This is the second fan fiction I've written so far. I'd been aching to post this one- but, sadly, it's a multi-chapter story (and the rest of the chapters are still in my notebook) and I type slowly. Sorry… Well! Just in case you would like to know, this revolves around another pairing I am particularly fond of – ChuNi! Yay! Oh- and it's hetalia this time. Also, I tried to write this from first person perspective (and I learned I hated it, but I'm afraid that altering the POV would ruin the story). I tried to take history more seriously this time, but please please PLEASE tell me if anything is historically inaccurate, 'kay?
As always, please tell me what you think of the story in the reviews section, and don't hesitate to put in suggestions to better improve this fan fiction- I'm still learning!
Hello again everyone!
So I'm here again, and I've edited Your Sun, My Stars! I'll be posting the edited chapters as fast as I can (since, um, no use making it periodical now is there? All the chapters are up already…), and all the chapters that have been edited will have a '•' at the end of the first author's note! Like so…
•
Prologue
Of Marketplaces, Bullets and a 'Girl' in a Hood
Yao
"They are evil!"
Yeah!
"They are betrayers!"
Yeah!
"They must be vanquished!"
Yeah!
"We shall never back down until we get the victory we rightfully deserve!"
That lecture sent me- and a million other Chinese reading the gazette, I can only imagine- whooping with joy.
Yes, that's the way to do it!
As a matter of fact, I was running and whooping and dancing and cheering at the top of my voice that mother's head peeped through the kitchen door a few minutes later.
"Wang Yao, can you please stop all this unruly girl-screeching!" Mother reprimanded, her dishrag making squelching noises against her skin as it was violently wrung in midair.
"Mother! See that? See? The lecture! The lecture!" I cried, practically shoving the gazette into my mother's face, "'we shall never back down until we get the victory we rightfully deserve!' What a wonderful country we are a part of indeed!"
I was too young (and much too breathless from my 'girl-screeching') at the time to have realized it, but at my words, my mother's expression softened.
Abandoning her dishrag, mother scooped me up, placing me on her lap and began caressing my hair.
"My son, you are so pure and strong-willed… Do you know that I see your father in you more and more as the days pass by?"
"Yes mother, you tell me that everyday!" I grinned.
However, my grin dissolved as soon as it had appeared when my mother exploded in fits of coughing, clutching her chest as the breath was repeatedly snatched from her throat in her frighteningly daily convulsions.
"Mother? Mother, are you alright?" I wanted to know, pounding her back.
"I'm… I'm okay Yao. I'm okay", mother choked, taking a deep breath, "so kind-hearted… Like him as well."
"Someday, I'm going to be exactly likefather, and wear a uniform and join the army!" I declared, making my mother chuckle.
"I know, dear… I know", mother sighed.
Instinctively, both of us looked up at the mantelpiece. Next to a stack of letters was a picture frame, in which showed a recent photograph taken of the whole family at the capital.
Me. Mother.
Father.
I couldn't recall the last time I saw him, but I remember him very clearly. I remember his broad figures, his amber eyes ("just like yours", mother would say) always brimming with what seemed to be all the happiness in the world. How he'd kiss mother gallantly whenever he got home from work. How I'd come running to the door and our small family of three would be embraced in strong, olive arms.
But that was all before the war; before father had to wear a green army uniform with pockets everywhere (he once allowed me to count them- I couldn't even remember the exact number anymore), and had to run off to fight them.
To fight the evil betrayers.
The enemy.
But I am not sad. Because I know that someday, when I am old enough, I will wear a military uniform too, and fight alongside father in the army.
Mother says she isn't sad either. She says whenever she wanted to see him, all she had to do was look at me.
Well, she tries never to be sad in front of my anyways, but that didn't stop me from often catching her stroking his pictures lovingly, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes.
Mother sighs and let's me go.
"Alright", mother nods, grabbing a basket, "I'm going to go to the marketplace now. Be good and take care of yourself- "
"No mother, I'll go", I cut in, standing up.
I may not have been very old, but I knew that people who had violent coughing fits on a daily basis were in no suitable condition to be wandering the marketplace.
Mother raised her eyebrows at me questioningly. "Are you sure Yao? The streets can get verycrowded, you know."
"I'll be fine mother, I know my way around, I'm not five anymore!" I assured.
