chapter4
Yuna
“Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you.” The family surrounds the little girl “Happy birthday dear Yuna, happy birthday to you!” The family cheers and the little girl jumps with joy, her dad is on her right and mum on her left and her big brother Patrice sits across from her and is smiling
“Guess what, honey.” the man says
“What?” the little girl giggles
“Not you, Yuna, your brother!” her father says, staring down at her disapprovingly. The girl frowns.
“I got you a present!” says the man to the young boy
“OOOOHHHH, what is it?” says the boy eagerly, restlessly wriggling around in his seat.
“A necklace. It was once my grandfather’s, and now it’s yours. It goes to the strongest warrior in our family!” the father whispers, before carefully placing the necklace on the brother’s neck.
“What about me?” The girl says her voice growing quiet as she looks down at the floor “It’s my birthday.” she whispers. The necklace shines in the light, porcelain cornflour with gold detail. The family can’t hear the girl. The girl goes to her room. The family didn’t notice a thing.
I awake from my dream in tears, tangled in my blanket and sweating, the night was hot and my nightmare kept me tossing and turning all night. I sit up and look around, The sun is only just peeking out from the horizon, and the clouds are heavy in the air. I frown and stand up, I spent the night going from train to train looking for one that is headed to the airport. I plan to make my visit to china a short one, the main priority is getting to patrice and taking him home, I don’t need any distractions.
I ended up sleeping on a bench at the station draped in a jacket, my back is aching phenomenally but that’s to be expected seeing as I literally slept on a slab of wood, I slowly began to pack up my things and collect myself. Luckily nobody else is at the platform and I have avoided the chance of being embarrassed. The next train heading to the docks is scheduled to arrive in 3 hours, enough time to head into the closest town and get some supplies for the trip over to japan.
I walk for only a few minutes before I reach the centre of the town, most windows are closed and only a convenience store is open. I pull out my ration book and pay for some jerky and a flask of water. I have one hour until the train pulls up so I begin to walk back to the station. As I’m about 5 minutes away, the streets begin to fill rapidly with people going for their weekly groceries. The crowd is so thick I have to push my way through. Hard rain begins to pour down on me, the sun is still shining but the grey factories and bombed buildings around me seem to be closing in. Japanese troops had invaded and caused pain to every single person here and yet they still came out every week, sun or hail to get food for their families. I pushed through the crowd and it pushed back against me.
I still have 30 minutes to get to the station, if it takes me 10 minutes to get to the station from town then I have 20 minutes before I am in desperate need to run, OOF! I feel the wind knock out of me as I get shoved in the stomach, I sit on the ground and catch my breath, the people around me pretend I’m not there, I begin to stand up slowly when BANG! I feel a fist make direct contact with my face and then darkness.
I get up in shock I’m still on the floor and the crowd are still ignoring me, I jolt up onto my feet and check the time on the clock in the centre of town I have 5 minutes to get to the station so I run, I run as fast as I can it’s no use the crowd is too thick. My mind races as I look for away around this, my eyes drift toward a second story balcony and I immediately know what I have to do. I leap through the air stretching my arms out to grasp the veranda above my head. I swing to gather momentum before letting go and grasping onto another porch, swinging myself up onto the platform of the balcony. I jump along the balconies swinging my arms and ignoring the burning in my hands from gripping the metal.
I arrive at the station on time… but barely, leap onto the train and collapse onto the hay inside of it. My back and arms ache and I feel more tired than ever before so I fall asleep almost immediately.
I slowly jump of the train and sneak into the coverage of the woods, from what i can tell we arived at the airport about an hour ago, but gaurds have practically been swarming the train from the moment it pulled into the station, luckily the guard on duty has fallen asleep and in doing so has given me the perfect opportunity to run from the train and begin the small walk to the station. As i run through the bushes I hear voices, japanese men, probably coming back from a raid of the village i've come from, perhaps that was the reason that i got punched in the face.
