disclaimer: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi and TOEI.
before you read: some references/hints to the birth of Crystal Tokyo may be littered here and there. Post-PGSM storyline.
Prolouge: Looking At Venus
The airport crowd was bustling and Minako wondered why everybody gathered round the airports on Saturday, but all that was to her were just thoughts to get rid of the memories of the few glorious weeks in New York, but she would never come here again, not if she didn't want to trip up on old memories. The city, she felt had her everywhere now, it felt like every place she had visited would snag a piece of her soul and leave itself there.
Minako wistfully took another glance through the windows of the Airport and into New York. New York was different in broad daylight the glow that it gave off dulled in the sun, and it was only until the sun went down did New York show it's underbelly, a clash of nightclubs and fancy restaurants mixed with the fast-food joints, and the homelyand expensive hotels clashing with the Holiday Inns. She couldn't let this memory...the memories that were given to her go to waste. Even if most of the time she was doing ridiculous commmercials for Vigil a stimulant for women, and bickering with Zoicite, but inbetween doing those things and feeling like she was on the outside looking into the New York people's everyday lives; she had found a kindred spirit. One in which she could share her troubles with but that person...was destined for greater things in life than to be her shoulder to cry on.
She was about to walk away from the airline schedule board, but the clack of running heels stopped her, and she knew immediately who it was before the person reached her. Minako took a chance and turned around to be greeted with a breathless Rei panting with a small sheen of sweat on her brow. Rei looked gorgeous in her black business suit complete with bullet black skirt and heels looking aesthetically pleasing. Minako had never seen Rei with her business suit on before and this small consolation on the day she was to leave lifted her spirits a little, but then the fast approach of time caught up with her, time had caught up to them.
All the nights of quiet conversations and grave humor were gone, and now replaced by the hubbub of airport traffic and the intercom announcements, but it didn't matter. Minako could make-believe all that was muted noise, not real, nothing was real but Rei at this moment. The brush and pushing of people hurrying with their passports to get to their flight on time didn't register in Minako's mind as significant, she knew Zoicite was watching this...she didn't give a damn either. There was nothing wrong with saying goodbye, amd maybe cheat away a few moments of what was left, but that was all...Minako wanted Rei to speak to fill the void of silence with her voice and strength.
"I came to say goodbye," Rei breathed her bangs already curling from the sweat that gathered around her brow.
There's a strange crackling sound in the distance as if the sky is ripping right above her, and the ceiling is splintering apart even as they stand and speak, and Minako let's the hum of the airplanes do the screaming for her.
"Well you're about five minutes late on that que," Minako fakes a laugh and pretends like it's any old thing, she knows Rei hates it when she brushes things off like that, and to think of it... she hates what she does also-her habit of being flippant- but it's all that she knows.
Many were the hours that Minako had thought out this farewell, would it be romantic, or would it be sorrowful and sad to know they would never be any closer? Now that they are here...it is neither. This scene neither plays on her heart strings or woos her vividly into an obstructured cantabile of emotion. It just is what it is.
"Well, I guess this is goodbye then," Rei says uncomfortable with her own voice and how it sounds so flat out in the open air. She wishes she had more control over her voice, but her emotions she kept stifled, and she feels herself becoming hot and pink from overexertion.
To say that she was surprised by Rei's abrupt going away speech was to lie, Minako hadn't expected Rei to do anything but show up, and now they had to go about saying goodbye. All she can do is nod at Rei, and be on her way out of New York, and back to the husband that awaits her. So Minako did all she could in a short amount of time to give the palm of Rei's hand a small kiss before she went off.
Once she hits native soil she'd be gone from Rei...and those quiet moments of unspoken loudness will just be background furniture in the house of Minako's mind, and yet there is always hope isn't there? A hope for something new even though nothing can be rightfully replaced, but Rei ignores the disappointment and the brief stinging of tears causing her vision to distort Minako's image and when her eyes have cleared Minako is gone.