[Fanfiction] Cages
Title: Cages
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Genre(s): Angst/Romance
Character(s)|Pairing(s): Japan/Taiwan, South Korea/Taiwan
Rating/Warning(s): R, drug use, sexual activity, disturbing imagery
Word Count: 3,973
Summary: Sequel to “ Dollhouse” - On trading cages, bonds, and rescues. The surrender of Taiwan to Japan and subsequent events.
Partly a fill for youkofujima ’s reverse request meme, partly also a long-ago vaguely promised sequel for her.
The aviary was burning.
She did not know how she knew this, lost in the daze of poppy dreams. The world spun and stilled around her, the figures upon the hanging tapestries blurring and reforming and twisting into new shapes both foul and fair. She had not meant to take so much but the ache in her body would not let her sleep and nightmares plagued her when she did close her eyes.
Ge ge thrust into her body, ranting and red-eyed. His fingers bruised her flesh and mortified it. She could not scream, could not cry, could not feel.
Perhaps, in a fashion, she wished that she could miscalculate, take a final, fatal dose that would take her to a land without twisted visions. Maybe that place beyond all horizons would also have mountains to the east and seas to the west. Through her dreams, through the delicate fragile haze, she could see him, in white and bearing a sword. His eyes glimmered like jet and onyx, not the gold and amber.
“What is your name?” asked the soft spoken specter. A specter, yes, for he was in white. White. Like bones. Like cups made so thin you can see the shadows of your fingers through them. Like paper packets of opium.
“My name is Lan Yueh,” she replied quietly, meeting his eyes. Because she was no longer scared, she was too numb to be scared. Or she didn’t speak. Or she didn’t see anything at all.
He then frowned, fleeting and cold. His face held the same expressiveness of new fallen snow, of a hidden forest pool. Expressions flitted past, too fast to be noted, never lingering. Did her face look like that? She could not bear to look into the mirror these days, afraid of her own gaze.
“Why have you not run?” he asked.
She laughed then, bitter and hysterical little giggles that were anything but demure, which would have made her governess hit her with the ivory fan she so hated (where was that old woman anyways? Had Ge ge sent her away?). Slowly, painfully, she uncurled from her nest of cushions, her little throne in a chair almost too small for her. She showed him her feet, not clad in slippers but merely bandaged, golden lilies that barely extended past the front of her leg.
“How can I?” she asked flatly.
The ghostly warrior looked away, too polite or too disgusted to say anything. She smiled then, through the haze of the smoke, distantly aware that a trickle of saliva had slipped from her mouth and slowly, slowly dripping down her chin. Her trembling hand almost instinctively reached for the still burning pipe. Only to find that his hand was already there. She stared at him in a mixture of fear and hatred and utter bewilderment.
“No,” he told her, his voice like steel.
He carried her out of the burning palace in his arms. For as slight as he was, as feminine as he seemed, he was still so much taller than she, healthy and powerful and in his prime. As she closed her eyes, she swore she heard wailing. Or perhaps it was just the wind.
.
She called him Kiku. Or Nippon. He answered to either, though often reminded her of her honorifics. Her tutors had taught her this staccato language with its peculiar pitches long ago and she had not forgotten. It was another thing that long lingered in her mind, unwanted though not unpleasant.
He took her to his house, a place with dark wood paneling and soft colors. It was not opulent but plain to the point of spiritual austerity, and as they entered the quiet rooms, she found herself falling into another dream. A softer dream.
Dreams of green waters and fern fronds and gardens made of rocks. Dreams of the sound of trickling water falling onto dark rounded pebbles and the rhythmic click of bamboo fountains filling and emptying, filling and emptying. The feel of smooth, cool, soft silk and cotton under her fingers and her head. The smell of pine needles and bitter tea, charcoal and dying chrysanthemums. The dream was colored in white and green, gray and black. Occasionally a splash of red, a single spot of blood that flared before her like a massive poppy before fading away.
Sometimes she heard the cries of cicadas, the high pitched cries of a water bird. She stretched her ears to hear the roar and cry of the sea, or the quiet rumbling of a mountain.
Sometimes she felt and heard and smelled the wind, who sent stray breezes to whisper to her and caress her cheeks. The wind mocked her in its sympathies.
.
He had her feet unbound and she turned her eyes away from the sight, terrified and humiliated. Did he mean to cripple her even further?
“Do not worry,” he told her dispassionately. “You are of a different kind. You will mend.”
Nonetheless, it hurt. And she screamed and screamed, body wracked with the pains of no more poppy dreams. Why did he have to do this do her? She shrieked and wept and begged, having no more shame, no more modesty.
Her voice begged for the poppy dreams, her pipe. She begged for him to kill her, to rebind her feet again. In fury, she shrieked insults at him, at Ge ge, at the long-gone Xiao Lung. She screamed in all the languages she knew, including those she had thought she had forgotten.
And in midst of her panicked, pained frenzy, she would sometimes fall into an uneasy sleep, into dreams that frightened and soothed her in their clarity and beauty and vague familiarity. Like morning mist dissipating with the rising of the sun, they faded when she awoke and the dancing lances of pain chased what remained.
