What happens when a group of strangers are thrown together by a TV show and discover they share an unusual habit? That they are all serial killers.
You get VIXX, a Kpop group with an very sharp edge.
What drives a person to kill and in some c...
A/N Again I am mixing fact with fiction. Not VIXX's facts; true historical facts. It won't be pleasant but I feel that it is a chapter of history that people should be aware so that nothing like this can ever be allowed to happen again. I also want to pay homage to all the women who died during this unfortunate time.
The next few weeks were hectic as the VIXX team geared up for their first concert in Japan. Practices started at dawn and lasted late into the night. Costume fittings, make up, hair styling, the to-do list never seemed to end.
Ever since the Japan trip was announced, Ken had become even more engrossed in his history books. His focus centered on the time of the Japanese occupation of Korea. Any time they had a break from their training, he could be found with his head stuck in one of his books or searching articles on the internet. As he studied, he would make notes in a journal he kept locked up when he wasn't using it.
Ken's obsession with that period of Korean history began when he was about ten years old.
When was a baby, both of Ken's parents had to work. He was left in the care of Song Bong Su, an elderly neighbor. Song Bong Su was a kind, gentle woman. Not having any children of her own, Song Bong Su lavished Ken with love and attention. She loved to sing the songs of her childhood to him. Ken learned to sing imitating these songs. Ken loved her like she was his own grandmother.
That was why he was so devastated the day he came home from school to the news that Song Bong Su was dead by her own hand.
Ken couldn't understand why his beloved Song Bong Su would leave him like that. What could have been so terrible that se felt it was better to leave this world rater than stay with him. No one would explain it to him. He eavesdropped conversations of the elders around him to try to understand.
He heard a lot of whispers about the time of the Japanese occupation. He frequently heard the words "comfort station" and "comfort women" and about a list of names that had been released in the news. The words were spoken with both anger and shame. To his young mind the words didn't sound so bad. Song Bong Su had always been a comfort to him as he grew up. He was too young to understand the horrible meaning behind those soft. All he knew was that his beloved Song Bong Su's name had been on one of those list and the shame of it caused her to take her own life.
Ken first tried to ask his teachers at school. He was told it wasn't something a child his age needed to know about it. Next he tried the history books in the school library. They were also useless for what he needed to know. The books were full of the brutal treatment the Korean people received at the hands of the Japanese. How they had tried to eradicate the entire country's culture and identity. All of that was common knowledge. Yet there was no mention of these "Comfort Stations" or the "Comfort Woman" who work in them. Using the internet and newspaper articles he started to put the pieces together.
During World War II, the Japanese established a series of military brothels in the countries they occupied. They were called Comfort Stations. According to the Japanese Army, these comfort stations were established to provide comfort in the form of sexual relief to the Japanese soldiers. These government run facilities were supposed to prevent venereal diseases among the soldiers which was a persistent problem. It was also hoped that this would eliminate the rape of the indigenous populations by providing for the soldier's sexual needs in clean regulated facilities.
Though this practice was believed to have gone on long before, the official records state that the first comfort stations were established in the Japanese concession in Shanghai in 1932. These early facilities were manned by Japanese prostitutes who volunteered for the service. They were well paid and well treated. However, as Japan military presence expanded further through Asia, the military found itself short of Japanese volunteers. They then turned to the local population of the areas they occupied to recruit women.
"Recruiting" women for the brothels amounted to kidnapping and coercion. Women were rounded up on the streets of Japanese-occupied territories and forced to serve in these facilities. Women were tricked into traveling to what they thought were nursing units or other jobs only to find themselves sexual slaves to the Japanese army. Others were purchased from their parents as indentured servants. Girls as young as eight or ten years old were taken. These women came from all over southeast Asia, but the majority were Korean or Chinese. It is estimated that more than three hundred thousand women were forced to endure this sexual slavery to needs of the Japanese soldiers.
Once they were at the brothels, the women were forced to have sex with their captors under brutal, inhumane conditions. Beatings and physical torture were said to be common in these facilities. The women who were not prostitutes prior to joining the "Comfort Women", especially those taken in by force, were normally "broken in" by being raped multiple times. They had to live with agonizing physical pain, aborted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and bleak housing conditions. Approximately three quarters of women died, abuse and neglect being the primary causes of their deaths. Many of the survivors were left infertile due to sexual trauma or sexually transmitted diseases.
By the end of World War II, as the Japanese dominance waned the "Comfort Stations" were shut down and the Japanese government tried to erase any references to them.
The surviving woman were abandoned and had to find their way home as best they could. On returning to their homes, these women became social outcasts. Often it was implied that these women should have died rather bring their shame home to their families. Suicide was common among the returnee. Many went into hiding, hoping that their shame would never be revealed. For years the truth of what the Japanese did stayed buried.
Then news articles started to surface detailing with the plight of these "Comfort Women". List of the names of the woman who had endured these humiliations and survived were published. When Song Bong Su saw her name revealed as part of that past, she couldn't bare the shame. She decided that taking her own life was the only way she could atone for the shame she had brought to her family.
Even though he was only ten, Ken pieced together the true horror that those innocent sounding words implied. It tore at his heart to think that the sweet, gentle woman who had raised him all those years had been treated this way. It wasn't long before his sorrow turned to hatred and thoughts of revenge.
It was a year later that he got his first chance to act on that revenge.
A/N
How will the desire for revenge effect Ken's life?
Do you, dear readers, have a revenge story you's like to share?
I welcome any comments. Please vote for my story, I appreciate all the support.
Unfortunately this piece of history is true.
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The mayor of the Japanese city of Osaka has said he is cutting ties with San Francisco because of a new statue there, overlooking a small park downtown. The statue has three figures holding hands on a pedestal, representing girls from Korea, China and the Philippines. It is in commemoration of the tens of thousands of "comfort women" who were detained and raped by Japanese soldiers before and during the Second World War.
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