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Ijin hasn’t really eaten fruit until he’s gotten to Korea.
When he was in the military with Major Kang and the other men, they had done their best to get him back on a healthy regular diet instead of the energy bars that tasted like dirt that his skinny, malnourished self consumed.
All of the sudden there was rice, meat, soups, vegetables, and even fruit available to him as the military men spoiled him whenever he even glanced at the food. They were the ones who reintroduced him to the variety of Korean meals to help him connect to his roots.
Major Kang had insisted on being the first to make him kimchi, and cried when Ijin had spat it out saying it was too spicy.
(“You can't be a true Korean if you don't like kimchi, Ijin,” Major Kang had scolded as he set a dish of plain water for him to dip his kimchi into.)
It was summertime, when Ijin tasted his first Korean fruit. The sky was a vivid blue with hardly a cloud in the sky, and the slight wind brushed the sweat away from his nape. He was sitting next to Major Kang on the steps, watching the rest of his platoon complete their drills — the only reason he wasn’t out there with them was because he had stumbled once when his shoe caught on the track and the rest of the men threw such a fit he had no choice but to retreat.
Major Kang was peeling multiple brightly colored melons, vibrant and fragrant, wafting through the air and drawing Ijin closer. Was he cutting fruit for the entire platoon?
Ijin sidled over to Major Kang and watched him cut and blend the strange fruit. Somehow, he answered his question without him even having to ask.
“It’s chamoe,” He explained. “It's a Korean melon that is usually eaten during the summer. You can eat it as it is or make it into smoothies, but not a lot of people do that. Personally, I like it as a smoothie.”
“Yeah, so that you can make it look like you're drinking something healthy instead of adding all those sweets in your coffee!” One of the men holler and Major Kang scowled in embarrassment, cheeks reddening.
Ijin stared as Major Kang expertly peeled the melon until it was milky white and cut the fruit. “Can you eat the seeds?”
“You can eat the seeds and the pulp, but I prefer to remove them because I don't digest them well. Which is a shame, because it's the sweetest part.” Major Kang scooped out the said part and cut the fruit, putting it in a blender until it became a sweet smoothie.
There had to be dozens of cut and blended chamoe ready for the men to eat after they finished their mandatory training. He could see them already eyeing the fruit hungrily before they were forced to go back to their drills. He was pretty sure Major Kang found amusement in seeing his men drool over the fruit, and enticing them to complete their drills with extra vigor by cutting the fruit in front of them.
Major Kang could be surprisingly cruel, but Ijin found it was in a nice way rather than a malicious way like Mad Dog was.
“Alright, times up!” Kang yelled at the men training. “Now, take a break and have some chamoe — ONE AT A TIME YOU ANIMALS, DIDN’T YOUR MOTHER TEACH YOU ANY MANNERS?!” He screeched as the swarm of army men came at him, shoving and kicking each other to be first in line.
Eventually the men settled down and Ijin helped Major Kang distribute the chamoe smoothies and cut fruit. Major Kang held out a slice of chamoe and after staring at it for a moment Ijin took it, looking at it hesitantly. Glancing around, he saw that none of the men were paying any attention to him, too busy jostling each other around lightheartedly and eagerly yelling out for Major Kang’s chamoe smoothie.
Something in Ijin’s stomach loosened and he tentatively nibbled the fruit. There was a crisp crunch, and then the slightly sweet taste of the juice flooding his senses. His eyes slid shut until all he could hear was the relaxed chatter and joyous laughs of the military men, the soft breeze, and the heat of Major Kang’s skin as Ijin leaned into him.
(Was he worthy of this sort of peace?)
001 never had any fruit with the Numbers.
In training, it was always rice, bread, and beans. Completely bland and devoid of any flavor. The energy bars packed for missions tasted like dirt and clogged his throat whenever he swallowed.
Fitting, since he always led the missions meant for death.
(001 was choking).
Dayeon had scars on her hands.
Admittedly, it had taken a while for Ijin to notice that particular feature about his sister, and when he does see it for the first time, ice freezes over his spine and stabs into his gut.
