1953 (Japan, China)
Title: 1953
Warnings: Talking about war
Summary: Japan goes to visit China
Characters: China, Japan, brief mention of America
Year: 1953
In later years, when Kiku is wiser, he begins to understand the complicated interplay between the sentiments of a Nation-- of himself, or Alfred, or Yao-- and its people. Kiku feels his children's patriotism, hope, or despair just as they feel his, and the emotions fuel each other, but they're not the same. How can they be, when he has the advantage of millenia of years of perspective (yes, people often forget that he's as old as China, even if he didn't grow up as quickly as his big brother), and his people have only a couple of decades? He has reached heights of reason, of study, that none of his people could aspire to.
So, when the patriotic fever, the near-hysterical dread of imperialism from the West takes a hold of his people, it is with the full power of his reason and intellect brought to bear that he agrees with the council. “Yes,” he says to Emperor Showa, the memory of foreign boots on his land bringing a shiver to his spine, and the thought of the Europeans crawling their way across his closest continent haunting his mind. “Pursue the Line of Advantage.” Manchuria, Korea, the islands; they would serve as a buffer, to keep the grubby hands of the imperialists off of his beautiful mountains, his ancient temples. He had learned his lesson, watching France in Indochina, England in India.
The invasion-- well. Kiku was no stranger to violence and conquests. He'd been fighting with Yao ever since he could remember, and Soo, and Ai-ben, his strange northern neighbor. The adrenaline covered the pain that violent death in his children caused him; their euphoria at the risks they took fed his. Battle-- war-- had been a part of him for as long as he could remember.
The first inklings that he had that this time might be different came when Wuhan finally began to fall. He watched from afar as Yao's children died in packs, choked to death by a poison they couldn't see, and was troubled, briefly. This wasn't his experience of war. But the celebratory mood of his people soon overcame him. Soon the Chinese resistance would crumble, he was told. The image entered his mind of Yao bowing to him, finally acknowledging his victory, a light of recognition-- even respect-- in his eyes. So when he heard vague reports from the Emperor's staff-- the rioting soldiers in Nanjing, bubonic plague in Ningbo-- he didn't worry overly much. How could he, with triumph in the hearts of his people, with victory so close?
The summer when things started to sour was a warm one. The cherry blossoms were long gone when news started to filter in from the Pacific; damage to the navy in the south; finally, the defeat in the north. The Emperor was still optimistic. The next two months were hectic, confusing. Kiku remembers long meetings and sour tempers, the growing nervousness of his generals. The new intensity of the bombing of his cities; he woke up at night in a cold sweat, feeling the deaths of his children, the destruction of his land. The call for surrender-- naturally they paid no heed, blustering was a part of war.
Then, an August morning, he is toppled in his council meeting by a type of pain he had never felt before. Four days of pain. Kiku remembers nothing from those days, except the burning, burning in his gut. He wondered if that was what it was like to die.
The shame came later, when he accompanied Shigemitsu and the others to the ship where they signed away their pride. He remembers only a glimpse of Alfred that day-- troubled, but happy. He doesn't remember seeing Yao at all. The next few years are a flurry of rebuilding, compromising, and saving face. Yao is in the middle of a struggle of his own, and except for a few shared glances that cause the floor to drop out under Kiku's feet, they don't see each other.
A few months after Yao's government settles down, Kiku goes to see him. Yao is waiting, calmly, in the house they have prepared for him; it is sparse, nearly bare in comparison with the elaborate palaces of the past. His expression doesn't change when he sees Kiku.
Kiku bows, shallowly, in greeting. Yao stands and bows back, at exactly the same angle. “This is not an official visit,” says Kiku, face as empty as Yao's. The other man nods in acknowledgment. Then Kiku crumbles to the floor. “Rénxiōng,” he says, digging in his mind for the Chinese he once knew. Older brother. He bows until his forehead touches the floor. “I am ready for whatever revenge you wish to extract.” He doesn't lift his head from the ground. Because he knows, now. He knows about the slaughter, the experiments, the rape. It was nothing that hadn't happened in the rest of the world; but that didn't change the fact that he had done it. He had done it to Yao, the one who had raised him.
He continues to stare at the wood, waiting for the judgment that Yao-- China-- one of the world's oldest empires-- would pass. He hears the other man stand, and the soft scuff of his bare feet against the floor. Kiku breaths like his martial artists taught him, preparing for pain.
He is not prepared for the gentle fingers that run through his hair. He freezes, hardly daring to breath. “Kiku,” says the older nation,“di di.” At the endearment, Kiku feels his eyes begin to sting. Cool fingers slip under his chin, and lift it, so that he has no choice but to meet Yao's eyes. “We have done terrible things to each other. Yours have done terrible things to mine.” He takes Kiku's hands, and draws him up to his knees. They kneel, facing each other. “But no matter what our people do to each other, no matter how much hate we feel, remember: I am your brother, and I will always love you.”
Kiku closes his eyes, the tears running freely now. He can't answer, but he doesn't think he has to.