Fic: On Razor's Edge - Chapter Nine
Title: On Razor’s Edge - Chapter 9
Summary: Crystal Tokyo has arrived. So has Ando Tanaka.
Warnings: Oh, lots and lots of swearing. But other than that, tame.
A/N: I am MASSIVELY indebted to charliechaplin2, who always asks the best questions and points out that if you buy something in Japan, you are probably not going to pay for it in € and also (I really should know this) that jam comes in jars, not glasses. Charlie, without you, this fic would read: “And then they all sat around somewhere and everyone was sad but I don’t know why and then someone spent a lot of € in Japan. The End.” I am inclined to believe that this is a wee bit better.
The previous chapter is 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
Christmas, a time for joy, a time for love.
Minako sat on her bed, steadfastly ignoring Usagi’s chatter about how to best get a big tree into the palace, and instead focused on applying the red nail polish to her toenails. Now that the holiday was just around the corner, she didn’t feel like celebrating. She didn’t feel like celebrating at all.
It had been one month since she’d seen Takeshi. He had left the café after she did and had not been seen since. She knew he occasionally called Hiro; for some reason the furniture designer had become his chosen go-between. But not even Mamoru knew where he was staying and with each passing day, each falling snowflake, Minako felt more and more certain that their relationship was at an end. Takeshi hadn’t kept his promise of sneaking into the palace to see her; there were no footprints in the snowy blanket that covered the greenery around the palace. The only people who came to her tower room were the friends who also lived under the crystalline roof. With only one more week to Christmas and no Takeshi in sight, she would have to tell her parents that she’d come to Christmas dinner alone for the first time in over a decade. And what fun that would be.
“We can make popcorn chains and string them around the tree,” Usagi continued blithely, “and perhaps we can cut snowflakes out of some simple white paper. I’ll ask Mako, she’ll know how to make homemade ornaments.”
Examining her toes, and finding she was satisfied with her work, Minako looked up. “I think Rei is right. We aren’t Christians, there’s no point celebrating Christmas.”
Usagi’s face fell. “But I like Christmas...”
“Don’t let the Grinch ruin it for you, sweetheart,” Ando announced from the doorway. There was snow on his newsboy hat and on his thick coat, but with the heat from the volcano running through the walls, it was melting fast. He tossed a magazine at Minako, aiming for her head. She caught it with ease and began to flip through it.
“What’s this?”
“I called in a few favours, placed a nice little article about how Usagi is adorable.”
The queen giggled. “I am, aren’t I?”
Ando ruffled her hair. “And don’t you know it.”
Beaming, Usagi got up. “I’ll go tell Mamo you said that. Then he will go out of his way to say something even nicer to me. Win win!”
And she was off, the sound of her bare feet titter-tattering on the floor.
Ando remained leaning against the door, watching Usagi leave, a fond smile on his face. “You know, I think being mean to Usagi is a capital offence. And if it isn’t yet, then we should make it one.”
“I wasn’t mean, I just don’t want to celebrate Christmas,” Minako muttered and put the magazine on the nightstand. There was a whole stack of files and magazines lying there. She had made her bedroom her office, determined to do something useful with her time when she only slept so little anyway. Nighttime was always the worst.
“Says the woman who made us all write letters to Santa before Halloween.”
Not meeting his eyes, she picked up the bottle of nail polish and placed it gingerly on the floor. “Things were different then.”
“Cry me a Mississippi river, Mi. You don’t get to ruin Christmas for Usagi and me just because Takeshi is a dick,” Ando announced, moving into the room more fully.
Minako swallowed. “Have you heard from him?” She hated how needy she sounded; it was why she barely ever enquired after him.
“Because I’d be the first person he’d seek out? No. Not a word. He won’t even take Umino’s calls.”
“He called him?” She hadn’t known that.
“He wanted to tell him about the wedding. Ostensibly. Personally, I think Umino wanted to check whether he’d find Takeshi or Kunzite at the other end of the line, but he doesn’t say so.”
“Oh, you think so?” Mina tilted her head to the side, giving Ando a shrewd look.
“Fine, I read his mind, but I’m allowed.”
“Are you reading mine right now?”
Ando sighed dramatically and let himself fall backwards onto the bed. “You are thinking ‘bunny bunny bunny bunny sheep chocolate sad Christmas sad sad Ando is a dick.’ You never minded before.”
“I still don’t. I just wanted to know. It’s so weird that I can never tell when you’re doing it.”
“Would you rather have your skin crawl every time it happens? Because I can’t control it when I’m in the palace, so your skin’d be crawling all day, every day.”
“What about Rei?”
“What about her?”
“You said you never read her mind. How?”
“Because unlike you and Umino, she would mind and I love her,” he replied simply. In reality, it wasn’t quite as simple. He’d had to leave her presence on more than one occasion to keep his promise, had to shield his mind like crazy on others which also meant that any spoken conversation came to a grinding and absolute halt, but that was a small price to pay to honour his word.
Minako blinked. Even though everyone knew Ando loved Rei and Rei loved Ando, it was oddly touching to hear him say it out loud. “Oh Ando...” she whispered, and smiled a little.
“Shut up, you. Don’t get mushy on me.”
The two friends looked at each other, until finally, a blushing Ando pushed himself off the bed again. “Come on, we have work to do.”
***
The next week passed in a hurry. Ami and Umino left for Kyoto, Mrs. Mizuno in tow. The newlyweds were going to celebrate their wedding with Umino’s family, Ami’s mother and lots of homemade food. Umino had asked Ando whether he wanted to come along, and while there were only few things that Ando liked better than letting Umino’s grandmother feed him the best Japanese cuisine had to offer while watching his friend show off his lovely new wife with that adorkable smile of his, Minako’s situation had made him decline.
So he stayed in the palace, working away at press releases, accompanying Usagi to five television appearances in three days and helping her conduct phone interviews for the rest. In the meantime, Minako had begun to set up the Chiba Children’s Charity. While the public, who knew nothing about the royal couple’s real financial situation, were to believe that the money came directly from Usagi and Mamoru, it really came from Minako. Sailor V corp, still running smoothly and making a huge profit in merchandise, was funding this particular publicity endeavour.
Each night, the two friends met in Minako’s bedroom, going over the day’s victories and failures. Minako didn’t mention Takesh anymorei, and Ando was glad that she didn’t ask about Mamoru. While Usagi, who had been so upset over his fight with Takeshi and Mamoru, had forgiven him in an instant, Mamoru did not. It was glaringly obvious that Mamoru was mourning the loss of Takeshi and that it was Ando he blamed for it. Hiro wasn’t much better, but at least he came in and spent some time in the palace now and then, something he had refused to do for the last three months.
Even now, at nine in the evening, Hiro was hammering away in Mamoru’s and Usagi’s living room, setting up the shelves he had promised his prince. The honey coloured wood (a concession to Usagi, who had wanted them in white or pink, while Mamoru preferred something dark) would cover the crystal walls, make the palace more homely. Standing useless by his side, holding a box of nails, Mamoru watched Hiro work.
“I just don’t understand why he won’t take my calls,” Mamoru insisted, two spots of red rising in his cheeks.
“Because if you tell him to come home,” Hiro replied and reached for another nail, “he won’t be able to say no.”
“Well, good,” Mamoru said, “because he is not supposed to be alone just because of one moment in which he lost control. It happens to all of us. Usagi told me that Rei once set a table on fire, Ami accidentally flooded her mother’s office, and half the thunderstorms over Tokyo are caused by your wife. It’s not a problem.”
Hiro groaned and wiped some sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. They had had this conversation too many times already. “He doesn’t want to risk anyone’s safety. He will come back once he is certain he has himself under control, Mamoru, you have to give him the time he needs. And my wife does not cause thunderstorms over Tokyo.”
Mamoru smiled. “Perhaps not these days.”
“And Minako’s powers never took an accidental detour?” Hiro asked, bringing his hammer down over and over again until the silver nail had disappeared in the wood. Mamoru waited until he had finished before answering. “Not that I know of.”
“Huh,” Hiro said, sounding impressed. Minako was a tricky one. Whenever he saw her, she seemed perfectly okay. You wouldn’t think she and her partner of a decade had just hit such a rough patch. When he and Makoto had gone through their difficult phase, Hiro had felt and looked like shit, barely holding it together. “How’s she doing?” he asked, surprised to find that he really cared.
Mamoru frowned. “I don’t know. Ask Ando.”
Hiro snorted, his goodwill ebbing away. He couldn’t help but feel that if Minako would spend half the time she spent with Ando on helping Takeshi come to terms with his powers, they’d all be in a much better place. But of course, even Hiro had to admit that he was being a bit unfair: Takeshi didn’t want Minako’s help, he didn’t want anyone’s help. Because accepting help also meant a safety risk for anyone who came near him.
“Umino asked him to go to Kyoto with him and Ami,” Mamoru continued, an unwelcome thought rising to the surface: Takeshi probably wouldn’t like it if Minako stayed holed up in the palace with Ando of all people. It would have been much better if Ando had gone to Kyoto, but then of course there was the media work and Ando and Minako were quite busy parading Usagi around like a show dog. Mamoru was not blind to Ando’s qualities, and perhaps Minako’s too. One glance at the papers told him that their plans were working out quite well so far. Palatial resident Usagi Chiba volunteers at crystal damaged pet shelter, the headline of a small article on the frontpage read, accompanied by a picture of Usagi petting a rather fat cat with a happy expression. Mamoru himself was quite partial to pets, but of course, neither Minako nor Ando would dream of sending him to a pet shelter to smile for the cameras.
“Aiko loves him,” Hiro said, half disgruntled, half impressed. His little girl was hard to win over, but Ando had managed to do so within a few weeks of his return.
“Because he gave her a dog?” Even Mamoru had to smile then. It was typical of Ando; no-one else would possess the audacity to just shove a dog into a little girl’s arms without prior discussion with the parents.
Hiro grinned and straightened his back. “Yes. But just wait, Mako and I are giving her a pony for Christmas and since ponies are the closest thing to unicorns we can get round here, Ando should consider himself beaten.”
That gave Mamoru pause.
“What?” Hiro asked. “Pony beats dog. Come on.”
“No. I mean yes.” Mamoru nodded. He knew where Takeshi was. There was only one place he could go. And that place, weirdly enough, was - and had been for many thousand years - the natural habitat of Earth’s only population of unicorns.
Hiro squinted at him. “You alright there, mate?”
“Takeshi is in Elysion, isn’t he?”
***
“So Mamoru thinks Takeshi is in Elysion,” Usagi proclaimed cheerfully before taking a big bite of raspberry cheesecake muffin. “Amm noww he’fs---”
“Chew first,” Rei admonished, her pretty face exasperated. The queen heeded the order, and then continued. “And now Mamoru’s going to Elysion with Hiro and then he hopes to get Takeshi back to the palace, and then everything will be okay again,” she finished with a bright (albeit muffin crusted) smile in Minako’s direction. But Minako was toying with her mug, her face carefully blank. Rei’s and Makoto’s eyes met over the muffin laden, tea bearing, vanilla-scented candle adorned coffee table.
“I’ll text Ami, then she can tell Umino,” Makoto offered and pushed herself off her comfortable couch. With Hiro in the palace, she had invited the girls to come here instead of meet in the café. When they were still teenagers, they met at the temple or in the Crown, but with Motoki having moved out of the country with Reika and the temple in its crystalline form, they had long since chosen Makoto’s café as their new, inconspicuous meeting place. But the kids wanted watching too and Hiro was with Mamoru tonight.
