Conservative Love

As soon as I entered the dormitory room, I had to block Briar Churchill’s sonic bomb. Churchill was grandly welcoming me with a smirk, holding a baton in her hand.

I barely managed to deflect her attack by transforming both my arms into duct tape. If it had been an attack meant to truly punish me, my arms would have been torn off.

“Fancy, you’re acting fancy.”

Briar Churchill said, tossing her baton aside. I mumbled as I carefully moved towards the bathroom.

“Many… things happened. So many things that I wonder if I shouldn’t be living like this.”

“What am I to you?”

I paused for a moment at those words. Churchill flopped onto the bed as if annoyed and prattled on.

“I don’t like saying this kind of thing because I seem like someone who finds it bothersome. There was no vow or contract between us, and I know it’s neither elegant nor ideal to meddle in every little thing just because we share a room in such a relationship.”

More than anything else, it doesn’t fit her ‘concept’ of pretending to be ‘indifferent’ to worldly affairs. Jealousy or clingy desires don’t suit the image of herself that Churchill wants to create. But her true nature is neither that cool, nor that indifferent, nor that promiscuous.

Her essence is pure. If there’s any complex part, it’s just rebellion against the world’s attempts to confine her, and thirst for the freedom that any human would naturally want to enjoy. I believed that Briar Churchill was a hard worker to the point of naivety. That’s why I thought she could make her family and this world believe that she was a slightly crazy heretic.

I felt like I was doing something too cruel to her.

Perhaps, she’s just a girl, and I felt like I was trampling on something of hers.

“I don’t care.”

Churchill suddenly said this to me.

“What don’t you care about, Churchill?”

“Call me Briar.”

“Yes, what don’t you care about, Briar?”

“No, call me Bri. Don’t distance yourself. Don’t take even pet names away from me after doing that much with someone else. If I find out that you’re calling her by some nickname like Katyusha, even if it’s somewhere else, even during the act! I…”

“Bri. You’re saying things that don’t match with ‘not caring’ at all right now.”

“What I don’t care about… isn’t about you fooling around promiscuously. Of course I care about that. I can’t help but care. What I don’t care about is something else. You breaking me. If there’s any purity or chastity left in me, you, who are already as defiled as can be, taking it, breaking it. Tasting and swallowing it. I don’t care about such things at all.”

“Maybe I’m not as defiled as can be, but just a human who was dirty from the start.”

“There’s no femme fatale without a backstory. Even Delilah who cut Samson’s hair.”

“I don’t want to cut your hair. I don’t want to take your power or destroy you either.”

“Then at least let me believe that.”

“How?”

“Catherine Duey is a dangerous fool. I spoke lightly last time, but she’s strange. She acts like there’s something she cherishes more than herself, and behaves as if she can offer herself as a means without any hesitation. Yes, you’re the same. That’s why I’m uneasy. Because it seems like you’d get along better with such a crazy woman than with me. Because it seems like you’d only suit a woman who can use even herself as a means, I’m scared.”

“Bri, do you love yourself?”

“I like myself. You don’t seem to like yourself very much, though.”

“Actually, I like myself now.”

“Now, you say?”

“Because I feel like I can do something now. The feeling of helplessness, as if I couldn’t do anything, is somehow disappearing.”

That was an unadorned truth. There were times when I thought taking that drug was a curse or bondage. But perhaps it was liberation.

There were so many things that Yoon Jae-won couldn’t do. But what was the biggest among the many things Jae-won couldn’t do? Freedom of residence? That wasn’t much. For work reasons, I traveled to numerous places from Tokyo in the Far East to western Ukraine, and although there were some restrictions, I carried out my missions as I wished without much interference.

Politics? I wasn’t interested in the first place. Sex? I’ve done plenty because of work. What I didn’t have was choice, and among that, the freedom to choose people. The freedom to choose the people I had to approach. The freedom to decide how to distance myself from the chosen people.

Guangzhou’s strict security cut me off from Washington, and only after being cut off did I realize that the right to choose was entrusted to me.

It was a coincidence and an external constraint that Churchill and I became roommates. But embracing her in my arms without any mission-related purpose was my will and choice.

That was a first. Unlike mission-related contacts, my relationship with Bri had another deep meaning for me.

And if my freedom of movement is gradually more guaranteed, even if limitedly like this.

I thought that perhaps I could come to love Shin Eun-young more than the shattered Yoon Jae-won. It was Bri who made it possible for me to love Shin Eun-young. I wasn’t originally the same kind of person as Catherine Duey, and even if there were some similarities, Bri made it possible for me to overcome that.

I felt a desire to make her understand that. I wanted to make her understand that even a shameless person like me, who loves several women at the same time, can have something special for someone.

“What… do you want from me, Bri?”

“Promise me.”

“Yes, tell me.”

“Promise me that you’d rather protect this world than destroy it.”

I was momentarily at a loss for words. We were in the middle of talking about romance, and I didn’t expect this kind of topic to come up again. But I could somewhat guess why she was saying this. Briar Churchill, seeing me frozen in surprise, continued speaking.

“When I look at you, I see a broken person. I told you I’m good at reading people. If a broken person doesn’t even desire revenge, eight or nine out of ten are people who have started to resent the world because they can’t even find an object for revenge. The remaining one or two might be sages who have gained enlightenment and let go of all attachments.”

“…”

“But the real danger of those eight or nine people is… they want to take revenge on the world, but they’ve given up because they lack the power. They’ve put everything down, concluding they can’t do it, and they’re mistaken in thinking they’ve become sages, that they’ve gained enlightenment. Eun-young, you’re broken. Definitely broken. So I can’t resent you for breaking and shattering me. No matter how much my chastity breaks, it won’t break as much as you’re broken, so what’s the point in blaming you? But, promise me. If that satisfies you, don’t go any further.”

“…Bri.”

“You’ve gained power. You’ve become close with Zhou Lizhi, you’ve even become intimate with Duey, and you’re strong yourself. You’ve gained connections, so I’m scared to see you gaining power. I’m afraid your desire for revenge might awaken. That you might start wanting to break the world.”

Duey’s ambition whirled in my head.

Zhou Lizhi’s aspiration stirred violently in my brain.

Zhou dreams of breaking China.

Duey craves for the glory of her homeland. Even if it requires the blood of tens of millions, hundreds of millions, she wants that pentagon-shaped piece of land where she was born to be restored as the center of the world again.

These are all ambitions and desires that can only be achieved by breaking the world. But this one woman who gave me a clue to love myself…

“I love this world.”

…was saying this.

“I love this world as much as I love myself. Promise me. That you won’t fight to break this world. That if you fight, it will be to protect the world, not to break it.”

“…”

“The reason I readily agreed to follow you guys to Beiping is actually because of that.”

Should I promise? I want to say readily that I will. I want to say that now, even if not as much as you, I want this world to be maintained as it is.

I want to confess that I cursed in front of Duey who casually talks about World War, and that I want to prevent this world and this system from collapsing.

But the moment I opened my mouth to say those words, flames once again draped before my eyes.

Those flames that took away my family, that took away everything I loved.

The flames of conflict between two camps. Those flames that became the fundamental cause of the terrorism that killed everyone. Those flames that became the cause of the war crisis, this world, this humanity.

That kind of flame covered my eyes and blocked my mouth.

I couldn’t promise Briar Churchill that I too wanted to protect this world.