FIC: On Razor's Edge - Chapter Three
Title: On Razor’s Edge - Chapter 3
Summary: Crystal Tokyo has arrived. So has Ando Tanaka.
A/N: Lots of help from the always brilliant charliechaplin2. Written for venusorbit1 as a response to her generous bid at help_japan. The previous chapter can be found here.
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.
~ verse in the Katha-Upanishad
There were few relationships in his life that Takeshi never really had to worry about. His relationship to Minako was of course not one of those. Neither was the one between him and his prince because that one was coined just as much by worry as it was by affection and devotion. No, if he thought about it, considered the matter from all angles, took all factors into account, then it boiled down to one person, and one person only, who never gave him cause for concern.
Over the years, Umino had proven himself to be a reliable, reasonable and kind man, one Takeshi valued above many others. His trust in Umino was absolute. Unfortunately, he could not say the same about Umino’s partner. He had always thought of Ami as just as level-headed as Umino, but clearly, he had been wrong. The escapade at the temple had proven that.
What confounded him was that he seemed to be the only one to see that. Minako had just brushed his worries aside, and shockingly, so had Mamoru, who seemed to be more concerned with Usagi’s new haircut and his day at the hospital.
Normally, he would talk it through with either Hiromasa or Umino, but the former had just returned to his children, and instinct told Takeshi that this matter might not be one that should be broached with Umino. It was not a good step, it was not logical.
But something had to be done, and someone had to understand, so once he and Minako returned from dropping off Usagi at the palace, he carefully shut and locked the door of his study, reached for his sleek, black mobile and dialled the familiar number of Setsuna Meioh.
***
At the other side of town, the evening was far from over.
Huddled around a campfire, Makoto, Ami, Ando and Rei were staring at the silver structure of the newly resurrected temple.
“Takeshi was mad,” Ami finally said, her soft voice hesitant and asking for a confirmation she didn’t really need. Takeshi’s anger had been palpable, crackling in the air like electricity.
Makoto reached over and patted Ami’s hand. “He was just worried, hun. You know how he is.”
Ando, who also knew how Takeshi was, wisely opted to remain silent on the matter. It wouldn’t do to discuss it here, he’d talk to Takeshi himself. It seemed that talking was all he ever did these days anyway.
Rei also didn’t pitch in her two cents, but her silence was one that did not seem to worry the other two girls. Of course Ando realised that they knew her longer and better than he did, that they were probably more than able to assess the situation correctly and take action accordingly. Were Rei in need of consoling, then surely, Makoto and Ami would take care of that. But as he watched the two women talk about Takeshi and Usagi and sandwiches and pulse rates, he wondered if maybe, he’d just seen something more than them.
His mind flashed back to the morning so many years ago, when he’d read his paper on the steps behind them, watched her sweep the grounds with grace and vengeance. The sun had been shining then, making the woods around them seem all the more lively. The temple wasn’t much, architecturally speaking, but Ando was not an architect. Over the years, he had seen many places of worship, and before it was turned to crystal, Rei’s temple was just as spiritual as any of those grand places he’d visited. But it was the heart that mattered in the end, and now, standing solid and silver in the moonlight, the warmth of the fire never really touching the smooth surface, the temple was empty. It was soulless, and Rei must have felt it too. There was no going back to the past, no forcing the hands of time. He wished Usagi and Ami would have realised that.
So he sidled up closer to Rei, pressing his outstretched legs against hers. She was wearing a dress and nylons, and he was wearing jeans, but even so, with two layers of fabric separating their skin, the contact sent his heartbeat into a mild frenzy. She didn’t lift her eyes to look at him, but she also didn’t pull away when he reached for her hand, holding it still and steady, unnoticed by anyone else. It was soft and cold and very thin and curled against his own, holding on tightly. Unlike Minako, Rei didn’t wear any nail polish. She also didn’t wear any jewellery. Ando noticed these kind of things. Ando noticed everything there was to notice when it came to Rei Hino because he had made it his business to.
So the evening turned to night, and he held her hand until all the wood turned to ashes.
***
Over the course of the next week, many things happened. Takeshi took to working even longer hours than usual, and also to driving Mamoru to and from work. Usagi and Ami poured over the most recent satellite pictures of Tokyo to choose the next building they wanted to fix. Nobody quite knew what Minako was doing, but that was the norm rather than the exception. Always busy with their children, dogs, and business, Makoto and Hiromasa did their own thing, but made a point of inviting Minako and Takeshi to come to their customary weekly dinner. Takeshi politely declined, but neglected to ask Minako about her opinion on the matter. This, naturally, was something Minako did not take kindly to.
So on Thursday at seven, clutching a bottle of wine and looking slightly unhinged, Minako appeared at Makoto’s and Hiromasa’s house, ringing the bell twice in short succession.
Hiromasa opened the door. Light streamed out behind him, and Minako wondered when it had started to get dark so early. Only seven o’clock and night was falling fast.
Hiromasa scratched his head. “Umm, hi?”
“Hi-I-know-Takeshi-said-we-wouldn’t-come-but-he-didn’t-ask-me-and-I-wanted-to-come-so-here -I-am-so-what’s-for-dinner?” She rattled if off without a single pause, going a million miles an hour and ignoring the existence of any and all punctuation marks.
Hiromasa blinked and leaned himself against the half-opened door, arms casually crossed. There was something pink and glittery in his beard and all over his red plaid shirt. He made a face. “Mako’s still at work and I already had dinner with Aiko an hour ago. I’m just getting her ready for bed.”
Minako faltered a bit. “Oh.”
Hiro looked at her, slim fingers gripping the wine bottle like a lifeline, and sighed. After having known her and Takeshi for such a long time, he knew how to spot the signs of trouble. And it was kind of hard not to feel sorry for her, standing her in a fancy blouse and heels and with that dusty wine bottle in hand. He wondered if Takeshi even knew that Minako had been in his wine cellar. She shuffled her feet, and he made a decision, one that he hoped his wife would be proud of. “But you know, I can make you a sandwich, and you can try to get my daughter into the bath tub.” He stepped aside to let her enter.
