Bubblegum Crisis Post 2040 File 1: Dominant Species
Part 4: Hunger
Chapter 41: If Only
by P. Kristen Enos (bgcpost2040@aol.com)
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A Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 English Dub Version Fanfic. All rights belong to AIC, ADV Films and the other creative powers that be. I just want credit for writing the story. Contains spoilers! Rated PG13. Yuri warning! Nothing in here should be a shock if you've watched the episodes and paid attention. All I'm doing is filling in the gaps with my own interpretation of events! Special thanks to Greenegret for betaing!
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Reika once again found herself staring at the ceiling in her nightly battle with insomnia. She truly missed the days when she could lie down and practically be asleep within five minutes of her head hitting the pillow - providing of course the purpose was to sleep.
She knew her sleeping problem started long before the arrival of Linna at her home. In fact, it started the night her parents died.
In the beginning, she tried to act as if nothing was wrong even though she was conscious of the fact that the lack of sleep was affecting her appearance and ability to function. Now she spent the long trips in planes and limos catching up on sleep as best she could. Of course, it was never as satisfying as a full night's rest, but she knew she had reached a point where she was a beggar who couldn't be a chooser.
With a sigh of defeat, Reika got up from the bed, slipped on her bathrobe and left the room to indulge in what had become her nightly ritual of a walk around the house and the outside grounds. It was too late to indulge her only relaxing past time, which was playing the grand piano in the living room. She stepped out into the hallway and immediately found herself looking at the closed door of Linna's room.
She quietly opened the door and listened for any sounds of the other woman actually being awake. Finding none, she slipped in, closed the door behind her. Guided by the dim light of a thin beam of moonlight through the cracks in the curtains, Reika took a seat in the chair by the bed, finding some comfort in Linna's nearness even if the patient didn't know she was there. This had become part of her ritual too.
While she was immensely pleased that Linna had finally woken up that day and showed no signs of brain damage, she now knew the clock was really ticking down to when Linna would finally leave. And according to extremely positive reports from Mrs. Takeuchi, it might be sooner than planned, even if the time still measured in months.
Reika let out a small sigh and then stood. She gently kissed Linna on the forehead and went to the door to proceed with her walk. She started to turn the handle when a soft voice said, "Have you been doing that every single night?"
Letting out an audible sigh at being caught, Reika sheepishly smiled to herself and kept the door closed.
"How long have you been awake?" she asked.
"For a while," Linna said. "My body wants to sleep but my mind is still going over everything that happened today."
"I'm sorry for disturbing you…. Do you want me to leave?"
"No."
Without turning on the lights, Reika went back to her spot on the chair. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you."
"It made me feel better. But then it didn't."
"I know what you mean," Reika admitted softly.
"So what were you thinking about when you sat there before?"
"About the last time I truly felt happy. Which was when we were out on the balcony."
"… I'm about two seconds away from crying and I know it has nothing to do with the fall."
"Sorry… About everything. I treated you so poorly that I'm honestly surprised that you don't seem to hate me."
Linna let out a sigh and said, "If I wasn't in a general self-pity mode, I probably would have. But even then it would have been motivated by selfishness. I know you couldn't help what happened… I do have one question though, would you have ever told me about your engagement?"
Reika's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but then relaxed when she realized she shouldn't be. "Did Irene tell you?"
"No, Mrs. Takeuchi did. Or rather, she told me that my being here seems to cheer you up, especially with all of your pressures, the engagement included. I don't know much more than that."
"His name is Densuke," Reika explained softly. "He lives in an apartment in downtown Tokyo to better enjoy the night life, so I doubt you'll ever see much less meet him. Not that I would do that to you. He has a particular weakness for pretty girls and I would strangle him if he ever made a pass at you."
"Then why are you marrying him?"
Reika shrugged even though she knew Linna couldn't see her. "Since I knew I had to get married to continue the family line, I went for the easiest option, which was him. When I was five years old, it was clear that my parents didn't want to have anymore children after Irene, and therefore would not have any boys to carry on the Chang lineage and responsibilities. So they made an arrangement with a long time ally of ours, a very prominent Japanese family who would be very familiar with our ways and responsibilities -"
"Do you mean Yakuza?"
Reika paused for a moment and then said, "I guess Yakuza would be the best description of what my family is, even though it's a little more complicated than that. Either way, that is Densuke's family background. Densuke himself was the youngest of four children, with two older brothers and a sister who were already groomed to continue their lineage.
