Domino City, Japan
East Side City District
Domino City Park
February 1st
2:30 P.M.
Once upon a sunny winter day in the Domino City Park(as Groundhog Day was but 24 hours ahead), children played frisbee and young and loving couples strolled in wait of the soon-to-arrive Valentine's Day.
This warmly scene, however, was disturbed by a seemingly mystical dark aura, as though a black hole swirled at the center of it, sucking away the blissful energy.
A certain CEO click-clacked away at his Kaiba Corp laptop, of a design that would make Steve Jobs of Apple Incorporated redden with jealousy.
Seto Kaiba, making an effort to get as much computer work as he could done, fidgeted with annoyance at the unsubtle sexual advances of the couple on the park bench across from his.
The only reason he went to the reality-forsaken park in the first place was because Mokuba had well-- simply asked.
It honestly perplexed all of his staff. How could the unmoving, gelid wall of icy business that was Seto Kaiba be convinced by a young boy like Mokuba?
It showed that there were still miracles, that maybe the man of wintry insensitivity had humanity in him yet.
But when one especially stupid employee decided on this that he might inquire in front of his boss the ever-never-to-be-said taboo (PAY RAISE), he was proven wrong and promptly fired.
It was to ever remain a mystery what made Seto Kaiba tick.
However, what did tick him off were the increasingly nettlesome couple, a kiss-y woman and a feel-y man, still on the bench across from his, not deterring in the slightest.
Fed up from nauseating reek of romance, he fluidly slammed his computer shut and walked indignantly towards the street, texting an order on his Kaiba Corp beeper for the driver to be there in no less than one minute.
Mokuba, seeing that his brother was vexed, immediately made way to follow him, dropping a goodbye behind him and running away from the four other boys that had wanted to see his special gaming handheld.
"What's the matter, big brother?"
"We're leaving, Mokuba," was his answer.
Knowing not to argue, Mokuba nodded his head and looked sadly to the ground. He knew something like this would happen.
Not exactly miraculous.
But there are to be miracles yet.
Tokyo, Japan
Shinjuku Gyoen Suburban District
478 Bokuyo Street Residential Home
January 28th
5:30 P.M.
It was the hardest thing in the world for Hiroto to see his wife cry.
Pushing his glasses up him nose, he cleared his throat and prepared to explain to his son and daughter at the dinner table as to why their mother was weeping.
"Kenichi," he looked to his prankster son. All the boy wanted to do was eat, but unsuspectingly he stumbled upon his mother, Kalliope, crying in the kitchen.
"Aglaia," he gazed sadly on his quiet young girl. She was but a few months younger than her brother but ages more innocent than he at heart.
"WE'RE MOVI-I-I-ING!!!" Kalliope burst out in hysterics and interrupted her husband. However, with dark Greek skin and lovely features, her boisterous over-emotionality was easy to overlook.
"Honey--" Trying vainly to comfort his wife who had long since grown accustomed to their Tokyo city life, he had handed her a paper towel from the sink that she proceeded to stain with tears, snot, and mascara.
"Wait, what?! How can you suddenly do this to us?! Don't we get a say!?" Kenichi was obviously very pissed, as he had a good thing going with the Shinjuku district Duel Monsters Trading Circuit.
He was a collector of the cards, and his parents were happy that he had any hobby besides vandalism, water balloons, and cherry bombs.
Kalliope, bawling her eyeliner out, was patted on the back by Aglaia, her square-spectacled daughter.
Not being one to withhold emotions, Kalliope leapt with a fierce hug onto her daughter, staining her blue and white school uniform.
"I have no choice." In a nervous habit of his, Hiroto took his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt.
"I'm not happy about it either, but the Kaiba Corporation has-- well-- bought Atsuko Gaming out of business."
Both Kenichi and Aglaia gasped in shock and Kalliope spewed out more tears and sobs.
They all knew how important and emotional the family gaming business had always been as it was four generations old.
Only a few shops, each run by Hiroto's brothers, were open throughout Tokyo.
The shops themselves were symbolic of a family's struggles to attain their aspirations and were mementos of Hiroto's childhood.
Now they were empty lots for rent, and all of their labor and merchandise belonged to the faceless trademark of the Kaiba Corporation.
"On Monday I'll be taking up work at Kaiba Corp."
"But Daddy, so soon? It's Wednesday, that's less than a week to move all the way too-- wait, where?"
"Domino City."
At the sound of this, Kenichi immediately halted his I-don't-wanna-move thought process.
"Domino City." Kenichi echoed. "Domino frickin' City." His family stared at him. "Duel Monsters capital of the world! YES!"
"Well," Kalliope wiped her eyes and Aglaia looked unnervingly down at her blackened school uniform. "I'm glad someone's happy about moving."
"Come on, this could be an adventure. We'll have fun." The three knew that Hiroto would hardly have any fun, working in an office cubicle in a tall sky scraper. It was the opposite of his ideal job, but he wanted his family to be happy.
"Yea, so cheer up!" Kalliope shook her daughter's arm lovingly, though she was the one most upset. "It'll be fun!"
"So when do we pack?!" Kenichi was fully on board with moving idea. He smiled and his mother and father jumped on the denial band wagon with him.