They’re peeling apples together after dinner — slow, repetitive movements that hypnotized Dayeon with how smoothly he’s removing the apple skin with his knife. Dayeon reached over for the now-skinless apple and that was when he saw it.
“What happened to your hands?” He asked harshly. Dayeon flinched at the sudden question, and Ijin dropped the fruit to grab her hands before she pulled away. What were those scars? Did someone hurt her? What had happened? What —
“Oppa, my wrists,” Dayeon said, and Ijin instantly loosened his grip when he realized he was nearly crushing them. To her credit, his sister didn’t even wince at the pain.
“They’re from cooking,” she finally answered. “I was a kid when I first started to teach myself, and I would always cut myself on the knife whenever I was chopping something.”
“Why didn’t you ever go to the hospital?”
“And worry Grandpa?” She shot back instantly. “I wouldn’t do such a thing. It’s fine, Oppa.”
The thought of a much smaller, younger little sister stitching herself up with a needle and thread fighting through the pain with stinging eyes hurts Ijin more than he’d like. But he says nothing, merely rubbing the skin. While her hands were petite and deceptively soft-looking, Ijin could see the calluses on her palm, proof that she was a hard worker.
There’s another scar on her, one that distinctly looked unkitchen-like.
“And the others?” He asked, and Dayeon said nothing.
Dammit. He knew he should’ve punched that group of girls harder.
Gently, she held out her arm so that their hands were side by side. “Look, now we match,” she prompted softly.
Ijin whipped his head to look at her, shocked, before staring back down at their hands. Match? They were nothing alike. Dayeon’s scars were through her hard work and care, learning to cut and slice and cook all on her own for someone she loved deeply enough to go through the pain.
Ijin’s hands were completely different. They were not meant for holding. They were not meant to help or cradle like normal peoples’ were. They were meant to cut, to stab, to brutalize and torture and hurt.
He stared at their hands, side by side. Hers are small, pale, and slender. Silver lines etched themselves into her fingers, and darkened scars rest on her wrists from all the times she’s accidentally burned herself against the stove.
His hands are larger, obviously, and just as scarred if not more so. While hers were pale, his were darker with his time working in the sun. Slashes marked his fingers and palms, and even further up his arm. His pinkie was imperceptibly crooked from the time he had dislocated it and 006 had haphazardly put it back together. One time, he had held somebody's head with these very hands and had snapped their neck.
But still, she called them the same. That they matched.
Ijin looked into her big, knowing eyes and ripped his gaze away. Even if she knew, he wasn’t ready for her to see him yet.
He’d likely never be.
Everyone had a favorite fruit, Ijin realized.
Yeona loved watermelon and the way sweet juice dripped from each bite while Jaehyeong was more partial to cantaloupe, which led to fervent debates between the two of them. Hyeokjin liked pears and Yeongchan's favorite was bananas, which made Jaehyeong crack jokes under his breath that Ijin didn't get but made Seokju kick him nevertheless. Seokju enjoyed the sweet burst of tartness from blueberries more than anything else, and could often be seen snacking on them during breaks.
Ijin didn’t have a favorite fruit. Every time he thought of peeling open oranges or chopping apples, he was reminded of the one time he gouged a man's eyes out with his bare hands or how not too long ago he once used a knife to gut someone.
“Oppa!” Dayeon's happy voice broke him out of his trance. “Watch this!”
Ijin watched as his sister took out a cherry she had just purchased from the bag and popped the whole thing – stem included – into her mouth.
Ijin blinked in surprise and immediately bent forward to get her to spit out the seed before she choked when Dayeon held out a hand to stop him.
There were a few moments of her rolling around the fruit then she finally spat out the seed in an empty cup. “What do you think?” She asked, smiling as she opened her mouth to reveal –
The cherry stem.
Somehow, she had tied the cherry stem in her mouth.
Ijin stared at the knot and his fingers twitched. How did she do that?
The others around the table awed appreciatively.
“How's you do that?” Yeona asked, leaning in to inspect it curiously.