But her fellow island country was correct. Her feet unfurled like flowers blooming from rotting loam. If they were no longer tiny, they were beautiful in that they were whole and right and strong. She marveled as she could wriggle her toes, all ten of them and she felt the fleshy part of the ball of her foot. The stained bandages were taken away and burnt to ashes, as well as her doll’s slippers.
Her first steps felt like walking on coals and porcelain shards. Sagging against a wall, she forced herself to go forwards, to the garden she could just see through the partly open door. Her legs shook and she winced at the clumsy sound of her feet thudding on the floor with each ponderous step. She bit her lip until it bled. Tears then slowly trickled down her cheeks as silent, exultant bittersweet joy flared up in her breast with the first feel of rough wood against the soles of her naked feet.
.
She vaguely remembered Korea. She remembered seeing him in blue robes with a black hat, the front of his coat embroidered with tigers and gold dragons. He gave her a doll with real human hair, but also jewelry made from jade, even sent her a beautiful rug made from a massive tiger he had killed himself, the eyes replaced with gold glass (it had scared her so much, enough that she had insisted it be put away). He teased her kindly and a smile never seemed far from his lips, as he taught her simple songs in his odd language.
He was far different now, so much thinner and worn out. His body did not seem so much fragile as scraped thin. Once laughing and good-natured dark eyes held anger and frustration and haunted pain. He wore the uniform that Japan gave him but it did not fit him and hung oddly on his lanky build with gracefully long limbs. She looked at him with blank eyes, gathering her pale pink and gray kimono to her body.
He had managed a smile for her, the first time they met again. Whispering a greeting to her in his own language. Still, she did not miss the look of anger that flickered in his dark eyes when he saw her.
Korea left the house, wearing a cherry blossom emblem on his shoulder that he regarded with disgust. Some time later, Kiku dragged him back, the taller male’s wrists bound cruelly and clothing torn. His boots had been lost and he wore socks black with blood. Screams shattered the green and white and gray serenity of Japan’s house and she closed her ears to them, meditating in the rock garden.
She obeyed when Kiku came out of one of the bedrooms, his white uniform splattered with blood, and ordered her to tend to the other nation. Fetching water and bandages, she mutely washed the barely conscious Korea, who she dressed in a white yukata, soft and clean and pure. He opened one eye to look at her dazedly, the other one bruised and swollen shut.
“…thank you,” he said, in Ge ge’s language.
She stared at him and turned her back to him, leaving the room without another word.
.
Kiku treated her with odd affection and odd dispassion. She found him as lively and vital as his rock gardens and did not know whether she should pity him in that. In his house, she lacked for nothing. Not books, not beautiful clothing (though they were all Japanese in make and color), not food (though it was all Japanese). His attentions on her were not paternal or fraternal but he insisted she learn his language, his literature, his arts and she did so. She danced with fans and performed the tea ceremony, wrote haiku meditating on the ephemeral life of cherry blossoms.
Kiku gave her pretty trinkets of pins that looked like falls of plum blossom and wisteria, fans painted with autumn leaves in red and gold and orange. He read her poetry and admired her calligraphy. Though he wrote her poetry as well, lovely little things, they seemed flat and empty, like pictures of peonies and butterflies left to fade in the dark. If he meant to court her, he did so clumsily, at odds with his insistence on dignity and ceremony and clean elegance.
One night he visited her in her bedroom. She looked up at him as he slid the door shut behind him. Mutely, he came to her and pushed her to her bed. In dim light, she started, seeing shadows and golden eyes that should not be here. He pushed her down upon her back, his dark eyes staring into her unblinkingly. His breath smelled only of tea and salt and steel.
“Why?” she asked him, breaking the frail silence.
He did not meet her eyes as he undid her kimono, carefully, slowly, as though he were undressing her as if she were some priceless, exquisite doll. She closed her eyes tightly as she felt his hands trace along her naked body. If he were going to treat her like a doll, she would be one for him, still and empty and lifeless. Still, she screamed, once, when he first thrust into her.
She was not herself. She was not merely Ran Yueh (or Tsukino, as he had taken to calling her these days). He was not merely Kiku. They suddenly were many people, playing out the same shadow puppet show, though the characters changed, the scenery replaced, the dialogue altered. Always a woman, a girl, with a soldier, a man… Dualities. A thousand variations of a single, simple scene, and she could feel every single one of them, every single woman who screamed hysterically or remained bonelessly limp.
He redressed her once he was done, cleaning her body with a cool and damp cloth. Not once had he kissed her. Instead, he left her room as silently as he had entered it. As if it would soothe her, he sent her a pet the next day, a pretty bird in a gilt cage. He did not deliver it himself, instead giving it to a servant to give to her with mute ceremony. She opened the door and released the songbird, watching it flutter away to the heavens. He did not ask what happened to it.
.
Korea recovered almost immediately though he walked with a limp after that first terrible night. Blood seemed to perpetually spot his white yukata and she sighed at the sight. He didn’t seem to care or sometimes, she thought he seemed almost proud of the spots, as though they were badges of honor. The lanky-limbed nation first shouted quite a bit, in his odd language, but soon his shouts died away and his clear, carrying voice muttered resentfully in Kiku’s language.
