"Wang Yao!"
The little Chinese boy spun around backwards to see who'd shouted his name. The short, pudgy, green-eyed boy who'd called him, smirked.
"Yes, aru?" Yao, always polite as ever (courtesy of his mother's teachings), answered back. The plastic sandbox toy in his hand was carefully put down as he stood up.
"Are you really a boy?"
Yao flinched. "Of course I am a boy, aru!"
"I don't believe you! Show it to me!"
"What do you want, aru?"
"Pull down your pants!"
"I don't want to, aru!"
"Pull them down!"
Yao shouted loudly when the boy suddenly seized him and forced his pants down. Yao's trousers dropped onto the earth, showing adorable Hello Kitty-printed panties. The kindergarten boy started to sob.
But his bully didn't stop tormenting him. "Ha! You wear Hello Kitty! So girly! You are a girl, Yao!"
"I am NOT a GIRL, aru!" Yao shouted, but his childish voice was dampened by the bully's louder voice.
"Yao is a girl~ Yao is a girl~"
"I am NOT!"
"Yao is a girl~"
"What's going on here, children?" The kindergarten teacher came towards them. Her face looked dumbfounded when she spotted that Yao was pant-less. "Why do you take your pants off, Yao?"
"He did it!" Yao pointed at the boy, the blonde green-eyed little meanie. The boy stuck out his tongue at Yao.
"Yao is a girl~!"
"You two, stop it!" their teacher barked. She helped Yao put his pants back on. Yao sobbed throughout the entire ordeal, but in the hours that followed, the mean boy continued following him around and didn't stop calling him a "girl," until, finally, their teacher relocated the boy to another class.
So much for Yao's first day in kindergarten.
And that was his very first memory of being humiliated due to his looks. Yao looks feminine; yes, very feminine, to be more accurate. His face, the high cheekbones, is shapely like his mother's, and his little mouth is a heart-shaped, cherry red. His small, cute nose and long eyelashes are courtesy of his father's genetics, along with his pointed, more masculine jaw. However, when combined with his mother's features, together these aesthetics still make Yao look exactly like a girl in boys' clothes. He is also quite small of build, just like his mother. But his most beautiful aspect is definitely his eyes; they are soft and innocent as a fawn's, almond-shaped, with irises speckled with gold.
Initially, he didn't hate how he looked. But the constant humiliation that stemmed from his effeminate features continued throughout his entire education history—he had to change kindergarten classes permanently after enduring six months of being bullied by the same boy everyday. However, he still got teased in his new kindergarten class. And when he entered elementary school, the teasing never let up. It especially worsened the day his mother mistakenly sent him to school wearing girls' clothes. Thus, he inevitably grew to resent his looks more than anything else in the world.
His family wasn't a great help in this matter. His mother worked as a freelance children's fashion designer, and every single week she would received heaps upon heaps of various product samples from prospective clients. Most of the samples were for girls, and Yao's sister was 5 years older than him and too big to fit in the clothes. Therefore, his mother usually used Yao as her model. And since Yao's looks were beautifully androgynous, his mother could use him as a model for both boys' and a girls' children's clothes. So instead of helping Yao grow into what little masculinity he physically showed, she instead encouraged the boy to wear skirts and even paint his fingernails at home.
His mother clearly looked sad the day they discovered that Yao could no longer fit into the sample clothes. In contrast, Yao was so delighted. He was optimistic that he wouldn't be teased anymore. But, he was wrong. His mother began changing her preferences and client base, and started designing older children's clothing, so Yao became her model once more.
Because of the situation, Yao took great care in never inviting any of his friends or classmates into his house. He didn't want anyone to see all the photos pinned up all over the house, all depicting him in cute skirts and dresses and pink frills and flowers. Because of this perceived shunning, however, some of his peers started to call him "the arrogant Chinese." Living in a mostly Caucasian society didn't help much either.
So he started his first year of junior high school with the pure, undistilled willpower of becoming the man amongst man; just like the hero of the Rambo films his Dad loved so much.
His fist was not strong, but it was pummelling fast enough to hurt. Especially when it hit the other boy's chin.
