So Long, And Thanks For All The LulzMichishige Sayumi has never hated her job more than now.
Talk shows were fun, you know. Normally, she loved them for the chance they gave her to show off/practice sharpening her (verbal) claws on some hapless newbie or hassled host. She typically got lots of camera time due to her wonderlicious ways and ever so entertaining personality. That suited her just fine.
As she smiled winningly in the camera, Sayumi pondered her options, briefly wondering if she could seize her iced drink and toss it at the tangle of wires snarled around the production crew's feet behind the cameras and equipment. What were the odds of them being shorted out so that the filming could be cancelled?
Could they even cancel it? This
was a live broadcast, which was why she couldn't wriggle her way out or even pulled strings to get it rescheduled or something.
And damnit, those wires were insulated. Water wasn't going to cut it. Maybe acid?
Sayumi briefly entertained the possibility of snatching the suspiciously sharp hair pins out of fellow guest's pinned up hair (were those even street legal?) and tossing them House of Flying Daggers style at the regrettably insulated wires. Someone might die in the process, but at least it wouldn't be her, and she could probably sneak away in the commotion. Maybe.
The minutes dragged by. Normally, on these live broadcasts, time always felt short. Not this time. Sayumi cursed fate, the producers, her manager (somewhere, the lady sneezed, then cackled to herself for no apparent reason as she inked in yet another entry into Sayumi's already packed schedule book), and most of all her dear beloved cousin, who was in Okinawa right now.
Sayumi devoutly prayed for a typhoon (so soon after cursing people? Oh Kami) so that the trip would be cut short and thus her favoritest person in the world would be returned to her. She was having withdrawal symptoms! Forcing a laugh at a joke someone made, Sayumi was more ruthless than usual with her tsukkomi, disassembling the hapless girl with the titanium (?) Pins of Death in her hair into her atomic components. That made her feel better. For all of two seconds. When was this farce ending again?
If looks could kill, Sayumi's dazzling smile would have shattered every mirror and camera lens in the studio, the shards hopefully piercing everyone else in the studio and leaving her the only survivor in the carnage so she could just leave. Like right now.
But no, there was still the next challenge corner. Fun and games, ho yay.
She could almost scream.
~*~*~*~
"AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
Youth was energy! Energy was demonstrated in screaming! Or so her new friend (met all of 10 minutes ago) had diligently informed her in the most serious way possible.
Riho didn't need much persuasion. She
was excited. This was the first time she was at a real beach! In Okinawa no less! Standing on top of the ridge, she and her new acquaintance yelled incoherently at the waves, just because they could. And y'know, youthful energy and all that.
"Yeah! That's how you do it!" The girl next to her giggled. Riho giggled back, feeling giddy for no apparent reason. Her serious facade had been sloughed away precisely 10 minutes 32 seconds ago, when this girl had nailed her in the head with a badly thrown (or well aimed?!) frisbee.
It wasn't so bad. There was no permanent injury. At least none that could immediately be seen. Any normal person would have apologized for braining someone with anything, much less a frisbee, but this Ikuta Erina person was not normal.
In fact, her first words to Riho had been: "THIS IS FATE!"
One does not question a person who declaims such lines with that much fervour. Riho had been kind of overwhelmed by the overpowering energy coming from the taller girl, who had immediately seized on her hands and babbled something about the energy of youth and HOW GOOD IT WAS TO NOT SEE OLD PEOPLE FOR ONCE.
To clarify, her idea of old people was anyone over 25. Reina, had she known, would Not Be Amused.
Riho had been somewhat nonplussed by this overenthusiastic greeting. For one thing, she did not know this person. Well, 10 minutes ago, scratch that, 11 now, she was happily minding her own business and wandering down the road to catch a glimpse of the sea. One flying frisbee and excited ranting from owner of said frisbee later, she still did not quite know what to make of this Ikuta Erina character. There was a lot of smiling and nodding on her part. Bemusement too. How could any sane person (sanity, tis overrated, as Riho would soon discover) be so unrelentingly...obtuse? Exuberant? Irrepressible?
