Wa-hey, what d'you know, a minute ago I was Hsin Yi and now I'm Zac Hanson. Okay, just a word before you start flooding my mailbox with lines of "YOU LAME BRAINED ZAC HANSON POSER! YOU'RE A DISGRACE TO US HANSON FANS!!", this is PURE FICTION. Hah, let's see what you have to say about that. You can't sue me no more, nyah nyah. All right all right I'm going to stop with the cute punch lines, I know you're burning up already. So here it is, my latest work, which is also my 14th story up to date. Do enjoy. As normal, do feel free to send me raves and rants.

YOU DON’T KNOW ME.

I know you think you do.. but you don’t. Not one single teeny-weeny, tiny, itsy-bitsy little bit.

Let’s take a look at what you think you know about me first. Let’s see… you know my full name, my age, my exact height, my exact weight, my favorite color, my favorite food, my favorite subject at school, my likes, my dislikes… gee… look at this… I can’t think of anything else. So that is about all you know about me. A number of you claim to know my personality, my dreams, my hopes, my behavior and my attitude. Do you really think you do? Well, I’m telling you now- NO. So do you really think I am made out of only dreams of always being together with my brothers in our band, a body that measures up to 5 feet and 8 and a half inches tall, and habits of tending to be hyperactive all the time? If you do, good grief, I have to say, you don’t know hardly ANYTHING about me.

First of all, I do not enjoy people screaming at me. I do not enjoy fame at all. When people scream at me and throw themselves at me, I actually feel very sorry for them. Yes, I actually feel SORRY for them. All right, now you’re probably wondering why I feel that way. Well, here’s the number one reason:

THEY DON’T KNOW WHO THEY’RE SCREAMING AT!!! THEY DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL!!!

*Cough* All right, there. I’ve made my point. If I am correct, right now, at this very moment, you are cracking your brains, trying to figure out why I keep saying none of you know me. It’s all very simple, actually. In a while, you’ll see.

Lets start off with my brothers. As I am writing this, Tay is sitting on the bed as well. He is scribbling some nonsense on his notepad. I can see his fingers moving quickly, but I know his mind is drifting off into space. His eyes are glued to the piece of paper he’s doodling on, but I know he’s not really seeing what he’s scribbling. As Ike puts it, "His eyes look, but they do not see." Tay’s always like that. I guess he’s just like me as well, most of the time- he’s often misunderstood as well. Everyone just reads us wrongly.

And now let’s shift our attention over to Ike. Ike.. my lovely eldest brother, is a very wise man. Yes, I’m sure you’re nodding your head, thinking to yourself, "Why is he telling me all this? I know this already." But I’m telling you now, you don’t. You don’t know anything. You don’t know anything about us. You don’t know anything about me, you don’t know anything about Tay, and you don’t know anything about Ike.

Hold it, don’t call the crack house just yet. I must say this- I am very sober, at this moment, thank you very much.

I know who I am, but who I am is not who you want to see. You only see what you want to see… and that’s why you don’t see me. I’ll have to say, the only person who knows the real me, is… me. Not even Tay, not even Ike, but me. I don’t want other people to see the real me. It’s all too… personal, you know?

And why do I not want other people to see the real me? As I said, it’s all very simple- I believe none of you will be able to accept the truth. None of you will be able to accept me for who I really am.

Looking back at 1997, if you REALLY understood me, you would’ve seen it so obviously that I wasn’t a very happy child. You saw me jumping everywhere and screaming my poor head off and reciting lines of complete made-up BS all the time… but if you knew me, you would’ve known that I was not happy. Children jump and scream all the time to hide their sadness, don’t you know that? Well, if you didn’t know that, now you do.

Now you’re probably wondering why I wasn’t a happy child. I bet some of you are starting to think I’m mentally ill. All right, first of all, I wasn’t happy because no one listened to me. Do you know how hard it was for me during interviews? As an 11-year old kid, my opinions were never heard, nor were they ever treasured or taken into consideration. If you look closely at past interviews, you’ll actually see me giving Tay the evil eye every 5 seconds.

