Yanayla must die

And sure enough, there he was. Doogie was staring at the door at the moment she walked through it, and looked away with immediate, and deeply unconvincing, nonchalance as soon as he saw that it was she and that she was looking at him. Yes, he was there for her.

She sashayed spectacularly past the curved rows of consoles and headsets, attracting the eyes of all who weren't too absorbed by their games. She didn't stop until she was pressed right up against him, bumping him back against the wall, feeling the touch of his headset against her cheek and rubbing the six-pack that simply had to be genuine muscle because his family wasn't affluent enough to pay for falsies. He smiled at her cleavage, and then flicked his eyes up to meet hers. They burned with a heat that she genuinely hadn't been expecting; it was so unfashionable to look at a person as if they were of some significance. He pulled up his shirt and pointed to his bellybutton. Encircling it was a tattoo. She knelt to examine it and gasped. "Yanayla", it proclaimed, like a white planet with twisted black clouds. Her name. She looked up at his face, drinking in his expression. No ennui, only desire, maybe love. First love? Oh, she hoped, for she'd heard it was the best kind. But there was something wrong. They'd met for the first time only yesterday, and the tattoo was smooth and flat. Perhaps he'd drawn it on with ink? She licked it, drawing giggles and groans from the people around them. She was sure that if it were ink, she would be able to taste it. Her heart sagged to her hipsters. This tattoo wasn't for her. Some other Yanayla had got to him first.

Covering her disappointment with a great show of deep kisses, she didn't permit herself to think about it any longer until she got home. But when she did, she raged with jealousy. Which Yanayla could it have been? Nearly half the girls in her grade at school had been called Yanayla; double that if she counted the years above and below. Three of her cousins had the same name, for pity's sake.

Of course, it was all her mother's fault. And all those other girls and women who'd named their babies after Yanayla DeWince during the 21 month period that she had been such an adored celebrity. If it weren't for Yanayla DeWince's short lived but spectacular fame, she'd have a chance of finding out who got to Doogie's heart first.

She called her cousin, Yanayla, who worked as a security contractor in the science museum. Yes, Yanayla was fed up of half the world sharing her name too. Yes, of course she would help. Then she pulled out her hiptop and looked up everything she could find out about Yanayla DeWince. Her three annulled marriages in twelve months; her struggle to be noticed before fame struck; the disfiguring glandular ailment that took away fame and replaced it with undesirable notoriety; her earlier, homelier days in a gospel choir.

Armed with cold determination and a list of dates and locations, she set off to the science museum, arriving there just five minutes before it was due to close. Her cousin was waiting with an artefact from the weapons display and a glass of temporal barium. Together they figured out the settings on the antique time machine, and then Yanayla drank her drink, took the safety catch off her gun, and zapped back to a chapel 24 years earlier. There, it was an easy matter to pick out the pre-fame, pre-bleach, pre-skinshimmered, pre-eyelasered chorister Yanayla DeWince and shoot her in the head. The time machine pulled her back straight after, and the rest of the evening passed in a blur. Her cousin brought her back home, and she sank into her bed in a nauseous daze.

The next morning, she cracked her eyes open like oysters. Her room looked the same; the sounds from outside her door were the same. Except her mother was calling her down for breakfast and the name she was calling was Hiroko. Hiroko? Was that her name? It didn't sound right, but she had no idea what name might suit her better. She got up, and ate sullenly so as to avoid answering any questions about why she'd been in such a state when she got home last night. She hadn't forgotten though. She'd shot that girl whose name her mother had bestowed on her, so that she could find out whose tattoo it was that Doogie wore. It made perfect sense in retrospect that her own name would be different now.

As early as was decent, she dressed herself up and set out for the arena. Doogie was there, in his usual place. This time he didn't pretend not to be looking for her, he pushed himself off the far wall and met her halfway down the room, not taking his eyes off her even when he tripped on the steps. They smouldered into each other's eyes while trying to avoid messing up each other's hair or getting caught in each other's piercings. Hiroko slid her hand under his shirt and pulled it up for another look at the tattoo. There it lay, rippling smoothly on his lean muscular stomach, a perfect circle of twisted and distorted letters that spelt out "Hiroko".

She drew back and flipped open her mobile. Scanning the address book, she realised that half the girls listed in there had names that were variations and abbreviations of Hiroko.

Well there was nothing for it. Clearly she'd failed in her mission to kill her mother's teenage idol and get rid of all the duplicate names. She snarled sexily as she nibbled on Doogie's neck. She'd go back to the science museum later. Hiroko Inumashita must die.