"Rei?"
She sat up abruptly, cursing her bad luck that he was already back, and the mattress springs groaned a creaky protest. Tripping her way from one end of the room to the other, she groped blindly in her closet for a suitable Instrument of Disguise. The minute she shoved the badly-crushed, plaid-patterned cap on her hand, she yanked it off again with a groan.
"Rei, are you there?" His voice was closer now, and still in a state of panicked rush, she threw the maltreated hat back into the black hole of her closet, where it was possible for things to be swallowed up and not reemerge for years.
Dragging her hands through her hair in a misguided attempt to straighten it, Rei held back a scream when, for one horrible instant, she thought her hands had gotten stuck in a particularly stubborn tangle. As it was, the vicious curse she had muttered had been heard.
In an amused voice, Jadeite said, "So you are home. Why didn't you answer me?"
Just as she succeeded in releasing her hands, she heard the doorknob turning and threw herself into a chair. Looking up pleasantly as he entered, she replied, "Oh, were you calling me? I didn't hear you."
Frowning, he started towards her and then stopped in his tracks when a change registered in his mind. "You cut your hair."
Jadeite had actually spoken in a perfectly normal, somewhat surprised tone of voice, but to Rei, it sounded like he had announced her doom. Springing out of the chair, she demanded, "And what's wrong with that? It's my hair, isn't it?"
"Uh...sure," he answered cautiously, resisting the urge to inch out of the room. Instead, he cleared a messy pile of manga scattered across the bed that had undoubtedly been left there by Usagi.
From that vantage point, he regarded her intently, taking a second look at her new haircut. She was missing about two feet of her hair, having hacked off the shining waves that had reached past waist-level so that the remainder just touched her shoulders. It wasn't actually a bad look for her, he mused, although saying that he had been surprised was an understatement. He recalled that the odds of her ever cutting her hair had been calculated in the Silver Millennium by Ami, who had announced to all that they were about seven million, forty-nine thousand, two hundred thirty-seven to one. She still refused to acknowledge that this meant the likelihood of the event happening was, in less strict terms, zero.
Slightly mollified (or no longer freaking out), Rei continued, "Anyway, it's just hair."
"Right. Just hair," he repeated obediently.
"And it takes much less time to wash this way."
"I'm sure it does."
She whirled around in agonized frustration. "Will you stop agreeing with me?! Say something normal, like ‘I can't believe you cut your hair!'"
He wasn't sure if that would further his chances of survival much. "If it bothers you that much," he said, holding his arms out to her, "we won't talk about it again."
‘Yeah, like hell we won't,' he thought to himself.
"Good."
‘Oh.'
Rei walked over to him and sat down on his lap instead of the spot on the bed he had indicated. Before he could say anything else, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, gauging his startled reaction before he responded to the kiss. His clear-eyed smiles and easygoing acceptance of her prickly temperament had gone a long way to filling the emotional void inside her, and she pressed her cheek against his shoulder as he tightened his arms around her.
"Rei, why did you cut your hair?"
Damn. Attempt to foil uncomfortable questions: failed. She knew she was really in trouble when the typical male fascination with long legs and kisses no longer deterred his concern for her. Fine, then. She hoped his legs went numb from her weight – not that she was by any standards heavy, of course. Of course.
"What, you don't like it?" She watched his face as he talked with innocent-looking eyes, registering first the confusion and eventual alarm that sped across his pretty features.
He remained silent as he surveyed the effect of the inky-black tresses that whispered silkily against her shoulders with every slight movement. That heavy cloak of hair had always been Rei's trademark, and without it, she looked less like a scrawny waif with those lamplike purple eyes shining out from her pale skin. However, with less hair, she seemed more vulnerable and unsure of herself with him, even though the hints of lively temper still simmered below the surface.
"Long hair, short hair, or no hair, beloved, you will always be who you are. But I want to know why you cut it."
She reached for his hand, twining her slenderer fingers with his and idly thinking that she had a lasting preoccupation with his hands. Leaning her head against his shoulder, she said softly, "It was time for a change. The battles are becoming more dangerous, and I can't manage with all that hair getting in my way."
As he tilted her chin up so he could see her face, and the sorrow that wandered across it, and the new vulnerability, he held her closer.
"Last time... I have never seem Ami so upset in my life, and the only other time she was that frightened was when we were at D-point, facing Beryl."
Jadeite's jaw clenched as he thought of that battle. They had all been there but seemed powerless against their foe; attempting to divert the enemy's attention from Usagi and Mamoru, Zoisite had been struck by a shock blast and hurled several dozen feet through the air until he had impacted a glass window flying about fifty miles per hour.
As it had been the window of a fairly old building, the glass had not been shatterproof, and Zoisite, lying barely conscious inside the musty room, had been pouring blood all over the place. The mental image shook him, as did the tearing emotion he had felt. As much as he and Zoisite fought over trivial and sometimes more serious matters, he had never contemplated the possibility that he could lose his comrade. And that meant he could lose any of the others...or Rei.
‘What can you do,' he thought, ‘when you get to the point where your attacks are no longer effective and you just can't win?' Since he didn't have an answer, he just held onto her as she pressed herself further into his embrace, the wispy strands of newly-cut hair brushing softly across her face.
Serendipity (Mako/Neph Ficathon)
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