Started: 8-15-05 Completed: 9-1-05"Kim Possible, can I have your autograph?"
"No, Kim Possible, please sign mine first!"
"No, mine!"
"No, mine!"
"Mine!"
Kim brought her sunglasses closer towards her eyes and made a dash for it. Cameras were flashed at her face and the paparazzis were urging her to say a few words for the press or their magazines. Ron shielded Kim as Monique ushered her into the limousine. They slammed the door in relief as the car blocked out most of the hapzardous noise outside.
"Man! That was crazy!" Ron groaned.
"Yeah, girl," Monique agreed. "That was the most outrageous mob I've ever seen!"
"Tell me about it," Kim rolled his eyes. "I've seen worse stampedes in Africa than this."
"Where to, Miss?" the driver asked, craning his neck towards Kim.
"To the hotel, Chuck please. I need to get some grub."
"Cheese!" Rufus chirped, popping out of Ron's pocket.
"Yes, Rufus," Kim chuckled. "And cheese."
"Right away, Miss," Chuck the driver replied as he drove off towards the direction of the hotel.
Kimberly Anne Possible had never expected her life to turn this drastically. It all started after that talent time contest. Although it was Ron who won the contest, Kim's singing had won admiration of many in Middleton High, and that includes a star agent. He was there when he heard Kim hitting the high pitch and he was impressed. He approached her and said what all star agents say when they've found talent. Took quite a lot of coaxing, and a lot of backup from Ron and Monique, but it wasn't long before Mr. & Mrs. Possible came in and made a deal with the agent and voila! Kim was soon whisked away towards fame and fortune, not to the delight of Bonnie, of course. Kim quit Middleton High and the agent hired a tutor to help her finish grade school (Mr. Possible insisted that his little Kimmie-cub get an education and a college degree even if she's busy and famous). Ron and Monique tagged along too, claiming to be her managers or something like that. But truthfully they're just wanting to be out of Middleton and sharing the limelight with her. Not that their parents were too keen about it to agree with it, but they have went on their knees for this, so they, too, sat with her in the same room under the same tutor. At least there was someone to suffer with her.
She was hitting top records and breaking up charts. She was going places, well, besides during missions. They made it clear to the agent that she would never quit world-saving, not even under her tight schedule. She'd rather miss the world tour than letting the world go down to the dumps. So, despite her busy days, she was still able to stop a villain or two, like Dr. Drakken from stealing the world's most expensive laser cannon or Monkey Fist from destroying famous kung fu temples or even our famous mad golfer Duff Killigan from bombing China's golf course.
"Here we are, Miss," the driver said after quite a while of driving. "The Belladonna Hotel."
"Thanks, Chuck," Kim replied as she, Ron and Monique got off the car. She saluted him before watching him drive off towards the nearest parking lot. Making sure that no one was there to mob her or bug her for autographs and pictures, they went in to enjoy a long tasty meal. Lucky for them, it was buffett dinner tonight, so they could tuck in as much as they want. Ron was the happiest to see cuisine after cuisine before his eyes ready to be feasted upon. The famous trio got a few samples for themselves before getting themselves a seat and digging in.
"Man, I never thought that the hall of fame would be so strenuous," Ron said as he popped a chicken kebab into his mouth. "They sure work up an appetite."
"Well, those press conference and the concert coming in does make me feel hungry and sorts. I sure like to fill myself up after a long day's work," Kim agreed, biting off a drumstick.
"So how's the new song coming up? Any ideas?" Monique asked as she sipped her latte.
"Well, that'll have to depend on Ron now. After that song he wrote for my talent contest, he's my main song writer."
"Booyah! I'm the man!" Ron grinned victoriously. "There's still pretty much more strings to pull, but I'm working on it."
"I still can’t believe we are actually walking around like superstars and get so much publicity and fans! This is way better than kicking bad guy butt! And we’re actually right here, in Paris! Won't your parents be worried about you traveling here and there with only us as company?"
"It's no big, Monique. I've been traveling here and there ever since we started crime-fighting," Kim waved that question away. "Mom and Dad couldn't be happier, now that their famous crime-fighting daughter is a famous singing crime-fighter. Besides, Dad thinks keeping me on my toes like this is better than getting involved with some guy."
