Part One
by SwordSkill
Author's Notes: All the characters in this fic (for now) is copyright to Disney. The title and some parts of the song "True To Your Heart" that will be scattered in the whole fic are written by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel, copyright 1998 by the Walt Disney Music Company. The song doesn't come necessarily in order, (I mixed both versions of "True To Your Heart" and the chorus appears only about twice or so) but rest assured that a stanza itself is in order (all six lines), so no harm in singing with the fic. BTW, this mushiness between Mulan and Shang isn't going to go into somewhere too...deep. ^^ makes me uncomfortable if I put too much. But it will be good enough (this is one of my best). R/R, please!
Shang
Dinner would be great.
I smiled at the recollection as I took my cape and prepared to leave. Dinner had been great. Fa Li and her mother were great cooks, Fa Zhou very well-versed with battle techniques, and Fa Mulan...well, she, like always, had been charming, fascinating...
"Are you sure you don't want to have that last piece of radish cake?" Fa Li's head popped out of the room.
" Oh, no I'm quite full, thank you." I smiled back and opened the door.
"Shang, you're leaving already?" Mulan walked across the dining room, holding a towel in her hand.
"Yeah, I have some work to do tomorrow, being general and all." I raked my hair. "Thanks for inviting me for dinner, by the way." I flashed her a grin. "Your mother and your grandmother are great cooks."
Mulan smiled at me in a way that made my cheek twitch. "It runs in the family."
I chuckled. "Ping never had much of a chance to show me her cooking, did she?"
Mulan laughed. "Shang, we were in for battle there. I didn't have time to worry about fine dining."
"Yeah, well, we didn't have to worry about anything else except for our lives."
Mulan didn't answer. She just looked away. "We just had to be men there."
"Yeah." I remembered how Ping gave me fits during training. Well, how was I supposed to know that she was a girl? And when I did know, well, it was too late.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Shang," said Mulan, waking me up. "Goodnight."
"Yeah, goodnight." I said, as she quietly closed the door.
Goodnight. Was that all you could say to her?
I trodded down the well worn path that led to the gate. Well yeah, Ping and I were good friends. He saved my life once.
But what about Mulan?
What about her? Ping and Mulan, they're the same person.
You said Ping was a good friend. What about her? Ping was an army recruit under your command, and Mulan is a girl. A well-respected girl in the country that makes your heart beat wild and make beads of sweat slide down your brow when she smiles.
So I get a little side-tracked when I see her. Why not? A lot of girls make me do that.
Don't lie to yourself, Li Shang. You were so busy training in the army that it had made you a man of steel.
Yeah, well...
You never had time to see girls. You were strong, disciplined, with nothing in your goals but to save China from invading forces. But when you saw Mulan...
So I was impressed by her fighting skills back then.
Back then. What about now?
Now...now she's...a...a woman. Period.
Come now, Shang, be true to your heart.
Deep in my soul I know that I'm your destiny.
And she's...she's beautiful, respectful, funny, caring...and oh man...
Took you long enough to realize that.
Mulan
I closed the door, gave a sigh, and leaned on it.
"That was a very nice young man, Mulan," I heard Papa say from the other room. "That was your captain? How did he treat you during training?"
"He was disgusted with me." I chuckled as I remembered how irritated Shang was at Ping. "I couldn't do one single thing right, until I got that arrow he shot. Oh Papa, you should have seen the look on his face!" I laughed as I walked in the kitchen to join my family.
"I thought you were just going to bring home a sword," said Grandma, winking at me. "I guess I was wrong."
I threw her a murderous look.
"So when is he coming back?" asked Mama, rinsing the dishes.
That was a surprise. "He didn't say anything about coming back," I said.
All three of them stopped what they were doing and looked at each other with meaningful glances. Then they resumed cleaning up.
"What?" I said.
"He'll be back," said Grandma. "He seems to be a sensible young man. He'll come back for you."
"For me?" I cocked an eyebrow. "I doubt it. He'll probably be too busy being a general."
"A general for a son-in-law." Papa rubbed his chin and gave me a smile. "I like that."
