# I just wanted to create our future with you
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- January 2, 2020
Here we are in 2020, a year when it seemed as if we would escape the oppressive and horrific world of rule. That was nothing more than a delusion, carefully kept in our heads.
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One winter day, two years ago, a wedding hall erupted with cheers. These cheers were not ones of sadness, but of pure joy. In this heart of Seoul, amidst the resounding cheers of joy, we welcomed a newlywed couple about to embark on a new life together.
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Time passed, and two years had already passed since their wedding, a time of blessings. But when she breathed in the fresh air through her apartment window, the smell of gunpowder and forged, charred remains filled her nostrils. Opening the window for the first time in a while to ventilate, her expression darkened.
"That's why I told you not to open the window."
"What can I do about this frustration? But I'm disappointed."
"Listen to me."
He held her, her expression darkening, and held her in his arms. His expression had darkened considerably since a while ago. Usually, despite his outward appearance, he maintained a faint smile, reassuring her. But today, even that faint smile had vanished. Deeply immersed in grief, as if sadness had taken over his entire being, he held his wife in his arms and stroked her for a long time, as if announcing a long separation.
- January 5, 2020
Late last night, he heard a loud banging on the door. He was careful not to wake his wife, but he ended up waking her up. Despite the banging outside, he went into the living room without any hesitation and flung the door open. Then, the people he saw were soldiers in black uniforms. The husband and the soldiers talked for a long time and then sent them away.
He returned to the bedroom and, upon waking from a deep sleep, immediately embraced her, who was trembling at the sight of the soldiers. He slowly stroked her hair. After a long moment, he couldn't explain why the soldiers had come for him. Tired of waiting, she cautiously asked him to explain the situation.
"Soldiers, why are you here?"
Despite her cautious question, he remained silent. After a moment, as if overcome by some emotion, he abruptly stopped stroking his wife's hair and began to cover his face. She couldn't hear him, but she, standing beside him, saw clearly. He was sobbing, unable to control his emotions.
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"Are you feeling calmer now? What's going on?"
"Those soldiers from earlier. They gathered here to take me away."
"What does that mean?"
"Actually, if you had held out until now, you should have just followed along, but you kept getting in the way, so I asked for a little more time."
"What are you talking about?"
"I have to leave here in the morning."
"What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden!"
"I was posted as a soldier in the Jeonnam region."
In an instant, a thin air swept over them, and a chill began to linger in the small, dimly lit living room. Soldiers from the Jeonnam region? Of all the battlefields in Korea, that place was notorious for its ferocity and brutality. This was true no matter how small Korea was, no matter how chaotic it was. For a rookie soldier experiencing war for the first time, it was tantamount to choosing death. The fact that her husband had been assigned to such a horrific place, where casualties and deaths were more frequent than in any other battlefield, shocked her even more.
"Why, why, of all places, that horrible place!!"
"You know that a battlefield is a terrible place."
"It's a completely different dimension there, there's no guarantee that you'll survive there."
"Why isn't it there? It's there."
She wanted to break free from his embrace and confront him right away. Couldn't she just not go? What did he think of running away on her own? But it was all futile. The more she tried to wrestle away from him, the tighter he held her. After a while, tears began to stream down her face as she struggled to free herself from his embrace. He smiled faintly at her, but tears also began to fall, pitter-patter, from his eyes.
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That night, even after everything finally settled down, the once-gloomy sky, perhaps unaware of their sleepless hearts, suddenly rose, illuminating the surroundings. She was curled up in a corner of the bed, her back turned to him, when she grabbed him as he stood up and prepared to leave.
"Is it not necessary to go?"
Once, she hadn't paid much attention to him, seeing him getting ready to go out being a daily occurrence, but today was very different. She absolutely had to stop him from leaving this house. She leaped out of bed, rushed to him as he tried to put on his coat, and clung to him desperately. But he never turned around, not even in the face of her wretched, sorrowful voice. He left her, clinging to him so desperately, and boarded the car bound for the battlefield, surrounded by death and blood. He left her alone, leaving her crying in his arms. He left these words behind.
"When the war ends safely, I will pick a flower and give it to you."
"I will never die. I will definitely come back to you. I will protect you for the rest of my life. Don't worry."
- January 12, 2020
It had already been a week since he entered the den of the war zone. And on the day that marked exactly one week since he left for the war zone, the note he had promised her was delivered. It was a method he had prepared in advance in case contact was lost because it was 2020 and the war was still going on.
The first note, clearly written on a white piece of paper, had turned brown, showing just how arduous the battlefield was. She immediately opened the note he had written and checked its contents, and after a while, she burst into tears again.
' 93110 , 1314 9242 . '
The meaning behind the numbers was the words, โI miss you so much, you are the person I love the most in my life.โ
"I miss you so much too. Come back to me soon."
Every single day was precious, every single minute and every single second. In a battlefield where you never know what might happen if you let your guard down, stopping for a moment to send a long letter to your wife who was waiting for you back home could be a life-threatening act, so instead of sending a long letter, he wanted to express his feelings with a short number.
