Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction

Fluency

   North knew his people were suffering all over the Peninsula. He didn’t need confirmation to know what the reactionaries and the foreigners were doing to them. He already knew.

    And still, receiving that confirmation of just how much they were suffering made his stomach churn and his blood boil like lava.

    A half-dead man had appeared in Sinuiju, starving, exhausted, raving about monsters burning people alive and murdering babies.

    And about South Hwanghae.

From North Pyongan’s capital, an officer had travelled to Headquarters, bringing what news they had managed to extract from the man before he had passed away.

     He was with Public Security. Sincheon county in Hwanghae province had been under attack. The rightists and Americans had been slaughtering innocents with inhumane methods. He had left with a small group of injured and a militia member. He was the only one left. Comrade Hae had been there.

    The officer who had brought the report seemed reluctant to divulge what ‘inhumane methods’ entailed. Eventually, North had gotten from him that what the Public Security officer had been describing ‘sounded like Hell.’

    There was no investigation he could launch, not yet. But he had visited Cho Sok-young, the woman who had arrived with Hwang from the town, and she had confirmed it, tearfully and apologetically.

     Hell was not real. But Sincheon was. And from what she said and what North had seen on his way south, he knew hell could be made to seem real.

    Why had North Hwanghae not told him that was what he had left Hae with? If North had known, he would have-

    What? Sent forces that they didn’t have to Liberate the town just so it could be swallowed back up when they didn’t have enough to hold the northern line?

    No. But he would have done something.

     He thought he knew why Hwang had not told him. It didn’t mean it pissed him off any less. If anything, it made him more uselessly furious.

    North wouldn’t have thought he would ever think of Hae being safe in a POW camp, but at least she wasn’t still in Sincheon.

    But his people were.

     They needed to move. Their plan had worked, and China’s supply lines had to be stabilized now. North had an action plan, and the Americans had almost been pushed back to the Chongchon River.

    Now he just needed his General.

    His legs ached as he walked over the many ri between Kanggye and the foothills in the dark. His head swam and he felt out of breath, but he refused to rest. He shouldn’t have felt this exhausted after a brief trek, and he knew that meant he wasn't eating enough. He heard it plenty of times from Kim Yong-hwan, who had finally ceased her daily disinfecting now that she was out of antiseptic, but still insisted on nagging him.

     He would eat enough to regain his strength when they went on the offensive again. He would eat properly when he was in Busan, and the American ships were sailing away from their shores. Or he would eat well after that, when their farmland had been rehabilitated.

     North shifted the sack of rice on his shoulder. He would have insisted he be supplied only with sorghum if he was actually eating it himself. As it stood, rice would do.

    What was South feeding his provinces? Was South Hwanghae hungry? Was Kangwon safe? Was South Pyongan alive? Was North Hwanghae in Chongjin yet? Were South Hamgyong, the Jeollas, South Gyeongsang, and South Chungcheong… alright?

    After hearing Cho Sok-young’s blood-boiling report, he could not help but remember North Hamgyong urging him to take their female comrades with him.

     North shook his head, the action making the snowy hills sway alarmingly. He shook it again, trying to dislodge the black spots from his vision, and almost toppled over.

    No. He had done the right thing. Even if he took the provinces with him, their people had been left behind, sometimes intentionally. If South Hamgyong or South Hwanghae had managed to save even a single woman from Cho Sok-young’s family’s fate, their sacrifice would be worth it. And they would be safe with South now, away from Rhee’s cravens.

    But maybe not from America.

     North had reached the low ridges where those who couldn’t make the long treks into the mountains proper tended to stay. His soldiers had gouged small dug-outs into the frozen soil, and often made frequent use of them themselves. Finally his last stop of the night.

    Not that he could rest once he was done.

   He could hear murmuring voices in the distance, and came to a halt, trying to smooth his face and some of the mind-numbing fatigue from it before he came face to face with his people. He needed to have an unyielding countenance for them. He believed they would win and so would they.

    It was cold on the mountain, even so low in altitude. The wind cut through North’s padded jacket like it was nothing, bringing a chill to even him. His civilians would be even more miserable.

    They needed to be out of here before January, and not just because he had promised. Even the lowlands would be better than this. Though North knew they would still have to deal with the bombings, and many would choose the bone-chilling cold over that burning chaos.

   He decided his face wasn't going to get any smoother. At least the burns had kept away from it. Bad enough that Chagang and North Pyongan had to walk around looking scorched and vulnerable. He would have ordered them to wear masks if most hadn’t already seen their wounds. His people knowing that they were pretending to be uninjured would be worse than seeing that they could be injured.

    They also couldn’t spare the materials for them.

