The halls of the Adularia home were peaceful that night. It was the night that Zoisite, the third child of the House of Adularia, a Prince of Earth, and my much loved friend, wed the princess with the mind of a supercomputer, the firstborn daughter of the House of Mercury, Ami. The halls of Zoisite’s ancestral home were quiet, satisfactorily so after an elegant yet boisterous celebratory ball that lasted well into the night. They were quiet, peacefully so, that is, until a hyperactive blond decided to make herself known by launching an unprovoked, decidedly undignified fit of yelling and pounding on the door of my room.
A renewed attack on my door pulled me from my chair and prompted me to respond. “Minako, what have I ever done to you? If you were ever my friend, you would leave me alone.”
Having attended the ball late into the night, I did not care to deal with the energetic princess whom I had accompanied all night. Sleep tugged at me, and I momentarily closed my eyes. However, closing them served only to intensify the persistent banging on my door, so I opened them seconds later.
“Kunzite, cut this nonsense out. You’re leaving tomorrow morning, and so we have to talk, now.”
I muttered a curse and ran a hand through my hair.
“If you don’t open up in the next fifteen seconds, I have every mind to Crescent Beam your door down!”
Had this been my own residence, I wouldn’t have minded. I could have had any damage repaired with no questions asked. However, this wasn’t my home, and even if Zoisite and I weren’t on the best of terms, I didn’t want to be responsible for a maniac princess breaking down the doors of his ancestral home.
“Okay, here I go!” I heard said princess announce, a little too enthusiastically. “Venus Planet Po—”
I opened the door. Minako, wearing a yellow and orange nightgown, had her transformation wand raised above her head, the remainder of the Sailor Venus transformation formula dancing on her tongue. Humor shone in her cornflower eyes.
“That is enough,” I told her brusquely. I hoped no one else had seen her causing a commotion, though the fact that no one had heard her was by far too much to hope for.
Minako giggled and held her fingers in a victory sign, then slipped her wand back into her pocket and stepped into my room. I closed the door behind her. The sooner I sorted out whatever misunderstanding Minako had taken to her brain, the sooner she would leave me alone. “Why are you here?” I asked diplomatically.
“I think it is about time you were honest with me,” Minako replied. She glanced around the room, and as I was sitting on the only chair in the room, she seated herself on the neatly made bed.
“Kunzite, is there something going on between you and Zoisite?”
I maintained my stoic demeanor, but I couldn’t help but wonder how Minako had deciphered my behavior so accurately.
Minako continued in the silence. “You probably know Zoisite much better than I do, having worked with him for the past several months and everything, but after the wedding, you barely said more than a simple,” she imitated my voice, “‘Congratulations, Zoisite.’ Even though you kept watching him all night, you didn’t speak once to him at the ball. I want to know what is so wrong between you two that you can’t even be happy for him at his wedding.” She tried to give me a level look, but the corners of her mouth kept inching upward. I think at that point she was torn between pride in her powers of deduction and concern for my behavior toward Zoisite.
“So if you have figured out that much, what is your conclusion, O wondrous princess?”
Minako frowned, glaring at me, but did not otherwise respond to my sarcasm. “I am not sure how you Princes are, but we Guardians of Serenity have become close friends, for the most part. There are times when Rei has an obnoxious attitude and Ami distances herself by being so bookish, and I do quibble with Makoto every so often…
“Anyhow, I was thinking that maybe you and Zoisite had had a fight, like Makoto and I do now and then, but the more I thought, the less right it seemed. When I get mad at Makoto, I go out of my way to ignore her. You were watching Zoisite all night even though you avoided him. He didn’t try to approach you either, even though he talked to your other colleagues – Jadeite, Nephrite, and even Endymion.” Minako looked thoughtful. “Kunzite, what is going on between you and Zoisite?”
Why did Minako have to be so inquisitive? It was already enough that Nephrite knew, and the less people who knew, the better. Besides, what was the point of telling her about Zoisite now that he could never be mine?
“There is nothing going on, Minako. What was between Zoisite and me is a matter of the past. Now that my colleague is married, I only wish him well.”
“Then why are you acting this way? Kunzite, we never used to keep secrets between us. Do you not recall, up until merely a year ago, we used to tell each other everything important that happened in our lives? Yet in the past year, you have stopped writing and visiting me.”
