| Fan Fiction |
by Hibiscus
“Cheers.” Patience raised her glass and the others echoed her movements.
“Here’s to the completion of Phase One.” Ceci murmured.
Glasses clinked, long draughts taken and a lone photograph lay burning on the table.
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Rainie Yang wasn’t really needed on set. But she had come anyway. Just to see how the filming was going, just to reaffirm her right on Mike He. Everyone knew he was hers. And this stupid girl had dared to try to usurp her. Didn’t she know that Rainie Yang could destroy her? Was she not aware of whom she was playing against?
The director had made some corrections to the script. He was a shrewd man, an artist yes but a businessman also. And since matters had evolved as they had, he knew that for his drama to succeed, the changes were necessary.
He looked over to where Ariel had stepped out of the makeup van, costumed as Zee. Zee loved J.J, motorcycles and food, in that order. She was a mechanic. And J.J, that is, Mike who sat on the side reading the script was a chef at a small time fast food joint but harboured dreams to become an internationally renowned chef.
Ariel walked over to Mike and sat down beside him, smiling. The director noticed how the chemistry welled up instantly.
“How you doing?” Mike asked Ariel, friendly.
Ariel studied her fingernails which were painted electric blue to match Zee’s personality. “Good. Like my nails?” She showed them to Mike who grinned. He was surprised by her equanimity.
“So we’ll be making out a lot…” Ariel turned and looked at Mike squarely in the face.
“Yeah.” Mike flushed as he remembered their previous kiss.
“Cool. I like kissing you.” Ariel gave him a smile and then walked away as the hair stylist called her. Mike looked after her utterly bemused.
Rainie who had witnessed the exchange and Mike’s subsequent reaction, seethed. But she stayed quiet, not wanting attention or anyone knowing that she was present.
The first scene of Chances opened with J.J preparing dinner in a small, open house near the ocean. He sets the table and lights some candles and then sits to wait. Time passes but Zee is nowhere to be seen. J.J gets anxious and tries to call her without success. Then just before he can take any further action, Zee roars up on her brand new bike. J.J’s worry turns to anger. He refuses to talk to Zee. Zee flourishes flowers for J.J and when that doesn’t work, she tries to tempt him with chocolate. But when that doesn’t work either, Zee jumps on J.J, cups his face in her hands and starts to apologise. But mid-apology she gets distracted by J.J’s lips and she kisses him forgetting all about the apology. Then the lights dim and the narrator takes over, describing J.J and Zee.
Rainie watched as the scene was shot once without any NG’s or any awkwardness between Ariel and Mike. She watched along with everyone else as Mike slipped into character and held Ariel nee Zee with such tenderness that she was hard pressed to believe that he was simply acting.
As they wrapped up the scene, Arron stormed onto the set.
“Arron! Are you here to see me?” Rainie cooed, brightening.
Arron moved past her as if he hadn’t even seen her. He stomped over to where Ariel and Mike were whispering.
“Mike He Jun Xiang, why are you standing so close to MY girlfriend?!”
Mike looked up confused while Ariel grasped Arron’s arm, smiled sweetly at Mike and said, “Please excuse his insanity. He forgot to take his pills today.”
As Ariel dragged him away, Arron looked over his shoulder at Mike in what he hoped was a warning manner and said, “I’m watching you man!”
Mike grinned and returned to his van. Work resumed and no one noticed the white faced Rainie slip away from the set.
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Chun breathed hard and sweat poured off his magnificent body. He was running on the treadmill, as fast as it could go. He couldn’t get the image of Ariel in Mike’s arms out of his head. What was she trying to do? Was this how she would fight? Become an idol like him and then what?
Suddenly his cell phone rang and Chun glanced at the caller id. He immediately stopped the treadmill and got off.
He picked up the phone. “Hello Grandfather.”
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Arron looked suspiciously at Ariel. “Are you sure you are not in love with him?”
