Chapter 2 – Valentine Party Pranks
"I knew I should have listened to that Very Bad Feeling," Makoto muttered in disgust, looking around at the scene of debauchery in the making. She held the enormous platter of cookies in front of her like a shield, weaving her way between necking couples and drunken freshmen, and wondered all the while if her ears would survive the assault of the stereo, which had to be pumping out just slightly fewer decibels than would result in instant perforation of eardrums. She ducked a low-hanging cluster of shiny red foil hearts which hung from an overhead light fixture and wondered yet again what had possessed her to do something as daft as listen to Minako when it didn't involve senshi combat.
She ought to have known better after so many years. Perhaps she was weak where blue-eyed blonds were concerned. It would explain the last relationship debacle she'd gone through.
Sighing, she slapped at a stray male hand which had, without warning, inched south of her personal border and shot the lecherous perpetrator an evil glare. He was busy dancing with one of Minako's sorority sisters, but apparently felt free to spread to groping around when the overly mascaraed, limb-flailing red-head wasn't looking closely.
"I am so going to kill Minako," Makoto vowed yet again. Of course that meant finding the bubbly blonde, who was probably in the thick of the throng of people who filled the dance area, which Makoto was skirting with every intention of avoiding it altogether. Grinding against perfect strangers to ear-shattering caterwauling wasn't exactly her idea of romance, especially on Valentine's Day. Which, she reflected, was probably one of the reasons, in addition to her insane schedule, why she hadn't had a date in six months. It was truly depressing.
It might have been influence of her past life or her mother having read too many fairy tales to her when she was a child, but Makoto's idea of romantic parties involved candlelight, flowers, orchestras and graceful ball gowns…and handsome, charming princes (no frogs please!) asking her to waltz, of course, and hand-in-hand walks in gardens. Or at least someone who bothered to know her name and give her some nice chocolates and take her on more than one date before expecting her to get horizontal with him. Unfortunately Makoto had also discovered that there were a lot more frogs than princes in the world.
Fortunately Makoto had an excellent right hook.
Not for the first time, she truly envied Usagi. Normally she was just mildly envious her friend had the love of a protective mother and father since she, herself, didn't have them. Not that she wanted Usagi to lose anything…just that she wished she had some for herself. However tonight, she really was jealous of the fact that her friend had a loving and adoring fiancé, which meant that she was off having a romantic (and blessedly quiet) dinner someplace with soft violins and bubbly champagne and French haute cuisine, instead of having to face Kappa Party Central and drunken frat boy party crashers who were crushing beer cans on their foreheads and burping and probably thought of it as a mating call.
Depressing. It was truly depressing. As was the thought that, of all of the Inner Senshi, it looked like Usagi alone was going to be able to find love. Even Minako was routinely striking out, though she remained ever optimistic as was her nature. Makoto, on the other hand, had started to feel cynicism setting in.
Rei would be so proud.
She was startled just then to catch a glimpse through the crowd of a girl who looked like Rei, but immediately discounted the notion. The only person less likely than their miko friend to be at the party would be Ami, who was probably puttering in her lab or curled up in a snug library carrel studying the mating rituals of proto-primates.
'Perhaps I'll send her a few specimens to dissect,' Makoto thought, dubiously eyeing a few thick-browed males who seemed rather low on the evolutionary scale and were rating every female who walked past with a score on a one to ten scale.
"Seven," one of the less drunken Neanderthals called out as she walked past and Makoto growled softly. Her chest alone should have garnered her at least an eight, maybe an eight and a half or nine, not that she cared what the drunken idiots thought. Still, it stung a bit.
"Halfwits," she mumbled, giving them too much credit.
Makoto pushed her way into another room, which was just as packed as the first and spotted a table that was practically groaning under the amount of food, mostly chips and assorted junk, which was scattered on its top.
Slowly picking her way toward it, she balanced her tray on her arm and cleared a space to set down the cookie platter.