“With my tongue. Pretty cool, right?”
“With your tongue? But how?”
Dayeon laughed, setting the cherry knot aside. “I don't know, I've always been able to do it. That’s why cherries are my favorite fruit.” She dipped her hand back in the bag and pulled out another. “Try it, Oppa!” Dayeon beamed, dangling the ruby fruit by its stem.
Ijin stiffened before he really even knew why, staring at the fruit. “I don’t think I’d be able to do it, Dayeon,” Ijin awkwardly smiled. His sister slumped in disappointment and he felt a pang of guilt stab his consciousness.
“I don’t know if this is true, but I'm pretty sure I heard that being able to tie a cherry stem is genetic,” Yeongchan said. “Like folding your tongue.”
“I also heard that people who are able to tie cherry knots are good kissers,” Hyeokjin hid his smirk behind a mouthful of pear and Yeona squeaked and turned red.
“Please,” Jaehyeong scoffed. “I could do that.” And before anyone could stop him, he reached over, grabbed a mouthful of cherries, and choked.
“I didn’t know cherries were your favorite fruit,” Ijin said. The streets were quiet as they walked home, only the streetlights illuminating their way.
Dayeon turned to him in confusion and Ijin continued, “Whenever we go grocery shopping you usually buy apples. Why not cherries if they're your favorite?”
“Oh,” Dayeon pinked and rubbed the back of her neck bashfully. “Because apples are Grandpa's favorite fruit. Apples and other fruits are so expensive in Korea, but it's worth it to see Grandpa smile the way he does whenever we cut him fruit after dinner. Cherries can be a little pricey so I rarely get them for myself. I only decided to treat myself because I got my paycheck at my part-time job today.”
Of course. His little sister usually hated it whenever money was spent unnecessarily – especially on her. After years of watching Grandpa break his back to raise her she's learned that money isn't earned easily, and should be saved no matter what. When her bullies demanded money from her, instead of asking Grandpa for extra money she went out and got a job instead because she refused to take from him.
“I'll buy you some next time then,” Ijin smiled softly as he opened their building door for her.
“O-oh no, Oppa, you don't have to do that for me!” Dayeon waved her hands frantically. “It's your money!”
“I want to.” He said simply, and she fell silent. She fiddled with her fingers, biting her lip like she had something to say to him but didn’t know how. Ijin waited, patiently watching his sister as she tried to collect her thoughts.
“Ijin-Oppa,” Dayeon said, and that’s when Ijin knew that what she was about to ask was serious enough she included his name along with the honorific. “Did I say something wrong earlier today?”
Ijin blinked in surprise. “No, what do you mean?”
“It's just — you got pretty tense when I offered you some cherries, and even before that you weren’t normal,” she said, and Ijin had to wonder what her normal of him was when he never felt normal.
“I’m fine, Dayeon, don’t worry,” Ijin said, and wished he could offer more than that. But what she was asking was not something that he could respond without getting into the thing that consumed his entire being, one that had murdered, tortured, and cut down people just like her and Grandpa.
Dayeon’s eyes dropped to his scars, his hands, like she saw, like she had an inkling of what was bothering him and knew the moment Ijin responded to her.
But like always, she didn’t push and Ijin swallowed the guilt weighing down on what would be called his heart if he had one.
Ijin remembered the time he once cracked a mercenary's skull open like a watermelon. He can still hear the sheer crack from impact, the vibrations shaking his arms, and the way dark blood pooled at his feet just like the sweet watermelon juice Yeona loved so much.
Every time he watched his friends dig in their thumbs to peel open a tangerine he felt the squelch of blood and crushed eyes as he dug his thumbs into someone's eye sockets.
He peeled apples expertly between his hands and remembered that not too long ago he used his knife for other things.
(He wondered, privately, if Grandpa or Dayeon were secretly lying about the apples he's peeled tasting good when they can taste the dirty blood staining his hands.)
There's something so simplistic as having a favorite fruit. Something so normal in the way a person's eyes light up when they see something they like and immediately reach for it.
