Title: Silent Fireworks
Author: sereace
Pairing: Implied Dao Ming Si + Shan Cai
Warnings: First fic in this fandom, so goes the explanation for the OOC-ness of the character/s. If you don't like unconventional pairings, please, stop right here and don't bother to read. If you flame me regarding the fact that this fic contains alternate pairings, please be sure to leave an email address so I can answer you right back. I mean, I gave the warnings, why did you have to go on? You're hurting only yourself and me. I'm not very good with the people who hurt me. Be responsible to at least stand up for whatever you said. Thanks. And now that all's been said and done, we can go on with the fic...  

'As long as Dao Ming Si feels something for her, Shan Cai and I can never be together.'

His own words haunted him now as he looked at her lithe form at the corner of his eyes, slightly toned arms extended to lean over the metal railings. Her eyes alight with inexplicable joy, her face in a serene smile, Shan Cai looked more of a five-year old than the twenty-one year old that she was. And at the back of Hua Ze Lei's mind, he was wishing that Shan Cai is just a five-year-old girl they were asked to baby-sit, because that would have made his situation easier. Come to think of it, he would not even be in this situation if Shan Cai is a five-year-old girl.

He sighed, closing his eyes as he reverted his attention back to the show before them. Any other time and watching the fireworks would have caught his undivided attention, but present circumstances prevented him from doing so, present circumstances being Shan Cai standing beside him, wearing a sweet-smelling perfume he could not name, strands of her long, dark, silken hair grazing his uncovered arms every time a breeze passes by...

"Lei?"

A soft, gentle voice brought him out of his trance, and into reality. She was staring at him, her eyebrows raised in inquiry.

The mask slid back in place. "What?" Unperturbed, indifferent, yet he was smiling. Ironic that he was pulled out of the stupor he was in by the same woman he was dreaming about.

The concern that was perceptible in her eyes a second ago was now laced with mocked annoyance. Hua Ze Lei felt his heart miss a beat at the sight. "What do you mean, 'what?' You've been looking strange for the past few minutes, and I was only concerned, and you go asking me 'what?'!"

'You look beautiful when you're angry.' His thoughts were for himself, and that was before the fact that he had no right to be the one to tell her that. 'You were always after the unattainable, Hua Ze Lei, always, always...'

"Hey, Lei? You're really looking funny, you know."

He was thankful for her genial manner--she was always up to lighten everybody else's burden, unmindful of her own. 'If you knew why I'm looking funny to you right now...' Instead, he said, "If I look funny, then you look outrageous."

The sporadic bout of humor in his part brought even more mirth in her eyes as she laughed light-heartedly, her eyes crinkling at the corners, her head thrown back. At that moment, the place was lit with the brightest colors conceived by mankind, and various shapes and patterns were painted in the velvet black night. Hua Ze Lei held his breath, wanting to have the power to stop the time--Shan Cai was a sight to behold. 'I made her laugh. I made her laugh...' The thought was running through his brain as constant as the beat of his heart. It was cut short when Shan Cai lit up, her laugh toning down to a smile, yet Hua Ze Lei would have given anything and everything he had to have her smile at him like that. Once, it might have belonged to him. But not now. Never now.

"We've been waiting for you--what took you so long?"

He glanced back, and he met the gaze of the friend he grew up with, his own eyes alight with the same glow as Shan Cai's.

"Xi Men here," Dao Ming Si started, pointing his thumb in the general direction of the aforementioned person, "could not resist flirting with the woman there," Lei and Shan Cai followed the peripheral path of Dao Ming Si's finger, "wearing the red dress, who had a boyfriend who was ready to pounce him," Dao Ming Si pointed back at Xi Men, "and who I was ready to pounce but Mei Zhuo conveniently dangled my wallet in front of the guy's face--"

"Believe me, Shan Cai, if I didn't practice my pick-pocket skills with this pineapple-haired moron, we would have been later than we already were." Said Mei Zhuo, who had his palms up, as much up as it could get, since he was holding two buckets of popcorn.

"But I thought Xi Men was dating the girl he saw in the cafe--" Shan Cai was saying, as Dao Ming Si moved closer to her side, handing her a cup of the promised soda. "Thanks," She murmured, stepping closer to Dao Ming Si herself. Hua Ze Lei felt his chest tighten, yet fought to remain impassive, and tried to listen to his friends' current squabble.

"Shan Cai, that was ages ago--" Xi Men started, but was cut off when Mei Zhuo thrust a bucket of popcorn into the former's arms, and put in, "Ages ago, of course, being one hour ago."

"Hey--!!" Xi Men started to protest, when Dao Ming Si motioned for him to shut up. He did.

"The real show's about to begin." Dao Ming Si explained, when Shan Cai looked at him, brows furrowed in uncertainty. Hua Ze Lei was exerting effort to tear his gaze away from the couple.

As if on cue, the speakers in the surrounding area blasted with an overly-energetic voice saying a typical 'good-evening-how-is-everybody' message.

'I could have been the one having the best evening any man could ask for, but I threw that away...' Lei closed his eyes, heaving in a breath, before silently reprimanding himself. 'I threw that--her--away...and now that she's taken, I should let them go. Just that.' Now if he could only live that one out...

