Chibi-Hota-Chan

                           By

                        Chibicardcaptor
           < chibicardcaptor@dellmail.com >

Rating: PG13, no language or violence,
but a little romantic in spots.
Enjoy!


Note:  This story is only remotely connected to the sailor scouts until the 
last few paragraphs, where a surprisingly interesting connection takes place.  
I hope you like it.

Poo-san


	Melissa was seven.  She was born in 1953, lived in a nice house and had 
a nice mother and father.  She loved her mother.  All good little girls love 
their mothers.  But she really, really loved her father.  She also loved 
looking at picture books about Japan in the library.  The children appeared 
happy, were always having fun, and looked just like her, with their straight, 
black hair and dark, almond shaped eyes.  She felt close to them.
	Her best friend was named Nellie, "Little Nellie" to her family because 
she was so tiny, gamin, and very cute.  "Let's play Japanese girls," Melissa 
often suggested when they were at each other's houses.  "I will be Hota-chan 
and you can be Chibi-Nellie."  She had picked up the name "Hotaru" in a 
caption under a picture of Japanese children in school.  "Chibi" meant 
"little," and "-chan" went after a girl's, or a young lady's, or a little 
boy's name.
	So they played, cut out paper birds, arranged flowers, bowed and 
giggled, then knelt on pillows and played jacks or drank "tea," usually Coca 
Cola or chocolate milk.
	When she was ten, she learned more about Japan.  They had been fighting 
coastal pirates raiding their towns for centuries, so they developed fierce 
warriors--Samurai; and built fleets of small, armed boats and ships, later a 
navy.  They defeated Chinese and Russian flotillas near the turn of the 
century.  By World War II they were a formidable enemy, and nearly defeated 
the U.S. Navy.  If they had been able to build replacement ships and 
airplanes fast enough they just might have done so.
	Melissa also sensed an unseen presence at times. She asked Nellie and 
her father if they believed in angels.  Her father said he did not, but 
Nellie said 'maybe.'  But she did believe in ghosts--good ghosts, like dead 
great uncles and aunts, or great grand parents; and thought they were close-
by at times.  This sounded right to Melissa, and she instinctively pulled her 
dress down a little, wondering if an unseen ancestor were watching her.
	
