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4 August 1939, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
Kihyun tries not to gag. It’s the first time he sees a dead body in his life, laid in front of him, real. He’s not sure he’s imagining the smell or it’s actually that bad. The room is cold, the lights blinding above their heads. His classmates are talking with each other, in hurried whispers, trying to squeeze as much words as they can before the professor arrives.
The heavy door behind them closes with a loud noise, voices dying down. Mr. Lee looks at them, eight students, first years. He grins and Kihyun takes a few steps back, feeling threatened as the old man walks in front of the operation table, adjusts the lights, takes his time to wash his hands and wear gloves. The smell is starting to be too much for him.
Mr. Lee is orderly. He keeps all his tools in a special leather case, worn at the edges, but as clean as it could be. He takes out his scalpel, carves a clear line on the inside of the body’s arm, blood spilling out, running and pooling on the table. He turns to them like he’s saying “look, it’s a real person, better get used to it”.
Kihyun, thirty minutes afterwards has forgotten the smell and all of his disgust is replaced by curiosity. Each student is given permission to help remove layer after layer of flesh too see what’s beneath the skin, the fat and the muscles. They are ripping the body apart, cutting and digging and poking. He touches the organs, sees the arteries and the bones. The scene before them could as well be a picture from a butchery, not taking into account the clean robes, the polished floors and sickening white walls.
His classmates have the same focused look on their faces, touching the heart, placed at another table along with the main and important organs. It’s smaller than Kihyun expected it to be, still, drained of blood. The next time he looks at the professor, the man is working on the body’s head with precise motions, steady hands, opening a square big enough to retrieve the brain. He talks holding it, gives it to one of the students to pass it around.
What happens when we die? Kihyun once again questions. He wonders if there’s something still in this brain, memories of his owner, thoughts, ideas. Or if there’s nothing. When he cups his hands to take it, it just feels like a piece of flesh, identical to any other.
The anatomy lesson comes to an end and they, one by one, step out of the room, into the spacious corridors and the garden in the middle of the facilities. Kihyun chose this, becoming a doctor, a surgeon, opening people up and helping them get better. He had thought that some might die on his hands, inevitably, and it’s becoming more and more a part of his reality. It’s his first year but he can’t wait to be in an actual operation room.
His father had warned him, the studies field he wanted to follow is a difficult one, but he made his decision and he’s not taking it back now. He reminds himself to write a letter to his parents later. After all they are not only supporting his dream of becoming a doctor, but also greatly helping him financially, apart from his job at the shoemaker’s store down the street.
A boy runs to him, all smiles and he smiles back, they start talking about the lesson. They are all still getting used to each other, living all together in the dorms. His classmates want to go on a trip in the city on the weekend and ask if he wants to follow them. Like him, most are from other smaller towns all around the country. He mentally counts the money he has left and agrees. He’s gonna spend some of his best years there after all and he better make a good use of them. He can’t wait to see everything.
On 1 September 1939, the Second World War officially starts.
Koreans, being under Japanese rule can enlist voluntarily to the army. Most end up being labor workers.
30 July 1941, Outskirts of Gunpo, Gyeonggi, Korea
Hyungwon, in his peripheral vision watches Changkyun work with the shovel, piling mud and soil behind him. It’s been only a couple weeks since they started working without their father and he thinks it’s going well. This fields are everything their family has, their whole lives and he needs to take care of them. Along with his elder parents and his little brother.
Hyungwon is nowhere near visibly muscular, tall and lanky, with strength enough to work all day but not to carry the heaviest tools. Changkyun resembles him but is even smaller, two years younger than him and with arms and legs like sticks, seeming like they are gonna break anytime when he works and lifts and moves and handles their animals.
“Let’s take a break.” They have already done enough for the day, but they can work a little more until the sun slips down the horizon. He can’t bear the thought of spending a winter like the previous one, when his father’s leg got hurt and the fieldwork wasn’t done correctly, meaning they had very little to eat. He’s rather push his limits working than see his family starving once again.
Changkyun leaves his shovel fall on the mud and walks a few steps to find dry soil and sit down. Hyungwon joins him, rubbing his back, telling him that they are doing a great work and father will be proud of them, mother will be waiting home with a warm meal and watches Changkyun’s eyes light up.
He would give everything up to be able to send his brother to university, watch him become a scientist, anything he wants, but they barely have enough money for new clothes. Hyungwon hopes his old clothes will fit his brother for this year too, meaning he won’t have to go to the town to buy new ones and they will have some extra meat on their table.
“Hyung, look!” they both look up to the noise, hands covering their eyes to see better. Two, three, four airplanes, passing above them in seconds, leaving behind thick white and gray trails.
“Are these Japanese hyung?” Changkyun asks, amazed. Hyungwon still has trouble making out the symbols on them.
“I think Chinese, we can ask father if he saw them too.”
The first times it was amusing, watching the airplanes flying above them faster than everything else they have ever seen moving in their little village. Hyungwon knows the war has not affected them yet, but with each passing day he and his father are getting more worried.
They sit around the radio after dinner, listening to the news. Cities and countries he has never heard before, raided, bombarded, burned. The Japanese government says the Axis are gonna win the war soon, gain more land. As if Korea alone wasn’t enough of a colony.
