Chapter 11

It wasn't that he didn't approve of Yuki's infatuation with Mizuno-san, Katsuya reflected, as he walked down the street to his apartment, located a few blocks from the shrine. He did approve. Or, rather, he didn't think his approval was necessary.

He was happy for Yuki. Mizuno-san was clearly an exceptional young woman (perhaps a little too young for Yuki, all things considered, but she's was very mature for her age). He wasn't sure that Mizuno-san felt anything more than curiosity for Yuki at this point, anyway, and that was unlikely to change quickly; she didn't seem like the type to enter into anything quickly.

The truth was, he was jealous. Which was strange. But there it was.

He hadn't seen her for years. Why should it matter? The last time he'd seen her, she'd been doing backflips off of lamp posts, anyway. He knew there was nothing between them but the fact that they shared some of the same school memories. That, of course, was a special magic of its own, but hardly anything to build a relationship off of.

Besides that, she was arrogant and stubborn-headed. Every bad quality she had possessed in school, and there had been many of them, was now amplified in the adult Minako. And she was pissed off at him.

Then why the hell was he thinking about her?

Katsuya rubbed a hand over his face, letting it slide all the way down to his ruined Nishijin silk tie. This made the eleventh tie he'd ruined in battle in the past two weeks. Which meant, at his present pace, he'd easily bankrupt himself trying to replace them in a month's worth of encounters with the enemy. Either that, or he'd have to resort to wearing the plastic kind.

He shuddered at the thought.

Finishing the walk to his apartment complex, he climbed the stairs to the second floor, then stopped. The door to his apartment slipped open easily. That put him on his guard at once. He never left it unlocked, for obvious reasons. He reached in and slipped an umbrella out of the stand beside the entrance, then, out of habit, slipped off his shoes. He knew he should just keep the shoes on, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it, even in these circumstances. Besides, maybe it would help him slip up on whoever was in his house right now.

He crept around the corner of the hallway and into the kitchen. But it was empty. Not a thing out of place. He crouched down behind the short table that separated that area from the dining area, and he realized that there was someone in the room beyond, watching television. He could see the flash of the screen on the glass of the double bay doors that led out onto his very small balcony where he kept his pet clover plant.

He tightened his grip on the handle of the umbrella and stepped softly toward the archway.

But before he could reach the room, a voice said: "So, you're finally back."

Utterly nonplussed, he wondered, for the briefest of moments, if he had entered the wrong apartment. There was...a woman in his apartment. Watching his tv, eating his karinto sweets that he'd made that morning as a reward for getting through the day. And she was sipping a full glass of plum wine.

"This may be a stupid question," he began.

She snorted. "Very likely."

"But what exactly are you doing, Aino-san?" He dropped the umbrella by the door, making a mental note to put it back in its proper place later, and entered the dark room, flipping on the lights. Aino Minako glared up at him from the futon couch she lounged on, with her bare feet on his glass table. Her glare had something hazy about it, and he noticed that the wine was half gone. It had been a full bottle that morning.

"Is it raining?" She glanced at the umbrella.

"No."

She stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and turned back to her glass of wine.

"How did you get back here before me?" He picked up a discarded, empty Pretz bag and dropped it into the trash can, then he took off his ruined tie and sat in the chair opposite her. He had always preferred Western furniture. With a modern influence, of course, which was really just Japanese, when all was said and done. That was why everything in his house was shades of white and grey. Except for one thing. Aino Minako. In a red dress. An evening gown, really, he supposed, and with her feet on his table. Her naked feet. Red toenails.

"She's awful."

"What?" He turned, looking over his shoulder at the television.

"I worked with her on a Kadokawa film. She was as terrible off screen as she was on."

"That seems harsh," he said, eying the actress, whom he had never seen before.

"She poisoned another cast member's goldfish just because he said she had a kansai accent."

Katsuya turned back to her, looking her up and down. Assessing. He took in the too-relaxed pose, the red nails, the way they clenched the stem of the glass, the white knuckles, the perfect makeup, perfect except for the fact that her eyes were red and there was a tear stain on her cheek.

"Would you like some dinner?" he asked.

Minako glanced up at him, and he saw it then. That look. Desperation. Just a flash before she hid it again, so well that he almost doubted he'd seen it. Almost, but not quite.

"I've got to -" she began, putting down the glass.

"Do you like miso ramen?"

Minako opened her mouth and licked her lips, as if she were trying to decide what to say. Katsuya watched that little motion with more interest than he should have.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" he said, and turned quickly before he could make a very bad decision. Worse than inviting her to stay for dinner after she'd already broken into his house and eaten his sweets.

He put the dish together quickly. Quickly because, despite everything, he was nervous, and he had the distinct feeling that Minako wanted to run away, and that she would given the first opportunity. And she could run faster than he could.

When he came back with the bowls of steaming broth, she was sitting on the couch, her feet tucked up under her, looking completely composed. She had her professional Minako facade on again. Even if she'd had aviator glasses on, her expression couldn't be less readable.

"You're probably wondering why I got into your house," she said, calmly.

"Not really. Here." He placed the bowl in front of her and handed her the hashi so that she could eat the noodles. The spoon was already in the bowl.

"N-not really?" she repeated, staring.

