| Fan Fiction |
by W99
“Shut up. I didn’t ask you all out to listen to lectures,” Chun shot a heated glare across before waving his arm harder to attract the waiter’s attention.
Jiro glanced out the window at the neon-lit streets with a soft sigh. “Let him be Lun, he obviously isn’t going to listen to reason.”
The three of them were sitting in a dark and less-renowned (the reason behind why they chose to hang out here sometimes) club in the capital, watching Chun getting more and more wasted as the minutes passed.
Arron fidgeted in his seat. “It’s not a good idea getting so stoned,” he looked warily around. He was, by nature, the most paranoid out of Fahrenheit, prone to frequent fits of jumpiness and agitation.
‘Party-pooper, worrywart’, the other three used to tease him whenever he descended into one of his moods. “It’s better to be safe than sorry,” he would argue back good-naturedly.
Calvin shrugged, lowering his head as inconspicuously as he could when the waiter walked over with two more bottles of beer. Jiro casually glanced to his left, effectively turning his head away while Arron carefully pulled at his cap, shielding his face even more.
Although they poke fun at Arron’s easily-spooked nature, it really was better to be safe than sorry. They always tried their best to keep as low-profiled as possible when they were out and about.
As the hour progressed, Chun got increasingly drunk while the other three made half-hearted attempts to stop him. There really was nothing they could do when Chun was in this state, he was even more hard-headed than a mule, but they still tried to set a limit to the amount of drinks he was downing.
“I am THE Wu Chun!” Chun proclaimed happily, his speech slurred, a dopey grin appearing on his face.
Jiro rolled his eyes.
“I am a superstar!”
“Yes, you’re a superstar,” Calvin played along patiently.
“He’s ridiculous when drunk,” Arron muttered, shaking his head.
“Chun, keep it down!” Jiro said warningly when a few patrons passing by glanced questioningly their way.
“More beer!” Chun demanded, slamming his fist on the table impatiently.
Arron made an irritated clicking sound with his teeth before indicating to the same waiter who had served them before to bring over two more bottles.
“Fahrenheit is the number 1 boyband in Asia!” Chun announced, waving one finger in the air to indicate the universally-agreed ‘no. 1’ sign.
“Shhhh! You’re attracting attention!” Jiro snapped, delivering a hard kick under the table.
“Owwwwh! Something hit me!” Chun looked confused. He shrugged after glancing down at his feet, than continued on with his delirious rambling. “We’re the most sought-after males in the world!”
Calvin stifled a snort. “You’re sounding really stupid.”
“Everybody loves me!”
More snorting, this time from Arron.
“She loves me! And she loves me! And I know she so totally loves me!” Chun pointed wildly around the pub.
“Do you want to get found out?” Calvin grabbed his arm and yanked it down, hard. “Stop this!”
“But El, she doesn’t love me,” Chun’s eyes suddenly turned dark with despair as he slumped back down moodily over the table.
Jiro and Calvin glanced at each other, equal amounts of sympathy reflecting in their eyes before Calvin patted Chun’s shoulders encouragingly. “You’re just being negative.”
“No, it’s true!” Chun looked up. “She said so herself!”
“Quiet for a minute,” Arron warned him tersely when he caught sight of the waiter making his way over to their table.
The waiter glanced at them, curiosity evident in his eyes at the odd-looking group, but didn’t say anything, only setting down the bottles quietly before turning away.
“I am THE Wu Chun! How can she not love me?” Chun howled.
The waiter glanced back, looking startled.
Calvin immediately stiffened warily, while Jiro muttered a curse under his breath.
“We’d better leave soon. He’s getting suspicious of us,” Arron looked extremely nervous. He ran his hand agitatedly through his hair, sliding lower into his seat as if trying to disappear from sight.
“I know. I’ll go get the car. I’ll ring you once I’m near the front door,” Jiro stood up, shooting a cautious look at the waiter who was openly staring at them.
“He’s calling someone. Damn, it’d better not be reporters!” Arron suddenly hissed, his face going pale.
Calvin turned and saw the waiter speaking rapidly into his phone, all the while shooting anxious looks in their direction.
He turned back with a strained sigh. “Come on, we better get out of here. We’ll wait for Da Dong somewhere else. Settle the bill, will you?”
Arron nodded, throwing a few hundred down the table.
Better safe than sorry. Always better safe than sorry. They may tease Arron mercilessly, but he was absolutely correct. This was the motto they lived and breathed. One wrong move and it could mean losses amounting to billions for them. Retracted contracts, withdrawn deals, tarnished reputations, all leading up to an inevitable career suicide. They couldn’t afford so much as a tiny miscalculation. Better being safe than sorry.
“Don’t look at anyone. Just keep your head lowered, and hopefully we’ll get out of here before anyone notices us. Ok?” Calvin got to his feet, lugging Chun up with him.
