~Ling: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiii!! I finally did it! This is my first fic ever, and I hope to get some feedback from you ^_^ This is a completely AU fic, meaning Alternate Universe, and our dear Clow's creations won't appear at all. (Kero-chan: How COULD YOU!???) Gomen, gomen. But it cannot fit into the storyline, as much as I want it to. This story will take place somewhere around the 1940s-50s, the aftermath of World War 2. If you see *s, scroll to the bottom for explanations.
Disclaimer: Me don't own, You don't sue.
Key:
bold - emphasis
italics - thoughts
'words in apostrophes' - important / informal phrases
"words in double apostrophes" - talking
________________________ - change in scene / timeframe
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> - Flashbacks
The Tea Plantation
1. The Mysterious Girl
She was running away, into the deep of the night. The ghastly sounds of nocturnal creatures echoed around her, sending cold thrills enveloping her whole being. She clutched the piece of jade tightly, running blindly in the darkness, trying not to crash into any trees. She could hear the terrifying noises of the troops closing in upon her. A dog's bark was heard. A few shouts. And the scampering of feet towards her direction. She shivered with cold and shook with fear. She kept on running, until the vegetation finally cleared, and she found herself on a cliff, overlooking the seas. The waves were rushing against the cliff walls, the dark waters below her seemingly menacing and intimidating. She was cornered. They had arrived. The torches of fire illuminated their facial features, crooked, ugly faces, craving for power, greedy for wealth, lusting after undesirable materialism. They circled her, eyes boring into her frail soul. She was frightened. They knew it. And it was exactly what they wanted.
"There's no way for you to run, Ojou-san. Come with us." An odd, husky voice whispered into her ear. The voice roared with evil cackle. And the rest followed suit. Their laughter rang high into the night, as she contemplated her fate. There was no way out. Except one. She made a run towards the edge, and jumped. Behind her the voices bellowed and cursed, but she cared no more as she crashed into the water surface, breath caught in her throat and painfully suffocating. She struggled to stay afloat, but her whole being ached from the impact, and an excruciating pain by her side told her she was in fact, not fine. She soon lost her strength to struggle as the waves swayed her back and forth, and finally engulfed her in a huge oscillation of deep, murky sea water. She knew no more, and cared no more, of the troops shouting away at the edge of the cliff.
She felt drowsy and cold. Some kind of chilly air seems to be brushing against her whole being. She forced her eyes open and blinked unbelievingly as she looked around. She seemed to be in a dilapidated hut, walls built of thin planks of wood and the room seemingly bare except for the upraised platform of wood she was lying on, which she presumed was a bed, and a small table in the middle of the room, with a small, extinguished candle on top of it. The walls were bare except for a scenery painting of the seaside, done roughly on some cotton cloth, and the only source of light was the small hole on the wall beside her, the moonlight rays streaming in through it and illuminating the room, barely enough for her to made all her observations without getting up from the "bed". She tried to move, but let out a sharp cry of woe as she felt the pain was still there, and more excruciating than ever. So she was still alive, she realised.
A melody echoed softly in the air, then she noticed the figure of an old woman sitting by the door, her face wrinkled with thought, eyes twinkling with amusement, yet her frayed white hair and her kindly features clearly stating the aged old woman was no threat, if not, a saviour.
"You saved me?" The emerald-eyed girl asked, her chestnut brown hair sweeping across her delicate face as the sea breeze blew into the room. The woman was startled by her sudden voice and moved to her side to look at her, tucking her displaced hair behind her ears. The elder person seemed to observe her facial features, probably thinking about her plight, Kinomoto Sakura thought. Seeing no response from her saviour, she whispered another question.
"Where am I?" This time, the woman smiled, rather sadly nevertheless, and shook her head, signifying her dilemma. That was when Sakura realised, she was no longer anywhere near Japan. She was somewhere else. A place where they knew not of the Japanese language. It was then her turn to observe the elder woman's attire. China.
Being a renowned scholar's daughter, Kinomoto Sakura was eloquent in a dozen many other languages, and Chinese, was not exactly a problem for her. She repeated her first two questions in Chinese, as the woman looked on in surprise.
"I found you by the seaside, and my son is going to the nearest village right now to find a physician for you." The woman, whom Sakura soon knew to be Pan-ma*, answered. "What's your name?" She asked.
