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The ball reaches the net. She is already soaring in midair. It spins—she sees each revolution, sharp as a hawk—and her hand slams down. The ball slices through the air onto the court, a sword straight through the enemy’s heart. Thud.
There is silence.
Then a whistle, then a cheer, then twenty girls swarming her in loud, sweaty triumph: Mulan Fa has done it again.
“That was epic!” Merida yells, jostling her shoulder so hard it hurts. Mulan winces, catching her breath. Around her, the world comes slowly back into focus.
“Thanks,” she manages to pant, grinning. This makes it the third year in a row that the girl’s volleyball team has won gold. She shuts her eyes, letting the noise wash over her. Her hand is sore. It feels good.
“Hey, wait,” someone mutters from behind her, oddly quiet amidst the clamour, “isn’t that Jasmine Agrabah? Over there, in the stands?”
Mulan isn’t quite sure what makes her do it, but she turns her head, looking past teammates and stretches of shiny flooring over to the small crowd of spectators. She finds her almost instantly: a small figure standing just out of the light, gold earrings glinting like stars in a gym full of sweaty teenagers. They lock eyes. Jasmine’s gaze is heavy, her irises pitch-black, her eyelids rimmed with perfect lines of kohl. Mulan gulps.
And then she turns around and strides out, braid swishing behind her like a pendulum. Mulan stares dumbly after her, disoriented.
“The hell are you gawking at?” Merida’s voice is thunderously cheerful, hauling her all of a sudden back to the present. “We just won! Let’s fucking celebrate!”
Mulan smiles. “Can’t argue with that,” she says, and Jasmine’s eyes fade right back out of her head. They end the day with a slapdash medal ceremony, shameless crowing on the bus home, and some barely illegal underage drinking. It is a while before she thinks of Jasmine Agrabah again.
Mulan is not good at maths, no matter how badly her family wants her to be. Still, she is a good daughter and thus by extension a good student, so she spends her Wednesday afternoons glaring at equations in the library until they start to make sense.
Today, Mulan has been stuck on the same problem for half an hour; symbols swim before her eyes like whirlpools, sucking her brain dry. She doesn’t notice Jasmine approaching until she’s close enough for Mulan to feel her breath when she speaks.
“You’re supposed to be using the sine rule, not the cosine rule,” a voice says softly from beside her ear, sounding amused.
Mulan startles, dropping her pen on the table with a dull thwack. “Shit,” she curses, before she can help it. She turns—Jasmine’s face is startlingly close, red lips quirked up in a half-smile.
“Sorry, did I scare you?” Jasmine asks, smile widening. Mulan finds her eyes drawn to it against her will, then blinks and looks up.
“Yeah, a little,” she admits. “Thanks for the tip, though.” She pauses, frowning. “Wait, um, actually—what are you talking about?”
Jasmine laughs, a quiet puff of a sound. “Not so hot at trig, huh?” she says. It would sound mean coming from anyone else, but there is something both gentle and playful about Jasmine’s voice that makes it somehow charming instead.
“Not really, no,” Mulan says. There is an odd kind of pressure to the way Jasmine looks at her that makes her feel like she’s constantly on the verge of stuttering, or blushing, or otherwise doing something she isn’t supposed to. “Um,” she continues, weirdly hesitant, “you think you could maybe explain it to me in a bit more detail?”
Jasmine grins. “Of course.”
The explanation that Jasmine proceeds to give her is perhaps the best that Mulan has ever received. Jasmine speaks like she has knowledge flowing straight from her brain to her mouth, pre-organized into neat, perfect pieces for Mulan to take in. There is a grace to the way she speaks that’s somehow even more impressive than the way she moves. The first few seconds after she finishes, Mulan just stares in awe.
“I had no idea you were so good at this,” she says with feeling.
“What, my reputation precedes me?” Jasmine says wryly. Mulan blinks, surprised, but Jasmine doesn’t give her the chance to respond. “Well, I had no idea there was anything you were bad at to begin with.”
Mulan laughs. “I’m bad at plenty of things. What on earth gave you that impression?”
Jasmine shrugs. “You’re captain of the girl’s volleyball team, swimming team, cross country team, and football team, I’m pretty sure you’re more or less a straight-A student, and you still manage to put enough effort into your appearance to look like that—”
“Okay, maybe that’s going a little far,” Mulan interrupts, cheeks growing hot. She feels uncomfortably like she’s being teased. “No, but really, you know your stuff. Is this like, something you want to do in the future, or…?”
