"And if the music stops,

There's only the sound of the rain.

All the hope and glory,

All the sacrifice in vain.

If love remains

Though everything is lost,

We will pay the price,

But we will not count the cost."

- Paradigm Blue, "Bravado"

===========

Unbreakable

A Sailor Moon Fanfiction

Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler

Chapter One: "Bravado"

===========

Despite the fact that it was raining, a dull, hazy drizzle spitting

down out of dark, looming, heavy clouds, Aino Emi found herself smiling.

She had smiled almost all of the day, actually. Since awaking

to the crackling sound of the captain's announcement that they were

cruising somewhere over Poland, she had been unable to contain her

child-like mirth. Even as they hit a patch of terrible turbulence and

the stewardesses all bustled about nervously, she grinned into the seat

in front of her, her tray table supporting her drumming, impatient fingers.

The baggage claim personnel had frowned at her heavily accented, broken

English as she waved after them and called "Have a good day!", and her

taxi driver asked her to repeat their destination at leave four times

before understanding what she meant, but still, her legs bounced in

uncontrollable excitement. And, even after her pockets were significantly

lightened by the exorbitant cab fee and she was standing, in the rain,

beneath the wide-mouthed, towering titan that was London's famous Ritz

hotel, her face warmed with the light of a smile. She was just that happy.

As she grasped the handle to her suitcase with a firm grip and

began to pull it along the sodden green outdoor rug and into the hotel

lobby, she realized that she should be at least a bit intimidated. The back

of her mind implored her to be nervous rather than excited, but she was

unable to heed the warning.

Emi was, after all, no stranger to intimidation. Her recently-

widowed school-teaching mother, Aino Natsumi, had sternly reminded her of

this fact two evenings before as, together, they packed for the girl's

three-week modeling stint in London, England.

'And to think, that nasty Michiko was the one saying that you would

never be half the model SHE is!' her mother chortled, folding her

daughter's t-shirts with a tender, motherly care. The phone call that

afternoon had brought wonderful news the one of the more senior models

had fallen ill and needed a replacement sent to London to walk in her

place. 'Kami-sama strike me down for ever speaking ill of another,

especially an ailing young woman such as Michiko-chan, but you very nearly

quit last year because of all the trouble she made for you, and now look!

You're her replacement for the World Design Summit, and only at 17!' She

dropped the laundry to grab her only child into a brief, tight hug. 'You

make your old okaa-san so proud, Emi!'

Sighing, the young blonde girl took all the talk of pride and the

possessive cuddling patiently and with a grain of salt, focusing more

attentively on gathering up her belongings than on her mother's endless

ramblings. As rude and self-possessed as Hiro Michiko could be, she would

never wish ill upon her, especially in the light of what had really

happened. Her boss, the up-and-coming Tomizawa Ai, had told her a morsel

of the story that she'd left out when relating the affair to her mother,

and that was that Michiko, the popular idol-model, had not fallen ill at

all but rather fallen pregnant. It appeared, at least to Tomizawa-sama,

that the rumors were all true and Michiko had gotten into a torrid love

affair with a man old enough to be her father. And now, with morning sickness

raging and leaving her pale and over-tired, the senior model was out of the

competition.

Emi shuddered in anticipation as the gold-rimmed glass doors

of the hotel slid shut behind her, closing her into the spacious posh

lobby. Deep, rich colors - mostly dark crimsons and tawny browns -

reflected on gleaming floor tiles, and soft strains of piano music touched

her ears before fading off, replaced by the quiet whisper of a fountain.

Green plants fought for prominence in planters surrounding the fountain and

also surrounding the sitting area. The wheels of her suitcase clicked

along the tiles as she neared the polished, red-brown countertop. A

young man in a suit glanced questioningly at her as she approached, and

she swallowed hard.

Perhaps she was intimidated, after all.

"May I help you?" questioned the man coolly, his accent unfamiliar

and almost hard-to-understand in the ears of the Japanese girl. "Or are

you, perhaps, lost?"

Her cheeks burned as he said this, and suddenly, she was cognizant

of her surroundings. Her blonde waves were heavy with rainwater, straggly

and unkempt, and her chic navy raincoat hung open and untied, revealing

her sloppy travel clothes of a sweater and blue jeans. Her grip on her

suitcase tightened. "A-actually, I am here for the... Ara, the modeling

summit..." The words were clumsy on her tongue, and the young man's dubious

glance and cock of his eyebrow just further proved this as fact. "My name

is Ai - Emi Aino. I am replacing Michiko. Uh..."

Smiling indulgently, the young man leaned forward on his

elbows. "I realize that you probably do want to be a model, miss," he

replied, his tone one of a father speaking to his child. Emi scowled,

wrinkling her petite nose. "But the design summit is a very serious event,

and I'm afraid we can't just let little girls in. In fact - "

"Terrence, thank goodness you found her!" Both the teen and the

young man glanced up to see someone jogging down the hallway and in the

direction of the lobby, waving frantically. He was an older man, perhaps

in his mid- to late-thirties, and his chic business suit and clip-on

name badge registered him as someone at least mildly important. "Ms.

Tomizawa just realized about three minutes ago that Miss Aino would be

arriving, and she's all tied up dealing with stage preparations." He

was panting lightly by the time he reached the countertop, but that didn't

stop him from offering a hand towards the girl. "Watashi no namae wa

Roger Hughes desu," he introduced with a charming smile, his attempt at her

familiar language heavy with his Anglicized mispronunciation. "Welcome to

London."

Emi stared blankly at his hand, taking it with some hesitation.

"A-aino Emi desu," she responded softly, giving it a careful shake. "I am

replacing Hiro Michiko in T - in Ms. Tomizawa's portion of the

presentation." His navy blue eyes met hers without hesitation, and she

couldn't help but smile back up at him as he squeezed her hand and then

released it. With his neatly-trimmed, slightly-graying goatee, light laugh

lines, and wide-mouthed grin, he reminded her of the father in an anime

series she had once watched. "Thank you for coming to get me. I was

afraid that I would be turned away."

He chuckled, quickly switching from Japanese to English. "Terrence

is trained to get rid of the troublemaking interlopers that try to poke

around and get autographs of their favorite models," he teased, winking at

the now-blushing young man behind the counter. "Don't take it personally."

Before the blonde teen could protest, he reached down and helped himself to

the handle of her bag, which had been ignored since their handshake. "Now,

allow me to show you to your room. You can get washed up and then come down

and talk to Ms. Tomizawa." She froze, staring at him as he started off

towards the elevators with her suitcase, causing Roger to stop and, after a

long moment, turn around and glance back at her. "Emi-san? Are you coming?"

Smiling, she nodded and trotted up next to him, following him down

the wide, crimson-carpeted hallway towards the elevators, all intimidation

washed away and replaced, once again, by eagerness and joy.

