Chapter Text
It started with a bang.
Jiang Yanli was a painting at the time, trying to distract herself from the storm still howling outside, and the cold it sent into her fingers, right down to the bones. It had been raging for three days now, non-stop, and she couldn’t wait for it to be over. Her brothers had gone stir-crazy by the end of day one, and by now so had she – not to mention the fact that is seemed to get colder by the day. Their house was built for the warmth of Yunmeng summers, not for the unusually bitter weather that had come down from the north, so it was already a little tricky to keep warm, and the sight of the snow swirling violently outside was enough to make her shiver. She didn’t want to complain, or to ask her father to turn the heating up. He and her brothers were fine, and Yanli knew that she had always felt the cold more than most. Certainly more than her brothers – who she presumed where the cause of the bang.
She paused, brush hovering off of the paper for a moment as she listened, and then –
Thud –
“Ow! Get off me!”
Oh dear.
Yanli stood up, hurrying out of the room and towards her brothers’. It wasn’t unusual to hear thuds and bangs from their playing, but A-Cheng sounded genuinely furious, and that was never a good sign.
She pushed open the door in time to see A-Xian land a heavy punch on A-Cheng’s shoulder, alarmingly close to his face, and in retaliation A-Cheng kicked him in the shins repeatedly, shrieking as he did.
“I hate you! I hate you, I hate you!”
“Hey!” she cried, and immediately the boys froze, turning to look at her. There were tears streaking down A-Xian’s red and puffy cheeks, and A-Cheng’s lip was quivering with anger and distress, even as his own eyes shone. “What is going on?”
“I hate him!” A-Cheng howled, and A-Xian clenched his fists, glaring furiously at him. “I hate him, I hate – he wouldn’t, wouldn’t s-stop teasing me and wouldn’t give my dinosaur back and – and then he hit me, and-”
“You hit me first!” A-Xian blurted out, and A-Cheng’s eyes flared wide.
“I did not!”
“You did! I dodged but you tried to!”
“I didn’t touch you!” A-Cheng cried, outraged.
“You did this!” A-Xian drew back his fist violently as though preparing to punch, holding it there for a second, and A-Cheng held out his hands as though this had proved his point.
“Yeah, I didn’t hit you!” he protested, and A-Xian let out a strangled laugh. “I didn’t even jab!”
“A-Cheng,” Yanli began sternly, but before she could continue with ‘A-Xian,’ A-Cheng gave a wounded cry.
“It’s not my fault! It’s not, it’s not, I-” he looked back at A-Xian, his face red and furious and distraught all at once, “I hate you! You can’t just t-take my dogs and my jiejie and my A-Die and – and you can’t! I wish that I could get my puppies back and make them chase you away and-”
“Jiang Cheng!” Yanli snapped, but before she’d even finished his name, her youngest brother had frozen.
Because A-Xian had flinched back, all anger on his face replaced in an instant by terror and grief so strong that even A-Cheng could see it through whatever haze of anger was clouding his eyes. Both boys went pale, and A-Xian began to tremble, and then his chest shook with a sob.
“W-what – why are… why are you…” A-Cheng began, clearly perturbed, and A-Xian stumbled back, but Yanli darted forward and caught his wrist before he could run.
He sobbed again, trying to pull away, but then he changed his mind, flinging himself at Yanli and burying his face in her chest, crying so hard her whole body shook.
“Why is – what’s – I don’t,” A-Cheng’s voice grew higher by the moment, confused and alarmed and still a little angry, and distantly, she wondered if he had ever seen A-Xian so upset before – he hadn’t found them until after the tree incident, after all – but he wasn’t the priority right now.
“Wait, A-Cheng,” she said, fixing him with a stare before turning her attention to A-Xian, stroking his hair and rubbing his back. “It’s okay, Xianxian. It’s okay. Jiejie’s here, you’re safe here. It’s okay.”
“I – I – I –” A-Xian hiccupped, and she hummed gently.
“It’s okay, just take a deep breath,” she said, as calmly as she could. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”
“Please,” he whimpered, clutching tighter. “Please, please Jiejie, please –”
“There are no dogs here,” she promised, hugging him close. “No dogs. It’s okay. Can you take a deep breath for me? That’s it! Good job. You’re so good, A-Xian…”
But A-Xian keened, shaking his head, and Yanli’s heart broke.