"Sa-," she was about to say her name, when a nagging thought at the back of her mind stopped her, "Ying-fa, but you can call me Ying-ying." She said instead. She remembered what her father had said about the war between China and Japan, which had happened during her earlier years of childhood, and had claimed the life of her mother. She knew of the Chinese' resentment and hatred towards the Japanese people, and she wisely provided herself an alias. After all, Ying-fa also means Sakura, so why not?
"Ma, I've brought Chen-taifu* here." A slight hustle of feet and the sound of a slightly worried masculine voice disrupted her thoughts, and she found herself face-to-face with a charming young man, dark blue hair framing his kind face, and deep sapphire eyes full of concern, switching his attention between her and the physician from time to time, as she allowed the physician to read her pulse.
She rubbed her eyes sleepily and registered her surroundings as the hut by the seaside. She vaguely remembered the physician's visit and being asked to drink a bowl of bitter medicine afterwards, and soon after she fell asleep. She looked about, and no one was in the hut. She heard noises outside and wobbled her way to the door. The loud commotion was between the dark-haired young man, and a fierce-looking, bearded old man, enragedly pointing a wooden stick at the young man, and ending the argument in chokes of anger. "Y-you... j-just..m-make..s-ss-sure..s-she's...o-out...of...h-he-here...b-by...s-sunset!"
Sakura's face filled with remorse and she was about to step forward to apologise and help the young man, when Pan-ma noticed her and held her back, clutching her hands tightly, afraid she would do something wrong on impulse. She placed a finger over her own mouth and signalled for Sakura to keep quiet. The old man staggered back to another larger, more impressive hut, in fact, the most grand-looking one amongst the rest, helped by two other middle-aged man, the three of them giving Pan-ma and his son disapproving glances before going into the hut. The crowd soon dissipated and the young man turned his attention back to Sakura.
He motioned for her to go inside the hut, and the three of them went inside, Pan-ma helping the still injured Sakura.
"You've heard?" He asked her, the two of them sitting across each other on either side of the small wooden table, Pan-ma having excused herself to dry the fishes. Sakura stared into the young man's eyes, those deep alluring eyes, letting herself drown in their beauty. Never before had she met someone with such charm, such understanding, knowledgeable features. She felt heat creeping up her cheeks when she heard him clear his throat pointedly, and she was embarrassed at her open show of affection.
Sheepishly trying to salvage the awkward silence, she heard herself squeak, "Yes.. it seems they don't welcome my presence here." Her eyes were looking down, noticing the many scratches and lines slashed across the wooden table. Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to look into his eyes anymore. The embarrassment was enough to last for weeks.
She sensed him move to her side and kneel beside her. Suddenly she felt a warm, callused hand reach under her chin and bring up her face, and she once again found herself staring right into those eyes. A minute or so passed, and the young man hustled noisily back to his seat, and started the conversation amiably, the common sense of attraction between the both of them having kept under control and locked away deep in the bottom of their secret hearts.
"... so I will take you back to the Xiang Cha Chun* where Chen-taifu is living and you can recuperate safely there." He ended, looking at her for any sign of understanding, but instead found a mixture of confusion and fear evident on her angelic features. She, in fact, was not really paying attention to what he was saying, but thinking about her homeland, and the circumstances which had caused her to be there, at that very moment. She only caught phrases of "sea breeze" being "not good" and "expenses settled" and such. She was suddenly aware of the pair of eyes focusing on her, and she noticed he had stopped speaking, and was looking expectantly at her, waiting for her answer. What exactly did he say? Something about sending her away? She felt the familiar sense of overwhelming terror and bewilderment engulfing her soul.
Then, she noticed him reaching his hand across the table to squeeze hers assuringly, and saying, "I'll stay with you till you're better." That phrase brought back the sunshine onto her facial features and she was smiling radiantly. Suddenly, the flash of bewilderment came about again, and she realised she knew absolutely nothing of the "plan" which she had only heard subconsciously about, and even lesser about the young man who was going to "bring her there".
Unbeknownst to them, Pan-ma was watching their every move from behind the curtain that separated the backyard from the inner hut. She smiled wanly, thinking there would be a match between those two one day, even though she was rather baffled, and not to say, worried, about this mysterious girl's past. She was definitely not a local, yet she speaks their language with such fluency. She could not help but fear for the safety of her son, and for the sake of his future.
