IA: Punarbhava
i have a mental image of a younger andy lau in my mind when writing this. edison who? XD infernal affairs II never happened, in my little happy fangirly world, except for the bits where it did.
randomly, went through the first fic -- the companion piece to this one -- on an impulse and edited it quite a bit... >.>
Punarbhava
by omi
Punarbhava (Sanskrit)
The process of rebirth or continued existence from one life to another.
It sounded like it would be really cool. A secret mission. Like James Bond, 007, licensed to kill, only in reverse. Perhaps he'd even be given a couple of men to follow him after it was all over and he came back to the gang. They'd call him Dai Loh, Big Brother, or maybe Ming-Kor. The words fell easily off his lips. Ming struck a pose before the mirror, his best bad-ass look, and sneered at his own reflection.
The sneer fell off, giving way to amusement, and he continued with his usual morning routine. Not that there was that much to do, not with this new identity.
He'd mostly breezed through the interviews (hair combed flat, plain shirt and pants bought for the occasion. Ring-less, chain-less, earring-less; he felt naked and strangely light). Although there was one heart-stopping moment, when the recruiting officer asked him about his patchy school attendance records, and his uneven grades.
He thought fast, and looked earnestly into the recruiting officer's eyes, putting a little tinge of embarrassment into his voice as he said, 'I'm not really the studying kind, but I'm really good at sports, and I can definitely chase criminals down and help keep the peace in society.' He held the recruiting officer's eyes for a long beat, his heart beating fast.
The recruiting officer had laughed. 'It's not just about running faster, the bad guys are getting smarter too, you know.' Then he looked down, made a brief notation in his file and the moment passed.
Ming received his acceptance letter just two weeks later.
His cockiness lasted less than a month. To be more precise, it ended on his first day as a cadet at the Hong Kong Police Academy of Training, where the realities of police cadet training hit him like a ton of bricks.
It had involved waking up at an obscene time of 5.30am. It involved butt-ugly uniforms and getting his hair shaved off. It involved queuing for food, queuing to piss, to shit, to shower with a hundred other guys, just another shaved head in a sea of shaved heads.
It involved morning marches and exercises and lining up in the parade grounds listening to some shit-faced old man shout at them over and over and over again. They had to practice saluting, and marching, and the difference between parade rest, being at ease, and other things that sound like they should be a lot easier to do then they actually were. And at the end of a sweat-filled day, collapsing onto a small hard bed, and waking up the next morning to do it all over again.
The trainers were evil and thought nothing of issuing physical punishment for the stupidest infractions. They were made to stay back and pump out 200 push-ups on their second day, counted out by a sadistic bastard who didn't like the way they made their beds.
Ming longed for a break. A minute, where no one was looking over his shoulders. Just a minute alone, where he didn't need to do anything except sit and breathe.
The old Ming would have given them the finger. Just strut out of the place, straight into an arcade, or maybe a pub and cadge free beer from the bartender, hook up with a couple of girls. Yeah, the old Ming would have hauled his ass right out of there after the first fifteen minutes.
Police cadet Lau Kin Ming stood at attention and quietly despaired.
Hon Sam called him, the night before his first weekend off, a month after training started. 'How is it going?' he asked, sounding just like a concerned jovial uncle. 'Come and visit me when you get off, I'll brew something good for you!' He rattled off an address for a pub in Happy Valley Road and hung up before Ming could get a word in.
Ming stood there in the ornate room at the appointed hour in a plain tee-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Standard garb for a police cadet in training, severely under-dressed in the flash and red velvet of the room. The beaded curtain swung and clattered, and Hon Sam walked in, a garish apron around his rotound waist, holding a claypot that emitted fragrant steam from its spout.
'Excellent timing!' he exclaimed. 'I brewed you black chicken with red dates soup. We've to feed you up, especially now you're in training.' His eyes gleamed. 'Sit, sit!'
They pulled up chairs around the glossy wooden bar, the humble homespun claypot as at odds with its surroundings as Ming himself. Hon Sam busied himself spooning soup into bowls, ornate rings glinting as his fingers moved, chattering the whole time. Was it difficult? Is he getting used to the training? How is he getting along with his fellow cadets?