===

Washing up proved harder than expected, and by time Emi had

showered, dried her wavy mass of blonde tresses, and changed into something

a bit more presentable to meet with Tomizawa-sama, an hour and a half had

passed. The girl blamed it on the enormous hotel room she had been

assigned. It was obvious that they had simply assigned her to the room

originally reserved for Michiko, rather than reworking the room setup to

couple her - the most junior model on the trip - with a more appropriate

room. An enormous king-size bed stretched out against the far wall, its

high pine bedposts stretching almost all the way to the ceiling before

being topped with a white canopy. A small sitting area, complete with

ornate, Victorian-era furniture, overtook one corner of the remaining area,

and a bureau filled with snacks and a miniature refrigerator overtook

another corner. A wooden door with a gold handle - completely different

from the gray metal doors she was used to seeing at hotels - separated

the bathroom from the rest of the space, and that bathroom was enormous.

A full whirlpool bath with a dual-sink vanity and a separate little

room for the toilet and a more practical, upright shower... She hardly

knew what to do with herself! It was a room almost as big as the apartment

she shared with her mother, and it was hers for a full three weeks?

Emi smiled charmingly at the guests she passed in the main corridor

of the hotel, her identification badge bobbing around her neck as she

went. A few people - judging by their dress, they were well-to-do

vacationers to the city - glanced wearily in her direction, uncertain

what to think. The bright yellow badge never lied; the girl was a model.

Somehow, the blonde remained oblivious to the sneers even as the guards

outside the hotel's enormous ballroom double- and then triple-checked

her name on the list before letting her in.

"Left, Umi! No, your OTHER left!" Tomizawa Ai's figure loomed at

the back of the ballroom's makeshift risers as she slammed her clipboard

against a chair. Known for her ravenous, dog-eat-dog attitude and stunning

beauty, she was an imposing woman in her late twenties, standing nearly

six feet tall. Her long, dark ponytail bobbed as she glided down the

steps on the risers and towards the young woman on the runway, who had

frozen in her final pose. From her spot just inside the doorway, Emi

recognized the short, skinny redhead as Hataru Umi, one Tomizawa-sama's

favorites. That, however, did not stop the business-suited designer from

grabbing the young woman's arm and pulling her into the "right" location

on the runway. "Aino-san is going to end up RIGHT next to you on this

run, Umi, which means you have to be PERFECTLY aligned. Otherwise, the

girl will have nowhere to stand. Understand?"

Umi nodded, frowning slightly. From her spot in the back of the

room, Emi frowned, too. In all her experiences - small photo shoots for

Tomizawa-sama's line of teen clothing and the occasional swimsuit ad - she

had never worked directly with her stubborn, hot-headed boss. Sighing,

Ai turned away from the runway-bound model and allowed her brown eyes

to meet blue. "Emi-chan, there you are!" she announced, her tone nearly

scolding. "I sent Hughes-san to hunt you down at least an hour ago! Where

have you been?"

Glancing at her shoes, the girl proceeded across the ballroom,

zigzagging to avoid entanglements with half-finished decorations and

other trappings of the show. "I needed to shower and change," she

apologized, watching as Umi made a face and then stormed off. "It's

raining out, and I was soaking wet."

"Is it now?" The designer's gaze had dropped away from the

teen's face and focused on the clipboard she was armed with, her dark

eyes peering at sheets and numbers that Emi could hardly make out over

the edge of the board, let alone comprehend. "Well, it's good you're

finally here. The summit starts in two days, and you don't have half the

training Michiko does." She sighed and shook her head, dropping her arms

and allowing them to rest at her sides. "I told her three weeks ago to

get this problem taken care of, and now she's under a doctor's order to

wait until the morning sickness goes away to finally get rid of it." She

shrugged. "Come on, I'll show you the dressing rooms and introduce you

to the hairdressers." A quick once-over brought a sneer. "You'll need a

trim on that hair of yours."

The blonde nodded and followed obediently in her boss' footsteps,

her eyes darting about in a feeble attempt to take in her surroundings. "Is

Michiko-san alright?" she questioned carefully, ducking out of the way of

two blue-jumpered men carrying long blocks of plywood. "She must be awfully

ill to miss this event, and I'd hate to think that - "

"Hai, hai, she's fine." Ai gave a brief wave of her free hand,

dismissing the girl's concern as they pushed through a back door to the

ballroom and came upon a small corridor with three or four attached rooms.

"Just foolish, but she'll return to the circuit soon enough." She shouldered

through one of the doors in the small hall, revealing a simple, nearly-

empty room. Three girls, hardly older than Emi, glanced up from a glossy-

paged magazine, staring intently at the dark-haired woman. "This is dressing

room four, which you will be sharing with Sarah Morton, Josephina Martinez,

Florinda Gambino, and our own Umi-chan." Without smiling, she glanced down

at her watch. "We'll be running through the full show in street clothes

within the hour," she informed all four of the models in English, scowling

as she realized the three who had already been in the room had turned back

to their magazine. "Emi-chan, I'll send in a crew member in about 10 minutes

to double-check your measurements and get you to hairdresser." She frowned

again at the mass of blonde waves that hung limply down the teen's back.

"Ja."

The door shut heavily behind her.

As soon as Tomizawa-sama's presence disappeared from the room,

one of the three girls flipped shut the magazine and slyly produced a

packet of cigarettes from the neckline of her low-cut sweater. Brown eyes

gleamed proudly as she flicked one from the packet and passed it on. "Make

yourself comfortable," she instructed the gaping blonde in the doorway

with a toss of her head. "You look like a statue, standing there and

staring."

"Oh, Florinda, be nice." Striking a match, the second girl - an

impressively busty woman with heavily-layered blonde hair - sucked hard

on her cigarette, exhaling heavily into the air. Her English was spoken

deeply and with a hard-to-understand drawl that reminded Emi vaguely of her

favorite American movie, "Gone with the Wind." "She's replacing that diva.

What was her name again? Michelle or something?"

"Michiko." Emi ignored the way her voice trembled as she drew one

of the five chairs away from the vanity and pulled it into the center of

the room to join the others. She hesitantly accepted a cigarette from the

busty blonde. "She is very famous. You would be surprised."

The third girl, with dark skin and darker hair and eyes, snorted

quietly. "I don't think I would be surprised," she responded, tossing a

lighter. The newcomer caught it cleanly. "I'm Josephina, but you can call me

Jo if you want. I'm with the Spanish design group."

Cigarette smoke wafted into the air, and Emi found herself

struggling not to cough. And here, she had always wondered why her mother

discouraged the habit. "Emi Aino," she introduced, flicking her ashes into

a soda bottle as she watched the others doing. "From Tom - Ms. Tomizawa's

group. There are four of us in all."

