She was my underclassman.
I never paid any attention to her. I mean, she was that loud tomboy who got into fights- sometimes even physical- with the boys in her class. She was one of the prettier girls in her grade- a hafu who took after her English mother much more than her Japanese father, all leg and long blonde hair- but she was still only a first year. Immature. Unsophisticated.
Underclassman.
As far as I knew, volleyball was her only club, and she even dropped that after a few weeks. Clearly, she couldn't stick to anything. Her cat hung around the school waiting for her to get off and she would loudly scold him when she picked him up and carried him home.
A real weirdo, you know?
She really needed to grow into her name. I mean, seriously? Aino Minako? It didn't fit someone like her at all. And she was so annoying. Always hanging around and watching the upperclassmen, giggling and sighing, getting crushes every other week. She had this real unnerving stare sometimes, too, like she was staring at something no one else could see. She would be loudly messing around with the girls in her class and then suddenly she'd stop and her face would just...change, you know? And if someone said something, she'd go right back to whatever she was doing without acting like anything had happened.
But she never seemed to have any friends. I mean, she talked to the other girls in her year, but she never walked home with them, never met up outside of class, never did whatever it was underclassmen girls did on the weekend. Every day, she'd pick up her bag, walk out of school, pick up her cat (it had a bald spot), and walk home talking to her cat.
I wanted to die of embarrassment when Takahashi elbowed me one day at baseball practice. "Hey, yo. I think Aino-chan's watching you this week."
"Nah. She's into Yamamoto, isn't she?"
"Yeah, well she's got that look, man, and she's staring at you."
Oh, god.
By the end of practice, everyone was snickering, and I was just trying not to notice, trying not to glance at where she hung out by the fence.
And then she picked up her cat and walked away.
So around this time, there was this really cute idol, with that mix of sexiness and cute that just makes a guy wanna ask her out and yet he knows she's way out of his league, and everybody had the hots for her. If someone got tickets to a Rise concert, hell yes he was your best friend and did he have an extra one to give someone...?
Also, there were a bunch of Sailor V fans, but, you know, that wasn't my scene at all. She was just some publicity stunt, right? And why was the news taking her so seriously?
And then suddenly one day, no one cared about Rise or Sailor V. There was a new idol, and she was mature, and sexy and holy COW.
Also, she was a catgirl.
I mean, how could you not?
So, here I was lurking around the newstand, trying to get peeks into Petit Neko's photobook over salary men's shoulders, since rumor had it she had bikini shots in there.
"I wouldn't if I were you," A musical, somewhat familiar voice said from behind me. I turned to see Aino-chan standing there, her face for once completely serious.
"What's it to you?" I demanded.
"How many idols recently have been involved in these schemes where they...con... their fans?" I had the distinct feeling she had been about to say something other than 'con'. She started to count them off on her fingers. "Pandora, Petit Pandora, Dark Guys, Twin Dark, Dark Princess Shizuka, Cyberwarrior Girl Luga, Karaoke Soldier Mike Makii... Oh, and look, they all worked for Dark Agency!"
"Shove off!" I told her, though something in her tone gave me pause. She did have a point after all- it had been in the news, and some part of me vaguely remembered Sailor V had busted all of them...? Maybe this "Dark Agency" really was some sort of scam... but if that was so, why hadn't the police shut them down yet? And what if that WAS the publicity stunt, a superheroine stopping all of these sexy idols...? Maybe all of those fans who claimed to have felt weak and sick, or got conned out of their tickets, or whatever were actors working for Dark Agency?
She shrugged, a graceful, fluid motion. "I just think there's something weird going on there, that's all. It's your money, sempai."
I grumbled something under my breath and she picked up her cat and started to walk off, tossing her hair behind her.
I wound up buying a Dark Agency fanzine instead, since I wasn't legal to get the photobook. Excitedly, I filled out the form to win tickets to the Petit Neko concert. And as I flipped through it, a very familiar name stopped me. Disbelieving, I read it again.
...The Chinese Princess Story was cancelled after the star, Danburite, was killed on-set during production. Set in Ancient China, the movie was about the attempted resurrection of the Princess of Venus by the mysterious crystal treasure. Danburite and his co-star Ms. Aino were out on the scaffolding of the set for unknown reasons when he plummeted to his death. Ms. Aino suffered minor lacerations. Ms. Aino has been unavailable for comment since the accident, though she returned to Japan.
