Fatality

By youte

The girls are 18.

It was late at night. But Rei Hino couldn't sleep.

A sigh escaped her lips. Reading, or rather trying to read, didn't help her to forget all that was on her mind, far from it. Everything seemed so complicated lately, and the young woman didn't know how to end the endless circle of exhaustion and fear and confusion. She was ready to throw her book against the wall when suddenly she felt a presence behind her. She jumped and her manga fell from her hands, her eyes on the lone figure in front of her.

"How…?" A careless gesture toward her screen doors was her only answer. "It was locked."

"It was," Minako Aino confirmed with a little smile and a shrug.

"You…? Never mind."

"One of the things I learned when I was Sailor V."

"You could have knocked!"

A cute laugh and a sheepish smile softened Rei too easily.

"Sorry, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun, Reiko. How are you?"

"I am good. And you?"

"Good…"

"What?"

"It's just… you don't look really good."

"Geez, thanks a lot."

Minako didn't look sorry at all. She didn't move, and kept her dark eyes on Rei.

"What happened?"

"What? During your time in Europe?"

"No. What happened that worries you so much?"

"It's nothing."

"Mars!"

There was a sad spark in her honey eyes, and Rei understood that she was hurting her in keeping her secret. It was certainly not what she wanted. She wished… to protect her. Yet she knew that Minako had faced a lot more terrible things than her in her life. And she was Venus, powers or not, her leader. Her best friend.

If their roles in this had been reversed…

But she couldn't tell the truth to Minako. She just couldn't, not till she was sure, not till she knew, till she understood that vision completely. She didn't want the other girl to be in the same state of confusion, fear and anxiousness as her.

"I had visions. They were difficult. And upsetting. It happens. I'm fine."

"Visions?"

Minako's voice was too fragile. Rei didn't like it.

"Yeah. It's fine."

"Is it because of these visions that you are so exhausted these days?"

"No. Well, yes. I said it before, I have a lot on my mind. Where's Artemis? It's the third time I see you without him."

"We are not always together, you know."

"Really? Wow."

"Hey! He's a lot with Luna since we came back."

She winked, and Rei laughed before sitting down on her futon, inviting the other girl to do the same.

"How was your week?"

"Oh, great. Interviews, and I did that commercial. I spent time with my mom too."

"How is she?"

"Fine, thanks," Minako smiled. "We fought. And then we went shopping. And we came back home to quarrel again. She's an evil – what?"

"Your relationship with your mom is really strange," Rei softly said. "It really don't understand it sometimes. It seems all you do is fighting."

"It's not all we do," Minako replied, amused by Rei's reaction. "We went shopping!"

"Ah, yes. Of course."

"And it's not my fault she's an evil witch," the idol added, mumbling. "One day you'll meet her, and you'll see."

Rei nodded and laid down on her back, and Minako did the same beside her. Rei stopped breathing when her arm touched Minako's, when the idol's scent invaded her senses, but she soon found out that she was too tired to be anxious.

"Reiko?"

"Mmh?"

"Would you tell me if you had troubles?"

"What kind?"

"I don't know."

"I can't answer that. Would you?"

"… I see."

Minako was looking at her with eyes full of sadness and anxiety, and the miko didn't have to be empathic to know why the idol was so uncharacteristically open. She wanted to understand why Rei was so upset, because she wanted to help her. And it really warmed Rei's heart and soul, but she knew that she couldn't tell Minako that secret. Not now, at least.

"Could we just… talk? Forget about visions and all these things and talk?" she asked finally, not liking how her voice broke at the end.

Silence. And suddenly, Minako took her bag with renewed energy.

"Ok!" she exclaimed, just before brandishing a soft toy. "Here! For you."

Cautiously, knowing Minako's love for jokes, Rei took the Nako Nako. It was without hair and hat, without shoes. It had a white jacket, and soothing orange patterns were traced on the garment.

"Why are you giving me this?"

"He won't eat you, you know."

"He's different from the others, isn't he? He seems… less…" Rei frowned. "Isn't he rounder?"

Minako smiled with glee, delighted that Rei had seen it.

"He is! I drew him. It's a baby Nako. Wait." She took the toy and put something on it before giving it back to Rei. "Here. Tada!"

"A diaper?"

"The jacket can be removed too. He is soft, cute, easy to wash up and adapted to little kiddies. Created especially for them. He has been validated, he's going to be in the toyshops this Christmas."

"Do I look like a baby?"

"Sometimes," Minako teased.

Rei found the toy cute enough, but she didn't want to say so to her friend. She nonetheless put it on her belly, her fingers playing with it.

