title: fireflies

chapter: two

summary: Set between STC Season 2 and 3. Rei. Hotaru. Death is not an option.

disclaimer: Naoko Takeuchi owns Sailor Moon.

 

<O>

 

            It’s 9:02 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and Hotaru and Mars are sitting in the mall parking lot in the used red Honda that Rei bought a month ago.

            An employee came out just a few minutes ago to unlock the doors to the Sears they have parked in front of. Hotaru was afraid Mars would make them go into the store right then, but Mars seems just as reluctant as her to go in so quickly, and Hotaru is realizing that maybe Mars has a lot of the same thoughts she has. That maybe she doesn’t want to go into the store when they will be the only ones in there for the employees to pay attention to. That maybe the reason she agreed so quickly when Hotaru suggested they go at nine right when the store opened (“to, you know, beat the crowds,” Hotaru had explained hastily) was because she was as internally terrified as Hotaru was of encountering people in the Saturday afternoon mall rush.

            It makes Hotaru feel a little better. A little braver. Brave enough to reach for the door handle and say, “Ready?”

            Mars says nothing, just gets out of the car and falls into step with Hotaru as they walk across the mostly empty parking lot.

            Here is how the situation came about: For the weeks and weeks that the Sailor Senshi spent dragging Hotaru from one corner of the planet to another – literally the only continents they hadn’t gone to were Antarctica and Australia, which had rather disappointed Hotaru, for she would have liked to see a penguin or a kangaroo – the two of them lived out of airport gift shops and Mars’ suitcases. This provided more variety than one might think, since Rei had not only the carry-ons they wheeled from one flight to the next but also several full-sized ones that she pulled out of what appeared to be thin air but is actually, Hotaru now knows, her “Subspace pocket.” These suitcases contained clothing in both their sizes: sweaters, cargo pants, turtlenecks, waterproof parkas, flip-flips…everything except bras.

            Mars doesn’t have much of a décolletage, as Kaori-san would put it. She doesn’t have to do much more than put on a cami or tank top underneath her shirt to look presentable, so Hotaru can understand her having forgotten to pack more substantial undergarments. (Except she still isn’t entirely sure that Mars is the one who packed the suitcases, since Rei herself often seemed perplexed by some article of clothing she pulled out.) But Hotaru is not that blessed, or rather is overly blessed, and the only bra that she has (the one that she was, luckily, wearing under her pajamas the night Mars came and took her away from the senator’s house) has torn near the outermost hook and is one deep breath away from ripping altogether. If she waits any longer to replace it, she might find herself making a very strong first impression on her first day or school on Monday.

            The very thought made her moan and squish her hands against her face as though to squeeze the embarrassment out of her head. And it was with much the same pose that she had gone up to Rei the day before and mumbled from behind her hands that she needed to buy a bra.

            Mars had gotten a look on her face that Hotaru had never seen before, a startled sort of look, then slightly scared. But she had nodded her silent nod and swallowed more of the black coffee she always seems to be holding.

            Now, they walk into the Sears store and make a beeline for the women’s section. Hotaru’s shoulders are hunched as though to hide her face from any passers-by who might see them, and Mars isn’t much better as they pause before the section full of bra-filled racks.

            “Do you know what kind you need?” she mutters under her breath, barely loud enough for Hotaru to hear.

            Hotaru has never felt so awkward, so embarrassed, in her life, not even the time that shop girl had walked in on her in the changing room when she was trying on dresses for Papa’s wedding. How can she tell a Senshi that she had no idea which of these bras to try on? She has been wearing the same five generic sports bras since she first grew a chest in sixth grade two years ago. And she doesn’t see any sports bras amid these lacy, patterned things. “I…”

            “Why, hello!”

            Hotaru goes dead white. Had she been looking at Rei’s face, she would have seen it do the same. A sales representative stands beside them, already pulling a white measuring tape out of the pocket of her smart blue business coat. “Are you ladies here to be fitted?”

            “Uh – um – ”

            The woman flashes a white smile. “It’s so important to have a bra that fits! So many women walk around not knowing that the one they’re wearing aren’t the proper size – if you wear one that’s too loose or too tight, it can cause you back problems later on!” She is ushering them into the fitting rooms as she talks and then, before Hotaru can protest, into one of the stalls. “It’s a very easy process, go ahead and take your shirt off and we can measure you – ”

            Nausea  is pushing up through Hotaru’s throat. All she can think is that if she takes off her shirt this woman will see all of her scars. Her eyes dart, this way and that, a trapped animal desperate for escape.

            “Actually,” comes Mars’ voice, and the Senshi ducks, clumsily – more clumsily than Hotaru has ever seen her move, than Hotaru even thought she could move – around to stand between Hotaru and the woman. Her face is uncharacteristically red. “I came to be fitted.”

