♖
♖ - Their first friend
His first friend? I don’t know if even Yao can remember. He’s had an interesting connections to animals in the past, though. He made a few friends in villages that he grew up in, though they eventually grew older and became suspicious. There was one boy that he was friends with from the beginning, from when they were both about 4 years old. (Please note that at this time, Yao didn’t have a permanent name yet, he just went with whatever they called him, be it a stupid melon or an egg.) As the boy grew up, they actually still remained friends, and he and his parents took care of Yao when the other villagers were suspicious. Eventually they brought him to another village so that he would be safer.
After many years, that boy actually became a wandering monk, and had made it his mission to find Yao again. Yao barely recognized him, and was actually scared at first, but eventually left with the monk and spent time walking through the mountain passes and staying in temples. Before he died, the monk gave Yao his personal name. He named Yao after the brilliance of the sun, because he recognized Yao’s perseverance and curiosity as a child, and recognized him as the one sun that would stay standing after his brothers and sisters would be killed.
