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Nugar wrote:

$Never seen Marmalade boy, although I am vaguely aware that it's about 
some girl and some boy who's parents remarried each other.  I think.  This 
fic does kinda bear that out, though, even though I don't recognize any of 
the characters at all.

It's not really about them in the slightest. Their unusual situation was the 
contrivance for Miki and Yuu to meet and live under the same roof. It's pure 
shoujo, which you can tell right off. Now Kimi ga Nozomu (The Eternity You 
Wish For), that was a good romantic entaglement with much more mature themes 
than normal shoujo. It starts out as a pretty good high school romance, but 
that's misleading as everything changes with the events at the end of the 
second episode. Without giving things away, years end up passing between the 
second and third eos, and it becomes about the relationships the characters 
have and if whose feelings for who are real or not.

Or R+C books at:
http://www.fanworks.org

Writer�s forward:

$Is it fore word, or forward?

foreward, I believe.

them when Miki was born. We were as regular as clockwork. It was as though 
the years had never happened and we were in high school selves once again. 
Over lunch we�d talk about many things. How our lives were going. Our 
marriages. Raising children. Sex. Anything. No subject was forbidden, that 
was how open we were.

$Miyabi:  So there we were, and then he asks for a rim job!
Others: *gasp*

Yeah, like something out of sex and the city, except not completely 
artifical. :)

Miyabi was talking about some guy she was dating. She was going into great 
detail about him being a major hunk, and confessed to us she was having 
great sex with him. When I asked if she was going to marry him, Miyabi 
laughed and said it was nothing romantic, and that the two of them were 
just �fuck buddies.�


It was the perfect term to describe my marriage to Jin.

$You know, as I read this, I was struck by the notion that fanfic 
notwithstanding, if you changed the names, removed the falling in love 
with the other couple part, and just had it be their efforts, successful 
or not, to rekindle a failed marriage, this would be a really easy sell to 
a women's magazine as an original story.  Judging by the stories I've read 
in women's magazines, this would be eaten up with cream and sugar, and 
seconds asked for.

Heh. I never read those things, so I had no idea they were like that. I do 
know most of them have blurbs about how to have great sex on each and every 
cover. Even Playboy doesn't dwell on sex that much. :)

Oh, and damn this is clean.  I'm not finding much to quibble about.

First person narratives are that way. If anything, if the grammar is too 
formal you tend to lose the 'voice' the character is speaking in. I always 
thought once I find a character's voice first person is incredibly easy for 
me.

And then it all came into focus with one brusque phrase. A fuck buddy. 
Someone you sleep with while lacking any real sense of attachment. The 
more I thought about it in conjunction with myself, the more I felt like 
that was what I had with my husband. While we loved each other, it wasn�t 
with any sense of infatuation. There was little in the way of passion 
between us. It wasn�t so much a marriage as much as a business 
partnership. We didn�t dislike one another, on the contrary, we liked each 
other very much, but at the same time it seemed we never cared intensely 
about one another. That was why I had never minded it when he told me a 
dress made me look fat: I didn�t love him so deeply that I would feel 
automatically hurt by a non-flattering comment he made about me.

$Sheesh.  What's wrong with that?  Some people have always got to pick at 
the good things in their life and make them not so good.

Greed is a part of human nature. We always want more no matter how perfect 
things seem. And that applies to far more than money.

It was horrifying to me, but it was the truth. And as much as I cared 
about Jin, at the same time, I couldn�t pretend nothing was wrong. On the 
contrary, the very nature of our relationship, and the trust (which was a 
real thing) made it so I had to tell him how I felt, even if, for the 
first time in my life, I really and truly hurt him. But that honesty was 
the foundation of our relationship (unlike passion, which was what 
marriage was supposed to be about)

$Like hell.

Theoretically that's a part of it. Otherwise it feels more like a business 
arrangement.

, and without that, we truly had nothing.


The suite we had was truly romantic. Flower petal were scattered across 
the room, heart-shaped chocolates on our bed. Everything was in valentine 
red.

$Why that's considered romantic escapes me.  I've never felt like shagging 
when the room looks like the scene of a horrific demonic slaughter, with 
all that blood red color everywhere.  Heh, and my impulse to comment on 
that in rooms like those is probably why my wife doesn't think they're 
very romantic, either.

I don't think wearing rocks are either, but try telling that to a woman who 
has her eyes set on a diamond. :)

The next day we were a good distance out on the ocean, gaining the 
solitude we wanted. However, whatever we were hoping for wasn�t there. 
Nothing seemed to jump start the feelings we had hoped would be triggered 
on the trip. It was still early, but we were not off to a good start. 
There was little to talk about, since we knew each other so intimately. We 
simply couldn�t figure out where to begin.

$They should have tried an S&M escape instead of a cruise.  It definitely 
would have given them something to talk about.

Not very shoujo-y, though.

While my initial intention was to talk primarily with Chiyako, I found 
Youji just as interesting as his wife, if not more so. I don�t know what 
it was about him, but there was something fascinating about his presence. 
He was extremely handsome, witty, and interesting as well. Honestly, he 
was unlike any man I had met since Jin, but while we got along almost as 
quickly as Jin and I had, there was something else there, a tension that 
had been lacking when my husband and I met as teenagers.

$She wasn't married and contemplating cheating on her husband then.  That 
adds a bit of forbidden spice.

It has been since pointed out to me that they were more than casual friends 
in college as well, so this doesn't work all that well anymore. A pity, but 
that's why writing a fic based only on 4 eps is not always a good thing. :)

I was eager the next day, my thoughts turning to breakfast with Youji and 
Chiyako. Jin was just as excited as I was. I managed to grab the bathroom 
first, taking extra time to make myself presentable.