Back in the inner hut, Sakura found herself curious about the young man who sat across her, and she felt her mind overwhelmed by all the questions that had suddenly sprang up. She blurted the one and only thing she could think of, before even organising her thoughts properly, "Who are you?"
The young man was rather taken aback by Sakura's sudden question, then he realised after all's been said and done, he had never properly introduced himself to her. He felt a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth, and he whispered, "I'm Li Yong*, call me A Yong. I'm a fisherman now."
Sakura was surprised. This man, who spoke with such dignity, such compassion, and such sophistication, had such a plain and nevertheless, inappropriate name. She was expecting a rather grand-ish name, but she reminded herself she was on the outskirts of China now, by the seaside, and her companion was but a fisherman. After all, which fishermen had elaborate names? That would be ridiculous. Little did she know, how near she was to guessing the truth. 'Li Yong' was no fishermen. At least he wasn't, in the past. But that, was left to be discovered in later days, when the desperate times called for desperate measures.
As he had guessed nevertheless, Li Yong found out Sakura, or Ying-ying, as she was known to him, had little idea about what he was talking about. He thought he was talking in too difficult words. So he repeated his explanation again, in laymen's terms.
Sakura listened intently, after having missed almost all of his words the first time round. She felt rather guilty for troubling him so, but she was determined to know what was happening around her, and what she was supposed to do about them. She soon realised that the three men were in fact Yu Jia Chun*'s elders, who were in charge if taking care of the place. It turned out that Chen-taifu was one of the best physicians around the area, and the elders were the ones who helped to pay him. However, it turned out Sakura's health was slowly deteriorating and the cool sea breeze was not good for her condition. Therefore she was suggested to go to Xiang Cha Chun, where Chen-taifu had a medical hall and could tend to her better. And all the expenses were too heavy for Li Yong and Pan-ma to bear, therefore Li Yong was forced to sell himself as a steward to the Elder's Hut to work there as long as he live, and that was how she would be able to get well. The elders had many doubts about her life and her sudden presence, so she was not allowed to stay in Yu Jia Chun any longer, and from then on, she had been present and had known about the rest of their argument.
Sakura's eyes were misty with tears as she heard Li Yong tell his story. She was touched that he would make such a great sacrifice for her. She knew that selling his service to the elders also meant giving up his freedom and narrowing his path for a better future. She did not know what else to say. And she embraced him in a tight hug, thanking him profusely, before drawing back immediately as Pan-ma entered the room. As much as she approved of the coupling, she knew things couldn't go too far. After all, in those days, it was already shameful enough for an unmarried young man and woman to stay in the same room together.
To be continued....
~Ling:Ne, what do you think? Please, please, please, please review? If not I really don't know if I should go on. And now, for explanations (all the *s):
1. Pan-ma: Now here, it means that Pan is her surname, and -ma suffix is like -san but for elderly women. It depends, because Chinese language is rather complex. Ma itself is mother, but with when its -ma it's like a polite form of calling.
2. Chen-taifu: Now, here of course it means Chen is his surname, but taifu means physician. And literally translated it should be 'Physician Chen', but it doesn't sound as fitting as Chen-taifu, because it's set in olden day China, I feel it's better this way.
3. Xiang Cha Chun: This, is a name I've made up for a village. Always, Chun means village (at least it is in this fic). In Chinese, different intonations can mean different things. If read another way, Chun can also mean Spring. Now, the Xiang is fragrant, and Cha is tea. So, literally, I made the village name mean 'Fragrant Tea Village'. *hint* compare with title? *
4. Li Yong: Now, make a guess who this is? You'll never believe it. It's Eriol-kun!! Now, I'm not sure how to make it sound Chinese-ish, so 'Riol' sounds almost like Li Yong, so the name stays. But then, you'll see why it's like this! And noooooooooooooooooooooo! This is NOT E+S. At least I don't intend it to be. We'll see.
5. Yu Jia Chun: Again, Chun = village, Yu = fish, Jia = I didn't exactly think of the meaning, it just sounds nice together.
So NOW! After all that explanations, I hope you can understand better, and OH! Tell me what you think, onegai. Suggestions also deeply appreciated at autumn_rain12@hotmail.com