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Published:
2022-06-19
Updated:
2022-09-04
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2,396
Chapters:
7/?
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Lost and Found

Summary:

What if Ming disappeared a week before her ceremony?

Read to find out.

Notes:

Hi!
Uh, sorry but tomorrow's updates will slow down (as if they weren't very slow already)

But on the bright side, look! A fic that I'll try to update every Sunday

If it hasn't got a new chapter I'm probably on a trip of some sort,

bye!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Moving

Chapter Text

Mei looked around the apartment, frowning a little, she turned to Ming. “Why did we have to move here? I liked New Jersey, it wasn’t so… preppy.”

 

“Mei-Mei, I explained this to you already, I have a new job and your dad is opening his restaurant here and besides, Toronto isn’t preppy, it’s fun,” her mother replied, picking up a box labelled mei’s pushies, “should I put this in your room?”

 

“Yeah… wait a minute! I haven’t seen my new room yet! Mom, wait up!” Mei rushed after her mother, right arm flailing about while a box was tucked under her left.

 

Ming disappeared behind a door, Mei following suit. 

 

“Woah, it’s massive. This is so cool,”

 

“So we agree that Toronto isn’t preppy?”

 

“No, we’ll see whether they have good sports teams and if they do, I’ll admit that I was wrong.”

 

“You’re a little rascal Mei-Mei,” she ruffled her hair a little, “you know that, right?”

 

Mei shrugged, “rascal is my middle name!”

 

“No it isn’t, your middle name is Rachel,” she chuckled a little.

 

Mei smiled at her, “Rascal, Rachel, you know how bad I am at english.”

 

“Last time I checked, you have pretty good grades in that class, anyway, I’m going to bring up the other boxes, you can stay here if you want,”

 

“Okay, bye~” when ming had left the room, mei sat on the mattress on her floor and opened the box, among the plushies, there were three boxes, each their own colour.

 

The pink one from Finn was slim and long, drawing Mei in instantly. Inside there were three shirts, each ranger rolled yet tidy looking, one had a large maple leaf printed on it, the next had the letters nj and the last had a yellow, pink and orange pocket, as well as sleeves and seams. There was a piece of paper poking out of the pocket, pulling it out she saw that it was a note, reading ‘warm colours 4 life!’ it had stars of all different colours on it, each warm and comforting, like one of his hugs.

 

A circular yellow box was next, it was shiny and had lemons printed on it. Having already guessed what it was, she opened it and lone behold There were twenty smore flavoured cookies, her favourite. Taking a bite into one, she turned it over, there was something chewy underneath. There it was, stuck on with marshmallow there was a note saying ‘don’t worry, this is wafer paper and edible ink,’ underneath there were crude drawings of a red soccer ball; an orange basketball; a yellow tennis ball; and a pink pair of boxing gloves. She smiled, knowing which one symbolised who, Arlo had made it rather obvious.

 

The final one was from Maeve, it was a flat, square and wrapped in orange wrapping paper,  ripping it apart, she saw it was a cd from her second favourite band, 4*town. Stuck on the corner, there was a label with messy handwriting reading ‘4*town’s ‘99 tour + the girl I love your jeans remix, and there is a nobody like you piece for you to play on your flute stuck to the back, I’ll miss you - Maeve,’ she was going to miss her friends so much, they were the backbone of her life in new jersey and now she was in toronto, without them, she felt lonely.

 

Falling back from where she sat, she opened her phone. There were a couple messages from Meave, a few short ones from Finn and a long one from Arlo that must’ve taken an hour for him to type out. Smiling, she sent them a text.

 

Toronto’s preppy Im bored

 

It took a matter of seconds for Meave to answer

 

Poor you

Nj’s sad without you

 

So we’re both suffering

 

No

Youre bored

Im sad

Different things

 

Yeah sure

 

Finn then sent a text

 

Gday ladies

 

Gday sharkboy

 

Nvm

Gday meave

 

Gday finn

 

You did not just ignore me

 

Was that the wind

 

I would hope so

 

You two are mean

Bye

 

Well done, you killed Mei

 

Mei closed her phone and set it on the floor, looking at her alarm clock, it was 7pm, probably time to eat. Entering the kitchen, she smiled, takeaway was a tradition every time they moved, and despite only having had moved twice, her mom remembered her favourite.

 

“Hey dad, what’re you naming the restaurant?”

 

Jin looked at her and smiled, “probably The Meilin,” Mei smiled at him, “are you excited for school?”

