Halloween, 2000

Mary Yang felt miserable. She was just over six months pregnant with twins, her 'morning' sickness had never really gone away (nor was it only in the mornings), and she knew, knew, that something was wrong. "Mrs. Wu?" the OBGYN nurse called out for the fourth time. Mary ground her teeth in frustration and nausea; this particular nurse liked to 'honey' all the pregnant women, which drove Mary nuts. Being a five foot tall Chinese woman in Concord, NH was hard enough with all the slant eyed 'jokes' and people 'joking' that they had 'winged the wong doorbell' (but of course not said in a racist manner) without being called honey and dear as if she was a three year old. Or being called Mrs. Wu when that was not her name. Charles Wu was her husband, but she was Dr. Mary Yang. She had an in Electrical Engineering and was a tenure track professor. What she wasn't was 'Mrs. Wu.' She had a Chinese name, of course, but when in small town America, it was better to use an 'American' name.

Finally Nurse 'Ratched' sighed dramatically and called out "Dr. Yang?" Mary smiled inwardly at winning this particular battle, and heaved her bulk out of the chair. They went through her vitals check and routine questions. She managed to pee mostly in the cup and only a little bit on her hand. Which then resulted in losing her breakfast into the toilet. And peeing on the floor as she heaved. How embarrassing. At least she was wearing a dress and managed to keep the skirt dry. By the time she managed to haul herself up onto the examination table, she was shivering and shaking. "Something's wrong with my babies," she told the doctor. He smiled that fake smile of his that said she was overexaggerating. Because he, of course, had successfully carried a pregnancy to term before so he knew exactly what she was going through. The ass.

Unfortunately, this was the only OB/GYN practice in Concord her insurance allowed for, outside of the medical center at the University. She really did not want her colleagues knowing the intimate details of her pregnancy….

Dr. Ass strapped the fetal monitor around her anyways with his condescending 'one must humor pregnant women, don't you know' attitude. And then his face turned serious and he grabbed the gel in one hand and dragged an ultrasound machine over with his foot. He gelled her belly up, disregarding the fact that she wasn't wearing her pee-soaked panties anymore and she was completely exposed from the waist down.

Half an hour later Mary found herself strapped onto a gurney in a MediVac helicopter headed to Boston. The doctor, another one, was checking her intravenous lines and monitoring her babies' health. Fetal distress something or other. Words she didn't understand spewed out of his mouth as he tried to explain what was going on with her babies. This doctor wasn't as patronizing, "All three of you are going to be just fine," he reassured her. "The doctors and staff at MGH are phenomenal. They're going to take great care of Baby B in the PICU, and OB/GYN are going to keep you and Baby A healthy until he's finished growing."

"Michael Gabriel," Mary told him. "Not Baby B."

"Good choice," he nodded. "He's going to need every bit of help he can get. The doctors there are as close to gods as humans can get, but asking the Archangels to help certainly won't hurt, either."

It was a dangerous surgery. Any piece going wrong and she could lose both of her boys. And even if the surgery was successful, Michael, being so little, had a high probability of being blind, having mental and physical disorders, and/or becoming seriously ill. There was also the rather high possibility that he would leave the PICU in a casket rather than a carseat. However, to not perform the surgery would mean death for both boys and possibly the mother.

The surgery was successful. And Michael seemed to thrive in the PICU; he passed all the tests thrown at him. His younger twin, Matthew, was born eight weeks later, and all three went home from the hospital on the same day.

But if Mary thought that was the end of her worries, she was sadly mistaken….


September, 2016

"Eleanor! Michael! Matthew!" Mary yelled up the stairs at her children. "We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago! Get a move on!"

