fairytales

of parallel universes and CDs

i shall be telling this with a sigh,
somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and i-
i took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

- the road less travelled,
robert frost

-

Parallel lines may meet in the distance, but only when they vanish.

-

• my co-writer is not on wattpad :(((( but you can find him on AO3 at glitterburn (orphan_account).

• inspired by / based on Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong crime-thriller film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak.

• original pairing was Chan Wing Yan / Lau Kin Ming.

• cop wang yuan and criminal wang junkai

• one-shot

🔝 go watch infernal affairs it's on 优酷 it's super cool

-

And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.

- to my wife,
oscar wilde

The bar was small, quiet, out of the way. It was not grand, as Sam's place was; it didn't have paintings of The Three Graces frescoed onto the wall. Instead it had posters of movie stars stuck into place with tacks and yellowed tape. A battered screen in front of the tiny dance floor showed a Tom and Jerry cartoon. On the bar itself was a potted bamboo that drank more Tsingpao than water. Even when the lights all worked, the place was dimly lit, a fact that suited the majority of customers just fine.

Wang Junkai sat on a banquette and slumped over his sixth beer of the evening. The slump was habitual, more a reflex of avoidance than of weariness. Every low-ranking gangster acquired the pose, unless they were crazy, like Keung, or unless they were delusional about their job, like Piero. It was easier for Junkai to slump. Sometimes he felt as if he had too much weight on his shoulders. Besides, a policeman always had good posture. He didn't. He liked to live the irony.

The ashtray in the middle of the table held sixteen butts, four of them his. Junkai wondered if he was slipping. He took his cigarettes out of his leather jacket and dropped them onto the table, pushing them towards the two men who sat opposite.

"No, thanks. Got my own. Hate those things; they taste like garbage," Piero said.

"I'll have one." Keung helped himself to two.

Junkai sat, still and silent.

"Did Sam talk to you?" Keung asked, leaning across the table. His bedraggled dreadlocks fell forwards, and he pushed them back impatiently. "He said he was going to use new guys for the next job. Not that I'm complaining, mind; but I don't like the idea of new guys. You can't trust them."

"Use your brain, man! With the mole around, we can't trust the old guys, either," Piero said.

Junkai smiled and took a swig from his bottle. The beer was still cold, but its taste was fading fast on his tongue. He wondered: if he had another cigarette, would the beer regain its taste, or would it get worse?

"I heard this theory the other day," Keung said.

Piero looked over at him. "What theory? Not your cop theory?"

Junkai glanced up as he reclaimed his cigarettes. "Cop theory?"

"Forget it, man. You don't want to hear it," Piero said, his tone suggesting a long acquaintance with Keung's strange ideas and theories.