The Captain’s House
1135 Words
The house smelled faintly of cedar and smoked old wood soaked in winter and silence.
Yuna sat near the hearth, her borrowed shawl pulled tight around her shoulders as the last flame flickered in the stove. She could still hear the wind howling outside, but inside, the quiet was thick, protective.
This was where she’d lived now, Captain Ryu Jun’s hidden home, deep in the northern forest.
To the world, she was dead.
To these men, she was a secret.
And to Jun… she wasn’t sure what she was yet.
At dawn, the house began to stir. Lieutenant Hana was already at the stove, ladling out hot barley soup with military precision. Minjae chopped firewood just outside, while Daeho pretended not to stare at their unexpected “guest.”
Jun entered his uniform immaculate, his movements measured. He nodded once to his team before glancing briefly at Yuna.
“Eat,” he said simply.
His voice carried the same quiet command that made everyone move before thinking.
Yuna nodded, though her hands trembled slightly as she took the wooden bowl. She tried to thank Hana, but the other woman only grunted softly and returned to her work.
“She’s not used to guests,” Jun said, as though reading her confusion.
“Neither am I,” Yuna replied.
His lips twitched almost a smile, but not quite.
Breakfast passed mostly in silence. Outside, snow fell in slow, lazy drifts, burying the forest deeper in white.
When the others left to patrol the perimeter, Yuna finally found her courage.
“Captain,” she began, “what happens now?”
He paused, pulling on his gloves. “You’ll stay here. Hana and Minjae will help you if you need anything.”
“And then?”
“Then we wait.”
She frowned. “For what?”
“For the right wind to change.”
His words hung in the air poetic, but heavy.
“I can’t just stay hidden forever,” she said. “I have a family. A company. People think I’m dead.”
“Here, death is safety,” he replied quietly.
That silenced her.
When Jun left with the others, Hana turned to her at last. “You should stay away from the window. And don’t wander far. People here notice everything.”
Yuna nodded. “You don’t trust me.”
“I trust the Captain,” Hana said. “That’s enough.”
Then, softening, she added, “If you want to survive here, learn silence first.”
It wasn’t said unkindly, just true.
The day crawled by. Yuna explored the small house with two rooms, bare and clean. A cot, a desk, a few shelves lined with old books in Korean and Russian. On one wall hung a faded photograph: a younger Jun, his arm around a boy who looked like him, both in military uniforms.
She traced the glass with her fingertips. There was a softness in his eyes, something she hadn’t seen since the night he’d rescued her.
When Jun returned at dusk, his boots tracked snow across the floor. He noticed where she stood but said nothing.
“Your brother?” she asked quietly.
He hesitated, then nodded once. “He didn’t come back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. No one does.”
The bluntness hit like a chill. But then his tone softened just slightly. “You should eat before it gets cold.”
Later that night, the generator failed. The cabin dimmed into candlelight, shadows stretching across the walls. Hana and the others were asleep in the outpost next door, leaving only the two of them awake.
Jun sat by the desk, cleaning his rifle precisely, methodically. Yuna watched him from the small cot, the candle flickering between them.
“You do that even when you don’t need to,” she said.
He looked up, one brow raised. “Do what?”
“Fix things that aren’t broken.”
His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer than necessary. “Habit.”
“Or control,” she countered softly.
He didn’t deny it.
Outside, the wind howled harder. Yuna shivered and wrapped the blanket tighter, but her fingers brushed the edge of the wooden floor, rough and splintered. She thought of her life in Seoul: the softness of silk, the hum of city lights, the sterile comfort of everything money could buy.
And now here she was in a place where the simplest warmth felt like treasure.
When the candle flickered out, she heard Jun move. A match struck, and suddenly his face glowed again lit by a new flame.
“You can’t sleep,” he said.
“Neither can you.”
He placed the candle closer to her. “You’re not used to silence.”
“No,” she admitted. “Silence scares me. It feels like being forgotten.”
He paused, then sat across from her. “Sometimes silence keeps you alive.”
Their eyes met two worlds colliding in the space between breaths.
“Do you ever wish you’d been born somewhere else?” she asked suddenly.
He studied her for a long time before answering. “Every soldier learns not to wish.”
“And yet you saved me,” she whispered. “That wasn't my duty.”
His jaw tightened. “You were a storm that fell from the sky, Yuna Seo. What else was I supposed to do to leave you to die in my forest?”
She smiled faintly. “You said it was yours.”
“It’s the only thing that still is,” he said.
The wind outside softened, turning from a roar to a hush. The quiet wrapped around them again, heavy but tender.
Jun rose to his feet, his shadow tall against the wall. “You should rest. Tomorrow, we will make your papers.”
“My papers?”
“A new name. A new life just for now.”
“And what name will you give me?”
He looked at her for a long time, then said, “The kind of name that doesn’t draw attention.”
“Anonymous,” she teased.
“Safe,” he corrected.
Yuna smiled a small, tired smile. “Then give me a name worth saving.”
For the first time, he allowed himself a smile in return. “We’ll see if you earn it.”
That night, when she finally drifted into sleep, Yuna dreamed of Seoul’s skyline bright and distant and of a man standing beneath a stormtorn sky, reaching out his hand.
When she woke, the candle was still burning, and Jun was asleep by the desk, his coat draped across her shoulders.
For the first time since the crash, she felt something she hadn’t dared to feel.
Not safe.
Not belonging.
Hope.
- Writer
