Author's Note: Hi everyone! It's been a really long time since I last updated this story. To be honest, I'm not sure how to write something that would do Soo Lin justice and I've been putting off editing this so I could explore other author's versions of Soo Lin. A few months ago, I found this fanfiction (on a different site) and it wasn't what I expected but it really inspired me. After reading it, I became fascinated with Soo Lin and Andy's relationship, canon and AU. All in all, I was inspired and I decided to really continue this fanfiction. I hope you enjoy.

Nothing belongs to me.

Chapter 2: The First Day

Everything is different here. Here, the air is thick with moisture and the people keep to themselves. They hurry past with their eyes on their phones, not bothering to look where they are going. While my home city was full of street carts and streets lined with meats, this place is clean, without a street vendor in sight. This is not my home city but my home is now in this city. I remember the directions given to me: go to Chinatown and find the Lucky Cat shop. There, the owner will give me the keys to the apartment. The map I've studied for weeks is fresh in my mind and each intersection is as familiar to me as those back home.

I see the shop as I turn a corner in Chinatown. It is a bright spot of red on an otherwise painted white residential block. The bell rings as I walk in but no one looks up when I enter. The shop is empty except for a Chinese woman reading a newspaper at the counter. She must be the owner.

"Hello." I say hesitantly.

She looks up at me and her eyes narrow slightly. I know what she is thinking. Here comes another tourist with questions about the store who will leave without buying things. She is partly right.

"Yes? Everything is on sale, for good price."

"I'm not looking for anything." I lower my voice and speak in my native tongue. "I am here for the apartment."

She stays silent. I reach down and remove the back of my right shoe. The lotus tattoo peeks out from beneath.

"Ahh." She goes to the back room and comes back with a key.

I bow and hold the key to my chest. I feel giddy, like a kid. I finally have a place of my own. After years of living with other orphans in one hut, and then living with a four girls in one apartment, I could be at peace again. Could it be? Could I truly begin a new life here? I want to thank the woman but she has gone back to reading her paper. I go next door to a white door. White is the color of death.

It's been five years. Five years of fear. I can't help but feel like this is my dream coming alive, and not my death sentence. I shake my head. My apartment is a tastefully decorated cell and the shop downstairs is the ward. I fall asleep.

I walk to the closet in the room. I see only black clothing. I feel bile in my throat. I can't wear black on my first day; they know that. In China black is the color of bad luck, but here black is the color of fashion. I know they are sending me a message. I dig under the four small piles of clothes, each pile for a different set of clothing, trying to find something that will mean good luck for my first day.

My mother once told me that somethings must only be seen and not touched for them to be beautiful. I suspect she was talking about her life and the sacrifice she made for us. When she passed, I made the decision to touch and never be touched.

She died when I was nine. She had been sick for a year but she knew she would get sick eventually. Her line of work was dangerous that way. It was good pay but it the cost of my mother's health. She tried to hide it from everyone but we found out a few months before she passed. When she spent day and night on the bed, her skin taunt and her face sallow, we knew something was wrong. It was more than a few bruises or twisted ankles this time. When her boss found out, it was the end. My mother became another one who entered young and beautiful and left sick and damaged. For one year mama knew she was going to die; there was nothing she could do. No medicine could cure her, and she would rather be with us than in a hospital far away from home.

The museum is a few streets north of Chinatown. Once there, a woman named Janet will interview me and I will answer her questions with the answers I've memorized. The woman she is about to hire shares my name but she is not me.

I meet Janet in her office in the back of the hallway on the second floor. After the interview, she shakes my hand and tells me how excited she is that I'm here. She thinks I'll bring a unique firsthand knowledge of the antiques to this museum and she's happy she hired me before anyone else could.

"Imagine if you were hired as a private appraiser?" Janet says. She shakes her head in a mocking way and then smiles at me. "Let me introduce you to everyone in this department."

As I walk with her, I notice the details on the walls and floors. Janet nods to people as we enter the hall at the end of the third floor. They are young students hurrying with piles of paper in their arms and drinks in their hands.

"Hi Janet!" they say as we pass by.

"And this is our talented local staff member, Mr. Andy Galbraith. Everyone, this is Ms. Yao from the National Museum in China."

The man Janet was pointing out turns around and starts as he sees me. I am surprised to see him too. My boss raises an eyebrow.

"Excuse Andy, he's been around pottery more than people."

"Hey!" he blushes and hurriedly picks up the tools he knocked over.

She leaves and shoos away the other people in the room and it's just me and him in the room. I walk over to my station.

"Soo Lin Yao, was it?"

I turn around. He's a bit pink in the face and his hand is stretched out. I bow my head in greeting instead and he cautiously withdraws his offering.

"You were on the tube earlier today?" He adds awkwardly, "I don't mean to say you look like many people, not that you look different."

"Yes, you are right. You were kind to give me a napkin."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, thank you for asking."

He opens to mouth to say more but I don't want to encourage friendship. Until my life is truly mine, I can't make friends.

"I should get to work now." I turn around look over the materials on the table.

There are tools in a jar in the corner and some notepads. A shelf of books on restoration techniques sits neatly beside the table. The work is similar to what I did back in China as an appraiser. I had to date and calculate the value of many priceless treasures from long ago. It was a life of irony. I had grown up stealing these treasures and now I was restoring them. Life was full of ironies and my life seems to be the biggest one.

Author's Note cont'd: Feel free to visit Hope_Tang on Archive of Our Own.