Kenji

Chapter 2

It has been 3 days since the headlines. The whole 3 days had been torturous for the parents. The kids were too young to understand anything. The eldest, Amber, was 10 and the youngest, James, was barely 5. The kids did not understand the concept of war, attacks, politics, unstable international relations and aggression. All the while, Ken was thinking about his relatives back in Japan. Were they okay? Were they safe? Were they captured? Killed?

He tried not to think too much. But he had a faint idea of what the bomb in Pearl Harbour would lead to. He cooked up the worst possible things that might happen. He knew there would be racism against the Japanese in America. The number of people coming to his shop were dwindling. The ones who came seemed to be suspicious of Kenji. As much as it pissed his off, he put on a sincere smile and served them. Some threw snide remarks at him and his wife. He tried to tolerate them, with his mask of a smile on his face. They did not know that when the sun sets and the shop closed, he would curse them so badly that it would make his mother blush.

He had built his respect for 16 years, and everything had gone to waste.

Just because of his homeland attacking Pearl Harbour.

If the common people were like this, what would the government be like? He knew the government would work for the Americans and against the enemies, which were, in this case, the Japs. He wished he was the president of Japan. Only then he would not have made that goddamned aggressive expansionist policy that would affect the world. He predicted the worst.

The president would lock all Japanese, innocent or not, away as Prisoners-of-War, just like what his people were doing. He had to bear the punishment that he was not supposed to face. It felt like the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War 1, where Germany was blamed for starting the war when it had been Austria-Hungary at that time.

Whenever he spent time in his religious activities, he would ask God why this fate was bestowed on his family. Why did the Japanese do this? Why did his people do this? What was he going to do? What would his life become?

Would everything ever become the same again?

He did not think so.

But he remembered what he told his family, even the kids who cocked their heads sideways in confusion.

We will be okay.

They would be okay no matter what happens. Because love wins everything.