Michael gave his spiked, blue-dyed hair one last look in the mirror, and reminded himself that his sixteenth birthday was only two short months away, and then he could get his ears pierced. He had the perfect earrings already purchased and packed for once the holes healed up. "You're never going to pass as a Korean Oppa, no matter what you do," Matthew teased. Michael flipped him off with a smirk. As if the majority of American girls swooning over Korean idols could tell the difference between a Korean Oppa and a Chinese Gege. They'd see a six foot tall, slender, handsome Asian man with a BTS style of haircut, hear a few Anyoung haseyos and anios in a perfect Seoul accent, and immediately wonder if he was an up and coming KPop star. And since he'd be wandering around with the other college freshmen, they wouldn't even realize that he wasn't yet sixteen. He checked the bookshelf to make sure all the books he wanted to bring were packed. "You're never going to have time to read them anyways," Michael egged. He pawed through a backpack bursting with Manga novels. "Why do you read this crap anyways?"

"I like it," Michael stated. They were a mental escape from this house. A way to pass the time until his parents decided he was old enough to leave.

He deliberately did not look at the single sheet of paper tacked to his side of the cork board on his way out of the room; he had long ago memorized the acceptance letter's contents. The paper was yellowing and starting to curl; it had been pinned there almost four and a half years ago. Today was move-in day for Eleanor and the rest of the Freshmen at BU, and the parents had agreed that with Eleanor living just across the river, he could finally move to Cambridge and begin studying at MIT. Four and a half fucking years after being accepted into their Mechanical Engineering program. 'A child prodigy' they had called him.

Both of his parents were born in China, his mother in Beijing and his father outside Shanghai. When Eleanor was born, the parents were determined to raise her as bilingual in both English and Mandarin. They had continued with that practice after the twins were born. But Mary enjoyed watching asian dramas regardless of the country of origin, so it wasn't uncommon for a Korean or Japanese drama to be on the TV. Mary had taken the twins onto campus one day just after Michael turned three, and they encountered a Korean family that was lost and trying to find the Admission Building. Michael had immediately given them directions on how to get to the building, in perfectly accented Korean.

He was tested, of course, and determined to have a natural affinity for music, languages and mathematics. His parents, in an attempt to keep his brain occupied, bought him a piano and a violin and enrolled him at a local music school. They also put him in foreign language classes. Korean, Japanese, Thai, Cantonese as well as Mandarin and English soon became the common languages coming out of his mouth. When that didn't keep him out of trouble (if he didn't like his regular school teachers, he would answer questions on quizzes and tests in whatever language he happened to think of the answer in and demand that they score it based on if his answers were correct, not whether they were too uneducated to read it), they enrolled him in more advanced math and science classes. At ten, he received full marks on the AP exams in BC Calculus, Physics, and Chemistry. And at eleven, he interviewed with CalTech and MIT. He decided on MIT as it was closer to home and so he was more likely to be allowed to go.

His parents said no, eleven is too young to live so far away from the family. Trying to explain that Sheldon went to CalTech at eleven also did not change their minds. Especially since they had no idea who Sheldon Cooper was. (Proclaiming a cushion on the couch as 'my spot' did not help his argument….) He was enrolled at the local college where his mother taught and received a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Mathematics. But a degree from a New Hampshire state college and a degree from MIT are worlds apart.

Michael stared out the car window. They had at least a four hour drive down to Boston, what with all the move in traffic. He had read stories of people spending hours just on Storrow Drive trying to move their children into the BU and BC dorms. Usually because some idiot refused to believe that their moving van was too tall for the road, despite the numerous posted signs, YouTube videos and news reports, and it would get caught under one of the bridges.

Eleanor's dorm room technically overlooked the Charles River. And if you squinted just right, you could see a hint of brown which didn't look like a street. But if you looked in the other direction, you could clearly see the dome on the Museum of Science building. And if you looked across the way and could see through a building, you would see the dome at MIT. Home. For the next six or eight years… however long it took to obtain his post-baccalaureate, Masters, and PhD.

