Makoto sighed from her position at the top of the night club, watching and waiting for the inevitable situations which would require her Senshi skills. These nights were boring. Back home they used to wait for the danger to come to them, but the defeat of Galaxia had ended that method of super-heroism. Nowadays, any lucky Youma that had escaped annihilation by the Senshi, be it from the Dark Kingdom or any other place, had to be sought out, and even then they were so weak that the Senshi hadn't even needed to transform past their first forms to destroy them.
In fact, just before the Senshi had left Tokyo, they had discussed whether it would have been a good idea to visit the North Pole again and permanently seal away the remnants of the Dark Kingdom, but a little research from Ami had shown that the area had already been covered over with ice and buried under water – and that piece of information had led the Senshi to conclude that if there was a base for the Youma, it would have been somewhere much closer. So with a promise from the Outers to search and destroy the elusive new base (if there even was one) the Inners had followed their Princess' wish to travel to England so she could be with the man she loved; apparently, knowing that she would spend an eternity with him was not enough to convince Usagi that she should let Mamoru have some alone time.
Makoto stomped down on the rebellious thought. Just like her, Mamoru had spent most of his childhood alone, and from what she felt, she knew that he must have been very happy that his fiancée was with him. Besides, Usagi and Mamoru's relationship was none of her business, her job was to protect the princess, not tell her how to live her life. For some reason that thought didn't sit well with her, since it left herself open to question her own life, her own destiny. Makoto shut herself off from those thoughts quickly, knowing that it never ended well.
If she were honest with herself, she'd needed the change in scenery. Moving to a different country hadn't been so terrible, well, the actual moving had been a pain in the ass. Her fear of flying meant that Usagi had had to lend her the Silver Crystal so that she had enough power to teleport herself from the toilet cabin on the plane before take-off. She therefore had arrived in London's grotty Gatwick airport a day in advance of the flight, and had to wait - using the disguise pen (which she also had to borrow) every so often so officials wouldn't get suspicious - in the section before customs until they arrived. To avoid detection, most of her time had been spent in the bathroom stalls.
She sighed again. She hated being on duty, it gave her too much time to think, and recently her thoughts had trailed down less than pleasant paths much more often.
It seemed like all the Senshi were in a funk. Maybe it was the horrible British weather. Maybe it was the fact that Makoto hadn't had a good fight in months. Her frustration was building, which was why the attack on Rei had been such great news – that wasn't to say that she liked the idea of her friend being in danger, but it meant a return of sorts to the way things had been: that freedom which came with melting into the element she controlled, her body and soul completely free to release the power welled up inside of her - she hadn't had such an opportunity in nearly a year, and the frustrated irritation it built within her was driving her nuts.
Some drunken yelling from below drew her out of her depressing self-analysis, and her attention was diverted to the couple who had just been escorted by the bouncers out of the nightclub she was standing on, obviously continuing a fight that had begun inside.
"You stupid arse, you got us kicked out!"
As the girl stomped away tearfully, Makoto decided that she wasn't going to intervene unless it got violent. To keep their skills sharp, the Senshi had been reduced to petty-crime fighting vigilantes. At first, Makoto had been excited at the idea of change – on the rare occasions that Minako had talked about her days as Sailor V she'd made it sound all very thrilling. In reality, their university was located in a medium sized city about two hours away from even the most outer outskirts of London, with the most serious crimes being a few domestic disputes and small-time drug deals, neither of which the Senshi could touch. Minako had forbidden it, and Luna had agreed with her when they'd had their weekly 'comm meetings'. Apparently those were matters which were better governed by the police and the law. Vigilantes were not praised, no matter how super-heroic they were, especially when it came to interfering with complicated family matters and crimes which were linked to higher levels than the street. Still, Minako wasn't heartless; if they happened to come across either of those situations, the Senshi were allowed to interfere to the point of protecting innocents, and when the immediate danger was neutralised, they had to leave the rest for the authorities.
She hadn't been able to electrocute someone even once since she'd been there! Or envelope them in a Coconut Cyclone, for that matter - that would have killed an ordinary human. The most she's gotten to do was knock out a few hooded men trying to break into a house once. It was all very mundane. She'd even had to stop her speeches - crooks didn't really wait around long enough for her to finish telling them her name, let alone the fact that she was a soldier of justice ready to punish them. She thought about the possibility of taking up a martial art again. Perhaps learn a new one, like Jitsu or Aikido…
"Stacey! Oi! Stacey! Don't go!"
She looked down at the man who had interrupted her thoughts and then to the girl who simply ignored her boyfriend, wrapping her arms around herself, body shaking more from tears than the cold. Makoto had no idea how these British women managed the feat of walking around in near freezing temperatures dressed in nothing but miniskirts and tank tops which weren't infused with magic from an ancient age and inexplicably warm when needed.
"Stacey!" The man chased after her, his Adidas jacket flapping in the wind. "You know I love you because I shag you and buy you chips!"
Makoto's lips twisted into a dark grin as she thought about the absurdity of his comment. How wonderfully romantic of you, now she's going to fall into your arms and sing your undying praises… She was not often one for sarcasm, but she felt the situation demanded it.
To her utter surprise, the girl stopped and turned around. "You love me?"
Oh please girl, Makoto muttered to herself, you could do so much better. Declarations of love were not supposed to be made like... well like that anyway, it was ridiculous, how could it mean anything when it was said in the middle of a cold, mucky street on a drunken night out, amid some horribly embarrassing announcement about the fact that they have sex? His revelation was cheap, the man was a complete idiot, Makoto would never have accepted anything like it, frankly, she thought to herself, it's more of an insult than anything. There wasn't one iota of romance in it, no real heartfelt feeling or effort being made on his part, and it was said completely by accident, in an attempt to stop her from leaving him. She's a fool if she forgives him.
The girl obviously had different ideas since she and her boyfriend moved quickly into the alley and immediately started getting it on. Makoto grimaced – unfortunately having a rather clear view of what they were doing - and decided it was best to find another spot to scout for trouble. I don't care how horny you get, she continued with her inner monologue as she leapt across the alleyway gap onto the neighbouring roof, I'm sure waiting the extra ten minutes to get a taxi home is a better option than exposing your private parts in a nasty rat-infested, urine covered, germ hole back alley.
The moaning and high-pitched breathing from below seemed to disagree with her.
Makoto stuck her tongue out at the alleyway's direction. Not to mention that what you're doing in public is technically illegal. She dropped down to the street – her Senshi uniform melding into the brown down jacket, dark jeans and Uggs she'd been wearing that afternoon as she landed - and decided she'd walk on the street for the remainder of the shift she'd kindly volunteered to take from Minako (who had originally taken it from an exhausted Rei). With more than a little amount of envy, she hoped the others were having a good time.
"Oh my gosh! Mamo-chaaaaaan! You have to try this!" Usagi pushed her way from the bar area towards the back of the room, squeezing between and around people packed tighter than a can of sardines.
The Apple Tap was practically an historical site, built in the late sixteenth century and popular with tourists and students alike. It was famous for its vast collection of cider, both mainstream and the more unusual and had a certain charming quality which only quaint old English buildings could have. Its walls were completely uneven and made out of lime clay or mortar or whatever it was they stuck horse hair and manure in (Ami had told Usagi about it at the beginning of the night, but she'd already forgotten most of it). The house itself was small and cramped, with dim lighting and tiny awkward windows that meant the whole place was always too warm, even in the depths of winter. The ceilings were supported by dark, old oak beams and were so low that many of the people there had to stoop. Usagi and the other girls did not have this problem, Mamoru, being six foot two, did. And so did the rugby team who were also there, drinking and celebrating their victory despite the fact that their captain was concussed and bedridden. But to their credit, they had toasted to Ceithin and the winning penalty he had given them almost every ten minutes and would continue to do so for the remainder of the night.
"What is it?" he asked, unable to stop himself from wincing at the pitch she reached.
"Strawberry cider!" She thrust the pint in his face, sloshing it on his nose as she stumbled forward slightly.
He gently pulled the glass out of her hands as he scrunched his nose, wiping away the liquid on his sleeve. "How much of it have you had?"
"Huh?" she asked, leaning in. Her mouth remained open and her right eye squinted slightly as she made an attempt to hear what he'd said.
Mamoru smiled at the fact that even when she was drunk she was still the cutest, most wonderful person he'd ever known. "I asked 'how much have you had?'"
Usagi waved her hand dramatically, "Pfft, not much. Just some." She wobbled on her feet for a little bit but managed to steady herself. "Aren't you excited? It's strawberry flavour!"
Jared, who was standing next to Mamoru and also stooping slightly, smiled when he noticed the glee on the blonde's face. "And it's pink!" he said, imitating her enthusiasm.
Usagi, now excited to have someone who understood how impressive this was, practically beamed. "I know! Isn't that incredible? So much better than apple! And they have all kinds of flavours!"
Jared pretended to be shocked. "They do?"
"Yeah! There's apple and toffee apple!"
"I love toffee apple." Jared couldn't help but love Usage's quirkiness. She was like a little kid, and she pulled it off in a totally endearing manner, in no way demanding attention from the room, but attracting it nonetheless.
She tapped her head and then pointed at him with the same finger. "I'll remember that."
"I appreciate it."
"And there's pear flavour and strawberry flavour and honey ginger and, and…" She squinted her eyes again as she tried to remember.
Mamoru turned to Jared. "This is your fault."
"Hey, I warned her how strong it was." Jared placed his hands up in defence, laughing as he said it.
"…oh yeah! And lemon! And toffee apple- no wait I said that already didn't I?"
"No you didn't," Jared said, humouring her.
"Well," she leaned in, like she was imparting a very serious secret, "there is." She nodded her head once for emphasis.
She took a step back and looked him up and down, assessing him –for what he had no idea- but for a moment Jared had the passing thought that she almost looked regal.
"Jared," she stated, swaying again but catching Mamoru's arm in time. "Jared," she tried again.
"Yes?"
"I've decided." She looked at him, her features set in determination. "You're a good person. And I'm glad you're friends with my Mamo-chan." She hiccupped. "I heart you, Jared. You're not nearly as annoying as people make out Americans to be."
"You don't know me very well."
"I know you well enough."
Jared's smile was warm when he looked down at her. "I heart you too Usagi."
"Do you realise I'm right here?" Mamoru teased, looking in particular at his fiancée.
Jared put the hand that wasn't holding a pint of cider onto Mamoru's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I heart you too."
"My life is now complete. Thank you, Jared."
"USAGI!" Noel's voice was booming in the cramped space.
"Noel!" Usagi swivelled around and threw her arms into the air, waiting for him to reach her and wrap her into a massive hug.
He didn't disappoint, bending low and lifting her so that she was eye-level and lightly bumping her head on the ceiling. "How are you enjoying yourself, darling?" As his level of intoxication had increased, Noel's accent crossed over from mildly-Scottish to an almost stereotypical level of Queen's-English.
She giggled. "Very much so! Although I'm still a little worried about your friend, but with Minako staying to watch over him, he should be ok." But then again, she thought to herself, last time Minako had to take care of us, she blew up Rei's stereo. "I hope he'll be alright," she said, genuinely worried, and then hiccupped.
"Aren't you adorable?" He put her down and smiled widely. "You shouldn't fret, Ceithin's been knocked about much worse than that."
A sudden chorus of "MASSIVE ERECTION!" was yelled out by anyone who had heard Noel use the rugby captain's name, followed swiftly by a mass downing of drinks. Once Noel belatedly swallowed down the remainder of his pint - only realising after everyone else had that he'd uttered the key word - he slammed the empty glass onto the wooden table and then lifted Usage's hand, kissing her wrist. "My lady, I regret I must retire, my essay awaits."
"Oh!" Usagi's cheeks were rosy as her free hand went to hide her girlish smile. "Do you really have to go? I think there are plans to go to Syndicate later."
Mamoru watched the exchange with a careful eye, he hadn't minded the kiss until he'd seen her reaction, but Noel seemed more intent on amusing Usagi than seducing her.
"Unfortunately it's due tomorrow and I have some heavy editing to do."
The suspicion was replaced with surprise. Mamoru, who was alien to the idea of not having everything done in advance, couldn't quite believe his ears. "You're going to write it now?"
"Yes."
"But it's almost midnight."
"He does his best work drunk, at night and under pressure of a deadline," Jared reassured him.
Mamoru shook his head lightly, not understanding where Noel could possibly get the motivation from to write an essay at that time and in that state. "That's insane."
"No, it's training for my future career." Noel patted Mamoru on the shoulder. "After all, I'm going to be a barrister. Besides, I've already done all of the research, it's only the introduction, conclusion and a little polishing left, anyway." He turned and gave a swooping bow to Usagi, knowing that she liked his apparent gallantry.
She didn't disappoint, rewarding him with a light giggle and her own attempt at a curtsy, but the alcohol in her system was winning the battle against her equilibrium and she would have fallen flat on her ass if Jared hadn't caught her and set her back on her feet.
"Upsy daisy. There we go, princess," he said as he righted her.
To her credit she wasn't at all phased at almost toppling over, she'd been in significantly more embarrassing situations when she was sober, let alone drunk. She carried on like nothing had happened. "Thank you Jared. Good luck with your essay, Noel! I hope you do well. Oh! And when you get back to your place, will you check on Minako for me and tell her we miss her?"
"Will do, my dear!" He winked at her as he left, stopping once or twice to say a brief farewell to some of his teammates. Just as he reached the door he turned, smiling devilishly before yelling "CEITHIN!" at the top of his lungs. There were a multitude of groans as people who had just bought new pints had to swallow them down again and then fork out cash for another.
"What are you doing?" Minako asked with suspicion in her voice. It was obvious that these two men were close, otherwise Zach wouldn't have stayed behind with her to babysit Mr Unconscious while everyone else went out to celebrate with the rest of the rugby team. But she couldn't help wondering if Ceithin (or anyone for that matter) would have been entirely comfortable with letting Zach loose on his laptop unsupervised.
"Reading the news, see?" Zach swivelled the computer to face her, showing her that he was on the BBC News' webpage.
Minako fought against a yawn. "Anything interesting?"
"Usual bullshit… Tories are being dicks, Labour are being stupid dicks and the Lib Dems are generally just dickless. Also, we're still bombing the shit out of Libya."
"Anything on the Rupert Murdoch case?"
"Other than the fact that Rebekah Brooks is a GILF?" At Minako's questioning stare he clarified. "Ginger I'd like to fuck."
She rolled her eyes. "Never mind."
"On a lighter note," he continued, "Cheryl Cole is adjusting well to singledom and Jordan's telling all about her failed marriage." He looked up to notice that she was rubbing her eyes. "I can take you home if you like."
She sat up at that. This wasn't the first all-night vigil she's attended, and it most certainly would not be the last. "I'm fine, really. It's the least I could do."
He paused a moment before he spoke, a flicker of something flashing in his eyes, but she was too tired to notice. "It's not your fault," he said somewhat carefully. He waited for her reaction, wondering if she was going to give a typical 'woman' answer.
She looked up at Zach, her blue eyes soft. "That's kind of you to say, but it was my scarf that flew into his face."
He scoffed at that, of course that's how she would think, that's how all women thought. They had to be so bloody dramatic, it was always all their fault and they had to show the whole world they cared.
"Yeah but that doesn't make it your fault. A leaf blowing in the wind could have caused the same problem."
"True. But it wasn't a leaf. And he asked me to stay with him."
"Ah." There was the slip he'd been waiting for. "There, I think we cut through the bullshit."
Her eyebrows knitted together as her mouth set itself into a tight line. "Excuse me?" she asked in a tone that dared him to say what he thought again.
"Oh come on, just admit you want him."
"I barely know him!"
"So why would you volunteer to take care of him? The only reason is because you want to get into his pants and play with his little friend."
"Or maybe it's because I'm partly responsible for him being in this condition." She had to stop herself from taking a glance at Ceithin's lower area to see if Zach was being serious when he'd called it 'little'.
"It's not like you did it on purpose." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Or did you?"
That caught her by surprise. "What?"
"Did you orchestrate the whole thing so you could get to know him better?"
"Are you joking?"
Zach simply shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised. Women are devious like that."
"Oh yeah, you've caught me." Minako's answer dripped with sarcasm. Her temper was a difficult thing to raise, but Zach had done a fine job and the only thing which kept her from yelling was the fact that Ceithin was sleeping. "I deliberately threw my scarf into the wind in order to get him concussed so I could sit here all night with the biggest asshole I've ever met while my friends go out partying. Great detective work, Sherlock."
"There's no need for name-calling, he's a nice bloke once you get to know him."
"You know perfectly well who I was referring to."
"Of course, you wouldn't want to insult the invalid, especially since you want to fuck him."
"I do not!"
"You can admit it, it's perfectly natural, everyone likes sex - although I can't really account for your taste - you don't have to bother making up some transparent excuse."
"It's not an excuse, it's true!"
"Then it's pathetic. How the hell have you managed to survive so far if you feel guilty for everything that's barely connected to you?" Zach had no idea how hard he'd struck a nerve at that. "You give a homeless man some change which he uses to buy drugs, and which he then ODs on. Is it your fault he's dead? No, it's his fault for being addicted to coke and for buying bad shit. Actually, that's a bad example, because it would be your fault since you're not supposed to give money to the homeless."