Holy. Shit.
No. Nope. Uh uh. Weird coincidence.
Then I looked at the promotional shot, which was also the intended movie poster. The masked thief... the blonde "Chinese Princess" wearing the sexy mandarin dress, the feathered fan, the crown, the beautiful blue Venus Crystal hovering before her chest...
Holy. Shit.
Suddenly, it was like a lightning bolt hit me square in the chest. I picked up a pen and wrote her name with the characters she used everyday. And then I wrote the alternate reading of the characters Mi-na-ko.
Bi-na-su.
Venus.
Nope. Nu uh. No way in hell my immature underclassman was secretly a superheroine-idol. Nope. No way. She was NOT Sailor V, who had recently started going by Sailor Venus. Nope. And it certainly wouldn't be blatantly written in her first name.
I tossed the magazine in the general direction of my trash can, realized I was late for cram school, and dashed out the door.
I was thrilled when I actually won the tickets. I tore open the envelope and held them up to the light to make sure they were real, like you do with money. And then I called everyone I knew to brag and gave the extra to my best friend.
It was the only time in my whole life I had ever gotten lucky.
When the day came, I spent all day watching the clock and waiting until I could finally be in the SAME ROOM as Petit Neko. I thought about that organdy and satin dress with the slit up the side all day, those thighs, that chest...I mean, I was your stereotypical pervy teenaged dude that day. At one point "the trademarked world's cutest wink" came into my mind and I dismissed it- who cared if several guys who'd gone to Petit Pandora's concert had been hospitalized or whatever? They probably had seizures.
We went immediately after school, because I figured I could get my seat and do my homework or whatever, only the place is PACKED. It took me a few hours to just get into the building. Some guy ahead of me said that he'd heard anyone who sent in the form had won the free seats, but that couldn't be right. And my best friend was standing on his tiptoes looking over the crowd, trying to see if he could spot her limo, and I figured it was a lost cause trying to talk to him. I wished I'd had that magazine, to have something to read and ogle in the crowd, and maybe ask my buddy if that looked like Aino-chan to him.
Finally I get in, and blow my entire year's allowance on Petit Neko merchandise- photos, CDs, posters I wasn't old enough to buy, that kind of thing. I had to bum the money from my friend to get concessions, and he was buying stuff left and right, too. We got seated and it was only a little time before the concert was supposed to start, and the crowd is still pushing their way in. I don't know how late the thing actually started, but it was WAY after the published concert time, and the whole crowd was on their feet chanting her name.
And then she slinked onto the stage, and it was like BAM!
So everyone was screaming and shouting and the music was pounding into my brain and it was so loud and the energy was incredible, and she was showing it off and hot damn was it a good night to be alive.
Except for that headache.
Except that my stomach was cramping up.
Except that all of my energy was flowing away and I was getting weaker and weaker.
But hey, anything for the music!
But the crowd was getting quieter. People started to collapse. I actually found myself worried that this girl six seats down was going to get trampled and was starting to try to shove that way to help her into her seat. My buddy's eyes rolled into his head and he went down. I grabbed the back of the seat in front of me to stay standing.
And Petit Neko's voice rose higher and higher until it was this shrill, horrible screech. Her face twisted and her mouth widened, showing pointed fangs terribly not like a cat's at all, and so wide, so very wide...
Her joints reversed and her fingers became long, ugly, twisted claws and she howled like some sort of cat in some sort of pain and anger. It was so gross, I gagged and clamped my jaws shut. I swore she looked right at me, and I thought,
This monster is going to eat me!
And then, the sound system went dead. The music stopped with a loud pop, and her microphone gave out. And then, there was this ringing voice that didn't need a microphone to fill the auditorium.
"How dare you prey on the desires of young men? As the sailor-suited senshi of love and justice, I cannot permit such a thing! Sailor V will stop you!"
Those of us who were still conscious turned to face the young woman posed heroically on the spotlight. She leaped onto the stage, her long hair billowing around her like a cape, and the lights seemed focused entirely on her. You could see her eyes snapping, and those long legs, and the graceful arms and the... well, you get the picture.
But weirdly, she was more pretty than sexy. All those things in her favor, but she left you kind of breathless.