He sat down beside her and began to slowly sip the broth, trying not to burn his tongue. Minako was still staring at him. After a moment, she turned to her own bowl and started to eat. He noticed that she was left-handed. He'd never known that. Or that her hair was naturally golden. He could tell that now, seeing her roots, seeing her hair in natural light from the balcony windows.

"I was fired today." Her voice was so low and so quiet that he almost didn't catch the words.

He blinked. "Why?"

Minako put down her spoon and hashi, but she stared into the bowl. She licked her lips again, but said nothing.

"Was it because of the battle?" he asked, after a moment. "You had to leave?"

She nodded.

"Does that happen often?" he guessed.

She nodded again, but this time her head slumped a little farther down.

He looked down at his bowl, then put it on the table. He turned to face her on the futon and laced his fingers together so that he wouldn't do something stupid like smoothing her hair back from her face, or -

"I'm sorry," he said, in his best effort to sound calm, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't want to talk about it," she snapped, in something close to her old tone, "And I don't want to talk about the battle. I don't want to talk about the girls, or their lack of powers, or my lack of leadership. And -" she added, viciously swiping at her eye, "I don't want to talk about the stupid ginzuishou or the reincarnation of the princess."

Katsuya's fingers tightened.

"Okay," he said, reaching out and catching one tear with his thumb. "Let's not talk."

Minako shivered, and then turned toward him, surprised. The painful look in her eyes decided him. His hand slipped down to cradle her cheek.

And then he leaned over and kissed her.

Katsuya was kissing her. Minako was trying to wrap her mind around this. But her mind wasn't wrapping. It was unraveling. It was...sort of...just oozing everywhere. His mouth was very warm, and his hands were warm on her face, and she realized she hadn't known how cold she was until he touched her. She felt like she was coming a live, or coming back to life, warming over one tiny inch at a time.

Wait. Katsuya was kissing her. She broke away, or tried to, but she wasn't trying hard enough, and they only separated a little bit, just enough for her to see his eyes. She had always thought they - his eyes - were very cold. A clear sort of silver that was sharp, biting, capable of being the coldest color she'd ever seen. But she'd been wrong. How had she ever thought that they were cold? They were warm. So warm. And there were flecks of green in them that she'd never noticed before.

What was she doing?

Before she could act on that thought, Katsuya leaned in again, just those few inches that separated them, and this time, without really meaning to, Minako closed the gap and her eyes, and kissed him back.

He was so warm, hot, really. That thought made the middle-school girl in her giggle. He brushed his fingers along her cheek, and suddenly, she wanted to cry. But she didn't want to cry, because that would mean she'd have to stop kissing Katsuya, and she didn't want to do that either. Even though it was terrifying.

He was good at it. Terrifyingly good at it. Who would have thought that?

It was the wine, a part of her cried. But she knew that it wasn't, even though, later, if he said anything about this - if he ever dared to mention it, even with one look - she would say it was the wine. And her horrible day. And her horrible, terrible messed up life. Hell, her entire destiny.

But right now, she just wanted this. Terribly. She had had no idea that she did, but it was suddenly, horrifically clear to her, that this was exactly what she wanted, and probably had wanted, since junior high.

Crap. Was that possible?

She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed back, and he stopped kissing her at once, so quickly she almost fell over into his lap.

"I have to go," she said. It was the stupidest thing she could have said, but it was the only thing her mind could manage. She did have to go, before she started to believe she could have something that she wanted that badly.

"What?" he repeated, bewildered. Just the fact that Katsuya looked bewildered was enough to make her want to kiss him again. No! She started to look for her shoes. Where the hell were her shoes?

"My mom," she said, belatedly, "I always call her around this time - where is my phone?"

"Minako."

She froze. He was still sitting there, calmly, not a hair out of place, looking up at her with those beautiful eyes. Calm. Steady. Unruffled.

"You can stay, if you want to," he said.

That really tore it. That scared her more than anything else that had happened today.

"You're - you -" she flustered, "I mean, no, thanks. Thanks for the ramen."

She found her phone wedged behind a cushion. She nearly fled to the hallway. Now she remembered. She'd lost her shoes while she was running to the battle. Expensive shoes. Even if running away in the middle of a shoot hadn't cost her her job, losing those shoes would have.

She looked at her options. Balcony. Quicker, but she'd have to transform, and she was dead tired. And she was not about to pass out at Katsuya's house. The door then. And a very embarrassing, shoeless walk back to her apartment. The one that she would have to vacate if her agent couldn't find her another job soon.

"Where are your shoes?"

Katsuya was standing in the hallway behind her, leaning against it, watching her. Watching her unravel in front of him. What had she been thinking? Coming here. It had been stupid. She had just wanted to mess with him a little. That was what she'd told herself. That self-confident jerk. And then...

She'd been planning to rearrange his underwear. She'd been really looking forward to that. To the look of annoyance on his face the next time she saw him. It would be her secret.

Well, that was clearly not happening now. So much for secrets.

"Minako," he said, carefully, "It's going to rain and you have no shoes or jacket. You should stay."

She opened her mouth to say something pithy, but all that came out was a desperate: "I can't."

Then, before she could rethink it, she slid the door open and ran out.