Sweet Romance10 min read
I Was a Koi, Now I’m Daddy’s Little Star
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I remember cold dark water, the soft push of a current, and a laugh that rang like a bell.
“I’ll go back to the Jade Pool one day,” I told myself, splashing uselessly at the sky I could not see.
“Who’s talking?” a voice in my head said. It was the Pearl—bright and round on a ribbon. I had a strange plan: keep part of my spirit, keep a little pocket of the blessed pool with me, and have one last naughty swim through the world.
Then I woke to warm air and someone saying, “Push, Yun—push!”
My eyes opened to faces, not scales. “Who are you?” I thought aloud, and my mouth answered with small, surprised noises I’d never used before.
“Is it a girl?” someone shouted from outside.
“It’s a girl!” a woman cried. “Come inside, everyone—she’s a girl.”
I felt hands and cloth and tasted the smell of white flour and wood smoke. Heat and sweat and the thud of a heart that was not mine. I had been a mischievous koi in the Jade Pool, but now I was wrapped in a new body. I was a baby. I was alive in arms that smelled of ink and grain.
“Her name will be Chloe,” my grandmother said, and a ribbon of light brushed my neck. The Pearl liked me. I liked its warm hum. I could feel my pool far away, faint and fogged, but there was a doorway. I smiled, an enormous, impossible smile.
“This one shall be Chloe Klein,” my grandmother—Tilda—declared. “No argument.”
“How can you be so sure?” my mother, Corinna, asked. She was tired, hair plastered to her forehead, but her voice warmed my small chest.
“Because she is already a blessing,” my grandfather, Raul, said, and his eyes were proud in the way a man feels when he finds two good coins in his pocket.
I tested my new hands. They were soft, squishy, and each finger felt like a petal. I found the Pearl on a thin ribbon and it hummed, “Stay with me, and I will stay with you.”
I whispered, “Do you remember the Jade Pool?”
“I do,” the Pearl answered, and it flew like a tiny moon over the thatched roof in my head.
You might think a baby has no will. That baby was I. I had plans.
“Keep that pretty stone on her neck,” Tilda said as she fastened the blue pearl at my throat.
“Good,” the Pearl sighed of relief. It wanted to stay near water. I wanted to see the world. We had a bargain before dawn broke.
Days passed. I learned the rhythm of a family that loved strangely and loudly: Corinna, my mother, who had left shore to marry a stranger who waved into their lives and never waved back; Raul, my grandfather, who traded wood and worry; Tilda, my grandmother, who wore the world on her hands; Erik, my father—an odd, beautiful man who taught letters and sketched clouds; and my brothers, Foster and Luke—two small suns who loved me and were taught, often not kindly, how to be men.
“Does she look like me?” Erik asked once—private and hopeful.
“You are handsome already,” Corinna said with a soft amusement, “but beauty isn’t all we need. We need someone to look after the children.”
“Of course,” Erik said, and he put his drawn face near mine like a moth to lamp. I liked him. He smelled of ink and honey. I liked when he laughed, which was rare.
“Her laugh—look at her laugh,” Erik told Raul the first time I made a real noise. He laughed and he laughed and I bubbled inside. “My child laughs.”
“I want her to be like you,” Corinna whispered, and that made the corners of Erik’s mouth rise. He was our wayward king who could not always find his place, but he would be mine.
The Pearl and I made bargains. It wanted blood for brilliance—hair and teeth and bones that would shine if I traded a little. “I will wait,” I told it. “I will grow into you.”
“Then let us trade gifts,” the Pearl hummed. “I will grant you power with water. You will not be afraid.”
I learned a small trick at nights—tiny arcs of water at my finger tips, like silver thread. I made a basin water sweeter. I let the family taste a wash that seemed to mend bones and soften weariness. “Did the soup taste better?” Tilda would sigh. “Look at the color of her cheeks.”
“You are our blessing,” Raul told Corinna often. He had a mind like a market ledger and a heart that made space for strange things.
“Maybe the gods dropped her,” he’d joke. “Maybe your baby was sent special.”
I kept love like a warm shell inside me. I grew, by small fast steps. My hair blackened, my fingers curled in a way I recognized. There were days of humming, days of small, secret magic.
“Don’t ever leave us,” Corinna told Erik in a voice that trembled, and Erik smiled bravely. “I won’t,” he answered. “How could I leave you? We are a family.”
I would rehearse the memory of the Jade Pool at night and call the Pearl, “My little lantern,” which made it giggle in a way that sounded like tiny waves.
One day, after a month of quiet and small household miracles, there was thunder of boots and hesitation at the gate. A paper from the county man arrived. They wanted fish—real, bright fish. “A man of rank came through,” Raul said. “He heard of the lucky fish and wants to buy some. Bring them to the market.”
“We have some for sale,” Corinna said tightly. “But… who will take the fish?”
“Raul will go,” Erik insisted.
I liked it when my grandfather’s hair smelled of market dust and good dreams.
