Chapter Ten: Crash Course in Crushing!
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Reiko was mentally kicking herself when she got home for not accepting Souji's very polite offer. As she kicked her uniform skirt into her hamper and replaced it with pajama pants, thus creating the strange half-and-half outfit she wore around the house (prim and proper T.A. uniform shirt coupled with purple pajama pants featuring the likeness of Hello Kitty), she took a good look at herself in the antique mirror propped up on her desk because she and her mother were both too lazy to properly hang it.
What were you thinking, Reiko? she thought. Were you thinking at all? Or were you just lost in the moment? Just lost in those…gorgeous…amber…eyes? She touched her lip and realized that she was actually drooling. What's happened to me all of a sudden? Keiko was not yet home and Rei was busy doing her job, so Reiko picked up her cell phone, opened it up, and saw a slightly grainy picture, taken with the phone's built-in camera, of her with Natsumi and Sakura. A smile stretched across her lips and she dialed Natsumi's phone number.
"Hello, Reiko," Natsumi declared after barely one ring. She always liked to personally address her callers after checking her caller ID. "What's up?"
"Nacchi, I have a problem," Reiko confessed.
"What's wrong?" Natsumi asked in such a caring manner that it made Reiko smile again.
"Well, just as I was leaving school today, I saw a boy standing by the gates. I wished to myself that I had a boy to wait for me and then as I looked at that boy by the gates…" Reiko paused for dramatic effect. "Mm, he was hot like fire!"
"How appropriate," Natsumi remarked. "Do you want me to use my chain of hearts to encircle him and deliver him to your doorstep?"
"Could you do that?" Reiko asked meekly.
"Absolutely not!" Natsumi shouted into her phone. "No, Reiko, you have to do it yourself."
"But Nacchi, I've gone to a girls' school ever since preschool." She remembered the days of toddling around the sandbox at T.A.'s preschool with Keiko and some other girls that she grew away from as the years wore on. "I have no experience with boys at all!"
"That right there is the fundamental problem with girls' schools," Natsumi pointed out. "They may turn out future prime ministers and the like, but those future prime ministers are clueless when it comes to the male gender! I'm going to give you a crash course in crushing!"
"A crash course in what?" Reiko asked, slightly dazed.
"A crash course in crushing! I'll teach you everything you need to know. Come over to my domicile and we shall learn!"
"Domicile?" Reiko asked cattily.
"I learned that word in lit class today," Natsumi said defensively. "Come on over."
"Will do." Reiko hung up and pulled on her uniform skirt again instead of fully changing clothes because she didn't care how she looked. She scribbled a note to Rei that said she was going to Natsumi's and stuck it on the kitchen table before slipping into comfortable shoes and leaving the house. Natsumi's house was too far away to reach by walking, so Reiko dug out her fare card for the subway and headed for the nearest station, humming a tune as she walked.
Once she reached the station and descended the flight of stairs to the platform, she held the fare card up against a sensor attached to one of the transparent glass doors guarding the entrance to the station. It beeped and the door swept open to allow Reiko entry. As she entered, she threw a sidelong glance over her shoulder to watch the door shut again and swore she saw Souji standing there, searching his pockets for change to feed to the door. She let out a small shriek and ran, almost knocking over a little kid as she rushed for the platform that would lead her to Natsumi's. She waited nervously, peering into the tunnel to see if she could spot the signs of an oncoming train, her heart beating like a taiko drum. When the train finally pulled in and came to a stop, Reiko dithered about where to get on, fearing that Souji might follow. As the bells that signaled a train leaving began to chime, she leapt onto the one car where she knew she would be safe from Souji—the women only car.
The women only car was full of businesswomen coming home from their jobs, though there were a few scattered schoolgirls going home as well. Reiko felt instantly relieved to be on the women only car and sat down in a molded plastic seat for the relatively short trip, watching Tokyo whiz by at about 80 mph with a smile on her face.
She exited at the proper stop and walked the short distance to the Regency building, a shining white tower of expensive condominiums and penthouses. Natsumi didn't live on the very top floor—it was rumored that a very, very popular celebrity lived up there and none of the elevators went up there—but she lived two floors down and had an absolutely terrific view of Tokyo, no matter which window she went to. Reiko felt famous every time she did so much as enter the Regency, what with its marble-floored lobby and concierge desk and shining gold elevators.
Reiko was allowed to enter, as she was registered with the concierge desk on their "visitors allowed" list. There was a much longer list, too, the "persona non grata" list (PNG for short), of people who were not allowed in the building. This included ravenous, perhaps even obsessive fans of the Starlight Girls that bothered Minako at home, including a particularly egregious case that happened when Minako was 25 and Natsumi was only 2 or 3. Minako and Natsumi didn't talk about it and the man involved was in jail anyway, so they decided to just let bygones be bygones.
