Actually an extension of previous material, its redeeming quality being it
now has Kano Miyazawa in it. Comments welcome from all comers. Ucchan's doing
all the work right now. Cuts into okonomiyaki-making time something awful, I
suspect.

--
Paul Corrigan
corrig11@pilot.msu.edu

---

   Sweet and innocent. Good at heart. Pure. Childlike. They will never enter the
kingdom of heaven who do not approach it like a child. Like Rika. I knew her in
kindergarten. She still lives just a few doors down from me. She decided when
we were in kindergarten that I was cool for some reason, so she stuck to me
like glue, and insisted I share her lunch, and she always had nicer lunches
than me, so I shared. She's been stuck to me ever since. I was already writing
cute little stories when I was in third grade. Fairy stories. This was before I
read Anne. She wrote fairy stories, too. Some of them pretty strange stuff. Like
"Eva's Dream." Really trippy. She says herself she didn't know where it came
from.

   I wrote one about a baby unicorn, which was good enough that my teacher had
me read it to our class, and a couple of others. I don't remember the details.
Rika demanded I give her the story, my only copy. The only present I ever gave
her. Knowing her she still has it somewhere.

   She still believes in unicorns. Crazy about the things. Up in her room, she
has bunches of pictures of the things. We met outside Cinecitta once, before a
movie, and she was reading some fantasy book that she was begging me to read.
Some post-apocalyptic world where this unicorn is the hero's companion--until
the end when he gets the girl. Then the unicorn runs off.

   Or so Rika told me. I didn't look at it all that carefully myself. She made
me read a couple of pages, so I did, but it wasn't my thing. It was rubbish
really, but I knew better than to say so. I mean, my stuff's probably worse.
But it wasn't my thing. I prefer Harlan Ellison. Him and Kurt Vonnegut. Ursula
LeGuin's okay too, but I wouldn't try copying her. I want to be an author, not
an "author of feminist literature." I'd like people to actually read my stuff.

   "It's all right," I lied, handing it back.

   Suddenly she looked very intense and said, "I don't believe it."

   "Believe what?"

   "I believe...that to be able to see a unicorn, one need only be pure of
heart."

   "As opposed to actually being a virgin? Never having slept with a guy and
stuff?"

   "Yes! I mean...I don't believe it! Why can't you see a unicorn any more,
just because you fall in love? That's so sad..."

   I couldn't help thinking, what if you hadn't fallen in love, and you still
couldn't see one? I'd read about them in storybooks, sure--couldn't have
made my literary debut in third grade if I hadn't--but I'd never actually
believed in unicorns or fairies or anything like that. Living with a Marxist'll
do that to you.

   "I guess..." Like a fool, trying to explain it rationally. "I guess it's
like...believing in fairies or Santa Claus or something. Unicorns are animals
from fairy tales, you know? So you believe in fairies and unicorns and stuff
when you're a kid, but when you grow up, you get married and have kids, you
don't believe in them any more..."

   "I believe in them!" Rika said firmly.

   And I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and I said, "Really?" But not too
loud. Not like I was trying to tell her off or anything...

   "Yes, really, Aya," she said, suddenly smiling. There's these times when she
smiles and I think I'm looking at an angel.

   I must have been looking at her a bit too long, because she suddenly
said, "All right, let's go or we'll miss the movie."

   Couldn't argue with that. I'd dragged her out there after all. I had to
review it for the magazine I sometimes write for. It was okay. Rika fell
asleep. She doesn't like my kind of entertainment either, so I suppose that
makes us even. I take terrible advantage of her, you know. She'll want to go to
a movie, and I'll be like, "Sorry, got stuff to do," when the fact is I could
tell just from the reviews it was a piece of crap, never mind that for reasons
known but to God and Rika she really wanted to spend time with me. When we were
little, she'd come over to play, and I'd wind up making her arrange my books on
my shelf and then tell her off for not putting them in alphabetical order.
Later on, I'll be at home writing stuff, and she'll come over with food and
insist that I eat it, and she'll watch me eat it like I was the cutest thing in
the world. She's a great cook. I never cooked her a darn thing. Then again,
it's all I can do to throw something in the microwave, but that's not the
point.

   It was worse when I used to let her read my drafts. At least Kano gives me
real comments nowadays. Rika's idea of critiquing my stuff was to tell me what
I'd written was a work of genius, no matter what it was, so I've made a point
of telling her to wait 'til it comes out. When it does, she's like a kid at
Christmas. Never fails. Even if it's a short review saying something like "the
director of this movie must die," she thinks it's great. When I got my book
accepted she almost wet her pants, she was so happy. Me, I was like, "Guess the
editor knows less about writing than I do," because it was no great effort to
dish it out. "What is written without effort is read without pleasure," says
Dr. Johnson. You can tell he'd never met Rika Sena.

