Title: it's a shining night (don't torture yourself)
Characters: Aino Minako; inners
Relationships: the girls
Summary: Minako and the girls have a pizza night
Warnings: Haters and tabloids?
Note: the movie Minako is said to have been in, 'Lady', is basically the Petrichor-version of 'The Handmaiden'. I don't watch enough movies.
Song of the chapter: Maria, Hwasa
"Pizza night!" Minako sang as she stepped into Usagi's apartment. Mamoru being overseas and Usagi studying meant that they had more of these dinners together, where the girls got together like they used to back in middle and high schools. Ami was, of course, the brains of the operation that tried to pour information into Usagi's brain, while Makoto, no longer bound by obligatory homework or tests, eagerly brought food she made. Rei helped set up and served as a listening wall to Usagi, going through the concepts. Leadership, management and followership was the topic of today.
Minako joined her sister and friend in being a wall, nodding every now and then as they listened to Usagi going through her studies.
Not that her field and the medical field were similar, but Minako knew the importance of leading and managing and following. She had been involved with the concepts since her teens, and so had Usagi, but it wasn't like the university would accept 'helped lead sailor soldiers against threat to Earth multiple times in successful defense missions' as proof of her understanding them to the point of application.
Paper tests. Bane of her existence, and Usagi's too.
The one person who can and have gotten along with paper and testing in their group nodded when Usagi finished. "Good job, Usagi-chan."
Usagi slumped into her arms, relieved. Minako saw the notes, cutesy notebooks with pink and bunnies, but the pretty highlighter and girly writing was no cause to dismiss their contents. Paper worn from multiple readings and additions, notes added after initial writing on margins and on sticky notes and underlined in highlighter, all proof of hard work that Usagi had done to understand what she was being taught.
With a grin, Minako reached out to tickle Usagi's sides.
"I can't believe you're leaving me in the dumb club," she mock-wailed. "What happened to barely passing school together? What happened to fails and makeup tests? How could you leave me?"
Usagi, shrieking with laughter, fell over, and Minako collapsed on top of her. "You're squishing me!"
"Squish the traitor!"
"Come get your pizzas!" Makoto called. The concept of 'pizza night' as a night when they ordered pizzas did not sit well with Makoto, whose concept of meal was not complete if she hadn't made at least one thing in said meal. A bowl of salad sat behind the four pizza boxes, next to a dish stacked with a small mountain made of fried chicken. Like, at least three different types, with different glaze or spices. Dessert, a mango cheesecake, sat in the fridge chilling and ready to be eaten whenever.
Makoto made pizza nights so bountiful.
Rei, who was smart enough to not get into the blond wrestling match, was the first to reach the food, picking up her plate and filling it with her choices. Ami, also too smart to get caught up in the tickle-fest, was next. Makoto made them take more food than they picked up.
She didn't need to do that for Usagi and Minako, who were going to be responsible for the lack of food waste of the night.
"Alright," said Ami, the tech of all pizza nights. "Our options today are Minako's movie, or . . . Minako's movie."
The movie of the night was one they all watched before, when it first came out, in theatres, but now that 'Lady' was out in DVD and there was this one tabloid spewing false gossip about her, none of them really objected to the movie choice.
Usagi glued herself to Minako's left, as the movie started.
It was a rag of a magazine, Minako knew. Words printed on its pages shouldn't even be believed, that was how little cred they really had.
But they had been printed, and that was what set off everyone's fury.
Artemis, as both her agent and her partner, was livid, turning red as a tomato in his fury, and he was not the only one, because he contacted the others regarding it and soon all the sailor soldiers were just as furious at the lies that had dared to be printed. The 'journalist', if he could be called that, was infamous for displaying scandalous and outrageous gossip like it was truth, especially about female celebs. Even the director had spoken out, firmly dismissing these claims as falsehoods without any base.
There were a lot of other things said about her work in 'Lady', too. Good things, praising her successfully being able to prove that she could play parts different from the happy, bubbly blonde. Her work as Sailor V in the live-action series, regardless of how on the nose it had been, would have typecast her if it weren't for her role as one of the main characters in 'Lady' – a cunning young woman in a terrible situation who fell in love and found a way out, vastly different from the vigilante Sailor V, who was heroic to the point of being cheesy thanks to the script writers and directors.
Eight hundred people had auditioned for the role, and it was Minako who got the role, out of her own skills.
The role was not, as the tabloid claimed as they had been informed by an undisclosed source, something she got by sleeping with the right people for it.
On screen, the character she played, Lady Izumi, finally made an appearance. The initial scene was about portraying a doll-like lady, a bird in a gilded cage. Rich, but alone in a world where she had no one she could trust. Playing the part of a princess with no powers, but in reality – as would be revealed later – a spider waiting for the chance to strike in the web she had carefully spun. Patient, even when humiliated and stepped on.
But the only hint of such a thing was in her gaze, mysterious and piercing as the main character first finally saw her.
"You're really pretty in this," Usagi mumbled, echoing the thoughts of the main character, the servant girl.
"I know, right?" Minako whispered back, because she was. There was a twisted beauty to the character of Lady Izumi, the woman who had been so oppressed and yet still hoped, still wanted to fight the biggest monster in her life and escape this hell she was in. That will to live, refusing to just survive, breathing, but to actually live.
During script readings Minako had envisioned this woman, hiding her steel behind silk and waiting patiently for her chance to strike, and was proud when she managed to bring life into this character on camera.
Usagi lightly shoved her, Minako shoved back, and they ended up in a pushing contest that only broke off when Rei chucked a throw pillow at them both, patience done.
Makoto sniffled when the truth of Lady Izumi's situation was revealed, they all laughed at the comedic scene, and at the happy ending, when the main characters escaped to live a happy life full of love together, Usagi applauded.
"It's still good, even when you know what happens," said Makoto.
"It gets better, because once you know what happens, you know what to look for and realize how masterfully it was set up," added Rei.
Ami nodded eagerly. Minako knew that beyond that innocent face, the mien that looked incapable of being dastardly and devious, sat the brain that was likely planning on strategies to make the tabloid that decided to indirectly accuse her of using sex to get to places because she had no talent go through some difficulties and marvelled not for the first time in her life at her friend. Friends.
Artemis was all but bullying the lawyers like he was shaking a magic eight ball over and over again for the answer he wanted to see, because their advice was to ignore it and he didn't like the idea of that. Minako could understand why they said that, because if they did make it a big deal, public perception would be that there was a grain of truth to it, which is why they were working so hard to shut them up. And technically, because the tabloid was reporting that they had been told of what they printed by their source, it couldn't count as libel.
It was the smart thing, to ignore the gossip they were trying to spread about her. Even if it hurt. But Minako didn't even need to be angry because she had so many furious on her behalf.
Luna was helping Artemis, digging up dirt regarding the tabloid and their connections with Ami, and Michiru had promised that if she did want to take action, she would be more than willing to recommend some very good lawyers. Setsuna and Hotaru were planning a girl's night involving the outers as well, full of both good and cheap alcohol and food that Makoto was going to make because they wanted to enjoy girl's night with good food, not die of food poisoning.
Haruka just suggested breaking some kneecaps, and while Minako turned her down, it was honestly an idea that made her smile.
"You guys are the best," she said, leaning back.
It was hurtful, sometimes, what was said about her, but when she had her friends, it was hard for the words of some random strangers to matter.