The Switzerland arc begins!

For this arc I've sort of "borrowed" a writing shorthand from UsefulOxymoron. He (she?) wrote a pretty damn good Strawberry Panic! fic in which Yaya and Tsubomi study abroad in Quahog. I'm not really a fan of Family Guy at all, but even I got a laugh out of the story. Anyway, when characters spoke Japanese in the fic, the quotation marks looked like this: -"..."- When they spoke English they looked like this: "..."

So keep taht in mind for this arc. -"..."- is Japanese, and "..." is English.

RECORDING

Chapter Thirty-Four

Terminal A

Sawako was counting down the seconds as the 747 nosed its way downward toward Lausanne, toward Bel-Air Aéroport, toward Veronique Hohnstedt, Mugi's mother. She looked out the window, DS clutched in a tight excited grip, watching the gray patches swell to glorious Victorian buildings in a span of nanoseconds.

It had been a pretty good flight, surprisingly. Usually Sawako didn't do so good on airplanes (she had been on one twice before). But this time "Ralph" hadn't acted up on her stomach, and the airsick bags stayed in the pocket in the seat in front of her. She spent the entire flight playing Pokémon Platinum.

-"How did you spend the time?"- she asked Mugi as the two of them made their way to the baggage claim area. By a stroke of misfortune they had wound up separated on the plane — Sawako was somewhere in the middle, Mugi somewhere in the front (the nice thing about the A-1 seat is that if the plane crashes you're the first one on the site).

-"Sleeping, for the first half,"- the ojou responded. She had a warm hand linked with Sawako's. She was excited for this necessary getaway, to say the least. It seemed healthy, she thought, to be this far away from Japan, from being student Tsumugi and teacher Sawako. Here they could do what they wanted without worry of being punished for it.

But for them it wasn't all clear, sunny skies. There was one pall of late…

Mugi tried to shake that off, as a dog shakes water from itself, tried to forget the semi-humiliating conversation she'd had with Ritsu and Azusa earlier this month. They would deal with this pall later, she and Sawako. Sometimes vacations were as much about resolving issues as they were escaping them…like in Bag of Bones, when Mike goes to Key Largo to better understand his writer's block.

The blonde girl went on, -"I spent the other half of it reading a book for school."-

-"Hm. Which book?"-

Mugi turned her carry-on item over in her free hand. She read the title carefully. "Um, Harry Potter et la Pierre des Sorciers."

Sawako laughed. -"I love how that sounds totally studious and at the same time totally not."-

They got their luggage from the rotating baggage claim belt. There wasn't much for them to collect — a suitcase each, plus a backpack for Mugi. After all, they were only spending eleven days here. Then on January 1, 2010 they would board another 747, this one bound for Kyoto, to spend the New Year's holiday with the Yamanaka bunch.

Mugi cast one last look at the baggage belt, which had always held an odd and inexplicable charm over her since she was little. During many of her girlhood trips abroad Holt would let her ride the belt round and round, holding her by her hands. Eventually a security guard always came to yell at them. Then Veronique would yell at Holt…and he would yell back at her. But even at the age of five Mugi knew to tune out that yelling.

She pulled out her cell phone to read the text message her mother promised her (flight security these days, can't use a phone in an airplane). It said, in French: Meet me at Terminal A.

When the two of them got there they found Terminal A mucho crowdo. Her mouth hanging open a little, Sawako looked around, dazed, her ears filling with a frightening language she didn't know a word of yet somehow wound up speaking in Mansion Kotobuki on Halloween. French. Here at the bustling Terminal A families were either separating (maybe a college kid saying goodbye to his folks before setting off to study abroad), hugging and bidding the traveller a bon voyage, or they were reuniting, pecking cheeks.

Yes, very crowded was Terminal A. Sawako warily pressed closer to Mugi. The fast and easy French that came rolling out of these people's mouths was beginning to frighten her. They sounded like their mouths were full of peanut butter. The sensei couldn't help feeling like she was constantly in somebody's way. She felt like an extra here, about as important as a dog Mugi was leading on a leash.

