| Fan Fiction |
by Hibiscus
-----------------------------------------------------------
The music beat and the rhythm snuck up into your system until without realizing your feet are tapping, your fingers twitching and your body swaying. The girls were all dancing/swaying/moving five minutes after they had entered the club. All except Ariel who sat on a chair, displaying her peculiar habit of absolute stillness as though waiting for someone or listening to something.
“Hey wanna dance?” Jason yelled to Ariel above the music.
Ariel with a quick glance at Patience whose face had flooded with disappointment replied, “No. Why don’t you ask Patience?”
Patience threw a surprised look at Ariel before Jason without bothering to ask her, grabbed her hand and disappeared into the mass of undulating bodies.
“There’s a romance in the making.” Ceci smirked.
“Not if I have anything to do with it.” Rosalinda leaned back against her chair.
Mina sat straight up and craned her neck around. Suddenly she let out a little scream and Ariel tensed. “What?” She said.
“Omg!!! Look, it’s the Taichung group!” Mina almost bounced up and down in her seat. Rosalinda and Ceci looked while Ariel rolled her eyes and looked too.
“Who are they?” She finally asked when she realized she didn’t know who exactly to look at.
The girls turned as a group to look at her, eyes widening with disbelief. “You don’t know who the Taichung group is?”
“She doesn’t know who Wu Chun and Fei Lun Hai are either.” Mina said.
“You see that group over there, on the corner, no not that one, the one besides them?” Rosalinda temporarily forgetting that she didn’t like Ariel asked.
“Yeah,” Ariel replied.
“The girl is Rainie Yang,” Ceci said and watched Ariel’s face for some expression of recognition. She found none.
“The tall guy with the longish, curly hair on the right side of her is Joe Cheng. Isn’t he dreamy?” Mina sighed.
“He’s okay.” Ariel replied and all three of them looked at her in shock again.
“The one on the right, wearing the white shirt, yeah the one who looks absolutely gorgeous is Mike He. And the one opposite Rainie is Ethan Ruan Tian. They are like the biggest stars in Taiwan amongst others. They are our age and have the lives that we can only dream about.” Mina looked wistful.
“Cool.” Ariel replied looking bored.
“Aren’t you impressed? We are sharing the same space as them all thanks to my connections!” Rosalinda narrowed her eyes.
“Oh…um…woot?” Ariel replied.
“Forget it.” Rosalinda scowled and Ariel gave herself a mental slap. She didn’t want to alienate herself from these girls.
“I’m sorry. I would recognize Brad Pitt, really. It’s just that I’m not familiar with any Taiwanese artists and besides, I don’t do the whole fan thing.”
“Ever?” Ceci asked curiously.
“Ever.” Ariel replied.
Suddenly they were deluged by a group of guys who asked them to dance. The other three agreed happily but Ariel shook her head.
“Is it okay if we leave you here by yourself?” Ceci asked in concern.
Ariel found her lips quirk again at the concern. “Yeah, I’m going to go prowl around a bit. I’ll meet you back here.”
And they all walked off in different directions. Ariel frowned as she came to a staircase. “A basement?” Then she shrugged and followed the crowd downstairs.
Wu Chun frowned. He was bored. For some reason the girls fawning over him and the guys looking on enviously weren’t cheering him up. The VIP lounge was boring with the same old people, talking about the same old things. And the girls, and he spared a look for them which made them instantly perk up, they looked like professional whores. He wanted someone new, someone fresh, someone untouched.
He got up abruptly, unsettling the girl who had been nuzzling his neck. “I’m out.” He told whoever was listening and took off. He neared the stairs leading upstairs and out.
Ariel stepped forward nearing the end of the stairs.
The heel of the stiletto Ariel was wearing caught on a step and she weaved blindly for a second before she caught a hold of whoever was in front of her. For a second she thought she was saved but gravity called too insistently and she landed on top of what seemed to be a very solid guy. She got up immediately and looked down.
It was the same guy she had bumped into at the airport. The man’s going to think he has a stalker, Ariel thought. She offered him a hand up.
He didn’t take it and got up by himself. He towered over her by several inches and Ariel supposed he was going for intimidating.
“Well if you are okay then I’ll go.” Ariel turned to go but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist effectively restraining her. Ariel stiffened immediately and turned back to look at him. She stared his hand on her wrist and fought off a shudder.
“You seem to make a habit of bumping into me.” The guy drawled caressing the inside of her wrist.
“An honest mistake.” Ariel replied not giving any indication that she had even noticed his caress. He looked at her, analyzing her from the top of her head to the tip of her toe.
“Like what you see?” Ariel asked.
“Do you?” He replied. The man exuded sex, his face beautiful, arrogant nose, full lips, clear eyes, styled hair. His body was firm and muscled under his shirt and he held himself with confidence of his appeal.
“I’ve seen better.” Ariel replied. His face slackened in shock and his grip on her hand loosened. Ariel gave him the same amused smile she used on everyone and walked away from him. Again.
Wu Chun felt the rage flood him before she had taken more than five steps and with a growl of barely suppressed anger he set after her. Then he suddenly stopped and looked around. It was as though she had just disappeared into the crowd. Of course it was so dark she could have been swallowed by the crowd but so incredibly fast?
Suddenly a hand gripped his and he turned swiftly back. “Baby…?” It was one of the nameless women he sometimes spent a night with.