Something in Jasmine’s effortlessly cool demeanor seems to falter, just for a moment; she ducks her head, face hidden behind locks of inky hair. Then she looks back up, seemingly unfazed. “There are a lot of things I’d like to do in the future,” she says simply. Mulan meets her eyes—she isn’t smiling.
“Well,” Mulan manages to respond, “thank you very much for helping me.”
Jasmine’s expression smooths out, playful once more. “It was my pleasure,” she hums, some kind of suggestion in her voice that Mulan can’t quite place. “I’ve seen you on court a couple of times, after all. I was interested to know what could be troubling someone so impressive.”
“Uh, right.” An image flashes through Mulan’s head, of Jasmine’s eyes burning through her in the middle of a volleyball court. “I remember seeing you there once, I think.”
“Good,” is all Jasmine says before she smiles one last time, stands with a flourish, and takes her leave. Once again, Mulan finds herself staring stupidly at her retreating back, unsettled. Jasmine comes and goes like a storm, if storms were sly and pretty and much more confusing.
“Oh, uh, bye!” she remembers to call, just as Jasmine turns the corner. The last thing she sees is a slim, elegant hand lifted in farewell, waving twice before it disappears.
“Guess what, girls,” Aurora says by way of greeting, placing her lunch tray on the table like an announcement. Mulan raises an eyebrow. She’s sitting in the cafeteria with Belle and Tiana—not exactly the ideal audience for a gossipmonger, but Aurora’s never seemed to let that stop her.
“What,” Tiana says, rolling her eyes. “You didn’t sleep through all your classes for once?”
Aurora sniffs. “That’s not important. This is some real tea, Tiana. Come on—Belle, Mulan? Aren’t you curious?”
Belle gives her a wry smile. “Sure, go on. Get it out of your system.”
It’s like a light flips on in Aurora’s head. She sits down, scoots in, and leans forwards like a predator, a wickedly conspiratory gleam in her eye. Mulan really doesn’t understand how anyone still thinks she’s all pure and kind and ladylike.
“Well,” Aurora begins, drawing out the suspense for as long as she can, “I heard that Jasmine Agrabah—yes, that Jasmine Agrabah, daughter of the business magnate, richest girl in town, comes to school in a limo, super hot—”
“We know, Aurora. There’s only one Jasmine Agrabah,” Mulan interrupts, exasperated. A little impatient, too; the thought of Jasmine tugs at her mind against her will.
“Let me have my moment,” Aurora huffs, crossing her arms. “Anyway, get this—I heard she’s getting married. Arranged, duh.”
Something in Mulan’s stomach twists.
Tiana whistles. “Whew, that is pretty crazy.”
“Yeah, wow,” Belle says. Her eyebrows draw together in a worried line. “You think she’s doing alright? I don’t know her well enough to ask. I don’t know if anyone does, actually.”
“Lone wolf,” Tiana says, shrugging. “Rich kid, too. You know how it is.”
Mulan thinks of Jasmine’s smile in the library, and the way her eyes shone when she spoke. She thinks of her easy grace, her black gaze across a volleyball court, that split-second of vulnerability. It isn’t much, but. But.
“Well, shit,” is all she ends up saying. “I hope she’s doing okay. Or maybe it’s just a rumour?”
Aurora hums, noncommittal. “Maybe.”
They move on to talking about rude guests at Tiana’s restaurant, Belle’s dad’s freaky job, Aurora’s aunts’ latest shenanigans, and Mulan’s weird red iguana. Jasmine comes up again, inevitably—it’s the kind of rumour you can kick about for a long time. Mulan isn’t sure if she’s relieved or disappointed; one part of her wants to get straight to the bottom of the conversation, and the other wants to ignore it entirely. Mostly she wishes she didn’t feel much about it at all.
“You’re awfully quiet today, Mulan,” Aurora teases. Mulan looks up from her lasagne, snapping back to reality. “Worried about Jasmine? Got a crush, maybe?”
Mulan flushes, too much too quick. “I told you, I’m not gay,” she snaps, then hates herself for it.
Aurora raises her eyebrows. “I was just joking,” she says, exchanging a glance with Belle and Tiana that makes Mulan hate herself even more.