With all aunts bar Ami in the house, getting Aiko into bed had been a nightmare. She’d been so excited, especially because Usagi was there and she hadn’t seen her in so long. If you are four, then two months are an eternity. Rei too received a warm welcome and a sticky kiss (courtesy of a muffin the girl had nicked from the table), but her daughter showed an unusual reticence towards Minako.
Flipping her phone open, Makoto sighed. It was obvious that very much like Mamoru, her own kid, her flesh and blood, her smart little girl, noticed Takeshi’s prolonged absence and looked for someone to blame. Mamoru blamed Ando, Aiko blamed Minako by the simple virtue of her being around while Takeshi wasn’t. Makoto herself didn’t know whom to blame. All she knew was that she missed Takeshi dreadfully. They had eaten together once a week for more than a decade, he had visited her at work, played with Aiko, and now that he was gone, had left a large hole in her life. For Makoto Obuchi, Takeshi was family.
If Hiro and Mamoru would indeed find him in Elysion, then Makoto decided that she would take him in. He could move into the guest bedroom and then he and Minako could take things from there. Or, if the relationship was indeed at an end, as Minako seemed to believe, then he could stay here until he found his footing again. Either way, Makoto was not going to abandon her family, not any member of it.
Fingers flying over the phone, she finished her message to Ami and returned to the living room, where Usagi was on her second muffin, while Rei and Minako talked shop.
“We just need more public support. We can do a lot with Usagi,” Minako said seriously, “but at some point, we need outsiders to support her. People who have a standing, whose voice counts. If we can get a big name politician to throw their support behind Usagi, then we will have come a long way.”
“Senator Uro was close with my father,” Rei offered. “He’s my godfather, more in name than anything, but it might prove helpful.”
“Could you set up a meeting?” Minako asked eagerly, while Usagi frowned.
“Is Senator Uro the one with the eyebrows? The one who came to your graduation and didn’t switch his mobile phone off?”
Rei chuckled. “They are rather bushy, I have to admit.”
“So can you?” Minako repeated, leaving no time for fond reminiscences of graduation or eyebrows. Makoto noticed a new impatience in Minako’s demeanour. Without a doubt, Minako would shrug it off, say she was just more focused, intent on helping Usagi as quickly and efficiently as possible, but it all came back to losing Takeshi, fearing the loss of of Chibi-Usa, their world, their future, and finally, even Aiko.
Suddenly, Minako’s impatience resonated in Makoto. “If you could arrange something, then that would be good,” she therefore added, hoping that nobody noticed the quiver in her voice. Rei’s alert gaze told her that this particular hope was in vain.
Setting her mug down on the purple coaster, Rei nodded. “Sure. I’ll make a call.”
***
The sky over Tokyo was dark and the December air was winter cold. Hiro and Mamoru found themselves in one of the many walled in palace gardens, their breath grey clouds on the night sky. Technically, Mamoru could enter Elysion from any place he wanted to, but he always found it easier if he was outside.
Hiromasa had not been to Elysion since Mamoru teleported all the shitennou, Ami, Makoto and Usagi there all those years ago when they had re-pledged their allegiance to him, but of course he had his memories of the ancient place. He remembered taking Jupiter there once, or rather, Nephrite had. Despite having had years to figure it out, he still wasn’t sure whether to think of Nephrite and his recollections of the Silver Millennium as part of his own past, or as something separate. He felt more like Hiromasa than Nephrite, always had. Nephrite had often come to Elysion to talk to the stars, the ancient trees, even the dwarves. Hiromasa had never conversed with the stars as Nephrite had, listening to their whispers of the future, but they had guided him to Makoto. The whispers from above had led him to her café in the first place, but that had been the one and only time he had experienced this sort of sixth sense.
“Hey Mamoru,” Hiro said ponderously as looked at the stars above them, feeling somewhat uneasy.
“Yes?”
“Reckon we should ask Ando along too? Or wait for Umino to come back?”
“I don’t think Ando is the right person to convince Takeshi to come back.”
“And I don’t think,” Ando’s voice interrupted, “that Takeshi has cell phone reception in Elysion.”
He had been in the garden all along, leaning against one of the few trees, smoking away. As always, Hiro thought, Ando was somewhat out of view, but present.
“Since he called you,” Ando continued, addressing Hiro, “more than once, I believe, he is probably not there. But that’s just me, and clearly, I am not invited to your little rescue party. But you should call Umino, he would be terribly disappointed if you went to Elysion without him.”
Mamoru crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I am still going tonight.”
Ando shrugged and took a drag. “Do what you want. But I am willing to bet my father’s whole collection of antique golf clubs that he’s not there.”
Taking a step back, Hiro put his hands in his pockets. He’d left his gloves in the car, never expecting to do more tonight than help Mamoru with the shelves, perhaps fix a lamp or two. And now here he stood, under the starry sky, in the complete silence that always seemed to engulf the palace while the temperature dropped well below zero. The snow underneath his feet made a crunchy sound as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
He is not there.
“What did you say?” Hiro asked, turning to Mamoru, who was glaring at Ando.
“That Ando should call Takeshi to apologize.”
Hiro frowned.
“And you?”
Tossing the cigarette butt on the floor and crushing it with his trainer clad foot, Ando smirked. “I hadn’t formulated an appropriate response yet. I am still trying to find a more eloquent way to say ‘fuck off’, but it’s late, I’m tired, and your wife hasn’t left a thermos of her delicious coffee lying around.”
“Oh,” Hiro said, just as Mamoru was turning an unbecoming shade of red. He looked up at the stars again, twinkling away, looking exactly as they had always done.
“Right. In that case, we can save ourselves the trip. We can go to Elysion at another time, take Umino. Ando’s right, Takeshi isn’t there. And now I’m going home to my wife. Night.”
And Hiro headed back inside, trying very hard not to hear anything at all, not Ando and Mamoru bickering and certainly not the voices from above.
***
The next morning came and Ando decided to just spend the day in bed. He needed a break. He couldn’t be around Mamoru, who hated him, or around Minako, who was sad, or around Aiko, who was in danger, or her father, who was weird, or Usagi, whom he wanted to be happy, or anyone else. Except for Rei, who wasn’t in the palace, or Umino, who wasn’t even in the city.
So he pulled the covers over his head, closed his eyes, and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, he failed. Twenty minutes into his attempt to hide from the world, he had to admit that it wasn’t going to happen.
Groaning, he stuck an arm out of bed, fumbling for the remote he kept on the floor. The TV was switched on, and without lifting the blankets off his face, he began to flip through the channels, going by sound alone.
Comedy show. Re-run of the movie he had watched last night before heading out for a smoke. Music videos. Commercials. Another comedy show. And finally, breakfast television. The host just wrapped a segment on how Christmas presents were getting more and more expensive with every passing year. Oh fuck. Christmas presents. Only three more days to go, and the only person he had a present for was Rei. He had to get some express mail order presents for his parents, something really cool for his editor, and of course, a small mountain of gifts for everyone but Mamoru fucking Chiba.
“And when we return from the commercial break, join our reporter Keiko Mitiho as she takes a tour of the reconstructed Hikawa temple with Rei Hino, the late Senator Hino’s daughter, and her godfather Senator Uro.”
Throwing the blanket off his face, Ando shot up in bed, eyes glued to the television, where, sure enough, after six commercials (car, diapers, Ipod, online travel agent, mobile phone, trailer for a new vampire film), a pretty reporter appeared, Rei at her right and an older man with bushy eyebrows by her left.
They were walking around the Hikawa temple, snow dusting their heads and shoulders. Rei was wearing a coat he hadn’t seen her in, a sombre black affair that looked as if it had cost a fortune. It was the kind of coat his mother would wear. Rei’s hair was different too, it was wavy where he had only ever seen it straight. Pearl earrings, leather gloves, and a cranberry coloured scarf completed the picture. She was even wearing lipstick. Everything about her proclaimed money, good breeding, and class.
“Miss Hino,” the reporter asked, face eager, “how does it feel to see this place reconstructed with the aid of the crystals?”
The camera changed to a wide shot of the premises, the temple looking as if it were made from ice amidst the falling snow. Rei smiled and Ando clenched his hands into fists. Whatever had brought Rei there? He knew that she hated the resurrected temple, found it soulless and artificial, and yet here she was, smiling at the reporter while the old man standing next to her nodded along to whatever she was saying.
“It is wonderful,” Rei said softly. “My father and grandfather held the temple in such high regard, and I know that had they lived to see it fall to pieces, they would have been devastated. With the aid of the crystal, the Hikawa temple can continue to offer serenity and good luck to the citizens of Tokyo. It is an unexpected blessing.”
“Senator Uro,” the reporter continued, “you are now the patron of this holy place. How does it feel?”
The camera moved from Rei’s face to that of the politician. It was just a millisecond, but Ando saw how the fake smile slipped off Rei’s face. He pushed the red button on the remote, switching the television off.
For a moment, he sat in silence.
Then he jumped off the bed, strode out of his room and slammed the door shut behind him.
He found the person he was looking for in Usagi’s bed. Minako and the queen were watching the programme too, munching on sandwiches. The queen’s bedroom was nice and toasty, warmed by the volcano’s fire. There were Christmas decorations everywhere; a big paper maché Santa by the bed, its matching reindeer by the window, and of course, lots and lots of fir branches on all available surfaces, resulting in the room smelling like a forest. Usagi was even wearing a Santa hat, but the sound of Rei’s familiar voice booming out of the TV, spewing crap Ando didn’t believe for a second, kept him from appreciating this particular detail.
“I am so grateful Usagi Chiba has saved my childhood home. It was my dearest wish to see the shrine restored to its old beauty and now it has been granted.”
“Minako, what were you thinking?” Ando barked, and the queen jumped. A bell on her hat jingled.
“Ando, you scared me! Look, Rei is on television!” Usagi beamed up at him, waiting for his reaction.
For once ignoring the tiny blonde, Ando kept his eyes on Minako. “You know how she feels about this and you had nothing better to do than shove her in front of the camera?”
“Not my idea,” Minako replied.
“Wait, what do you mean, how she feels about this?” Usagi asked, looking from Ando to Minako and back again. A note of panic crept into her voice. “Rei was so happy that we saved the temple, she said so!”
Minako reached over and patted Usagi’s hand. “You did wonderfully, Usa, but this is complicated. We’ll talk about it another time. And now excuse us for just a sec, Ando and I need to have a little chat.” Pressing Usagi’s hand one more time, Minako peeled herself out of bed, the anger in her eyes belying the innocence of her Sesame Street pyjamas.
Gripping Ando by the elbow, she maneuvered him out of the bedroom, quickly closing the door behind them. Her voice was level, but there was no mistaking her anger.
“Ando, not in front of Usagi. Ever.”
“You know that this is torture for Rei!” That second where he had seen her face fall... He had promised that he would do his best to make her happy, to atone for all the suffering he had put her through in his past lives, and now Minako had caught her and put her to use in their PR campaign. It wasn’t okay, Ando thought, his temper rising. It wasn’t fucking a-okay.
“We all have to make sacrifices. And if Rei can help our cause by taking a walk with an old friend of her father’s, invite a camera crew to film it and smile a bit about something she is not too happy about, then that’s a rather small price to pay.”
“You cajoled her into this,” Ando insisted, wrenching his arm out of Minako’s grasp.
“We need to win people over, Ando, and Rei---”
“Rei,” Ando cut across her, “is not Usagi. We need one face to carry this, and we agreed that we would build the campaign around Usagi. Using people like this, no matter the personal consequences, is much more Kunzite’s style than your own.”
Minako blinked. “You did not just say that to me.”
“Back off, Minako. Leave Rei be. I mean it. She can’t handle it.”
