My father would say I was just a completely undisciplined child, my mother would say I was just born with too much curiosity, and my eldest brother would say I was just a troublemaker.  Maybe I was all of these.

 

It was early one morning, at the age of seven, when a growling occurred in the area of my abdomen and I decided that I would go, by myself, to pick some lychee.  If I was fast enough my slumbering family of eight others wouldn’t even know I was gone.

 

The misty early morning fog tasted fresh and cool, as if begging me to journey on before the sun rose and piled layers of heat onto my back, as it did almost every day this summer.  I slipped black sandals onto my dusty feet and in silence exited our self made, rustic, wood paneled hut we called home.

Our hut was accompanied by another hut made similarly but with animals within.  I could hear the five chickens and the rooster, bustling around but did not hear anything from the pig.  He must have been sleeping as well.
The sky had a grey blue tint, as if the fog had covered it in a thin veil.  Behind the veil soft purple light grew.  The sun hadn’t risen yet, just the teasing light that seemed to come from below the surrounding mountains of Laos’s jungle we claimed as our backyard.

I walked east, to the sun, on the dirt path parallel to our rice field.  My excitement and nervousness grew; I had never walked this path alone but today I felt especially brave.

About twenty minutes passed and I had finally reached the turn of the dirt road in which I knew to continue forward instead of following it north.  The tree was hidden right behind the large bushes and as I pushed through them I felt sly, as if the knowledge of this place was of many secrets a man like I would know.

Promising ripe red fruit dangled from the tree in bunches.  The tree had a low split with many branches, begging to be climbed and ravaged of its fruit that grew so heavy the branches drooped downwards from the weight.

I reached the base ready for the climb when I heard a rustling of movement behind a bush.  I felt my heart beat pulse vigorously and I pulled myself up the branches as high as possible, dangerously lingering on an unsteady branch.  I would not have admitted it back then but I was shaking heavily.

My second oldest brothers warning came to mind.  His completely black eyes and taunting sideways grin mocking me, words forming through them showing his chipped tooth: Don’t let the tigers get you.  They especially like little Miao boys.

But I had thought, ‘I am not a little boy, I’m seven years old.’

“Come out!”  I shout with surprising sound and strength in my young voice.

I hear the rustling of dead leaves and grass once again as a small figure emerges from behind a large tree.  It looks like another kid but I couldn’t tell because it was hidden in the shadows too far away.

“Come closer!”  I demanded with loud authority as I puffed up my chest.  Whatever it was it was small, I thought I could probably beat it in a fight.  I, of course, had a lot of young courage.

As it approached I saw with awe that it was indeed the form of a child, a girl about my age, but she was different than any person I had ever seen in my seven whole years of life.

She wore traditional Miao garments.  The expensive stuff I only wore during special occasions.  Her skirt that fell right below her knees was creased in a painstaking perfect traditional pleated manner and hand sewn with great care and precision.  The red, blue, and green accented the mainly pink design of oriental hearts, circles, and zigzags.

I was fascinated; none of my two older sisters even owned or had the skill to sew such an intricate pattern.  Her rectangular sash tied around her waist with a black cloth, long vertically and short horizontally, came down from her stomach to right below her skirt, also embroidered to match the design of her skirt.  The outfit was complete with a black top that crossed the left side of her shirt over the right, also embroidered at the overlap of the shirt, in the middle, and at the sleeves that came down to her elbows.  Even her shoes matched, embroidered with the pink design.

Even more surprising than her stunning attire was her light hair.  I had never seen hair that color before.  It was like strands of sunlight. It was like a hot day in the rice fields and looking up at the sky, almost looking at the sun, not straight at it of course because you would go blind, but right at the edges.

Her eyes also gave me a shock, seeing them for the first time, truly blue was all I could think to describe it, the truest of blues.  It was vibrant in a way I had never found blue to be ever before.  It wasn’t the light pale of the sky, or the dark of the rivers current, or even the bright blue of her embroidery, it was completely different.  It was bright, almost shining.  It was as if her eyes were blue candle flames on the clearest of nights.  And just as astounding was her skin which was fair, as if she had never stood a day out in the sun, especially amazing to me since it was mid-summer.

Everything about her was bright and clean.

You would think she looked out of place in the jungles of Asia but you would be wrong.  The early hours of the day held a certain mystery about it, the purple sky, the tree’s covered in glistening dew, the almost quiet of the birds and animals, and the mist wafting about made it feel like the unusual was at home.

