我还是执著追求
100 fic challenge [#100.] Regrets, Zhoumi-centric
Title: 觅觅无敌 (Incomparable Mi Mi) Part 1
Length: 10,748 words
Author: shieldkitten
Beta: cynicalxcharm
Rating: G
Summary: Zhoumi strives to be better than average, because living his life any other way would only fill him with regret.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Author's Notes
Zhoumi wants everything, and he's part of a generation that's been promised everything if only he works hard enough for it. He wants to live his life without regrets, and he knows the only way he can do that is to make sure he never stops trying, never stops striving to be better than he is, better than just an average student, better than just an average person.
He finds himself in a CD shop when he's sheltering from the rain. His shoes squelch with every step, oozing water onto the hardwood floor. He gives the shopkeeper an apologetic look, but the shopkeeper laughs and tells him not to apologise but to buy something instead. Zhoumi glances at the CDs, at jewel case after jewel case with glamourous faces, aloof faces. The shopkeeper's stereo clicks as it cycles to the next CD.
在爱的幸福国度，你就是我唯一，我唯一爱的就是你.
(In the happy kingdom of love, you're my one and only, the only one I love is you.)
Zhoumi stares up at the speakers mounted on the wall, backpack slipping from his hands to land with a thud on the floor.
Zhoumi's spent the last year thinking about his next step. Other boys, teenagers, his age spend their time thinking about how they're going to pass the next test, how they're going to deal with the changes their bodies are undergoing, how maybe they're going to get the school belle to hide under the stairs with them for a quick ten minutes before the bell rings, but Zhoumi thinks about his life, and how he doesn't want to spend the rest of it in Wuhan, doesn't want to be a teacher or a train diver, or another faceless, nameless member of a production line.
Now, lying on his bed, Chemistry homework abandoned for the well-thumbed booklet that came with his first CD, he thinks he's found his next step. There are names listed on every page, lyricists, composers, producers, some names are repeated more often than others. On every page is Wang Lee Hom's name, and on the cover is Wang Lee Hom's face.
He buys every album of Lee Hom's that he can get his hands on. 如果你听见我的歌 is the hardest to find, and for a moment Zhoumi is tempted to simply download it. He goes so far as to hover his mouse over the link, unlocked by a comment he had to leave (he still blushes a little thinking about the comment - 有一天我会像力宏一样当歌手，希望亲们也能支持我 - and he still checks back sometimes to see if anyone's responded, but they've all ignored him, only there for the download link on the first page).
(If you heard my song)
(One day I'll be a singer like Lee Hom, I hope everyone will support me as well)
In the end, though, it is the shopkeeper at the same CD shop who tracks it down for him, and he has to part with a fair bit of his savings in exchange for the effort.
It's worth it.
He feels each rejection with keen intensity, worming their way into his chest to settle, heavy, in his heart. 'Too young', 'too raw', 'too inexperienced' - just words, he tells himself, just reasons to keep going. These are the necessary ordeals, after all, experiences that he will remember and one day write songs about. Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, maybe tomorrow someone will see his worth, and then he grins and has to cover it with a cough, because 也许明天 is the title of a Wang Lee Hom song.
(Maybe Tomorrow)
In the mean time, he goes for classes, only once a week at first because it's all he can afford on his measly salary, but then more often when he gets promoted from kitchen hand to bus boy. The customers like his smile - the girls come back often - and if once in a while he breaks into song while clearing a table, the manager only smiles fondly and asks him to learn a few new tunes.
So he expands his repertoire, and soon his dad has to build a new CD shelf for his room. Ask him to identify a string of lyrics and he cocks his head, forehead creasing as he thinks. It's when he breaks into a smile that you know he has your answer.
In 2002 he wins his first singing competition. It's always a heady rush, winning, and he can't stop smiling. They tell him he has to give an interview, and Zhoumi pretends he's surprised, pretends he doesn't sometimes stand in front of his mother's full length mirror with his mother's hairbrush clutched in his hand, practicing how he would talk about himself, his dreams, his ambitions, how he would carry himself so he seemed confident, how he would smile so he seemed relaxed.
All of that goes out the window once he actually has a camera trained on his face. He's babbling, oh, he knows he's babbling and the interviewer is gesturing at him to slow down, but the words are pouring from his mouth and there is a roaring in his ears, and at one point he stutters, at two points, three, oh god now he can't actually stop.
"I'm so sorry," he tells the interviewer, eyes wide because he's pretty sure he's not important enough to get a second chance, and she laughs and shakes her head and tells him not to worry, they'll cut out the bad parts.
