Sisterly Love
A voice called out from inside just as the door slammed open, torrents of rain spattering across the foyer.
"Yo, sis! Hope you don't mind me crashing at your place for-. Whoa, what the hell happened to you?"
Taiwan trudged into her house, covered in bruises and angry-looking scratch marks. She slammed the door behind her and glanced up to see her sister Fujian, unfashionable as ever in her ill-fitting business suit, hair pulled up in a severe bun, strutting out from Taiwan's kitchen as if she owned the place.
Taiwan slouched against the door. Rain water dripped down from her hair and clothes, puddling onto the floor. Gasping, she simply said, "Typhoon season."
"Oh." Fujian's face was impassive. "Well. Have you eaten?"
-oOo-
Some of the Southeast girls said that Taiwan used to be one of their sisters - their oldest sister, to be exact - only she had hit her head on the rocks one too many times and was now a blood traitor cavorting around with that damned China who kept trying to kidnap them and claim to be their older brother all creepy-like.
They didn't know about his caring side, like the way he would cook for his wards or how much time he spent patiently teaching them calligraphy, poetry, performance arts, military science... Taiwan didn't think her brother was that bad, even if he might not have been her real brother after all, and even if he was an old-fashioned prude sometimes and total paranoid control freak. True, he also had that weird sibling complex where he kept picking up stray little nations and bringing them home, but he still wasn't that bad.
But if she wasn't actually his sister, then she wasn't actually Fujian's sister, either. Except that she was. She would always be Fujian's sister. Always.
A lot of those whom she called "siblings" weren't much related except in the way that all nations are related. Fujian was different. She was the one who had found Taiwan while exploring the islands looking for business opportunities, and she was the one responsible for most of Taiwan's upbringing when Brother wasn't around. (Also Fujian's fault as much as it was Japan's: her current obsession with BL manga. Because who else would have thought that homosexual erotica was suitable for bedtime stories? Damn her sister for having a sick sense of humor!)
Taiwan was supposed to have had a large family to grow up with, but in reality it was a little lonely to have lived on an island detached from everyone. The sea was dangerous and it was too much of a hassle to make the trip to see her, they said. China came by sometimes, but not nearly enough. Many times, Taiwan had gone to Fujian to ask where their big brother was, and Fujian had looked up from tending her scraggly crop of sweet potatoes to say, "Nah, he's not comin'. We pretty much gotta take care of ourselves down here."
What was meant by 'down here' was the southern wilds - those lands that had remained independent far longer than the rest.
"Bro's busy fighting people up north. He's always too busy to come see me, too."
It was because of Fujian that Taiwan was torn. This strange relationship she had with their brother was partly born of her longing to be with the sister who had always taken care of her; who had practically been her conjoined twin before Japan ripped them apart.
But then Fujian had said, "Hey, I used to be a full-fledged kingdom, ya know? I went through this rebellious stage where I called myself the Min Kingdom, just like how Guangdong was Nanyue at the time. It was an amazing experience, but just not my thing. It's a lot safer being a province. Less people out there wanting to take your vital regions that way..." She had shrugged and grinned. "If you really want it, though, you should go for it. You're young - take risks."
Taiwan had listened to that advice, and now things were a mess.
-oOo-
It was over dinner when Taiwan's uncertainties came to a head.
"Brother seems to be doing well these days. I mean his economy."
"Of course he is. He can't not be doing well when Guangdong and I are doing the accounting."
"You mean you're actually staying home these days? You and sister Yue aren't running off all over the place annoying everyone by opening businesses on other people's land? The shock! The horror!"
"Hey! Why do we always get all the blame?"
"Because it's always you. Brother wouldn't be freaking people out by constantly popping up all over the world if you two didn't always drag him out there in the first place!"
"Well, we've got this whole ocean in front of us, and there are adventures to be had on the other side!" Fujian brushed it all aside with a flippant wave of her hand. "If I wasn't like this, you might not exist."
"And maybe I would, but I'd be different. Indonesia and Malaysia and Philippines... They all hate me because of you!"
"Bro approves... We make good profit." Dollar signs literally lit up in her eyes.
"At the expense of others," Taiwan grumbled. She viciously stabbed her chopsticks into a poor piece of chicken that had done nothing wrong. It didn't matter if she was being petulantly childish. That wasn't Taiwan's problem - Fujian was the one who was too 'mature' and 'pragmatic' to think of the suffering of others!
"Others who are just jealous of how good we are with trade," her sister rebutted with a wag of her finger. "Me and Yue? Exploration's in our blood. You can't take the high ground on this one since you've joined us on our business excursions, and there's no shame in that. We're merchant provinces; always have been and always will be."
"I'm not a province."
"That part doesn't matter."
"It does too matter!"
"No, it really doesn't. It's the 'merchant' part that matters, not whatever you're calling yourself these days. Who cares about political borders? My people are still my people no matter where they live. Honestly, that's why your periods are so bad - because you're too tied to that island."
There was no arguing with Fujian when she got this way, in one of her "If it's for business, I'll do anything!" moods. And it made sense, in a way. It explained why her sister remained unaffected during changes in weather when they were both buffeted by the same tides. Typhoons hit Fujian's coast too, but her sense of self - her nationhood - was spread out across the globe. Min had not been sovereign for a thousand years; her people were now scattered and shared with other nations, but wherever they brought her language and culture... became hers.
But Taiwan couldn't be like that. Without her land, what did she have? She merely shook her head.
"We share too many people. If I just 'let go' of my home, you'd take over and I'd lose myself. I'd become one with you."
Fujian blinked once; then twice.
"...I hadn't thought of that. Huh. I guess you would."
"You're not even going to deny it, are you?" Taiwan narrowed her eyes.
"Nope. Want some tea?"
"You never think of anything besides food and money, do you?"
"Nope."
Taiwan glanced at her pityingly. That was her sister all right... And as much as she loved Fujian and wanted to be close to her, this was close enough.
"Oh, wait! Sometimes I also think about sex! And hot guys getting it on!"
...Yup. Definitely her sister.
A/N: On Fujian and Guangdong... um... One's a raging BL fangirl hiding behind her SRS BIZNESSwoman veneer, and the other's a lesbian. A kick-ass kung-fu lesbian, might I add. History supports this! Once upon a time, people in China were like, "Dudes, you know the southern provinces are all gay, right?" Fujian allowed male marriages and was widely known as the buttsecks capitol of the world. Like when Italy came on by, he was all, "Whoa. I've never seen so much buttsecks in my life!" And this is Italy we're talking about. He's seen a lot of buttsecks.
In Guangdong, the women of the Golden Lotus Society married each other and adopted kids and... and headcanon says that Hong Kong has two mommies. (Perhaps the other is fem!Iggy...?) The first ever recorded martial arts instructor in all of history was known as "the Yue woman" who had a sword and a bow and trained armies LIKE A BOSS. (Little did the people know that she was actually Yue, the spirit of their nation...) But yeah. Haha, regardless of how crazy my headcanon is, China's "parts down south" are gay. Trufax.