“Do you think they will call us to the war?” Changkyun says, like a kid wanting to play. He doesn’t really understand what is happening. Nobody does, they are farmers, trying to survive. Changkyun just craves to see more of the world.
“No, no they won’t.” Hyungwon hopes it is a promise and one he can keep. But the numbers of causalities are getting higher with each passing day.
Suffering great casualties, enlistment in the Japanese army becomes compulsory for young Korean men from 1943 and onwards.
27 July 1943, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
Soldiers kick down the doors of the class. Kihyun at first doesn’t know what is happening, he stares at the blackboard in front of him, waits for their professor to say something. The man does, he says the soldiers can’t take them, that they are kids. He is shoot straight to the face and the soldiers are grinning to them, asking the boys to get up and go to the open space of the garden. If anyone tries to escape he will be treated like a deserter. Executed.
They give their names, ages, family conditions and then thrown into the back of the track, not able to contact anyone. The Japanese soldiers with them kick anyone who tries to protest. Some jump out of the truck, run over by the vehicles behind their own. Someone takes Kihyun’s wallet, with his little money and a letter tucked into his jacket. He was going to go to the post office and send it after his lessons.
They travel for three days, with little food and rest. The trails of trucks and cars stops here and there across the country, more boys come, some go. They are promised rewards if they are cooperative. Kihyun’s pride crumbles with every passing hour, overtaken by terror. He finds some bread on the floor and eats it, wishing to die from food poisoning sooner than being thrown into war.
Their last destination is a military naval base, they are told they are at Tokyo. The truck stops and there is more shouting, someone is pushing him and Kihyun ends on the ground, stands up as fast as he can and gets into the forming line, he can see soup at the end of it.
He has time to look around the place. There are men in uniforms, some white and some light brown. He expects to be given one too, but he isn’t. The base is huge, he has never been in any military building before, has only read about them in books.
There is a port, ships of all sizes anchored, with their canons and bridges shining under the sun. It’s really hot, but whoever asks for water is taken away. There are rumors that Korean who voluntarily enlisted a couple years ago were promised to be sent to war but instead were made to work in labor work. Kihyun knows he wouldn’t last a day.
After a meagre meal, they are guided inside, Kihyun guesses there must be around a hundred of them. There are training grounds to his left, an entrance leading to a hospital on his right and a collapsed part of the building in the middle. They get there and find clothes waiting for them, blue shirts and pants and then they are sent to work with the doctors, into the operation rooms and between the patient’s beds.
Kihyun somehow makes it through the first day, watches people die, touches more blood than he ever did when studying and the moment he is told his shift is over he runs out of the building, vomits what little he has ate and spends the night as far from the hectic corridors as he can.
On August 1st, 1943, Japan declares “independence” of the previously British State of Burma.
12 August 1943, Outskirts of Gunpo, Gyeonggi, Korea
Hyungwon’s father opens the door, two soldiers in their uniforms greeting him. “Congratulations, your sons are enlisted in the army and will be sent to the battlefield in two days”.
Hyungwon, from the end of the room stands protectively in front of Changkyun, notices his father’s figure frozen, his mother at the kitchen door, listening. His father is trying to explain that if they take his sons away nobody will be able to work in the fields. The soldiers politely tell him that they better comply or else they’ll get punished.
Hyungwon knows what Japanese mean by “punishment”. Shootings of the innocent, of kids and old men. Taking the women and the young girls and using them for their pleasure. He locks eyes with one of the soldiers and the man smiles at him. He feels Changkyun trembling behind him. His father gives them their recruitment papers with a pained expression when he closes the door.
They don’t have anything except the clothes they are wearing. Mother slaughters a chicken and cooks it for their last dinner at home. Father doesn’t touch his plate, Changkyun eats nervously, devouring everything like he knows it’ll take long to eat anything like this again. Hyungwon taps his foot nervously, runs scenarios into his head. Neither he nor his brother have held any guns before. Nobody talks and then sleep doesn’t come.
The next morning, father walks with them to the picking up spot. Other boys are there too, familiar faces, some even younger than Changkyun. They are given uniforms, ordered to change on the spot. The pants are too loose, the jacket too warm, but it’s the least of Hyungwon’s concerns.
Changkyun next to him has a stern expression, but Hyungwon knows how scared he is deep down, he’s feeling the same, the army boots too heavy, socks scratchy. He is given a gun, a small one, with no bullets inside. He almost lets it fall on his feet, he has never seen one before. He exchanges a look with Changkyun, who’s playing with the trigger. Hyungwon wishes they’ll never have to use it but knows they will soon. They will kill people.
There’s more shouting, in Japanese this time. Hyungwon only knows a few words. They need to get on the vehicles, thirty soldiers cramped in each. He takes Changkyun’s hand, wordlessly urging him to follow the directions and he thinks there are tears in his father’s eyes.
They sit on the last seats of the truck, legs hanging. They’ve never been on a vehicle of any kind before, feet were always enough, the furthest destination the nearby villages. It’s too crowded and it smells bad, like sweat and fear. Nobody is making any noise, the boys looking at their guns, discovering all the pockets of the uniform.