“Yes you are,” she said, hugging him close. “My Xianxian is very good. Sometimes he does things that are naughty, like fighting with his brother. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t good.”
A-Xian sobbed, terror still clear in his voice. He was still trembling violently, and even as he peeked out at A-Cheng he clung tightly to Yanli.
“P-please,” he whimpered, “p-please don’t, don’t g-get the d-dogs, please, I w-won’t be naughty anymore, I won’t, I won’t touch your toys or t-tease you or-”
“We don’t have dogs anymore,” Yanli reminded him firmly. “There are no dogs, Xianxian. You’re safe here, remember? You’re safe here with Jiejie.” A-Xian shuddered, and anger rumbled through Yanli’s stomach. She looked sharply at Jiang Cheng, doing her very best to keep her voice even. “I told you not to bring up dogs with A-Xian. Why would you say something like that?”
Shame flickered across A-Cheng’s face, but so did confusion furrowing his brow, and his eyes filled with tears again.
“I… I didn’t mean it,” he said, in a small, miserable voice. “I don’t… I’m just… just angry, I –”
“But you know that –” Yanli stopped herself, an uncomfortable thought coming over her like cold water down her spine. She’d been so certain that A-Die must have spoken through why they had to rehome the dogs with A-Cheng, but he looked so confused and surprised by A-Xian’s reaction, and she couldn’t help but ask, “A-Cheng, do you know why we had to give your puppies away?”
A-Cheng’s lower lip wobbled slightly, and he hugged his arms around himself. “Because he doesn’t like them.”
And suddenly, Yanli understood. Because A-Cheng had adored those puppies, even more than she had – to him, they had been an immovable part of his family, and his closest friends, and if he thought that A-Die had sent them away and Yanli had told him not to talk about them just because A-Xian didn’t like them… Of course that would seem achingly unfair. And it would explain why he was so upset at the idea of Yanli taking A-Xian’s side, even though she hadn’t been going to – if he thought A-Xian could take his things on a whim…
And A-Xian didn’t understand how much A-Cheng had loved his puppies, and he didn’t understand that by cocking back his fist A-Cheng hadn’t actually meant to hit him, only to warn him.
They were just wound up, and misunderstanding each other, and Yanli didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She was barely twelve years old, and this felt like something a grow-up should be untangling, but her mother was stuck in Meishan (not to mention the last person Yanli would want to intervene here) and their father was more likely to ruffle the boys’ hair and tell them to work it out themselves.
She might not be old enough or smart enough for this, but she was all her brothers had, so she would do her best.
“A-Cheng,” she said, making her voice gentler. “That isn’t it at all. It’s not because he doesn’t like them – A-Xian is scared of dogs. So scared that they make him feel sick, and it’s because before he came to stay with us, he was attacked by bad dogs. More than once. They hurt him very badly, A-Cheng.”
A-Cheng’s eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them, and then all of a sudden his brow furrowed into fury. “They hurt you?!”
Peeking out again, A-Xian gave a little nod, and A-Cheng let out a short cry of rage.
“They’re not allowed to hurt you!” he said furiously, looking conflicted. “But my, my puppies wouldn’t-”
“I know your puppies wouldn’t have hurt anyone,” said Yanli soothingly. “But it’s not A-Xian’s fault that he’s so scared, and it wouldn’t be fair to make him live somewhere and be so scared all of the time.”
“It’s the bad dog’s fault,” said A-Cheng mutinously. “And their owners… If I ever see them I’m gonna…”
“No!” A-Xian said quickly, looking out. “They might bite you, too. They’re, they’re really big…”
“Neither of you are going to see the bad dogs again,” Yanli insisted. “And Xianxian, Jiejie will help keep all dogs away from you from now on, okay? You don’t need to be scared.”
“I, I will too!” A-Cheng insisted angrily, “no one’s allowed to hurt you.”