Ming answered in mostly monosyllabic affirmatives. Fine. Okay. Not bad.
'Good, good,' Hon Sam smiled widely. 'You're a bright boy -- one of the brightest I've seen in years! I've high hopes for you. Very high. I'll give you five years. The police won't know what hit them!' He laughed, pounding the table in his glee and Ming smiled weakly.
A woman walked in then.
The same beaded curtains that clattered with Hon Sam's arrival clinked softly and swayed in her wake. Her lips were painted the same blood red as her fingertips. She wore only a slip, despite the hour, a thin sliver of black silk that clung to her lush figure.
'Your boys say they're done,' she said, pouring herself a bowl of chicken soup. Like Hon Sam, she didn't bother with a spoon, lifting the bowl directly to her scarlet-painted lips and drinking. Her throat, pale and fine, moved as she swallowed.
Ming, possibly almost as bright as Hon Sam had professed, feigned a pressing interest in the bottom of his soup bowl, and tried not to notice as Hon Sam's pudgey hand squeezed her thigh. His hand left wet marks on the silk, but Ming tried not to notice that either, or how her slip rode up when she sat.
Hon Sam nuzzled her pale bare shoulder. 'Tell them to chop the body up into pieces and dump it in Causeway Bay. Show those fuckers what happens to people who cross me.' His eyes were hard as stone, and with about as much life. He grinned at Ming. 'Done with your soup?' he asked, all kindly uncle again.
Ming could feel the fine hairs at the back of his neck prickle. 'The soup's really good,' Ming declared. He looked up, directly into Hon Sam's eyes, projecting as much earnestness in his eyes and face and body as he can possibly manage. 'Thanks, Sam-kor. Don't worry, I won't let you down. We'll screw the cops over til they bleed.'
Hon Sam smiled. Ming smiled. And the woman sat there unmoved.
Ming walked out of the pub, blinking under the strong light.
He was not an idiot. He'd seen what they did to guys who bugged out, who couldn't pull their weight, or just plain fucked up. He'd been part of the crew sent to 'teach' people lessons, more than once. The lessons involved sections of lead pipe, usually, and sometimes planks studded with nails. It depended on the type of lesson being taught and on the bosses' moods.
He just... never thought he could be one of those poor slobs. Sloppy thinking, thought Ming to himself, feeling the hairs on his neck prickle again. Severely stupid.
Just be a good drone. Do your time. Suck it up. Do what you're told, because now you're walking on a fucking field filled with fucking landmines that'll fucking blow you up if you put one fucking foot wrong.
Ming walked on, his pace quickening, in tandem with his accelerating heartbeat. The body, finally catching up with the brain. Fight, flight, or swim with fucking sharks.
He was also, unreasonably, absurdly, angry. Like he's been cheated, betrayed. A gang's supposed to stand with you, by you, walking the streets in the middle of the night with enemies all around, and you'd be safe, because you were with your brothers. You give your loyalty to your big brother. You bleed for him, you bleed others for him, and in return, you are not alone, never alone, except now...
His brothers were gone. He was stuck in a hell-hole, and the person who he swore to, was sworn by, just slapped him in the face with an too-obvious warning not to fuck up.
Yes, Ming was feeling severely alone.
The old anger bubbled up, cold and vicious. Which was why when the first body caromed off the wall and into him, his first reaction was pure street-gangster. 'Fuck, are you tired of living?!'
It was some bastards fighting over a chick. Ming's lip curled derisively. Perfect, he was in a mood to spill some blood himself. He grabbed the collar of the guy who bumped him. 'Oi, you messed up my shirt.' Ming said evenly, almost peaceably, even.
The guy spat, a bruise blooming on his cheek. 'Stay out of this!'
'Yeah? What are you going to do if I don't?' Ming smiled, and then, without warning, he swung back his fist and punched the guy right where he was already bruised. Felt the telltale give of bone and flesh under his knuckles, and grinned. He was feeling better already.
