A bolt from the blue struck without warning.
Im Cheong-ha, who had four white, runway-like stripes on her shoulders, was still staring at her phone in confusion before hurriedly hiding it behind her back.
“You blind fool, what are you going to do later in life if you have such terrible powers of observation?”
The Training Officer slammed the file down with an exasperated expression.
“Are you some kind of private investigator?”
“You’re not just a cadet; you’re the Honorary Chairwoman with disciplinary authority!”
“And someone in your position sneaks around a motel parking lot to take pictures as evidence?”
“Who told you to do something so undignified?”
“……”
“Damn it, no matter how you look at it, secretly taking pictures is crossing the line……!”
Even beneath the Training Officer’s furious shouting, Cheong-ha remained completely dazed.
Cheong-ha.
Let’s get married again in our next life.
This time, I won’t kill you.
Those three lines alone had left behind an enormous shockwave.
The more she thought about them, the stranger they became.
‘“Again in our next life” means we were already married, doesn’t it?’
And ‘“This time, I won’t kill you”’ meant that he had already killed her before, didn’t it?
Cheong-ha’s eyes wandered uncertainly.
“Does it make any sense to fight disgrace with even more disgrace, Cadet Im Cheong-ha?”
“That’s…… my job, isn’t it?”
Having barely managed to collect herself, Cheong-ha looked at the photograph sticking out from beneath the file.
A male cadet carrying a freshman under his arm and walking into a motel……
Her eyes twitched, and her expression instantly became stubborn.
As expected, love was a social evil.
“No!!”
The Training Officer shot to his feet, knocking over his chair with a loud crash.
“You’re only supposed to take reports from the students……!”
“Why on earth are you calling this stalking?!”
“It wasn’t stalking.”
“I happened to go to that neighborhood and witnessed it.”
“As if you just happened to wander into a motel district!”
“What’s so special about coincidence?”
“What am I supposed to do when people who can’t even control themselves keep catching my attention?”
“You blind fool……”
The Training Officer snorted.
Cheong-ha bit down firmly on her lower lip.
Why wasn’t he praising her?
She had actually accomplished something this time.
“This guy should be disciplined.”
Her clear, unwavering voice was as straight and orderly as the badges pinned to her left chest for academic excellence, physical excellence, training excellence, and so on.
From her tuition fees to the monthly living allowance she received, everything was funded by the people’s taxes.
Using that money to go to a motel was something that simply could not, and should not, happen.
Cheong-ha straightened her back.
Just this year alone, seven cadets had been placed under disciplinary restriction for engaging in undisclosed relationships, while one had received an extended disciplinary restriction.
Just last year, a senior who rented a room near the school and lived with his girlfriend every weekend had been expelled.
“Who in their right mind dates at a military academy?”
“You get killed if you date someone.”
Cheong-ha made a sharp motion across her neck with her finger.
Complaints that such rules were outdated came up every year, but there was nothing she could do about it.
Because this place was—
“No, you blind fool!”
“Don’t trust those eyes of yours!”
The Air Force Academy was a place where the so-called Three Prohibitions—no alcohol, no smoking, and no marriage—still stood like a disciplinary cane, naturally making sex forbidden as well.
“I’m sorry, Cadet Im Cheong-ha, but you are blind.”
“You do not have the eyes of a hawk.”
“Don’t get confused.”
“You’re supposed to sit quietly, receive reports from students with a conscience, and simply write them down in the dating ledger!”
The Training Officer raised his voice in frustration.
“With that ridiculous sixth sense of yours, there isn’t even any credibility left for you to lose!”
Cheong-ha’s shoulders flinched.
How exemplary and honorable had she lived in order to become the Honorary Chairwoman in charge of disciplinary action?
She had steadfastly walked the path of a traitor, the kind everyone whispered about and pointed fingers at.
Whenever she witnessed an illegal act by a cadet, she reported it.
Again and again.
Whenever her hawk-like eyes detected even the slightest romantic tension between two people, she immediately ran to the Training Officer.
If a cadet seemed to give a junior less of a hard time during training or the intensity of their training seemed weaker than usual, that was powerful evidence that they had a lover.
She never let anyone who disrupted discipline off the hook, and the resentment of her fellow cadets accumulated beyond control.
How many budding romances had she ruined just because someone held hands?
How many couples had she torn apart because their eyes seemed suspicious?
She had even been called things like “emotionally starved,” “incapable of feeling,” and “public enemy number one,” but she never cared and continued taking them down.
