Chapter 10: Paparazzi Propaganda??
AN: Hey you all, another chapter of Starlight Destiny…finally! Lol. Well, anyway, all names of magazines and such are fictional and any real-life magazine names are entirely coincidental. And this chapter and the next are dedicated to SilverKnight7 for giving me an idea for the next two chapters. Thanks!
"Ohmigod! Did you see Tokyo Teen?! Seiya and Serena of the Four Lights dated for four years and then all of a sudden Seiya goes and has an affair with Chika Toyo?!" a girl exclaimed as she ran up to her friends with the said magazine waving high above her head.
"Yeah, I know! I saw that! It was on the cover of Japan Stars too! Do you think it's true?" her friend asked desperately, her eyes wide with excitement.
"It has to be! After all, they said there was a witness who said he saw Seiya and Chika going into a love hotel on the outskirts of Tokyo City!" the first girl told them in a hushed voice, their heads bent close over the open magazine, as she pointing to a paragraph in the four-page article.
"Oh my gawd! I can't believe it! And with Chika Toyo too! Chika's such a beautiful model and an awesome actress, there's no wonder why they hooked up!" another girl wailed. "Seiya's taken again! It's no fair!"
"But what about Serena?!" the solo-blond haired girl of the group asked. The girls exchanged blanks expressions.
"I dunno…" the first, black-haired girl said.
"Hey! Maybe she'll hook up with Keisuke Miyasato!" the girl with the longest black hair suggested.
"Oooh! Yeah! Keisuke's such a super hot model! And he said in his latest interview that he thinks Serena's really hot and seems really interesting. He even said he'd really like to get to know her because she seems so much like himself. Serena and Keisuke would match like Oreos and milk!!" the owner of the Tokyo Teen magazine issue gushed. The other girls nodded their heads enthusiastically in agreement.
"Oooo! Oreos sound good," the redhead said. "We should go get some on the way home today!"
"Yeah, whatever," the black haired girl waved her hand in the air impatiently. "I just want to find out whether Seiya and Chika are going to last and if who Serena's going to hook up with!"
Nodding enthusiastically in agreement with their pack leader, the girls began poring over the magazine once more, trying to find out all the facts of the latest star scandal, unaware that they were being watched and their conversation overheard by someone else.
A tall woman with long dark green hair stood just around the corner. She was dressed in a short deep purple dress and stiletto heeled shoes. Hiding her deep amethyst eyes were a pair of deep purple, black-tinted sunglasses.
"I sense great trouble ahead for the Earth senshi, and for the Starlights," she said gravelly to herself. "I must watch over the portals carefully." Turning away from the girls, she headed down the hall, gaining the curious stares of Tokyo High students. She carried herself with astonishing grace, almost as if she were floating, and had a strange aura around her. Her face showed no expressions but the way she walked showed that she was going somewhere important. She seemed so out of place in the high school that she caught the attention of many students. The woman walked up numerous flights of stairs until she reached a level with a door marked 'Rooftop Access' next to the stairwell. She opened the door and closed it quietly behind her. There was a brief purple flash of neon light underneath the door, but no one took noticed.
"What the hell is this?!" Seiya exploded. He threw the many magazines onto the table.
Yaten popped his head from the couch and Taiki came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on the blue apron her wore. He had been practicing baking a cake for an upcoming show he was supposed to do. The two both had expressions of curiosity. "What are you yelling about Seiya?" Yaten asked, an eyebrow raised.
"This!" Seiya picked up a magazine and hurled it blindly in Yaten's general direction. Yaten's head disappeared from view as the magazine flew over his head, inching it by millimeters.
"Hey! Stop that!" Yaten yelled.
"Who the hell told the paparazzi this crap?!" Seiya shouted, slamming his fists down onto the table.
Taiki and Yaten both went to the table and shifted through the pile of magazine, each one with separate pictures of Seiya and the beauty dubbed the "Goddess of Love and Beauty Shoved to the Curb," with headlines like "Four Lights Couple Broken Up Over Affair," "It Takes Two…to Keep Seiya Satisfied," "Will She Forgive Him?" and "Seiya and Serena Separate."
