On the day I, an eighth-year reservist, was about to throw away my uniform, the final emergency summons for the Republic of Korea's Reserve Forces was issued.
**
January 1st, 2028, a new year had dawned.
Two months ago, the company I worked for went bankrupt, forcibly turning me into an unemployed youth. This was a new beginning for me, Baek Jemin.
Greeting the new year's morning, I threw open the windows I rarely bothered to air out and beat the dust out of every nook and cranny of my home.
"Hegh-! *Cough, hack!*"
I choked on a clump of dust that floated right into my mouth, but I didn't back down, having resolved to clean thoroughly for the new year.
Next, I mopped the floors more diligently than usual.
Usually, I'd just give the visible spots a quick wipe with a wet tissue, but since it was the new year, I was prepared to move all the furniture and wipe down every corner.
The only unfortunate thing was that I didn't have a rag for mopping.
In the end, because Daiso was closed, the grimiest-looking towel I owned became a rag.
After cleaning, I leisurely enjoyed a cup of coffee, and then it was time to sort through the clothes piled up in the corner of my closet.
A plaid button-down shirt? I wore it because my mother bought it for me, but after six years, the collar was so frayed and tattered that even she would have told me to throw it out immediately.
Old-fashioned jeans that required a belt? In 2025, I had encountered a new marvel of civilization called elastic waistband jeans. Why would I bother with a clunky belt when I could just slip my legs into these amazing pants and tighten them with a simple pull, just like a Taekwondo belt?
Ankle socks? I bought a pair once when they were trendy, only to find they made my Achilles tendon chafe painfully against my shoes. They'd been tucked away ever since.
There was far more useless stuff than I'd thought.
Just as a maple tree sheds its leaves to prepare for a new season, I swept my old clothes into a plastic bag.
Then, I found an outfit that plunged me into a state of regret and sentimentality.
It was a set of clothes I had kept neatly stored away, despite my annoyance.
"Ugh. Finally throwing this damn thing out."
My combat uniform and combat boots.
I got them when I was discharged, and only now, eight years later, was I throwing them away. Since I was discharged in January, I had the unpleasant feeling of having served an extra year in the reserves.
Of course, the moment I walked out of the gates wearing it, I felt incredibly secure. But now, after repeatedly tasting the bitterness of civilian life, the uniform and boots had become a nuisance I had to lug around every time I moved.
My friends told me I could have thrown them out in my seventh year, but with a coward's heart, I'd put it off, telling myself it was too much of a hassle. Now, I was finally getting rid of them.
I deliberately brought a separate, large plastic bag, put the boots inside, and looked down at them with a mixture of love and hate.
Then, I suddenly blinked.
"Come to think of it, this is technically a combat uniform. Can I just throw it away like this?"
I had originally planned to just stuff it into a clothing collection bin, but I changed my mind.
So I picked up my phone and searched. Just as I'd suspected, I was supposed to remove all the insignia and name tags, cut it in half, and put it in a designated trash bag, or return it to the local Reserve Forces unit.
The problem was, I had just run out of designated trash bags.
It seemed I could just toss the combat boots, but I stopped, thinking it would feel strange to see the uniform left all alone.
They say even a straw shoe has its mate. The combat uniform and combat boots were clearly a pair, and I didn't want to put them in separate trash bags if I couldn't send them off together.
Such is the richness of Baek Jemin's sensibilities.
"Ah, whatever. I don't know."
I'd had enough of this nonsense.
New Year's resolution or whatever, how was I supposed to deal with this hassle on January 1st, a precious public holiday and my birthday?
Because my birthday is January 1st, I had just turned 28 even by international age. I, Baek Jemin, may have a public holiday every day, but a man has his pride.
Resting means sleeping when others work and playing when others play.
If you work when others play and sleep when others sleep, how is that resting? That's just being a diligent youth.
I shoved the bag containing the rolled-up uniform and boots back into the corner of the closet and continued cleaning. Even with just the clothes that could be tossed directly into the collection bin, the bag was heavy, so I decided to make a few trips.
I didn't commit the folly of trying to carry everything at once like an idiot.
What does this complete bum, Baek Jemin, have in abundance? Time.
If I can reduce the amount of pain I feel by spending time, that's what rationality is all about.