Becky, Eleanor's roommate, looked Irish or Scottish or something. Kinky orangey-red hair, blue eyes, more freckles than face, and a mouth that seemed to never stop talking. She liked him, too. He could see the appreciation in her eyes; she was checking him out whenever the parents and Eleanor weren't looking. 'I'm fifteen,' he mouthed at her after her fourth leisurely eye-fuck. 'Jail bait.' He wouldn't mind dating an older woman, and Becky was pretty enough if you ignored the verbal blathering. But his sister's roommate was probably supposed to be off limits. And Becky used the word 'like' like Mathew's high school friends used the word 'fuck'; it was annoying as Hell.

Finally, finally!, Eleanor was all unpacked, the last hugs given, and Michael found himself back in the car for the (hopefully) short ride across the river to Cambridge. Unfortunately, his parents refused to allow him to live in a dorm with the rest of the freshmen. Instead, they rented a room in a house. Someone they knew back in China knew someone who knew someone and so on until they knew someone who lived a fifteen minute walk from MIT who rented out rooms for Chinese students. Michael did a quick web search for information about the house where he'd be staying, and found, to his surprise, that it was owned by a huge Chinese medical conglomerate. And he would be the first person actually paying rent to live there…. The other housemates were all employees, or children of employees, of that conglomerate studying in the Boston area.

The house was much bigger than it seemed in the web search. Eight windows across, two stories, white picket fence, and a driveway which went around the house to an actual carriage house in the back.

As the car rolled to a stop, the back door opened and a young man, perhaps twenty years old or so at the most, stepped out onto the back deck and waved with a welcoming grin on his face. "Check out those tats…" Matthew nudged his brother. "You think he's yakuza?"

"Yakuza are Japanese, you idiot," Michael retorted. "You're thinking of the Triads." But the tats were cool: black lightning bolts traveling up his neck accenting his very pale skin.


May, 2012

Dr. Ma swallowed nervously, feeling extremely awkward in scrubs, and followed the intern into a conference room on the twenty-fifth floor of the hospital. He had never been on the twenty-fifth floor. He didn't even know anyone who, even accidentally, went to the twenty-fifth floor! Even the Board Members did not have access to the twenty-fifth floor! This floor housed some office space and a personal residence for the Chairman! The intern had needed a special key to access the floor via elevator. Seated in one of the chairs in the room was Secretary Lan, the most powerful woman in the company. It was quietly rumored that she was a direct descendant of one of the original founders of the QishanWen Medical Group; the company itself had existed in one form or another before the Great Wall was built. It was widely known that she was one of the few who knew what the Chairman looked like. Even the board members did not get to meet the Chairman; he communicated exclusively through Secretary Lan.

"Please, sit," the Secretary ordered in perfectly accented British English. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Water," Dr. Ma bowed, answering in English, "if it's not too much trouble." The intern sat down a bottle of water and a glass at his side.

"That will be all," the Secretary otherwise ignored the intern who bowed low before leaving, shutting the door behind him. "You must be wondering why I called you here."

"Yes, Ma'am." His eyes flickered to the two men sitting behind the Secretary. Even through their suits, he could see they were muscled…. Bodyguards perhaps? But one of them seemed awfully young… he looked to be a teenager….

"You went to medical school at Harvard University in Boston, correct?"

"It's across the river in Cambridge, but yes, Ma'am."

"So you are familiar with that city?"

Dr. Ma was thoroughly confused. "Yes, Ma'am. Do you… do you think I lied on my application? I can show you my diploma!"

The Secretary smiled. "My apologies, Doctor. You are here precisely because of your familiarity with the city. Not because you have done anything wrong. My aide, Sheng Lin," she motioned to the younger man behind her, "will be moving to the United States for a few years. The QishanWen Group will be buying a house in Cambridge for him and our trainees who are currently going to school in that area. It is inconvenient to ask him to live in the student dorms. At the same time, it is uncomfortable to ask him to move to a strange city and country and be all alone like he would be in an apartment. So a house. However, the company does not have a real estate agent in Boston at this time."

