Hello, my dear amigos. Welcome to the second chapter in the first instalment (which I had no idea had only one "L") of Bishoujo Fall Hardest.
Good news. Our other protagonist makes a much-anticipated appearance. Part of me thinks I should hide it from you to build suspense, but fearing you all have my attention span, I think it's better I cut to the chase rather than let you lose interest. If you disagree with this idea, please tell me and I will remove it.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Now, come on, let's roll!
Bishoujo Fall Hardest: The Gig
Chapter Two: Backlit Amazons
Anything to forget.
The past two weeks had been a blur of spirit shots and drug bullets. These highs were of course a phenomenon for which she paid, and thus the Mt. Fuji-scale plummets were spent in bed, accumulating a stink which Minako had only previously achieved in her adolescence.
This implies that Mina had not emerged from her Los Angeles home at all since the fateful night of her reputation's demise. That's a little unfair. In fact, just yesterday – was it yesterday? Her hibernation routine had really messed with her head – she had crossed the Pacific and settled back into her luxury Tokyo apartment.
She had no idea why she had chosen to do this, or, indeed, how she had gotten here (presumably on the private jet that she was running out of money to maintain), but she figured that of her several assistants, at least one would be able to reiterate her logic back to her.
In the meantime, Minako was content to loll in the comfort of her futon, safe with the knowledge that she was in the one place where she could ask for dorayaki and people would actually know what the hell she was talking about.
The star rolled over onto her perfectly toned stomach and occupied her mind with for once sane thoughts of completely insane occurrences. It was the first time in this nightmarish fortnight that she had been able to think clearly, having fluctuated with steadily lessening violence between bouncing off the walls with artificial ecstasy and being totally and utterly distraught.
The main objects of her perplexity may or may not have been actual events. The haze which surrounded them, and the obvious out-of-it sensations which often accompanied hits of mind-altering substances, made it difficult to decipher whether they were dreams or memories.
The majority of these happenings she had easily dismissed as unreal, often because they resulted in her falling from somewhere high. Her dreams had been ending that way for a while now, even before California.
That only left two major "dreams".
The first concerned her manager. She hoped desperately that this one was real, because otherwise she was going to have to wait for a recurrence and take notes.
"That is IT! I can't stand your sloppy planning! I have been trying to hold myself above water single-handedly for this entire tour. And you know what's funny about it? I had actually convinced myself that it was MY fault that my fans were leaving me; MY fault my gigs were disasters. I've been putting myself down for months because of you, because you can't turn up on time, and you can't be bothered to find me new contacts, and you can't even give ONE piece of paper, to ONE sound co-ordinator, without me having to hold your freakin' hand, which, by the way, normal people WASH when they go to the bathroom! No hundredth chances, Goro! You're fired! Plain and simple!"
She smiled victoriously to herself. Yep, almost definitely real. He hadn't called her or burst in without warning in days. She had always been forced to have an unpredictable morning schedule so he couldn't work out the times of her showers.
The second was more recent, but far less clear.
There was a lot of noise, mostly warped and jumbled. It sounded like a lot of people talking at once, but the distortion dehumanised them to a point that the heroine within cowered at being outnumbered.
Not only outnumbered, but blind. Blinded by the lights. They flashed at irregular intervals, surrounded her entirely, as if she had finally floated into a hostile afterlife after the death of her radiant spotlight.
Her retina burned as the voices became louder, more eager. She felt unable to breath, the typical symptom of surrendering one's personal space. The star was dying, ready to implode, when suddenly a woman slashed down the pack of parasites with a mighty swing of her ballpoint pen. Backlit by the galaxy of flashbulbs, she should have been hard to recognise, but Minako watched the unruly black hair flick in cool dismissal of the creatures, and immediately she knew.
"Rei…"
Mina pulled the covers over her head.
It wasn't exactly like she hadn't dreamt about Rei before. It happened all the time, and that was what made it all the harder to accept the truth of the vision – Rei in her dreams was a common occurrence; Rei in her life was a near impossibility.
She pulled the duvet tighter and allowed her eyes to grow heavy…
"Ms Hino, please-"
"I don't care! I want the little dweeb out of her cave! Surely you've gotta figure it's the best thing for her?"
"I know, Ms Hino, but, with respect, it's… it's more than my job's worth."
A pause.
"Heh. Yeah, I guess she always was a dragon in the mornings, and that's excluding her breath… Fine, I'll fetch her myself. Trust me, I'm an old friend, I have that kind of power."
Mina opened her eyes and found herself looking directly at the clock. 6:10 PM.
