Author's Note: I finally got off my ass and started editing the first of the Hetalia section of the Wasteland Project. I got myself a beta reader last night and made some touch-ups to the first match of Gold Pins. Don't worry, I will be back with real new stuff on June 27th. So please sit tight for me, please? Oh yes, I would like to thank my beta reader, Fiona, for helping me out.


Tea Leaves and Gold Pins

Match One: Funeral, White, and Stranger:

My name is Liao Ju and today is my father's funeral.

There are many ways I can start this very story. There are dead parents, the funeral, a little bit about myself, the clan, my friends' drama, and then there's…

Wait! Wait! Okay, I'll talk about one subject at a time here. First, the funeral.

All of the people of our clan all showed up at the house on this Saturday afternoon. There a six families among us at the matter. Mine is the head. My father's coffin sat nailed shut before everyone. I haven't seen my father since back in March of my spring back. It still shocks me that his cancer finally claimed. Despite being bed-ridden on machines, he still was rather lucid and sharp-tongued as ever. I would've thought that he would've hung on until the middle of this month. But no, he died eight days before my birthday.

Today is day seven of the funeral ceremony. We have at least… forty-two more days to go. For a sixteen-year-old like me, that's just as fun as it sounds. My father was a traditional man like that. So, I have to grin, bear, and pray just like the five other families. To be honest with you, I don't have any more prayers left. That dried up four days and now I'm just pretending to pray in good taste. As head of the Liao clan, I have to put on a sophisticated face for the people. To tell the truth, this was just dumped on me.

Yes, I am the heir to the head of Liao clan. I know what you are thinking: "But Ju, you're a girl. So how can you be head of a powerful family?" To make a long story short, I am the lesser of two evils for my father. It was either make his daughter or his brother-in-law the heir to the clan after his death. Though he was a traditional man, he hates and distrusts my uncle. So… yeah. But, I'm only sixteen years old. This is true. I have to wait two more years to officially inherit the authority. Right now, two of my mom's dearest friends and top advisers to my father, Song Fei and Chang Hen-to, well be running things behind the scenes. I am just the figurehead. In fact, they helped me make the funeral arrangements and sign the important papers on day three. Hen-to's wife, Bik, was the one who called me and told me about father's death while I was at school. She keeps asking if I'm okay and everything like that. I'm fine, I don't really feel much. Yes, I am sorry my father died, but in all honesty we didn't get along too well.

Father and daughter fought like two enemies in a mental war. Tradition versus modern summed us up beautifully. He wanted his only daughter to be ladylike and silent. I have grown not to be like that. When he was healthier, my father barely spoke to me except to criticize me about my clothes, choices in media, friends, and my curiosity about more taboo subjects in our country. Mind you, he did care in his own way. Father paid for me to go school and gave me such knowledge to run the clan. Both were begrudging for us, but they turned out to be beneficial in the long run.

I tried to ignore the uncomfortable empty feeling in my stomach. I haven't eaten since six this morning. I was up with Fei and Hen-to making the final arrangements for the funeral today. Rice balls are nice, but they're not as filling as I hoped they would be. It's a good thing I don't paint my nails with all of the holy paper I helped paste onto the coffin with the girls of the clan. I picked out his clothes to be buried in. I couldn't make most of the wake due to school and signing some legal paperwork to confirm everything. I felt so naked without my earrings during the whole period. I couldn't really make myself cry the whole time. I kept my head down and tried to pretend that was to be respectful to him. I just didn't really feel anything the whole time. I think some of the ladies knew that, but said nothing about it. Today, my eyes are watering from all the incense that we burned for days now.

I shifted in place on the floor as I tugged my white cheongsam. Here I am back at home in traditional wear again. That's all I wear at home as far as I could remember. It feels so weird to the outsider to wear white to a funeral. That's how we are brought up in our country. I believe that white shows the sorrow of losing a loved one to the pure earth again. Bik told me this when I was a little girl at my mother's funeral. Still, I would've like a western-style dress for the comfort just this one time. But… Anything to keep a dead father humored on his way to the afterlife. I sure did him proud today. Even as he's nailed shut in his wooden box, I could feel his eyes on me as I sat right next to him. It's just like the times we he was bed-ridden. He could still hear somebody talking about him from another room. I had to keep my mouth shut while I was in the house.

Because he didn't have any sons in life, I have to fill in the duties of the eldest for this funeral. Father went over with me during his trips in and out of the hospital. I felt like screaming by the tenth time he ran it by me, but I kept a poker face and nodded in understanding. He'll still beat it over my head just like he does with everything else. At least today I know what to do.

I just wonder where the point of my life will bend to now.

As I walk with the coffin to the cemetery, I happen to look up and see a man with his man bowed in respect for the dead. I find that my eyes stayed attached to him, trying to figure him out. He has his long black hair tied back into a ponytail. Just like the rest of the funeral party, he has on white traditional clothes that looked freshly pressed. Even the panda on his back has its head bowed in respect. I notice Fei and Hen-to walking over to the man. The three of them talk before going into the house. For some reason, I feel like I have seen that man in white before. I can't exactly place where.

"Bik," I whisper. She didn't turn around as she held the car door open for the coffin.

"What is it, Miss Ju?" she whispers back. I make a face when she says that. It's so weird to hear her call me that. She used to just call me by my first name up until this point. I shake it off and proceeded with my question.

"Who did Fei and Hen-to go back inside with?" I ask. Bik takes a moment to push back her black-gray hair out of her eyes.

"One of your father's business associates," she replies.

"Yes, but who is he?" I ask. I can tell that Bik was smiling as she held back a small giggle.

"Oh, you will find that one out soon enough," she says. Then, she returns her attention back to the casket and climbs into the hearse. I look at her and then at the house with a blank look on my face. I can see the side of that man's face in the front window as he talks to Fri and Hen-to. Suddenly, I feel a fat moist palm grab onto my small wrist. I nearly jump as a result. Bik looks at me with a serious look in her eyes.

"Get in already," she says. I nod like a little bobble-head doll and climb in next to her into the hearse. As the car pulls away, I take one look at my house. That man, Fei, and Hen-to still sat in Father's office talking; I'll bet. For odd reasons, I feel my cheeks turn pink with heat and my heart do a flip when I that about that third man.

I decided to find out who he was.


Next Time: In Which Alfred Meets Florence for the First Time.