You made a mistake the first time we met. The name you created for me that was meant to repel me will be the very thing that ties me to you forever. You made me yours when you turned around and muttered the three syllables I'll never forget, spat them at my turned-in feet and shot them through my soft rookie skin.

Moyashi.

My skin is harder now so the bullet can't be removed. It's rattling through my body with every step I take.

Moyashi.

The first words you spoke to me in your true tongue.

Moyashi.

You planted a seed that sprouted instantly, and we both agree on the name of the plant but not on how it will grow.

In your country, a bean sprout is but a bean sprout. It cannot change or grow any taller than all its incubating fellows and it will be picked at this young age to be pristinely arranged by delicate fingers on some dish too good for English words that inevitably contains rice.

In my country, the bean sprout is just the beginning of a long journey to produce a seed of nutrients that will give life again and again. It can grow until the season passes and gloved hands reap the harvest and cart it off to be cooked in the most base of meals that are beneath your tastes and inevitably contain meat.

But the planting was only half your mistake.

You hold your head high, erect, unmoving, solid. And that is just what I needed.

In my country, a bean can only grow so much remarkably taller because it is planted near a pole to wind around as it climbs to the top.

Grows.

Changes.

Learns to stand with its feet to the side and a hand hovering over the vital organs to take a shot or two. But though the shell may be hard, within, it's always soft. I am always willing to compromise. If you will be the light that stunts my progress to greater heights and holds me captive until delicate fingers have need of me, I will remain a bean sprout as you know them to be, as you meant me to be.

I would give up on change.

I would give up on a chance to grow.

I would resist constricting your slender form even though you wouldn't notice.

I'll give up everything.

Just to see you shine.