His argument was bordering on being ridiculous. "What is wrong with you?"
"I'm a realist. And don't feel sorry for homeless people, they can earn up to fourteen grand a year begging."
"Don't you have any compassion? Those people have nowhere to go, no one to look after them, they-" she stopped herself from getting carried away, "You've obviously never experienced anything like it."
"Now who's being judgemental? How do you know what I've done and not done? You know what they say, to make an assumption makes an ass out of you and 'umption'."
"Are you telling me you've been homeless?" The doubt was evident in her voice, and even if it wasn't, her twisted lips and general look of condescendence would have been enough.
"It depends on your definition." He took out a cigarette pack from his jeans pocket and shook it.
"Homeless, you know, as in not having a home, living on the streets? No money, sleeping under bridges, that sort of thing."
"Well I've always had a home, but there have been times I've not wanted to live in it, and there were times where I'd fall asleep on the street. I was drunk for those of course-"
He looked like he was going to say more, but she didn't want anything else to come out of his mouth. He'd said enough as it was. "Ok, firstly-"
"First," he said, interrupting her.
"What?"
"First. There's no such word as 'firstly'." He pulled out a lone cigarette and put it to his lips before he began searching his person for a lighter.
"Yes there is."
"Not in real English."
"Why does everyone think that I can't speak proper English?"
He'd obviously breached a sore point, but he wasn't interested in hearing her whine about that. "Do you mind if I smoke?" he belatedly asked without removing the white stick from his mouth.
"I do, actually," she said. She frowned; according to Mamoru none of his new housemates smoked. He wasn't the type to have just assumed something like that, so he had to have been told. Someone had lied to Mamoru and she didn't like that at all. She could take a good guess as to who it was.
"Well, shit. I was only asking out of politeness, and since I pay rent here and you don't I'm going to light up anyway. And notice, I don't feel guilty about it." After a moment of more searching he gave up, "Fuck." He pulled out the cigarette and placed it behind his ear.
"No lighter?" she asked, a certain smugness evident on her features.
"Obviously not."
"You could always light it in the kitchen," she suggested, hoping he would just leave.
"You'd like me to leave you alone with him, wouldn't you?"
There was a small grunt from the bed, pulling both Zach's and her attention towards the sleeper they were supervising.
They fell silent for a few moments after that, neither wanting to be the one responsible for waking him.
It gave Minako time to process all that Zach had said so far. "You enjoy deliberately pissing people off, don't you?" she said once it appeared that Ceithin had drifted back into full sleep.
He simply shrugged his shoulders, "I'm a casual observer, that's all. And your only conscious companion for that matter."
"I suppose angry conversation is better than no conversation at all." Her smile crept back onto her face. "Although if you lost that beastly personality, you might find more people would warm to you."
"I get plenty of women with my personality just the way it is. In fact, I find it makes for better sex when women are angry at me. And it means that I don't care if they don't get off, not that I couldn't, you know, get them off if I wanted to." He rubbed his two fingers with his thumb as he spoke, a smirk on his features. "It makes it easier to get rid of them afterwards as well."
"I think that's disgusting. And I wasn't just referring to women."
"I don't bend that way, sorry. I tried it once, didn't like it, ended up in a catastrophe."
"I wasn't referring to just sexual relationships either."
"I'm not out to win a popularity contest, love. What do I care what other people think about me?"
"Well, I don't think you're as morally depraved as you'd like to think. You're here watching over Ceithin, and you offered to walk me home."
"I'm here because I want to make sure the sheep fucker survives to pay for his share of this dump. And I offered to walk you home because it'd be easier to get into your pants if we're on your turf."
"If you say so."
"I do."
It wasn't worth arguing with him, so she let him have the last word, deciding to read the article for her next tutorial that she'd printed off of Mamoru's computer. Seeing that she wasn't going to continue the conversation, Zach went back to scrolling through the news.
After a few minutes Minako was ready to give up with her reading and only her unwillingness to show Zach that she was bothered prevented her from tossing the document into her bag. So she held onto it, flipping over a page once in a while to make it look plausible. To her consternation, she wasn't able to concentrate on the words printed on the page: her mind was on the discussion she'd just had. Zach was an inconsiderate, arrogant arse, but he'd made a point which, uncomfortably, may have held some truth.
What on earth is wrong with me? Did she really have to be there? She could've gone out with the others and checked in on Ceithin in the morning. She could have even brought flowers with her, and maybe made him breakfast (or lunch, since she would have been out the night before and would not have woken before noon on principle) and that would have been more than enough of an apology for what had so blatantly been a careless accident.
But he'd asked for her to be with him. And Minako was a sucker for sick people who needed nursing. She cast a glance at his sleeping form before looking quickly at Zach to make sure he hadn't noticed. He was tapping something on the computer, seemingly ignorant of what she'd just done, so her eyes flicked over to Ceithin again, but instead of a quick glance her gaze lingered.
He was tall, that was obvious, he was broad shouldered and strong. And he was incredibly handsome, not beautiful or gorgeous or angelic or any of the words she'd ever used for Ace. He seemed very much to be a man: human, earthly. Solid and sure. There was something much more about him.
She dismissed her thoughts as nonsensical; it was hard to explain what she meant, even to herself. She tried to consider her initial reaction: by 'earthly' it wasn't through physical features per se. It was more presence. Besides, how many 'earthly' young men had white hair? Ace does, she thought to herself, but then he looks just as superhuman as he did before he was brought back.
She bit her lip in the right corner as her emotions travelled with her memories. Ace was generally thinner, more fine-looking, and he had more attractive eyes. Although to be fair to Ceithin, she'd only seen his in two states, closed and glazed over from a concussion. But Ace held a certain power over her, even now. If he called her right then and said that he'd changed his mind, that he'd made a mistake, she was sure she'd fly straight into his arms, no hesitation, no matter how she loathed to admit that fact to herself. From the very beginning, even when he was just Saijou, he had made her feel like he was her guardian angel, and long after the destruction of the Dark Kingdom, after their final battle with Chaos, when he'd magically reappeared whole, alive and his soul completely free of the past... she had almost believed that he really was an angel destined for her.
For the millionth time, her breath became laboured and tears threatened to spill. She blinked them away quickly, unwilling to allow herself to cry for a man who had only chosen what his heart truly wanted. A life where he wasn't always reminded about what he had done, something where his destiny wasn't ominous and apparently written in stone. A life without the constant need to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
A life without her.
How could she blame him for wanting those things more than wanting her? Freedom over a love that had enslaved his soul and destroyed him twice, how could she have expected different?
As the memories filled her vision to the point where she couldn't hold them in anymore Ceithin suddenly stirred in his sleep and snapped her out of her thoughts.
She cleared her throat and smirked, no longer worried about the fact that she was watching over a man who was practically a stranger. It really was nothing more than out of guilt for having caused him pain, and the seed of doubt which Zach had planted of it being anything other than that was now gone. How could she ever consider another man when her heart felt so utterly broken? When it still belonged and would most likely belong to another for the rest of her unnaturally long life?
As she looked at Ceithin's peaceful form, much calmer now than a few seconds ago, she started thinking again about her feelings and she came to the conclusion that she was acting a little desperate. Trying to compare someone she'd only just met to someone she'd loved deeply and attempting to find similarities between them was not healthy. Makoto had done the same for most of their teens, and look where it had gotten her: a lonely heart with no one being good enough.
Still. With nothing to do but stare at the sleeping man, she couldn't help noticing things about him, and that led to her mind wondering about who he was.
He was Welsh, she knew that, and from the non-slurred words he'd said to her (about two) she'd gathered that he had a nice voice. She was willing to bet that if he ever sang, it wouldn't be bad, it'd be deep, and used mostly to sing his national anthem at games. He had massive feet, she guessed he was possibly a size fifteen, and they hung off the edge of the bed. She wondered how many times he'd hit his head in doorways.
There was a thin gap in his left eyebrow, a small, light scar running through it. It was barely visible since his eyebrows were practically silver, but Minako's sharp blue gaze noticed, although it may have had less to do with her Senshi training and more to do with the fact that she'd been staring at Ceithin for most of the night. Most likely the scar came from a rugby game sometime in the past. Or it could have been a sibling, she didn't actually have any of her own, but being with the girls had given her enough of an insight to know about the potential 'accidents' and general violence involved with having one. Maybe he had two, or three. Either way, she doubted he was the youngest in his family, he didn't seem to be the bratty type (although that logic didn't always apply: Usagi was older than Shingo and there were times when Usagi acted like she was four).
"How did you meet Mamoru?"
The question dragged Minako out of her thoughts. She looked up to see that he was still surfing the web, his eyes glued to the screen. "Pardon?" she asked.
"I'm trying to make polite conversation," he said, still not looking up.
Minako didn't like his tone. "Fine, but what was the question?"
"How did you meet Mamoru?"
She shrugged. "Through Usagi. The girls and I used to hang out together after school at a place called the Crown Fruit Parlour. Mamoru was friends with the owner and his family. I assume Mamoru and Usagi first met there."
"You assume? You mean Mamoru knew her before you did?" He stopped browsing to give her his full attention, his leaf-green eyes lifting above the screen.
If he wasn't such an arsehole, Minako would have been willing to admit that he was actually quite beautiful.
"I was the last one in our group. I lived in London until I was thirteen, then I moved to Japan."
"What are his parents like?"
Minako blinked at the question and then frowned. "That's personal!"
"Lower your voice," he admonished, looking quickly at Ceithin to see if she'd woken him.
"Why on earth would you ask such a question?" She was practically hissing.
"Because he hasn't said anything about them and since they're the ones who are most likely paying the pricey fee for his education here, I want to find out how likely the chances are that he may not be able to afford the rent." His eyes flickered briefly to hers in for a second and then looked quickly down, as if he didn't want her looking at him.
Minako began to fume, knowing from his actions that there was some kind of suspicious motivation behind it. "It's none of your business. He wouldn't make a commitment like agreeing to pay rent and then just abandon it." She didn't know which made her more furious, his stupid question, or his apparent reasoning for asking it in the first place. "He's not that type of person."
"The last housemate didn't seem that type of person either," Zach countered.
"I couldn't care less about your stupid previous housemate." Perhaps she was being overly sensitive about the matter - Mamoru didn't actually have parents and it was something which was obviously quite painful for him because he never brought it up, but it didn't lessen her moral outrage at his backhanded intrusions into Mamoru's life. If he wanted to know anything, the best way to find out was to ask Mamoru straight out. "I don't like you asking those kinds of questions."
He rolled his eyes. "I'm so very sorry." His tone dripped with sarcasm.
"Why did you really want to know?" she asked, knowing there was something behind it, there had to be another reason for him asking.
He was taken aback from a moment at her question and then raised his dark blonde eyebrows. For a second he looked about to make some sort of snarky comment but seemed to think better of it, and then he shrugged his shoulders. "Curiosity," was his only reply.
Minako was far from satisfied, but she let it be. While her intuition was rarely off-target, she wondered if she was reading too much into his behaviour. Either way, she had little choice in the matter: she was a guest in his house and she wasn't familiar enough with him to know how to press out information.
They didn't talk for a while afterwards, in fact Minako deliberately tried not to speak to him for the rest of the evening, but when she noticed that his motions with Ceithin's mouse became inconsistent with what he'd been doing earlier, she felt like she had little choice. He obviously wasn't scanning the news anymore so she needed to find out what he was doing instead. "What are you doing on his computer now?"
"What are you, his mum?"
"I'm his caretaker for tonight."
He winked at her. "Yeah, I bet you want to be, although I still think you're wasting your time. I'd be up for a bit of caretaking if you're bored."
She rolled her eyes. Maybe it was the fact that she intrinsically knew that if he ever tried anything with her she'd be able to string him up by his genitalia, or maybe it was because she'd been around so many of these kind of guys while growing up, but she didn't feel uncomfortable around Zach. Annoyed? Yes, definitely. But there was nothing which made her regret meeting him. She felt like he was one of those friends who was bad for you in a hundred different ways but you kept them around simply because you'd known them for so long, and because they made life interesting. She had no idea why she felt that way, but she didn't give it too much thought. Minako was the kind of girl that relied on instinct as much as she relied on her head. "Stop being filthy. And stop watching porn onto his laptop."
Zach seemed almost genuinely disgusted. "I'm not watching porn, especially not on his computer. His collection is probably full of pictures of sheep's arses and dragons eating out leek patches."
"What are you doing then?"
"Aren't you in the least bit disturbed by what I've just said?"
"About what?"
"About what he uses for wanking."
"I ignored it because it's bull, and you're avoiding my question."
"No, I'm refusing to answer your question. There's a difference."
Minako's bright eyes narrowed into an accusatory stare. "Why?"
"Because I'm not having you think that I have to answer to you."
She made a sound that was midway between a scoff and a sigh. "I never said you did." Her voice didn't sound annoyed anymore. She seemed more exasperated, less willing to argue with him.
"I'm changing all his song titles in his music folder to 'mint sauce makes me hard'," he admitted.
Minako sat up, her annoyance flaring again. "Why?"
Zach lifted his dark blonde eyebrows, a haughty smile on his face. "Are you seriously asking me?"
"Well don't do it."
"I'm leaving his lecture recordings alone," he said in an attempt to justify his actions.
"So that makes it ok?"
"Well, obviously."
Minako was not in the least bit amused. "It blatantly doesn't."
Zach rolled his eyes, she was so righteous. "Fine, I'll change it to 'mint sauce makes me horny'."
"How is that any different?" She was expressing with her hands now. A sure sign she was getting agitated.
"It's less rude."
A feeble voice prevented Minako from responding. "Zach…"
Both turned to the man lying on the bed. "Ceithin? You awake?"
He uttered a low mumble, his eyes still closed as he sought the sound of his friend's familiar voice.
"What was that?" He leaned in closer, twisting his head so that his ear was facing Ceithin's lips.
"Tea…"
Zach twisted the corner of his mouth into a smirk, something Minako decided he did all too well. "You're so fucking British."
Ceithin frowned at that, eyes still closed, his pale eyebrows knitted together as his breathing deepened. "French women…hairy pits…"
Confusion marred Minako's features. "Is he alright?"
Zach raised his voice slightly to ensure Ceithin could hear. "That's a pathetic comeback, even for your current state."
"Tea…"
"Oh for fuck's sake, I'm not going to make you tea."
Minako deliberated the dangers of leaving Ceithin alone with Zach for a few moments before deciding he couldn't do too much damage in the time it would take her to walk through the hallway to the kitchen and boil a kettle. "I'll go. Would you like one as well?" she asked out of polite habit.
Zach shook his head lightly. "Thanks, I'm alright." As she was just about to leave the room he stopped her. "Make sure you give him the sheep fucking mug. It's his favourite."
Minako didn't even flinch. "I'll keep an eye out for it," she said with a wry smile, wondering if he said it just to be crude around her or because he secretly cared about his friend. She decided on both.
With no-one fully conscious left in the room, Zach decided it was time to wake Ceithin properly and promptly began prodding his face with his finger.
"I am not!"
"Yes, Usa-chan, you are."
Ami had her motherly face set in place and it was annoying the heck out of Usagi. "Fine. Maybe I am a little bit tipsy, but that only means that I have to-" she hiccupped, interrupting herself. "I have to keep going!" She lifted her arms up dramatically at that point. "I need to dance the alcoholismness out of my system! Isn't that right Mamo-chan? You're a doctor!" She leaned her weight into Mamoru, stumbling slightly as he struggled to keep her upright.
"Maybe Ami's right, Usako, maybe…" he said, leaning in and touching his nose with hers, the alcohol having broken all his inhibitions about personal contact "…we should think about heading home."
Ami shot him a grateful smile.
"No Mamo-chan! We can't!" Usagi suddenly bolted upright and her flushed cheeks whitened as panic overtook her, her eyes widening with a glazed sparkle.
"Why not?" Mamoru, seeing her expression, also began to panic.
"Because of Friends!" she said dramatically, like it explained everything.
Jared couldn't help laughing out loud. "Is she always this hilarious?"
Ami could only just resist dropping her head into her hands with exasperation.
"Friends?" Mamoru asked, having become quite confused. He burped up some of the cider.
"Mamo-chan listen to me." Usagi pulled him close and hugged him as tightly as she was able. "We are going to be together for a very-" she hiccupped again, "-very long time."
"I don't understand."
Ami pulled out her phone, "I'm just going to call us all a taxi."
"I wouldn't bother, at this time of night all the taxis should already be out."
Ami looked at Jared briefly before acknowledging his point. After another moment of listening to the phone ring she gave up.
"We have to make good memories to look back on!" Usagi insisted. "You have to make your own with your friends and we have to make some together too, but mostly you have to make the friends ones now because we already have lots of us and we'll make loads more later!"
Mamoru still didn't understand. "Wait, are we talking about the television show or actual friends?"
Usagi waived her hand frantically, dismissing what he was saying. "Don't you see? I don't want to go on a break!"
The panic returned like a lump of lead in Mamoru's stomach. "What do you mean? Why would we ever go on a break?"