"Hah!" Monique snorted. "Wait till he sees the news about the latest gossip or something! You'll be worse than when Brad Pitt married Jennifer Aniston!"
"Ha ha, very funny, Monique," Kim replied dourly. "I assure you, no guy is gonna get to me right now."
"Check it out, girl, at 12 o'clock! I just went from 'So' to 'Woah'!" Kim turned to see who she was pointing and wrinkled her nose, unimpressed.
"Oh, come on, Monique. Even Adam Sandler is better looking than he is!"
Ron stared quietly at Kim as she and Monique continued to joke around. Rufus noticed the look and grinned inwardly. It wasn't new to him that his master has been having this ailing crush for Kim. He had noticed it ever since Ron bought him from Smarty Mart, and had been keeping on check secretly to see if the crush was still there, well, just for the fun of it. Through experience, the little naked mole rat had been noticing the change of expressions and small movements Ron's been doing every time he's with Kim. Why the sudden change since they've been friends—and only friends—like forever? Well, thanks to Camp Wannaweep. After Ron came back from his nightmarish experience in Dorm 13 of Camp Wannaweep, the first thing he did was run to Bueno Nacho to have a good decent meal. He invited Kim to meet up with him and join him, and when she did appear, he realized that summer had changed Kim so much in a way that made him see her from a total different perspective. Hence, the crush began.
Nevertheless, despite every single chance he had to confess to Kim about his feelings, he forfeited it. Every time there was an open ticket, a perfect moment for him to just enlarge his pie hole and blurt it all out, something else inside him let out a huge imaginary hinge and clenched his heart, forcing his mouth shut. His pulse would go twice the rate and his tongue would go numb every time he even tries to say “I have a crush on you”, and he’s lucky to just get by without experiencing cardiac arrest. Her hanging with Walter Nelson and Josh Mankey back then really hurt him to the bone, yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he could be worth more than those 2 guys put together. He’d rather bottle it up all in his heart than risk rejection. Such is a heart in love.
“Yo, girl! You realize Valentine’s Day is around the corner now, don’t you?” Monique suddenly voiced out, breaking Ron’s musing.
“Yeah, now that you mentioned it, it’s gonna be tomorrow. Why?” Kim asked, surprised.
“You got a gig tomorrow, girl!” Monique replied as she checked her PDA. Aside from Ron being Kim’s songwriter, Monique made it her solemn duty to manage Kim’s life and activities. “You got a Valentine promo concert down at Upperton Town and at the same time, promote your latest Valentine’s Day album ‘Lost in Loveville’, remember?”
“Oh yeah, you’re right, Monique. I almost forgot about that. Ron wrote almost all the songs in there and it was the chart topper for 3 weeks in a row. I wonder where you get your inspiration, Ron?”
“Oh, around,” Ron replied as casual as he could while swallowing a mouthful of lasagna. Rufus helped himself to some meatballs and garlic.
“You sure you haven’t had any broken hearts before to write this?” Monique asked suspiciously, sipping her drink.
Ron shook his head. Broken hearts. The only time he could ever feel the impact of his broken heart was Valentine’s Day. He knew he shouldn’t be having any grudges with this day but he couldn’t really help it. The sight of loving couples walking around showing their affections towards each other while he sits aside, watching them with envious eyes, really tore him apart. How he wished he could tell how many times his heart broke when she starts having crushes on guys or when she doesn’t realize any of the hints he’s trying to drop on her. How he wished he could tell her that Tara’s kiss back at Camp Wannaweep in the case of Gill’s attack meant nothing, and that his pursuit to catch that girl in the movie ticket booth (I forgot her name :p) was just an act so that he could try and forget his terrible crush for Kim, which didn’t really work. In the end they broke it off as mere friends. How he wished he could just say everything that was bottled inside him and give her a big kiss, claiming her as his own. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
“I’m, uh, gonna head back to my room,” Ron said as he cleaned his hands on a cloth.
“So soon?” Kim turned to him. “Aren’t you gonna hang around with us and catch a little movie or something? I heard there’s this new movie called…”
“I’m getting another inspiration for a new song and I want to write it down before I forget it,” Ron replied. “See you guys later. You can bring Rufus along if you want.”
“Me?” Rufus asked, surprised.
