O morning glory-
I, too, yearn for
eternity.
Shōwa 10
The emperor had reigned in Tokyo for ten years, and the Japanese reigned in Formosa for forty. It was, by Gregorian reckoning, the year 1935. Over those decades, thousands of civilians and soldiers had died as part of the imperial project in Taiwan, and something like thirty thousand guns had been confiscated from the locals by Japanese forces. It was possible that chemical gas had first crept over Asian battlefields when the Sediq people revolted against their Japanese masters, although that wasn't something the empire boasted about.
But wasn't Japanese rule over Taiwan more than just a series of unfortunate conflicts with natives who couldn't recognize when good was being done to them? Japan had brought technology and modern practice to the island, lifting her from the backwardness and feuding that so characterized China in the modern day. Japan gave Taiwan weights and measures, schools and banks, modern logistics and power… although many of those good modern things tended to fall under Japanese ownership. Foodstuffs and ore and camphor flowed out of the island, either processed in native factories or sent around the world.
A little piece of that native produce might have found its way back to Taiwan, even if it had taken a rather roundabout path. Native camphor produced a primitive plastic when mixed with nitrocellulose, and with some careful treatment to add a grain, you had the suggestion of ivory. Ivorine was cheaper than the real thing and was, of course, immediately used for the most horrific kitsch imaginable.
For what it was worth, Kongou's wasn't too bad. One of her crew had purchased an ivorine hair comb for her, carved with delicate flower patterns. It was simple – avoiding nouveau-riche gaudiness – and the first gift she had ever received from a member of her crew, so she had kept it all this time. It had survived something like eighteen years of service to her country and it might be on its way to lasting longer than her career.
Well, the career of her ship. Kongou had no interest in leaving the Navy behind, even if their budgetary concerns meant she would probably never sail as master of her own ship again. She tried to keep her hands from shaking as she used the comb, even if the thought of Kaga running wild made her heart chill. She hoped the admiralty wouldn't think to make her Kaga's bulin.
She shook her head and got back to combing. It was nice and relaxing… until the comb caught. She stopped herself before tugging too hard and tried again. Again. Persistent little thing, wasn't it?
"Oww…." Mutsuki groaned.
"I'm sorry," Kongou sighed, "But we're almost done. You've been a very good girl."
Taiwan also played host to a naval base – technically, a guard district a la Ominato, lacking a naval yard or schools like the bases at Kure and Sasebo – which Kongou was here to investigate. She didn't think she'd pull a Hiei and basically settle down there, but Taiwan was a stepping stone to the Phillipines, and the last thing they needed was Kaga accumulating too many friends here.
For what it was worth, the Mutsukis were almost completely immune to political manuevering. Kongou had a feeling that Kaga's lack of interest in them was more due to their immaturity than some respect for their long youth, but whatever the case nobody had offered the Mutsukis candy in exchange for becoming pint-sized jingoists.
(Who knew, maybe they'd want to conquer the world if they realized just how much candy was out there. Seize Turkey for their delights, the Habsburg Empire for Mozartkugel… maybe the countries peddling licorice would be spared, though.)
After some careful combing around the ears, she finished. "You're finished."
"We can go now?" Mutsuki hopped excitedly. She really hadn't changed at all, had she?
"We can, but I want you on your best behavior. I told you there would be lots of people, right?" Mutsuki nodded. "And I need you to never let go of my hand, interesting as they may seem."
"Mhmm!" Mutsuki nodded, holding out a hand.
Kongou took her hand and began guiding her outside. They were on Taiwan proper, not the base on the Pescadores, meaning they were really in the thick of it. Taipei buzzed with life, with people all going through the motions of normal, civilian life. They worked, they loved, they were born, and they died. A child born when Hirohito took the throne would be around Mutsuki's age now… and yet Mutsuki who came into being at roughly the same time stayed the same.
If not for the peculiar physiology of shipgirls, Mutsuki would have blossomed into a beautiful young woman, unlike anyone in the whole world. Instead, she lived up to her name and stayed stuck in the January of her life, fresh and young but not the person she could be.