As I went back and forth between the clothing bin and my studio apartment three or four times, I could feel the pathetic gaze of the building manager, who was smoking a cigarette from a distance.
I responded to his gaze with a bright smile and a greeting.
"Happy New Year!"
"Aigoo. Yeah. Happy New Year to you, too. Hope everything goes well for you."
After putting the furniture I'd moved back in its place, I looked at my clean studio and felt a sense of pride.
All I'd really done was clean, but it felt like a grand accomplishment.
Feeling a sense of fulfillment from this strange emotion, I sat down in front of my computer.
"I've lived a very bold and proper life from the very first day of January. A great start."
It was reward time for myself for having splendidly fulfilled my New Year's resolution.
I've only been an unemployed youth for two months.
I'm not some rotting unemployed youth who's been festering for years. At only two months, I'm a fresh and vibrant rookie.
With a satisfied smile born from a rare sense of achievement, I logged into Discord, where the rotting unemployed youths who were already waiting turned on their mics.
[Happy New Year.]
[Happy New Year, hyung.]
"Yeah. Happy New Year, everyone."
But since there were no friends more well-versed in politics and current events than us rotting unemployed youths glued to Discord, the trivial personal chatter quickly shifted to the hottest topic of late.
[By the way, I heard the fog in Seoul is getting thicker and thicker? In some places, visibility is already around 30 meters, and people are saying they should set up a Restricted Zone.]
"This isn't Seoul. Why are you so interested in Seoul when you live in Gyeonggi Province?"
[Hyung, you still need to know about current events like this. Besides, they say the cause of this fog is unknown, so it could come all the way to Gyeonggi Province. And there are already places with Restricted Zones.]
"I'm just saying, there's no point in talking about something with an inconclusive conclusion. So what? Did they find out the reason?"
The cause was a strange fog that had started to creep up in several parts of Seoul since around late November 2027.
It was real fog.
Not frost, but that damp, humid fog had been rising in various parts of Seoul's city center lately, causing people's anxiety to reach an extreme level.
Naturally, from that point on, the meteorological administration and various experts appeared in the media, offering calm and plausible explanations.
They claimed that this fog was a localized and isolated phenomenon caused by the Korean peninsula's climate change, which, contrary to the perceived temperature, had made the actual temperature milder and the humidity higher.
Of course, this plausible argument failed to mend the tattered common sense of the public.
The difference in opinion between us rotting unemployed youths and the fresh-faced youth that is me was not easily bridged. It was a relief that we could at least communicate.
[A long time ago, there used to be trucks that went around spraying smoke-like pesticides, right? Maybe they're doing that? Like, some deadly, harmful insect has been introduced, and they're in the middle of pest control.]
[Then they should tell us what that harmful insect is first. I'm telling you, this is 100% some kind of experiment. If they mix in a tiny amount of some psychoactive drug and gradually get people addicted, you know what happens next, right?]
[Hey, why are you only speaking informally to me?]
[Because we're close. Not yet with Jemin-hyung.]
Seeing the guy just waiting for a chance to call me "hey" and "you" instead of "hyung," I resolved never to get any closer to him.
Still, this was tame.
Whenever I browsed around for new information or incidents about the fog, nine times out of ten, a fight was breaking out in the comments section.
The Deep State has finally started its population control; North Korea or China is waging biochemical warfare and the government has already been compromised and is covering it up; it's a scheme to lower Seoul's housing prices; climate change itself is a lie, so how can you explain the fog; it's proof of climate change, so we need to adopt more eco-friendly policies...
In the end, everyone had already made up their minds.
And the conclusion I, Baek Jemin, had reached was this.
"So why should the people of Gyeonggi Province worry about the people of Seoul? Hey, just launch the game."
Of course, that wasn't my real conclusion.
My conclusion lay in a more fundamental place.
The thought I had after lazing around as a fresh-faced unemployed person for the past two months was that if things continued like this, I too would become a rotting unemployed youth and just fool around for years.
I had no time to think about things like fog.
That is, until I stayed up all night gaming until the next dawn.
***
Vrooom-.
A loud vibration echoed from beyond my headset.
I slowly blinked my hollow eyes, exhausted from pulling an all-nighter fueled by a can of Monster, and asked.
"What's that?"
[You have a phone too, dude.]