"Papa!" I threw the towel at him. Really, some parents can be really...perceptive.
So I liked Shang. Even Mushu saw that. But that's where it stopped.
"As far as I know, Shang's not the kind who falls head-over-heels over girls, much less over me," I said, trying to state a fact. " He's very disciplined, no dilly-dallying, no nonsense. He's probably walking straight back to his house, forgetting the dinner he just ate and thinking about how he's going to face the Emperor for tomorrow's duty. And..."
Someone knocked at the door, interrupting my speech.
"I'll get that!" shouted Grandma, making a beeline for the door. I went back to wiping the bowls dry.
"Oh hello Shang," I heard her say.
Oh my goodness. I felt a sudden urge to scamper off my room and hide.
"No, she's not yet sleeping." Grandma's voice was getting louder. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HER?"
Grandma, shut up, SHUT UP!
"Yes, I'll call her." Grandma scurried back to us with a mischievous glint in her eye. "I told you so."
"Oh, Grandmama, tell him I'm..." I frantically racked my brains. "I'm ...taking a bath."
"Now Mulan, that wouldn't be honest." Papa frowned at me.
"Well, it will be, I am going to take a bath." I quickly edged my way to my room, but Mama hooked my arm and said, "Someone's calling you, so try to be polite." She dragged me across the room.
"All right, all right, I get the point." I disengaged myself from Mama and straightened myself. I walked to the door where Shang was waiting. He was leaning by the doorjamb, looking out.
"You called for me?" I said, keeping my voice down.
Shang's head snapped at attention. "Well, yes. I hope you don't mind."
"Oh, not really," I said.
I waited. He didn't say anything.
"So..." I said.
"So it's like this." He coughed.
"Yes?"
"May I say something?" He was acting very nervous.
"Of course, go ahead."
"Well, I was walking down to my place when," he said, "when I suddenly thought that I haven't thanked you properly for that dinner."
"Oh." I didn't know what else to say.
"So..." he brought out a bouquet of cherry blossoms from his back. "From my garden."
"Ohh, they're lovely." I took them and smelled their fresh aroma.
"I heard your dad say you like cherry blossoms," said Shang "So..."
"I love them," I said. I actually had trees of cherry blossoms at our garden, but I didn't want to sound ungrateful. "Thanks, Shang."
"Anytime." He grinned, showing his gleaming teeth. "I've got rows of them at home."
I tried not to laugh, as I thought, I do too.
"By the way," he said, looking bolder, "you're going to the market tomorrow, aren't you?"
"Yes, I do that every Saturday," I said absently, arranging the flowers.
"May I accompany you?" he asked.
My heart skipped a beat, and I looked up from my flowers. "You're going to the market?"
He grinned. "Hey, even the general has to eat. I do it every Saturday too, so why not have a little company?"
I couldn't believe it! He was asking me out! But should I? It seemed to make so much complications pop into my head...
Why fight the tide?
Don't think so much,
Let your heart decide!
"Well," I smiled, "why not?"
"Great," he said, beaming. "I'll see you seven-o'clock, right?"
"Looks like my life's an open book," I said not harshly.
"Well, I'll be going now," he said, taking a few steps back."Goodnight."
"Goodnight," I waved back and closed the door.
When I was sure he was out of earshot, I hurled myself at the mat and gave out a silent laugh. I heard my parents and grandmother hurry to my side.
"What did he say?" Mama asked curiously.
"He gave me these." I showed the bouquet. "For the dinner."
Grandma snorted. "Doesn't he know that we have rows of them at our garden?"
"Aw, Grandma, he was kind of sweet about it," I said before I could stop myself.
"He was?" asked Papa, interested.
"Yeah." Me and my big mouth. "I'll put them in the vase." As I searched the kitchen for a vase, I said nonchalantly,"Oh, and did I tell you that he's going with me to the market tomorrow?"
The house was silent. Then Grandma gave a whoop, Mama gave me a hug, and Papa gave a laugh that echoed around the house.
And I guess I was pretty excited too. I couldn't wait for tomorrow.