They didn't expect to find anyone in the restricted zone.
Let alone someone alive.
But the forest doesn't forget.
And neither do the ones it leaves behind.
---
It happened in the late afternoon.
A crack.
Not from the sky. Not from machines.
A footstep. Deliberate. Heavy.
Yul raised his weapon instantly.
Tae-Jun held him back.
Waited.
A figure stepped into the clearing — wrapped in torn fatigues, beard wild, eyes hollow.
Old.
But not weak.
---
He looked at them.
Looked through them.
Then — slowly — lowered the rifle slung on his back.
> "Didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said.
Korean. Rough dialect.
To Tae-Jun.
---
Tae-Jun blinked.
His heart dropped.
"I… know you?"
The man stepped closer.
> "You were in Delta Squad. Sector 4. Han Tae-Jun, right? You and Sun-Woo."
Tae-Jun froze.
No one had said that name in weeks.
Yul stiffened, one hand still on his rifle.
---
The man sat down on a fallen log like it was the most natural thing in the world.
> "I'm Sergeant Kim. I saw you get left behind. Figured you were dead."
He looked at Yul. "Didn't expect you to be with him."
Tension filled the space instantly.
Tae-Jun spoke carefully:
> "We're not enemies anymore."
The man didn't smile.
> "You sure about that?"
---
> Entry Eighteen.
He knows me.
He knows Sun-Woo.
He saw the day I was left to die.
But he also sees Yul.
And I can feel it — the judgment, the doubt._
I don't care what side this man fought for.
If he sees Yul as a threat, I'll stand in the way.
Because Yul is the reason I'm still writing._
Not the reason I stopped.
---
That night, the three men sat around a fire.
The silence was heavier than the dark.
Not because they didn't speak.
But because they all remembered the same war — and saw it through different scars.