"You… bastard!" the man spat, but his bleeding nose made him look ridiculous. In front of him, Yao stood proudly, albeit while looking short and small. Petite.
"I am the gang leader now, aru. You need to listen to me, bitch." Yao smirked, and behind him the gang laughed alongside their boss. Their school was a boys'-only school, so of course there existed a strict hierarchy and within it, gangs. Yao, however, upon his first week of entering the school, already challenged and defeated all three bosses of each junior class (first, second and third year). He was now the ultimate boss.
Yao smiled smugly to himself. His hard work and toil from mastering all different forms of martial arts for the whole summer before the start of junior high was proving very helpful. People generally underestimated him due to his build, but now, that was their mistake. Yao used his un-intimidating stature to his advantage and, despite his smallness and comparatively lower strength, his speed more than made up for these deficiencies. And his looks made many people—especially males—hesitate before attacking him, so he had another advantage.
He didn't know that most of his followers were actually giving him a pass—they were allured by Yao's androgyny and let him be the boss, so they could protect his 'virginity' inside the harsh realm that is known as "the boys' school hierarchy." Being cooped up inside all day in an all-boys' school, with only a limited amount of eye candy, made Yao—with all his 'femininity'—the queen bee.
But his glory didn't last long. One day, there was a sudden announcement from the administration. The all-boys' school he was in was to merge with another nearby boys' school. With the merger, the school admin stated that they could provide better educations for all, as well as a wider educational space, and increased student interaction.
In reality, the administration was scheming to redeem the most savage high school boys of their hormones. With the merge, the two most influential gangs would likely wipe each other out, thereby allowing the school atmosphere to be once again relatively normal and peaceful.
And so, Yao met his arch enemy that day.
"These are your new classmates." The teacher introduced a whole bunch of new boys—about fifteen total—gathered from the merger. Yao, seated at the back of the class with his faithful servants around him, ignored the announcement as though he hadn't heard, and continued playing cards with Yong Soo (his right hand man).
The room became alive with grumbles; the new boys snarled and the original classmates greeted them with salutes using only their middle fingers. The teacher knew that for the next ten weeks, he would be shitting his pants every time he entered the classroom. He tried to put on a brave face.
"Just sit here for about a minute as I get out your assignments. Quietly," he added in a hesitant voice.
The fifteen or so students silently made their way to their assigned seats. They settled themselves in with a lot of shuffling, and for the next few seconds, as they put away their utensils, nobody made eye contact or uttered a single word.
"Hey," one British-accented voice suddenly called out. "Are you a guy or a girl?"
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then all thirty or so pairs of eyes swivelled towards Yao Wang. The speaker was a skinny blonde boy with no especially distinctive features other than a pair of startlingly green eyes and an oddly thick pair of eyebrows. He was standing by his seat, and had a smug smirk fixed on his face.
Yao Wang, who'd previously been studying the pair of aces in his hands, arched his eyebrows. Who the hell...did this guy think he was?
"I don't know, why don't you come over here and see for yourself?" he shot back, carefully placing down his cards and curling one hand into a threatening fist.
The speaker—Arthur Kirkland—started. The timbre of Yao's husky voice was peculiar, like that of a young boy's, but unmistakeably male.
"Or are you too chickenshit?" Yao and the tall Korean both continued glaring, unflinching, in Arthur's direction.
"Hey, sweetheart, simmer down there," Alfred, Arthur's co-captain, warned from directly behind the English boy.
"What's going on here?" the teacher demanded. "Enough talking. You four, back in your seats."
"You heard him," Arthur said to Yao's face, smiling coldly. "Back in your seat, sweetie."
"Don't call me—" Yao started as Yong-Soo pulled at his arm. He frowned as he remembered that Yong-Soo had already had three previous detentions that month, and would be indefinitely suspended if he acquired another.
The teacher breathed a visible sigh of relief as the boys sat back down, glaring at one another. "Now, turn to page 20. Start reading from the second paragraph and answer the five questions..."
For the rest of the lesson, the entire class didn't learn a single concept, save the feeling of impending dreadfulness from an emerging cold war.