Chapter 1 - An Unemployed Young Man Rings In the New Year

In my eighth year as a reservist, on the day I was about to throw away my uniform, the final emergency call-up text went out to the Republic of Korea’s reservists.

--

January 1, 2028. A new year had dawned.

It was a fresh start for me, Baek Je-min, a young man forced into the ranks of the economically inactive when my company went under two months earlier.

To greet the first morning of the year, I threw open the window I normally barely bothered opening for ventilation and took a feather duster to every corner of my apartment.

"Haaack! Keh, kah!"

A clump of dust floated straight into my mouth and gave me a hard time, but I refused to back down. I had resolved to clean diligently in the new year.

Next, I put more effort than usual into wiping down the floors.

Normally, I just gave the visible spots a quick once-over with wet wipes, but this was New Year’s Day. I moved all the furniture out of the way, ready to wipe down every nook and cranny.

The one unfortunate detail was that I had no rag to wipe anything with.

In the end, since Daiso wasn’t open, the grubbiest-looking towel I owned was promoted to cleaning rag.

Once I finished cleaning and enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee, it was time to sort through the clothes piled in the corner of my wardrobe.

The plaid button-down? I’d worn it because my mother had bought it for me, but after six years, the collar was frayed to shreds. Even she would have told me to throw it out on sight.

Those antiquated jeans that needed a belt? In 2025, I had encountered the revolutionary invention known as elastic-waist jeans.

Just slip your legs in and pull the drawstring like you were tightening the belt of a taekwondo uniform, and they hugged your waist snugly. With such wonderful pants available, why bother buckling on some clanking belt?

Ankle socks? I’d bought those back when they were trendy, only to stash them away because my shoes rubbed against my Achilles tendons and stung like hell.

There was far more useless stuff than I’d expected.

Like a maple shedding its leaves in preparation for a fresh look, I swept my old clothes into plastic bags.

Then I found something that was bound to stir up regret and nostalgia.

Something I had carefully kept despite all my resentment toward it.

"Ugh. Finally getting rid of this godforsaken stuff."

My combat uniform and boots.

I’d gotten them fitted when I was discharged, and only now, eight years later, was I throwing them out. Having been discharged in January, I had the unpleasant feeling that I’d served an extra year in the reserves.

Of course, when I first strode out wearing them on discharge day, I’d felt invincible. But now, after civilian life had repeatedly forced its bitter medicine down my throat, the uniform and boots had become dead weight I had to lug around every time I moved.

My friends had said I could throw them out starting in my seventh year, but I’d chickened out and told myself it was too much trouble. Only now was I finally doing it.

I deliberately fetched a separate, extra-large plastic bag, put the boots inside, and looked down at them with a mixture of love and hate.

Then a thought made me blink.

"Come to think of it, this is a combat uniform. Can I really just chuck it out?"

I’d been planning to stuff it into a clothing donation bin, but changed my mind.

I picked up my phone and searched. Sure enough, I had to remove the shoulder insignia, name tag, and everything else, then cut it in half and put it in an official pay-as-you-throw garbage bag, or return it to the local reserve unit.

The problem was that I’d just run out of those garbage bags.

Apparently, the boots could go straight in, but I gave up. Seeing the uniform left behind all alone would make me feel strangely unsettled.

Even straw sandals have their mates, as the saying goes, and a combat uniform and boots were clearly a pair. Sending them off together was one thing, but I didn’t want to put them in separate garbage bags.

Such was the boundless sensitivity of Baek Je-min.

"Ah, screw it. Whatever."

I’d dicked around enough.

New Year’s resolutions, my ass. How was I supposed to deal with this hassle on January 1, a precious public holiday and my birthday?

With my January 1 birthday, I, Baek Je-min, had now turned twenty-eight even by international age. As an unemployed young man taking a break from work, every day was a holiday, but even we had our pride.

Sleeping while other people worked and playing while other people played—that was how a young man on a career break lived.

Work while other people played and sleep while they slept? What kind of career break was that? That was being a hardworking young man.

I shoved the bag containing my bundled-up uniform and boots back into the corner of the wardrobe and resumed cleaning. Even with just the clothes I could dump straight into the donation bin, the bags were heavy, so I decided to make several trips.

I wasn’t stupid enough to try lugging everything over in one go.

What did I, Baek Je-min, an unemployed young man, have in abundance? Time.