There's nothing simplistic about Ijin's life at all.
They were at the hideout when Ijin learned he could make something beautiful with what would have been discarded.
It was only him, Hyeokjin, Jaehyeong, Yeongchan at the hideout — Seokju had disappeared with the girls to the booths selling the tanghulu that Dayeon and Yeona loved so much and would stop by with them later.
Yeongchan was focusing on his gaming with Jaehyeong nagging him in the background of his streaming. He had been nervous while starting his first channel, going hard in the games to make up for content, but thankfully had toned it down. Thanks to Jaehyeong’s presence, his commentary provided free entertainment that the audience loved, and views skyrocketed whenever Yeona Sin, the SW Princess, joined the channel as well. Thanks to his skills, Park Yeongchan was easily becoming popular in the gaming community.
(The time where he brought in Cha Seoha as a guest appearance for his birthday would not be mentioned — the sheer chaos the celebrity had caused when she appeared would never be lived down. Yeongchan had fainted on live when she had offered him a gift for his birthday.)
Ijin had kindly turned down Yeongchan’s timid request to join him on the stream. It was too dangerous for his face to be viewed. Even if he had 032 on his side to delete any traces of him that had appeared on the internet (and there was a surprising amount from students taking videos of him while fighting in school), it was better to not take the risk.
No matter how much he wanted to.
Ijin sat beside Hyeokjin as he was rolling around the tangerine in his palm for about the millionth time, and he couldn’t help but inquire about it.
“In Korea, lots of people believe that if you massage the tangerine before you eat it it will taste sweeter.”
“And does it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know since my parents never did it to me, but my brother definitely likes it,” Hyeokjin said. “They’re his favorite fruit.”
Again, with favorite fruits. Ijin just couldn’t seem to escape it, could he? His friends all seemed to have a favorite since childhood, yet when Ijin was a child he was learning how to cut down people instead of fruit.
A sick feeling rolled in his gut.
What right did he have to live this normal, simple life when the blood of innocents like Grandpa and Dayeon soaked him to the bone?
He didn’t realize he left Hyeokjin hanging until he broke him out of his thoughts.
“Dude, are you alright?”
Ijin turned away from his worried face. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? You were making a pretty scary face.”
Was he? Not too long ago, he — Jin, 001 — had been infamous for his blank expression. When he was in the Camp, there were whispered rumors of him being unable to feel anything, and over time he had believed it as well.
It had felt as though his vessel had become empty; he had even lost the ability to suffer. He was emotionless: he would be nothing, like the wind and sky that he had fallen from and landed him in this hell he thought was a home.
Amongst the forty band of murderers he grew up with, he alone was the only one entirely unlike the rest.
“Hey, watch this,” Hyeokjin said. “I do this for my brother all the time.”
Ijin watched as he took a tangerine in his hand and began peeling it intricately, unfolding the skin from the ripe fruit carefully and shaping it. And first, he was wondering what he was making for him to be peeling the tangerine so carefully, when he began layering the skin and taking some discarded rubber bands and tying it together. After a few more minutes of layering, tying and folding, he presented his masterpiece to him.
He had made —
— a rose.
Hyeokjin had taken the skin of something that should’ve been discarded and created something beautiful out of it.
“What do you think? Beautiful, right?”
Ijin stared at the dimpled rind of the makeshift rosebud then gently reached out and took hold of a tangerine. If his hands trembled ever so slightly, then neither he nor Hyeokjin mentioned it.
(Can his dirty hands — ones that have, cut, killed, beaten, and bruised — create something so beautiful?)
“I—will you— can you teach me?” He asked, fully expecting to be rejected and taken by surprise when Hyeokjin grinned at him.
“Okay, so first you peel the tangerine in three ways …”
By the time the others came back, there were at least five tangerine roses sitting on the table next to a heaping bowl of peeled tangerines waiting for them.
Dayeon had said one more thing to him before she went to bed for the night.
“You know, I don’t just buy the apples for Grandpa,” she said, staring at him with dark brown eyes. Sometimes when she looked at him like that it made him feel like she knew more about him than he did, more than she could and possibly should know about him.
