As we began our decent into Moscow, I could see the hazy skyline light up as dawn approached.
"NNNNNGH. SO. . HUNGRY." I moaned. I saw a little gourmet bagel place and quickly dashed to it. About ten minutes later I was eating my bagel and calling my brother. "nn, Hello?" "You've just slept with Himawari haven't you." "What? No-i-!" "I can tell. You never sound this tired. Unless Himawari's over." I teased him for some time until he threatened to strand me in Moscow with no money. "Your next clue will be in the elite area. It will be given to you by a familiar face. Your flight's at 10:30!" and he hung up.
I stared at the phone. "A familiar face..." I wondered aloud. I quickly found my way to the elite area nad gained access (much to the chagrin of the bouncer lady, whose nose appeared to have been pulled up by a hook or a bad nose job).
I wandered around for awhile, and started to get worried. It was 10:00, and I still hadn't found the person, when a tall young man jogged in. He wore a simple suit a black tie. Around his neck was a thick beige scarf that matched his pale blond hair. His violet eyes looked rather worried, and I could hear him muttering. "...So late...almost 10:30!...She could be anywhere..." I vaguely recognized his kind face and decided to help. "Excuse me? Are you looking for someone?" He jumped and turned to face me. "Um, yes..." he addressed me in English; "I know this may sound very stupid, but, I am looking for special girl, Miku Hatsune. She is daughter of colleague of mine..." The thick russian accent gave him away. "Ivan? It's me, Miku!" My hair was in a french twist so some people could not recognize me without my twin pigtails. His face lit up. "Miku! I was so worried! But, I was also thinking of the punishments I could give that pig-faced concierge for not recognizing me at the door..." I could hear him chortle a few phrases of "kolkolkol". Ohhh, yeah. I thought somewhat exasperatedly to myself, no one emits such a gleeful kolkhoz laugh like the genuine Russia. He's the real thing. I was jolted out of my thought by his embarrassingly sinister-like bear-hug and the call for the first class flight to Oslo. I looked at Ivan,who grinned, "Your test was to find me, here's your reward!" he handed me a scrap of paper. It depicted a isosceles triangle being slid into a rounded object. It looked like some complicated lock and key mechanism. I then thought that it was stupid, but folded the paper and tucked it in my bag with the iron key.
The plane ride to Oslo was not at all boring or scary. Ivan detailed his political and cultural adventures outside intimidating the Baltic and fleeing his sister, and even talked of the great Baltic canal that never worked. He also spoke of the other nations, and of the recent gossip about the Ambassador Prince. "His Fiancé, Sabrina, appeared maybe, a month after you returned to Japan. She is the daughter of some rich businessman over there, so her family has a lot of influence. No one really knows why they were together." I looked doubtful. "This...Sabrina," I shuddered a little bit, "She wanted the title? The Status?" Ivan nodded. "But we nations knew. I myself saw her walk out of countless galas on the arm of another man. And she was terrifying to any female who got in the way of her status. She assaulted a few of his assistants for trivial things. You even got into it, by complete accident." When Ivan mentions this,
I'm suddenly seven. I'm no longer on a plane with the country of Russia, but by myself, in my mother's study, three days before my eighth birthday. I'm standing on her desk chair, and eagerly dialing a phone number from messy crumpled scrap of paper on a fancy manual dial phone on my mother's desk. There is an eternity of waiting for someone to pick up, when a British accent calls a tired "hello..." into th receiver. "Arthur-kun!" I squeal. There is a considerable change in attitude in the voice on the other end, "Miku-chan! How are you? You made it back without any problems?" I answer with the usual 'uhuh' to his questions, and giggles sometimes when he talks about Peter and Alfred. "Arthur-kun, why haven't you called me?" I sound sad, but calm. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart, I would've called you every night before you went to bed like we did when you were here, but some things have come up and I-!" He abruptly stopped and there was background noise of angry voices. Finally a woman snapped on the phone "Who the fuck is this!" her breath was ragged and her words slurred the tiniest bit. I stuttered, making my voice sound much more robotic than usual. "You're talking to a chat bot AGAIN? How many times do I have to tell you... ..." there were more muffled sounds, and Arthur's voice saying "Sabrina, no, it's not a chat bot, but she isn't threat either, SABRI-!" His voice was cut off by her gremlin one. "Listen you little slut, you never call this line again, ever, YOU HEAR ME? Because he isn't your Prince Charming, he's mine. So, You'll never call this number ever again if you want to be safe, you stupid bitch!" There was a click, a dial tone, and then silence. Hot tears slid down my cheeks as I tried the phone number twice more, with the same results. I placed the phone down, and clenched the phone number in my fist as I ran past my mother, my Outou-san, and my brother, tears streaming down my face, just barely stifling a wail. I tripped on the rug and fell face first onto the floor, prompting the wail. I remember my father cradling me, desperately trying to get a story out of me. I had never heard such profanity in my small life, and had never been so despised by someone I didn't even know. It made my entire life fall to pieces, and I went mute for a full two weeks. And I waited for a phone call from him. For that phone call from the person who promised to be my prince charming when no one else would. I waited. and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. I was ten years old when, heartbroken, I accepted the fact that he would never call back, because I was these things. Though that original reason was lost in the fun times and hard work of music, it was always there underneath. My vision blurred.
"...ku, Miku Hatsune~, wakey wakeyy, ve~." "it's no good, I tried on plane." "Hmmmm..."
an eternity later, I opened my eyes to murmurings of various sentences and images.. I felt something near my face and my eye came into focus of one extremely close, extremely cheerful, Italian. "Nnnngh, what? Feliciano...?" He grinned happily as I sat up "Where am...Where am I?" I asked groggily. His cheerful voice responded playfully, "Where else silly! Oslo Airport!" As soon as he said it, everything came flooding back. The first morning, finding that magazine, the challenge, finding Ivan, remembering that memory. The re-emergence of that long forgotten memory haunted me greatly when I thought about it. To know that the woman on the other end had a chest the size of a blimp freaked me out as well. Ivan came trotting back with some breakfast items, a worried expression on his face. "Miku!" He exclaimed, making my ears ring loudly. "Owww..." The extraction of that memory not only caused me to "black out" but to receive a massive migraine as well. As I tore into a random breakfast burrito, Feliciano's face darkened. "Ivan, something big went down at Arthur's house while you were packing." Ivan's face turned from worry to confusion then confused worry in a split second. "What happened?" Though somewhat preoccupied by my starving stomach and ravaging headache, I clung to the words. He dropped a magazine on the table, with again, Arthur and Sabrina. The caption read 'Back together!: Sabrina forgiven?'. Suddenly my starving stomach was not so much hungry as it was sick, so as soon as I saw that article, something happened. next thing I knew, my head was in the nearest trash can, puking my brains out. Ivan's face grew angry, and scared by the random event. "Chto yebesh'?" "You read correctly; they're together again. Saw it with my own eyes. Arthur isn't gonna last!" Feliciano's voice was soft and nervous. An announcement came for first class passengers on a flight to Berlin, so Ivan had to go. "I wish you the best of luck, and we'll see each other soon!" He gave both of us a quick hug, and ran to his gate.
"Well now," The Italian turned his attention to me. "I want to hear as much as you can handle about you! It's been a year since I last saw you!" He handed me a travel mug of something and a Tylenol. I took it, and drank the stuff in the mug. It was really good. "What is this?" I asked him. "English Breakfast Tea with milk and sugar, just the way you like it, right? Don't drink it too quickly, I don't want you to throw up again." I smiled as tears rolled down my cheeks, and gave him a great big hug.