"Yes, yes, we know," snorted Florinda, leaning back on her chair.

"We've all met Umi. Tell me, are all Japanese models as self-possessed

as Michiko and Umi? Because I am certainly unimpressed."

Blue eyes widened, and Emi shook her head vehemently. "Iie, not

at all!" she protested. "Umi and Michiko are the two most senior models in

Ms. Tomizawa's agency. They are as popular as...what is her name? Cindy

Crawford?"

The busty one snorted. "Cindy Crawford ain't half the model I'm

going to be!" she announced, her large chest bobbing as she sat up straight

in her chair, chin high with pride. "Someday, people'll sit on their

couches, eating their TV dinners, and - on commercials - discuss how

beautiful the great Sarah Morton is!" Her two friends chuckled, and she

scowled, slumping down in her seat. "Laugh all you want," she pouted,

helping herself to a second cigarette. "You'll see."

"The only work American models can become famous for is being on

the cover of Playboy," snickered Josephina. She ducked as the half-empty

packet of cigarettes flew towards her head, laughing aloud. "Sarah, I tease!

I want to dance the Fandango in contests and model for billboards." Her dark

eyes flitted towards Emi. "Do you have any high aspirations?"

She frowned, shrinking a bit into her seat. "Honestly, I have not

really thought about it," she admitted, the smoke curling slowly from the

tip of her cigarette. She had not yet taken a second drag. "I only started

modeling part-time to help my mother pay for the household expenses. I

never thought I'd end up out here."

"You're obviously doing something right," put in Florinda, raking

a hand through her short tresses. "I would have loved to get this far

without trying..."

"No kidding." The other two nodded sagely.

Emi opened her mouth to speak, but before any sound could escape,

a light knock thumped against the door. The girls scrambled over themselves

to extinguish their cigarettes and once again crack open the magazine,

pouring over bright pictures that the newly-arrived model recognized as

the center photography insert from the previous month's "Fashion World."

"C'mon in!" called Sarah plainly, glancing up with feigned interest as

the door cracked open.

A dirty-faced, greasy-haired boy - most likely younger than any

of the four girls in the room - grinned broadly at the models. Sarah

snarled. "What, Peter?" she demanded in a low tone. "We're BUSY."

Peter, as he had been called, continued to grin. "I'm here to get

Miss Aino," he justified, his voice twanged with an indignant annoyance. "She's

gotta get measured and then go for a haircut."

Sarah muttered something nasty under her breath.

Frowning, Emi gazed reluctantly at the trio, replacing her chair

carefully beneath the vanity counter. What in the world had Florinda

meant about not "trying"?

But the greasy boy still hovered in the doorway, and so she shrugged

and bid the others goodbye, slipping out the door and down the corridor.

===

Before she even knew what had happened, Emi found that she was

swept into the glamour and lights of the modeling circuit, and, deep down,

she realized that there would never be a real escape from it.

The few final days before the beginning of the World Modeling

Summit flew by, and the blonde teen found herself moving through life

at such a pace that made her wonder if the world around her wasn't just

one enormous blur. Practice sessions with Ai and the other models from her

agency woke her up at dawn and kept her busy until the street lamps in

front of the hotel flickered on. She was a caterpillar bursting forth

from out her cocoon, spreading her colorful wings for everyone to see.

Thanks to her boss' training and the aid of the other models at the

show, she transformed from a girl who dangled her feet from the edge of a

pool and smiled charmingly to a full-out diva. She fawned, she flaunted,

she floated, flattered, and fluttered. She dazzled, she daunted, she

delighted... She was everything that she had admired in Hiro Michiko

and still more.

But beyond the transformation in attitude came a transformation

in appearance. Her previously "girlish" blonde waves - blunt-cut and waist-

length - now bobbed just above her shoulders in curt little layers,

highlighted slightly with reddish tints that shone under the lights of

the ballroom's silver-carpeted runway. Tomizawa-sama - concerned that her

junior model still thought of herself as a girl - had sent three beauticians

to teach her the way of makeup, and now purple eye shadow highlighted large

blue eyes. Her eyebrows had been shaped, her skin treated, her legs

smoothed and waxed and smoothed again. Her legs, unfortunately, had not

been the only part of her body to fall victim to the hot wax; as she

lounged on the couch in Josephina's room and listened to one of Florinda's

long and involved Mafia tails, she still swore that her armpits (and

other, far more intimate areas) ached from that morning's "treatment."

Her one relaxation and joy, Emi found, laid in spending time with

the three girls she'd met so soon after her London debut. Umi considered

herself exclusive to spend much time around four laughing, smoking

teenagers, but Emi strived in the situation that her comrade so despised,

and her time away from the runway and Tomizawa-sama was spent instead with

the other three teens, smiling and sharing stories of life in their

separate countries. No one mentioned or worried about the summit, at least

not in a group; there were more important things to their young lives than

modeling, after all.

"So, now that I have degraded such high-class ladies with tales

of the black sheep of my family, let's chat about something

more...civilized." Florinda collapsed onto the couch beside the blonde,

lighting a cigarette and, after a few drags, offering it forth. Emi

accepted it and sucked hesitantly on it, forcing herself to bite back her

cough; despite spending so much time with the others, she still wasn't

quite used to the smell and taste of cigarette smoke. A small smirk began

to touch the Italian's olive complexion as she settled into her seat,

kicking her feet up on the coffee table. "Care to take bets on what

big British agents will be at the opening tomorrow night to sweep up all

the cute foreign girls?"

No one noticed blue eyes blinking as Sarah glanced up from her

battered romance novel, arching an eyebrow. "Really, Florinda," she

scolded with an exaggerated wag of her finger, "you should know better. The

agents usually come to the CLOSING, when the girls are so sick of their

current agents and designers that working for Hitler sounds appealing."

"Not Roger Hughes," chortled the would-be bookie, drawing three

confused glances in her direction. "From what I've heard, he always comes

to the openings and snatches up girls THEN. Young, fresh faces."

"Hughes-san?" The Japanese honorific slipped from her tongue

before she could stop it, and Emi flushed slightly, glancing at her

lap. "I mean, uhm.... Mr. Hughes came to get me at the front desk when I

first arrived here a few days ago." She looked up to find the three others

staring. "Ms. Tomizawa sent him to... Is something wrong?"

Sighing, Josephina flipped her long ponytail over her shoulder.

"Nothing, for you," she mumbled dejectedly. "You've met one of the biggest

names in the industry. He probably knows your name and everything!" She

crossed her arms over her chest. "I wish Catalina had gotten sick and I

could have come on as her replacement and met Roger Hughes!"

"Jo," protested the blonde with a wave of her hand, "it's nothing.

I'm just a silly junior model from Tokyo. After this event is over, I will

get on a plane and go back to learning in high school. I'm not very good.