His eyes held rage, for lack of anything else. She wondered why he would bottle up such things in him. Anger poisoned the soul and sapped your strength. It was fruitless to beat against the bars, like some of the maddened birds had, until the brass bars gleamed red with their blood.
When he could, Korea stayed outside, but not in the garden. He always sat by the gates, looking up at the sky. Ah, the sky. No one caged the wind or the clouds. No one could dare challenge the heavens. Not yet. Perhaps Japan would try, someday.
She joined him mutely one afternoon, bringing him tea as an excuse. Carefully, she sat by him, gathering her legs under her kimono. The tall, lean boy had looked at her with something like initial confusion before greeting her politely and somewhat cautiously in Japan’s tongue. Except he called her “agashi.” Apparently, it meant “young lady” or something like that in his language; she liked it.
They made a ritual of it, meeting by the gate at certain hours. She brought tea and he sipped at it. Their heads would crane upwards and they would watch the clouds dance. The two of them didn’t speak; that ruined the moment. And slowly, he began to smile at her. He was not a beautiful man; he had none of Ge ge’s grace or Japan’s deliberation, . But he had a smile that seemed warmer than summer light and it made him handsome, perhaps even more than either of them.
He never smiled at Japan.
“Why do you keep fighting?” she asked him one day, when it threatened rain. The clouds boiled black and gray, a roiling cauldron of a summer storm.
“Why do you not fight?” he countered and his dark eyes met hers and held her gaze for far too long. She looked away, as she always did, not out of fear.
“You are only hurting yourself.”
“No worse than what he does to me. To my people.”
She knew he was telling the truth, which stung sharper than she had expected.
“Fighting is fruitless,” she told him stubbornly.
“I rather die to be free than to live in a cage,” he replied and she could see something like a tiger’s ferocity in his eyes, some nameless quality that frightened and thrilled her.
“Dying means nothing,” she said, surprising herself with her own harshness. “Where would you be then?”
His lips tightened and he looked at the sky again. “I know,” he replied, quietly.
“I do not think you do.” Bitterly, she whispered, “You know nothing.”
He helped her inside as rain began to fall. But at the same time, both of them lingered outside, on pretense of waiting for each other, and tilted their faces up to the gentle kiss of raindrops.
.
Spring became summer. Summer continued and grew heady. The seventh day of the seventh moon came and she mused on the overcast sky. Ge ge had celebrated the festival of the Cowherd and Weaving Maid and her nurse had made her weave and embroider most industriously around this time. Japan celebrated it as well but he seemed absentminded now and no colorful lanterns and banners decorated his house to greet the stars.
She fastened some decorations together with colorful paper he had given her, making small lanterns and paper flowers that Xiao Lung had taught her how to make half a lifetime ago. He had always been so clever with his hands. She looked to the heavens as she tied her bright red lanterns by one of the supporting columns of the house. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he well?
“It looks like they’ll be crying today,” said Korea behind her as she tried to tie another lantern a bit higher. He reached out and attached the paper creation securely to the beam for her.
“You celebrate it?”
“Chilseong? Of course I do. It used to be my favorite story when I was just a kid.”
“But it is a sad story.”
The taller boy sighed softly. “It is, isn’t it? But still…” He paused and his eyes took on that peculiar faraway look as his gaze went to the horizon. “I think it might be better to love someone and have one day with them a year, instead of never loving them at all.”
“…I guess.”
They sat and watched the sky grow dark as the sun set. The stars could not be seen tonight, particularly under the glow of the cities, where light invaded night. She remembered sitting outside by Ge ge as all the lanterns in the palace were extinguished. Ge ge did not have to show her the Heavenly River or the two stars on either side; she had long been acquainted with them, even if she did not know their names. They ate melons carved with beautiful designs, peacock feathers and camellia blossoms, impossibly lovely scenes of lovers meeting upon bridges.
“I think he loves you,” she told Korea softly, as they felt mist upon their faces, the tension of a coming storm.
“Who?”
“Japan.”
He laughed. But it was bitter and angry and cruel. “Little sis, I don’t think he has it in him to love.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Not anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“I grew up with him,” he told her. “Though he has always been something of…” He paused and shook his head. The corners of his eyes drooped, his mouth tightened. “He is obsessed with being right,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. “He has always had that damn obsession with the sun.”
“Do you hate him?”
He did not reply. After a moment, in a low, tired, impossibly sad voice, he remarked, “It would be easier… if I hated him.”
She wished that she could take her words back, for the expression on his face seemed too horrible to contemplate. Her fingers touched his and he did not pull away, instead holding her hand gently in his. Without thinking, she let her other hand touch his cheek. As he turned his head to face her, she leaned in and softly kissed his lips. His lips were warm and chapped and firm, somehow the antithesis of Japan’s lips, just as he was in general, physically and mentally. She looked at his oddly inscrutable expression in the late twilight. He then smiled at her softly, a shadow of an expression.
“Little sis,” he said, softly. “I’m sorry.”
Korea kissed her chastely upon her brow and yet it seemed more loving, more genuine than any other gesture in the world. She closed her eyes and heard him get to his feet. When she opened her eyes again, he was gone. Above, some of the clouds had parted and a little bit of the night sky and the brightest stars were visible at last. Perhaps you could see some of the Heavenly River through that tear, perhaps you could see two stars moving towards each other.
