REI
MINAKO AINO [9:13 AM]:
Attendance is mandatory for the next group call.
MINAKO AINO [9:13 AM]:
Rei.
MAKOTO KINO [9:14 AM]:
Yes ma'am.
AMI MIZUNO [9:14 AM]:
Looking forward to meeting you, Rei!
Rei resisted the urge to growl.
She had heard Minako sing-song a goodbye somewhere down the hall no less than a minute ago. She hadn't expected to get called out for deliberately ignoring whatever apartment tour Minako had planned for the other two.
Unfortunately, it seemed she had underestimated Minako's sheer audacity.
She was in the middle of pulling a sweatshirt over her head when Minako knocked at her door.
Rei ignored the way those cerulean eyes looked her up and down as soon as she cracked the door open.
"What." She'd accidentally slipped into the standoffish tone she usually reserved for her father. Perhaps it was the thought of having to exchange pleasantries with their future roommates virtually.
Realistically, she knew they were probably very normal, kind people, but she'd spent enough of her childhood in a sea of snakes that she'd developed a distaste for 'harmless' small talk.
"Are you hungry?" Minako didn't appear to be fazed by her tone, and Rei thought it best not to linger on the way the blonde bit her lip when she asked the question.
"I haven't eaten yet, if that's what you're asking," Rei lied, though a protein bar from one of the university markets hardly counted if she really thought about it.
"Some girls on the team told me you're not a real Stella Nova student until you've had a bagel from Papa Main's," Minako said, waggling her eyebrows dramatically.
Rei shrugged. She didn't particularly care about student traditions.
"And I figured we should at least have one good meal before we're doomed to the athlete dining hall and put on training menus." Minako was undeterred by Rei's underwhelming reaction to Papa Main's.
For reasons she couldn't quite figure out, Rei found herself grumbling, "Sure."
Minako grinned. "We can walk, or I don't mind driving us uptown."
Although it was still morning, the late July heat was brutal. Rei still had practice later that afternoon and she decided she didn't need the extra sun nor the exercise.
"I'll drive," she said, ignoring the way Minako's grin slid into a smirk.
The blonde stepped back deferringly.
"After you, then," Minako said with a dip of her head and a sweep of her arm. The corners of her mouth curled into a sickly sweet smile that made Rei's skin crawl.
Admittedly not in an unpleasant way.
They made their way out of the building in blissful silence and headed toward the parking lot.
Unlike many of the traditional dorms on campus, Serenity Suites came with its own parking lot, but unfortunately that also meant its own parking pass that was a completely separate fee from the university's parking passes.
Not that the cost bothered Rei, but Serenity Suites had required extra paperwork that had forced her to contact her father to sign off on as the co-owner of her vehicle and that had bothered her.
"This is me," Rei said, stopping in front of a polished black Mercedes SL Roadster.
As Rei unlocked the doors, Minako hovered near the front of the car, laughing.
"What?" This time, she tried to be nicer about her tone.
"Nothing, nothing," Minako giggled, waving her hand, "You're just parked next to my baby."
The blonde playfully smacked the hood of the car next to her, a baby blue Ford Bronco, a slightly older model by the look of it, capped with two bright orange kayaks. Of fucking course it was.
Although most students had yet to move in, there had still been a fair smattering of cars parking at Serenity Suites when Rei had moved it, but of course she'd parked right next to this ridiculous person's 'baby.'
"We're not even near a beach." Was the only thing Rei said before slipping into her own vehicle.
Minako was still laughing as she opened the passenger side door.
"You don't need a beach to go kayaking. There are plenty of rivers and lakes in the area," she said it so breezily, as if already gliding across the water in her mind.
Rei rolled her eyes. "Gross ones maybe."
Minako whipped her head around. "Take. That. Back." Though her words were nearly a growl, her eyes held no malice.
Rei shrugged and tapped the ignition. "We're in steel country, Minako, everything near here is polluted to hell."
Minako was practically sputtering. "Apologize to the Greater Valley rivers and lakes. They're actually quite nice as long as you don't drown."
"Seatbelt," Rei deadpanned, adjusting the fans and temperature inside of the car.
Minako crossed her arms and huffed dramatically.
"I should have known you'd be a river snob," she said, tilting her chin at Rei in disdain.