They were not allowed to take any money with them, nothing personal, nothing to remind them of home. Hyungwon has heard the Japanese are merciless, they don’t treat Koreans as they should. He’s gonna find out the hard way.
Before they take off, father lifts a hand to wave goodbye.
“Take care of your brother.”
Hyungwon promises he will.
On September 8, 1943, Italy officially surrenders to the Allies.
13 September 1943, Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
Kihyun is running again, there’s an emergency at the west section and he’s one of the few nurses available. He almost trips but manages to balance himself at the last moment. On his legs lay two bodies. Nothing new, all he sees is death lately. He’s ready to run again, because every moment lost equals a life lost, when one of the bodies stir to life. The person, hidden in an oversized Japanese uniform moves slightly up the wall of the corridor, tries to get up but falls back groaning. Kihyun doesn’t know if he is supposed to help, but his gut feeling tells him to stay and he always trusts it.
He tries making out faces, under all the dirt and the blood. The first one, who woke up, is a boy not older than himself and the second one seems so small next to his tall figure. He opens his mouth, ready to ask them if they need help, if he can do something, even if really, he can’t do much except following directions. The boy talks first.
“Do we need to leave from here?”
In perfectly clear Korean. Kihyun almost finds the language strange, suddenly missing home too much. He knew the Japanese brought more Korean soldiers to work around the base and in the ships, but this is the first one he actually encounters. Merely from habit, he is about to say one of the few Japanese words he knows, but his mind settles to Korean.
“N-no” he stutters. They are in the abandoned part of the hospital, the couple of wings without electricity or running water that nobody uses, except Kihyun who has found a handful of shortcuts and some homeless people who use the corridors to sleep. If the boys in front of him are soldiers, they should be in the nearby space for them at the base. He recognizes the navy seal on their uniforms.
“We are not deserters, not anything of the sort.” The boy rushes to explain, voice rough and husky. “My brother” he moves his head towards the lifeless figure next to him, “he can’t sleep in the base, too many people.” The other boy is unresponsive to the sound of their voices, only the ups and downs of his chest denoting that he is still alive, breathing. Maybe dreaming something nice, home.
Kihyun nods, like he understands. He doesn’t really, collapsing from exhaustion on the nearest bed every time he’s off work. He realizes that he’s missing precious time, talking like this. Taking a last look at the two figures he takes off to his assigned section for the day.
The surgery rooms are straight out of a nightmare, blood splattered on the walls and screams bouncing over the unsanitary surfaces. Doctors shouting in a language he doesn’t fully understand and soldiers leaving their last words holding his hand. But then again, every day for the past months has been a nightmare.
The next time Kihyun passes from the same shortcut later that night, there’s nobody huddled close to the wall, only faint shoe prints and trails of dried blood, reassuring him that actual people were there and he hasn’t started talking to himself going crazy. Yet.
At late September of 1943, the Chinese show interest for an alliance with Americans.
6 October 1943, training grounds of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
They are being shouted at again, in Japanese. Hyungwon has stopped paying attention, Changkyun never did. Somehow a general found out they’ve been sneaking out of their training space to sleep. Apparently they are considered a threat, for finding shelter in a semi-collapsed old building, trying to get away from the smells of urine and vomit lingering in their space, a bare room filled with people.
The general slaps Changkyun and Hyungwon is ready to step in, grab the shorter man by the neck and slam him on the wall. He can’t, he’ll only put them in more trouble. The general tells them to go back to work and they do. Hyungwon has lost count of the hours they’ve been mopping and shining. They were sent off as soldiers but all they do is cleaning work. The Koreans are treated like slaves. Some of them are assigned to dig in the mines, some to carry and build new fortresses and the luckier, like them, to cleaning.
The biggest warship in the base is Nagato. Hyungwon loses his breath the first time he lays his eyes on it. There are smaller ships too, training ones, and submarines. The boys work every day from dusk till after dawn on and inside them, with little time for meals between. Stale bread and tasteless soup. The Japanese soldiers eat fish and rice.
The ship is a labyrinth inside, so he always keeps Changkyun close. The moment they set their mops on the wall to take a break the admiral appears and hits them with the broomstick until the go back to work. Changkyun’s skin is bruised but his eyes cannot shed any more tears. Hyungwon knows he’s getting homesick and weaker every day. He takes the beatings for him, when he can.
Some nights the Japanese soldiers come to their room to have fun. They put fire on someone sleeping, call them names and kick their tins with food or step all over their few duvets. And they just stay there, watching and listening and waiting for it to pass.
They are promised to get promoted if they work hard, to be given bullets for their guns and more food every day, meat and fish. Hyungwon doesn’t believe a word, but he still works as much as his legs can hold him up. He needs to make sure to get him and Changkyun back home.
On their twenty third day in the base, the brothers and eight more people are told they are gonna embark with Nagato, on a mission to bring troops back to the base, from the battleships stationed in the middle of the ocean.
They spend days in the ship, sleep deprived, confined in the small space with all the wounded soldiers they collected from the battlegrounds screaming as they are slowly dying. Not even half make it back to Japan, almost nobody left intact.
