Chapter 3 : My Lover and betrayer

“Ah, that. You mean the graduation speech.”

Müller nodded dismissively.
As the car started moving, he leisurely clasped his hands, propped his head on them, and fell into thought.

“It couldn’t be helped. I know you feel wronged, but it’s an unfair world. There was no way this exclusive group would tolerate you, a woman from a disputed territory, standing on the podium as their representative. Zakar probably didn’t want to give a graduation speech either.”

“Should I be considerate of the Army Chief of Staff’s son just because he probably didn’t want to do it?”

Hannah muttered with a stern face.
It had been a fierce four years.
The day the back-and-forth struggle finally came to an end.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m just saying don’t stress yourself out by getting hung up on things you can’t control. Just get even with him in your usual cool way. You know, if someone steps on your foot while fooling around, you always laugh and step right back. It’s just that Zakar is exactly the same, so you both take a hit, and then remember it and hit back.”

“The Captain? She’s never done that to me.”

“That’s because you’re a smooth, well-rounded person, like water. Beasts like them only show their teeth to their own kind. In the end, they only keep, or rather, are left with, good-natured people around them.”

I felt a sudden stiffness in my body, knowing who Müller’s slowing tone was referring to.
Ian was always between Zakar and me.
Zakar, too, must have liked his gentle, kind-hearted friend, just as I did.
He was fundamentally different from sharp-edged people like them.

At that moment, the memory of a strong grip crushing the tattoo near my shoulder blade flashed through my mind, and I lowered my eyes, leaning back.
Whenever I tried to forget what happened two nights ago, it seared itself into my memory like a brand.

“Don’t take it to heart, Maya. It’s not that, it’s just that Zakar and I are constitutionally incompatible.”

“Really? I see. ‘Incompatible’… Captain Tara, do you know why your pride is hurt? Because it’s everything you have. When a person loses their temper, you can see what was important to them.”

The very person who was disrupting the discipline of the 2nd Company preached with a light heart, then hummed an old-fashioned pop song.
It was a song that had become a huge internet sensation two years ago when a blonde woman in a party mask performed it.
Listening to the sad lyrics about never being able to go back to the past, I looked out the window at the scenery rushing by.
I never tried to go back.
Even though I never did.

“…Maya.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“What would you do if you got an email from a dead person?”

“Excuse me? I didn’t quite hear that.”

Clank.
It was when I came out of the shower and opened my locker.
A picture from the commissioning ceremony caught my eye.
A picture Ian had insisted on taking with the people he loved most, complaining that all the others were too formal.
In it, Ian, Hannah, and Zakar stood in a row, wearing black officer uniforms.
It wasn’t originally mine, but I received it when his belongings were being sorted.

The awkward faces of Zakar and Hannah, who looked annoyed, and next to them, the gentle, brown-haired man smiling serenely.

“There was a scene like that in a movie I watched over the weekend, but I fell asleep in the middle, and it’s been bothering me ever since.”

“……”

“An empty email came, but the sender’s name was her dead fiancé. The protagonist, who tracked it to the end, probably caught the bastard who was playing the prank and beat them up, right?”

Perhaps because there were few women in the unit, there were many soldiers like Maya who followed her well.
Sometimes I even thought I was receiving more respect than I deserved.
But even Maya was at a loss for words now.
I could almost hear the gears turning in her head.
Ian Somerset, ex-fiancé, anniversary of his death, the rumors circulating behind my back… at the end of a predictable train of thought, she said, “Uh,” and, pretending to organize her locker, she fumbled for words.

“Catching the person who played the prank… you’re not considering the possibility that the email is real at all, are you.”

“Real? What do you mean?”

“I mean, the possibility that the email really came from a dead person.”

“The female protagonist saw his body with her own two eyes.”

I was about to say that it couldn’t be real, but then I remembered this was supposed to be a movie story and shut my mouth.

“If you’re going to talk about ghosts, stop right there.”

“Ah, no, that’s not what I meant… anyway, I don’t know what happened next, but if it were me, I’d try replying.”

“Reply?”

