Chapter Text
“Urgh,” Makoto walks into the kitchen while running her hands along her outer thighs, smoothing out the kinks of her skin tight navy dress, “what do you think?” She stands up to her full height, offering herself up for inspection.
Fernando gives her a brief once over before polishing off the bottle of soda in his hand. “I think that’s the fourth time you’ve come downstairs to ask that question.”
She tuts, throwing her arms out and landing them on her hips, akimbo. “Well, maybe if you gave me an answer when I asked…”
“I have been.” He burps. “S’cuse me.”
Makoto rolls her eyes. “Saying my boobs look great doesn’t count. And it especially doesn’t count when you say it for every single outfit I’ve tried on.”
“You want me to lie?”
“I want you to focus on something other than my breasts.” She slips off her dark stilettos and pads her way to the cupboard, taking out a glass.
“Kinda difficult in those dresses.”
“That is no help.” She fills it with water and then turns around, leaning back against the sink so she can sip forlornly while maintaining eye contact. “What are people even supposed to wear to these things?”
“You’re thinking too hard about it.”
“That’s easy for you to say, all you have to do is decide between the vintage Tom Ford, the vintage Gucci, the Zo-ee or Zoi or however Zach’s stupid ‘zOi’ brand’s supposed to be pronounced-”
“It’s not technically his. He’s just an investor, and I think it’s meant to be ‘Sor-iah’?”
“Whatever. You have, like, three of those in black, at least.”
He walks up to her, shaking his head as he rinses out the bottle. “Not wearing a suit.”
“What do you mean you’re not wearing a suit? You have to wear a suit.” She puts down the glass. “What are you going to wear if you’re not wearing a suit?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know.” He looks down. “Probably something like this?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You are not going to a funeral in sweats.”
“Jellybean,” he says slowly, “was a goldfish.”
“That’s not the point, this is Chibi-Usa’s first real encounter with loss-”
“Is it though?” He tosses the bottle into the recycling bin. “I wasn’t there for the ‘Black Lady’ fiasco but I’ve heard the stories.”
Makoto huffs. He might have a point but so does she. “Usagi was really upset, ok? And apparently she’s planned this whole big deal over it, so, you’re not wearing sweats.”
“This ‘whole big deal’ is ridiculous.”
“She’s queen of the world and she’s letting us live like normal humans in our own house, on a different continent, ten thousand kilometres away from them. She can be as ridiculous as she likes.” She picks up her glass again. “You’re going to wear a suit.”
He takes in a breath and then uses it to emit a deep, dramatic sigh. “Fine.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” she says, referring to her outfit. “I’m going to go try on something else… maybe something a little more summery. I don’t know.” Frustrated, she begins to make her way out of the kitchen. “If you’re going to make yourself a sandwich, make me one too, please? There’s ham on the top shelf in the back, behind the kimchi.”
Nando shifts on his feet. “I wasn’t, uh… I wasn’t going to make anything,” he says.
Makoto, of course, becomes immediately suspicious.
“I mean- I was just… I can make you a sandwich. You want mustard?”
Her green eyes narrow. “If you weren’t making something, what are you doing in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you doing in the kitchen? It’s not exactly a hang-out spot.”
He scoffs. “I can stand around in the kitchen if I want.”
“Like an absolute lemon?” she asks, grinning vaguely at his ostentatiousness.
“Yes, like a lemon. It’s my house too.”
She hums in a way that clearly intends to patronise.
“What?” he demands. “I can’t get a soda?”
“You don’t drink soda unless you’re eating something.”
“That’s not true. I drink soda all the time.”
She watches him for a beat, not buying any of it and then takes in a deep sniff. She stops when she suddenly catches the scent of something, her grin dropping. She sniffs the air again, just to make sure she’s right, walking into the middle of the room.
“Timmy fall down a well again?”
She ignores the jibe. “Who exactly was at the door when I was upstairs?” She doesn’t give him a chance to answer. “I smell tamales. I smell Mrs Gonzalez’s from next door’s tomales!”
