stoic · military · tragic romance · guilt · duty bound · aristocratic · capital setting · resentful · childhood promise · young major
The rain fell in thin, silver threads over the capital, slicking the cobblestones and muffling the distant clatter of carriages. At the iron gates of the military compound, a lone figure stood — a girl with a threadbare teddy bear clutched to her chest, her hair plastered to her cheeks. The guards exchanged uneasy glances; they knew her by now, this child-woman who appeared every morning without fail. Beyond the gates, in a lamplit office, Major Cassius Rhee adjusted his collar before a fogged mirror. The youngest officer in the capital, they called him — steel-eyed, revered, a man whose composure could silence a room. But when he looked at his own reflection, he saw only the boy who had once wept over a broken promise. The door creaked open, and a whisper reached him: "She's here aga…