Smiling, Minako wasted no time to shove the wine bottle into his hands and hollered up the stairs. “All dirty little girls come to Auntie Miiiiiinaaaaaa!” From the top of the stairs, a child’s giggle could be heard and Hiromasa shook his head, grinning. Good thing Makoto had taken baby Yoshi to work with her, otherwise his wife’s exuberant friend would have surely woken the littlest one up again and he would have had to throttle Mina after all.
***
The problem with little Aiko Obuchi was not that she didn’t like baths, oh no, she liked baths all right, she loved baths. What she didn’t like was being told that she wasn’t allowed to empty the whole bottle of pink glitter shower gel into the tub.
Well, that explained Hiromasa’s unusal get-up, Minako thought dryly as she watched little Aiko play with her mermaid Barbie. There were plenty of other bath toys floating around on the warm water, but all were ignored in favour of Mermaid Barbie. Mermaid Barbie had one of those tails that changed colour in hot water, and was actually pretty cool.
“Hey Aiko, what colour is Barbie’s tail when you dip it in cold water?”
Pausing her game, Aiko gave Minako a look that would have done her father proud. “She’s called Amy, like Aunt Ami, and she doesn’t like cold water. Nobody likes cold water,” Aiko said as threateningly as a four year-old girl could. “Where’s Uncle Takeshi? Will he come read me a story?”
Uh-huh, Minako thought eloquently. While she loved Aiko, there was no doubt that in Aiko’s list of all time favourite grown ups, she was labouring somewhere far below her parents (which made sense), Takeshi (which made no sense at all), and of course, Ami. Because Ami had given Aiko a mermaid Barbie recently and Minako hadn’t, and sometimes things really were that simple, at least when you were under five.
“Takeshi has to work tonight, honey,” she said, knowing full well that whatever Takeshi was doing holed up in his study, it wasn’t work. He hadn’t touched a single of his sketches in weeks, but there were maps of the palace that he kept starting and throwing away. No, most likely he was brooding over the end of the world and moping at the dog that his fiancée didn’t understand him. To be fair, Takeshi didn’t really mope, he was too sophisticated for that. Now, what was the fancy word for moping? Ah yes, lament. He was probably lamenting his harsh fate, completely ignoring what she’d been trying to tell him all week: that things weren’t half as bad as he made them out to be.
“If Uncle Takeshi isn’t here, then I want Daddy to read my story. Not you.”
Oh heavens, rejected by a four year-old. Minako forced a bright smile on her face, not ready to admit defeat yet. If she couldn’t get Aiko to love her like she did her Uncle Takeshi, then she could at least get her clean. “Okay, Daddy will do the reading, but first we have to wash your hair.” Aiko nodded and pushed her little body under water, making a few loud and wet splashes with her little feet, kicking water against the wall. Some of it swapped over the rim of the tub and landed right on Minako’s bare feet. When the little girl resurfaced, pink glitter was dotting her face like a thousand freckles. Maybe that was why the bottle read shower gel and not bath foam, Minako realised belatedly.
The shampoo, which also came in a pink bottle, but luckily without glitter, was taken out of her hands before Minako had quite caught on, and instead of emptying the bottle over her brown curls, Aiko squirted a generous amount on Minako’s flower print silk blouse. The little devil giggled and Minako gaped at her. “That wasn’t very nice,” she finally stammered, and resolved to ask Takeshi (if a) she could swallow her pride and b) get him out of his study long enough) how he made Aiko listen to him.
When Aiko climbed out the tub and raced out the bathroom despite Mina’s protestations, her little body pink and glittery, cackling like a lunatic, Minako sighed, gripped the warmed towel from the heating rack and hurried after her.
That sandwich Hiro was making better include some fried bacon and a generous amount of cheese, or she would buy Aiko a crate of glitter shampoo for Christmas and another one for her birthday.
***
“Enough,” Umino said softly, and pried the maps and pictures out of his girlfriend’s hands. Ami yawned. “Is it night already?”
Putting everything in a big manila envelope, Umino shook his head. “It’s barely past seven. You dozed off ten minutes ago.”
“Oh,” Ami said, and pushed her chair back. She was sitting in the small study between their living room and their bedroom, where books and documents were threatening to spill over shelves and out of drawers for the simple reason that no amount of order could contain that much paper in any room smaller than a lecture hall.
“Don’t put it away, I want to show it to Usagi later on.”
Shaking his head, Umino handed the envelope back to Ami, who stored in a bag by her feet. He looked at his girlfriend, this brilliant and kind woman, who had no idea when enough was enough.
“Ami, go to bed. You had a night shift yesterday and only got back an hour ago.”
“But this is important.”
“So is your sleep.”
She wrinkled her little nose. “But-”
“No buts. Just listen to me. I’m going to wake you at six tomorrow morning and then you can get some work in before you go to the hospital.”
“You’re not awake at six,” she answered and reached out for him. Obediently, he took her hand and pulled her up. Never letting go, Ami just leaned against him, breathing in his scent, and soaking up his warmth. He smelled of home and books and sandalwood. “I could set an alarm,” Umino mumbled into her hair.
“I know, but I want to talk to Usa and Mamoru tonight, and then Mamoru can talk to Takeshi tomorrow. I want him to be okay with this.” Since the temple, her voice was smaller whenever she mentioned the architect and it made Umino both angry and sad at the same time.
Ami was not a woman who dealt well with fights and arguments among friends, and even less well with getting things wrong. By insinuating that she had risked Usagi’s well-being, Takeshi had done a lot more harm than he probably knew. Ami had worried ever since, checking on Usagi at least twice a day, going over her notes to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything, and even going so far as to beg Setsuna to tell her whether at some point in the future, ramifications of the crystal adaption process would cause the royal couple any problems medically speaking. Of course, Setsuna hadn’t told her a thing.
Umino had never quite figured out whether Setsuna even knew those kind of things, or whether her knowledge was rooted in her future self in a future time. He had even made charts, timelines, but it hadn’t really helped.