...fun?
Which is why, 8 minutes and 25 seconds after their first meeting, Riho found herself clambering up a rocky promontory with her newfound friend, after having offhandedly mentioned that this was the first time she was at a beach and that she had never seen the sea before. Oh well, if you can't beat them, join them! Riho read that somewhere. She might as well just go with it and see where it led!
At least the view was great. Riho had been momentarily awed by the vista afforded to her eyes after they reached the top of the ridge. The sea sparkled in the sunlight, making her shade her eyes, but the cerulean captured her gaze again, matched perfectly against the baby blue skies with the puffy cloud sheep skipping across its azure pastures.
Next to her, the taller girl stood confidently, arms on her waist. Her legs spilled model-long out of her tiny denim shorts, her tank top with its Grateful Dead logo flapping in the breeze. Ikuta looked like she stepped out of a shounen manga at the beginning of some adventure. Kind of. Her bright purple flip flops kind of ruined the effect. Or at least necessitated a genre switch.
"Ne Riho?"
Already on first-name basis?! Riho mentally exclaimed, wondering when that had happened. She was still calling her Ikuta-san. Well, they did barely know each other...
"Do you know how to get back down?"
Um. The girls looked back down the path they had climbed. It looked impossibly sheer and altogether too high. How they made it up in the first place, no one knew. Beginner's luck coupled with sheer youthful exuberance? Not unlike the kitten that had climbed a tree, they were now trapped at the top with no certain way of getting down.
"Oh dear."
~*~*~*~
Takahashi Ai was fretting.
She was much given to fretting, you see. Some people are like that. She fretted over everything. If she was not fretting, she would fret about
that instead.
A certain kitty known as Tanaka Reina just laughed and called her a worrywart. Riho was a sensible girl. She could watch herself for ten minutes in a new place. It wasn't like they were out of Japan anyway. It was just Okinawa.
Reina had paid for everything and all but kidnapped the mother and daughter duo for a short vacation. This was right after she heard from Riho that the kid had never actually been to the sea. For whatever reason, the Takahashi family tended to go on nature hikes during their summer vacations. While that was all very laudable, Reina had been appalled. How could there be a child who didn't go to the beach in the summer? It was unaccceptable!
Therefore she had sought to rectify this error, and made a reservation post-haste. She even managed to clear her schedule, and pushed off whatever she could to her dear beloved cousin. Who, if the way her eyebrow was twitching was any indication, was probably pronouncing the worst of curses upon her right now. Reina smirked. She could deal with that.
Besides, any excuse to spend more time with Ai was good in Reina's books. This being a beach, it would entail swimsuits, and so...
Reina was very glad she was not prone to having nosebleeds. She hadn't seen much of what lay under Ai's clothes ever since, well, before Riho was born. It had been too long. The idol grudgingly admittted to herself that she was still attracted to one Takahashi Ai, who had aged remarkably well (or barely, if at all). She had no idea how the woman kept her figure (if she had but asked, Ai would have pointed unerringly to years of chasing after Riho, who in her childhood was in turns silent and batshit insane, Bipolar, indeed), but damn, she approved.
The deluxe suite Reina had booked had adjoining rooms. No, she did not planned it that way. It just sort of happened, okay? Really. Who was she kidding?
Not that she was planning for anything to happen on this trip. After all, Riho
was around. Whether or not she believed that the kid was hers, Reina was not so immoral as to expose the kid to, uh, this and that. She did have
some standards.
It was beginning to drive Reina more than a little crazy. Little hamsters were constantly running around the gears inside her head, always spinning and spinning, until it felt like her head was going to burst. There was no doubt she still wanted Ai, craved her company and more besides. That was why she found herself dropping by on whatever pretext she could dredge up, regardless how tired she was. And Ai, bless her soul, never questioned her motives. Reina did have an image to keep up, no matter how shot it might be by now.