"Ok, wow. I think that's enough cider for this evening." Jared gently pried the pint glasses from the hands of the couple and handed them to Ami who placed them on a nearby table. "Guys, let's head out into the cooler air, maybe we'll pick up a taxi outside and head back to the house. It's bedtime for both of you."
"No Jared, you have to help me convince Mamo-chan to go to Syndicate!" To make matters worse, tears began to form in the corner of Usagi's eyes. "Even if I don't go, he has to! He needs his 'guy-time'!"
Jared's smile was a mile wide. "So you want your boyfriend to go to a club without you?"
"Yes! He has to! I need to give him his space!"
He turned to Mamoru. "No wonder you're marrying her."
But Mamoru wasn't listening. "Why are you crying?" His voice wavered slightly as his panic reached higher levels.
"If you don't go out and have fun now, you'll get bored of me when we're older!" She clutched at his shirt like it was a lifeline.
"No! It's not true! Usako I will love you forever! Even when you were sleeping in that crystal for thousands of years, I never got bored of you!"
"But how could you know? You weren't you yet!"
It was Ami's turn to panic, from the look on his face she doubted Jared understood anything that the couple were saying, but she didn't want to risk any compromising details about their identities.
"Any idea what they're talking about?" Jared was amused but suspicious as he spoke to her.
With little choice left, Ami played the one card that would shut both Usagi and Mamoru up immediately. "Alright, let's all go to the club! I feel like dancing!" She gave them her widest smile and hoped that they were drunk enough to fall for it.
Usagi did. "Yay!" Her tears disappeared immediately and were replaced with sheer glee. "Let's go clubbing! I can't believe Ami's coming with us!" Her smile was a mile wide. "Yay! Clubbing! Yay!" she yelled as she jumped up and down.
Jared decided to jump up and down with her, holding her hands and mirroring her excited expression. He turned to Ami. "I think she's excited about clubbing!" he said with false exuberance and an overly-bright smile.
Ami scrolled down her phone to Minako's number and sent her a quick text with an update about what they were planning, sighing despondently as she pressed 'send'.
"Wh-what happened?" Having been rudely prodded awake by his housemate, Ceithin was trying desperately to understand where he was and why he seemed to be suffering from the worst hangover ever.
"Somebody illegally tackled you and sent you straight to the hospital, you complete pansy."
"What?" He rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand, regretting it instantly as his head began to pulsate. "I was playing rugby?"
"Yeah, and you threw up all over Noel."
"When?" Ceithin's mouth watered uncontrollably, but he held the nausea down.
"This afternoon."
"Where are we?" The remnants of sleep were keeping him slightly groggy and confused.
"At home."
"Where?"
"That knock on your head was pretty strong," Zach said instead of answering. If Ceithin had not been so dilapidated he would have noticed the unusual concern in Zach's voice. "The doctor said the scan looked ok." He leaned close and tried to peer into Ceithin's eyes. "Do you know what year this is?" he asked, grasping Ceithin's chin and lifting his eyelids. "Your pupils are dilating."
Having his face grabbed was enough to bring him to. "Zach?"
"Yeah?"
"Get the hell off of me."
Zach let go and backed away. "I was just trying to help."
Ceithin placed his hand on his head, pressing lightly and regretting it immediately. "I just woke up, give me a minute and I'll be fine."
"Whatever." Zach had slumped back into his chair, annoyed at the light rebuff and regretting his decision to stay and watch over Ceithin.
They waited for a few moments in silence.
"Shit," Ceithin said eventually, blinking rapidly in an attempt to focus on the ceiling, but with each drop of his eyelids the area behind his eyeballs felt like it was being pulverised. He kept his gaze steady until he felt like he could tolerate the pain again and blinked slowly. "Is anyone else hurt?"
"No, you were the only who got his arse served to him on a platter." The topic of conversation seemed to rouse Zach somewhat. "And there's something even better."
The excitement in his voice put trepidation in Ceithin's. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you really want me to tell you now? Maybe you should get some more sleep."
Ceithin knew Zach was deliberately prolonging the conversation to worry him further. "Don't be an arsehole. Tell me."
"Do you have any recollection of what happened?"
"No."
"Not even what you said to Minako before you were shoved in the ambulance?"
Ceithin was drawing a blank, his memory of the day's events were somewhat hazy. All he could remember was the walk down to the Manor Fields and the odd catch when the ball had been thrown to him. "Who's Minako?"
"Are you completely blind? How could you forget a body like hers? She's the blonde girl with the perky tits and hip-wrapping legs."
"No idea." Ceithin stared at him with a somewhat vacant expression.
Zach rolled his eyes as he realised he'd have to use more romantic terms to jog Ceithin's memory. "The one with the 'alluring' blue eyes, 'angelic' hair and 'beautiful' smile," he said, using his fingers as quotation marks.
It seemed to work, Ceithin's memory slammed back to that moment when he'd woken up on the field and saw her face. "Oh yeah…" he said, his voice in nothing but a whisper.
"Yeah, well you told her, straight to her face – and I swear I'm not bullshitting you - that you had a massive erection for her."
There was silence as Ceithin tried to process what had just been said.
Zach's devilish grin faltered only slightly with the lack of response. "Did you hear what I said? You told her that-"
"Fuck off."
There it was, that rare reddening of cheeks, a deep blush creeping up Ceithin's neck, spreading across his white face and making him look ridiculous. Zach was beaming. "I promise you, it's true. Ask anyone who was there."
"You're not serious." There was no mistaking the complete horror in his voice.
"If I was making this up, don't you think I'd come up with a better line than ripping something off from Anchorman?" He had a point there.
Ceithin placed his hand on his head in complete embarrassment, "Did she hear?"
Zach smirked. "The whole bloody field heard."
A groan of utter despair escaped his lips as he prayed to every deity he could think of that he would never see that beautiful girl again. And then he remembered that Zach knew her name, "Who is she? You knew she was called Minako. How?"
"She's best friends with Mamoru's fiancée."
"Shit." He peeked through his hand, his grey eyes intense and desperate as he sought out Zach's green ones. "Please tell me this is one of those frequent occasions where you're simply fucking with me because you're a sadistic bastard."
"No."
Ceithin tried to get him to clarify his statement. "No you won't tell me, or no it's not true?"
"No, it's not one of those times. And do you want to know the best part?"
"Oh God," he wanted to be swallowed up into a hole, "there's more?"
Zach was plainly loving this. "Of course."
Ceithin removed his hands and closed his eyes. "I don't want to know."
"I think you do."
"No I don't. I don't need to know anymore, I feel like a complete cock already. Telling me cannot possibly make me feel more embarrassed than I already am."
Zach obviously ignored him. "Yes it can, and I'm going to tell you anyway. I will not be denied the full effect of the denouement. As you were being carted away – and just after you'd basically convinced her that you were a creepy pervert - you begged her to stay and watch over you."
Ceithin found this quite embarrassing, but not as bad as Zach was making it seem. There was still a punch-line to come, his brain was just too foggy to predict what it was. "And?"
"And, judging by the footsteps coming towards your room, she's here with your tea."
His stomach flipped. "No."
Zach was beaming. "Yes."
The door opened and Minako stepped inside just in time to see Ceithin heave.
"Oh my gosh!" Minako scooted over as quickly as she could without spilling the hot tea. She all but slammed the mug down on the nightstand and leaned in to support him. That was his downfall, the final straw which broke any control he had had over keeping the contents of his stomach inside his body.
Her perfume.
He was sure that ordinarily it would be something he wouldn't be able to get enough of: a light, subtly sweet and a slightly zesty scent that suited her perfectly, but at that moment it was much too strong for his delicate condition. That, coupled with the adrenaline from his utter humiliation, sent the waves of nausea in his stomach crashing into overdrive. She was intoxicating in ways which were both wondrous and utterly horrendous. He extended his arm out to gently push her away and give him space as his mouth watered uncontrollably and he gagged, twice.
Zach recognised the sickly off-white pallor and retching. He stood up from the chair. "Oh, no. Not on me you fucking don't."
"I'll get the bin." Minako raced to Ceithin's desk and bent underneath to fetch it.
It was Zach's undoing.
Instead of moving out of the way, he stood rooted to where he was as his eyes involuntarily zeroed in on Minako's ass and legs.
Ceithin couldn't hold it in anymore. He heaved one more time and what little contents he'd still had from his stomach emptied out onto Zach's brown corduroy pulling trousers.
"Enculé!"
Minako stood just at the foot of the bed, clutching the bin in her hands as she bit her lip, trying her best not to laugh.
Ceithin's head felt less dizzy and the nausea was almost gone for the moment, but his throat stung from the bile. He grabbed the paper towel Minako had brought in with the tea and wiped his mouth. "I think that's two for two," he said weakly looking at Zach with a slight smile.
Zach glared at him, his face red and furious. "Nique ta mère! " he spat before rushing out of the room. "You better not have ruined these!"
He slammed the door as he made his way out, the sound ripping through Ceithin's skull. They both waited as they listened to him thundering up the stairs, almost like he was stomping on them deliberately hard so that they would hear him.
"I notice you didn't apologise," Minako said when she felt it was safe to speak.
He looked at her, his eyes unable to focus on anything else. "You can't show him any weakness."
"Are you planning on throwing up over all your housemates?"
Her smile was infectious, and as much as it pained his head to do so, he returned it.
"Eventually." He took advantage of the fact that he was sitting up and reached over for the mug. When she looked like she was going to move closer to help him, he lifted his hand out. "I'm really sorry, but your perfume is making me dizzy."
She stopped, deliberately stamping down the ridiculous feeling of guilt for causing him more pain. "Sorry."
"It's not your fault." He smiled at her again, and then winced as he sipped his tea.
"Too hot?" she asked, worry clouding her features.
Ceithin decided it would be best to spare her feelings, he'd insulted her enough already, if what Zach had said was to be believed. "Yeah, too hot."
"Oh." She'd never felt so awkward in her life, he stared at her like she was some kind of random stranger who had unexpectedly walked into his room. Realising that, in fact, he had every right to look at her that way, she nervously shoved her hands into the front pocket of her sweater and wracked her brain for her next move. "Big, strong lad like you, you must be starving. Do you want to eat something? I'm really good making beans on toast-" she noticed his silver eyes were still fixated on her, like she was made of glass and he could see right through her. It was extremely unnerving. "Or-or cheese. I can make cheese- well, not make cheese from scratch," she begged her mouth to stop but it wouldn't listen. "I can't actually make…because, you know, because that takes a lot of time and special farming equipment… but if you have cheese I can make you a sandwich. Or just toast. With the cheese. Or not," she tightened her lips and looked away briefly, cursing her unexpected onslaught of verbal diarrhoea, "If, you know, you like to eat cheese." Oh God Minako, he must think you're a freak! Quick, say something nice so he doesn't think you're one of those crazy stalker women from those TV shows about serial killers! "You look really healthy, do you work out?" She cringed, deciding she wanted to be dropped into a dark hole, and weighed up the pros and cons of her having opened her mouth. Pro: You actually said something instead of standing here awkwardly and being stared at. Con: He now definitely thinks that some random crazy-lady has followed him and his friend home, has been watching him sleep and is trying to flirt with him…To her credit, Minako kept her professional smile firmly in place during her internal panic-driven monologue.
Ceithin still seemed somewhat unsettled. "Um…I'm ok for now, actually. I'm sorry, please don't take this the wrong way but what are you doing here?"
"Oh." She had hoped to avoid that question. "Well," she took in a deep breath, "I don't know if Zach's told you," she really hoped that either sometime during the hospital visit or while she was making tea Zach had explained that it had been her who was responsible for putting him in his situation, and that Ceithin was just a nice guy who understood it was an accident, "but I was the one who-"
"I know," he said, interrupting her. He had put his hand up to stop her. "I owe you an apology. That was inexcusable."
Minako lifted her eyebrows in surprise. "I'm sorry?" She was a little confused.
"It didn't matter what state I was in. To say something like that in front of all those people… it must have been very embarrassing. Well, at least for me it was."
Minako finally caught on. "Oh." He obviously didn't know. This meant that she would still have to explain how she'd carelessly let go of the scarf which had managed to smack him in the face and get him illegally tackled, severely concussed and completely bedridden. She thought quickly how she could turn this to her advantage. "Yes, um… it was very embarrassing." She looked away from him, hoping he was buying it. "There were a lot of people…and what you said…However, I forgive you. Completely. It wasn't intentional." She tried to give him her most disarming smile. "And I want to let you know that I recognise that it was a complete accident and that I'm willing to let bygones be bygones…If I ever do something silly to you, we could take this as my get-out-jail-free card."
She gave him another smile, berating herself inside. What the hell was that? She'd never had a problem lying before and yet she was floundering like a first year drama student with stage-fright.
Ceithin knew something was up. There was more to this than met the eye, she was hiding something. He did not get gorgeous blondes (well, not this gorgeous anyway) following him home to care for him after he'd made a complete idiot of himself and insulted her in the process. Plus, Zach had let her stay, and even though it was easy to pass that off as Zach being a sadistic bastard who liked to watch his friends squirm, Ceithin knew that when it came to women that his friends were potentially interested in, Zach was like an overbearing Pakistani mother. If it was a one-night stand, then he would often keep out of it (although he was not above deliberately cock-blocking if he thought his friends were making a mistake, however that didn't necessarily stop him from making those same mistakes...it was more of a 'do as I say, not as I do' sort of thing). The others would find this sort of behaviour of his extremely irritating, but Ceithin understood the gesture behind it: he was the best kind of wingman, the one with high standards for his mates. So the fact that Zach had let her stay suggested there was something more behind this. He also noticed that she was a really terrible liar. Something flashed in his memory, a pink scarf. And then pain. "You're the one who had the scarf!"
"Oh dear..." Minako was panicking. "You remember that." She took a step closer. "Look, it was a complete accident, I didn't even see it coming. I mean, who'd have thought that a scarf could cause so much trouble, right?" She belatedly remembered that he didn't like her perfume and took a hurried step back. "I'm really sorry, my proper scarf was at the dry cleaner's and to be fair, it was really cold-"
Ceithin started laughing and then stopped when it hurt too much, squinting with one eye as the pain coursed through his left temple. It halted Minako in her rambling explanation. "Can we call it even?" she asked.
He looked up to see a tepid smile on her pretty features.
"You said something embarrassing and I did something careless," she said.
"Of course." It wasn't like Ceithin could disagree even if he'd wanted to, her clear blue eyes held him quite steadily in a spell.
She breathed a visible sigh of relief and he did his best to smile through the pain.
For a few moments they stared at each other, neither sure of what to do next. Eventually Minako remembered the tea. "You should drink up, it'll get cold."
Ceithin's eyes swiftly cut to the abomination in the mug on the bedside table and then flew back to her. "I'm still feeling a little ill."
Noel chose that moment to stick his head in. "How are you feeling, old chap?"
"You're back already?" Minako frowned. "Are the others with you?" She pulled out her phone to check the text she'd received earlier. "Ami said you were all going to Syndicate."
"Oh no, it's only me. I just have some work I need to finish for tomorrow. How's the invalid?" Noel gave Ceithin a wink while he questioned Minako. Ceithin gave him a sour grin in return.
She recognised the subtle actions as some kind of 'guy code-message' and figured that it may have had something to do with her. It made her feel a little self-conscious but she decided that it would be best to ignore it. "Well, he's sitting up and talking, but he's a little too nauseated to handle a cup of tea. I was just about to get a glass of water for him, to see if he can at least handle that."
Noel frowned at Ceithin. "You didn't want tea? Are you sure you're ok? Since when have you ever passed up a cup of tea?"
Ceithin made a discrete shaking gesture with his hand to try and stop Noel from investigating further.
It did not escape Minako's notice. "Is that unusual?" she asked the both of them.
"Uh… no." Noel tried. "I forgot, he doesn't drink tea at night."
"Too much caffeine," Ceithin tried to explain.
"Oh."
"It's awfully kind of you to watch over him like this," Noel said, changing the subject. "Especially after what he said to you."
"Thank you Noel, I already feel like enough of a twat."
"It was classic!" Noel chuckled as he made his way fully into the room and sat on the chair by Ceithin's desk. "You should have seen the face of the ambulance drivers when they heard." He looked up at Minako, "Actually, you should have seen her face. Took it as coolly as a cucumber."
Minako shrugged lightly. "I've heard worse."
"Still, there was no excuse for such rudeness." Noel gently tapped Ceithin's foot, enjoying trying to put his friend into further hot water.
"Oh I don't know," Minako glanced quickly at Ceithin but switched back to Noel as soon as he'd made eye contact with her, "It was a pretty hard blow, I'm impressed that he managed to wake up so quickly after it had happened."
Seeing that his mild ribbing of Ceithin wasn't winning points for himself in her eyes, Noel added a new tactic: self-flattery. "Minako's right, you can't really blame yourself, it was a pretty hard tackle. Of course, I wouldn't have passed out like you did, I'm made of sterner stuff," Noel looked to Minako with his two-toned eyes and grinned again, explaining his statement, "being half-Scottish, I'm not nearly as poncy as the Welsh."
Ceithin recognised the moves, once Noel started on his Scottish ancestry there would be no stopping him. "He's only a tiny bit Scottish. He's from Hertfordshire really," he said, as if this disputed Noel's claim of toughness. It was unlike him to actively put down his friends in front of people, no matter how pig-headed they were being, but he did not want Noel to impress this one, for some reason (most likely her stunning smile, beautiful face and kind voice) he wanted Noel to be very much not there.
