I Won't Give Up
She opened her eyes to see dark room around her, the only light coming from behind the dark red curtains. Rolling over she looked at the glowing red numbers on the bedside clock. 7:42am, it was still too early for Serena to be awake and Ami would probably only start knocking on the doors in fifteen minutes. Sighing she pushed herself off of the bed and into the bathroom for her shower.
Ami knocked on her door just as Minako finished combing out her hair. As she opened the door the bright light blinded her making her step back to shade her eyes. The small blue haired girl stood in front of her wearing a white baby doll top and a pair of blue jeans. "Morning Mina!" she said pleasantly with a wide grin on her face.
"Morning Ami, are the others up yet?" she asked, fully expecting the girl to say that she had been trying to wake up Serena.
"Well yes, except for Rei," she said looking just as shocked as Minako felt.
"Is Rei still sick?" Minako asked worried about Rei, "and how did you get Serena to wake up?"
"Yeah, Rei is still pretty sick," Ami answered, "And Serena woke up early because Darien is meeting us for breakfast."
"Ah, well, let me finish getting ready and we'll head out," she smiled as she turned back into her bedroom.
She shut her door as Ami walked back to Serena's room. Minako grabbed her purse and the key to her room. Closing her suit case and putting it in the closet she headed out to meet the others in Serena's room. Looking through the open door she could see Serena bouncing up and down on her bed like a little girl getting ready to go to the fair. Leita stood leaning on the wall with a slight smirk at Serena's silliness, Ami was sitting next on the bed with Serena trying to hold her down from bouncing. Mina smiled; she loved seeing her friends, happy, even if she was miserably alone.
"Well, are we going or what?" Leita asked pushing herself off the wall and walking out to stand with Mina.
"YES!" Serena squealed happily as she grabbed her purse and ran out the door.
Ami was last walking calmly out of the room making sure she picked up the door key that Serena had already forgotten before joining the group. They decided against driving the short distance to the restaurant, since the roads were so narrow with few places to park they planned on walking everywhere in the small and busy city. The buildings all looked very similar to Minako, all small and box shaped in various shades of tan. Stores were small and packed with expensive looking products from shiny jewelry to brightly colored clothing in native styles. They almost walked past their restaurant thinking it was just another little shop.
Minako was last to walk into the dimly lit dining room. Her heart stopped, the saloon styled restaurant was identical to the one in her dream. All that was missing was the tall, tan, white haired man leaning on the counter. She walked slowly behind the girls, hardly paying attention to the menu, or that Darien had joined the group. She made her order in a daze, only ordering a plate of pancakes with a side of bacon and a glass of apple juice. She didn't even see the worried glances from the other girls; all she could do was look at the spot that Kunzite had stood in her dream. A sudden nudge from behind brought her back to reality.
"You alright Mina?" Darien asked with a look of concern.
"Yeah," she laughed, "I'm just a space face!"
"Case, and alright, well, let's all get a seat," he said leading the group of girls over to a large round table to wait for their numbers to be called.
"So Darien what are you doing all the way out here?" Ami asked as they sat down.
"I'm out here to meet up with all of you," he said shyly, "I had some time off."
"YAY!" Serena squealed with delight.
Their breakfast was over quickly, each only making small talk with each other as Serena fawned over Darien and glared at any other woman who dared look at him. Minako didn't say much, which the others thought was odd, but in a new place they supposed she had a right to her thoughts. On occasion Mina would find herself still staring at the space on the bar that was only occupied by the occasional customer complaining about their order being wrong, or their eggs being to runny. Why am I being so stupid, Mina asked herself with a light sigh as she got up from the table with the others, He's not going to be here, there's absolutely no way! He's gone, and I just need to accept that. She followed Ami as they walked outside to spend the day window shopping and walking around the city.