	Her parents did not get along well at all.  Her mother was cool, aloof 
and indifferent to her father, and Melissa tried to make it up to him by 
being snuggly, getting him to carry her piggy back, dance with her, just do 
things together.  He had helped her take her daily bath when she was little, 
but he abruptly stopped that when she turned six.  Still, she got him to wash 
her hair for her twice a week in the kitchen sink, but he stopped that, also, 
when she was eight.  "But daddy, I always get soap in my eyes!" she 
protested.  He was willing to brush her hair for her after she dressed 
herself for bed, and she sat on his lap for a story, long after she had 
learned to read.  Sometimes she fell asleep there, she was so comfortable and 
cozy.
	High school was fun.  California was a good place to grow up.  But when 
she was sixteen, her mother asked, told her father, "Edward, I am leaving 
you.  I want a divorce.  I want to be free, to become my real self."  This 
came as no surprise to Ed.  Their relationship had been very loving at first, 
had cooled off rapidly and, when Melissa was ten, they had moved into 
separate bedrooms.
	Melissa knew this was not right.  Her friends' parents all slept in the 
same bedrooms together.  Nellie told her how much fun it had been to crawl in 
bed with her mother and father on Sunday mornings when they were sharing cups 
of coffee, slowly waking up.
	When they told Melissa about the divorce she responded, "Have a good 
time, Mother.  I am staying here."  Not 'May I stay here?' but 'I AM staying 
here.'
	They had an amicable break-up.  Mother got $100,000 and vanished, gone 
for good, they both hoped.  
	Finishing high school was frantic for Melissa.  She never dated, but 
was active socially, and had to work hard for passing grades.  She was due to 
turn eighteen during her senior year, in February; but at the start of that 
year she asked her dad, "Can we talk about my birthday present?"
	"That is a long way off, young lady, but sure.  We can talk."  He 
guessed she would ask for her own car; not too bad an idea, either, in 
California.
	"Let's you and I get a blood test.  I want to know if you are my real 
father."
	Ed almost stopped breathing.  "Are you smoking pot, child?  Where did 
you get a crazy idea like that?  I have been the best father to you a girl 
could ever ask for."  He was getting jumpy, now.
	"Listen, round eyed papa-san," she pushed, "you must have wondered at 
times.  You are fair skinned, blonde, blue eyed and tall.  You could double 
for Leif Eriksson, or Eric the Red.  But I look like an oriental.  Mother has 
curly brown hair and hazel eyes."  She put her fingers to her temples and 
pushed up and back, accenting the slant and slit-openings of her eyelids.  
"Haven't you ever wondered if there was a Chinaman in the woodpile, or 
something?"
	Edward was deflated.  He had wondered, but Melissa was the most 
important thing in his life.  He never would admit, to himself, even the 
possibility that she was not his.  "But even if what you suspect is true," he 
argued, "it would not change anything.  You are mine, my lovely daughter 
Melissa.  That will never change.  What would you want to do differently?  
Then what?"
	"If you are not my real father I want to marry you."  Her atomic bomb.  
Kaboom!  Edward had had the warmies for Melissa ever since she was ten years 
old, but had carefully concealed the fact, never acted out on it, and had 
assumed it was because his wife had distanced herself from him.  "Daddy, I am 
not stupid.  I know how you feel, and I know how I feel.
	"Do not try to tell me I am too young, or I should think about marrying 
someone my own age.  Other girls I have known, some younger, some older, have 
married boys in their late teens, early- or mid-twenties. And their lives 
were disasters.  A few got beat up by their husbands.  Most were cheated on.  
Those guys couldn't support themselves, much less support a wife, and maybe a 
baby or two.
	"I couldn't bear not having you for family, real family.  And you 
always wanted more children.  I wanted little sisters, too.  But Mom was too 
selfish to have more.  I can give you those babies, Edward.  We will be a 
real family, very much in love, something you never had."  She was breathing 
hard, and had never spoken so forcefully to her dad, nor ever called him by 
his first name, before.
	"Melissa, we should not even be having this conversation," he pleaded.  
"Let's wait until you are eighteen, and you can legally have a mind of your 
own."
	"Will you have the blood tests or not?!"  Melissa would not be 
deterred.
	"Yes; let me ask around," He answered, and went off to bed.
	Over the Christmas, 1970 holidays they flew to another state, had blood 
drawn and were promised complete confidentiality. "This is not an exact 
science," they were told.  "We can determine more accurately if someone is 
not the father than if he is the father.  We could only say he could be.  But 
we can definitely say he is not."  There were several blood samples taken, 
and two additional laboratories would do the testing also, to minimize the 