"From what my grandfather recently explained to me, my dad considered the arrangement with Densuke ideal in that as Densuke would not be a direct part of his family's lineage, it gave us more freedom to still groom me as the head and maintain the Chang autonomy from the Watanabes. Densuke's family agreed to the arrangement and he and I were engaged at the ripe old age of five.
"And we stayed engaged until I fell in love with Sylia and had Dad break off the engagement when I was fifteen. Of course, I had no idea of the family politics behind the arrangement, nor would I have cared. All that mattered to me was that my life course didn't seem as set as I had been led to believe and I took that chance with as much gusto as I could. Apparently Dad took a lot of flack for breaking things off, but he never let me know how much.
"Now, I'm back to where I was before, and it almost feels as if the past thirteen years were just some dream world that never really happened," she said with a sigh. "Sometimes I do wonder if things are predestined."
"So you don't love him?"
"Oh no," Reika stated adamantly. "If anything, I've always felt kind of sorry for him, when he wasn't annoying me at some level. But I figured, if I must marry someone, then at least let it be someone who fully understands it's purely for convenience and that there are no possibilities of me loving him. The rest of my family and household could never stand him. Irene hates his guts, and he lives in mortal fear of her. And I can keep Densuke under control for the most part, whereas someone else might get it into his head that he's more important than he really is.
"I've recently gotten the impression that his own family considers him to be a loser. His siblings are an extremely different breed. -- Now they're undeniably Yakuza. -- And Densuke doesn't fit in with them anymore than he does with us. At least he has value over here, whereas he doesn't in his own family. It's a shame because he can be a really nice guy. It's rare but it's possible. I guess I'm just used to him."
"It sounds as if, even if I was a man, I still wouldn't have had a chance because you never would have broken off your engagement if you hadn't met Sylia," Linna surmised softly. "It was a no-win situation to begin with."
"I guess it does sound like that doesn't it?" Reika sadly admitted. "Maybe I was deluding myself about the whole thing after all."
There was a moment of silence before Linna said, "Sylia didn't really talk that much about you, other than to make it clear that she really loved you back then. She never did say why you two broke up, and I never had the guts to ask. Was it because of the Knight Sabers? Or something else?"
Reika sighed, having known and dreaded that this question would be asked. "It was a culmination of a lot of things. I think the best way to summarize it is that she realized before I did that our relationship was perfect as long as we never had to deal with the rest of the world. She began planning the Knight Sabers long before we graduated high school. And when she started working with Nigel, well… that was pretty much the nail in the coffin when combined with everything else going on at the time."
"She had an affair on you?!" Linna blurted, clearly surprised.
"No, I don't believe she did -- at least now I don't," she said. "I wasn't quite so gracious back then. But the attraction and intellectual compatibility were obvious from day one. It was my first time to realizehow poorly I handle jealousy. By then it was also clear that I couldn't handle her near accidents in testing her hardsuits, so when real battle dangers came around, I was a mess with worry as well. And Sylia reacted by reverting to the more stubborn and uncompromising side of her nature - I assure you she's mellowed out quite a bit compared to the way she was back thing. Unfortunately, the one thing that was never in doubt was how perfectly matched we were in terms of raging tempers. Poor Jill and Mei probably looked forward to the battles after watching one of our fights.
"And I honestly can't blame our break-up only on the Knight Sabers. Eventually my family issues would have become a breaking up point, I'm sure. Families like mine will ignore personal 'indiscretions' as long as the continuation and support of the family line is not compromised. "
"But do you still love her?" Linna asked.
"In my own way, Linna, I always will, but that doesn't mean I'm still pining over her romantically. She was my best friend, and that loss was more devastating… If anything, I should thank you for proving to me that it is possible to find someone that I felt like I wanted to trust again."
There was a long silence, and Reika was afraid she said too much.
When Linna finally spoke again, her voice was low but clearly shaky, "I, uh, think you'd better go or you won't get any sleep tonight. I shouldn't be keeping you up. After all, I can sleep all day tomorrow where, I'm sure you have things to do."
Reika got the hint and stood, "You're right. I really should try to get some sleep. I'm sorry for disturbing you. And you should get some sleep, too."
"I'm going to try…"
'Me, too,' Reika thought as she finally left the room.
-- End Chapter 41 --
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