-"Does Veronique-san know Japanese?"- Sawako asked, whispering in Mugi's ear. The ojou was scanning the thick crowd for her mother.

-"No,"- she said, sounding apologetic. She looked at Sawako with a somewhat uncomfortable smile.

-"How can she not? She lived there for over ten years, right?"-

-"Right."- Mugi was back to searching, craning her neck and swaying left and right. -"But, the thing is, she never left the mansion. She does know English, though,"- she added brightly. She looked at Sawako again, this time with a more natural smile. -"I believe you said once you know it, right?"-

"Right," Sawako said in English, also smiling. She mimed wiping sweat off her brow and Mugi giggled.

Of course it would be impossible to sweat in this weather. Beyond the overhang tons of giant snowflakes poured from the flat white sky. It was "snowing a bitch," as Sawako's mother was fond of saying. It was so cold it was a little scary. To make the ten-degree temperature worse, there was a strong wind to give the cold a bitter cutting edge.

Are all winters in Switzerland this harsh? the sensei wondered. She shivered and wrapped both arms her around one of Mugi's. It must be nice to be as warm as she is.

The roadway in front of the terminal was every bit as busy as the terminal itself. Taxi cabs, limousines, buses, and vans crawled along in one direction, as slow as wireless internet connections, occasionally stopping when the traffic got bad. Angry horns squawked over the French chatter.

Mugi looked over her shoulder, muttering, -"This is Terminal A, isn't it?"-

Sawako suddenly perked up. She tugged at the keyboardist's sleeve. -"Mugi-chan, does Veronique-san have red hair and wear glasses?"-

Mugi looked at her, blinking in surprise. -"Yes. Do you see her?"-

-"I think so."- Sawako pointed. -"There's a woman holding a sign with hiragana symbols on it."- A drop of sweat slid down her head. -"…She's holding it upside-down."-

Mugi likewise sweat-dropped. She smiled and tilted her head. She could see her mother now, who seemed to be looking for a Kibutoko Gimu. Dear Mother, she always tries so hard, doesn't she?

Sawako let herself be pulled along as Mugi tried to shoulder her way through the throngs of families. The teacher was freaking out a little (well, "a little" was the wrong way to put it — maybe "a lot" was more fitting). Here she was, in a foreign country, about to meet her eighteen-year-old girlfriend's mother. How would Veronique take it when she found out that her daughter's girlfriend was eight and a half years older than her? That her daughter's girlfriend was her teacher? Sawako, who was beginning to see Tokudaiji's logic when he accused her of robbing the cradle, wanted more than anything to make a good impression. As Veronique loomed closer Sawako mentally rehearsed English greetings.

"Mère!" Mugi cheered when she was close enough, throwing up her free arm.

"Mugi! Ah, ma fille!" Veronique's face opened suddenly with a happiness so bright it made her look ten years younger. Sawako let Mugi go so she could hug her mother. They kissed both their cheeks. Then Veronique held Mugi out at arms' length, studying her, saying something in French — Sawako guessed it was something along the lines of How you've grown! Then the red-haired woman asked, "Ça va le vol?"

"Ça va." Mugi made a so-so gesture with her hand. "Je suis fatigue."

Veronique nodded, her face still youthful with happiness, her green eyes dancing behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She said something in French.

In a span of seconds Sawako had figured out just who this Veronique Hohnstedt was to Mugi. She didn't need to know French to know how immensely happy they were to see each other. Veronique even called Mugi by her nickname. The blonde girl got along so differently, so much more positively with her mother than she did with her stodgy, awkward father that Sawako couldn't help wondering why Mugi wasn't living with Veronique. Didn't kids usually live with their mothers and visit their fathers when the parents split up?

Not when the father's the richest man in Japan, I guess.

Sawako felt a trace of sadness as she looked at Veronique, who went on talking in a language the sensei didn't know a word of yet somehow understood.

