Freefall

“I’m not planning on becoming a soldier….”

“Should I kill your entire family? Maybe then you’ll listen?”

The crazed murderer he had run into last night while going out to earn even a bit of spare change appeared again today, this time as the neat and polished “Captain Kim Hayun,” shoving enlistment papers at him and threatening him.

He thought he had been called to be silenced, but instead, he was suddenly told to come under his command.

“If you just behave and listen, your whole family will be able to live full and well.”

His instincts screamed that this was a dangerous man, that getting involved with him would bring nothing good. But as his life grew more impoverished by the day, the man’s sweet offer was a temptation he could not easily refuse.

For a mongrel from Zone B, there was nothing smooth about military life.

He even hoped to be expelled quickly and return home, but when he thought of his siblings smiling brightly and his adoptive father who had successfully undergone heart surgery, he felt like he finally understood, at least a little, what he needed to do.

By now, after Kim Hayun had done far more than promised, he found himself genuinely curious.

Out of all the countless people, why him?

But there was something he could not forget.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world.”