disappointment, a lump swallowed with each bite
Summary: Syaoran’s relationship with Yelan is complicated.
A/N: I had a friend post this a while back on AO3 as an orphaned fic (she came up with the title), mostly because I felt I might have revealed too much about myself. But I feel there’s so much about Syaoran’s Cantonese heritage left unexplored, both by fandom and CLAMP, that I want to tap into it myself. Writing this felt a little raw, but it meant a lot that this resonated so much with Canto readers I thought I’d share it here. I hope you enjoy.
[AO3]
Syaoran’s life has been a series of disappointments, one after the other.
Disappointment is the first memory his mother shares with him over dinner. “When I married, I moved to Hong Kong to be with your father’s family,” she explains.
He nods as he ravenously shovels roast pork into his mouth and his eldest sister reminds him to chew slowly.
“But I was originally from Shanghai. I tried to teach you Shanghainese when you were very small, but you never used it.”
“You used to cry, ‘I want to talk to Mama!’ because she doesn’t understand Shanghainese,” the second eldest suddenly remembers with a bright smile.
“Yes, and she would tell me, ‘You married into a Cantonese family, let the boy speak what he wants. You have to teach him Mandarin and Japanese later on anyway.’ You were so resistant, your Mama asked what the point was of teaching you Shanghainese when your sisters spoke it but never used it.”
His mother reaches for more gailan. Although his mother and grandmother had shown nothing but respect for each other, he’d always noticed a cold air between them. “I remember I was very...”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Syaoran doesn’t say anything and picks up the pork more delicately.
…
It’s the third Qing Ming Jie since his father’s death and he can’t relate to any of the stories his sisters and mother laugh over as they lay out the food and incense.
“Didi, you remember?” his Ga Jeh asks. “All our cousins were playing with each other, but you stayed in the corner practicing your magic by yourself. You were two.”
“You always wanted to be alone, even back then,” the second sister adds.
“Baba was laughing at you and called you his little lone wolf,” the fourth sister says.
“Oh, is that where ‘Syaoran’ comes from?” His family never used his real name, it was baobei to his mother and didi to his sisters. On occasion they called him Syaoran or Siu Long, dialect chosen on a whim.
But when he frowns, they see he doesn’t remember any of it, so they silently reach for the incense and pray. He looks at the red name etched on the tombstone and the emptiness he feels hits him like a train. How must Baba feel knowing his only son doesn’t remember him?
He already knows the answer and as he takes the incense, all he can think is, I’m sorry.
…
“Again.”
For the thirty-fourth time in a row (he’s been keeping track in his head), he strikes his sword into the ground and in a split second the faintest trace of a magic circle glows beneath him. Then, just as suddenly, it fades.
His mother rubs her temples and Syaoran braces himself for the lecture coming to him.
“How many times have we tried this and you still don’t understand it?”
He doesn’t protest that he’s trying, because she’ll only counter that he’s not trying hard enough.
“Your mind is off somewhere else and you’re not focusing properly. Do you not understand how vital it is that you get this right? Don’t you know what it means to be a descendant of Clow Reed? The only magic child of this family, no less!”
He doesn’t say that technically, they’re descendants of his mother’s family, and that Syaoran’s own mother wasn’t related to him either, just married in.
Still, his mother somehow senses what’s on his mind and says, “I know it is not my bloodline. But when I married your father, his family became my family. You think your Mama just let any random outsider marry her only son? No, it didn’t matter that I had magic in my veins. It took me ten years to perfect my magic and even be considered worthy of the prestige of the Lei clan! And now you have a chance to be Master of the Clow because it is your birthright! What did I work so hard for if all you want to do is throw it away?”
Syaoran bites his lip and feels hot shame welling up inside him. He fixes his stare at the ground so his mother doesn’t see his wet eyes.
“Don’t look at the floor. Look at me.”
He complies and sniffles.
“Do you want to be Master or not? Answer me.”
“I do,” he whispers, unable to control the shakiness in his voice. All he wants is to be like any other second-grader and go play at the park or something.
“Masters of the Clow don’t cry. Go again.”
The thirty-fifth time isn’t much better than the last, and he can slowly feel his mother giving up.
…
As he holds the results of his Japanese exam, his hands tremble. He’s not worried about his other scores, but he’ll need to work twice as hard in this area if he wants to keep up with his Japanese classmates next year.
That semester had been a flurry of sleepless nights, cramming and studying over and over to perfect his language skills. It had been one of the few times in his life when his mother relaxed her strict exterior, quietly bringing a bowl of sweet pears to his room and placing it on his desk.
“Study hard, baobei.”
He sharply inhales as he opens up his results, and exhales when he sees the red 100 on his kanji scores. His eyes scale down to keigo.
96.
Four points. He was only four points away.
He’s far, far from the bottom of his class, but it’s not enough. The endless complaints from his classmates, none of whom he’s ever played with or been friends with, saying, “My mom always asks why you can’t be like your classmate Lei!” or praise from his teachers, “Let’s all follow Lei tung hok’s example,” are never enough for the Lei clan.
He neatly folds the exam and slides it into his backpack.