“Yes, little guy, you. I just wanna be alone with my thoughts for a while to do this new song. It’s a very special song and I don’t want any distractions this time.”
“OK, big boy. If you say so,” Monique shrugged and went off to get a second helping. Kim was still a little concerned.
“Are you sure you don’t want to…”
Ron didn’t reply. Shoving Rufus towards Kim, he walked as quickly as he could out of the restaurant and towards the lift that will take him to his room.
“Ugh! Who am I kidding?”
Ron let his body fall freely onto the King-sized bed with a muffled thump. He let out a sigh as he stared up at the ceiling thinking about that lie he told Kim just to get away from her. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. He did have a special song to be written. The only thing that it had already been complete a long time ago, back when he was still in grade school, yet couldn’t find the courage to show it to Kim. He wrote it the very first day he discovered Kim’s beauty after Camp Wannaweep and didn’t sleep until he wrote it down till the last detail. It had started out as a love poem, and then somehow morphed into a song the more he looked back at it. Until now, he had kept this secret song well hidden from the eyes of the world, including his own pet Rufus and most importantly, Kimberly Anne Possible. Quietly, he fished out the book that contained the song he wrote and stared at the picture that was glued onto another page beside the one that had the song written on it.
You got a Valentine promo concert down at Upperton Town, girl…
“Valentine’s Day…Huh! Right! Another day where I have to suffer looking at those lovie-dovies out there while I sit here wallowing in self-pity. What I give to just let this day go away…or maybe just disappear in the face of the earth, then I don’t have to go through a day thinking that it will come and haunt me, remind me of how low and cowardly I’ve gone to hide my feelings for Kim.”
Suddenly a gust of wind blew into the room through the verandah, flinging the verandah door open and making the curtains flutter wildly. Outside, the moon was high up the sky and shining brightly under the city, illuminating anything its ray touches. Ron sat up almost immediately, shocked and surprised. ‘What the hell is going on?’ He thought. ‘It can’t be rainy right now, can it?’
As he walked over to close the verandah door, a sudden invisible force pushed him onto the carpet floor right on the gut. Ron coughed and almost choked out of breath. It felt as if being hit by a bulldozer or something—the blow was way worse than being rammed by Shego’s kick or sucker punch. He tried to get up on his feet when the lights went out. The atmosphere became very cold and damp. Ron shivered. There was something in the room and he didn’t like the feeling it’s giving him. Now would be a very good time to have either Kim or Rufus by his side instead of being left alone like this. He almost regretted not joining the gang to watch the movie.
“Who…Who’s there?” Ron asked, trying to be brave as he groped for the switch. “I…I know karate! You don’t wanna mess with Ronald Kennedy Stoppable here!”
As if answering his question, a bright light shone in the middle of the room. Ron winced a little at the sudden light and shielded his eyes from it. Slowly, his eyes adjusted and he was shocked to see a silver-blonde man in what looked like a satin loincloth with chains wound around one arm standing before him with a flaming arrow in his other free hand. He had the greyest eyes he had ever seen and his facial expression was that of a cold statue. His skin was pale from head to toe and his ears were slightly pointed. His hair was utterly long, running down to his waist and he stood almost a head taller than Ron and when Ron tried to get a closer look, he noticed that there was a scar on his chest marked like an X right at the middle. He was more of a pretty boy, to be exact.
“Who…Who are you?” Ron asked tentatively, his knees getting into the verge of buckling.
“I am The Broken-Hearted,” the man replied, his voice echoing throughout the entire room. “I am here to collect hearts that are broken by any forms of love, and I believe that you, Ronald Kennedy Stoppable, are one of them.”
“M…Me? Me! I’m a broken hearted you need to collect? You gotta be kidding me!” Ron fought the urge to laugh out loud. “A man who goes around collecting people’s broken hearts? That’s gotta be the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“I kid you not, young mortal. My duty is to come every Valentine’s Day Eve and Valentine’s Day to collect broken hearts in bulk,” the man made his point by showing him the chains that wound around his arms. Sure enough, a number of withered-looking hearts dangled between the chains. There could be about almost more than a hundred hearts pinned on the chains. Some of those hearts even have cracks on them and some have crumbled at one side. They have one thing in common though: they were all pinkish and going pale.