Rei felt her shoulders tense. Here it comes.
"Only someone with red leather seats and a convertible would dare insult the Greater Valley water like that." What?
Rei had expected a snide comment about snooty politicians' children, or something along those lines, but no such dig came. Just…insults to her car. Which she supposed had been an unwilling gift from her snobby politician father, but that wasn't really the point of what Minako was getting at…right?
Rei shook her head to clear it. Minako had no reason to know who her father was, and she didn't seem like the type of person to care.
"How dare you insult Phobos and Deimos," she settled on being angry on behalf of her cushy red leather seats, punching in the directions to Papa Main's on her GPS.
"Ohmygodstheyhavenames," Minako muttered, collapsing dramatically into Deimos.
Rei might not have wanted the car in the first place, but she had to admit she loved it. It was ostentatious and the custom interior made her scoff, but it brought a lot of autonomy and, most importantly, it meant she didn't have to travel with her father in his cars to any required events.
No more silently sitting with him in the back of a towncar that smelled of cigars and corruption.
Her passenger today smelled distinctly of sandalwood and cinnamon sugar. Not that she was paying attention.
'Uptown,' as Minako had called it, apparently referred to the actual town part of Villanova, the township where Stella Nova was built. Rei tried not to think too hard about the naming scheme of it all. Someone had definitely thought themself clever.
Consisting of roughly four city blocks of actual shops and restaurants, uptown was closer to a ghost town.
Rei figured it'd be bustling by the time the majority of the student body moved in, but right now, she had prime parking at one of the three street spots in front of Papa Main's.
"Shit, I forgot about the parking meters," Minako swore and patted her pockets as if it was going to magically manifest coins.
"Don't worry about it," Rei said and fished out a handful of quarters from her console.
She kicked her door open and ambled up to the meter. It still had some time left on it, but Rei dropped four quarters into it anyways. That would buy them another hour of time.
"Oh my, chivalry isn't dead after all," Minako said airily as she danced onto the curb.
Rei shot her a glare and yanked open the door to Papa Main's. She meant to leave Minako on the curb and let the door swing shut behind her, but her damn long legs crossed the distance easily and their elbows brushed as they entered the restaurant.
Rei sidestepped to put some air between them, but Minako had already looped an arm through hers and was pulling her toward the counter.
If Minako thought anything of the proximity, she didn't show it, but Rei had to fight the flush that was rising to her ears. Luckily, Minako's gaze was focused on the posters above their heads that showed all the different bagel options.
Now that she was in here, Rei realized Papa Main's was less of a restaurant and more of a deli. There were only two small bartop tables with no stools pushed up against the back wall of the main area which was barely the size of their apartment's common room. The walls and counter were plastered with posters of different bagels with funky names and a single register sat at the end of the counter.
Clearly it was setup for waves of inebriated college students to stumble in and shout their orders.
Rei tried to make sense of the names. Most of the posters were just a name and a picture, sometimes not even of a bagel at all. She understood things like BLT, Original Breakfast Bagel, and Pizza Bagel well enough, but what the fuck was Beryl's Brunch or Lunar Love Beam?
"Welcome to Papa Main's, your first stop off Main Street," a man emerged from a door behind the counter when Minako tapped one of the bells on the counter.
His long silver hair was tied tightly in a bun at the base of his neck and held in place with a hairnet. His smile was warm and he wore a heather grey sweatshirt with 'Papa Main's Bagel Shop' written across it in colorful letters.
Rei could see the same sweatshirt and several other Papa Main's merchandise items hanging from the back wall.
"What can I get for y'all today?" The man, Kunzite, according to his name tag, pressed his hands against the counter and leaned toward them.
He had an almost ethereal energy to him despite the hairnet and sweatshirt stained with – actually Rei didn't want to know what those stains were.
"Y'all new students?" Kunzite asked when neither Minako nor Rei made a move to order.
Minako nodded her head. "We've got no idea what anything means." She flailed her hand at all the laminated posters swarming around them.
Kunzite chuckled and pulled out a menu from under the counter. "Y'all are lucky it's not 1:00 AM or you'd be packed in like a sardine and the frat boys would run you over. Take your time reading it over."