"I am not!" Noel winced, knowing how properly English his accent sounded at that moment and thereby contradicting his argument.
"You certainly sound it."
Noel tried to dismiss the comment. "That's because I've had a few. You know I sound more English after several pints."
"I have additional evidence to support my claim."
"Don't try and use my own subject against me, I'll win." He was pointing at Ceithin as he said it, squinting with one eye like a reproving parent. "And I'm very Scottish," he added as an afterthought.
Ceithin tried not to smile since it hurt his head too much. "You were born there, you have horses," he emphasised the plural part of that sentence, "you've played polo since you could ride said horses, you have a trucker's licence to drive your horses to your polo matches and you have a massive house in the countryside. How much more of an English aristocrat could you be?" He only realised belatedly that expounding on Noel's wealth may not have had the desired effect. If his painfully fuzzy memory served him well, woman tended to like that sort of thing.
"Having a manor home and horses does not make me less Scottish. You're suggesting Scots can't be posh, that's racist. You're being racist."
At the words 'manor home' Minako had suddenly become very interested and had begun plotting how she could facilitate a relationship between Noel and Makoto.
"No, but your paternal side dating back from what, the eighteen hundreds?" Ceithin asked.
"Eighteenth century," Noel corrected, grudgingly.
"Right, your entire paternal side dating back from the eighteenth century have lived in Hertfordshire. I think that makes you English."
"My entire maternal side have lived in Inverness longer."
"You went to school in Hertfordshire."
"Actually, I attended Westminster School, in London," he said, managing to sound haughty.
Ceithin felt his stomach churn, and it wasn't just from the concussion.
Minako frowned slightly, the name ringing a bell. "I think I've seen that place…Isn't that an all-boys school? Like Eaton?"
Noel actually turned his nose up. "My dear, it is a far superior institution."
Minako understood when she was being told off. She gave him an apologetic smile.
"London is still in England," Ceithin said. "I'd say that, plus everything else, is enough for people to think you're English." He was just teasing now, but he knew that Noel was drunk enough to take him seriously so it made it much more fun.
Noel was indignant. "My title comes from Scotland, and I have spent almost every Easter, summer and Christmas at my maternal grandfather's castle since my birth! That's almost a quarter of a year, every year, for the past twenty one years. I am very much Scottish."
Ceithin sincerely hoped that Minako was the kind of girl who was turned off at such snobbishness.
"So you're saying you have a manor house and a castle?"
Apparently, she was not.
"Technically, I'm also a Lord."
Ceithin came very close to rolling his eyes at Noel's blatant attempt to impress her. "Technically, you're also a wanker," he said.
"I'm not the Welsh ponce who got concussed within the first half of his first game as captain."
Ceithin didn't miss a beat. "It just shows I'm hard."
Minako let out a snort as she attempted to hide her laughter. Noel was smiling. "We know, you yelled it out loud enough," he said.
Ceithin began to blush again. He scrunched the paper towel and threw it at his housemate. "Fuck you!"
"I have work to do. Maybe later." With that, and a wink to Minako, he was out the door.
"You all like to poke fun at each other, don't you?" she asked once Noel had left.
"It's harmless. He only hates being half English when he speaks to his father, most of the time he's alright."
She'd been referring to the household and a whole, but his comment got her curious. "They don't get along?"
"That's an understatement."
"I'm sure they'll work it out eventually. Family always does," she said, fixing his sheets around him.
"Are you speaking from experience?" he asked.
Minako shrugged, "Well it's what I hope will happen. Until then it's awkward, yet polite conversation with my father and passive aggressive conversation with my mother. You?"
"My parents moved to Australia when I started Uni. Seems they couldn't get far enough away," he joked.
Minako laughed.
"Actually, I don't think I should have said anything about Noel and his father," Ceithin said, realising that he'd just divulged very personal information about a close friend to a stranger, a very pretty and kind stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. At least you didn't tell her why they don't get along, he thought, although it was not enough to stop berating himself for his mistake. "You'll have to excuse me if I ask you not to repeat that about him. I don't know why I told you."
She smiled. "Blame it on the concussion."
"I suppose," he said. "I don't normally go around sharing secrets."
"Well, I'd probably find out eventually. I have a feeling we're all going to get to know each other well, especially since Mamoru will be living with you all, and…" she paused for a second and gave him a mischievous grin, "especially since one of my friends seems to think Noel is quite attractive." Her eyes rounded in mock surprise. "Oops," she said, "now I've told you a secret. Looks like that makes us even, again."
Her smile was infectious and he found himself grinning despite the pain.
"Seriously though," her face became grave, "don't tell anyone I said so. She would actually kill me if she found out I told anyone."
He put his right hand up, as if making an oath. "Promise, not a soul."
"From what I've seen I'm not sure I can trust you," she said, teasing him. "It seems you'll spill all of your secrets to any blonde who gives you a concussion."
"Only the really pretty ones." As soon as the words left his mouth, Ceithin regretted their cheesiness, but once he saw that Minako was actually a little flustered by the comment he reversed his decision and did his best not to beam.
"So," she said, trying to not act like a school girl with a crush, "what are you studying?"
He took in a deep breath as he settled into the bed, leaning against the headboard. "Physics and Philosophy. You?"
"Psychology, Sociology and Social Policy." Minako moved to the opposite side of his bed, taking the spare pillow and offering it to him as a prop for his head. "I'd do it for you, but I don't want to get too close," she said, referring to her perfume making him ill.
"Thanks," he said.
They were interrupted by Zach, who practically stormed into the room, this time wearing black jeans - possibly tighter than his pulling trousers - a tight green vest top and a thin grey and black striped cardigan. Minako was taken aback by the stare he was giving her and was almost relieved when he shifted his piercing verdant eyes to his sick housemate. "If I don't manage to find a decent shag tonight, I'm blaming you." He seemed very serious.
"I probably did you a favour then, getting you out of those trousers, although I'd probably do you a bigger one by throwing up over the ones you're wearing now."
"You're jealous because I look sexy in my clothes and you look like shit in yours."
Considering the fact that Zach was dressed up for a night out and Ceithin was in an old frost blue Salt Rock t-shirt and a pair of striped blue and grey boxer shorts (Jared and Mamoru had helped dress him when he was brought home from the hospital), Minako thought Zach's comment was a little unfair. To be honest, she was unsure if the two men were just messing around or actually arguing. "Are you going anywhere interesting?" she asked in an attempt to change the subject.
"To meet the others. Noel can babysit for the rest of the night. Nobody's keeping you here if you don't want to be, Minako."
"No, I- that's not why I was asking!" Minako frowned, doing her best to not to rise to him.
"Whatever." With that Zach was out the door, leaving Minako and Ceithin to smile at each other in amusement... and then to realise that they were now alone together again.
"He's right, you don't have to be here," he gave her a small smile, "I really do appreciate it, though. I'm just sorry I've wasted your whole day with this."
Minako picked up the article she had been trying to read and waved it at him. "I did some work, so it wasn't all bad," she reassured him, smiling. "I'm just glad you seem to be feeling better."
The music from Syndicate pounded loudly out into the surrounding street. The building was old and square, decorated in ugly brown bricks which just made the place look dirty while the fluorescent lighting from inside casted a ghostly blue glow outwards giving the long cue of waiting people a rather sickly look. The cold air hit them hard and began to sober Mamoru up a little. Their late night venture became less appealing with each icy blast, freezing his hands and ears. His chest was kept pleasantly warm, however, and he looked down at his source of heat. "Usako," he said, rubbing his hand against her forearm to wake her, "they're not going to let you into the club if they see that you keep falling asleep."
Usagi, who was being supported upright by Mamoru in a protective hug, snored lightly in response.
"Usako?" he whispered into her ear, giving her a peck on the temple as he spoke. He shuffled forward, practically dragging her with him as the queue of people moved closer to the front door.
Jared smiled as his new mini blonde friend let out another snore while she slumbered on her boyfriend. He turned to Ami and smiled, "She must provide you guys with hours of entertainment."
Ami returned the smile. She's not a plaything, she thought privately to herself, but that was as far as her rebuke went. She knew that Jared had meant well, so she took it as him trying to be nice. "She's a very sweet girl, she's my best friend."
"You Japanese ladies look like you're impervious to the cold," Jared noticed as his jaw tightened in an attempt not to shiver.
"I don't really feel it," she said, "and neither does Rei," she said as an afterthought. "Usagi usually feels it keenly but I think the alcohol in her system is helping her out tonight."
Jared frowned. "Rei doesn't get cold easily?" he asked as if he were trying to remember something. "She was a little warm this morning, I thought it could have been a fever."
"No, Rei always runs a little hot," she replied.
Jared gave her another one of his smiles, as if he was going to give some sort of smart answer, but then thought better of it.
Ami wondered if it had been a good idea to divulge such information, it wasn't as if it made a difference to him, but her years as a Senshi had taught her to be more careful with throwaway comments about her friends. She looked up at Jared's attractive light blue eyes and easy going face, realising that she felt completely relaxed around him. Aside from her reaction to Zach's behaviour earlier in the day, it had been a long time since she had had any kind of extreme response of shyness to the male species, and even in those cases it had only been when the man had made romantic advances towards her. She had never actually had any problems talking to men, as long as it had been strictly platonic... but whether it was the half pint of cider that she'd imbibed, or the fact that she was tired, or even because Mamoru and Usagi seemed to trust him so implicitly, Ami had the distinct feeling that if Jared made any sort of physical contact with her, she wouldn't even blush. She wondered if that meant she was interested in him. If that was the case, this would be the first time an event like this had happened. So far her love life had consisted of imaginary relationships with dead scientists and romance characters made up from the hoard of secret erotic novels she'd consumed on a weekly basis since she was fourteen.
A familiar face popped into her peripheral vision.
"Zach," Jared turned his attention to the new comer, happy and suspiciously unsurprised. "You got my text." Ah, Ami thought, that explains it. She regretted the fact that Jared had invited him, but then she remembered that Zach was Jared's housemate, and Mamoru's now too. They were friends, she should have guessed that Jared would ask him to come.
"Hello all," Zach's rather piercing leaf green eyes flicked on to her - they were bloodshot, she noticed - dropping quickly when she met his gaze and travelled down to her breasts and then dipping to her legs, before moving on to Mamoru. She was sure the blush he left in his wake was obvious even in the dim street lighting and colour-draining glow of the club. As she stood awkwardly, flushed with embarrassment, she wondered if he'd done that deliberately to get the rise out of her. Ami dismissed the thought quickly, he wasn't watching her reaction now - and that would have been the whole point, to see her struggle - instead Zach's focus was on Mamoru, chatting amicably with him and sniggering at a slumbering Usagi.
The queue shuffled along a little bit more.
"You ok?" Jared asked, leaning in a little.
She looked up to see that he was frowning mildly in concern.
"Oh," she laughed embarrassed at him noticing. She must have seemed so immature to him. Look at me, she thought to herself, I'm an eighteen year old woman and I still blush like a school girl when someone takes a peek at my legs... "No, I'm fine, thank you. Just eager to get inside," she said in a lame attempt to divert his attention to something else.
Jared wasn't buying it. "Don't worry about it," he said, as if he could read her mind, "you've got to take these things as a compliment," he leaned in a little closer so the others couldn't hear what he was saying, and Ami noticed that she didn't seem to mind a bit. "If a guy's checking you out, it's because you're hot," he said that last word with a smile, she could feel it in his voice, "there's nothing wrong with that, is there? As long as it's a look-but-not-touch thing."
Ami didn't quite agree with his assessment. If that's how he intended to show Rei that he was attracted to her then he wasn't going to get very far, nor was he going to get there with all his vital parts unfried, either. "It's a little degrading, not many women like being treated as if they're pieces of meat."
"Pieces of art," Zach corrected, stepping into their conversation, obviously having heard despite their lowered voices and the pounding bass from the club. "You're exquisite, Ami, you're to be admired, adored..." he paused as if searching for the right word, his usual smirk nowhere in sight and giving his pretty face an all too serious look, "desired," he said finally, letting the word roll out of his mouth as if he thought it was perfect for the task. "Jared's right, though, I wouldn't look if I didn't think it was worth it, even you are wrapped up in jeans and a dowdy jumper."
Ami took in a breath at his audacity and the blush on her cheeks redoubled its effort, spreading to her neck. Despite the redness of his eyes, his intensity was unnerving and her soft gaze didn't stand a chance against his unflickering stare.
"If you'd worn a skirt," Zach continued, "I don't think I would have stopped at just a glance."
He was smiling widely as he said it and that was the last straw in Ami's book. Her outrage won over her shyness. "It's cold," she stated firmly, "and I do not appreciate people staring at me in that manner."
Zach's verdant eyes dropped down to her legs again, his gaze burning uncomfortably. "What manner?" he asked as his looked up slowly.
"Ami is a little more conservative than the rest of us," Mamoru suddenly piped up. His voice was rather firm and a little cold. "She's not the type of girl who finds those jokes funny." It was a thinly veiled warning for Zach to back off.
Zach's attention shifted swiftly to Mamoru and his expression changed instantly from one of mocking to something akin to mild shock, or possibly even worry. Mamoru hadn't expected that.
"I'm sorry," he said, sparing Ami a brief glace before looking back at Mamoru. "I suppose it's a little too soon to act so familiar with you."
Usagi broke the tension instantly with a snore loud enough to wake herself. Everyone laughed, although Ami noticed that Zach's seemed forced. The blonde gave them all a sheepish smile before diving back into her soulmate's chest and doing her best to hide from the world. But even with Usagi's interruption and the fact that Zach was now pulling Mamoru and Usagi along the queue, shuffling them discreetly further along through others who were waiting in line, Ami still felt as if he was staring at her, it felt like he was stripping her naked and laughing: his eyes had staying power, and it was horrible.
Jared put his hand on her back and brought her along with him as he kept up with Zach, Mamoru and Usagi. "Hey, Ami?" Jared didn't realise it, but he didn't need to say her name to get her attention, the contact on his back was enough to do it.
I was right, she thought to herself. She wasn't blushing, but that might well have been because she was all blushed out from what Zach had implied. Having Jared's hand on my back is uncomfortable, but it's nothing compared to how that horrible man made me feel a second ago. I don't like him at all, no matter what Mamoru might think of him, new housemate or not.
"You have to excuse him," Jared gave her his most apologetic smile, "Zach is one of those people who has a lot of good points going for him, but you have to look really hard to find them, like with-an-electron-microscope hard. He's pushing your buttons on purpose. It's a thing he does," he tried to explain, but he didn't feel like he wasn't doing a very good job at it. "He doesn't trust many people, he just acts that way to test if you'll cave and leave or if you'll stick around. It's a defence mechanism, he didn't get many hugs as a child." He inserted the joke in an attempt smooth her frown into something less uncomfortable for him to look at - Jared could never handle it when women were upset, and God-forbid they started crying... that didn't bear thinking about - it didn't seem to work and he became nervous. Her eyes, whether because they were just such a clear blue, or whether it was because the light of the club enhanced them, looked like they were on the verge of leaking tears and that almost made him panic but her reaction surprised him and she gave him a kind smile instead. "That's quite sad for him," she said, "but that doesn't give him free reign to be rude."
Jared couldn't argue with that.
"Ami?" Mamoru seemed to have noticed that she wasn't standing right next to him and called out to find her, interrupting her conversation.
"I think she's with Jared," she could hear Usagi say.
She inclined her dark head slightly to suggest that they catch up properly with their group, who were now a little ahead of them. Jared indicated for her to go first with a relieved smile on his face, concluding that the watery look her eyes had must have been an illusion from the dim club lighting outside.
When they reached the group Usagi, who had been nearly comatose a few minutes earlier, was almost back to the drunken hyperactivity of before. "Jared!" she practically yelled as she snagged his wrist and pulled him closer, "Zach says that there are sixty states where..." she lost focus for a second and then seemed to regain it, her glazed bluebell eyes and rosy cheeks making it plainly obvious that she was still as drunk as a skunk, "...where you come from."
Jared gave Zach a look and then turned back to the short blonde who was still clutching her rather amused fiancée. "Zach's a dirty liar."
"That's what I said!" Usagi's features went wide as she agreed emphatically with Jared's conclusion. "Well, not in those words... I didn't say he was a liar," her eyebrows scrunched as she seemed to think very hard about something, "or dirty," she said finally. She walked closer to Zach and sniffed the air around him, with the latter just standing there and grinning at what the blonde was doing.
Mamoru could practically hear the nasty thoughts whirling in the copper-haired man's head and he didn't like it one bit. "Usako, what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to smell him, to see if Jared's right about him not being clean," she took another experimental sniff. "There's something about you, Zach, something different."
Mamoru was very close to sighing with exasperation, Usagi would never be going near cider again, he would make sure of that.
"What you're smelling is pure animal magnetism," Zach said.
"No," Usagi was still frowning like she was in the middle of some deep philosophical debate with herself and then shook her head. "All I smell is strawberry cider," she gave him an apologetic shrug. "At least I didn't call you dirty."
