A/N: Wishing everyone another safe and happy Lunar New Year! Can't believe it's the 3rd yearly update of this story! It's officially the year of the Dragon! The dragon symbolizes luck, honor, and nobility, so I wish that onto you all! These are very fitting attributes for the average Asian dragon—just not Shen Du or Drago though.
"[When the hell were you plannin' on tellin' me that my old man's gonna be showin' his ugly mug around me in the same house for the new two weeks?!]" Darek marched right into Zuo's room to demand in his native tongue.
The latter was sitting in bed underneath his covers with an open book in his hand. He wore a red and purple silk robe, a long black nightcap for his head, and a thin pair of glasses sitting on the crook of his nose. He let out a small sigh as he put a bookmark in his book and closed it. "[What, no time for pleasant greetings or to wish your uncle good night?]" the older man raised an annoyed brow at his nephew.
Darek rolled his eyes at this as he was able to detect the cynicism in his uncle's tone. "Just answer my question!" he gruffed in English with a glare. Seeing how Uncle Zuo was able to keep calm while he himself was feeling the opposite only made Darek angrier. "How come my sperm donor got a heads up before me, huh? [I'm the one who actually makes reservations to come while he gets to skip out year after year and goes ghost on his family!]"
"[Are you suggesting I kept the truth from you on purpose?]" Zuo pointedly asked. He could feel himself getting defensive as he cocked his head to the side and placed his book on his nightstand.
"Damn sure feels like it."
"Watch your tongue boy!" Zuo harshly chided with a stern finger.
In midst of the heated conversation, Seymour as able to catch up to his nephew as find his way to Zuo's room. He was still in his towel and shower flip flops as he didn't feel like changing into his pajamas would take too much time for him if he wanted to be nosy and hear his older brother and nephew go back and forth. Seymour poked his head into Zuo's bedroom by the doorframe first, then was bold enough to step into the room beside Darek. "I thought you told him already?" Seymour asked Zuo with a blank expression.
Just then, Bao also burst into Zuo's bedroom, nearly barreling through Seymour to storm up to Zuo at his bedside. "Who else knows?!" she furiously huffed as she put her hands on her hips.
"Good to see you too, Bao," Seymour snided.
"Little Miss Banshee took the news better than I thought," Midori casually walked into Zuo's bedroom to dryly joke. When she had told Bao that their brother Sheng would make his last-minute arrival to the family reunion tomorrow, Bao was quick to lash out at Midori about it. The larger woman wasn't phased much by her sister's outrage at the news because she found to be a bit entertaining to see it in action.
Zuo adjusted his reading glasses closer to his face and scowled up at his newly-arrived sisters, Bao in particular. "Why are there so many people in my room wanting to speak to me at this time of night?" he groaned and massaged his eye bags. "This could not wait until the morning?"
"Our dear brother is coming tomorrow morning," Bao sarcastically replied in a saccharine tone. "Of course this can't wait!"
"Yeah, can't wait to wake up the whole neighborhood, why don't you?" Seymour mocked.
"Calm down. We understand you're mad," Midori coolly said.
"Yeah, get in line," Darek snapped with crossed arms. "You're not the only one pissed off here."
"How about you all shut up?! Don't mock and tell me how I should be reacting," Bao turned to order at them. Their quippy remarks only pissed her off even more, like this was all some kind of dumb prank she was the target to.
"Don't yell at me! You're not the only one pissed off here!" retorted Darek.
"You're the only one yelling," Midori said to point out the obvious to Bao.
"You all are so fuckin' stupid," Seymour muttered to himself and shook his head.
"Are the two of you are aware of how many times I called your phones?" Zuo drew out his question and fixed hard gazes on Darek and Bao. He moved his legs out, one by one, from underneath his sheets to set them to the side of his bed so he could fully sit up in bed. "Have either of you even taken the time to look into any of your voice messages?"
"Voice messages?" Darek echoed. "You mean voicemail?"
"Does it matter?" came Zuo's counter.
"He means voicemail," Seymour answered.
"You know more about technology than I, yet you are the ones acting like you are allergic to your phones," Zuo firmly chastised with a wave of his hand. "You, I called nearly five times within the last five hours, but you failed to pick up nor did you call me back!" he growled at Darek. The senior figure narrowed his eyes to see how his nephew's eyes yearned for the chance of a rebuttal, yet his mouth didn't open. Instead, he pulled out his phone from his pocket to silently look through his call log. "I truly loathe leaving voice messages, but I did anyway so everyone would be properly updated," Zuo firmly stated.
