| Fan Fiction |
by Hibiscus
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As they flew over the ocean, Chun kept repeating the conversation he had had with Ariel that morning. The morning which now seemed like a century ago.
“Of course she’s dead. I had her investigated.” Chun had narrowed his eyes, not understanding why Ariel was asking him that question.
Ariel had raised dark, careful eyes to him. “According to Ge, your birth mother, Liza Oh, has been in an asylum – Serenity Asylum, which is located in Bandar Sera Begawan for the last twenty six years. How old are you Chun?”
Chun had felt his blood run cold. “He must be mistaken. My birth mother’s name was Marla. Marla Chen.”
“He isn’t wrong, Chun. I told you, Ge is one of the most thorough investigators I’ve ever known. With the resources at his disposal, he can find out everything about a person. Well, almost everything.”
Chun couldn’t move. He found himself frozen to the spot.
“Go pack. It’s worth checking out. I’ll go book our tickets.”Ariel had been the assertive one, pushing him towards the bedroom while she dialed.
And now, here they were. Chun glanced at Ariel beside him. Asleep. He was surprised she had come with him, acted as though it was natural that she accompany him. Their relationship wasn’t one of candies and roses. So he couldn’t understand what led her to follow him, lead him to a place and to a meeting he wasn’t sure he wanted.
The pilot announced that they would be landing soon. They had been flying through all the night. Chun shook Ariel awake.
Thirty minutes later they were vacating the plane and customs took another half an hour.
“I had someone bring over a car.” Chun said to Ariel as they walked towards the parking lot, making sure to look ordinary. They were dressed down. Ariel had a cap pulled low over her eyes and she had made Chun put on a hat with a floppy brim so one could hardly see his face. They had to avoid being spotted by the media at all cost.
“Where are we staying?” Ariel asked dumping their bags in the trunk of a sleek BMW.
“I have a place downtown.” Chun had gotten the keys from a parking lot attendant and he started the car.
“Does your grandfather know we are in the country?”
“He will soon. Might try to force us to move into the main house.” Chun spoke, backing out of the parking lot and onto the roads. It was midmorning. “We’ll go to my place. I’ll find out where the asylum is and then I’ll go.”
“I’ll come with.” Ariel interrupted him.
“What?” Chun looked surprised.
“I’ll come with you.” Ariel repeated.
“Okay.” Chun nodded.
Chun’s pad predictably was a penthouse. Glass windows, great view, and beautiful décor. Shower, change of clothes, twenty minutes. Then they were ready. Chun printed directions from the computer.
“Ready?” Ariel asked.
“No.” Chun replied.
“Let’s go.”
The drive was silent. Ariel sat on her side looking curiously at the bustling city while Chun effortlessly navigated the streets. Neither of them felt any particular need to converse; wayward thoughts are not easily translated into words.
It was perhaps because the asylum was located in such a crowded city that it lacked the green foliage that such places seem to gather around themselves in an attempt to disguise their true intentions. It was a three storied building, somber grey on the outside. It spoke of uniformity and convention, the kind of place that repels with its austere assumption of strict adherence to tradition. Chun pulled into the parking lot. All the visitor slots were empty. This was not a place that invited guests.
They sat in the car for a brief eternity. Chun’s throat felt parched and his heart thumped to a strange cadence. A question lay waiting beyond those doors and an answer. Maybe. Was this fear that seemed to trail caresses across his abdomen? He looked over at Ariel and his apprehension must have been obvious on his face because she reached over and tapped him on the cheek. He nodded.
It took forever to reach the front door, an eternity equated by a strangely afraid heart. It took herculean strength to push open the thick doors.
Chun blinked in the yellow light pervading the space inside. Ariel stiffened beside him. The exterior of the building had left them ill prepared for the interior. No receptionist had a hearth near the entrance. You opened the doors and were immediately faced with a long hallway bathed with sick yellow light. The hallway was deserted and eerie.
Yellow paint peeled on the walls, revealing a stained white speaking of a notorious past. Bulbs flickered unreassuringly at regular intervals down the passage. Their footsteps echoed and the silence screamed melancholy.
