40Yo!
Not a ton to say, so let's get into it!
Start Chapter 27
She went to Janine's house the next morning having not slept at all.
She'd attempted many times the previous night to call Cynthia, to inform her of the situation, or, in all honesty, just to hear her voice, to have someone she could vent to, to have someone to spill all of what she was feeling to. In the end, she'd gone to Professor Juniper, calling the poor woman at nearly eleven in the evening.
They'd talked until two.
By now, it was roughly eight in the morning. Exhaustion weighed on Bianca's every step, and the guards at the gate to Janine's manor could tell.
"Ma'am, are you alright?"
"Honestly, no." Bianca admitted, reaching up and rubbing at her eye to try and get some of the sleep out of it.
"I see… well, we'll contact the young miss."
Bianca nodded, and then she waited.
It took Janine about five minutes to make it outside, and when she did, she had a similar reaction to the gatemen.
"Bianca, are you okay?"
She repeated her answer. "No. Not really."
"Okay… well, come inside. We can talk more there."
She followed along without complaint.
They made it back to Janine's bedroom, and Bianca's control over her emotions broke around there. She didn't so much collapse as implode, spilling all that was on her mind to the rather helpless-looking Janine, who was acting as a stand-in for Cynthia.
"Wait, wait," Janine cut her off around halfway through. "You're saying that this mysterious mineral that you and Cynthia found… your friend who disappeared, Hilda, found a piece of it years ago?"
Bianca nodded, trying to dry the tears that had begun to fall down her face. "I… I don't know what to do, or how to process this, or even what it means! It just… it came out of nowhere."
Janine nodded. "I can see that. First of all, you should get some rest."
Bianca shook her head immediately. "I can't. I tried. I really did, but it just… this won't leave my head."
Janine frowned. "Well, I'd normally say you should keep trying, but…" Janine's eyes lit up. "Actually, how about we head down to the sauna?"
Bianca was mildly perplexed. "You… have a sauna in the manor?"
"Two of them, technically." Janine seemed almost apologetic about the admittance, like even she understood just how ridiculously opulent such a thing sounded. "And I find that they're incredibly steadying, almost meditative. Would you like to sit within one with me?"
They headed down into the lower, basement levels of the manor, which in any other place might have implied cobwebs and mold, but in Janine's clan's manor, instead meant that things just got a whole lot sleeker, and more modern.
"The basement levels were all made much more recently than those above ground," Janine provided by way of explanation. "The upper floors have been renovated many times, but even still, the basic construction is a few centuries old."
Bianca nodded, glad to be given the distraction that Janine was currently supplying to her.
The sauna that they eventually arrived at was both more and less impressive than Bianca had expected. It wasn't as large as she'd imagined it might be, given that it only seemed big enough for four or so people to enjoy it at a time, but in that same vein, it also had incredibly modern controls, including temperature, humidity, and steam settings via a panel both inside and outside the hot room.
Janine led her to the changing room first, where Bianca took off her clothes – they were crumpled, sweaty, and wrinkly, on account of Bianca having been wearing them for going on twenty-four hours straight, and through multiple crying sessions – and donned a towel that covered her modesty. She stepped into the sauna a minute or so after Janine, and was instantly hit by a wave of pleasant warmth.
She sat down, and really did want to say something, provide some manner of conversation, but…
Suddenly, she was growing more and more exhausted. Like everything was catching up to her. She looked up at Janine, who was watching her carefully, almost expectantly.
Bianca realized that Janine had drawn her down here to get her to sleep just a moment or so too late to actually prevent herself to succumbing to such.
/
Bianca's eyes fluttered open what must have been hours later, judging by the fact that she no longer felt quite as exhausted as she had been previously.
She went to sit up, but realized that she was still wearing just the towel she'd had on in the sauna. She went somewhat red, even as she laid back down, and pulled the blanket up around her.
She… didn't recognize the room she was in.
"Uhm… hello?"
Almost immediately, an older woman appeared from around a corner. She seemed to be around sixty- or seventy-years-old, judging by the shorter stature, hunched frame, and wrinkled skin. Even so, she had a dignity to her that many older folks Bianca had encountered didn't.
"Ah, you're awake." She cleared her throat. "I must confess, when initially the young miss requested that I allow you to sleep in our infirmary, I suspected she was being dramatic. But given that you did not so much as turn while we carried you up here, perhaps you needed such sleep after all."
Bianca went even redder. "You… carried me up here?"
"Indeed." The woman stepped forward, holding in her hand a thermometer. "Just for posterity, would you mind sticking this under your tongue?"
Bianca wasn't really sure why they were checking if she was sick, but she did as she was asked. The thermometer took a moment or so, but then it beeped. The doctor – or, well, she assumed she was a doctor – pulled the thermometer back out, hummed upon seeing what was on it, and then went and sat down at her mobile desk, upon which sat a laptop.
