Year of the Tiger / [chapter 1 - Irritation]
by portisHeart
Rating: T
Fandom: Finder Series (VF)
Characters: Liu Fei Long, 1 OC
Summary chapter 1: As the new Chinese Year of the Tiger is about to begin, Liu Fei Long makes an unexpected encounter, and his evening won't quite go as planned...
Warnings: AU, OOC
Disclaimer: Viewfinder characters belong to Yamane Ayano - this fiction is written for fun, not profit.
Finally. The last business of the day was over. It was already 7 p.m., and because the day's tasks had gone almost flawless into each other, his lunch had been quick and simple.
At the back of the dark limousine, Fei Long was relaxing at last and pondering if he should stop in the city for a meal after all, instead of waiting to be back home.
After the last meeting, an influent politician had invited him to dinner at the renown Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel, but he had refused, craving for some privacy as soon as possible. A dinner at the Landmark could be a pleasant event, but he really needed some distraction from the world of business dealings now.
And something appetizing to eat, lunch had been so functional and summary. The feeling in his stomach persuaded him not to wait any longer, so he ordered his driver to drop him at the Harbour Grand Kowloon, since it was nearer from home – after the meal, he really intended to call it a day.
He knew for him there would always be an elegant little private dinner room with a wonderful view on the harbor and the most tasteful food, and had never bothered about reservations. After all, the hotel manager knew how to treat such an important and influent guest. As soon as their distinguished customer stepped in, whenever he felt like it, select employees would welcome him and do anything to fulfill any of his requests.
Looking forward to a pleasurable dinner, Fei Long sat back, stretched himself on the seat letting out a deep sigh of contentment, and closed his eyes, a small smile on his lips.
A short while later, the car came to a stop, and didn't seem to start anew in the average time the wait at a traffic light would last. And somehow, there seemed to be some kind of commotion outside, voices were audible from inside the well isolated limousine.
Wondering how they could possibly have already reached their destination so quickly, and why those people were gathering there, Fei Long opened his eyes a little unwillingly and looked out of the window.
The first thing he noticed was that they actually weren't anywhere near the hotel yet.
Fei Long sighed, annoyed at the delay.
The second was a group of roughly twelve young people in their early twenties, probably students. They were spread on the sideway about ten meters away, some on the street itself, slowing down the traffic. Most of them were obviously trying to interact with the pedestrians, but some aimed at the passing by vehicles as well, waving some kind of leaflets and initiating conversations.
Fei Long rolled his eyes, increasingly irritated at the reason for the annoying delay.
As some of the youngsters saw the imposing long black limousine stopping behind the two cars preceding it, three of them turned around and made directly for the posh car. In seconds, the driver and the other bodyguard sitting in the front seat had stepped outside. They packed two of the students before they could come too near, and managed to send the startled and gesticulating activists back to their group, not in the softest manner. Which left the third just enough time to sprint to the back of the car where he saw a long haired man stare out of the window, probably some model. The student knocked on the glass panel while sticking one of those flyers on the transparent surface.
Fei Long started, and realizing he was seeing the cause of this annoying, irritating delay face to face, he snapped.
With an abrupt movement, he opened the door, sending the student stumbling backwards and falling on his bottom, the flyers scattered all around him. As Fei Long stepped out of the car, his bodyguards were already coming back and about to grab the scared youngster, but their boss hold his hand towards them.
"I will handle this myself, step back and make sure his companions don't interfere", he said without letting his eyes go of the student, who was still sitting in a huddle on the sidewalk. The young man was rubbing his knee where the metal of the door had hit him, his face meanwhile pale and his eyes nervously shifting between the elegant but furious looking man and his not less impressive watchdogs.
"But.. Liu Laoban..", was all one of the men in black could utter before Fei Long threw him a quick but dangerous glance which clearly didn't leave any room for discussion.
"As you wish, Liu Laoban."
Already, their boss had focused back to the young man on the floor, who had instinctively crawled back almost against the car, at the border of the sidewalk. By now, he was quite worried that he might have put himself in a really bad situation.
Like many young men his age he was sometimes a bit bold and heedless, just the idea of targeting such an obvious limousine was typical for his carefree attitude. But as an activist he often had to put up with angry reactions from conservative people, aggressive jerks and authorities. This time though, he felt he may have chosen the wrong people to mess with...
Both guards walked a few steps ahead, turning their backs to the car and shielding the view on their boss and the young man with their bodies.
The other students were now mostly gathering together, but had stepped back a bit further, while the two who had been manhandled by the bodyguards explained excitedly what had just happened to them. A few, maybe three or four, had noticed the commotion, whereas the rest had been busy with other human targets or cars. But actually everything went down so quickly nobody had seen the scene properly, especially not their friend who had singled himself out, reached the limousine and got pushed back on the street by the car door. All upset as they were about the rough treatment suffered by their two peers, none of them noticed he was missing, as a few activists had continued chasing people and cars instead of joining the group.
Behind the protection offered by his guards, Fei Long looked intensely at the young man. With his mates, he was responsible for the interruption of his relaxing journey and for the delaying of his much expected dinner. The little creep had even dared to annoy him personally with his deeds. The crime lord inspired deeply, squatted down to be almost at eye level with the student and at the same time to avoid sticking out too much behind the shield formed by the bodyguards. Even if it seemed that the others weren't aware of his prey trapped between him and the car, he was careful not to reveal it.
"So. And now, to you."
Fei Long fixed the increasingly stressed young man with an angry cold glare and a frown. Maybe a little 'friendly discussion' with the scared activist was going to be a suitable alternative to his interrupted car nap towards the hotel. It could as well help liberate some of the tension accumulated during this endless day.
His voice was controlled, but the undertone was quite worrisome.
