Author's Note: The idea for this came to me while I was watching a clip of the show "How it's Made" with my best friend. The conversation that resulted between the two of us made me think of the kind of interaction that Rei and Minako may have with eachother in a similar.... very similar.... situation. Enjoy!
Of Chicks and the Silent Treatment
A look of absolute, undeniable, pure horror settled on Minako's face as the colourful images on the screen flicked by accompanied with a misleadingly gentle sounding voice. She watched as unspeakable tortures were inflicted on the innocent little creatures fluttering about on the screen. A hand was brought up to stifle a cry as a sea of yellow fluff began falling mercilessly through a rotating chain of death.
Rei observed her girlfriend from the corner of her eye. Her attention, having once been focused on preparing delicious sustenance, was now slowly waning towards the slight girl curled up into an impossibly small ball in the middle of the couch. Rei looked up at every dramatic gasp and squeak that passed between the other girls lips, and decided that it may be safer to commit to fully observing the obviously horrified girl on the couch than attempt to continue slicing carrots while bobbing her head up and down like a confused chicken.
"What are you watching?"
Minako looked up as Rei came around the corner of the island separating the kitchen from the living room. With her mouth slightly open and her bottom lip quivering she raised a shaking hand and pointed the remote feebly at the TV screen in front of her. Seemingly unable to form words she shook the remote a few times and reached her other hand out, beckoning Rei to sit next to her.
Rei sighed quietly a looked mournfully over at the now abandoned food. She frowned as her stomach growled and supposed that it was probably impossible to expect for her dinner to finish preparing itself on it's own. Dejectedly, she headed over to the couch and cuddle up beside Minako, gently taking the shaking hand offered to her and quirking an eyebrow when the idol released nothing more than a few unintelligible noises and turned back to stare wide eyed at the screen.
The gentle, disembodied voice described every event as it was happening with a callously detached informative tone. Sounding an awful lot like she was reading from a text book and not bearing any witness at all to what action she was dictating, the narrator prattled on happily as one atrocity after another was committed.
Rei's eyes widened in shock at what she was watching. But shock was soon replaced by amusement. Which was in turn all too quickly replaced by glee and in a mirror image of her girlfriend, Rei raised a hand to her mouth to stifle the laughter that was guaranteed to come exploding out if the barrier was removed. Unfortunately for Rei her efforts were not enough to prevent her body from shuddering from her repressed laughter and her attempts at remaining quiet were completely foiled when a fist landed forcefully on her thigh.
"It's not funny Rei! How could you possibly be laughing?" Minako once again raised the remote and gestured emphatically at the TV screen, as if that would somehow increase the importance of what she was saying. However, her frantic flailing only seemed to entertain her girlfriend, or possible soon to be ex-girlfriend, further and Rei was now practically doubled over in laughter.
"I'm sorry, it's just, well look at them fluttering all helpless." Rei attempted to wipe a few stray tears from her eyes, only to have Minako swat her hands away in obvious distress. "I'm really not meaning to laugh. But it's just so ridiculous. I mean look at all those chicks."
Minako looked back at the screen after swatting at the giggling girl beside her a few more times for good measure and watched as the hundreds of fluffy, yellow baby chicks were now led down into tiny sorting tubes by a giant conveyer belt. The look of terror only grew on Minako's face as the chicks were then shown falling out of the tubes onto yet another impossibly long conveyer belt only to be led to a semi-circular area where workers proceeded to pick them up, ruffle through their down and then toss them into sex specific containers. Rei laughed again and received a heated glare from the girl sitting next to her.
"You really think it's so funny?" Minako was now facing Rei and pointing the remote dangerously close to her face. "Well how would you like it if right after you were born someone came along, picked you up out of your nice warm crate, threw you on to a conveyer belt where you were dropped through a huge rotating chain, sucked down into a pipe and spat out the other end only to be violated and then segregated by sex?"
Minako finished her rant but remained facing Rei, remote raised and poised for attack. Seconds ticked by and the gentle voice on the TV began talking about toaster ovens. Rei looked first at the remote and then into her girlfriends eyes. Taking one last peak at the remote she calculated the amount of pain Minako would be able to inflict with it and decided that the punishment would be worth it and proceeded to burst out into obnoxious laughter. And as expected, the moment the first breath was expelled from her lungs Minako began her assault.
"It's." Smack. "Not." Thwack. "Funny." Pow!
Rei reached out blindly with one hand trying to capture the hand that held the remote, while with her other she ineffectually tried to ward off the blows. Finally after several seconds of the brutal beating had gone by, Rei was able to grab a hold of Minako's wrist and pin the slightly smaller girl to the sofa.
Pinned underneath the weight of the miko, all Minako could do was turn her head towards the back of the couch. She refused to look up at the still smiling face of her girlfriend and instead settled with scowling at the cushion. Rei cocked her head to the side and glanced quickly back at the kitchen. Releasing the other girls wrist she removed the remote and set it down on the opposite arm of the couch, at what she guessed might be a safe distance. Or at least a great enough distance to allow for appropriate escape time.
Minako was still refusing to look at her and Rei took this opportunity to exact vengeance for the marks she was sure would appear on her body later. Bringing a hand up she gently brushed aside some of the other girls hair, hooking it behind her ear and then continuing to run her hand through it and down to the back of her neck. Leaning in she brought her lips next to Minako's ear.
"I suppose this means you don't want to know what we're having for dinner?" Minako's eyes widened but before she could react, Rei was already up and off the couch after having placed a teasing kiss on her cheek.
"You're going to pay dearly for your cruelty to me Hino Rei!" Lunging forward Minako grabbed the remote on her way off the couch and into the kitchen where Rei was standing at the ready wielding a spatula as her only means of defence. "And I always get my revenge."