Michiko and Umi and the other senior models will pat me on the back and

tell me I was helpful before taking over the runway again." She shrugged,

smiling slightly. "And I'll do like Mother says and attend nursing school."

Sarah frowned, closing her book for the first time that evening.

"Emi... Don't you want to be a model?" she questioned softly, her expression

riddled with concern for her friend. "Isn't it your dream?"

"Eeeh, I don't know if I have a real dream." All three of her

friends were staring, and somehow, that made Emi immediately self-

conscious; she toyed idly with a strand of hair that had slipped out of the

blue ribbon that held back her tresses in a ponytail. "Modeling is just

a job to help my mother pay for things. I never much expected it to go

further than it already went. Being here is like a miracle!"

The other girls fell silent for a long, long moment before anyone

dared speak. And that someone came in the form of Florinda. She raked a

hand through her short tresses, a soft smile touching her plump lips.

"Emi, you're too innocent for this line of work," she chuckled, shaking

her head. "But you will certainly make a charming nurse."

Emi later regretted asking what her friend meant.

===

Her heart trembled in her chest, beating faster than a hummingbird

flaps its wings, every beat short and surprisingly painful. She stared

at her reflection in the mirror, her blue eyes roving over every inch

of her body, tucking in a hair here and smoothing a fabric fold there; the

only acceptable standard was perfection.

The dress was elaborate, almost silly, but still beautiful, its

orange muslin fabric and decorative navy-blue ribbons clashing and matching

at the exact same time. Her hands trembled as she toyed with the end of a

ribbon, her fingers smoothing over the intentionally frayed strand. Umi's

dress would be similar, a red-on-blue ensemble that miraculously avoided

clashing with her naturally bright red hair. She would start halfway down

the runway, turn, and begin down again before the younger model was invited

to join her, three steps behind and slightly to the right. Always behind.

Always less, the junior, lagging.

"Ms. Tomizawa wants you ready to go, Emi," called a voice, and she

spun on her high-heeled foot to see Peter looming in the open doorway to

the dressing room, his greasy hair slicked back and messy jumpsuit replaced

with an equally-messy dress shirt and suit coat. Hoshi and Yumeko just

started their run."

She nodded, glancing back in the mirror. One more strand to tuck up,

one more slight smear of base to even out with a hasty forefinger. Her

heels clicked on the stone floor of the small corridor as she slipped

through the shadows and towards the stage. A black curtain, thick and

flowing, hid the backstage models and designers from the crowd of agents,

designers, and photographers attending the summit. The presence of the

crowd, however, overwhelmed. Emi heard every click of a shutter on a

camera, every whispered comment, every polite clap. Even with the upbeat

techno music that served as a background to every step, she could hear it.

The air was heavy with the presence of bodies, the heat of the onlookers.

She joined Umi reluctantly, hesitant, her palms slick with sweat.

'Count yourself lucky, Emi-chan,' Tomizawa had warned her only

moments before shooing the girl off to get dressed for her debut, her

eyes buried in her clipboard, studying something unseen. 'This summit

was created for designers and their senior staff models. You're seventeen,

still in high school, part time... You're very lucky to be here.' She

glanced up, dark gaze sharp. 'Ganbatte yo, Emi-chan. I am expecting the

best from you.'

The best. Applause boomed in her ears as Hoshi and Yumeko appeared

backstage, both beaming and shooting one another proud looks. The stage

manager gave Umi a nod and, before Emi could even draw in a nervous,

shaking breath, her head of red hair disappeared out of sight. Applause

boomed, shutters snapped, and her stomach knotted. The steps counted

out in her mind, perfectly timed... Seven, eight... Turn for three...

Four towards the stage...

Her feet moved without thought. The runway carpet cushioned every

familiar, trained step of her high-heeled shoes as she appeared in public

view for the first time. Four days of drilling, practicing, perfection...

Every word from Ai's mouth echoed in her head, every step fell just as

it should, everything was perfect.

Blue eyes recognized, yes, that there were people cluttering the

risers and stuffing the ballroom, but then recognized the fact with a

calm demeanor, every sweeping glance of the crowd as fluid as her

long, brisk strides down the runway. Her ears registered the noise of

the techno track, the applause, the camera's shutters, the mutters of

the agents sitting nearest the stage, but her mind refused to process

them. She was focused, poised, ready for anything.

Anyone besides the single-minded model would have noticed a man

in the front row, furiously scribbling notes on a clipboard as Emi arrived

at the end of the runway. They would have noticed his slightly-graying

brown hair and goatee, his chic, dark-rimmed glasses and fitted gray

suit. They would have noticed the careful once-over his navy blue eyes

gave her, and the tender smile that touched his lips as she started down

the runway towards the stage.

But Emi Aino didn't see him, and it didn't matter. Because, while

she didn't see him scribbling and studying her, he didn't see HER go

running into her dressing room and, once she arrived, screaming at the

top of her lungs three fateful words:

"I DID IT!"

===

The backstage and corridor was a hub of bustling activity by time

that evening's show was ever, and Emi found herself trying to shoulder

through designers, models, and members of the media in a feeble attempt

to go to her room and to bed. No one noticed a five-foot-six blonde teen

with a ponytail, however, and none of the exclamations of "Fabulous!"

were aimed in her direction. She sighed as she finally squeezed through the

sardine-packed hall and turned to stare back at the crowd, a lone figure

standing on the steps up to the stage.

She shrugged. "I'm a junior model," she reminded herself sternly,

straightening her shirt before hopping down the stairs the rest of the way.

"I'm going back to Japan without anyone knowing my name. That's the way its

SUPPOSED to be."

The lobby of the Ritz stood ominously empty, the fountain's

whisper soothing to her tired ears. She wandered slowly through the plush

area, running her fingers on leather couches and dark, rich wooden tables,

toying with a leaf here or a flower there. Finally, she came to the

fountain itself, a small, round spraying of cool water that tickled

her hand as she reached out to touch it. She smiled.

"Miss Aino." The accent was heavy and, from what she knew of

accents, typical of a London-dweller, and she turned around to see a man

in a chic gray suit standing behind her, smiling. She, however, frowned,

arching an eyebrow. "You must not remember me. Roger Hughes desu." His

eyes twinkled as he switched to her native tongue, warm and proud, as though

they were sharing a special secret.

"Ah! Gomen nasai!" She bowed quickly, realizing only after that

she'd fallen into the old familiar pleasantries of her native land. She

flushed. "I mean, ano... It is nice to see you again." Her mouth stumbled

over the words but managed to pronounce them clearly; even after four days

in the country, she was learning. "Did you enjoy the show this evening?"

"Very much, thank you," he nodded. Emi nodded as well and turned

back away, her fingers flitting over and through the fountain water. "Do

you like it?"