"You called me a 'baka' whatever the hell that means," Zach was smirking as he said it.
Usagi ignored him and looked to Jared. "He forgot Hawaii." She was wagging her finger at him rather clumsily, "I know lots of people forget that Hawaii is a state, but I know it is, because I watch Hawaii Five-0." She had a rather smug tone about her, as if she were very proud of this fact.
Jared didn't have the heart to correct her on where she'd gone wrong.
Mamoru leaned his head down instead, a smile playing on his lips as he explained. "Usako, the United States only has fifty states, not sixty."
Usagi pulled away fully and her eyes went wide and she wobbled a little without Mamoru to keep her steady. "That's what I said!" she repeated. She looked to Ami this time to confirm it. "I said there were..." in the hazy fog of her memory she couldn't remember the exact number, but she ploughed on anyway, "I said there were...that many of them, but Zach," she swivelled around to jab Zach in the chest with her finger, but missed, hitting his arm instead, "Zach confused me." Her eyes narrowed to slits as the slight man laughed, "You are a tricksy man, Mr Zach, tricksy indeed," she then turned to Jared again, "I bet I can name them all!" She looped her arm into Ami's. "Ami can help me! New England! New, uh... Washington? That's a place, right?"
Before she could really build any momentum Mamoru interrupted. "This is a long queue, and it's getting quite late, we won't be in there for very long." He wanted to go home, the idea of a warm bed, snuggled up close to an even warmer girl was becoming a very appealing option compared to the chilling late night autumn air.
Usagi made to protest, but Zach stepped in and did the job for her. "Aw, come on, I had to babysit the overgrown leek-addict all night!"
Usagi frowned and mouthed, "Leek addict?"
"Leeks are one of the national symbols of Wales, I believe," Ami informed her, "along with the Daffodil flower and red dragon."
Zach took Mamoru's wrist and started waving the man's hand as he danced on the spot, "I want to paaartay!"
The proximity of Zach, coupled with the fact that Mamoru was dancing with a man, however little he was participating in the act - after all, his hand was only being waved - made Mamoru extremely uncomfortable and he yanked his wrist away quickly. Zach seemed unperturbed by the events and simply crouched slightly, moving in closer, mocking the action of grinding against Mamoru, but, mercifully, keeping about a foot's distance between them. Zach's victim stood as stiff as board while Usagi giggled at Zach's fake dancing more than how awkward Mamoru felt.
Jared placed a firm hand on Zach's shoulder and leaned in, a wide smile on his lips, "Excuse Kermit and I for a sec." With no more warning he pulled Zach away, the thinner man following without a choice in the matter as he was dragged out of the queue and earshot. He protested loudly, a heavy frown on his fine features, throwing Jared's hand off of his shoulder.
"What do you think is happening?" Ami asked, curious.
Usagi's pensive frown made an appearance again, "Maybe Jared's upset because Zach can't list all sixty states," she looked up to Mamoru as if he could confirm or deny her hypothesis. "Oops," a thought suddenly occurred to her, "sixty one, I almost forgot Hawaii again!"
Even though Ami did her best to try and avoid looking at what was obviously a private conversation, she couldn't help noticing when Jared briefly made a sniffing gesture with one finger on the side of his nose. She also noticed when Zach flipped him off. It all happened in less than a few seconds, she could hear Mamoru and Usagi chatting to each other next to her so she doubted either of them saw what she did. Well, she thought, that most likely explains the red eyes and overbearing cockiness.
"Come on guys!" Zach's fake smile and over enthusiasm could not cover over the fact that he was storming away from Jared, who followed him rolling his eyes. "The bouncer here owes me a favour, I wasn't going to use it tonight, but it's too cold to wait in this shitty line." He grabbed Mamoru's wrist again and reached behind him with his other hand to grab the nearest person to him, which happened to be Ami. "Excuse us," he repeated a few times as he pushed rudely past other people in the queue, not caring if he was really excused at all.
Mamoru and Ami were pulled along helplessly, with Mamoru doing his best to keep hold of Usagi.
Noel checked the bottom right corner of his computer and then frowned, his two coloured eyes did their best, glazed over with beer goggles as they were, to focus on the little white numbers which told him the time. He checked his watch, just to make sure.
It had been twenty minutes. Twenty minutes since he had sat himself down to finish his essay, and as far as he could tell, it appeared to be nothing short of perfect. He sat back in his wheelie chair (one which had bought from IKEA, and annoyingly would lean back more than he expected, so that he always felt like he was going to fall over. It got him every time). He had a problem. He was still pleasantly buzzed from the cider at theApple Tap, and he had been planning to spend at least a good hour and a half reviewing what he had written on adverse possession. He was wide awake, with time on his hands. He didn't want to go into the room across the hall, because try as he might, it was obvious enough which housemate the hot blonde seemed to favour, and given what Ceithin had been through, the least Noel could do was allow his friend to mess up what was almost definitely a sure thing without any kind of interference.
Noel's mind floated back to the events at the Apple Tap and Usagi's words rang out, there are plans to go to Syndicate later. He had heard Zach confirm something of the sort only a little while ago, before the slighter man had dashed out of the house in his tightest clothes and silliest hair.
As if fate was on his side, he noticed through the gaps of his thick, brown curtain of his ground-floor room, that a car was approaching with a tiny yellow sign on it. It was a taxi bringing some neighbours home. Grabbing his phone, keys and wallet, he made a quick dash out of his room, doing his best, rather considerately, to close the front door with some care, so as not to startle Ceithin. Flagging the taxi before the driver made off, he leaned into the window. "Would you mind awfully if I asked to be taken to Syndicate?"
The taxi driver, a man in his forties with tufts of peppered silver and grey hair sprouting out underneath a bob hat, looked at Noel with a slight squint of his dark eyes. After a moment, he gestured for Noel to enter the cab and drove off.
Makoto was cold and she was feeling miserable. She hadn't transformed back, but she had hopped on to another roof, preferring the quiet to the happy, rowdy streetwalkers when her mood was so melancholy. From her vantage point she was looking down at a queue to a nightclub when she spotted three very familiar heads and smiled. She brought out her phone and re-opened her most recent text. It had been a mass text from Ami telling her, Minako and Rei that she was going to Syndicate with Usagi, Mamoru and Jared. She scrolled down to the message before and her smile widened. It had been a drunken one from Usagi: 'Yay! Amign ging clucking w uss! Yay come2 XD. Ccczz'. Using Ami's more informative message, Makoto had gathered that 'clucking' was probably the auto-correction kicking in for a badly misspelt 'clubbing' while the 'c's and 'z's were meant to be kisses, with Usagi probably missing the 'x' on her phone's keypad. She shook her head, laughing to herself, and decided that there could be no harm in her joining them for a little while.
"Sorry mate, your girlfriend's not coming in."
"But I'm not her boyfriend, he's already inside," Jared tried to argue with the bouncer, "We've been separated from our group."
It had all happened very quickly. Zach had been pulling Ami and Mamoru, who in turn had been pulling Usagi along in the queue, when Usagi had suddenly let go of Mamoru's hand saying she'd be there in a few seconds and then bent over to tie her shoelace. Jared had waited with her but it had taken a little longer than anticipated since Usagi stumbled as she bent down and then struggled desperately to remember how to actually tie a shoelace. The trio in front had kept heading further along the queue and before Jared knew it, Zach had winked at the bouncer and then pulled Ami and Mamoru deep into the vibrating belly of the music-blasting beast, yelling for Jared and Usagi to hurry up. Now he and Usagi were at the door being denied access because the bouncer had seen Usagi stumbling and decided she was too sloshed to enter the club.
"Sorry mate, it's still no. You can go in and get them if you like, but she stays outside."
Jared looked at Usagi and immediately rejected the idea; there was no way he was going to leave her outside in the condition she was in. Instead he pulled out his phone.
"No! Don't call them!" she practically leapt at Jared's hand. "He'll come out then and then we'll all have to go home and Ami won't have any fun either!" Tears threatened to spill but she managed to hold them back as she did her best to compose herself. "Why don't you go in? I can get a taxi home." She stumbled and he caught her, pitching slightly forward with her. "Sorry..." she said, suddenly feeling terribly embarrassed at the slur of her words and her inability to keep upright.
Jared smiled. "Nah, I'm tired, plus I have a full day tomorrow and then an evening of swimming. I need the sleep. I'll share a cab with you."
"You sure?"
Seeing the relief evident on her features at having company cemented his decision. "Yeah, of course." He placed his hand gently on her back, ushering her forward a little and out of the way of the queue.
As soon as they moved to the end of the curb a taxi pulled up, unloading about five women who looked decked up to the nines in short skirts, sparkly tops and heavy makeup. Having only predicted going to the Apple Tap, Usagi had gone out in a pair of dark jeans and a purple sweater she'd borrowed from Rei. She felt a little under-dressed and self-conscious, and decided that going home really was a good idea.
As the taxi emptied Jared leaned his head in and asked if they could be taken to Woodland Court. The cabby nodded and indicated for them to get in. Jared pulled away from the door to let Usagi enter first and then joined her once she scooted over to the other side.
"Woodland Court?" The cabby confirmed before moving off.
Before either Jared or Usagi could start up a conversation, an extremely upbeat polyphonic ring-tone began emanating from Usagi's bag. She pulled it out and answered. "Mamo-chan!" she cried and then spewed forth a fast paced conversation in Japanese.
Jared sat there, clueless for about four minutes. When she finally hung up she gave a jaw-cracking yawn and then smiled happily, her previous feelings of shame and insecurity apparently forgotten. "It's all settled. I have convinced him to stay and have fun with Zach and Ami while you come up and have some tea."
"Thanks for the offer but-"
"Oh, I insist," most likely due to the alcohol, Usagi suddenly became all motherly. "You've taken such good care of me tonight and it's cold outside, the least I could do is offer you some green tea. Besides, Rei is really good with making it just right!" She was smiling widely and with a hint of admiration.
Jared wondered if Rei would even be up at that time of night. "Are you sure?" It would also mean that he would have to walk home in the cold, instead of just dropping off Usa and taking the cab (yes, it was only a ten minute walk, but he was not a fan of cold temperatures). "Isn't it kind of late?"
"Psh, Rei's always got time for tea! She's also a really early riser! She's probably awake right now, eating breakfast!" Usagi's face visibly brightened at the mention of food.
Jared wasn't quite sure about that. "At one thirty in the morning?" he asked, still a little doubtful.
She widened her eyes and jutted out her bottom lip in a hope to persuade him. "Please Jared? It would mean a lot for you to come up and have some tea, it's my way of saying thank you. I can't cook or sew or make craft things like Makoto can, and I'm not a doctor so I can't give you free drugs like Ami or my Mamo-chan," (he'd heard about the National Health Service in the UK being free for everyone, but Jared doubted that either med student could actually hand out free medication, even if they had wanted to), "so the least I can do is make you tea!" She smiled lopsidedly at him. "You love tea! Mamo-chan told me so!"
How could he refuse an offer like that?
"Tea sounds great," he said, suppressing a yawn and hoping very much that a certain dark-hair girl was a really early riser, or at least that she wasn't the kind to take too much offence at being woken up in the middle of the night.
"Makoto!" Mamoru had turned around when he felt a tap on his shoulder and had been surprised to see her. "When did you get here?"
Makoto had a smile on her face as she pointed upwards. Mamoru and the Senshi had known each other for long enough to have their own shorthand and signals so he didn't need any more than her gesture to understand. She'd been monitoring on the roof of the building and must have spotted them coming in.
"It was cold outside and there's about an hour and a half until most of the clubs close up, so I figured I'd wait in here with you guys until the big rush home." She slid her coat from one arm to the other, "It's been a quiet night so far anyway. Where's Usagi?" Usually the blonde was surgically attached to him when they went out to places like these.
"She went home with Jared," he said, frowning a little. "We got separated in the queue and apparently they wouldn't let her in."
"Oh," Makoto hadn't seen that happen. "As soon as I spotted you guys I came in through an upstairs window and waited for you here. If I'd known, I'd have followed her home."
Mamoru waved her off. "Don't worry about it," he said, "I called her already and I texted Rei asking her to let me know when Usagi gets home." He caught on to something else she had said, "Next time just meet us in the queue, I'd have paid for your ticket, it wouldn't have been any trouble."
Makoto gave him a smile in thanks. A few years ago an offer like that would have stung at her pride especially since it was coming from Mamoru who was someone she thought would have understood her discomfort at accepting charity, but now she took it as simply a gesture of friendship. "Thanks, but I figured I'd only be here for about an hour, tops. Plus, I bought this," she held up a glass bottle of bright blue liquid which had been hidden by the jacket she was carrying around, "so I'm contributing something to this club's income." She scanned the large room, looking for the others. "Where's Ami and...the other one..." she tried to remember, but the name stayed elusive, "what's he called? You know, the really pervy one."
"You mean Zach." Mamoru pointed to the elevated dance floor, made up of tiles which changed colour in time with the music. "He's busy 'pulling' as he calls it. Ami's in the ladies." He would have tried to defend Zach from Makoto's comment, but in all honesty he was a little miffed at the fact that he had been dragged into the club when he knew that neither he nor Ami wanted to be there. Mamoru was also still a little displeased at how Zach had treated Ami earlier in the queue, although he had noticed that once he had said something about it, Zach had changed his attitude quickly. Perhaps Zach was still worried that Mamoru might decide he didn't want to live in the house after all, forcing Zach into looking for another new housemate. Maybe I can use that to my advantage for a while... although how, he had yet to figure out.
"So, you let Jared take our princess home?" The question held as much curiosity in it as admonition.
Mamoru looked at her briefly and shrugged. "It wasn't like that. She was insisting we come here, or that I come, rather. She's gotten some funny ideas into her head about where our relationship is going, which leads me to think that she's been watching too much television lately." He wasn't frowning any more, but his face wasn't as expressive which told Makoto that he was being serious. "She thinks I'll get bored so she wants me to have fun now. I don't like the fact that she's gone home with another man, but it appears that I had little choice in the matter. I can't not extend some sort of trust to him, I plan to be living with him for the rest of the year at least, if not longer, and it was Usagi who wanted to go with him, apparently. I don't really have a right to be too overbearing, she's an adult."
His lengthy answer indicated that he wasn't affronted by the intrusive question. Makoto knew he wouldn't be, though. She was the only person who could speak to him that way and not get a cold response. Ami would never had asked those kinds of questions and if Rei or even Minako had dared he would not have responded nearly so openly. But Makoto was different. They had bonded a year or two ago and had become closer as friends ever since. "I'm sure she'll be fine, Jared seems like a nice guy."
"Yes he does, doesn't he? They're all very nice." Rei would text him soon enough but more than that, he knew that Jared wouldn't try anything funny. While Zach was one he was still unsure about, Jared was a completely different matter; there was no doubt in his mind that Usagi would be fine. Mamoru was not a trusting man, but there was something about his new housemates, something which got his 'mooney-sense' tingling just a little in the back of his head, and not in a bad way.
He just hoped his instincts weren't wrong.
"You don't sound like you really want to be here," she said, understanding.
"Zach insisted and Ami too, although I don't really think her motives were because she wanted to get drunk and dance to obscenely loud noise…" he gave her a small smile and eyed the direction of the toilets where the fellow med student seemed to be hiding out.
"Yeah, Ami's just a raving party animal," Makoto said smiling. She reached over and gently tugged on Mamoru's sleeve. "Want to dance for a bit?"
"Not really," Mamoru's mouth twisted upwards in amusement, "but okay." They were in a club, after all.
Makoto's face brightened. "Great, and maybe we can get Ami to join us when she's done hiding in the cubicles."
"Shouldn't you go get her then?" he asked, figuring that if Ami went in to hide, there would be little chance of her wanting to voluntarily come out and dance.
"Nah," Makoto shook her head as she pulled him onto the dance floor, "she's not going to want to stay in there for long." She put her drink and coat on a table within her vision and began to twist her hips to Ke$ha's Blow while Mamoru did his best to look like it was his idea of fun.
Zach was practically marching under a storm cloud from the area where the girls' bathroom was situated and made his way to the bar. A small vibration in his front pocket told him he'd received a text and on inspection he found that it had been sent by Noel, who was apparently in the club: "im Syndicate by the bar. Where r u? NGA." Why Noel always insisted on adding his initials to a text, Zach would never understand, especially when he was sending messages to people who obviously had his number saved in their phonebook.
When he spotted his friend, he smiled widely and joined him, picking up one of the two shot glasses in front of the burly man and downing it without asking for permission.
"That was mine."
Zach shrugged. "It's not anymore. Let's go another round." He took a step back to analyse Noel's choice of clothing while Noel reluctantly ordered another two shots of tequila (and then paid for them when it didn't look like Zach was going to contribute anything to the bill). "You're wearing the shirt I gave you for your birthday. It suits you."
The fact that Zach noticed made Noel feel uncomfortable. "Yeah, so? It's a nice shirt, am I not supposed to wear it?" The article of clothing in question was black, with thin silver pinstripes and fit him just enough to reveal the muscle underneath without being too showy.
"You're shitty at taking compliments." Zach swiped one of the shot glasses and downed it quickly, ignoring the salt and lime wedge. "You're also no good at giving them."