Sorry, she wants to say, but she can’t quite manage that either. It’s awkward for a few minutes before they go back to normal, as if nothing happened. And maybe nothing did—but Mulan still feels the burn of shame in her neck, the prickle of vulnerability all over her body.
It is not a while before she thinks of Jasmine Agrabah again, but she can always pretend.
It is six PM on a Friday. Pale yellows and oranges fan out from the corners of the sky, and a cool, fresh breeze blows gently past the entrance gateway. Mulan is just walking out—unshowered, still in her football kit, sweating like a pig from the extra laps Shang made her do—when she sees them.
“I’m not your fucking dog,” Jasmine is snarling at a tall, gaunt man by a limousine, the words cracking out of her sharp as a whip. Her eyes are blazing with anger, her fists clenched so tightly that her fingers are a stark, bloodless white. Mulan freezes, breath catching in her throat.
The man arches a thin, angular eyebrow. “Tell that to your father, then,” he replies, his voice like oil. Mulan hears it and feels an instant surge of mistrust, repulsion, and a little bit of fear.
“I don’t need my father’s permission to do what I fucking want!”
“Oh?” The man’s voice goes dangerously low, his mouth twisting into a sour, derisive curve one might call a smile. “Must I really remind you that you are still a child, Miss Agrabah? You are not an adult. You are a little girl. And as far as I am concerned—as far as your father is concerned—that means that you do as you are told.” He tilts his head, mouth twisting further. “Perhaps even, one might say, like a dog.”
Jasmine bites her lip, saying nothing, but the force of her glare is like a thousand daggers. The man remains still, the tension in the air swelling to something thick and horrible. Mulan’s heart is hammering—she has the acute, nauseating instinct that something terrible is about to happen.
Mulan’s father always told her to stand up for what is right; to never be afraid to fight back; to do the honourable thing, even if it meant overcoming trembling legs and a heart beating like a hummingbird.
“Hey, Jasmine!” she calls into the silence, voice cracking a little. Both of their eyes snap towards her. Suddenly the tension feels even heavier. “Um, I forgot to tell you earlier, but Mr Weselton wanted to see you,” she forges on anyways, smile tight and strained. “He says it’s important. He’s still in his office—you could probably catch him if you go up now.”
Jasmine meets her gaze. Her expression is unreadable, even as they lock eyes. Mulan swallows.
And then the man lets out a bark of the most singularly unpleasant laughter Mulan has ever heard. Her throat goes dry. “Well, you heard the girl,” he sneers. “Run away, why don’t you? It appears that Mr Weselton is waiting for you.”
Jasmine whips around, eyes burning. For a moment Mulan is sure she’s going to spit at him, but she doesn’t.
“Thanks, Jafar,” she says coolly instead, tossing her braid over her shoulder and striding back towards the school like she owns it. Mulan expects a smile, or a nod, or at least some kind of acknowledgement, but Jasmine just brushes past her like she’s invisible.
Footsteps echo towards the entrance behind her. Mulan glances back at the man by the limo; he’s already looking back, eyes dark and amused in a way that makes Mulan’s blood run cold. One second of that is enough for her to decide to turn around and hurry after Jasmine.
They’re barely two corridors in when Jasmine swerves to a stop, and suddenly all the fire and daggers of her glare is directed straight at Mulan. Mulan blanches. It’s like all of her grace and mischief from before have been all at once morphed into pure, hot rage.
“What the fuck were you trying to do?” Jasmine hisses. Mulan’s mind goes blank.
“I-I, uh,” she tries to start. “I thought—it looked like…it looked like you needed help.”
Something in Jasmine’s face shifts; for a moment Mulan thinks it’s surprise, but then she sees that it’s just more rage, boiling over like a geyser. “Well, Mulan Fa,” she says, deceptively soft, “I will never—never,” she spits, “need help. Not even from you.”
Mulan opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. She can’t tell if what she’s feeling is anger, embarrassment, pity, or shame. Shame. There is always so much of it. From her parents, from her friends, from this explosion of a girl, pressing in on her like an atmosphere of its own.
And then, for the third time—the third time, out of three—Jasmine turns around, saunters away, and leaves Mulan to gape at the empty space where she was standing.
The bell rings. Mulan looks up from her textbook, yawning. Mr Weselton is already dismissing them with a bored wave, and her classmates are gladly stuffing binders and pencil cases back into their bags. It’s a quarter past three.
