelation.
Fearing that the truth would break military morale and stir unrest in the colonies, the Japanese military had isolated the survivors and covered it up completely, falsely proclaiming a great victory.
How did Father…… get this?
Geun-su stared at his father, who was coughing up blood, with bewildered eyes.
The clerk at the Japanese military factory, the lackey of pro-Japanese collaborators, the traitor Baek Il-han.
Why would he possess a top-secret Japanese military document—and one so damning to Japan?
“Geun-su……”
His father opened his eyes with difficulty and called his son.
“Y-Yes, Father……”
“Listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”
His father had never been a collaborator.
Using his position as a trusted aide at the military factory, he had been a spy, stealing secrets from the Japanese high command and passing them to the independence army.
The enormous funds he had siphoned from the factory had not only supported Geun-su’s comfortable life but had also flowed to the independence fighters in Manchuria.
After hearing everything, the bundle of documents slipped from Baek Geun-su’s hands.
The years he had despised and been ashamed of his father flashed before his eyes like a lantern.
His father had carried that heavy burden alone, despised even by his own family.
“Father……”
His throat tightened; no words came out.
To think that, unaware of the truth, he had been plotting to run away hand-in-hand with a Japanese woman.
Shame and guilt crashed over him like a tidal wave.
“Geun-su……”
Even as he lay dying, Baek Il-han gripped his son’s hand tightly.
The bloodstained hand stained Geun-su’s pale one red.
His father’s voice wavered like a candle in the wind.
“Do you know…… why I named you Geun-su……?”
“……”
“Root. To guard. No matter what anyone says…… you are Korean to the bone, from the very roots. What this father wanted to protect was not this worthless life, but those roots.”
With those final words, the strength left Baek Il-han’s hand.
His head dropped.
It was the end of a hero who had fought most fiercely in the dirtiest places for Korea’s independence.
“Father…… Father!!”
Geun-su clutched his father’s body and wailed.
“You can’t leave like this! Father!”
He wanted to ask why he hadn’t told him sooner, why he had shouldered all that disgrace alone, but there was no answer.
Only his father’s cooling body reminded him of reality.
Then—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The firmly shut gate shook as if it would break.
Rough shouts and Japanese curses crossed the wall.
“Open up! You Joseon bastards! We know you’re in there!”
It was the Japanese military police.
They had caught the scent of the missing documents and come after them.
“Young Master! You must hide!”
Gil-su hurriedly tucked the bundle into his robe and shouted at Baek Geun-su.
Crash!
The gate shattered, and armed military police stormed into the courtyard.
“We must find those secret documents! Shoot anyone who resists!”
The moment the commander’s order fell, hell unfolded.
Geun-su spread his arms to shield his father’s body from the Japanese soldiers pointing their guns.
“There’s been a misunderstanding! My father is already dead! Please…… please lower your guns!”
But his cries fell on deaf ears.
Bang!
A single gunshot tore through the night sky.
“Mother!”
His mother, trying to embrace him, collapsed without even screaming.
Red blood spurted from her back.
“No…… No……!”
It was only the beginning.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire rained down.
The lifelong nanny, the terrified sisters screaming, even the younger brother not yet ten years old—
They all fell like autumn leaves before the Japanese guns.
“Kill them! Leave no one alive!”
It was pure carnage.
A living hell of blood, gunpowder, and dying screams unfolded.
Geun-su lay pinned beneath his mother’s blood-soaked body, forced to watch the horrific scene with open eyes.
The world before him turned red.
The white laundry scattered across the yard stained crimson, torn folding screens and shattered porcelain fragments rolling among the corpses.
“Nothing! There are no documents anywhere in the house!”
The military police searched every corner, but the secret documents they sought never appeared.
Fortunately, Gil-su had risked his life to escape through the back door with the documents amid the chaos.
Unable to find decisive evidence, the Japanese officer grabbed Geun-su by the hair in frustration.
“You stubborn Joseon bastards. Where did you hide it!”