Arron nodded once more, feeling relieved that Calvin was there to tell him what to do. Calvin was not only the official spokesperson for Fahrenheit; he was also the one that guided the other three whenever they felt unsure about themselves.
They always joked that Calvin was born to be in the public eye. He knew instinctively what to do when put under the scrutiny of millions. He held himself with quiet poised, and had this certain flair with words that always got him out of situations.
Chun might withdraw warily, Jiro was known for falling into awkward pauses and Arron always stumbled over his words when flustered, but Calvin was different. He never felt nervous. He was always composed.
He was simply a natural manipulator. He could manoeuvre any environment to suit his liking. He could boost up everybody’s morale with a simple smile and a well-placed joke, and he could change any subject so smoothly most of the time people weren’t aware that they had been led like a bull through its nose until it was too late.
Seeing how good Calvin was at keeping up with the impossibly hard act of juggling with pleasing the media and the public, as well as leading Fahrenheit safely through the maze of pitfalls they were bound to encounter, it was no wonder HIM appointed him as the official voice of the boyband.
It was a fine line they were forever dancing on, a delicate choreography of dangle and retreat as they allowed everyone tantalizing glimpses of their lives while still striving to maintain a degree of privacy and decorum. And no one did it better than Calvin Chen.
“A little help here?” Calvin gasped, struggling visibly. “This dude weighs a ton!”
Arron forced a laugh before reaching over to grab Chun’s other arm.
After giving the room another assessing look, Calvin signalled the all-clear and they begin trying to make their way as discreetly as possible towards the main entrance. It was no small feat, with the racket Chun kept attempting to kick up.
It was with great difficulty that they managed to stumble up to the front. Arron pushed at the doors, fumbling with Chun while Calvin tried to maintain his equilibrium and keep his friend from toppling over.
“He’s absolutely useless when stoned!” Arron complained under his breath, panting a little under the extra weight he had to shoulder.
Just then, Calvin felt his phone vibrating, alerting him to an incoming text. Thinking it was Jiro telling them that he was already parked outside, he reached into his pocket to pull it out.
‘GET OUT FROM BACK DOOR. CAMERAS UP FRONT. LOTS OF THEM.’
-Dong
“Damnit! Arron! Wait!”
But it was too late.
The words had barely left Calvin’s mouth before the three of them were greeted with endless flashes of bright lights and a multitude of questions coming at top speed from all possible directions.
“Shit!” Calvin snarled, trying to retreat back into the club, but there were already reporters coming in from behind. They were effectively surrounded.
“May I know what you’re doing in Club R?”
“Where is Da Dong? Why isn’t he out with you three?”
“Are you trying to isolate him?”
“So the rumours about him and Chun not seeing eye to eye are true?”
“You two are not on Jiro’s side but on Chun’s?”
“Chun what do you have to say about this? Do you really hate Jiro?”
“Is Fahrenheit going to split up?”
Arron shot a panicked look at Calvin.
“Cover for Chun!” Calvin mouthed the words silently. It was a bonus that the reporters seemed to not yet have caught on to the fact that Chun wasn’t exactly in tiptop shape.
Arron nodded, knowing at once what Calvin meant. He moved in front of Chun, attempting to shield his friend’s face from the press. Calvin followed behind, trying to hold Chun up without looking too obvious. Luck was on their side in the sense that Chun was wearing a cap and the reporters couldn’t exactly see his drunken expression.
Suddenly, the both of them heard Chun gag. He stumbled, his shoulders hunching over as retching coughs racked his entire body. Calvin and Arron both stopped short, dreading what they suspect was coming next.
Chun wobbled slightly before twisting to the side to heave violently.
There was a sudden deafening silence as everybody turned to stare at the reporter who was covered from head to toe with Chun’s stomach contents.
“Go! Go go go!” Calvin was the first one to snap back to attention. He shoved at Chun frantically.
Arron shook himself out of his disbelief daze, grabbed Chun’s arm, and along with Calvin, pushed and hauled their way out of the crowd, taking advantage of the momentary distraction that Chun had unknowingly provided them.
They half-ran, half-stumbled around the corner and dodged behind a huge rubbish cart situated inside a dark, deserted alley.
There was a few tensed, silent moments as the two friends braced themselves to be cornered and bombarded with a mountain-load of questions. They flattened against the wall, struggling to get their breathing under control, hoping that their harsh gasps for air wouldn’t be heard, praying that the reporters would miss them.
Calvin finally allowed himself to collapse on the floor in an exhausted heap when he saw the crowd running past them, seeming not to have noticed them skulking beneath the shadows.
Opposite of him, leaning against the other wall, Arron was slumped on his heels, his breathing heavy, his eyes still wide from the earlier excitement.
Chun lay sprawled on the floor between them. He had already passed out.
There was an awkward pause as both Calvin and Arron stared at each other.
“Well, at least Chun didn’t throw up all over me,” Arron spoke up weakly.