His mouth tightens into a line. “Maybe.”
“Nando!” she says, no longer finding it funny.
“What? It’s not like I was making tamales!”
Makoto scrunches her nose, utterly confused. “That’s not even-” She blinks, not understanding. “ Why would I think for a second that you would be the one making tamales? You burn pasta.”
He seems genuinely affronted. “It was one time and it was on purpose -”
“Sure it was.”
“It was, I was trying something! And I don’t know, I panicked. You seem mad.”
“Of course I’m mad,” she crosses her arms, “but it’s because you asked Mrs Gonzalez to make you secret tamales! She’s a hundred and ninety seven years old, and Rafael’s on business in Australia. She shouldn’t be doing any difficult cooking when she’s home alone.”
“Okay, first off, of course I didn’t ask her to make me any, she came by and sprung it on me, like a tasty surprise. Second, they’re not that difficult to make, I watch the same cooking shows as you,” he says when he sees she’s about to protest, “and third, she has a CareBot.”
“They only do the bare minimum. Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”
“How could I? You were busy trying on clothes for the fish funeral and she only came by for a minute.”
“Be right there,” he said as he made his way into the kitchen.
“Mr Fernando?”
Nando immediately recognised the sweet, feeble warble of his most elderly neighbour. “Tia?” he asked, only briefly glancing at the inbuilt camera and pressing the button to open the doors quickly. “Everything alright?”
The screen and metal doors slid back in unison to reveal a tiny old lady with an oversized plate barely covered in silver foil.
Seeing her struggling to keep it upright he reached out. “Let me take those for you. Won’t you come in?”
“Oh, no. I’m just stopping by to drop those off. Thank you, Mr Fernando.”
“Nando please,” he said, placing them on the kitchen counter, “you’ve known me since I was born.”
“You weren’t one of those great Kings back then.”
He smiled at the compliment. “I don’t think I’m so great now.”
“Oh, Mr Fernando,” she sighed, “you mustn’t think that way. It’s not your fault.”
“Tia?” he asked, confused.
“I heard about the tragedy that’s befallen your family.”
He looked up from peeking under the foil. “The what now?”
“Yes,” she said gravely, “the loss of a loved one is a great wound to the heart.”
There was clearly a misunderstanding, the food must have been for someone else. “Tia Paula-”
“Oh, I remember young Jim Beam-”
Nando frowned. ‘Jim Beam?’ It dawned on him. “Uh…”
“-running around in your yard all those years ago.”
He tried his best to hide his grin. “You sure about that, Tia?”
“What was that, dear?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, so he gave her his most sincere expression. “Thank you for the tamales, it’s very thoughtful, and I’ll be sure to pass on your condolences. Would you like me to accompany you home?”
“What? Oh, yes please,” she said, and then patted him lightly on his cheek, “Still so sweet. Such a shame,” she sighed, “and so young too…”
“I know, Tia Paula, I know.”
“How could you let her think that?!”
He waves off her concern. “She forgot about it by the time we got to her house and then I checked with her CareBot.”
“And?”
“It’s functioning fine, she just wanted to do something nice for us, and I for one, appreciate it.”
“Rafael’s not going to appreciate you taking advantage of his grandmother like that.”
“With the amount we’ve done for this community, he can spare some of her tamales.”
“Kind of defeats the point of living like regular people, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not like they don’t all know who we really are.”
“So when you asked your home town to treat you the same way they’ve treated you since you were a boy, you meant that in every aspect other than when you want to steal their food.”
“It’s not stealing if she gave them willingly.”
“It’s fraud.”
“Fair,” he says, and then counters it with, “but they’re delicious, so-”
“How did she even find out about the funeral? I don’t remember saying anything to her.”
That’s an easy one to answer. “It looks like it’s been leaked in the tabloids. They’ve obviously run with it in some wildly random direction, you know how it is.”
“Urgh, Jae-sung’s supposed to be on top of that kind of thing.”
“I’m guessing he’s the one who leaked it, probably thought it was hilarious,” he smiles, finding it hilarious, too.