Mother licked her lips, a habit she had when deep in thought, before reluctantly handing me the basket and some money, which I neatly folded and stashed in my trouser pocket.
"Be back in less than thirty minutes", she said.
"Yes mother!" I cried through the door, collecting my hair into a ponytail.
Truth be told, the last time I had been to the marketplace was when I was five, and even then it was mother who did all the negotiating and bartering with the persistent street vendors.
"Ah, but it couldn't be so hard", I assure myself, balancing the basket on the crook of my arm, for it was a big one, and I was only eight years of age at the time.
Weaving my way through the gate and the occasional small crowds of civilians, I made my way towards where I hoped the marketplace would be.
Now, for starters, I lived in a little suburb miles out of the capital, and since we were coming towards the winter season, I would have to expect a long line at the marketplace.
But as soon as I turned a corner, my basket nearly smacked into a man's back. In front of this man was another, and another, and yet another still, until I realized, to my utmost dismay, that almost the whole village was gathered on that sidewalk.
And I was more than certain that the marketplace was still ages away!
"Excuse me sir, but is this the crowd for the marketplace?" I asked the man whom I had very nearly collided into.
The man swiveled his head to my direction, his stout face contorted into a look that reminded me of teacher's face when Li Xing forgot his exercise book again, "What could have made you think of such a thing! (Coincidentally, this is also what teacher said before he made a grab for the ruler) No, this is much more serious matters than vegetables. Go home, kid. You shouldn't be here."
A part of me was relieved that the stout man didn't grab for a ruler too.
Still, another part was greatly disturbed by his earlier statement.
What reasons were there for me not to be here? If I shouldn't be here, then why was he here?
"Sir, I don't think I quite understand-"
The blaring of sirens, distant at first, but gradually closing in by the second, interrupted me. Around me, the droning of conversations died down, leaving the noise to claim the air its own.
It was all too eerie.
"Too late kid. Pray that they don't notice you. They're here", the man muttered.
I was just about to question him who exactly was here, when the blaring, louder this time so that I had to clasp my hands over my ears, cut me short once more.
Around me people were surging here and there, trying to get a view of whatever was on the road and therefore granting me the circumstances of not being able to see anything ahead or behind me other than hands and feet. But if I squinted hard enough, I can just barely make out the roof of a navy-green tank.
However, my eight-year-old mind was in no way prepared for what I caught sight of next.
A flag had been stuck to the tank; a flag I have seen many times before on patriotic artworks. But there it had been crushed and pummeled by the Chinese soldiers. Now, with the flag fluttering almost smugly in the wind, I just couldn't believe that it was the same one.
A man with squinty brown eyes and pale skin, clad in military attire and armed with a strange barreled device, stepped out of the tank. I could see him clearly now, for everyone at the front had abandoned the positions they had previously been jostling each other for, scurrying away under the newcomer's stony gaze. The man was followed by three others- his underlings, I presume- all armed with the same odd contraption and just as menacing-looking as their leader.
I saw the village head hobble towards the leader. "Good afternoon, do you men need anything?"
"Back off old man", and, to my utmost horror (and, judging from the gasps around me, from everyone else's as well), the village head was shoved to the ground.
He must have a lot of nerve to do that to our village head!
Ignoring our pitiful village head on the asphalt before him, the leader turned back to us, his beady snake-like eyes absorbing the looks of disbelief and cries in a leer that was almost gleeful. Nobody wanted to be near the men now, and there was a lot of shuffling as everyone was now shoving each other to be at the back of the mob. As an arm collided with my chest, I very nearly fell into the ditch behind me.
"I am certain you all know why my men and I are here", the man bellowed in an accent unlike any I've ever heard before.
We once had a transfer from another province, but even her Chinese was comprehensible compared to his. This man spoke in a hasty accent, with the words toppling over each other so that I had to listen hard to make sense of anything he was saying.
Heads turned to each other, quizzical looks portrayed on each face as no one was quite sure how to react to this.
The truth was none of us knew exactly what had summoned the contemptible lot of them to our small suburb. If we did, we would've been informed of their visit long ago, that I was more than certain of.
The leader grunted in exasperation, like an impatient teacher dealing with a classroom of meddlesome toddlers.