"Jeez, where'd the day go?"
"It had elsewhere to be. Like, oh, gee, I don't know, France?"
Mina spun around in bed to see a figure sat on her armchair. Her face was tilted slightly downwards, any prominent features shrouded by large six o'clock shadows in the last glow of sunset.
"Who…?" Mina started, then resolved it would be better to turn on her bedside lamp.
As if on cue, the woman stood and walked forwards into the light.
She looked to be about 5'3", just slightly taller than the blonde, except with waist-length raven hair and sharp amethyst orbs.
No… it can't be…
From the corner of her eye, Mina noticed an empty shot glass still lying around from earlier. She gave it a distrustful look and knocked it out of the way.
"I've gotta be seeing things. Rei? Hino Rei?"
The familiar smirk fell upon those well-defined features.
"So, you remember me. Glad to see I've left an impression on you."
Deeper than you know, Rei-chan…
"What are you… doing here?"
Minako took this opportunity to survey her friend's appearance more thoroughly and, going with the Hollywood tilt-shot, she started at the bottom. She wore ankle boots with chunky heels, and low-cut stonewashed jeans hugged her hips in a way that Mina found to be heart-stoppingly flattering to her figure. Rei had always been an early developer, but she had now filled out completely, her curves outlined perfectly by a tight-fitting scarlet DKNY tee-shirt. This casual look was forced to put "smart" and a hyphen in front of it, however, due to the thin black blazer resting upon her shoulders.
Finally, Mina noticed that she had grown her fringe out, and the longer raven bangs now framed her face. The idol smiled without the consent of her brain. She kind of liked it; it made her look more grown up.
Then the response to the question pounded through her euphoria like a hypothetical, but still very painful, ton of bricks.
"I'm your new manager."
Silence.
"You're my what, now?"
Rei laughed. "Please, I'm kidding. I'm your stand-in manager. I'm only around for the last performance of this year's tour."
The blonde stared at her, before raising her eyebrows in an expression somewhere between superiority and pity.
"Well, you're a little late, there, Rei. My last performance was in California two weeks ago."
The other woman's brow furrowed. "No it wasn't, your last performance is here in six days."
Around Japan, there was a brief moment where the entire deaf community thought that they had been cured.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! What am I going to do, Rei? I can't go out there again!"
"Of course you can, and it's my job to make you."
Mina's eyes widened in indignation and she stormed over to one of her wardrobes. Rei watched in bewildered amusement - she just had to see where this was going. A few moments later, she emerged with a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs and, before her new boss could get over this and stop her, she was already chained to the radiator.
"I'm, uh…" the raven-haired woman looked mildly concerned as she watched Minako smiling proudly, "not sure I wanna know why you have those."
The blonde feigned a seductive smile, and Rei stood stock still, swallowing hard at the gesture. For the first time in her life, Mina saw wariness in those eyes, but it was quickly blinked into a determined expression.
"Minako, get out of those. Now!"
"Will you let me off the gig?"
"No."
"Then I'm staying."
There was a small pause before Rei took a running leap at her, tackling her into the wall. The taller woman eventually came out the stronger of the two, pinning Mina's hands above her head despite the limited reach of the cuffs.
"Ow, what are you…? Let go of my arm! Why are you prying my fingers open?"
Rei, having wormed her way into the idol's empty palm, suddenly stopped at feeling of her breath on her neck, and reluctantly dropped her head to meet Mina's gaze.
Their faces were inches apart. Spooked by being in such close quarters, she pushed off from her friend and found herself in a standing position.
It occurred to her.
"You mean you don't have the key?"
Mina grinned at her opponent's dismay, before her words sank in. Then her face dropped.
Rei wasn't entirely sure whether she should be laughing at her stupidity or crying because she had lost their little battle.
Then again, the words, "cut", "nose" and "face" spring to mind, so technically, both of us lost.
Settling upon exhaustion, Rei flopped down beside Mina, and the two sat quietly for a long time.
Not to worry. You can be damned sure I'm gonna win the war.
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There ya go, children! Sorry it took a while to update. Next chapter, REI'S history! I've decided I should even out the perspectives a little, so…
And by the way, dorayaki is a Japanese-prepared pancake that's folded with custard in the middle, with raspberry sauce… Mmm…
On that note, if I burst into tears randomly, it's because the long denial stage has finally ended, and I have accepted that I couldn't have dorayaki myself on Monday because it wasn't on the belt at Selfridges.
Anyhow, REVIEW ME!! Many thanks…