Pweet! Pweet! Pweet!
“One!”
Pweet! Pweet! Pweet!
“Two!”
Pweet! Pweet! Pweet!
“Three!”
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Pweet! Pweet! Pweet!
“Twenty!”
“Do not put your feet down….oh, it’s fine.”
The guy stared at my form in shock.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“No, sir!”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir!”
The instructor’s mouth fell open as he continued to watch me. Well, I don’t blame him though. We just did the PT 8 exercise twenty times without me faltering. Not to mention, the squat-jumps I had done before this. Those cruel bastards.
“Okay, well…again…oh wait, let’s have a short break.”
At that, I lowered my legs. Ah, much better. To be honest, I’m barely holding on as it is. My body may be that of a girl, but it’s stronger than you’d think. The fact that I’m tired just shows you how difficult this particular drill is.
“It’ll be an effective torture method,” I muttered to myself.
The instructor, who was bothering me before, was now taking the safety harness off of one of the girls. In the distance, I could see Joo-ran jump down from the instant tower and it was anything but graceful. I stared at the referee officer. He kept checking the safety harnesses of the other participants. Is he chalking the helmet incident up to pure coincidence? He better not be. Anyways, the other girls finished the course one by one. The first part was now complete. No one had failed.
***
The next part was rope climbing. It was a dizzying sight to be honest. They hung a rope from one cliff to the other. Not to mention, the drop was deep and steep. My guess was about 10 meters. We were going to have safety harnesses again, but it still looked nerve-wracking.
“I don’t think I can do this, Sian,” Heejin said, shaking her head. Sadly, she had to.
“You have to.”
“But…”
I grabbed Heejin’s hand to calm her down. Just then, the tanned instructor spoke up.
“We will resume after lunch.”
“Whew…” Heejin let out a sigh of relief. The MREs were passed out.
“Don’t you have newer ones?” Heejin asked.
Wow, so she even knew how to tell the difference between old and new MREs. She really did her research.
“We had some of the old ones left, so we are eating those first. They’re passing out the new ones for the real soldiers, if you’d like to join them that is.”
“No, that’s okay,” Heejin said meekly. She took her MRE and began to open the bag.
“It’s braised saury.”
Looking inside the bag, it actually looked pretty good. I took the rice and mixed it with the fish, shoving spoonful after spoonful into my mouth. I’ve never had saury that tasted this good. The bones just melted in my mouth…wow…if there was one complaint, it’d be that it was quite a small amount….the worst thing, really. This sucks. Isn’t the food supposed to be unlimited…?
“I can’t eat anymore. My stomach hurts….” I heard Heejin say.
Suddenly, she pushed her kimchi fried rice and tofu MRE towards me. The sight of it made me happy, but I stopped. I couldn’t take food from Heejin.
“No, Heejin. You need to eat. Otherwise, you’ll pass out.”
“I feel like I’m going to throw up. You should eat it, Sian.”
“Hmmm…”
On the one hand, this was great for me! On the other hand…
“If you won’t eat it, I will,” Soomin said. She reached out to take the bag, but I snatched it towards myself…only to put it back down again. How could I be so selfish? A feeling of shame came over me.
“Go ahead,” I said, handing over the bag to Soomin. Her face brightened.
‘Sigh…I want to have some.’
No, Sian. Don’t be super greedy.
After lunch, it was back to training.
“Now, before we begin, we will do warm-up drill no. 3. Everyone, in position for PT 3!”
“Yes, sir!”
We all got into position for PT 3, except for Jae-yoon, who got into position for PT 2. Needless to say, she was called out for that.
“You! Penalty!”
“Yes, sir!”
For Jae-yoon, the penalty was to do PT 8. For the rest of us, it was PT 3. Suddenly, the tanned instructor was in front of me.
“What’s wrong with your form, Officer Lee? Penalty!”
“….”
What was he talking about? My position was perfect. And he was punishing me from that? Well, if he says so, then what could I do? I went over to lay down next to Jae-yoon and began to do the PT 8 exercises along with her. I bet I’ve done a hundred of these by now.
Still, throughout the whole thing, I never once faltered, or showed any sign of my energy falling. And that really confused the instructors.
Anyways, it was now time to climb the rope.
“Ugh, my legs.”
I massaged my thighs. Still, it wasn’t that bad.
First, the instructors showed us how to do it. The tanned instructor was really good. He simply leaned into the rope and pulled himself up using only his arms. It was like he was born to be a soldier. After the tanned instructor’s demonstration, Heejin was the first to go. She gripped onto the rope and hooked her left foot under it. Then, her right. Then, she put all of her strength into her arms and pulled! But, instead of going up, she simply spun downwards, making her look like a sad little chicken.
“Hnnng!…”
The instructor brought Heejin down, then helped her onto the rope again. And start! This time, she managed to go up maybe about two meters before she stopped. She just hung there, like a sad chicken on a spit. She tried to climb up some more, but to no avail. She made the mistake of looking down and gave a small yelp of surprise. There is netting, but the fall was deep. I’m sure from Heejin’s perspective, it looked downright terrifying.