She slips back into her stilettos. “I don’t find any of this amusing.”
“You’re just mad because you think I ate all the tamales and didn’t save you any.”
She scoffs. “I don’t- I mean that has nothing to do with this,” she says, outraged at the very idea. “I’m not petty about food like some people I know, you’re- you’re just trying to avoid the fact that you took advantage of a sweet, old- I would never- they’re tamales , it’s not like-” She gives up when it’s clear that he’s not buying any of it. “Well, did you?”
“What?” he asks, “Eat them all? Of course not. You’re my wife, I wouldn’t do you dirty like that.” He opens the fridge and pulls out a plate.
She looks at it and then at him. “There are two.”
“Yeah,” he says proudly, “one spicy pork, one cheesy bean.”
“Mrs Gonzalez never makes less than ten.”
He looks at the plate, seemingly confused as to why she isn’t happy. “This time she did.”
“Liar.”
He stands upright. “I never lie.”
Makoto’s not buying it. “How many did she make?”
“Nine.”
“Nando!”
At her frustration his face cracks into a big grin and he begins chuckling. “I’m kidding.” He goes back into the fridge, feeling like his prank has been the absolute height of comedy. “Here,” he unwraps the foil to reveal seven mini yellow pillows, stacked on top of each other.
“So all that was just to mess with me?”
“You’ve spent an hour stressing over what to wear. I figured you could use the laugh.” Seeing her face he shrugs. “Points for trying?”
She shakes her head at his antics. The presence of the tamales have gone a long way to temper her mood. “Sure.”
He knew it would. “By the way, as a reward for not eating any, I think I should get five of them and you get four.”
She picks up one of the two from the first plate and shoves it into her mouth, biting off more than half. “Mmm, deesh ish sho goog.”
“I know.”
She swallows it down and then looks at him, assessing. “If I get the fifth one, you get to wear slacks and a polo shirt to the fish funeral.”
“No deal. I’ll take the uncomfortable suit and the extra spicy pork.”
“Uh, no. I’ll take the spicy pork. If you get more tamales than me, you get the lesser ones.”
He brings out his trump card. “I’ll wear the slim fit thing I wore to your work party last month.”
“Oh,” her eyes widen at the prospect, liking the idea very much indeed, “oh, deal.”
He rolls his eyes. “You just want to ogle my ass, and at a funeral no less. Despicable.”
“It’s a goldfish so I don’t think it’s too disrespectful, and it’s only fair. You’re getting the spicy pork, after all.” She licks a piece of cheese from her finger. “You think we should bring a gift or something? Since it’s for Chibi-Usa?”
“Yeah, sure. How about a book on raising goldfish?”
Makoto snorts. “Jerk.”
“How about another goldfish, then?”
“Nando!” She’s grinning as she shoves him. “That’s even worse!”
“Why? How long does proper etiquette dictate you’re supposed to wait before you replace a fish?”
“That’s not it.”
“Then why not?” He’s deliberately being obtuse.
“You know why.”
“I don’t.”
She doesn’t want to say it, and he’s clearly goading her into it. So she takes a bite out of the tamale in his hand instead.
“Hey!”
“I don’t want us to have to go to two fish funerals in the same year,” she admits.
He picks up another tamale from the plate. “If anything,” he says, shoving the whole thing into his mouth, chewing it without breaking eye contact and then only finishing his sentence when he swallows it down, “ you’re the one insulting our queen by implying she can’t even take care of a fish.”
“You started it.” She goes to the fridge. “Want another soda?”
“Yeah. You reckon Luna might have eaten him? Dimi did say Jellybean perished under mysterious circumstances...”
Makoto’s about to protest in defence of her friend but she stops, realising he might actually have a point. “Let’s just get Chibi-Usa a plushie.”
“Better get one for Usagi, too,” he suggests, taking a bottle. “Bottoms up?”
She rolls her eyes at his terrible joke. “Don’t quit your day job,” she says and clinks her soda with his.