Behind her, she hears the telltale dainty sibilance of Aurora’s snoring. “Aurora, wake up,” comes Belle’s voice from somewhere nearby, gentle as ever.
“Just leave her,” she hears Tiana mutter.
A rough hand slaps her on the back. Mulan startles, looking up just in time to see Merida’s shock of orange hair darting past. “See you on Saturday!” her teammate calls, making ball sound effects, then disappears out of the door. Mulan smiles.
She ends up being the last to leave, trudging out of the classroom to the lockers with her backpack dangling from one shoulder. Light filters through the windows to form square spotlights across the hallway. Mulan steps mindlessly through them.
The glint of gold earrings tips her off from metres away, before she’s even close enough to make out a face. Mulan blinks.
Jasmine Agrabah is standing in a pool of light right next to her locker, lips red, eyes intent.
“Oh—hey,” Mulan says, surprise showing openly on her face. Around her, other students are staring as well. Mulan wonders how long it’ll take for this to get back to Aurora.
“Hi,” Jasmine responds easily. Mulan has been trying not to think about her, but the sight of her smile still makes something warm and giddy rise in her gut.
“Did you need something?” she asks anyways, tilting her head.
Jasmine shrugs, relaxed. “I guess so,” she says. “I was just wondering if I could walk you home.”
Internally, Mulan winces; Aurora is going to have a field day with this one. And then she processes what Jasmine’s said, and the fact that it’s directed at her, and her brain momentarily short-circuits.
“Huh,” she says. Then, the words spilling out of her before she can think to stop them, like water from an overflowing cup: “Yeah, uh, sure.”
The quirk of Jasmine’s mouth is exactly as she remembers it. It is too late to reconsider.
The walk back to Mulan’s house is quiet, but not as uncomfortable as it could be. They go through the motions of a conversation: how have you been, why is the weather so bad lately, isn’t Ms Tremaine awful, what are you doing for university.
“I still think you’d do great at maths,” Mulan says, aiming for that particular tone she uses when she’s trying to encourage a teammate without imposing too much.
Jasmine is silent. Then she smiles, somehow softer than usual. “Thanks,” she says. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
They pass by the bus stop before Mulan’s house, then the willow tree, then the river, then the garden, then the mailbox. All of a sudden Mulan feels nervous. Not for any real reason—or so she tells herself, anyways—but something about Jasmine seeing the place she grew up, the place she became who she is, makes her oddly apprehensive.
They stop in front of the gate. “Well, this is it,” Mulan says, feeling dumb.
Jasmine’s gaze is elsewhere, fixed on the river and the statues in the garden and the red warehouse where they keep their so-called family heirlooms. A pretty stranger on the border of Mulan’s world.
“Or, do you want to…” Mulan starts, then cuts off, feeling even dumber. Still. “Do you maybe want to come in?”
Jasmine’s eyes flick to hers. “Sure,” she says, voice light.
Mulan takes a breath and opens the gate.
An upside-down fú hangs from a hook on the front door. Mulan raps on the wood once, twice. They only have to wait a couple of seconds before her mother is pulling it open.
“Welcome ba—oh!” Mulan’s mother takes in Jasmine with a start, then breaks out into a wide, friendly grin. Her hair is tied up in a loose bun that hides most of the grey, and she has on her jade earrings as always. It’s a welcome sight.
“Hello, Mrs Fa,” Jasmine says politely, tucking her hair behind her ear. Mulan realises suddenly that she is the picture of a girl her family would love: pretty, smart, polite. “My name is Jasmine. I’m Mulan’s classmate.”
“Hello, hello!” Mulan’s mother greets delightedly. “Mulan, you silly girl, why didn’t you tell me you had a friend coming over? I could have prepared something for you! Come in, come in…just leave your shoes by the entrance, yes…Jasmine, would you like some tea? We have green tea, oolong tea, pu’er…”
Jasmine is guided busily down the hallway into the dining room, where she is then made to sit and wait for tea and some of the Japanese cheesecake Mulan’s mother happened to pick up the previous day. Mulan takes the seat next to her, smiling apologetically.
“Sorry,” she says. “She can be a bit much.”
Jasmine shakes her head. “No, it’s okay.” Mulan watches her; she seems somewhat far off, stuck at some cross between perplexed and wistful and content. “I never really…hm. Nevermind. It’s nice, is all.”
Mulan remembers the man by the limousine and all of Aurora’s rumours, and lets Jasmine keep her secrets.