And then, the monster picked up the amplifier from the headlights and flung it at Sailor V. She ducked aside, and sprinted across the stage, kicking with those long legs, blocking with those arms, and blood spurted across her torso and arms as the creature's claws cut at her.
Real blood. Not stage blood. You could tell from the color, and the way it spattered, and the way Sailor V's hand protected those wounds, and the way her face went pale beneath the mask.
And there were FORCES in that room, waves of darkness punctuated by brilliant flashes of light. I thought one of the lights looked vaguely crescent shaped, but the events of the stage were too hard to focus on.
The people who were still on their feet were running and screaming now, but I couldn't take my eyes from that fight. It dawned on me that I might die in that auditorium.
One of those dark, cutting waves of energy missed Sailor V and shot towards the balcony seats...where I was. Sailor V looked my way, and her eyes widened. It seemed almost like things were happening in slow motion. She launched herself from the stage, her long legs propelling her up the banks of seats. She caught the edge of the balcony railing and somersaulted over it. Her body crashed into mine, and the dark wave missed her back by millimeters to impact with the sound booth. It exploded outwards, shattered glass and wood flying everywhere. I heard her grunt as that explosion washed over her back, but she didn't flinch from protecting me.
And then she sat up, looked over her shoulder, and flung herself back down towards the stage.
I lay there, dazed. I became aware of the sounds of sirens, and in the distance, someone was demanding,
"Can't you do ANYTHING without destroying the entire building? Do you know how much this is going to COST the JPD to clean up and keep out of the press THIS TIME?!"
Now that seemed a bit unfair.
I pushed myself up, ready to tell that particular jackass off. My movement must have caught her eye, because Sailor V told the suited detective,
"I'm very sorry, sempai. It won't happen again. I'll tell big sis all about it later. For right now, I need to take sempai home."
"Wha-" The man puffed himself up, ready to tell her off some more, but she was already bounding towards me over the ruined backs of the chairs again. She grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet- I was surprised at how strong she was- and supported my weight as she dragged me out of there.
As we left the earshot of the detective, she muttered under her breath, "Is there going to be a single person left in this city who DOESN'T know who I am at this rate?"
"Uh, sorry..." I said.
She sighed. "Don't worry about it, sempai."
"Hey, umm... thanks. I guess you saved my life back there."
She shrugged. "It's what I do."
Something in her casual manner struck me as weird, and I blurted out, "Hey, didn't you have a crush on me?"
She looked at me then through that red mask, a bruise on her cheek, blood on her costume, and her eyes were very sad and somehow really far away. "Don't worry, sempai," She said with a painful smile. "I got over it."
And in that moment I realized she was way, way out of my league.
I noticed after that how far away her eyes really were, how her grades were always in the upper part of her class, how defensive she was- every single fight she got in was because of some boy picking on her, calling her 'unfeminine' or 'tomboy'. She watched couples with a particular wistfulness...
And her crushes. She never actually went all out. She would giggle, she would flirt, she would agree that so and so was really cute. But her flirting was just that- flirting. She would just watch a guy, but her interest was casual, passing. And she never acted like a slut or anything. On Valentines that year, she gave chocolate to every guy in her class and the male teachers. All of it was store-bought duty chocolate. I never saw her actually take any of her crushes beyond dreams and giggles.
I saw her get a love letter once. She pulled it out of her shoe locker and read it, her face very serious. She made as if to crumple it up, and then smoothed it out and tucked it into her backpack very carefully. She lingered at the shoe-locker, watching him out of the corner of her eye, and he also lingered. When they were alone, she walked over to him.
"Thank you for your letter," She said, her voice exceptionally tender. "But we're both so young. I can't accept your feelings. I want to concentrate on getting into a good high school before I date anyone. There is so much I have to do first..."
The lines were something out of a cheesy school-days manga, but the sincerity behind it was touching. She smiled, and it was obvious that she was in some sort of pain. She bowed to him and walked away.
Outside, in the school yard, I caught up to her. "Is it because you're Sailor V- Sailor Venus, I mean?"
Her lovely lips twisted in a mockery of that tender smile. "I will never choose between love and my duty," She said. "Kind of harsh for a Soldier of Love, isn't it?"
She walked away then, and picked up the cat. As I watched her walk away, golden in the sunlight, I swear I saw the cat regarding me solemnly. He then reached up and with a gentle paw batted away the single tear that slid down her cheek...