(Technically, the name meant something more like month of affection. She was beloved by her sisters, the rest of her fleet, and her crew, but it wasn't the fullness of affection. Kongou appreciated the irony of her thinking that, considering she was still a bachelorette, but it still felt like Mutsuki was getting a raw deal: all the danger and risk of war without the full-fledged enjoyment of life an adult could have.)
"Kongou, that hurts…"
She loosened her grip. "Apologies, Mutsuki."
"I don't want apologies. I want candy!" Well, they wouldn't be lacking for sugar where they were going, at the very least…
It was a warm October day, and the Taiwan Exposition hadn't even been open for a week quite yet. The Governor General had opened the exhibition with no small fanfare on the tenth, and Kongou had a very brief introduction to the exposition grounds before being swept up in an endless parade of handshakes and introductions.
Expositions like these were supposed to show off the tremendous accomplishments of the nation, and in a sense Kansen were accomplishments of the nation. (Perhaps barring Kongou, but she liked to think she had done enough work for Japan that they could 'forgive' her for her British origins.) They had grown influential enough that they could refuse to be trotted around like showponies, but putting on a smile for the public was good form. Kaga wouldn't do that sort of thing for the Governor General, but Kongou would.
Thankfully, there were plenty of things for Mutsuki to gawk at in the exposition and plenty more that she passed by without a second glance, fortunately. Mutsuki didn't care for the firstfruits of Korean industry and didn't even think about the sharecroppers who slaved away to send Korean rice to Japanese plates. The Fengtian pavilion was terribly boring: what did she care for extraterritoriality and reams of paperwork that might allow a Japanese person to find work in Manchuria? If there was anything good about Mutsuki's perpetually childlike state, it was her inability to recognize the Japanese apparatus in Asia for what it was.
She saw a sign rise in the distance and came to a stop. Mutsuki stopped and turned to look at Kongou. "What's the matter, Miss Kongou?"
"Can you see that?" Kongou pointed to the sign, and Mutsuki squinted for a moment.
"Shoe-gar?" Mutsuki asked.
"It's the sugar pavilion. Can you say that? Sugar pav-il-ion."
"Pavy-lon?"
"Pav-il-ion, like… eating too much candy makes you ill."
"Candy?" Mutsuki gasped. "Is that a candy pav-ill-on?"
"It is–" Kongou reached down and picked her up by her arms, stopping her before she could make a break for it. "–and we're going to wait in line like good girls, or we'll spend the rest of the day at the lumber pavilion."
At the very least, that inspired some fear in her. Mutsuki would be bored to death if she had to hear about investment opportunities or spend more than a minute in the ceramics hall.
One skill that Kongou was working to hone now was shopping. No, she was being quite serious. Oh, she, Hiei, and Kirishima could absolutely annihilate their paychecks in a few brief hours, but that was part of the problem. She needed to learn husbandry, how much normal things cost and what made a good deal at the grocer's. She had a bad feeling that she wouldn't be able to run a household on her lonesome with her current knowledge… but even now she could tell the price for bananas was a bit much.
(Wasn't it a dime for a banana at the Philadelphia Centiennal? Well, a dime for an exotic banana and the foil it was wrapped in. Now that just seemed a bit wasteful, considering the natural wrapping it got from nature.)
Still, Kongou bought a skewered one absolutely slathered in caramel for Mutsuki and a plain one for herself, and they took a seat to eat. Their guards – who had to come along, unfortunately – stood at attention, but they couldn't isolate them from the public completely, giving Kongou a chance to people-watch as Mutsuki made a mess of a very nice shirt. Things would only get worse when she got her hands on dragon's beard candy, that was certain. But maybe it was better if the mess was caused by wholesome Asiatic candy instead of foreign cotton candy…
A flow of people passed Kongou and Mutsuki by, chattering and exploring and frequently coming to a very sudden halt when they got a good look at Mutsuki's ears. How many were Japanese administrators or businessmen who came over to suck at Formosa like leeches? They weren't coming over for honest labor in the fields when a local could be paid half what a Japanese laborer would ask, that was certain.
Maybe there was a civilizing mission that motivated them here, a genuine belief that they were making life better for the Taiwanese, but Kongou had gotten cynical in the same way Hiei had. Taiwan was a breadbasket and a stepping stone but it was so much more complex than Hiei's beloved Ezo. In about a month, the Taiwanese people – or rather, a minuscule fraction of them – would vote for local officials.