"Wha-?!" Yaten and Taiki both exclaimed as soon as the headlines and pictures sunk in. "What did you do?!" they both turned to Seiya and exclaimed.
"I didn't do a damn thing! I've only met Chika Toyo once! How could I have been at a hotel with her when I only talked to her at that frickin' Christmas party? And how could you two accuse me of doing that to Serena?!" Seiya yelled back at them.
"We're not accusing you of that!!" the two brothers shouted in unison. "We're asking if you made Chika Toyo mad or something!" Taiki said.
"We know you wouldn't do that to Serena!" Yaten told him in a huff.
Seiya paused in his "angry-bull" huffing. He calmed down a little. "Oh…No! I didn't!" Seiya told them, running his hand through his hair in frustration and heaving himself onto the couch. "Who could have so much media influence that the paparazzi would believe everything this so-called 'Love Hotel Witness' says?!"
Taiki sat down in a chair. "Well, it could have been one of your more influential fans," he said as Yaten disappeared into the kitchen, reading Tokyo Teen. Taiki flipped through Star Madnessuntil he got to the cover story article. "Or maybe it could have been an extremely desperate fan of Serena's..." Taiki trailed off as he started reading the article.
Yaten appeared out of the kitchen with a spoon of light brown dough in his hand as he read the Tokyo Teen. He settled down on the couch next to Seiya. "Maybe it was someone's idea of a sick joke," he said.
"No, this is too big to be a joke, Yaten, and don't you dare take some more dough," Taiki warned him, knowing his younger brother. He hadn't even looked up to see Yaten carrying the spoon, he just knew.
"Aw man," Yaten moaned. He sighed unhappily and savored every little taste of the preciously tiny amount of dough. Then, as he liked the spoon clean, a thought occurred to him and he dropped the spoon. "Hey!"
"What Yaten?! I'm trying to think!" Seiya told him, jerking to a sitting position on the couch.
"Hey! Is this thing all over the news?" Yaten asked urgently.
"Of course it is Yaten. It's considered the most biggest news in a long time, is what is says here," Taiki said, gesturing to the magazines on the table. He looked at Yaten and saw his younger brother's face. "What?" he said suddenly. "What's wrong?"
"Taiki, Serena went out for a walk this morning…and she went walking down towards the center of Tokyo," Yaten told him with wide eyes. "She wanted to go shoping."
"What?!" Seiya jumped up. "Why didn't you tell me this before?!" he demanded.
"Hey! I can't remember everything that happens, you know," Yaten retorted.
"Argh!" Seiya yelled and grabbed his jacket and the baseball hat that he often used for a disguise and charged out the door.
Taiki quickly went over to the wall phone and picked up the phone. Punching in a speed dial number, he bit his lip, waiting for the other end to pick up.
Seiya hurried down the sidewalk, practically shoving people out of the way as he pulled the cap lower upon his head and glanced wildly at the street signs. He headed down towards the shopping district of Japan, which was unfortunately the most crowded during Saturday evenings, without even acknowledging the exclamations caused by his shoving.
As he rounded a corner, he suddenly saw a familiar black car slowly turning down the same street. Seiya looked closer as he weaved in and out through the crowd and recognized the Four Lights' longtime limo driver, Matsuoka.
The black car pulled up next to him and Seiya climbed in. "Matsuoka-san! What are you doing here?"
"Ah Seiya, Taiki called me. He said you needed a quick ride to the shopping district so I came to pick you up. Now where would you like to go?" Matsuoka steered expertly into the flow of traffic and headed down towards the shopping central of Tokyo.
Serena stepped out of her favorite store American Teen and bumped into a group of girls, who were chattering excitedly about some latest scandal in the tabloids.
"Oh! Excuse me!" Serena gave an apologetic smile to the pre-teen girls and they stopped their chattering long enough to reply with a "it's okay," before turning back to the magazine that they held open in the center of the group.