Dr. Ma blinked at Secretary Lan, but held his tongue for the moment. Apartments in the Boston area could be extremely expensive. However, to buy a house in Cambridge? Even the tiniest house in Cambridge was almost a half a million US dollars! If they were planning on buying a three bedroom house, they would be looking at spending at least a million or two! A lot of apartments could be rented out for the price of that one house…. The QishanWen Medical Group was a multinational, billion US dollar entity, though. They could afford a few million for a house for the Chairman's Secretary's aide.

"You will please clear your schedule for July and August. You, and your wife if she would like, will be taking an all expense paid trip to Boston with my aide to find us an appropriate house." She passed a document across the table. "These are our minimum requirements." At least five bedrooms capable of sleeping eight people in total. Walking distance to Harvard and MIT or on a bus route to those universities. At least a one car garage on the property or within walking distance to a covered parking garage with monthly rental access. At the bottom was stapled the Secretary's business card. "You will communicate directly with me on this. Send me information on any and all houses that fit our criteria. We will give you a company credit card before you leave, but if you incur expenses that cannot be put on that card, you will send the receipts directly to my attention, and I will see that you are reimbursed. If you have hotel preferences, please let my intern know on the way out."

Dr. Ma folded the paper and slid it into his scrubs pocket. "Ma'am…" he hedged. "Housing in Cambridge is expensive. A house for eight people… This will be a several million dollar investment. Are you sure you want me for this? And not perhaps a Vice President? Or a Board Member?"

She smiled warmly. "This investment is something the Chairman wants. He will be making the final decision on whether or not to purchase the property. I choose you because of your familiarity with the city and your fluency in English. Our Vice Presidents and Board members only have the language skills necessary…. On top of that, you have worked hard and well for the last ten years for us. And you rarely take vacations. I believe your five year wedding anniversary is this summer?" He nodded, amazed that she took the time to research his background like this. "A two month vacation after ten years of work is not much."


January, 2017

Michael glanced at his phone as a text notification binged. Becky was returning from break over the weekend and invited him to hang out. He shoved the phone back in his pocket without replying. He had made the mistake of taking Becky up on an offer to 'hang out' already. Even his horny teenage body, excited to lose its virginity with an eager woman, couldn't handle more than twenty minutes of the word 'like' before he had to flee.

He had gone on a few dates with some college women, but they all bugged out as soon as they heard he was sixteen. Apparently it was only acceptable for college boys to date sixteen year old girls, not the other way around. There were more than a few college-aged men who gave him admiring looks, though…. One had even offered to blow him in the bathroom when he went across the river to attend a football game with his sister. He had turned that one down, but more because A, they were in a public bathroom, so gross, and B, the dude was ugly, rather than C, it was a dude.

He had looked at some gay and bisexual porn after that, and decided, he probably wasn't totally repulsed by guys…. He wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea of having some guy's cock up his ass, but doing it to a guy? It must kind of be like oral sex: close your eyes and you can't tell who's blowing you. Yeah, face-to-face anal, it would be easy to tell, but doggy style? Or so he supposed, having never had the pleasure or giving or receiving any kind of sex. He hadn't even had his first kiss for Christ's sake!

"Oh, Mike," Alice called out as he passed through the kitchen to snag an apple. That wasn't her real name, but all of his housemates, other than Sheng Lin (the tattooed guy), insisted upon using their English names and speaking English. The only Chinese they brought into the house was homemade food. "Your roommate's stuff is here. The movers left it in the sunroom. Do you want help bringing it up to your room? Or do you want to wait until he gets here?"

"Roommate?" What the Hell was she talking about?

"Yes, roommate," Alice repeated. "The person who's going to sleep in the other bed in the room. Roommate."