"One of our boys- and a very special one at that- has been declared missing four days ago. Recently he has been reported wandering around these parts of your country. We know you have him. Now- this is how it's going to work- you will hand him over to us right this minute, or else…"
Without warning, one of his men pressed the trigger on the strange object in his disposal. This shot out a metallic object ("it's a bullet!" I heard one man cry out) into the air. There was an ominous bang! There was a trail of smoke where the 'bullet' singed the air.
There were absolute fear in our beings.
Satisfied by the petrified looks splayed on our faces, the leader gave a small nod of triumph. "Now hand over the boy, and no one receives this" -jabbing at his own contraption- "in the head."
The civilians erupted back into restless murmuring, deciding what the best course of action would be. We had no boy to give him- even Iknew that- let alone even know who this mysterious trespasser could be and why the soldiers were so keep on getting him back.
I saw the village head about to try and make the man see reason, only to be shoved away again.
"Hey you!"
All eyes turned to a man who had pummeled his way to the front of the crowd, his fist and teeth clenched and his face as flushed as paper lanterns.
"Don't you dare lay a hand on our village head, you bastard! We don't know- best still, we don't care- if you've lost some silly little kid who decided to run off on his own. If he was here and if we did see him, he would have been driven through a stake"
Bang!
One minute, the man had been spitting curses.
The next he had fallen to the ground, his face still mobilized in rage, with blood trickling from a hole on his forehead.
We could only gape.
After that everything happened in such a daze.
More bullets were sent flying into the air in a frenzy of directions, each finding its own victim. One by one, people around me fell to the ground. The stout man who had been surreptitiously warning me about these evil beings crashed just inches from my feet.
I remember not being able to move, my feet rooted to the dusty sidewalk.
I remember just knowing that I would die.
I would never come home in less than thirty minutes. I would never wear a military uniform and fight alongside father in war.
A bullet caressed my earlobe and planted itself into a woman beside me.
I knew the next one would hit me.
Here it comes...
I felt death tug me into the murky ditch.
I fell onto my back into the dusty gutter, prepared to let go of my consciousness; prepared to plunge into eternal slumber…
… But why haven't I yet?
My eyes flickered open, just in time to glimpse a bullet whiz past overhead- a bullet that would have killed me, should I have still been where I'd once stood on the sidewalk.
"Come- they'll find you if we don't hurry!"
Before I could even continue to ponder over whether I had died or not, I felt a hand, small and yet firm, grip my wrist. My eyes were still adjusting to the darkness of the ditch, but I could just make out a figure before me.
The figure- a girl perhaps, guessing from the softness of the voice- yanked me to my feet and began pulling me deeper into the ditch, until the sound of bullets faded away like a bad dream.
We kept on running until we were some ways away from the suburb where, to my even greater confusion, the girl released me to throw a hatch open. I've seen that hatch before; it was the only entrance to the war shelter father and some of the other men in the village had worked on, prior to serving our country in the army. Mother had brought me with her to see it once when she was bringing my father and the men lunch, and I had marveled at how easily they dug through the hard soil with their rusty equipment. How on earth this mysterious girl had managed to locate its whereabouts will forever remain a mystery to me.
But I was quickly snapped out of reverie as she abruptly pushed me into the war shelter, before clambering in after me and sealing the hatch above her.
The sunlight filtering through the small slits of the trapdoor was just enough for me to catch a fist glimpse of my savior.
Guessing from her height, she seemed to be about my age. Her cloak, a dark shade of violet, and her possibly once pristine white trousers were caked in grime and mud. An oversized hood concealed her entire face.
Whoever she was, she must be awfully intent on hiding her identity.
I could hear the girl mutter something in a foreign language before leaving the trapdoor. Fishing a half-melted candle from a pocket beneath her cloak, she lit it with a match and placed it on the ground between us.
"Are you alright?" She spoke gently.
"Wh-what?" I choked out.
"Your back… Are you alright?" She repeated.
"I… Oh! Y-yes, I'm fine. Thank you… F-for… Back there…"
I could feel her smile from beneath that hood. "Just consider it a peace treaty"
"A treaty?" I frowned, "what are you talking about?"
The girl fell silent. Despite the war shelter being deprived of use for a few months now, I felt the temperature plummet down even colder still as the atmosphere around us intensified.
