| Fan Fiction |
by W99
“El...” Hebe began cautiously. “I’d hate to say this but, things wouldn’t have been like that if you hadn’t dump Chun four months ago,” that was Hebe. Straightforward and frank to the core, there was no beating around any bushes with her.
“I know,” Ella replied guardedly, hugging her knees.
“Perhaps you should start anew with him?” Selina suggested, watching Ella carefully. “You know, call him up? Apologize? Explain?”
Ella started shaking her head wildly. “I can’t do that!”
Hebe stiffened an impatient sigh. Ella and her pride, it was always the problem. She just couldn’t find it in herself to be the one to lower her head first.
“But El, you’re miserable without him!” Selina sidled closer, offering Ella a comforting smile.
“I was miserable when I was with him too. Either way, I’m miserable,” Ella said, a stubborn look etching across her features. “But it’s better this way.”
“How can it be better this way?” Hebe threw her hands up in frustration. “You’re unhappy, Chun’s unhappy. We’re unhappy to see you this unhappy, and I’d bet both my boobs that the rest of Fahrenheit are unhappy because Chun is unhappy!”
“Really Hebe, both your boobs?” Selina couldn't stop a tiny laugh from escaping, even if it was totally uncalled for given the current situation.
Hebe sniffed irritably. “That’s not the point. The point is, what’s the use of going on like this when everybody isn’t happy with the situation?”
“You don’t understand!” Ella suddenly lashed out. “Nobody does! You don’t know how much it hurts to be with him, fearing all the time that he would leave me one day!”
Selina retreated warily, but Hebe was having none of it. “El, you know I love you dearly and you’re the greatest best friend I could ever ask for, but you’re being utterly ridiculous!”
“Really Heebs, maybe we should just leave this for now?” Selina asked weakly, clearly upset that both her best friends were arguing with each other. She hated confrontations of any kind, and here she was sitting right smack in the middle of one.
“No we shouldn’t!” Hebe shook her head vehemently. “I have had enough of all this nonsense. Sel, I know you hate it when people quarrel, but we seriously need to address this issue once and for all,” her tone softened when she turned to speak to Selina.
“Are you blaming me for the whole thing?” Ella looked both shock and hurt.
“No she’s not,” Selina hastened to reassure her. “You’re not, are you?” she turned back to gaze warningly at Hebe.
Hebe seemed to deflate right on the spot. “No, I’m not El,” she said wearily. “I’m sorry if I sounded harsh earlier. But I was just worried about you and Chun.”
“We both are,” Selina slipped right into her role of the peacemaker. “Hebe didn’t mean to sound brusque. You know she loves you, we both do. But El, perhaps she’s right. We need to talk things out. I know you hate bringing up the subject, but we need to figure out how to go on from here. It’s killing us to see you so sad all the time, and I’m quite sure Chun is still moping around.”
Ella stared down at her toes, feigning absorption in them even as she felt tears stinging at the corner of her eyes.
Hebe took a deep breath. “Now, we both know you left him because you couldn’t deal with the insecurities. Correct?”
Ella nodded slowly, looking up at them, liquid pain swirling within her eyes. “I know it sounds stupid, and I know you both think I’m a total idiot, but truly I couldn’t deal with it all.”
“We don’t think you’re an idiot. But it’s true, we can’t understand your logic.”
“Try going out with one of the world’s most sought-after man,” Ella said softly. “Try getting together with someone who can make millions of females swoon just by a single, solitary smile. It’s hard.”
“It was easy to ignore all that at first. The euphoria of finally hearing his confession drove away any qualms I might have about the relationship. But slowly, I found myself struck down by one jealous fit after another. I couldn’t go through a single day without worrying if Chun was with another female. If he called late, or didn’t reply my texts, I started going crazy. I tried telling myself that he was busy, that he had his own life and career to focus on, but it slowly started eating away at me.”
“The anxiety was ten thousand times worse when I knew he was scheduled to be on set with a female co-star. I couldn’t stop envisioning him developing feelings for her, couldn’t stop imagining up scenes where he dumped me because he was tired of me. I had absolutely no self-confidence around him, and I hated that.”
“El, you’re a truly gorgeous woman. What makes you think you can’t hold his interest?” Hebe asked quietly.
“And he’s a truly gorgeous man,” Ella replied bitterly. “What makes you think I can?”
Selina chewed on her lower lip, visibly distressed to see how tired Ella looked. “But surely, Chun deserves a lot more trust than what you’re giving him?” she finally said.
“Sel, I can’t go through that again. I just can’t go through the pain of being betrayed again,” Ella turned away, staring blindly out the window.
A soft sigh escaped from Hebe’s lips. Of course, no wonder Ella was so skittish over her relationship with Chun. She had been badly hurt by an ex once, and she had become overly cautious as a result. They really couldn’t blame her for leaving Chun, and even though it was neither a practical nor a valid reason, the fact remained that they were her best friends and they would stand by her choices no matter what.
---------
“Oh god, this is stupid. Do we really have to play this out every single time he bumps into Ella?” Jiro muttered.
“If he doesn’t get a hold of his emotions soon, we’ll be accompanying him every single night when filming starts,” Arron predicted darkly.
“Well, look at the bright side. At least we’re not in danger of being hounded by the paparazzi this time around,” Calvin walked out from the kitchen just then.