They still hadn't done more than friendly hugging. Considering how intimate they used to be (with clothing on, jeez), Reina was acutely aware of the distance and it pained her on some level. It made her restless. But she refused to cave first. No, Tanaka Reina would not grovel for some woman's attention. People grovelled for her attention, not the other way round!
Reina was stubborn like that.
Unfortunately, Ai was probably equally as stubborn, if not more, but for completely different reasons. She was hesitant, naturally. Uncertain as to whether Reina still wanted her (poker faces were a double edged sword), she did not dare to test the waters too much. Rejection would be too much to bear.
And lastly, of course, the elephant in the room was Riho. Cutest elephant ever, but ever present and a huge obstacle to all parties. It left little breathing room.
To Reina, Riho would always prick a question: was she really hers? How could it even be possible? Ai's explanation had been almost too succinct, too neat and coincidental, to be true. However, it was also too absurd to be said with a straight face, and Ai had always been a lousy liar. Reina couldn't shake the idea of a man being involved in Riho's conception though (years of social indoctrination would do that to you), and it always gave her pause. She liked the girl, but could she accept the kid as part of their lives? There was no question that she wanted Ai, but wanting Ai meant accepting Riho as well. Reina knew this, and it gave her no end of a headache.
Ai, of course, brooked no nonsense when it came to Riho. Her daughter came first, before even Reina, if she had to admit to herself. 12 years of raising the kid, all that self sacrifice, that hard work, the tears and the joy it brought, Ai could no more give Riho up than she could give her soul away. Her daughter was her pride and joy, her everything. If Reina could not accept the girl, there would be no them.
Neither of them had formally discussed all this, of course, but they still read each other well enough to know that these were the issues. As to how they were going to get over them, well, before that...
"I should really go check on Riho." Ai worried again. Reina rolled her eyes.
"Hai hai,
okaa-san."
Ai hit Reina over the head. Not gently too. Reina growled and counterattacked. It might have ended with sweaty limbs and mussed hair. Panting, too.
Sadly, no clothes were removed. There was a moment of intense gazing though.
Needless to say, they were sort of delayed before they went out of the hotel...to find no Riho on the sidewalk. Or anywhere in sight.
Now Reina was starting to panic, but Ai was deadly calm. She pulled out her phone.
"I thought you didn't have reception out here?!" Reina was slightly shrill, but she forced herself to at least look calm.
"Hotel wireless." Ai said tersely. Reina, being techno-dumb, wisely said nothing.
"There we go!" Ai cried out triumphantly a minute later. Reina blinked, catching herself mid-pace and circled back to Ai's side. She leaned in to look at the display on Ai's phone. A pulsing red dot was on the screen, located on some sort of map.
The old Ai might have launched into an extended explanation about the capabilities of GPS and tracking systems, but the new mother-of-Riho was a lot more practical. Probably a great deal more practiced in handling crisis. Mothers had to learn that the moment a baby is born. After all, was not birth in itself a great crisis?
"Let's go." The worry was real, etched in broad lines across Ai's face. Reina jogged to keep up, wondering what could be wrong if they had located Riho's position. Ai did not explain. She did not have time to explain.
All that mattered was getting to her daughter's side before anything precipitous happened.
~*~*~*~
"Careful..." Ikuta called as Riho tried to climb down again. She slipped, but the KY (as Riho mentally labelled her) caught her arm before any serious harm was done. All she suffered was a skinned elbow and sandy legs. With a little help, they scrambled back to the top of the ridge again.
"We could wait until someone passes by." Eripon offered. She had insisted that Riho call her that, but Riho couldn't make the mental switch over so quickly or easily. Her mind was quite occupied by the present crisis, you see.
Unfortunately, except for the occasional seagull, there didn't seem to be any passerbys. This being Okinawa, most tourists were concentrated at the beaches, and the locals probably didn't come by this spot that often either.