“Gosh…I never knew there were so many broken hearted people in the world. I thought there were only a handful or so…” Ron muttered as he continued to marvel the hearts on the chain. “I guess…you really are a heart-broken collector.”
The man’s flaming arrow changed into a long glowing scroll that ran all the way down towards Ron’s feet. Ron yelped and cringed away from it as the man read the scroll, saying, “I believe that you are under my list of broken hearted, if I am not mistaken. Ronald Kennedy Stoppable, Broken-Hearted Number 315.”
“Why me? Do I look like someone broken hearted to you?”
Without a word, the scroll changed back into the flaming arrow and the man used the tip of it to draw a shape of a heart on Ron’s chest. His chest glowed for about a couple of minutes before dimming down to a reasonable light. Soon Ron could hear the steady beat of his heart and saw that there were a few cracks on it here and there, its colour going pink. He stared in awe at it for almost half a minute before realizing what he was looking at. Quickly, he shielded it with his hands and glared at the man, his face blushing madly.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Your love, or your crush to be exact, is Kimberly Anne Possible. Teenage heroine who is both a singer and a crime-fighter,” the man began to read something from a small black book (again, another transformation from the flaming arrow). “Been together since pre-kindergarten and have been together through thick and thin since then. Began to have a crush on her after returning from Camp Wannaweep. Heart being hurt about approximately 15 times, that’s the number of crushes Kimberly has throughout her lifetime, including Walter Nelson and Josh Mankey. A number of failed confession attempts which totaled to about…”
“OK, OK! I get the point!” Ron yelled exasperatedly, flinging his arms in frustration. “I’m a love-sick loser! I get it! So…uh…are you really going to take away my heart?”
“It is my duty as The Broken-Hearted.” The man nodded.
“Does this mean I’m going to die?”
“No, just a little bit cold and distant, and never to feel love again for the rest of your living life. Although some of the broken hearts I collected come from people who committed suicide.”
“What exactly happen to those people whose hearts been taken away?”
“They will live their lives as usual with no hassle and no pain. But they will be cold and distant as I’ve mentioned and be bitter about love, and will live and die as a bachelor or spinster. Their merits and demerits in life are totally different than love life. That’s another ‘management’ to decide, not me. I only handle love lives.”
“But…But you can’t take my heart away! It’s all I’ve got! It’s all I’ve got that keeps me going, keeps me loving Kim! You can’t take it away now! I haven’t even…confessed to her yet…”
“Yet you never tried to, after all the chances that you have. You’d rather bottle it up. Crushes like these are the lowest kind of love failure, I can tell you that.”
“I just…I can’t…I mean, we’ve been friends since forever. What if she never treated me more like a friend? What if she rejects me? What if she gets freaked out about it and runs even further away from me? I can’t…I can’t face this…”
“Fortunately,” the man said as his black book changed back to the flaming arrow, “you can be helped.”
“I…I can…?” Ron echoed, lighting up.
“Your heart has yet become entirely beyond repair, and I often give people like you a second chance. Heed my words, young mortal. At 12.30 tonight, you will be visited by two spirits, or say, more like my guiders-in-duty, and two more will follow at 1.30 a.m., and the last two at 2.30 a.m. They will show you the way. If you have not understood their messages by then, I assure you, young mortal, you will become Broken-Hearted Number 315. Farewell, Ronald Kennedy Stoppable. Be sure to check the time.”
With that, the man rapped Ron’s forehead with his flaming arrow, sending Ron into circles and surrounded by swirling mists. By the time Ron regained consciousness, which seemed like forever, he found himself on the bed, his body quite twisted in a way he never thought he could do, and was greeted by the ticking of the clock beside his bed and the fluttering sounds of the curtain from the verandah door. As he tried to get out of his position, he heard the distant sounds of chains and silent whispers of regret and remorse of love, and then saw the verandah door slowly closed by itself. Ron watched all these in silence and the awkwardness was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. The words of The Broken-Hearted still rang faintly in his mind.
Ronald Kennedy Stoppable, Broken-Hearted Number 315…
“Man, I really should quit dunking myself in soda,” Ron muttered, remembering the last drink he had for dinner. He quickly changed into his pyjamas and huddled in his soft, quilt-like blanket before falling into a deep sleep.
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