“But what of yourself? I may have stopped communicating with you, but I have noticed that you have also made no effort to contact me.”
“Well I…” Minako stopped mid-protest and flushed, lowering her eyes momentarily. Her tone was noticeably lower and quieter when she again spoke. “Very well, I also have been keeping a few things from you. Forgive me. I was just…I did not know what you would think of me if I told you.”
The girl – no, lady – looked utterly miserable for a moment. “Minako…”
She refocused her attention to me, a resolute expression on her features. “Let us not keep secrets any longer, Kunzite. I have missed your friendship, and also your guidance. Perhaps you will not think well of me when you hear what I have to tell you, but I am confident that what I tell you will remain confidential, and you can trust that I also will not reveal a word of what passes between us.”
“Very well,” I said, knowing that I was honor-bound by both our ancestral alliance and our personal friendship to agree. I could trust her.
Minako stared at me for a moment, then grinned sunnily. “Okay, I will go first then. This past year, I have fallen in love. I know I have had more than my fair share of adolescent crushes, but somehow, this is different. I just…I love him so much. He is handsome, intelligent, kind, and everything I have always wanted in a husband.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Adonis, and he is a wonderful man, but a commoner. Although Mother and Father say that they will allow me to marry whomever I love, I know they will not approve of my marrying a poor commoner. That is why I have kept it a secret, because it would throw my whole house into disgrace. Not even Makoto or Ami know. I mean, they are my friends, but in such a matter, I am afraid that even they would betray me to my parents.
“Yesterday at Ami’s wedding, I realized that I cannot keep up this sort of secret relationship much longer. I will be expected to marry one day in the near future, and I am already drawing suspicion from my refusal to see any of my noble suitors anymore. But I cannot just give him up. I love him…”
She looked troubled, and I said, “And he loves you?”
She nodded with conviction. “Yes, I know he does, that he’s not simply after the royal treasury. I was disguised as a commoner when we first met, and only after I had been seeing him a few weeks did I reveal my identity. He loved me, and even when he learned of the social gap between us, little changed, save he was more careful to treat me well.” She smiled grimly. “It is driving us crazy, trying to find opportunities to meet in secret, and I am always afraid that my parents or somebody will find out.”
“Why do you not simply tell your parents that you love this Adonis and bestow some lands and titles upon him? Then you have no reason to be ashamed of your courtship.”
“I thought about doing that,” Minako said. “I just have this feeling – intuition, if you will, that my parents will not approve. They are so set on my marrying one of my noble suitors, but I do not and cannot bring myself to love any of them.”
She graced me with a smile. “I am sorry for bothering you with such troubles. At least you do not seem overly appalled, and so I am grateful, Kunzite. Please, tell me how you have fared this past year.”
Somehow, after Minako’s own confession, I found myself more willing to share my Zoisite-related troubles with her. “I too have fallen in love in recent months,” I began. I told Minako of how I had fallen for Zoisite from the beginning, how I had courted him, and how, after months of indifference from the copper-haired prince, he had finally responded in kind, rewarding my efforts with a kiss and his willing companionship. My tone turned bitter as I described how short-lived that relationship had been, and how news of his wedding had reached me. After I concluded my narrative, Minako stared at me for a speechless five seconds before lending words to express her immediate thoughts.
“You? Love Zoisite?” Minako seemed disbelieving.
“I’d rather you not look so shocked, Minako,” I said.
“Sorry,” Minako said. “But that does explain how you have been acting…” She giggled suddenly. “Won’t Ami be shocked if she finds out?”
I leveled an icy glare at her. “Minako…”
She waved me off with a laugh. “I know, I know, I was only joking. So do you think there is any chance of you getting back together with Zoisite? He does like you, does he not?”
“I believe so, but I highly doubt he would be unfaithful to his wife, even if they are married only in name.”
“That is noble of him,” Minako mused absently. Then she grinned. “Kunzite, we are not so noble, are we?”
“What do you mean?”
“Listen to my idea…”
Minako left my room half an hour later giggling to herself. I myself was in a far better mood than I had been in for weeks. This was not to say that the matter of Zoisite was laid at rest in my mind, as I still had no idea if anything would change between us, but yes, Minako’s impulsive idea certainly did have merit.
Somehow no longer tired, I began working on a guest list for the upcoming wedding.