But I’m serious.
My instincts really were spot-on……
“No, Cheong-ha.”
“You completely jumped to the wrong conclusion this time too……”
The Training Officer sighed wearily and lightly tapped the photograph sticking out from the file.
“This isn’t a secret relationship.”
“I heard they had already broken up.”
“……What?”
“The atmosphere you thought was romantic tension was actually just the awkwardness between two people who had broken up.”
“It wasn’t a spark.”
The Training Officer let out another deep sigh.
“Our Honorary Chairwoman would have to have dated someone herself to know the difference.”
At those added words, Cheong-ha’s face flushed bright red.
Being treated so blatantly like an idiot made her ears burn.
“They broke up, but they went to a motel?”
“Has our school’s sexual discipline really fallen that far?”
“……No.”
“The one who broke up was the younger brother.”
“The one dating her now is the older brother.”
“What?”
For a moment, her thoughts completely stopped, and she merely blinked.
“The person you suspected had already broken up with her.”
“The one who entered the motel with her this time was his older brother.”
“……”
“I know.”
“Everyone had trouble telling them apart when they entered the academy together.”
Only then did Cheong-ha’s jaw drop open.
Ah…… damn……!
As expected, love was a social evil.
‘The wars of the future will belong to those who control the skies.’
—So said General Noh Baek-rin, the father of the Air Force.
“The bugle call of reveille awakens me, the thunderous roar awakens the entire nation, beneath the deep blue sky, white streaks, today again we live in the sky, this is my home, the place where I stake my life, stretching endlessly before us, the dream of the Boramae—”
As she walked along the ginkgo-lined path, Cheong-ha passed the new cadets being put through drills while singing a military song.
For some reason, her mind was such a mess that she felt she might stumble awkwardly if she made even the slightest misstep.
The most difficult military academy to enter among the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
The people who performed the most dangerous jobs in the entire military.
Fighter jets that crashed at an average rate of one every four months.
A higher fatality rate in the line of duty than in other countries.
And so……
The Air Force Academy was a place where every class had cadets who had died in crashes.
“The rumbling roar of a sortie shakes the earth, the thunderous explosions echo and guard the sky, today we rise again and fly, high into that sky—”
Cheong-ha ignored the phone that had been ringing for quite some time.
Despite that, the missed calls from her father continued piling up relentlessly, and they had now surpassed ten.
“Phew……”
Even while standing still, she was short of breath.
Born into a military family with three generations of academy graduates, and raised under a father who was a senior-ranking officer aiming for four stars, she had always been required to prove herself.
When she was young, it had been through academics.
Then it had been following the same path as her father.
Now, it was through maintaining an honorable life at the military academy.
What had the Training Officer said again?
“Ugh……”
If I make one more mistake……
Did he say I would have to give up my position as Honorary Chairwoman?
Her previously flawless stride came to an abrupt stop.
“What am I going to do……?”
If she could no longer serve as Honorary Chairwoman, she would not receive the conduct points that came with the position.
She had already fallen behind during several summer training sessions, and her grades had remained stubbornly in second place.
If she lost the chairwoman position on top of all that—
First place at graduation would slip even farther away from her, and people might even discover that she was actually nothing special.
“……”
Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew.
The loose strands of Cheong-ha’s hair fluttered from the training aircraft that had taken off from the nearby flight training squadron.
She tilted her head back as far as she could to follow the huge roar of the engine, then became completely mesmerized.
A trail as though someone had drawn a white pencil straight across the blue sky.
Her eyes widened greedily as they relentlessly followed the aircraft high above.
There was no question that the Air Force determined the initial outcome of modern warfare.
Elite personnel capable of destroying more than 150 targets deemed worthy of bombing.
They were attackers who fought against gravity, and the only humans capable of flying through the sky.
After all, from beginning to end, every war was brought forth by fighter jets.
That was why she wanted to become a pilot.
If she could leave all the troublesome things behind on this earth, squeeze herself into a narrow cockpit, and fly freely through the open sky, how liberating would it be……?
If everyone looked up to me…….
If everyone admired me—
『Cheong-ha. Let’s get married again in our next life.』
“Ahhh!!”
She violently shook her head at the voice that had unconsciously surfaced in her mind.
The pilot who was falling to his death had called my name!
This was no time to be standing around like this.
She needed to look into that first.
Cheong-ha immediately turned around and hurried down the long flight of stairs.
Then, at the sound of military boots echoing against the ground, she instinctively turned her gaze.
