UsernameEmailRegionInterestAOL IMICQ IDYahoo! IDMSN IDJabber

Tenten | Shot Two
Background History: Had fate been slightly less merciful, Tenten might not have existed. Her mother, Eliza, was a tired waitress in a shitty café by day, and she picked up extra cash working the streets by night. As these stories often go, there was some form of irresponsibility, some mishap, some general fuck-up that led to Tenten's conception.

The man who played second-party to the event was a mild-mannered Chinese man named Hua Chen. When he allowed himself to be seduced by the pretty red-headed woman, [no older than nineteen, he had thought] he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Eliza was careful, however. Her questionable choices of employment were not to belie that she was actually a very intelligent woman, in her own right, and with the news of her pregnancy, she sought Chen down using the business card that she had swiped from his wallet, demanding money for an abortion.

"Don't. Please... don't. I'll keep the baby."

He didn't know what made him do it. If asked, he would have been completely at a loss.

But what was done was done, and Eliza carried the baby to full term. After giving birth, she left the hospital, leaving only Chen's business card sitting on the tray with a single word written across it: Tenten. Three hours later, he was picking up a newborn baby girl from the hospital. He never saw Eliza again. Chen took Tenten home, and stayed up the entire night, wondering what the hell he was going to do.

He tried to love her. He really did.

It wouldn't have been fair to say that Tenten grew up in a lower class family. Chen worked in a good business as a lower-ranking figure; poorly paid, but still respected. Between the two of them, there wasn't much money to spare, and they lived in an apartment that was less-than-desirable. She went to a public school, wore plain, ordinary clothes bought from a thrift store, and kept her hair tied up in two buns, because her father thought that it was cute. That she excelled had been a surprise to her father, who hadn't expected much from the illegitimate child of a prostitute, a little girl that was only alive because something inside him couldn't stand to have his progeny killed.

Later, he would come to change his mind, and regret not simply handing over the sum necessary to avoid the burden that the child had placed on his life.

Her intelligence came from her mother, and that was the only helpful thing that Eliza had ever done for her daughter, beside allowing her life. They determined her to be far too smart for primary classes, and so Tenten entered the second grade when she was only six years old. She was proud, as proud as a six-year-old could be, because her success in school was a good thing, which meant it would please her father. When she was seven her father stopped doing her hair for her, and Tenten had to wear it in simple pigtails until she figured out how to form the odango buns on her own.

For the first several years of her life, all that was important to Tenten was making her father happy. She knew he was trying, she knew, but he was always so sad. Always so angry. Angry at her, though she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. If she could only satisfy him, then maybe he would hold her like the fathers of the other little girls, maybe he would love her.

It wasn't until Tenten turned eight that the began trying to live for her own love.

The elementary school had an enthusiastic theatre program, one that involved all of the grades of children in some way. When her class was chosen to do a song and dance number, Tenten discovered something so much more rewarding than vying for her father's affection.

A week into practice for the performance, she came home, approached her father, and spent the next three hours begging for dance lessons.

She did not actually get them until nearly a year later, when Chen finally gave in and tossed some money aside for the lessons. He was able to pull some strings, thanks to a woman he knew from his business, and got Tenten into a dance class for half of the usual price, on account of him being a single parent.