 

Mei rolled her eyes, “no, it’s probably gonna be boring,”

 

“Well you’re still going,”

 

Mei picked up the half-empty bag of prawn crackers and left for her room, stuffing one in her mouth in the process. She made a couple angry muffled noises.

 

Ming leaned onto Jin's shoulder and buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Did we make the right decision?”

 

Jin put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, “I don’t know, only time and the events that come with it will tell us whether we did.”

Chapter 2: Delusions

Notes:

for a bit of context, Lily is 15 and Ming disappeared when she was 16

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Wu scribbled something into a notebook and paused for a second before writing something else in much neater handwriting.

“What’re you writing?” Lily asked, leaning over Wu’s shoulder. Clearly startled, Wu shut the book and dropped her pen. Wu turned to Lily and gave her a look that clearly stated - never do that again.

Walking into the room Ping stopped to look at Wu’s notebook and pen, “mother, I’m pretty sure that there are several people who look like Ming and have access to orange-red hair dye,”

“No, this time I’m sure it was her,”

Lily looked at her mother and then her grandmother, “I’m not sure I follow and who on Earth is Ming?”

“Your grandmother keeps her own written records of each person in our family, they are organised by the picture on the cover and their age is shown through different shades of grey she uses to write with. Light grey might mean five years old, darker grey might mean fifty,”

“And red?”

“Red means that they have red hair,” ping answered rather simply.

Lily looked confused for a second before moving onto her final question, “okay… last of all, Ming, who is he?”

Ping gave her mother a melancholy glare, “Ming was a woman, who was smart, beautiful and obedient, sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances, she is likely dead,”

Wu looked enraged, “Ming is not dead, I swear I have seen her, she is alive, different but alive.”

“Then tell me, what did she look like, where did you see her and was anyone with her?” ping asked with a pitiful sigh.

Wu tensed, “I was at a cafe and she was sitting on the other side of it, I couldn’t stop staring at her, she looks so different yet the same. She has shoulder length red hair and was wearing a white shirt with the outline of a rose on it. And,” Wu hesitated for a second, “she was wearing a ring with a blue gem that looked like both a diamond and a sapphire,”

“Lily,”

Lily looked up at the ceiling, clearly trying to figure out the name of the gemstone, “I’m going to guess that it was a ceylon sapphire, they’re extremely expensive so I’m going to guess that she’s married. Either that or she’s got a really rich friend who didn’t realise that it is an engagement gem. Was she wearing any other jewellery?”

“A raw garnet on a necklace,”

Lily gave her mother a smug smile, as if to say ‘my knowledge of gemstones isn’t useless. Look, even grandma agrees,’ going back to being concentrated, she eventually mumbled something before coming to a conclusion, “was there a kid with her?”

“Yes, she was sat with Jin and a girl who looked twelve,”

Ping looked at her sadly, “mother, I’m sorry, but Ming would not have a child that age at 33, she would know better, if she were alive, which I can assure you, she is very likely not,” before Wu could say anything more, Ping walked out, angry and distraught.

Lily gave Wu an assuring glance, “I believe you, could you tell me more about her?”

Wu smiled, and there they sat for the next hour talking about the woman that Lily had never met, yet Wu knew so well.

Notes:

Ming is a gender neutral name but it comes up on nameberry as male so I thought it would be funny if Lily thought that she was a man

Chapter 3: school

Notes:

god I'm tired

I was on a trip Friday-Sunday and was tired and stressed af when I got back so I didn't finish the chapter.

well, here it now is!

for context - Ming works in a high school as a language teacher and Mei goes to a nearby middle school.

for the future: forgive my lack of knowledge on the Canadian schooling system, I'm British and hardly know the difference between high school and middle school

Chapter Text

“Hey, don’t seem so down just yet, it’s your first day, a chance to make some friends,”

Mei looked away and pulled her hood up, “you can say that because you’ve been to school here before here,”

Ming’s enthusiastic expression relaxed a little making space for a little uncertainty, “I didn’t go to this school, finish my education in Canada nor have I ever taught here, so count me as nervous as you are, if not more. I’ll be in room ten if you need me,”

Mei smiled a little, relieved that she wasn’t the only person who was nervous.

Ming looked up at the nearest clock, “you have twenty minutes to look around and get to your school, It’s across the road on the left, don’t be late,”

“Ok, see ya around ma!”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble-” but it was too late, Mei had already disappeared down the hallway.