“Don’t look down!” the instructor shouted. Heejin looked up. At this point, that was all she could do.
“Oneward!” the instructor shouted.
Heejin slowly began to inch her way upward, but really slowly. Not only that, she seemed to be losing her grip on the rope. I think her strength was failing her, but she kept her hold and continued on. After about 3 minutes, when she reached the first branch, it was now my turn.
“Officer Lee, are you ready?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Then start!”
“Yes, sir!”
I began to climb. Initially, I spun around like a duck as well. But I managed to get myself to the first branch and pulled myself up. I grabbed the fabric tied around the rope. After that, the rest was easy. I was reaching Heejin at an alarming speed. Unfortunately, in the distance, I could see the referee officer deliberately shaking the rope and before I knew it, I was hanging upside down.
Thwang.
“Shit.”
Of course, I was fine. I pulled myself back up and started once more. The officer tried to shake the rope again, but I had already grabbed onto the fabric, which meant I wasn’t going anywhere. I managed to reach Heejin safely.
“Heejin, you okay?”
Heejin remained in her spot, shaking, like a scared chicken on a spot.
“I’m scared…sniff sniff.”
I could tell that Heejin was crying. That drove my protective instincts into gear.
“Do you think you can go forward?”
“I…I don’t have any more strength in my arms…sniff sniff…”
“Hmm…”
I looked over my shoulder. Jae-yoon was now shimmying up the rope and she too, was barely hanging on. This is undoubtedly a difficult exercise for girls to do since they have lower upper body strength than boys do.
“What should we do?”
Good question. This is difficult.
“What are you doing? Onwards!” The referee officer began to shout at Heejin.
“Ugh. Forget it.”
I sat on the rope and began to undo the safety harness. The instructors immediately began to protest.
“Officer Lee! What are you doing?”
“Stop!”
But their shouts were too late. I had already ditched the harness and was now on top of the rope. I criss-crossed my feet until I was in front of Heejin. If I continued on without her, she’d probably be upset. So, I got down on the rope again. I reached down and pulled Heejin upwards.
Chuk.
Heejin moved up, but she couldn’t grab onto the center. And so, I grabbed onto her collar and took hold of the center so she wouldn’t fall. Then, I squatted down and began to go sideways, all the while holding onto Heejin by the nape of her neck. It certainly looked odd. Everyone stared, obviously wondering if I’d fall. But to me, that didn’t matter. There was netting after all. Besides, there’s no way I’d fall. I’m Sian Lee, after all. The best warrior!
We continued on until we finally reached the final branch. The referee officer stood there, staring at us, tilting his head this way and that way, wondering if he had just witnessed what he’d seen correctly.
***
After the shocking turn of events during the rope-climbing, the jump training ended rather smoothly. Also, we couldn’t do the fourth drill because of lack of time. We spent too much time on the rope-climbing portion.
“Everyone! In line!”
At the referee officer’s command, we all stood in a line. Now that training was over, it was time to eat.
“Excuse me, Sir?” I said, raising my hand. The officer went stiff.
“Y-yes?”
I tilted my head at that. What’s with the sudden polite tone?
“W-what is it, O-officer Lee?” he said after clearing his throat.
“What’s for dinner today?”
“Army burger.”
“Wow!” I gasped. Everyone else did as well. An army burger? I’ve always wanted to try one.
“Next time, don’t ask questions like that,” the referee officer said. I nodded. But seriously, what’s with him? Why was he so polite all of the sudden? Is it because of what he saw during the rope-climbing course earlier?
I called out to him again.
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“Ye…yes?”
The guy went stiff again as he looked at me. I smirked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Ahem. Now, to the mess hall!”
“Aren’t we going to do the military song?” I asked, raising my hand again.
“N-no. L-let’s go!”
We followed the officer to the mess hall. The idea of eating the army burger made me excited. It will be unlimited, right? I cheered at the thought.
We went to the mess hall. Sure enough, we were allowed to eat as much as we wanted. And tonight was our last night here. After the shooting practice tomorrow morning, we would leave. The days sure flew by quickly.
“Hmm…can I start with four buns, four bottles, four strawberry jams, four mustard sauce packages, and a large pile of salad? Oh, and four milk cartons, please.”
I looked at all of the food piled on the tray and began to think.
“Am I missing something?”
“Sian! The egg,” Heejin said, pointing out the hard-boiled eggs to me.
“Oh yeah! The egg!”
Now I knew what was missing. I took eight hard-boiled eggs and put them on my tray. My gas is going to outdo Heejin’s after this. It’s Heejin’s turn to suffer. Do you know how bad it was for me during the night because of her? It’s like she forgot there were other people sleeping in the room with her. The farts she would let out in the night were so bad…the amount of times she farted at the crack of dawn is almost terrifying. Nonetheless, I’ll get my revenge tonight.
We all sat around a table and began to eat our last military dinner. I stuffed my mouth with salad and milk and so on, allowing myself to get lost in the food.
