The sun shone brightly and illuminated the dining hall with its warm light. In the midst of the majestic room of wondrous white marble, a small round table stood, seating four ladies, each exquisitely clad in a color of the rainbow, leisurely having a royal breakfast.

"Oh, the excitement of it all!" The Princess Venus cheerfully declared as she absently spread butter over her bread and the side of her left hand. "It's just so wonderful to be in love!" Princess Mars delicately rested her elbows on the table and cocked her head on the back of her hand. "Why Minako-chan," she teasingly asked her beaming friend, as she twirled a strand of her long purple-streaked hair around a dainty index finger. "Do you have a new crush?"

The bubbly Princess set her messy, slippery butter knife on the side of her plate, and wagged her hand back and forth across the breakfast table. "A crush? A crush?!?" came the response, between bites of delicious buttered bread and wistful smiles. "This is the real thing, Rei-chan! I think I'm finally, really, truly in love!" she continued, licking the end of her finger free of the misplaced butter as her eyes took the shape of her fast beating heart. Beside her, a sighing Princess Jupiter clasped her hands and sighed, her gaze wandering to the infinite blue sky. "Lucky you!" she told her friend absently, resting her dainty chin on the back of her right hand. "I wonder if I'll ever find MY true love..." she asked the swirls of cottony mist that dotted the sky. The Princess Jupiter's velvety verdant eyes glistened at the fantasy of a certain auburn-haired general dressed in the rich robes of a fairy tale Prince Charming.

The inquisitive Princess Mars regarded the faint flush in her pretty friend's cheeks. "Have you ever been in love, Mako-chan?" she curiously prompted the tall princess in unusually naïve fascination. "How does it feel like?" Taking heed of the controversial question, the pre-occupied Venus and the silent Mercury promptly looked up from their jam and toast. The Princess Jupiter seemed to be quite surprised at the question popped, but wasted no time to answer as soon as she regained her composure. "Well," she began slowly, her index fingers playing with each other in a nervous dance. "I guess there were times when I felt that I was. There's absolutely no concrete way to describe how one feels when she's in love, because we all have our unique reactions to it."

This time, the next inquiry came from the slightly flushed Princess Mercury, who had been quietly eavesdropping on the fascinating new subject. "How do you know you're in love?" she whispered softly as she observed the lazy steam emanating from her teacup, as if it were the most exquisite thing in all the world.

A deafening silence fell upon the breakfast table for about five minutes. The three other princesses exchanged questioning glances in front of the Princess Mercury's down-turned head. To break the ensuing silence, Princess Venus dutifully took the floor. "Well, Ami-chan, when you're in love, you feel sort of mixed up..."

Jupiter immediately took off from where her friend lifted off. "You feel something queer in your chest, and your heart beats wildly."

"You blush whenever he's around."

"You get all giggly and stupid like Minako-chan."

"You—I HEARD THAT, KINO MAKOTO!—care for him a lot, and you're concerned about him all the time."

"You—gomenasai, Minako-chan—get the urge to stare at him all the time."

"You just feel that you like him a lot."

"You dream about him, and he dominates your thoughts all the time..."

The Princess Mars watched the energetic exchange between the two princesses with an amused eye, and caught the worried expression on Princess Mercury's face. "You know, I've never felt that way for any person ever," she admitted to the confused Mercury, taking her hand and squeezing it affectionately. "Don't be sad because it hasn't happened to you yet." Princess Mars looked gently at her friend's wide cerulean eyes as she reassured her. "Somehow you'll just know that you are in love, without any symptoms or hints to mislead you. I believe that every person has her soul mate—and that the fates have never failed in conspiring to bring a person to her other."

The Princesses Jupiter and Venus stopped short in their enumeration to listen to Princess Mars, seeming so experienced and knowledgeable about something she was supposed to know nothing about. The two pairs of eyes, one an enchanting green and one a pretty azure tone, gradually turned from wide to catty. "RRREIII-CHAAANNN..." Two suspicious friends ganged up on the raven-haired princess, meticulously searching for any hints of guilt (or love, better yet) on the beautiful face.