"You want me to say something about the fact that your trousers are so tight, your tiny arse has trouble fitting into them?" Noel asked, a mix between genuinely questioning and banter.
Zach rolled his eyes so hard, Noel wondered if he could see his own brain. "I meant a 'thank you' for buying you something which might actually trick women into thinking that you're a halfway attractive male."
He received a grunt in response.
"God, I'm about as horny as Texan horned lizard in heat," Zach stole Noel's tequila shot just before Noel was about to reach for it, drinking it quickly, "and there's really only one person I want right now."
Noel did not care about what Zach was saying. Noel only cared about the fact that he was constantly being denied the booze he kept paying ridiculously inflated prices for. "Stop fucking doing that!"
"Didn't you hear what I just said?"
Noel signalled for the bartender to bring them another two shots but he was largely ignored since there had been a lull in the music and most people used the opportunity to refill their drinks - when the bartender had the choice of serving a guy or a group of flirty brunettes all wearing angel wings and glitter on their eyes, it was an obvious decision who would get their drinks first. "I heard," he said, doing his best to glare at Zach, "but you're not the only one on the planet who wants to get laid."
"Yeah, but I'm not talking generally. There's someone specific I want."
The two shots finally came. Noel was about to reach for one of them but hesitated, looking up at Zach with an expression which sarcastically asked permission to be allowed to have his own beverages.
Zach indicated for Noel to go ahead. "Have them both, if you like."
Once Noel swallowed them down and cleared his throat he relaxed against the chair and stared out at the sea of closely packed dancing bodies, the bass pounding in their ears. "So, who is this 'someone specific' you're insisting I know about."
"Ami."
Noel looked straight at Zach. "The nice girl who seems incredibly shy?"
"Yeah."
Noel felt the need to clarify further, in case he was thinking of the wrong person. "The clever one doing medicine with Mamoru? But her tits are tiny! Oh, I forgot, you're a leg man."
"I am. And she has a perfectly toned pair, and a really adorable face too."
Noel frowned, "But isn't she..." he struggled to find the right word without somehow insulting her in the process, "isn't she a bit... a bit too nice for you?"
"I can shag nice girls, they're no different than other ones," he smiled, the right corner of his mouth lifting higher than the left, turning it more into a smirk than anything pleasant. "I have a feeling she's one of those repressed librarian types who doesn't get any very often. I'm guessing she likes it a little dirty."
Noel didn't like the idea of Zach going after her and hurting her. He'd not spent long speaking with her during the move in that morning, but the little conversation they had had together had been very charming. He wasn't particularly interested on how she liked it in bed… that was a little too much information.
"I want to fuck her," Zach said with purpose, "and no other woman will do."
Noel frowned, he didn't like the sound of that. Zach could be a stubborn man, but this spoke of something which would require more than one night to accomplish and Noel had the funny feeling that one, if not both parties, would not come out of it satisfied. He hated tension amongst friends, and he most certainly hated drama, he'd had enough of it to last a lifetime in his youth. This was going to cause a lot of both, he had a gut feeling. "There are plenty of easier women, you know," he tried.
"I want her. I've set myself the challenge, and you know how I get when I see something I want."
Noel signalled for another shot, remembering when Zach had literally not eaten for three days while he worked in his locked room on a project the previous year, surviving only on shitty Brunel Hall coffee, minimum sleep and small packages of suspicious-looking white powder. Noel stopped on that last thought and took a look at Zach, his mind clicking it all together.
"What?"
Noel shook his head and paid the bartender who brought him his tequila. "Seriously, you need to stop doing blow, you're a bitch when you come down."
"I'm not on a come down!"
"You will be, though."
Zach stole his shot instead of giving him a retort.
"For fuck's sake!"
"Usagi, you're drunk," Rei stated matter-of-factly as she whipped off the blonde's top without so much as a second thought.
Usagi giggled, "Maybe I am..." she said, wiggling on the spot, a crooked but happy beam plastered on to her face as she danced, her boobs jiggling lightly in the bright pink satin bra she wore, "but I had fun," she singsonged. "You should have come with us."
"I was trying to get some sleep, like I was forced to, remember? " Rei stated, still somewhat annoyed at Minako's overly-protective concern for her welfare. She opened the small cupboard unit built into the partition wall of Usagi's room (which separated the shower room from the bed and desk area). There was a soft 'whoomp' as a mountain of clothes suddenly sprang out and landed in a solid heap on to the floor. Rei only stepped back just in time to narrowly avoid the avalanche of pastel sweaters, pink socks, white jeans and brightly-coloured thongs and bras. She turned to Usagi, her porcelain face completely impassive save for a slight raise of her eyebrows and a small tightening of the lips.
Usagi recognised that look immediately, it was one of mild displeasure, and she had been on the receiving end of it since as long as they had known each other.
"Really, Usagi?"
The blonde shrugged her shoulders and raised her hands out helplessly. "It's a small cupboard and I have a lot of clothes," she tried. For some reason her equilibrium seemed to abandon her and she flopped backwards on to her single bed, smacking her head lightly against the wall which divided her room from Makoto's. "Ow."
Rei ignored her. "I noticed that none of the hangars are being used," she said instead as she began sifting through the clothes for a clean pair of pyjamas.
Usagi sighed over-dramatically, dragging her pillow over and sliding it under her head. "The bar to hang them on is too high, I have to stand on my tip toes to reach...anything," the last word was said through a long, huge yawn.
Rei turned at that, the last thing she wanted was for Usagi to fall asleep now and leave her alone to deal with the situation in the kitchen. "Hey," she said quickly, making her way to the bed in one stride, clutching a pair of pink cotton pyjamas with a bright yellow duck print, "you insisted Jared make you tea. He's waiting for you." She tapped Usagi's butt lightly twice to get her to wake up, but all she received was a belated swat from the blonde. She stood up and placed one hand on her slim hip. "Don't make me drag you into the shower," she warned, "I'll do it, you know."
Usagi buried her head into her pillow in response.
Frustrated, Rei showed her no mercy and yanked Usagi's arm so that she was pulled up into a sitting position. "Come on," she said again, her voice a little clipped as she grabbed hold of Usagi's shoulders to keep her sitting. "Get up! You don't invite a man like that here and then just dump him on me," but she could see it was a lost cause, Usagi was beyond the ability to be cooperative even if she'd wanted to be. Her light blonde eyebrows were scrunched in discomfort and her head was lolled over on one side.
"Rei-chan," she mumbled in Japanese, her soft voice sounding almost like she was in pain, "I drank too much and now I wish I hadn't told Mamo-chan to go clubbing with all the pretty English girls..."
Usagi looked rather pitiful and helpless in her intoxicated state. Gone was the blonde's annoying exuberant energy and all that was left was exhaustion. Even though it was all self-inflicted and even though Usagi had thoughtlessly brought back home a man who Rei was very uncomfortable with at the moment, hearing her Princess's low mumble of misery made Rei soften. The poor girl was going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning, that was for sure.
It would be up to her then, to see out the late-night guest. Rei's shoulders slumped and she idly wondered how she got herself into these situations. "Here," she said, her voice much gentler now as she replied in her native tongue, "let's get these nightclothes on you and you can go to sleep, ne?"
After much fiddling Rei managed to slip off Usagi's jeans and then dress the girl in her pyjamas. But even with her heartfelt sympathy, there was still enough residual irritation there for her to decide on leaving the pile of clothes where they were, doing it as a sort of punishment for making her go through all of this when it was supposed to be her who was meant to be sleeping. Usagi could clean up her own mess. She was just glad no one saw her as she had to clamber awkwardly over the small mountain to get to the door. "Goodnight, Usagi," she said as she turned off the light switch.
"Mamo-chan..." was all she got in reply. Rei did her best not to roll her eyes.
Just like Makoto had predicted, Ami had found them, choosing the noisy, drunken atmosphere which came with a rather flagrant disregard for personal body space (Ami's words) on the dance floor, over the worryingly violent and messy behaviour of the women who were in the girls' toilets. "So, thought you'd join the lesser of two evils?" she asked (and then asked again because the music was playing too loud to be heard).
Mamoru had taken the addition of a new dance partner in his stride and had offered a hand to Ami, waiting for her to take it, more than aware of how uncomfortable Ami could be when men touched her without her permission. They had danced a little, with Mamoru twirling the both of them every so often and eventually making them laugh with his old-man style of moving (Makoto knew from experience of seeing Mamoru and Usagi together that Mamoru was, in fact, an excellent dancer, whether ballroom or grinding, but he didn't often do the former and only ever did the latter with his fiancée). They'd been having a really good time, and then Zach had appeared, smiling a little too wide and placing himself a little too close to Mamoru and Ami for either of them to have been comfortable. He had put his arms around both their shoulders, leaning in the space between them. Ami's smile had dropped instantly, but Zach either didn't realise his effect or deliberately ignored it. Eventually the whole group moved off the dance floor.
Makoto had noticed all of this with sober and observant eyes.
"Noel's here, he finished his essay and decided to join us, isn't that great?" he looked down at Ami, who was clearly trying to avoid looking him in the eyes.
Mamoru coolly and deliberately removed Zach's hand from his shoulder. "Why don't we get the next round of drinks and see if we can find Noel, then?" he asked.
When they left, Makoto moved closer. "Do you want to go home?
Ami looked up, her features taking on a rather guilty look. "Is it so obvious?"
"It is, but that's ok, you know. You don't have to like the guy."
"He's extremely rude and inconsiderate," Ami said, but when Makoto winced and leaned it, having missed what she said over the noise of LMFAO's Rock Party Anthem, Ami repeated it and added "It's alright, I don't want to spoil Mamoru's night, Usagi really put a lot of effort into getting him here." Her dark blue eyes scanned the room.
"That doesn't mean you can't complain to me about it." When she saw that Ami couldn't hear, she pulled the girl over to a quieter area, closer to the door of the club. "I didn't think he was so bad when I met him this morning, has he said something to you?"
Ami gave her friend a smile, "I'm just a little sensitive, you know me." She looked up when she heard the song change to Avicii's Levels. "I know this one, it's on the play list Minako made for me for when we go jogging, or I should say when we used to go jogging, swimming has already started to take up a lot of my time, and I'm out of shape, I'm too exhausted for any other form of exercise."
Makoto highly doubted that having a body fat percentage of around fifteen could be classed as being 'out of shape' but she let it go, knowing that Ami was deliberately trying to avoid the subject. "What did he do?"
"Oh it's nothing like that-"
"Well what did he say then?" Makoto crossed her arms tighter over her hold on her coat and as yet untouched alchopop.
Ami huffed a little, a frown furrowing at the memory. "When I was heading towards the lavatory, he was there, and... and..." she hesitated, unsure of the correct word.
"And?" Makoto prompted.
"He propositioned me."
Makoto's chestnut eyebrows were raised suddenly, her green eyes, darkened by the dim lighting of the club, were wide open. She wasn't surprised that Ami was hit on, she was an attractive girl, but Makoto almost laughed at the situation, especially considering how Ami had phrased it. She could see that her friend was in distress though, so she tempered her features into something more sympathetic. She was about to say something comforting, to possibly suggest that Ami look at it from a complimentary point of view.
"He was very forward. He practically cornered me against the wall and he was leering."
The situation suddenly stopped being funny. Makoto frowned. "Did he hurt you?" Yes, Ami was a Senshi, which meant that she had super powers, but that didn't mean that she would have necessarily used them, especially in such a public spot, or on somebody that Mamoru was going to be living with. It would compromise a lot, especially with no Luna there to alter their memories.
Ami shook her head in the negative. "He didn't touch me, but he deliberately invaded my personal space and of all things, he asked me if I wanted to go home with him. He said some rather vulgar things to me in French, which I would prefer not to repeat, but I don't think he knew that I understood them. I think he was trying to seduce me with his accent."
Knowing that Ami was now alright made Makoto relax a little and she grinned. Ami came up with some cracker lines every so often. "Seduce you with his accent?" she asked. "What happened after?"
"I told him to leave me alone and I ran into the girls' washroom until one of the toilets broke because a woman tried to dance on it and it flooded everywhere."
Makoto couldn't help it, she laughed out loud, unknowingly catching the attention of the three approaching men who heard her over the build-up to another song being played.
Noel couldn't help smiling. "She's a bit of alright, that Makoto," he said, nudging Mamoru.
Mamoru gave Makoto a long look, agreeing with him. "She's a great girl. Really sweet."
"She's an orphan too, if I remember correctly? That's what you said the other night at the pub."
He nodded in acknowledgement.
"And she likes to bake?"
Mamoru smiled at the attention Noel was giving her. "Yes."
"And she's a black belt in Karate? That's the one isn't it? Karate? Not Kung Fu."
Zach laughed at Noel's questioning. "Someone was taking notes."
Had Noel not been carrying a bottle of J2O in one hand for Ami and another blue WDK for Makoto in the other, he would have flipped him off. He settled for a "Fuck off, you fruity Frenchman," instead.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like another cup of tea?" Minako asked, taking Ceithin's plate from where he put it on the bed and placing it on the floor by the chair she sat on.
Ceithin looked at the half-drunk mug of cold tea which Minako had made him earlier in the evening. It had been hard enough to swallow that much down and the thought alone of being forced to endure more made him feel a little woozy. "Thanks, but I'm alright. Too much caffeine and I won't..." he couldn't help the yawn which floated up his chest to his jaw, "...won't be able to sleep." The tensing of his facial muscles as he opened his mouth caused his head to start throbbing again and his eyes watered from the pain and the tiredness he felt.
"Would you like another cheese toasty?" she asked, still fretting over what else she could do to make Ceithin more comfortable.
He could see that she was still feeling guilty about the whole scarf incident and did his best to reassure her that he bore her no ill will. "I'm nicely full, thank you." He gave her the widest smile he could without it hurting his head too much. "I haven't been taken care of like this since I was about ten years old. Even Zach was being nice."
Minako raised her eyebrows in near disbelief. "That was Zach being nice?" She shook her head, "I'd hate to see him on one of his bad days."
"He does take some getting used to, but he's a good guy really."
Minako was good at reading people and she could see where Ceithin was coming from, after all, Zach had been the only housemate of Ceithin's who'd refused to go out (until he'd seen Ceithin wake up, at least). "He seems like he cares a lot about his friends, but he doesn't really bother with anyone else."
His grey eyes met hers. "Not everyone is nice enough to spend an entire night taking care of a stranger."
Minako began to protest. "It's the least I could do. It was entirely my fault, if I hadn't been so clumsy-"
"I've had a lot worse," he reassured her, "and they were from legitimate tackles."
Minako doubted that. "You've been knocked unconscious before?"
She had a point there and Ceithin gave her another small grin. "Maybe not this badly, no, but this really wasn't your fault. That arsehole from Fulham practically clothes-lined me, you're not supposed to tackle above the shoulders."
Minako blinked. "I thought you couldn't remember what happened."
Ceithin lifted his hand and pointed to this throat, "I can feel the pain from where he hit."
"Ah." Minako's blonde eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Would you like some painkillers for that? Or maybe some ibuprofen gel?" She began routing through her bag for the suggested items.
It was Ceithin's turn to frown. "You keep ibuprofen gel in your handbag?"
Minako found the tube in question and a clear bottle with white little tablets rattling inside. "A girl has to be prepared." Especially when she's been fighting monsters on a daily basis since she was thirteen, she added privately to herself. "I have an old volleyball injury which acts up from time to time," she lied, hoping it would explain it.
That piqued his interest. "You played volleyball?"
Minako beamed at the opportunity to delve into her sporting history. "Captain of my squad for three years running. We were regional champions for all of them and ranked second in the country when I finished school." There was a large smattering of pride, and a tiny part of wistfulness in her voice.
"That's an impressive record. Is volleyball a popular sport in Japan?"
Minako shrugged. "The women's world cup was held there last year."
"Did you get to see any of it?"
She shook her head in the negative. "I was..." she searched for the right word to describe the messes that Ace, Kaidou and the death of Rei's grandfather had caused. "I was busy a lot of last year."
"Did your injury prevent you from considering playing competitively?" he asked carefully. A lot of Ceithin's friends from school were sportsmen, or heavily involved in sport, so he understood how something like that could be a painful issue.
Minako felt guilty about having lied about her injury since it looked like she'd have to expand on it. She battled internally for what to say and decided on a half-truth. "No, it wasn't that bad. Other things got in the way, more important things." Like saving the world, being a superhero at night, having a past life, dying for my princess, my ex-lover being reincarnated and then dumping me for some soap star, Usagi insisting on coming to the UK to be with Mamoru and uprooting us all... she almost laughed at her list, feeling even more guilty for the slight amount of resentment for the life she was being forced to lead.
"School or personal?" he asked.
She decided to keep it simple. "School. Usag-" she stopped herself, "we all wanted to come to the UK and study here, so I had to get my grades up."
Ceithin yawned again, although he did his best to fight it. "I know the feeling. I had a choice of trying for a rugby career or going to uni."
"I think it's obvious which one you chose."
He adjusted himself on the bed a little, sitting up further. "I almost took the sports route, actually. It was Zach who convinced me otherwise."
Minako was a little surprised. "How did he do that?"
"He said he had a feeling."