And of course, there was always the danger of the future changing just in the moment you talked about it. From a philosophical point of view, the topic was riveting and he would love to pick Setsuna’s brains on it. But as the boyfriend of a very overworked woman, Umino wasn’t so keen on an academic discussion and more interested in Setsuna easing Ami’s worry.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he whispered insistently, and yawning, Ami did.
***
The sandwich was good. Not as good as one of Makoto’s, but it was a good sandwich. One that she had earned. Cheese and ham and lettuce and tomatoes and something with a ton of garlic. Minako was taking a big bite just as Hiro descended the stairs, shrugging on an unglittery, fresh plaid shirt. It was green.
“Do you own even a single shirt without a plaid pattern?”
Hiro laughed. “Yeah, the one I wore at my wedding, and the one Makoto made me get for the christening.” He sat down on the couch next to her, stretching out his legs. “Where’s the dog?”
Minako craned her head in the direction of the plushy armchair. “Under there. Surprised he still fits.” “He’s not that fat,” Hiro said, but his amused tone betrayed him. “So, where’s Takeshi tonight?”
Minako put her sandwich back on the plate. Nothing could make her loose her appetite as quickly as thinking of her unhappy fiancé. “Working.”
He reached for the wine bottle that he’d put on the coffee table earlier. It was a French wine, and years of friendship with Takeshi had taught him that it was best served with venison. It had also taught him that this wasn’t the kind of wine you brought to a casual dinner among friends. It was more the kind of wine you saved up for an occasion.
“Working is the company line and I am not my daughter, Minako. I also don’t believe in Santa anymore.”
“But you like pink glitter nearly as much as she does. It looks good on both of you, must be hereditary.”
“Where’s Takeshi?” he repeated stubbornly and snapped his fingers at the floor. The armchair moved a bit, and Spock emerged from underneath. He trotted over to Hiro, who then bent down and picked him up. He really was getting more than a little chubby in age. Minako smiled. Takeshi would gently mock Hiro now, ask him if he could even still lift the dog properly. Minako bit on her bottom lip and waited for Spock to drape himself half on the couch and half over Hiro. When the dog was comfortable, she reached over and ruffled the soft fur behind his long ears. She wondered if Takeshi at least had Attila in the study with him. That would make things somewhat better.
Fighting the lump in her throat, she kept on petting the dog, the rhythmical movement soothing her. When she was sure her voice would be steady, she lifted her eyes to meet Hiro’s. “An hour ago, he was in his study, staring at the wall.”
Hiro leaned himself back against the couch, one arm thrown over the backrest, the other on his dog. “Shouldn’t you be in there with him then?”
“He doesn’t want me there because he thinks I’m not taking his worries seriously.” Saying it out loud made her feel like a complete and utter failure, even more so because Takeshi had literally taken to locking himself into his study. Every night, he would close the door behind him, and she could hear the key turn in the lock, shutting her out.
Hiro shrugged. He remembered Minako’s reaction to the volcano. She had been calm then, and calm even when the city began to turn against Usagi and Mamoru. At the temple? Calm. In the round room? Calm. “You don’t see it, you know?” She looked at him with wide, clueless eyes. Hiro shook his head. “He does, and I do, and Makoto does too, but you don’t. You really don’t.”
She stopped petting Spock, who made a whiny noise, but was for once ignored. “What is it that I don’t see?” There was something in her eyes that told him that she really didn’t get it. He wished Makoto was here to explain it to her. “Minako, everything is changing. Everything. And what you and Ando and Ami are after, that might make Crystal Tokyo better, but it’s gonna cost us.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Cost us how?”
Sometimes talking to Minako was like talking to a child. So like he would do for his daughter, he broke it down into parts. “What do you think will happen once people notice that we don’t age?”
“Nobody noticed so far.” Her answer came quickly and she looked cocky and content with herself.
“Yeah, but they will. It’s only a question of time. So, what do you think will happen? Seriously, think about it.”
And she did, for longer than he expected. At some point, she got up and made them some tea and returned with two mugs a while later. It was a bit rude, but he knew that Makoto always encouraged her friends to feel at home in their house, so Hiromasa wasn’t going to make Minako feel like guest by telling her to stay out of his kitchen.
“They’d know us to be different. They’d fear us.” Her answer was very matter-of-fact, but he could tell by the way that she clutched her mug that the thought didn’t sit well with her. He finished the thought for her.
“When people will finally realise, we will all have to move into the palace. And that’s it. No more normal jobs, no more normal homes, no more normal anything. And that’s the best case scenario. And Takeshi of course doesn’t think of that: he thinks of the worst, and you don’t.”
Instead of going into what the worst case scenario might be, Minako changed the topic, just a bit. She didn’t really care about scenarios of any kind, she cared about people and how they dealt with whatever was going on. “Ando and Ami want to make things better, not worse, you know that, right?”
He rolled his eyes. “Who knows what Ando wants. For all I know, he wants to get into Rei’s pants and that’s why he does what he does.”
Minako put her mug down. There was something icy in the way she looked at him then. “That was a nasty thing to say.”
Never having been a person to back down easily, Hiro put his own mug on the coffee table, next to a set of his daughter’s crayons and the wine bottle. “Does that make it any less true?”
“You don’t give him enough credit.”
“That’s not it. I just don’t know him very well. Most of us don’t.” While Minako had flown out to see Ando many times over the years, the same wasn’t true for the rest of them. Hiro had only seen Ando once in fourteen years, and that was when Ando had come over for Umino’s twenty-ninth birthday. How well could you know someone you saw so little of?
“But you do know Ami.”
That gave him pause. Ami was a sweet thing, always kind, and a good godmother to Aiko. No, he would never say a bad word about Ami Mizuno.
“She’s a good woman. Very clever. For the record, I don’t think Usagi was in danger when they pulled their little stunt at the temple. But I still think that we should hold back as much and as long as we can. Enjoy normalcy while we still can.”
