Chapter Text
“Hey– weird question.”
It wasn’t uncommon for Mako to walk Ami home, even if it would double the time it took to get back to her own apartment. It was safer that way, she reasoned– Sailor Mercury was an incredibly capable Guardian to be sure, but Ami was small. Ami was nice. If in a pinch, Mako doubted Ami would use her powers to drown a man, even if he completely deserved it. Those are the reasons she gave the others, anyway. It didn’t hurt, of course, that nobody was waiting at home for her anyway.
Ami looked up from the book she was reading. Another reason Mako liked to walk her home was to make sure she didn’t get hit by a car or run into a tree. “Hmm?”
“It’s about Kunzite.”
Ami glanced back down at her book. “If you want to talk strategy–”
“No! No, not that.”
“Sorry, I’m just really… I don’t want to think about being a Sailor Guardian for a little bit. I have to get back to studying.”
“Okay.” Mako clamped her mouth shut and steered Ami around a curb.
They walked in silence for a little bit. Mako was hyper aware of the uneven clacking their shoes made on the pavement. Her legs were so much longer– to keep pace with Ami, she either had to shorten her stride or take far slower steps. There wasn’t a good way for them to walk in step– when she tried, she ended up having to do a weird little hop-step to make up the time.
Ami looked up quizzically. “Are you alright?”
“Yep, all good here.” Mako’s cheeks burned. “Just, uh, tripped.”
“You tripped?” Ami fully looked up. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, it was just a normal trip. The pavement was uneven.”
“Uh huh.” Ami raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen you trip before. You’re telling me you could do all those jumps and turns effortlessly while skating but you can’t handle a bit of uneven pavement?”
Mako crossed her arms. “Those aren’t the same and you know it.”
Ami laughed, and Mako softened immediately. It wasn’t rare for Ami to chuckle at things, although she wasn’t near as giggly as Usagi (not that anyone was). There was a specialness, though, to making her laugh without the other girls around, when it wasn’t a ‘I’m laughing so I’m not frustrated’ situation. It was light enough that Mako was glad there wasn’t a lot of traffic, or she was sure she wouldn’t have heard it at all. She focused more on walking without tripping.
“Do you feel ready for the quiz tomorrow?” Ami suddenly said.
Mako blanched. Honestly, with all the hullabaloo around Usagi being the princess, she’d completely forgotten. “What quiz was that again?”
“Stoichiometry.”
“What?”
“It’s for chemistry.”
Mako remembered now– that there was a quiz, not about the quiz itself. “Honestly, it’s been the last thing on my mind.”
“Can’t blame you with everything going on,” Ami said, which was charitable, since she was dealing with all the same things and still managed to remember and study for the chemistry quiz.
Mako sighed. “Maybe I’ll call myself out and do a makeup quiz Friday, give myself a bit more time.” That was the benefit of living alone, she supposed.
“If you do that, you can borrow my notes– here.” Ami swung her bag around and rifled through it, pulling out a thick binder which induced more rifling. She eventually isolated a few pages of meticulous handwritten notes. “Just don’t lend them to Usagi. I only have the one copy, and I’ll need them to review before the exam.”
“Well, I doubt her mom would call her out for the quiz tomorrow anyway.”
“True. But also, she’d lose it. Or stain it.” Ami handed Mako the notes gingerly, and watched carefully as Mako did not wrinkle them and put them in her own bag.
Mako laughed. “Well, I’m glad you trust that I wouldn’t do that. Thank you, Ami. You’re the best, you know that?”
Ami suddenly looked away, and Mako thought for a second her cheeks were a little pinker than they had been. Must be a trick of the lamppost light.
They were getting closer to Ami’s place now, only a block or two away. Even though she knew she’d see Ami tomorrow, Mako still had to will herself not to slow down, to stretch it out a little longer. She loved all their friends, of course. Minako was so funny and Rei was so passionate and Usagi was so silly and they were fun to hang out with– they made her laugh, they made her feel like a normal girl.
Still though, spending time, just her and Ami felt special. They complemented each other. Even though next to Ami she felt big, it didn’t bother her as much as when it was Usagi or Rei or Minako. With any of them, she was lumbering. With Ami, she was just right. Her size and strength balanced out Ami’s strategy and swiftness. It was nice.
“What were you saying earlier?” Ami asked, derailing Mako’s train of thought.
“About what?”
“About Kunzite.”
“Oh, we don’t have to– I mean, if you don’t want to talk about Guardian stuff, I totally respect that.”
“No, it’s okay. I was being… huffier than I should have been earlier. I just got tired of everyone asking me what to do earlier when we were all together.”
“I really don’t have to, it’s okay.”
