Disclaimer: AMG and FMP aren't mine.
Ah! My Goddess!
Haloes
Chapter 20
Conspiracies
The knife in Belldandy's hand froze as the details of Keiichi's conversation with her sister on the rooftop arranged themselves in her mind and formed the basis for a conclusion that troubled her with its finality. It stared her in the face, even as she quietly looked for a way to deny it. Of all the realizations she had come to in the last twelve hours, this one, believe it or not, truly rocked her to her very core.
"You were in love with her," she whispered.
The knife Keiichi was using to slice a radish stopped moving, just for a moment. He started cutting again. "I don't know," he told her quietly. "I don't know exactly when it happened. I know... that I wouldn't admit it for a long time." He put the knife down and leaned against the counter.
He looked up and found the positively devastated look on Belldandy's face. A part of her hadn't wanted to admit it. It was easy for her, after all, to believe that Urd had fallen in love with Keiichi. He was Keiichi san. She had always found it a little odd that more women weren't in love with him, though she was willing to admit that thought was biased.
But to face the fact that Keiichi had fallen in love with her sister, despite everything she had already heard, was a lot to bear. A part of her had wanted to believe that Keiichi had married Urd kicking and screaming, unwilling to face Belldandy's loss except as a last resort. Now...
"Do you remember," Keiichi began quietly, "...when you told me that you had made a choice, a conscious choice, to believe everything I said?"
She nodded sadly.
"I don't know when," he went on. "But at some point I had made the same decision in regards to Urd. "What I didn't know was that I had thrown fuel on the fire."
"What do you mean?" Belldandy inquired.
He wiped his hands on a dishrag and faced her again. "All that stuff I told her about fate," he explained. "I didn't know about what Desdemona had told her already. I think, at that point, acknowledging Destiny's role in our lives cast the die. She was my best friend, and I trusted her more than anyone."
Seven years ago...
"Okay, now kick!"
Holding onto Urd's forearms, Keiichi kicked off from the pool's floor and kicked his feet. The goddess stood still while the mortal got the hang of it. The boy sputtered as water hit his face and he kicked theatrically. Glancing up for a moment, he was treated to a close-up view of the black bikini top she was wearing. Distracted, an errant wave hit him full in the face.
"Alright... and... GO!" Urd cried, stepping to the side, letting Keiichi dog paddle past her.
He still couldn't believe he had let Urd talk him into this. True, it was the biggest water park in southern Japan, and true, Teletha had gone through a great deal of trouble to reserve an entire wing of it for the Aeronautics Club's annual summer party, but that didn't mean it was wrong to just sit on the artificial beach, sip a boat drink and watch the girls go by. He didn't have to swim...
But with a pointed finger and a grab of his wrist, Urd had made a compelling point about how she was sick of going to places like this and watching him sit there for hours, so he had allowed himself to be dragged into the "lagoon" where she was now taking up teaching him the swimming lessons he had at one time started with Belldandy.
For a fearful moment, he thought he would sink, but a minute later his arms and legs found a working rhythm and he found himself being propelled slowly through the water.
"See?!" Urd called to him. "Was that so hard?!"
Keiichi kept it up for a few more minutes, long enough for his tired limbs to bring him to one of the little wooden islands dotting the lagoon. Taking a breath, he climbed up and sat on the bench that ringed the little spit of sand and its single artificial palm tree.
A moment later, his goddess companion emerged from the water in front of him with a gasp, tossing her wet hair back. She grabbed the bench next to him and pulled herself up.
"There," he said. "I swam."
"Yeah," she relented. "But you looked like an idiot. Sorry, Keiichi, but you're gonna have to simply move onto a stroke that doesn't make you look like a twenty-four-year-old man pretending to be a labrador retriever."
"Yeah, you see, it's negative reinforcement like that that made me not want to be a racer anymore," Keiichi told her darkly.
She grinned. "Awww! Would you like something more positive? How about a biscuit, there, Rover?"
He reached out and pushed her back into the water with a grin. She cried out as she hit the water and swam to the surface. She rested her arms on the bench and treaded water. "Little sensitive there, aren't we, Sparky?"
Before he could respond, something moving on the highest diving board caught his eye. "Hey," he said. "Check out Teletha."
Urd turned and looked up. On the other side of the lagoon, the lingerie CEO stood on the high dive, raised her hands over her head and did a perfect triple somersault before slipping into the water.
"Wow," Keiichi breathed.
"Yeah," Urd agreed. "She was on her school's diving team in college."
"That was pretty cool," Keiichi noted in awe. "I wonder if she could teach me to do that."
