MINAKO

Minako had no idea what the fuck she was doing.

She flattened her palms against the sink, the cool marble sending shocks through her skin. Staring at herself in the mirror, she looked like an actual fucking train had hit her.

Too many thoughts and emotions swirled through her brain which had yet to recover from the day's activities. She hadn't even had time to process her shameful defeat earlier, let alone what had just happened.

Usually, she just needed some 'rotting on the floor in the bottom of the shower' time to help her bounce back, but even that had somehow gone awry. She wished their bathrooms had a bathtub. Gods, she would kill to be lounging in the bath right now.

It was bad enough that she had lost the competition, but far far worse was the way in which she had lost. She was almost glad her head was so in the gutter at that moment that it was hard to recall the exact details of it all. Almost.

Minako wished she'd hit her head hard enough on the toilet seat to lose all memory of it.

She hadn't even reached her own limit, she'd essentially been taken out by her own teammate, but the most disappointing fact of it all was that Rei had kissed her. Rei had kissed her and instead of fucking her in that blasphemous place, she'd had to practically drag Minako's corpse out of the bar.

Way to fucking go.

And of course Minako's still drunk ass had demanded she keep her company while she showered to make sure she didn't die. What the fuck was she thinking? Was she even thinking?

Minako accepted that (perhaps) she was one to bulldoze her way into people's lives, but this might be a record low for her. She'd successfully made both their lives ridiculously complicated, vomited immediately after, and then dug herself even deeper.

It started to settle on her, then, the weight of what Rei had said.

In the moment, Minako felt like forces outside her control had taken over her the moment Rei spoke. She hadn't meant to confront her like that, but her body did and said things before her mind could keep up.

Rei hadn't been able to look at her. That had hurt in an aching way that Minako herself didn't even understand.

She'd let Rei escape even though every part of her screamed to chase after her, clothes and hazardous wet floor be damned.

A damp shiver ran through her. With a sigh, Minako wrapped a towel around herself and quickly brushed her teeth. It had been long enough since the incident that it was probably safe to brush them.

It was barely 7:00, but Minako felt like a year had passed since she woke up this morning. Maybe it had. Maybe this had actually been some fucked up dream and she'd wake up tomorrow in her bed back at home with her parents shouting at her that if she didn't get up she'd miss her designated check-in time for move-in day.

When she finally trudged out of the bathroom, the soreness starting to truly sink into her bones, Rei's bedroom door was closed.

Fair enough.

As much as Minako wanted to talk to her, she didn't think she'd get much out of her at the moment. Plus, she was really fucking tired. Her usual charm replaced with the overwhelming urge to lay in bed and pass the fuck out.

She closed her own door behind her, closing her eyes and leaning against it for a brief moment.

Rei's eyes hadn't been filled with longing or desire. They hadn't been overcome with lust or the carnal urge to kiss her. That dark, heated look from before was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Minako had been sucked into a feeling of all-consuming sadness. A type of hopelessness that she'd never experienced before. It made her want to retreat into herself as much as it made her want to pull Rei into her arms and never let go.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to kiss her. She wanted to dive straight into that void and chase away the darkness that was there.

It felt like, at that moment, that Rei was just an existence. That she was a person who existed without any defined sort of reason. The emptiness in her eyes hadn't been able to conceive of the idea that she was allowed to want things for herself.

Minako had thought that the worst possible thing that could come of all of this was Rei not wanting her, or needing her in her life. She'd considered that Rei might reject her, that Rei might decide Minako wasn't worth something to her.

It hadn't occurred to Minako that Rei didn't feel worthy of even having desires.

Slowly, the smell of lavender infiltrated her nose. Minako felt her shoulders relax from where they'd been scrunched against the door.

Sitting on her desk was a small serving tray containing a still steaming cup of tea and a glass of water. She choked back a sob.

Minako was fucked. She was entirely, royally, altogether, completely fucked. She hadn't even gotten fucked, but she was so fucking fucked.

And she was fucking in love.

She resisted the urge to vomit again. She, Minako Aino, was in love with a girl she'd just met. Not just a girl, her roommate for fuck's sake. Her roommate who had just told her that whatever was between them couldn't ever be anything. Her roommate who had just left her standing naked in a cold shower after telling her that what she wanted didn't matter.