“The world saw Usagi and Mamoru seal away the volcano. What kind of normalcy is there for them to be had?”
“Not for them, Minako, for us. If you ask me, you’d do well to support Takeshi in this.”
“I’d do well to-? Are you kidding me?” He tried to cut across her, but Minako was picking up steam. Her cheeks even turned a little red, and he wondered just how bad things between her and Takeshi were. “What am I supposed to support, him hiding away and worrying himself stupid or him snapping at Ami or him driving Mamoru to work every day because he thinks that the man who is quite well versed in killing youmas and fighting evil overlords will die at the hands of a normal person swinging a butter knife?”
“Look, Minako, I want my kids to be able to go to kindergarden and school when the time comes. Chances are, that’s not going to happen because all of us will be living in that big crystalline grave by then. Takeshi wants things too, perhaps kids, perhaps something else, but he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt or be miserable or give up the life they’ve come to love. Don’t make him out to be a bad guy; he’s not. He just cares.”
Missing his point completely, Minako narrowed her eyes. “Did he say something about wanting kids to you?”
Hiromasa groaned. “Look, do your thing, whatever, but give the man some credit. If he’s so worried, then you should take that seriously.”
“I am!”
“No, you’re not. You’re thinking about the future in that palace and it doesn’t scare you. It scares me. It scares Mako, and I know for a fact that it scares Takeshi.”
“But why? I don’t get it.”
“Seriously?” When she didn’t answer, but just kept looking at him so obviously clueless, he pushed Spock off and got up from the couch. “Minako, it’s late and I need to be at work at six tomorrow. If you want to wait up for Mako, that’s fine, but I’m going to bed.”
Not sparing her another glance, he grabbed the mugs, and she could hear him walk into the kitchen, open the dishwasher, put them in, and then close it again. After that, there was a moment of silence before she hear him walk up the stairs. Spock looked at her once, and then clumsily jumped off the couch and followed his owner.
Feeling angry and insecure at the same time, Minako too got up and grabbed her purse and jacket form the armchair. She didn’t know when the conversation had derailed, but she knew that the freight train had gone over the fucking cliffs in a matter of seconds.
By the time she slipped her shoes on and pulled the front door close behind her, she was no smarter, going over everything in her mind and still finding no answer. She could of course ask Takeshi once she got home, but instinct told her that he wouldn’t take too kindly to her discussing his concerns with a third party. And that was only if she could lure him out of his study. Talk about best case scenarios.
In the dark living room, the bottle of wine she’d brought still sat on the coffee table, untouched.
***
The day had been long. He’d left the house at five-thirty to drive Mamoru to work and made his way to his own office directly after. When he got back from work around six, he found Minako in their bathroom, curling her hair. She had greeted him with a kiss and a smile, and he felt a part of of him uncoil at her sight.
“Hey,” she said against his lips, and in response, he’d pulled her closer for a moment, until he remembered the curling iron in her hand. “Are you going out?”
Minako rolled her eyes and twirled some hair into the curler. “It’s Thursday. We are going out. Hiro’s and Mako’s in an hour, remember? I already fed and walked the dog.”
Takeshi closed his eyes. He’d simply forgotten to tell her. “I cancelled, Minako.”
She unrolled the curling iron and placed it in the sink. “Why?”
He didn’t answer and walked over into the bedroom instead, where he shed jacket, tie and shoes. “Takeshi, why?” She’d followed him out, and now reached for his hand, trying to pull him close. “Is it because of the temple? Still?”
He took a deep breath and ignored her question. “Mamoru and Usagi are fine, by the way. He had a good day at work, but he only works in the OR now. No more emergency room because there is no way to be on top of who is coming and going. When I dropped him off at the palace, Usagi was painting some walls.”
Perhaps she was feeling kind today, but whatever her reason, she didn’t try to bring up the temple again. Instead, she looked at him helplessly until she finally found something to say. “Can you paint over the crystal? Does the colour stick?”
Takeshi shook his head. “Oh,” Minako answered and sat down on the bed, half of her hair curled, the other still straight. After a while, he sat down beside her. “I really want to go to Mako’s,” she finally said, “you should have asked me before cancelling.”
“You didn’t ask me before telling Usagi that you are fine with her turning more ruins into crystal buildings.”
“How is that even related?”
He looked at her and reached out to stroke her cheek. Her skin was always so soft, so smooth. He would have loved to see her age, watch time add some laughter lines, but this would not happen, not ever. “It just is,” he eventually said, and descended downstairs again, straight into his study.
That had been five hours ago, and she still wasn’t back. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d gone to Makoto’s and Hiromasa’s, where she was probably just now finishing dinner and shrugging back into her jacket. She wore this cognac-coloured leather jacket these days, one she’d made him get her for her birthday last year. He liked the touch of it, liked to see it on her. Reaching down, his hand found Attila, who was dozing on the carpet beside Takeshi’s office chair. While he still had the little cherry wood desk Minako had gotten him years ago, he’d had to exchange the chair at some point. But the desk and Minako were the same as they had been sixteen years ago, unchanged by time.
Only when he looked at his dog or at his Hiromasa’s children did Takeshi find reminders of how quickly time was passing and of how treacherous the apparition of their faces in the mirrors truly was. They were racing towards an inevitable end: to once again becoming senshi and shitennou. It meant leaving their hard-earned and deeply cherished humanity behind, but Minako didn’t see that. She didn’t carry the same burdens, the same debts he did, and he was glad for that, of course he was.
Except in the moments when he wasn’t, when she was praising Ami and Usagi and their dangerous plan, when she was supporting Ando in his foolish quest for “better PR”, whatever that really meant, and when she looked at the future and wasn’t afraid, not one little bit. In those moments, a small part of him wished she could understand the kind of fear and regret that made him so wary of their future.
Nothing had ever made him feel so ashamed of himself.
So when Minako returned, the door to his study was still locked, and that night, he didn’t come to bed. Instead, she heard him pacing downstairs. At some point, the sound of his steps made her fall asleep.
She woke when the sun was rising again, and when he had already left.