The shouting and the slaps when they set foot on land again are welcomed. Anything than dying in the sea, drowning trapped inside a steel giant. It becomes Hyungwon’s nightmare.
At Tarawa Atoll, the first recorded encounter between American forces and Korean soldiers in the Central Pacific is recorded, on late November of 1943.
28 December 1943, military hospital of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
When the ships are on the bay, the two brothers appear again for a couple of days, on the same spot of the corridor, cuddling to warm themselves. It’s getting unbearably cold in the base, the central heating system not even close to being enough for the vast rooms and corridors, the rare times it’s working.
Kihyun passes in front of them a couple of times, running to get from the one part of the building to the other and once he’s done with his shift for the day, they come again to his mind. He is supposed to be taking care only of himself and mind his own business, but he’s craving to talk Korean with someone, talk about home, ask if they know anything new. He can’t stand the thought of going back to find his hometown burned to the ground. His parents have stopped writing as well. Or the letters never came.
He wanders into the kitchens and asks for dinner, the cook knows him. Kihyun gave him medication and fed him when he fell ill some months ago. He manages a full tin of watery soup with rice and vegetables, still warm, and some bread.
With the sun down, he guides himself to the abandoned part of the base with difficulty, but manages to find the brothers, both awake and talking at each other silently, the tallest one not wearing his jacket, which is thrown on the other’s shoulders.
“Hey” he greets and gets closer, earning a smile from the one he had already talked to and a suspicious look from the other. He sits on the floor in front of them and offers soup, the others eyeing it hungrily but not daring to take it from his hands.
“I’m Kihyun, from Goyang. You can eat too.” Hyungwon and Changkyun, their names, from Gunpo. Hyungwon is older by two years and he’s the one who takes the tin first, but instead of eating he gives it to Changkyun, tells him to leave enough for Kihyun. They are both younger than Kihyun, too young.
They don’t have news from Korea, but the country was mostly intact until they left, Hyungwon says he listened to the radio a lot. Kihyun doesn’t have the chance to do so, radios sacred and limited to the offices of the higher ups, broadcasting in Japanese.
Changkyun cleans his mouth with the back of his hand, thanks Kihyun for the meal and buries himself deeper in his own and his brother’s clothes, to fall asleep again. Hyungwon tells Kihyun that he is the first person Changkyun talked too since they arrived to Japan.
Hyungwon is trembling from the cold, but he doesn’t seem to mind, as long as his brother can sleep comfortably. Kihyun promises to bring them something to sleep on the next time he comes around and he shares the bread with Hyungwon, asking him about the ships, how is out there, at the open sea.
Hyungwon mostly mops and cleans around, he doesn’t know much, he isn’t out much. Kihyun knows that he’s getting sleepy, words tumbling and he stands up, to go back to the hospital area and find some bed to sleep. He takes one last look at Changkyun.
“He’s too young.”
“I know.”
On January 20, 1944, The Royal Air Force of Britain drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin. The Nazi officials are hiding in underground bunks while the city is crumbling.
22 January 1944, collapsed section of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
Kihyun becomes a friend, that’s what Hyungwon thinks. He comes to the corridor of the abandoned building they usually sleep with Changkyun a lot, even when he doesn’t have to use the shortcut. Sometimes he brings old newspapers they can put on the floor to keep warm and dry. Other times he brings ripped jackets and other pieces of clothing. Hyungwon doesn’t ask where or from whom they come from. He knows Kihyun works at the base’s hospital. He knows the original owners are dead.
Work almost becomes bearable, knowing there is someone to talk to, in Korean. Changkyun isn’t much of a speaker, but he likes Kihyun. Hyungwon knows he enjoys listening to Kihyun’s soft, calm voice, to stories from the place he grew up to and funny incidents from when he was studying at university.
Kihyun knows they are farmers, with more or less close to nothing, poor. Yet he isn’t snobbish, like Hyungwon would expect someone from a rich family to be, someone who could pay for university and living in a foreign city. Then again, all soldiers were dressed in the same poor ways, nobody had money, nobody had more food than the other. Kihyun and Hyungwon were practically the same. Except than Kihyun saved lives and Hyungwon took them.
They don’t have much to do, in the few hours when they are not working or sleeping. The nights they spend on the base instead of inside the ships are slow and no amount of sleep in now enough to wake up rested. Changkyun, somehow, finds papers and a pencil and they play games with them. The brothers write letters to their parents knowing they will never be delivered.
Kihyun writes with them too, his letters so much better, his words polished. They start learning Japanese all together on their quiet nights. Each tries to remember at least three new words they hear every day and they share them when they gather in their little spot on the corridor.
Kihyun sometimes asks the patients for words, Hyungwon the other soldiers, the few who are friendly enough and Changkyun, with his limited knowledge tries reading signs, newspapers, tins of canned food, anything he can.
For some hours, it feels like they enter an alternated reality, where they are leading simple lives, the way they should. Three young boys have fun learning a new language together. If Hyungwon stayed at school he would know how to read Japanese by now. If their father didn’t suffer from his injury, Changkyun would too.