The tricksy, scheming part of Urd's mind, the part that enjoyed a good plot, went immediately into action, and within ten seconds had produced a scenario where Keiichi and Teletha hooked up. It made sense in a weird kind of way. Teletha was a self-made, successful woman with a hole left in her heart from the departure of her chief of security, whom she had a crush on. She was beautiful, rich and had a gentle heart not unlike Belldandy's. Keiichi was a schlub clawing his way up the ladder, but doing it with integrity and heart, a noble young man also grieving after the unexpected loss of a loved one. If hooking him up with Kiyoshi Takeda made sense, it made no less sense to put him together with Teletha Tessatarossa. As a matter of fact, if she thought hard enough, she could see the two of them in a photograph, hugging, smiling and flashing a stupid "V" sign.
Urd crushed this thought under a mental boot and rubbed it out like a cigarette. She didn't even give a thought to why she didn't like what her scheming mind knew for certain was a brilliant idea, she just tossed it aside.
Instead, she grinned and grabbed his arm. "Hell, Keiichi, you don't need her to teach you how to fall in the water! I can do that just fine!" She pulled his arm, and with a cry of alarm, the pilot fell into the water next to her, surfacing a moment later only after a good deal of panicked effort.
He coughed as he grabbed hold of the bench and treaded water. "Not funny," he bit out.
"Depends on your point of view," Urd corrected him with a wink. "From here, it was simply hilarious."
"You know how many people drown every year from horseplay in the pool?" he asked as he struggled back onto the bench. "A trillion! Every year! One trillion people die in pool accidents."
"Sounds fishy to me," she noted. She watched him catch his breath and cocked her head. "How is it you never learned how to swim, anyway?"
He shrugged. "Too cold in Hokkaido," he said, looking away.
"Bullshit," she replied instantly. "Megumi can swim just fine. So what is it?"
"Well, in that case, I don't want to talk about it," Keiichi snapped.
Another woman would have felt uncomfortable by the tone and the conversation would have ended right there. Urd was not just another woman. "Come on," she pleaded. "Now I'm curious, and you know I'm not going to let it go now."
"It's none of your business."
"Come on!" she repeated. "I'll tell you one of my deep, dark secrets in exchange."
"I'm just afraid of the water," he said, hoping that would be the end of it.
"Afraid of the water?" she asked. "What's to be afraid of? It's just water. It's not like it's..." She shuddered. "...clowns..."
He arched an eyebrow. "Clowns?"
Urd held herself and shivered again. "Damn... creepy... ungodly things..."
Keiichi sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"Do I ever?" she asked.
He bit his lip and tapped the bench with his fingers. "Fine, okay, here it is. When I was little, I had an accident. I fell through the ice in a frozen lake, and when I came up again, I was stuck under the ice."
"That must have been scary," Urd commented. "So how did you get out?"
Keiichi shivered in the presence of bad memories. "I didn't."
888
"Excuse me, ladies."
Sayoko looked up from her beach towel at the tall, well-muscled man looking down at them with the Hollywood smile.
"Bonjour," Peorth returned, checking the guy out over her sunglasses.
"I was wondering if I could get you ladies a drink?" he asked, the light reflecting off his smile threatening to blind them.
"Bon!" Peorth said dismissively. "Bring me a daquiri, hot stuff."
The man smiled and leveled his gaze at Sayoko.
"Oh," Sayoko said, just a little disappointed. "Nothing for me. I'm... I'm pregnant and..."
"Oh," the guy said, suddenly uncomfortable. "Okay, sorry..."
"Oh, it's okay!" Sayoko quickly argued.
"So," the man said with a clap of his hands. "A daquiri and... um... juice?"
"Yeah," Sayoko said with a sigh. The guy walked off, leaving the two alone.
Peorth watched Sayoko deflate and removed her sunglasses. "What's wrong?" she asked. "We're getting free drinks, and he's nice to look at."
"It just occurred to me," Sayoko told her. "That no guy like that is ever going to pick me up again."
"Oh?" the goddess asked inquisitively. "Why not?"
The woman growled under her breath. "Because I used to have things men want," she explained as if to a child. "Now I have things they don't want," she continued, patting her stomach.
Peorth shrugged and put her sunglasses back on. "Considering the events of your recent past, do you really want a guy like that?" Sayoko blinked at her. "I mean, honestly, after you have a child, do you really want to bring home a guy you don't know and met in a bar after he bought you booze?"
Sayoko thought carefully on this.
Before the goddess could say more, she straightened her seat, having caught sight of Urd and Keiichi talking out in the lagoon. Chewing the inside of her cheek in thought, she rose from her towel and started for the water.