Minako took a step back. “I am going to go in again, and resume my breakfast with Usagi. And thanks to you, I get to tell her that Rei never wanted the temple restored to begin with.” She narrowed her eyes. “You talk to Rei about this, because Ando, so will I. And about that apology you owe me? Make it good.”
Minako retreated into the bedroom again, closing the door in Ando’s face.
***
Pushing herself out of the pool, the cold air enveloping her like an icy blanket, Ami hurried over to her towel. Umino’s family had a large pool in the backyard, and since it was heated anyway and Umino wouldn’t get up for at least another hour, Ami had braved the short trek through the snow-covered garden to swim a few laps.
It was rather beautiful, swimming in a hot, steaming pool while the rest of the garden was covered in snow, but now that she’d finished, the winter scene was rapidly losing its appeal. Quickly slinging the towel around her wet hair, she reached for the thick fluffy robe and slipped into her winter boots. She knew she looked ridiculous, but also knew that if Umino’s parents, grandmother or siblings saw her, they wouldn’t mind. They were always so nice to her, making her feel at home. When the Kiichi family had extended the same warm courtesy to her mother, Ami had been delighted. Her mother, who, over the course of many years, had slowly pieced together just what her daughter was doing when she wasn’t working at the hospital, had even said that if Ami and Umino weren’t tied up in Tokyo, she’d love to move to Kyoto with them. It was a wonderful idea, his and her family together, but of course, nothing could come of it. It had to remain an idea only; their other family depended on them. So even though it always broke Umino’s heart to leave his family behind when they made their way back, their choice was made, unshakeable, predetermined like so many other things in their life.
Her mother met her at the back door, holding a mug of tea, which Ami gratefully accepted.
“You never could resist an opportunity to go for an early morning swim,” Mrs. Mizuno said, smiling fondly.
The smell of the chamomile tea mixed with the chlorine that still hung on her skin, a not altogether unpleasant combination, Ami thought as she took a sip. “I didn’t think anyone was up yet - Umino apparently inherited his preferences for sleeping in.”
“Your friend Rei is an early riser, isn’t she?” Ami’s mother asked as the two women retreated into the warmth of the house, and the young doctor frowned. “Yes, why?”
“She’s on television with Senator Uro. You didn’t tell me her grandfather’s temple was restored with the help of the crystal.”
Ami glanced over her shoulder; the thermometer by the door read not only the temperature (a frosty -4°C), but also the time, 7.15. “I helped Usagi with it, but it’s a difficult subject. I don’t think Rei liked it too much,” she replied absent-mindedly. Why was Rei on television at 7.15? Why was Rei on television at all?
“Is she still on?” Ami asked, and her mother nodded.
***
Softly closing the door behind her, Minako breathed. Usagi had been terribly distraught by Ando’s careless comment and had insisted on watching Rei’s interview again, this time on her small pink netbook computer. Naturally, now that she knew what to look for, Usagi had found proof that Ando was correct and Rei indeed unhappy with the resurrected temple. It was in her eyes, Usagi kept saying over and over again, her bottom lip trembling.
It was such a shame; the idea of having helped one of her oldest friends had given Usagi so much strength, and now that she realised that the crystal wasn’t even good for that, her sunny disposition had crumbled like a house of cards. When Minako finally had to admit to herself that she wasn’t able to console her, she sucked it up and called Mamoru at the hospital. He had arrived within the hour, bearing a bouquet of roses, a box of chocolates, and a face like thunder that only softened when he saw his wife sitting cross-legged on their bed, crying and clutching a pillow.
Minako had made a quick escape; she knew that Mamoru was the only person who could talk Usagi down. Well, perhaps Rei could do it too, given the circumstances, but Minako felt that the former miko had already done her part for the day. Checking her watch, Minako realised that Rei wouldn’t be back for at least another three hours. She was going to have lunch with the Senator as a small thank-you for rising so early and accompanying her to the interview.
Where Ando had gone, Minako didn’t know, but for the first time, she really didn’t care. It wasn’t so much an unspoken rule to not say things that upset Usagi but an unspoken law. To Minako, there was no sweeter person in the world than Usagi and to let Usagi know that her best intentions had backfired, and to let her know in that manner... No. Just no.
It was sweet of Ando to want to protect Rei, but Rei had fought battles much harder than this one. She had buried her mother, her grandfather, her father, had survived the unfortunate episode with Kaido, had forsaken her duty as a miko, and of course, had victoriously braved monster after monster when she’d only been a teenager. One of those monsters had been Jadeite, a sliver of his past self encapsulated in the darkness of Metalia. While Jadeite had tried to lure Rei Hino to death, Ando Tanaka had been in New York, unaware of who he was, and what a part of him was doing halfway across the globe. Ami and Umino had explained it at length to all of them, revealing the intricacies of magic older than any living thing in Tokyo, but to be honest, Minako had never quite understand the whole thing. To her, the shitennou were the men she had known in the Silver Millenium and the men whom she shared her life and friends with today.
But the point remained that Rei was strong, stronger than Ando knew, and that she could face far worse than a morning walking the grounds of her resurrected childhood home.
Heading for her room, Minako wondered what to do with the rest of the day. There was no work she could do until she had spoken to Rei or Ando, Usagi was taken care of, Ami was in Kyoto, and Makoto was working. She could always go to the café to kill some time, read a few papers while looking for any mention of the palace or Usagi or Mamoru or the end of the world.
There was a hole in her morning, a void she couldn’t fill. Without having to check her Mickey Mouse wristwatch, she knew that it was quarter past nine. For over a decade, this had been the time when she’d taken her dog for a walk, come wind or weather.
Trying to pull herself together, Minako squared her shoulders. There was no point pining for things that could have been. Attila wasn’t here because Takeshi had taken him with him. And Takeshi wasn’t here not only because he couldn’t be seen around the palace while being the head of the CTCT, but also because he had unleashed his powers in the presence of those he’d sworn to protect. Him not being there, she reasoned, was a good thing. Usagi’s safety came first. She could learn to find something else to do in the morning, she could learn to live without Attila.
Attila, who despite his humongous size, was afraid of thunder, Spock, and most randomly, school buses. Attila, who liked to doze with his head on her feet. Attila, who knew that once Takeshi left for work in the morning, was allowed to sneak into the bed with Mina. A stubborn tear began to make its way down her cheek, but Minako wiped it away impatiently. Not today. Not here. Not with Ando in the rooms above her, being able to listen in on her every thought.
Shedding her pyjamas, Minako slipped into a pair of jeans, a thick knitted jumper of Makoto’s that had somehow found its way to her room, and her beloved pink Uggs. Picking up her jacket, gloves, scarf, hat, and purse, Minako left.
***
Critically examining the blue fondant for the last minute order of birthday cake her assistant had accepted, Makoto hoped she could finish on time. Hiro was picking up Aiko from kindergarten and Yoshi was with him anyway, but she’d like to be home before them. With Christmas just around the corner, there was no shortage of things she still needed to take care off. The presents for Hiro and Yoshi were already sorted, but she hadn’t heard back from Setsuna about the pony she meant to take off of the other woman’s hands. Tinkerbell, Hotaru’s old pony, was supposed to become Tinkerbell, Aiko’s new pony, on Christmas Day. Makoto didn’t even want to begin to imagine the drama that would envelop them all if Aiko didn’t get the pony everyone had all but promised her.
Putting the fondant back into the bowl after deeming it satisfactory, she walked to the sink and washed her hands. There was a phone mounted to wall, and picking it up, she checked a number on a list tacked next to it. All the important numbers were on that list: delivery people, regular customers, senshi, kindergarten, Hiro’s family, even the Tsukino house, Rei’s father’s assistant and Minako’s parents. Dialling the number of Setsuna Meioh, Makoto decided that she would have to update the list. Senator Hino had died two years ago; she wouldn’t need his assistant’s number anymore.
Setsuna picked up just as Makoto was getting ready to hang up.
“Meioh,” Setsuna’s calm voice announced and Makoto smiled. She’d always liked the senshi of time; they had bonded deeply after Aiko’s birth. Setsuna, having already raised one child, understand the joy and exhaustion of motherhood. Without a doubt, so did Michiru and Haruka, but the two steadfastly refused to speak to her.
“Hello Setsuna, it’s Makoto. I am sorry to bother you, but I was wondering about Tinkerbell.”
Setsuna didn’t reply immediately. Makoto frowned. “Setsuna?”
“Sorry, I was distracted,” the senshi replied. “I take it you want to leave Tinkerbell in her stable?”
Makoto nodded, even though Setsuna couldn’t see her. “Yes, that would be best, we can drive Aiko out there in the winter and come summer, we can reconsider moving the pony to Hiro’s family’s place. We’ll probably get a second one for Yoshi anyway.” Yoshi, like his sister, was taking after Hiro: he was completely mad about animals. She couldn’t even get him down for his nap unless she had let him pet the dogs first.
“I will talk to the stable’s manager, let her know Tinkerbell is changing hands.” Perfect, Makoto thought. That was Aiko’s Christmas present taken care of. She would make Setsuna a nice cake and send it to her in the new year as a small thank you gift.
“Ah, lovely, thank you. And do you have a picture of Tinkerbell that we could stick on a Barbie toy horse just to make sure my daughter believes us when we tell her on Christmas Day? Otherwise I am quite afraid she will drown us all in her mighty tears.”
Setsuna chuckled and for a second, it sounded as if there was a man in the background, laughing with her.
“Of course. Can I email it you?”
“Yes, yes, sure!”
“Wonderful. Makoto, please excuse me, but I do have to go.”
“Flight to Sydney?” Makoto asked, twirling the phone cord around her finger. “Hotaru must be looking forward to having you over.”
A second of silence. “I am staying in Tokyo over the holidays,” Setsuna said, “and Hotaru is staying in Sydney; she is enjoying the sunshine and her new boyfriend.”
Oh. Makoto imagined herself twenty years in the future, when her daughter was grown-up and abroad and not coming home for Christmas. She wrinkled her nose: what a ghastly idea. “I see,” she said. Well, Setsuna could always spend the holidays with them, Hiro wouldn’t mind. “Do you want to come over on Christmas Day?”
“What a wonderful offer. Alas, I am afraid I already have plans, but thank you, Makoto, that is very thoughtful of you.”
“No problem,” Makoto replied and saying goodbye, hung up. It seemed like Hotaru wasn’t the only one with a new boyfriend, Makoto thought with a grin. Well, good for Setsuna. It must be hard, always being alone and somewhat removed from everyone else.
The egg-shaped kitchen timer went off. Snatching the oven gloves from the counter, Makoto returned to work. She still had a Barbie pony to buy.
***
“You said what?” Rei fired at Ando as she strode into his bedroom. Ando shot up from the bed where he’d been reading the paper.
“Are you okay?”
“You cannot tell Usagi I am unhappy about the temple, Ando!”
Folding the paper back together, he took a moment to regroup. “So Minako called you.” There was a small stab in his stomach; Ando wasn’t used to Minako being anything other than his partner in crime. And now she had ratted him out, gone to Rei to complain about him. It stung.
“No, Mamoru did. Usagi was inconsolable.”
“She’s a grown-up,” Ando insisted, but before he could go on, the cross look on Rei’s face shut him up. He’d seen her sad, happy, amused, devastated, but he’d never seen her angry, at least not in this life and not at him. All her usual composure had slipped away, she had her hands balled into fists, her cheeks were an angry red, and her eyes were narrowed. In a way, she was just as scary as Takeshi had been the night he’d almost electrocuted Ando. Suddenly, he remembered that Rei commanded fire and that they were standing on a volcano. Not good.
“Do not tell me how to treat Usagi. Do not dare to tell me how to treat Usagi. This was a private matter and I do not appreciate you interfering, whatever your reasons may be.”
