Disclaimer: No, and I am running out of clever things to say for these. About five years of this can do that to you.
...
"Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing?
...Come what may, come what may..."
- Come What May
...
The rifle was beautiful, in its own, twisted way. Its sides were smooth and fine-grained; its color was a healthy, glowing brown. From the very tip, the flash compressor, to the end, the butt plate, it was a pretty little thing, pressed against the inside of his elbow where the frontsight burned cold. And Yao admired how bright it was.
He dropped it.
What was this long-distance weapon, this huge and wieldy thing for killing?—why did people make this, this lovely killer, this femme fatale of lore? He shuddered to think of the movement in the barrel, as the bullet flew from the opening, in a way so fast it was invisible, shattering the bones, the soft and squelching muscle. This beautiful thing, this weapon, had taken many lives, and now he was to wield it to save his own.
And my people, he whispered to himself, silently. My people, whom I have so neglected to care for...
The child in his arms yawned, curled into a ball, asleep; Yao trembled a little, overtaken by the love he had for him, the child so warm and innocent; tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he held him all the tighter, closing them. He dared not utter a word—he wanted so much to speak to the boy, the boy who was quickly growing. It frightened him, how much heavier he was in his arms. He was missing out on his little brother's growing-up, and he could only see him during these nightly visits...and not even...
Would the voice be rough?—the little voice calling to him in Cantonese, in a deepening rumble of sound, the strumming southern tongue that he so ached to speak. Would it be corrupted by the heavy English drawl of the accursed kingdom to the west... How Yao hated the thought of the pale, bone-white skin, the leaf-green eyes so demonic, the smirk scrawled onto the jaw. The words that would corrupt the memory of "dai gou" and "gou gou."
In a frightening moment, his hand twitched for the rifle. A sort of lust crept over him, making him tremble all the more as blood filled his vision and buried England in screams. All those accursed pale men, all their want for a world better without them.
He shook his head. This was no time.
Hong Kong shifted in his arms again; Yao's heart skipped a beat. Would he wake?—he wanted him to wake, so much, and yet feared the idea. To speak to Hong Kong again, when it was most dangerous... His brother was no longer so small, he was so much heavier. He was bigger, almost lanky. Thin.
Yao let the memory of bright, childish laughter fill his mind. Hong Kong shifted again. He turned and pressed his ear against his chest. Would he hear Yao's blood rushing in their vessels, and float with its current in his sleepy imagination?
The thought made his heart clench.
And then, so faintly, in a way so groggy and whispery, came the words, "Dai gou."
Yao bit his lip, hard. "Xiao Xiang Gang!" he replied, just as quietly, then fell silent, heart thumping. He had stayed too long. And yet, all the same, he had been here for so short a time. But he was strong; he could control his longing. Tired but strong.
Feeling more alone than ever, he put Hong Kong back to bed, picked up the atrocious, beautiful rifle. He handled both gingerly.
And it was abrupt as death, his parting. He dropped out of the house from the window, landing in a way that made him dizzy. He walked away and never looked back.
...
The little boy looked at him scornfully, eyeing the weapon in his hand. "You use a rifle," he said, sardonically.
"Yes."
"And what is wrong with a spear? A blade? And what about your hands, old man?"
Old man. It echoed in the air without real resonance. Even if it was not visible, there was something about Yao: The tremble in his hands. The careful tongue he spoke. Yao felt a brief flash of irritation. "You are young," he said. "If I wanted to shoot you, I would right now. Do you think the yang ren or guizi would spare you the way I do?" He took a breath.
"It would be an honorable death!" the boy flashed back, his eyes ablaze with black. "What's wrong with you?—they cripple the body of our land, they storm it, they rampage, they try to rule us in our own home! We have many people, and our cause is great, worth dying for. Zhong Guo is worth dying for!"
This was so ironic that Yao smiled, a thin crack of a grin. "You don't even know what you're dying for, do you? If Zhong Guo stood right in front of you right now, you would not know." He slid the bolt of his weapon back with a sharp yank, the retort a high and singular note. When he reached for the cloth to wipe its chamber, the boy spat in it. Yao paused.
"...Ni zhao si a?"
The boy cocked his head in reply, staring him boldly in the eye. "Wang Yao. It is fabled that a man by that name once taught my family the martial arts."
Yao scrutinized him, carefully tracing the shape of his jaw with his eyes. He had taught many men martial arts. He had taught women as well. He was China, the Zhong Guo they spoke of; he was the Shaolin temple from whence kung fu came, the man of Song Shan. He was the one who had treaded its rocky boulders and splayed his body over it, snake-like, before anyone. Before Sun Zi, there was Wang Yao.
He could guess that such a story would most likely become fable; there were many named Wang, and many named Yao, and many stories for many old families.
