WARNING: Homophobic slur in next couple of paragraphs.

There was mud everywhere. 

Mud caked in his hair, soiling his clothes, in his shoes and socks, even in his mouth. When Yixing attempted to get up again, the bully kicked him back down into the puddle of brown water, the rubber heel of his boot striking right between his shoulder blades. Yixing wasn’t sure if the dampness on his face was because of the mud or because he was crying. Most likely, it was both.

“Go on home and read your books, !” the bully yelled, throwing the book at Yixing’s head. The corner of it struck his right temple, causing the skin to split and blood to pour out in small beads of thick crimson. The second bully kicked him once more, in the spot where his rib cage became his abdomen. Little Yixing collapsed right into the puddle once more, holding his stomach and crying his eyes out. He waited for the pair of older boys to walk away, which they did eventually but not until after the second one had a chance to pee all over Yixing’s backpack and books. 

After another ten minutes of crouching in the dirt, crying, and waiting for the pain to subside, Yixing eventually got to his feet. People often overlook children’s potential for cruelty, especially toward each other. The young Yixing tried to wipe the mud from his face with his sleeve, but with his clothes equally as dirty as his face, the task was in vain. 

At just ten years old, Yixing already thought of the world as a dark place. He bent down to retrieve his things. His now foul-smelling backpack, his wet notebooks and broken pencils. He left the banana peel on the ground; he had packed it for lunch that day, but one of the bullies stomped on it. Last on all, Yixing went back to the puddle to retrieve his favorite book.

The pages were stained, now, and Yixing did the best he could to get the dirt off of it. It was hard-bound collection of fairy tales his mother had given him. She had taught him at an early age how to read using this book, and it quickly became his favorite. Magical wizards, dancing nutcrackers, fairy kingdoms, exiled princes, dragons, what wasn’t there to propel a boy’s imagination into full flight? Yixing had read the thing cover to cover several times and had even brought it to school to read under his desk. It was the greatest book in the world to him, even if the other boys didn’t see it that way.

He knelt down again on the dirty floor of the wooded area. Yixing cried, cradling the book on his lap, feeling utterly defeated and in no mood to go to school anymore. There was no way anyone could convince him to face those boys again. He sat on the ground and planned to sit there and not move until he could go back home at 3 pm. Seven more hours to go. 

After a little while, the sun came out, illuminating the clearing. Yixing moved to the edge in order to sit underneath a tree. The mud was starting to dry and harden, now. It began to crumble right off of Yixing’s skin and clothing. The book eventually dried just enough that he could turn the pages without ripping them. With nothing else to do, Yixing opened it up and started to read again.

He wished the world he lived in was as bright and magical as the world in the pages of his book. Taking a short break from the book, he looked up and around the forest clearing. He had passed by this patch of forest before, every day on his way to school in the mornings, but he had never actually looked around it before. There were oak trees all around him, old and regal, as tall and expansive as some houses in his neighborhood, with branches low enough to climb and even walk on. 

Feeling a bit more cheerful, he decided to put the book aside and walk among the trees. As an avid reader and something of a fan of the imagination, Yixing could easily recognize an enchanted kingdom when he saw one. He walked up to one of the trees and easily walked onto one of the lower branches. He began walking up it until he needed to hold onto another branch and then climb that one as well. A smile crept onto his face when he was finally up in the higher branches, surrounded by leaves. 

Despite the alarming height, Yixing felt safe up in the tree. In the upper world of the forest canopy, he felt untouchable and light, like a cloud. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rose as he felt an overwhelming sense of discovery, like he was accidentally stumbled upon someone’s secret. And for a moment, the world really was like a book. Yixing found himself a sturdy spot on a branch and sat down. If he had to wait out the remaining hours on this branch, he wouldn’t mind. He did, for a minute, wish that he had someone to sit with, however. 

It was at this moment that he heard the distinct sound of crying. Yixing looked down, and below him there was a little girl. 

She was dressed in a peculiar way, her small form all huddled up in what Yixing could only describe was a white pillow case. Curious, since he hadn’t seen her there before, he jumped down from his branch and landed in the dirt beside her. 

“Hi,” he whispered when she looked up at him, startled. She wiped at the snot dripping from her nose.

“Hello,” she said. Yixing smiled. Her voice was quite pretty; it reminded him of running water. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. For a minute, he had the frightening thought that perhaps, she too, had been tormented by those boys earlier and had sought refuge in the forest clearing like him. “Are you hurt?” he asked the little girl. She looked at him with eyes like drops of honey and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “It’s just… I’m a little lost.”