"And that was it?" Before he could answer, a thought occurred to her. "Wait, how long have you known Zach for?" She had been under the impression that they had all met at Brunel Hall during their first year.
"Since we were about seven years old."
"Ah." That explained a lot of Ceithin's apparent tolerance for the rude half-Frenchman. "How did you meet?"
"His cousin was marrying mine. We bonded over our mutual hate for boiled spinach and I was stupid enough to exchange addresses with him at the wedding." He looked at Minako and rolled his eyes. "At first I made an effort, but I was a kid and writing letters wasn't one of my priorities, then the next summer I woke up one morning and my mum called me downstairs to tell me one of my friends had come over to play some football."
Minako's eyes widened. "You mean-"
"He was meant to be spending half of his summer at the boarding school in England he was attending, which is about a two hour drive away from here, actually, and he'd run away."
"How on Earth did he get to your house?"
Ceithin shrugged. "To this day I have no clue."
"What happened?"
"I managed to hide him in my room for almost an entire week until my older sister Robyn noticed that some of her dinner would go missing. When mum found out she forced him to tell her where he'd come from, but when she called the school they hadn't realised that he'd gone missing. He'd somehow convinced them he had gone home to France for the holidays."
Minako laughed at Zach's audacity, not in the least bit surprised at his antics.
"And keep in mind that he was about nine at the time."
"He must have been a ballsy kid," she said, deciding that one day she'd ask Zach for the details. She and the others had done more than their fair share of sneaking in and out of schools and homes.
"He still is. We became quite close after that. It became a lot easier once we started emailing each other."
"And how did you meet the others?"
"Noel and Jared?" Ceithin questioned, and then yawned for a third time, wincing at the pain. "In Brunel Hall. We were all on the same floor. Mamoru was there as well last year but he was in B block. I spoke to him a few times but he usually kept to himself, so I'm not sure that he actually met any of the others properly. How about you? How did you meet your friends?"
She was more than willing to talk about her and the others, but she'd noticed that Ceithin was struggling to keep awake. "That's a story for another time, I think. You look like you could use a long nap."
As much as he wanted to, Ceithin couldn't fight the fact that she was right. "Yeah, I think that may be best."
"It's probably the co-codamol you took, it makes people drowsy," she stood up from her seat and picked up the plate by her chair to take to the kitchen. "I'll bring you a bowl and a glass of water so you can brush your teeth. Which toothbrush is yours?"
Ceithin immediately protested at the idea. "Thanks, but I think you seeing me throw up twice is embarrassing enough. I'll pass."
Minako wouldn't have it. "But you can't go to bed without brushing your teeth."
"I will, I could use a trip to the loo anyway," he removed the sheets from his legs and twisted to put his feet on the floor, "and if I can make it upstairs, maybe I can run a bath. I haven't actually showered since the game."
Seeing that he was trying to stand Minako panicked. She dumped the plate on the chair and rushed over to help him up.
"I'm alright, honestly," he said as he lifted himself from the bed, but then his head began to spin as the blood rushed away and he found that perhaps, he was not so alright.
"I'm sure you are, but I'm helping you up there. If you're planning on taking a bath, and since I won't be in the bathroom with you," (Ceithin seriously wished he had the guts to make a joke about asking her to join him), "you have to promise me that you're not going to get your head wet." Minako grabbed his arm, noticing on contact that he had rather impressive forearms, they weren't too large, nicely in proportion to the rest of him, and they were rather well defined, sort of like Chris Hemsworth's in Thor...Stop it, Minako! He's got a concussion and you're supposed to be helping him, not staring at his muscles! She mentally shook herself and helped him keep his balance, but her close proximity to him gave her too much of a temptation to not to keep peeking at his impressive arms.
"Promise. I'll even borrow Zach's shower cap."
Minako smiled, not surprised that Zach would own such a product. "Come on then, let's get you where you need to go." She snaked her arm around his waist to help support him and he placed an arm on her shoulders.
This is just ridiculous, it's like he's armour plated, she thought to herself as she did her best not to let her fingers wander up and down his ribs, it was unnatural for her to be so very attracted to a guy who was so...hulky. Ace had been fit but slender, full of sexy boyish charm. Ceithin was a man-wall, albeit on with a rather endearing smile and serious eyes.
Minako really hoped her sudden heart pounding wasn't as loud as it sounded in her ears.
Ceithin hoped the same thing about his too.
"I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Zach asked.
Noel turned around, walking backwards for a moment in order to answer Zach's question. "To take a piss, if you insist on fucking knowing."
Zach flipped him off.
With Noel and his loud personality gone, an awkward silence settled on the group. "So this is Syndicate," Makoto yelled out for lack of anything better to say.
"Yeah," Zach had leaned in close to respond. "It's a good place to start with on a night like this, drinks are cheap and the DJ today has a pretty good ear for stuff that's going to get popular."
Makoto nodded and smiled. She had missed a lot of what he'd said but she'd heard enough to figure it out. "Sounds good!" she yelled and then took a sip of her blue WKD, deciding she should try it seeing as she already had another bottle of it lined up, courtesy of a rather generous Noel. As the fizzy electric blue drink hit her tongue and coated her mouth she did her best not to cringe at the taste. Urgh, these alcopops are disgusting, it's like budget-brand blue Powerade with extra sugar. She took a second to look at the bottle and spotted the word 'vodka'. Seriously? She leaned into Zach, "Is there actually any vodka in this?"
He gave her a smirk, "It won't get you drunk in a hurry if that's what you're after."
It did not escape Makoto's notice that he'd placed a hand on her triceps as he spoke to her. She would have thought nothing of it since they were well within each other's personal space in order to talk, but it was the light tracing down to her elbow with his fingers which got her chocolate eyebrows raised and she pulled away.
He frowned at that, turning his attention back to Ami. "Let's go dance," it was more of a command than a request, and he grabbed her arm by the elbow, ready to pull her along.
"I think I'd rather stay with Mamoru and Makoto, but don't let me stop you from having fun," she said, unwilling to budge from her spot.
Zach was smiling, refusing to take her no for an answer. "Come on, sweetheart, I promise I won't step on your toes. Please?" He even tried to pout.
"It's really fine. I'm a little tired actually," she said, trying to remove her elbow from his grasp without causing too much of a fuss.
"But-"
Before Zach could plea his case, the large glittery group of girls from the bar area earlier pounced on Ami. "Oh good grief!" she exclaimed, having been taken completely by surprise.
"Fellow medic!" one of the women yelled, and then turned her attention to Mamoru, doing the exact same to him. "Another fellow medic!"
The group cheered, their shaking around inadvertently sprinkling glitter into the air like fairy dust. "You should have come on the pub crawl with us! Come on, the others are over there!" yelled out a rather excitable and inebriated fairy wearing a lopsided pink feather boa and a Barbie tiara. She pointed to some more people a few feet away wearing similarly outrageous outfits. "Come say hello!"
"Oh, I was just about to start heading-" Mid-protest Ami was yanked away, along with Mamoru, her words being completely ignored.
Makoto laughed at her friends' unfortunate situation and thought about taking a picture with her phone to show the others, but she realised that the lighting would probably prevent it from coming out properly so she decided against it. Instead, she used the fact that it was just her and Zach as an opportunity to have a heart to heart with him. "You know, Ami's quite a shy person."
"Is she?" Zach was staring at the group of medics and Makoto couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.
She decided it was better to assume that he wasn't. "Yeah, she takes a little time getting used to people, especially if they're interested in her."
"What's your point?" He turned to look at her, his tone suggesting that he didn't really care about her opinion, and Makoto didn't like that at all.
"Well, no offence to you, but you're a bit full on."
She thought she was being nice about it but Zach scoffed. "I'll do as I fucking please," he said, apparently affronted by her summation of his character. "She's a grown up and you're not her babysitter. It's not my fault she's prettier than you."
Makoto was taken aback by that comment, blinking rapidly for a second and thinking to herself that he was being a bit of an asshole. She decided the direct approach would be better in this situation. "Why don't leave her alone? Can't you tell she's not interested?"
Zach's retort was swift and biting. "Why don't you take your desperate self and fuck off? Can't you tell I'm not interested?"
"Excuse me?" Makoto asked dangerously. She was about to let loose with her famous temper but Zach was too quick for her.
"Look," he said, "I'm sure loads of blokes find the whole 'I'm desperate, lonely and defensive about it' vibe you've got going to be very attractive, but I'm really not in the mood to spend hours listening to your whiny problems before actually getting to fuck you."
Makoto was utterly speechless. She knew he was just trying to hurt her because she had rejected his advance, but he had cut her to the quick and it suddenly had become difficult to think. "You're a bastard!" she yelled, furious, but a blast of bass drowned out her volume.
He smirked, almost as if he was pleased that he managed to make her angry. "Tell me something I don't already know."
Her fist clenched at her side and it took all of her willpower to prevent her from hitting him. "No wonder Ami thinks you're horrible! Look, I'm going to warn you once," her protective streak came out in full force, fuelled by her stung pride, "I want you to stay away from her."
"Or what?" he mocked, "You'll hit me with some martial arts bullshit you probably learned in school to 'empower yourself'," he said, using his fingers as quotation marks.
Makoto's eyes narrowed to slits. "You have no idea what I'll do to you." She had to stop her aura from buzzing with a current, as much as she was tempted to let it show.
"I'll do what I fucking want, and so will she."
"I won't let you hurt her."
Zach huffed, as if he was losing patience with her. "You're fuckable, I'll give you that."
Makoto almost laughed at his ridiculousness. The arrogant prick actually thinks I'm angry because he prefers Ami over me! "Listen carefully-"
"No, you listen." Zach had lost his smirk. "You're not interesting enough for me to want to hear what you have to say." Makoto tried to cut in, but once again he beat her to it. "I can get a much better ride on other girls who aren't a behemoth in size and who won't say anything the whole night bar 'fuck', 'yes' and 'you're so huge'."
The dig about her height suddenly had Makoto paralysed, her eyes widening with shock and hurt over him managing to call her on one of her biggest insecurities. But Zach wasn't done. Not by a long shot.
"So what do you have to offer that I can't get better somewhere else? The answer's 'absolutely fuck all', darling. There's nothing special about you. You're giving yourself way too much credit if you thought I would be desperate enough to want you for more than a passing second. Why don't you go find someone who might be willing to give you the pity-fuck you so desperately crave? I don't do charity."
Anything she had been about to say flew out of her head and her eyes welled up uncontrollably. Dammit, dammit! You son of a bitch! She almost pushed him, almost laid into him with every muscle she had, but his smirk had returned and it was so superior. She had been feeling so terribly low already, she wanted to want to hit him, but all the fight had left her. Everything he said, every word stung with a horrible truthfulness. She was too tall, too silly, too lonely for anyone to really look beyond a pair of big breasts and some decent cookies. How he had spotted it she had no idea, it must have been woefully obvious to everybody, everyone must have known. Her vision suddenly blurred as she pushed passed him, dropping the bottle of blue WKD somewhere on the floor without thinking, desperate to get away from there, from him.
"I think there's a few people trawling for sex by the park on the way home!" Zach added, as he watched her go, a laugh lighting his features. When he turned back around to try and spot Mamoru and Ami, he came face to face with Noel. He blinked in surprise, having not expected his friend to suddenly appear.
Noel's blue eye looked almost colourless in the low blue light of the club, while his brown one appeared practically black, the added contrast giving him an incredibly fierce stare as he looked down, using the extra four inches of height to his full advantage. "What the fuck did you do?"
Zach scoffed. "Oh, I'm sorry was she your planned shag for the night?"
Noel shoulder barged him, dumping him with the drinks he was carrying and storming off after her. Zach rubbed his arm and shoulder. "This better not bruise, you big oaf!"
Makoto was putting on her coat, trying to text at the same time and failing miserably at it. Her ears were deafened slightly from the noise as she exited the club, every sound around her both muffled and enhanced. She sniffled, embarrassed that her nose was running and took a pause from typing her message to wipe the tears from her eyes. She had felt so angry with herself for letting him get to her, and ordinarily he wouldn't have - not to the point of her crying and leaving his hide unscathed, anyway - but he had somehow managed to push all the right buttons to set her off. "Stupid, stupid girl!" She tried to focus on the text she was sending to Ami and Mamoru. 'Going bck on duty. Will b home later x' She held her composure just long enough to press the send button before bursting into tears again. Some shouting caught her attention and she looked up to see a group of people wandering out of another club, laughing and joking with each other. They were a group of three couples and that made her well up again. Stop it! Don't be ridiculous, you're a Senshi for goodness' sake! Get a hold of yourself. You're not supposed to be crying over comments a silly little spoilt shit's made about your height and the fact that you're a little lonely. She shook her head, knowing that trying to psyche herself out of her misery wasn't going to work. More chatter and laughter disturbed her thoughts as more people poured out of the clubs and bars, enjoying their night out. She couldn't take it, everyone seemed so much happier than Makoto and she decided that it would just be easier to duck into an alley and transform, but someone stumbled into her from behind and pitched her forwards slightly before she had the chance.
She whirled around to glare at whoever had knocked her, only to find that it was Noel, and he was bent over, one hand on his thigh and his other outstretched in a gesture for her to wait while he caught his breath. A small smile crept onto her lips. "For an athlete, you look like you're struggling."
He stood up at that. "I played and won a full match today on ten players, I'll have you know. I'm also pretty drunk and I haven't had much sleep because I woke up early to do some of my essay this morning. Plus, I just sprinted at full speed to catch up with you. I'm allowed to be a little out of breath."
"Have you come to apologise for him?" she asked, crossing her arms and doing her best to seem just as furious as before and not the crying mess that she actually was.
Maybe it was because he'd had about four straight shots of tequila on an empty stomach, or maybe it was because his previous method of 'be mean, keep 'em keen' had never actually worked on a girl, but within less than ten seconds, his plan about playing it cool with her to get her to like him went out the window. Especially when he noticed that her eyes and nose were red and running with tears. "No," he said seriously. "Zach can be a complete arsehole especially when-" he stopped himself from completing that sentence. Especially when he's as fucking high as a kite, "when he's in a mood. So I'm sure you're justifiably angry."
Makoto hadn't expected that and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Oh. Well, good, because I don't really want to speak to him ever again."
Noel shrugged as if he couldn't really argue with her. "I'm not going to ask what it was about because it's none of my business really, but I thought you'd want to get a coffee somewhere."
Makoto's eyes scanned the street they were on and then the street opposite them. "I, um, I think they're all closed." She checked her phone for the time. "It's almost two in the morning."
It was Noel's turn to be surprised. "Oh. Hmm, good point." He hadn't really thought much beyond 'catch up to her and don't let her be sad'.
They stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, the cold wind blowing hard and making Makoto clutch herself tighter despite the coat. She felt humiliated and it wasn't helping that he was looking at her like he was pitying her.
"Are you cold?" he asked, desperate for his alcohol-addled mind to come up with something. He was going to offer to lend her his jacket, but then he remembered that he'd left it back in the club. "If you like, we could go back in and I could get my jacket."
Makoto's eyes narrowed a little as she gave him a reluctant smile. "Thanks, but I really don't think I want to go back in there, you know?" She indicated behind her, "I actually have work, so..." she began to step backwards as if to leave.
Noel's brain went into panic and he tried to explain himself. "No, I meant it's made of leather, so it's warm."
Makoto frowned, not really getting it.
Shit, this isn't working. "I thought you might want to use it, you know, because you're cold." His explanation didn't help. Ah, fuck it. "Forget it. Come on," he took in a deep breath and then clutched her by the hand, pulling her across the street.
"Where are we going?" She screeched as she was tugged into the road and in front of a taxi which was just starting to pull away.
"Steady on!" Noel yelled, stretching out his hand when the taxi honked and the driver swore at him. "Sorry," he said, looking back to Makoto when they had crossed, "I'm taking you somewhere else." Having a plan gave him confidence again.
"Why?" She had placed her other hand on the one holding her in order to steady herself and she couldn't help but notice that his practically dwarfed hers in size.
He stopped and turned, looking into her eyes, which considering their effect, made her pay attention. "Because you're really pretty and nice and Zach's gone and said something hurtful. You're Mamoru's friend and Mamoru's my new friend, so at the very least, that makes you my friend, so the least I can do is try and cheer you up."
It was a clumsy little speech, but Makoto got the sentiment, and really, she was only half-listening after the part where he had called her 'really pretty', because after Zach's apparent clairvoyant cruelty, it was exactly what she needed to hear. She smiled. "I'd like that very much."
She wasn't sure how exactly it had happened. They'd gone somewhere else, he'd bought her a few shots and she'd downed them quickly, competing with him to see who could drink them the fastest. There had been a lot of table slapping, throat clearing and watery eyes (and not from crying) which had immediately followed, but it had come out with her being victorious (he gave many excuses about already being heavily inebriated to justify his loss to a girl). Then she showed him how she could strawpedo a bottle of vodka orange in less than ten seconds (he seemed incredibly impressed by that). Noel explained what exactly Pimms was, when it was to be drunk and how it was made. They danced close together for what seemed like ages, the sudden rush of alcohol in her system making her warm and loose, relaxing the tense muscles in her back and shoulders. He'd told her some funny stories about his friends at home and at uni, about Jumble, his little Large Münsterländer, and all the silly things it did in the garden back home, whispering them in her ear so he could be heard, his breath hot and tickling her skin as they moved and laughed together in each other's arms. She had mentioned Zach only once, asking him why he was still friends with him if he was aware of how much of an ass he was.