"Tonight, if you want to," Hiroto smiled back at his son.
"Let's go! I've been meaning to go through the closet. I'll call ahead and get us a good flight for Friday, so that should give us plenty of time to settle in over the weekend. . . and I'm sure that there are plenty of apartments we could move into for the time being. . ."
Aglaia was the only one unconvinced as her family left her alone in the kitchen.
Hopping on the kitchen island stool, she set down her frumpy messenger bag and stared off into the distance.
Though she desperately wanted something prettier, anything else would attract attention.
Gazing longingly at the refrigerator, Aglaia wanted desperately to go get something to eat, but rubbing her hands over her gut, she decided against it.
Another louder grumble of the stomach and she gave into her hunger.
Getting up and going to the fridge door, Aglaia saw her reflection in the shiny black plastic.
She immediately slammed open the door not to see it.
With the poor mentality that she had so ingrained into herself, she burnt with self consciousness that couldn't be redeemed, no matter how many times her parents reassured her.
Taking out a package of sushi, Aglaia recalled her childhood of pulled pig-tails and stolen lunches. She was always teased.
Her mother said that she needed to be more confident and the other kids would come around but Aglaia never believed it.
And it all started with her eyes.
Goodness knows how it came to be about, but her eyes were a freakish half honey to the bottom left and half violet to the top right. The other children noticed it on the first day of preschool and she never saw the end of it.
Of course, it didn't help that her breasts came in after everyone else's. Or that her glasses were like hunks of rock.
The more she got beat down, the easier she was to beat down. With the zero confidence that she had it would be impossible to ever recover.
But miracles happen, don't they?
No one seems to believe that nowadays.
A long silence of chewy self loathing passed as Aglaia shuffled through her memories and scarcely found any that didn't make her feel more awkward.
"Aglaiaaaaa!!!!" Glad to be interrupted from her thoughts, Aglaia hauled her thick legs up the stairs and into her mother's room, where photographs, stray papers, and cardboard boxes already were already strewn over the floor.
"I have a special gift for you." Aglaia assumed it to be some other cute article of fashion that she would be too shy to wear and sighed with a resigned smile. She was lucky to have such a great mother but sometimes Kalliope could be more of a predictable teenage ditz than Aglaia was.
"TAA-DAH!!!" Confused, Aglaia studied the wooden box that was held out in front of her. It was small and obviously meant to hold some sort of jewelry. Of course.
"Mom, thank you so much, but you didn't have to--"
"No, dear, I didn't buy it."
Confused eyebrow raise.
"See, this belonged to me before I got married to your father." Kalliope sat down on the bed and Aglaia followed. "My mother wore it, too, and so did her mother. And her mother, and her mother, and her mother, about as far as our family goes back."
Aglaia was going to ask as to how this was plausible, to always have a daughter to hand it down to, but then she remembered that she was Greek.
"Oh." She stared at the crumbled, golden thing. It had a clasp for a gem but no gem to be found, rust covering all sides, and some strange inscriptions around the rims.
"Oh? Come on, honey," she playfully shoved her daughter's arm. "You gotta give me more than that!"
Blushing, Aglaia took it into her fingers and felt the indented wordings. "Wh-What do these words mean?"
"I don't know. It's Ancient Greek or something. All your grandmother told me was that it meant eternal love for the wearer."
"Thank you. . ." Aglaia smiled at her mother's childish smile and even more childish clapping.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh, AND guess what I've got for you?!" Excitedly, Kalliope pulled three glossily bound magazine from her bedroom desk drawer. "Your subscriptions came in!!!"
"Gimme!!!" As though some other spirit jumped out from her body and left her shy self to sit, Aglaia leapt for the glorious fashion mags that her mother held in her hands.
Swinging around the magazines into her chest, Aglaia ran into her room, past the Reiko Nakane poster, and slammed the door into her den of solitude.
The only mirror, a full length one on the door, was completely covered in a collage of runway photos, cut out advertisements, photo shoot clippings, and self-drawn sketches of compatibly stylish outfits.
It was a glorious thing: frumpy and unstylish in the eyes of the world, Aglaia was able to submerge herself in a world where silks and stilettos made all things fabulous.
Pulling together the things of fashion into artistically phenomenal outfits came naturally to Aglaia as pairing the colors of the rainbow came to children.
Though it would take a miracle of courage to actually wear the things she sketched.
Seeing fashion displays through windows as a child made Aglaia feel giddy. She took care to stay up late to watch every fashion show, to subscribe to every style magazine, to research every prominent designer.
Fashion was her soul, but the especially pretty designs that she took care to sew into reality were doomed to remain the play ground for dust bunnies in her closet forever.
Submerging herself into the sheen sheets of Popteen magazine, Aglaia forgot that she was a graceless, awkward, insignificant speck on the teenage plain of existence.
Here was a place she felt she belonged, a cave where she hid from the world.
Not unlike her eternal counterpart, the one set in brazen gold and held by a higher power, of you think about it, but that's a story for another day.
KITTYLO'S KORNER~
If that last part didn't make any sense to you, you didn't read the first chapter and therefore fail.
After various reconstructions, and many regrettable posts, I'm Your Venus is finally published in all of it's correct glory!
Help me suck less with your constructive criticism, please?