Soon cells began to appear on each side of the hall. Barren cells, mostly empty. Some were occupied by a vacant eyed individual who sat clutching the bars, his empty eyes staring at landscapes not present in this world. And then there were the others, with wild light turning their eyes to Chun and Ariel, putting familiar faces on strange bodies. Feral songs poured forth from their lips, languages only they understood; only they spoke.
Ariel and Chun continued walking down the hall, ignoring the inmates. There was no sign of any hospital personnel. They turned a corner and then they saw people gathered in a room. And Chun heard the words that he’d hear for the rest of his life.
A grey haired, thick necked individual, a doctor by his white coat, said to his inferior, “She’s dead. Call it.”
The inferior, a pimple faced graduate spoke, his hands shaking as he pulled the recorder unnecessarily close to his mouth, “Liza Oh. Time of death, 3:22 pm, Thursday, 21st January, 2007.”
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Chun remembered the exact day he had realized he didn’t have a mother. He must have been about three or four years old. It had been late afternoon and he was in his nursery as usual. Laughter from the servants’ children flowed in through the window but he wasn’t allowed to socialize with them. All of a sudden he had felt hungry so he had toddled to the kitchen, attracted by the cacophony of voices emanating from it. The door had been a swinging one so he had pushed it open with his little arms. And then as he stood on the threshold, a wondrous sight had greeted him. The housekeeper, Luvis had been hugging her daughter, Fran. Chun’s eyes had observed as the mother and daughter exchanged affection unaware, in abandonment. And Chun’s chest had curiously felt hollow as he registered that there was something, someone missing. No one held him close; his grandfather didn’t exactly encourage hugs. He had toys, material things but no one to kiss his tears away. No one to hold him and tell him that someone loved him.
“Mother.” The word had sounded so beautiful, brimming with hope. And so he had run to his grandfather and demanded his own mother.
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Chun shrugged past the orderlies and nurses who stood gawking. “Sir, excuse me.” One of them tried to stop him but was silenced. There was a magnetic pull; he felt it, the figure on the bed called to him. His feet felt leaden but it was imperative he move forward.
The bed was old fashioned, white bars on one end, rusting and the paint flaking off. The mattress was thin and the blankets were dirty. There was a stench of despair in the entire room.
Chun took a deep breath. Steadied himself. Surely this wasn’t the woman who had given birth to him. His eyes traveled unwillingly up to her face and his breath caught. Shock, horror ad a choking pain momentarily blinded him. Before he knew it, he had a hand reached out to trace the features he so often saw in the mirror. The same lips, the same nose, softer and gaunt, a feminine version of his own face – he looked so much like her that even the blind would know their relationship.
Her eyes were open and her mouth was parted in a last gasp. Of pain. There were grooves from hereyes down to her cheeks; her tears had marked their pathway. Chun fell to his knees beside the bed. Her hair was wild, tangled. Almost with awe, Chun picked up one of her hands, his mother’s hand – the skin was still taut, she hadn’t been old. Chun touched each finger, wonderingly. His mother. Soon when her body realized that her soul no longer occupied it, it would grow cold. His mother. Gone before he’d met her. Chun reached out and closed the eyes that stared into the beyond. Gone. He took another breath. And just when he was about to shatter from the force of his emotions, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Grip him hard enough to cause him pain. He looked up. Ariel.
Chun got up and turned to the doctor who blanched when he recognized him.
“Mr. Goh Kiat,” He blubbered, lost for words when faced with Chun’s stormy eyes. “Your grandfather, he…”
“Prepare the body for a burial. I’ll have the funds sent over to you. I want this woman’s file. Now.” The room erupted in a frenzy of movement. Nobody argued with people who were almost royalty.
The file was delivered and Chun took it without a word. He grabbed Ariel’s hand and turned, retracing their steps until they escaped the confines of the asylum.
“I’ll drive.” Ariel had filched the keys from him and so she started the car while he belted himself in.
“I’ll give you directions. I need to go to the main house so I can talk to my grandfather. Get to the bottom of this.” His voice shook just a fraction and that was the only indication he gave of any distress.
“If you confront him in a fit of anger, you will get no information out of him.” Ariel stated calmly, speaking from experience. She had a grandfather much the same as he did.
Chun had to concede. She was right. Excess emotion would be a hindrance to cool logic. His grandfather was crafty, seasoned at avoiding questions he didn’t want to answer.
