12/28 (Evening) Catching Up (Minako, Rei)

[Aino Minako]

Minako pulled a sweater on over her head, shimming the material down her torso until it fit snugly into place. The palace felt slightly chilly to her that evening, and the sweater's light material was enough to keep the edge off. Minako wasn't a fan of the cold. She glanced at her bag, then decided to leave it, along with her cell phone and her planner in the room. Instead, she slipped her senshi communicator in her pocket, just in case, and headed for the door. The fewer distractions she had while meeting with Rei the better.

Minako headed for the shrine, turning down a few of the palace hallways. She left the living quarters and found a set of stairs, which she took down until she reached the right floor. She trekked down another pair of hallways and across and open courtyard before realizing that she was lost. "This place needs a directory on every floor," she muttered, backtracking toward the stairs. "Don't they usually keep a picture or something there?" A few minutes later she crossed paths with a cleaning lady and asked for directions. The woman pointed her down a different hallway and told her to keep going until it dead ended, then make a right. Minako followed the directions and after nearly making another wrong turn, finally found herself standing in front of the shrine.

She stepped inside, awed, like always, at the beauty of the place. Minako rarely practiced religion, but she still carried a respect for the kami who inhabited the shrine. All the time spent at Hikawa Shrine had probably served as exposure to the religion if anything. Minako closed her eyes for a moment and offered a silent prayer to the spirits. When she finished, she looked around for her friend. "Rei?" she called out, keeping her voice soft. "Are you here?"

[Hino Rei]

"Come in, Mina," Rei had returned from her meeting with Usagi not too long ago, after stopping in the kitchens and securing herself something for dinner that wasn't just a bit of heated broth or tea. Like the Queen, she was feeling far hungrier today and there was a nagging voice in the back of her head which told her that she probably needed to eat normally. She was beginning to hate that voice.

Either way, she'd taken enough for two in case Minako hadn't eaten yet, and if not there was a small refrigerator in the shrine kitchen where she could store leftovers. Rei set her chopsticks down against their rest as she looked up, expecting her friend.

[Aino Minako]

Minako followed Rei's voice and found her friend eating dinner. She felt her own stomach grumble slightly, but she ignored it. For some reason, she felt a twinge of nervousness at being around Rei again, which made no sense considering they'd been friends for years. Minako wondered why being away for a few months touring felt like years had passed. The only answer she could come up with, was that all the senshi, as well as Usagi, seemed on edge lately.

Minako settled down at the table across from Rei. Without thinking, she reached up with her left hand and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. "So," she began, "How have you been, Rei? How is the shrine?" <i>How is Usagi?</i> Minako hadn't seen the Queen. After her briefing with Lucan, which lasted far longer than the blonde had expected, she'd ended up taking a nap until it was time to meet with Rei.

[Hino Rei]

"It is." Rei replied carefully. She'd watched Minako enter without more than her customary nod to the other--that should have been expected, she had never been the overly exuberant type. Breaking her formality, the woman gestured with her chopsticks despite that it was a major faux pas to do so. Perhaps that would help to set Minako at ease--Rei's neglect of her table manners was deliberate, after all. Or else it could backfire as rude... Rei didn't think that it would. "Eat; there's enough for both of us." Indeed, there was even a place set for Minako should she care to use it.

Rei lifted some rice to her lips and chewed the morsel carefully. After she swallowed, took a sip of water, and cleared her throat, she said carefully: "You should check your e-mail more often, Minako."

[Aino Minako]

Minako glanced toward the chopsticks, hesitated for only a second, then picked them up. She was hungry - given the long day with Lucan, Minako hadn't managed to eat anything since the small breakfast she'd had that morning. She wondered if Lucan ever took the time to stop and eat. Or sleep. Or do anything fun. He seemed to have his brain wired to security protocol all the time.

But before she could take a bit, Rei made comment about the email. Minako set the chopsticks down, and looked up at Rei. She had felt extremely guilty at first about missing the meeting. But the more she had thought about it, the more she'd been angry that no one had picked up the telephone and simply called her room before the damn thing started or walked down to her room to get her. She'd only been a few floors away. When she replied, she tried to hide the anger she felt, but her tone was curt. "Perhaps the telephone would have been a better communication method, Rei."

[Hino Rei]

Rei's brow quirked immediately upon the blond taking a tone with her. She looked up from her food with a blank expression only true surprise could bring out of her. Then her eyes narrowed just the slightest and she tilted her head as if in question, "Funny. The last time I tried to call you about anything, much less something important, <i>someone</i> wasn't <i>answering</i> her phone."

[Aino Minako]

Minako shot Rei a nasty look. She hadn't come here to be lectured by Rei on her decisions on when to answer her phone or check her email. Minako didn't feel the need to explain to Rei that Usagi wanted one afternoon without being hounded by palace security, or that she didn't have as much time to check her email as Rei might, because she was now working two full-time jobs. Her eyes fixed directly on Rei, she forced her tone to stay flat as she spoke, "Is it just me, or did you ask me to come here so you could tell me the details about what happened with Usagi and Mamoru?"

[Hino Rei]

"I asked you here to tell you the details of something a little more important than just their breakup. If you want information on that you should really talk to Usagi, as it's more her place to tell you." Rei replied just as sharply. The priestess bristled a little, "And you know what, I think we do need to discuss your unwillingness to tell the rest of us what is going on. You could have politely picked up your phone the other day, assured us that she was fine and you were with her, and saved the rest of us a lot of worry. But instead you chose to ignore us and let us go on thinking she'd been kidnapped. Exactly what was that about, wise and gracious leader?" The last word was spat with some large amount of distaste. Leader? Hah. Minako certainly wasn't acting anything like a leader these days, so long as Rei was concerned. "I can push aside your not getting the email on time, that is understandable, but not ignoring your phone when it was something exceedingly important."

