The third incident that would shape or to be more exact, change Reina's future in a completely different direction had been initiated six months ago.
Her elder sister, Tanya Gomez, just like Reina had chosen a field where her heart laid.
Ever since she was a child, Tanya was enamored and entranced by the magical worlds that a book could hold and desired to create one herself.
However, her desire did not end there.
Tanya Gomez wished to become a successful author, a household name in the literature industry.
After failing to achieve that 'successful' tag with her previous three books, she decided that it was time to research the market and follow trends.
Upon completion of her little research mission, she realized what the audience, consisting of young girls and even a small group of middle-aged women were attracted towards.
{Boys Love}
With the increase in the number of pop bands and idols coming up in the entertainment industries, these young girls and women were captivated by their bewitching faces.
It did not end there as watching a man flirting with another man was what drove them crazy.
Shipping boys together and forming all-male CPs (couples) was the wild trend these days.
Tanya felt her head spin while she read up on the information she found online.
The result of her mission was something that she had once chided her younger sister for being obsessed about.
She considered herself to be normal and had called her baby sister 'weird' for enjoying this genre.
However, Karma had come to bite her in the butt as Tanya now knew absolutely nothing about this genre.
She was someone who loved vanilla, boy meets girl, they fall in love and overcome the obstacles with the power of love.
These were her interests and her three failed novels also followed similar tropes.
If people did not wish to read vanilla like her then she would write something that her audience would love to read and even binge.
Thinking of her dream to become a well-known author, she decided to set aside her personal preferences and bring in some strong reinforcements.
She needed someone who could teach her what exactly a BL novel would contain and who better than her baby sister, a self-proclaimed Queen 'Fujoshi', the biggest fan of the BL genre.
This was how Tanya left her beach-front house and moved into Reina's penthouse apartment.
The sisters had cohabited while their parents were still alive but chose to find their dream homes after realizing that living in their ancestral house only reminded them of their parents' departure from their lives.
While Tanya chose the beach to be her haven and purchased a villa there, Reina decided to get a penthouse apartment in the city.
Though they began living separately, Tanya was aware of her baby sister's scandal from which she had been proven innocent yet the young lady refused to leave that very same apartment.
Upon her insistence, Reina agreed to attend therapy for her issues but only if the therapist did home visits.
Anything could be solved with money so the elder sister arranged for the best therapist in the city to pay Reina every week.
It had been one and a half years since that scandal had taken place and even with consistent therapy sessions each week, Reina refused to leave her apartment.
Since the doctor had said that she would leave when she was ready, Tanya stopped forcing her to step outside.
As she needed her sister's help, Tanya informed Reina of her arrival and also the reason for doing so.
Though reluctant at first, the younger sister acquiesced in the end.
The day Tanya moved in with her sister once again, the two spent the entire day watching childhood home movies their father often recorded to preserve memories of simpler times.
The next morning, Rozella, the maid, found the sisters sleeping on the couch while holding hands, something that they often did as children.
She secretly clicked a picture of the cute siblings and decided to get it framed and place it on the bedside table of the Old Master and Madam's bedroom in their ancestral mansion.
The sisters had no clue that their maid had added a new photo frame on their parent's bedside table but it remained there ever since.
As the first day consisted of fooling around and reminiscing memories of the fun they had together as children, the next day was the beginning of Tanya's boot camp.
Since Reina had already been informed about her sister's desire to learn everything there is to know about BL, she was well prepared.
"Better late than never." She had patted her sister's shoulder with pride and love brimming in her eyes.
Thus began Tanya Gomez's education in the field of BL under the tutelage of her little sister, Reina Gomez.
What followed next was intensive research, documentation of the information found online, impromptu quizzes, and even binge-watching shows, reading other books and comics with art that had graphic details drawn into it.
Tanya was blushing the entire time Reina drooled over the men on the screen.
She was even present to witness her baby sister's obsession with a certain animated character's V-tube channel.
The endless praise to a certain 'Meteor Sama' and his ethereal voice was what she had to bear with while her temporary BL guru taught her the ropes.
It took Tanya three weeks to finish the crash course that her sister had prepared for her with training modules and even pop quizzes with MCQs included.
At the end of the course, Tanya was ecstatic to have gained knowledge of something new that might help her with her next book.
However, she was also sad that she would have to leave her sister here and head back to her house as she needed absolute and complete serenity to accomplish her next task.
"Rest well, don't keep staring at that V-tuber all day and try to head out sometimes." Tanya both chided and pleaded with her to listen to her words.
The little sister did not answer but only smiled and waved as the elder walked out with her luggage.
___
'Following that was a long wait that lasted six months before I heard another word from her.' Reina pursed her lips as she laid on the soft bed, staring at the ceiling.
Tanya, her elder sister, had finally contacted her yesterday which happened to be six months after her disappearance.
Thinking of what she had faced yesterday, Reina shut her eyes and remained still.
__
Reina sat on pins and needles each day as she awaited any news from her sister who promised to create a masterpiece with the knowledge that she had gained from the crash course.
Finally, the day had arrived, and with it came a single text from her sister.
{Tonight - The usual site - sharp 9 PM}
Time and location which could only belong to the release event of the book she had written had been sent to Reina's mobile phone.
Excited as ever, she messaged her online friends with whom she was closer than anyone else in real life and gave them the same information, pressuring them to support her sister.
Having known Reina for numerous months now, these online friends in turn forwarded the information to others to cheer for their friend's family.
When the time came for the book's release event, Reina sat before the table and watched the screen of her laptop without blinking.
The moment the clock struck eight, the page refreshed and a brand new book was launched on the site that her sister wrote for.
She had only taught her sister about BL and knew nothing about how this information would be utilized in the book.
Neither did she know anything about the plot of the book.
Therefore, she was eager to find out more about what her sister had accomplished over the last half-year.
Her eyes which glowed with excitement as she began reading through the synopsis began dimming with each sentence she read.
Unwilling to believe what she had just gone through, she decided to give it another read.
Reading through the synopsis thirteen times gave her the same result as the first time.
To ensure that she had found the right page and the right book, Reina shifted to her phone and repeated the earlier steps only to reach the same result.
"Where the hell is the BL tag!?" She snarled at the screen as she threw her phone aside.
Her anger was equivalent to the betrayal she was feeling right at that moment.
The sister who had learned everything that she could about the art of BL had managed to break her heart in a single day.
Not only had she not used it as the theme of her story but also a single tag related to BL could not be found.
She had scoured the entire page to be sure that she had not missed it.
Therefore, she was certain that her efforts in teaching her sister about BL were a complete waste of her time and her energy.
The desire to help create the perfect BL novel had brought many sleepless nights to poor Reina as she taught her sister the only way of life, the BL way!
However, she had now realized that her kind deed was repaid with ingratitude as all she was left with were thrashed dreams and squashed hope.
Finding herself at a loss, Reina sought solace in the one thing that she could always trust.