- January 18, 2020
Having received his note, she spent each day waiting for the brief, yet reassuring note, and while waiting for it, she heard from the doctor the news that was like a ray of light to her: that she was carrying a precious life, sharing the same blood as her husband.
She felt compelled to tell him this dreamlike truth, so she took out the paper and pen she had been saving from her drawer. Instead of a long text and explanation, she included an ultrasound photo on the letterhead, considering her husband who was fighting hard on the battlefield.
"When will you come?"
As she waited for her husband's message at the front door, clutching the letter, a man in a black jumper presented her with a piece of paper that, though yellowed, was clearly a note and bowed. As he was about to leave, she stopped him, handing him the letter she'd been tucked away in her bosom and offering her her thanks. The man nodded briefly and left the apartment, and she waved at him as he continued to walk away.
After seeing the man off, she hurriedly closed the front door. She quickly, but with a brisk pace, found a seat on the sofa for the sake of the unborn child. She quickly unfolded the slightly faded note, her expression brighter than before, and she muttered in a low voice.
"I swear I love you the most too, I love you."
- January 25, 2020
The week she had been waiting slowly passed, but the man who had been like a ray of light delivering notes to her had not been seen for two weeks. She was starting to feel anxious and was stressed from morning sickness that would not subside no matter how much she took medicine. Stress is never good for a mother and child, but with her husband's notes, which had given her some sense of stability, suddenly stopping for two weeks, the stress she was currently under was quite high.
One day, she was staring intently at the front door, trying to console herself that perhaps the man holding her husband's note might be there. Then, a cautious knock sounded, and as she opened the door, the man she'd been waiting for was there, holding her husband's note and offering an apology.
"I'm a little late. Sorry."
โAs soon as he opened the letter his wife had given him, his dark face brightened up a lot.โ
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After speaking, the man hurriedly closed the front door and left. She watched him disappear without even saying a happy greeting, then sat down on the sofa and opened the note she had been waiting for so long. '574839. ' "Actually, I don't want to go." She felt that the meaning contained in this number was the worst thing she could say to her husband who was currently at war, and her expression darkened again while she was happy.
- January 26, 2020
A day after receiving a note from her husband reading "574839," her phone, which had been restless for a moment, began ringing five times without warning, as if she had been feeling uneasy since reading the note all day. Sensing something odd, and certain that there was almost no chance of her phone ringing at this hour, she turned it on and checked the name of the person who had contacted her.
What kind of situation was he in that he sent her such a text message when she was already anxious? Tears began to flow from her eyes, and at the moment she checked the text message he had sent, the front door rang loudly.
The person who knocked on the door was, as usual, a man in a black suit standing with a man who had come to deliver a note from her husband.
"Unfortunately, your husband was killed by enemy fire a little while ago."
The promise they had made to spend their lives together, looking only at each other, crumbled in an instant, and she collapsed to the floor. A man quickly grabbed her. The two men, who had even strongly urged her not to break down any further, handed her the last note he had written to her while he was still alive and a crumpled ultrasound photo. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she had lost everything in the world, and she weakly carefully unfolded the note her husband had last given her.
' 8013. '
As she stared at the piece of paper that had the words โI will spend the rest of my life with youโ written on it, tears began to flow from the corners of her eyes, turning the perfectly white note gray.
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[ A story I couldn't bring myself to tell back then ]
- Boom!!!
Today, as usual, the loud sound of bombing woke me from a slumber I'd been in for days. The battlefield was already utterly devastated, and this terrifying war, which seemed never-ending, was nearing its end. The sound of explosions and gunfire echoed everywhere, and I, already accustomed to it, hid behind a note to share my news with my wife. I took a small piece of paper and a pen I'd been keeping in my pocket and began to jot down some numbers.
' 574839. '
I carefully wrote down the numbers while looking around, and with the thought that this note would soon be delivered to my wife, I picked up my gun again and flew into the battlefield.
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I was injured. Despite being far away from the bomb that suddenly exploded, I blocked it with my entire body. My feet were badly burned, and I felt myself becoming increasingly paralyzed. There was no way to escape. I quickly leaned against a rock, pulled my phone from my pocket, and sent my wife my last text message. I pressed the send button with a desperate plea, asking her to raise our child well without me and to stay healthy.
"Ugh!"
A bullet flew from somewhere and deeply embedded itself in my abdomen. As the bullet pierced my abdomen, blood staining my uniform endlessly, I longed to capture the precious thing I had left in my eyes, even if it was just for the last time. I barely moved my faltering hands, took the ultrasound photo of my wife's baby out of my pocket, and held it tightly in my hand. And soon, unable to keep the promise I had made to my beloved wife in this cruel battlefield, I closed my eyes in loneliness.
Until the very end, I could only shed tears, unable to keep the promise I made to my wife before going to war.
ใด Please be informed that this article was written in ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ Kumi.