The two boys nodded back reluctantly.
They were camping out at Calvin’s for the night, indulging in Chun’s need for both booze and companionship. After the Club R fiasco, none of the four dared to set foot into any pubs, not for a long time, not at least until the whole thing had blown over for good. So the next best alternative was to drink at home instead.
Jiro and Arron had volunteered to supply the drinks if Calvin would buy the snacks. So, it was with much unwillingness (and a barrage of complains on Arron’s part) that the three friends settled down for the night, watching an increasingly unsteady Chun blurt out all kinds of nonsense as they chomped away on whatever Calvin had in his kitchen.
“Tell me again, what caused tonight’s break down?” Jiro murmured, his sympathetic gaze straying towards Chun who was happily waving one beer can in the air as Arron yelled for him to be careful and not spill anything.
“Just that meeting with Ella I suppose,” Calvin sighed. “He was being quite cordial towards her, surprisingly. I was expecting him to lash out or something, but he just bade her farewell and left it at that.”
“Chun’s hard to predict when it comes to Ella.”
“He’s like a moody woman suffering from PMS!” Arron supplied, hopping over to join the other two who were sitting cross-legged around the coffee table after he had made sure Chun wasn’t going to be making a mess anytime soon.
Jiro snorted, “If Chun hears that, he’ll kill you!”
“But it’s true!” Arron protested. “His mood swings are scarier than my mother’s!”
Jiro fell on to the floor in a heap, holding on to his side as he gasped in laughter. Arron was constantly always entertaining them with the funny, unexpectedly outrageous things he say.
“So, other than Chun’s and Ella’s ill-fated meeting, how did today go?” Arron turned towards Calvin, ignoring Jiro who was still rolling around in mirth.
“Good, I suppose,” Calvin fiddled with his ring, spinning it round and round the table. “I think the public was quite accepting of me and Selina coming out as a couple, though I suspect quite a few are feeling a tad bit disgruntled over the whole thing,” he shot Jiro a sly look.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Everybody should know by now we have nothing going on,” an expression of impatience crossed Jiro’s face as he finally pulled himself off the floor. “I still don’t understand how the whole Selina and I thing came about.”
“It was all because of Chun and Ella,” a faintly dark look appeared on Arron’s features. “If anybody should be blamed, it’s them. They were the ones who started all the fanatical SHE and Fahrenheit pairing.”
“But it really is quite funny, don’t you think? You never know when you wake up who you’d find to be paired up with next. There was this little phase where everybody was guessing if Hebe and I would hit it off, until Arron stepped in and replaced me,” Calvin laughed.
The usual clicking noise Arron made when he was irritated sounded. “Well, I don’t think anybody is going to be paying attention to me or Hebe anytime soon, what with Calvin doing the movie with Selina,” his expression turned gleeful. “The fans will have a field day speculating whether Jiro would be jealous over this latest collaboration, and whether Calvin would betray his friend and really go out with Selina!”
Calvin and Jiro both groaned. It hadn’t occurred to them that they had to deal with this.
Arron’s smirk was victorious. “Looks like I’d be the only one free from any tangles for the next few months. Nobody would have enough time to pay any attention to me, seeing that Chun and Ella are working together again, and the so called Jiro-Selina-Calvin love triangle!”
“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” Jiro advised him with an irritated scowl. “You’d only need to appear in public with another one of your friends before the reporters start writing about how you’re gay again.”
Arron waved his hand dismissively. He opened his mouth for a retort, but before he could even begin speaking, he was interrupted by a loud thump.
Three heads turned to survey the source of the noise. Chun, apparently, had just passed out after drinking his way through a dozen cans of beer and one whole bottle of vodka.
“Not bad, I was expecting him to fall a lot sooner than that,” Jiro remarked, looking slightly impressed. “Looks like he’s learning to hold in quite a bit of his liquor.”
“At this rate, he’d turn up in the hospital for liver cancer,” said Arron, ever the predictor of bad news.
“Come on,” Calvin sighed, getting to his feet. “I’m going to need help lugging that big oaf to the bedroom. He weighs more than me and Arron put together!”
“That’s because you two are puny and in sad need of muscles,” Jiro couldn’t resist sneaking in an insult, his tone lofty, his expression superior.
“I’d have you know that I’m hoping to pursue the quiet, refined, sophisticated look!” Arron pretended to be affronted. “I, for one, absolutely cannot see the attraction in lumbering around like a buffed up version of Shrek,” his manner matched Jiro’s earlier haughtiness right down to the T.
Calvin couldn’t hold back his bark of laughter, effectively dropping Chun in the process. Arron had to lunge forward to catch him or Chun would have ended up flat on his face. “Nice one Lun!”
Jiro growled low in his throat, having to concede yet another reluctant defeat towards the cunningly sarcastic Arron who always knew what to say to successfully shut everybody up.
---------
Dum dee dum dum. It has been revealed. The reason behind why Ella dumped Chun.
Well I hoped the explanation makes sense. I mean, yeah it does seem a little stupid that Ella left him because she couldn't deal with the insecurities, but it's a valid reason right right right? =D
Anyway, I want to thank Amy from Deliri0us (http://deliri0us.co.nr/) for the wonderful poster. It's better than what I hoped for.
-W99