The Masked Emotions Redux: Linger

CURIOSITY & SATISFACTION

MIKO

Miko could not believe that she was actually standing behind Dom 241. She and her sister had read each of his encounters so many times, they could recite them by heart and the way their father was so thrilled when he was finally able met him, he was acting like a child, he hugged the two of them at once "I have found him!" he proudly said, "faith has shined upon us". Her sister Juno was so jealous that she begged him to switch places with her sister and be Nadia's assistant, to which he replied by scolding Juno and making her spank her sister over his desk with a ruler until her cheeks were blood red while he went through the day's event.

Discipline in that nature was common, only because they insisted to be a part of that world and their father, despite his protest in the beginning, gradually accepted it. In the end, he wiped away Juno's tears – tears that he knew wasn't from the spanking, but out of jealousy and told her, that he will introduce her to him, but not now. Miko glanced over towards her sister and smiled, fanning that jealousy to no end. It's a rarity when she would step out of her sister's shadow, but when she does, she always makes a mark.

Miko, like Juno, was very much indeed jealous of Nadia. She managed to do in a month and a half what the two of them have been struggling to do since the day he adopted them. Earn his respect. Her phone vibrated and she refused to even look at it. She knew perfectly well who it was. Tetsuo Yamada, her not-so-secret boyfriend or 'Mr. Wonderful' according to Juno. Unlike, Juno, who was homeschooled so she could spend the majority of her time working alongside their father. Miko went to actual school and she enjoyed it. It was the few places she could go where she had her own identity and was not known as 'Juno's shy twin sister.' In school, she wasn't shy, but bold and sometimes a bit daring.

Tetsuo Yamada was a grade under her and he would always follow her around asking her the same questions daily "How was your day sempai? Is there anything you need sempai? You look pretty as always today sempai." She looked forward to hearing his compliments, feeling his lingering looks from afar, and then there were the love letters that he would leave inside her locker. He didn't make a move until the day she graduated from high school. On that day, he confessed his love to her and she happily accepted. They went to a love hotel and she gave him her virginity.

For the next six months, he kept asking her to be introduced to her father, something that she was afraid to do. It soon became obvious to her that he only liked her because of her last name due to increase pleading as of late and she knew as soon as Tetsuo met her father, he would give him that little test that she knew he was going to fail and she could never see him again. So for now, she wanted to enjoy the little bit of happiness she had left, but at the same time, she was disappointed with herself for once again getting used by an ambitious wannabe salaryman. Just once she wished she would meet someone who actually wanted to be with her for her and not because of her last name.

"Why are you back there?" the man named Enzio said to her in Japanese, breaking her out of her daydream "come walk beside us." She shook her head no and stared into the ground "what is your name?"

"Miko." She softly spoke, amazed at how he was able to get the dialect perfectly, he nodded and continued to speak to his sister; who at first questioned his fluency then shrugged it off when he mentioned the unused Rosetta stone software that he bought her as a birthday gift, but never used. The three of them first went to a boutique called Spun Sustainable Collective, a clothing store that catered to petite women. Miko couldn't help but stare at the beautiful dresses displayed on industrial pipe racks, cotton shirts neatly folded on back-lit rustic shelved. She watched as Nadia took a red shift dress and walked up to her "Here." She told her "if it fits, it's yours."

"I-I can't" she struggled to say "why would you do this?"

"Why not?" Nadia laughed "We're going to be together for a long time. I rather have a friend instead of an assistant." Miko hesitated; the dress was indeed beautiful "If you want." Nadia added, "We can get one for Juno as well." A great big smile jumped on Miko's face, but then Enzio took the dress from her hand and pressed it against himself.