Fuck. He had quite enjoyed not having a roommate after fifteen years of living with his twin…. he had even used the empty bed as a storage device…. Now I'm going to have to clean it off! he whined to himself. It wasn't that he was a dirty person; he did keep the room dust free as much as possible and kept his dirty clothes in the bucket instead of being thrown on the floor. It was just that he had different areas of the room set up for different activities. His core classes he studied at one desk. He used the other for his own research: what would eventually become the basis of his Master's thesis. The empty bed was where he did fun stuff: reading, watching movies, watching other kinds of movies, and playing music. And he sat on the floor to study electives. Was he going to have to buy a tie to hang on the doorknob now like they did in college movies? Don't come in, I'm watching porn. A roommate was seriously going to cramp his style…. Not his nonexistent dating lifestyle, obviously, but the 'wake up at 2 AM because you solved a problem in your dreams and you have to immediately write it down before you forget it' kind of lifestyle. Or the 'get so involved in something you don't realize it's long past time to go to bed until the sun rises'.

Passing through the living room, he stopped to admire his new earrings in the mirror over the mantle piece. The black looked so good against his neck… made his skin look even more fair. And once again wondered about the bamboo flute in a glass case sitting below the mirror. For some reason, it had a red stringy thing attached to one end…. Like they showed in those Chinese Wuxia tv shows…. The warriors in those shows seemed to really like wearing these tassels on their belts and sword handles. Speaking of swords… he turned to look at the two swords hanging on the wall over the couch. Sheng Lin called the silver and white one Bichen and the wooden one Suibian. That had been an interesting conversation, a la Who's on First? 'What do you call that one?' 'Whatever.' 'Then I'll call it Brownie!' 'You can't call it Brownie!' 'Why not? You said I can call it whatever I want.' 'No, I said it is called Whatever.' How the Hell Lin got through Customs and Border Patrol with those things, he didn't know. The guy claimed they had been in his family for over a thousand years, minus the years when the original owners were reborn and took them back. So there was no way he had provenance proving ownership lying around. Black market exporting of cultural heritage and antiquities was huge, and the Chinese government was working hard to keep its treasures within its borders, so there was no way they'd let these antiques just waltz out of the country. In someone's pocket, no less, because Lin also claimed with a straight face he had placed the swords in his coat pocket going through airport security and immigration; it wasn't his fault the x-ray machines were unable to detect millennia old weaponry. How tall was his coat anyway that these three foot long swords would fit in a pocket? Even if it was a pocket going down the back of a trench coat, it would be kind of obvious something was there when the coat wouldn't fold to fit in a bin at Security…. He also claimed, again with a straight face, that the swords were intelligent and kept themselves locked until their owners came to retrieve them.

He took a bite from his apple, and absentmindedly licked the juice running down his wrist. Right. Like these Chinese-Jedi dudes really existed once upon a time. Yiling Luke: You killed my father! Darth Jiang: No! I am your father! Then Lan Solo comes to rescue them with the Millenium Bichen. Yin and Yang energy, the light side and the dark side of the Force… same idea, different millennia. It would be kind of cool if George Lucas was inspired by Chinese Wuxia. His palms itched to remove Bichen from the wall; it would be really cool if he could pull the blade from the scabbard!

At the same time, these swords were not toys, so unsheathing them would be for what? It's not like he could fight with them…. Although Lin had offered to teach him swordplay with a set of bamboo swords he had in the carriage house…. Plus there were stories, more Japanese than Chinese, that swords would get upset and cause bad luck to their owners if they were unsheathed and not able to drink blood. So warriors who sparred with their swords would cut their fingers on the blades when they were done practicing. He looked down at his empty hand, fingers calloused from playing the violin and tried to imagine deliberately cutting his finger to appease a sword spirit and shivered. Although I suppose that one learns to accept cut fingers rather quickly when one fights with swords…. A sliced finger has to be better than a sliced off body part.

He finished off his apple and washed his hands. Time to stop screwing around. Fucking roommate….