Standard disclaimers apply.
This popped into my head while writing the previous chapter - it's kind of a companion piece, and gives a little more backstory until how it all happened. (Kris is a bit oblivious when he's got his head buried in work – did you really expect for him to search out Mina, rather than the other way around? :) )
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and, the mastermind
'The shoot could have been worse,' Minako mused. There were the fiascos of Mark tripping and falling into Adi and breaking her lens, and Lena getting hives from some of the makeup and just the general misfortune of it being a Friday the 13th - Thankfully, Adi was am amazingly patient photographer, a rarity these days, and most of the models at Gold's weren't of the catty, bitchy type. At least Arty and Luna had the sense to hire decent personalities when they decided to start their business and do something in the years that they waited for Crystal Tokyo.
'And, there the bad luck comes again,' Mina thought to herself, as she stepped through the doors of Gold's and crashed into a large, male body. A muffled whump from her purse indicated that she'd also hit him – in the back of his arm, she figured, from the way her arm was angled, before she managed to slip and fall to the floor. Mina examined him critically as he helped her up – neatly cut suit, probably not made specifically for him, but definitely tailored and of a good quality, which he filled out very, very well, a strong jaw and nose, white hair, intelligent eyes – probably an old corporate businessman come to deal with Arty.
She did another glance-over once she was standing; and then her cornflower blue eyes widened in surprise behind her Gucci sunglasses. The white hair was more platinum blonde, and the eyes, now that his face was in the light, were hazel-grey. He was a little too hot to be old, actually. And well, the truth was, Mina knew who he was - the face was familiar and beloved, and she had seen it a thousand times over, in old photo albums, and in another life. She watched as he rushed off hurriedly and talked to Erin at the front desk, who waved him in with a smile. 'Well, well, Kunzite's got business with us - I'll ask Luna about any of the business meetings that were scheduled for today' – or no, she frowned.
She slipped a hand into her purse, bringing out her phone to dial a familiar number. "Hey older brother," Mina murmured with an easy lilt to the half-brother she only met a few years ago, who she had almost crescent-beamed out of existence when he came to meet his mother for the first time. But that was before she dragged Ami into their house to scan him for negative energy subtly, and before she got to America and met the rest of his family – or, her family, in a way – who had an impressive collection of pictures documenting his life from birth to present, which finally cemented that he wasn't some bastard asshole General named Jadeite - well, even if he was a bastard, in both terms of the word. Except for the fact that he had a college friend who looked like a dead-ringer for Kunzite, who happened to be the guy who had just knocked her down, and that his cousin Zach, her cousin once removed, looked like a much more masculine version of Zoicite.
Of course,Mina had been about to kill him again two weeks ago when it turned out he actually was that person, as he came begging for her forgiveness for crimes committed in a past life – but they had both made their peace with former memories, (her more than him, though) now pieced together partially with snippets from both sides. He still knew far less than she did – although, then again, out of the inner senshi, Minako was the only one who fully remembered, after she forced it out from Setsuna and Luna, arguing rather forcefully with them until they finally gave in. She wondered to herself, amused, if Jay actually knew who Zach and Kris were. But at the moment, he seemed to only remember Endymion and Mars – and for some reason, her, but she figured it was because they lived together and he saw her on a daily basis.
"I fell into one of your friends today, I think."
"Not surprising, I know. I know. It was the white-haired one that you went to college with and seem to visit in New York pretty frequently? And he's generally down here whenever I'm back in Japan?"
"Yeah, yeah, we're both fine, I'm not calling to see the amount of money I can wring out of him by suing him for damages. Actually, it's that he's kind of attrac-"
"No, I promise I won't toy with him. Besides," she laughed, "it's usually them chasing your darling, fluttery sister."
"He's not my type? You mean, what, not the glitterati? Come on, Jay, you know me better than that."
"So, you can set up a lunch with us, then?"
"Love you too, jerk." Mina clicked her phone shut, and walked into the sunshine, humming with pleasure.
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Hope you liked it! Kind of stumped on summer and autumn for four seasons, but these two shorts were fun.