     North allowed himself one sigh, then firmed his expression, walking towards the distant murmur of conversation.

    He halted again as he got closer, hearing a familiar voice.

   ‘No. No fucking way.’

   His legs itched to retreat, but it would be irresponsible of him. Grudgingly, he emerged from the trees into the moon-shadowed slope.

     “Ah, there you are.” China smiled up at him from the entrance of the dug-out, where he was crouched with a small boy.

    “What are you doing here?” North demanded, then winced. He had slipped into low courtesy. Hopefully the Korean quirk wouldn’t be conveyed into Mandarin for China.

    “Visiting.”

    The Korean narrowed his eye. Very ‘coincidental’ that he happened to be in the exact same place he was heading, out of all the areas in the vast mountains.

     “Comrade China was just seeing how we were faring,” a woman said from farther inside the underground house.

    North suspiciously side-eyed the other country. He had no right to be checking on his civilians. But he held his tongue, still mindful of his Premier’s words.

     “Here,” he said, by-passing the boy to hand his mother the small sack of rice. “From Command.”

     Her brown eyes widened. “Extra rations? Are you sure that’s okay?”

    North couldn’t say what he wanted to with the foreigner watching with his sharp eyes, so instead he said, “Our soldiers shouldn’t have to worry about their dependents.”

    “Thank you.” She bowed deeply. “Thank you so much.”

     He nodded stiffly, then took a step back, looking over her shoulder to where a small girl lay curled up among a pile of thin blankets, looking flushed and feverish. Still acutely aware of China’s watchful presence, he exited the dug-out, resolving to find someone in the Democratic Women’s Union to pay a visit.

     “Come with me,” he demanded of China, accidentally slipping back into low courtesy.

    “One second.” The foreign country squinted at the boy. “I think he has something behind his ear.”

   North stiffened, alarmed, before realizing what he was doing. China reached out a hand, tucking it briefly behind the child’s head before pulling it back with the same sachet of goji berries that he had displayed to North a couple of days before.

    “For you,” he said, smiling, as the boy’s eyes widened gleefully.

     “How’d you do that?” he demanded, catching China’s wrist.

     The foreigner held a finger in front of his lips, since the boy wouldn’t understand his Mandarin.

    “I suppose since I found them behind your ear, you can keep them,” he said in a tone of great sacrifice, holding the berries out.

    The child snatched them, eagerly going to eat one.

    “Wait,” North said, itching.

    The child looked up at him guilessly, and China smiled up at him not so much.

    The kid blinked at him. “What’s wrong, Mister Korea?”

    North stared at the berries. Shrivelled, oblong, a faded shade of red…

   There was no mistaking it. They were goji berries.

    “Nothing,” he said to the boy, grudgingly. “Go ahead.”

    Happily, the child popped one in his mouth. North watched him warily, but he seemed fine.

    “I hope you’re so careful with your own victuals,” China said, a teasing lilt to his voice.

    “I am,” North said stonily.

    The foreigner smiled. “Would you like to get a drink someday?”

    “No.”

   His lips tilted up farther. Then he turned to the boy and- to North’s horror- said in fluent, if odd, Korean- “Make sure to save a few for your sister. Goji berries will be good for her.”

    “I will, uncle,” the boy chirped, unaware of North’s cringing.

“Aiya.” China waved a hand, still speaking in Korean. “I’m not so old. Call me Big Brother.”

   “Thank you, Mister China.” The mother dipped her head to him.

    He smiled at her, this time letting his teeth show. “You can call me Big Brother, too. Surely you’re young enough.”

     The clearly middle-aged woman laughed, blushing. “What a flatterer. Would you two like to stay for some tea?”

    “We need to go now,” North said shortly, snatching China’s wrist and dragging him away.

    “I suppose I’m needed elsewhere,” the other country said airily, waving goodbye. “Perhaps some other time.”

    As soon as they were far enough away, North released China’s arm like it was hot, rubbing his palm on his pant leg. He said nothing, lengthening his stride to keep abreast of him. The other country had long legs, and didn’t stay too far behind.

     “By the way,” he said, still in Korean. “I’ve been meaning to ask- would you prefer I speak your language while I’m here? My provinces, Liaotung and Jilin, share your border and have many Koreans, so I’m sure you’re aware I can speak it fluently.”

    Of course he could. Thousands of Koreans had fled there during the Occupation. Many of North’s top officials and soldiers could speak Mandarin, too, since they had been brought up and fought in the areas that made up Manchuria. Stupid of him not to think of that.

    “Mandarin is fine,” North said stiffly, not looking at him. “Your Korean sounds strange.”