She did not cry. Because she knew he would be dragged back again. And Japan would lock them both in a room and come back out hours after with blood all over his uniform. And she would go back in and clean him up again.
.
She had no use for mirrors. Unlike most ladies (or so the books said), she was not obsessed with her appearance. One managed perfectly well without a mirror, frankly. She did not wear makeup, after all and she wore her hair long and unbound or coiled against her head and stuck with a single pair of combs. Japan had gotten her one as his most recent present. It was plain and square, set in a black lacquer frame, in the style of that perfect simplicity he loved. On an impulse one day, she picked it up and considered her reflection.
Pale skin. Black, black hair. Wide eyes of brilliant brown-gold. An oval face… She touched at her reflection’s face and considered her milk-white hands. Whose face, whose hands were these? No- She shouldn’t be pale as sea foam. She shouldn’t have a rounded face, soft features. She shouldn’t have these unscarred hands.
She felt her mouth open, about to scream. Why scream? Why cry out? No one would listen- But one could not help but do it, for the horror of the world.
And the world around her burst into flames.
Her hands dropped the mirror. It cracked and splintered on the floor. She whirled as fire demolished the polished wood panels of her room. Fear did not cause her to freeze. She gathered up her skirts in her hands and ran. Japan’s lovely house burned around her; she choked on acrid smoke as the ancient painted wood disappeared into hungry mouths. Her feet took her outside, her body knowing the way better than her fear trapped mind.
Outside… Her face felt a brief breeze cool air fast becoming almost too hot to breathe. She ran, the house seeming to become a maze of corridors and rooms that barred her passage. Then she heard the screams. A cacophony of human voices, young and old, male and female. And underneath it all and yet over it all, the screams of a single man, a young man. She thought she could see the outline of a man in flames, writhing or standing still or kneeling with head bowed in resignation.
“Japan!” she found herself screaming. What was he doing? Did he think to die here? The smoke grew thicker and blinded her as she dropped to her knees, trying to breathe air that scorched her throat and chest. Fire licked at her fingers. Was she going to die here? Was this the end of her?
A figure suddenly burst from the flames. She could only see someone tall, impossibly so, light dancing off lenses from his eyes. Panicking, she tried to scrabble away from the giant.
“I’ve got you! C’mon!” And he picked her up, as if she weighed nothing.
“Kiku,” she babbled in midst of her coughs. “Kiku-” She choked and tried to breathe once again. He buried her against his chest, she smelled wet leather.
“I’ve got you,” he told her above the roar of the flames. “I’ve got you…”
She dimly remembered burying her face further into his wet jacket, vaguely recalled him breaking into Kiku’s chambers and draping him on his back. They made it outside in time as the house splintered and collapsed in on itself, the fire roaring up and reaching for the sky in massive, hungry tongues of flame. The tall man gently set her upon the ground and reached for Japan, who started to scream again at every bit of pressure or contact to his burnt, bleeding flesh. She remembered cries for help and more men rushing into the courtyard of the ruined house.
The last thing she could remember were tears making trails of white upon an ash covered face, tears from two eyes bluer than heaven and heartbreaking in their guilt and grief.
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Historical Notes:
-In 1895, China ceded sovereignty over Taiwan to Japan as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The colonial administration gave the people of Taiwan the option of becoming Japanese citizens or leaving. After some trouble in establishing an administration (because of insurgency, the post of Governor-General of Taiwan was a military one), Japan used a British model of colonial government, with separate laws governing Taiwan. Eventually, a more integrative approach was used, particularly in assimilating the native Taiwanese with the Japanese.
-The Japanese were determined to make Taiwan “the model colony,” building schools, railways, banks and other developed and modernized projects.
-Footbinding was strictly forbidden under Japanese rule, as part of the “Three Bad Habits” seen as backwards and unhealthy. Included were opium and queues (long braids worn by men).
-When World War II began, Japan began military recruitment in Taiwan, first voluntary then drafts. There was also the forced prostitution of Taiwanese women as “comfort women” for the military.
-The “seventh day of the seventh moon,” also known as “the night of sevens,” is based on a Chinese folk tale referring to the stars Altair and Vega, or the cowherd and the weaving maid. I won’t retell the story here but basically, the story involves two lovers only allowed to meet once a year, on a bridge made from magpies that allow them to cross the Milky Way. The festival is called Tanabata in Japan, Chilseong in Korea and That Tic in Vietnam and is called somewhat whimsically as “Chinese Valentine’s Day.” During World War II, this festival was not exactly canceled but wasn’t particularly celebrated in Japan.
GAB (Gratuitous Author Babble):
Feel free to skip this if you’d like; I call it Gratuitous Author Babble for a reason).
Whew. I’ve been working on this for over two months and I’m torn between relief and disappointment at having finished it, most likely because I don’t think this has ended right. But I can’t see anything else I can do with it (and trust me, I’ve left this to “mature” and “season” in my hard drive for a while). Hellfires. I think I need a beta.