Kihyun naturally attended all his classes of school, so he was taught Japanese. When Hyungwon asks him why he doesn’t know how to properly talk or write, Kihyun sulks. Turns out the Kihyun’s younger self didn’t care enough for anything than becoming a doctor and only the courses having to do with it. He never thought he would need something else.
One of the doctors finds them studying Japanese once and stomps all over their papers and pencils. He says that firearms training is more important and also that Kihyun is welcome to take more shifts if he has so much free time. The problem is, that they barely understand him.
On March of 1944, the Japanese forces are ready to cross the Indian border.
3 March 1944, collapsed section of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
”Do you think we’ll go back home?” Hyungwon asks, his brother a few feet away in front of the window, bathing in a rare warm sunlight, the first of the year.
“We will Hyungwon, of course we will.”
Hyungwon and Changkyun had arms training in the morning, Kihyun had his shift and thankfully there are less wounded soldiers coming back these days. That will only last until Nagato brings back all their troops from the actual battlefield.
The brothers brought food from the training base and Kihyun from the kitchen and they ate together, in a comfortable silence.
Kihyun hates it when Hyungwon doubts himself. Thinks of the possibility of not going back home. They’ve became close enough to know that the younger does it a lot and Kihyun doesn’t know how to make it stop. Changkyun is nothing like his brother though. He rarely talks and never voices out his thoughts. He’s not unfriendly, just shy, reversed, quiet.
Kihyun hopes he could do something, anything to make all the bad thoughts stop, to reassure Hyungwon that once this war is over, they will hop on the first bus to the other side of Japan, take the ship and then travel some more to go back home. Kihyun will visit they boys’ village and then take them to the capital.
They’ll go out, have fun, they’ll play games. They’ll do all the things they can’t do as young adults, limited in a military base, surrounded by people who treat them as lower life forms. The daydream goes on and on and every time he tells Hyungwon, they agree they need to make it happen. They only need luck by their side.
One of them sometimes manages to sneak next to some office and hear the news from the radio. Germany is taking over Europe and the broadcasts insist that Japanese tanks and aircrafts have the best technology there is.
“That’s why we will not lose.” Kihyun says and then they hear the airplanes above them, distinguish the models from the sound of the engines and the trails they leave. Changkyun is good at this game.
There are few tanks at the base and they rarely see them moving. They are the only piece of machinery Hyungwon likes, they remind him of giant turtles he says and Kihyun is reminded how different their backgrounds are. Hyungwon gets amused by all the simple things.
It’s strange how normally they would never meet, a well off doctor and a poor farmer. He can’t imagine the long nights without finding solace in the thought that someone is waiting for him to talk, to laugh, to be human, but then again, he can neither imagine having a normal life, where war was only some chapters in his history book.
Sometimes he looks at Hyungwon, his own reflection staring back at him from the boy’s big eyes and he knows, they have the same thoughts, the same hopes. He wishes they can have the same end too, one where nobody gets hurt. Especially Changkyun who is is so young, he deserves nothing of this.
Kihyun takes his time to pray. Hyungwon and Changkyun don’t. They’ve never been to the church and their family never cared much about religion. So Kihyun prays for them too.
Three to four hundred Korean labor workers are brought to the Honouliuli camp at Hawaii. It is believed that many of those who were found wounded were beat up with sticks and knifes by the Japanese.
19 June 1944, collapsed section of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
It’s the first time there is an actual attack. Not training, not a false alarm. Only American aircrafts littering the sky, throwing bombs on their ships and the base and destructing the entrance of the hospital section. It’s early morning and Hyungwon wakes up by the noise, the smoke, the shift in the calm atmosphere of the past days. Changkyun stirs next to him, opens his eyes and looks at his older brother, silently asking what to do.
Hyungwon tells him not to move an inch. They were so lucky. They wouldn’t have enough time to find shelter somewhere underground, but the enemy aircrafts didn’t want to waste their fire on the already collapsed and seemingly abandoned part of the base. It stays untouched, the ground shaking by the bombs falling at the area all around them.
They wait, until there is not any more noise and some minutes more. Muffled screaming from inside and outside. Changkyun asks if they can go check on Kihyun. Hyungwon thinks about it, about the utter chaos that’s happening in the hospital at the moment. At every other part of the base really. He wants to make sure that Kihyun is okay too, but he needs to protect himself and Changkyun first, so he tells him they stay, and wait.
The sun goes down and they are starting to lose hope, Hyungwon bracing himself, for not seeing Kihyun again. Changkyun on his side is restless, looking at the end of the corridor all day, waiting for Kihyun to appear like he usually does. Until a silhouette walks to them.
He doesn’t look like Kihyun. His clothes are crimson red, he has a cut from his ear to his chin, his voice is rough like he got fifty years older. But Kihyun is alive and he is there with them. When Changkyun asks what happened, Kihyun doesn’t reply, he looks out of the window, to the sk. There’s little smoke left and it’s again blue.
Changkyun falls asleep first and it’s the first time Hyungwon sees Kihyun crying. It’s silent and wet, tears mixing with blood. Hyungwon dries up Kihyun’s cheeks with his, equally dirty, sleeves, holds him until he stops sobbing and cracks a broken smile, mutters some apology, for being weak.