But before he could say anything, the boy waved his hand dismissively. "Never mind. But here, if you were Zhong Guo, I would say that—I would tell Zhong Guo to stop destroying itself and stand up. And I would pity my country.
"I would give Zhong Guo my blade and tell him to destroy the foreigners, because Zhong Guo would know its warfare the best. Even though we've failed before, we can still take back what's ours."
(Yao would remember his surprise; he had not expected such an answer.)
"That," he said, after a pause, "is naïve."
Four days later, the boy charged into battle, wielding only a spear, his blood streaming down it. Screaming as he vanished into the enemy's swarm, hiding the black patches on his skin.
At least he could say that his was the fiercer qiang.
Yao never saw the boy again.
...
"Heaven," he breathed, as he leaned against the wall, Hong Kong in his arms. The boy was half-conscious, his stupor a product of plague.
In the background, the air was rent with gunfire. And the powder...that bitter, acrid stench was burning into Yao's skin, and he was soaking it up through his tattered changshan.
Buboes. What a stupid name, he thought. For something so deadly...it almost seemed to be an insult. The sickness was an insult. The attack was an insult. That he could hold Hong Kong only now, when they would be parted again, when the boy's very survival was in its greatest field of jeopardy, was insulting. But who else could do this?—and then, why should any of this happen? He hated it, hated himself for existing, hated everything but Hong Kong.
"Dai gou. Ngo mut si." And Hong Kong turned away and China turned his head, unable to look at the half-open eyes. A bullet whizzed by, burning into the wall and shattering bits of stone in a firework of rubble. Squeezing his eyes closed, holding Hong Kong tighter, Yao took a dive behind a nearby wall, heart pounding. "Dai gou...," said Hong Kong again, and Yao's heart tightened ever the more.
"Stop talking, Heung Gong," Yao said, quietly, but loud enough for him to hear. But Hong Kong had grown disobedient, and, even through stupor, was seeing the brother he had not seen in years.
"...Ah mu si," he said again, but his words were blurred. "Dai...ga..."
"Stop," Yao said. "Tian a, stop, Heung Gong. Stop." An explosion in the background, a scream. The sound of war can change so much, and yet so little.
"Ngo...ai... Dai gou..."
And then, clearly, with a cold, smooth pitch like well water: "Asoko."
NO!
Yao couldn't scream; he couldn't. He wanted to cry like a baby, seek solace in embrace, from whomever, whomever Chinese and soft and motherly; something he craved, in the most inopportune times. Instead, he rolled behind a mound of ash where he hugged Hong Kong tighter and tighter, screaming with his seething-hot heart. He buried his face in Hong Kong's disease-ridden neck, crying, crying, crying.
He was coming, and he was coming to tear them apart.
That was when he remembered his rifle. Slung about his shoulder, a too-familiar weight and too-familiar rod of sensation.
He wouldn't let go of Hong Kong, but he heard the footsteps and spared one arm to cock and aim the rifle, holding with one arm so strong he pointed it without shaking, so that the barrel pointed straight forward.
"Dai gou!" Hong Kong screamed, and it was already too late to do anything more than clench his body in pain. In fear.
"Chuugoku."
And Yao stared upward in fear, in hate, as he shrank back from Japan. "Get out of here, Ri Ben," he said, his voice shaking, his face clenched with hate. He was pale, his voice was dead fire. "Leave. Can't you see what you're doing is wrong? Why must you hurt people?"
But there was no changing him, no turning back now. China could see that.
"Chuugoku-san. You know this is the only way. You were once so big. So powerful. Now look at you. And look at me. The west has given me this power, because I acted right. You didn't."
"I'M NOT LETTING YOU TAKE HIM!" Yao screamed, his fury beyond words. "I'LL KILL YOU BEFORE I LET YOU TAKE HIM!"
His body was about to explode, he wanted the past again, where he could sit somewhere and stare at the moon. Everything was changing, and he was losing everything. His finger was on the trigger, and the irony of it all—his own feelings, his fall, his loss, his death—was searing.
Hong Kong gave a groan, and one hand was only strong enough to lay itself upon China's wrist. "Dai gou...dai gou..."
"GET OUT OF HERE! LEAVE!" Seeing Japan's unmoving face, he pulled.
...
Once upon a time, there was a world where water was blue. The sky was blue, the grass was green.
Once upon a time, all men were brothers.
...
One day, the world rent itself apart.
...
PT: Time for some spontaneity. The bubonic plague lingered in the world; there were nasty 'demics in Hong Kong last century. Lots of Chinese is in here, and some Chinese word play. "Qiang" in Mandarin is used to describe both a spear and a firearm or rifle. Set around the open-doors and beyond. The third part, with Yao and Hong Kong and Japan, is supposed to be set during the battle of Hong Kong. For me, this time, around with the world wars and Asia breaking out of isolationism, is the major turning point of human history, in the case of societies clashing.