Bittersweet Chocolate
The photo album lay heavily in her lap. She knew it was silly, but she
could almost imagine the weight of the memories within, pressing upon
her, filling the pages with love, laughter, tears and hope. She pulled
the cover back, listening to the creak of the old binding, smiling at
the antique pages simply for their own sake. Her children made fun of
her for this one fancy, this item so retroactive that it hadn't
existed for many thousands of years even when she was young.
Her fingers brushed lightly across the first few pictures, pictures
she knew well, but could not remember. A beautiful face, with warm,
happy eyes, beaming down at a child she knew to be herself. She
flipped past holofilms of her childhood, past stills and scraps of
media until she reached a specific page. Her hand lingered over a
picture, then slowly fell to caress it. There she was, dear, kind
Ichino, who had meant everything to her although she had never really
understood. Akari laughed bitterly at her own lack of understanding.
What was that saying? "Youth is wasted on the young." Oh, Ichino, if
only I had realized. I wasted so many years.
If only she had realized so much - but then, it wouldn't have been a
childhood, would it? She laughed at her own naiveté. She lifted the
finger and took in the face that smiled back at her - cheerful, yet
piercing and intense. Gazing at the photos on the two pages spread
open before her, she noticed something she had never noticed before.
There was Ichino running, swimming, jumping - every picture in action,
a wild deer caught for a fleeting moment in mid-flight. Ichino was
always in motion, waving, laughing, running...Akari smiled. And she
had never changed, had she? Even as she waited for Akari to return,
Ichino had been active, even when Akari returned as Cosmo Beauty, and
after all too short and painful a time, had left again to be married.
Ichino, who had waited for her for a very long time, never once
stopped moving. Even after she took her vows, even after she abandoned
them. Akari felt her chest clench. Spirits, why was she so stupid that
she had to lose everything before she could see its true worth?
More pages, more faces. Akari smiled at Tanya's hijinks in a short
holoclip, and laughed out loud at Ling-Pha's mishaps. Life had been
good to both of them, Akari knew. Tanya had eventually returned to
Africa, and become a running coach to her enormous brood there, while
Ling-Pha, having at last outgrown her own need to succeed at others'
cost, had focused on her far more impressive entrepreneurial skills on
building her family's company. By all accounts she had been brilliant
at doing just that. When Akari had last seen her, she was
self-assured, confident and a little tyrannical, just as the matriarch
of such a powerful family should have been.
Another face. Ayla. She was the first to drop out, Akari remembered.
It might have been the best thing in the world for her, but it was
always difficult to read Ayla. After she was forced to leave the
competition, Ayla turned away from sports, married had a child, but in
the end returned as a coach in the Antarctic training facility where
they had met. And thus far, three of the girls she had trained had
gone on to the title of Cosmo Beauty. No, Ayla had done very well for
herself, unlike Jessie.
Akari's eyes filled with tears even as she gazed at the next picture.
She had never been able to reach Jessie - not ever. After they had
defeated the Nerilians, all those many years ago, Akari had never seen
the woman in person again. But she had seen her face nearly
everywhere. Jessie Gurtland, golden and shining, had turned her
talents towards being the number one fashion model in the solar
system. No one who had known her was surprised that she had taken the
system by storm. But everyone was shocked when she disappeared shortly
thereafter. When they found her, dead in a hotel from an overdose of
pills, Akari had mourned deeply knowing that Jessie had never managed
to see the light she dreamed of. Later, Akari learned that all of
Jessie's not inconsiderable wealth had been left to a small church and
orphanage in her hometown. In that moment, much of Jessie's life and
death made sense. A tear fell onto the album and Akari brushed it away
gently. Maybe Jessie had been able to see the light after all.
She flipped past pages, until her fingers stopped flipping of their
own accord. A small still photo, in black and white caught her
attention. Three figures, her in the middle. The tears filled her eyes
and made it hard to see now, but she did not move to brush them away.
Today was a day for memories, and tears. To her left stood little
Anna, smiling bashfully. Akari shook her head in wonder at the
manipulative mother who had made something horrible out of an innocent
desire. She wondered at Anna's innocence all over again, and all over
again, forgave herself for not seeing the obvious. She had been an
incredibly stupid child, hadn't she? She smiled sadly. How many people
had she watched suffer and not really moved to help them? Anna, after
her horrific defeat at Mylandah's hands had bounced back at least.
Akari thought of the little girl and the cake shop she eventually
opened. Seeing Anna truly happy had been a wonderful thing. Slowly,
painfully, Akari tore her eyes from Anna's face and turned towards the
other figure in the photo. Her chest felt both heavy and light as she
regarded the large emerald eyes as they smiled happily at her from the
album
"Oh, Kris," Akari said softly. "I'm so sorry."
She shook her head. If she had known then...one more cliché for the
book. What she had done to Kris was unforgivable, Akari thought. But
Kris had argued with her, and forgiven her. Still, for Akari, their
friendship had a bittersweet taste. Even as she thought this, the
priestess' voice swam into her mind, along with a vision of Kris, as
she knew she was now. For all the time and space between them, that
special bond Kris had given her had never faded - a source of great
joy and strength and, at times, a source of intense pain.
"Don't be silly, Akari. First love is always painful. Haven't you
forgiven yourself yet?"
"I'm sorry, Kris!" Akari shouted and buried her face in her hands.
"I'm sorry we couldn't be together."
