Present day:
Matoi Ryuko quickly flashed her press badge to the unnecessarily massive security guard barring her way. Raking her hand through her shock of red-dyed and unruly hair, she braced herself for an hour or two of extreme annoyance.
What she wanted was to be an investigative journalist, to ask all the right questions and learn all the little secrets that lead up to a massive cathartic break into the respective yet equally sordid realms of business and crime. Since she was in high school she had been picking up her own private little investigations, pestering her father and prodding at her friends for a constant stream of information. Always in the back of her mind she had hoped little puzzle pieces would fall together to form one surprising and coherent whole, but always her imagination was disappointed.
Ryuko shook her head and sighed. Her life seemed to be a constant stream of disappointments. Her degree in journalism wasn't enough to get her a job as a bloodhound, and so she had to choose between transferring to the fast-food industry to pay the bills and taking a job as a low-level reporter for a squalid little fashion magazine run by a tiny, crotchety, pink-haired troll doll.
She had chosen the latter, though it had been a seriously considered decision.
Somehow, Ryuko's editor had an in with the Kiryuin family (she suspected it had something to do with blackmail or drugs). The Kiryuins, owners of the REVOCS corporation, had always been prominent in the fashion industry, supplying material and designs to nearly every clothing company in the world, but never before now had they ever been so prominent in the eyes of the public.
Part of must have been Harime Nui's (the second daughter of REVOCS' CEO Ragyo Kiryuin) rise to power as the youngest designer to ever attain the title of Grand Couturier. Her designs were fascinating in their boldness and scope, breaking genre boundaries as easily as a bad television program breaks the fourth wall. Often fashion magazines worldwide would sport designs smacking of both traditional Lolita and the sharp edginess of modern Goth (or some other such seemingly absurd combination), covers screaming the name of Harime Nui.
However, Ryuko suspected that perhaps the greater part of the world's new fascination with the Kiryuin name had more to do with Harime's sister and exclusive model, Kiki. Hers was the type of beauty that preoccupied the world so greatly it never even thought to demand a real name. Somewhere, somehow, little pockets of people floated about who knew Kiki's name, but no one cared. They simply wanted to gape at her in awe as she demurely allowed her face and body to be put on display for the sake of fashion.
Ryuko could appreciate an exquisite supermodel as well as the next person, but something about Kiki made her subconscious squirm as it thrashed around looking for some piece she was missing. There was something familiar she couldn't pin down in her mind, and it frustrated her to no end. It was the for slim chance of meeting Kiki in person that Ryuko had agreed to do this atrociously long interview with Harime. Otherwise, she would have told editor Jakuzare to go do horrible things to herself, for although Nui's artistry was fresh and compelling, she was sweetly and agonizingly annoying.
Unbelievably annoying.
As she thought about the horrors that awaited her, Ryuko began to regret agreeing to do the interview as she sat in a weird-smelling room waiting to be received. She had always been sensitive to high-pitched noises, and she protectively cupped her hands over her ears, grimacing, as she thought of Nui's dog-whistle squeak.
Damn it, she thought, I don't get paid enough for this.
"Miss Nui will see you now," a faceless assistant announced, shoving Ryuko unceremoniously into the designer's suite. Ryuko shook her head and steeled her gut, absentmindedly fingering the recorder in her pocket. She looked around at the atrociously pink decor of the main room, searching for but not finding her interviewee. That's so strange, I could have sw...
"Hey there, cutie," said a voice directly into her ear. Harime Nui had materialized behind her and casually draped her slender arms over Ryuko's blazer. The journalist jumped visibly, feeling as though her stomach had been slung into her lungs. She gulped as she tried desperately to keep her instinctive body from throwing punches. Was she hiding behind the door? Using every bit of restraint she had, Ryuko turned and extended a hand.
"Thank you for agreeing to see me," she said in her "professional" voice, "I'm Matoi Ryuko from Hiss. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"Ohmm?" Nui hummed, sounding like a mosquito as she rocked back and forth on her perilously high heels. "Questions? Of course! Anything for you, Ryuko!" Ryuko drew upon her years of customer service college jobs to spit out a smile to mask her surprise. Harime Nui wasn't just annoying, she was off-putting, creepy, almost. Said designer grabbed Ryuko's hand like they were in grade school and dragged her to a small table that looked like it was designed for either a small girl or a very old woman, lace doilies and all. She sat Ryuko down and sat across from her, placing her hands on her lap and leaning in close, her eyes unblinking.
Ryuko shuffled the papers she was holding, looking for the pre-written questions she had prepared as she absently murmured polite small-talk. She looked up to begin the interview, but the look she was being given her made her freeze, comments on the weather dying awkwardly on her lips. The tiny fashionista looked like she was undressing Ryuko with her eyes, and not politely, either. Her huge, purple eyes were dilated with an expression of lust the young reporter was not unfamiliar with, and her small, neat hands twitched as if she was tearing at Ryuko's clothes in her mind.
Ryuko blanched and stuttered, briefly losing her cool.
What the fuck? she thought, setting her papers down and raking both hands through her hair. Nui's eyes followed her every move. It's only an hour, deal with it. Coughing uncomfortably, Ryuko pulled her recording device out of her pocket and thumbed it on, placing it on the table with a customary "do you mind?"