***End of Chapter Three***
Next chapter here.
Summary: Crystal Tokyo has arrived. So has Ando Tanaka.
A/N: Lots of help from the always brilliant charliechaplin2. Written for venusorbit1 as a response to her generous bid at help_japan. The previous chapter can be found here.
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.
~ verse in the Katha-Upanishad
There were few relationships in his life that Takeshi never really had to worry about. His relationship to Minako was of course not one of those. Neither was the one between him and his prince because that one was coined just as much by worry as it was by affection and devotion. No, if he thought about it, considered the matter from all angles, took all factors into account, then it boiled down to one person, and one person only, who never gave him cause for concern.
Over the years, Umino had proven himself to be a reliable, reasonable and kind man, one Takeshi valued above many others. His trust in Umino was absolute. Unfortunately, he could not say the same about Umino’s partner. He had always thought of Ami as just as level-headed as Umino, but clearly, he had been wrong. The escapade at the temple had proven that.
What confounded him was that he seemed to be the only one to see that. Minako had just brushed his worries aside, and shockingly, so had Mamoru, who seemed to be more concerned with Usagi’s new haircut and his day at the hospital.
Normally, he would talk it through with either Hiromasa or Umino, but the former had just returned to his children, and instinct told Takeshi that this matter might not be one that should be broached with Umino. It was not a good step, it was not logical.
But something had to be done, and someone had to understand, so once he and Minako returned from dropping off Usagi at the palace, he carefully shut and locked the door of his study, reached for his sleek, black mobile and dialled the familiar number of Setsuna Meioh.
***
At the other side of town, the evening was far from over.
Huddled around a campfire, Makoto, Ami, Ando and Rei were staring at the silver structure of the newly resurrected temple.
“Takeshi was mad,” Ami finally said, her soft voice hesitant and asking for a confirmation she didn’t really need. Takeshi’s anger had been palpable, crackling in the air like electricity.
Makoto reached over and patted Ami’s hand. “He was just worried, hun. You know how he is.”
Ando, who also knew how Takeshi was, wisely opted to remain silent on the matter. It wouldn’t do to discuss it here, he’d talk to Takeshi himself. It seemed that talking was all he ever did these days anyway.
Rei also didn’t pitch in her two cents, but her silence was one that did not seem to worry the other two girls. Of course Ando realised that they knew her longer and better than he did, that they were probably more than able to assess the situation correctly and take action accordingly. Were Rei in need of consoling, then surely, Makoto and Ami would take care of that. But as he watched the two women talk about Takeshi and Usagi and sandwiches and pulse rates, he wondered if maybe, he’d just seen something more than them.
His mind flashed back to the morning so many years ago, when he’d read his paper on the steps behind them, watched her sweep the grounds with grace and vengeance. The sun had been shining then, making the woods around them seem all the more lively. The temple wasn’t much, architecturally speaking, but Ando was not an architect. Over the years, he had seen many places of worship, and before it was turned to crystal, Rei’s temple was just as spiritual as any of those grand places he’d visited. But it was the heart that mattered in the end, and now, standing solid and silver in the moonlight, the warmth of the fire never really touching the smooth surface, the temple was empty. It was soulless, and Rei must have felt it too. There was no going back to the past, no forcing the hands of time. He wished Usagi and Ami would have realised that.
So he sidled up closer to Rei, pressing his outstretched legs against hers. She was wearing a dress and nylons, and he was wearing jeans, but even so, with two layers of fabric separating their skin, the contact sent his heartbeat into a mild frenzy. She didn’t lift her eyes to look at him, but she also didn’t pull away when he reached for her hand, holding it still and steady, unnoticed by anyone else. It was soft and cold and very thin and curled against his own, holding on tightly. Unlike Minako, Rei didn’t wear any nail polish. She also didn’t wear any jewellery. Ando noticed these kind of things. Ando noticed everything there was to notice when it came to Rei Hino because he had made it his business to.
So the evening turned to night, and he held her hand until all the wood turned to ashes.
***
Over the course of the next week, many things happened. Takeshi took to working even longer hours than usual, and also to driving Mamoru to and from work. Usagi and Ami poured over the most recent satellite pictures of Tokyo to choose the next building they wanted to fix. Nobody quite knew what Minako was doing, but that was the norm rather than the exception. Always busy with their children, dogs, and business, Makoto and Hiromasa did their own thing, but made a point of inviting Minako and Takeshi to come to their customary weekly dinner. Takeshi politely declined, but neglected to ask Minako about her opinion on the matter. This, naturally, was something Minako did not take kindly to.
So on Thursday at seven, clutching a bottle of wine and looking slightly unhinged, Minako appeared at Makoto’s and Hiromasa’s house, ringing the bell twice in short succession.
Hiromasa opened the door. Light streamed out behind him, and Minako wondered when it had started to get dark so early. Only seven o’clock and night was falling fast.
Hiromasa scratched his head. “Umm, hi?”
“Hi-I-know-Takeshi-said-we-wouldn’t-come-but-he-didn’t-ask-me-and-I-wanted-to-come-so-here -I-am-so-what’s-for-dinner?” She rattled if off without a single pause, going a million miles an hour and ignoring the existence of any and all punctuation marks.
Hiromasa blinked and leaned himself against the half-opened door, arms casually crossed. There was something pink and glittery in his beard and all over his red plaid shirt. He made a face. “Mako’s still at work and I already had dinner with Aiko an hour ago. I’m just getting her ready for bed.”
Minako faltered a bit. “Oh.”
Hiro looked at her, slim fingers gripping the wine bottle like a lifeline, and sighed. After having known her and Takeshi for such a long time, he knew how to spot the signs of trouble. And it was kind of hard not to feel sorry for her, standing her in a fancy blouse and heels and with that dusty wine bottle in hand. He wondered if Takeshi even knew that Minako had been in his wine cellar. She shuffled her feet, and he made a decision, one that he hoped his wife would be proud of. “But you know, I can make you a sandwich, and you can try to get my daughter into the bath tub.” He stepped aside to let her enter.
