Chapter 1: On Any Rainy Day
The old familiar gaggle, she remembered it well, a few curious friends and an address, and mischief commenced. Except the curious gaggle of friends was more like two, and she knew the person who she was visiting, it had taken some time, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she was now down to her nose in the Yellow Pages. Now that her commercial had aired she doubted that the miko had any misinformation that she wasn't in town. It felt strange to have your business announced to the world, for people to know who you are without you having met them-like on the subway when several people recognized her as the "Vigil" commercial girl-, and of course them knowing where you are without you even giving the information out. She felt now a responsibility to know where the miko was at in life, how she was, and how she was handling the city. The nervousness she had felt that night in the bar had been replaced by a light-headed giddyness, an excitement to get to know the miko's life better, and the absence of the miko's presence for a year all weighed down on her increasing urgency to find the miko. A gentle hunger shown in the Singer's eyes as she claimed the information that she had sought out for. Now all that was needed was a trip to the subway station, a little gift to come with her presence, and of course the miko's permission to enter her abode.
The Singer drew puffs of air into her lungs as she stared at the faded number on the apartment door wondering if the miko really was living here, or if maybe she was being fooled by her own gullibility, by her belief that the miko would want to even see her face after a year of estrangement, but no one ever moved on without trying so the Singer knocked confidently on the door and was surprised as the door swung open to reveal who it was that she had sought for. The miko hadn't changed at all except for the age added on that the Singer could see in the miko's eyes. In the miko's gaze the Singer was held suspended in the darkness of her eyes, and like a candle her figure swayed in the reflection the miko's iris portrayed, it seemed like the Singer was caught between words, and so was the miko also who stared as if not seeing, as if a year had blinded her from the friend that now stood shivering slightly from the cold on her doorstep.
Politeness soons give way into the miko's flesh as she notices the small tremors growing through the Singer's body, and the miko pulls the Singer into her cool apartment, it isn't a huge contrast between the open air and her home, but it is warm enough for the Singer to cast aside her jacket and fold it neatly into her arms. At once the miko hurries to clean her place up trying to shuffle through the disarray of paper and trash that has cluttered the apartment, but the miko cannot discern which is garbage and which is needed, but the Singer herself who has been known for grace, and having dined at the most luxurious places known to man doesn't mind the cluttered miko's space, and directs her to sit. The miko remembers that she herself is the host, but can't bring herself to stand and get tea for the Singer, but gently grasps her own cup of coffee in her hands to try to still their trembling. Their eyes meet in an unconscious connection and they stare drinking in each other's image, they try to see which part of themselves have changed, and which has remained the same. Not a word has been spoken between the two it has just been the charged air going on between them as they reaffirm their friendship, and try to find the familiar lines they had once walked upon, and try -at least until they're sure that they actually know each other- to ignore the new lives they both have led up to now.
"It's been a while hasn't it?" the Singer speaks first the dull lighting giving the miko an unearthy glow as if everything in this room had a life of its own and would spring to life if she was not in the room.
"Yes, it has. You've...changed," the miko stammers ashamed of the way she is acting around the Singer.
"Is that all you have to say? You are a woman of few words then...you've probably heard all of the rumors about yourself," the Singer teases the miko in her usual way to get rid of the grating politeness that they have around them as if they were strangers meeting for the first time.
"I've learned to ignore them usually the rumors disappear if I don't respond to them," the miko answers her eyes regaining a little bit of warmth instead of the indifference and disbelief that showed in her eyes moments ago.
"So it is true with tabloids also," the Singer agrees feeling her heart jump in joy at being able to find a friend in this starkly vast city.
The miko laughs derisively almost sounding as desperate as the Singer and she says with the slightest taint of envy in her voice, "Your life is run better than mine, I think."
"It's no better but it's no worse either. My music isn't as widely popular as it has been, and I've come here to endorse feminine products, and get paid over millions to do it," the Singer shares a short summary of how her life has been sparing the miko various details that doesn't sit well with her.
"That's good, no one really appreciates good music, until the singer has died," the miko replies keeping up with the idle conversation.