At the market, the fish in our tubs shivered and flared like tiny banners. “These are Heath-County fish?” a man in a clean jacket asked.
“They came to us like a miracle,” Raul said. “They jump, and look, see—here!”
A stranger, a county official, watched and then laughed with a bright, loud sound. “This is auspicious,” he declared. “A sign for the whole region.”
The crowd pulsed. My chest shimmered. The Pearl drew a fine gold arch in the air, like a small gate. A fish jumped through it and the whisper began: “There—see? A gate! The fish leapt the arch!”
They paid us more than we expected. They praised the spectacle. I peered from my grandmother’s folded sleeve and felt pride slip like honey through the house.
After that the market visits multiplied. People arrived to buy fish and to see the small miracle. We sold many and saved silver. We improved our house. We tasted large dumplings and we slept a little longer.
But not everyone looked kindly at strangers’ luck. There were those with pockets empty and mouths sharp. Jennifer Brooks—she smiled like paper at a party and always asked, “How much did you earn?” Her son, Bernardo Eaton, answered with too-bold steps and hungry eyes. They began watching our comings and goings.
“Easy marks,” Bernardo whispered to his friends. “They have more than sense; they have something that brings money. We’ll take it.” He swaggered like a rooster who plans to rule a yard he does not own.
“You are too proud,” Jennifer said when she saw us with silver. She wanted our wealth for reasons she thought as solid as stone.
I am small, but I had a pearl. I felt threat like cold brush of wind. I told the Pearl, “Watch them.”
“I will,” it said, and it took to the river with me at night, testing my little power.
The trouble grew like mold in a damp corner. Bernardo and his friends tried petty theft—some grain, a plate, a chicken—and failed. Then they tried to take my father and me. They came in a cruel group one evening when only the boys and Erik were home.
“Open the door!” Bernardo shouted.
Erik, slow-moving and kind, hesitated. “Please—if you want to talk—”
“Shut up!” Bernardo snapped. “Walk!”
They took Erik to the cart, gagged him, and searched for me. I could not speak. I could not move. Panic bit at my throat.
Foster and Luke squealed and fought. One of Bernardo’s friends struck Foster hard. When all seemed lost, the cart jolted, loose. The rope slipped. The cart ran past the surprises of the village toward the center.
I could see my father, gagged and furious in a way I had never seen. He cried and begged in a voice like water running over rocks. People gathered. A farmer grabbed his club. Village men shouted.
“Thieves!” someone cried. “Look at them!”
Bernardo tried to bargain. “We are neighbors—no harm—”
“You touched a child!” a woman yelled. “You touched her!”
The captain of the market, who had once seen our fish leap, pushed forward. “This is a matter for the magistrate,” he said. “We will not stand for these brutes.” The crowd surged. Bernardo’s face drained of color.
That day, the thieves were hauled to the magistrate. Some pleaded; some prayed. Papers were written by stubby, hurried hands. We thought justice would be simple.
But the magistrate—he was one who liked coins and quiet more than right. He let them go for lack of evidence. Bernardo walked out scowling and I felt a cold, ugly thing in my chest. “If law fails, then the river must answer,” I told the Pearl.
The Pearl hummed and promised a larger voice. “Wait,” it said.
The next scene—the punishment—happened in the village square on a blisteringly bright morning. The story needed a full telling.
“Tidy up the carts,” the magistrate said in his loud voice, thinking his words would seal the day. He sat on a cushion and peered at his papers like a man who chose only what he wanted to see. People formed a ring. The sky was a perfect blue.
Bernardo strutted as if he were already laughing, Jennifer clutched a stole and tried to look innocent. They had gathered a few angry neighbors who wanted them spared.
“Look,” Bernardo sneered. “See? They brought spectacles. The poor excuse for drama.”
I watched from the edge—my heart small and hot. Raul and Tilda stood with us, Corinna with her hands folded white-knuckled. Erik held me close and his eyes were painful as hammered bronze.
The Pearl flowed. It rose like a soft bell of water and circled me, then flew toward the center of the square. The villagers watched in silence and then in a murmur that grew like a wash of wind.
“What is that?” someone cried.
“It’s the child’s stone,” another said.
“Danger,” Jennifer whispered, and she stepped back.
The Pearl gathered itself and then—like a river remembering its old course—it rolled up and formed a column. No one had ever seen such a thing in our village. It shuddered like a great tongue of rain, and the sky mirrored it with a tiny shade, as if the whole world leaned in.
“Stop!” Bernardo yelled, but words failed. The water column gathered courage. It spun and then lashed out.
First, the column wrapped under Bernardo's cart. The wheels caught like a trap. The water lifted and dropped them. The cart toppled with a crack that made a dozen stomachs jump.
“Help!” Jennifer screamed as she slid on the dirt. The column, obedient to an old, unwritten law of the Pearl, tracked hands that reached for harm.
It found Bernardo’s pockets—the pockets that had once rifled grain and now held the courage to steal people—and it opened them. Silver spilled out, but then the water swirled them, turning coin to mud. People gasped as they saw the transformation—shiny coin swallowed into a mush of earth.
