Hetalia Deaths

Wang Yao (China)

Now, we hear the story of Wang Yao, a child laborer in a restaurant in Shanghai who died in a structural fire, which explains his uncannily delicious cooking.
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When Yao was seven years old, his father hit him for the first time. It wasn't as though he was surprised, his parents fought constantly and he knew that their violence would eventually turn on him, but it didn't stop tears from welling up in his eyes. He remembered clutching his cheek, where small pinpoint blossoms of blood began to erupt under his skin. At first, he thought he saw a passing look of guilt over his father's face, but then the alcohol took over again.

His mother had simply sat and stared.

When Yao was seven years old, he left his house one day and began the grueling thirteen-hour days at a small restaurant near the center of Shanghai. It was his choice; anything to get him out of the house. His parents did not care what happened to him, only that he gave them every Renimnbi he earned for booze and who knows what else. But he was all right with that. He always managed to sneak away a couple of Renminbi anyway. He hid them under the shelf in his closet in a little box from when times were happy.

October tenth had been a normal day for Yao. He left at the crack of dawn, before his parents' shouting matches started, and began to make his way though the heavy city air to the restaurant. The place was relatively simple on the outside. It glowed with a warm yellow light, with peeling paint and slightly rotting wooden trim on the outside. The scent of fish, not terribly clean burners and cooking oil made its way into the street this early in the morning. As the day progressed, the smell got better as the actual food started cooking.

When Yao walked in, he was met with a familiar sight. The owner of the restaurant, a short and rather rotund man named Cheung, was having a quiet argument on the phone, probably with his wife, who had never been happy in their marriage. This world was filled with unhappy people.

Cheung's name was entirely ironic. The man was perhaps the unluckiest alive. When he was a child, he was nearly run over by a car three times, he almost died from some rare illness that has yet to have a name, his brothers all became successful bankers and he... well, he owned a low quality restaurant in the red light district. His wife was barren, he lost checks like the normal people lost pens and buttons always mysteriously popped off of his shirts. What sort of bad luck would it be today? Yesterday, it was the fact that their supplier had lost every single chicken foot that they had ordered for the week.

About ten feet from him sat Cheung's neighbor, an elderly women by the name of Wang Xiu Ying. She jokingly claimed that she was only forty, but she was most likely a ways into her seventies. She filled her name well, for she was one of the most brave and elegant people Yao had ever had the pleasure of meeting. The woman was a walking history book. She lived through World War II and had managed to get past the tragic loss of her son in his teens. Why she hung around here of all places, Yao had no idea.

"You there, brat, get to work!" Cheung snapped at him as he walked past.

"Yes." He responded, dipping his head in submission.

Yao made his way back to the kitchens. When he had first come here, desperate for any sort of employment, Cheung was kind enough to let him wash dishes all day for five Renminbi. It wasn't a great wage, but he didn't mind. As long as he was away from home. And the people were nice enough. The cook was a quiet, but considerate older man from a remote village deep in the southern countryside. The other hands were mostly from other poor families in the inner city, like Yao. However, no other children worked there.

His day started out as it typically did; he polished the platters and silverware that would be set out on tables when the customers came in, he made sure that all of the dishes that he had washed yesterday were free of particles of food and then he cleaned the glasses again. He went on with all of this for about two hours until there wasn't a speck of anything on any tableware. Although he may have been a child, Yao was quite good at what he did.