Serena stepped a few feet away from them to the curb, to hail a taxi, and sighed. Thank gosh she was wearing a hat. Otherwise, those girls would have recognized her, what with the magazine they were reading and all. She had briefly spotted Seiya on the cover of the magazine but hadn't been able to see what the feature was about. Serena figured it had something to do with the release of Seiya's new single that he had composed and recorded just for her, as an anniversary present. She had dismissed the girls' conversation as just nothing important but a name caught her attention. Two names actually.
"…Seiya was…affair…treating Serena like…"
"…Oh my gosh!...Yeah!...I can't believe it!"
'Huh?' Serena thought. She looked over at the girls. Stepping back a couple feet, acting like she was looking in her bag for something, she eavesdropped on their conversation.
"…that's so sad! I feel so bad for Serena! I can't believe Seiya would do something like that!"
'Do what?' Serena wondered.
"Yeah! And with Chika Toyo too! I hate her! She's such a bi-otch!" one of the girls said.
"Exactly! And it says here that Chika says it's been going on ever since that celebrity Christmas party they were both at."
'What?!' Serena couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'What did she say?!' She stared at the girls. She then frowned. Pulling out a pair of sunglasses from her bag, she put them on and walked over to the girls.
"Hi!" Serena said cheerfully. The girls turned to look at her. "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation about Serena and Seiya! What's going on?"
"You won't believe this!" the girls immediately added the disguised-Serena to their huddle. "Apparently Seiya's been having an affair with Chika Toyo, the famous model and actress, and Serena doesn't know about it yet!"
"Really?" Serena asked.
"Yeah! And this magazine said they met at the celebrity Christmas party at the Grande Hotel Restaurant a while ago and Chika Toyo gave an exclusive interview stating that she and Seiya ditched Serena a little after midnight and they headed up to one of the rooms to mess around. Chika said that she and Seiya have been having sex ever since and that he's as great in bed as anyone would think, if not more," one blushing girl told her.
"Yeah, and Chika Toyo claims that Seiya dumped Serena and that he's going to propose to her anytime now."
Serena couldn't take anymore of the gossip. "Sorry girls, but none of that is true."
"How do you know?" the girls asked curiously.
"Because Seiya would never do that to Serena. I know him really well," Serena told them.
"You know Seiya?!" the girls all shrieked in unison.
"Of course." Serena told them.
"Wait, what did you say your name was again?" one of the girls asked.
"My name's Serena," she said and pulled off her sunglasses. The girls gasped and stared at her in disbelief. "I can tell you girls for sure that it's all gossip. Chika Toyo never went up to a hotel room that night at the Christmas party. At least, if she did, it wasn't with Seiya. Seiya was with me the whole night," she told them.
"Oh my gosh! Y-You're Serena!" a girl exclaimed. "So-So all this is a lie?"
"Yup," Serena smiled apologetically. "The paparazzi are always trying to report some so-called scandal. Don't believe everything you see in the magazines."
"Hey! Serena! Is that you?" a familiar male voice called out to her from down the sidewalk.
Serena turned around and spotted who it was. "Hey Haruka! Michiru!" She waved and then turned back to the girls, "Sorry. I've got to go." She turned towards the couple.
"Oh! Wait! Could you sign some autographs for us, please?"
"Um, well, I don't have any photos right now, but…how about this: I'll give you my card and you can give my manager your addresses and I'll send them to you? How's that?"
"Sure!" the girls all beamed. They eagerly took the card Serena gave them and waved bye to her before hurrying off in the opposite direction, squealing excitedly about meeting their all-time favorite pop star.
"Hello Serena," Michiru greeted her with a soft smile.
"Hey Michiru," Serena smiled. The Four Lights and the duo had become good friends since the concert, except for Seiya's slight disliking of Haruka. "What are you guys doing here? Shopping?"
"Yeah. We wanted to pick up some stuff for Michiru's niece's birthday," Haruka said, holding up the bag from the toy store a block away.