Ariel rolled her eyes as she served another customer and ignored Arron. She was working the late shift again because the shooting for the drama had taken up all morning. The café wasn’t that busy and Ariel had been hoping to get some homework done later. Then Arron had shown up.
“Will you go away?” Ariel hissed as a girl peered at Arron curiously. The last thing she needed right now was some rabid fan girls descending on them.
“I will not. I return from Jamaica to the news that you are filming an idol drama with that man-whore Mike.” Arron pouted. Then. “I didn’t know you wanted to be actress.”
Ariel changed the coffee filters. “There are lots of things you don’t know about me.” It had been a unanimous decision not to tell Arron about the revenge plan. Because they didn’t want him to be put in the middle or have a conflict of interests.
“Why is there so much kissing in the story anyway? Don’t you guys need to breathe?” Arron continued griping.
“If you won’t be less conspicuous, I’m kicking you out of here!” Ariel threatened as more people looked over.
“Why? Are you afraid of being beset by my fans?” Then he grinned gleefully. “Ariel, you should enjoy your anonymity for as long as you can because once the drama airs, you will become an idol and lose all privacy!”
Ariel looked over at him, “Oh? You have that much confidence in my talents?”
Arron looked startled. “Well, of course. I thought that was obvious.”
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The filming continued at a rapid pace. Ariel only had a month’s worth of filming to do for Chances. The production was low key and because it was the Mike and Rainie pairing that there were high public expectations about, Ariel was able to escape the media attention. And because she was entirely new, nobody expected much from her. Rainie was satisfied by this lack of publicity. For a while she had thought that she would have to take steps to ensure Ariel’s removal, an option she was still keeping open but now it looked like she had been worrying for nothing.
“She’ll sink like a stone,” Rainie muttered cheerfully to herself as she came out of Makeup. They were at a hospital to film the scene Zee dies and Anna (Rainie’s character) begins her journey of repentance and tries to win J.J’s heart at the same time.
“About damn time she dies.” Rainie kept on talking to herself as she walked over to where Mike was being prepped.
“Hello darling, ready to cry?” Rainie trilled. Mike ignored her.
“Is she ready?” He asked one of the crew members instead.
“Yep. You can go in now.” The guy replied and Mike walked into the room followed by a miffed Rainie.
Ariel lay on the bed, head bandaged, hooked to a plethora of machines. She grinned at Mike and fluttered her eyes at him, “Now you’ll be sorry you didn’t buy me the chocolates when I asked.”
Mike stuck out his tongue at Ariel and replied, “Hey, I was the one who had to carry you…!” And laughed as Ariel threatened him in Japanese. He replied in the same language and whatever he said made Ariel laugh.
Rainie noted their easy camaraderie jealously. He never bantered with her in the same easy manner. The director came into the room and everyone snapped to attention. He got straight to the point.
“Ariel, you are gonna die, nothing difficult to it. Rainie, you’ll be looking in on J.J’s grief, stunned, guilty. Can you handle that? Mike, you’re the star of the scene. Give it all you’ve got. You know how much Zee means to J.J. and he’s just lost her. Go crazy, man. Alright? Places!”
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Chances: The Colour of Goodbye
J.J ran from the reception desk to the I.C.U. A sympathetic nurse pointed him to the room. He burst in, fear sinking her cold clammy fingers on his inside. He breathed rapidly, short breaths stinking of panic.
“Zee?” His voice failed him as his eyes took in the bandaged, broken figure on the bed. That couldn’t possibly be his Zee. Walking on legs that seemed to have turned to wood, he stumbled forward. Sitting in the chair beside the bed, he grasped her hand tightly. How could this possibly be Zee? He looked down at her nails and they were painted electric orange today. “You are the dawn, J.J” She had told him only this morning.
“Promise me you’ll never leave.” He had said, kissing her cheeks.
“Promise.” She had mumbled sleepily in the crook of his shoulder.
And now. “Baby, please, open your eyes for me. Just once. Open your eyes. Tell me it’s going to be okay. Please, Zee!” His voice broke on a sob.