888
"What do you mean?" Urd asked, puzzled by the cryptic response.
"I didn't get out," Keiichi reiterated. "I beat against the ice for a minute then blacked out. When I woke up, there were a couple of paramedics and my parents kneeling over me." He paused for a minute and shrugged, more from having nothing else to do. "Talking about it later, I found out that they didn't find me for almost ten minutes. The freezing water... There's a word for it, but I forget it... It kind of preserved me until they found me after I... um..."
Urd waited. "After you..."
The boy looked uncomfortable. "Died," he finished.
"'Died?!'" Urd repeated incredulously.
"That's what my dad said," Keiichi told her. "Hypothermia and drowning. The paramedics revived me, but I was legally dead for eight minutes."
The goddess was silent. "So... you're afraid of water because it killed you?"
He nodded for a few moments. "That seems perfectly reasonable to me."
Urd winced. "Yeah, hard to argue, I guess." She thought for a moment and shrugged. "Then again, the best way to stop being afraid of something is to do it."
"Well," he replied with a sigh. "Can't I just be afraid of sitting on a beach in the Carribean surrounded by supermodels?"
She smiled and climbed up onto the bench. "Well, it's not the Carribean, and I wouldn't say you're surrounded, but I can provide one supermodel..."
Keiichi looked at her, abruptly aware that the conversation had just turned into a new and uncomfortable direction. There was something about the way Urd was looking at him. She had flirted with him before, it was her nature, but there was something different in her eyes this time.
As it happens, it was Peorth that suddenly saved him. The brunette was swimming toward them and stopped to wave.
"Keiichi!" she called. "Come out and swim with me! We can swim doggie style!"
The boy suddenly turned red.
"Dibs!" Urd suddenly cried. "I call dibs! I want to be the one to tell her!"
"No, you can't," he told her. "It would humiliate her!"
"That's why I want to do it!"
Keiichi sighed and hopped into the water, paddling toward the French goddess.
Urd watched him go, quietly relieved. She was well aware she had gone a little too far with that last one. Turning, she dived into the water and swam for shore.
When she reached the beach, she found Sayoko speaking with Teletha. The CEO was smiling and gave the other woman a hug, walking away just as Urd walked up.
"What's going on?" Urd asked.
Sayoko turned to her with the brightest smile Urd had seen on her face in weeks. "Teletha says I'm off probation status! I'm getting a raise! Twenty more yen an hour!"
"That's great!" Urd replied, fully aware that two months ago Sayoko would have put that raise in a meter after parking her lamborghini outside a French restaurant.
That thought seemed to fall over the girl as well. She suddenly deflated. "Why am I so excited by that?"
"Because it's something you accomplished on your own?" Urd suggested. "And don't you get benefits now too?"
Sayoko shrugged. "I suppose," she said, turning away and starting for her towel.
"That's what you should really be happy about," Urd told her with a hint of disapproval. "Teletha has one of the best medical packages for women in Japan. That stuff about sympathizing with the plights of women isn't just a slogan for her. It's a core value. It comes from founding and running a business in a man's country. You should be ecstatic."
Sayoko sat down and laid back on her towel. "Oh, I am, I am," Sayoko told her in a bored voice. She put her sunglasses on and resumed sunbathing.
Urd's eyebrow twitched.
888
"Hey."
They both looked up and found Urd standing in the kitchen doorway, looking incredibly embarrassed. "Did I miss anything?" she asked.
Keiichi smiled. "I was just catching Belldandy up on stuff."
"Well, there certainly is enough of it," Urd noted as she sat down at the table. "I'm... sorry," she said sheepishly. "I guess I must have scared you." She looked up at Belldandy. "It's a... It's a long story..."
"I know," Belldandy told her with a gentle smile. "You don't have to tell it now."
Urd looked up as Keiichi put a cup of tea in front of her. "Lipton," he announced.
She smiled and sipped the beverage. Belldandy sat down to her left while Keiichi took a seat to her right. She lowered the tea cup and took note of the silence.
"Well," she said quietly. "Isn't this awkward?"
"It's... not how I imagined our evening meal," Belldandy admitted.
Keiichi stood up again and checked on the soup he was making. Urd slapped a smile on her face.
"Just like old times!" she declared weakly.
"No, Neesan," Belldandy corrected. "It's really not."
"I guess not," Urd relented as Keiichi returned and put a steaming bowl of soup in front of her. "I'm really not hungry, Keiichi."
"Eat," he told her gently, but firmly.