“Whatever--- whatever my reasons may be? YOU are my reason, your well-being. I saw how you looked and I knew how much it hurt, so I went to Minako to tell her to leave you the fuck alone.” He tried to reach for her hand, but Rei snatched it back. She was still wearing the gloves he’d seen on television.
“It wasn’t even Minako’s ida to begin with! Makoto and I came up with it last night. Minako just asked me to contact my godfather, not to orchestrate an interview with him.”
Ando blinked. “She didn’t?”
“No. And don’t you even think about going to Makoto to complain about this.”
Something close to dread settled in his stomach. Ando looked around the room, which was littered with old newspapers, books, and used coffee mugs. He finally spotted what he was searching for under yesterday’s edition of the Tokyo Times. He reached for his mobile, fingers flying over the screen. “I need to apologise to Minako.” He’d fucked up; badly.
“No, you need to go talk to Usagi. You will go to her and explain that you were just worried about me and that--”
“Of course I was worried about you,” Ando replied impatiently. “Usagi knows I was worried about you, Rei, that’s not exactly a secret. Is Mamoru with her now?”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s okay.”
“I was just with her, she’s anything but.”
A part of Ando wanted to point out that if Rei had been honest with Usagi from the start, admitted that she wanted to leave the temple as it was, they wouldn’t have had to have this conversation now. Ando believed in being completely, utterly, uncompromisingly honest. Usagi deserved to know all the facts, it was why he had told her about the prophecy and Chibi-Usa as soon as he realised she’d been left in the dark. But unfortunately, he couldn’t very well get on his high horse now because just as Rei wanted to protect Usagi from any and all pain, Ando wanted to do the same for Rei, and it had culminated in him attacking Minako.
He sighed. “Rei, I just want you to be happy. I hate that Usagi is upset, I don’t want her to be upset, but I also want to know how you are. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to parade around in front of a camera if all it does is hurt you.”
“We all have to make sacrifices, Ando. I am perfectly able and willing to be interviewed if it means Mamoru doesn’t get stabbed again or Usagi can walk around the city without having to disguise herself. And I am even more willing to do it if it means that we can have a future in which Chibi-Usa and Aiko are happy and alive.”
“Fine,” he concurred, and reached for her hand again. This time, she didn’t pull away.
“And now tell me how you are.”
She shrugged. “I had a very unpleasant morning, but I’ve had worse.”
He lowered his head, trying to catch her eyes. Rei looked at the floor.
“How about I take you out to lunch to make it better?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, but finally met his eyes.
“Does that mean you really aren’t hungry or that you are passive aggressively refusing my company?”
Exasperated, she smiled at him. “I am not really that complicated, Ando. I’m just not hungry.”
“So we’re good? You’re good?”
“Yes, we’re good.” As an afterthought, she added: “But we’d be better if I didn’t know Usagi was crying because of something you said.”
“Rei, she’s not crying because of something I said. She’s crying because she’s afraid her daughter won’t ever be born, because Takeshi and Minako are more or less broken up, because she can’t paint the walls pink and because she couldn’t do something nice for you.”
Rei sighed. "I know, but it doesn't change the fact that she's still crying."
And because there wasn’t anything he could do or say to make Usagi’s tears go away, Ando simply pulled his girlfriend into a hug, rested his chin on her head and looked out of the window, watching the snow fall onto the crystal covered city.
***
“I’ll pay by credit card,” Minako said, and pushed the card over to the salesman. Looking slightly distrustful, he accepted the card and ran it through the machine. It didn’t happen very often; such a young woman coming into the dealership first thing in the morning, pointing to a car, saying “that one”, and then handing him her credit card two minutes later. But this customer had been adamant: no test drive, no sales pitch, no additional information. She just wanted a car, period.
As she was signing the insurance papers, he looked for a wedding band on her finger. None. So she lived alone. How could a woman her age, unmarried, afford a car like this? Almost sure that the card would be rejected, he was surprised when it was accepted without a glitch. A woman with a pink knitted hat with pompoms on it had just spent over 5,900,000 Yen on a car.
“Miss Aino,” he began, his smile suddenly real, “is there anything else we here at BMW Tokyo can do for you?”
Looking over her shoulder at the black X5, Minako shook her head. “No, thanks.”
***
Carefully navigating the snow-covered streets, Minako drove through the city. She’d done it, she bought a car. Had she bought one a few years ago, it would have probably been a ‘fun’ car, a Volkswagen Beetle, a Mini Cooper. Something round and squishy in a bright colour and she would have probably added flower stickers to the car paint, or little stars.
But what she needed now was a car that would allow her to transport furniture from her house to the palace, a car that meant she didn’t have to ask Hiro for his transporter when she got the rest of her stuff. A reliable car, one in which she could drive Usagi around, even in the dead of winter. Having gotten used to Takeshi’s comfortable and luxurious X5, she didn’t need to consider her options for too long.
There was a problem (she needed a spacious car she could drive easily) and a solution (buying what she liked and knew), case closed.
In her purse, carelessly thrown on the passenger seat, her phone began to ring. In a more or less desperate attempt to win back Aiko’s affection, she’d allowed the little girl to choose her ringtone yesterday. It hadn’t quite worked, Aiko had gone to bed without giving Minako a kiss goodnight, but luckily, Minako didn’t mind being stuck the latest Disney movie’s theme song regardless. It was actually quite catchy.
Fishing for the phone without taking her eyes off the road, she answered. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry,” Ando said without preamble. Indicating left, Minako took a turn.
“Spoke to Rei, did you?”
“Yes.”
Two more streets, and she’d be at their house. If this car were silver, and if the world was normal, Attila would now raise his head on the backseat, sniffing the air, wagging his tail. It was always when they turned this corner that her dog knew that they were almost home, even if he wasn’t looking out of the window.
“Ando, I can’t talk now,” she said and disconnected, and after a moment’s consideration, switched the phone off for good before tossing it back in her purse.
She was here.
Pulling up into the empty driveway, she turned off the engine and looked at her house. All the shutters were pulled down. They hadn’t been last time she’d been here. Someone had also been by to shovel snow a few days ago because the coating was lighter in some places than in others.
Her hands were shaking for just a moment before she steeled herself and climbed out the car, her feet sinking a few centimeters into the fresh snow. Takeshi wasn’t here today; his car wasn’t parked on the street and it was too cold for him to have walked with Attila. Not that she knew where he was staying. Mamoru had ruled out Elysion, Usagi had told her as much. Takeshi didn’t have any friends bar their mutual ones and since Minako had been to Makoto’s house just yesterday, she knew that he wasn’t staying there. He was probably in a hotel somewhere. She could have checked and obtained the information quite easily (people rarely said no to her), but a part of her just didn’t care. She just didn’t care - he had left her, had left their life, and while she understood his reasons, all of them, she knew she wouldn’t have done the same. It reminded her too much of how their relationship had been when they still went by Venus and Kunzite.
Making her way to the front door, climbing the familiar two steps, she fiddled with the key. She should have made a list of things she wanted to take with her today, but when she had left the palace earlier, she hadn’t anticipated she’d go buy a car. The plan had been to take a walk, get away from Ando and Usagi, to catch some air and re-group.
Instead she had bought a car and was now turning the key in the lock, hoping against all reason that he was inside, waiting for her, telling her everything would be okay.
But the house was quiet, cold and dark. Flicking the lights on, she pushed the door shut with her foot. Normally, she would have taken the boots off, careful not to get watery footprints all over the rugs and the floor, but there was no-one here to care.
Ignoring the pang in her heart, she took a deep breath, forcing herself into the kind of efficiency she liked to imagine Ami displayed in the OR. She would take all her plants; there was no point leaving them here. She went into the cellar, fetched a large packing box, assembled it and began her work, methodically checking each room but Takeshi’s study. There was a ficus in there, but Minako couldn’t bring herself to go in.
Once she had gotten all the plants together, she put the smaller ones into the box and carried it to the car. The snow was falling more rapidly now and Minako hurried to get the box inside the trunk. She didn’t want to risk the cardboard getting wet and all the plants landing on the ground. Once it was safely stored away, she fetched the two big plants from the living room. That was the plants taken care of; the first item to cross off her list.
The next packing box was filled with useful things from the kitchen. Her juicer, her favourite mugs (Takeshi’s were sitting on the shelf, collecting dust) and both the coffee machine and the electric kettle. A few pots and pans, the bowl she liked to eat her cereal from, and a peeler. Finally, the box being almost too heavy to lift already, she decided to empty the small pantry too. The shelf where they kept the dog food was empty. Shoving cans of sweet corn, tomatoes, a few glass jars of jam, unopened packs of cereal and coffee into the box with more vigour than necessary, she left the kitchen.
By the time she was finished, the X5 was filled to the brim. She’d taken a few rugs, towels, blankets and pillows (but not the ones from the bedroom - she didn’t want to sleep in blankets whose smell reminded her of him), and after a little hesitation, the mirror bolted to the wall in the hallway and the large flat screen television from the living room. Just a month ago, she had shied away from taking anything off the walls, feeling it would make the new living arrangements too permanent. Now, a month later, a month of silence and worry, she no longer felt those compunctions. Her life was in the palace now, and if she had to be there alone because Takeshi refused to come in to see her, then she would at least be as comfortable as she could.
And just like that, something inside her gave way.
Switching her phone back on, she typed a quick message, curt, to the point, no room for tears and explanations and enquiries. Just the one thing that she needed to adapt to this new life.
I want Attila.
Hitting send, she climbed into the car. No more looking back.
***
Christmas came and went.
Aiko got her much anticipated pony.
Ando gave Rei a charm bracelet he had put together on his journey.
Usagi regained her smile; Mamoru put on a Santa hat.
Umino’s grandmother taught Mrs. Mizuno and her newest granddaughter-in-law how to knit a sweater.
And Minako Aino waited for her phone to ring.
It didn’t.
***
***Two Years Later***
He could hear his secretary’s phone ring. Checking the time on his watch, Takeshi smiled.
“Councillor Nakamura, it’s your girlfriend calling,” his secretary announced, cheerfully leaning back in his chair so as to meet his boss’ eyes. The young man, fresh out of college, lacked the decorum Takeshi usually preferred his staff to have, but he was so strongly pro-crystal and pro-Chibas that Takeshi was willing to cut him some slack. Especially on a day like this.
“Put her through, please,” he said and closed the door that connected his office with the secretary’s ante-room. His secretary did as he was told and a small green light on Takeshi’s phone began to blink. He picked the receiver up, leaning himself against the edge of the table.
“Hello.”
“How did it go?”
“They will make an official announcement tomorrow, but the motion has been accepted unanimously. Usagi and Mamoru will be styled as King and Queen from January 1st onwards. They will succeed the emperor upon his death, establishing a new line of succession. Their legislative powers are dependant on the parliament, but they have veto and proposal rights.”
“It’s everything we wanted.”
“It is,” Takeshi confirmed, for the first time in weeks feeling like something had gone right. This was what they had all worked for: Mamoru and Usagi official recognition as assets to the state, as Japan’s future.
“Let’s go out for dinner to celebrate tonight.” He smiled at her elation; it was so rare for her to let herself be carried away like this. Unfortunately, he couldn’t indulge her, as much as he wanted to.
“I can’t, I have a meeting with Mamoru, Usagi, Minako and Ando to discuss the press release.” And just like that, their happy moment was over.
She was silent for a second, and both of them were overly aware of it passing without comment. “Of course,” she finally said, her voice as calm and smooth as it had been the first time they’d met. “I will see you at home.”
“See you at home, Setsuna,” he replied and hung up.