"Funny you should say that, I've been eyeing the letter opener on my desk for days," the Singer jokes which is not all too lost on the miko as she laughs showing the Singer her teeth and genuine joy as their voices joins together making their ears slightly buzz from the richness in tone of their native language, a language that both had missed dearly.
"No, that won't do you any good, it's got to be dramatic for it to work. Nobody cares if you stab yourself with a letter opener, it's either Elvis Presley's way, or else you're just going to have to die like Marilyn Monroe did."
"And how did she die?" the Singer asks still the same tone of teasing in her voice.
"In the nude," the miko replied a devlish glint evident in her eyes as the Singer's cheeks reddened a little at the joke.
The Singer can't remember laughing so hard before and doing it so with such ease when with the miko as the Singer eases up and gets comfortable in the miko's home as they barter stories and gossip about their other senshi friends. They talk about the good old days like all the grown men and women all see it as, maybe it's because they miss the closeness everyone had with each other back then, and when they were finally let loose out in the world they realized that that's what the good old days were...a controlled reality where you experienced and experimented on where your life should go.
The Singer is staring up at the miko's cracked ceiling as they lay on the floor exhausted from the day's talk but neither wanting to stop talking. It was a thirst for knowledge of each other as they shared slight intimate details of their life that they had never been able to fully tell each other, and the bridged gap between estrangement and friendship had disappered as now they seemed to talk like old friends more than strangers, this change had happened in the course of just a few hours as the Singer spied the waning moon outside the miko's window.
"So..." the miko's feminine and yet deep, and rich voice interrupted the Singer's thoughts, "what else are you doing in New York other than the commercial?"
"Well...for one thing hiding from my marriage, catching up on an old friend, and helping Zoicite scheme his way into an American Record Deal, you?" the Singer replied smirking slightly in the darkness at the silliness of her plight.
The miko giggled slightly in the enshrouding black that is sneaking up on their eyes. The miko is surprised at the Singer's blunt honesty about her own life, and yet the miko has only fed tidbits to the Singer about her life outside her apartment, and for this the miko decides to indulge the Singer, a consolation for the miko thinks that she knows too much about the Singer's marriage.
"I'm working the politics field, weird, but it happened. I always knew my powers were needed and that somehow I'd end up getting sucked in a profession that fell along the lines of my father's. Now I kind of pity him...playing politics all day, it must be hard not knowing who to impress, who to please, and who to not give a damn about," the miko confesses laughing slightly to get rid of the grave air that seemed to overtake their ecstatic mood.
"I could imagine you doing that," the Singer adds softly as her hands whisper across her hair putting strands of her bangs back into place.
"I could imagine you getting married too, having a nice house, and a husband who cares for you," the miko compliments the Singer.
The Singer contemplates the mood now, it's not a clenching kind of calm that has taken them, but a more of a contentful calm where all questions have been asked and answered so that the thoughts in her head cease to exist, and every worry evaporates. It's a feeling of freedom that goes deeper than bones, and this she thinks is what the miko must feel whenever she throws herself into whatever task she thought was worthwhile, a feeling of control. The Singer for now wanted to pretend like she had control also, wanted to feel it and believe it, it was so easy to reach out and grasp the miko's slender fingers and press them to her lips, and it was easier than she thought to make like that moment a small confession on her part nothing more than instinct. It was. It was what she felt deep inside.
They meet again at a little Italian Cafe where candles are always lit even in the day time, and the red color for romance can be present, but they are an odd couple to sit in the farthest corner of the balcony, especially when it is this cold and the weather shows early signs of sprinkling. The waiter gives them a look of curiosity but Minako quickly sends him away with their orders leaving them alone for the time being. Everyone else is inside enjoying their warm soups and ventilated heating system. Rei finds it odd that Minako chooses this exact time to order an ice cream sundae-talk about your brain freeze- and for Minako to invite her out to a Cafe nonetheless in the mid-afternoon. It's been two days since they had last seen each other and basked in each other's presence, and already it seems like the scene that took place in the Pizzeria was two years ago. Rei has ordered the clam chowder wise enough not to follow suit to Minako's odd taste. Soon the waiter comes, his arms full with their orders, and with finesse scoops the plates off of his tray and deftly slides them over the tabletop, quietly placing the bill beside Minako's elbow.