She blinked, glancing up at him. "Like what?" Roger smirked and

gestured towards the fountain, and she felt her cheeks warm again as she

nodded her assertion. "It's very pretty."

Before she could say anything else on the matter, however, her

companion was digging through his pockets, smiling slightly. The tell-tale

jingle of keys and change sounded as he finally removed his hands and

produced a small copper coin. "It's called a penny," he explained, offering

it to her. "There is an old legend that states that throwing a coin into

a fountain and wishing on it will make that wish come true." She glanced

away from him and down, noticing for the first time that the mosaic-tiled floor

of the fountain glimmered from a handful of coins resting there. "Why don't

you try it, hmm?"

Smiling slightly, she accepted the coin, her blue eyes studying his

face. A kind expression shone down at her. It was almost as foreign to her

as his clumsy Japanese was to him; Tomizawa-sama and the other models from

her group always scowled and scolded, never beaming in the sweet way that

Roger managed to. The coin flashed in the lobby lights as she stared

down at it. What could she wish for?

Her friends' words echoed half-heartedly in the back of her mind,

cluttering her thoughts. 'Emi... Don't you want to be a model? Isn't it

your dream?'

"Well, I need to be going," Roger addressed her, stumbling briefly

over the Japanese words. A hand clapped her shoulder, friendly to the

point of being almost fatherly. "I'll see you in Ms. Tomizawa's other

showings, I'm most certain. So long!"

She watched him leave, trotting down the hallway with his clipboard

still in hand. Roger Hughes. One of the most well-known names in the

industry, and - if she was to believe the rumors - extremely exclusive.

'He probably knows your name and everything!' Jo had exclaimed the night

before, thick ponytail bobbing. But she was a junior model... A future

nursing student... Not...

The coin sparkled in the palm of her hand.

'Isn't it your dream?'

Emi wondered if she even had a dream as she pocketed the coin and

started back towards her room, the fountain whispering behind her, the

sound comforting even as it faded out of range.

===

"Okaa-san, please!" Emi fell back on her bed, laughing, as her

mother continued to bemoan the amount of housework that she was stuck

doing on her own. The familiar voice in her ear was broken occasionally

by static, but otherwise, she counted the sound as a small blessing,

something familiar in a foreign world.

Five days had passed since the beginning of the summit, and there

had been no word from any of the local agencies about contract bids. The

agents present at the summit - Tomizawa Ai had estimated that there were

a total of fifteen independent agents coming nightly, with another thirty

or thirty-five who had come once or twice - appeared wholly uninterested in

the models that walked the runway every night, and, despite high reviews

in the newspapers, the World Design Summit seemed to only hold value for

the designers, rather than their models. Emi chewed thoughtfully on a

carrot stick as her mother rambled on in her ear. Just as she told the

others time and again, she was simply a junior model, a Japanese high

school student who would have three weeks in the sun before being forgotten.

She settled into her pillows with a sigh. Perhaps her low hopes had still

be too high, after all.

"So, Emi-ko, tell me," her mother pressed, the tone that signified

an oncoming prying session suddenly pervading her tone, "are all those

agents out there falling over you, yet?"

Sighing, Emi rolled her eyes up at the canopy that stretched above

her. "Okaa-san..." she sighed, tucking her free hand behind her head. "You

know that I'm only here as Michiko's replacement. In a few weeks, I'll

be home and life will be the same as always. There are no agents interested

in a seventeen-year-old Japanese girl."

"Nonsense!" protested Natsumi so loudly that her daughter had to

pull the receiver away from her ear to prevent permanent hearing loss.

"You are beginning your first steps towards the life of a model! I believe

firmly in you reaching out and becoming a real model. The next Hiro Michiko!"

In her hotel room bed, half a world away, the blonde teen curled

up in a ball, picking the lint from her pajama pants as she allowed her

mother's excitement to die down. "Please, Mama," she insisted, dropping the

more mature, honorific name for her mother. "I'm just a girl. I'm still

in high school, and I'm certainly the farthest thing from Michiko that

the world has to offer." She rolled onto her back again, sighing heavily.

"Truth is, all the girls here... For them, this is their dream. For me,

it's just a part-time job."

Her mother started to say something, but as she did, a knock at

the door cut her off. "Hang on, okaa-san," Emi interjected, relieved that

she could break away from the inevitable rant about believing in herself.

"There's someone at the door."

Not three seconds after she said this, phone sitting on the

comforter and her feet dangling over the edge of the bed in preparation to

slide on her slippers and answer the door that the door flew open and

Umi, clad in a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt, entered, her bright

eyes lowered dangerously. "Tomizawa-sama asked me to give you a message,"

she shot, "and - since I'm on the way down to the gym - I really don't

have time to wait for you and give it to you at your leisure." She flipped

her ponytail smugly. "Tomizawa-sama wants to see you in her room tomorrow

morning BEFORE we run rehearsal. Understand?"

"Hai, Umi," she sighed. The redhead's dark eyes flashed, and she

flinched. "Umi-san," she corrected herself quickly, not surprised when

the older female stormed out of the door, slamming it hard behind her.

Emi grimaced as she picked up the phone, apologizing to her mother and

completely unsurprised when the immediate question greeted her:

"Who was that?"

"Oh, just Umi," she replied causally, twirling the phone cord

between her fingers distractedly. "Ms. Tomizawa wants to see me in the

morning, and I guess that Umi was sent as the messenger."

Her mother chuckled, her laugh sweet and clear across the telephone

lines. "Whatever happened to 'Umi-san' and 'Tomizawa-sensei'?" she asked

teasingly, causing Emi to redden slightly. "You are certainly becoming

very English, even if you are still speaking Japanese."

"Well, the other girls all speak very good English," she explained,

pursing her lips together, "and they don't know or understand why we use

the titles the way we do. Besides, isn't there a popular saying that

states, 'When in Rome, do not go against the wishes of the Romans'?"

"If there is, I have never heard it," her mother replied, her tone

riddled with confusion. "And I'm only teasing, Emi-ko. I think it's good

that you're trying to act like the other girls." She paused for a moment,

a heavy but companionable silence overtaking the airwaves.

Staring into the half-open bathroom, the blonde girl leaned back

on her elbows. What in the world could Tomizawa-sama want with her,

especially before rehearsal in the morning?

Not that the question she was busily asking herself mattered too

much, because it was then that her mother started talking once again,

chattering pleasantly about the happenings at her office and leaving

Emi no choice but to ball up on the comforter and listen to the soothing

tones of her mother's voice until late into the night.