They drove back to the penthouse in silence. Rode the elevator up.
“Do you want food?” Ariel asked Chun as she rummaged in the kitchen which had been stocked prior to their arrival. The perks of the wealthy.
“No.” He replied shortly. He prowled around the apartment, a caged leopard, his movements agitated. Ariel watched him without expression. She knew very well what it was like, how it felt to feel what he was feeling.
“To think, this city where I grew up, she was here all along. I must have passed that asylum a million times and not spared it another look. And she was right there, right here.” He sat down abruptly and opened the file he had been clutching.
Ariel approached him warily, thoughts of food forgotten. She took a seat across from him. Chun read for a scarce five minutes, his eyes flying over the pages and then swore. He shoved the file towards Ariel.
“Patient was admitted to the hospital by Goh Kiat San at whose house she was employed in the capacity for the purpose of domestic help. Patient has been found to be suffering from dementia and has illusions of a stolen child. As to date, no family member has come forward to claim responsibility. All bills are paid by Goh Kiat San regularly on the condition that the patient is to be kept sedated at all times without fail.”
“How many times do you think she screamed for me? I hated her so much, Ariel. The mother who left me behind. The mother who didn’t love me. I hated her and I was glad she was dead.” Chun dragged a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and then opened them again. There was no escaping it. He would be long haunted by the broken woman on the asylum bed.
Ariel walked over to Chun and tipped his head back with her forefinger. Chun allowed her to, his head falling back like a puppet. His eyes were dull as his senses sought a numbness to drown out the pain.
Ariel understood pain. It was the only language she could sing in.
“Chun.” His eyes sharpened and focused on her. “I don’t have any pretty words. Apologies don’t do a damn thing.” She tapped his chest. “You lost something you never even got to have. That’s gotta hurt.”
“I’d like to be alone now, Ariel.” Chun tried to move, to get up and leave.
“I’m not done speaking yet.” Ariel pushed him down. “I don’t know how to console and maybe I don’t know what compassion is. But I do know what it’s like to hurt. And since I have no words to offer, I will offer the one thing I do have.”
Chun’s eyes were trained on hers with scorching intensity as he comprehended what she was saying.
“It won’t take the pain away but it might dull it a bit. You might even forget for a second. I offer you myself.”
“Do you know what you are saying, Ariel?”
“I would hardly say it if I didn’t, Chun.” Ariel stared down at him. Before her mouth had finished shaping the last word, he had reached up and captured it with his own. It was a punishing kiss. Demanding, forcing her mouth open, tasting, and taking imperiously what it called its own. Ariel hooked her legs around his waist and he, without interrupting their kiss, carried her to the bedroom.
“I don’t know if I can be gentle, Ariel. Demons nip at my restraints tonight.” He eased her shirt off over her head in one swift movement.
“It’s okay. I’m an assassin. Gentleness is not something my palate is used to.” She helped him take his off. And then there was no necessity for any more words.
He moved with barely constrained liquid savagery, exploring her body as though she were the streets of some unfamiliar city and her small hands whispered feather soft caresses over the breadth of his shoulders. He tasted the saltiness of her skin, indulging himself of its softness. She traversed the plains of his body, her lips and fingers aiding her in her discoveries of his weaknesses. His muscles bunched at her teasing and he grew ruthless in his pursuit to coax a response out of her body, as though she were a tightly strung violin and he the violinist. And when she annoying by his teasing, raking her nails lightly down his back, his control snapped. The fire and the hunger to possess and be possessed flared in both of them.
He worked towards a completion, a release and an escape. And she offered him her sweetness. Passion swept in and took over, the escape was granted, the peak was reached and they fell from the cliff together.
And if Ariel felt Chun’s hot tears splash on her shoulders at the end, she gave no indication. For the moment, she gloried in the lack of barriers between them and that day, the pain she had so long been a disciple of, gave her a gift. And she lay curled around him, her appetite just whet.
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Author's note: well... ahem. This was early right? Don't expect anything else for the next two weeks. Haha. =P. So if this gets too intense for you, check out Esse Aut Non Esse. It's calmer. Happier. (Yes, can you believe it? I actually wrote something without guns.) hehe. I go.