Park Shiwon's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The phone screen glowed like a wound in the dim apartment light. His thumb hovered over the blue "Post" button, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat. Below it, the long thread he'd written stared back at him—names, dates, barracks numbers, the exact words the higher-ups had laughed, while female lieutenants tried to shrink into their uniforms. He had proof. Screenshots. Voice recordings he'd risked everything to steal.
This is it, he told himself. No more averting your eyes.
But the guilt was already there, coiled in his stomach like barbed wire. Because posting this wouldn't bring her back. It wouldn't erase the night he had stood outside the supply room and heard her voice—his Noona—cracking as she begged them to stop. He had walked away. He had told himself it wasn't his business, that he was just a conscript, that looking would only get him destroyed like the others who had tried.
His breath hitched. He pressed "Post."
The second the button registered, every nerve in his body snapped loose. The phone clattered across the floor as he flung it away like it had burned him. Shiwon dropped to his knees, curled into himself on the cold tiles, and slammed both hands over his ears.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"
The words spilled out faster, louder, until they tore into ugly, choking wails. He didn't know who he was apologizing to anymore—his noona, the other girls whose names he'd written in that thread, the version of himself who had once believed good men didn't look away. Tears soaked his sleeves. His shoulders shook so hard the floor seemed to tremble with him.
Time blurred. Minutes? Hours? He couldn't tell. The only thing that existed was the roar inside his skull and the endless loop of her voice calling his name the way she used to when they were kids—"Shiwon-ah, look at the stars with me."
Eventually the sobs quieted into ragged breathing. Shiwon pushed himself up on unsteady legs and shuffled to the kitchen like a ghost in his own skin. The drawer squealed when he yanked it open. Inside lay the orange tube of sleeping pills. He didn't count them. He just tipped the entire contents into his palm and swallowed them dry, the chalky taste coating his tongue like punishment.
They wouldn't knock him out right away. That was the mercy. For the first few minutes they only numbed the edges of the world, dulling the hallucinations just enough that he could function. Without them, her voice would come back—clear, hurt, accusing. "Why didn't you help me, Shiwon-ah? Why did you look away?"
He grabbed his jacket from the sofa, the same worn black one he'd worn the day he testified at the military inquiry. The fabric still smelled faintly of the detention center where they'd held him after he'd nearly beaten a superior officer half to death for what he'd done to the female lieutenants.
On his way to the door he passed the framed photo on the wall.
There they were: him at 8, gap-toothed and grinning, and his noona at 15, arm slung around his shoulders, both of them laughing under the cherry blossoms. Her eyes sparkled with the kind of innocence the military would later crush out of her. Shiwon's hand rose toward the glass, fingers trembling an inch from her face.
He jerked his hand back as if burned. His stomach lurched. He clamped a hand over his mouth, gagging on nothing but memory. The room tilted. He slid down the wall, forehead pressed to the cold paint, breathing through his teeth until the dizziness passed.
When he could stand again, he looked at the photo one last time. The guilt in his chest felt sharp enough to cut bone.
"I'm sorry, Noona," he whispered to the smiling girl who could no longer hear him. "I was supposed to protect you. Instead I became exactly what I hated."
He stepped outside.
The night air was crisp, the streets of Seoul quiet except for the distant hum of traffic. Shiwon pulled his hood low, shoulders hunched. People on the sidewalk gave him a wide berth—some whispering, some outright staring.
Then he heard the voices again, "The whistleblower. The crazy ex-soldier who had burned his own career and half the upper ranks of his unit to the ground." He didn't deny the voices nor did he blame the people distancing themselves from him. He wouldn't want to be near him either.
At the intersection the traffic light burned red. Shiwon stopped, hands in his pockets, and tilted his head toward the sky. The stars were unusually bright tonight, scattered like scattered diamonds across black velvet.
'Noona would enjoy this,' he thought. 'She always dragged me out after dark just to stare at them. Said the city lights made the stars grow brighter.'
His eyes stung. He wiped them roughly with the back of his sleeve.
From the corner of his vision, two children laughed. A little boy, maybe 7, kicked a bright red ball across the sidewalk while his older sister—maybe 10—scolded him in that bossy, protective tone only big sisters could manage.
"Yah! Not so close to the road, you idiot!"
The boy only giggled louder, chasing the ball as it rolled toward the curb.
Shiwon's throat tightened. The scene played like a cruel mirror: him and his noona, years ago, before everything went rotten. Before the uniform. Before the rumors. Before he learned that some men in power could turn normal into monstrous and no one would stop them.
The boy got closer and dangerously closer to the road, his sister scolding him, caution and worry visible on her face.
He forced his gaze away.
'Avert your eyes. It's not your business. You don't know them.'
The thought hit like a slap
Avert your eyes?
His teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. The memory of that supply-room door slammed back into him—his hand on the handle, the sound of his sister's muffled cry, his own feet carrying him away like a coward.
'Look at what happened to Noona. It's all your fault, Park Shiwon!'
The ball bounced into the street.
The boy ran after it.
A truck barreled through the intersection, headlights cutting the night like knives.
Shiwon's heart exploded against his ribs. His ears rang. For one frozen second the old instinct screamed: Look away. Stay safe. You're just one man.
Then the new promise—the one he had carved into his soul the day he posted that thread—roared louder.
'Never again.'
He sprinted.
His sneakers slapped pavement. The boy looked up too late, eyes wide. Shiwon slammed into him with everything he had, shoving the small body toward the sidewalk. The child tumbled clear, stunned but safe.
Shiwon turned.
The truck was a wall of metal and light.
Pain came first as a bright, white flash—then the sickening crunch of bone and the wet heat of blood. His body lifted, weightless, and slammed back down like a discarded doll. The world spun. Stars blurred overhead, brighter than ever.
Through the ringing in his ears he saw her.
His noona stood above him, the same gentle smile she used to wear when she ruffled his hair and called him her little hero. She reached out.
Shiwon lifted a broken, trembling hand toward her. Tears streaming down his bloodied face.
"I'm sorry, Noo... na..."
The words barely left his lips.
His fingers never touched hers.
The stars faded to black, and Park Shiwon finally stopped hearing voices.