===

The next morning came only after a night of fretful, broken sleep,

and every time Emi woke up the only thing she could think of was her mother's

familiar voice and heartfelt good wishes. She missed the old trappings of

home - the bed, the wood floors, the homemade, authentic Japanese dishes -

but, at the same time, she reveled in the feel of the strange, soft

sheets against her legs, the canopy above her head, and the soft sunlight

that glimmered through the half-translucent draperies and into her hotel

room. She dragged herself out of bed, going through the motions as she

did every morning - shower, dry hair, do makeup, get dressed, have a cup of

coffee with a quick cigarette (a tried-and-true wake-up method that Sarah

had taught her) - before locking up, slipping on her World Design Summit

identification badge, and riding up the elevator to Tomizawa-sama's eighth

floor room. Here, the hallway was a bit more narrow but the doors spread

further apart, signifying that there were fewer, larger rooms. She wandered

amongst the rows of closed doors for several minutes before she was able

to find her employer's, her heart fluttering in her stomach. Why in the world

was she so nervous, anyway?

"Hai!" called Tomizawa Ai's strong voice, and, despite the gnawing

feeling in her gut, the blonde girl opened the door to her boss' hotel

room.

Her jaw nearly dropped.

The front room held no bed at all; rather, it was home to a desk,

couch, mirrored dresser, television chest, and a truly enormous marble

fireplace. Everything in the room declared boldly that this room belonged

to someone important - from the rich golds, blues, and pinks of the

fabric decorating the draperies and couches to the subtle, pale-yellow

color of the wallpaper, the room was truly exquisite. A half-opened door

at the other end of the sitting room revealed the bedroom of the suite,

and - despite the fact that Emi could only see the end of the bed and

what appeared to be another enormous marble fireplace - the bedroom

obviously challenged its sitting-room partner in elegance and taste.

Waving a hand at the girl, Ai - seated on the couch in a robe

with a 'Ritz Hotel' emblem embroidered on the front and curlers still in

her long hair - shouldered the phone as she dashed something down on a

piece of paper. "That is entirely too much money," she argued in crisp,

clear English, her dark eyes meeting her employee's before rolling

back, as if to say, 'I have had well enough of this call.' "No. That is

my final answer. Yes, you do that. Goodbye."

She set the phone back into the cradle gracefully, all signs of

exasperation draining from her smooth, tan complexion as she leaned back

into the couch. She sighed heavily. "Gomen nasai, Emi-chan," she apologized,

her native language rolling off her lips as easily as the English did. "I

didn't realize that American ad companies were such money-grubbers. Next

time, I look elsewhere."

"H-hai," the girl stammered, crossing and uncrossing her legs at

the ankles as she watched her employer take a long swig of coffee from a

Ritz Hotel coffee mug. The entire situation smacked of a strange dream or

a scene from a television movie; the tale of the junior model who, barely

recognizing her boss' face, ended up sitting in an armchair in her

enormous hotel suite, listening to her prattle on about American

business or something else of the sort. "Ano... Umi-san said you wanted

to talk to me about something?"

Nodding, Ai leaned forward and, from a stack of papers on the coffee

table, withdrew a stapled stack of pages. She handed them to the blonde

girl. "Now, I know that you're still working with your English," she

explained, leaning back into the couch cushions as she spoke, "so I'm going

to explain this to you before you get called by some bumbling secretary

who doesn't realize 'Aino Emi' is a Japanese name. Do you know what that

sheet of paper is, Emi-chan?"

For a moment, Emi considered lying and claiming that she knew,

uncertain of whether or not her ignorance would be looked down upon. But

the designer's dark eyes focused sharply on her, so she shook her head

of wavy hair. "No."

"I didn't think you did." The coffee cup thumped dully on the

marble-topped coffee table as she set it down. "This is what we in the

modeling world call a contract bid, Emi. When an agent is interested in a

model, he or she will place a bid on the model. The model's current agent

can, then, offer that model more money to keep them there. Otherwise, that

model is free to accept the bid if they so choose. Do you understand?"

The teen nodded dully, staring, uncomprehending, at the strange

English characters on the page.

"Normally, agents will wait until the end of events like this one

to put in a bid, but not this time." She sighed, chuckling slightly. "I have

to admit, for all the rumors that he does not hold up to, Roger Hughes

really is about as straight-forward and go-getting as an agent can get. I

respect that about him. I respect a great deal about him, actually. Which

is why I didn't respond to this bid as badly as many of the other agents

and designers would have."

Blue eyes blinked. "Nani?" questioned Emi after a long moment's

pause, her eyebrows pulling close together as she creased her brow in

thought. "What do you mean?"

Ai smiled softly. "Emi-chan, I am not planning on taking in any

more senior models any time soon," she continued on, almost as if the

girl had never asked the question. "And, even if I did, I don't think

you would be the one I would choose. You are good, but you're still...raw.

Untrained. A few years ago, I took a girl like you under my wing. And yes,

she became wonderful, but with the amount of design I do now, I no longer

have the time and energy to devote to teaching a new model."

The blonde nodded weakly, setting the contract bid down on the table.

"I understand completely," she admitted, straightening her spine as she

shifted her weight in the armchair. Her heart ached and her hands trembled

in her lap, but she could not place why. "I am, after all, just a high school

girl. I model to help my mother pay for my expensive schooling. I - "

"You'd like to think that, Emi, but that's just not true." Ai's

voice was compassionate, touched with affection that could almost be

counted as motherly as she leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. The

air in the room suddenly jumped from business-like to companionable, and

Emi found herself unable to hide her surprise. "You are far more graceful

and poised than Michiko was when I took her under my wing, five years ago,

and started training her as a senior model. You have everything that it

takes, but I do not have the capability of cultivating that in you. That is

why I called you here." Once again, she reached for the stapled papers,

handing them to her model. "This is a contract bid for you, Emi-chan.

From Roger Hughes' agency. It's a relatively large agency, with much

room for growth and improvement, and you can receive the attention you

deserve, there." She sat back up on the couch, her arms stretched wide

along the back of it. "You can be Michiko, Emi. You can be BIGGER than

Michiko. It just depends on if you want to or not." Her long fingernails

drummed into the upholstery in what the wide-eyed teen assumed to be an

offhanded impatience, her dark eyes fixated on a pale, confusion-torn face.

"So, Emi-chan, what is it you want?"

Her mouth opened and then shut again, pink lips forming neither a

smile nor a frown but rather a thin, tight line cutting across her soft

cheeks. Silence swept across the room as she stared at her hands, neatly

folded in her lap, and considered the designer's words. Bigger than Hiro

Michiko? Was that even possible? And if it was, could she really carry such

a bright torch?

"I - I really don't know, Tomizawa-sama," she answered after a long

moment, her baby blue eyes meeting dark brown in a powerful gaze. Somehow,

the compassion in her boss' expression surprised her, and she had to smile

politely to avoid looking altogether shocked. "Can I... Can I think about

this for a bit? Please?"

Ai waved a hand casually. "I'm not the one you have to answer to,"

she replied with a half-shrug, once again opting for her coffee as she

spoke. "If I know Hughes-san - and I do - he'll be contacting you soon

enough. You'll have to take that up with him."