Kihyun is one of the strongest men Hyungwon knows, after his own father. A door crushed him, he fell unconscious and people stepped on him, not caring of how many of them he had helped before. When he woke up, with a strained ankle and blood running down his face he saw the main hospital room overflowing with patients, in way worse condition than him.
He worked for half a day without any breaks, until he made sure everyone got treated and fed and put on a bed and only then he allowed himself to take his gloves off and step out of the musky room. He came straight to Hyungwon and Changkyun. He says he was worried but he had a feeling they would be okay. Kihyun always trusts his gut feeling.
There is little chance of the enemies wasting more time with them now, they surely have a couple weeks, even months to spend in safety, or so they hope. They manage to fall asleep for a few hours, until they are woken up again by ship horns. They are setting sail to the middle of the ocean again. Hyungwon wakes Changkyun up, promises Kihyun they’ll be back.
From 23 to 26 October 1944, at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, four Japanese light carriers and three battleships are sunk.
27 October 1944, military hospital of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
Kihyun has seen a lot of dead bodies, he doesn’t feel anything anymore, neither disgust nor empathy. It’s just his work. There is only one he will never forget, one body, too wrong in the middle of the scene in front of him, completely out of place and all he can think is that this is so, so wrong, a bad dream and he’ll wake up soon.
Hyungwon is running into the main room of the hospital, too pale, blood damping his clothes, running down from his hands to the floor and Kihyun just stands there, in front of him trying to breathe. Hyungwon only says one word over and over, crying. “Help”.
He’s holding Changkyun in his arms, the boy’s eyes shut, his chest heaving and falling like there’s not enough oxygen at the air. His leg is cut into two pieces, a mess of bones and skin hanging from a string of flesh and there’s a hole on his shoulder, the bullet still tucked and visible.
Kihyun snaps back to reality, takes Changkyun from Hyungwon’s hands and doesn’t even care about the rest of the soldiers coming inside in the same condition. There are others to take care of them. He runs into the operation rooms, all the doctors busy. He knows he needs to do everything he can by himself, take responsibility for Changkyun’s life.
He knows he can’t save the boy’s leg, cutting off what’s left with a knife, giving Changkyun a cloth to bite and scream to, as he tries to take the bullet out of his shoulder. He realizes there’s more blood and fears that it’s already too late, stripping the boy off of his uniform, finding one more wound on his stomach. He almost loses Changkyun twice and every single time he thinks he’s gonna need to face Hyungwon the moment he steps out of the room.
“He’s alive, sleeping.” He tells Hyungwon, who’s curled in from of the door and the younger lets out a deep breathy sob.
“Can I see him?” Hyungwon gets up, steadies himself on the wall before he loses his balance again.
“He’ll be transferred to the main room in a bit, you can go and wait for him there.”
Hyungwon runs to see his brother and Kihyun to the bathroom, to try cleaning as much blood as he can from his uniform. He can smell death on himself.
Changkyun is alive, but Kihyun knows he will not make it. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t talk, he breaths with difficulty. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Hyungwon and he hates himself, he hates Japan and he hates the war and everyone who caused it.
He reminds Hyungwon to eat, seeing his cheeks hollowing even more and his eyes darkening. He has too many people to take care of and he feels he failed the only ones who he cared about and cared back for him. He can’t imagine a world without Changkyun. He can’t imagine how Hyungwon feels towards himself and his parents. He promised to take care of his little brother again and again.
Kihyun asks a doctor to help with the case, to do something, anything that could raise their hopes up, enough for a few more days, so that Changkyun can wake up and they can put him into the first ship back to Korea, to home. The doctor tells him to let the boy die.
Hyungwon is sitting on Changkyun’s bed, holding his hand and brushing the hair out of his eyes. He talks to him even if Changkyun can’t hear. He insists his brother is strong, he will make it. Hyungwon doesn’t sleep for three days. Then, the fourth morning, Changkyun stops breathing.
On early January 1945, the Japanese suffer from great loses in both personnel and firearms, the American aircrafts bombing cities all around the country.
8 January 1945, collapsed section of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
Kihyun is gentle. He brings Hyungwon food, he makes him go to his training. Kihyun knows that if Hyungwon is left alone with his thoughts for too lonG he will become dangerous to himself. He stays by Hyungwon’s side when the younger has nightmares, tossing and turning in his sleep, calling his brother’s name, trying to reach him. Kihyun holds him close and whispers that everything is going to be okay. They need to keep sane, to go home.
Hyungwon at last starts being productive again, drowns himself in work to not think. Every moment alone is torturous. Every time he closes his eyes he can see Changkyun behind his eyelids, his last days, on his deathbed. He imagines his parents, wonders if they could feel something, somehow that their son is no longer walking on the same earth as them.
The other soldiers know that he lost his brother. Like they lost their own and their friends and their fathers and their homes. They don’t push him around anymore, they don’t make fun of him. Even the Japanese show empathy. Or pity.
Kihyun is not pitiful, Hyungwon knows. They promise to each other to stay together and get back. He feels like they are family, but it’s nothing like the family he’s ever had. Kihyun brings him a joy he cannot explain, pulls him out of the endless black pit that is his thoughts.