With Darien following close behind Serena bounced and bopped from store to store looking at everything and anything that caught her eye. It wasn't very surprising when they spent a much longer in a small fancy chocolate shop than in any other store. Serena walked out with a bag of various candies that Darien bought her, Ami and Leita bought a box to share, and Mina decided to splurge, buying a box of her own and a box for Rei. They walked for about an hour before deciding that they should at least check on Rei and order room service for lunch.
Rei was fine, just exhausted from the drive, and had a pretty bad case of elevation sickness. Surprisingly she was the only one, going from sea level to a higher elevation would normally make anyone sick, but for some reason only Rei was phased by the change. They ate lunch in Serena's room turning on the air conditioners to try to cool off from the insanely high temperature outside, Darien even had to shower and trade his black t-shirt and black jacket for a light blue button down. Rei even joined them in a pair of shorts and tank top. They planned on spending the rest of the afternoon in the Native art's museum and returning to the same restaurant for dinner. Mina had suggested that maybe they found another restaurant instead of going to the same place twice in the day, but Darien's mention of the desert menu being rather lengthy got Serena and Rei's vote.
The museum was interesting; the art had the same color scheme as the rest of the city but varying in the mediums of art. Ami made sure that they understood the history of every piece of art as they walked, reading every word of the pamphlet out loud in Japanese. Darien showed the most interest, taking time to consider everything he saw, causing Serena to try to be serious and impress Darien. The museum was only a small boxy building, just like the rest, so the tour didn't take very long at all, but with Ami still reading the history of the building, and the people who founded it slowed the tour to a drooling crawl. All the time Minako kept looking around at the people around her, every person that walked through the door. For some reason she kept hoping that she would see the silver haired man walking around. Minako sighed lightly, just loud enough for her to hear but not loud enough for the others to hear.
"I'm so hungry!" Serena whined as they walked out of the building into the now dark street.
"Well, let's get going to dinner then Serena," Rei jeered annoyed.
"Ok," Serena clapped hoping up and down.
They walked in semi silence, Serena talking quietly to Darien about the plans for tomorrow, and Makoto asking Ami how hard it would be to find a cookbook that was written in Japanese. Mina and Rei walked silently, listening to the conversations around them. Rei was focused on keeping her stomach contents together as she felt another wave of elevation sickness hit her like a freight train. Walking behind the group Mina yawned, glad that the day was ending and she could get some sleep.
They walked into the mostly empty restaurant, being that it was a good hour after dinner time there were only a few people still eating, or just sitting down. They ordered together, each getting a hamburger and French fries with water. Sitting down everyone let out a sigh of relief, being off of their feet was a relief after walking as much as they did that day.
"It's nice to sit down," Rei sighed putting her head back on the booth seat eyes closed.
"Still feeling sick?" Ami asked with a worried look.
"Mmmmmhmmmmmm," Rei groaned.
Mina looked up at the glowing red numbers that marked which orders were being served; their number was the second on the list. "OH! Foods up, I'll go get it!" she said bouncing up from the table. Behind her she could hear them start bickering about Serena being inconsiderate to Rei's condition. She bounced to the counter which was far enough from the table that she couldn't hear them, and they couldn't see her. Minako picked up the food packed tray with a laugh, at last everything seemed normal, and she wasn't looking for a sign of Kunzite everywhere. She spun around fast to get back to the table, bumping into the man who was standing behind her almost knocking the tray out of her hand.
"I'm sorry!" she squealed in Japanese not remembering that this was America.
"It's alright, are you ok?" he replied in Japanese as well making Mina look up in shock.
"Huh?" she said as she looked up into the man's concerned and familiar gray eyes.
"M…Minako?" he asked his eyes wide as he recognized the younger girl.
"Kunzite?" she gasped, "W…what are you doing here?"
"Uh.. it's a long story, and you should probably get everyone's food to them," he said running his hand through his silver hair.
"oh, yeah, wait here!" she said as she ran off to the table.
"Here you guys go," she said quickly putting the tray on the table and spouting a quick excuse to why she was rushing off again, "I have to go to the bathroom, I'll be back soon."