Her father pops his head in just a few minutes later, after the tea has been poured and the cheesecake cut. His face is lined with wrinkles and he’s leaning heavily against his walking stick, but that doesn’t stop him from offering Jasmine a gentle smile anyways.
“It’s great to see Mulan bringing home more friends,” he says warmly. “Maybe a boyfriend next, eh?”
It takes Mulan a second to respond, but she already knows her father won’t notice. “Maybe,” she echoes, smiling and faking a laugh. Beside her, she feels Jasmine’s eyes burning into the side of her face.
Eventually they move over to Mulan’s room, covered wall-to-floor with football posters and only clean thanks to her mother scolding her about dirty clothes last week. Mulan sits down on the bed, intending to let Jasmine take the chair. She shouldn’t be surprised when Jasmine chooses to sit next to her instead, but she is.
“You’re close with your family,” Jasmine observes. Her breath is close enough to feel, her fingers warm and slender, brushing lightly against Mulan’s leg.
“Yeah,” Mulan says, trying not to swallow.
Jasmine looks at her. Reluctantly, Mulan meets her gaze. “But you’re not honest with them,” Jasmine says, lips red and terrifyingly close. It is a statement, not a question.
Mulan feels her cheeks flaring. So Jasmine knows—so Mulan knows that Jasmine knows. She could deny it, or ignore it, or deliberately misunderstand. Jasmine has shown her that much mercy.
Somehow she finds that she doesn’t want to.
“They’re my parents,” Mulan says, so quietly that it’s almost a whisper. She feels like she’s watching herself from somewhere far, far away. “My mom’s a pharmacist, my dad’s a war veteran. They’re good people. I love them.”
“That doesn’t make them right,” Jasmine points out. Mulan flushes deeper, hating that she can’t argue.
“And what about you?” she retorts, perhaps cruelly. She feels raw, vulnerable. Like a person she doesn’t quite know, now that the secret is out. “That man outside the limousine. All the rumours. I heard…” She hesitates, licking her lips. Jasmine is still looking at her, expression neutral, waiting for the end of the sentence. “I heard you have to get married.”
Jasmine’s reaction is not exactly what she expects. There is no grimace, or flinch, or dark look; nor is there denial, nor anger, nor even resignation. Instead, Jasmine just turns to stare at the wall, looking thoughtful. What kind of thoughts, Mulan couldn’t begin to guess.
“Not yet,” Jasmine says at last, once the silence has stretched on too long. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m…fighting.” Mulan looks at this girl sitting next to her, with perfect makeup and perfect hair and a face like a goddess, with a river for a mind, with gold hanging from her ears like weights. “I’m fighting against Jafar, and my father, and the Agrabahs. I’m fighting against anyone who talks behind my back. I’m fighting against anyone who’s better than me, anyone who tries to help me.”
Mulan imagines facing Jasmine in a fight. She thinks of the effortless confidence in Jasmine’s every movement, of the calculating half-smile that makes Mulan feel so exposed. She thinks of Jasmine’s intelligence, teasing, and rage. It strikes her that whatever Jasmine wants to do, she probably can.
Mulan wonders if all of this—all the staring, all the helping, all the flirting—has been some kind of fight from the outset.
“You’re impressive, you know,” Jasmine continues, soft but steady. Mulan’s heart skips a beat. Jasmine tilts her head to meet Mulan’s stare, pinning her in place. “I know how you convinced Coach Shang to switch over to the girls’ football team. I know how you made the school care more about girls’ sports than boys’ sports for the first time quite literally ever. I know how hard you work to make your parents happy. I know how you’re smart, and kind, and humble, and brave.”
More heat rises in Mulan’s face, against her will. She doesn’t feel like the girl who did any of those things, or a person who’s done much at all. Her parents’ voices, her friends’ sideways glances, this fight that Jasmine is winning: these are the things that stick with her, pulling the ground from beneath her feet whenever she thinks she’s found her footing.
“But that’s the thing. I’m going to be better than you. I’m going to be better than anyone. I’m going to fix everything, all by myself.” Her voice is perfectly calm, perfectly even.
Mulan looks deep into the vortex of Jasmine’s eyes, into the storm and fire she finds there. She has been thrown this far off balance already, and Jasmine hasn’t even left yet.
“I believe you,” she murmurs, and does. If there was one thing she could be certain about—one still point in her turning world—this would be it. “I believe you.”