“Oh,” Yixing said, rubbing the back of his head. “Well, maybe I can help you.”

She stopped crying for a brief moment, and her eyes looked hopeful. “You’ll help me?” she asked. Yixing smiled.

“I’ll try,” he said, getting up on his feet. He reached out to the girl and helped her stand up. She looked to be about his age but was a few inches taller. Her hair was tangled and fell all the way down her back and hit the back of her knees. There was dirt smeared on her face and knees although the white smock was seemingly immaculate. The cleanliness of that cloth made him hyper-aware that he still had mud in his hair and on his clothes. Yixing smiled, however, seeing her pointed ears. 

“My name is Yixing, by the way,” he said. The girl smiled sweetly, making him blush.

“I’m Yin,” she said. “I’m the Princess of the Wood…,” she frowned. “Or at least I was.” 

Yixing raised his brows. “Was?” he asked. “What makes you say that? Aren’t you the Princess of the Wood anymore?”

Yin turned her face away, and Yixing was afraid she might cry again. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “I used to be the Princess back when… back when So Min believed in me.”

“Who’s So Min?”

Yin looked at him. “She was my whole world,” she said. “We used to be best friends. We were babies together, and I was her best friend. I played with her and taught her things, lived in her house, and I was always there for her and she took care of me and I told her stories about the Wood and —,”

“You told her stories?” Yixing asked, his tone a little more excited than he had intended. His enthusiasm seemed to make her happy, though. Yin smiled gently.

“Do you like stories?” she asked. “I know a bunch. I used to tell So Min about them… but then… one day, she stopped believing me. And then… she told me I wasn’t real. That’s how I knew I had to go away. And now I’m here, with no place to go and nowhere to live.”

Yixing stared at the girl, feeling himself getting lost in the sad, melodious lull of her voice, the blush of pink on her cheeks, and the brightness in her eyes. She stood right in front of him, telling him her story, and even though Yixing didn’t want to be like So Min by not believing Yin, he supposed in one aspect, So Min was a little bit right: Yin didn’t look real. She looked like the apparition of an angel. Young, beautiful, mysterious. He was captivated.

“Would you…like to come to my house?” he asked. “We have a phone there, you could call someone. Like your family.”

“My family?” Yin asked. “I… I don’t have one. Well, I suppose I did have one, but I have always lived with So Min. Until she stopped believing. I can’t live with anyone who doesn’t believe, otherwise I’ll disappear,” she said, her voice fraught with worry. Yixing gave her the most reassuring smile he could manage.

“I do believe you,” he said. Yin raised her brows.

“Really?” she asked. He nodded.

“Unlike other people,” Yixing said. “I can believe a lot of things. If you say you’re the Princess of the Wood, then I believe you. Now, you wanna use my phone?” He extended his hand to her again. Yin looked at his palm and then back at him. She smiled before placing her own dainty hand into his. With his new friend beside him, Yixing walked back up the sidewalk toward his house. Once inside, Yixing first excused himself to the bathroom to wipe the dirt off of himself. He then rejoined Yin in the kitchen. Yixing grabbed the landline telephone, checked it for a dial tone, and then handed it to Yin. She stared at the odd contraption before admitting that she didn’t know how to use it.

“Oh, it’s easy,” the little Yixing said. “You just push the numbers of your phone number in and then it’ll get whoever you want to talk to. Let’s see, what’s your family’s phone number?” 

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing, and Yixing heard his mother exclaim aloud, probably a reaction from seeing mud streaked across the floor.

“Yixing!” his mother shouted, coming into the kitchen. “What are you doing home? You’re supposed to be at school! What on earth happened to you?” 

Yixing wanted to be brave in front of his new friend, but his mother’s questions and her yelling made him remember the bullies from earlier. His voice quivered as he answered. 

“She was lost, Mom,” he said with a small voice. “I… I… I was walking to school and these kid were mean and then I saw her, Mom, and she needed help.”

“Who needed help?” his mother demanded. He pointed at Yin.

“She did,” he answered. “Her name’s Yin and she got lost and needed a phone so I—,”

“What are you talking about?” his mother asked. “There’s no one there! There’s no one here!”

Yixing looked quizzically at Yin and then at his mother. “Yes, she is,” he said. “She’s right here. Mom, this is Yin. She’s the Princess of the Wood.” Yixing saw Yin smile prettily at his mother, but his mother wasn’t impressed. In fact, she seemed to look straight through Yin, as though she weren’t there. His mother stomped over to where he was, taking the phone from his hands and then putting it back on the wall. She grabbed Yixing by the wrist and dragged him to the upstairs bathroom. She turned the shower on and ordered him to bathe and clean himself.