The older goddess relented and stirred the soup with her spoon. "So, what were you talking about?" she asked.
"Keiichi san was telling me about the party at the water park," Belldandy answered, spooning up some of her own soup.
"Ah," Urd said with a knowing smile. She turned to Keiichi and cocked her head. "The beginning of the great conspiracy."
"Not quite," Keiichi told her with a smile of his own. "That was the next day while you were out on your shoot."
Seven years ago...
Jiroo ran through the center of the hangar as Teletha's limo pulled up to the outer doors. "Money's coming! Everyone look busy!"
No one reacted, all of them knowing Teletha and her expectations as well as Jiroo and his tendency to over-react to things. As such, they all continued what they were doing even as Jiroo started windexing the Shinden's canopy with far more energy than was required.
Teletha moved through the hangar until she found the person she was looking for. "Ah! Keiichi san!" She ran up to the pilot as quickly as her patent leather heels would let her and found the young man working on one of the club's Cessnas.
"Hey, Teletha," he said in greeting. "If you're looking for Urd, she's at a shoot toda..."
He broke off as the woman leapt up and hugged him. "I'm so excited!" she cried.
Keiichi, well aware of the eyes of the other Aeronautics Club members locking in on him, nervously patted the woman on the back. "Um... that's... good?"
The CEO released him and took his hands in her own. "You won't believe it! All that work paid off! Urd is going to receive... an Undie!"
The boy paused, unsure where to even begin. "As opposed to an Overy?"
"The East Asia Undie Awards recognize lingerie models in the eastern hemisphere!" Teletha informed him excitedly. "I put Urd in for best new model, and she won!"
"Really?!" Keiichi asked in growing excitement on behalf of his friend. "That's great!"
The woman nodded sagely. "It took some prodding to get the necessary bullets for her package, the volunteer work and such. And it was incredibly difficult to do it without her knowing what was going on, but it was all worth it!"
"Does she know yet?" Keiichi asked.
Teletha shook her head. "Not yet. I'm going to tell her at the end of her shoot today, and I want you to be there."
"Yeah, sure," Keiichi agreed. "Thanks for letting me know."
"This is so exciting," Teletha declared as she started to walk away. "An Undie! Who would have thought!"
"So... this is a big deal, right?" Keiichi asked, wanting to be sure.
Teletha raised a scholarly finger and made her point. "It means, good Keiichi Morisato, that more people in the eastern part of the world want to see your girlfriend in skimpy outfits than any other woman in Asia."
With that, the woman walked off.
"That's... good?" Keiichi wondered.
888
"Good shoot today, Urd," Simone told her as she packed her camera away in its case. Urd stretched, working the kinks out of her muscles as she stepped off the set. She offered a smile to the Belgian woman. She liked Simone. The photographer had a way of bringing out exactly what Urd needed to express in a shoot.
Before she could thank her for the comment, the door opened, and Teletha, followed by a few other people and Keiichi entered the studio. Teletha smiled brightly and clapped her hands together a few times.
"Everyone!" she called. "Everyone! If I could have your attention, please!" She waited for a few moments to make sure all five people in the room were looking at her. "Now," she went on, "I have a very special announcement." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, savoring the suspense she was nurturing. "Urd... come up here. Come on."
Puzzled, Urd stepped forward until she was standing next to the CEO.
"Urd," Teletha began with a deep breath. "You are receiving one of the Undies." She giggled and clapped excitedly. The rest of the group clapped along with her.
"Oh," Urd replied. "Well... I appreciate that, Teletha, but you don't have to. I have a pair right here." She reached into her purse and pulled out a violet thong.
"Oh, no! No! No!" Teletha told her. "One of the Eastern Hemisphere Lingerie Association of the Eastern Hemisphere's Lingerie Industry Awards! An Undie!"
Keiichi raised a finger. "Why do you have underwear in your purse?"
"I'm like a Boy Scout of panties," she told him with a wink. "I'm always prepared."
"Prepared for what?" Keiichi asked, a little perturbed.
"Hush!" Teletha hissed at both of them. She smiled again. "You'll receive your award at the annual Undies banquet next month."
"Wow, a banquet too?" Urd asked. "I thought I'd just get it in the mail or something..."
"Oh, no! No! No!" Teletha cried. "Urd, this is a very big deal in the lingerie world! Only three people every year get one of these!" She took Urd by the shoulders. "You've done great things since being here, and we are all very proud of you!"
Urd was silent, unsure of what to say. "O...Oh, yeah?" she asked.
"Hai!" She hugged the Norn. "Well done, Urd!"