With a yell, Ming waded into the mass of fighting bodies. It was four guys against the one -- Ming automatically discounted the crying girl curled up in the doorway. No matter. Fingers gouged into whatever weak flesh they could find. He barreled down another guy with a lowered shoulder, bouncing off him with a impact that promised bruises or worse.
He was just getting warmed up, when hands closed around his neck, painfully. Fuck. He'd been careless. Ming kicked back, desperately, tried to elbow the body behind him, connected a couple of times, but the hands held on, tightened.
His lungs and throat burned with the need for air.
He was suffocating.
And then, miraculously, the hands loosened, fell slack. Ming fell to the ground, gasping for life-giving air, and twisted around. A third guy stood behind his strangler, the remains of a broken bottle in his hand. Ming didn't even hear him.
They stared at each other for a long moment. The other guy was dark and skinny. There was something familiar... But before he could think on it further, the whistles sounded, and the cops came, running, shouting. The other guy looked away then, and started running, as did the rest of the guys. Crawled, limped, slithered... cockroaches fleeing the scene of the crime.
Ming pulled himself up, planning to vanish himself, but the lack of air had sapped most of his energy, and by the time he stood, the cops had already surrounded him, surrounded the girl. Ming could feel the expression leak out of his face, and then he remembered who he was now. Who he'd never be again.
He hauled himself to attention, and snapped out a mostly accurate salute, 'Cadet 7820315 reporting, sir!'
The cops blinked, and looked at him.
'Sir, I was walking along the street and saw five guys attacking this young lady and tried to caution them to stop. However, they refused to listen and instead attacked me and I was forced to take steps to defend myself, Sir!'
The weeping girl came up then, traces of tears still wet on her face. She looked ridiculously young, in the light, even with the short skirt and tight blouse. 'He saved me from them. They were going to... and they were touching... and he came and fought them off for me. He saved me,' She repeated.
Something in the cop's faces relaxed then. Ming felt a pat on his shoulder. 'Good work,' someone murmured.
And Ming, police cadet Lau Kin Ming, allowed himself to wince, and scratch at his head deprecatingly, 'Well, I couldn't just stand by and watch them bully a girl...'
He looked up, to the men in policemen-green, and smiled.
- fini -
randomly, went through the first fic -- the companion piece to this one -- on an impulse and edited it quite a bit... >.>
Punarbhava
by omi
Punarbhava (Sanskrit)
The process of rebirth or continued existence from one life to another.
It sounded like it would be really cool. A secret mission. Like James Bond, 007, licensed to kill, only in reverse. Perhaps he'd even be given a couple of men to follow him after it was all over and he came back to the gang. They'd call him Dai Loh, Big Brother, or maybe Ming-Kor. The words fell easily off his lips. Ming struck a pose before the mirror, his best bad-ass look, and sneered at his own reflection.
The sneer fell off, giving way to amusement, and he continued with his usual morning routine. Not that there was that much to do, not with this new identity.
He'd mostly breezed through the interviews (hair combed flat, plain shirt and pants bought for the occasion. Ring-less, chain-less, earring-less; he felt naked and strangely light). Although there was one heart-stopping moment, when the recruiting officer asked him about his patchy school attendance records, and his uneven grades.
He thought fast, and looked earnestly into the recruiting officer's eyes, putting a little tinge of embarrassment into his voice as he said, 'I'm not really the studying kind, but I'm really good at sports, and I can definitely chase criminals down and help keep the peace in society.' He held the recruiting officer's eyes for a long beat, his heart beating fast.
The recruiting officer had laughed. 'It's not just about running faster, the bad guys are getting smarter too, you know.' Then he looked down, made a brief notation in his file and the moment passed.
Ming received his acceptance letter just two weeks later.
His cockiness lasted less than a month. To be more precise, it ended on his first day as a cadet at the Hong Kong Police Academy of Training, where the realities of police cadet training hit him like a ton of bricks.
It had involved waking up at an obscene time of 5.30am. It involved butt-ugly uniforms and getting his hair shaved off. It involved queuing for food, queuing to piss, to shit, to shower with a hundred other guys, just another shaved head in a sea of shaved heads.