“You—” Bernardo tried to speak. His bravado flamed and then shrank to a frightened ember. His face changed from smug to pale. He reached out, “It was not—” He stammered and denied and then wept a small, cowardly sound.
The Pearl did not only punish the thief. It showed what greed did to families. The column spun Jennifer up, not to harm but to display truth. It moved her clothes aside and exposed to the sun the false edges of her presence. The neighbors who had turned their faces when she had smiled now stared. Shame burned red across her cheeks.
“Look at her!” a woman hissed. “She stood at their side when they wanted to steal.”
Bernardo tried to bow, to plead. “Please—please! I was wrong. I swear I was wrong. I will give back what I took. I will work—”
The crowd shifted like a flock. Some people snapped photos with bright glare of a new little device from town, some whispered, “Karma, yes.” Others clapped and some wept. The magistrate, who liked his own shadow the best, frowned. He had let them free. He had cared for his purse. Now the world, in the form of a child's Pearl, had come to correct him.
“Ask for work,” a neighbor said. “Ask for the horse’s harness for pay—no more theft.”
Bernardo’s face crumpled as he saw his pride burned to ash. He begged. He promised. He made himself smaller by swearing in tears.
“It was fear that made us do wrong,” Jennifer said, tears cutting tracks once clean. She reached for grace and the crowd recoiled like water from a hot stone. “Forgive—”
They asked for forgiveness aloud. The voices mixed into a wet, complaining chorus. Faces that had once sneered now looked away. Some children squealed in delight. Some mothers turned their faces away from the hard lesson that justice can be messy.
Then the Pearl slowed. It unspun. The column dissolved into a spray that smelled like rain. The coins slowly returned, not clean and bright but duller, like people after a hard lesson. The magistrate sat silent and the crowd decided. They let the law do what it could. They decided to take the men’s work until debts were repaid. They appointed a few men to watch them. They gave a sentence measured and practical: labor and restitution.
Bernardo, who had started the day puffed and hot, collapsed into a small, shuddering heap, his voice changing through a carousel of emotion—from bravado to pleading, to denial, to a raw, breaking cry. Jennifer’s face did the same—first pale anger, then bright red denial, then a thin look of desperation, and finally the hollow acceptance of a person who knows evening lies ahead like a door slam.
The crowd did what crowds do best: they talked. Some clapped. Some spat. Some recorded and took the moment home like a seasoning. The village elders nodded. The magistrate looked as if someone had turned down his favorite lamp. People looked at Erik and at me and at the Pearl. Some bowed quietly. Others kept their distance, like dogs who had been scolded.
It was not a perfect victory. It was not clean. But it had teeth.
“That was right,” Raul said later, when we walked past the quiet house where two figures sat in the shade of new humility. “Justice bites when it must. That done, we still must live with our hands.”
“I will not forget,” I told the Pearl as I lay against Erik’s chest that night. “I will not forget the smell of fear on their breath. We will keep our house safe by making good, not only by scaring bad men.”
“Good,” the Pearl said, and it hummed like a small bell that promised prudence.
After that day, life shifted again. The county official returned with respect. People who had been skeptical came with new business. Erik’s little paintings sold in the market. We saved. We ate meat when we wanted it, and sometimes we waited for simple things.
Erik grew to be both tender and a little braver. He taught the boys with deep patience and took up painting more often. He would cradle me in his arms and murmur, “My little star.”
“I am not a star,” I would think, but it felt nice to belong. I loved my family fiercely in small acts—forcing a sweet bath into the water, keeping the Pearl’s lessons secret, giving a little warmth when someone needed it.
The Pearl and I learned our limits. The Pearl wanted to be whole and bright; I wanted my family safe and full. We balanced like two stones in a bowl.
There were more tries. There were more small thefts, and there were men who came with songs and offers to buy fish at obscene prices. Mostly they left us in peace. The village taught us how to be careful. We learned to tell our story truthfully and plainly, so even strangers would believe that the magic started with a child who laughed.
Friendship grew in the market. People who had been cold at first now smiled and asked after my little health. We traded fish, and in return we gave a bit of bread, or hand-stitched shoes for a neighbor’s ham. We were a family that had found ways to mend what worry had frayed.
On a lazy evening, Erik sat with me on the porch. He watched the sun paint gold across the pines. “Will you stay?” he asked softly into my hair.
“For now,” I said, and the Pearl glowed like a coin in my chest.
“Good,” Erik said. He kissed the top of my head like one might press a seal on a small prayer.
I was once a fish in a pool that hummed of stars and algae and the soft voices of older gods. Now I was a baby with a ribbon and a blue bead and a house that smelled of bread. My life was simple—loud with small things. I fed. I laughed. I climbed. I kissed my father so much people would smile.
Some nights, when the moon sat like a soft coin in the sky, I would call the Pearl and whisper, “One day, we will go home.” The Pearl would answer, “We will see.”
And that was a promise I kept in my small, fierce heart.
The End
— Thank you for reading —