Time to get back to work.
*** End of Chapter Nine***
Summary: Crystal Tokyo has arrived. So has Ando Tanaka.
Warnings: Oh, lots and lots of swearing. But other than that, tame.
A/N: I am MASSIVELY indebted to charliechaplin2, who always asks the best questions and points out that if you buy something in Japan, you are probably not going to pay for it in € and also (I really should know this) that jam comes in jars, not glasses. Charlie, without you, this fic would read: “And then they all sat around somewhere and everyone was sad but I don’t know why and then someone spent a lot of € in Japan. The End.” I am inclined to believe that this is a wee bit better.
The previous chapter is 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
Christmas, a time for joy, a time for love.
Minako sat on her bed, steadfastly ignoring Usagi’s chatter about how to best get a big tree into the palace, and instead focused on applying the red nail polish to her toenails. Now that the holiday was just around the corner, she didn’t feel like celebrating. She didn’t feel like celebrating at all.
It had been one month since she’d seen Takeshi. He had left the café after she did and had not been seen since. She knew he occasionally called Hiro; for some reason the furniture designer had become his chosen go-between. But not even Mamoru knew where he was staying and with each passing day, each falling snowflake, Minako felt more and more certain that their relationship was at an end. Takeshi hadn’t kept his promise of sneaking into the palace to see her; there were no footprints in the snowy blanket that covered the greenery around the palace. The only people who came to her tower room were the friends who also lived under the crystalline roof. With only one more week to Christmas and no Takeshi in sight, she would have to tell her parents that she’d come to Christmas dinner alone for the first time in over a decade. And what fun that would be.
“We can make popcorn chains and string them around the tree,” Usagi continued blithely, “and perhaps we can cut snowflakes out of some simple white paper. I’ll ask Mako, she’ll know how to make homemade ornaments.”
Examining her toes, and finding she was satisfied with her work, Minako looked up. “I think Rei is right. We aren’t Christians, there’s no point celebrating Christmas.”
Usagi’s face fell. “But I like Christmas...”
“Don’t let the Grinch ruin it for you, sweetheart,” Ando announced from the doorway. There was snow on his newsboy hat and on his thick coat, but with the heat from the volcano running through the walls, it was melting fast. He tossed a magazine at Minako, aiming for her head. She caught it with ease and began to flip through it.
“What’s this?”
“I called in a few favours, placed a nice little article about how Usagi is adorable.”
The queen giggled. “I am, aren’t I?”
Ando ruffled her hair. “And don’t you know it.”
Beaming, Usagi got up. “I’ll go tell Mamo you said that. Then he will go out of his way to say something even nicer to me. Win win!”
And she was off, the sound of her bare feet titter-tattering on the floor.
Ando remained leaning against the door, watching Usagi leave, a fond smile on his face. “You know, I think being mean to Usagi is a capital offence. And if it isn’t yet, then we should make it one.”
“I wasn’t mean, I just don’t want to celebrate Christmas,” Minako muttered and put the magazine on the nightstand. There was a whole stack of files and magazines lying there. She had made her bedroom her office, determined to do something useful with her time when she only slept so little anyway. Nighttime was always the worst.
“Says the woman who made us all write letters to Santa before Halloween.”
Not meeting his eyes, she picked up the bottle of nail polish and placed it gingerly on the floor. “Things were different then.”
“Cry me a Mississippi river, Mi. You don’t get to ruin Christmas for Usagi and me just because Takeshi is a dick,” Ando announced, moving into the room more fully.
Minako swallowed. “Have you heard from him?” She hated how needy she sounded; it was why she barely ever enquired after him.
“Because I’d be the first person he’d seek out? No. Not a word. He won’t even take Umino’s calls.”
“He called him?” She hadn’t known that.
“He wanted to tell him about the wedding. Ostensibly. Personally, I think Umino wanted to check whether he’d find Takeshi or Kunzite at the other end of the line, but he doesn’t say so.”
“Oh, you think so?” Mina tilted her head to the side, giving Ando a shrewd look.
“Fine, I read his mind, but I’m allowed.”
“Are you reading mine right now?”
Ando sighed dramatically and let himself fall backwards onto the bed. “You are thinking ‘bunny bunny bunny bunny sheep chocolate sad Christmas sad sad Ando is a dick.’ You never minded before.”
“I still don’t. I just wanted to know. It’s so weird that I can never tell when you’re doing it.”
“Would you rather have your skin crawl every time it happens? Because I can’t control it when I’m in the palace, so your skin’d be crawling all day, every day.”
“What about Rei?”
“What about her?”
“You said you never read her mind. How?”
“Because unlike you and Umino, she would mind and I love her,” he replied simply. In reality, it wasn’t quite as simple. He’d had to leave her presence on more than one occasion to keep his promise, had to shield his mind like crazy on others which also meant that any spoken conversation came to a grinding and absolute halt, but that was a small price to pay to honour his word.
Minako blinked. Even though everyone knew Ando loved Rei and Rei loved Ando, it was oddly touching to hear him say it out loud. “Oh Ando...” she whispered, and smiled a little.
“Shut up, you. Don’t get mushy on me.”
The two friends looked at each other, until finally, a blushing Ando pushed himself off the bed again. “Come on, we have work to do.”
***
The next week passed in a hurry. Ami and Umino left for Kyoto, Mrs. Mizuno in tow. The newlyweds were going to celebrate their wedding with Umino’s family, Ami’s mother and lots of homemade food. Umino had asked Ando whether he wanted to come along, and while there were only few things that Ando liked better than letting Umino’s grandmother feed him the best Japanese cuisine had to offer while watching his friend show off his lovely new wife with that adorkable smile of his, Minako’s situation had made him decline.
So he stayed in the palace, working away at press releases, accompanying Usagi to five television appearances in three days and helping her conduct phone interviews for the rest. In the meantime, Minako had begun to set up the Chiba Children’s Charity. While the public, who knew nothing about the royal couple’s real financial situation, were to believe that the money came directly from Usagi and Mamoru, it really came from Minako. Sailor V corp, still running smoothly and making a huge profit in merchandise, was funding this particular publicity endeavour.
Each night, the two friends met in Minako’s bedroom, going over the day’s victories and failures. Minako didn’t mention Takesh anymorei, and Ando was glad that she didn’t ask about Mamoru. While Usagi, who had been so upset over his fight with Takeshi and Mamoru, had forgiven him in an instant, Mamoru did not. It was glaringly obvious that Mamoru was mourning the loss of Takeshi and that it was Ando he blamed for it. Hiro wasn’t much better, but at least he came in and spent some time in the palace now and then, something he had refused to do for the last three months.
Even now, at nine in the evening, Hiro was hammering away in Mamoru’s and Usagi’s living room, setting up the shelves he had promised his prince. The honey coloured wood (a concession to Usagi, who had wanted them in white or pink, while Mamoru preferred something dark) would cover the crystal walls, make the palace more homely. Standing useless by his side, holding a box of nails, Mamoru watched Hiro work.
“I just don’t understand why he won’t take my calls,” Mamoru insisted, two spots of red rising in his cheeks.
“Because if you tell him to come home,” Hiro replied and reached for another nail, “he won’t be able to say no.”
“Well, good,” Mamoru said, “because he is not supposed to be alone just because of one moment in which he lost control. It happens to all of us. Usagi told me that Rei once set a table on fire, Ami accidentally flooded her mother’s office, and half the thunderstorms over Tokyo are caused by your wife. It’s not a problem.”
Hiro groaned and wiped some sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. They had had this conversation too many times already. “He doesn’t want to risk anyone’s safety. He will come back once he is certain he has himself under control, Mamoru, you have to give him the time he needs. And my wife does not cause thunderstorms over Tokyo.”
Mamoru smiled. “Perhaps not these days.”
“And Minako’s powers never took an accidental detour?” Hiro asked, bringing his hammer down over and over again until the silver nail had disappeared in the wood. Mamoru waited until he had finished before answering. “Not that I know of.”
“Huh,” Hiro said, sounding impressed. Minako was a tricky one. Whenever he saw her, she seemed perfectly okay. You wouldn’t think she and her partner of a decade had just hit such a rough patch. When he and Makoto had gone through their difficult phase, Hiro had felt and looked like shit, barely holding it together. “How’s she doing?” he asked, surprised to find that he really cared.
Mamoru frowned. “I don’t know. Ask Ando.”
Hiro snorted, his goodwill ebbing away. He couldn’t help but feel that if Minako would spend half the time she spent with Ando on helping Takeshi come to terms with his powers, they’d all be in a much better place. But of course, even Hiro had to admit that he was being a bit unfair: Takeshi didn’t want Minako’s help, he didn’t want anyone’s help. Because accepting help also meant a safety risk for anyone who came near him.
“Umino asked him to go to Kyoto with him and Ami,” Mamoru continued, an unwelcome thought rising to the surface: Takeshi probably wouldn’t like it if Minako stayed holed up in the palace with Ando of all people. It would have been much better if Ando had gone to Kyoto, but then of course there was the media work and Ando and Minako were quite busy parading Usagi around like a show dog. Mamoru was not blind to Ando’s qualities, and perhaps Minako’s too. One glance at the papers told him that their plans were working out quite well so far. Palatial resident Usagi Chiba volunteers at crystal damaged pet shelter, the headline of a small article on the frontpage read, accompanied by a picture of Usagi petting a rather fat cat with a happy expression. Mamoru himself was quite partial to pets, but of course, neither Minako nor Ando would dream of sending him to a pet shelter to smile for the cameras.
“Aiko loves him,” Hiro said, half disgruntled, half impressed. His little girl was hard to win over, but Ando had managed to do so within a few weeks of his return.
“Because he gave her a dog?” Even Mamoru had to smile then. It was typical of Ando; no-one else would possess the audacity to just shove a dog into a little girl’s arms without prior discussion with the parents.
Hiro grinned and straightened his back. “Yes. But just wait, Mako and I are giving her a pony for Christmas and since ponies are the closest thing to unicorns we can get round here, Ando should consider himself beaten.”
That gave Mamoru pause.
“What?” Hiro asked. “Pony beats dog. Come on.”
“No. I mean yes.” Mamoru nodded. He knew where Takeshi was. There was only one place he could go. And that place, weirdly enough, was - and had been for many thousand years - the natural habitat of Earth’s only population of unicorns.
Hiro squinted at him. “You alright there, mate?”
“Takeshi is in Elysion, isn’t he?”
***
“So Mamoru thinks Takeshi is in Elysion,” Usagi proclaimed cheerfully before taking a big bite of raspberry cheesecake muffin. “Amm noww he’fs---”
“Chew first,” Rei admonished, her pretty face exasperated. The queen heeded the order, and then continued. “And now Mamoru’s going to Elysion with Hiro and then he hopes to get Takeshi back to the palace, and then everything will be okay again,” she finished with a bright (albeit muffin crusted) smile in Minako’s direction. But Minako was toying with her mug, her face carefully blank. Rei’s and Makoto’s eyes met over the muffin laden, tea bearing, vanilla-scented candle adorned coffee table.
“I’ll text Ami, then she can tell Umino,” Makoto offered and pushed herself off her comfortable couch. With Hiro in the palace, she had invited the girls to come here instead of meet in the café. When they were still teenagers, they met at the temple or in the Crown, but with Motoki having moved out of the country with Reika and the temple in its crystalline form, they had long since chosen Makoto’s café as their new, inconspicuous meeting place. But the kids wanted watching too and Hiro was with Mamoru tonight.
With all aunts bar Ami in the house, getting Aiko into bed had been a nightmare. She’d been so excited, especially because Usagi was there and she hadn’t seen her in so long. If you are four, then two months are an eternity. Rei too received a warm welcome and a sticky kiss (courtesy of a muffin the girl had nicked from the table), but her daughter showed an unusual reticence towards Minako.