[Aino Minako]

"Since when, Rei-chan, have you suddenly decided your needs and requests were more important than Usagi's?" Minako replied snidely. "Perhaps if you and the other's had stepped up to the plate while I was gone, Usagi wouldn't have felt the need to sneak out of the palace in the first place! Did you ever think she didn't want anyone to know where she was? That I didn't answer my communicator at her request and not yours? That she's so tired of having every move she makes be done under constant watch like she's a prisoner instead of a queen? If she'd wanted you to know where she was, she'd have told you."

Her volume increased as she spoke, and her tone grew more sharp. "And I may be your leader," Minako retorted, emphasizing the word your, "but Usagi is still mine, and I still bend to her command. I expect that you would still choose to do the same, Rei."

Finally, Minako shrugged, her tone cold, "Besides, five seconds after you paged me, Haruka answered her call. Wasn't that sufficient enough for you? How the hell would you even know I was back in town to make the assumption that I was available?"

[Hino Rei]

Rei listened to all of this with an impassive face. Her jaw twitched near the end. "'my' needs and wants? No, Minako, I think not. What I'm speaking of is the duty of the senshi to know if the princess--Queen, now--is alive and well or not. No matter what you might think of the situation, Uasgi is the Queen now. She knows that she can't just run off--as you chose to ignore this point before, I'll repeat: we. thought. she. had. been. kidnapped." Rei glared at Minako,

"Did it ever occur to you that we didn't realize anything was wrong with Usagi because she chose not to tell us? That because she assumed that we, like you, wanted to do more," At this point the priestess stopped to lift her fingers into air quotes, "'important things' with our lives than be here 'mere' senshi. I had to assure her that no, I don't want to leave the castle and run about recording songs or flirting with boys or whatever it is that is so important to you outside of your senshi duties. I would rather be right here, helping her deal with the things in this life that really are important."

Rei shook her head, "No, Hakura answering wasn't sufficient for me and do you want to know why? Because there was a time when you actually seemed to understand what being our leader was about. A time when you would have trusted that all I wanted to do was make certain that Usagi was okay and I didn't need to start looking for youkai loose in the city! And if you EVER dare to accuse the rest of us as being layabouts again, I will personally wipe the floor with your arrogant, blond butt!" She really couldn't help tossing in that last bit, now shaking with the barely concealed rage Minako had managed to spark.

[Aino Minako]

Minako tried to keep herself calm as Rei was speaking. She tried to reason with herself that Rei didn't understand what life was like when people watched your every move twenty-four hours of the day, seven days a week. That she didn't understand the weight a person felt when there was always someone that needed something from you. That sometimes, when you finally found yourself away from the watchful eye of the media, your bodyguards, security, and even your friends, you relished every moment. Minako hadn't known that the senshi believed Usagi had been kidnapped, and she wondered if given what she knew about 'celebrity' life she'd have even thought of kidnapping over escape as Usagi's reason for disappearance had she been with the others that afternoon. Usagi had changed in the time Minako was gone; she'd had , but that didn't make her any less human. Usagi had become grown-up, responsible, and unselfish - traits that Sailor Moon has possessed - but that didn't mean that even someone with responsibilities didn't need time alone. "There is more to being alive than just having your heart beating," Minako whispered softly under her breath.

When Rei began attacking her life choices, Minako shot to her feet, her hands clenching into tight fists. The care she'd taken to keep her thoughts reasonable slipped away. She took a step backwards, away from the table, as though putting a measure of distance between herself and Rei might help lessen her anger. Rei had always spoken her mind, and Minako had no doubt that the priestess meant every word. "So that's what this is about? My career choices? You're going to sit here and throw in my face that I followed my dreams even though my dreams couldn't be fulfilled here?" She opened her mouth to go on, to point out that everyone else's dreams were easily fulfilled here while hers couldn't, but held back. This was between herself and Rei and not the others. She narrowed her eyes. "Thanks for finally telling me how you really feel."

[Hino Rei]

A laugh, sharp as throwing knives, shot from Rei's mouth at the blonde's arrogance. "Really? Really? Did you even listen to a word I've been saying? No. Of course you didn't. You're too self-concerned to do that. And THAT is what I really think of you, Minako. I don't know what happened to you, but ever since college you've thought of no one but yourself."

Rei stood up finally and crossed her arms before her chest. "You seem to think that the rest of us have no idea what is going on, ever. You act like you're better than us, somehow more important, more intelligent or stronger. I'm tired, Minako. I don't care if you wanted to follow your dreams--for the spirit's sakes, I've been proud of you! Until this. Until you started to neglect reasoning for your own selfish ideas. Until you handed your brain over on a silver platter. Come back when you've collected some molecule of intelligence."

[Aino Minako]

Minako glared at Rei, her own eyes showing a fire of anger that Minako felt. "You know what? You just think whatever you want, Rei. I know where my loyalties lay, and I know to what lengths I'd go for Usagi, and that's all I need. I don't need your approval and I don't care what you think. Obviously, we're done."

Minako turned on her heel and rushed from the room, unable to deal with any more of Rei's harsh accusations. So she and Rei didn't see eye to eye on everything. But Minako wasn't convinced that she'd been wrong and she certainly wasn't going to let Rei's opinions about her career change her own feelings towards being an idol. Come back? Minako wasn't planning on doing that any time soon.