Mechanically, Ryuko asked her questions, shifting in her seat so that her knees faced the door and away from Harime, but the gesture didn't stop the freakishly blond 20-year-old from occasionally reaching out to brush her fingers against the back of Ryuko's hand as she took notes.
After a half an hour or so, the questions on designs and personal habits were all used up, and Ryuko was forced to decide between twenty minutes of a dangerous lack of topic and making questions up off the top of her head. Though remaining exteriorly calm, her mind whirred before snatching up a question that popped to the forefront of her brain.
"What's Kiki's name?"
For the first time in the course of their conversation, Harime Nui sat back and away from Ryuko, grinning a little as she blinked and shifted her eyes slowly to the space to her left.
"Kiki!" she screeched suddenly instead of answering, making the other girl's dyed hair stand on end. "Come here!" Nui leaned against the back of her seat, folding her hands and closing her eyes serenely before addressing Ryuko once more. "She can tell you herself."
Ryuko's heart jumped in anticipation, throbbing painfully in her chest with contained excitement. A tall figure appeared obediently in the doorway with a swish of glossy black hair, and Ryuko couldn't help but rationalize with a twinge of unacknowledged jealousy that the model must be hopped up on horse vitamins to make her skin glow and her hair shine. As usual, however, Kiki's eyes were dead in her expressionless face, and for a long moment she stood silently in the doorway.
The tabloids hypothesized absently that Kiki was retarded. She never spoke or looked at anyone or anything at all, really. She was never seen without her sister or mother by her side - they gracefully took all questions directed towards her - and her eyes consistently held a checked-out, vacant look. She only ever modeled for Nui, and a few buzzed that some unfortunate mental circumstance kept her from realizing her potential, and that her sister was cruelly cashing in on it.
Ryuko and the rest of the world would've believed it if it weren't for those few candid photos that sold like new Apple products. Every once in a while, a hidden cameraman or sneaky paparazzi would snap a glimpse of Kiki as she was. Every so often, her eyes would be caught glowing with a vibrant fervor of passion and intelligence powerful and seductive enough to make a Tibetan monk jizz his pants. Those shots, few and far between, made the National Geographic cover girl look like day-old asparagus, and they added enough mystery to the supermodel to pique the interest of photographers everywhere.
Ryuko, in the meantime, struggled with her own mystery as the taller girl sat down in the chair Nui had pulled up for her and considered the journalist disinterestedly. Something looked familiar. Ryuko resisted the urge to pound her fist against her head. What was it?
Still grinning, Harime leaned her head against her sister's shoulder. The small blond looked relaxed and doting, but the lust still had not gone from her eyes. Ryuko furrowed her brow as she watched the two sit together. By the sudden tightening of the dark-haired girl's shirt over her stomach and chest, she concluded that Nui had just slid her hand up into the back of her sister's shirt. Goosebumps appeared on Ryuko's arms. Kiki remained expressionless.
"Kiki," Nui whispered, bumping her head lightly against the model's jaw, "Be good and introduce yourself."
"Kiryuin Satsuki," she announced robotically, "The pleasure is mine."
Memories flooded into Ryuko's mind like a searchlight. The metro. Nine years ago. The girl she had pestered her father about for years on end. Her first real unsolved mystery. Almost falling from her chair, Ryuko struggled to remain composed, not sure if she should make it known that they had met before. All discomfort of the last few minutes dissipated as her mind whirred with unanswered questions. She didn't want to say anything in front of Harime, but her chances of meeting Satsuki again were slim, and Ryuko was far from letting go of her childhood fascination. She tapped her fingers spastically against the table, but Nui solved her problem for her.
"Say," she chirped suddenly, sitting up and pulling her hand to herself so she could fold it with its twin on the table. "Our hour's almost up, but I've had such fun talking with you, Ryuko!" She sighed, delicately lifting a finger to her mouth in thought. "Well, on Sundays my family has brunch together! I'm sure your magazine would just love to sport an interview with Kiryuin Ragyo, hmm? Join us! Come on, please?" Her childish twittering did nothing to hide the desire and what looked like malice in her eyes, but Ryuko's hound instinct couldn't let her curiosity go.
She opened her mouth to agree when she caught Satsuki's eye. The powerful blue disks were trembling with sudden meaning and an unidentifiable, desperate vehemence. If Ryuko had had a camera she could have easily made a small fortune. Satsuki gestured almost imperceptivity to Ryuko's recorder and whispered something more softly than could be heard. Irritated, Nui forcefully pinched her sister's side.
"Don't mutter, sis. It's not cute." She turned again to Ryuko. "So, how 'bout it, Sweetie?"
Collecting her things, Ryuko nodded quickly and smiled brightly, though her joy came from the thought of finally answering her gnawing questions rather than the idea of brunch with the Kiryuins. Quickly she thanked those involved for their time and saw herself out.
Once she was outside, she examined her recording device and wondered why it had been gestured towards. Suddenly, she remembered Satsuki's unheard murmurs and quickly pressed the fast-forward button until it reached the end of the recording and turned the volume all the way up.
"Get out, please," she had whispered, her voice cracking slightly in the low register, "while you still can."
Ryuko let the hand holding the small record-keeper fall limply to her side as she breathed in awe. Far from being dissuaded from her task, Ryuko grinned wildly as the crisp wind picked up her hair and whipped it about her face.
Despite the instinctive trepidation rising in her gut, she couldn't wait until Sunday.