The fact that she would appear, in all her glory, a ghost or not, in the early morning just fit.  She belonged to this time.

I became hyperaware of my retched state of being.  I wore only my faded green hand-me-down shorts that were a bit too large, covering my knees and my worn sandals.  My common hair and eyes were plain and black.  My skin was chapped and sunburned unevenly around my body due to the long hours bending over in the rice fields, almost knee deep in the muddy creases filled with water to help my family, and for the most part endlessly playing with my friends.

I dropped down from my position, landing nimbly on a more secure branch.  Now my father’s words entered my thoughts.  After my brother had spoken about tigers he had been reprimanded and my father told me afterwards with a very serious tone: Tigers are dangerous yes, but you must make sure to stay away from evil spirits.

Evil spirits are the most feared of all.  The stories I had heard of encounters with them threatened to make me run away.  But at the time I had thought that I was a brave man who could face anything.

“Who are you?!” I asked even louder than I had been speaking before, fear pushing me forward.  I was like a wild animal, the more threatened I felt the more I was likely to attack.

It took a moment for her to answer, but when she did she looked straight at me and answered in a small shaking voice, “Jaejoong Jao”.

“Are you an evil spirit?” I asked, avoiding eye contact with her, before she could answer I added, “If so you should go away!”

“I’m not…” she said as she started to approach me.

“Don’t come any closer!  You’re an evil spirit aren’t you?!”  I demanded once more, pointing my finger at her, my nose in the air, my shoulders out to make my skinny body look as large as possible.  I had thought A being who looked like her couldn’t possibly be a normal human.                                    

Her feet stilled in place and her shoulders hunched.  She looked down as she bit her lip.  I had two younger siblings and like how creatures in the jungle knew a storm was coming I knew all the signals that came before crying.  She was about to cry.

A moment of silence came over us, I didn’t understand what was happening but suddenly guilt decided to smash me with his heavy body, before she abruptly turned away from me and ran the direction of the jungle, away from the road.

I don’t know what got into me.  I had told her to go away but I was also too fascinated by her to just let her go.

I called out to her to stop as I jumped out of the tree.  I was so far up I landed on my feet but rolled on my side to dull the blow.  I lost no time in catching up to her.  She was a bright butterfly and I was a stray cat going for the chase.

I had no delicacy as I tackled her to the ground just as I do when I play football.  And I always won at football.  I was a real rough kid who believed he was the toughest out there.

We slammed into the dry dirt.  She was solid.  I was surprised because I had been sure she was a ghost.

“UWAAAH!”  She cried, crushed into the ground by my weight.

I quickly jumped off her and got up, brushing myself off.  I saw the tears that streamed down her face.  Her knee’s and elbows were dusted slightly brown but definitely bruised.  A bit of dirt was on her cheek.

“I just wanted to get some lychee!” She yelled at me, the small shy voice gone, replaced by loud bursts of angry words between sobs, “Now my dress is all dirty!”

My eyes were open wide and my body tensed.  I knew I was in the wrong.  I had seriously messed up.  It was no ghost; it really was just a girl.  As she sat on dirt floor she continued to cry and I was a stunned frozen for a while.

Finally I figured out what to do and took off running.  I raced back to the tree, jumped up it like a monkey and found the biggest bunch of the red fruit I could and cut it down.  I came back to her carrying the fruit by one branch, the fruit hanging on like grapes on a vine, and dropped it in front of her.

She looked up at me again with those true blue eyes, full of water but not tearing anymore, and I had to look away this time because who knew how deep those eyes could see?  Just because she was human didn’t mean she didn’t have spiritual powers.

I plopped myself next to her, not close enough to brush shoulders but almost, and plucked one of the lychee off the stem.  The lychee were round, almost heart shaped, and fit snuggly in one of my seven year old hands.  I peeled the red coarse outer layer to reveal the smooth white translucent juicy insides, and offered it to her.

I didn’t want to say it, my pride was too great, but she understood.  This was my peace offering.  I was sorry.

She took the fruit in both her hands and looked at it thoughtfully before biting half of it, taking out the pit in the middle that remained in her uneaten portion, and eating the rest.

“It’s good” She said, mouth full.  She wiped at her eyes with her small hands, a smile crossing her face.

Her hand weren’t calloused like mine, but fine and smooth looking.  I imagined they felt soft like a newborn child’s.

“How come you look weird?”  I asked.  I didn’t mean to come off as insensitive I didn’t know a better way to ask it.