"Well, you've got a mild fever," She noted casually as she typed a few things out, and Bianca was rather shocked. "Probably due to the fact that you pulled an all-nighter, and then walked from your hotel room to here, through all kinds of other people's germs. Not the smartest plan."
Bianca huffed out with some indignance, but didn't respond any further than that.
"If you'd like, you can stay here. Aside from our main patient, no one else really uses this infirmary, and we do have eight beds and four rooms."
Bianca's expression shifted. "Main patient?"
"Surely you've heard that Master Koga is sick, no?"
She had, actually. Her head must've been foggier than she'd thought for her to blank on such a thing.
"I… yes. Janine told me."
"Mm. He is…" The woman sighed. "Improving. Not as rapidly as any of us would like, but then, he is a fifty-five-year-old man. He is no longer as much of a spring-chicken as he once was, so such is not terribly surprising."
Bianca nodded slowly, not feeling well-versed enough on the situation to truly provide comment.
"Well, don't let such concern you terribly much." The doctor interrupted her own musings with a cough. "The young miss will likely be expecting you in her room, if you'd like to go and speak with her. If not, I'll inform her that you're not feeling well."
"Oh, no, I'm fine." Bianca shook her head. "Just somewhat tired."
"At the very least, I will expect you back here within a few hours. Sleep is the bodies simplest defense mechanism against illness. I will not have you eschew it."
She nodded her head. "Thank you, ma'am."
"Think nothing of it."
Bianca moved up towards Janine's room rather slowly. It wasn't a slight towards Janine at all, more that she wanted to gauge certain things beforehand. For one, her body was admittedly quite a bit heavier than it had felt when she'd left to visit Janine that morning, and her phone stated that it was roughly five in the afternoon, which meant she'd slept for around eight hours.
Which was probably good for her body, if nothing else.
She knocked on Janine's door, and was admitted a second or so later by the woman herself.
"Hey." She smiled over at her. "Sorry about the whole 'tricking you to fall asleep by taking you to the sauna' thing."
Bianca chuckled good-naturedly. "I probably needed the rest."
"You definitely did."
"But uh…" She wasn't really sure what to say. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she'd already really told Janine about how she was feeling regarding Hilda, and that she didn't have much else to say.
Then perhaps she could direct the conversation elsewhere.
"Can I ask you something?"
Janine's face morphed somewhat in confusion. "Uh, sure. What, exactly?"
"Well…" She pondered how best to say such a thing. "…Why don't you want to take over the clan from your father?"
Janine's eyes widened, but she got her expression back under control just a moment or so later. The question seemed to be a difficult one for her to answer, however, judging by the way she'd pursed her lips, and seemed to be deep in thought.
"You don't have to answer if–"
"No, I will." Janine cut her off. "Just give me a moment."
Bianca did.
Some fifteen or so seconds later, Janine sighed, took a breath, and then did just that.
"I don't want to take over as leader of this clan because, rather simply, it isn't what I want to do."
Bianca found herself almost stunned at how… simple of an explanation that was.
"Is… that it?"
Janine glared over at her, and Bianca rushed to correct herself. "Not to say that's not a good reason! I'm just… I thought you were going to say something long-winded, or… you just thought about it for a long time is all."
Janine sighed. "It's complicated. Really complicated. But suffice it to say that ever since I was around sixteen, I've spent every waking moment of my life in my father's shadow."
It was Bianca's turn to react to what the other had said, though she knew not what to do with the emotions that circled within her chest.
"Other people expected things from me not because of who I was, but because of who my father was. I was the child of Koga, next in my line. I was to inherit his position, eventually have an heir of my own, and follow that same tradition. I went with it for the longest time, without complaint, or thought to what I might be missing."
"But eventually… I don't remember the exact date. I've been the gym leader here in Fuchsia for a long time, ever since my father took over one of the vacant spots in Johto's Elite Four. It's been… man, probably fifteen years since then? Maybe longer? I don't even remember at this point. But one day I was sat there, in the center of the gym, waiting on challengers, and it just… it hit me."
"I looked around. I saw trainers that had been with the Fuchsia gym for their entire lives. I saw tricks and puzzles that had been there since long before my father became leader. I saw a building that had stood, and would stand, for so very long. And I realized I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Not in the slightest."
"That building said nothing about me. It did not reflect me, its leader, in the slightest of ways. And I wanted it to. I wanted to be able to look around, and see myself. Not my father. Not his father. But I was… I don't know. Afraid, perhaps? Scared to tell my family, whom had entrusted me with this clan's future, that I didn't want to be a part of it?"
Janine sighed, sitting down on the floor and leaning against the side of her bed.
"I guess I just don't know what the right thing to do is." Janine admitted after a while. "I want to be more than a reflection of my father. I want to be Janine. Not just Koga's daughter."
Bianca felt her heart stirring at those words, but wanted to focus more in that moment on comforting Janine.