…
When he submits his papers to Tomoeda elementary he gives them his real name. It sounds foreign even to him.
“Rei—” the office lady frowns. “Sorry, how do you pronounce that?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have started off with Cantonese. And then he has the craziest idea. “Ah—never mind,” he says, furiously scribbling out his name. “Use this one.”
She purses her lips into a tight line. “Ookami?”
“It’s, ah, a traditional name,” he lies through his teeth, hoping his accent isn’t too heavy. “Li Syaoran.”
“The Chinese use such interesting kanji,” she murmurs, scribbling down some notes. He doesn’t remind her that kanji came from China first.
“Well, you’ll be in Terada-sensei’s room, Li-san. It’s down that way.”
It all fits, in a way. When has he ever been worthy of his own name?
…
“He speaks kinda funny.”
“Chiharu-chan, he’s from Hong Kong. You can’t expect him to speak perfectly on his first day,” the quiet girl with chestnut colored hair reminds her.
“I heard Terada-sensei saying if he needed help he could talk to Tomoyo-chan,” the one with glasses interjects. “The way he repeated her name was sooooo cute. Daaai-daaau-jiii.”
It’s not malicious, the way they’re giggling. But he keeps his expression stony and vows not to say any other name.
...
His face is burning as he runs. He’s failed to retrieve the cards on his first day, and the boy…
The boy was beautiful.
He thinks of his mother’s warning. “Don’t play around with girls.” She’d wrinkled her nose. “Especially Japanese girls. You remember what they did to our country?”
She’d never thought to warn him about boys. It would never cross her mind he would tell her something like that.
He prays, prays, prays he’ll never need to.
...
The ocean wind is icy and pinches at his skin, but he’ll never show weakness like the girl beside him. How was this whimpering thing, who was never raised with a quarter of the discipline he has, deemed more worthy to be Master than he was?
But the more she talks, the more he realizes he has never known a night like this. A night of no training, no studying. Just the crashing of ocean waves and a light conversation under the moonlight.
He’s not thinking when he says, “Well, I feel that way about him too, but…”
He freezes as he realizes and holds his gaze at her, anxiously waiting for her response. What will she say? Will she tell people? What if, Heaven forbid, it gets back to his family?
But she carries on like it’s nothing. He’s brave enough to press her further about her infatuation, and she asks him the same.
“Both you and I are so much younger than Yukito-san, but we can’t help it,” she says. “We just… like him.”
When she smiles, it’s genuine. It’s serene. There is no judgment in her jade eyes.
When his form reappears in the cave, she doesn’t reprimand him for not having the strength to fight off the card. She thanks him.
It’s a foreign feeling.
…
“They call me a different name, Ma.”
Even though she’s only on the phone, he knows she’s frowning. “Oh? And what’s wrong with the name we gave you?”
“They can’t pronounce it. It has nothing to do with you.” With the safety of distance, he can be a little bolder.
“And this new girl? How does she have the cards?”
“Cerberus chose her. There’s really nothing I can do about it, especially a Guardian made by Clow himself.”
“Hm. Are they treating you well?”
He thinks of those jade green eyes. “The people in Japan are very nice, Ma.”
“I see.”
An awkward silence hangs between them.
“Baobei?”
“Mm?”
“Have you eaten yet?”
“Yes,” he lies, eyeing the sword he’s been practicing with all night.
“Never forget to eat, Baobei. You need your strength.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Ma.”
...
She’s shocked when he tells her he lives alone.
“Then you have to do all the laundry and cleaning and cooking all on your own?”
Okay, maybe it’s a little odd for a ten-year-old to live alone in an apartment, but it’s not like she doesn’t do housework either.
“Well… yeah.”
“That’s so cool!”
There’s not an ounce of sarcasm in her voice, which flusters him.
“But… don’t you get lonely?”
Lonely?
He’s never been asked that before. He thinks of the phone call with his mother the night previously, where she instructed him to keep an eye on “the new girl” and reminded him to dress warmly.
“Not really.”
“So cool!” the girl gushes.
It’s such a trivial thing, housework. Maybe she’ll praise anything, but she’s never commented on his shortcomings.
Before he can say anything, her stomach grumbles. It makes the corner of his lips twitch.
…
His hands are trembling as he tells his mother the news. No, he won’t be Master of the Clow.
Sakura is.
He has a million counterarguments backed up in his head—no, he didn’t just give up. (Okay, maybe he did.) Yue deigned it. He was not about to go against two Guardians of Clow’s own creation. Clow predicted this would happen, anyway.
But she doesn’t yell. She doesn’t scold.
“Good,” she sighs. “I’m glad you were able to help this Kinomoto girl achieve her birthright.”
“Her birthright?” Syaoran asks, half surprised and half amused.
“Aiyooh, if Clow wanted it, who are we to go against him? He ought to have left some hints, though!”
He almost laughs.
“You did your best, baobei. And you helped the new Master. For that I’m grateful.”
Syaoran doesn’t know what to say, but maybe no words need to be said.
“Now, this Kinomoto—you certainly talk about her a lot.”
“What are you saying, Ma?”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“MA!”
“Aiyah, don’t be like that, I’m your mother! You have to tell me everything!”