“Do you love me?” Wu Chun asked her, rubbing his thumb over her lips which parted immediately and eagerly.
“Oh yes…” The woman whispered making soft sounds of need.
“You’ll do.” Chun said. “Let’s go.”
Ariel watched from behind a post. Her lips curled in disgust. She made her way back upstairs to the table they had been sitting at and found everyone there.
“Hey, where did you go?” Ceci asked.
“Downstairs. Apparently t here’s a VIP room.” Ariel replied settling between Mina and Patience.
“Yeah, only true VIPs can get in there. Like Rainie Yang and company.” Jason mentioned. Then looking at Ariel curiously he asked, “What made you come to Taiwan?”
“She likes the food here.” Mina replied absently, looking around a bit morosely.
“What?” Everyone looked over at Ariel who was now examining the ceiling with a great deal of fascination. She wished Mina wasn’t so free with her words.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rosalinda asked with a touch of hostility.
“I like the food here.” Ariel shrugged. She didn’t see the necessity of explaining her actions to people she barely knew when she didn’t explain her actions to people she did know.
“So if you get a craving for pizza, you’ll move to Italy?” Rosalinda asked and yep, this time her hostility raced along her words, sharp and deadly.
Ariel smiled very, very sweetly and replied, “No. You aren’t that lucky.”
---------
Monday came and went. Ariel went to her classes, returned home, studied and had little contact with her room mates. Three days passed, routine trying to establish itself. On Thursday Ariel’s Latin class ended early and she headed home to change before she went looking for a job. Her work permit had arrived in the mail that morning.
As she walked up the ragged pathway to the door, she noticed that it was open and a loud, angry voice could be heard.
“The fuck you were thinking, woman? You’d just waltz off here and I’d let you go as you please?”
Ariel peeked in through the door and saw a guy yelling at Mina who was cowering against the fridge.
“Bitch, you think I spent time and money on you just so you could dump me? Get your fucking bags packed. You’re going back with me.” The guy, long, messy brown hair, coupled with an unkempt goatie and flat brown eyes stood in front of Mina, legs spread apart, arms on his hips.
“I don’t want to.” Mina, snot and tears clogging her voice whispered.
“What did you say, bitch?” The guy yelled. Mina jumped and started crying. “Did you dare to say you didn’t want to?”
The guy raised a hand and Ariel moved.
“What are you doing?” She said loudly enough that the guy heard and paused.
“None of your fuckin’ business. This is between me and my girlfriend.” The guy swung around shakily and looked at Ariel.
“I see.” Ariel put her bag on the kitchen counter and crossed her arms, moving closer to the guy. “It doesn’t seem that your…girlfriend welcomes your advances.” She said in a dulcet tone.
“Shut up, you whore. No one asked you for your opinion!” The guy slurred.
“I don’t want to go with you!” Mina burst out finally.
“Why you fuckin…” The guy raised his hand to slap Mina, not taking into account that his pose left him defenseless.
Ariel aimed a swift kick at his groin and the guy collapsed with a loud yelled. Then propelled by whatever demon that had led him to the house he grabbed for Ariel, managing to snag her wrist. And as Mina later retold the girls, “It was as though madness overcame her at that moment. Her eyes focused and sharpened to the point that I could see that all she was thinking about was killing Sam. She moved so fast, kicking him on the side and getting out her knife that before I knew it, Sam was motionless on the floor, eyes blinking in horror at the feel of the cold knife against his neck.”
Just then the other three girls walked into the house and stopped, startled at the scene unfurling in front of their eyes.
“Ariel!” Ceci called out sharply and Ariel stopped. She stiffened and then it was as though she realized where she was, who the man under her knife was and she relaxed, almost imperceptibly if it hadn’t been for Patience’s sharp eyes.
“Call the cops.” Ariel said. “I’ll keep him company while we wait.”
Rosalinda stared at Ariel and then moved to comfort Mina who was crying uncontrollably by now. The police arrived in mere minutes but before Ariel handed him over to the officer she leaned down and whispered almost like a lover to Sam, “Next time you want to pick on someone smaller than yourself, come find me.”
Ariel made Mina take out a restraining order on the guy, Sam who was blubbering incoherently to the police officer. “She’s a crazy bitch. She tried to kill me. She tried to kill me!”
After everything was over, the girls sat quietly in the living room, nursing cups of hot cocoa. For once Rosalinda was sitting beside Ariel while Patience and Ceci sat on either side of Mina.
“Thank you.” Rosalinda said breaking the silence that had held them prisoner for a long second. Ariel looked up from the hot liquid and shrugged.
“Our Mina here was very brave six months ago. She left an abusive relationship at our urging and moved in with us. If you hadn’t been here today, he’d have hurt her badly.” Ceci said rubbing Mina’s hands. Mina whispered a teary thank you and Ariel shrugged again, this time in embarrassment.
“It was instinctual.” She replied.
“So it’s instinctual for you to beat the shit out of guys three times your size?” Patience quipped and Ariel was startled into laughter.
Smirking Ariel replied, “I guess it is.”
----------------------------------------------------------
Author's note: I should go to work. I really should. I think I'm already late. Anyway, moving off mundane things, what did you think of this chapter? (I'll reply to previous chapter's comments in 7 hours (that is, when I return from work). I suppose you are wondering how I will bridge the gap between the normal/common world to the world the stars occupy. Are you curious about who Ariel is yet? Adios.