For some reason, Taiwan/South Korea is an odd pet pairing of mine. I have no idea why.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m not going to write anything Asian-centric for a while now… -goes to bang head on any convenient surface-
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Genre(s): Angst/Romance
Character(s)|Pairing(s): Japan/Taiwan, South Korea/Taiwan
Rating/Warning(s): R, drug use, sexual activity, disturbing imagery
Word Count: 3,973
Summary: Sequel to “ Dollhouse” - On trading cages, bonds, and rescues. The surrender of Taiwan to Japan and subsequent events.
Partly a fill for youkofujima ’s reverse request meme, partly also a long-ago vaguely promised sequel for her.
The aviary was burning.
She did not know how she knew this, lost in the daze of poppy dreams. The world spun and stilled around her, the figures upon the hanging tapestries blurring and reforming and twisting into new shapes both foul and fair. She had not meant to take so much but the ache in her body would not let her sleep and nightmares plagued her when she did close her eyes.
Ge ge thrust into her body, ranting and red-eyed. His fingers bruised her flesh and mortified it. She could not scream, could not cry, could not feel.
Perhaps, in a fashion, she wished that she could miscalculate, take a final, fatal dose that would take her to a land without twisted visions. Maybe that place beyond all horizons would also have mountains to the east and seas to the west. Through her dreams, through the delicate fragile haze, she could see him, in white and bearing a sword. His eyes glimmered like jet and onyx, not the gold and amber.
“What is your name?” asked the soft spoken specter. A specter, yes, for he was in white. White. Like bones. Like cups made so thin you can see the shadows of your fingers through them. Like paper packets of opium.
“My name is Lan Yueh,” she replied quietly, meeting his eyes. Because she was no longer scared, she was too numb to be scared. Or she didn’t speak. Or she didn’t see anything at all.
He then frowned, fleeting and cold. His face held the same expressiveness of new fallen snow, of a hidden forest pool. Expressions flitted past, too fast to be noted, never lingering. Did her face look like that? She could not bear to look into the mirror these days, afraid of her own gaze.
“Why have you not run?” he asked.
She laughed then, bitter and hysterical little giggles that were anything but demure, which would have made her governess hit her with the ivory fan she so hated (where was that old woman anyways? Had Ge ge sent her away?). Slowly, painfully, she uncurled from her nest of cushions, her little throne in a chair almost too small for her. She showed him her feet, not clad in slippers but merely bandaged, golden lilies that barely extended past the front of her leg.
“How can I?” she asked flatly.
The ghostly warrior looked away, too polite or too disgusted to say anything. She smiled then, through the haze of the smoke, distantly aware that a trickle of saliva had slipped from her mouth and slowly, slowly dripping down her chin. Her trembling hand almost instinctively reached for the still burning pipe. Only to find that his hand was already there. She stared at him in a mixture of fear and hatred and utter bewilderment.
“No,” he told her, his voice like steel.
He carried her out of the burning palace in his arms. For as slight as he was, as feminine as he seemed, he was still so much taller than she, healthy and powerful and in his prime. As she closed her eyes, she swore she heard wailing. Or perhaps it was just the wind.
.
She called him Kiku. Or Nippon. He answered to either, though often reminded her of her honorifics. Her tutors had taught her this staccato language with its peculiar pitches long ago and she had not forgotten. It was another thing that long lingered in her mind, unwanted though not unpleasant.
He took her to his house, a place with dark wood paneling and soft colors. It was not opulent but plain to the point of spiritual austerity, and as they entered the quiet rooms, she found herself falling into another dream. A softer dream.
Dreams of green waters and fern fronds and gardens made of rocks. Dreams of the sound of trickling water falling onto dark rounded pebbles and the rhythmic click of bamboo fountains filling and emptying, filling and emptying. The feel of smooth, cool, soft silk and cotton under her fingers and her head. The smell of pine needles and bitter tea, charcoal and dying chrysanthemums. The dream was colored in white and green, gray and black. Occasionally a splash of red, a single spot of blood that flared before her like a massive poppy before fading away.
Sometimes she heard the cries of cicadas, the high pitched cries of a water bird. She stretched her ears to hear the roar and cry of the sea, or the quiet rumbling of a mountain.
Sometimes she felt and heard and smelled the wind, who sent stray breezes to whisper to her and caress her cheeks. The wind mocked her in its sympathies.
.
He had her feet unbound and she turned her eyes away from the sight, terrified and humiliated. Did he mean to cripple her even further?
“Do not worry,” he told her dispassionately. “You are of a different kind. You will mend.”
Nonetheless, it hurt. And she screamed and screamed, body wracked with the pains of no more poppy dreams. Why did he have to do this do her? She shrieked and wept and begged, having no more shame, no more modesty.
Her voice begged for the poppy dreams, her pipe. She begged for him to kill her, to rebind her feet again. In fury, she shrieked insults at him, at Ge ge, at the long-gone Xiao Lung. She screamed in all the languages she knew, including those she had thought she had forgotten.
And in midst of her panicked, pained frenzy, she would sometimes fall into an uneasy sleep, into dreams that frightened and soothed her in their clarity and beauty and vague familiarity. Like morning mist dissipating with the rising of the sun, they faded when she awoke and the dancing lances of pain chased what remained.