She nodded and bowed, walking herself to the door and letting herself

out before she even realized that she'd failed to say goodbye. Once the door

closed softly behind her and she was left to the empty, quiet corridor, she

sighed, leaning against the wall.

Maybe Tomizawa-sama was wrong. Yes, yes, that was it. Tomizawa-sama

had heard the wrong name, read the wrong contract, or...

...or it really was her contract.

Her eyes lulled shut.

It couldn't it?

===

The multicolored lights flickered and shifted from side to side,

a rainbow spectrum against black-painted cinderblock walls and a sea of

pale European bodies as she struggled through the crowd, the deep bass line

of a popular techno track rattling her teeth in the back of her mouth. A

drunken young man grabbed her posterior hard, the square fingers biting

through her short nylon skirt and into her skin. She ignored it, elbowing

aside a couple who were too busy dirty dancing to notice her and, with a

groan of effort, freed herself from the tangle of people on the dance floor,

followed closely by her three friends. They exchanged glances of exasperation

before sighing in unison and throwing up their hands.

Emi collapsed onto one of the several empty stools that lined the

long, black-painted bar that stretched along one of the walls and,

unhesitatingly, flagged the black-garbed bartender and ordered a club soda.

Behind her, the throng of dancers, all visitors to London's premiere

nightclub, pulsed to the beat, bumping and grinding as the techno track

wore on. "Some reward for the end of our second week," she mumbled to

herself as she flicked a cigarette out of the half-empty pack she kept

tucked in the top of her knee-high boots and lighting it hastily. "I have

a splitting headache..."

"What was that?" She blinked and gave a start as Sarah leaned

forward and snatched the pack of cigarettes from her grip. Her large

breasts nearly bounced right out of her low-cut green-sequined tank, and she

tugged idly at the neckline as she, too, struck a match. "Somethin' wrong?"

"Nothing..." The younger blonde shrugged and glanced away, barely

noticing as the bartender set her glass down in front of her. Her fingers

squeezed the bridge of her nose softly, her eyes watering from the throbbing

pain in her head. "I just have a headache."

Florinda chuckled, leaning an elbow on the bar. Her short hair

sparkled in the ever-moving spectrum of colored light as she rested her

chin in her hand. "I'm not surprised," she retorted, her red-painted lips

curving into an almost vicious smile. "You've been working three times harder

than any of us. You'd think that Tomizawa was trying to drive you into the

ground like a stake or something!"

Laughing, Emi shook her head and took a long drag of her cigarette.

As much as the teasing could be counted only as meaningless chatter, the

Italian did have a point. Since calling her up to the eighth floor to

discuss the supposed contract bid from Roger Hughes, Ai had spent countless

hours with all four of her models, running their order and steps again and

again until every step was perfectly measured out and every turn a brief

but amazing bolt of inspired motion. "Eh, she just wants us to look good

for the next few nights," she shrugged, stirring her drink idly with the

cherry-topped toothpick that had been dropped into it. "A lot of the

Western designers are really starting to pay attention to her, so she wants

Umi, Yumeko, Hoshi and I to be absolutely flawless."

"Well, from what I've heard here and there, you are already pretty

flawless." Jo's dark eyes flashed as she innocently drummed her deep blue

fingernails on the bar top. "The other girls in my troupe are all abuzz

with the news that a Miss Emi Aino is on Roger Hughes' bid list."

"What?!" Sarah's chest heaved another time as she nearly tumbled

off her stool. A long stream of smoke snorted out her nose as she hacked

and struggled to breathe. "Emi, are you kidding me? Why didn't you tell us?!"

The Japanese girl felt her cheeks redden and her eyes drop to focus

on the ever-bubbling liquid in her smudged, chipped bar glass. "I think it's

probably just a rumor," she responded half-heartedly. Her blonde waves

bobbed as flipped them and the many orange ribbons she had tied into them

over her shoulder. "And besides, I think I'm going to turn down an offer

if I do get it. I'm not even done with high school, you know, and to be

a full-time model all the way here, in England... That's an undertaking

that I don't know if I'm ready for."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see both Jo and Sarah nodding

thoughtfully, but it was the ever-passionate Florinda who responded with

the most fury, slamming her fist onto the bar and rattling their glasses.

"Emi!" she scolded, her tone high and stressed. "What are you thinking?"

The busty American bit her lip. "Florinda..." she warned, coolly.

"You might get a chance to live a DREAM, and you say no?" Brown

eyes rolled as she crossed her arms over her purple peasant-style blouse.

"This is something all of us have wanted since we were little girls, Emi.

A dream that we've grown up with. A dream to be graceful and famous...and

beautiful. And you're going to throw it away because you're not quite

sure? You're going to give that up? Why did you come, then, if you're not

going to take the one opportunity you're given?"

Emi attempted to protest, but her friend waved the comment away,

disappearing into the crowd before the clumsy English words sprang to her

befuddled mind. Her shoulders slumped as she watched Florinda's sleek

body fade into the sea of strangers, another tan-tinted fleck against the

flickering lights.

"Florinda means well," sighed Sarah, her hand landing, reassuringly,

on the smaller girl's shoulder. She smiled softly as blue eyes peered up

at her, tears shining in the ever-moving lights of the dance floor. "She's

fought a long battle to get here, and so it's hard for her. But Emi, you

can't always fall back on the fact that you're still in high school, and

an 'average girl.'" The hand on her shoulder contracted, tightening in a

friendly squeeze. "If you want it, Emi, then do it. It's your life, and

it's your dream. Or maybe it's not your dream. That's not for me to say. But

if it IS your dream, and what you want to do, then no one can take that

away from you." She leaned over and rested her head lightly against her

friend's head. "And if you do want it, then live it."

The Japanese girl nodded slightly, and tried hard to smile. But

somehow, with the throbbing in her head and the throbbing of the music

around her, the only reaction she could produce was a weak, hopeless sigh.

===

"Mr. Hughes will see you in a few moments." The secretary was a

small, dark-haired woman with a large nose and thick glasses that magnified

her equally dark eyes to twice their normal sizes. Still, despite all this,

her voice sang, sweet and soothing, and her small hands gestured towards

the few waiting-room style couches with the same grace as a princess would

demonstrate while gesturing to her visitors. "Feel free to make yourself

at home. There's coffee in the back room, if you're interested."

"Thank you." Aino Emi struggled to resist her customary urge to bow

her thanks towards the strange secretary and turned slowly, marveling in her

surroundings. Somehow, coming home to a telephone message requesting her

presence at a meeting with Roger Hughes had been expected, unimpressive.

But his offices, with their magnificent, wine-colored carpets and large,

black-and-white photos of models striking poses, were an entirely different

story.