No, that was certainly wrong. She wasn't in love, that kind of thing didn't happen that quickly. She was still drunk and feeling her emotions a little too much. Her head was spinning too much to think clearly, obviously.

Minako was glad she'd built her desk last night.

Rei's door had been closed when she got back from dinner with Usagi, so Minako had kept her distance and busied herself with setting up the rest of her room. She'd been tempted to solicit Rei into building the desk for her, but she hadn't wanted to seem that incredibly useless.

That and the fact that her desk was a simple H-shaped metal frame with some wooden shelves and one long wooden panel that could be easily assembled with screws and an allen wrench. They were a far cry from the handcrafted feel of Rei's bed and Minako felt like Rei was exactly the type of person to be judgy about her cheaply manufactured setup.

Plus, Minako would have been tempted to bring up the strange woman from the gym that she'd seen and she really couldn't bear to find out that Rei had a girlfriend.

Though, judging from what had just happened in the bathroom, Minako highly doubted Rei was dating anyone. But, she had kissed Minako in the bathroom in a fit of drunken desire, so it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that she had some other kind of situationship going on and…

Oh fucking hell.

Rei was definitely in some sort of complicated relationship with that woman from before. She'd rejected Minako because she already had a messy lesbian situationship.

Or maybe she had a fiance for a political marriage and didn't want to drag Minako into her complicated world of greed and power. Maybe she was forbidden from dating at all. Maybe she was just really fucking focused on soccer.

She needed to go the fuck to sleep before her brain imploded.

Minako set the mug and glass of water on her nightstand. She took a hesitant sip of the tea to test its temperature before taking a fuller sip. The floral taste soothed her throat, raw from practice and shouting over the sounds in the club. Immediately, the tension in her body started to ease and her eyelids started to feel heavy.

She changed into a set of pajamas and quickly toweled off her hair before tossing the towel across the room. It was morning Minako's problem.

Normally, she would take more care with her hair-drying process and she avoided falling asleep with wet hair, but she currently didn't have it in her to be bothered.

She downed a couple big gulps from the glass of water before sliding under the covers. She stayed sitting up against her pillows to finish the tea, letting the scent of lavender settle around her like a blanket in wintertime.

There was a nonzero chance she was really down bad for this woman, but she didn't let the thought linger. It was becoming increasingly harder to keep her eyes open.

Finished with her tea, Minako had just enough awareness left to snatch up her phone and shoot off a quick text.

MINAKO AINO [7:35 PM]:

Thank you for the water and the tea.

REI HINO [7:35 PM]:

You're welcome. Stay hydrated.

It was just four words, but Minako hadn't expected her to respond at all, let alone show some semblance of worry for her.

MINAKO AINO [7:36 PM]:

I'm gonna pass out, might need someone to watch me while I sleep so I don't die ;)

REI HINO [7:36 PM]:

No.

Minako chuckled and was about to make another sleepy stab at flirting when her phone buzzed again.

REI HINO [7:36 PM]:

Sleep well.

Minako wanted to kick her feet like a middle schooler with a first crush. It was ridiculous that the bare minimum acknowledgement from Rei could get the butterflies in her stomach swirling. It was deeply unfair.

She set her alarms for the next morning in case she did pass out for the night. It occurred to her that it was entirely heartless for the upperclassmen to schedule this "team bonding" to happen right after their first practice, knowing full well they also had practice the next morning.

Minako hadn't thought at all about tomorrow's practice during the competition, but she realized now that the true test of strength would come tomorrow.

Gods, she hoped nobody puked again. She really didn't need the reputation of the rookie that was always throwing up. Natsuna would never let her live it down and she'd simply have to transfer schools.

Transferring wouldn't get her far enough away from her great shame, she'd have to go overseas.

She typed out one final text before scooting fully under the comforter.

MINAKO AINO [7:43 PM]:

Goodnight, Rei.

She was asleep before she could even check to see if a reply came through.

A/N: Want more? Check out my page on AO3 ( redb0w). As of this chapter going live on ff, there are 23 posted to AO3. I might also have to heavily edit them down because I'm not quite sure on the rules for smut on this site, so I might stop updating it on this website entirely.