"Rainy days are always good for ice cream," Minako sighs wistfully as she takes a scoop.
"If you don't mind the brain freeze, that is," Rei adds sprinkling pepper on her chowder.
"I never minded that either," Minako laughs and she is not sure why she is laughing at all. Rei hasn't particularly been trying to be funny and yet she laughs, and thinks that she enjoys this, but really this is quite joyless...to not be closer, but Minako knows her restrictions, her do not's and want not's; she knows them well.
"My husband would say that lots of times when he saw me eating ice cream on a rainy day. I've gotten so used to that, that hearing it from you is quite strange, since I thought you were just as odd," Minako explains as Rei looks up at her face and she wishes she could stop smiling to make this a more serious affair.
"Sounds like you and your husband have a great time," Rei spoke slowly the spoon stilled itself before her lips as she talked even her apetite could wait for Minako.
"He would never joined me though, thought it was crazy, insane, and childish. He's a saint really, he doesn't need me to take care of the house or anything, I could just be there, and not talk at all, and he'd be okay with it," she says not noticing that Rei has stopped eating and was now concentrating solely on her.
"You shouldn't be hiding from that...you married a good guy," the answer is exactly what Minako had thought it would be and inspite of herself her lips crinkled into the usual smirk.
"Yeah, Zoisite thinks I'm a snob too," she replies flippantly.
Minako is paying no heed to what Rei is feeling right now as Rei looks on at Minako in disbelief and wonder. Beths' words been run through her mind for hours on end, and still, she can't see what it is to be afraid of, Rei Hino doesn't feel afraid of anything right now.
"Will you stop that?" Rei retorts almost bending the spoon she is holding in half as the Singer watches her with attentive eyes. "Stop twisting my words around. You keep on saying that I mean one thing when I really don't mean it that way."
"Then what do you mean by it?"
Rei is caught off-guard by this innocent question as she feels the sweat starting to form on her brow as she opens and shuts her mouth in an attempt for answers. What did she mean by trying to be Minako's marriage counselor? It felt like she was coaching Minako on how to be a wife, and that's not what she wanted to do, if Minako didn't feel right about her marriage then she shouldn't deny it or try and hide it. Suddenly, Rei feels afraid as if this feeling had always been lurking under the surface, and had never truly broken through, but now Rei can feel it making her hands clammy, her throat dry, and most of all make her heart beat out of time.
"You, we don't have to go there if you don't want to," Minako softly comforts the distressed miko and Rei's shoulders finally revert to a more relaxed position but Rei is still in questioning.
The miko is curious, and she wants that knowledge for herself to at least get a glimpse of where if she lets free of restraints how far it will go, and what could be accomplished, or destroyed. It's a tentative step into the unknown not fully delving into it, but merely testing the waters, and Rei feels that it wouldn't do much if she just tested the waters. She was merely getting a taste, she was not entangling herself in Minako's new life, she wished to be just a small part of it at the very least.
So, without a word Rei reached forward and tentatively took Minako's hand in her own letting the back of Minako's hand rest on her palm. The lines in Minako's palm were thin, almost invisible if you didn't look closely, and Rei took the time to study each of the digits tracing her own fingers over Minako's slender ones, and Rei is taken back to the night where Minako had so easily kissed her fingers how simple and slight that action was that Rei had forgotten all about it until now. She turns over Minako's hand and notes that there is not even a slight resistance from Minako to her actions, and she leads the hand up to her lips but doesn't make contact yet, she wants to, but she's not sure if that's testing the waters anymore.
Minako feels Rei's breath move closer to her flesh and she waits, she doesn't anticipate, she just waits calmly for Rei to make her choice of whether to move forward, or to stop.
Rei dropped Minako's hand. The both of them released the breath of air they had been holding, and looked at each other the same way they had looked at each the first night, slight questioning indifference, but still that warm fondness one would get from an old friend. Rei had never noticed Minako's wedding ring, and it was only until her lips had grazed Minako's knuckle that she saw the ring, and she had been hit by an alarming sense of moral wrong. They couldn't do this. The inhibitions had returned again even stronger than before and she had been so close to drowning that time, how many times can one person drown, and never die away into the current?