   Kind of sweet. Kind of strange. Rika as well as me. Call me a masochist.
>From the likes of Kano, I wouldn't take this sort of crap for a second, and she
knows it. From Rika...from Rika it's all I can do to sit there and feel the
daggers shooting through my heart.

   We'd agreed to meet the others--Tsubaki and those--at a Tsubasa
Shibahime-friendly cafe later. We're having a snack there and when Rika got up
and went to powder her nose I asked Tsubasa Shibahime, when Rika was out of
earshot, if she still believed in unicorns.

   And she looked at me like I was out of my mind and said, "Uh. No. This some
kind of joke?"

   "Why wouldn't you? You remember the Santa incident?" put in Tsubaki, who
didn't know what I meant either but did think it was a great joke. More
evidence for the prosecution. Me and Tsubaki told Tsubasa there wasn't a Santa,
and she bawled, so we bought her all the sweet stuff she could eat

   "That was different. Santa brought me toys. No unicorn ever brought me a
goddamn thing," said Tsubasa, and she went back to demolishing her cheesecake.
"This cake needs sugar."

   "Aya," Yukino asked me, "why'd you ask Tsubasa that just now?"

   "Forget it," I said. I should have known it was a waste of time asking
Tsubasa. Tsubasa's never been a child.

   "Aya?"

   I looked up. It was Kano Miyazawa, with a bag full of shopping and a
notebook. She carries it everywhere these days, just in case she gets an idea
for a story. Lucky her. She always has ideas for stories. Like drinking from a
fire hose. Just then she was working on a book based on French Canadian folk
tales. _La sorciere du nord._ "The Witch of the North." Kano's into the
weirdest shit.

   "Oh, hi, grasshopper. What's up? You get a chance to look at that draft?"

   She looked a bit nervous when I said that. "I'm getting to it..."

   "In between shopping trips?"

   "I'm getting to it! I'll e-mail you something tomorrow night, okay?"

   "Okay. Don't make me sic Yukino on you."

   "Like you have to?"

   "You know you love it, sister dearest," said Yukino, grinning like a mad
thing.

   "Say," said Tsubaki all of a sudden, "how come you call Kano 'grasshopper'
anyway?"

   "She demanded I be her sensei. The joke got old, but by then it was a habit.
Why?"

   "It's like...how come _I_ never got a cute nickname?"

   "You," said Maho drily, "are not in the least bit cute." She sipped her tea.
"Am I right, Sawada?"

   "_Damn_ right."

   "Well, then...how come Rika doesn't get a cute nickname?" Tsubaki asked me.
"Isn't she cute enough for you?"

   "Say what?"

   "Who's not cute enough?" Rika had just returned from the ladies' without me
noticing.

   "You," said Tsubaki. "Aya was just telling us all she doesn't love you any
more. She's all about Kano now."

   Whenever Tsubaki says something off the wall, it's usually Maho who almost
spits out her drink. It was almost refreshing to see Yukino do it this time.

   Rika went really red and was like, "I beg your pardon?"

   "Yeah. She was telling us all about Kano's pillow book."

   Now Kano went red and was like, "Uh...no she wasn't..."

   "Tsubaki's talking crap again, Rika. Don't pay her no never mind. Sit down."

   So Rika sat down, and she was like, "Why are you so mean to me, Tsubaki?"

   "Because I love you."

   "Hmph." Rika went back to her tea.

   "Why do you think I keep you around? I only allow the most beautiful women
to hang around me..."

   "Tsubaki, cut it out," I said. "You're not funny."

   "Uh...don't you have a boyfriend, Tsubaki?" Kano asked, looking decidedly
nervous by now.

   "Yeah. He's very understanding. So if you wanted to go out sometime..."

   "Uh...I'll pass, thanks..."

   "She's messing with your mind, Kano," Yukino said. "Ignore her."

   Tsubaki didn't even miss a beat. "Just as well," she said, getting up out of
her seat and draping her arms around Kano like it was nothing, and whispering
in her ear. "It wouldn't work out. I'm on the rebound from unrequited love..."

   Kano froze in place, and looked at Yukino for some backup.

   "Tsubaki, that's enough, okay? Leave Kano alone."

   "Pity. It could happen, I thought. Rika's wasted on Aya. I figured, you and
she could write beautiful romances together, and I could feast upon Rika's
homebaked pie..."

   That's as far as she got. I stood up and smacked Tsubaki in the mouth, as
hard as I could.

   Then I slammed some bills on the table to pay my and Rika's share of the
bill, grabbed Rika's hand and left the cafe with Rika without saying another
word.



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'