“Please?” Ami turned back to fully face Mako. While the night had drained the color from her eyes, it was as if Mako could still perfectly see how blue they were, how kind. “I feel bad for being so brusque earlier.”
Mako sighed. She’d been feeling braver earlier, but she couldn’t deny the big blue eyes. “Well, it was just… something Kunzite said. About Tuxedo Mask and Zoisite’s death. I know that the Dark Kingdom doesn’t seem to have a lot of loyalty between members– you and Rei told me about how Nephrite ended up dying to his own forces– but Kunzite and Zoisite… they seemed to work together a lot more closely, protect each other. Kunzite seemed to feel real pain when Zoisite died. He blamed Tuxedo Mask, he had what looked like real grief.”
“That’s true. Is your question whether I think those feelings were real, or if I think the Dark Kingdom is incapable of those deep of emotions?”
“Not quite.” Mako tried to steel her nerves. Ami was clever. She’d draw the same comparisons Mako had– an impulsive brunet tempered and protected by a cool-headed strategist? The minute she implied what she was about to imply, Ami might… infer some other things. She was good at inference. Still though. Mako wanted to try. “Do you think that they… you know, that they were in love? Or that they had romantic-type feelings?”
Ami tilted her head to the side. “I can kind of see it. He did seem… devastated. Like he lost his most important person.”
“So you agree?” Mako looked at Ami as nonchalantly as she could. Their friends didn’t tend to talk about romance outside of a hypothetical ideal, past crushes (all of which who had been male), and Usagi’s future/past/future fated relationship with Endymion, and they certainly didn’t talk about social issues. To be fair, Mako probably wouldn’t either, if she didn’t look the way she did, act the way she did. If you were tall, broad, boyish– well, Mako had been told her entire life she didn’t seem the way a real girl seemed, that she didn’t do the things a real girl did. Kunzite and Zoisite– Mako wasn’t completely sure they were men since they seemed to be some sort of extra-dimensional space beings, but Nephrite seemed comfortable presenting as a man as Mr. Sanjouin but then again, Zoisite had pretended to be Sailor Moon… anyway, it didn’t really matter, she supposed, as the Guardians had interpreted them as men– weren’t exactly the best role models, but they were the only two individuals Mako could think of to broach this subject with Ami, and for some reason– and Mako really didn’t want to think about the reason– Mako needed to know what Ami thought.
“I can’t say I had really thought about it before,” Ami admitted, running her thumb down her jawline. “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I can see it. It was the most human emotion I’d seen from him, certainly. He seemed– well, underneath the fury and trying to kill us, of course– he seemed utterly heartbroken. And when Zoisite was still alive, he seemed to trust Kunzite with everything. Kunzite was really protective over him, really caring. He reminded me of you sometimes.”
Mako balked.
“Not in the murder ways! Just in that… he went out of his way to protect Zoisite, and even though he was so much stronger than Zoisite, he still trusted him to make his own decisions, and would step in when things got dangerous to make sure Zoisite didn’t get too hurt. That part reminds me of you.”
Mako blushed. “That’s kind of you.”
“It’s true! Mako, you’re–” Whatever Ami was going to say got caught in her throat and her eyes widened before snapping to her feet. “You’re kind as well.”
“Thank you,” Mako said. Her feet were also very interesting to look at in the moment.
They walked in silence for a bit while Mako played back what Ami said. There’d been no disgust, at least. In fact, she hadn’t mentioned the unorthodox-ness, genderwise, of their relationship at all. It was possible that Ami hadn’t noticed– for someone so smart, she could be a bit dense sometimes. Still, that she didn’t react explicitly negatively was a good sign. A twinge of relief pinged in the back of Mako’s mind; she squashed it down. When Mako looked up again, they were in front of Ami’s door.
“Thanks for walking me home,” Ami said, digging for her keys. She fished them out, but instead of using them, simply clutched them in her hands and looked up at Mako.
“Don’t mention it.”
For a second, the stillness between them grew and became almost stifling. Finally, Ami moved, rocking back on her heels.
“I better get in. If you need my help with studying later, let me know?”
“Oh, yeah, of course."
“Okay. Bye, Mako. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Ami smiled slightly and skittered inside.
Mako stayed at the door a little longer than she probably should have. If Ami’s mom wasn’t home– which she often wasn’t– maybe Ami would appreciate a nice hot meal, or maybe if she was going to stay up later, they could study now so Mako didn’t have to call herself out sick tomorrow, or, or, or–
Decidedly, Mako turned on her heels. Those were just excuses for not having to go home and no longer be at Ami’s side. She decided not to think about why it hurt.
Besides, she’d see her tomorrow.