Saiyuu no Ryokou: The Continuing Adventures of Yuriko

The Story So Far: Yuriko has been dragged from bed before dawn in order to receive a "surprise" from Midori. So far, Yuriko's been *very* surprised.

 

Volume 2, Issue 18

"Midori's Story"

 

Yuriko watched Midori's figure pace back and forth against the lightening sky. She waited patiently for the writer to pick up the thread of her tale once again.

"Akira," Midori said, as if she was answering a question, "Akira wouldn't have admitted it, but he was relieved that I was gone."

"I sincerely doubt that." The words were out before Yuriko could stop herself. She waited for the response tensely, but none was forthcoming. Midori continued to pace, kicking pebbles as she did so. They skittered across the stony ground, the sound echoing lightly around the clearing.

Midori seemed to have not even heard the remark. "After I'd been gone for two weeks," she continued as if speaking to herself, "I thought to call home. It was awful – he was panicking and worried and all I wanted was to ask him for a divorce. After the initial shock, he agreed...so quickly in fact, that I hung up the phone and cried for two days straight.

"On the third day after I spoke to Akira, I woke up feeling freer than I ever had. I was young, in lust, and free of everything I thought was a burden. Tatya and I were, well, not happy really, but we were seriously besotted for about six months. We drank heavily, she taught me to smoke horrible Russian cigarettes and neither of us was writing a word. Some days we never got out of bed. One morning we woke up and we both realized that we had nothing more to say to each other. The thrill had gone out of the sex and whatever there had been between us had gone stone cold practically overnight. She left me the next morning.

"There I was, nineteen, alone in a strange city without a friend in the world. It was the loneliest, scariest feeling I've ever experienced. Out of sheer fear, I started to write again – it was something to throw myself into, something to stave off the inevitable loneliness. It was trash, of course. Self-recriminating, navel-staring, cathartic trash. Most of it I destroyed as soon as I finished it." The writer came to a stop in the middle of the clearing.

"I wrote other things, too, dark tales full of longing and regret. And I drank. I didn't have a lot of money, you see, and food was scarce, but someone always was willing to buy a drink for a person willing to share their pain." She resumed pacing.

"Anyway, another six months passed that way. I spent the coldest, darkest and most unpleasant winter of my life in that place. I probably would have killed myself if I could have figured out how to go about it, but I didn't because I couldn't. Just when a late spring was beginning to finally clear winter away from the ground, something happened that saved me from death, perhaps from alcohol poisoning, or malnutrition. My agent called."

Midori took a deep breath, exhaled into the still-moist air, then continued with her pacing and her story.

"She'd been looking for me for almost a year by then. She was very polite, but reminded me that I was still under contractual obligation to the company and that I'd better be working on a second book or they'd be forced to sue me for the sum they'd advanced me." Midori shook her head at the memory. "I was so filled with self-loathing by then, I didn't much care if they sued me or not, but I decided that they'd get their second book. I gathered up the writing I had done, put it in a semi-coherent form and sent it all off with my compliments. I figured, " she smiled thinly, "that they deserved whatever they got for supporting such an unworthy artist as myself. At worst, the book would be rejected and they could sue. At best, it would disappear into the oblivion it so richly deserved – either way, I was done with it all."

Yuriko managed to say nothing, although several acerbic comments passed through her mind in rapid succession.

"Three weeks later, my agent called again, ranting. It was nearly five minutes into the conversation before I realized she actually *liked* what she had read. She thought it was brilliant, that it might be award material and that I'd better come home right away, the publisher wanted to promote the thing with a book tour of a dozen cities, etc., etc."

"I assume the book was..." Yuriko said.

"'Beginnings and Endings', yes," the writer confirmed. "As you know, I won the award and obviously, I came home."

"But, that's wonderful, isn't it? Your parents must have been very proud – surely they noticed a national literary prize, right?"

"But that was exactly what I didn't want!" Midori answered, her voice petulant and childish. "I didn't *want* to be another genius for them. I wanted to be obscure and average...invisible. I wanted them to notice me because I was me, not because I was yet another prodigy in a long line of prodigies. I just wanted them to love me for me." Her voice fell very low on the last few words, then tapered off into a bitter laugh. "How ridiculous that all sounds now," she admitted, even as her body shook with emotion.