It involved morning marches and exercises and lining up in the parade grounds listening to some shit-faced old man shout at them over and over and over again. They had to practice saluting, and marching, and the difference between parade rest, being at ease, and other things that sound like they should be a lot easier to do then they actually were. And at the end of a sweat-filled day, collapsing onto a small hard bed, and waking up the next morning to do it all over again.
The trainers were evil and thought nothing of issuing physical punishment for the stupidest infractions. They were made to stay back and pump out 200 push-ups on their second day, counted out by a sadistic bastard who didn't like the way they made their beds.
Ming longed for a break. A minute, where no one was looking over his shoulders. Just a minute alone, where he didn't need to do anything except sit and breathe.
The old Ming would have given them the finger. Just strut out of the place, straight into an arcade, or maybe a pub and cadge free beer from the bartender, hook up with a couple of girls. Yeah, the old Ming would have hauled his ass right out of there after the first fifteen minutes.
Police cadet Lau Kin Ming stood at attention and quietly despaired.
Hon Sam called him, the night before his first weekend off, a month after training started. 'How is it going?' he asked, sounding just like a concerned jovial uncle. 'Come and visit me when you get off, I'll brew something good for you!' He rattled off an address for a pub in Happy Valley Road and hung up before Ming could get a word in.
Ming stood there in the ornate room at the appointed hour in a plain tee-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Standard garb for a police cadet in training, severely under-dressed in the flash and red velvet of the room. The beaded curtain swung and clattered, and Hon Sam walked in, a garish apron around his rotound waist, holding a claypot that emitted fragrant steam from its spout.
'Excellent timing!' he exclaimed. 'I brewed you black chicken with red dates soup. We've to feed you up, especially now you're in training.' His eyes gleamed. 'Sit, sit!'
They pulled up chairs around the glossy wooden bar, the humble homespun claypot as at odds with its surroundings as Ming himself. Hon Sam busied himself spooning soup into bowls, ornate rings glinting as his fingers moved, chattering the whole time. Was it difficult? Is he getting used to the training? How is he getting along with his fellow cadets?
Ming answered in mostly monosyllabic affirmatives. Fine. Okay. Not bad.
'Good, good,' Hon Sam smiled widely. 'You're a bright boy -- one of the brightest I've seen in years! I've high hopes for you. Very high. I'll give you five years. The police won't know what hit them!' He laughed, pounding the table in his glee and Ming smiled weakly.
A woman walked in then.
The same beaded curtains that clattered with Hon Sam's arrival clinked softly and swayed in her wake. Her lips were painted the same blood red as her fingertips. She wore only a slip, despite the hour, a thin sliver of black silk that clung to her lush figure.
'Your boys say they're done,' she said, pouring herself a bowl of chicken soup. Like Hon Sam, she didn't bother with a spoon, lifting the bowl directly to her scarlet-painted lips and drinking. Her throat, pale and fine, moved as she swallowed.
Ming, possibly almost as bright as Hon Sam had professed, feigned a pressing interest in the bottom of his soup bowl, and tried not to notice as Hon Sam's pudgey hand squeezed her thigh. His hand left wet marks on the silk, but Ming tried not to notice that either, or how her slip rode up when she sat.
Hon Sam nuzzled her pale bare shoulder. 'Tell them to chop the body up into pieces and dump it in Causeway Bay. Show those fuckers what happens to people who cross me.' His eyes were hard as stone, and with about as much life. He grinned at Ming. 'Done with your soup?' he asked, all kindly uncle again.
Ming could feel the fine hairs at the back of his neck prickle. 'The soup's really good,' Ming declared. He looked up, directly into Hon Sam's eyes, projecting as much earnestness in his eyes and face and body as he can possibly manage. 'Thanks, Sam-kor. Don't worry, I won't let you down. We'll screw the cops over til they bleed.'
Hon Sam smiled. Ming smiled. And the woman sat there unmoved.
Ming walked out of the pub, blinking under the strong light.
He was not an idiot. He'd seen what they did to guys who bugged out, who couldn't pull their weight, or just plain fucked up. He'd been part of the crew sent to 'teach' people lessons, more than once. The lessons involved sections of lead pipe, usually, and sometimes planks studded with nails. It depended on the type of lesson being taught and on the bosses' moods.