Smiling, Minako wasted no time to shove the wine bottle into his hands and hollered up the stairs. “All dirty little girls come to Auntie Miiiiiinaaaaaa!” From the top of the stairs, a child’s giggle could be heard and Hiromasa shook his head, grinning. Good thing Makoto had taken baby Yoshi to work with her, otherwise his wife’s exuberant friend would have surely woken the littlest one up again and he would have had to throttle Mina after all.
***
The problem with little Aiko Obuchi was not that she didn’t like baths, oh no, she liked baths all right, she loved baths. What she didn’t like was being told that she wasn’t allowed to empty the whole bottle of pink glitter shower gel into the tub.
Well, that explained Hiromasa’s unusal get-up, Minako thought dryly as she watched little Aiko play with her mermaid Barbie. There were plenty of other bath toys floating around on the warm water, but all were ignored in favour of Mermaid Barbie. Mermaid Barbie had one of those tails that changed colour in hot water, and was actually pretty cool.
“Hey Aiko, what colour is Barbie’s tail when you dip it in cold water?”
Pausing her game, Aiko gave Minako a look that would have done her father proud. “She’s called Amy, like Aunt Ami, and she doesn’t like cold water. Nobody likes cold water,” Aiko said as threateningly as a four year-old girl could. “Where’s Uncle Takeshi? Will he come read me a story?”
Uh-huh, Minako thought eloquently. While she loved Aiko, there was no doubt that in Aiko’s list of all time favourite grown ups, she was labouring somewhere far below her parents (which made sense), Takeshi (which made no sense at all), and of course, Ami. Because Ami had given Aiko a mermaid Barbie recently and Minako hadn’t, and sometimes things really were that simple, at least when you were under five.
“Takeshi has to work tonight, honey,” she said, knowing full well that whatever Takeshi was doing holed up in his study, it wasn’t work. He hadn’t touched a single of his sketches in weeks, but there were maps of the palace that he kept starting and throwing away. No, most likely he was brooding over the end of the world and moping at the dog that his fiancée didn’t understand him. To be fair, Takeshi didn’t really mope, he was too sophisticated for that. Now, what was the fancy word for moping? Ah yes, lament. He was probably lamenting his harsh fate, completely ignoring what she’d been trying to tell him all week: that things weren’t half as bad as he made them out to be.
“If Uncle Takeshi isn’t here, then I want Daddy to read my story. Not you.”
Oh heavens, rejected by a four year-old. Minako forced a bright smile on her face, not ready to admit defeat yet. If she couldn’t get Aiko to love her like she did her Uncle Takeshi, then she could at least get her clean. “Okay, Daddy will do the reading, but first we have to wash your hair.” Aiko nodded and pushed her little body under water, making a few loud and wet splashes with her little feet, kicking water against the wall. Some of it swapped over the rim of the tub and landed right on Minako’s bare feet. When the little girl resurfaced, pink glitter was dotting her face like a thousand freckles. Maybe that was why the bottle read shower gel and not bath foam, Minako realised belatedly.
The shampoo, which also came in a pink bottle, but luckily without glitter, was taken out of her hands before Minako had quite caught on, and instead of emptying the bottle over her brown curls, Aiko squirted a generous amount on Minako’s flower print silk blouse. The little devil giggled and Minako gaped at her. “That wasn’t very nice,” she finally stammered, and resolved to ask Takeshi (if a) she could swallow her pride and b) get him out of his study long enough) how he made Aiko listen to him.
When Aiko climbed out the tub and raced out the bathroom despite Mina’s protestations, her little body pink and glittery, cackling like a lunatic, Minako sighed, gripped the warmed towel from the heating rack and hurried after her.
That sandwich Hiro was making better include some fried bacon and a generous amount of cheese, or she would buy Aiko a crate of glitter shampoo for Christmas and another one for her birthday.
***
“Enough,” Umino said softly, and pried the maps and pictures out of his girlfriend’s hands. Ami yawned. “Is it night already?”
Putting everything in a big manila envelope, Umino shook his head. “It’s barely past seven. You dozed off ten minutes ago.”
“Oh,” Ami said, and pushed her chair back. She was sitting in the small study between their living room and their bedroom, where books and documents were threatening to spill over shelves and out of drawers for the simple reason that no amount of order could contain that much paper in any room smaller than a lecture hall.
“Don’t put it away, I want to show it to Usagi later on.”
Shaking his head, Umino handed the envelope back to Ami, who stored in a bag by her feet. He looked at his girlfriend, this brilliant and kind woman, who had no idea when enough was enough.
“Ami, go to bed. You had a night shift yesterday and only got back an hour ago.”
“But this is important.”
“So is your sleep.”
She wrinkled her little nose. “But-”
“No buts. Just listen to me. I’m going to wake you at six tomorrow morning and then you can get some work in before you go to the hospital.”
“You’re not awake at six,” she answered and reached out for him. Obediently, he took her hand and pulled her up. Never letting go, Ami just leaned against him, breathing in his scent, and soaking up his warmth. He smelled of home and books and sandalwood. “I could set an alarm,” Umino mumbled into her hair.
“I know, but I want to talk to Usa and Mamoru tonight, and then Mamoru can talk to Takeshi tomorrow. I want him to be okay with this.” Since the temple, her voice was smaller whenever she mentioned the architect and it made Umino both angry and sad at the same time.
Ami was not a woman who dealt well with fights and arguments among friends, and even less well with getting things wrong. By insinuating that she had risked Usagi’s well-being, Takeshi had done a lot more harm than he probably knew. Ami had worried ever since, checking on Usagi at least twice a day, going over her notes to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything, and even going so far as to beg Setsuna to tell her whether at some point in the future, ramifications of the crystal adaption process would cause the royal couple any problems medically speaking. Of course, Setsuna hadn’t told her a thing.
Umino had never quite figured out whether Setsuna even knew those kind of things, or whether her knowledge was rooted in her future self in a future time. He had even made charts, timelines, but it hadn’t really helped.