The others clapped again, and Teletha turned to them. "Very well, then! Back to work!"
The small crowd disbanded, leaving Keiichi and Urd alone. The pilot saw an almost disturbed look on the goddess's face and reached out, touching her elbow. "Hey," he said quietly. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she whispered. She switched to a smile. "It's... It's just weird."
"Weird?"
"Yeah," she said. "I mean... I've never gotten an award before..."
"Really?" he asked. "I mean... not even in school?"
She shrugged. "No. It's... It's odd..." The goddess paused. "You know... I've spent my whole life hearing other goddesses whisper, 'did you hear what Urd did?' behind my back." She smiled. "All of a sudden, people are saying it to my face and it's a good thing."
He smiled and gave her a hug. "You deserve it, Urd. I'm happy for you."
"Come on," she said, practically on cloud nine. "Let's go get a drink!"
888
Megumi was tossing some diced onions into her wok when Keiichi walked into her kitchen.
"Hey, Kei chan," she said absently. "Making stir-fry. You wanna stay for dinner?"
"No, I'm going to eat with the family," he said with a smile. "Besides, I wouldn't want to intrude on you and Toshio."
"Yeah," she drawled out. "He said he wants to talk. That's not a good sign."
"Everything okay?" he asked in concern.
"I thought everything was great," she told him, confused. "Maybe not." she shrugged. "So," she said, eager to change the subject. "What brings you out here if it's not my cooking?"
"I need some advice," he said.
"Okay, shoot," she invited, throwing some peppers into the wok and listening to them sizzle.
"Urd's getting this big award for being Japan's top model or something," he told her.
"Awesome!" she cried.
"Yeah, and, well, it's a big deal for her, you know?" he said. "She's never won anything before, and I want to get her something... a gift or flowers or something, but I'm not sure... Maybe... like a gift card..."
She gave him a "you big dummy" look. "That's great, Kei chan," she said. "Nothing says 'great job,' like a five hundred yen gift certificate to Old Navy."
"Well, that's why I came to you!" Keiichi cried. "Come on. What should I do?"
"How are they giving her the award?" she asked.
"There's a banquet," he said. "One month from now. In Tokyo."
She grinned at him.
"What?" he demanded nervously.
"Kei chan, this one is easy."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't have to get her anything," she explained. "It's going to be the night of her life. All you have to do is make sure that she has an incredible time!"
"And how do I do that?"
"Well, does she have a date yet?"
"No," he said. "She's not bringing one. It's... complicated."
"Oh, she's bringing a date all right," Megumi told him. "You're going to take her to that banquet. You're going to wear your bitching new suit, get her flowers, buy her dinner, rent a limo, the works. The best gift you can give her is the night of her life."
He cleared his throat, and that familiar uncertainty re-entered his voice. "Yeah, I don't..."
"Oh, for God's sake, Kei chan!" she cried. "I'm suggesting you escort her to dinner, not fuck her in Belldandy's bed!"
He held up a finger. "Okay... totally uncalled for."
"I'm sorry," she said with a sigh. "But it's been three years, and I think it's about time that both of you stop tip-toeing around this. I mean you want her to have a great time, right? You're her best friend, right? Who else could take her to this thing and show her a better time?"
Keiichi said nothing.
"Let me ask you this, Kei chan," she said quietly. "If you were getting an award for being the best stunt pilot in Japan... would you want Urd there?"
The pilot took a breath. "Where the hell do I get a limo on what I make?"
"You do know people with limos," she hinted.
888
"Keiichi, come in!" Teletha invited, waving him into her office. It was just past seven, and the lights of Nekomi lit up the city outside the CEO's window. Her lights were dimmed, giving the office a much more warm and intimate atmosphere. "I was just finishing up some last-minute work. What can I do for you?"
"I need a favor," he said, taking the seat across her desk. "This banquet thing. I want to make it a big deal for Urd, and I need some help."
She sat down and rested her chin on her hands. "That's so sweet," she said. "Of course I'll help. What can I do?"
"Well, for starters, what can you tell me about what's going to happen?"
"Well!" Teletha began, rising from her chair and circling her desk. "The ceremony is essentially a big party in the Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo. There's some hob-nobbing in the beginning, then dinner and then the presentation. Afterward, there's dancing. It's a very nice evening."
"Dancing, huh?" he asked.
"Indeed, indeed, indeed," Teletha agreed.
"Are you going to be there?" he asked.
"Oh, of course! I go every year!" Her face darkened. "Besides, I have to make sure that a certain shameless tramp at Chidori's Secret doesn't poach my best model."