"Tell me, don't you have anything better to do than interfere with adults' lives, you brat? Did anybody actually waste any time giving you a pretense of an education? Do you even have an idea of how this situation could end up for you?"
His eyes widened by fear and fixed on Fei Long's, the student opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out first. He cleared his throat and tried again, after having swallowed a couple of times to get rid of the lump he could feel in there.
"Hm... I... S-sorry... I.. I am sorry...". "M-Mister."
Not very impressed by the student's words, Fei Long stared him down a little more, silently, then lifted his eyebrows and answered in a perfectly bored tone:
"I'd hope so. You just ruined my evening. And you are sorry. Priceless. Well it's a good start, isn't it?"
At complete lack of anything else to say, the youngster took a deep breath. Reflecting that it wasn't possible to bring himself in a much worse situation by trying to explain his reasons, he braced himself and said in a barely audible voice:
"I... I didn't mean to bother you... Mister". "It's just... because..."
"Listen, you shameless person, I couldn't care less what your intentions were or weren't..." retorted Fei Long.
At his big surprise, he couldn't finish his sentence and was suddenly interrupted by the youth, who slowly grew anxious he wasn't even allowed to defend himself.
"But it's because of them, we have to help them Mister! It's important! They need us!"
Fei Long felt his self-control waver. But even if his patience had been tried almost more than he could take, he couldn't avoid his interest being caught by those dramatic words. He lifted his hand to stop the student's emotional verbal flow and try to get directly to the point.
"Is this so. And who needs us so bitterly, if I may ask?"
"The tigers, Mister!"
Sighing dejectedly, Fei Long saw himself confronted with a quite tough decision.
He had spent an extremely busy and annoying day.
He hadn't eaten anything worth naming since breakfast about 12 hours ago.
His car had been stopped by overactive students.
One of them had even been so daring as to knock on his window.
Making him finally lose his patience, step out of the car, and start to scare the shit out of the little creep to make up for his foolishness – and maybe for the rest of the stress accumulated during the day as well…
And now, this kid was sitting on the street in front of him in the middle of his scattered leaflets, eager to pull some activist stunt and tell him some tale about needy tigers. Wonderful.
Somehow, Fei Long felt that the situation was completely sliding into absurdity.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he evaluated his current options.
Give the unnerving student a good slap across the face - have his goons kick him towards his peers - go back into the car - be driven to the hotel as planned - continue with his projects for the evening, this was one option. But the mood had been kind of spoiled for his very expected solitary peaceful meal.
Do anything harsher wasn't very considerate, there was no need to have more conflicts with the law as necessary. And there wasn't any fun either in manhandling a mere student who couldn't even defend himself. On top of it, the spoiled dinner issue wouldn't be resolved either.
Somehow, the perspective to just push the youth aside, call it a day now and drive directly back home to Baishe's HQ was very, very frustrating too.
The day itself hadn't brought any real satisfaction. Deals had been made but no great profit was to expect of it, the give-and-take balance had been even, not especially in his favor though not bad either. Just dull.
Due to the general grayness of the day, Fei Long needed a change of mind, something to happen to lift him out of his boredom. And 'home' was definitely not going to do the trick. But he was too tired to search for any entertainment in town, nor did he want to put up with crowds.
Looking at the student, the crime lord placed his hands in front of him like a tent with fingertips touching. He decided to stop thinking, go with the flow and make the best of the absurd situation.
Wasn't a new Chinese year about to begin anyway, the Year of the Tiger? Not that Fei Long was so much into astrology, but well, this could still pass under 'cultural entertainment'… Tigers, huh? He couldn't quite suppress a chuckle at himself before he addressed the youth.
"Interesting. Tell me more. But get in the car first."
As the student just glared back at him stunned and motionless, he grabbed the boy's arm, pulled him to his feet and opened the back door of the limousine.
The student's reaction was naturally to resist the sudden unexpected request and free his arm. Even if he hadn't realized the gorgeous looking long haired man was not just an overbearing rich fashion model or band member, he had serious reservations about climbing in a stranger's car. Especially with somebody who had just seemed to be furious enough to make him fall on the floor and treat him this way. This after the man's gorillas had mistreated his friends. He had made the first move by knocking on the darn limousine's window, but now, all he wanted was to get away quickly and join the others. They had meanwhile decided to turn their backs and put more distance between them and the ruthless bodyguards standing in front of the luxurious black limousine.
But Fei Long didn't loosen his grip, and started to scowl. His voice was slightly friendlier than before, though still very authoritative.
"You wanted my attention, you have it. Now that you have succeeded in crossing my plans, I will listen to whatever you wanted to tell me so urgently – but not here. My time is precious, my patience rather thin. Even if I'm willing to let myself be entertained by your doubtless interesting story, I know better than to do this on the sidewalk. So please - Get. In. The. Car."
And saying this, Fei Long pushed the student around the opened door and inside the limousine. He followed him, still holding his arm to prevent the youth to exit on the other side.
The driver and his colleague had discretely followed the exchange, and caught the hint to climb into the car as soon as their boss had moved in. As they drove away, Fei Long released his passenger's arm and told the driver to continue to the previous destination.
Then he turned to the quite shocked student and informed him casually:
"I suppose you are hungry. Be my guest. During dinner, you will have all leisure to expose whatever you wanted me to know about."
The student was mighty annoyed at the turn the events had taken. But in spite of the wealthy man's quite pushy, physically dominant and respectless attitude, he thought he wasn't really in any danger. Naturally, he didn't have a clue about who he just managed to provoke. So he relaxed a little, and hoped this was a genuine invitation to dinner. And he wondered if all these posh show business types were just as eccentric as this one.
The rest of the short drive to the hotel went by in an awkward silence.
They both had somehow half willingly decided to go with the flow, but the situation was still quite unreal for them…
(End of chapter 1)