His brother’s death was a shock. Worse than everything else he has seen for the past three years, and he has seen a lot. Men amputated by bombs and mines. Screaming for help, their faces burning, pleading on their knees before being shot, ripped apart by a sword.
Nothing compared to Changkyun. His younger brother, a child still, slowly dying. Hyungwon knows Kihyun knew. He forgives him for not telling, for keeping Hyungwon’s hopes up until the last moments. Changkyun didn’t talk, he didn’t eat, he didn’t wake up. Breathing was all he did for a while and Hyungwon deep down knew. He knew when a doctor passed and told Kihyun “just let him die already”.
Every time he decides he has mourned long enough and gets out to the sun, to the ships, something pulls him back in. Changkyun was on the front part of the minesweeper. Someone did a mistake, the mine underneath them exploded. Many people were hurt, one of them his brother. Only one died.
Kihyun spots him curled on himself at the corridor, buried under his jacket and Changkyun’s too. He doesn’t care if it’s bloody, it stinks but also it smells so much like his brother. Kihyun slides down beside him and waits.
Kihyun doesn’t ask him why he is crying again, because he knows. He stays by his side until it’s time to go to his shift, do something, make the situation for some a bit better. He becomes an example for Hyungwon, who slowly pushes himself on his feet again. Changkyun wouldn’t want to see him lifeless and beat. A warm evening, bathed in the last warm beams of the sun for the year, he kneels next to Kihyun and they pray together.
On 25 January 1945, the last major German offensive campaign comes to an end, with their loss at the Battle of The Bulge. The German army greatly lacks resources and their defeat seems inevitable.
21 February 1945, collapsed section of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
Hyungwon takes his hat off, places it on Kihyun’s head and laughs. Kihyun tries to hit him, but he’s neither fast, nor tall enough and end ups cracking a smile until they both fall silent, looking at each other. Hyungwon got promoted to sub-lieutenant, he got a new uniform, a hat and his Japanese is advanced enough to talk with other soldiers for more than just the basics.
Kihyun was the first one after the higher ups to congratulate him and he notices that it’s the first time he sees Hyungwon in clean clothes, not stained or bloody.
“I took a bath” Hyungwon says, noticing Kihyun’s eyes on him and he beams. Baths were rare as time progressed, water kept for drinking and making food.
“You look good” Kihyun admits and there’s that sparkle between them again, smiling for no reason, being happy every time he’s near Hyungwon. Every time the taller man comes back in one piece, declaring the operation successful.
If it wasn’t so complicated, it they weren’t in the middle of a war where feelings are insignificant, bad, he would ask Hyungwon if he feels the same too, if he gets lost in Kihyun’s eyes. He doesn’t have the courage to. Having a friend in the middle of war is more than he could ever ask for.
“What are you thinking?” Hyungwon asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“My next shift” Kihyun lies and occupies himself with the wool strands of his jacket. “I want to wash my clothes sometime too.”
Hyungwon nods. Keeping the medics and the hospital spaces sanitized should be a priority which it is, but with the amount of people in the building it’s difficult for a room to remain clean for more than ten minutes.
Hyungwon takes Kihyun’s hand, pushes his sleeve up to see his watch, band loose around his skinny arm. Kihyun knows it’s time for Hyungwon to go, to the ship or the submarine or whatever kind of floating steel cage he is assigned to for the day. He watches his shoulders and his broad back as he walks out of the corridor. He has a bed now, but he still meets up with Kihyun at the same place they met.
The proud man walking to the port doesn’t resemble even one bit the hull of a man he was some months ago. He mourned for his brother, he blamed and hurt himself. He was sorrowful and angry. Kihyun understood, he sat beside him and helped him calm down. He gave him space when he needed him. He distracted him from the rest of the world.
Nobody forgot Changkyun and nobody forgave. But they bonded and came out of it stronger. They lived through attacks and Hyungwon once had to swim back to the port, their ship sunk by an enemy aircraft. Kihyun fell sick every few weeks, a virus infecting so many of them.
They gained the trust of the Japanese fellow soldiers and personnel. Kihyun got a gun and Hyungwon an upgrade on his own. They both know that guns do nothing against bombs or fire, but the cold metal hidden between their clothes helps them sleep a little lighter, knowing that they can either protect themselves or die all together.
They had to live, to remember Changkyun and to go back home, together.
Until 1945, an estimated 60.000 Koreans from the 670.000 taken to japan died from inhumane living and working conditions and allied bombing.
16 July 1945, shipyard of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
He traces the exterior of the submarine, fingers sliding on the cold, smooth surface. It’s one of the oldest models, but also the sturdiest. He worked in it when he first came into the base and now, he’s one of the few responsible for it. An actual part of the navy, serving a country he never liked, but it’s also his own nonetheless.
Nagato is still at the port, for days. They are running out of fuel for her demanding machines and can’t risk patrolling when they may need her in case of invasion. They are running out of food too, of soldiers, of bullets. The upside is that the war seems to be coming to an end. The downside that the Allies are winning too much land over them. Germany is losing more and more battles, Japan is trapped and cut off from the rest of the world, Italy has given up long ago.