"I'm not a very good dancer," Keiichi admitted.
Teletha sighed. "A curse with which I am well familiar," she said. "I'm afraid I can't help you there. Is there something else I can help with?"
"I need a limo," he told her.
"Done!"
"Anything else I need?" he asked.
"It's a tuxedo event," she said. "I'll make you an appointment with Ho-Chi so he can make you a tux."
"Thanks, Teletha."
"It's no problem, Keiichi," she said. "I think it's romantic!"
He cleared his throat. "You know... we're just friends..." he assured her.
Teletha smiled and leaned in close. "They're always 'just friends' until one of them has either a moment of weakness or a moment of strength to say something that changes things." She stood up and went back behind her desk.
Keiichi took a breath, wondering if this was still such a hot idea and strode from the CEO's office. Teletha watched him go and smiled.
888
At first, Keiichi was concerned when he found out that Urd was on the roof. Normally, they reserved that spot for brooding. When he finally put the ladder up and climbed up the shingled roof to find her, he found the goddess not reflecting on the bad, but grinning broadly with a bottle of sake in her hand.
"There you are!" she cried at seeing him. "Come here! We need a toast!"
"What are you doing up here?" he asked as she unsteadily pushed a paper cup of sake into his hand.
"I'm throwing a 'Yay, me!' party!" Urd announced. She drank another shot. "Yay, me!"
"Up here?" he asked. "By yourself?"
She shrugged. "Who am I going to invite?" she replied with a wave. "Peorth and Sayoko? I don't like either of them enough to want to get drunk with them. Besides, this is more of an impromptu bit of carousing."
He looked out at the view from their perch. The lights from the gypsy carnival were subdued and didn't take away from the lights of the city as they lit up the sky. Urd poured herself another one and held it up.
"To spare panties!" she toasted.
He drank as she downed the shot and started to laugh. Sitting down, she let her legs swing over the edge of the temple roof. The boy sat down next to her, and she immediately poured him another.
"Damn, I wish Belldandy were here," she whispered out at the lights.
"She'd be so proud of you," Keiichi assured her.
"It would make for a nice change," Urd told him. "I don't mean to say that she was disappointed in me a lot, but it would be nice if I could make her genuinely proud to be my little sister."
"You know she is," the young man told her.
"You know the best part?" Urd asked. "It's the vindication."
At his questioning look, she went on. "Remember when I got suspended? Lost all my godly powers? I couldn't do jack without them. The best I could do... me, Lady Urd... was wait tables at Anna Miller's for minimum wage. You know how often I use my powers in this job?"
Keiichi shrugged.
"Zero!" she announced. "It's all on my own! Just me and my smoking-hot body!" She leaned back on the roof and took an accomplished breath. "Funny, isn't it?" she asked. "In my regular job I wield a power over the Earth that you can't even imagine, make sure it spins right on schedule on a daily basis... and this is what I'm most proud of. My mortal job. My mortal life."
The boy took another slug from his cup.
"Is that weird?' she suddenly asked. "Should I feel weird about that?"
"No!" he replied quickly. "I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it might not seem like a lot, but for a regular, mortal woman, this is huge stuff. And really, you could say that's how you've been living for the last three years."
She sat back up and smiled. "Everything's changed," she said. "I almost don't even feel like a goddess anymore. I feel..."
The goddess-woman turned and found that she had moved much closer to her roommate than she thought she had. Suddenly, she was looking into his brown eyes and losing her train of thought.
"... like this is where I belong," she finished quietly.
They stared at each other for several moments, both painfully aware of how awkward the situation was but unsure what could be done to extricate themselves from it. Finally, it was Peorth who came to their rescue.
"Keiichi?" the French goddess called. "Megumi's on the phone!"
Keiichi continued to stare into Urd's jade eyes. "I better get that," he said.
"Yeah," Urd agreed with a quick nod. "That would probably be best..."
The boy broke from her gaze and walked to the ladder, leaving the goddess alone. Urd took a sudden, long pull from the bottle and took a deep breath.
A moment later, her eyes narrowed. "Isn't there some rule that says you can't come out unless I summon you?"
On her left, World of Elegance shrugged with a grin. She clasped her hands together and sighed theatrically.
"What do you mean, 'an enchanted moment?'" Urd demanded bitterly. "There was absolutely nothing about that conversation I would call 'enchanted.' We just talked about random crap!"
Elegance cocked her head and arched an eyebrow. Urd waited several moments before replying.
"I'm drunk," Urd told her by way of explanation. "A drunk woman says stupid things. I count myself fortunate that I was able to rein those things back this time."