Her pink iced, heart-shaped treats looked more than a little out of place crammed among the overflowing bowls of Pretz, shrimp chips, cheese curls, and other assorted munchies, but Makoto was satisfied. She'd fulfilled her promise to Minako and now she could get something to drink, find Minako and scream at her for a few minutes, and then make an escape and maybe save whatever vestiges of hearing she had left. That idea made her smile. She snatched one of her cookies for the road, shooting a last disdainful glance at the overly salty chips.
In the middle of the table she spotted a punch bowl, surrounded by filled cups. She picked up a glass of screaming red colored fruit punch, only to have her wrist caught and held before she could bring it to her lips. "You ought to watch out for the Red Death punch. It's totally spiked."
Makoto glanced up from the blue plastic cup into a pair of the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, and having spent years around Usagi, Minako and Mamoru, that was saying something. The male face they were set in wasn't bad either, she noted, sinfully handsome and framed by longish, dark chestnut colored waves which were streaked with rich, darker color, like espresso. Not bad at all. Makoto smiled as she noted that, instead of a beer or a handful of chips, he had one of her cookies in his other hand. A mark of good taste in her book. He got immediate bonus points.
"Really?"
He grinned at her which had her heart skipping a beat, and for the first time not because she thought he looked like the sempai who'd left her lovelorn when she was a kid. Sempai was soy mash compared to this guy. And he was still holding her wrist…it wasn't her hand, but it was close. "I'd wager," he said in a slightly husky voice, leaning toward her over the table, "that's got more booze in it than the corner liquor store has in its whole back storage room." The warm rumble of his voice made Makoto's toes curl inside her shoes.
She was about to speak when a blonde girl in a fire engine red mini-dress of almost illegally form-fitting spandex, a Kappa necklace with a fat, pink, heart-shaped stone, and a huge red hair bow swooped in on them. Makoto blinked, mystified, realizing that her friend was also wearing a pair of glittery plastic fairy wings for no particular reason that she could fathom.
"Minako?" she asked dumbly.
"Mako-chan! You came and brought the cookies! Now I can keep my promise."
'Damn!' Makoto braced herself for the moment that was destined to happen, when the fabulous looking guy would see her model-gorgeous friend and forget about her very existence. She was used to it, but for no good reason it seemed like it would hurt more this time…maybe because it was Valentine's Day.
And then something completely unexpected happened.
Minako flashed her patented V sign, declaring in ringing tones, "In the name of Venus, GET LUCKY!" A bracelet of heavy silver snapped shut around Makoto's arm, really actually high on her wrist, just above where the man's hand was. A similar silver ring was summarily locked onto his. Her lunatic friend let out a squeal of delight and plunged back into the crowd, her wings bobbing as she bounced away.
"The heck?!"
Makoto jerked her wrist involuntarily, sloshing punch over the edge of her cup and onto the stained-beyond-all-repair rug. The stranger's wrist followed. Makoto blinked again as she digested the facts.
Her obviously completely deranged friend had handcuffed her to a perfect stranger and then run off to kami only knew where. Therefore:
1.Minako had obviously lost her mind, though it didn't matter because Minako wasn't going to live long enough to be dangerous to another human being…except that
2.She'd already gotten away. Damn!
3.The guy was still really cute and looked as stunned as she did.
4.She, Makoto, wasn't nearly as mad as she ought to be. Probably because of reason number 3.
Makoto proffered a weak apologetic smile. "Eh…what can I say? She's nuts. I'm really sorry about this." She'd studied a lot about etiquette in her coursework, but it had mostly involved which direction to serve and remove plates and how to dine using all twenty forks and such. There hadn't been any part, however, which involved explaining to a hot guy that one's friend had gone insane and the handcuffs had to be said friend's demented idea of party ice-breaker.
Random shrieks and some curses emitting from around the room drew Makoto's attention away from the man she was cuffed to and toward the room at large. It seemed that Minako was not the only Kappa wearing those ludicrous wings and handcuffing random male and female people together. Some happily. Some not. Oh yes, this stunt had Minako written all over it.