The image of Kris in her mind smiled, the lines in her face deepening
with the motion. "Don't be. It's so long ago, now. You're happy - I'm
happy. What's left to be sorry for?"
Akari sniffed, and looked up. "You're right. I'm acting like a child."
She gave the other woman a small smile. "Thank you. you always know
how to cheer me up."
Kris smiled happily and waved as she faded from sight, but Akari could
feel the other woman's presence within her heart. Whatever Kris might
say, Akari knew that she had been hurt deeply. She had sacrificed
everything she believed in, everything she wanted, for Akari's sake.
And for Akari, she had almost lost everything forever. When Kris had
returned home to the moon, she had been called before an ecumenical
council, investigated as a heretic and told she would never become a
priestess. After their defeat of the Nerilians, when she had once
again returned, she was allowed, with some reservation, to take her
vows as a priestess. Akari knew that she was happy, that Kris had been
happy for many years, but the pictures brought it all back again.
More memories. Sadness and pleasure mixed inextricably in her
thoughts. Another picture stopped her. A clipping from the year before
she had gone to the satellite - how had this gotten in here? Two
figures, watching other with intensity. Mylandah and Lahrri. Akari
wondered that she had never seen it before - the hunger, the
loneliness, the *need,* in that shared gaze. They had remained at the
satellite for several years, after she had become Cosmo Beauty the
first time, after it was repaired when the Nerilians left, but when it
was apparent that neither one of them would ever rise again to the
top, they had left. Living together - though never lovers, as some
would have made them out to be - they had opened an athletic training
facility of their own. And together, had produced several Cosmo
Beauties. Then the fire had broken out. Lahrri was stuck inside - for
all her strength, she was trapped by something as simple as a ceiling
caving in and smoke. Mylandah was last seen alive making her way
through the wreckage shouting Lahrri's name. When the fire was put
out, and the ruins cleared, they were found, Lahrri's body held by
Mylandah until asphyxiation had taken them both. Akari nodded to the
memory of those two noble women. This past year a new wing had been
added onto the University Satellite and named in their honor - a
fitting remembrance to two of the finest athletes the system had ever
seen.
Pages passed by and memories floated to the surface. The bizarre time
after she had won Cosmo Beauty, when the Nerillians attacked,
demanding that the System defend itself in a series of athletic
events, learning that her coach and her father were one and the same,
meeting, and defeating her mother at her peak of performance...the
even bizarrer times when she left home to be married, have children,
and retire from sports, almost exactly like her mother before her.
Another picture. This one a holograph of a golden statue, as radiant
on the page as it was in real life. Her mother, the magnificent Tomoe
Midou, glowing with the light that had profoundly moved thousands of
people...and that she, Tomoe's own daughter had never seen until she
was forced to compete against her.. For the millionth time, Akari
wondered why her mother had never run when she had been a child. And
she wondered why she had never resented this woman, this memory, this
icon, when she had shared so much of herself with everyone else in the
solar system, but not with her only child. For the millionth time,
Akari came to the conclusion that it was she, Tomoe's daughter, who
had seen the real woman...and that running was just something that
she...did.
Akari nodded. Just as she had come to realize for herself. Cosmo
Beauty was not what she was - just what she did. It had taken her
years, decades, in fact, to understand that and to come back once
again to teach that simple fact to others. So there would be no more
Jessies, no more Mylandahs, no more broken girls dashed on a dream of
perfection. Akari lifted her eyes to the screen in front of her,
remembering the arguments that had broken out when Grant Oldman
reappeared after years of absence, when he had argued that the title
of Cosmo Beauty should not die out with the threat of the Nerilians
gone. She smiled as she remembered her father - and her resurrected
mother, then pregnant - arguing forcibly for the renewal of University
Satellite. And the smile spread when she remembered Ichino and
herself, Kris and so many of the others standing before the board and
insisting that the training for Cosmo Beauty had made them appreciate
everything they had ever had, everything they had ever accomplished
and everything they had lost. The Satellite had been rebuilt on one
condition...
There was the noise of the door opening behind her. A voice spoke
harshly, its accent not at all dulled by time and distance. "Hey,
Akari! Aren't you ready yet? The ceremony's about to start."
Akari closed the album and laid it on the desk. She spun the chair
around and looked up into a face hardly changed by age. Ichino's short
hair was now more silver than black, but her eyes were still bright,
although softened with many experiences. More than ever, she reminded
Akari of a deer running. Ichino stared back, her head cocked. "What
are you thinking?"
Akari smiled ruefully. "About what an idiot I was as a child. Why
didn't you hit me more often?"
Ichino held out a hand to help Akari up from her seat. "It wouldn't
have helped...you were a total blockhead," she laughed.
"You're right." Akari reached out and took the hand, not letting go of
it when she was on her feet. Stepping close to Ichino she said
quietly, "Thank you for waiting for me to figure it out."
Ichino laid a hand along Akari's cheek. "I always did - and then, you
always surpassed me. Every time." She leaned forward and kissed the
other woman lightly on the lips. Pulling away, Ichino grinned. Without
the trace of an accent, she said formally, "And now, Headmistress,
it's time for you to welcome the new students." Ichino backed away and
gestured towards the door.
Akari took a moment, breathed deeply and nodded. "Right! Are they
energetic this year?"
Ichino laughed. "Oh, boy are they ever!"
With a shake of her body, the Headmistress of the University Satellite
stepped out to greet the newest class in the quest for the title of
Cosmo Beauty.
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