            “Oh. Oh. Well, of course! Sweetheart, if you just want to wait outside…”  And practically before Hotaru knows what has happened, she has been deposited outside the changing room stall and it has been re-locked behind her.

            “All right, here, I’ll hang that shirt up for you…” comes the saleswoman’s voice, and then a, “Well! Now, young lady, you know sports bras don’t give our breasts the support they need.”

            Hotaru, over the relieved rush of blood through her ears, hears Mars mumble something. It sounds like…but it couldn’t be…

            “A girl your age and you’ve never come for a proper fitting?” The woman tsks, and Hotaru’s eyes are wide. Mars has never shopped for bras either? “Don’t you worry, honey, we’ll get you fixed right up. You’ll be shocked by how much better you’ll look!”

 

<O>

 

            It’s 10:13 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and Rei has never been so humiliated in her life. Bad enough that she could sense the woman was laughing at her, behind all her polite shoptalk, for having her first bra fitting at seventeen, but the fact that Hotaru had been there and heard it all… Rei feels like throwing up from the shame.

            She can tell the younger girl is thinking about it as she trots across the parking lot beside Rei, swinging her bag; she feels the from-the-corner-of-her-eye glances Hotaru keeps sending at her. Rei’s hands clench around the plastic bag full of bras; she grinds her teeth –

            “Th-thank you, Rei-san!”

            “For your bras?” Or for the hilarious spectacle of my bra fitting? Rei wrenches open the driver’s side door and spits out, “You’re welcome.”

            “No, not – I mean – well, for that, too, but –” Hotaru is stumbling, both in words and steps. It makes Rei feel suddenly, unwelcomingly bad for snapping at her, which only makes her more upset. She wants to be angry. It’s better than feeling humiliated. “But – I mean – for – distracting the woman so she wouldn’t…see.”

            And there goes the anger. Rei grits her teeth, trying to summon it back. But it’s no match for the sad, bowed head a meter away from her.

            “Sorry,” she grits out. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m just – ” Her voice drops to a mutter, “embarrassed.”

            She sighs. Hotaru lifts her head the tiniest bit, peering at Rei from beneath her thick bangs, but she doesn’t say anything. Rei exhales and unlocks the car doors. She puts the key into the ignition and waits for the click of Hotaru’s seatbelt over the rustle of the shopping bags, then thinks to ask, “Did you get the ones you need?”

            “I – I think so.”

            Rei’s brows descend a little at the hesitance. “You think so?”

            “Well, I…I’m not sure exactly what size I am, but they fit…okay.”

            There is a pause. Until Hotaru, sounding almost defensive, says, “My dad – he wasn’t so good with the girl stuff. We just got sports bras and – it’s just – I didn’t want to bother him.” She finishes in a mumble, the defensiveness in her voice fading to resignation. “I didn’t want to make him think of Mom.”

            Rei doesn’t say anything for another minute. They sit there, the fir tree-shaped air freshener on the rearview mirror twisting in the hot air gusting from the vents.

            Inside, Rei’s thinking about seventh grade when her chest started changing like the other girls’. When she didn’t know what to do, and she had just moved in with grandpa and she couldn’t ask an old man about something like that, and she’d tried to wear her uniform coat in class by telling the sisters she was cold, and they’d let her, for a while, until Sister Mary got fed up and slapped her ruler on Rei’s desk and ordered her to take her coat off now. And then there had been giggles and tittering and humiliation and blinked-away tears and a phone call from Sister Mary to Grandfather that he needed to get the girl some proper attire, surely you’ve noticed she’s developing into a young lady? But Grandfather hadn’t looked at her back then, not any more than he had to, because she was Rei and not Hiotsukeru. He hadn’t looked at her when she’d gotten home from school that day either; they’d both deliberately avoided each others’ eyes, and when she got to her room there was a box sitting next to her futon, and inside it was a set of old junior high uniforms, ugly ones with rough woolen blouses and chunky-zippered skirts, and jammed beneath them as though her mother had shoved them there hastily before she ran away for the auditions that would set her on the path to celebrity, were a few bras.

            And it’s one of those that Rei’s wearing right now, still, as the pile of new bras sit in the bag next to Hotaru’s feet, and it feels too loose for the first time, like a snake skin she should have shed but is dragging along around her, like a blanket still clutched in her hand, dragging on the floor and gathering dirt.

            Rei doesn’t say any of this. She just takes her hand off the parking brake and looks across the parking lot at the mall entrance and says gruffly, “Do you want to get anything else? I don’t want you to have to go to school in clothes you don’t like.”

            Hotaru looks confused, then surprised. Then she smiles.

            Rei does, too.