Chapter 3: That Darn Cat
The next week or so was uneventful. Ish.
Rei pushed all strange vibes and flashes of meaning out of her mind and just tried to live her daily life as normally and methodically as she could. With one minor difference - she avoided consulting the fire. Not because she was nervous about it would show, of course not as that would ludicrous, but just because she needed some more sleep and had to study more for school.
Of course, having a normal, regular, no-strange-things-happening life would be so much easier if that little black cat didn't keep showing up around the shrine.
At first Rei pretended not to notice her, but soon she became to common a fixture that Rei just went with it. She sometimes found herself talking to Luna, like the way she'd talk to Phobos and Demos, only she often caught herself pausing as if she expected the cat to talk back to her.
By the third or fourth time that happened Rei started to get unnerved. It even entered her dreams, vividly. The cat -Luna?- at the shrine, giving advice with a childish but determined voice. A ring of fire bursting through two ugly, evil eyes. Mars Power Make U-
Rei woke up with a start and marched out of bed in her bare feet and pajamas. She was determined to get some answers.
But the cat was nowhere to be found. And she didn't come back.
Well, Rei was nothing if not a problem solver. And a problem this had become.
She knew whose cat that was, after all. Rei grit her teeth, tossed her hair, and proceeded to consult the Tokyo White Pages for the family name she had heard some classmates call out to Usagi at Juuban.
When a pretty woman with a kind smile answered the door at the Tsukino residence, Rei was taken aback. She wasn't sure what she expected, but guessed she tended to forget that most girls her age wouldn't answer their own doors. That people had mothers and fathers and bedtimes and schedules and people who would question why a stranger they never met was standing on their front stoop asking for their teenage daughter.
"I'm Hino Rei," Rei said, figuring the truth couldn't hurt. "I'm here as Usagi's um... tutor?" and quickly abandoned the entire 'truth' idea after remember Naru's advice that Usagi buy the 'grades' charm at the shrine.
This time, her TA Uniform helped immensely, as Tsukino Ikuko happily invited Rei in and introduced herself. "Oh, I'm surprised to see you. Usagi has been through quite a few tutors so... I mean, not that she's... a bad girl, just a... disinterested student... anyway, ha ha ha ha! well, you'll see! Usagi! You have a visitor!"
Usagi wasn't at all upset that Rei had entered her home under false pretenses. She was just relieved Rei wasn't, actually, a tutor. Also, she thought Rei was the prettiest girl she'd ever seen up close and was she sure she wasn't a model? And she just loved the Hikawa Shrine and especially at matsuri time.
Rei learned all of this within the first few minutes of meeting Usagi officially. She tried to stop her eyebrow from twitching.
"So, really, Tsukino-san-"
"Oh call me Usagi! And I can call you Rei, right Rei-chan?" Usagi clasped her hands together and continued to look at Rei, in her crisp uniform, as if she was practically star-struck.
Rei felt strange. Not being in the room of a girl she had just met, searching after cat she thought might be giving her weird dreams. No, that wasn't what was niggling in the back of Rei's mind. This wasn't how she and Usagi usually related to each other...
Wait. What? Rei shook her head and tried to change the subject.
"Oh, you like manga?" Rei found herself saying, reaching out for one of Usagi's copies of Candy, Candy.
That was the right thing to say, Usagi had a lot of strong opinions on certain characters and plots and obviously spent more time obsessing over the latest shoujo plot twist than tomorrow's geography quiz.
Rei tried not reign in her horror as Usagi bent the manga wide open to show a certain scene she liked, tried not to eye the folded pages of Usagi's favorite scenes and shutter at the doodles in the margins of the page. Something sparked in her memory-
"Usagi! Can you come down and help me fold a sheet?" At her mother's request, Usagi apologized and ran down the hall, leaving Rei alone in her room.
And finally allowing Rei to notice the little black ball curled on the bottom of the bed.
"A-ha!" She cried, pulling the cat up by it's belly.
"Mrrewww!" the cat protested, jumping away and - Rei swore - glaring. She began to delicately link one paw.
"Where have you been?!" Rei found herself demanding, hands on hips, lips tugged in a frown as if she was berating Yuuchiro again. "And why have you been following me? Hmmm?!" She narrowed her eyes and waited for response. The cat just eyed her. At that moment, Rei was sure, sure, that the cat at something to tell her.
"Well! Answer me!"
"Yeah, Luna, don't be rude, answer her," Usagi said from the doorway.
Rei turned and stared at Usagi who looked back at Rei with a deadpan expression.
Then she dissolved into giggles, practically falling onto the floor. "Oh my god, that was so funny! Do you always try to talk to animals?" Usagi continued to laugh as Rei picked up her school bag and stalked to the door.
"I'll be going now," Rei said.
"Oh don't be mad!" Usagi called after her, padding down the hall in her stocking feet to follow Rei to the door.
"I'm not mad," Rei muttered.
"Okay!" Usagi said, and clapped her hands together a little. "See you soon Rei-chan! I'm so glad we are friends now!"
Rei bit back a scowl.
But Usagi, apparently, meant it. She showed up at the shrine with the newest volume of a manga she knew Rei enjoyed and tried to get her to discuss it, even though Rei was busy sweeping.
She followed Rei into the main hall, jabbering about Luna and if she was still bothering Rei Usagi could keep her inside more.
The next day, Usagi bounced right into Rei's room and helped herself to an orange from the bowl on the table and complimented Rei's decorative style.
Rei just balled her hands into fists and smiled tightly.
The next day, Usagi didn't come by and Rei chose to interpret the heavy feeling in her chest as relief.
The next day was Friday, and Rei was meeting Usagi for a soda at this fruit parlor she liked. Rei did not remember agreeing to it, but somehow it was settled, and somehow she still found herself walking to Juuban Middle School to meet with Usagi.
Outside the school, she saw Mizuno Ami, quietly leaving school with her head down.
Despite herself, Rei called out to her. Ami looked up, startled. Politely, she greeted Rei and indicted she had to hurry home as she had cram school in an hour.
"An hour?! That's plenty of time!" a jubilant voice broke the awkward pause as Usagi bounded up and greeted Rei enthusiastically. "Rei-chan, you didn't say you knew Mizuno-san! She's, like, the smartest girl in our school!"
Ami flushed.
"C'mon, join us! We really want you to! You have enough time to get a soda, right?" Usagi linked her arm through Ami's, whose flush quickly faded as she paled noticeably.
"We really want you to," Usagi repeated, with a genuine smile. Ami looked at Usagi for a second, and tentatively returned the smile.
Rei tried not to be pissed that Usagi accomplished in under a minute what she tried and failed to do a week earlier, and followed them to the Crown Fruit Parlor.
The next few weeks found Usagi pulling Rei and Ami into a few separate outings, so perky and cheerful the entire time the Rei began to suspect she might be on something. Ami smiled shyly, painful quiet eventually giving way to polite remarks and sometimes a quip so outright hilarious that Rei had to look at her to see if she meant it.
In any case, it was obvious Ami really needed a friend. And Rei - well - Rei was just trying to find out why she felt there was a tangible connection between them, for such different girls.
That was the only reason she continued to see them.
The only reason.