Taiwanese students went to Japan and learned that they were being given a horrible deal. Where was their universal suffrage? Their rights of man? A proper government not held in a chokehold by the Governor General?
It tugged at Kongou's heart. Maybe it was some relic of her construction in Britain: a love of English liberties and all that. The Japanese nation was a fine one, her people proud and ancient, and they deserved good laws and fair treatment. More than that, they had a duty as the preeminent power in Asia. They had escaped Vietnam and India's fates by the skin of their teeth, and they turned around to do the same thing as the imperialists.
The Koreans died, the Ainu died, the Sediq and Han died, and for what? Money to line the pockets of business magnates? Or maybe it was just more power for the mighty Leviathan-government which would doubtlessly take the lessons of oppression learned in Taiwan and bring them back home.
"Do you want my bananana, Miss Kongou?"Mutsuki distracted her from that train of thought by thrusting her candy in Kongou's direction, nearly getting a glob of caramel on Kongou's yukata.
"That's very kind of you, but no thanks. I bought it for you, Mutsuki. Just please be careful with it."
"Thank you!" It was gone in a flash, and Mutsuki hopped down from her seat and grabbed Kongou's hand. "Where next, where next?"
Mutsuki was swiftly distracted by the theater and the children's pavilion, and Kongou let herself be dragged along while taking notes of places she actually wanted to visit on her own time. The shipbuilding and armed forces displays were practically obligations, and she'd admit that a lot of the cultural ones intrigued her. She'd have to take notes about the Hokkaido pavilion and see if it matched Hiei's lived experience.
But for now, she tried to keep watch over Mutsuki as she interacted with children her own age. The entire area weas fenced off – because children, shipgirl or no, tended to wander and cause their caretakers grief – which made the poor guard's jobs a little easier, at least. Kongou found herself getting a little tired, honestly.
Mutsuki shot from place to place, burning through all the energy her candy gave her and then some. One moment she was by the swings or the rocking horses. You blink and she's over by the fountain, one of the guards stopping her from slipping under the railing to get a closer look. Bam, suddenly there are children chasing her in a game of tag and they're running off toward the maypole (ribbons in red, yellow, white, blue, and black, five colors for five races under one union).
There's an apiary where Mutsuki tried to get a bird to land on her tail – she couldn't sit still long enough – and a swing ride with little planes, a stage with music over there and landships on display for children to gawk at over here. There's cheering and laughter and annoying little boys tugging on Mutsuki's tail before Kongou can scare them off, a white plane with rising suns on its wings swings low over the exhibition grounds and Mutsuki ducks for cover just like she was trained to do–
Mutsuki ends the day by collapsing against Kongou's side, exhausted and more than a little frazzled by the sheer intensity of it all. There was an obvious question: "Did you have fun?"
"Lots and lots!" Mutsuki grinned. "Thank you, Miss Kongou."
"It was my pleasure."
(Thankfully, the guards saved her from acting courteous to every person who decided to do a bit more than just gawking. Maybe the admiralty would appreciate the impression that gave more than any words she could speak: a nurturing, almost matronly Kongou and a charming, childlike Mutsuki. Childlike because she was a child, but still.)
This is absolutely inspired by Mutsuki's festival skin, although the fun antics are placed in a more serious setting, as Kaiser Lane is wont to do.
I had to speculate a bit about how exactly the fair worked. I've learned a bit about the economy of Japanese Formosa during Taiwan but not as much as I wanted about specific attractions. The description of the children's section is based on my squinting at a promotional map of the event.
Epigraph is sourced from Japanese Death Poems, particularly a guy named Shohi. The word for eternity is juman'okudo, literally 'ten trillion land'. Does it mean the distance to paradise or the length of eternity? Idk. Still I think that dual meaning is interesting: Kongou longs for a peaceful paradise, the Japanese empire forges its own perverse sort of paradise, and if we go by kansen aging slower or not at all without a ship, we see Kongou teetering on the edge of losing her immunity while Mutsuki doesn't benefit from her eternity.