This goes out to my best friend Sonya. Your birthday's not until tomorrow, but whatevs, right? Happy birthday my beautiful child, let's go get drunk now.
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the kids from yesterday
Usagi's room was disgustingly pink.
Pepto-Bismol pink to the point where you can taste the medicine in the hollow of your throat. She had fashion posters and video game posters and magazine cutouts as well as sticky notes of different colors with reminders of things she was bound to forget, all stuck on her walls in different, disproportionate angles. Her bed was enormous and all five of them fit in perfectly, like sardines, lying side by side only not because Makoto threw her leg over Ami who dug herself into Minako's ribs who was practically on top of Rei who had a hand right smack on Usagi's face.
But that was for later, when they'd fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, just after watching the sun rise and bring sherbet colors to the sky and lustful promises of having the world in the palm of their hands, winning over the hearts of men and the blood of evil with sharp smiles and ancient eyes.
They were in the now, with the lights on and the balcony doors wide open, ignoring as the sheer highlighter-orange curtains swayed in and out with the wind. It was quiet, but not, because Minako was fussing over thick golden locks that spilled from her messy bun and Ami hummed to herself as she read a book and only paid half attention to it. Makoto and Usagi giggled over a love survey in a magazine and Rei cuddled with Artemis and Luna.
It was the dead of night and Tokyo was asleep, but they remained up and functioning, painting toenails red and trying each other's clothes.
The air was harsh, that night, blowing with anger—icy cold and almost brutal.
That's when they dropped everything and dimmed the lights, grabbing blankets (blue and red and green and orange and pink because Usagi never had enough pink) and wrapped them around themselves, curling into balls and huddling into a circle. They didn't close the balcony doors because the pink that adorned their noses was almost cute. They sat there with squinted eyes and strands of hair tickling at their cheeks, tangling with their lashes and obscuring their visions.
They told stories about memories they didn't want to remember, yet do. Tea and hot chocolate appeared in between their hands at some point, hot mugs keeping them warm. They talked about wrathful Mars and the blazing fire that followed her like a shadow, about wise Mercury and her Mercurian technology. They spoke about tactful, loving Venus and the sword she carried like the weight of all the planets in the galaxy, and they spoke about courageous Jupiter and her crooked reassuring grins and depthless strength.
And then they spoke of the princess, curious and sneaky—disappearing out of sight like a bunny on the run.
And they'd laugh, the five of them; not Mars or Mercury or Venus or Jupiter or Moon. But Rei and Ami and Minako and Makoto and Usagi.
They'd laugh because it was easier than being angry because all those memories were once upon a time ending with a sharp, unexpected snap of the book. Being angry at the failures took too much energy and maybe when they woke up the next day they could feel betrayed and insecure and confused and even angry.
But that night they laughed it off with red nail polish and biscuit bites.
"Sometimes, I look at the stars and wonder how they can bear watching us travel in circles," Minako murmurs behind a biscuit, blue eyes shining gold in a minute of calm and lack of crazy.
There is no answer because the stars never spoke about all they knew. So they sat around in a circle, five girls ignoring the cracks in their souls and the blood tainting their hands, admiring the sprinkles of pink on each other's cheeks because they're laughing at the life before this life before this life before this life.
Because in the end, that's all they could do for the night before waking up to another day of fighting to live out the life they were supposed to once upon a time.