Gonna Be Me (A Turning Red Story)

Gonna Be Me

Xia's POV

My name is Xiao Hong Lee. Ever since I turned 13, life's been a lot. People still talk about Pandapocalypse 2002. But I would just like to call it 'growing pains.'

Not much has happened in the past two weeks since the incident at SkyDome. But I can tell you these.

First, Tyler confessed to me that he liked me ever since we started the history project last year. I was surprised that he confessed to me like that but I told him that I wanted to confess that I liked him too. And so, the two of us are finally together. We even told about this to my family and they were all elated to hear this, especially Mom and Mei.

Second, Mei and Auntie Ming have managed to repair their broken bond. Auntie Ming has finally become supportive and open-minded about Mei's choices and interests, even if some of them are not on par with Auntie Ming's interest.

And third, which is not good compared to the previous ones, Auntie Ming had to pay the city $100,000,000 for damages to the SkyDome. I know that her previous antics have always been overlooked due to the people not wanting to do anything with her but what she did as a giant red panda was something not even the authorities can't ignore.

At the temple, as I, Mei, Mom, and Auntie Ming preached to our ancestors, we heard a beep.

"This thing is hungry all the time," Auntie Ming said as she took out Mei's Tamagotchi device and used the buttons to feed what appears to be a digital appearance of Auntie Ming's red panda.

"Eat up, little one. Oh, you're so hungry. Munch, munch, munch," she cooed.

I know what you're thinking. "Why would Auntie Ming's red panda be sealed in Mei's Tamagotchi device?" It had to be sealed away somewhere. And since Mr. Gao didn't have enough jewelry to replace the ones broken, he had to improvise. You should have seen Grandauntie Wu's new talisman. Her red panda is in a 4★Town necklace. Last I heard of her, she lost at a card game and blamed her new talisman for it.

Once we finished our prayers, we walked outside. The four of us breathed in, then out deeply.

"You ready?" Mei asked us.

"You know it, Mei!" Mom and I smiled.

"Let's do this!" Auntie Ming grinned.

We opened the temple gates and welcomed everyone inside. Things in the temple have never been better. Thanks to Mei's red panda and the newfound fame she picked up, the whole place is flooded with a lot of visitors everyday. Many of them even bought red panda-themed merchandise and some of the money was added to the donation box for the repairs at SkyDome.

As I was telling a group of kids about Sun Yee and the red panda spirit while Mei is taking photos with some of her schoolmates, we noticed Miriam, Priya, Kendra, Abby, and Tyler coming over to the temple.

"How's your face, Xia?" Tyler asked.

"All better, Tyler," I replied as my cheek is now back to the way it was before. It's as Mei's scratch marks are not even there.

"Ready to get your karaoke on?" Miriam asked.

"Ready for Ashanti, baby!" I exclaimed.

"Totally." Mei added, changing back to normal, except for the ears and the tail. "Bye, Mom and Dad! Bye, Uncle Chiang and Auntie Ai!"

"Hold on. You're not going out like that, are you?" Auntie Ming asked.

"My panda, my choice, Mom." Mei scoffed.

"No worries, Auntie Ming. We'll be back before dinner, okay?" I said as Mei hugged Auntie Ming.

"Fine. You're welcome to join us if you'd like." Aunt Ming offered.

"For Mr. Lee's cooking?" Miriam gasped. "Uh, yeah!"

"Of course. Dad told me his food is very delicious," Kendra agreed.

"You should try his stir fry. It's heavenly," I said.

"Don't load up on junk." Aunt Ming warned.

"See you guys later." I waved.

"Thanks for covering for me, Dad." Mei added as Uncle Jin put on the cardboard red panda costume.

"Have fun." Uncle Jin said as we left the temple for a fun karaoke session.

During our walk to the karaoke lounge, Tyler offered me his hand and I held it.

So, yeah, sometimes I miss how things were but nothing stays the same forever. We've all got an inner beast. We've all got a messy, loud, weird part of ourselves hidden away. And a lot of us never let it out. But both me and Mei did (well, she did physically with her panda and I did mentally). How about you?

结束

(The End)