Flipping her phone open, Makoto sighed. It was obvious that very much like Mamoru, her own kid, her flesh and blood, her smart little girl, noticed Takeshi’s prolonged absence and looked for someone to blame. Mamoru blamed Ando, Aiko blamed Minako by the simple virtue of her being around while Takeshi wasn’t. Makoto herself didn’t know whom to blame. All she knew was that she missed Takeshi dreadfully. They had eaten together once a week for more than a decade, he had visited her at work, played with Aiko, and now that he was gone, had left a large hole in her life. For Makoto Obuchi, Takeshi was family.
If Hiro and Mamoru would indeed find him in Elysion, then Makoto decided that she would take him in. He could move into the guest bedroom and then he and Minako could take things from there. Or, if the relationship was indeed at an end, as Minako seemed to believe, then he could stay here until he found his footing again. Either way, Makoto was not going to abandon her family, not any member of it.
Fingers flying over the phone, she finished her message to Ami and returned to the living room, where Usagi was on her second muffin, while Rei and Minako talked shop.
“We just need more public support. We can do a lot with Usagi,” Minako said seriously, “but at some point, we need outsiders to support her. People who have a standing, whose voice counts. If we can get a big name politician to throw their support behind Usagi, then we will have come a long way.”
“Senator Uro was close with my father,” Rei offered. “He’s my godfather, more in name than anything, but it might prove helpful.”
“Could you set up a meeting?” Minako asked eagerly, while Usagi frowned.
“Is Senator Uro the one with the eyebrows? The one who came to your graduation and didn’t switch his mobile phone off?”
Rei chuckled. “They are rather bushy, I have to admit.”
“So can you?” Minako repeated, leaving no time for fond reminiscences of graduation or eyebrows. Makoto noticed a new impatience in Minako’s demeanour. Without a doubt, Minako would shrug it off, say she was just more focused, intent on helping Usagi as quickly and efficiently as possible, but it all came back to losing Takeshi, fearing the loss of of Chibi-Usa, their world, their future, and finally, even Aiko.
Suddenly, Minako’s impatience resonated in Makoto. “If you could arrange something, then that would be good,” she therefore added, hoping that nobody noticed the quiver in her voice. Rei’s alert gaze told her that this particular hope was in vain.
Setting her mug down on the purple coaster, Rei nodded. “Sure. I’ll make a call.”
***
The sky over Tokyo was dark and the December air was winter cold. Hiro and Mamoru found themselves in one of the many walled in palace gardens, their breath grey clouds on the night sky. Technically, Mamoru could enter Elysion from any place he wanted to, but he always found it easier if he was outside.
Hiromasa had not been to Elysion since Mamoru teleported all the shitennou, Ami, Makoto and Usagi there all those years ago when they had re-pledged their allegiance to him, but of course he had his memories of the ancient place. He remembered taking Jupiter there once, or rather, Nephrite had. Despite having had years to figure it out, he still wasn’t sure whether to think of Nephrite and his recollections of the Silver Millennium as part of his own past, or as something separate. He felt more like Hiromasa than Nephrite, always had. Nephrite had often come to Elysion to talk to the stars, the ancient trees, even the dwarves. Hiromasa had never conversed with the stars as Nephrite had, listening to their whispers of the future, but they had guided him to Makoto. The whispers from above had led him to her café in the first place, but that had been the one and only time he had experienced this sort of sixth sense.
“Hey Mamoru,” Hiro said ponderously as looked at the stars above them, feeling somewhat uneasy.
“Yes?”
“Reckon we should ask Ando along too? Or wait for Umino to come back?”
“I don’t think Ando is the right person to convince Takeshi to come back.”
“And I don’t think,” Ando’s voice interrupted, “that Takeshi has cell phone reception in Elysion.”
He had been in the garden all along, leaning against one of the few trees, smoking away. As always, Hiro thought, Ando was somewhat out of view, but present.
“Since he called you,” Ando continued, addressing Hiro, “more than once, I believe, he is probably not there. But that’s just me, and clearly, I am not invited to your little rescue party. But you should call Umino, he would be terribly disappointed if you went to Elysion without him.”
Mamoru crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I am still going tonight.”
Ando shrugged and took a drag. “Do what you want. But I am willing to bet my father’s whole collection of antique golf clubs that he’s not there.”
Taking a step back, Hiro put his hands in his pockets. He’d left his gloves in the car, never expecting to do more tonight than help Mamoru with the shelves, perhaps fix a lamp or two. And now here he stood, under the starry sky, in the complete silence that always seemed to engulf the palace while the temperature dropped well below zero. The snow underneath his feet made a crunchy sound as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
He is not there.
“What did you say?” Hiro asked, turning to Mamoru, who was glaring at Ando.
“That Ando should call Takeshi to apologize.”
Hiro frowned.
“And you?”
Tossing the cigarette butt on the floor and crushing it with his trainer clad foot, Ando smirked. “I hadn’t formulated an appropriate response yet. I am still trying to find a more eloquent way to say ‘fuck off’, but it’s late, I’m tired, and your wife hasn’t left a thermos of her delicious coffee lying around.”
“Oh,” Hiro said, just as Mamoru was turning an unbecoming shade of red. He looked up at the stars again, twinkling away, looking exactly as they had always done.
“Right. In that case, we can save ourselves the trip. We can go to Elysion at another time, take Umino. Ando’s right, Takeshi isn’t there. And now I’m going home to my wife. Night.”
And Hiro headed back inside, trying very hard not to hear anything at all, not Ando and Mamoru bickering and certainly not the voices from above.
***
The next morning came and Ando decided to just spend the day in bed. He needed a break. He couldn’t be around Mamoru, who hated him, or around Minako, who was sad, or around Aiko, who was in danger, or her father, who was weird, or Usagi, whom he wanted to be happy, or anyone else. Except for Rei, who wasn’t in the palace, or Umino, who wasn’t even in the city.
So he pulled the covers over his head, closed his eyes, and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, he failed. Twenty minutes into his attempt to hide from the world, he had to admit that it wasn’t going to happen.
Groaning, he stuck an arm out of bed, fumbling for the remote he kept on the floor. The TV was switched on, and without lifting the blankets off his face, he began to flip through the channels, going by sound alone.
Comedy show. Re-run of the movie he had watched last night before heading out for a smoke. Music videos. Commercials. Another comedy show. And finally, breakfast television. The host just wrapped a segment on how Christmas presents were getting more and more expensive with every passing year. Oh fuck. Christmas presents. Only three more days to go, and the only person he had a present for was Rei. He had to get some express mail order presents for his parents, something really cool for his editor, and of course, a small mountain of gifts for everyone but Mamoru fucking Chiba.
“And when we return from the commercial break, join our reporter Keiko Mitiho as she takes a tour of the reconstructed Hikawa temple with Rei Hino, the late Senator Hino’s daughter, and her godfather Senator Uro.”
Throwing the blanket off his face, Ando shot up in bed, eyes glued to the television, where, sure enough, after six commercials (car, diapers, Ipod, online travel agent, mobile phone, trailer for a new vampire film), a pretty reporter appeared, Rei at her right and an older man with bushy eyebrows by her left.
They were walking around the Hikawa temple, snow dusting their heads and shoulders. Rei was wearing a coat he hadn’t seen her in, a sombre black affair that looked as if it had cost a fortune. It was the kind of coat his mother would wear. Rei’s hair was different too, it was wavy where he had only ever seen it straight. Pearl earrings, leather gloves, and a cranberry coloured scarf completed the picture. She was even wearing lipstick. Everything about her proclaimed money, good breeding, and class.
“Miss Hino,” the reporter asked, face eager, “how does it feel to see this place reconstructed with the aid of the crystals?”
The camera changed to a wide shot of the premises, the temple looking as if it were made from ice amidst the falling snow. Rei smiled and Ando clenched his hands into fists. Whatever had brought Rei there? He knew that she hated the resurrected temple, found it soulless and artificial, and yet here she was, smiling at the reporter while the old man standing next to her nodded along to whatever she was saying.
“It is wonderful,” Rei said softly. “My father and grandfather held the temple in such high regard, and I know that had they lived to see it fall to pieces, they would have been devastated. With the aid of the crystal, the Hikawa temple can continue to offer serenity and good luck to the citizens of Tokyo. It is an unexpected blessing.”
“Senator Uro,” the reporter continued, “you are now the patron of this holy place. How does it feel?”
The camera moved from Rei’s face to that of the politician. It was just a millisecond, but Ando saw how the fake smile slipped off Rei’s face. He pushed the red button on the remote, switching the television off.
For a moment, he sat in silence.
Then he jumped off the bed, strode out of his room and slammed the door shut behind him.
He found the person he was looking for in Usagi’s bed. Minako and the queen were watching the programme too, munching on sandwiches. The queen’s bedroom was nice and toasty, warmed by the volcano’s fire. There were Christmas decorations everywhere; a big paper maché Santa by the bed, its matching reindeer by the window, and of course, lots and lots of fir branches on all available surfaces, resulting in the room smelling like a forest. Usagi was even wearing a Santa hat, but the sound of Rei’s familiar voice booming out of the TV, spewing crap Ando didn’t believe for a second, kept him from appreciating this particular detail.
“I am so grateful Usagi Chiba has saved my childhood home. It was my dearest wish to see the shrine restored to its old beauty and now it has been granted.”
“Minako, what were you thinking?” Ando barked, and the queen jumped. A bell on her hat jingled.
“Ando, you scared me! Look, Rei is on television!” Usagi beamed up at him, waiting for his reaction.
For once ignoring the tiny blonde, Ando kept his eyes on Minako. “You know how she feels about this and you had nothing better to do than shove her in front of the camera?”
“Not my idea,” Minako replied.
“Wait, what do you mean, how she feels about this?” Usagi asked, looking from Ando to Minako and back again. A note of panic crept into her voice. “Rei was so happy that we saved the temple, she said so!”
Minako reached over and patted Usagi’s hand. “You did wonderfully, Usa, but this is complicated. We’ll talk about it another time. And now excuse us for just a sec, Ando and I need to have a little chat.” Pressing Usagi’s hand one more time, Minako peeled herself out of bed, the anger in her eyes belying the innocence of her Sesame Street pyjamas.
Gripping Ando by the elbow, she maneuvered him out of the bedroom, quickly closing the door behind them. Her voice was level, but there was no mistaking her anger.
“Ando, not in front of Usagi. Ever.”
“You know that this is torture for Rei!” That second where he had seen her face fall... He had promised that he would do his best to make her happy, to atone for all the suffering he had put her through in his past lives, and now Minako had caught her and put her to use in their PR campaign. It wasn’t okay, Ando thought, his temper rising. It wasn’t fucking a-okay.
“We all have to make sacrifices. And if Rei can help our cause by taking a walk with an old friend of her father’s, invite a camera crew to film it and smile a bit about something she is not too happy about, then that’s a rather small price to pay.”
“You cajoled her into this,” Ando insisted, wrenching his arm out of Minako’s grasp.
“We need to win people over, Ando, and Rei---”
“Rei,” Ando cut across her, “is not Usagi. We need one face to carry this, and we agreed that we would build the campaign around Usagi. Using people like this, no matter the personal consequences, is much more Kunzite’s style than your own.”
Minako blinked. “You did not just say that to me.”
“Back off, Minako. Leave Rei be. I mean it. She can’t handle it.”
