Fiction: Group 4
A Shadow's Dance
YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College, Harling, Ryan - 15, Fiction: Group 4
heng rounded a corner.
“Why is he always doing this?” Thought Tai “Why is going to the playground never as
straightforward as it sounds?”
Tai stood huddled against the wall, elevated on the doorstep of a shop to avoid the flood of people going by.
He seemed rather out of place as a young boy in school uniform without a maid or mother by his side on
the busy streets of Mongkok during the day. Although no one gave him a second glance, all the while
Zheng was gone he worried someone might ask him why he was there and not at school, for he wasn't too
sure himself.
Tai observed the familiar street, and the more he observed the more he disliked it. The people going by all
seemed to have faces made of porcelain, unchanging as if he was inspecting a conveyor belt. The shops all
sold the same meaningless overpriced wares as well. Not to mention that around here it smelt of sewers.
After ten minutes of increasing apprehension, heightened with the constant craze of activity surrounding
him, Tai caught sight of his face and almost sighed in relief. But as he approached with a quickened pace,
Tai noticed he seemed to have a very serious look on his face. Anxiety instinctively wriggled in his stomach.
Something was not right.
Zheng came, mumbled something, then carried on walking past Tai. Happy to finally leave that place but
annoyed yet again for the lack of explanation, Tai hurried on behind his brother. What on earth was going
on? This still wasn't even the right way to the playground.
Dodging the people that continually arrived not two inches in front of his face, Tai eventually caught up
with Zheng.
“Hey, what’s going on? And where are we going? You know this isn’t the way to the playground right?”
Tai realised he had asked too many questions and to confirm it, Zheng looked at him the way he does. Tai
then remained quiet but grieved over how he didn't take the opportunity to ask to stop for a snack. It was
past one and he hadn’t eaten still. The small amount of lunch money was somewhere on Zheng as well of
course.
Not long after realising they were heading back home, Tai stopped thinking. It was less confusing that way,
and he enjoyed the peace and quiet, even if it was only in his head. The door soon clanged harshly behind
Tai and he followed his brother up the shabby stairway, quickly checking the rusty mailbox as he hurried
by, in case there was somehow news of absence from the school. There was none however, so he kept on
climbing, up, up, up to the seventh floor. The familiar musky odour that played on the two’s senses always
caused a sudden slump in their energy, as if once they were above the street, nothing could trespass through
the ancient doors of home.
Zheng didn't have to knock; his mother wouldn't be home until much later, and it wasn’t very likely his
father would be back anytime soon. He unlocked the door with a loud clack and pushed it on its peeling
frame to reveal the tiny interior, which somehow, perhaps miraculously, housed three people.
Together they automatically, almost simultaneously, stripped off their bags and collapsed onto the black,
plastic sofa in one fluid motion. Tai then turned his head to finally ask what had happened back then, but
Zheng was busy handling his wallet. He looked at Tai with piercing eyes and showed him the contents.
One or two thousand dollars in hundreds stood out in startling contrast to the dilapidated furnishing of the
house. It was more money than Tai could ever remember seeing in this place. He gulped nervously.
“Zheng… where did you get this money from?”
His eyes continued drilling through the resistance of Tai’s, searching intently for opinion.
He breathed in deeply. “I pick pocketed a phone and pawned it on Fa Yuen Street.”
Tai sat there stunned, the words creating a vacuum, a black hole in his head, violently sucking out all
thoughts and feelings.
Leaning in he pressed “Tai, What do you think?”
But words would not come, “And those eyes,” he thought, “inspecting me like I’m just some object of
interest. Why did he even bring me out today, does he think he possesses me? Did he think I’d want him to
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