12 Inks

Rummaging through his pockets, Xiao Ying miraculously found a ballpoint pen in his trousers. There wasn't much ink in it, less than half remaining that would on a regular school schedule, last him a few weeks - the lid of the pen missing as well.

He looked down onto the desk that the computer was laid upon and began trying to scratch some kind of lettering into it, in the far left corner. The ink didn't stick immediately, only managing to fill the little, narrow dent with the blackness after a little while.

Lee tried to write another character, deciding that Ming Cheng's name would be a good place to start with. The more he wrote in the corner of the desk, the more the ink flowed, writing becoming easier and easier.

Xiao Ying pulled the computer screen around to shine down onto that corner, sitting on the desk, resting his feet on his chair to sit and write easier.

When he was done writing that name, he began plotting out the map of the palace. He listened to the babble that was happening to Ming Cheng.

He was being led by Lan Chang back to the kitchens where he would be working on more lentil themed dishes for the prince.

Today was going to be the day that little Ming Cheng was going to meet his bullies.

The battle which the prince had fought had actually ended early The battle plans that he had submitted called for a celebration to be planned in two days, with the victory that he had brought being so miraculously decisive, that the campaign at the mountain range ended early.

It was the in-universe explanation that Xiao Ying had given for the belayed introduction of the bullies of the cheap arc that he was setting up to show how difficult life at the palace was. The day before, when Xiao Ying had arrived, was the calm before the storm, where all the preparation was being done for the vast multitude of dishes that were going to be cooked for the return feast to celebrate the Battle of the Bridges. None of the servants children were needed yet to help, so they had simply stayed at home playing the day before.

Xiao Ying, now grown up, could honestly, definitively point to that arc that had sent any and all budding readers away. It was a tried and tested arc that he just didn't have the skills to write well enough for and looked exactly the same as a billion others. It didn't really fit in with the whole premise and setting either, and was pretty cheap for the epic tale of rags to riches that he was attempting to write out.

Bullying, Xiao Ying decided, was an issue that almost demanded to be handled well, and if it wasn't, it was best to not be handled at all. Anything that dealt with human pain demanded that, otherwise it would simply cheapen the issue and anger all those affected by it, and anyone with enough time to put out an angry Tweet.

If given the choice, Xiao Ying would honestly just cut it all out and spare Ming Cheng the pain of finally meeting children his own age, who he had a somewhat reasonable chance of making friends with, and then being harshly rejected by them.

There was a chance here that Ming Cheng could make friends here, and there was a... slight chance that it would work, considering all the Shounen tropes that Xiao Ying had put in, particularly in the more heavy handed action sequences where Ming Cheng met an enemy prince and they beat the shit out of each other to gain each other's respect and approval.

At the time of writing that scene, Xiao Ying had felt absolutely enamoured with Seinen shows, binging Berserk without properly realising that he was still a small child with juvenile opinions and believing that Seinen was simply extremely bad things happening all the time without rhyme or reason of why. The complexity of Griffith's character had flown over his head higher than a plane.

Xiao Ying had, instead, an enemy prince, after playing generic rival #9001, then lead a coup to overthrow his father in a tale so freaking cool that Xiao Ying didn't actually write it down.

He managed to compress the entire process of committing both fratricide and regicide in one swift blow to become king into a footnote, keeping it an offhand comment in one letter that Ming Cheng had received from the befriended prince in a request for support in his new empire.

It was, for Xiao Ying anyway, an astounding piece of characterisation where enemy prince had shown both his intelligence and cockiness by playing Ming Cheng like a fiddle, first convincing the young, newly crowned prince that they were friends, then offhandedly asking for help in this new position that he had just totally found himself in for no reason at all, just as if the Gods had ordained it by some miraculous prophesy and help what am I supposed to do?

Enemy prince came off looking both ruthless and competent by complete accident, entirely fuelled by Xiao Ying's ignorance of what he had seen in anime that he was too young to watch.

It was embarrassing and Xiao Ying had to be thankful that nobody read it.

He really was beginning to understand why a deity would be holding a grudge against him for his writing.

He was a shit writer.

You couldn't say anything else about it.

It was shit.

Ming Cheng, now with presumably his own mind and common sense, would severely fuck up the plot in general.

Xiao Ying dimly wondered whether it would even be worth it to take notes with the pen that he had just found.

He suddenly froze.

A pen.

Xiao Ying didn't carry around pens though, outside his pencil case for school.

He had no reason to be carrying the pen around with him.

He only needed to carry his wallet and apartment keys in his pocket.

He could believe the fact that he had dropped his shopping when he was hit by that asshole car. But the things that he had been actually carrying had vanished, replacing with it all with a crap pen instead.

He curled up, sitting on the table, outside the light.