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Lieutenant Kim Hongjoong tried to never notice when the Hungry Ones were nearby. They never ventured into the trenches, so it was easy to forget their presence in the misery of the flooded dugouts, the rats, the stench and constant cycle of fear and boredom. But they haunted the roads leading away from the front, and everyone walking out to the rest camps knew they had reached a safe distance only when the perverse honor guard of tattered white figures no longer accompanied them. On the march back, the company mood would sour as soon as the first Hungry One was spotted, although no one ever said anything aloud. It was better to pretend they did not exist, that they still remained only in tales to frighten children. To catch their attention was as good as an invitation to dinner, as the joke went.
Even when they were not present, the evidence of their passage could come upon one unexpected—a neat pile of metal in the woods, buttons and buckles and sometimes a ring left like a lonely cairn. If you saw tags, you brought them back and that man was marked on the rolls “presumed dead.” But they all knew there was no presumption, for the Hungry Ones ate everything of a man, from his cap down to his shoes, but left the metal behind for his fellows to find.
Hongjoong blinked awake, and knew he was still alive because he hurt everywhere. He had not thought to open his eyes again, when he let them close after the bullet took him down. But here he lingered, on the fringes of the forest at the far side of no man’s land, his men very dead somewhere behind him, a Boche hopefully dead much nearer. He had gotten a good shot off first, he thought, although the man had been moaning weakly when Hongjoong had faded earlier. Maybe Hongjoong had outlived him, one final victory he could claim.
He turned his head to the side, toward where he thought the German had fallen. Everything was white and black, like scattered splatters of ink across a blotter, the snow and the trees a confusing blur that only came into focus when movement caught his eye.
It was one of the Hungry Ones, the tatters of its cloak spread wide so that only the sprawl of one feldgrau-clad leg could still be seen. Hongjoong smiled, and allowed himself a little malice here at the end. He could die if not happy then at least smug, for he had lasted longer than this final foe, a very pyrrhic victory indeed. He tried to laugh, but it turned into a cough, a rough hack that sent lances of pain through his body and filled his mouth with blood.
Across the way, the Hungry One paused in its activity and turned slowly to face Hongjoong. He braced himself for a visage out of a nightmare, a twisted, gruesome thing made for this twisted, gruesome setting. But the creature gazing at him with the sharp curiosity of a bird was not horrible. It was lovely, smooth faced and dark eyed, with a man's figure and a strange, ungendered beauty unmarred by the filth of its surroundings. Only a bit of red at its lips to mark its recent activity.
"You are so beautiful." Hongjoong felt the words sigh out of his mouth, and did not regret them. No use in avoiding the Hungry One's notice now, and no point in holding his tongue anymore either. The Hungry One flowed closer, the tatters of its shroud flaring about it like the wings of a white crow. It perched beside Hongjoong, bent close to stare at him.
“None of your kind has ever spoken to me before.” The white crow had a man's voice, deep and sonorous, its whispered words shivering across Hongjoong’s skin. Hongjoong hoped his white crow would keep speaking. It would not be a bad last sound to hear, under the bare branches of the winter trees.
“I imagine not,” Hongjoong managed to croak out. "It's considered bad luck to draw your attention. Like issuing an invitation to dinner. But that hardly matters now, does it? Since the table is already set. I do regret that I cannot keep you company, though, now that I have invited you to dine.”
The white crow cocked its head, considering Hongjoong. It touched Hongjoong's neck, fingers as cool as a knife blade against his skin. “Do you want to die?”
“What?” Were they getting philosophical now, a bit of profound conversation before the dinner bell tolled?
But no, the white crow stroked its long fingers down Hongjoong’s neck, across the ache of his collarbone, and continued. “This wound is not fatal in itself, but given enough time you will bleed to death, if that is what you wish. If so, I shall keep you company now and have my meal after.”
Hongjoong gaped at the white crow, wondering if it had been making some kind of joke. Teasing him as he lay bleeding out his life. He found it oddly charming. “If you are giving me the choice, then I would rather not die, actually.”
The white crow pressed harder against the wound in Hongjoong's neck. “I can stop the bleeding here, but you will need the care of your own kind to heal. Tell me where to find you aid, and I will bring you there.”
When Hongjoong’s wound was staunched, packed tight and bound with a bit of the white crow’s own shroud, Hongjoong found himself being lifted by a pair of very strong arms. And Hongjoong was not a large man, but neither was he insubstantial. He did not know how to feel, being cradled to the white crow’s chest so easily.
The trip through no man’s land passed swiftly, for they did not need to hide nor dodge the bullets of either side. No one was ever foolish enough to shoot at the Hungry Ones.
The lack of worry let Hongjoong’s mind focus on other things. He knew he was staring, eyes rapt on the face above him, and the white crow must know it too, for it bent its gaze down and seemed to smile a little at what it saw.
They passed through the mess of barbed wire as if it were a gate swung wide, the white crow’s shroud not catching even once on the cruel metal thorns. And then they were at the parapet, and Hongjoong thought he would be let down, to scramble over the sandbags and back into the familiar bog of the trench. But the white crow did not release him, instead walked over the bags and somehow flowed down into the trench until it was standing regally in the muck as it called for a stretcher.
Hongjoong was at first a little shocked that the white crow knew of such human details, but after all they must hear many things on their rounds of the battlefields.
The men were too afraid at first to move, but then Hongjoong recognized one and called to him, and that seemed to snap them from their spell. Perhaps they had not realized Hongjoong was still alive, half-shrouded as he was by the white crow’s cloak.
When the stretcher arrived, the white crow finally put him down, pressing Hongjoong into the canvas and arranging him as it liked. Finally it nodded and stood to leave. Hongjoong waved farewell, and this seemed to amuse it again, for he swore he saw another smile lurking in the corners of its mouth.
“You may call me Seonghwa,” the white crow told him as it ascended the wall, so smooth in its movement it could have been flying. As if Hongjoong would need to call it anything. As if they would see one another again.