Fifteen minutes of babbling is reduced to less than a minute of actual screen time. His mother records it anyway.
Zhoumi signs up for a class on public-speaking.
No, he can't believe his luck.
"Go on," his friend urges him, and he climbs onto the stage, staring at Wang Lee Hom (who hasn't been allowed to sing, which is somewhat disappointing, but the point is that Zhoumi is standing on the same stage as Wang Lee Hom).
He sings the song he heard three years ago, standing in rain-soaked sneakers, staring at speakers mounted on the wall. It's a love song, a silly, sappy love song that is his favourite song in the world on the principle of the thing, and he wants to tell Wang Lee Hom this, wants to tell Wang Lee Hom how this song has changed his life, but there's no time to talk to him before they're escorting him off of the stage.
Confabulation
(His brain pings when they invite him up for a second time. It literally goes ping, so it's a good thing he knows this song better than the back of his hand. He doesn't even notice when Wang Lee Hom leaves the stage. It's only when he's run out of melody, when he lowers the microphone in his shaky hand that he remembers his name is Zhoumi, and he's only a fanboy, but the organisers have liked him enough to ask him to sing in Wang Lee Hom's place.
He checks Baidu later, and there are two posts on 'that fan that sang for Lee Hom, do you know who he is?', and he resists posting his entire autobiography on the world wide web.
Instead he pops in the DVD his friend has just lent him. The movie is about a fisherman's daughter who wants to become a star.)
Zhoumi starts training in earnest now (even more earnestly, anyway). Winning two more competitions, getting a taste of standing on a stage has only sharpened his desire to be a star, bright enough to shine on his own, bright enough to blaze brighter than all the lights of Beijing.
He makes friends more easily in Beijing than in Wuhan, and they joke about the future, about life as celebrities. They'll do collaborations, of course, and Zhoumi will write songs for all of them ("and hopefully they will suck a little less by then," Daoping says, and Zhoumi pouts and jabs him with his pen).
It's about this time that Kexin comes in, waving a magazine that, according to Daoping, has gibberish written in lines under a picture of twelve good looking (if poorly styled) boys.
"It's Korean," she snaps, "learn some culture."
"What's it say?" Zhoumi asks, as Daoping is assaulted by more stationary. He stops Kexin from using his rolled-up note book as a cudgel, carefully smoothing out the pages when he retrieves it from her hand.
"Oh, this one's from China!" she points. "He's the first Chinese to debut in Korea."
"Are we allowed to do that?" Zhoumi asks, looking more closely at the picture.
Kexin shrugs. "It depends on what you want to do. It's easy if you just want to perform whatever, they train you really well and you're almost guaranteed to debut, but if you want to be independent, like write your own music and perform with instruments, it's better to be in Taiwan or here. You know 东方神起? They're from the same company as these guys."
(Dong Bang Shin Ki)
Zhoumi doesn't know Dong Bang Shin Ki, and he does want to write his own music, so he pushes the magazine away and opens his note book. Daoping makes fun of his handwriting, and he retorts that it's not illegible, it's a secret code to protect his intellectual property.
He does wish he could remember if that scribble was supposed to read '童话竟会成为现实' or '童话无会成为现实', though, because either version changes the mood of his song entirely. In the end he settles for the former, because he thinks that, as a musician, his role should be to put a smile on the faces of his fans, to cushion the harsh reality of the world they live in, even if only for the duration of a three minute song.
(fairy tales can come true) (fairy tales can never come true)
And besides, sappy as it is, he's entirely convinced that his own fairy tale will come true.
She's really pretty, and really small, and it's cute how she blushes when she talks to him backstage, but is all brash confidence onstage. He thinks it's harmless, the onscreen flirting, just something to keep the audience riveted, and it's not as if it would be entirely scandalous of him to ask her out for dinner later.
But Zhoumi wins this round of the MC competition, placing him first for the region, taking him one step closer to being first in the country, and she doesn't. After the cameras are off he tries to soften the blow, tries to remind her that it's not the end, that she can still get everything if she only works hard enough.
"Can I ask you something, Zhoumi?" Xionghui asks, voice trembling because she's just so disapponted.
"Anything."
"Why are you here? You said you wanted to be a singer, right? Why are you in an MC competition?"
Sitting in his bathtub that night he thinks about what she said. Being an MC now comes so naturally to him - it's just talking, just thinking on his feet and smiling, remembering not to talk too fast. But Xionghui is right, and it's not what Zhoumi set out to do.