“I buy them for you too.”
And before Ijin could do anything but blink she disappears into her room, leaving him alone in the empty kitchen with nothing but his thoughts.
“Grandpa?” Ijin asked as he and his grandfather stood in the kitchen together. They were peeling apples together for an after-dinner snack, and Ijin’s belly was warm and full as it usually was since coming home. Dayeon was in her room taking a call from her middle school friend, but she would come out and join them sooner or later.
Grandpa turned to look at him after pausing his ministrations. “What is it, Ijin?”
“Why are apples your favorite fruit?” Ijin focused on the apples as he spoke. The knife he was holding was neatly carving through flesh and skin and he tried no to think how it once did the same to humans.
“Well, I don’t know,” Grandpa laughed. “I suppose I just like the taste of it.”
“But why?” Ijin stressed.
Grandpa paused at that and wiped the juices on the family apron he wore. It was the blue one with a silly strawberry on it. Dayeon had once said he bought it for her when she was in middle school, and when Dayeon had joked that it was to celebrate her finally becoming a good cook, Grandpa had been flustered and was vehemently insisting that he had always loved her cooking regardless.
“Well, if I had to put a memory to it, I suppose it was when I first came back from the war. It was the first fruit I had when I came back, and I was sharing it with your Grandma. I remember when I ate it, it was so delicious that I cried and she couldn’t help but laugh at me.” Grandpa’s mouth turned up in a smile, in the soft, bittersweet way that held memories he would never fully be able to explain to another because they weren’t there to experience it themselves. “But she got pretty emotional after she ate a slice as well.”
Ijin’s hands stilled from cutting the apple. “I didn’t know you were in a war,” he said, stunned.
“Oh, yes, all of us young kids were. And so was your grandmother. She was a nurse, and I was a soldier. That’s how we met. She nursed me back to health when I was injured and was the first face I saw when I woke up. I knew the first moment I saw her I wanted to marry her.”
And then Grandpa turned to face him. “I would say I was about your age when I fought in the war.”
All of the sudden, he feels ashamed for his lying. Here he thought he could keep his family in the dark about his past when all this time they knew, in some way all along, that he was someone who has faced the abuse of humans they have.
His grandpa had lived through war. He must have known the moment he saw his grandson’s body that his scars were not just from a plane crash. His sister has seen him fight. She’s been kidnapped twice, has met his old comrades, and has let him get away with his white lies more times than he can count because she's just so kind.
He’d be insulting his family if he thought they were truly oblivious. Despite not knowing his past entirely, they were the only ones in the world to truly know him.
Grandpa's kind eyes pressed into him. “Is there anything you want to ask me, Ijin?”
At first, Ijin wanted to deny. To shove all of his creeping monsters and darkness that was slowly consuming him into a tiny little box and continue being the miraculous, long-lost grandson that Grandpa deserved.
But Grandpa didn’t deserve a lie.
He just wanted his grandson.
“… how do you do it?” He asked, voice barely audible. How can someone who’s sins stain like bloodshed, guilt hits like bombshell blows, can possibly be normal enough to have something as simple as a favorite fruit? How to endure on bad mornings, when it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because of what he’s done, what he’s afraid will be taken away from him again. Permanently.
Grandpa went silent for a few moments, experienced hands peeling the apple slowly with his knife. “Normally, I remember the good moments I had with my wife. She was the one who helped me through the worst of it when I first came back.”
Ijin glanced down. “So a happy memory, then.” Ijin didn’t have any happy memories, much less with fruit, with how scarce and frugal his diet was when he was on the run.
Grandpa must’ve picked up on the bitterness in his tone because he put the apple and knife down and took his hand, the apple juice sticky on his fingers.
“Perhaps,” he said, and Ijin couldn’t look away from his eyes this time. “You could start with the people around you first.”
Ijin was starting to get it now.
He thought of Major Kang and his chamoe smoothies he made during the summer, the way Hyeokjin went through the trouble of peeling tangerines for his brother and the others even though it turned his nails all yellow, and carving them into flowers as citrus squirted into his eyes.
