Love of a Lifetime

Disclaimer: I do not own Fushigi Yuugi and its characters. The Japanese Manga series was written and illustrated by none other than Yuu Watase. I am just one humble fan who wanted to give Hotohori-sama his most deserved spotlight in the life of our heroine, Miaka Yuuki.

Chapter 1 – The Present Life

Miaka slowly parked her car in front of the establishment. After switching off the engine, she clutched her handbag to her right shoulder and stepped out of the car, making sure she had pressed the keys lock mode button before throwing it in her purse. She shakes off the creases of her knee length deep purple skirt with four inches slit in the middle before opening the front door of the travel agency firm.

"Hi guys! She lazily pushed the glass door open while greeting Yui and May with a lacklustre tone.

"Hey, Miaka!" Yui greeted her behind her desk. "How's your day? You look dead beat."

Indeed, she was. After her not so very normal and exciting day, her adrenaline pushed to the limits and mentally depleted, all she ever wanted right now was to go straight home, take some panadol and jump to her bed. As much as she really enjoys her work, it can really be troublesome at times.

It had been ten years since they summoned the beast Gods Suzaku and Seiryu. After their adventure in the Universe of the Four Gods, Miaka and Yui's friendship had grown stronger. Both took Tourism and after graduation, decided to venture a small business which they named Celestial Travel and Tours. It was not easy at the beginning, although Yui's parents loaned them the capital to help set up the business while Keisukei and Tetsuya partially assisted with the administration and marketing during their off-days. It took them a year or so before they were able to slowly pay back the loan and another year before the business propelled in a positive direction.

Ever since then, Miaka and Yui were resolved that they were on the right track. They hired three female tour guides and one admin staff while both friends busied themselves with the administration including processing of visas, plane tickets, hotel accommodation and taking turns to being tour guide when one of the staff was off-duty. Since then, they had been tremendously busy that there was absolutely no room for leisure. They had a contract with the bus company to provide the service bus for their tourists.

"So, what exactly happened to Mrs. Roomans child?" asked Yui, concern etched on her face.

Miaka slumped down onto the couch, massaging her temple with eyes closed. She was still too exhausted to even talk but felt compelled. In normal circumstances, guiding tourist around Tokyo and neighboring city was already a common chore. It's what she enjoyed the most, meeting new people regardless of their color, race and religion, interact with them and show them the beauty of her country with pride and honor than being stuck in their office the whole day doing paper works and browsing emails. Mingling with the foreigners gives her some sense of fulfillment and a sheer joy as she was reminded of her beloved foreign seishi's she left in the book world.

With eyes still closed, Miaka started to press her nape with her right hand to ease the throbbing weariness. "Poor Mrs. Roomans almost called the Australian embassy when her son went missing for nearly 2 hours inside the Museum..."

"But I don't understand, she's supposed to look after her son, why would she be so reckless to just let her son roamed around freely. It's not like they were in their own backyard." May interrupted while handing Miaka a cup of jasmine tea.

"Thank you," she gestured to May. "Mrs. Roomans was drawn to the old Buddhist scriptures, statues, reliquaries and ritual implements from the Asuka and Nara Period displayed while listening to the curator. I contemplated it interested her to know how Buddhism was officially introduced into Japan during the mid-6th century and how the Japanese culture embraced and later on made an outstanding progress with its adoption." She explained. "I think she was just too keen to the subject she didn't realize her son wandered around on his own."

"But where did you find him?" Yui inquired.

"Interestingly, we were at the 2nd floor of Honkan Japanese Gallery and the boy was found in the library of Research and Information Center, he was at the reading room taking a nap." Miaka answered while slowly sipping the hot jasmine tea, aware not to burn her tongue.

May raised her eyebrow. "But I can't believe the security guards didn't even notice the boy? I thought they were very strict and scrutinize all visitors."

"I agree." Yui butted in "They were strict even with the tour guides. Ino flared up last time when one of the guards didn't allow her to go in. It was thanks to the Manager that the misunderstanding was sorted out."

Miaka cocked her head "Fortunately, we found the boy. Only that, because of the incident, the schedule was delayed. We almost didn't make it to the last stop over. Luckily, Mr. Ogawa was considerate to allow entrance at the temple despite the strict schedule. Though, the other tourists in the group were kind enough to understand, I felt that some were still irked because of the delay."

"Can't blame them, after all 2hours of enjoyment were robbed from them." May snorted while crossing her arms.

Yui went back to the computer table to check the emails while May resumed sorting out the visa application from the clients they needed to process the following day.

"It's already 7:45pm. I know you're tired so if you want you can take a rest, go." Yui proposed as she noted the time in her cyma wrist watch.

Miaka glanced at the 5 wall clocks hanging just above the giant world map. The clocks indicate the different time zones of Tokyo, New York, London, Moscow & Sydney. "Are you sure? What about you?" as she looked over Yui and May.

"Nah, don't mind us. We can manage." Yui waved her hand flippantly to assure her best friend everything was fine. "Tetsuya will pick me up later, besides I still have to reply some of the emails from clients and arrange the schedule for next week. I'll just discuss it tomorrow with you."

"Don't worry, I'll help out Yui. Anyway, it's my off tomorrow so I can extend for another hour or so. I'll just leave the visa applications on your desk for tomorrow." Assured May as she starts shooing Miaka out of the office.

