Disclaimer: I don't anything except for that which I own. Sailor moon does not fall under the latter category.
A/N: I don't have much to say here. This is Rei's chapter. I hope you enjoy it. I'd also like to advertise a little bit here, and ask you all to go onto my profile and answer my poll =). Your input would be very much appreciated.
And, because there aren't many of them, I would like to mention my adoration for my (thus far) six reviewers: Pretty Much A Big Deal, BladeMaxwell-GoddessofDeath, Miss DnG, Lily Topaz, DavisJes, and Sunwritten. Yay reviewers!
Now, with that, I give you chapter two of Blossoming:
First Date: Rosebud
It was nearly impossible for Rei Hino to fail at something she put her mind to.
She took pride in that fact: she pushed herself constantly to do better; people who knew her would describe her as ambitious, hardworking, ready to excel. And she loved it. She loved the feeling of competency that success gave her, she loved knowing that she could do anything, anything she tried.
Except, that is, make a plant live for more than twenty four hours.
It was ridiculous, really. She watered them, put them in the sunlight, tended them near constantly, prayed over them, gave them that powdered "plant food" stuff, and even, when she got really desperate, occasionally talked to them. And, still, they died.
She would never let Lita go near them, even though Lita was the green thumb of the bunch. No, every single time she made a point of claiming that this was something she would do herself.
Her friends, laughingly, called her "the plant murderess" and the "floral fatale" and "miss withering thumb," but they all knew that she hated the failure.
There was nothing more embarrassing, in Rei's opinion, than having a guy come to her flat to pick her up, give her a bouquet of flowers, and put her in the position where she had to politely compliment the blooms that she knew would be dead in under a day. She knew that he would never know, but she had this irrational little hatred for the entire situation that had a tendency to make her very testy and irritable.
That testiness (which her friends referred to as a "secondary premenstrual syndrome") might or might not have been a good excuse for why the young woman went through men almost as quickly as she went through flowers.
Really. Each subsequent man who dated her seemed to annoy her more than the last, just as each time they gave her flowers it bothered her more than the last time.
She had yet to break up with a man over flowers, but she had gotten pretty damn close. More than once.
***
She had met Jason somewhere random. She knew it had been through Ami, but she could never quite remember the terms of their meeting.
She never really tried to, either. She figured that, since she didn't remember it, their meeting was, therefore, not very interesting.
Later, when she found that he didn't really remember it precisely either, she was doubly certain that it didn't matter.
She had multiple reasons not to like him, she knew. In fact, based on her citations of annoying traits in other men, she shouldn't have wanted to go near Jason at all.
For one, he was attractive. Blonde haired, blue eyed: prince charming in the flesh. That, in itself wasn't so bad, but he knew he was attractive, which was. He struck her as kind of arrogant, that way. Then, of course, there was the fact that he was ridiculously good at antagonizing her. He seemed to have a sixth sense as to exactly what would get her the most riled up at a given time, but he never actually went over that fine line separating teasing from tormenting, no matter how close to it he got. While Rei couldn't help but feel admiration for the young man's sense of balance, she found his daringness to be utterly frustrating. And there was the principle of the thing: he was her friend's boyfriend's cousin; and if that didn't sound like a bad romance film, she didn't know what did. Rei hated bad romance films.
She'd liked him anyway.
So they had starting spending time together; never on an official "date," just gravitating towards each other whenever Ami or Zach (and, later, Lita or Nick) dragged them all on a group date.
Then, somewhere along the line, Jason had—or maybe Rei had? Maybe it had been her…but then again, did it really matter who was responsible?—suggested that they get together sometime.
Go out, have dinner…somewhere classy, of course (that was definitely him. He seemed to have a fixation with the word "classy" that never ceased to annoy or amuse her).
She—or maybe he—had accepted, the when, the where, the why, and the how had been set.
Next thing Rei knew, She was wearing a little black dress and waiting for that telltale knock to sound at her door.
***
"Maybe we'll have some dead carnations around the house. We haven't had any of those, yet," Lita said jovially, motioning Ami to pass the bag of pretzels her way while Rei glared.
Serena, pretending to take no notice of her disgruntled roommate, replied "Oh, I know we've had them in the house before. I think Mina got a bouquet once, didn't you, Mina?"
Rei glared harder as Mina answered, "Yes, I did. But I don't kill them off nearly so quickly."
Rei was, suffice to say, quite annoyed. But she would hold her tongue, just glare, give them the silent treatment, wait until—
Knock Knock.
Ah!
There!
Still, as she rose regally to her feet, Rei's argumentative side couldn't keep silent any longer, "Well, I'm going to get that. Traitors." She moved to get the door, (Knock Knock) but paused for a moment to amend her statement with, "Well, except Ami, of course," in an effort to spite the other girls.
Dear, shy little Ami. Wouldn't say a cruel word, even if—
"I'm betting on tulips, Rei!"
—nevermind that.
Knock Knock.
Rei was already feeling cranky as she wrenched open the door, and the sight of a dapper-looking Jason standing before her holding a single, red, still-budding rose didn't help her temper much.
She barely even heard the young man greet her ("Why hello, Rei. Lovely as always."), let alone register her own greeting in return ("Mmm-hmm."), so intent was she upon the hall light shining upon the blood red flower.
The plant, she thought as she glared at it maliciously, probably wouldn't even have time to bloom before it met its premature death. She had to restrain herself from physically snarling at it.
Rei hated flowers.
Smiling a bit, he silently offered her the rosebud, and she took it, deciding disgustedly that it was too shiny to be a very nice rose at all, and would likely deserve its quick execution.
With this thought in mind, she, just as silently (and rather roughly), examined a shimmering petal, only to realize that it was, indeed, shimmering quite unnaturally for any normal flower.
It seemed that this petal was no petal after all.
At least, if it was, Jason had gone through a ridiculous amount of trouble to wrap it in red-hued tin foil.
Rei looked up at Jason, surprised, only to find that he was gazing at her with expectant blue eyes and a touch of a smirk.
"Well. Go on."
She did, gently unwrapping the scarlet foil, her eyebrows finding their way closer together in puzzlement as she gazed down at the dark brown that lay beneath the foil.
It was formed like a budding rose, but no rose had ever grown in that color. No, if she didn't know better, she'd think this was…
…"Chocolate?"
Jason just laughed and gently tugged her out of the doorframe by her wrist. "See, I've never really liked flowers that much," he slid an arm around her waist, "they've always seemed kinda useless to me."
He began to lead her away with a nonchalant shrug, "At least this one tastes good."
Rei took a vicious bite out of the flower and smiled.
She wholeheartedly agreed.
A/N: Again, I didn't factor the traditional meaning of rosebuds into my writing of the story. Actually, I just remembered once seeing a chocolate rosebud as described in this chapter. However, if you'd like to know, the traditional meanings are:
ROSEBUD - Beauty and Youth, a Heart Innocent of Love; ROSEBUD (RED) - Pure and Lovely; ROSEBUD (WHITE) – Girlhood
Anyway, I three more things:
(1) I'd love to have your input on the poll on my profile. Please take one or two minutes out of your life to check that and answer it. It doesn't take very long compared to the amount of joy it will elicit from my heart.
(2) As always, please review! What good is putting this on the internet if I get no input?
(3) I want your opinion on another note, too. Do you think I should break this story up into multiple one-shots instead of a five-chapter story? I've been contemplating that…
~FB~