This is the eleventh part of an ongoing serial, written in honor of the Swords of St. Valentine initiative. Here are Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten. Updates every day.
She couldn’t tell him. Of course she couldn’t. She’d harbored the notion for a whole year, but never actually told him.
“My own father,” said Xu Hai. “What a joke, don’t you think?”
It was the False New Year, so-titled because everyone knew that the real New Year started during the Spring Festival. The False New Year came from some old, forgotten country somewhere in the West, but seeing as it was convenient and some people in the world did still use it, no-one had actually bothered to stop observing it. It was a marker of sorts.
“I mean,” said Li Wei, staring at his holophone, “why not? Just find some sponsors and enter the Trial. You have your father’s name behind you, and besides, you said he probably wouldn’t stop you.”
“You know I can’t do that,” said Xu Hai. “He’ll find a way to stop me. Sue me for trademark infringement, or claim child labor laws, or something stupid and petty like that.”
Li Wei shrugged, tapping away. She leaned over, brushing dangerously close to his shoulder.
“That is a worryingly small number,” she noted.
“Hey,” said Li Wei. “Hands off.”
“I’m not touching,” she chirped, blinking, with a deliberately coy finger on her lips.
It didn’t work. He scowled at her, rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, then sighed.
“It’s been almost a year since we met, Xu Hai, and I haven’t fought since. It’s a miracle I still have any funds left at all.”
“Oh, boo-hoo,” said Xu Hai, a touch of prim acid in her tone. “The reigning champ doesn’t want to win anymore. I wish I had your problem.”
“No, you don’t,” said Li Wei. “You really don’t. It’s not all fame and fortune.”
“Your fans seem to think otherwise,” said Xu Hai. “Do you know there’s an entire sub-forum just for you?”
She stared at him, waiting for his response. The fountain bubbled quietly behind them. The green bench seemed, all of a sudden, hard and unyielding.
“Hey,” she said, more softly. “Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?” said Li Wei, with a small snarl of irritation.
“Like… like that!” she burst out. “You’ve been so stand-offish ever since the Winter Festival, and I don’t like it! There’s a new batch of challengers rising through the ranks, just waiting to get their claws on you! If you don’t show this round, then…”
“Alright,” said Li Wei casually, dropping his hand and staring off into the park. “You go, then.”
The way he said it made it feel like a punch in the throat. She stood, fists clenched, swallowing.
“You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that?”
Before he could say a word, she was gone, stalking off along the paving-stones like an orphaned tiger.
It’s better this way, said the voice in his head. This way, you won’t have to use her anymore.
That was all he was doing in the end, wasn’t it? Using her. She was just like all the other girls. A way to fill himself up, to pretend like he had something to do, something to occupy himself between fights. Some way to live.
Li Wei laughed. His voice warbled in the fountain’s song, almost drying it out.
“The truth is, Xu Hai,” he said to the air, “fighting is the only thing I’m good at. My parents didn’t even want me. They tested my IQ, see, found that I’d never be an engineer or a lawyer. Not with the standards they have now. But here I am, punching for a paycheck, making more than…”
He couldn’t do it anymore. He hated having all this money, all these possessions. What good was having when it didn’t soothe your soul?
“You don’t want what I have, you idiot. It’ll suck you dry.”
He’d been like her, once. A child with dreams of glory, staring at a knockoff holopod with a fight playing…
But hadn’t the fighter been her father?
Hadn’t she grown up with all of this?
Didn’t she know, intimately, what all of this meant?
“It is not just a few moves! It’s two thousand years of history!”
He stood, jaw slack, staring frantically at the trees she’d stomped through.
“Oh, Heaven, Xu Hai, I’m so sorry. Please don’t…”
But she was gone.
No matter how much he called or messaged her from then on, she refused to respond.