Seven year olds do ask the most blunt and direct questions sometimes.

I opened a lychee and popped one into my own mouth and spit the seed out into the distance.  I did come to eat lychee myself after all.

“I was born looking like this.” she pouted and plucking her own fruit, “I’m not weird, you know, a lot of people are born with this color hair and eyes, like French people”.

“Are you French?”

“No I’m Miao.”

“Then why do you look like that?”

“I’m Miao!” her voice raised and her breathing increased.  She was about to start crying again.

I didn’t really understand why but I knew it meant I should just stop talking for a while so I just said “Okay.” and stuffed my face with fruit.

My family always told me I asked too many unnecessary questions that would get me in trouble.  As my second oldest brother would say: Just shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you!

She looked over at me and her eyes grew impossibly large.  She covered her small open mouth.  Then I heard fluttering giggled fall through her finger tips.

“What?”  I asked, around all the fruit I had been able to get in my mouth.

“You look like a chipmunk!” She laughed, pointing her finger at me and holding her stomach, “So cute!”

I became irritated and swallowed the fruit as quickly as possible without swallowing a seed or choking.

I was not cute, I was a man!

But I didn’t say it since she had finally stopped being sad.  I just grunted angrily and wiped my mouth because some of the juice had squirted out in my haste.

We sat there for a while longer and just talked, eating the fruit and competing who could spit the seed farthest.

I bragged about how my father was a clan leader that looked after the Xiong family and that my name, Yunho, was passed down through three generations and only the third eldest son got the honor of having that name.

I also added that I had just turned seven years old and I was the fastest and strongest person out of all my friends and how I would someday definitely become a great leader.  I thought I did a rather good job of impressing her.

Afterwards, she finally seemed comfortable and she told me all about herself.  She lived down the road at the northern turn.  Her parents, grandparents, and older brother lived with her.  Her grandmother was too feeble to work in the fields and so she spent her days embroidering and teaching Jaejoong how to embroider.

When she spoke of her grandmother the blue in her eyes seemed to change into a lighter shade and I wondered if her hair could do the same thing.    She pointed to her skirt and told me her grandmother did all of it and frowned saying how she will be so sad to see it got dirty.

Jaejoong never went out to the fields with her family.  When I asked why she pointed to her face and said, “Grandma told me if bad people saw me they would want to steal me away, so I have to stay safe at home with her”.

It was no wonder I had never seen her before.  She had snuck out this morning just as I had, with a sudden craving for lychee, the early hour and cool mist pulling her out of her home.

“Do you have friends?” I asked, tilting my head to the left.  She must be lonely with only her family around and I could not imagine not being able to go outside.

“My grandma” She smiled, eyes downcast and plucking another fruit.

“I’ll be your friend!” A large grin grew wide on my face, showing the strikingly white teeth I had that contrasted my scraggly appearance.

The sky was changing, no longer just a tease of light, and we both knew we could not stay a moment longer.  The morning mist was falling away and the world was coming alive as the sun threatened to jump out of the mountain and expose us.

Before leaving we promised to meet again.  We waved to each other as she scurried down the north path and I bulleted down the way I came, appetites sated, and a secret encounter held between us, before the day began.

Authors note: I wrote this years ago for a creative writing class and decided I guess I'll share it.  It's really hard to format it into a 'better' style for fanfiction.  The paragraphs look long but its just because the column is so small and fanfiction usually has more breaks. (uugh)

Jaejoong is a boy he's just crossdressing as a girl and baby Yunho doesn't know yet.  I have a summary of these characters whole life story but I don't think i'm going to write it so just comment if you want to know the rest of the story and I'll post that summary up if you're interested.

In my story Jaejoong's family is worried that if people saw Jaejoong they would want to either kill him or steal him away so that's why they keep him closed up at home.  Jaejoong cross dresses because he likes the pattern of Hmong dresses.  His grandmother encourages it too and his parents can't have another child so he will never have a sister so his family is basically fine with it too.

Disclaimer: I've never been to Laos I've just seen pictures and I wanted to do a Hmong story thats it.  There's a rare thing where some Hmong people are born with blonde hair so that's what Jaejoong is.  He is Hmong in this story, not mixed.  Yeah I know Jao is not a basic Hmong last name.  I believe that Hmong people didn't start calling ourselves Hmong until later on.  Miao is what we were called, which is still an ethnicity that is relevant in China today.
 

Read more of my fanfiction at: tsubasangel.livejournal.com