"Awesome," Serena smiled. "I'm just shopping too. I had to get some new clothes. Most of my clothes got ruined when Sammy and Seiya were having a water gun war," Serena rolled her eyes and laughed.
Michiru and Haruka both smiled but they shared uneasily expressions. "Uh, Serena?" Haruka asked. "Did you happen to hear something about Seiya and…?"
"Oh yeah," Serena said nonchalantly. "It's all lies though. It seems Chika Toyo really likes Seiya or just wanted to cause a scandal because I was with Seiya the night, Chika claimed, they got together."
"Really? Wow. I've met Chika, but I didn't think she'd stoop so low," Haruka said.
"Yes. She seemed so nice," Michiru agreed. "I guess you can't judge a person by first impressions."
"You got that right," Serena said with a sigh. "Oh well. I had better get home."
"Oh Serena, we wanted to ask you something. There's a charity hip-hop concert in a month and Haruka and I have decided to volunteer. We wanted to know if you, Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten could contribute in some way to the event," the aqua-haired beauty told the younger girl.
"Really? A hip-hip concert for charity?" Serena grinned. "That sounds like fun. I'll ask them, but I'll definitely help out. Do you need dancers? Because I love hip hop!"
"Sure, if you want. We're getting a professional choreographer from Kaneda Music to help us," Michiru said. "The concert is basically to raise money for kids who want to enter arts schools but can't afford to."
"Cool. I'll ask the guys and I'll let you know. Bye!" Serena said and headed back to the hotel. She arrived back at the hotel about 20 minutes later and found Yaten and Taiki eating cookies, Yaten in front of the TV and Taiki at the table, working on his laptop.
"Hey guys," she greeted and dropped her bags onto the table. Taiki and Yaten both whipped around to look at her. Serena looked at them with raised eyebrows. "…What's up with you two?"
"Serena! Did Seiya find you?" Yaten asked her urgently.
"Seiya? No, but I did see Michiru and Haruka. They told me about this charity—"
"Serena. Did you see the news?" Taiki interrupted, totally out of character.
"Uhh…the news? Why?" she asked him quizzically.
"Serena, there's this rumor going around that Seiya has been cheating on you with—" Yaten said.
"Ohhhhh. That news. Yeah, I heard about it," Serena said nonchalantly again for the second time that day. She started pulling out things from her many shopping bags.
Taiki and Yaten looked at each other. "You're not…mad?" Yaten asked carefully.
"No. Because Chika Toyo is one sad person if she has to make up all those lies just so she can boost her self-esteem," Serena said matter-of-factly.
Taiki and Yaten exchanged surprised expressions. "Wow Serena, that's really…calm of you," Taiki said surprised. "I would have thought that you would want to get revenge over her for causing this huge made-up scandal."
"Oh I'm going to get revenge all right. But that's not really important right now. After all, I know it's not true so why should I care what other people think? But don't get me wrong, I am going to get revenge, one way or another," Serena vowed.
"Uhhh…" Taiki and Yaten exchanged yet another round of looks.
"Anyway, I'm going to go take a bubble bath. Let me know if Seiya gets back," Serena told them and dragged her day's haul to her room.
"Uhhh…okay," Yaten said. He looked at Taiki but Taiki only shrugged. That wasn't like Serena at all. What was going on?
"Ah, I see. Being around the Earth senshi has changed you, Princess. You have become much more aware of yourself, of your duties, although, you still have that mischievous spark, I see," the tall, green-haired figure said as she looked into her orb, a small amused smile upon her face. In the smoky purple haze of the cool glass of the orb, the outlines of Taiki and Yaten looking at each other in surprise could be seen before the smoke pulled the images back into its deep purple depths.
"In making that decision you have just altered your fate. You have diverted it from danger, without even knowing the horrific future that had lain in wait for you. This Chika Toyo is not to be taken lightly. She is not what she seems, Princess. I hope you and your senshi vanquish this enemy, for your sake…and the world's."