possibility of errors.  The results would be mailed in a few weeks to a 
private mailbox Edward maintained for surreptitious business reasons.
	In January and February, he received the results back in the mail, but 
did not open them.  At breakfast one Saturday he gave the envelopes to 
Melissa, and wished her a happy birthday.  Wordlessly, she opened them, and 
after the third said, "They are all identical.  You are not my biological 
father."
	Edward was crushed.  He had lost her mother, now would lose her, too.  
"So when can we get married?" she asked.
	"You are going to graduate from high school before anything else.  And 
that is final!" was his reply.
	On graduation evening he asked if she did not want to go party with her 
friends.  She declined, and asked if he would take her out to dinner instead.  
After dinner, with a sherbet for her and a small glass of Sherry for Edward, 
she again asked, "Let's get married.  There is nothing else you can say, 
'Wait---until,' now, is there?"
	There was not, but he pointed out they had best relocate.  California 
was liberal, but only up to a point.  A father marrying even a stepdaughter 
would cause raised eyebrows.  So he put the house up for sale, disposed of 
business interests and consolidated everything.  He had a buyer for the house 
in two months, and in September 1971, they flew to Reno.  They found a lawyer 
and a wedding chapel, and made arrangements for a ceremony and name changes.  
When they were pronounced 'married,' their old identities vanished, and they 
became Eric R. Shelldahl and Hotaru Shelldahl, man and wife.
	It was still early, so they hired a taxi and drove around sightseeing 
for a while, walked, and had dinner.  They saw a show, and spent a 
while in a lounge, listening to a comedian.  Eric was a very moderate 
drinker and, Hotaru being under age, they carefully avoided the 
alcoholic attractions.
      Back in their room, Eric poured himself a 7-UP and watched, fascinated, 
as Hotaru got totally undressed, down to her ring and a pearl necklace Eric 
had given her, and put on a white shortie gown.  It had matching lace 
panties, which she looked at, and put back in her suitcase.  "Won't be 
needing these," she ventured, "will we?  Look, this thing is just for you to 
tear off of my quivering, frightened body like Genghis Kahn, or something.  
Are you going to get naked, or what?"
      "You don't look either quivering or frightened to me," he laughed.  He 
loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, while Hotaru came up behind him, 
put her arms around him and planted kiss after kiss on his cheeks and ears.  
"I would need scissors." Eric said.  "What if I did not have the strength to 
tear it?"
      "Forget the scissors.  And I don't want you going off to the bathroom 
and crying after we do it," she teased, kissing him some more.  The ice had 
been broken.  He got undressed, while she took the white top back off and put 
it on a hanger.  By the next morning, they were the happiest and best 
adjusted of all the newly married couples in Reno.
      They spent a few days honeymooning.  Neither gambled, but they enjoyed 
swimming, tennis, seeing the shows and being together.  It was not a wildly 
passionate start.  Hotaru felt she know more about physical love from 
sneaking around, reading her mom's Cosmopolitan magazines, than Eric had 
learned from ten years of marriage to her mother.  But she was right where 
she wanted to be, in his arms, in his bed, in his life.
	For Eric, it was a dream come true, marred only by the need to forget, 
at times, that she was his stepdaughter.  He had raised her, and now she was 
his wife.
	They flew on to the East, to Vermont. They bought a little farm house 
on 160 acres for a bargain price, and spent the fall and winter fixing it up, 
making their love nest a home.  Hotaru was immediately pregnant, and by the 
following summer they would be a family of three.  "Eric, how did you and 
Mother ever get together, get married?" Hotaru asked one evening.  She had 
heard a little when she was small, but never the whole story.
	"I was in the Army Reserve in Korea," He explained, "and she was a 
nurse.  I was ready to rotate home in a month, when we met.  We had two 
intimate weekends together in a hotel, and suddenly she told me she was 
pregnant.  Of course I would marry her, and nurses were immediately 
discharged if they got pregnant.  So an Army chaplain married us and, as soon 
as we got back stateside, we rented an apartment and took up life together."
	"But weren't you suspicious when she got pregnant so conveniently?" 
Hotaru asked.
	"I was dumb, stupid maybe, about that sort of thing," Eric confessed.  
"You make love, you get pregnant." He went on.  "You were born prematurely, 
she told me, seven and a half months after we first had relations.  You 
weighed six pounds five ounces, large for a preemie.  But I was so happy I 
did not want to think about --- things."
	"So she got you in bed with herself, let you think I was yours for 
real, and you turned out to be the best father you could ever be."  It was 
about what Hotaru had figured out for herself.