A-Xian swallowed, peeping out at A-Cheng again, and then looking up at Yanli, who nodded, stroking his hair. “He’s right. No one is allowed to hurt you.” She paused, glancing between the two of them. “But that includes you, A-Cheng, and you’re not allowed to hurt him, either, A-Xian. You can’t fight like that – you could really hurt each other. A-Cheng, you can’t say horrible things just because you’re angry, and A-Xian, you need to learn when to stop teasing A-Cheng. If he’s getting actually upset it’s not funny anymore, and you need to stop. A-Cheng, you shouldn’t have cocked your fist, but A-Xian, you shouldn’t have hit him when he hadn’t touched you. Neither of you should have been hitting.”
The boys both hung their heads, and then A-Cheng asked worriedly, “Are you going to call A-Niang?”
Yanli shook her head, trying to pretend that A-Xian hadn’t just flinched against her. “But I’m disappointed in you both. You’re supposed to be brothers.”
They hung their heads once more, but then A-Xian peeked out at A-Cheng. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “for taking your dinosaur and teasing you. And hitting you.”
Jiang Cheng’s lips twisted, and then he sighed. “I’m sorry for pretending to hit you and then for kicking you and saying bad words and being mean about dogs.”
“That’s okay,” A-Xian said at once, sniffing again. Yanli passed both boys a handkerchief each, gazing down at them. It was undoubtedly more vicious a fight than the boys had ever had before, but usually when they got worked up they could run around or wrestle outside, or at the very least get space from each other. Inside, though, they shared a bedroom, and A-Niang had strictly forbidden all running around and horseplay in the house.
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I think we need to get some of this energy out of you both.”
“Yu-furen said if she found out we’d been running around in the house we’d be in big trouble,” A-Xian said worriedly.
“I’m not talking about running around,” she said, more confidently than she felt, bringing the boys back into her room. She went over to the cabinet and pulled down a box, nodding at the rug on the carpet. “This is Monopoly…”
A-Xian sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “How do you play?”
“I’ll teach you,” she said, setting up the board and slipping the little silver dog icon into her pocket, just in case. “What do you want to be?”
As it turned out, it was one of the best ideas Yanli had ever had. For the next four hours they played on the rug, with both boys pouring their competitiveness into the game, and Yanli laughed more than she had in days. It wasn’t until their father put his head into the room to tell them it was time for dinner that they paused, and as soon as the dishes were done A-Cheng and A-Xian raced each other back into Yanli’s room to carry on the game. It was nearly ten o’clock by the time they were done, and both boys were yawning as they congratulated Yanli on her win.
“Jus’ you wait, Jiejie,” A-Xian yawned. “I’ll beat you next time.”
“I’m sure you will, Xianxian,” she said warmly, hugging him. “Go and clean your teeth now.”
Nodding dutifully, he shuffled out of the room, and A-Cheng glanced at her. At once, Yanli reached out to pull him into a cuddle. A-Cheng clung to her, hugging tight, and then he mumbled something into her shirt that she couldn’t catch.
“What was that?” she murmured, and he glanced up at her, eyes sorrowful.
“I didn’t mean it,” he mumbled. “When I, when I said I hated him, I didn’t mean it.”
“I know that,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “But I’m not the one you need to tell.” He pulled a face, glancing away, but she made her voice firmer. “Otherwise, he’ll believe you do mean it.”
“…can you tell him?”
Yanli laughed slightly, ruffling his hair. “No, I can’t. It isn’t the same coming from me.” A-Cheng sighed, but he also nodded, and she kissed his cheek. “He isn’t taking anything else away from you, A-Cheng. No one can take your Jiejie away. You’re my didi, and you always will be, okay?”
He gave a small, trembling smile, as though he didn’t quite believe it but he nodded anyway. “Okay.” He paused, and then said, “it was fun, playing Monopoly. Can we play again?”
“Of course,” she said, “we can play every day until the storm ends, if you want.”
“And after the storm?” he added hopefully, and she grinned, nuzzling his nose.
“Of course! I have other games, too. Maybe we can play one every week?”
“Yeah!” A-Cheng said excitedly. “Maybe, maybe A-Die and A-Niang can join in?”
“We’ll ask them,” Yanli promised, and A-Cheng beamed.
“I’m gonna tell A-Xian,” he said excitedly, and she smiled, with absolutely no idea of what she had begun.