Junpei was leaving, and Asahi wondered if he would ever see him again.

On a warm spring day, Junpei stared hatefully at his books. He didn’t understand why he had to be stuck in that shut-up little room, memorizing text, when he could have instead been out with his friends. It had been a particularly cold winter, so he already spent a considerable amount of time inside. It didn’t seem right that he was still stuck inside, despite the branches of the cherry trees being covered in light pink blossoms and the forests showing subtle shades of light green. He also didn’t understand why he had to babysit his baby brother while he napped, considering that their mother was right outside, caring for household chores.

He glanced up angrily when he heard the door open, and he tried to hide his displeasure and respond respectfully when his mother peeked her head in to tell him to stay with Asahi and that she would be right back. He hated studying, but he didn’t have anything better to do, so he figured he might as well get something accomplished in the meantime —not that he could keep his mind on it.

He stared at the page, but his mind was focused on the sounds and smells coming from outside. The crystal-clear birdsongs seemed to echo inside his head, and the air was thick with the perfumed fragrance of the cherry blossoms. He sat there trying to count how many different birds he could hear when he started to hear screaming in the distance, and it wasn’t coming from just one person. He then started to hear the shouting of men and sharp sounds of metal on metal along with with the screaming. He bolted out of the room and into the warm sunshine to figure out what was going on, but the screams and shouting were rapidly getting closer. Without thinking, Junpei grabbed Asahi and took off for the woods as fast as he could go. He tried to make as little sound as possible through the leaves and sticks on the ground, and he kept running without even looking back. It took everything in him to try to figure out how to quiet the startled Asahi while crashing through the woods as soundlessly as possible.

He didn’t want to go too far away — just far enough to where the men wouldn’t see them or hear Asahi’s crying. Junpei assumed everything with their family would be okay and that he just had to wait out the soldiers who were passing through. He stayed where he was until it was fully dark, not wanting to take any chances. Asahi had cried almost the entire time, finally stopping from exhaustion alone.

When the moon was high in the sky, Junpei cautiously carried Asahi and made his way back toward the village, coming up behind their house first. There was no candlelight coming from any of the rooms and no one was in the yard, so he continued on toward the village. Junpei was numbed by shock as he made his way along the roads, stepping over bodies illuminated in the moonlight, checking each one to see if it was anyone he knew. What felt like an icy hand gripped his heart when, up ahead, he saw their mother laying in the road, and the basket she carried was mangled beside her and stained with red.

Asahi was still quiet as Junpei slowly and apprehensively walked over to their mother and turned her over. He was too numb to feel anything when her unseeing eyes stared blankly ahead. In shock and not knowing what to do, Junpei carried Asahi on his back and started walking, without purpose or direction. He had no reason to return home. There was nothing of value there, and they haven’t heard a thing from their father since he went to the war.

Junpei didn’t stop walking until he reached the closest city, a day and a half away by foot. Not very far into the city, Junpei’s legs started buckling on him, so he made his way over to the side and put Asahi down before collapsing and closing his eyes. Both he and his baby brother were too exhausted, tired, dirty, and hungry to make a sound. Junpei doesn’t know how long they were like that. He thinks he remembers at least one whole night and morning passing before an elderly man in stately robes approached him. He vaguely remembers the man trying to talk to him. What felt like a little while later, he remembered bits and pieces of the nausea he had from the unsteadiness he felt while being carried on a stretcher, and the panic that tried to break into his consciousness when he didn’t know a thing about where Asahi was or if he was even still alive.

When he finally woke up, Junpei had no idea where he was. The fact that his surroundings were completely unfamiliar suddenly lost importance when the memories of the past couple of days flashed through his mind. This time, he didn’t have the cushion of the shock and numbness to dull his pain, and he curled up into a little ball, screams intermingling with his sobs. The older man from the street came rushing in, and he slowly and reassuringly patted Junpei’s back while he sobbed.

In the days that followed, Junpei would sit under the trees and stare blankly at other boys his age training doing their training exercises in martial arts. Day after day he sat there until one day, the older man came over and tried to talk to him. Junpei still stared straight ahead, but the man was able to draw him to his feet and over to the boys who were training. The boys huddled together and watched as the master requested for one of the wooden swords be brought over, and then he placed it in Junpei’s hands. Reflexively, Junpei’s fingers curled around the wood, and he broke his fixed gaze to look down at the training sword. The master stood beside him and walked him through the training exercises as the instructor led the rest of the boys.

What started as a mindless activity for Junpei became his life. It began as repetitive motions, but soon Junpei was coming to life by those motions. He caught on quickly, and he would spend endless hours training outside, even while the other boys ate and slept. With fury and hatred, he sliced, pounded, and kicked until he was covered in wounds and bruises. Out of pain, he twirled and leapt faster and higher than anyone else. And then with coldness, he quickly far and above outmatched any other person there.

He was trapped in his own mind, and his training became the rope that kept him anchored. As he grew, Asahi would watch Junpei train. He knew that Junpei was his brother, but he didn’t know anything else about him. Junpei in the training yard was a fixture in Asahi’s life, a fixture that he only ever saw from a distance. Master was the one to raise and educate Asahi in right and wrong, and Asahi was learning and working for as far back as he could remember, stopping only occasionally to watch Junpei expertly handle weapons of every kind, and he would wonder what kind of person Junpei was while he watched.

He didn’t know why, but he longed for his brother to look at him, and he knew his dream of talking to his brother was probably too much to hope for. One day though, while Asahi was bringing some books to his master, he stopped briefly at the training yard to see if his brother was there. Junpei was about to start a training match with an instructor but, upon seeing Asahi, he made his way over to him. Asahi stared up at his brother in wonder, but then Junpei crouched down to be on eye level with Asahi. What felt like the best day in Asahi’s life quickly became the worst, because Junpei told him that he was leaving to go to the war as an elite soldier.

Asahi just stared at his brother for a minute, but then he felt his eyes starting to tear up. Embarrassed, he dropped the books and ran off to hide. Asahi didn’t want his brother to see him as a baby anymore. When he found a quiet, secluded place, he dropped to the ground and didn’t stop the tears anymore. He couldn’t believe that after tomorrow, he wasn’t going to see his brother there in the training yard every time he walked by. He would no longer have a reason to keep glancing at the doorways, wondering if this would finally be the day he would see Junpei come through the door.

The day Junpei left, outwardly everything seemed normal. Boys trained. Other boys wished they were training. Leaves rattled as they were scraped along the paving stones, gathered together by the stiff bristles of the brooms. Asahi watched as Junpei respectfully said farewell to Master, and he hoped that one day Junpei would return for him.