But her fellow island country was correct. Her feet unfurled like flowers blooming from rotting loam. If they were no longer tiny, they were beautiful in that they were whole and right and strong. She marveled as she could wriggle her toes, all ten of them and she felt the fleshy part of the ball of her foot. The stained bandages were taken away and burnt to ashes, as well as her doll’s slippers.
Her first steps felt like walking on coals and porcelain shards. Sagging against a wall, she forced herself to go forwards, to the garden she could just see through the partly open door. Her legs shook and she winced at the clumsy sound of her feet thudding on the floor with each ponderous step. She bit her lip until it bled. Tears then slowly trickled down her cheeks as silent, exultant bittersweet joy flared up in her breast with the first feel of rough wood against the soles of her naked feet.
.
She vaguely remembered Korea. She remembered seeing him in blue robes with a black hat, the front of his coat embroidered with tigers and gold dragons. He gave her a doll with real human hair, but also jewelry made from jade, even sent her a beautiful rug made from a massive tiger he had killed himself, the eyes replaced with gold glass (it had scared her so much, enough that she had insisted it be put away). He teased her kindly and a smile never seemed far from his lips, as he taught her simple songs in his odd language.
He was far different now, so much thinner and worn out. His body did not seem so much fragile as scraped thin. Once laughing and good-natured dark eyes held anger and frustration and haunted pain. He wore the uniform that Japan gave him but it did not fit him and hung oddly on his lanky build with gracefully long limbs. She looked at him with blank eyes, gathering her pale pink and gray kimono to her body.
He had managed a smile for her, the first time they met again. Whispering a greeting to her in his own language. Still, she did not miss the look of anger that flickered in his dark eyes when he saw her.
Korea left the house, wearing a cherry blossom emblem on his shoulder that he regarded with disgust. Some time later, Kiku dragged him back, the taller male’s wrists bound cruelly and clothing torn. His boots had been lost and he wore socks black with blood. Screams shattered the green and white and gray serenity of Japan’s house and she closed her ears to them, meditating in the rock garden.
She obeyed when Kiku came out of one of the bedrooms, his white uniform splattered with blood, and ordered her to tend to the other nation. Fetching water and bandages, she mutely washed the barely conscious Korea, who she dressed in a white yukata, soft and clean and pure. He opened one eye to look at her dazedly, the other one bruised and swollen shut.
“…thank you,” he said, in Ge ge’s language.
She stared at him and turned her back to him, leaving the room without another word.
.
Kiku treated her with odd affection and odd dispassion. She found him as lively and vital as his rock gardens and did not know whether she should pity him in that. In his house, she lacked for nothing. Not books, not beautiful clothing (though they were all Japanese in make and color), not food (though it was all Japanese). His attentions on her were not paternal or fraternal but he insisted she learn his language, his literature, his arts and she did so. She danced with fans and performed the tea ceremony, wrote haiku meditating on the ephemeral life of cherry blossoms.
Kiku gave her pretty trinkets of pins that looked like falls of plum blossom and wisteria, fans painted with autumn leaves in red and gold and orange. He read her poetry and admired her calligraphy. Though he wrote her poetry as well, lovely little things, they seemed flat and empty, like pictures of peonies and butterflies left to fade in the dark. If he meant to court her, he did so clumsily, at odds with his insistence on dignity and ceremony and clean elegance.
One night he visited her in her bedroom. She looked up at him as he slid the door shut behind him. Mutely, he came to her and pushed her to her bed. In dim light, she started, seeing shadows and golden eyes that should not be here. He pushed her down upon her back, his dark eyes staring into her unblinkingly. His breath smelled only of tea and salt and steel.
“Why?” she asked him, breaking the frail silence.
He did not meet her eyes as he undid her kimono, carefully, slowly, as though he were undressing her as if she were some priceless, exquisite doll. She closed her eyes tightly as she felt his hands trace along her naked body. If he were going to treat her like a doll, she would be one for him, still and empty and lifeless. Still, she screamed, once, when he first thrust into her.
She was not herself. She was not merely Ran Yueh (or Tsukino, as he had taken to calling her these days). He was not merely Kiku. They suddenly were many people, playing out the same shadow puppet show, though the characters changed, the scenery replaced, the dialogue altered. Always a woman, a girl, with a soldier, a man… Dualities. A thousand variations of a single, simple scene, and she could feel every single one of them, every single woman who screamed hysterically or remained bonelessly limp.
He redressed her once he was done, cleaning her body with a cool and damp cloth. Not once had he kissed her. Instead, he left her room as silently as he had entered it. As if it would soothe her, he sent her a pet the next day, a pretty bird in a gilt cage. He did not deliver it himself, instead giving it to a servant to give to her with mute ceremony. She opened the door and released the songbird, watching it flutter away to the heavens. He did not ask what happened to it.
.
Korea recovered almost immediately though he walked with a limp after that first terrible night. Blood seemed to perpetually spot his white yukata and she sighed at the sight. He didn’t seem to care or sometimes, she thought he seemed almost proud of the spots, as though they were badges of honor. The lanky-limbed nation first shouted quite a bit, in his odd language, but soon his shouts died away and his clear, carrying voice muttered resentfully in Kiku’s language.