Thud! Thud!
Military boots mercilessly kicked Geun-su’s abdomen.
Geun-su coughed up blood but glared at them with his mouth tightly shut.
Yet some family members had survived.
To save even them, Baek Geun-su bit his bleeding lips and continued.
“You’ve got it wrong. My father was the most trusted chief clerk at the military factory. How dare you suspect our household like this?”
“We’ll see. Even if we have to wipe out your entire bloodline, we’ll find it.”
Without evidence, they couldn’t kill him outright. The officer spat and ordered a withdrawal.
After the Japanese soldiers retreated like the tide, only silence remained in the ruined house.
Geun-su staggered to his feet.
Something brushed against his foot.
A textbook trampled into the dirt and the fountain pen his father had bought him as a school entrance gift lay broken.
The remnants of his absurd dream of studying in Japan lay submerged in blood.
I have lived a truly shameful life……
Geun-su gripped the broken fountain pen tightly.
The anger burning in his chest outweighed the pain of his torn palm.
He had tried to run away.
He had been ready to abandon his country and family just to save himself and crawl into their arms.
And this was the result.
His father had given his life to protect their roots, while he, the son, had tried to sell them.
I will never forgive them.
***
That night, Baek Geun-su headed to the promised meeting place.
It was the very harbor where he was supposed to leave for Japan with Fumiko.
But what he carried was not a ticket to Tokyo.
It was a heavy revolver that his surviving relatives had given him, saying it was his father’s keepsake.
At the meeting place, not only Fumiko but also her father, who had come to see her off, were waiting.
“Takeshi! Over here!”
Fumiko waved her hand.
Geun-su walked slowly toward them.
His eyes were fixed not on Fumiko, but on her father—the Director of the Police Bureau of the Government-General.
The man who had sucked the lifeblood from this land and driven his family to death.
“So you’re Shirakawa Takeshi? My daughter speaks very highly of you.”
Fumiko’s father extended his hand with a benevolent expression.
Instead of taking it, Geun-su drew the revolver from his robe.
“My name is not Shirakawa Takeshi.”
Click.
“I am…… Baek Geun-su, son of the Korean independence fighter Baek Il-han.”
Bang!
Without hesitation, a gunshot rang out, and blood sprayed from the Police Bureau Director’s head.
Fumiko’s scream echoed across the harbor.
It was Baek Geun-su’s first act as an independence activist.
The life that followed was a chain of suffering worse than hell.
He was arrested on the spot and dragged to Seodaemun Prison.
Days of water torture that lasted for hours without sleep.
Wing-breaking that twisted his spine and shoulder joints.
Relentless torture with hot irons searing his face and back.
Every agony a human could inflict upon another was poured upon him.
His body was left in ruins, yet his eyes never broke.
On the final day.
He stood in a Japanese military court.
Unable to stand properly because of his shattered legs from torture, he had to be dragged in by guards.
The Japanese judge looked down at him arrogantly.
“Defendant Baek Geun-su. Who is behind you? Who ordered you to assassinate an official of the Great Japanese Empire?”
The courtroom fell silent.
A gaunt young man on the brink of death.
Everyone thought he would beg for his life or had already lost his mind.
But Baek Geun-su raised his head.
His lips, crusted with blood, slowly parted.
“Behind me……”
His voice was quiet, yet it cut through the courtroom air like steel.
“There is only my country, my homeland.”
“What? This insane Joseon bastard!”
The moment the judge shouted in fury—
Crash!
The courtroom windows shattered, and gunfire erupted.
It was Gil-su and the independence fighters hidden in Gyeongseong.
They threw smoke grenades and stormed inside.
“Young Master! Let’s go!”
Gil-su hoisted Baek Geun-su onto his back.
In the chaotic gunfight, even as his consciousness faded, Baek Geun-su saw clearly.
The eyes of the comrades who had come to save him.
The future of Korea that he and his father had so desperately longed for—
Strong and deeply rooted.
***
The Experience Has Ended.