"I don't want to take my eyes off the monitor."
[It's nothing much. A notice about the Restricted Zone due to the Seoul fog. You know, the emergency alert messages.]
"For fuck's sake."
We're over two hours away from Seoul, so why are they making the smartphones of Gyeonggi Province residents buzz with an emergency alert?
Just in case, I checked the time. It was 4:53 AM.
A sense of righteous indignation surged within me as I thought of the countless residents of Gyeonggi Province who would have been asleep, preparing for work while still soaked in the sweetness of the public holiday on January 2nd.
Just then, a sentence that completely swept away my drowsiness slammed into my ears.
[Hyung. I think it's serious this time?]
"What is it?"
[They said they've confirmed murder cases in the areas that became a Restricted Zone due to the fog. The bodies are apparently quite decomposed, and the number of missing person reports filed over the past two months has already been tallied at over 200. There's already talk that the Seoul police force alone can't handle it.]
Gulp.
Someone on the other side of the headset gulped.
I found myself turning my head to stare out the window for no reason.
[There was talk in the National Assembly about deploying troops to maintain public order, but it was revealed that the opposition argued it was a coup attempt or fear-mongering. But that was a month ago. Now, they're already pulling soldiers under the guise of 'civilian service' to assist the police, and they're still saying there's a police shortage.]
[What a load of bullshit.]
Outside the window, it was still dim.
This wasn't a city center in Gyeonggi Province, but a relatively secluded area, so aside from the streetlights, there were hardly any cars. There was a small town about ten minutes away, but it was quiet at this hour.
However, while everyone else was asleep, the light was on only in my room.
[But this time, they say the Reserve Forces mobilization was debated in the National Assembly without much argument. This part is still an unconfirmed rumor, though...]
"What do you mean, Reserve Forces? That's not happening."
[Yeah. It's not like a war broke out, so why mobilize the Reserve Forces? Are they out of their minds?]
"In the first place, does it make any sense to mobilize the reserves just because there's some fog in Seoul? They're just bullshitting, seriously."
[Guys. That's why I said it's a rumor. It just shows how serious the fog problem is. The fog is so thick in some places that CCTV can't even see through it, and they've already been designated as Restricted Zones.]
It was around that time.
That was when I heard a heavy rumbling from outside the dim window, amidst the sparse passing cars. A convoy of military trucks driving down the road came into view.
A line of three Deuce-and-a-half trucks, their rear beds wide open, drove through the dawn.
Even from my second-floor studio apartment, I could clearly see the soldiers, equipped with helmets, full gear, and rifles, rattling and swaying helplessly as they were jostled about.
Rumble, rumble!
The uniquely unpleasant drone of the military trucks seeped in, piercing through my headset.
It wasn't loud or sharp like a horn, but it was a sound that seemed to press down heavily on a corner of my heart.
Feeling a strange mix of discomfort and relief, I turned my gaze back to the monitor.
"Yeah, right. With our young, brave active-duty soldiers, why would they ever need us reservists? What's a Deuce-and-a-half to us old reservists? We'd feel bad even riding in a wheelbarrow, so we'll just walk ourselves to the nursing home."
I reflexively checked the time.
5:03 AM.
Nothing else happened.
Our group disbanded in a subtle silence, and not feeling like fiddling with the computer anymore, I laid myself down on the fresh, soft mattress.
Before falling asleep, I decided to pray to anyone, though I didn't believe in any particular god.
Please, if you're going to mobilize the Reserve Forces, do it next year.
***
And on January 6th.
I, Baek Jemin, found myself heading to the Reserve Forces local command center, wearing the very combat uniform and boots I had been about to throw away.
As I stood blankly at the crosswalk, a man across the street in a sloppily worn, sagging combat uniform was slouching with a look of utter world-weariness.
It looked like he was heading to the convenience store behind me to buy cigarettes.
I understood how he felt.
I lifted the smartphone in my hand, feeling a sense of utter futility.
[Following the outbreak of Riots in the Seoul area due to the fog, the administration, despite strong opposition, has requested the National Assembly to approve a Mobilization Order... The National Assembly has also attached the temporary condition that it will last until the economic paralysis of Seoul is resolved...]
Eighth year in the Reserve Forces.
The last Reserve Forces duty of my life had arrived.
End
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