A Prompt

Missed Opportunity (5)

Shancai was on her way to the international airport Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris. Michel LeGrand had suggested to take her to Germany for a shot of a weekly TV-cooking-show, he had been asked to participate as alternate for a French-Alsatian colleague who had to cancel the next shooting dates due to personal reasons.

This offer came right on cue. His plan was to introduce her instead of him. Maybe this format could help her to start in broadcasting. As usual she came up with objections when she feared of being overcharged or not capable of doing something she was asked.

"Eh, I even cannot speak German, I merely can talk some French or a bit English. I surely mix things up when I don't understand what I should do," she tried to excuse herself. But Michel insisted on her attendance for this offer and soothed her doubts.

"You are very talented and it's quite a funny programme, you need not to worry. You just had to improvise a dish without big pressure of time. There are 5 to 6 different chefs with different backgrounds. It's not so serious as you may imagine. The moderator himself is rather interested in delicious food. Ok he's curious and may ask what you will do. Aha, well and he is also fairly interested in female chefs but with your charm you will be very convincing, I have no doubts about it." Michel grinned heavily. But this could be her first broadcasting experience and who knew it – maybe she would gain a contract for the show till Lea Linster, the French-Alsatian chef, would be back again.

Shancai, however, didn't exactly know what she was supposed to do but Michel had encouraged her so much therefore she agreed in the end.

In the Métro (the Parisian tube) she checked several times her travelling documents and looked at her phone quite often. Her boss was up to meet her directly at the airport as he came from another location. She feared that he wouldn't arrive in time and that possibility made her nervous so she was fiddling about with her fingers all the way till she arrived at the airport.

She entered the airport hall but she couldn't see him anywhere and so Shancai got even more excited. She pulled her phone out of her bag and prepared her earphones to get some distraction by listening her favourite K-pop band. She turned and looked around when Michel called her on the phone. "Go and check in I will reach you in a minute or so."

Shancai searched for the right counter and followed his advice. Afterwards she went to the escalator which led up to the departure zone. She was just putting her sunglasses on her head and plugged her earphones in when Michel called her. Half on the stairs she turned first and looked down, her sunglasses half in her hand half on her head till she finally recognized that Michel was already above of her. He waved at her because of the many people around of him. At the moment she reached his level he welcomed her with four kisses on her cheeks when he - standing opposite to her - noticed a very disturbing scene on a higher floor level behind Shancai.

He saw a young Asian man hammering with both hands against the bullet-proof glass windows which closed the arrival gangway on both sides. He saw him shouting and knocking but the glass was so thick that only a hollow sound could have been heard which was nearly completely absorbed by the surrounding noise of take offs and flight announcements. Shancai didn't turn, for this the whole scenery behind her was left completely unnoticed by her. Michel decided not to point it out to her and took Shancai's luggage. Both hurried to reach their airplane to Frankfurt when it eventually began to dawn on Michel that Shancai might have been the one whos's attention should have been attracted. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Maybe an opportunity missed.

..........

On the higher arrival level that young handsome Asian was no other than Daoming Si. He on his part was on a trip to Paris to meet his sister Zhuang. She wanted to be accompanied by him to the Paris fashion spring shows. This was at least the official wording towards Daoming Feng but they planned to talk about the future strategic steps concerning the Daoming Group. Not being sure of a success at the last meeting of the members of board the young Daoming heir had hesitated to reveal his own business EYD and therefore he had postponed it for another half of a year till the next one.

He hadn't seen Zhuang for a longer period of time and so he was looking forward to seeing her. With this optimistic mood which occured rather seldom in the past he left the plane and followed Wang Li sauntering through the vitreous trespass.

Turning around a corner already closer to the controls his gaze fell down to the hall where the stairways led to the departure areas. A tiny black-haired woman on the escalator roused his interest at once. 'She looks so similar to Shancai, could that be? This ... It is her!' were his thoughts.

Within a second he was absolutely sure having spotted Shancai that he immediately smashed his palms against the glass windows to get her attention.

"SHANCAI!!! SHANCAI!!! SHANCAI!!!"

This stupid girl instead was about to put her sunglasses on and her earphones, she couldn't hear him, she even didn't look back. Somebody had called her and...

"Who the heck is this grey-haired man who dares to kiss her so intimately! SHANCAI!!!!!! Turn around, for heaven's sake!!! Why don't you look????"

He yelled her name and smashed the windows fervently without making a stop. 'She must turn around!! She must notice me! Please!!!!!' His whole body was tensed to intensify his mental strength convinced to force a move and a look of her this way.

Passengers who passed by looked with anxiety and uncertainty at the rampaging young man. This situation was more than suspect. Wang Li's desperate attempts to calm his boss who meanwhile has sunken on his knees still hitting the glass and yelling a strange sounding name, weren't successful at all. Ah-Si didn't listen he was stuck in a different state of awareness. "Daoming Si, Laoban, Sir, please, calm down. We enter a foreign country people will call security and emergency if you don't behave yourself. They probably take us for psychopaths or even worse for terrorists! Nor can we not risk to get arrested for indecent behaviour!"

He hadn't finished his last sentence when both security and emergency approached to get this obviously crazy man under control. Meanwhile Shancai had disappeared and a distraught Ah-Si couldn't believe his eyes that she was gone without a gaze back. This all happened in few minutes but the strenuousness he had taken made him lose his sense of time, his arms heavy as lead Ah-Si perceived it as it would have happened in slo motion. Helplessly sticking in mud.

He ordered shouting at Wang Li to find out where she was going to. But Wang Li wanted to manage this situation first he couldn't leave his boss alone in such a mess.

Initially Wang Li was confident to assure the guards of a harmless incident. But soon it turned to having flogged a dead horse as Ah-Si was completely freaking out.

The poor young heir was so upset, so disappointed by himself of not having been able to rise Shancai's attention that he started to fight in his rage with all his physical power left against the two security officers. To end this dissimilar combat two versus one the arriving paramedics knocked him literally off while giving him an injection with a pretty dose of the heavy sedative in order to quieten him and save him and others from propably getting injured in the end. Daoming Si's mind went black within seconds, his body fainted, he gave in.

The mighty but now beaten down young man didn't wake up until the next day. His sister Zhuang was sitting at his bedside.

"What happened?" Ah-Si's voice was hoarse.

"Ah-Si, that's what I want to ask you!  Zhuang started with her sermon. 

"Wang Li frightened me to death when he informed me of you being at the hospital. Better make sure that mother will not get notice of that! I did a hard work to make her believe that you were with me yesterday. And Wang Li did a good job in settling your case at the police and in hospital to keep it discrete. He is already checking the social network to prevent upcoming rumours. I hope none of the passengers got the chance to post a video of your freaking out. We definitely cannot risk to harm our company at that special moment. This incident could be more than counterproductive to our project. Do you understand! What the heck was going on in your head? According to Wang Li and the police you must have had a great scene at the airport. I honestly hope It won't cause legal consequences for you."

Her younger brother moaned and tried to tear the IV out of the back of his hand which was still placed there. "Ah-Si, let do this the nurse! You can injure yourself. I call a doctor so that you hopefully can be released now. And then I need something to eat and you tell me about what had happened." 

Author's Note:

I'm tagging @dr-cokebottles @rainingmeteors @jvh624 and @meggyhashope. Thank you for encouraging me. I'm probably not in right order of the prompts.