Reiko pushed the up button on one of the elevators and stepped inside when the car came in. She pressed the 28 button inside the gold-accented car with the expensive Berber carpet and looked up to watch the different numbers light up as the elevator moved past them. To her surprise, nobody else got in the car all the way until the 28th floor, when she got out and went to the door marked 2803. She pressed the doorbell and saw Minako's eye peering through the peephole a few moments later.
"Oh, hi, Reiko!" she said cheerfully as she opened the door. "Come in!" Reiko obliged, slipping out of her shoes and depositing them in the foyer next to Minako's fashionable designer sneakers and Natsumi's school shoes. Right as she slipped out of her shoes, she felt suddenly constrained and saw that, indeed, Natsumi summoned a chain of hearts to catch her. "Ah, Natsumi's just practicing her powers. I told her to," Minako explained. "Good job, Natsumi! Now let go of her before she suffocates."
"Reiko! How did I do?" Natsumi, who was in Sailor Mini Venus form, asked as she let go of the chain. Reiko nodded and gave a thumbs-up. "Great! Now, come into my room." She pressed the button in the middle of her bow and her school uniform reappeared. Reiko nodded and followed Natsumi into her room, sitting down on her big, comfortable, purple-sheeted bed. "So, what do you know about this boy already?"
"Um, his name's Souji, he goes to Shiba Kouen High, and he's really, really good-looking," Reiko replied, nodding again and blushing brightly.
"High school boy, huh? Sometimes, it's good to go for older boys. They're more intelligent," Natsumi explained. "So, what do you want to do with this Souji boy?"
"Nacchi, that sounds dirty," Reiko said dismissively.
"I don't mean it that way. Pervert." Natsumi bristled.
"Well, I wouldn't mind going on a date with him," Reiko said wistfully.
"Then you must take action! In these modern times, it is permissible for a girl to make move number one." Natsumi nodded to let that sink in. "What you need to do, Reiko, is ask him for his phone number! Are you nervous? Unsure of what to say? Try it out on me."
"B-but Natsumi, you're a friend, it won't work the same way," Reiko protested.
"It's just practice, like we're in a play together." Natsumi grinned. "Okay. Let me get into character."
"Is that necessary?" Reiko asked.
"But of course." Natsumi shook herself, cleared her throat, and smoothed down her hair with her hands. "Ok. I'm Souji now," she said in a humorously deeper voice.
"Man, your boy voice is terrible," Reiko remarked. "Oh, right. The asking." She took out her cell phone to use as a prop. "Um, Souji-san, could I maybe get your phone number? Please?"
"Mm, I give that an 85," Natsumi reported, using her normal voice again. "You aren't sure of yourself, Reiko, and you need to be because boys love confident girls. The please was nice to hear, but you need to let go of the maybe part. Try it again."
"Okay." Reiko exhaled loudly. "Hey, Souji, can I have your phone number, please?" She smiled brightly the whole time, which made her violet eyes sparkle.
"Much better! I'm impressed. You're a good student. I give that performance a one-hundred and a gold star!" Natsumi said cheerfully, hugging Reiko. "Great job, Reiko. I know it's very, very scary to interact with boys sometimes, so I'm going to let you borrow a good-luck charm of mine."
"It's not the one I gave you, is it?" Reiko queried.
"No, that one's in my schoolbag," Natsumi said reassuringly, darting over to the area of her room dominated by her vanity mirror and chests of drawers. She bent over to have a better look at the things on her vanity before selecting a small heart-shaped bottle of perfume and gingerly picking it up. "This is a bottle of Mom's fragrance, Love Punch," she told Reiko. "It has notes of fruit and all sorts of good stuff. Smell." She handed the Love Punch over to Reiko, who opened the top and sniffed.
"Mm. That's nice." Reiko smiled.
"And here's the best cosmetic-related advice Mom ever gave me. Don't spray the perfume on your neck or wrists. Spray it in your hair. It stays there longer and is more subtle that way, not like a noxious cloud of fragrance." Reiko nodded and obeyed Natsumi's advice, spraying the Love Punch on her crown.
"Thanks a bunch, Natsumi." Reiko smiled even larger.
"You're welcome. Hey! If it goes well, tell me, okay? And even if it doesn't go well, tell me anyway," Natsumi said cheerfully.
"I'll do it!" Reiko declared, taking a tight hold of the Love Punch. "Talk to you later, Natsumi!"
"Bye bye!" Natsumi waved to Reiko as she left her room and walked into the living room.
"Oh, is that Love Punch?" Minako asked.
"Yes, it is, Minako-san," Reiko said proudly.
"Cool." Minako went back to reading a magazine. Reiko slipped into her shoes again and left the penthouse, already feeling more empowered and glamorous than when she entered. Her heart was soaring like a bird and she had nothing but good feelings about what was ahead of her.