His eyes held rage, for lack of anything else. She wondered why he would bottle up such things in him. Anger poisoned the soul and sapped your strength. It was fruitless to beat against the bars, like some of the maddened birds had, until the brass bars gleamed red with their blood.
When he could, Korea stayed outside, but not in the garden. He always sat by the gates, looking up at the sky. Ah, the sky. No one caged the wind or the clouds. No one could dare challenge the heavens. Not yet. Perhaps Japan would try, someday.
She joined him mutely one afternoon, bringing him tea as an excuse. Carefully, she sat by him, gathering her legs under her kimono. The tall, lean boy had looked at her with something like initial confusion before greeting her politely and somewhat cautiously in Japan’s tongue. Except he called her “agashi.” Apparently, it meant “young lady” or something like that in his language; she liked it.
They made a ritual of it, meeting by the gate at certain hours. She brought tea and he sipped at it. Their heads would crane upwards and they would watch the clouds dance. The two of them didn’t speak; that ruined the moment. And slowly, he began to smile at her. He was not a beautiful man; he had none of Ge ge’s grace or Japan’s deliberation, . But he had a smile that seemed warmer than summer light and it made him handsome, perhaps even more than either of them.
He never smiled at Japan.
“Why do you keep fighting?” she asked him one day, when it threatened rain. The clouds boiled black and gray, a roiling cauldron of a summer storm.
“Why do you not fight?” he countered and his dark eyes met hers and held her gaze for far too long. She looked away, as she always did, not out of fear.
“You are only hurting yourself.”
“No worse than what he does to me. To my people.”
She knew he was telling the truth, which stung sharper than she had expected.
“Fighting is fruitless,” she told him stubbornly.
“I rather die to be free than to live in a cage,” he replied and she could see something like a tiger’s ferocity in his eyes, some nameless quality that frightened and thrilled her.
“Dying means nothing,” she said, surprising herself with her own harshness. “Where would you be then?”
His lips tightened and he looked at the sky again. “I know,” he replied, quietly.
“I do not think you do.” Bitterly, she whispered, “You know nothing.”
He helped her inside as rain began to fall. But at the same time, both of them lingered outside, on pretense of waiting for each other, and tilted their faces up to the gentle kiss of raindrops.
.
Spring became summer. Summer continued and grew heady. The seventh day of the seventh moon came and she mused on the overcast sky. Ge ge had celebrated the festival of the Cowherd and Weaving Maid and her nurse had made her weave and embroider most industriously around this time. Japan celebrated it as well but he seemed absentminded now and no colorful lanterns and banners decorated his house to greet the stars.
She fastened some decorations together with colorful paper he had given her, making small lanterns and paper flowers that Xiao Lung had taught her how to make half a lifetime ago. He had always been so clever with his hands. She looked to the heavens as she tied her bright red lanterns by one of the supporting columns of the house. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he well?
“It looks like they’ll be crying today,” said Korea behind her as she tried to tie another lantern a bit higher. He reached out and attached the paper creation securely to the beam for her.
“You celebrate it?”
“Chilseong? Of course I do. It used to be my favorite story when I was just a kid.”
“But it is a sad story.”
The taller boy sighed softly. “It is, isn’t it? But still…” He paused and his eyes took on that peculiar faraway look as his gaze went to the horizon. “I think it might be better to love someone and have one day with them a year, instead of never loving them at all.”
“…I guess.”
They sat and watched the sky grow dark as the sun set. The stars could not be seen tonight, particularly under the glow of the cities, where light invaded night. She remembered sitting outside by Ge ge as all the lanterns in the palace were extinguished. Ge ge did not have to show her the Heavenly River or the two stars on either side; she had long been acquainted with them, even if she did not know their names. They ate melons carved with beautiful designs, peacock feathers and camellia blossoms, impossibly lovely scenes of lovers meeting upon bridges.
“I think he loves you,” she told Korea softly, as they felt mist upon their faces, the tension of a coming storm.
“Who?”
“Japan.”
He laughed. But it was bitter and angry and cruel. “Little sis, I don’t think he has it in him to love.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Not anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“I grew up with him,” he told her. “Though he has always been something of…” He paused and shook his head. The corners of his eyes drooped, his mouth tightened. “He is obsessed with being right,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. “He has always had that damn obsession with the sun.”
“Do you hate him?”
He did not reply. After a moment, in a low, tired, impossibly sad voice, he remarked, “It would be easier… if I hated him.”
She wished that she could take her words back, for the expression on his face seemed too horrible to contemplate. Her fingers touched his and he did not pull away, instead holding her hand gently in his. Without thinking, she let her other hand touch his cheek. As he turned his head to face her, she leaned in and softly kissed his lips. His lips were warm and chapped and firm, somehow the antithesis of Japan’s lips, just as he was in general, physically and mentally. She looked at his oddly inscrutable expression in the late twilight. He then smiled at her softly, a shadow of an expression.
“Little sis,” he said, softly. “I’m sorry.”
Korea kissed her chastely upon her brow and yet it seemed more loving, more genuine than any other gesture in the world. She closed her eyes and heard him get to his feet. When she opened her eyes again, he was gone. Above, some of the clouds had parted and a little bit of the night sky and the brightest stars were visible at last. Perhaps you could see some of the Heavenly River through that tear, perhaps you could see two stars moving towards each other.