I raised an eyebrow at the unexpected idea, and Maya chose her words carefully.

“Yes. If a reply comes, you can figure out if it’s a simple prank or if there’s a hidden intention. Since it was empty… well, on the other hand, I would also try to track it, of course.”

“……”

“And you don’t know who the other person is. That, no matter how I think about it, feels like a golden opportunity to believe it’s real. You might be able to let out all the feelings you couldn’t express and let go of your sadness…”

The rest of her words went in one ear and out the other.
Trring.
A notification sounded at just the right time, diverting my attention to my phone screen.
Ian was definitely dead.
So, I had no intention of following such an absurd idea.
As Hannah checked her phone, the light gradually faded from her eyes.
And just as Maya, sensing something was wrong, trailed off, Hannah slammed her locker shut and turned around.

“Thanks for the advice. When the other soldiers get back, tell them I stepped out for a bit.”

Striding down the hallway, she flung the door open without hesitation.
A soldier, who had been pulling down his pants and casually looking this way, yelped, “Agh!” and belatedly saluted.
At the same time, a path opened up as she walked, and the gazes of the 1st Company soldiers were fixed on the back of her head.

“Can we talk for a minute?”

As I slammed my hand on the locker in front of Zakar, who was drinking water, I could feel the hot-blooded and intrigued gazes of the shirtless men, as if they were expecting a fight to break out.
Zakar, who was also half-naked, glanced down, wiped the water from his mouth, and asked with a deadpan expression.

“What is it?”

“It probably won’t be good for your reputation if I say it here. Should I just go ahead?”

The seemingly indifferent black eyes silently looked around.
Everyone was unnaturally pretending to be focused on something else, but it was obvious they had their ears pricked up like rabbits in a field.
After watching him toss a plastic bottle to someone behind him and quickly pull on a black combat shirt, Hannah turned and walked away first.

It was obvious what the conservative 1st Company, filled with nothing but macho assholes, would be chattering about behind her back.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t interested.
At least not right now.

“I’m not going to waste time. We’re not the type to casually ask if you got back okay, so I’ll get straight to the point.”

As soon as they reached the back of the headquarters building, where there was no sign of anyone, Hannah stopped walking and spoke.
When she turned around, the man who had been looking slightly below her face raised his eyes.

“Who did you tell about that night?”

“…What?”

“I’m not trying to blame you, and I don’t really care what you said behind my back. I just need to find something out, so I just want to hear honestly who you told.”

Zakar furrowed his thick eyebrows, his expression suggesting he was trying to decipher what he had just heard.

“What’s your problem all of a sudden?”

“I got an email from Ian.”

Sensing this would drag on, I got straight to the point.
The man, who had been stroking his nape, froze and looked down at her.

“From who? What?”

A moment later, his completely changed voice was chillingly low.
Just once, I had seen this expression on him before.
When I told him about Ian’s death, he had given me the same look as he disembarked from another warship.
In front of his gaze, which burned black as if holding me responsible, I thought, ‘I’m well and truly hated.’

“I told you, I got a message from the Ian Somerset we know. I didn’t know you liked things being repeated.”

At the end of her sentence, she turned on her phone screen and held out the new email she had just been looking at.

[Inbox 01]
[Subject: June 25, 2037, 23:08]

It was the date and time she had stopped by the bar and gone home with Zakar.
There were two possibilities.
Either it had slipped from Zakar’s mouth, or…

“I didn’t say anything.”

…someone was watching.

Hannah, still holding out the phone, slightly turned her head and looked around.
No one.
Even though we were drunk, it was definitely the same back then.
Was it even possible that he and I, both sensitive to the presence of others, had felt nothing?
Just as my sweeping gaze stopped on a CCTV lens that resembled a human eyeball, a hand covered mine, and Zakar casually swiped down on her phone.

“‘Hole. Stench. Covered pit. 13th Military Science Research Institute.’”

This email had content.
Zakar read it slowly.

“Why don’t you read the rest?”

With a sharp smile, Hannah met his eyes and whispered the last line she had memorized in a single glance.

“‘My lover and my betrayer. Come here. Let’s go together.’”