Standing night duty in the military means watching a lot of movies.
It wasnât about slacking offâit was simply that, in the dead of night, when everyone else was asleep, there wasnât much else to do.
Well, for Ihanâ¦
"Youâre reading wuxia novels and web comics again, arenât you?"
"Dogo-hyung, itâs called a web comic, not an internet cartoon."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
His tastes were unwavering, so he rarely bothered with movies.
"Itâs the same thing, isnât it?"
"â¦Dogo-hyung, are you sure youâre only in your mid-20s?"
"Whatâs that supposed to mean?"
"I mean⦠you seem really mature."
"Ssshh⦠That sounds suspicious."
"Ah, look, a movieâs starting!"
"â¦â¦."
Unlike Ihan, whose preferences never wavered, his superior had a broad taste in entertainment. He loved wuxia novels just as much as he enjoyed sci-fi movies, and as long as a film had even a hint of sci-fi, he would watch itâbe it a superhero flick, a thriller, or anything else.
Because of that, Ihan often found himself roped into movie-watching sessions. The ones they ended up watching the most wereâ¦
"Dogo-hyung, you sure love those kinds of movies."
"I read a lot of American comics when I was a kid."
"Early education, huhâ¦"
"What was that, you punk!?"
Movies about parasitic aliens. They watched them so often that Dogo-hyung would always ask the same childish questions.
"What if parasitic aliens like that really existed?"
"Are you seriously asking that at your age? â¦Well, if I had to answer, Iâd say we start with high-explosive bombs."
Then again, Ihan was just as childish. They once debated for four hours about how to kill a parasitic alien.
â¦And now.
Dogo-hyung, do you see this?
âKEEEEE!!!â
I think we werenât childish after all. We were visionaries.
A grotesque, blackish-red mass of liquid consumed a fallen half-demonâs corpse, growing larger with each bite.
***