By the time the water is cold, Zhoumi's made up his mind. He pulls on his clothes and calls his mother.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Author's Notes
Title: 觅觅无敌 (Incomparable Mi Mi) Part 1
Length: 10,748 words
Author: shieldkitten
Beta: cynicalxcharm
Rating: G
Summary: Zhoumi strives to be better than average, because living his life any other way would only fill him with regret.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Author's Notes
Zhoumi wants everything, and he's part of a generation that's been promised everything if only he works hard enough for it. He wants to live his life without regrets, and he knows the only way he can do that is to make sure he never stops trying, never stops striving to be better than he is, better than just an average student, better than just an average person.
He finds himself in a CD shop when he's sheltering from the rain. His shoes squelch with every step, oozing water onto the hardwood floor. He gives the shopkeeper an apologetic look, but the shopkeeper laughs and tells him not to apologise but to buy something instead. Zhoumi glances at the CDs, at jewel case after jewel case with glamourous faces, aloof faces. The shopkeeper's stereo clicks as it cycles to the next CD.
在爱的幸福国度，你就是我唯一，我唯一爱的就是你.
(In the happy kingdom of love, you're my one and only, the only one I love is you.)
Zhoumi stares up at the speakers mounted on the wall, backpack slipping from his hands to land with a thud on the floor.
Zhoumi's spent the last year thinking about his next step. Other boys, teenagers, his age spend their time thinking about how they're going to pass the next test, how they're going to deal with the changes their bodies are undergoing, how maybe they're going to get the school belle to hide under the stairs with them for a quick ten minutes before the bell rings, but Zhoumi thinks about his life, and how he doesn't want to spend the rest of it in Wuhan, doesn't want to be a teacher or a train diver, or another faceless, nameless member of a production line.
Now, lying on his bed, Chemistry homework abandoned for the well-thumbed booklet that came with his first CD, he thinks he's found his next step. There are names listed on every page, lyricists, composers, producers, some names are repeated more often than others. On every page is Wang Lee Hom's name, and on the cover is Wang Lee Hom's face.
He buys every album of Lee Hom's that he can get his hands on. 如果你听见我的歌 is the hardest to find, and for a moment Zhoumi is tempted to simply download it. He goes so far as to hover his mouse over the link, unlocked by a comment he had to leave (he still blushes a little thinking about the comment - 有一天我会像力宏一样当歌手，希望亲们也能支持我 - and he still checks back sometimes to see if anyone's responded, but they've all ignored him, only there for the download link on the first page).
(If you heard my song)
(One day I'll be a singer like Lee Hom, I hope everyone will support me as well)
In the end, though, it is the shopkeeper at the same CD shop who tracks it down for him, and he has to part with a fair bit of his savings in exchange for the effort.
It's worth it.
He feels each rejection with keen intensity, worming their way into his chest to settle, heavy, in his heart. 'Too young', 'too raw', 'too inexperienced' - just words, he tells himself, just reasons to keep going. These are the necessary ordeals, after all, experiences that he will remember and one day write songs about. Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, maybe tomorrow someone will see his worth, and then he grins and has to cover it with a cough, because 也许明天 is the title of a Wang Lee Hom song.
(Maybe Tomorrow)
In the mean time, he goes for classes, only once a week at first because it's all he can afford on his measly salary, but then more often when he gets promoted from kitchen hand to bus boy. The customers like his smile - the girls come back often - and if once in a while he breaks into song while clearing a table, the manager only smiles fondly and asks him to learn a few new tunes.
So he expands his repertoire, and soon his dad has to build a new CD shelf for his room. Ask him to identify a string of lyrics and he cocks his head, forehead creasing as he thinks. It's when he breaks into a smile that you know he has your answer.
In 2002 he wins his first singing competition. It's always a heady rush, winning, and he can't stop smiling. They tell him he has to give an interview, and Zhoumi pretends he's surprised, pretends he doesn't sometimes stand in front of his mother's full length mirror with his mother's hairbrush clutched in his hand, practicing how he would talk about himself, his dreams, his ambitions, how he would carry himself so he seemed confident, how he would smile so he seemed relaxed.
All of that goes out the window once he actually has a camera trained on his face. He's babbling, oh, he knows he's babbling and the interviewer is gesturing at him to slow down, but the words are pouring from his mouth and there is a roaring in his ears, and at one point he stutters, at two points, three, oh god now he can't actually stop.
"I'm so sorry," he tells the interviewer, eyes wide because he's pretty sure he's not important enough to get a second chance, and she laughs and shakes her head and tells him not to worry, they'll cut out the bad parts.
