The Rising Sun & The Morning Calm Ch. 09

Passing through Tokyo with a few trusted aides, Noboru had finished dining with some prominent scientists from Tokyo National University when he was distracted by the noise of muffled screams.

Seeing him pause, his men felt the shift in his mood. "[Doshta]?" Genzo asked softly.

"Something is going on down that street." He strained to make out the sounds and realized that they were women's voices. What was even more unexpected was that they were Korean. "Genzo, follow me."

The two men slipped into a dark alleyway and approached the source of the noise. Peering through a window, they saw soldiers roughly handling women dressed in [hanbok] as they begged to be released. "Please!" one sobbed. "I want to go home! [Uhmuhni]!"

The men laughed and continued on, unconcerned with their cries. "I have no idea what they're saying, do you?" one soldier asked another.

"No. Do you care?" They all laughed raucously.

"Working for the army sure got a lot easier when they starting bringing in the comfort women," another shouted gleefully. "And this batch is fresh!"

Noboru watched as one man forced a girl's legs open and slapped her when she tried to resist. He forced himself into her and Noboru was horrified to see her bleeding profusely. The girl had been a virgin. When he was finished, he wiped the blood off his penis and pulled up his pants. "Well, back to work."

The girl crawled to the corner of the bed, pulling her skirts down. Before she could even cry, her eyes widened in horror when another soldier grabbed the smaller girl next to her. "[Unnie]!" she wailed.

"Let her go!" she shrieked, pounding the man's back with her fists. "She's only fourteen, you animal!"

The soldier backhanded her face sharply, sending her spinning. "Stupid Korean bitch," he grumbled as he undid his pants. "[Urusai!]" he barked at the crying girl in front of him.

Barely able to contain his rage, Noboru looked at Genzo. "[Ikkuzo]."

Nodding, Genzo, drew his sword and leapt into the window in the next room without making a sound, his ninjitsu skills every bit as sharp as they were when they'd first met. There was a sound of flesh being slashed and few strangled cries of surprised and then the thud of bodies falling onto the ground. Entering the room, Noboru found Genzo cleaning the blood off his katana as the heads of the soldiers lay staring at their bodies. The girls had huddled in a group in the farthest corner of the room, trembling as he approached them.

"[Koen chan ttah]," he said softly. The girls looked at him in surprise.

"You know our language?" the older sister of the little girl asked.

"I do. You must come with us. We will get you to safety." He raised his hands in a gesture of non-aggression. "I promise we will not hurt you." Unable to argue, they nodded mutely and followed them out of the dingy room.

Genzo looked behind him impatiently as the only girl in the group who had been raped lagged behind, still bruised from her assault. Striding over to her, she shook as he loomed over her. Sending her a look that warned her not to do anything foolish, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her as they made their way back to where Noboru and his men were staying. Genzo gruffly but gently set her down on a tatami while Noboru explained to the others what had happened. Her younger sister clung tightly to her, still shaking.

"Kunio, find someone reliable to take these girls back to Korea. Dress them as Japanese girls if you have to and I'll provide whatever money they ask for."

"Huh!" Kunio left to make the arrangements.

Noboru turned to see Genzo watching the two sisters intently, his arms crossed in front of his chest and thought back to the moment that Ji Eun had slit her throat. "At least she is alive," he said with relief. "We'll get them back tomorrow night."

The men were awakened in the middle of the night by a scream, followed by a wail of despair. Running into the room, they saw the girl who had been raped hanging from the ceiling by a noose fashioned out of a bed sheet. Her little sister hugged her legs as she sobbed, "[Unnie]!"

"No!" he shouted.

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doshta: what is it (Japanese)

hanbok: traditional Korean dress

uhmuhni: mother (Korean)

unnie: older sister (Korean)

urusai: shut up (Japanese)

ikkuzo: let's go (Japanese)

koen chan ttah: it's alright (Korean)

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"Nobu!"

"[Iyah]!" Noboru bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. "[Yumeh-da]," he thought aloud.

Putting her arms around him, Angela looked into his eyes with concern. "Noboru, what is it?"

Not wanting to upset her, he simply hugged her and said, "It was just a bad dream." When she looked doubtful he added, "[Chin-jja]. Let's go back to bed."

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iyah: no (Japanese)

yumeh-da: it was a dream (Japanese)

chin-jja: really (Korean)

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Historical note:

The Japanese military kidnapped young women not only from Korea, but also China and the Philippines as well to service the soldiers in the army during the occupation of Korea. Lured away from their families by the promise of well-paying jobs, or simply forcibly taken, the women were raped multiple times a day and often were riddled with venereal disease or rendered sterile by the constant abuse.

Those who survived returned to Korea as outcasts, unable to wed and disowned by their families who considered them as good as dead. Living under these conditions, the final blow came when the Japanese government issued a statement that these events would not be noted in their history texts. The few remaining comfort women staged protests in front of the Japanese consulate in Seoul, stating that this omission rendered a lifetime of suffering a lie.

As most of these women were in their teens and early twenties when they were taken, fewer and fewer of the surviving comfort women are present each year to fight for acknowledgement.

For the comfort halmun [grannies]