| Fan Fiction |
by x.shuang.dao.x
“Quan, wait up.” Ashley called out as she chased after Owodog, who was walking at a ridiculously fast speed. She finally caught up with him, and shot a sideward glance at him. He had a straight face on. “Uh, Quan, I’m sorry, yeah?”
“Nah, I’m the one who should be sorry.” Owodog said.
“No, I shouldn’t have led you on if I—”
Owodog stopped dead in his tracks. “Ash, um, do me a favour alright. Stop talking about what happened just now. I don’t know what I’ll do if you keep reminding me.”
Ashley saw the riled expression on his face again and decided to shut up. For the very first time in her two years of partnering Owodog, she saw him struggling against his primal passion towards a female, namely, her. She figured it was really a long time since his last relationship.
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Ashley glanced at the clock. It was almost six. She had spent the whole day looking up information on Alicia Liew. She was pretty sure she had every single detail of her already.
That was when she saw Owodog coming out of his office. He came straight to her table. Ashley stood up.
“Chad’s got results.” He said simply, and Ashley just followed him.
Chad was already waiting for them in his laboratory.
“Hey you guys. I’ve got good and bad news for you.”
“Okay, tell us the good one first.” Owodog deadpanned.
“I’ve got all the prints and all the DNA.”
Owodog rolled his eyes. “Yes Chad, that’s why you’re our forensic expert.”
“Okay, relax bud! Just trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit.” Chad said. “The blood used for the blood letters belong to Joanna Lee and Fiona Chan. The prints found on the sweets and stuff belong to a Fabien Yang.”
“That’s it? Only one set of prints?” Ashley asked.
Chad half-shrugged half-nodded. “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
“Damn it, then we’re still out of luck.” Ashley muttered.
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“Can you tell me again why we’re dressed like this?” Ashley hissed into Owodog’s big ear.
“Because we don’t know if the killer might recognize us. So we need to make sure that we don’t recognize ourselves.” Owodog whispered back into Ashley’s.
Despite being in very close contact then, the tension between them sort of died down after a whole afternoon of not being in each other’s presence.
Ashley adjusted the sunglasses propped in her hair and tried to scratch her head. She had absolutely no clue where Owodog got this ludicrous idea.
“Can we go now???” Ashley asked again, fed up with the absurd outfit that she swore would draw more attention to them.
“If you don’t see anything funny, then yeah I guess we can.”
“Okay, NO I don’t see anything. Let’s go.”
Owodog made a face at Ashley. “Fine.” He pulled her hand and traipsed towards the lift.
They reached the eighth floor and quickly headed towards Fabien’s apartment. Owodog fumbled a little with the keys but managed to get in safely.
Fabien burst out laughing at Owodog and Ashley.
Ashley was seething as she stared at Owodog. “I TOLD YOU WE LOOK RIDICULOUS!”
They were supposed to look like two inconspicuous teenagers putting on a public display of affection at the void-deck. (Never mind that the most affection they showed was hugging only, albeit barely.) There were only two words to describe it—ironic and absurd. But it was Owodog’s idea and Ashley had to obey because she was still only his assistant.
Fabien stopped laughing when Owodog glared at him. But he couldn’t help snorting as he said, “Do you seriously think you still look like you’re 16?”
“So I’m eleven years away from that. But excuse me, I’m trying to save your life here now.”
“I’m only nine years away from that.” Ashley muttered.
“I heard that. Anyway nine ain’t that far from eleven.” Owodog scoffed.
“Okay guys, relax.” Fabien snickered again. “You two can carry on with this er, discussion after you change out of those ridiculous outfits no one above 16 years of age should wear.”
“Stop mocking at us.” Ashley snarled at Fabien, who stuck his hands up in the air in mock-surrender.
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Ashley watched the movement in the car park in the dark. She saw a peach-coloured Suzuki Swift that she remembered seeing the previous day when she came here in Owodog’s car with Fabien. She dismissed it as being one of the residents’ cars.
Fabien and Owodog were both watching some movie on the sofa.
It was already 1AM.
“Fabien, what time do you normally sleep?” Came Ashley’s voice from one of the bedrooms.
“Uh, twelve plus, one plus or later. What’s the matter?”