Truth is, I really envy Tay. Nobody will believe how proud I am to have him as my older brother. You should’ve seen him when he wrote back to every single magazine who dissed me because of my physical appearance. I swear to God I’ll never forget that look on his face when he lifted his pen and started writing on that dark Sunday night. He was so full of anger, determination, energy and strength, it totally blew me away. And he fought for me- he fought for ME. I’ve never been able to tell him how much I appreciate him being around, but I’m sure he knows it. Tay always understood me more than Ike did… I’m not even sure why, but it shows. I guess there is this thing called a "minor generation gap" between Ike and I, but we’re still an extremely close duo. I’ll move on with Ike later on, but let me finish with Tay first. I’m turning to look at him, he’s still sitting on the bed. His eyes are set on his notepad, and he’s chewing the end of his pencil. I know he’s thinking, he thinks all the time. What he thinks about, I’m not so sure, but when he’s sad or when something’s troubling him, I can sense it. The bond between us is too close, and whenever he feels pain, I swear I feel it as well.

Speaking of which, remember 6th of May, 1997? Yes, I know Hanson Day falls on the 6th of May, but that’s not what I’m trying to say. On that day in 1997, if you remember, we were on The Late Show With David Letterman. Those of you who remember, I wasn’t in a very good mood, was I? Even Ravi, our ex backup guitarist, asked why I was in such a glum mood. Now, if you looked at Taylor during the performance, would you have noticed that he looked somewhat a little… frightened? And if you listened closely to him sing, would you have noticed that he sounded extremely… petrified? Seriously, would you have noticed that he sounded like he was trying to run away from something? Or that he sounded like he was trying to cover up his pain? I bet none of you noticed that. I bet you all just noticed how cute he looked that night… with that black T-shirt and that bright red long-sleeve shirt Amy picked out for him. I’m telling you, none of you notice anything. Okay.. now back to where I was. On that night, the reason why I "didn’t look like I was having fun" (quoted by our dearest friend, Ravi), was simply because.. a few hours before the performance, Taylor was punched in the stomach by an angry male. No, I’m not kidding. It really happened.

It started off with Taylor being really frustrated during the sound check because Ike kept messing up. All three of us mess up equally during different sound checks before performances. At The Late Night sound check, Ike kept forgetting the arrangement and kept on strumming his guitar through the vocal break, where only the drums and vocals were supposed to be. We all became so mad we were about to smash his precious Gibson into two. After something that seemed like 50 attempts, we finally did it right.

Everyone’s blood pressure was rising and I could feel the tension between everyone else. Tay was especially mad. He gets mad very easily, and it’s not good to get on his bad side when he’s angry. He said something about going outside for a while to be alone with himself, and he left. Dad told me to go after him, and so I did.

I followed him for a while from a distance. He went out the building and came to this alley behind 53rd Street. I saw him kicking a lamp-post, and murmuring something under his breath as he rubbed his sore foot. Then, out of nowhere, this half-drunk man wearing a dirty old rag appeared before Tay. I think he was asking Tay for something, and when Tay declined, the man started burning up. Like I said, it’s not good to get on Tay’s bad side when he’s mad. Next thing I knew, the man started yelling at Tay. Tay kept shaking his head with every word the man said. Then, the most horrifying scene took place before my eyes. The son of a bitch grabbed my brother’s hair and gave him a blow in the stomach. Taylor choked and fell to his knees, and the goddamn bastard kicked him again. I stood there dumbfounded. Don’t ask me why I didn’t do anything, I was just too shocked. Suddenly I felt this sharp pain jabbing my stomach. It was hard for me to breathe, I felt as if I was going to die. I held on to my stomach, not knowing what was going on. Taylor laid on the dirty ground with his hands around his tummy. He was gasping for air and he was groaning in pain. The man obviously didn’t know who my brother was. He then searched my brother’s pockets, found his wallet, and took off with it. I wanted to surge forward and grab the little prick… I wanted to do exactly what he did to my brother, but I couldn’t. I kept feeling this pain in my tummy.. and it hurt really bad. With my arms around my stomach, I ran towards Taylor. He looked up at me with his eyes full of tears. I had never seen my brother being hurt so bad. He gasped out the words, "Zac, it hurts. It hurts so bad." I could only nod in agreement. I finally realized that I was actually feeling what he was feeling. Ignoring the pain I felt, I lifted Tay’s head and placed it on my lap. I lifted the bottom part of his shirt up, revealing a huge black bruise on his white, silky-smooth tummy. I gasped when I saw it… I was full of guilt. I felt so wrong. I saw the whole event take place before my very own eyes and I didn’t do anything about it. Tears were starting to roll down Taylor’s cheeks. I started to wonder what was going on. Pain still pierced through my whole body. I used my other hand to lift up my own shirt, and I gasped even harder. I had the EXACT same bruise Taylor had on the EXACT same spot.