Sighing, Ming turned around and walked to room ten and sat down at her new desk, dropping a pile of paper on it. As she did so, a girl who looked strikingly similar to Ping walked into the room and immediately tripped over an unfortunately placed bag. The girl quickly got up and rushed to her seat, looking mildly embarrassed.

The bell went, “hello class, I have a register so when I say your name, please respond in any language and put your hand up so I know who you are,” she had done this multiple times before, (apart from the occasional inappropriate greeting) it never failed and she usually heard few enough languages to include one that nobody had mentioned.

A few bland names and admittedly pathetic hellos in different languages later, Ming read out a name that she never thought she’d ever see. “Lily Lee,”

“你好” she mumbled in a rising tone.

“Well hello to you too,” Ming smiled.

Chapter 4: say anything

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Something told Lily that she shouldn’t be so excited, but she couldn’t help it. The woman that her grandmother described, Ming, fitted the description of her new teacher perfectly, and she was really pretty. She wanted to tell her mother that she was wrong, she wanted to tell wu that her aunt was alive. But something stopped her. It felt wrong to blow the woman’s cover after being gone so long. She obviously left for a reason, she should respect that. The look behind her eyes when she said hello was so scared. So Lily would say nothing about Ming. instead she’d find her daughter and befriend her because at the very least she’d know more people in her family.

Notes:

sorry this is so short, I'm tired.

Chapter 5: Si

Notes:

welp, this happened

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Mei knew her mother was panicking.

There were obvious signs.

If the fact that she had her hands over her head was the tattletale this time.

“Hello ma,” Ming lifted her head and let her hands fall from her hair, revealing two fluffy, red ears. Mei passed her a hat, “what caused it this time?”

Slipping it on Ming whispered in such a way that Mei could hardly hear, “I heard my old family name,”

“Oh, did it remind you about getting kicked out?”

“I still don’t understand why you think that happened,”

“You said that you stopped living in her house, sounds like getting kicked out to me,”

“No, that didn’t happen. Go home Mei, I’m going to finish my work.”

“Okay, I’m going,'' Mei turned and walked out, almost immediately bumping into a girl as soon as she left the school’s doors. She was rather short and had brown hair which almost seemed a little red at the roots.

“Oh, sorry about that,” the girl mumbled, glancing at Mei for a second she snapped to attention, “hey, wait a minute, you look like my languages teacher,”

“Oh, that makes sense, ma teaches languages, Mrs. Si, right?”

The girl nodded, “that’s her,” the girl paused for a second, contemplating what she was going to say next, “I’m Lily, nice to officially meet you,”

“Mei, see you around Lily,” Mei walked off smiling, maybe Toronto won’t be so bad.

Notes:

I chose Si as their last name because it means spirit, not because Ming is a languages teacher, I did not think that part through.

However, I have a Turning Red discord! Ask if you want to join.

Chapter 6: at this point

Notes:

short chapter because I forgot this fic existed.

Chapter Text

“Hello and welcome to our temple,” Wu watched Ping announce.

It was standard at this point, Ping and Lily would tour the temple and Wu would sit on the sidelines. She had to admit, it was peaceful to an extent but it left a bitter taste in her mouth when she was asked a question she knew Ming could answer.

It was normal at this point for Wu to walk past Ming’s old room and stop because it felt like walking on nails. She hated to admit that she would sometimes leave the window open so that if Ming came back, she would have a way in.

It felt painfully average at this point to look through the photo albums and see her family disappear after Ming did. She could flick through the pages to see Ming become absent, then Chen and soon Helen.

“I hope you come back soon!” Wu heard Ping call to the people leaving.

How annoyingly routine.

Chapter 7

Notes:

I'M BACK

Chapter Text

Ming wasn’t stupid, she could read and write in four languages and speak seven, and she could do algebra off the top of her head, so why, oh why did she feel so dumb?

Maybe she wasn’t as good at this as she thought she was, maybe it was that Lily looked at her and knew who she was or maybe…

It was that she’d become too comfortable already.

All it took was a note to remind her to be careful, a note from none other than Lily. No more than five words, it read ‘I know who you are.’ with it came a picture of her when she was younger, around eleven.

She’d taken more of a note of Lily since then, even keeping her back after class to tell her about the blessing of the family. As expected, Lily didn’t believe her, but still listened as she explained and eventually showed her.

Maybe it was ok to be comfortable.

But only if it was Lily.

Notes:

Fun fact, Jin said that when they first left home, when they arrived in new jersey and when they found out that Ming was pregnant. He even calls it his lucky phrase sometimes.