Calvin couldn’t help himself, he burst out into laughter, his shoulders shaking in uncontrollable mirth.
---------
Calvin sighed in frustration as he pulled back the drapes with an irritated snap. “No go. Still down there.”
“I’m sorry!” Arron wailed for the umpteenth time.
“It’s not your fault. Stop trying to be so hard on yourself,” Jiro came out from the kitchen and threw both Calvin and Arron a can of Coke each.
“But it IS my fault! If only I hadn’t open the doors. If only I’d heard Calvin. Then none of this would have happened!”
“It would have happened either way,” Calvin pointed out, flopping down on Jiro’s couch with a tired yawn.
“No! If I’d heard you, we wouldn’t have been cornered by the cameras. We could have gone out the back and escape unscathed.”
“Arron, I told you. Either way the outcome would have been the same. There were reporters at the back too. I saw them when I was trying to get to your alley.” Jiro said patiently.
“But still!”
Calvin rolled his eyes and shot Jiro a give-it-a-rest look. If possible, Arron was even more stubborn than Chun when he had set his mind on to something. And it was obvious Arron was determined to put the blame of tonight’s fiasco wholly on himself.
The two of them plus one drunken, passed out Wu Chun were bunking over at Jiro’s for the night. The paparazzi had caught sight of them when they were trying to make their getaway and a high speed road chase had ensured, with Arron screaming his head off in the back seat, and Calvin desperate yelling instructions at Jiro as his band mate deftly and recklessly wended his way through the streets of Taipei.
But Lady Luck, apparently, had taken it into her head to stay with them that night because by some sort of twisted miracle, they somehow managed to elude the media long enough to scramble up to Jiro’s fifteenth-storey apartment.
However, their good fortune stopped there. The reporters, after finding out that they couldn’t storm up and break down Jiro’s door to question them, had all decided to make themselves comfortable on the ground, and it didn’t look like they were about to leave anytime soon.
And even if, by another sort of twisted miracle, that Arron and Calvin could in some way manage to creep out unnoticed, they had no doubt that word had gone out that Fahrenheit was out and about creating one scandalous gossip after another. Their own respective places were bound to be swarming full of cameras as well.
Hence, for the second time that night, they were effectively surrounded.
“I swear, I’m going to beat him to a bloody pulp when he wakes up,” Jiro growled, his eyes straying towards his bedroom where Chun was currently sleeping in. “And he took my bed!” he announced after a short pause, his eyes growing narrower at the prospect that he would be sleeping on the floor tonight.
“I’m sorry!” Arron repeated. “It’s entirely my fault.”
Calvin picked up a cushion and threw it at Arron’s head.
“Owh! What was that for?”
“For you to shut up and stop trying to be all heroic by shouldering all the blame,” Calvin replied.
Arron made a small clicking sound with his teeth, a weird little habit he had when he was irritated, and threw the cushion back at him.
Calvin reached out to catch it easily, proceeding to stretch out lazily on the couch, hugging it to his chest as he gave another gigantic yawn. “Best get some sleep guys. Tomorrow we’d be working our brains out trying to do damage control.”
“That’s your job,” Jiro said teasingly, flopping down on to the mattress he had laid out on the floor earlier. “You’re Fahrenheit’s spokesperson. You’re the one who needs to deal with the media. Me and Arron, we only need to stand behind you and look pretty for the cameras,” he crowed with laughter and exchanged a high five with Arron, who was going to be sleeping on the floor with him.
“That’s so unfair!” Calvin protested.
“Which is why you always get the couch and never the floor when you guys sleepover,” Jiro said smugly. “It’s to atone for all the times we used you to get out of trouble.”
Arron nodded, a smirk spreading across his face. “Go to sleep Cal. YOU’D be the one working your brains out tomorrow trying to do damage control.”
“Don’t forget having to explain Chun’s behaviour to HIM,” Jiro added unhelpfully.
Calvin growled low in his throat, a frown marring his smooth forehead. “I swear, I sacrifice too much for this band!” he announced darkly.
“Because you love us and can’t live without us!” Jiro was quick to come back with another retort bound to annoy Calvin further.
Arron erupted into another peal of gleeful laughter, earning him a ferocious scowl from Calvin.
“Just go to sleep!” Calvin muttered.
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Whew. A pretty long chapter, I suppose. To atone for my feelings of guilt.
To whoever having question marks on their heads, I'd advise you to pop over to http://winglin.net/fanfic/Set if you have the time, and read Chapter 44 first. I was doing some very major explaining over there. =p
Anyway, for those of you who have read my explanations. YES I WROTE [On the set or off]!
And although I didn't really abandon that fic on purpose, I still feel really extremely horrible. I doubt the majority of my OTSOF readers are still around though, which made me abit sad. They were the best, most supportive, most encouraging commentors one could ever ask for. Oh well. =)
-W99