Love means something different for pretty much everyone. It is like beauty: In the eye of the beholder. What is love? Infatuation? Devotion? Physical attraction? Some mixture of these and other elements? It all depends upon whom is asked, and about which form of love they believe the conversation involves. Fillial love is different from romantic love. Different languages often make the distinction more clear by using different words for the different forms, and then there are the cultural differences to consider. All in all it is impossible for any one definition of love to prevail over the others as a true singular definition.
Mariko Konjo was in the business of love. For her, it was the single element that made martial arts cheerleading so thoroughly effective. To cheer was to channel one's own feelings into the players, into the audience, to motivate them all towards victory by any necessary means! For her, love was a weapon, a means, and an end all at the same time. Whenever she fell in love, she would fall hard. Whenever she fell out of love, she would fall even harder.
Today was a day for expressing a different kind of love towards her than the sort she typically sought. It was unconditional. It was forever. It was a celebration of her, because of her and all for her. While she didn't view herself as a spoiled person normally, she could certainly see it being thought of her on this day.
"Happy birthday Mariko!" her mother declared, prompting a round of applause from all of their family and friends. "Eighteen today! Where did the time go?"
Mariko looked around at all her family and friends, gathered for her party. Her cheerleading squad, her mother and father, her aunts and uncles and cousins. All of them here because they loved her. All of them here to celebrate her eighteenth birthday! And what a celebration it would be! The decorations were all soooo cute!
"Here you go sweety," her father said, proudly shoving a gift box into her waiting hands. "Happy birthday! I'm sure you'll love it."
The wrapping paper hit the floor moments later, and Mariko had to admit that her daddy knew her all too well. A little heart shaped pendant, so cute and so her! In fact it would even go well with the dress she'd picked out this evening, which was surely serendipity in action. Or maybe destiny. Either way, it was way too cute!
"Thanks daddy," she hugged him tightly. "You really do always know just what to get!"
"No problem pumpkin," he replied, gently kissing her forehead. "You have go fun with your friends, okay?"
She had the pendant on in a heartbeat, and turned towards her friends. Each of them was carrying their own gifts, and each of them was eager to please the squad leader. After all, this was the last year she'd be in charge of them. Politics played even among close friends. Whichever of the juniors got Mariko's backing would be the one most likely to take charge the next year! If they thought she could be so easily bribed by gifts, well, they had another thing coming. To some, it might seem that skill was all that mattered. No. It was love. Whichever of them showed the most love towards cheerleading, towards their school, towards their colleagues... that was the one that would get her blessing, and bribing her was an excercise in -
The world turned bright pink, prompting her to stop in her tracks.
Well. This was new. It took her eyes a moment to focus once again. she realised that it was less as if everything was a uniform shade of pink and more as if... As if she was looking through a pair of pink tinted glasses. Out of the corner of her eyes, Mariko could make out something that was in no way pink at all. It was, on taking a better look around, attached to her mother's hand. It looked like... like a piece of red string, attached to her little finger. The other end of it made a direct beeline over to her father, and was similarly tied to him. Though she was no academic it didn't exactly take one to recognise what she was seeing, and Mariko was rather grateful that the string was attached in such a manner. Taking a better look around revealed more strings. Some red, tied between aunts and uncles. Others were green, extending from her own fingers to each member of her squad, between whom a lighter yellow seemed to exist. A little more worrying were the white threads from some of her uncles and cousins pointing towards the squad members... Which didn't seem to connect to any of them. They were fleeting at best, but didn't answer one simple question. What was happening to her?
"Mariko?"
She blinked and shook her head. The pink faded away, as did the strings. She was confronted with the worried face of her team members, who were rather understandably a little freaked out about her suddenly staring off into space like that. She hated to do it, but Mariko saw no other alternative.
"I'm sorry," she said with true sincerity, then proceeded to lie through her teeth. "I'm just a bit overwhelmed by how much you guys all care! I love you guys!"
And it all devolved into a great big weepy mess, but at least that much had been averted. Now maybe she could enjoy the rest of the party without having to think about the weird pinkness and all those strange strings...
The next morning, Mariko skipped out of her front door with a boundless energy. She couldn't wait to see what the new day would bring her! And of course it was a prime opportunity to show off the gifts she'd gotten yesterday. A new skirt, new shoes, new blouse and of course her heart shaped pendant, dangling around her neck! Like this she was dressed to kill. Today she would have the pick of any cute boys that came her way, and if they were lucky she might even give them a chance.
"Foul demon, come back here!" an all too familiar voice yelled. Mariko froze in place, her heart feeling like it was beating a mile a minute. She didn't even need to turn her head as two figures ran straight past her. The first, a smirking pigtailed boy that looked sort of like that Ranma bitch. The other, a boy she once considered her one true love. Tatewaki Kuno. She gave a weary sigh -
And then the world turned pink once again. Mariko unconsciously clutched at her pendant, then wondered why she had done exactly that. No matter. For now she turned her attention towards her former crush. She gasped at the sight in front of her.
Not so much about Tatewaki Kuno. There was one string flowing from Mariko towards him, yet not quite reaching his hand. Two seperate strings were tied there instead, one that flew off into a nearby wall, while the other seemed to be going towards that Ranma lookalike, yet faded into nothing as it approached. Of more concern was the pigtailed boy, whom she could no longer even see through the sheer mass of bright red string tying itself around him like a great big ball of yarn. Her grip unconsciously tightened around her pendant, and Mariko began to wonder once more what was happening to her!
- Mariko decides to follow them, and try to figure out what was going on.
- She accidentally uses the pendant's power to interesting results.
- Mariko ignores them and goes about her business, thinking about what she's seen so far.
- Mariko figures out what the pendant does, and decides to experiment a little.
- Something else
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