Miaka chuckled "Okay-okay guys don't kick me out yet… I'll just finish my tea." Shaking her head, she took one big gulp to empty her cup. "Yes, May please. Just leave the papers on my desk and I'll sort it out tomorrow." She walked over the pantry to throw the tea bag and wash her favorite cup. Afterwards, she heaved her hand bag to her shoulder, took the car keys from her purse and bid her colleague's goodnight as she open the glass door.

OOOOOO

After switching the light on and pressing the main door lock, she removed her two inches black high heels, kept it in the shoe cabinet and wore her pink slipper. Ever since she decided to live on her own, she learned how to keep her things as organize and as tidy as possible. Her mom was shocked and even suspected that she was hiring a part time cleaner just to tidy her flat but soon realized that her independence might have done well to her daughter since she no longer need to depend on other people.

Realizing earlier that she no longer had the time to cook, she bought yakitori and beef ramen in one of her favorite shop and poured in a medium bowl. While enjoying her dinner, she opened the 3 mails she received noting they were from her landlady, utility and her credit card when she was startled by the sound coming from her mobile phone.

"Hello sis!" said the man on the other end.

"Hey, Keisukei. What's up?"

"So far, so good." He answered in an upbeat tone "I won't take long since I'm still finishing this stupid paperwork my boss asked me to submit by tomorrow. You see, the company is celebrating its 25th anniversary and will be having a Dinner and Dance party... we need to bring a partner, problem is I don't have one."

"So... you need my help to find a date for you?" she replied teasingly.

Keisuke rolled his eyes trying not to sound exasperated. "No idiot! I want you to be my date!"

"Aha! And is that how you asked someone for a date?" He heard her laughing at the other line.

Keisuke was engaged to be married to his girlfriend of 3years when she died in a tragic accident. His girlfriend was in Jakarta to attend a conference. The ill-fated day came when an 8.5 magnitude earthquake occurred. She was at the restaurant, talking to Keisuke on the phone when he heard screams and panics from the other line. Her body was found buried in debris of the wrecked building clutching her hand phone. He was devastated. It was the first time Miaka saw her brother a broken man and in deep agony for the loss of his love. For a few months, he became invisible and detached himself to outside world, barely eating, barely sleeping. It was Miaka who pulled him from his misery. And he understood his sister's effort. If there was one person who certainly understood his pain, it was his sister. Miaka endured the same kind of pain over the deaths of her seishi's even if they were only characters in a book, and he saw her suffering and how she moved on with her life.

From then on, the siblings became closer than ever. The silent vow to always protect and look each other's welfare grew stronger.

"You know, if only for stupid dancing I won't even bother to attend." the man sighed. "…but I am left with no choice. My boss will kick me out."

"When will that exactly be? I have to check the schedule with Yui. Honestly, Yui and I have barely used our off-days, we were very busy. You know with tourism booming not to mention it's almost spring season; a lot of tourists are coming..."

"Why don't you hire another one, you should not neglect yourself. I'm beginning to wonder how your appetite is." Concern suddenly felt in his voice.

"We are considering that option. And don't worry my appetite is still fine." The girl chuckled.

"Okay I have to go now, will you call me tomorrow?

"I will, brother. It's been a month since we last seen each other, I think it will also be a good time..." assured Miaka "And since you mentioned my appetite, I can't wait to try the foods at the Hotel." She said candidly as she vocalized a greedy laugh.

"Ri-ght. I should have thought that earlier. Food was the key to bribing you. I would have saved plenty of time... Okay then, bye." He snorted.

"Goodnight bro." Miaka heard a click and then placed the hand phone on the table. He must be really busy right now. But I'm glad that he's coming back to his normal self. She finished the ramen, cleaned the kitchen and washed herself in the bathroom. After changing to her pyjamas, she went to the living room, sat down to her year-old couch which she bought for herself as birthday present and turned on the TV while flipping the remote control deciding on the channel. Yawning in between, she realized she'd rather go to bed than tire her eyes. She turned off the TV and went to her room.

She was tired, really tired and all she ever wanted was a goodnight sleep. In a few minutes she was dozing.

End of chapter 1

A/N

This is my very first fanfic.

I have written this story initially for self-entertainment only, I had to endure some boring days and thought that I should give my imagination a chance to explore and pen those thoughts since it would be a shame to just let it disappear in my mind like a bubble.

First and foremost, English is not my first language so please bear with me if you find some typographical, grammatical and syntactic errors. Like i said, this is my first try and was not able to approach a beta-reader (since i don't know someone) to scrutinize my work. And since this supposedly is a sequel to the original story, I had tried my best to write a decent story as logical and as satisfactorily as possible sticking to the concept of Fushigi Yuugi's author (Yu Watase). So what you will be reading in the event that you continue is without any beta-editing.

I'm one of the few who really fell in love with the story and with the characters. I found the story captivating. An enchanted book served as portal between two worlds. The legend itself was interesting and slowly i was drawn to their adventure as the story progresses itself. The characters are endearing but I was one of those who fell in love with Hotohori's character and cried a river when he died in the later part of the story.

In my personal opinion, Miaka would have been better if she ended with Hotohori, not that I had anything against Tamahome, they made a lovely couple alright, but I simply couldn't connect with his character emotionally (sorry to Tamahome fans, pls. don't throw tomatoes at me). Anyway, after rereading the manga and watching the anime again, I came to terms that Hotohori and Miaka would have been a lovelier couple should they been given a chance.

For those who wish to read my humble story; please sit down, relax and enjoy...

Bluishred