When Tay saw this, he smiled a little. Then, he just shut his eyes and let his tears fall. My eyes were swelling up with tears as well. Tay kept repeating the words "I’m so sorry Zac" for no reason at all. I told him that there was nothing to be sorry about, but he kept repeating those four words over and over again like he didn’t hear me. I helped him back to the inside of the Ed Sullivan Theater where the others were. Everyone got such a huge shock when they saw Tay. Nobody even cared about me. I didn’t show anyone else the bruise I had on my tummy either… no one bothered to even ask if I was fine or not. Everyone blamed me for getting Tay into this. At first Dad said we weren’t going to perform at all that night because of Tay’s condition, but Tay argued with Dad and kept insisting that he was fine. After a while, Tay eventually won the argument. Tay always wins at everything. It took Tay a lot of courage for being able to even sing that night, and I was so proud of him. With all the things we’ve done in our lives, I had never been more proud than that very moment. I’m even more proud about the close bond between us. I actually felt what he was feeling.

I love Taylor. Sometimes, I wish I could just run up to him and hug him. I wish I could just say to him, "Hey, remember the 6th of May, 1997? Remember when that bastard kicked you? Remember your bruise? Remember the bruise I got? I can’t believe I felt exactly what you felt! I can’t believe I had a bruise on exactly the same place you got yours!"

But I can’t. I’m not even sure if Taylor still remembers what happened on the 6th of May, 1997. I’m not even sure if he still remembers that bruise on my stomach. Since that day, nobody has mentioned anything about it. Taylor didn’t even say anything about the man taking his wallet. Tay has changed a lot, over the past few years…

But he’s still my brother. He’s still the brother I’ve always have loved, and always will.

And even though more than 2 years have passed since that incident, I still have a tiny bruise mark on my stomach. I wonder if Tay has that as well. I’m afraid to ask him.

Ike just entered the room. He nods at me, seeing I’m busy writing. He’s asking Tay something but Tay doesn’t seem to hear him talking. Ike gives Tay a gentle shake on his shoulders and Tay snaps out of his thoughts and looks up at Ike. Ike smiles and asks Tay about that "something" again. Hmm.. oh, Tay’s saying he doesn’t know. Now Ike’s leaving the room and it’s just me and Tay here once more.

Ike’s a great man. If you meet him, you’ll probably think he’s the greatest man you’ve ever met in your entire life. Then you’ll ponder on about what you did with your life before you met him and you will be surprised how you managed to live before meeting him. He’s a lady charmer, that’s for sure. He’s only had one true love so far, but he’s lost her now. I feel sorry for him sometimes. A great man like Ike deserves a great lady, but so far, nobody’s really fallen for Ike for who he really is. That’s the trouble about being singers.. you can’t really differentiate everything in black and white. Everything is always in gray. But when Ike falls for a girl, there’s no kidding around, he really falls. And so far, he’s only fallen but never lifted up. Poor guy. Say, any of you who think you’re perfect for Ike?

Ike has taught me lots of things I never would’ve known about. Thanks to him, I’ve mastered all kinds of impersonations. Taylor was never really into all these. There was this one time… Tay and I got into a fight. Sparks were really flying and we were getting on each others’ nerves. Ike, being the level-headed one, came between us and broke up the fight. He then gave us a "lecture" (or whatever you want to call it) and in the end, Tay and I ended up hugging each other and apologized for everything we said. Ike’s a nice guy.. he really is.

And now that- Argh! Taylor came over to where I was sitting just now and he grabbed this out of my hands. He started reading it… and he started shedding tears. He then lifted his shirt and revealed a small black bruise, one that looked EXACTLY like the one I had. And then he hugged me and said, "I love you, dear brother." He seemed obviously embarrassed and ran out of the room without looking back.

Okay, I know it’s too soon for me to end this, since I haven’t actually told you anything about the real me yet, but hang on there… there’s going to be a sequel to this pretty soon. "My Life As Zac Hanson 2", probably?

And for now, I’m going to end this right here first, and then I’m going to run outside and go to the lawn, where I bet Taylor is right now, and I’m going to throw my arms around him and give him a tight hug, and say this to him-

"You stole my line, dear brother."