He received kind words for his work on the submarine, from the same people that punched his teeth out every time he collapsed from too much work, years ago. He knows he climbed higher only because he lived long enough to. A big part of their fleet is already sunken, along with the sailors serving in it. The radio doesn’t try to sugarcoat anymore, they are losing battle after battle, the Americans closer to their islands every day. He’s trying to prepare himself for what is coming, because something definitely is.
He has a medal now, hanging on top of his chest, on his heart. A medal for guessing an enemy’s trap before the radars detected the other ships around them. He saved a couple hundred people that day, received that little piece of metal with the graceless yellow ribbon glued on it. His father would be proud, Changkyun too.
It’s already getting dark and he’s gonna call the soldiers to get into the submarine soon. They are gonna try a night patrol around the area, to make sure that everything is working. The next morning they are gonna do it again. A repetitive schedule for the whole week. He’s training new recruits, fifteen year olds who keep walking and holding their guns out of pure fear. He doesn’t feel sorry for them anymore, they’ll either make it or die at their first real mission.
He hopes that with his new position he will be able to get some extra food, for himself and Kihyun. The man is crumbling after years of overworking himself and Hyungwon can’t bear seeing him like this. What’s the point of saving thousands of lives if he can’t save his own?
Kihyun always takes good care of him, in all the ways he can. He makes sure Hyungwon is as healthy as it goes, patches up all his wounds and invites him to share a bed when it’s too cold to sleep in corridors. Maybe after getting a position in the navy he won’t have to go back to working in the fields. Maybe he can stay in the army and make enough money to feed his parents and also live somewhere near Kihyun.
He decides he’s gonna find a way to get more food for them and a radio. To listen the announcement for the end of the war together.
The Second Guangxi Campaign of the Second Sino-Japanese War is slowly coming to a successful end, the Chinese claiming more and more land from the Empire of Japan.
18 July 1945, collapsed section of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Kanagawa, Japan
“Where to? Too early” Kihyun says playfully, Hyungwon in front of him munching on some stale bread. Knowing he was sleeping there, he wanted to wake him up and see him before getting engrossed in his work. Hyungwon smirks, a finger placed on his bony shoulder, on a new symbol sewed on his uniform. Kihyun recognizes it.
“Lieutenant” he says more to himself and Hyungwon nods, offering some of his bread. Koreans were rarely offered positions of power, but Hyungwon was there for long, lucky enough to not be killed, clever and hardworking enough to survive. Kihyun tries not to be jealous, he’s still the same as he was the first day he stepped in the base, a nurse. He’s gonna finish his studies when the war is over.
“Why so early though?” he asks again, because it’s five in the morning and they’ve been quiet lately, so most are enjoying a few hours of sleep.
“We’ll do some maintenance to one of the submarines and then patrol the area. Nagato is taking off with troops and we’ll need to escort her.” He lowers his voice, steps closer to Kihyun “I have a bad feeling about this. The higher ups think the Americans are gonna do something”
Kihyun laughs because the bad feeling nested into his heart and mind the first day he got enlisted and hasn’t left since then.
“If you hear anything, go to the north building, there are stairs next to the last office. They’ve dug caves down there Kihyun, they are gonna hide If they bombard us and they won’t care to tell everyone. Promise me to go.” Hyungwon speaks fast, not taking breaths, eyes pleading.
He takes Hyungwon’s hand into his own, squeezes and tries to comfort him, tell him nothing is going to happen. Hyungwon has spent the last two and a half years into ships and submarines. He momentarily thinks of Changkyun. Hyungwon at least needs to return back to his home, fate is not that harsh.
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Okay” Hyungwon is shifting nervously from one leg to the other looking out of the windows and back at Kihyun in front of him. Kihyun doesn’t have anything better to say, so he stands on his toes and kisses the corner of Hyungwon’s mouth.
“For good luck” he says, letting Hyungwon’s hand go.
“Okay, I’ll be back before it gets dark” Hyungwon smiles and wears his jacket, leaving for the port with long strides.
Right after lunch, Kihyun has some time to rest. He walks one last time around the beds to make sure the patients are as comfortable as they can gey in their confined dirty space and climbs on a bed, to steal a few hours of sleep until his next shift.
He’s woken by something falling on his face, debris and wood. There’s screaming and dust misting the air as the building collapses on top of them. Soldiers are on the floor, lifeless bodies, others asking for help but he can’t think straight. He can’t think of the caves underneath them and the offices, he can’t think of the hands trying to grab his uniform or the pieces of the roof falling all around him. He only thinks of Hyungwon and rushes outside from the main entrance.
He holds his breath and runs to the port, in the smoke and the remaining officers shouting orders. He climbs on the boulders, in front of the sea and waits a few seconds for the air to clear, enough to spot their biggest ship, Nagato, first her tower and bridge collapsing. The smaller ships next to her are on fire and the sea is heavy with waves.
He can’t spot the submarine close to the coast and all he sees is fire on the water and people jumping off of the ships. The noise is deafening and when he looks up to the sun he sees the airplanes aligned and ready to aim just above him.
On July 18, 1945, the allied forces attack the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, aiming for the warship Nagato. Among others, the submarine I-372 is destroyed and 60 bombs land on the harbor.
On September 2, 1945, the Second World War officially ends.