Minako snuggled deep into the corner of the couch and clutched her blanket more tightly around her as she turned the page of the magazine in her hands. After the dreadful experience of two nights ago she just couldn't bear to turn on the TV, at least for a few more days. It was a Wednesday afternoon and she was enjoying her day off the best way she knew how. Pyjamas, blanket, couch and a good magazine.
Glancing at the clock hanging on the opposite wall, she noted that Rei would be coming home at any second. Normally she would be bouncing about the apartment in anticipation of her girlfriends arrival, but ever since that horrible evening a war of silence had fallen over the two girls. It wasn't that they didn't talk. Mostly it was the case that Rei talked, constantly, and Minako would only resort to one word or very short sentence answers. This brand of silent treatment was Minako's own, much copied, special form of revenge. She knew that if done the right way, nothing would be able to aggravate Rei more than having to figure out exactly how to obtain forgiveness.
Minako sighed and glanced at her cell phone sitting on the coffee table beside her. Her plan was going well, her calculated silence was being executed perfectly, but Rei wasn't responding. Rei was supposed to be sending her random proclamations of her undying love throughout the day, never stopping even when she wouldn't receive a reply. She was also supposed to be coming home with flowers and all manner of bribery in her attempts to win back the heart of her lady fair. But she wasn't doing any of that and Minako huffed as she glanced through her text message inbox, noting that her last received message from Rei came on the afternoon of 'the incident'.
But she reasoned that there was no use doing anything about it. It was never a part of her plan to give in just because Rei was being especially stubborn. She would just wait patiently until the stubborn miko gave in. Or until she was forced to unleash the power of the remote again. Whichever came first.
As Minako was entertaining the though of chasing Rei around the apartment with her new weapon of choice for the second time, she heard the door open quietly followed by the rustling of many things carried in hands. Things, that by all logical assumption given the circumstance, should resemble flowers. Perking up her head slightly, Minako set her magazine down on the coffee table and craned her neck in an attempt to see around the corner to the door. She pouted when Rei finally came around the corner and was revealed to not be holding anything that could be considered flower shaped at all. She was instead holding a large cardboard box. With holes. And straw falling out of it. And was that a peep?
"What have you got there?" Minako was far too interested in discovering whatever it was that Rei had stowed away in that box that she temporarily forgot to stay angry and she propped herself up into a proper sitting position, crossing her legs and leaning forward slightly.
Rei walked slowly over to the couch making sure to note the subtle increase in Minako's excitement level with every step closer she made.
"Are you still angry with me?"
"Well that depends on what's in the box." It's not like Minako was a solely material person. Her love and affection could easily be won over by many things that had no physical form whatsoever. But Minako was a firm believer in the age old tradition of tangible displays of devotion to win back a scorned lover. It wasn't the only way to win forgiveness, but in Minako's opinion it was the most rewarding and so she shuffled closer to the other side of the couch when Rei finally sat down and placed the covered box onto the coffee table, spilling hay everywhere in the process. Minako made a mental note to coax the miko into cleaning that up later.
"Close your eyes and hold out your hands." Minako did as instructed.
Waving her hand in front of the idol's face a few times, Rei smiled to herself, satisfied that Minako couldn't see anything. Carefully removing the lid from the box, Rei reached in and pulled out something that closely resembled a yellow fluff ball. Placing one hand underneath Minako's outstretched hands, Rei dropped the squirming object onto Minako's palms.
As soon as she felt the fuzzy sensation on her palm Minako opened her eyes and saw the source of the softness and squealed in delight.
"You jerk! I can't believe you bought me a chick!" Minako made to smack Rei lightly on the arm, but remembered about the yellow fluff ball bouncing around in her hands at the last second, and so she settled on bobbing about excitedly in her seat instead.
"Jerk?" The miko raised her eyebrow at her girlfriend and proceeded to cross her arms indignantly across her chest, slouching back onto the couch. "I go out of my way to by you a chick and all I get is called a jerk." Puffing at her bangs, Rei set a scowl on her face that could have wilted the flowers at Usagi's house. Halfway across the city.
Minako nuzzled the baby chick and smiled over at Rei. Seeing the look of dejection marring the other girls face she decided she was willing to concede and end the war of silence. Patting the baby chick lightly on the head she placed it gently back into the cardboard box and then slunk over to where Rei had borrowed herself into the couch. Rei didn't respond as Minako first placed a hand on the back on the couch behind her head and then on the arm of the couch beside her. She also didn't respond when Minako moved over to sit on her lap. She did, however, respond when Minako's lips met hers and a pair of hands began running through her hair.
Minako pulled out of the kiss and then shifted positions so that she could cuddle up beside Rei, tangling their arms together and resting her head on Rei's chest, just above her heart. Dropping a light kiss on the top of Minako's head, Rei let out a contented sigh and closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry."
Minako raised her head to look deeply into Rei's eyes. She smiled and kissed her softly, sweetly, conveying in on simple action that all was forgiven.
"We aren't going to eat him when he grows up. Are we?"
"It's a she. And no we aren't." Rei smiled and kissed Minako again, savoring the return of her freedom to do so whenever she pleased. "I'm going to take her to the shrine when she gets too big. You remember how the shrine collects eggs to make food for the homeless right?"
Minako nodded in relief. "I remember."
Rei leaned forward toward the box on the table, which proved to be quite a challenge given Minako's current residence on her lap. Pulling out the baby chick, Rei gently set it back onto Minako's waiting hands. Squirming with happiness, the idol beamed up at Rei and nuzzled the tiny bird that was pecking lightly at her palms.