	Eric was an investment advisor, a stockbroker, and had a considerable 
portfolio of his own.  They lived on his dividends for a while, but by the 
first spring he saw the need to earn more money.  He was a hard worker, and 
immediately had cash coming in.  In a few years he was managing some large 
accounts, and even started up a couple of mutual funds, which were a novelty 
at that time.  Ten years later, he would sell the funds and retire, a wealthy 
man, at age fifty-five. 
	Hotaru produced a nice little girl that summer, and in the next nine 
years a boy and another girl.  She was not ready to stop.  She wanted two 
more.  She also wanted more facts.  She tried communicating with unknown 
ancestors, getting up early, lighting candles, kneeling quietly on a pillow 
and waiting for voices.  She felt her real father's presence at times, but 
never heard any answers.
	Friends had kept track of her mother for her; so one day, after years 
of silence, she telephoned her in California.  "Mother, this is Melissa," she 
started.  "I need to know some things.  I want to know more about my father, 
my real father.  You know what I mean."  It took a lot of persuasion, but 
finally her mother explained. 
	"Your biological father was a Japanese war correspondent, covering the 
Korean War.  He was very charming, and we were together every chance we could 
be.  He spoke very poor English, and I could barely understand him at times.  
I never even knew his name.  He told me his first name, but I could not even 
spell it phonetically.  He was married, but separated from his wife.  Divorce 
was not common in Japan then.  They had a little girl; he even showed me her 
photo.  I called her 'Tutu,' but it was Tutaru, or something like that."
	"Was it Hotaru?" Melissa asked, giving the name its correct Japanese 
pronunciation.
	"Yes, that is it!  How did you know?"
	"Mother, I have changed my name.  For ten years my name has been 
Hotaru.  I am that man's second daughter named Hotaru."  Kaboom!  Atomic bomb 
number two.  "What ever became of him?  I would like to meet him some day."  
She was excited.
	"Not a chance," her mother answered.  "He was a good reporter, too 
good.  He was killed trying to infiltrate behind North Korean lines.  The 
Koreans hated the Japanese, and the South Koreans would have killed him, 
eventually."
	"Did you love him?" Hotaru asked.
	"Yes.  He was the only man I have ever loved in my life," her mother 
admitted.
	"So you used your body to trap Ed, a wonderful man, so you could be 
respectable!" Hotaru accused.
	"Don't act so holier-than-me, little miss. Wait until you get married.  
You will see what I mean."  She was defensive.
	"You are right, Mother."  Hotaru was humbled.  "I am married now, and 
have three wonderful children.  I have been a good wife, and love my husband, 
and he loves me.  But I am not perfect.  Let's just say I am my mother's 
daughter."  Hotaru had worked pretty hard to get her mother's ex- to marry 
her, and she realized it.  But she was not sorry for it.  "I do not want to 
fight.  I have missed you at times.  I am sorry you did not ever love Edward.  
I will send you photographs of the children, if you want."  Hotaru never told 
her mother whom she had married.  They parted amicably, but had no interest 
in seeing each other.
	The next morning she meditated, lit her candles, and burned her 
incense.  "Papa-san," she prayed, "is that you I feel out there?"  A wave of 
peace swept over her.  She was in her father's arms, so to speak.  He was 
right there for her, and always had been.
	 She had a fourth baby a couple of years later, and a fifth, her last, 
when she was thirty-seven, in 1990.  Up until then, she thought her own 
contribution to the family gene pool was non-existent.  Her first four 
children were blonde, or had brown hair; and all had blue or hazel eyes, like 
Eric or her mother.  But her last, a little girl, looked just like her, with 
dark almond eyes, straight black hair and all.  She named her little Hotaru, 
"Chibi-Hota."  
	Chibi-Hota grew up a quiet, introspective girl and made only a few 
close friends.  She joined her mother in morning meditations at times, loving 
the peaceful atmosphere, maybe even feeling the presence of her biological 
grandfather, whom Hotaru felt was there with them.
	The United States had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, But now Japan 
dropped one - a small one - on Hotaru and Chibi-Hota.  In 1999, when she was 
nine, Chibi came running home with a big envelope of artwork and magazines.
	"Mama-san," she cried, "looky what I have!  My best friend's big sister 
likes to watch a cartoon show on TV called 'Sailor Moon,' and she gets stuff 
from the Internet, like pictures and stories.  These are some pictures she 
made on the computer, and these are some Japanese comic books she loaned me."  
She spread them out.  "Here is a girl who looks just like you and me, and her 
name is Hotaru Tomoe, just like us, her first name is, anyhow."  
	Chibi-chan was so excited she could barely talk.  "When she grows up she is 
Sailor Saturn, and fights for love, truth and something, I forget what.  She 
gets killed, but Sailor Moon saves her life, and she becomes a little baby 
again.  See?  Here is Sailor Moon giving her back to her father."  Chibi-Hota 
was unstoppable.  Hotaru barely heard her, she was so busy looking at the 
cartoon pictures, which could have been drawings of herself and her little 
daughter.
	"That is nice, sweetie.  Let me look at these some more."  The 
resemblance was striking.  Next morning she meditated, and prayed to her 
ancestor.  "Papa-san, did you have something to do with this?  Did you 
inspire some cartoonist to draw pictures of us, Chibi-Hota and me?"  No 
answer.  She felt his presence and listened very, very hard.  She heard 
nothing.
 
	Or did she hear a little laugh?

	"Papa-san, I love you.  Stay close to me and Chibi-Hota."  She knew he 
would.  He was that kind of a papa-san.


                           The End


        Tell me how you liked it.  Good, I hope.

                          Chibicardcaptor
	          

               < chibicardcaptor@dellmail.com >