Zuo then pointed to Bao, as her turn for a stern reprimand was next. "And you, I tried to include you in a three-way call with Sheng and Chang some hours ago, but you did not pick your phone either."
Bao's brows furrowed at Zuo's claim and tilted her head to carefully stare at him. "When?" she asked.
"Instead of asking questions, you could just check your phone in your missed calls," Midori motioned to Bao. Though her tone was neutral and not patronizing, it was clear she was on Zuo's side. "And it wasn't just him. Seymour and I were in person for that same meeting. The only one of us who didn't attend was Dan since he was already asleep by that point."
"So what, you all just made time to have a family meeting without me?" Bao exasperatedly threw her hands up in the air.
"That call wasn't really, like, a planned thing," Seymour corrected with a shake of his head. "Was more last-minute since Sheng telling us he was coming was... last-minute."
Darek's lip pursed together feeling regret as he looked through all five of the missed calls from his uncle, even going on to see two short voicemails he left as well. Goddamn, he mentally cursed as he put his phone back into his pocket. The one time I don't answer the phone, it's for somethin' big.
"If that's the case, I wish I got the call at a time when I wasn't preoccupied," Bao huffed, her anger not calming down for her self-embarrassment. "Going through customs here took way longer than needed."
"Customs?" Midori and Darek repeated, Midori being the one to scoff hearing this.
"C'mon Bao, the new year hasn't even started," Seymour chortled out.
"For your information, it was a random checkpoint for some "additional screening"," Bao retorted back to her sneaky-minded family. "I'm no fool."
"Of course you are not, sister," Zuo said, tone laced with condescension. Bao threw a look at her elder, but said nothing. Zuo's eyes then cast upon Darek to look the boy up and down with an expecting gaze. "And you? What is your excuse?"
"Probably wasn't paying attention to his phone either," Seymour blurted out.
"Why are you still here?" Darek lowly hissed at his uncle.
"Alright," Zuo nodded with pursed lips and clasped his hands together. "Then the two of you, care to remind me again why you stormed into my room at this hour-," the elder man said with deep breath, to clasp his hands together and motioned with his head to the analog clock on his nightstand. "-to yell at me about an issue you were warned about ahead of time, but failed to timely respond to?"
"Okay! So we didn't get your warnings on time. Our bad," Darek hastily gave his half-apologies as he threw his hands in the air. "It doesn't take away the fact that a lot of us here still have issues with him that's gonna get worse once he gets here. Can't believe you all gave him the easy okay to show up."
"We never gave Sheng the okay to do anything." Seymour answered matter-of-factly. "He was more-or-less giving us a head's up that he already made plans to come here because his original plans in the Netherlands got cancelled."
"He wants something from us," Bao determined aloud. "What if he's gotten himself in trouble again and is looking for us to help him out?"
"Maybe, wouldn't be the first time. We don't know," Midori flatly stated with a half-shrug. "All we do know for sure is that Sheng will be here tomorrow and there's nothing any of us can really do to make him change course."
"If you two feel like you cannot handle sharing the space with him for the holidays, let alone one day, you are free to buy yourself a return ticket and go home," Zuo said.
"Tch, only gotta tell me once," Darek retorted, spinning on his heel to leave the room.
"Me too," Bao huffed and made a beeline out of the room also, leaving Seymour, Midori, and Zuo to look at one another.
"You think they'd actually leave?" Midori simply asked, looking more to Zuo.
"Bao... perhaps. She has always been quiet hard-hearted," Zuo dryly noted as he tucked his legs back under his covers. "However, I do not believe she hates Sheng to such an extreme like not wanting to be around him at all." Zuo understood Bao to be both no-nonsense and a women capable of holding deep soft spots for her family. Even if her anger was a theatrical and a bit over-the-top, he could not really blame her because the anger was born from repeated betrayals and mistrust.
"If anything, I'd be more surprised if Darek decided to stay," Seymour said, scratching his head with a tired look.
"I mean, we're all surprised that our long-lost brother is coming home, so what's to say Darek may surprise us too?" Midori asked.
"Maybe. I'll... go check on 'im," Seymour said, taking leave of the room before his siblings could say anything.
Now it was only Zuo and Midori left, and the former drew out a long sigh of tired and relief. "Finally, some peace and quiet," Zuo said as he slowly laid himself back down in bed. "Perhaps I should have been firm with our brother and turned him away?" he asked aloud, more-or-less expecting Midori to answer him. and turned away from his sister.