The angel swept around in front of her and grinned evilly.
"By 'those things,'" Urd said carefully, "I, of course, mean... embarrassing things about... underwear."
Elegance pushed a little further.
"No," Urd said. "No." She took another pull from the bottle. "Nothing like that."
The ethereal being floated backwards and looked a question at her.
Urd looked up at her, half-annoyed, half chagrined, as if she had just been caught and knew it. Instead of denying it, a futile thing, she realized, she looked away. "I can't tell him."
World of Elegance bounced into the air and spun around at the half-confession.
"You think I'm happy about this?" Urd asked her quietly. "You think I like feeling this way about a man I could never have?"
The angel looked down at her and blinked a question.
"I say so!" Urd declared angrily.
Elegance put her hands on her hips and glared at her mistress.
"What do you mean I'm an idiot!?" Urd cried in shock. "You can't call me an idiot! You're my angel!"
The angel folded her arms over her chest and sniffed.
"Fine! Fine! You win, Elegance!" Urd said, throwing the sake bottle off the roof. "I'll just go downstairs, pull Keiichi into his room and rip his clothes off! Then I'll tell him to forget all about Belldandy, that I'll be his goddess for the rest of his life! Then we'll make love for eight straight days, and get married in a quickie ceremony! I'm sure Teletha is licensed to marry people; God knows she can do everything else! Then when Belldandy finally does come back, I'll just say, 'snooze, you lose.' Sound good to you?"
Elegance blinked at her...
Then started nodding enthusiastically.
Urd shook her head. "Wow," she muttered. "Only my angel could think that's a good idea..."
"Everyone! Guess what!" she heard Keiichi cry from downstairs. Urd leaned over the side of the roof and found Keiichi rushing outside. He caught sight of her and looked up, grinning.
"Megumi's getting married!" he cried.
Elegance clasped her hands in joy, and Urd grinned. "I wonder which one of them proposed!"
"Does it matter?!"
Urd thought about it for a minute. "I guess it really doesn't," she answered softly. "As long as one of them does." She grinned a moment later and called out to him. "Hey, Keiichi! Your brother wears tights for a living!"
The boy groaned and went back inside. Urd smiled. She loved giving him grief.
World of Elegance hugged her from behind and whispered into her ear. Urd looked down and bit her lip. "I'd like to," she whispered back. "I've already been with him twice as long as Belldandy has, been with him during some of his proudest moments. I've been his friend, his companion, his guardian... everything but what I want to be..." She wiped her eye. "He's the only one I can talk to like this... aside from... well... you and Belldandy. He's something good and pure..." She thought on that for a moment. "Maybe that's why I can't... He deserves someone like Belldandy... not someone like me..."
Elegance whispered angrily to her.
"It's not self-loathing," Urd told her. "It's the truth. Belldandy represents the best Heaven has to offer. The love of a goddess like her is priceless. I want him to have that."
The angel whispered again.
"I thought I was giving it to him," Urd told her.
Elegance squeezed her shoulders.
"No," Urd whispered. "Not from me."
She felt her higher self embrace her consolingly and smiled. "I wish you had been around while I was with Troubadour," she said. "Maybe I would have dumped him long before he left me."
The angel hugged her tighter.
888
"What time is it?" Keiichi asked even as he raised his wrist to check his watch. "Wow..."
"Almost ten," his wife told him. "I didn't realize we'd been talking for that long."
"Shit, I should've called Mischa," the engineer grumbled. He curled his lips into an exaggerated grimace. "Mori-saw-to," he imitated the Russian. "You no want to sell new jet? You have no balls for jet? Jet has balls. Why you have no balls?" He let out a breath and sighed.
"I'm sorry," Belldandy told them both. "It's been a long day for us all, I think." She stood up and put on a smile. "Neesan needs rest, and so do you, Keiichi san. We can continue tomorrow." She rose to her feet, and suddenly, with no warning, her smile faded into nothingness.
She looked down at the ground, suddenly embarrassed. Keiichi and Urd looked up at her, puzzled at the change.
"I'm sorry," Belldandy whispered. "I suddenly remembered... I... I don't live here anymore."
Urd stood up and embraced her sister. "You'll always have a place here, Sis," she whispered.
Keiichi smiled uncomfortably. "We kept your room just like you left it," he told her.
Belldandy looked at them both. "I... I knew you did for the first few years... but even today?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. I know you might not believe this, coming back and finding things the way they are, but we always hoped you would come back to us."
The sentiment touched her, and for a moment, she forgot any lingering ill feelings she had toward them.