Noel had simply shrugged and said "He's my mate." Makoto hadn't really been able to argue with that.
Their bodies had gotten a little sweaty and his cologne had begun to infuse into her clothes. He looked extremely good and she felt horribly underdressed in her simple dark jeans and long sleeve top from earlier that afternoon, but somehow he stopped her from caring about it. The music was loud and there were couples all around them, dancing and touching and kissing each other, lost to everything else but their own little worlds, their inhibitions gone, their inner desires seeping out.
Makoto and Noel swayed, not really dancing, just enjoying the swing of their bodies as they moved together to whatever music was being played, the beat guiding them more than anything. And then, without knowing exactly when, they suddenly became one of those couples around them. His lips were on hers and she had had to tilt her head just a little while he bent his down. She didn't know who had initiated it, nor did she care. His kisses were direct, unplayful and made her feel wanted. The music was shut out and the world was dark as her eyes stayed closed and all she could do was feel the electricity hit and pool around her stomach. Her fingers had wandered up his back, feeling the muscles which corded up to his shoulders, and found their way onto the back of his neck and into his hair.
He groaned a little and stopped their rhythmic movements on the dance floor, pulling her further into his body, crushing her pelvis against his own.
From that point onwards everything happened in blurs and short spots of clarity.
The next thing she knew, her back was against an unfamiliar door, and then a bed, and his mouth was trailing soft, wet kisses on her naked breasts while his hand snaked in between her bare legs. She gasped at the unfamiliar sensation and he looked up, his face beautiful and perfect, with eyes she couldn't seem to get enough of, and he smiled wickedly.
It was at that point that Makoto almost sobered. They were going to do something. They were going to do something which she had never done before and it was nothing like she had planned or expected it to be. There were no scented candles covering them in a warm glow, no soft romantic music playing in the background or red rose petals strewn about. She was dunk, and so was he, the streetlight outside his messy room flickered with a sickly yellow light, only weakly poking through the dark, heavy curtain to cast shadows on him as he lay on top of her. She barely knew him, and she was in an unfamiliar bed in the same clothes she had worn that afternoon, her bra and knickers were plain and yellow, no lace, no thong, just cotton with small pink flowers on them.
She almost sat up. She almost pushed him away.
He was handsome, he really was: strong and confident with a devilish smile. He had said the sweetest things, and he had made her laugh, putting so much effort into cheering her up, but she didn't even know his last name. She bit her lip.
Noel leaned up for a moment to whip off his shirt, exposing the impressive upper body she'd seen that afternoon and it made her head swoon a little, the heated flush returning and pushing the doubts further back in her mind.
When he began kissing her again, pressing his hips into hers and grinding a little, sending a wave of heated butterflies through her body, the doubts almost disappeared.
He pulled away, only for a second, and whispered to her that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, his voice hoarse and low and genuine.
And just like that, the doubts were gone. She wrapped her long legs around his slim waist and moaned. At least, she thought, it's not in an alleyway...
"I hope I made this right," Jared said when he saw Rei approach, "I'm doing this based on how I've seen the waiters do it in the Asian restaurants I've eaten in."
His apologetic smile curbed the cold glare she would have given him at his ignorance. He is, after all, Mamoru's new housemate and he was kind enough to take care of me when I was not well. She gave him a small smile. "It's hard to make a bad cup of tea, all you need are some good quality leaves and hot water."
"I suppose. Ceithin is pretty specific on how he likes his tea prepared though, so I'm wary now."
"I'm sure it's fine." He was making an effort to be nice, she could see that from the fact that he'd washed more than a few of the mugs and had cleared the table from the dishes left by Usagi and Makoto after dinner. At least he was trying, Rei did appreciate that. "I hear you take your tea drinking very seriously as well," she said in an attempt to keep the conversation going.
"Yeah, I've stopped drinking coffee and soda because of the caffeine, but then I got hooked on tea, so I don't think I've made much progress." He gave her a small smile and indicated for her to sit at the table. "Usagi's asleep?" he asked.
Rei nodded politely as he placed a mug in front of her and poured out some tea. She noticed that the colour was just a little too clear, but she didn't mention it to him. "Yes, she was out like a light."
Jared gave her a small laugh. "She's a sweet kid, are you two school mates?"
Rei took a sip and then delicately replaced the mug. Jared was riveted by the action, his sky blue eyes transfixed on the way she held the cup and placed it to her lips.
"Not exactly. I went to-" she was going to say 'a Catholic school' but she was worried that it would have invited too many questions. He knew she was a Shinto priestess back home and if he asked about it, it would lead to a discussion on her father. No, she certainly didn't want that, "-a different school." She moved on quickly, "We met when Usagi came to the Shrine." A small smile tugged at her lips as she remembered their first encounter. Phobos and Deimos had attacked her and she'd slapped a charm on the blonde's forehead thinking she'd been an evil spirit. Usagi's face had been a mix of shock and fear, her blue eyes crossed over her nose as she looked up at the piece of paper stuck to her face from her position on the grass. It was a sight that Rei would never forget, Usagi had looked hilarious.
Seeing that Rei was not sharing the memory that had made her smile, Jared moved on. "Do your parents and siblings live at the Shrine as well?"
It was an innocent enough question, but Rei's bright violet eyes suddenly went dull. Jared regretted his question immediately and berated himself for having not done some recon on Rei when he was in the queue for Syndicate.
Rei decided to dispense with the issue of her parents as quickly as possible. "My mother died when I was quite young. My father is a politician, a busy one at that, and..." she lifted the mug quickly, taking a large gulp in order to hide her face long enough to compose herself, "I lived with my maternal grandfather." She placed her hands in front of her on the table once she put the mug down, one folded loosely over the other in an attempt to look calm. "It was just the two of us there," she looked down briefly and back up at him, almost as if she was afraid of showing him any emotion, "but he passed away last summer."
There, she thought to herself, that sums it all up. He doesn't need to know any more. I don't need to remember any more. She moved on quickly, "I think of the girls as my siblings, even if they aren't related by blood." She gave him another smile and then lifted the mug again for a small sip. Her discomfort seemed to have passed.
Jared marvelled at her ability to keep calm like that, he could see how affected she was by her family and he debated quickly whether to offer her sympathy for the loss of her mother and grandfather, but he decided against it. He could see she was a little too calm, there had been a blip, a crack in her wall for a moment there, something which she'd hidden away quickly and that told him a lot about her character. This girl bottled things, she was private about her affairs and he'd gone and forced it out of her. He could understand it if she was uncomfortable. So he chose to do what he did best: to cheer her up (or annoy her) with his ridiculous chatter.
"So that's like, what? Four sisters? That's got to be interesting. My mom would be in heaven, or at least she thinks she would be, she tends to romanticize the ideas of daughters because she doesn't have one. She's stuck in a house of testosterone."
"You have brothers, then?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Yeah, two actually. I'm the middle child. My older brother Justin is a dentist in Los Angeles, I think he does cosmetic work for a few minor celebrities, but he won't give me any names, the pretentious douche bag." He was smiling broadly, as if he was somehow saying it as a term of endearment. Rei had never really heard that those words used with any form of affection before and it was a little odd. She could understand the sentiment behind it, though. She'd called Usagi an idiot more times than she could remember and it had always been said with a mix of love and annoyance.
"His wife just had their second kid and I think he wants to move back home to San Diego and open up his own practice. Her parents are from there too so it makes sense since they can see their grandkids more often. Plus, that way Lia can work part time with Justin, she's pretty traditional when it comes to the idea of raising kids and all of that but I also know it'd just piss her off to sit at home all day."
"Lia is your sister-in-law?" Rei questioned, trying to keep up with the different names.
"Yeah, she's a dentist too."
"And how old are your..." she tried to remember if Jared had specified if his brother's children were boys or girls, but she couldn't recall if he had, "your brother's children?"
"They're called Stella and Scarlett, named after Grateful Dead songs, by the way, which just shows how much of an old geezer he is. Alright fine, I like listening to them too, they're so upbeat and catchy." Rei had no idea who Grateful Dead were, but she didn't interrupt. Jared's chatter was a lot like Usagi's and Minako's, annoying certainly, but there was also something deeply calming about it. It made her feel much less alone.
"Stella's almost four now, Scarlett was born just after I got here, so about two and a half months." Without asking he took out his phone and showed her a few pictures. Most girls melted when they saw the one of Scarlett in the a little Hawaiian print dress, lying next to her sister who was in a little grass skirt and a flower necklace. He noted with some satisfaction that Rei was no exception - the tell-tale signs of a smile and the softening of her eyes appearing on sight of the photograph.
"They're very cute," she commented as she scanned through the photos. When she saw one with a teenager who looked like a younger version of Jared holding Scarlett in the crook of his arms she looked up, "You said you were a middle child?" she asked, waiting for him to confirm her unspoken question.
"Yeah, that's Joshua," he answered, "he's almost eighteen and he's a better surfer than I'll ever be. He's already got a sponsor and he'll probably end up going pro, although my parents aren't too hot on the idea of him choosing a career in surfing instead of going to college. They blame me."
Rei saw that his smile was still solidly fixed on his face and she couldn't judge whether he was being serious or not. She didn't like that she couldn't sum up this man, it made her uncomfortable being on unsure footing with him. Before she could delve further into her thoughts she was dragged out of them by a sudden flash. For a split second it was as if the room had been illuminated in white light before suddenly returning to the dimness of the two yellow lamps which lit the student kitchen.
Rei did her best to control the sudden widening of her furious eyes at what had just happened, untightening the grip her lips made with each other in pale anger. She didn't want to reveal more than she knew, but she need not have worried, from the look on Jared's confused and trepid face, he had blatantly noticed the flash as well. "Uh... what the hell was that?"
It did not escape Rei's attention that Jared's hand absently rubbed at his chest.
"Excuse me," she said as politely as possible and gave him a small but reassuring smile. "I just need to go check on Usagi." Without waiting for a response, she got up and did her best not to sprint to her princess' room, her light violet eyes glaring at her target's door like she could burn through the flimsy wood.
While Ceithin was in the upstairs bathroom taking a bath, Minako had gone downstairs to Ceithin's room in order to take out some clothes and freshen up his bed. Once that was done she went back upstairs and into Mamoru's room to wait for Ceithin, spending the rest of her time actually reading the article she'd been trying to read since the beginning of the night. Once he was done she handed him the clothes she'd gotten for him by opening the bathroom door just a little and passing them through the crack. Very unfortunately, shemanaged to catch a flash of glistening upper thigh and hip and she did so. She then helped him down the stairs and into his room and despite it being the second instance of somewhat intimate physical contact, neither party seemed to have managed to get their heartbeats under control.
"Easy does it," she said as she watched him ease himself into the bed. "I'll fetch you some water and leave your tablets on the table for you to take later on."
"Thanks, I'd appreciate that."
Minako left Ceithin's room and made her way to the kitchen. On her way back she happened to hear a few murmurs coming from Noel's room. She assumed he was most likely on the phone or possibly reading out his essay, either way it didn't matter since it wasn't her business to know, but it meant that he was still awake so she decided that when she was about to leave she'd knock on his door to say goodnight and ask him to look in on Ceithin at least once in the night.
"Do you need anything else?" she asked when she brought him his water and popped the tablets from their casing and placed them on the little desk next to his bed.
Ceithin ran through a list of all the things he could say to her: to feel your hair; a kiss; your phone number; the guts to ask for your number; you, naked, under me; a heavy dose of Vicodin or Demerol or something equally pain-relieving so that if I do somehow manage to get you naked and under me, I can actually do something about it. "No," he said finally, mentally berating himself for not coming up with anything, "maybe I can see you some other time, to thank you for your help today."
Minako blushed. "I'd like that. Perhaps you could make me some tea and a cheese toasty."
"Hopefully without the concussion."
She ginned. "No, I don't think I'd like one of those," she said, picking up her bag and zipping it. "Goodnight, sweet dreams."
Ceithin frowned. "How are you getting home?" he asked, realising how late it was.
Minako shrugged. "I only live about ten minutes away from here. I'll walk."
He sat up, struggling to do so, which caused Minako to rush back to his bed. "Lie back down! You don't move your head too much."
Ceithin didn't listen. "It's late, you shouldn't have to walk back on your own, I've got some money for a taxi in my wallet if you'll pass it to me."
Minako dismissed the thought immediately. "Don't be silly, I'm a big girl and I can handle myself."
"It's the least I could do."
"I'm fine, really, and I absolutely refuse to take your money." She stood up, smiling, and put up her fists as if she were boxing, "Besides, I've taken self-defence classes, I know three ways to drop an assailant in under ten seconds." Actually, that's another lie, she thought, I know at least fifteen and it's closer to three seconds, but details...
Ceithin still wasn't satisfied. "At least ask Noel if he'll take you."
"I couldn't do that."
"It's no trouble," he said, seemingly having no trouble volunteering his friend without consulting him first in the matter. "He won't mind at all, if he could have taken you but didn't he'd actually be annoyed. He's generous like that, especially with women."
"But-"
Ceithin wouldn't let her finish. "If he's asleep he won't hear you knocking on his door so there's no harm in checking, and if he's too drunk he'll just lend you the keys."
"I doubt that last part, he barely knows me!"
"You're ten minutes up the road and you're friends with our new housemate," and you have really, really, nice breasts. Noel is a slave to breasts, especially ones so… no, stop it. Stop. Stop thinking about her breasts, you idiot! Be decent! "uh… he won't mind at all." Ceithin felt like his headache was coming back.
Minako shook her head, laughing to herself. These roommates of Mamoru were certainly an interesting and altogether close bunch; she liked that about them, a lot. "Goodnight, Ceithin."
"Then let me know you've gotten home safely?"
That, she would agree to. "Sure."
"I'll need your number." At least he would accomplish one thing off his list of things he wanted from Minako.
She raised her eyebrows at him and then went over to his phone, placing her number in it and giving herself a missed call so that she could save his. "There. It's under 'cheese toasty girl'."
He gave out a small laugh and Minako thought that he had a very nice smile. She said goodnight again, switched off his light and closed his door.
As she made her way to Noel's room she thought she heard movement in there, she wasn't going to ask for a ride, but at the very least she thought it would be worth saying goodnight and to ask him to check on Ceithin. She lifted her hand to knock, but the door was yanked open from the inside.
"I'm, um… I'm going to go." It was a woman standing in the doorway. She hadn't noticed Minako yet since she was facing the bed, frantically buttoning her jeans and then bending low for her shoes. Minako debated quickly moving out of the way so that she wasn't spotted but something made her freeze. The girl was putting on what looked like an Ugg boot. A very familiar Ugg boot. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head as she recognised who it was.
"You don't need to leave..." Noel's voice trailed, sounding faint and sleepy. As there were no lights on in his room, Minako couldn't actually see him, a fact she was thankful for since he was most probably naked. "You can stay the night if you want," he said.
"No, thanks but-" Makoto's voice was shaky. "I just- I mean I have to- um, work?" she said, cringing as she hurriedly finished dressing, "you know?"
Noel yawned, obviously exhausted. "I can give you a lift in the morning..."
Makoto didn't answer, ignoring him as she searched around for something, throwing whatever was in her path haphazardly in the air, hurried and uncaring about his personal things.
"I... I hope you had a good time..."
Minako could hear the slight falter in his voice, like he was genuinely worried.
Makoto sniffled as if she'd just started crying. "It was g- MINAKO!" She had turned to leave, having found her jacket, and finally spotted the blonde. Panic and guilty shame were etched into her face as her teary green eyes, smudged with running mascara, made contact with Minako's tired and shocked blue ones. "I was just- I, I mean, it's not what it-"
Minako made to cut Makoto off, to reassure her that it was ok, that she wouldn't be judged, that she was sorry for having stumbled across them but a sudden bright flash of white light coming from upstairs distracted them. Both girls looked towards the staircase, having felt the surge of Usagi's power as she teleported into what Minako assumed must have been Mamou's room. A text arrived almost immediately afterwards from Rei. Minako pulled out her phone 'She's gone! She's teleported somewhere! Is she there?' Before she could decide whether to first say something to Makoto, to reply to Rei or to run up the stairs and admonish their leader for reckless (and most likely drunken) misuse of her power, Ceithin's door opened and he stepped out carefully, a serious frown marring his features. His grey eyes set themselves on Minako as if seeking some sort of answer from her. She looked away quickly and turned to face Makoto, only to find that the brunette had run out of the house, leaving the front door wide open.
"What's going on?" Ceithin asked, his hand clutching at a strange feeling in his chest.
Minako had to think quickly, deciding her priority was her princess, even if it was just to tell her off. "Go back to bed, it's nothing, Usagi's decided to spend the night here and she took a picture with her camera phone." She didn't stick around long enough to explain why Usagi would want to take a picture, "I'll make sure she keeps quiet," she yelled out as she went up. As she jogged, taking two stairs at a time, she texted Rei back. 'She's here. She's safe.'
Behind her, the wind from outside blew the front door shut.