Mugi stepped aside then, smiling at Sawako, who knew the introductions were coming. Say "hello, nice to meet you," and shake her hand — that's what they do in the west. Veronique was looking at her curiously. Mugi was yammering away in French; the teacher caught her own name, in western order: Sawako Yamanaka.

"Sawa-chan, this is my mother, Veronique Hohnstedt," Mugi said to Sawako, switching to English.

Veronique stepped forward, her eyebrows furrowed. "Ko—konichiwa." She sounded sixteen different flavors of awkward. "Watashi wa…uh, Mugi no okaa-san."

"She knows English, Mother," Mugi giggled.

The relief that spread itself across Veronique's face in the form of a relaxed grin was so immense it was almost reminiscent of a young girl's first orgasm.

"Not that your Japanese isn't terrific," Sawako added quickly. It almost made her laugh, how Japanese she could still be on foreign soil. In Japan you were supposed to compliment a foreigner on their use of the language, even if it was the most awful in-the-raw load of suckage you ever heard come dribbling out of a person's face. And hadn't Sawako felt that same kind of relief Veronique was feeling right now whenever she found out the gaijin could actually speak Japanese? Seeing the flip-flop of it was pretty damn chuckalicious, if she did say so herself.

"Mlle Yamanaka, we all know that's bullshit," Veronique said, still grinning. "But thanks anyway."

Sawako was briefly shocked by the redhead's use of profanity. How easily Veronique swore at someone she just met! This definitely never happened in Japan.

"C-call me Sawako."

"Alright. Then you call me Veronique. Hell, call me Ronnie, if you like. Don'cha love getting to first names? It's like being able to take off your heels."

She was, without a doubt, a lot more sociable than Holt.

Remembering that great western greeting gesture, Sawako put out her right hand (it was always done with your right hand, something Sawako was sure would baffle and enrage Mio). "So very nice to meet you."

"Feeling's mutual, Sawako." Veronique didn't shake her hand. Instead she seized her by the shoulders and pecked both cheeks. She laughed a little at the shock on Sawako's face, then said, "What do you say we stop freezing our asses off out here and take a cab to my place already?"

"Yeah, let's!" Mugi cheered.

"S-sounds good to me," Sawako said, shivering.

Veronique watched the sensei shiver for a second. "I'm guessing it's warmer in Japan?"

"A bit," responded Sawako. "I'm fine, though…Oh, thanks, Mugi-chan," she smiled as her girlfriend removed her scarf and wrapped it around her neck.

"No problem. You seem to need it more than I do." Mugi's cerulean eyes swam as she smiled up at Sawako. Isn't this great, Sawa-chan? Her smile seemed to say.

It was great. Sawako liked Veronique already. She had heard the redhead was fiery and flippant (as most gingers tend to be), but Ronnie was funnier and more friendly than the sensei had been expecting. It Sawako could have said anything then she would've said, "It's all good." And if Mugi's mother wasn't standing right there Sawako would have taken her in her arms and kissed her so passionately that even the people that hated her would feel good.

At the edge of the terminal, with the dime-sized snowflakes coming down in heaps, Veronique tried to hail a cab. Most of her efforts were in vain. The cabs slid by, either occupied or empty and the cabbie wanted to take this puppy back to the garage ASAP and clock out. The one cab Ronnie did manage to nab was stolen by a fat man in a suit with a briefcase. Ronnie raised her middle finger in the world's oldest gesture and yelled at him to go fuck himself.

Mugi stepped forward and pinched her lower lip in her teeth. Sawako's hands came to her ears — she knew what was up.

The ojou's wolf-whistle successfully landed them a cab.

Veronique gaped at her. "How in the world do you do that?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" Sawako exclaimed.

"Takes practice," Mugi said, shrugging.

In the cab Veronique popped the question Sawako had been dreading.

"So where do you two know each other from?"

The sensei went rigid with fear and Mugi glanced uncertainly at her. Sawako's first impulse was to lie — we work at the same restaurant, we met on the train, we chatted online and agreed to meet in Tokyo. Anything but I'm her teacher. But she didn't want to lie to Mugi's mother, not hell-call-me-Ronnie, whom Sawako liked so much.