"That seems reasonable. You should try talking to them about it."
"I've no doubt certain members of the clan would have no real issues with such." Janine admitted, running a hand down her face. "It's my father, and the other elders, that I'm worried about. They're all very… traditional in things like this. Betraying them wouldn't sit right by me."
"Why is doing what you want to do betraying them?"
Janine huffed out a breath. "It isn't. Doesn't stop me from feeling like it is, though."
Well, at least Janine was aware of that. Bianca didn't have to point it out to her.
"If you had it your way, what would you do?"
"What's my goal in all of this?"
"Basically."
"I guess…" Janine paused. "To be able to have something I created that I can feel genuinely proud of. To be able to look around me, and see the fruits of my labor. Not anyone else's. I understand, I really do, that the clan is all about working towards a common goal together, but… maybe I don't want to be a part of it."
"Then your only real option is to say that."
Janine scoffed. "Yeah, I know."
"Do you though?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you said you figured this out years ago, right? Yet you still haven't come out with how you feel to your family, have you?"
Janine didn't respond, instead looking away with an awkward expression.
"So… do you understand? Really?"
She huffed out a breath at Bianca's line of questioning, but didn't seem to have any retort to what she was saying.
"It's not going to get any easier. If anything…" Bianca took a moment, tried to gather what it was she wanted to say. Then she said it. "I know how you feel. What it was like to lie to myself for someone else's sake. I do."
Janine looked over at her with a raised eyebrow, evidently curious.
"It's… I thought it was for someone else, at least. For a while, I did. I thought I was sticking around with Professor Juniper for a time because it was what she would've wanted. I don't really know how I convinced myself of that, but… the more time passed, the more I began to realize that it wasn't anyone else that was holding me back. Not truly. It was myself."
"What?"
"I was afraid." Bianca admitted, looking down and letting out a sigh as she tried to explain her feelings from all that time ago. "I… I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to admit to myself that I was scared of what might happen if I genuinely put my heart and soul into something I cared about. I'd been burned before… rather severely. And it was… so much easier to pretend like someone else was at fault. That there was another reason why I wasn't moving forward. But the truth of the matter was that I was just scared."
Janine looked up at her with an uncertain face. "You… think I'm scared?"
"Maybe not." Bianca admitted. "Or maybe it's a more subtle thing for you than it was for me. I don't know. I'm not you. But I do know that what you're saying is… it's similar to a lot of the same things that I thought when I was working a job I no longer wanted to, in a town I felt chained to. Even if everyone there was friendly towards me. Even if it housed many friends whom I loved, and still love, to this day, including Professor Juniper, who I talk to all the time. I still… I still needed to accept that I wanted something more."
Janine looked down at her legs, at her feet, at the tatami mats she was sat upon.
"I…"
Bianca perhaps could've said something, but in truth, she wanted to hear what it was that Janine would say in response.
So, she waited. Let Janine think.
"…You're right." Janine eventually concluded. "I know you're right. I've known a variation of what you're trying to tell me to be true for the longest time, but I just… I can't seem to get through to myself. Can't manage to get up off the ground and actually do anything about it."
"For me," Bianca wasn't quite sure if Janine was done, so she waited until the woman nodded her way. "For me, I had outside help. My parents, and Professor Juniper most of all, funnily enough, helped me to realize that I'd been hiding from what I truly wanted for a long time. I guess… you don't really have that same luxury."
Janine laughed. "No. I guess I don't. In fact, most of the analogues for those people in my life would actively go against such a plan. I don't think I'm going to be able to convince them."
"And… are you satisfied with that?" She asked, genuinely meaning the question. "Are you okay with not living the life you want to, because those around you want you to live another? Is that really what you want?"
Janine opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. On her end, Bianca felt a sudden coughing fit coming on, and realized that she'd entirely gone against what the doctor had told her to do by giving an impassioned rant about her past, which had involved her… not quite shouting, but close to it.
"I'm sorry." She told Janine, covering her mouth as another round of coughing hit her. "I think I should probably head back to the infirmary and lay down. This just… hit me all of a sudden."
Janine hummed out in agreement, even as she stared off into the distance, thinking something that Bianca wasn't privy to.
"I'll see you later." Janine told her.
Bianca echoed the statement, made her way down towards the infirmary, and laid back down in the same bed that she'd been in before. The doctor lambasted her briefly for taking things too far, before sighing and shaking her head.
"You young people are always like this." She bemoaned.
And eventually, the hours passed, and the sun set. Bianca sat there, in bed, thinking about the day's events. About Cynthia, and how her journey was going. About Janine, and whether or not she'd be able to work out her issues.
About Hilda, and where it was her friend had gone…
And what it was that had taken her away from them all.
End Chapter 27
Still nothing to say really. Next chapter will be the final in the Janine Arc, and then we're off to somewhere else! Hope you guys like this story!
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