Fifteen minutes of babbling is reduced to less than a minute of actual screen time. His mother records it anyway.
Zhoumi signs up for a class on public-speaking.
No, he can't believe his luck.
"Go on," his friend urges him, and he climbs onto the stage, staring at Wang Lee Hom (who hasn't been allowed to sing, which is somewhat disappointing, but the point is that Zhoumi is standing on the same stage as Wang Lee Hom).
He sings the song he heard three years ago, standing in rain-soaked sneakers, staring at speakers mounted on the wall. It's a love song, a silly, sappy love song that is his favourite song in the world on the principle of the thing, and he wants to tell Wang Lee Hom this, wants to tell Wang Lee Hom how this song has changed his life, but there's no time to talk to him before they're escorting him off of the stage.
Confabulation
(His brain pings when they invite him up for a second time. It literally goes ping, so it's a good thing he knows this song better than the back of his hand. He doesn't even notice when Wang Lee Hom leaves the stage. It's only when he's run out of melody, when he lowers the microphone in his shaky hand that he remembers his name is Zhoumi, and he's only a fanboy, but the organisers have liked him enough to ask him to sing in Wang Lee Hom's place.
He checks Baidu later, and there are two posts on 'that fan that sang for Lee Hom, do you know who he is?', and he resists posting his entire autobiography on the world wide web.
Instead he pops in the DVD his friend has just lent him. The movie is about a fisherman's daughter who wants to become a star.)
Zhoumi starts training in earnest now (even more earnestly, anyway). Winning two more competitions, getting a taste of standing on a stage has only sharpened his desire to be a star, bright enough to shine on his own, bright enough to blaze brighter than all the lights of Beijing.
He makes friends more easily in Beijing than in Wuhan, and they joke about the future, about life as celebrities. They'll do collaborations, of course, and Zhoumi will write songs for all of them ("and hopefully they will suck a little less by then," Daoping says, and Zhoumi pouts and jabs him with his pen).
It's about this time that Kexin comes in, waving a magazine that, according to Daoping, has gibberish written in lines under a picture of twelve good looking (if poorly styled) boys.
"It's Korean," she snaps, "learn some culture."
"What's it say?" Zhoumi asks, as Daoping is assaulted by more stationary. He stops Kexin from using his rolled-up note book as a cudgel, carefully smoothing out the pages when he retrieves it from her hand.
"Oh, this one's from China!" she points. "He's the first Chinese to debut in Korea."
"Are we allowed to do that?" Zhoumi asks, looking more closely at the picture.
Kexin shrugs. "It depends on what you want to do. It's easy if you just want to perform whatever, they train you really well and you're almost guaranteed to debut, but if you want to be independent, like write your own music and perform with instruments, it's better to be in Taiwan or here. You know 东方神起? They're from the same company as these guys."
(Dong Bang Shin Ki)
Zhoumi doesn't know Dong Bang Shin Ki, and he does want to write his own music, so he pushes the magazine away and opens his note book. Daoping makes fun of his handwriting, and he retorts that it's not illegible, it's a secret code to protect his intellectual property.
He does wish he could remember if that scribble was supposed to read '童话竟会成为现实' or '童话无会成为现实', though, because either version changes the mood of his song entirely. In the end he settles for the former, because he thinks that, as a musician, his role should be to put a smile on the faces of his fans, to cushion the harsh reality of the world they live in, even if only for the duration of a three minute song.
(fairy tales can come true) (fairy tales can never come true)
And besides, sappy as it is, he's entirely convinced that his own fairy tale will come true.
She's really pretty, and really small, and it's cute how she blushes when she talks to him backstage, but is all brash confidence onstage. He thinks it's harmless, the onscreen flirting, just something to keep the audience riveted, and it's not as if it would be entirely scandalous of him to ask her out for dinner later.
But Zhoumi wins this round of the MC competition, placing him first for the region, taking him one step closer to being first in the country, and she doesn't. After the cameras are off he tries to soften the blow, tries to remind her that it's not the end, that she can still get everything if she only works hard enough.
"Can I ask you something, Zhoumi?" Xionghui asks, voice trembling because she's just so disapponted.
"Anything."
"Why are you here? You said you wanted to be a singer, right? Why are you in an MC competition?"
Sitting in his bathtub that night he thinks about what she said. Being an MC now comes so naturally to him - it's just talking, just thinking on his feet and smiling, remembering not to talk too fast. But Xionghui is right, and it's not what Zhoumi set out to do.
By the time the water is cold, Zhoumi's made up his mind. He pulls on his clothes and calls his mother.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Author's Notes