Riho was actually starting to get worried until she spotted two familiar figures in the distance.
"Mama!!!" She got up and started waving frantically. The figures doubled their speed.
Next to her, Eripon also stood. She squinted. She had not told Riho this yet of course, but her eyesight could rival a hawk, and while she was unfamiliar with Riho's Mama, she could very clearly see the person next to her.
Ikuta Erina was a fashionable sort of girl. She knew the latest trends, kept up with the news, knew her celebrities etc. She could hardly fail to miss the trademark scowl and the off-centered eyes.
As the couple drew near, the fangirl inside one Ikuta Erina must have woken up, because suddenly she became extremely animated and inexplicably started doing a full body wave, all while yelling:
"TANAKA-SAMAAAAAAAA!!!!"
Reina was not amused.
Ai was not amused either. Because in the midst of all that flailing, the KY Eripon actually managed to slam quite hard into Riho, who, despite all the balance her dance training afforded her, was unable to maintain her footing on the rocks, and thus slipped and fell.
Down the ridge. Pointy rocks. Hard sand at the bottom. The works.
Horror couldn't even begin to describe the look on Ai's face. She might have screamed. She might have put one foot forward, hands outstretched as if to catch her falling daughter.
Reina surprised herself. She was never much of an athlete. That was usually more Ai's department. She had pretty good stamina from singing and performing for years, but that was a different kind of exertion.
If you had asked her to duplicate the feat, she could never have done it again. If not for the quick actions of a certain idol wota, those moments might have been lost forever. As it was, they were preserved for posterity in her phone, complete with 15 different straps of varying size and shape dangling from it. How she managed to stuff that into her pocket was an eternal mystery. Did she even have a pocket? Was she Doraemon in disguise? Hammerspace?
But that is beside the point, and this is what happened:
Reina flew forward. She might have momentarily achieved warp speed. Her feet actually left the ground. A frame by frame replay of the video might reveal that she had actually tripped on the kerb as she made her mad dash, propelling her at a seemingly impossible angle and velocity towards her target.
Mechanics aside, Reina was hurtling through the air. Her sole concern was to catch the kid somehow. Her secondary concern might have something to do with the slow torture and deliberate murder of the one that pushed her, but that would be un-idol-like and she had no Sayu to help her hide the body, so that was out.
Warp speed was, unfortunately, quite difficult to control for any extended period of time, particularly without the aid of a computer, and Reina wasn't even that good at math to begin with. She might have flopped, flapped her arms like a chicken, and half stumbled inelegantly for the last few feet. Fortunately, the angle from which the phone was recording this was conveniently blocked by Riho's form tumbling towards Reina.
It was not a fun fall. Fortunately, Riho avoided most of the protruding rocks on the cliff face, but there were the unavoidable scrapes against abrasive rock. She might also have caught her lip on something. She most certainly did hit her head. In any case, she was thankfully unconscious when she landed squarely on top of Reina, who did not so much as catch her as she did cushion her landing.
Idol and idol-in-training whumped against hard sand. There was a long moment of silence following it. Eripon continued filming avidly, even when Reina, miraculously conscious despite the impact and none the worse for wear for the numerous scrapes and cuts she had gotten, slowly tilted her head up and fixed the wota with the most murderous glare known to mankind.
With the possible exception of the Michishige Shattter O' Doom, as mentioned previously.
A normal person might have felt a chill, a sensitive might have wet themselves, but the KY was completely unfazed. She even waved back, and continued filming. Reina slumped. It was too much effort to even move.
On the bright side, having Ai fawn over her sounded like a good idea. Reina decided woozily, before her better judgement decided that unconsciousness sounded like a grand idea, and she joined her 'daughter' in that blissful oblivion.
What dreams may come, they alone will know.
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Lack of sleep, reading Douglas Adams (I just finished Book 4!) and extended discussions with grac might have resulted in this.
I HOPE EVERYONE IS HAPPY.