"Thank you," she said.
"Why don't you go take a bath and get some rest?" Urd suggested. "We can talk more in the morning."
"I think that sounds good," the middle Norn agreed. "There is still much to hear."
888
Urd sat at her mirror and brushed her long, moonlight hair as her husband arranged their futon for the night. Belldandy was already asleep in the next room, and the two had some privacy for the first time that day.
"So, what do you think?" Keiichi asked her quietly as she finished her hundredth stroke and switched the brush to the other hand. He looked up at her in concern. "Is it her?"
The goddess put the brush down. "She answered the challenge questions..."
"Those questions were designed based on what I didn't know about her," Keiichi reminded her. He fixed his wife with a concerned stare. "What if she's after you this time?"
She started brushing her hair again. "I'm pretty sure it's her. Last time it was a matter of looking fair and feeling foul. This time she's fair all around."
Urd thought on it for a moment. "Why? How did she seem to you?"
"Like Belldandy," he replied. "Just like I remembered her." He paused in self reproach. "But I've said that before."
"I believe it's her," Urd said firmly. "It feels right." She gave her hair three more strokes before going on with her next thought. "All the same... I want you to go to work early tomorrow... and don't come back until I call you."
"Funny, I was going to take her to work with me and not bring her home until I was sure."
"Are we going to have a contest to see who gets to put their ass on the line?" Urd asked him, running the brush furiously through her hair. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's her."
Keiichi got under the covers and looked up at the ceiling. "How much are you going to tell her about seven years ago?"
"All of it," Urd answered.
"Is that wise?" he asked, turning his head to watch her stand up, the purple silk of her nightgown billowing around her legs. "If it's not her... then the only advantage we might have is that she doesn't know how much we know."
"If it's not her, what we know or don't know isn't going to keep her from striking," Urd told him as she knelt next to him. "Right now, I prefer to believe it's her." She smiled and swung a leg over him, straddling him. "You know... this is the first time in a week you haven't been working late..."
"You think that's a good idea?" he asked quietly as the goddess ran her hands over his chest.
"Why wouldn't it be?" she asked slyly.
"Jealousy storms," he replied. "The fact that Belldandy's in the next room, our walls are made of paper, and you, Angel, yowl like a wildcat?"
"You've never complained before," she whispered pointedly.
"I just don't want to seem like we're rubbing her nose in our marriage," he said quietly. "This has to be hard enough for her."
Urd's face pinched, realizing he was right but not liking it.
Keiichi realized what part of the problem was. Urd waited ten years for her sister to be released, wanting to see her again but dreading it at the same time. Now her husband's ex-girlfriend was back, a woman who'd always unconsciously made her feel inadequate, and Urd needed reassurance.
The engineer learned long ago that you couldn't hold a firm line with Urd and expect her to go along with you unless you were willing to accept a truly Pyrrhic victory. You had to charm her, tease her along. He smiled up at her.
"Oh, and you might want to tone it down a bit," he said mock-casually.
She blinked down at him. "Excuse me?" she demanded.
"You know what I mean," he said teasingly. "You can't walk around looking as sexy as you do, okay? You're going to inspire me to bad things."
Urd smiled, catching onto what he was trying to do. "Fine," she sighed dramatically. "I'll just wear my yukata for the next few days."
"Oh, like that will work..." he replied, resting his hands on her thighs.
"And what is wrong with that?" she asked haughtily. "You've never complained about my yukata, and it's very comfortable."
"Well, it should be," he said with an arched eyebrow. "We both know you don't wear anything under your yukata."
"Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!" she complained, leaning down and bringing her lips to within an inch of his.
He reached up and ran his hands through her hair. She shut her eyes and luxuriated in the feel of his hands. "What happened to toning it down?" she asked.
"Well," he whispered. "We'll just have to be really quiet..."
She grinned wickedly and kissed him fiercely.
888
Belldandy lay awake on her futon, looking up at the ceiling, unable to drift off to sleep. Part of that might have been the fact that she had just woke up from a ten-year sleep. But a large part of it was simply her mind trying to digest what she had learned today.
Truth-be-told, she was having a very hard time blaming either of them for what happened. They fell in love. It happens to people every day.
But it happened to her sister and her Keiichi, and that's why it hurt.
Now that the shock was wearing off, she started to wonder what she should do now. Megumi asked her to bless their marriage, to ease the suffering in her sister's heart, but how could she do something like that and mean it?
Belldandy was not a goddess who often had dark thoughts, but for just half a second, something whispered into her mind, something unforgivable, a thought laced with hope and edged with cruelty.
Take him back.