"From…from school," the sensei croaked, looking at Veronique. Peripherally she saw Mugi give her a big warm smile; felt her hand join with her own, their fingers interlocking, and squeeze.

The blonde keyboardist then tured toward her mother. "Sawa-chan's kind of, uh…my…homeroom teacher."

Veronique's eyes crawled on up to Sawako's, and for the first time since her speaking Japanese she looked a bit uncertain of her.

The teacher bit her lip, looking at Mugi's mother with what she hoped was a considerate I'm-doing-right-by-your-daughter expression. She wanted Veronique to know the truth, and she wanted Veronique to go on liking her. But you can't always have it both ways. If it was one thing twelve years of fail-dating had taught Sawako, it was that.

"What year did you graduate college?" Veronique asked.

Sawako knew what this was. It was impolite to come right out and ask someone's age, so Ronnie had gone around it a little. "2006," she replied.

She tensed and waited. In a moment Veronique would have done the math and realized that her only daughter was dating an almost thirty-year-old. Then the storm would break with hurricane-force winds and blinding snaps of lightning. Veronique would rant and rage. She would subject poor Mugi to the worst insults imaginable. She would probably even hit Mugi. Then she would order the cabbie to pull over and she would kick them out into the snow, into Lausanne, hundreds of thousands of miles from home. Sawako had learned, on November 30, what had happened to Azusa. Jesus please-us. Why did we tell her the truth? She probably will give us the boot. Her heart was pounding way too hard in her chest, so hard she could feel it in her wrists. Cold fear slid down the back of her throat — a taste not unlike what she imagined battery acid tasted like. She looked at Mugi. Her girlfriend's face, which was normally so soft and gentle, had hardened. On it Sawako registered a fear quite similar to her own.

Veronique nodded and sat back. "Well, then, that's alright, isn't it?"

Mugi's face stayed hard for a second. Then her mouth sank open and her blue eyes bulged. She blinked owlishly. She almost looked a little stupid. Sawako maybe would have laughed, but her throat had stopped working. Her own face felt a little "open" as well.

"Uhh…" was all Mugi could manage.

When Veronique looked at them she actually did laugh — a snuffling snicker that seemed more appropriate for an old man than a forty-seven-year-old woman. She tipped a finger under Mugi's chin and closed her mouth. "Close your mouth, Kermit. The flies'll get in." She sighed, leaning her chin in her palm, and at that moment she didn't seem nearly as young to Sawako as she'd seemed when she first met up with her kid. "Mugi, Holt's fifteen years older than me. I trust you two won't be stupid the way he and I were, will you? You won't let that happen, Mugi, will you?"

Mugi shook her head.

"And you know what I mean when I say Holt and I were stupid, don't you?"

Mugi nodded, her face hard again. When her face got like that she looked a tad older herself. It was, in fact, the long-suffering look of an old woman.

Veronique nodded, satisfied. She sat back again. "But don't worry about us, Mugi. Our stupidity had nothin' to do with the age gap." She looked out the window and said in the most bitter voice Sawako had ever heard anyone use, "Yep, age was the least of that old son of a bitch's problems…"

Mugi squirmed a little. She uncrossed her legs, then crossed them the other way. She didn't look at her mother.

Sawako still couldn't believe Veronique was fine with her kid dating her teacher. Looking out her own window, she thought, I'm not in Switzerland. I'm in Ireland, where the luck never runs out!

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Gosh, it's been a long time since I updated this thing. So sorry if the writing style seems, er, stiff. If it does, that's the reason why.

This chapter and the next are like character development for Veronique and Mugi. I need to research Lausanne, find things to do there. By the way, there's no such thing as Bel-Air airport in Lausanne. There is a Bel-Air Métropole, in the Montbenon neighborhood, which is probably where Veronique lives.

Now it's time to work on an update for A Moment Like This.

btw, I dug up part of chapter one of a NodokaxYui fic I was working on earlier this year. I'll have to finish it and post it.

Until next time! Peace.