Side Story 1: Mina & Kunzite-- Part II
Rating: PG-13
Author: Alsepang Tyun
E-mail: alsepang@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Original storyline by Alsepang. Names of
            characters Serenity, Kunzite, Artemis and
            Mina come from Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon.
            All other names and surnames conjured by Alsepang.
            This story not written for profit either commercial
            or otherwise. Court suits will result only in a paper
            judgement (no practical benefit) and incur the fury
            of fans across the globe. Learn lesson from Warner Bros
            in relation to Harry Potter fansites.

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[Some people live their dreams

Some people close their eyes

Some people's destiny

Passes by


There are no guarantees

There are no alibis

That's how our love must be

Don't ask why]


             Mina Aylmerton stood on the balcony of her large,
luxurious, very high-security twenty-one roomed mansion. She
was clad in a simple lace-trimmed shift and matching overrobe.
Her feet were bare and she wore her hair loose, save for the
few strands pulled back from her face and held together with
a plain barrette. Her famous face, which had graced catwalks
and stylish magazines the world over, was devoid of make-up.
Not even the barest hint of lip-gloss was present. Her blond
hair rippled softly in the cold wind, a warm shawl of pale
gold against the dark background of the night. Somewhere in
the house, an old grandfather clock struck the hour twice.
It was two o'clock.

             Once, a long time ago, a handsome young man with
long white-blond hair would be by her side, holding her,
keeping his promise of love in the strength he lent her. They
had been so happy. She had been so happy.

             Then came the lies, the photographs, the vicious
tabloids...and he had believed them before he believed her. She
had woken one morning to find that her world had disappeared,
leaving behind everything she had ever given him, and everything
that could have reminded him of her. It was the classic
dump-- the boxes full of her clothes, her little possessions,
the gifts she had bought and made for him, right down to the
small handwritten notes she sometimes left for him. And
there was the terse note, breaking off their engagement.
She could still remember the cold tone and his signature
'Kunzite M. Kendall' at the bottom of the note.

              Right away, she knew who had been at the bottom
of the lies. Beryl Ashleigh Fainsworth, otherwise known as the
supermodel Titiane, had been the mastermind. There was no proof,
but the photographs, the careful planning that made Mina look
like a villainous seductress-- only Beryl could have conceived
and executed such a scheme, and covered her own tracks.

             But Mina Aylmerton, otherwise known as Venus, could
not prove it.

             Then she lost their baby. She hadn't known that
she was pregnant with their child, with his flesh and bone. For
two successive months, beginning the day after he broke her heart,
she was sunk in an alcoholic and cigarette-fuelled stupor, smoking
packet after packet and drowning herself in bottles. And late one
night, after a wild party, she had an overdose of drugs (it was a
drug cocktail whose contents she wasn't quite sure of herself) and
passed out. Her car smashed into a side fence and she didn't know
about the child she had carried until the doctors told her.

             She wanted to kill herself right away. Lying on that
narrow white bed, her face ravaged and lined with pain and suffering,
she thought only of how fast she could end her life. Her fiancée,
the man she had loved for so long-- and still loved, with no hope
in sight-- was gone from her life because he had trusted a pack of
lies more than her. Their child would never be born-- she would have
nothing of him-- she had killed their child through her foolishness
and heedlessness. Two months of absorption of poison into her
bloodstream and one ill-starred night of wildness. She'd killed
her baby.

             She didn't have anything in this world. She wanted to die.

             But she didn't kill herself-- because the doctors and
nurses, and her manager, Artemis, had kept her under observation.
Eventually, with Artemis's firm eye on her, she had pulled herself
from the brink and managed to continue living.

             For four years, she lived only to work. She did so
many assignments and graced so many events that she grew in
popularity day by day. And the mocking, gaping silence inside
her life grew in pace with her fame and popularity. She was
Venus, goddess of the catwalk, adored and envied by everyone,
except the one person whose heart she craved.

             Mina continued staring unseeingly into the dark
sky. Her lips formed his name, but she did not say it aloud.
She had been dreaming of him of late, of his face, his voice,
his laughter, the rumpled, sleepy way he had looked on the
morning of his birthday five years ago, when she had turned
up on his doorstep to surprise him, having flown straight in
from one of her assignments. She remembered too much and she
knew that she was sinking back to the abyss she had fallen
into after her baby's death. It was an abyss far darker and
deeper than the one she had dug for herself when he broke her.

             She was so tired. She didn't want to sleep
because the night brought memories of happiness that made
her cry when she woke to find that it was only that-- memories
and nothing more. He wasn't dead, but she was dead to him.

             Mina fingered the ring she wore around her
neck on a fine silver chain. Sometimes she kept the ring
in a small, perfumed pouch she wore next to her skin
whenever her shoots required that she part from it. The
ring had been bought at the time he asked her to be his
girlfriend-- which was at the end of their second date.
She still had the engagement ring, but it was usually
locked away in a drawer, and had been for a long time.
Tonight, however, it sparkled brilliantly on her finger.

             She closed her eyes. Her contract with Palais
Alse-pang Modelling International was coming to an end.
Practically speaking, it had ended. She thought of the
owner, Serenity Houghton-West, a cousin of Beryl's. Mina
smiled bitterly. Beryl had ruined yet another woman's
life. This time, it had been twenty-seven-year-old Serenity
Houghton-West's turn. A newspaper had gotten wind of the
whole affair and published an unprecedented scoop on the
whole matter. Mina suspected that Serenity herself had
deliberately let slip the matter to the press, choosing
to humiliate herself in print and ultimately, ruin Beryl.
The latter's reputation had certainly taken a severe beating.
Newspapers attacked her without exception and Serenity's
tactics impressed Mina deeply. No wonder she and Beryl
were family, although it was obvious that Serenity
had inherited all the good traits and left Beryl with
none. But what price revenge, when Serenity had broken her
heart? She could see that in the other woman's eyes-- she
had walked down that path before, and was still treading
it.

            But Mina Aylmerton had nothing in comparison to
Serenity Houghton-West, not even vengeance. She could not
prove her innocence. She had lost everything that she held
dear, everything that meant the world and the future to her.
She could not spend her whole life in her line of work. She
wanted to marry someone, have children and make her family
happy. And the one man she loved and needed enough to see
her future with him was beyond her reach. He had also lost
no time in replacing her, judging from the tabloids and gossip
columns.

           Someone* once wrote that the human heart was capable
of performing feats of incredible gymnastics. Well, you'd think
that four years would have taught her heart to perform some of
those same feats, but-- no.

            It seemed that there was no place in the world for
Mina Aylmerton.

            Tomorrow, she would go for a drive.

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*The someone was Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.

(c) Copyright 2001 by Alsepang Tyun