If spending more time meant suffering less, that was the rational choice.

After three or four trips between the clothing donation bin and my studio apartment, I could feel the building manager watching me from a distance as he smoked, his gaze full of pity.

I answered it with a sunny smile and a greeting.

"Happy New Year!"

"Good grief. Yeah, happy New Year. Hope everything works out for you."

Once I’d put the furniture back in place, the sight of my clean studio filled me with an oddly unwarranted pride.

All I’d actually done was clean, but it felt like I’d accomplished something tremendous.

Savoring that curious sense of satisfaction, I sat down at my computer.

"Living with purpose and doing things right from January first. What a great start."

It was time to reward myself for so splendidly fulfilling my New Year’s resolution.

I’d only been on this career break for two months.

I wasn’t some long-term layabout who’d been left to rot for years. At just two months, I was still a fresh-faced, bright-eyed newcomer.

Smiling contentedly at this rare sense of achievement, I logged into Discord, and the veteran layabouts already waiting there switched on their mics.

["Happy New Year."]

["Happy New Year, Je-min."]

"Yeah. Happy New Year, everyone."

But nobody knew politics and current affairs quite like us veteran layabouts permanently glued to Discord. Our idle small talk quickly shifted to the hottest topic of late.

["Anyway, apparently that fog in Seoul keeps getting thicker. Visibility’s already down to around thirty meters in some places. People are even saying they ought to designate Restricted-Access Zones."]

"We’re not in Seoul. You live in Gyeonggi Province. Why do you care so much about Seoul?"

["You should still keep up with current affairs, Je-min. Besides, nobody knows what’s causing this fog. They’re saying it could reach Gyeonggi Province, too. And some places have already been designated Restricted-Access Zones."]

"I’m just saying, what’s the point of talking about something when nobody’s got any real answers? So what, have they figured out the cause?"

The subject of all this was a strange fog that had reportedly begun creeping up in parts of Seoul around late November 2027.

It really was fog.

Not frost forming on surfaces, but that damp, clammy sort of fog. Lately, it had been rising all over Seoul’s streets, driving people’s anxiety to the breaking point.

Naturally, the weather agency and assorted experts had started appearing in the media, offering calm, plausible explanations.

According to them, this was a localized phenomenon confined to small areas, brought about by climate change on the Korean Peninsula. Actual temperatures were growing milder despite how cold it felt, while humidity was rising.

Of course, this plausible-sounding claim did nothing to stitch the public’s already shredded common sense back together.

Nor was it easy to bridge the gap between my veteran-layabout friends’ views and those of a newcomer like me.

At least we could still have a conversation.

["Remember those trucks that used to drive around spraying clouds of insecticide? Maybe that’s what they’re doing. Some kind of deadly pest got into the country, and they’re trying to exterminate it."]

["Then they should tell us what the pest is first. I’m telling you, this is one hundred percent some kind of experiment. Mix in tiny doses of something like an antipsychotic, get people hooked gradually, and you know what happens next, right?"]

["Hey, why am I the only one you talk to like that?"]

["Because we’re close. Je-min and I aren’t there yet."]

Listening to the bastard just waiting for his chance to drop the respectful address and start calling me “hey, you,” I vowed never to get any closer to him.

Still, this was tame by comparison.

Whenever I browsed around to see if there was any new development or incident involving the fog, nine times out of ten there was a fight raging in the comments.

The deep state had finally begun population control. North Korea or China was waging biochemical warfare, but the government had already been infiltrated and was covering up the truth. It was a scheme to lower Seoul housing prices. Climate change itself was a lie, so how could it explain the fog? This was proof of climate change, so we needed greener policies...

In the end, everyone had already reached their own conclusion.

And this was the conclusion I, Baek Je-min, had reached.

"So why should we Gyeonggi residents worry about people in Seoul? Come on, just boot up the game."

Of course, that wasn’t my real conclusion.

Mine concerned something more fundamental.

After two months spent rolling around doing nothing, I’d come to realize that at this rate, I’d turn into a full-fledged veteran layabout myself and spend years idling away.

I had no time to think about some fog.

Not until I stayed up gaming into the early hours of the following morning, anyway.

* * *

BZZZZ.

A loud vibration cuts through my headset.

My eyes hollow from downing a can of Monster and staying up all night, I blinked slowly and asked,

"What is it?"

