Rei Hino isn't nice, and she's proud of it. Oh, she can be kind (when she chose to be), protective (she privately thought that only she, Mamoru, and maybe Shingo had the right to tease Usagi), and loyal (especially to her grandpa and her friends), but she drew the line when it came to being nice. Niceness, she always thought, was something people did to make things go their way. Goodness, she firmly believed, came from the heart, and not by how big your smile is when you meet people you actually don't like. She'd take truth and honesty any day over niceness.
That is, until she met Jadeite. She met him at the shelter she volunteered in during weekends, and the first thing that popped in her head was that this guy was nice – and she didn't mean that to be a compliment. She gritted her teeth whenever she saw him, the guy who always had a ready smile and a laugh for anyone who went up to him, be it the street kids who wanted him to play ball with them, or one of the senior citizens who were so old that they had more teeth that were missing than still attached to their mouths. What's more, he never seemed to lose his temper no matter what Rei did, and the priestess ensured that she did everything, short of actually assaulting him, to get a rise out of him. That wasn't to say that he was a pushover. On the contrary, he was quick to defend his ideas and actions when he felt he was right, and he never shirked from arguing with Rei about matters. However, he never ever seemed to lose his temper, only responding with a smile if the young woman argued with him about even the most trivial matters. This guy just seemed too good to be true, so Rei decided that he was, darkly believing that he had some sort of agenda why he decided to volunteer his time in a place where he couldn't get anything out of the situation. As she learned more about him, however, she realized that his actions weren't contrived but were actually genuine. He really did like helping these people out and doing all of these things even without getting some sort of material reward. There was something almost Usagi-like about him in how he seemed to genuinely like being with people and helping them out. Against her will, she began to think differently about him, in spite of her instinctive desire to recoil from someone who was so obviously nice.
Funnily enough, Jadeite seemed to like her too, and his affection for her was so obvious that she instinctively raised her defenses, only to realize just how ridiculous her reaction was. Maybe not all of the men in the world are creeps, she thought to herself as she watched the young man play football with some of the kids in the shelter.
She was so focused on her reflections that she failed to notice that the object of her thoughts was already making his way toward her. "Hey, Rei!"
Rei started when she realized who was talking to her. "Jadeite!"
The blond man smiled at her apologetically. "Sorry, did I scare you? I just wanted to ask if you want to get a bite to eat after we're done here. I just need to shower and then we can head off."
Rei saw the hopeful look on the young man's face, and she couldn't help but give him a smile in return. "Sure, that would be… Nice."