Not that it mattered. The blonde selected, carefully, a small

white armchair nestled in a corner, beside a small coffee table and a large

floor lamp. She glanced dully at the magazines that cluttered the table -

Cosmopolitan, Redbook, People, and Seventeen - and selected the final title

with an ironic smirk. The bright pink cover contrasted greatly with the

navy blue business suit that Sarah had practically thrown in her direction

the night before, and, as she paged through it with a nominal amount of

interest, she wondered exactly what the point of all the pomp and

circumstance was. She'd decided, after all, that the answer would be "no."

She hadn't told Sarah, of course, not even as the taller, bustier

blonde had dragged her across the Ritz that morning, introducing her to

various models - American, Polish, Russian, German, Argentinean, Chinese -

and then proceeded to dig through their wardrobes. There was no reason to

pop the American's fantasies, and so she went through the routine of

feigning genuine excitement, raising her arms and faux-modeling skirts

and blouses until one of Sarah's own outfits had been deemed worthy of

being "the ensemble that the great Emi Aino wore the day she became a

real, full-time model."

The English words on the glossy magazine pages swam about in her

head, mixing with the familiar Japanese words that had clogged her every

thought since she'd heard the secretary's sing-song voice the night before.

Modeling. Dreams. Hopes. Fears. Okaa-san. Seventeen. Fame. Fortune. High

school. Nursing school. Roger Hughes. Life. Living. Frustrated, she tossed

the magazine back down on the tabletop. The answer was no. No. N -

"Aino-san?"

A low, gentle voice speaking her native tongue caused her to

start, and she whipped her head around to see Roger Hughes himself standing

beside her, one hand resting on the back of her armchair. His well-tailored

suit - navy blue, reflected Emi with a slight blush - complemented his

adult-but-not-old form as he leaned forward to shake her hand. "I'm sorry

about that. I had to take a personal call."

She nodded slightly, following him towards his half-closed office

door so closely that she feared she would inadvertently step on the back

of his shoes. "And, by the way, I like your suit," he smirked, glancing back

at her just long enough to wink a blue eye. She flushed, muttering something

about borrowing it from a friend, certain that he didn't hear.

Roger Hughes' personal office was actually quite bare when compared

to his posh waiting room. Decorated with only a few small photographs of

young women dressed in casual clothes and casual poses, it felt more like

a personal den in a home than a business office, with simple furniture,

a few sparse bookshelves, and two small armchairs. Emi attempted to settle

into one of the chairs but found her ease only tentative, her spine

straightening stiffly. The blond man, on the contrary, sat down on the

front edge of the desk, his arms crossed over his broad chest as he

glanced down at her - pale-faced, straight-backed, and staring.

"You're terrified, aren't you?" The question, spoken in English

and asked quite plainly, caught her off guard, and she blinked. Roger

chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "I have to compliment you, Emi. The

entire time you've been here in London, you have handled yourself very

well. I've been at all the nightly shows, and every night, you walk up and

down that runway without even an inkling of fear. It makes me wonder if you

even know what stage fright is."

He crossed his legs at the ankles, an almost painfully casual foil

to her proper posture and folded hands. "But I see it now," he continued,

nodding in her direction. "The straight back, the pale face, the darting

gaze. You're really scared. And I respect that more, I think, than any amount

of bravado."

The gentle spell that was his friendly tone shattered as he reached

behind him into a stack of papers and drew out a thick, stapled packet,

offering it forward. She accepted it gently, flinching as her eyes fell on

the words at the top of the page; they were exactly the same as the ones on

the page that Tomizawa-sama had handed her, four days earlier. "I have

Ms. Tomizawa a copy of this so she could review it with you," he explained,

helping himself to a second packet of the same sheets. "I don't think I need

to repeat that this is a contract bid, so I won't. I just want to explain

why."

"Why?" she echoed, her voice shockingly loud in the bare office.

"But... Why would you want to explain yourself?"

"Everyone deserves an explanation," he smiled in response,

shrugging. "I wouldn't sign a contract if I didn't know why someone wanted

me to, and I'm giving you the same courtesy I would expect. I'm a bit old-

fashioned in that respect, you could say." His large fingers flipped idly

through his copy of the contract as he spoke, but his dark eyes never left

her face, not even as she glanced away and shifted her attention onto the

floor. "The truth is, Aino-san, that I want younger, fresher models here at

my agency. It's all well and good to have old pros, people like

Tomizawa-sama's famous Michiko, but it's time that the industry integrated

some new faces into the mix." He tossed the papers onto the top of the

stack behind him. "You're good. I don't know if you realize it or not, but

you have everything I've been looking for in a new model. And I know asking

you to leave Japan and your old job is a big request, but I really want to

see you go further than being a junior model for a designer who doubles as

an agent." She flinched slightly, but Roger didn't seem to notice. "I want

to see you be the next Michiko."

Emi's heart shuddered in her chest as, slowly, she raised her head,

her vision shifting from her high-heeled shoes and climbing up, up Roger's

long legs and flat chest until she came to meet his face. The fatherly

smile she had first more than two weeks earlier, when he'd rushed down

the hallway, calling out her name. Even through his glasses, his eyes were

bright, supportive, and somehow, she knew that - whatever she chose - he

would understand and be supportive. Whatever she chose, he would accept as

the final word and send her on her path.

Her path. The path that had lead her to the Ritz hotel, to London,

away from her home...

'You can be Michiko, Emi. You can be BIGGER than Michiko.'

Aino Emi. Seventeen years old. A third-year high school student. High

aspirations to attend nursing school as her mother had. A junior model

for Tomizawa Ai's design agency. Slated to, someday in the future, marry a

salary man and pop out a few children.

'A dream to be graceful and famous...and beautiful. And you're going

to throw it away because you're not quite sure? You're going to give that

up? Why did you come, then, if you're not going to take the one opportunity

you're given?'

A girl without a dream. She dropped her eyes, staring at the words

and phrases in front of her on the contract, words and phrases in a foreign

language that she could hardly speak, let alone read. Words and phrases

that meant so very little, and yet still meant so much.

'It's your life, and it's your dream. Or maybe it's not your dream.

That's not for me to say. But if it IS your dream, and what you want to do,

then no one can take that away from you.'

Sarah's dream. Florinda's dream. Jo's dream. Everyone's dreams.

'And if you do want it, then live it.'

Aino Emi's head popped up and blue eyes shone as she smiled, the same

brilliant smile that had overtaken her face weeks ago when she'd first

arrived in the strange and wonderful city of London, England.

"As they say in our industry," she replied cheerily, the English

words rolling off her tongue slowly, but accurately, "where do I sign?"

DISCLAIMER: Sailor Moon and all trappings thereof belong to Naoko

Takeuchi. This particular storyline belongs to Kate Butler, (c) 2003-2004.