He just... never thought he could be one of those poor slobs. Sloppy thinking, thought Ming to himself, feeling the hairs on his neck prickle again. Severely stupid.
Just be a good drone. Do your time. Suck it up. Do what you're told, because now you're walking on a fucking field filled with fucking landmines that'll fucking blow you up if you put one fucking foot wrong.
Ming walked on, his pace quickening, in tandem with his accelerating heartbeat. The body, finally catching up with the brain. Fight, flight, or swim with fucking sharks.
He was also, unreasonably, absurdly, angry. Like he's been cheated, betrayed. A gang's supposed to stand with you, by you, walking the streets in the middle of the night with enemies all around, and you'd be safe, because you were with your brothers. You give your loyalty to your big brother. You bleed for him, you bleed others for him, and in return, you are not alone, never alone, except now...
His brothers were gone. He was stuck in a hell-hole, and the person who he swore to, was sworn by, just slapped him in the face with an too-obvious warning not to fuck up.
Yes, Ming was feeling severely alone.
The old anger bubbled up, cold and vicious. Which was why when the first body caromed off the wall and into him, his first reaction was pure street-gangster. 'Fuck, are you tired of living?!'
It was some bastards fighting over a chick. Ming's lip curled derisively. Perfect, he was in a mood to spill some blood himself. He grabbed the collar of the guy who bumped him. 'Oi, you messed up my shirt.' Ming said evenly, almost peaceably, even.
The guy spat, a bruise blooming on his cheek. 'Stay out of this!'
'Yeah? What are you going to do if I don't?' Ming smiled, and then, without warning, he swung back his fist and punched the guy right where he was already bruised. Felt the telltale give of bone and flesh under his knuckles, and grinned. He was feeling better already.
With a yell, Ming waded into the mass of fighting bodies. It was four guys against the one -- Ming automatically discounted the crying girl curled up in the doorway. No matter. Fingers gouged into whatever weak flesh they could find. He barreled down another guy with a lowered shoulder, bouncing off him with a impact that promised bruises or worse.
He was just getting warmed up, when hands closed around his neck, painfully. Fuck. He'd been careless. Ming kicked back, desperately, tried to elbow the body behind him, connected a couple of times, but the hands held on, tightened.
His lungs and throat burned with the need for air.
He was suffocating.
And then, miraculously, the hands loosened, fell slack. Ming fell to the ground, gasping for life-giving air, and twisted around. A third guy stood behind his strangler, the remains of a broken bottle in his hand. Ming didn't even hear him.
They stared at each other for a long moment. The other guy was dark and skinny. There was something familiar... But before he could think on it further, the whistles sounded, and the cops came, running, shouting. The other guy looked away then, and started running, as did the rest of the guys. Crawled, limped, slithered... cockroaches fleeing the scene of the crime.
Ming pulled himself up, planning to vanish himself, but the lack of air had sapped most of his energy, and by the time he stood, the cops had already surrounded him, surrounded the girl. Ming could feel the expression leak out of his face, and then he remembered who he was now. Who he'd never be again.
He hauled himself to attention, and snapped out a mostly accurate salute, 'Cadet 7820315 reporting, sir!'
The cops blinked, and looked at him.
'Sir, I was walking along the street and saw five guys attacking this young lady and tried to caution them to stop. However, they refused to listen and instead attacked me and I was forced to take steps to defend myself, Sir!'
The weeping girl came up then, traces of tears still wet on her face. She looked ridiculously young, in the light, even with the short skirt and tight blouse. 'He saved me from them. They were going to... and they were touching... and he came and fought them off for me. He saved me,' She repeated.
Something in the cop's faces relaxed then. Ming felt a pat on his shoulder. 'Good work,' someone murmured.
And Ming, police cadet Lau Kin Ming, allowed himself to wince, and scratch at his head deprecatingly, 'Well, I couldn't just stand by and watch them bully a girl...'
He looked up, to the men in policemen-green, and smiled.
- fini -