And as though she had heard him but could not comply, a single tear slipped from her eye. Her hand tightened around his and then…the pressure loosened, the machine beeped a single line and she was gone. His Zee was gone.
J.J swung a wild, disbelieving gaze at the monitor.
“No, Zee, you promised. You promised!” J.J screamed, his agony reverberating around the four walls of the room.
“I love you Zee. I love you. Come back. Please. We are going to get married by the beach, remember. Bare feet. You are going to swell like a balloon with my children. I’m going to cook you heaven, Zee. Come back. I promise I’ll never get mad when you are late. I won’t scold you for eating junk food. Zee, you promised!”
J.J broke down, mumbling incoherently, crying unabashedly by the body of the woman he had loved beyond everything, beyond life itself.
“CUT!”
There was not a single dry eye left on the set. Mike had amazed everyone with his performance.
“That was brilliant, Mike. I didn’t think you had it in you.” The director said to Mike, clapping him on the back. “And the tear was sheer genius.” He said to Ariel.
“She inspired me.” Mike said looking at Ariel who smirked and pretend popped her collar. “Hear that? I’m an inspiration.”
Everyone laughed. Everyone that is, except Rainie. Her blood had run cold hearing Mike’s words. Ariel inspired him?
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It was late and Ariel needed a ride. So she had called Arron, out of sheer necessity, mind you. She waited outside the studio, pleasantly tired. Acting was a whole lot more fun than she had thought it would be. She leaned against the wall in the parking lot and yawned. She had a morning class the next day and then had to rush to location to finish the last scene she had to shoot for Chances.
A car drove into the parking lot and Ariel straightened, thinking it was Arron. After a second look, she realized that she didn’t recognize the car so she stopped paying attention to it. Instead, she started rummaging around in her bag for the bag of potato chips she swore she had put there in the afternoon.
“Hi Ariel.” A silky voice interrupted the quietness of the night.
Ariel looked up, instantly on her guard. “Chun.”
“Yes. Expecting someone else?” Chun smiled sweetly.
“As a matter of fact, yes. I was.” Ariel smiled back just as sweetly.
“Hmm…Mike’s not here to take you home?” He took a step closer and Ariel’s eyes narrowed. She stood her ground.
“No, he’s meeting me later at home.” Ariel kept a hint of anticipation in her voice and Chun heard it. He heard and his eyes darkened. He took another step closer and Ariel yawned even though her insides were skittering with excitement, thrilled at the prospect of danger.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Chun asked in a flat voice.
“Do you sleep with all of your co-stars?” Ariel retorted immediately.
“Are you?” He acted as though he hadn’t heard her question.
“What if I am?” Ariel lifted her chin in a challenge.
“I’ll kill him.” Chun whispered and meant it.
“Are you jealous, Chun? How bizarre. Do you think you own me?” Ariel took the last step separating them. Now they stood an inch from each other, so close that each could feel the heat of the other’s body.
“You belong to me.” Chun replied.
And Ariel laughed. Out loud. Startling the rodents rummaging in the garbage.
“You do have lofty ambitions, don’t you?” She took a step back. Just then Arron drove up and seeing Chun, jumped out of the car. Ariel raised a hand to stall him. She then walked away from Chun and he did nothing to stop her. When she reached Arron, Chun turned to look at her. Ariel reached up and kissed Arron. His eyes immediately fluttered shut but Ariel’s eyes remained open. As she kissed Arron, she stared at Chun.
Later driving the car, Arron could scarcely keep the smile off his face.
“I was using you, Arron.” Ariel told him.
“I know. I don’t mind. Hang on, lemme call my mom. I need to ask her to plan a wedding.” He said cheerfully as he dialed.
“Who’s getting married?” Ariel asked curiously.
“We are! First kiss…marriage…” Arron was jubilant.
“I take it back.” Ariel immediately said.
“You can’t take a kiss back.”
“Can too.”
“Can not. Ow, owww! Let go!”
“Can too.”
“Fine, can too.”
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