When I reach the airport , I can hear the voices of men and traders around me, yelling in Japanese about all things dodgy. I quickly gather my belongings and step out of the coverage of the woods, I loosen my slimming belt that mother insisted I wear and tiptoe over to the closest box, hiding behind its musty wood. “How much? How much?” says the closest man “20 yen ” and the other says with a smirk “too much la!”, the conversion goes on and I begin to fidget. They need to get a move on if I’m ever going to get past them to the aeroplanes ! “FINE 18 yen la?!” “DEAL!” they finally disperse and i’m left wondering why they were yelling. I look around once then twice, then thrice then I run toward where I know the holiday planes are.
I peer at the planes in awe, only rich folk can go on the planes in these times, and rich folk are precisely what i see, all japanese of course, but all of them look like top CEOs or business men that have special clearance to enter japan, I know that this may be my only chance for months to get over to japan, so i take my chances and pull a unassuming japanese man behind a crate and hold his mouth, before He can protest I have taken his clothes and luggage and am boarding the plane with no suspicion.
I slowly step onto the plane and keep my gaze fixed on the ground like the other snot nosed businessman in here, so as to not attract any unwanted suspicion. The first 4 hours of the flight were pure hell, I paid attention to every tick of a pocket watch and every movement of the men, flinching anytime one of them got up to use the lavatory. After a few more hours of agony I finally relaxed a little and tried to mimic the sitting position of the men. The 2 in front of me are having a hushed conversation in japanese about rations and food, whereas the 3 men on my right are discussing spies sent into japan to infiltrate and steal information. I glance nervously around, trying to catch snippets of chatter that may help me keep my cover.
What i have so far from my id is: my name is yō shirodimo and i am 34 years old… honestly the sunglasses are the only things that are keeping my cover, I have no wife and i cut of all connections to my family when i was 27 (some men are stupid), i study war economics and have a degree in law, I live alone in hiroshima. This ding dong has a sad life, I almost feel bad for knocking him out… almost.
While I sit I contemplate how I will get off the plane without being noticed, perhaps I can just saunter out? No, the borders of japan are super strict and nobody gets past without identification. Darn it those STUPID POMPOUS FACED CRICKET TURDS, MOON BLASTED CURSED SLUG EXCUSES OF A NOSE HAIRS arghhh security in japan is so annoying!
Before i know it time is up and im hopping off the plane, sweating visibly and panicking on the inside, I pull of my disguise once behind a box and breathe deeply, just as i’m about to make a run for the gate and arm grabs mine and pulls me into a shipping container, everything is dark and all i can hear is deep breathing, i struggle to get free from the grasp and try to rip my arm out of the person’s grasp. “CALM DOWN! IF I WAS GOING TO HURT YOU I WOULD HAVE DONE SO ALREADY!” I ponder this thought and say “fair, what do you want? I ’m back in the corner as they light a match. I can see the boy’s body and his height ( no older than 14 at most) but his back is turned and I cannot see his face.
“WHO ARE YOU!” I yell now getting desperate for answers, “your mother” he says “what about her!?” i yell “ she cheated on your dad” “i know” now he’s getting on my nerves “she had a son” he says. “No, she can’t, no, what, how do you know?!” I say, flustered. “Because I think I’m your brother” he says revealing his face, he takes resemblance to our mother and I stumble away, desperatly trying to beleive that hes lying, “no” i say “yes, and I’m going to get you out of here, there are some people that you need to meet”, with that he leads me out of the container with no doubt on his face.
I look at him suspiciously and notice his necklace, identical to the shell ones that both I and patrice wear, I never take it off so I forget about it sometimes "where did you get that necklace?" i say in japanese, he replies "it was our mothers" I smile and say "so thats how you found me? you saw my shell necklace?" "yup" we near the gate, but he looks confident. "they fit together you know? My brother and I always wondered why there was a peice missing" he smiles and then says "Id like to meet your brother" "thats why I'm here, to find him on the frontlines!" I admit, at this point he's practically dragging me past the guards
"There aren't any french troops in japan at the moment" he says to himself in japanese, I wonder if he knows I speak japanese, "watashi wa nihongo o hanahimashu" I say in japanese, Kai laughs and says " well I figured that out, I'll have to speak chinese instead" he laughed and I nodded, maybe ill let him think I don't speak that too, maybe I'll hear some intresting stuff.
we finally make it through the gate and on to the mastly empty streets of japan, I can see a tall mountain on the horizen with a cluster of buildings. I look up in awe at the majestic sight and kai says "welcome to japan"