The way Dayeon tied her cherry stems into knots, and the way he was finally understanding the fruit jokes cracked from Jaehyeong about pineapples, peaches, cherries and bananas. Why Seokju always managed to find a way to kick him for it afterwards.
How Yeona was always open to sharing her watermelon slices with everyone and Yeongchan, his first friend, always explained the meaning of fruits and when to eat them in an easy manner for Ijin to understand.
Ijin stared at the assortment of glossy fruits on the stands in the grocery store and picked up a large golden apple, observing the way the smooth surface caught the light. Unbidden, a memory rose in his mind and he couldn’t help the small smile that lifted his lips as he remembered the small, raven-haired girl that lived miles away from him now.
“Would you like to buy that, sir?” The employee’s question snapped him out of his daze and Ijin smiled at the woman, oblivious to the rosy hue on her face at the sight of it.
“Yes, I would. I’d like to buy all of this fruit, please.”
Ijin set a plate of carefully pared fruit on the table in front of his sister and Grandpa before they could even get up and move from the table after dinner.
“Oh,” Dayeon gasped at the sheer amount of fruit displayed in front of her. “You did all of this yourself, Oppa? You should have asked us to help!”
“I know,” Ijin said with a small smile. “I just wanted to do this for you both.”
Dayeon blinked then quickly whipped her head away to hide her blush, nibbling at an apple slice sheepishly. Grandpa chuckled and took a slice as well. “Thank you, Ijin.”
Ijin sat down and picked up a piece of fruit, smiling as he listened to Dayeon talk about school, answering questions when Grandpa asked him about work at SW, and listening to the stories told around the table. It was the most peaceful he’s felt in his entire life.
Major Kang and the military men taught him how to become.
His friends and family showed him how to be.
“You cut a lot of apples,” Grandpa noticed. “Any reason why?”
“No,” Ijin couldn’t help but smile as he watched his family enjoy their meal. “It’s just that apples are my favorite fruit.”
Evelyn held out an apple at him.
Jin stared at the fruit in her outstretched palm, then at the person holding it. A long minute stretched between them as they each waited for the other to do something, before the girl huffed.
“I was wondering if you wanted an apple,” she said pointedly.
Ah, this was his cue.
She was trying to teach him this thing called manners, where he had to respond if someone talked to him and couldn't just walk away if someone he didn't like approached him.
“No,” Jin said bluntly. Evelyn’s face dropped in disappointment and because Jin felt a strange pang at seeing her face like that, he turned away without further response.
There were too many uncertainties on why she was giving him something as precious (simple) as fresh fruit to him. Fruits were precious in this region. With how poor everyone was in this village, people hoarded their fruits the way dragons did with treasure.
The Numbers shared food with him out of pity, or a twisted sense of responsibility when they were in training together. It was never out of genuine kindness or affection that they did it — it was a way to assuage their own guilt of not taking care of an amnesiac kid when they could barely take care of themselves.
Why was she giving this to him? Did she want something? Was there something she needed? What did she want? Why would she give this to him—
“Jin,” Evelyn stepped forward and his eyes instantly snapped to her. Her dirty white dress still swamped her petite frame, her burnt tanned skin, messy raven-black hair, and leaf-green eyes. She was still the same Evelyn, the same girl who had stayed by his side and nursed him back from death. He was the one who was constantly on the cutting edge of life or death, fight or flight.
They were the youngest in the mercenary village, which meant they often stuck by each other. Whenever Jin wasn't on a job or guarding the village he could be seen with her, and Evelyn would be the first to try and pry his fingers off the barrel of his rifle.
Very gently, her small, callused hand took his own and slowly, cautiously, enveloped the apple between their entwined hands. Releasing the fruit, she pushed it towards him with a smile.
“Take a bite,” she encouraged.
Jin took a bite. There was a crunch of his teeth sinking into the flesh, the sweet and sour taste bursting on his tongue as the juice slid down his chin.
It was delicious.