"All men are brothers, like the seas of the world; so why do waves and winds clash so fiercely everywhere"
the day i started to understand the connotations in bravery, was the dawn of my father's passing. Whilst reminiscing, I do understand that my father was a dishonorable man, yet when i was a young, simple-minded teenager, i had a different perspective on the matter. my father perished in the summer of 1937. On that day, I was aiding Riku, a friend of mine, run his shoe-polishing business. I was assisting a customer who had coughed in my face so much so that i couldn't help but be worried for my health, when all of a sudden, a stern looking guard had arrived, requesting my presence. I assumed the encounter regarded my previous' weeks misfortunes. I had stolen some tampura i found on a restaurant's counter. It was due to the peer-pressure induced by my buddies, who thought i was too naive to go against my morals (I had proven them wrong). They had given me several options, each of which violated the law in some way, yet i chose the less destructive one.
At last, riku had pointed him towards me with remorse in his eyes. he asked me while a rough and deep voice left his mouth, if i was kaito's son. it was then i realized something was definitely wrong, and not in the subject of tampura, i was an outsider in the city where everyone knew everyone; no one ever cared for my existence. they all worshiped my father and had no knowledge of his scrawny little son. my father had sent me to army training school repetitively, to follow in his footsteps of becoming a soldier, while all i did was run away. when the people of the town had figured this out, they started to do something i never thought possible, they hated me even more. at my last encounter with my father, i was walking back early from a vigorous training. we had met at a nearby shop where i was going to by water. Without a moment of fluster (he knew me well), my father dragged me home. once at our destination, i had an enjoyable meeting with the stick standing against the wall. happily, i gave the stick a couple of more dents, and the favor was returned from the stick, more powerfully.
anyways, after i nodded, the guard introduced himself and had told me, with not an atoms weight of despair in his eyes that my father had died. he proceeded to explain that he had left the world by a bullet shot in his heart at the Marco polo bridge incident. i felt the color draining from my face as my eyes flustered with tears. he must have been wrong. my father had appeared from every battle unscathed after all these years, but since i clearly had no other delivery man coming to send news, i chose to take his words as truth. thereafter, i re-attended to my business with the customer, completed it, and headed on home. i ran up the steps, looked around to see if anyone was following me -there were lots of thieves in this part of town- and entered my "house". it was a small room with a sink for a kitchen. i went to my mother sitting on the wheelchair in the corner, and kissed her on the cheek. She was once so beautiful. in Japanese i told her, about my day at the shop. i will never forget her screams and wailing that followed when i told her about the news. five years had gone by since that day, five years of learning and growing.