Fabien and Owodog had both left the sofa and appeared in the same room as Ashley.
She turned to them, her eyes already accustomed to the dark so she could see them but they were still rather blind. “That last light that you have on which faces the car park, switch it off.”
“Okay.” Fabien said, and left the room to switch off the light in his service balcony.
Then he returned to the guest room to join them a moment later.
Owodog was watching the car park from the shadows beside Ashley. Fabien found another spot to watch as well. They stood in silence for about fifteen minutes. Then the peach-coloured Suzuki Swift turned out of the car park.
“SJT 908 A.” Ashley said. Then she looked at Fabien. “Does that car belong to your neighbour?”
“No…” Fabien’s voice trailed off.
“Yu? Yu, what’s wrong?” Owodog asked, sensing the difference in his tone.
“That’s Alicia’s car.” Fabien said disbelievingly.
“Are you sure?” Ashley questioned.
“Yeah, she drives a peach-coloured Suzuki Swift.”
“Fuck.” Owodog said.
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“Now what?” Fabien asked as they gathered round the coffee table on the sofa again like they had done the previous night.
Ashley and Owodog had become strangely aware of each other again and were avoiding each other.
Ashley picked up her cup of coffee and sipped it.
Owodog just stoned.
“Okay, now, what the hell is wrong with the both of you?” Fabien demanded. “Hello! Earth to Miss Ashley and Mr Ao Quan!”
“I’m thinking.” Both of them said at the same time, then exchanged glances and looked away with much embarrassment a moment later.
Fabien narrowed his eyes. “There’s something wrong with the both of you. And it’s not about the case.” Then suddenly it hit him. “ORH! QUAN! You!”
“What me?” Owodog snapped in reply.
“You and her—You—She—” Fabien stammered again. It was rare of him to stutter; yet he did the very thing twice in front of Ashley.
“Shut up!” Owodog snapped.
Uh-oh, Ashley thought.
Fabien and Owodog were engaging in a battle of staring.
Ashley swore there were flames dancing in their eyes. But being one of the parties involved in triggering off their war, there wasn’t much that Ashley could do. “Erm, guys…”
“Stay out of this, Ash.” Owodog ordered.
And Ashley wasn’t keen on disobeying the alpha male’s words. But she did anyway. “No, I’m not. You both can stop your stupid games. There’re more important matters on hand—”
Rrrrring! Rrrrring!
All three of them went rigid. Fabien’s home phone was ringing. At 1.30AM in the wee hours of the night.
Owodog signaled towards Fabien to pick up the phone. “Press the loudspeaker button.”
Fabien nodded. His fingers were trembling a little as he pressed on it.
There was silence.
Fabien shot a ‘what-should-I-do-now’ look at Owodog. Owodog mouthed the words “Say something”. So Fabien said in a steady voice, “Hello?”
Then the caller hung up. And all Fabien got in reply to his hello was a monotonous dial tone. He pressed the off button.
“Yu, you need to install caller ID.” Owodog told him.
“Okay, will do.”
Then suddenly they both shot daggers at each other again.
“Quan, you’re going to lose.” Fabien declared.
“No, you are.” Owodog barked back.
Ashley rolled her eyes. Five years of singlehood undisturbed and now suddenly her partner and his best friend were fighting over her.
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Alicia put down the phone when she heard Fabien’s voice. Maybe she was thinking too much and he really was alone at home. He usually didn’t bring girls back to his own apartment, so she chose to conclude that she was just imagining things and that there wasn’t anyone with him.
She took out a piece of scented paper, and started writing something to give him together with the three presents she had prepared for him. One for each month of their relationship. In three days, it would be a fortnight since their break-up.
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A thin yet sexy woman got out of her car. She was dressed to kill and she entered a pub named Monkey’s Paw in search of her next victim. It had been several days since her last kill and she was itching for another one already; whether or not this one was unfaithful to her or wronged her. Because she planned to finish up her seventh one in three days’ time. This one, was just unlucky to be chosen to be the stepping stone to a complete seven.
Her victim just scored a bulls-eye on the darts board. She went over and wrapped her arms around him. “Hello handsome. My name’s Heather. What’s yours?”
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yet another chapter. haha. (: enjoy~
->shuang.dao