Title: Eggroll With a Side of Duck Sauce
Rating: PG/PG-13 for some not so nice slurs.
Setting: the middle of the Ducks' sophomore year of high school.
Summary: Kenny reflects on how joining the Ducks changed his life.
Feedback: Feel free to review.
Disclaimer: The Ducks belong to Disney.
Story Notes: Kenny is an underused character, so I decided to give him some background and a story. After the story was posted, whennerdscollide pointed out to me via review that Wu is a Chinese name. I appreciate this information and fully admit I haven't done research on this, so it may be true that Wu is Chinese. Whether or not it's Korean is unclear; however as I'm way too lazy to do said research right now, I'm pulling the creative license card. Maybe generations ago there was some Chinese blood in the Wu family, but the last three or four generations are Korean, haha. By the way, I may remedy all this stuff if I do the research and re-upload the story in the future, so no harm, no foul. Happy reading!

Kenny Wu. Wu. At least it's not something like Chang.

It's not easy, being the only Asian kid, but I deal. There's only one Spanish kid. One Southern kid. One black kid. One Jewish kid. Two girls. A bunch of poor kids. It really does sound like an affirmative action project.

But it's not. It's a hockey team. It's a pretty good hockey team.

I go to Eden Hall, with my hockey team, the Ducks, on athletic scholarships. In a way, it is an affirmative action project.

You'd think people with this much money would have more class. It's strange how that works out. There are some nice people here too, don't get me wrong. Somebody will surprise you here or there. But for the most part at Eden Hall, I've never seen a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. The backstabbing of friends, the betraying of loved ones, and the underhanded dealings with others all to get ahead would put the devil to shame. And that's just the kids. Let's not even begin to talk about the parents.

The only one who would go here without a scholarship would be Banksie. His family's got a lot of money. I've seen his house, his grandparents' house, his uncle's house…courtesy of Portman and his spontaneous borrowing of the Banks family houses for parties when a Banks family member is out of town. Hell, Banks is so rich he doesn't have to throw his own parties. Portman does it for him.

The rest of us are a different story entirely. Most of the others would be struggling to survive at inner-city schools in different parts of the country, looking more to get out alive than to learn anything.

And me? I'd be a figure skating, home-schooled, social outcast with little to look forward to except maybe more figure-skating.

Until I came to the Ducks, I didn't have any friends. I traveled too much, my schedule didn't permit me to go to school, and for the short times I did go to school I was picked on.

It's a beautiful city, San Francisco. Tony Bennett left his heart there. And you'd think kids who lived in the gayest city in California, maybe even the country, would be more open to an Asian kid. Not even a gay Asian kid. Just an Asian kid. Nope.

"Hey Chink," they'd spit contemptuously, "Don't you have a laundry to run?" Or "Hey, Chinaman, I'd like an eggroll and some pork fried rice."

I'm Korean, dipshits. At least get the derogatory terms right and call me a gook.

Being mistaken for Chinese doesn't bother me much. Even educated people do it. But when they called me "twinkle toes" and "fag?" Yeah, those were things I could have lived without. I don't care what anyone says. You aren't comfortable enough in your sexuality as a kid to be able to shake that kind of accusation off without feeling awful, or wanting to prove otherwise.

Nobody ever stuck up for me either. Like I said, I had no friends. It was hard to make them anyway; it didn't help that my appearances at school were sporadic and that I was shy from not having much social interaction with people.

I ran from school. I threw myself into skating, so I wouldn't have to go to school anymore.

I spent my time training, traveling, competing, and learning how to be a loser through my tutor, who seemed to be a born loser and whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to make other people just like him.

He wasn't even the Trekkie type of loser, who was at least interested in something, even if they didn't have much of a social life. This was the kind of loser you look at and think about his wasted potential, and wonder how he's survived so long doing nothing but smoking weed and eating Fritos. My education couldn't have set the guy for life, and I was his only full time student.

Then something changed.

I was given an opportunity to join a hockey team. My manager said it'd be good publicity for me, since during that time there was a lull between my skating competitions. I could already skate and they needed a few more players. I worked with a hockey coach in Sacramento on some basic puck handling and stick skills before going to tryouts.

I ended up being selected to join the United States hockey team for the Junior Goodwill Games.

The first night there, only the new selections for the team had arrived. I was put in a room with this kid named Dwayne from Texas. Dwayne's basically an honest guy, a little slow, but honest. He admitted that he was kind of nervous since apparently most of the others had played together before and were a good team. I was nervous too. I wasn't spectacular at hockey, and I've never been good at making friends. And with a group of people who were already friends? I was dead.

But the team…they welcomed me. They assumed I was shy because I didn't know them well, and included me in everything they did. And I made an effort to join them, because they didn't know I was a loser at home. Plus, they wanted to win. Being friends sort of just came with the territory. It was easier to win when you liked each other.

Next thing I knew, I had friends. It was exhilarating and terrifying. I even made friends with the Bash Brothers. Fulton is less of a handful. He's mellower than Portman and nowhere near as scary…at least when you're not on the ice.

But Portman can only be described as a cyclone in human form. Somehow, he's everywhere all the time, you don't know where he'll pop out next, and has the capacity to pick you up and hurl you into the next town. I was barely ready for him, but he flew out of nowhere and swept me up, just like he did with everyone else.

We won the tournament. We then received scholarships to some fancy private school.

I quit figure skating to join the team full time. My manager and skating coach were pissed; I wasn't supposed to like hockey so much that I never came back. I was supposed to hang around and make them money. My parents weren't happy either, but they minded less when we got our scholarships to a prestigious private school in suburban Minneapolis.

And then we got to said private school, and it was like public school in San Francisco all over again.

Except this time, I had other people with me going through the same thing. I had hockey. I had a team. I had friends. And I didn't want to run away and to be anywhere else but at school. I wanted to stay with my friends. I endured.

And then this year, surprisingly enough, something else happened: I began to make friends beyond the Ducks. They're still my friends and we're all pretty close, but I've found a few other friends too.

I don't look forward to when we have to go our separate ways for college. It's still a while off, but I used to worry about it. I don't worry so much now. I can make friends. I have before, and I will again. I'm not just a Duck anymore. They're a part of my identity, not the whole thing. But they still compliment me.

I still get the same old shit here occasionally. Suburban Minneapolis, urban San Francisco, there are idiots everywhere; there is no escaping them.

Shockingly enough, Portman is probably my closest friend. I have no idea how that happened. But he looks out for me, and he makes sure that nobody picks on me too much. I think he likes it; he's an only child and he always wanted a brother. I've somehow become his adopted brother. It's okay, I don't mind; I'm an only child too.

But like a real brother, he can't be there all the time, and so sometimes when he's not around, I'll hear something like, "Hey Chink, General Tso's Chicken and wanton soup. Go."

I really don't care about those people or what they say anymore, even if they call me a fag or something. They don't bother me like they used to. Part of it is that I'm older and more mature, and the other part is my friends. They've taught me a lot, and I appreciate them.

I'm an eggroll with a side of duck sauce. I can manage.

References:

1. When Kenny says about Eden Hall that he's "never seen a more wretched hive of scum and villainy," he's quoting Star Wars: A New Hope when Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi are about to enter the Mos Eisley Cantina.

2. A 'Trekkie' is an obsessive Star Trek fan; in this case, Kenny means the stereotype of the the thirty year old guy with a bad job, few friends (who also obsess over Star Trek), no girlfriend, and still lives at home with his parents.