    “Really?” China ripped his head. “I’m speaking Hamgyong dialect, aren’t I? Would you prefer Pyongan?” He said this in the Pyongan dialect. “I have a few others languages, too. Cantonese, Mongolian, Zhuang. And I recently acquired a couple new ones as well.”

   North could hear that he had been switching through several languages that were foreign to him, and he said the last in one that spoke of tall mountains and monks in orange robes.

    “Mandarin is fine,” he repeated, glad that the cold had already reddened the white bands on his cheeks. ‘Ssi-bal.’

     “If you wish.” China smiled as he said the words, back to Mandarin, and North got the distinct feeling he was mocking him.

    It made him bristle, even if it was deserved.

   “Have you been following me?”

    China raised a brow at that, casting a look up the mountain. “I think I have to in order to return to Headquarters.”

    “How did you know I would be here tonight?” North demanded.

    “I didn’t.”

    “You said ‘There you are’ when I first arrived.”

    “I was looking for you,” China said, unbothered by the callout. “It’s just good fortune we ran into each other.”

    North was still a few paces in front of him, so he allowed himself a proper grimace of disdain.

    He had received a similarly aloof, dodgy answer when he had demanded to know how the other man had entered his office on that day.

   ‘How did you get in?’

    ‘The door, I would think.’

   ‘It was locked.’

    ‘Mm, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t. Perhaps you forgot?’ Paired with that neutral-looking smile.

    As if North ever forgot to lock his doors.

    “You shouldn’t let civilians see you,” he said, though what he wanted to say was ‘stay away from my people.’ “You should stay at Headquarters.”

   'And away from me.’

    “Don’t you trust them?”

     “I-“ North cut himself off. “Whatever. It’s your country on the line.”

    He was careful to say this in high courtesy.

    “Your concern is appreciated.” China smiled. “But my country will be fine.”

     It wasn’t concern, but North supposed it looked good if he thought it was. While demanding the foreigner confine himself to the underground and away from his people would not look good, compounding the embarrassing courtesy screw-up. So he decided to bury the matter.

    “Are your supply lines stable yet?” North asked, trudging through the thick snow. His head was still spinning, but he wouldn’t let himself rest, especially with the stranger near.

     “That’s what I came to tell you,” China said. “They are prepared for a push forwards, and I’ve been receiving news of good progress from the front.”

    North nodded. He had as well. They were not yet making a proper push, but their repulsing actions had become near unnecessary. The enemy's ground troops could not make it through the mountains.

    “I have more good news, too.” China side-eyed him with a sly look.

    “What?” he cautiously demanded.

    “You should say the password first, shouldn’t you?”

    North barked the day’s password at the thick pines around them, and no one tried to put a bullet in their skull.

    “What is it?” he asked again, impatient.

    “Your General returned an hour ago,” China said airily.

    North halted in the knee-deep snow, gaping. He quickly switched his expression to a glower.

   “What!?”

    “Mm. Your officers wanted to send scouts out to find you, but I offered to go instead.”

    North fought to keep his voice even and courteous. “And when were you planning on telling me this?”

    “Earlier,” China said innocently. “But you seemed uninterested.”

    The image of pinning the foreigner against a nearby pine and throttling him briefly flitted through North’s mind.

     Wordlessly, he turned and stormed off, churning relentlessly through the drifts of white powder, exhaustion swept aside by his irritation and the need to return to his General.

     Not that he needed another reason to want this war to be over, but he had one.

    The sooner they Liberated his country, the sooner he could send China home.

Thinking about how the UN considers the DPRK ‘starving’ POWs as a war crime. Like… girl… Who is the one bombing their fields and killing all their peasants? During the winters they were low on stockpiled food, obviously, since the summer was kind of a bad time for farming. There were a bunch of measures to keep the peasants safe in the fields and move supplies with them on the retreat, but things don’t go perfectly and also there was the drought earlier. Then in the following years, they could barely farm and or transport things due to Railways and roads being carpet-bombed. Their people should always come first, not some soldiers who shouldn’t even be there. And even then, they still kept the POWs fed, just poorly. And there’s some account where an American is complaining about being fed only sorghum and how it’s flavourless and monotonous and people would refuse to eat it because it made them depressed. My brother under God’s benediction you are lucky they didn’t eat YOU. Their own soldiers and civilians were starving and you have the nerve to be like, ‘Hmmmm. Would love a hamburger right now.’

I think it’s important to acknowledge your own flaws and my flaw I will acknowledge today is that I could not guard a POW camp. If you complained a single time about the food while you are invading our country, trying to strip away our rights, killing us by the tens of thousands, and my people are starving, well. I would be eating well that day at least.