Meanwhile, the Princess Mercury absently excused herself from the breakfast table. Her brow furrowed innocently as she mentally checked off each of the "love symptoms" which applied to her, her dismay growing with each applicable symptom.

Kunzite shut the door slowly, a grave expression on his face. Promptly standing up, General Jadeite and Nephrite looked at him in inquiry. "He tells me it's all right," he told them simply. "He tells me to tell you that he wants to be left alone."

The serious General Kunzite wordlessly proceeded to seat himself on the grand blue velvet armchair facing the great window. The Prince Endymion, sitting up from the couch upon which he was placed, asked of his two guardians, "What is he thinking about now?"

General Jadeite, with his strong hand on his ward's chest, pushed him back down. "You better lie down, young prince," he told him, sneaking a nervous glance at the pensive Kunzite glaring out at the bright sunshine. He noted the prince's swollen eyes and the dark circles underneath them. "Something tells me that you didn't even get a wink of sleep last night."

"Hah! Can you even blame me?"

General Nephrite shook his head. "You're obviously drunk as well," he observed from the Prince's offhand remark. "Your mother will have both our heads for letting you spend such scandalous promenades with the princess of the Moon."

"'Scandalous promenades'? But Zoicite does that all the time," the prince protested weakly, his eyes getting heavier by the moment.

Jadeite chuckled. "Zoicite is not the heir to the throne of the Earth," he told the persistent Prince Endymion, taking his cape, and adding it to the capes messily draped over the upholstered sofa.

"Speaking of our most dignified general, where is he?"

Nephrite gestured to the door to Zoicite's quarters. "Sulking," he laughed good-naturedly.

"And who, may I ask, did he promenade with last night? Oh, woe is me—I must have missed the play by play account of his erotic adventures..."

Jadeite's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Strangely enough, he didn't utter a single word," he reported with a hint of a smile to the surprised Prince. "But we suspect he was with the Princess of Mercury, anyway."

"Princess Ami? The Princess Ami?" Endymion sat up with a start, seeking confirmation in disbelief. "That guy has no shame! That's a Princess he's messing with! And from what I hear, she's the hardest to get of them all!"

"You're the one to talk," bluntly countered a smiling General Nephrite.

"But I'm the Prince Endymion," he shot back heartily. The Prince went back to the comfort of lying down on the soft couch. "Anyway, this is no ordinary damsel, but a Princess he's dealing with. He can't just impregnate her, and run away. From what Usako tells me, this Princess Ami is the most reserved of them all, and he will surely cause an interplanetary scandal if he does something to her, of all people!"

"He didn't sleep with her."

The voice came from the eastern side of the room, where the thoughtful Kunzite peered beyond the glass with knitted brows. "Zoicite didn't sleep with the Princess Mercury," he continued apathetically. "He had said something to offend the princess at the party, as he tells me, and he went up to her balcony to apologize. The Princess mistook him for an intruder and hit him with an ice projectile. He was dazed and hit his head, and the Princess took him in and took care of him for the night."

The three men nodded silently as General Kunzite finished his narrative, reactions ranging from confused, to surprised, confusion at the unusual display of eager pursuit by General Zoicite, and surprise at the novel result it produced. "Are you sure he didn't, Kunzite?" Nephrite absently asked in disbelief, his brow knitted as if trying to rationalize the irrational. He was staring blankly at the platinum-blonde general, who bluntly shot back, "Are you calling me a liar?!?"

Nephrite and Endymion, more taken aback by what they had first heard than the angry tone in their irritated friend's voice, resigned to a minutes' silence. Finally, General Jadeite stood up with a smile, addressing General Kunzite with a triumphant air. "I told you he was acting quite strange, didn't I?"

Kunzite turned to look at him with a scowl. "Yes, I acknowledge that you did. You must be very happy. Now leave me alone."

   

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