Minako took a step back. “I am going to go in again, and resume my breakfast with Usagi. And thanks to you, I get to tell her that Rei never wanted the temple restored to begin with.” She narrowed her eyes. “You talk to Rei about this, because Ando, so will I. And about that apology you owe me? Make it good.”
Minako retreated into the bedroom again, closing the door in Ando’s face.
***
Pushing herself out of the pool, the cold air enveloping her like an icy blanket, Ami hurried over to her towel. Umino’s family had a large pool in the backyard, and since it was heated anyway and Umino wouldn’t get up for at least another hour, Ami had braved the short trek through the snow-covered garden to swim a few laps.
It was rather beautiful, swimming in a hot, steaming pool while the rest of the garden was covered in snow, but now that she’d finished, the winter scene was rapidly losing its appeal. Quickly slinging the towel around her wet hair, she reached for the thick fluffy robe and slipped into her winter boots. She knew she looked ridiculous, but also knew that if Umino’s parents, grandmother or siblings saw her, they wouldn’t mind. They were always so nice to her, making her feel at home. When the Kiichi family had extended the same warm courtesy to her mother, Ami had been delighted. Her mother, who, over the course of many years, had slowly pieced together just what her daughter was doing when she wasn’t working at the hospital, had even said that if Ami and Umino weren’t tied up in Tokyo, she’d love to move to Kyoto with them. It was a wonderful idea, his and her family together, but of course, nothing could come of it. It had to remain an idea only; their other family depended on them. So even though it always broke Umino’s heart to leave his family behind when they made their way back, their choice was made, unshakeable, predetermined like so many other things in their life.
Her mother met her at the back door, holding a mug of tea, which Ami gratefully accepted.
“You never could resist an opportunity to go for an early morning swim,” Mrs. Mizuno said, smiling fondly.
The smell of the chamomile tea mixed with the chlorine that still hung on her skin, a not altogether unpleasant combination, Ami thought as she took a sip. “I didn’t think anyone was up yet - Umino apparently inherited his preferences for sleeping in.”
“Your friend Rei is an early riser, isn’t she?” Ami’s mother asked as the two women retreated into the warmth of the house, and the young doctor frowned. “Yes, why?”
“She’s on television with Senator Uro. You didn’t tell me her grandfather’s temple was restored with the help of the crystal.”
Ami glanced over her shoulder; the thermometer by the door read not only the temperature (a frosty -4°C), but also the time, 7.15. “I helped Usagi with it, but it’s a difficult subject. I don’t think Rei liked it too much,” she replied absent-mindedly. Why was Rei on television at 7.15? Why was Rei on television at all?
“Is she still on?” Ami asked, and her mother nodded.
***
Softly closing the door behind her, Minako breathed. Usagi had been terribly distraught by Ando’s careless comment and had insisted on watching Rei’s interview again, this time on her small pink netbook computer. Naturally, now that she knew what to look for, Usagi had found proof that Ando was correct and Rei indeed unhappy with the resurrected temple. It was in her eyes, Usagi kept saying over and over again, her bottom lip trembling.
It was such a shame; the idea of having helped one of her oldest friends had given Usagi so much strength, and now that she realised that the crystal wasn’t even good for that, her sunny disposition had crumbled like a house of cards. When Minako finally had to admit to herself that she wasn’t able to console her, she sucked it up and called Mamoru at the hospital. He had arrived within the hour, bearing a bouquet of roses, a box of chocolates, and a face like thunder that only softened when he saw his wife sitting cross-legged on their bed, crying and clutching a pillow.
Minako had made a quick escape; she knew that Mamoru was the only person who could talk Usagi down. Well, perhaps Rei could do it too, given the circumstances, but Minako felt that the former miko had already done her part for the day. Checking her watch, Minako realised that Rei wouldn’t be back for at least another three hours. She was going to have lunch with the Senator as a small thank-you for rising so early and accompanying her to the interview.
Where Ando had gone, Minako didn’t know, but for the first time, she really didn’t care. It wasn’t so much an unspoken rule to not say things that upset Usagi but an unspoken law. To Minako, there was no sweeter person in the world than Usagi and to let Usagi know that her best intentions had backfired, and to let her know in that manner... No. Just no.
It was sweet of Ando to want to protect Rei, but Rei had fought battles much harder than this one. She had buried her mother, her grandfather, her father, had survived the unfortunate episode with Kaido, had forsaken her duty as a miko, and of course, had victoriously braved monster after monster when she’d only been a teenager. One of those monsters had been Jadeite, a sliver of his past self encapsulated in the darkness of Metalia. While Jadeite had tried to lure Rei Hino to death, Ando Tanaka had been in New York, unaware of who he was, and what a part of him was doing halfway across the globe. Ami and Umino had explained it at length to all of them, revealing the intricacies of magic older than any living thing in Tokyo, but to be honest, Minako had never quite understand the whole thing. To her, the shitennou were the men she had known in the Silver Millenium and the men whom she shared her life and friends with today.
But the point remained that Rei was strong, stronger than Ando knew, and that she could face far worse than a morning walking the grounds of her resurrected childhood home.
Heading for her room, Minako wondered what to do with the rest of the day. There was no work she could do until she had spoken to Rei or Ando, Usagi was taken care of, Ami was in Kyoto, and Makoto was working. She could always go to the café to kill some time, read a few papers while looking for any mention of the palace or Usagi or Mamoru or the end of the world.
There was a hole in her morning, a void she couldn’t fill. Without having to check her Mickey Mouse wristwatch, she knew that it was quarter past nine. For over a decade, this had been the time when she’d taken her dog for a walk, come wind or weather.
Trying to pull herself together, Minako squared her shoulders. There was no point pining for things that could have been. Attila wasn’t here because Takeshi had taken him with him. And Takeshi wasn’t here not only because he couldn’t be seen around the palace while being the head of the CTCT, but also because he had unleashed his powers in the presence of those he’d sworn to protect. Him not being there, she reasoned, was a good thing. Usagi’s safety came first. She could learn to find something else to do in the morning, she could learn to live without Attila.
Attila, who despite his humongous size, was afraid of thunder, Spock, and most randomly, school buses. Attila, who liked to doze with his head on her feet. Attila, who knew that once Takeshi left for work in the morning, was allowed to sneak into the bed with Mina. A stubborn tear began to make its way down her cheek, but Minako wiped it away impatiently. Not today. Not here. Not with Ando in the rooms above her, being able to listen in on her every thought.
Shedding her pyjamas, Minako slipped into a pair of jeans, a thick knitted jumper of Makoto’s that had somehow found its way to her room, and her beloved pink Uggs. Picking up her jacket, gloves, scarf, hat, and purse, Minako left.
***
Critically examining the blue fondant for the last minute order of birthday cake her assistant had accepted, Makoto hoped she could finish on time. Hiro was picking up Aiko from kindergarten and Yoshi was with him anyway, but she’d like to be home before them. With Christmas just around the corner, there was no shortage of things she still needed to take care off. The presents for Hiro and Yoshi were already sorted, but she hadn’t heard back from Setsuna about the pony she meant to take off of the other woman’s hands. Tinkerbell, Hotaru’s old pony, was supposed to become Tinkerbell, Aiko’s new pony, on Christmas Day. Makoto didn’t even want to begin to imagine the drama that would envelop them all if Aiko didn’t get the pony everyone had all but promised her.
Putting the fondant back into the bowl after deeming it satisfactory, she walked to the sink and washed her hands. There was a phone mounted to wall, and picking it up, she checked a number on a list tacked next to it. All the important numbers were on that list: delivery people, regular customers, senshi, kindergarten, Hiro’s family, even the Tsukino house, Rei’s father’s assistant and Minako’s parents. Dialling the number of Setsuna Meioh, Makoto decided that she would have to update the list. Senator Hino had died two years ago; she wouldn’t need his assistant’s number anymore.
Setsuna picked up just as Makoto was getting ready to hang up.
“Meioh,” Setsuna’s calm voice announced and Makoto smiled. She’d always liked the senshi of time; they had bonded deeply after Aiko’s birth. Setsuna, having already raised one child, understand the joy and exhaustion of motherhood. Without a doubt, so did Michiru and Haruka, but the two steadfastly refused to speak to her.
“Hello Setsuna, it’s Makoto. I am sorry to bother you, but I was wondering about Tinkerbell.”
Setsuna didn’t reply immediately. Makoto frowned. “Setsuna?”
“Sorry, I was distracted,” the senshi replied. “I take it you want to leave Tinkerbell in her stable?”
Makoto nodded, even though Setsuna couldn’t see her. “Yes, that would be best, we can drive Aiko out there in the winter and come summer, we can reconsider moving the pony to Hiro’s family’s place. We’ll probably get a second one for Yoshi anyway.” Yoshi, like his sister, was taking after Hiro: he was completely mad about animals. She couldn’t even get him down for his nap unless she had let him pet the dogs first.
“I will talk to the stable’s manager, let her know Tinkerbell is changing hands.” Perfect, Makoto thought. That was Aiko’s Christmas present taken care of. She would make Setsuna a nice cake and send it to her in the new year as a small thank you gift.
“Ah, lovely, thank you. And do you have a picture of Tinkerbell that we could stick on a Barbie toy horse just to make sure my daughter believes us when we tell her on Christmas Day? Otherwise I am quite afraid she will drown us all in her mighty tears.”
Setsuna chuckled and for a second, it sounded as if there was a man in the background, laughing with her.
“Of course. Can I email it you?”
“Yes, yes, sure!”
“Wonderful. Makoto, please excuse me, but I do have to go.”
“Flight to Sydney?” Makoto asked, twirling the phone cord around her finger. “Hotaru must be looking forward to having you over.”
A second of silence. “I am staying in Tokyo over the holidays,” Setsuna said, “and Hotaru is staying in Sydney; she is enjoying the sunshine and her new boyfriend.”
Oh. Makoto imagined herself twenty years in the future, when her daughter was grown-up and abroad and not coming home for Christmas. She wrinkled her nose: what a ghastly idea. “I see,” she said. Well, Setsuna could always spend the holidays with them, Hiro wouldn’t mind. “Do you want to come over on Christmas Day?”
“What a wonderful offer. Alas, I am afraid I already have plans, but thank you, Makoto, that is very thoughtful of you.”
“No problem,” Makoto replied and saying goodbye, hung up. It seemed like Hotaru wasn’t the only one with a new boyfriend, Makoto thought with a grin. Well, good for Setsuna. It must be hard, always being alone and somewhat removed from everyone else.
The egg-shaped kitchen timer went off. Snatching the oven gloves from the counter, Makoto returned to work. She still had a Barbie pony to buy.
***
“You said what?” Rei fired at Ando as she strode into his bedroom. Ando shot up from the bed where he’d been reading the paper.
“Are you okay?”
“You cannot tell Usagi I am unhappy about the temple, Ando!”
Folding the paper back together, he took a moment to regroup. “So Minako called you.” There was a small stab in his stomach; Ando wasn’t used to Minako being anything other than his partner in crime. And now she had ratted him out, gone to Rei to complain about him. It stung.
“No, Mamoru did. Usagi was inconsolable.”
“She’s a grown-up,” Ando insisted, but before he could go on, the cross look on Rei’s face shut him up. He’d seen her sad, happy, amused, devastated, but he’d never seen her angry, at least not in this life and not at him. All her usual composure had slipped away, she had her hands balled into fists, her cheeks were an angry red, and her eyes were narrowed. In a way, she was just as scary as Takeshi had been the night he’d almost electrocuted Ando. Suddenly, he remembered that Rei commanded fire and that they were standing on a volcano. Not good.
“Do not tell me how to treat Usagi. Do not dare to tell me how to treat Usagi. This was a private matter and I do not appreciate you interfering, whatever your reasons may be.”