["You’ve got a phone too, dumbass."]

"Don’t want to look away from the monitor."

["Nothing much. A notice about Restricted-Access Zones because of the Seoul fog. You know, an emergency alert."]

"Fucking hell."

We were more than two hours from Seoul. Why did they have to make every smartphone in Gyeonggi Province buzz with an emergency alert?

I checked the time just in case. It was 4:53 a.m.

January 2. Righteous indignation welled up in me at the thought of all the countless Gyeonggi residents who’d gone to bed preparing for work, still basking in the sweetness of the holiday.

Then words slammed into my ears, sweeping away every trace of drowsiness.

["Je-min. I think it’s serious this time."]

"What is?"

["They’ve confirmed murders in places designated Restricted-Access Zones because of the fog. Apparently, the bodies were somewhat decomposed. And they’ve already counted over two hundred missing-person reports filed in the past two months. People are saying Seoul’s police force can’t handle it alone anymore."]

There was an audible gulp.

Someone had swallowed on the other end of the headset.

Without realizing it, I turned to look out the window for no particular reason.

["A leak says someone in the National Assembly proposed deploying troops to maintain order, and the other side started arguing, asking if they were planning a coup or manufacturing a crisis. But that was a month ago. They’re already pulling soldiers out to assist the police under the pretext of civilian volunteer work, and people are still saying there aren’t enough police."]

["What a fucking shitshow."]

Outside the window, the light was still dim.

I didn’t live in one of Gyeonggi Province’s urban centers, but somewhere relatively remote. Aside from the streetlights, there was little to see, with hardly any cars passing. The town center was ten minutes away, but it was quiet at this hour.

While everyone else slept, only my room—the room of an unemployed young man—was lit.

["But apparently, this time the National Assembly even discussed mobilizing reservists without much argument. That part’s still just an unsourced rumor, though..."]

"What fucking reservists? That’s not happening."

["Yeah. It’s not like there’s a war. Why the hell would they mobilize reservists? They’d have to have a bullet in the brain."]

"Does it even make sense to call up reservists just because Seoul’s got a little fog? That’s pure bullshit."

["Guys, that’s why I said it was a rumor. It just shows how serious the fog problem is. They’ve already restricted access to places where it’s so thick the CCTV cameras can’t get a proper image."]

It happened around then.

A heavy rumbling reached me from the dimness outside, amid the occasional passing cars. A convoy of military trucks came into view on the road.

Three deuce-and-a-halves drove through the predawn darkness in a line, their rear compartments wide open to view.

Even from my second-floor studio, I could clearly see the soldiers packed in like bean sprouts, helmets on, carrying full kit and rifles, swaying listlessly with every jolt.

RATTLE, RATTLE!

The distinctive, unpleasant noise of military trucks lingered faintly beneath everything, reaching me even through my headset.

It wasn’t loud or sharp like a horn, but it seemed to press heavily against a corner of my heart.

Feeling a strange unease and relief at the same time, I turned back to the monitor.

"Right. We’ve got our young, valiant active-duty boys. Why would they need reservists too? Us old reservists don’t need a deuce-and-a-half. Hell, I’d feel bad even making someone carry me off on a pack frame. I’ll walk to the back room and stay out of the way."

Reflexively, I checked the time.

5:03 a.m.

Nothing else happened.

Our group broke up amid an awkward silence. No longer in the mood to mess around on the computer, I lay down on my fresh, dry mattress.

Before falling asleep, I decided to pray to anyone who might be listening, even though I didn’t believe in any particular god.

Please, if you’re going to mobilize the reservists, do it next year.

* * *

Then came January 6.

And I, Baek Je-min, found myself heading to the local reserve unit in the very combat uniform and boots I’d been so eager to throw away.

As I stood blankly in front of the crosswalk, a man in a sloppily sagging combat uniform slouched about on the opposite side, wearing an expression that said everything in the world was too much trouble.

Looked like he was heading to the convenience store behind me for cigarettes.

I understood how he felt.

I raised the smartphone in my hand, feeling utterly defeated.

["Following the outbreak of unrest across Seoul caused by the fog, the administration, despite fierce opposition, requested that the National Assembly approve a mobilization order... The National Assembly, in turn, imposed a temporary condition limiting its duration to the resolution of Seoul’s economic paralysis..."]

My eighth year as a reservist.

The final reserve duty of my life had arrived.