Beautiful Tears

By Yuna Iwata

Loading...

7 years ago…...

Loading...

“Happy birthday to you~
Happy birthday to you~
Happy birthday to Kaito~
Happy birthday to you!!” sang Kawamura, family. Mom put the homemade shortcake on an old wooden table. “mmm yum ”it looked very delicious. "Kaito" I call him.
“Do you want something? I can do it for you because it’s yours and ours special day!!” I said. “Well, I will think about it!” said Kaito.

Loading...

Loading...

Loading...

After that, it was time for him to open the present.
My parents were excited that they said, “we are excited about how Kaito going to face when he sees the present”.
Then he smiled softly and said,  “mom, dad I am going to my room to open the present because I want it to be the person who sees the present first”.
After 2 minutes, he came from his room with his huge smile on his face. He screamed bustling noisy! “Yay! Hohoo! Yes, I got this video games that I always wanted. yay!! thanks, mom, dad!”. Then he said again, “bye I’m going to play this video game for 24 hours now!!”. Then my mother said, “wait, Kaito! Don’t you remember that we are leaving China and moving to Japan? so you have to clean your thing because 4 days later the guy will take our things”. “O...k…” he said in a tired voice.

Then the doorbell rang 5 times in a row. I opened the door slowly. When I opened, there was 3 kid standing in front of me. They gave me 3 letters to me and said, “give that to Kaito”.
So I went to Kaito’s room and said “your friend had just come and passed me this letter. They said I have to give you the letter” . Then Kaito said“oh, thanks!” .

That evening at 7 PM dad came home from the office with the rush. I wondered what has happened to him. Because he always came home at 1 PM but today he came home at 7 PM.

Then he whispered to my mom something that I don’t know and she made a surprised face.  

That midnight I woke up to go to the bathroom. On the way, I saw my mom and dad were talking softly.
I heard my mom’s voice.
“but what should we do?” she said worriedly.
 I got really curious of her question. When I tried to listen, it was a serious conversion. I wondered if what I was hearing was real. I slapped my face.

I couldn't control myself “why should we have to stay here for another 6 years!? I don’t want to….” I cried.
“Let’s talk, ” my father said. I wiped my face.

”Today at work my boss said it's too dangerous for us to move to Japan so we should stay for another 6 years…..so we should...”. My tears fell down on the table. I responded “but why……..” .
“Because of world war II” dad said it softly.
“Why world war II is dangerous ?” I asked.
“Yeah, there are many dangerous things in world war II. For example, people kill people who didn’t do any bad things at all. also, they crush into there air plains by their own airplanes. some people are happy that they can go to the war” dad whispered to me. My dad told the saddest fact ever.

That night I couldn't sleep as long as I thought the feeling of the people who died in the war. (How can the war be ended?) I asked my self.

After 6 years(the war ended 1 year ago)…..
I became 15th and Kaito has became 12th. My mom said,“Haruka, Kaito pack your things because__”
“4 days later the guy will take our things. right mom?” asked Kaito.
I smiled.
My dad said “now we can go back to Japan because the war ended I think their life gonna be good if we can meet our whole family members rather then only us!!”.
“finally we are in Japan!!“ said Kaito.
“I think Japan will be clean !” I said.
After 1 week (the 3 days of a ship and 4 days of packing) we reached Japan. It wasn’t the same as the last time we came. Also, it had a very huge distance between their In Kawamura families imagination. Firstly, they thought clean roads or people welcoming them. But it wasn’t.it was bloody, dead people everywhere, the house was crunched up. Kaito's tears fell down to the bloody road “what…”.

we searched the place like hotels. We walked through the bushes and clouded forest. There was no roads or anything except trees bordered. As we stepped the hard leaves, my dad got scratches on his elbows. 

Finally, we found a small cottage where those 99 old women and 100 years old men lived. They allowed us to sleep in there. “Thanks very much!!” thanked Kaito in Japanese. “Youkoso wagaya e (welcome to our home)” said the old women then smiled. Then I smiled her back. and the word I most of time said to them is “Arigatou gozaimasu(thank you )”.

When we walked into the house, I heard the noise of the floor sounding like “week! Squeak!”. Also, I saw the wall was ripped and there was a hole. I was a little bit worried that we will make this house dirtier. Then 100 old man showed us a table but there was those trash on it. So my mom tried to clean up the trash. Around 15 minutes later, she finished cleaning up that trash. When I asked her to show her hands, she allowed me so I looked. When I looked her hands it was full of dust. “Eww.,” I said and made a weird face.

That afternoon just right after the bath, I saw people making a sad faces. I asked my dad “what happened?”. Then he answered calmly “oh Haruka, we were just talking about the war” “but why it is sad?” I asked again. He answered “Well there are many ways that people think the war makes them sad like there house burned or their own car had crashed. But the ways that they make the war worse is that their daughter's sun has died……”.  I couldn’t respond to my dad because of what he talked about now.
The everything was quiet over here. I tried to make them happy again but I couldn't. Also, Kaito tried too. But he couldn't…. (Why does war want to make people sad?) I said softly to my heart.

The next morning, we went out of the house and we said thank you to them. We were ready to walk and look for their family member.