“Whatever--- whatever my reasons may be? YOU are my reason, your well-being. I saw how you looked and I knew how much it hurt, so I went to Minako to tell her to leave you the fuck alone.” He tried to reach for her hand, but Rei snatched it back. She was still wearing the gloves he’d seen on television.
“It wasn’t even Minako’s ida to begin with! Makoto and I came up with it last night. Minako just asked me to contact my godfather, not to orchestrate an interview with him.”
Ando blinked. “She didn’t?”
“No. And don’t you even think about going to Makoto to complain about this.”
Something close to dread settled in his stomach. Ando looked around the room, which was littered with old newspapers, books, and used coffee mugs. He finally spotted what he was searching for under yesterday’s edition of the Tokyo Times. He reached for his mobile, fingers flying over the screen. “I need to apologise to Minako.” He’d fucked up; badly.
“No, you need to go talk to Usagi. You will go to her and explain that you were just worried about me and that--”
“Of course I was worried about you,” Ando replied impatiently. “Usagi knows I was worried about you, Rei, that’s not exactly a secret. Is Mamoru with her now?”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s okay.”
“I was just with her, she’s anything but.”
A part of Ando wanted to point out that if Rei had been honest with Usagi from the start, admitted that she wanted to leave the temple as it was, they wouldn’t have had to have this conversation now. Ando believed in being completely, utterly, uncompromisingly honest. Usagi deserved to know all the facts, it was why he had told her about the prophecy and Chibi-Usa as soon as he realised she’d been left in the dark. But unfortunately, he couldn’t very well get on his high horse now because just as Rei wanted to protect Usagi from any and all pain, Ando wanted to do the same for Rei, and it had culminated in him attacking Minako.
He sighed. “Rei, I just want you to be happy. I hate that Usagi is upset, I don’t want her to be upset, but I also want to know how you are. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to parade around in front of a camera if all it does is hurt you.”
“We all have to make sacrifices, Ando. I am perfectly able and willing to be interviewed if it means Mamoru doesn’t get stabbed again or Usagi can walk around the city without having to disguise herself. And I am even more willing to do it if it means that we can have a future in which Chibi-Usa and Aiko are happy and alive.”
“Fine,” he concurred, and reached for her hand again. This time, she didn’t pull away.
“And now tell me how you are.”
She shrugged. “I had a very unpleasant morning, but I’ve had worse.”
He lowered his head, trying to catch her eyes. Rei looked at the floor.
“How about I take you out to lunch to make it better?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, but finally met his eyes.
“Does that mean you really aren’t hungry or that you are passive aggressively refusing my company?”
Exasperated, she smiled at him. “I am not really that complicated, Ando. I’m just not hungry.”
“So we’re good? You’re good?”
“Yes, we’re good.” As an afterthought, she added: “But we’d be better if I didn’t know Usagi was crying because of something you said.”
“Rei, she’s not crying because of something I said. She’s crying because she’s afraid her daughter won’t ever be born, because Takeshi and Minako are more or less broken up, because she can’t paint the walls pink and because she couldn’t do something nice for you.”
Rei sighed. "I know, but it doesn't change the fact that she's still crying."
And because there wasn’t anything he could do or say to make Usagi’s tears go away, Ando simply pulled his girlfriend into a hug, rested his chin on her head and looked out of the window, watching the snow fall onto the crystal covered city.
***
“I’ll pay by credit card,” Minako said, and pushed the card over to the salesman. Looking slightly distrustful, he accepted the card and ran it through the machine. It didn’t happen very often; such a young woman coming into the dealership first thing in the morning, pointing to a car, saying “that one”, and then handing him her credit card two minutes later. But this customer had been adamant: no test drive, no sales pitch, no additional information. She just wanted a car, period.
As she was signing the insurance papers, he looked for a wedding band on her finger. None. So she lived alone. How could a woman her age, unmarried, afford a car like this? Almost sure that the card would be rejected, he was surprised when it was accepted without a glitch. A woman with a pink knitted hat with pompoms on it had just spent over 5,900,000 Yen on a car.
“Miss Aino,” he began, his smile suddenly real, “is there anything else we here at BMW Tokyo can do for you?”
Looking over her shoulder at the black X5, Minako shook her head. “No, thanks.”
***
Carefully navigating the snow-covered streets, Minako drove through the city. She’d done it, she bought a car. Had she bought one a few years ago, it would have probably been a ‘fun’ car, a Volkswagen Beetle, a Mini Cooper. Something round and squishy in a bright colour and she would have probably added flower stickers to the car paint, or little stars.
But what she needed now was a car that would allow her to transport furniture from her house to the palace, a car that meant she didn’t have to ask Hiro for his transporter when she got the rest of her stuff. A reliable car, one in which she could drive Usagi around, even in the dead of winter. Having gotten used to Takeshi’s comfortable and luxurious X5, she didn’t need to consider her options for too long.
There was a problem (she needed a spacious car she could drive easily) and a solution (buying what she liked and knew), case closed.
In her purse, carelessly thrown on the passenger seat, her phone began to ring. In a more or less desperate attempt to win back Aiko’s affection, she’d allowed the little girl to choose her ringtone yesterday. It hadn’t quite worked, Aiko had gone to bed without giving Minako a kiss goodnight, but luckily, Minako didn’t mind being stuck the latest Disney movie’s theme song regardless. It was actually quite catchy.
Fishing for the phone without taking her eyes off the road, she answered. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry,” Ando said without preamble. Indicating left, Minako took a turn.
“Spoke to Rei, did you?”
“Yes.”
Two more streets, and she’d be at their house. If this car were silver, and if the world was normal, Attila would now raise his head on the backseat, sniffing the air, wagging his tail. It was always when they turned this corner that her dog knew that they were almost home, even if he wasn’t looking out of the window.
“Ando, I can’t talk now,” she said and disconnected, and after a moment’s consideration, switched the phone off for good before tossing it back in her purse.
She was here.
Pulling up into the empty driveway, she turned off the engine and looked at her house. All the shutters were pulled down. They hadn’t been last time she’d been here. Someone had also been by to shovel snow a few days ago because the coating was lighter in some places than in others.
Her hands were shaking for just a moment before she steeled herself and climbed out the car, her feet sinking a few centimeters into the fresh snow. Takeshi wasn’t here today; his car wasn’t parked on the street and it was too cold for him to have walked with Attila. Not that she knew where he was staying. Mamoru had ruled out Elysion, Usagi had told her as much. Takeshi didn’t have any friends bar their mutual ones and since Minako had been to Makoto’s house just yesterday, she knew that he wasn’t staying there. He was probably in a hotel somewhere. She could have checked and obtained the information quite easily (people rarely said no to her), but a part of her just didn’t care. She just didn’t care - he had left her, had left their life, and while she understood his reasons, all of them, she knew she wouldn’t have done the same. It reminded her too much of how their relationship had been when they still went by Venus and Kunzite.
Making her way to the front door, climbing the familiar two steps, she fiddled with the key. She should have made a list of things she wanted to take with her today, but when she had left the palace earlier, she hadn’t anticipated she’d go buy a car. The plan had been to take a walk, get away from Ando and Usagi, to catch some air and re-group.
Instead she had bought a car and was now turning the key in the lock, hoping against all reason that he was inside, waiting for her, telling her everything would be okay.
But the house was quiet, cold and dark. Flicking the lights on, she pushed the door shut with her foot. Normally, she would have taken the boots off, careful not to get watery footprints all over the rugs and the floor, but there was no-one here to care.
Ignoring the pang in her heart, she took a deep breath, forcing herself into the kind of efficiency she liked to imagine Ami displayed in the OR. She would take all her plants; there was no point leaving them here. She went into the cellar, fetched a large packing box, assembled it and began her work, methodically checking each room but Takeshi’s study. There was a ficus in there, but Minako couldn’t bring herself to go in.
Once she had gotten all the plants together, she put the smaller ones into the box and carried it to the car. The snow was falling more rapidly now and Minako hurried to get the box inside the trunk. She didn’t want to risk the cardboard getting wet and all the plants landing on the ground. Once it was safely stored away, she fetched the two big plants from the living room. That was the plants taken care of; the first item to cross off her list.
The next packing box was filled with useful things from the kitchen. Her juicer, her favourite mugs (Takeshi’s were sitting on the shelf, collecting dust) and both the coffee machine and the electric kettle. A few pots and pans, the bowl she liked to eat her cereal from, and a peeler. Finally, the box being almost too heavy to lift already, she decided to empty the small pantry too. The shelf where they kept the dog food was empty. Shoving cans of sweet corn, tomatoes, a few glass jars of jam, unopened packs of cereal and coffee into the box with more vigour than necessary, she left the kitchen.
By the time she was finished, the X5 was filled to the brim. She’d taken a few rugs, towels, blankets and pillows (but not the ones from the bedroom - she didn’t want to sleep in blankets whose smell reminded her of him), and after a little hesitation, the mirror bolted to the wall in the hallway and the large flat screen television from the living room. Just a month ago, she had shied away from taking anything off the walls, feeling it would make the new living arrangements too permanent. Now, a month later, a month of silence and worry, she no longer felt those compunctions. Her life was in the palace now, and if she had to be there alone because Takeshi refused to come in to see her, then she would at least be as comfortable as she could.
And just like that, something inside her gave way.
Switching her phone back on, she typed a quick message, curt, to the point, no room for tears and explanations and enquiries. Just the one thing that she needed to adapt to this new life.
I want Attila.
Hitting send, she climbed into the car. No more looking back.
***
Christmas came and went.
Aiko got her much anticipated pony.
Ando gave Rei a charm bracelet he had put together on his journey.
Usagi regained her smile; Mamoru put on a Santa hat.
Umino’s grandmother taught Mrs. Mizuno and her newest granddaughter-in-law how to knit a sweater.
And Minako Aino waited for her phone to ring.
It didn’t.
***
***Two Years Later***
He could hear his secretary’s phone ring. Checking the time on his watch, Takeshi smiled.
“Councillor Nakamura, it’s your girlfriend calling,” his secretary announced, cheerfully leaning back in his chair so as to meet his boss’ eyes. The young man, fresh out of college, lacked the decorum Takeshi usually preferred his staff to have, but he was so strongly pro-crystal and pro-Chibas that Takeshi was willing to cut him some slack. Especially on a day like this.
“Put her through, please,” he said and closed the door that connected his office with the secretary’s ante-room. His secretary did as he was told and a small green light on Takeshi’s phone began to blink. He picked the receiver up, leaning himself against the edge of the table.
“Hello.”
“How did it go?”
“They will make an official announcement tomorrow, but the motion has been accepted unanimously. Usagi and Mamoru will be styled as King and Queen from January 1st onwards. They will succeed the emperor upon his death, establishing a new line of succession. Their legislative powers are dependant on the parliament, but they have veto and proposal rights.”
“It’s everything we wanted.”
“It is,” Takeshi confirmed, for the first time in weeks feeling like something had gone right. This was what they had all worked for: Mamoru and Usagi official recognition as assets to the state, as Japan’s future.
“Let’s go out for dinner to celebrate tonight.” He smiled at her elation; it was so rare for her to let herself be carried away like this. Unfortunately, he couldn’t indulge her, as much as he wanted to.
“I can’t, I have a meeting with Mamoru, Usagi, Minako and Ando to discuss the press release.” And just like that, their happy moment was over.
She was silent for a second, and both of them were overly aware of it passing without comment. “Of course,” she finally said, her voice as calm and smooth as it had been the first time they’d met. “I will see you at home.”
“See you at home, Setsuna,” he replied and hung up.
Time to get back to work.
*** End of Chapter Nine***