The large woman took her time to let the question sink in, mindlessly playing her painted fingernails as she remained quiet. "Why didn't you?" was all Midori asked.
"I don't even know," Zuo wearily shook his head as he turned off his lamp, then turned his body away from his sister. "Good night, Dori."
"Good night, Zuo," Midori responded in kind.
12:47 PM PT, San Francisco, California, United States
Once Ice hung up, DJ wasted no time using Darek's office computer to look through his home CCTV footage to find what became of his one-of-a-kind Ferrari. It was a little difficult and even boring at first manually looking through each recorded minute through the keyboard, but it was all worth it in the end when DJ reached the timestamp 3:36 AM. So he summoned Ice and Cobra into Darek's work office to see for themselves.
"Huh," Ice softly hummed as his green eyes were purely fixated on the computer monitor. Three figures dressed in all black had stalked up Darek's driveway up to where the Ferrari was parked. One person moved to the driver's side to jerk at the handle, finding the car door was locked.
"So this all happened after we left D's crib?" Cobra pensively asked, his eyes also watching the screen. The person standing by the driver's side banged the window a few times, causing the glass to finally shatter. Then the thief reached in the door to flip a switch and fully unlock the car, prompting all three thieves to get in the car and close the doors behind them. Cobra shook his head in disbelief. "Can't be some random coinky-dink. S'gotta be a hit."
As the perpetrators lit up the car's ignition, quickly rolled down the driveway, and zoom off into the street, Ice punched his fist into his open palm. "Man, I know somebody saw a black Ferrari zoomin' 'round the city!"
"It ain't really a matter of someone seein' it," Cobra added. "More like if they'll be willin' to tell about it. Some people won't say nothin' if their lives depended on it."
"Well they ain't got much of a choice. Our livelihoods are at stake here, remember?" Ice bit back. His frustration wasn't with his friend, but his anxiety about their current dilemma pending issue only seemed to grow. To think that their boss' car managed to get stolen within hours after they were foolin' around his place was enough to drive Ice crazy, especially since he was Darek's appointed second-in-command. "We're gonna have to go around the city askin' questions and gettin' leads on who did it and getting D's car back in one piece."
"Right," Cobra determinedly nodded. "So I guess we need to split up so we can cover more ground?"
"Nah, it'd be better travelin' in pairs," Ice shook his head. "We don't know who did it, whether it's someone D has beef with or some rando tryna hit a lick off a stranger, so we gotta be careful. With two people, at least one can get the other's six."
"Then I'd say Deej and I'll ask around. You stay here so you can make sure things about the workplace are straight," Cobra suggested.
"Good plan," Ice nodded. "If we move quick enough, we can track those fuckers down an' teach 'em a lesson for fuckin' wit' our livelihoods."
"Y'all think the perps are connected to someone D-Man has beef with?" Cobra asked.
"Shit, maybe," Ice offered a shrug. "What about the Yokonowa Crime Mob, or the Irish Mob?"
"The Irish Mob ain't that dangerous to D-Man, I don't think," DJ hesitantly said. "And Yokonowa's don't really do petty shit like car theft."
"What 'bout the Little Nomads?" Cobra spoke up. "I hear they sell parts from the cars they steal and sell them outta state."
Ice took a small gulp at this while doing his best to not let the fear show in his face. "Outta state?" the blond near croaked back He couldn't help as his mind drifted off to haunt him with the image of his boss' fancy car scuffed up, damaged beyond repair with missing pieces off the vehicle. It was better than imagining the look on Darek's face and his demeanor once he finds out what happened to his beloved vehicle during his family vacation.
"Try to stay positive, Ice. We'll get D's car back," DJ squeezed Ice's shoulder. "And we'll make those bitches who jacked it to begin with pay."
Ice let out a deep breath, forcibly pushing all the negative images out of his head as he nodded. "You right," the blond agreed. Seeing his friend look at him with confidence gave Ice enough to calm his worries down. "Then you two take the van and get goin'. Make sure you stay protected. I'll stay here so things don't look suspicious to D's employees."
"We on it dawg!" Cobra said, prompting the three boys to fist bump one another.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoy the smaller read! I made this chapter a bit short so I could influence my writer's block to go away and give me space to write. Please leave a fave and follow, as well as a review so I can hear your thoughts! See you next time!