And of course, there was always the danger of the future changing just in the moment you talked about it. From a philosophical point of view, the topic was riveting and he would love to pick Setsuna’s brains on it. But as the boyfriend of a very overworked woman, Umino wasn’t so keen on an academic discussion and more interested in Setsuna easing Ami’s worry.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he whispered insistently, and yawning, Ami did.
***
The sandwich was good. Not as good as one of Makoto’s, but it was a good sandwich. One that she had earned. Cheese and ham and lettuce and tomatoes and something with a ton of garlic. Minako was taking a big bite just as Hiro descended the stairs, shrugging on an unglittery, fresh plaid shirt. It was green.
“Do you own even a single shirt without a plaid pattern?”
Hiro laughed. “Yeah, the one I wore at my wedding, and the one Makoto made me get for the christening.” He sat down on the couch next to her, stretching out his legs. “Where’s the dog?”
Minako craned her head in the direction of the plushy armchair. “Under there. Surprised he still fits.” “He’s not that fat,” Hiro said, but his amused tone betrayed him. “So, where’s Takeshi tonight?”
Minako put her sandwich back on the plate. Nothing could make her loose her appetite as quickly as thinking of her unhappy fiancé. “Working.”
He reached for the wine bottle that he’d put on the coffee table earlier. It was a French wine, and years of friendship with Takeshi had taught him that it was best served with venison. It had also taught him that this wasn’t the kind of wine you brought to a casual dinner among friends. It was more the kind of wine you saved up for an occasion.
“Working is the company line and I am not my daughter, Minako. I also don’t believe in Santa anymore.”
“But you like pink glitter nearly as much as she does. It looks good on both of you, must be hereditary.”
“Where’s Takeshi?” he repeated stubbornly and snapped his fingers at the floor. The armchair moved a bit, and Spock emerged from underneath. He trotted over to Hiro, who then bent down and picked him up. He really was getting more than a little chubby in age. Minako smiled. Takeshi would gently mock Hiro now, ask him if he could even still lift the dog properly. Minako bit on her bottom lip and waited for Spock to drape himself half on the couch and half over Hiro. When the dog was comfortable, she reached over and ruffled the soft fur behind his long ears. She wondered if Takeshi at least had Attila in the study with him. That would make things somewhat better.
Fighting the lump in her throat, she kept on petting the dog, the rhythmical movement soothing her. When she was sure her voice would be steady, she lifted her eyes to meet Hiro’s. “An hour ago, he was in his study, staring at the wall.”
Hiro leaned himself back against the couch, one arm thrown over the backrest, the other on his dog. “Shouldn’t you be in there with him then?”
“He doesn’t want me there because he thinks I’m not taking his worries seriously.” Saying it out loud made her feel like a complete and utter failure, even more so because Takeshi had literally taken to locking himself into his study. Every night, he would close the door behind him, and she could hear the key turn in the lock, shutting her out.
Hiro shrugged. He remembered Minako’s reaction to the volcano. She had been calm then, and calm even when the city began to turn against Usagi and Mamoru. At the temple? Calm. In the round room? Calm. “You don’t see it, you know?” She looked at him with wide, clueless eyes. Hiro shook his head. “He does, and I do, and Makoto does too, but you don’t. You really don’t.”
She stopped petting Spock, who made a whiny noise, but was for once ignored. “What is it that I don’t see?” There was something in her eyes that told him that she really didn’t get it. He wished Makoto was here to explain it to her. “Minako, everything is changing. Everything. And what you and Ando and Ami are after, that might make Crystal Tokyo better, but it’s gonna cost us.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Cost us how?”
Sometimes talking to Minako was like talking to a child. So like he would do for his daughter, he broke it down into parts. “What do you think will happen once people notice that we don’t age?”
“Nobody noticed so far.” Her answer came quickly and she looked cocky and content with herself.
“Yeah, but they will. It’s only a question of time. So, what do you think will happen? Seriously, think about it.”
And she did, for longer than he expected. At some point, she got up and made them some tea and returned with two mugs a while later. It was a bit rude, but he knew that Makoto always encouraged her friends to feel at home in their house, so Hiromasa wasn’t going to make Minako feel like guest by telling her to stay out of his kitchen.
“They’d know us to be different. They’d fear us.” Her answer was very matter-of-fact, but he could tell by the way that she clutched her mug that the thought didn’t sit well with her. He finished the thought for her.
“When people will finally realise, we will all have to move into the palace. And that’s it. No more normal jobs, no more normal homes, no more normal anything. And that’s the best case scenario. And Takeshi of course doesn’t think of that: he thinks of the worst, and you don’t.”
Instead of going into what the worst case scenario might be, Minako changed the topic, just a bit. She didn’t really care about scenarios of any kind, she cared about people and how they dealt with whatever was going on. “Ando and Ami want to make things better, not worse, you know that, right?”
He rolled his eyes. “Who knows what Ando wants. For all I know, he wants to get into Rei’s pants and that’s why he does what he does.”
Minako put her mug down. There was something icy in the way she looked at him then. “That was a nasty thing to say.”
Never having been a person to back down easily, Hiro put his own mug on the coffee table, next to a set of his daughter’s crayons and the wine bottle. “Does that make it any less true?”
“You don’t give him enough credit.”
“That’s not it. I just don’t know him very well. Most of us don’t.” While Minako had flown out to see Ando many times over the years, the same wasn’t true for the rest of them. Hiro had only seen Ando once in fourteen years, and that was when Ando had come over for Umino’s twenty-ninth birthday. How well could you know someone you saw so little of?
“But you do know Ami.”
That gave him pause. Ami was a sweet thing, always kind, and a good godmother to Aiko. No, he would never say a bad word about Ami Mizuno.
“She’s a good woman. Very clever. For the record, I don’t think Usagi was in danger when they pulled their little stunt at the temple. But I still think that we should hold back as much and as long as we can. Enjoy normalcy while we still can.”
“The world saw Usagi and Mamoru seal away the volcano. What kind of normalcy is there for them to be had?”