"I wonder where they got all the handcuffs," the man said thoughtfully as he bit into her cookie. A slow burn settled in Makoto's cheeks as he licked crumbs off his lips while she watched, transfixed. Evidently he was over his shocked initial reaction, though Makoto still wasn't.
"I AM GOING TO ROAST YOU OVER A SLOW FIRE, AINO MINAKO!"
Makoto jumped, dropping her cup entirely, jerking her partner's arm again. That was unmistakably Rei, her outraged screech coming from the front room and drowning out the thump of the stereo. Evidently she hadn't just seen a look-alike earlier. Which meant that if something wasn't done, the whole party was liable to go down, literally, in flames. Unfortunately Makoto couldn't just run in there and save the world, or in this case the Kappa House, since she had a tagalong linked to her wrist.
"Um…excuse me," Makoto apologized, "but I've really got to see to that." She waved their linked hands in the direction of the other room. "Can you…um…?"
"Oh…right." He looked slightly abashed and, so she could come around, they moved toward the end of the table…in opposite directions. The chain between the cuffs caught them and he laughed. Makoto turned redder than the punch. "Okay," she mumbled, "we'll go your way."
Gingerly she lifted their hands and they picked their way around the perimeter of the table until she could come around to his side.
"It'll be easier to get through," he mused, "if we just hold hands."
"I suppose," Makoto replied, feeling flustered as he opened his hand to take hers. When she slid her hand in his she felt the oddest sensation of warmth. Not in her hand, but all over her. She figured it was lucky that she'd already been blushing. She couldn't possibly get any redder.
There was another shriek of moral outrage which had her wincing. "Gotta go. Come'mon."
"Let me," he said, stepping ahead and parting his way through the crowd. "Which way."
Makoto went up on tiptoe to scan the crowd, taking advantage of her height for once. The problem with living in Tokyo, she mused, was there were too many black haired people and quite a few of them were complaining about the Valentine's Party idea. But only one of them was currently vowing eternal vengeance on their mutual friend while handcuffed to a rather rakish, very Nordic looking man, so that helped narrow the field a good bit. Glancing back at her partner, Makoto noticed with some pleasure that even up on her toes he was still taller than she by more than a few critically important centimeters.
"Over there," she pointed with her free hand. "The one in the plum, err, purple dress cuffed to the blond guy."
Her man grinned as he spotted her friend. "Oh…okay. We're off then."
With Makoto in tow, he plowed through the milling throng, only getting them hung up once on another couple's set of cuffs. When they reached the other pair, Makoto grabbed Rei with her cuffed hand.
"Calm down, Rei-chan."
"Mako, if she doesn't give me the keys to these in the next five seconds," Rei said, shaking her wrist in the air and thereby the blond man's as well, "I am going to visit a whole new world of pain onto Minako."
"I'm not that bad, am I? 'Cause I think you're hot."
That interjection from the blond man had Makoto wincing. Rei opened her mouth to blast him, silenced only because Makoto stuffed her cookie into Rei's mouth. The priestess chewed grimly as Makoto insisted, "Later, Rei-chan."
"So I take it you two know each other then," the blond man said with a grin, flashing Makoto a saucy wink from beneath his somewhat shaggy golden bangs. He stuck out his free hand and pumped hers. "I'm Jude Edward Daito the Third," he chucked at the pomposity of it, "but everyone calls me Jed. And I take it she's Rei," he said, jerking a finger at his partner who muttered something unintelligible around the mouthful of cookie. "And you two are?"
"Um…Makoto. Kino Makoto," she said, looking a little embarrassed at being unable to introduce her male cohort. But they hadn't gotten as far as introductions when she'd heard Rei threatening Minako.
"Neil Sterne," Makoto's chocolate haired companion saved her from acute humiliation. "Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise," the blond man said, thrusting his free hand out for Neil to take and flashing a gleaming toothpaste bright smile which was infectious.