He passed the menu over the counter and jerked his head toward the shorter section of it where the cash register was. "I'll ring you up when you're decided."
Rei figured the counter was tall to prevent the aforementioned frat boys from jumping over it. She didn't need to think too hard to picture it.
Minako held the menu in one hand and pulled Rei closer to her with the other. Somehow, there had still been space between them.
The printed version of the menu had the different types of bagels organized into categories, as well as prices and light descriptions of the contents of each one.
"If you try every single bagel on the menu in one semester, we add your name to the wall," a new voice said, this one lighter and with less of a drawl than Kunzite's.
Rei looked up to see an androgynous looking person saunter in from the back room. They were beautiful in a way that was both feminine and masculine, and Rei noted the way this new stranger bumped hips familiarly with Kunzite.
"Most people, though, just pick a favorite and order that," they said, smiling and tapped one of the posters next to Rei, "That one's mine."
'Zo's Favorite,' it read. Of course.
"I think I'll get the Curry-osity bagel," Minako stage whispered far too close to her ear.
Rei nodded and tried to focus on the menu rather than the tanned collarbone sitting just above the collar of Minako's shirt.
"Super Deluxe Breakfast Bagel," she finally grunted after a frantic scan of the menu. She chose the first breakfast bagel she saw with bacon.
Rei slapped the menu onto the counter and strode to the register, finally breaking free of Minako's arm. She ignored the way her pulse jumped as their forearms brushed together as she broke their proximity.
"Zo, do you mind getting the curry bagel?" Kunzite called to the other person, "I'll get the breakfast one when I'm done."
Zo, whose nametag read Zoisite, hummed in agreement and started to busy themself with preparing Minako's order.
"Together or separate?" Kunzite smiled innocently, but Rei felt herself start to bristle.
Before Rei could say anything, Minako sidled up to the register and handed him and $20 bill.
"Together," she said with a wink, though Rei couldn't tell who was the desired target.
Rei wanted to scream. This woman was infuriatingly hot. No, that was wrong. She was infuriating.
She stood there, caught between fuming and blushing, and decided she'd actually rather small talk than confront her confused emotions.
"So do you have to keep receipts or something to prove you finished the menu?" Rei blurted out, desperate for any kind of conversation that wasn't Minako flirting with her.
Kunzite handed Minako her change and cracked a grin. He snatched up a card from next to the register and held it out to Rei.
"Nope, we both keep track. If you're actually interested in trying, you get to keep this and I keep an identical one with your name on it," Kunzite explained, "And when you order a new one, you show us your card and someone will cross it off on your copy and mine."
All Rei could do was nod along blankly. She had absolutely no interest in doing the challenge, but Minako wasn't looking at her and that's what she needed right now.
"Are either of you interested in trying the challenge?" Kunzite flashed another of those elegant, disarming smiles.
"Hell yeah!" Minako had already procured her own card and was writing her name on it. She handed her pen to Rei.
Rei looked from the pen to Minako and then to the pen again. She really wasn't fucking interested trying the entire menu.
Those damn blue eyes were looking at her with so much excitement, though.
Rei felt her resolve withering. It's not like she needed to take the challenge seriously.
She took the card from Kunzite with a frown. She must be subconsciously worried about college or something to be caving this easily to peer pressure.
"Okay, Minako Aino, Rei Hino, good luck with the challenge," Kunzite jotted their names onto cards of his own and set them next to a small stack of them on the counter behind him.
"Sorry, Zo, I'll get started with the–"
"–Order's up," Zo placed two bagels wrapped in foil next to the register.
Kunzite smiled apologetically at them. "Thanks for getting those."
Zo nodded and bumped his hip again. "Don't worry about it, I heard you dragging these poor unsuspecting first years into the challenge."
They cast Minako and Rei a pitying look. "Kunzite's custom bagel has a Carolina Reaper hot sauce on it, try not to die."
Minako was grinning ferally and Rei felt a shiver of fear crawl up her spine.
"Oh, I can't wait," Minako picked up the bagels and twirled toward the door. "You'll be adding my name to the wall in no time."
As she turned to follow Minako out the door, Rei heard Zoisite say, "Oooo, I like that one. She's got zest."
Whatever the fuck zest meant, Rei was certain that Minako had something much more diabolical in her blood.