"… You mean you still haven't a clue who I am?" She murmured, anxiousness lacing her tone.
"No", I answered truthfully, getting fidgety myself, "but, uh, if you don't mind…"
The girl fell silent once more, as if lost in thought.
Then, to my surprise, she gripped my hand in her own. In the dim light of the candle, I could see that they were pale and bony, in addition to being decked with numerous scabs and gashes.
"If I were to show you, you must promise me you won't scream, alright?" the girl begged, her grip on my hand tightening.
"Scream? Why would I… I-I promise I won't scream", I nodded, getting all the more bewildered by the passing second.
She nodded slowly, reluctantly releasing my hand "Okay then. You promised." Her hand came to her hood, gripping its edges anxiously. The fingers simply hovered there for a second before, in one swift movement, the hood was flicked back.
I very nearly broke my promise.
The girl was not a girl at all, but instead a boy. He had messy, raven-black hair cropped just above his neck, and a face just as pallid and dirt-ridden as his hands. Almond eyes, brown and deep, peered at me anxiously.
But the most horrifying, most absolutely incomprehensible, unimaginable part was that my savior was one of the evil traitors I was taught to loathe and discern. My savior was -
"… Japanese?" I croaked.
The boy nodded and smiled timidly. "Yes… A-and I was the one they were looking for", he confessed.
I felt just about ready to faint.
"A… Are you okay? I'm sorry if I scared you-"
"-Nonononono, it's not that!" I lied, "It's just that… B-b-b-but… Why are you here! And w-why did you save me? Wha- I thought we are enemies!" I blurted.
"Just because our countries are enemies, that doesn't mean we have to be enemies too", the boy said, before his face darkened, "I know this may sound strange to you, but… I hate them! I hate my father and his army! I hate them all, and father's silly lectures on 'evil Chinese'-this and 'weak Chinese'-that makes absolutely no sense to me! I think this war is stupid.
"So! The first chance I got, I decided to run away", his face flushed as he placed his fists on his hips proudly, "I know it's a ridiculous thing to do, but I just couldn't stand it for another minute."
I could only gape at this strange Japanese boy who couldn't stand his own people- his own side at that!
And as his ranting continued and the colour slowly returned to his face…
Suddenly he doesn't seem to be so much of an enemy anymore.
"A-and… The reason I saved you was, well, when I saw them attack your people- um, actually I saw you first since you were closest to the ditch but- ah, I don't know why… but I took a shine to you the moment I saw you…" Was it the light from the candle, or was he blushing now?
I could feel my face turn a brief shade of red as well. I may have only been a child, but being confronted with an enemy (who was turning out to be the exact opposite of an enemy by this point) that 'took a shine to you' was… No doubt a very perplexing thing indeed.
That's when I remembered I still had the money mother gave me. Fishing it out of my pocket, I held it out towards him, "Here, take this… F-for saving my life."
The boy paused in his swooning to stare at the outstretched money in confusion, before regarding me queerly and shaking his head. "Keep it; I don't want any reward. Besides, as I've told you before: just consider this a peace treaty.
"Now I'd best be going, before these silly men rip up the entire country looking for me-"
"Wait!"
I didn't know why at that time, but a sudden impulse caused me to grab hold of the boy's arm. I could feel my cheeks practically searing now.
"… What is it?" He turned to me once more.
"Wh-when can I see you again?" I choked out.
The boy stared passively at me, contemplating his next words, before a warm smile graced his lips.
"I'm not sure", he admitted, "but perhaps someday we will- someday sooner or later. And when the war is over, and we won't have to save each other from bullets… We will meet on better terms."
With a final nod, he shrouded his face in his hood once more and disappeared through the trapdoor.
If it had not been for the pool of wax on the floor of the shelter, I'm sure I would have assumed my savior to been a dream.
Years would fly by, and just as he had predicted, we wouldn't see each other for a long time.
But that didn't mean this would be my last encounter with the strange, friendly Japanese boy that would change my life forever.
That's it for today! Once again, I'm sorry for typing so slowly! Sorry! I'll try and get the rest of the chapters up as soon as possible.
Thank you very much for reading this, your attention means a lot to me.
Have a sunny day! (or night!... Wait, but nights aren't supposed to be sunny…)
-Plumeria hi