$That's pretty inconsiderate.  She knows she's going to take extra time, 
yet she makes sure to make Jin be the one to wait.

Shows where her mind is at this time.

It was a bit odd, me trying so hard to look good for our new friends, but 
for some reason I wanted to look my best when meeting them, though my 
thoughts were more in line with impressing Youji.

This time we arrived first. We grabbed a quartet of chairs on the deck, 
next to the ship�s swimming pool. The Matsuras weren�t long in a 
appearing, and I learned I didn�t have to worry about how much flesh I was 
showing when Chiyako removed her shirt and showed off an even smaller 
bikini than I did. While her bust was slightly larger than mine, my hips 
were narrower.

$And that's a good thing?  Chiyako sounds much more attractive to me.

Some women don't like the idea of being 'hippy'.

The men really worked the lotion into our bodies. I was thrilled at the 
very touch of Youji in ways I couldn�t possibly describe. I felt like a 
little girl with how giddy I was. Youji was hesitant for just a moment 
once he got to my bottom, but there was no way I wanted those magic 
fingers of his to stop their dance upon my flesh.

$Just how small is that bikini?  Inquiring perverts want to know.

I leave it to the imagination, as the specifics aren't something she'd 
really dwell upon.

I can�t imagine what Chiyako and I must have looked like, being touched in 
such a familiar manner by men other than our husbands, while the men in 
question watched, no less. Had something like this happened in our 
neighborhood, it would have been borderline scandalous. Instead, I didn�t 
care. There was something about being in the presence of Youji that made 
me throw all my concerns to the wind. Slowly, insidiously, the rest of the 
world was ceasing to matter, and it was only Youji who I could focus on.

$Naughty girl.

Very.

It was my turn to lotion up Youji. I took my time, savoring the feeling of 
his taut muscles under my fingertips. He was a lot like Jin, physically, 
and in as good a shape. Very little fat, and lean, but not in a skinny 
way. Despite the fact they were very physically similar to one another, I 
had no doubt there was something about Youji that was a bigger turn on 
than Jin had ever been.

$Yeah, he's forbidden fruit.  This obsession with other women's husbands 
could be detrimental to her and others happiness.

As Miki points out in the series, both sets of parents are incredibly 
twisted for arranging things in the way they do.

There was also something else, an almost instant connection between us. 
Even Jin and I hadn�t hit it off as powerfully as this. There was 
something much more basic, almost instinctive, which caused me to be drawn 
to him. I found myself envious of Chiyako, having a man like this as her 
husband. I wished Jin was exactly like Youji, and then I wouldn�t be so 
dissatisfied with my life. I�d never be dissatisfied with anything ever 
again.

$Bet she would.

Like anyone heady with the effects of new love can see that far.

That was all I needed to know. Lacking any reservations, we began pulling 
off what few clothes we had, and nearly threw each other onto the bed. For 
the next two hours we made engaged in what was the finest lovemaking of my 
life. I finally learned what other girls meant when they described their 
own relationships and the passions that sustained them. Being with Youji 
was indescribably wonderful. It was the fireworks and the love and the 
bliss that everyone gushes about when they�re with the person they love. I 
had never felt a sensation like it before, and never wanted it to end. It 
made what I did with Jin seem boring by comparison. Having our lovemaking 
end was the saddest moment in my life. Nothing was as tragic as that. 
Nothing.

$Not even the japanese fishing boats drowning dolphins in their nets off 
the port bow.

Heh.

And then he said the words that would live with me for the rest of my 
life.

�My marriage to Chiyako is over.�

$But I bet she gets the house, since he cheated on her first.

Actually they pool their resources and share the same house. If ever there 
was a ground for tilling couples swapping lemons, that is it.

spots immediately, and it didn�t take a genius to figure out the origin of 
the wetness. All of a sudden, my brain managed to process information that 
had just been lying around, all of my higher functions that had been 
focused solely on Youji. Now that I thought about it, I suppose the 
attraction between Chiyako and my husband had been obvious from the 
beginning. His interest in her was as great as my interest in Youji. And 
now, knowing what the Matsuras� relationship was like, reflecting Jin and 
mine�s in so many ways, it seemed obvious that they too had taken an 
interest in one another. A very deep interest.

$Exactly one body part deep.

Ha! Nice one

I hadn�t been a proponent of Fate until that moment, but it was the only 
explanation. The odds that the four of us found each other during the 
greatest crisis of our lives were astronomical. Better a chance to find a 
needle in a haystack. There was only one complication from this seeming 
perfect solution that had me worried.

How were we going to explain what happened to Miki?

$Well, she could always write a really good first person narrative 
explaining her thought, hopes, fears, and reactions every step of the way 
from her meeting with Jin to her discovery of her new love, print it out, 
and hand it to her as an interesting work in speculative fiction and let 
her figure it out.

They end up just saying it outright with a smile. It's quite remarkable how 
they put the whole thing on Miki's shoulders. "If you make us feel guilty 
and protest everyone's decision, you'll be making everyone else miserable'.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[End notes] There�s my little take on the thoughts of some of the 
underused characters in the series. Someone might have actually done this 
before, but if so, I was unaware of it. It�s just something that came to 
me and I had to write it down. Don�t count on me doing anymore MB fics. I 
still haven�t seen much of the series, and it doesn�t look like I�ll have 
the time to watch more. Still, it was a neat little thing.

DB Sommer

$I really enjoyed this.  Never seen the series, as I said, but this was 
still pretty fun.  Kept finding myself hoping they'd rekindle their 
relationship, though.  Very clean, no mistakes to speak of.  Good job.

Thanks. And if things had worked out between them, the situation wouldn't 
have been so amusing to everyone but Miki. :)

DB Sommer

-Nugar

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