She did not cry. Because she knew he would be dragged back again. And Japan would lock them both in a room and come back out hours after with blood all over his uniform. And she would go back in and clean him up again.
.
She had no use for mirrors. Unlike most ladies (or so the books said), she was not obsessed with her appearance. One managed perfectly well without a mirror, frankly. She did not wear makeup, after all and she wore her hair long and unbound or coiled against her head and stuck with a single pair of combs. Japan had gotten her one as his most recent present. It was plain and square, set in a black lacquer frame, in the style of that perfect simplicity he loved. On an impulse one day, she picked it up and considered her reflection.
Pale skin. Black, black hair. Wide eyes of brilliant brown-gold. An oval face… She touched at her reflection’s face and considered her milk-white hands. Whose face, whose hands were these? No- She shouldn’t be pale as sea foam. She shouldn’t have a rounded face, soft features. She shouldn’t have these unscarred hands.
She felt her mouth open, about to scream. Why scream? Why cry out? No one would listen- But one could not help but do it, for the horror of the world.
And the world around her burst into flames.
Her hands dropped the mirror. It cracked and splintered on the floor. She whirled as fire demolished the polished wood panels of her room. Fear did not cause her to freeze. She gathered up her skirts in her hands and ran. Japan’s lovely house burned around her; she choked on acrid smoke as the ancient painted wood disappeared into hungry mouths. Her feet took her outside, her body knowing the way better than her fear trapped mind.
Outside… Her face felt a brief breeze cool air fast becoming almost too hot to breathe. She ran, the house seeming to become a maze of corridors and rooms that barred her passage. Then she heard the screams. A cacophony of human voices, young and old, male and female. And underneath it all and yet over it all, the screams of a single man, a young man. She thought she could see the outline of a man in flames, writhing or standing still or kneeling with head bowed in resignation.
“Japan!” she found herself screaming. What was he doing? Did he think to die here? The smoke grew thicker and blinded her as she dropped to her knees, trying to breathe air that scorched her throat and chest. Fire licked at her fingers. Was she going to die here? Was this the end of her?
A figure suddenly burst from the flames. She could only see someone tall, impossibly so, light dancing off lenses from his eyes. Panicking, she tried to scrabble away from the giant.
“I’ve got you! C’mon!” And he picked her up, as if she weighed nothing.
“Kiku,” she babbled in midst of her coughs. “Kiku-” She choked and tried to breathe once again. He buried her against his chest, she smelled wet leather.
“I’ve got you,” he told her above the roar of the flames. “I’ve got you…”
She dimly remembered burying her face further into his wet jacket, vaguely recalled him breaking into Kiku’s chambers and draping him on his back. They made it outside in time as the house splintered and collapsed in on itself, the fire roaring up and reaching for the sky in massive, hungry tongues of flame. The tall man gently set her upon the ground and reached for Japan, who started to scream again at every bit of pressure or contact to his burnt, bleeding flesh. She remembered cries for help and more men rushing into the courtyard of the ruined house.
The last thing she could remember were tears making trails of white upon an ash covered face, tears from two eyes bluer than heaven and heartbreaking in their guilt and grief.
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Historical Notes:
-In 1895, China ceded sovereignty over Taiwan to Japan as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The colonial administration gave the people of Taiwan the option of becoming Japanese citizens or leaving. After some trouble in establishing an administration (because of insurgency, the post of Governor-General of Taiwan was a military one), Japan used a British model of colonial government, with separate laws governing Taiwan. Eventually, a more integrative approach was used, particularly in assimilating the native Taiwanese with the Japanese.
-The Japanese were determined to make Taiwan “the model colony,” building schools, railways, banks and other developed and modernized projects.
-Footbinding was strictly forbidden under Japanese rule, as part of the “Three Bad Habits” seen as backwards and unhealthy. Included were opium and queues (long braids worn by men).
-When World War II began, Japan began military recruitment in Taiwan, first voluntary then drafts. There was also the forced prostitution of Taiwanese women as “comfort women” for the military.
-The “seventh day of the seventh moon,” also known as “the night of sevens,” is based on a Chinese folk tale referring to the stars Altair and Vega, or the cowherd and the weaving maid. I won’t retell the story here but basically, the story involves two lovers only allowed to meet once a year, on a bridge made from magpies that allow them to cross the Milky Way. The festival is called Tanabata in Japan, Chilseong in Korea and That Tic in Vietnam and is called somewhat whimsically as “Chinese Valentine’s Day.” During World War II, this festival was not exactly canceled but wasn’t particularly celebrated in Japan.
GAB (Gratuitous Author Babble):
Feel free to skip this if you’d like; I call it Gratuitous Author Babble for a reason).
Whew. I’ve been working on this for over two months and I’m torn between relief and disappointment at having finished it, most likely because I don’t think this has ended right. But I can’t see anything else I can do with it (and trust me, I’ve left this to “mature” and “season” in my hard drive for a while). Hellfires. I think I need a beta.
For some reason, Taiwan/South Korea is an odd pet pairing of mine. I have no idea why.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m not going to write anything Asian-centric for a while now… -goes to bang head on any convenient surface-