By that point, Rei had finished chewing and swallowing the cookie. She stuck a finger in Makoto's face. "Don't you ever try that again…at least not without the damn cookie." A relieved look spread across Makoto's face. She recognized that tone. She'd been reprieved, and Rei's next words confirmed it. "It's what saved you this time."
"Smooth move," Jed interjected with a second wink at Makoto.
Rei elbowed him sharply, making Neil and Makoto laugh, but Rei refused to look in her partner's direction. "Have you got any more of those cookies on you, Mako-chan? Someone else could use stopping up."
"Sorry. You got the last one." Waggling empty fingertips, Makoto shook her head. "So Mina-chan got you two…um…too?"
Rolling her smoky amethyst eyes, Rei nodded. "Yup. Did you see the wings? She and her little army of Kappas running around like a bunch of crazed cupids."
"Well you don't hear us complaining," Neil said, squeezing Makoto's hand as he glanced over at Jed for confirmation. Makoto blushed while Jed, an impish twinkle in his ice blue eyes, gave Rei a lascivious once over.
"Nope. No complaints here."
"Baka," Rei muttered, her ears going red. "I just hope it doesn't get Minako into trouble."
A slight frown creased Makoto's forehead. "Trouble?"
"You know," Rei said with another eye roll. "Drunk freshman girls. Guys on the make. Handcuffs. It might not be good."
"Oh…that kind of trouble." Makoto flinched and chewed on her lip. Rei had a definite point.
"So how do you know this Minako friend of yours is behind this?" Neil scratched his temple. The girls looked down at their wrists pointedly. Hastily Neil amended his query. "I mean…how do you know she came up with the idea?"
This time both girls rolled their eyes. Rei answered him saying, "You have to know our friend to know that this handcuff thing is Minako-chan all over. She's the self proclaimed Goddess of Looooooove." Deliberately Rei drawled out the vowel.
"Plus," Makoto interjected, "she would do anything to bring people together. But she doesn't always think things through when it comes to romance."
There was a derisive snort from Rei at that. "Try any time."
"Rei. That wasn't even nice." Makoto reproved her friend, who flushed and glanced around to make sure Minako hadn't overheard her verbal potshot. "You know she'll be much more likely to give you the key if you're not screaming at her or insulting her."
"Alright, alright. I take it back." the raven-haired girl groaned, feeling guilty in spite of herself. Makoto's notable distaste for internal discord (the heat of battle and her quick temper notwithstanding) was second only to Ami's, and she had a tendency to guilt everyone to death in an effort to make peace when squabbles broke out among her friends. "Always the peace-maker, aren't you?"
That drew a giggle from Makoto. "Well someone's got to be and Ami's not here right now. Who'd have ever dreamt it all those years ago when I was the 'karate fiend' bully who was rumored to beat people up just for the hell of it?"
Neil stared at her. "You're kidding! Someone said that about you? That's crazy." She was strong, sure, but to his eyes she looked every inch a lady, from her soft auburn curls right down to the hem of the soft pink sweater dress she wore. She looked like the kind of girl he wanted to meet that he could some day take to introduce his parents. It was one of the reasons he'd gone over to meet her in the first place instead of hooking up with some vapid, overly made-up party girl. Well, that and the fact that he'd been hooked by the light sparkling in her vivid green eyes. But she certainly didn't look like a brawler.
Looks so often are deceiving.
Makoto shrugged, though she was mentally kicking herself for opening her big mouth. "You know how rumor mills are," she temporized, "Stories take on a life of their own. One kiss is a proposal of marriage. One slap becomes a brawl." She wondered if her own ears were going red. 'So it was kind of more than a slap…but it was years ago. And the jerk's broken nose healed in time.'
Her reverie was broken by a yell that could lead to only one thing. Trouble. Makoto smirked. It was always good to be headed toward a familiar destination…and now, with Rei, she had backup.