“Not for them, Minako, for us. If you ask me, you’d do well to support Takeshi in this.”
“I’d do well to-? Are you kidding me?” He tried to cut across her, but Minako was picking up steam. Her cheeks even turned a little red, and he wondered just how bad things between her and Takeshi were. “What am I supposed to support, him hiding away and worrying himself stupid or him snapping at Ami or him driving Mamoru to work every day because he thinks that the man who is quite well versed in killing youmas and fighting evil overlords will die at the hands of a normal person swinging a butter knife?”
“Look, Minako, I want my kids to be able to go to kindergarden and school when the time comes. Chances are, that’s not going to happen because all of us will be living in that big crystalline grave by then. Takeshi wants things too, perhaps kids, perhaps something else, but he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt or be miserable or give up the life they’ve come to love. Don’t make him out to be a bad guy; he’s not. He just cares.”
Missing his point completely, Minako narrowed her eyes. “Did he say something about wanting kids to you?”
Hiromasa groaned. “Look, do your thing, whatever, but give the man some credit. If he’s so worried, then you should take that seriously.”
“I am!”
“No, you’re not. You’re thinking about the future in that palace and it doesn’t scare you. It scares me. It scares Mako, and I know for a fact that it scares Takeshi.”
“But why? I don’t get it.”
“Seriously?” When she didn’t answer, but just kept looking at him so obviously clueless, he pushed Spock off and got up from the couch. “Minako, it’s late and I need to be at work at six tomorrow. If you want to wait up for Mako, that’s fine, but I’m going to bed.”
Not sparing her another glance, he grabbed the mugs, and she could hear him walk into the kitchen, open the dishwasher, put them in, and then close it again. After that, there was a moment of silence before she hear him walk up the stairs. Spock looked at her once, and then clumsily jumped off the couch and followed his owner.
Feeling angry and insecure at the same time, Minako too got up and grabbed her purse and jacket form the armchair. She didn’t know when the conversation had derailed, but she knew that the freight train had gone over the fucking cliffs in a matter of seconds.
By the time she slipped her shoes on and pulled the front door close behind her, she was no smarter, going over everything in her mind and still finding no answer. She could of course ask Takeshi once she got home, but instinct told her that he wouldn’t take too kindly to her discussing his concerns with a third party. And that was only if she could lure him out of his study. Talk about best case scenarios.
In the dark living room, the bottle of wine she’d brought still sat on the coffee table, untouched.
***
The day had been long. He’d left the house at five-thirty to drive Mamoru to work and made his way to his own office directly after. When he got back from work around six, he found Minako in their bathroom, curling her hair. She had greeted him with a kiss and a smile, and he felt a part of of him uncoil at her sight.
“Hey,” she said against his lips, and in response, he’d pulled her closer for a moment, until he remembered the curling iron in her hand. “Are you going out?”
Minako rolled her eyes and twirled some hair into the curler. “It’s Thursday. We are going out. Hiro’s and Mako’s in an hour, remember? I already fed and walked the dog.”
Takeshi closed his eyes. He’d simply forgotten to tell her. “I cancelled, Minako.”
She unrolled the curling iron and placed it in the sink. “Why?”
He didn’t answer and walked over into the bedroom instead, where he shed jacket, tie and shoes. “Takeshi, why?” She’d followed him out, and now reached for his hand, trying to pull him close. “Is it because of the temple? Still?”
He took a deep breath and ignored her question. “Mamoru and Usagi are fine, by the way. He had a good day at work, but he only works in the OR now. No more emergency room because there is no way to be on top of who is coming and going. When I dropped him off at the palace, Usagi was painting some walls.”
Perhaps she was feeling kind today, but whatever her reason, she didn’t try to bring up the temple again. Instead, she looked at him helplessly until she finally found something to say. “Can you paint over the crystal? Does the colour stick?”
Takeshi shook his head. “Oh,” Minako answered and sat down on the bed, half of her hair curled, the other still straight. After a while, he sat down beside her. “I really want to go to Mako’s,” she finally said, “you should have asked me before cancelling.”
“You didn’t ask me before telling Usagi that you are fine with her turning more ruins into crystal buildings.”
“How is that even related?”
He looked at her and reached out to stroke her cheek. Her skin was always so soft, so smooth. He would have loved to see her age, watch time add some laughter lines, but this would not happen, not ever. “It just is,” he eventually said, and descended downstairs again, straight into his study.
That had been five hours ago, and she still wasn’t back. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d gone to Makoto’s and Hiromasa’s, where she was probably just now finishing dinner and shrugging back into her jacket. She wore this cognac-coloured leather jacket these days, one she’d made him get her for her birthday last year. He liked the touch of it, liked to see it on her. Reaching down, his hand found Attila, who was dozing on the carpet beside Takeshi’s office chair. While he still had the little cherry wood desk Minako had gotten him years ago, he’d had to exchange the chair at some point. But the desk and Minako were the same as they had been sixteen years ago, unchanged by time.
Only when he looked at his dog or at his Hiromasa’s children did Takeshi find reminders of how quickly time was passing and of how treacherous the apparition of their faces in the mirrors truly was. They were racing towards an inevitable end: to once again becoming senshi and shitennou. It meant leaving their hard-earned and deeply cherished humanity behind, but Minako didn’t see that. She didn’t carry the same burdens, the same debts he did, and he was glad for that, of course he was.
Except in the moments when he wasn’t, when she was praising Ami and Usagi and their dangerous plan, when she was supporting Ando in his foolish quest for “better PR”, whatever that really meant, and when she looked at the future and wasn’t afraid, not one little bit. In those moments, a small part of him wished she could understand the kind of fear and regret that made him so wary of their future.
Nothing had ever made him feel so ashamed of himself.
So when Minako returned, the door to his study was still locked, and that night, he didn’t come to bed. Instead, she heard him pacing downstairs. At some point, the sound of his steps made her fall asleep.
She woke when the sun was rising again, and when he had already left.
***End of Chapter Three***
Next chapter here.