Yixing watched Yin follow them upstairs, stopping at the landing. She watched with a grin at his being chastised but otherwise said nothing. Yixing followed his mother’s orders, and when he was finished washing, she ordered him into his room without dinner. When Yixing went into his bedroom, Yin was waiting, sitting on a chair near his window.

“What are you still doing here?’ he asked, drying his hair. Yin jumped out of the chair, her long hair flying behind her like a cloak.

“You said I could come with you,” she said. Her face fell a bit. “You’re not going to tell me to go away, are you?” 

Yixing shrugged. “I just thought… well… I guess you could…”

Yin smiled. It was getting late now, the seven hours of waiting having long since passed. Yixing, locked up in his room, decided to bring out some games for he and Yin to play: dominoes, chutes-and-ladders, papers and crayons for them to draw with, books to read aloud, Battleship, Twister, chess, Chinese checkers, Uno, and Clue. Yin showed Yixing what she could do, using magic to levitate objects and make his potted bean sprout grow faster. Yin giggled a little, admitting that her magic was far from fully developed. There was still much to learn and room to grow. Apparently, not only was she a princess, but a fairy one, as well.

“Yin,” he asked when they finished their last game and he was preparing to go to bed. “I meant to ask you… how come…. Why didn’t my mom see you earlier?”

Yin was fluffing up his pillow. She looked sad. “Maybe she doesn’t believe,” she said. “Your mom is old, but not old enough, and definitely not young enough. People her age don’t believe, that’s why she doesn’t see me.”

“Oh,” Yixing said, sitting on the bed in his pajamas. Yin was still wearing the white sack. “So what will you do now?”

Yin sat cross-legged on the bed, facing him. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was hoping… can I stay here?”

Yixing blushed a little bit. He did have a little idea of what was proper. She might be a pointy-eared princess, but still a girl, and he was a boy. He had set up a spot for her to sleep on the floor, but he wasn’t sure if it could continue that way. “Okay,” he said tentatively. “But… I think you’ll have to sleep somewhere else starting tomorrow. There’s room in the attic, but maybe you wouldn’t like it there.”

“It sounds perfect!” she said said, smiling and leaning toward him. Her smile turned a little bit sad again, and he supposed she was thinking about her other friend, So Min, the one who abandoned her. Yixing could help but feel bad for her. It must be hard to not be seen by adults and abandoned by friends. He knew what it was like to be ostracized and lonely and unwanted. He felt that way everyday at school. Yin was a kindred spirit, someone who was like him. He wanted to protect her.

“You’ll be okay now,” he said. “I’ll take care of you.”

Yin looked at him with a smile and eyes b with tears. He laughed a bit, thinking her reaction was cute, albeit a little dramatic. He yawned and began to tuck himself into bed and Yin hopped off and onto her spot on the floor. She twiddled her thumbs, watching him lay his head down on the pillow. She leaned over him on the bed, whispering in his ear.

“Yixing,” she said. “What happened to your head right here?” she pointed at the spot where the corner of his book had hit his forehead.

“Someone threw a book at me,” he whispered.

“How mean!” Yin said, touching the scab that formed there lightly with her fingers. Yixing’s eyes were starting to close. Yin bit her lips.

“Yixing?” she asked.

“Mhmm?” 

Yin felt her heart beginning to race. She had felt excitement before, and she also felt heart-break and abandonment. She needed to make sure that she was safe. She needed to know that the search for a home was finally over. 

“Am I your friend now?”

“Yes.”

“And are you my friend now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in me?”

“Yes.”

“But what about tomorrow? Or later?”

“Of course I will.”

“What about… what about when we grow up? What if one day, when you’re grown up, you stop believing in me? I could disappear completely, and I’m scared.”

“Yin.”

“What?”

“I’ll always believe in you. I promise.”

Yin looked down at his face, taking in the peaceful way he slept. She looked at her own hands and touched her fingers against her palms, relishing the firmness of the skin there, the gloriousness of her own reality. Reality, at least as far as her precious boy was concerned. Her whole being filled with warmth, and she reached out to brush the hair out of his forehead. And she leaned down and placed a kiss on his forehead, right where the book had hit him. She watched as he smiled in his sleep.

“Goodnight, my friend. Sweet dreams.”

Author's Note: For some reason, I keep mistyping the word "author" these days. Anyhow, this will probably be no longer than 5 chapters. Not very long. Just a short story, really. Here's the end of chapter one and I hope you liked it.