Yuriko watched her lover with compassion, but little sympathy. She couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to be a genius, or use the gifts they were given. To win an award for something you did - that was nearly every person's universal dream....

Her own career was full of little else than reaping the rewards of other people's efforts. Her own skills, she knew, were minimal – it wasn't her singing that made her special, it was her appearance, her "persona." People bought her forgettable albums by the millions, but what they really paid for was an image, a fantasy. Her music was written by other people, her clothes made by someone else - her dance steps...even her words, for the most part. She wasn't much more than a doll and she knew it.

And here was a woman with more genuine talent in her little finger than Yuriko possessed in her whole body...and she didn't want it. At least, not ten years ago she didn't, she corrected herself before her own emotions ran too high. Yuri tugged on her hair in agitation, but wisely said nothing. For whatever reason, Midori need to tell this story and it was clearly Yuriko's job to listen.

The writer had pulled herself together by this time. "When it was obvious that I would have to come home, I called my parents. Father answered the phone. As quickly as I could, I explained my situation – that I'd divorced Akira, that I had followed a woman to Russia, had a passionate love affair with her, that I was gay and now I needed to come home to promote my new book. I was really horrible about it," Midori's voice was caustic. "I hadn't caused them enough pain, so I practically screamed at him that, even though I was coming home, I didn't want to see them.

"But," the writer took a deep, slow breath. "When I came home, after I had found a place to live in town, Hayao tracked me down through friends. He dropped by one night and took me by surprise. I was so shocked to see him that I let him in before I could think about it. And for the next three hours, he gave me the lambasting of my life.

"No one had ever spoken to me that way before. When we were children, Hayao had always sided with me, even against the others. So it came as a real blow to see how angry I had made him. Basically, he told me how devastated Father and Aoi were when I disappeared. Akira had called to tell them of the divorce, but didn't say why we separated. Father had, I suppose naturally, thought that Akira must have hurt me in some way. Apparently, when I called him from St. Petersburg, he had been greatly relieved to hear that it wasn't anything like that. Frankly," Midori said over her shoulder, "so was Akira, when I finally told him. Everything that went wrong with our marriage was, really, my fault, not his – but it wasn't until Hayao laid it out in front of me that I was able to see it.

"Anyway, that was it – that's the answer to your question about how my family found out about me. I told them in a hurtful fit of pique and refused to speak to them about it, while they, relieved to have news of me at all, were willing to accept whatever I was just to have me back. And I was too selfish and too stupid to appreciate that I had finally gotten what I thought I wanted. Only Natsumi didn't speak to me for a while after that – she was extremely offended that I had left without a word and caused them all so much pain, although she'd never come right out and say that. But other than that...like I said, in this family, it's not who you are, it's what you do that counts. Aoi was as thrilled about my year incommunicado as she was about my award. And that's the whole sordid tale."

Midori turned away from Yuriko towards the east. Yuriko stood and brushed the crumbs of a rice ball off her lap. She could now make out their surroundings clearly; they stood on a natural scenic overlook, facing out towards the still-dark hills. The water of the pond by Midori's house glimmered a dull gray below them, the forest stretched out in front of them in an uninterrupted view. Dawn was fast approaching. Yuriko stepped up to stand next to the writer.

"So, what do you think?" Midori asked quietly. "Did I answer your question?"

Yuriko thought for a long time before she answered. "Yes. You did."

"But?" Midori filled in the missing conjunction tensely.

"No but," Yuriko took the other woman's hand. The blonde would not be prompted to speak further, however. "Shhh," she said, putting her arm around Midori's waist. "Don't say anything. Let's watch."

The writer opened her mouth, ready with a riposte but, after a moment's hesitation, closed her mouth and slipped her arm around Yuriko.

The sky did what skies have always done at dawn. The hilltops colored and the usual orange-rose tint spread slowly across their peaks. The rock face behind them burst into flame as the sun crested the horizon. The impenetrable forest around them softened to a welcoming green.

"Surprise," Midori smiled tentatively up at the idol. "I hope you like it."

 

Continued

Saiyuu no Ryokou, all characters and situations copyright E. Friedman and Yurikon LLC. All Rights Reserved.