"It doesn't tell me why you're giving it to me."

"Artemis doesn't like soft toys. He feels threatened by them."

Rei looked at Minako to see her eyes alighted with laughter. She pushed her playfully and couldn't help but chuckle.

"Idiot."

"I wanted to give it to you," Minako explained, suddenly more serious. "When… when I was a child, my mom would come to the hospital and bring me little soft toys. Every time they were different. She began that tradition during my first chemo. I have dozens of these cute little things at home," said Minako with a smile. She was looking at the baby Nako, clouds of memories in her eyes. "Which is not really positive, because it shows how often I was hospitalized. But it was a constant. A good constant, even when I grew up, because it made me smile and it was... well, reassuring."

A softer smile appeared on Rei's face. Minako had offered her the toy to distract her and console her, because it was the only thing she could do for her. It was the nicest and cutest thing somebody had done for Rei in years.

That girl could be frustrating and way to bossy, but she certainly was surprising and adorable.

Rei tenderly kissed Minako's cheek and smiled.

"Thanks."

While the idol looked astonished by her gesture, her face reddening a little, Rei played with Baby Nako, frowned and hesitated.

"You… never mentioned any chemotherapy before."

Minako tensed, and shrugged.

"To stop the cancer from expanding and the tumor from getting bigger, my neurologist advocated it. I had chemo when I was seven, and then I began radiotherapy again when I was nine. Even if the tumor was dangerous I had a lighter treatment after that. You know the rest of the story." She had a poor smile. "It's fortunate that I could cease that type of treatments because I wouldn't have become an idol if I had stayed that weak and thin, hairless and pale. Chemo really is hell, and radiotherapy is a big bother. I... It could begin again, one day, if... it gets worse again."

Rei smiled, even if she didn't feel like it. But she felt that she had to honor Minako's efforts to minimize the impact of her story. The miko never knew that her friend had already been this sick at such a young age. She couldn't be sadder and at the same time more admirative of the other girl than at that moment. And that was exactly because of that type of things that she just couldn't stay away from Minako Aino.

She closed her eyes, keeping her tears behind her eyelids. Surely Minako felt a lot of things coming from her, and Rei was worried about what emotions exactly she could read at that moment. She didn't know how to stop it, how to control herself when she was this tired and lost.

What was she supposed to do? Why did she have this damned vision?

She felt Minako's warm and soft hand in hers, her eyes on her face.

"Do you want me to tell you about my day?" Minako's clear voice asked suddenly. "Because it was insane! You wouldn't believe how arrogant that photographer was! I was…"

Minako talked for a long time. She held Rei's hand and talked, even when the other girl fell asleep, ten minutes later. She talked even when her words became hollow, she talked even when her thoughts drifted away from her story.

Finally, she fell silent, and looked at the sleeping Rei with tenderness and a love barely suppressed. Her closed eyelids, her lips, the hand in hers, the fingers on the toy, her expression tormented even in slumber. She softly caressed the soft locks and skin and sighed.

She so wanted to help her, like Rei had helped her in the past. But all she seemed to be capable of was feelings she shouldn't have for a girl who was a fellow soldier and her best friend, too much pride and stolen caresses in the dark.

She sat down, removed her jacket and took a blanket to put it on the sleeping girl. She couldn't help but kiss her forehead before laying down again beside her.

"I wish you would tell me, Rei," she whispered in the dark, taking the miko's hand in hers again. "I wish you would let me really comfort you." She sighed, and something in her voice broke. "I… I wish you…"

Would trust me.

Would tell me all that is on your mind, all of it.

I wish you would love me.

In her dream, in the reminiscences of her vision, Rei was older. It was raining, she was shaking, but this cold was nothing when compared to the one in her heart. On her knees on the damp grass, under the stars hiding behind dark clouds, she was quietly crying. Her tears were burning her, her skin, her soul. She was drowning in her sobs.

A part of her was already dead and cold and nothing would be able to save her. Her heart cried out for the other part of her soul, but no answer came. She felt like she was never going to see the world with the same eyes again.

For life had taken the most precious thing from her.

Her pale and trembling fingers went to touch the inscriptions engraved on the white wet stone. Two planet symbols, the one for Mars and the one for Venus. And beneath them, a name, and an epitaph.

I wish you would love me.

She did.

I wish you would love me.

She was confused.

I wish you would love me.

She wanted to, but she was scared.

Their own future was haunting her.

I wish…

Sometimes wishing was just not enough.

For it was linked with fatality.

Shion Hino Aino

A luminous little angel

A beloved daughter