"I don't know why they keep on hiring really weird djs. Don't we pay enough?" Mei Zhuo complained, practically covering his ears in apparent distress.

He almost laughed out loud. Good ol' loyal Mei Zhuo...if he could start worrying over why the board of Ying De kept on hiring weird djs...her gentle laughter wafted through his hearing range--Lei cringed inwardly. 'Worry about the djs, huh? Right.'

"Apparently not, judging from their choices..." Xi Men retorted, stuffing popcorn in his mouth. "Who's that girl over there, wearing the red leather jacket?"

He already tried Xi Men's technique, but the problem was, it did not work for him. It just brought him more potential causes of headaches.

"I said shut-up, Xi Men." Came the gruff, yet light warning from the man whose place he was wanting to be at the moment.

"I'm quiet." Xi Men snapped back lightly.

"Right. And Hua Ze Lei does not like to sleep."

He turned only to meet the eyes of Dao Ming Si. Time stopped, and he was brought back to the past, almost three years ago, when he followed Dao Ming Si to the airport, before his flight to New York.

'She loves you, not me.' He meant it then, the sentiment to see both of them together and happy. He wondered the wisdom of playing the matchmaker, now when the woman he paired up with his best friend unknowingly managed to take the first place in his heart.

"Who is going to tell me that sleeping is not good?" So instead went his reply, with his customary shrug and small smile, trying to push the thoughts out of his mind for the moment. He would have a lot of time thinking when he was alone.

Xi Men slung an arm around his shoulders, a grin plastered on his face. "If you were not Hua Ze Lei, and if I didn't know you any better, I'd almost think you're sleeping because you fantasize about the woman you meet in your dreams."

Mei Zhuo pitched in, playfully punching Hua Ze Lei's chest. "So, who's she, huh, Lei? Come on, spill!"

A feminine groan, before, "I am not listening to this. Not, I state, not listening."

Hua Ze Lei met Mei Zhuo's eyes. 'You know her. Actually, she's standing right in front of you.' Instead, he again just shrugged.

"Oh, come on, Shan Cai! Don't you want to hear this?" Xi Men asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Lei looked at Shan Cai, who was covering her ears with both hands. Her soda was long discarded, and Dao Ming Si was holding their share of popcorn. 'Don't you want to hear this, Shan Cai? Don't you want to know her? I'll give you a mirror, and maybe then you can meet...'

"Spare her Lei's fantasies--she might get nightmares out of it." Dao Ming Si put in, laughing along with Mei Zhuo.

'Nightmares...along with headaches, heartaches, confusion, and a whole lot more I would not give her.' But then again, he only laughed with them, for his thoughts were his own...

"...so everyone enjoy the show!" The dj finally finished his litany of greetings, and the people around them cheered as the fireworks went on again, in more variations than the last.

And this time, Shan Cai was beside not Hua Ze Lei, but Dao Ming Si.

'She loves you, Ah Si. She loves you, and you love her.' The noise was nearly deafening, the shouts of glee, of surprise, the sounds the fireworks were making, but still, nothing was as deafening as the inaudible conversation of the couple before him, the man who was his best friend, and the woman who he was in love with. 'I love her, too, but...' But what? Nothing. Because he does not have the right? No...it was more in the lines of: How can he fight for someone that was never his, per se, to begin with? 'But I threw it away...closed my eyes at everything else, because I thought my heart belonged to a woman who never looked twice my way.' He closed his eyes at the sight, as he tuned his senses on other things, or struggled to, at the least. How do you stop thinking of someone who personified your very thoughts? Someone who you know even just by her scent? Or by her soft, quiet footfalls? Or the way everything seem to change whenever she happens to be nearby? Whoever said that reality is better than dreaming must have been mad--how could it be, when only in his dreams could she ever be his?

~fin~

Thanks to all those who reviewed Love Becomes You.

Notes: Dedication number one: Alright, uh, what name to use? on-line, real, or hated nickname? *snickers* since you put me through almost literal hell for this, well, actually, just my left (and right) ear/s, I'm gonna use the d-name... Dang! Finally! Finally! Finally! So you see how this fic drained me (again, so you say, for the nth time) of my vocabulary? I'm getting redundant! But really, for those of you whose as demented as I am, and all others who are the people I call my friends, you should thank this girl (in guise, at the least) for her, er, nagging talent, which worked for the first time re me writing something she actually likes. *smirks* At least, something I think likes.
Dedication number two: Also to dikya-where are you sleeping, underwater-creature-with-no-origin? But wherever in the seven seas you are right now, I hope you can, uh, wake up for a wee bit of a moment to read this...piece of writing. It's kinda late, I know, but hey, better late than never. I think.
Dedication number three: Also, pyn, I hope you can read this--this goes to you!
          Dedication number four:   To pam. Woah. I never really thought somebody would know me here…you gotta great mind! Review me sometime, Onegai?!?! Long Live 1GPh!
The list goes on and it states the names: Joie and Jannilyn, Suzzane for the .mp3, my sister/s: Tricia and Treena, and to Ate Eden, who is my constant source of...*gulps* fishballs? squidballs? quail eggs? everything? Also to Seniors '03- I miss you, guys!
And of course, to all those who bothered to read, thanks a lot! Reviews are appreciated, as long as they're constructive, and not flames.