The Tsukino Residence.
Once a relatively modern family home, then something that looked like ground zero, and now a very modern home. Ikiko Tsukino is a very happy woman.
And of course, she has Makoto to thank for helping with the designs of the kitchen. To be honest, the matriarch of the household couldn't be more pleased.
Their final two pies are in the oven, the previous four at various stages of cooling over the spacious counterspace.
Of course, her helper isn't Usagi. That would be like asking a lawnmower to plant grass seed.
"Thank you again so much, Mako-chan." Ikiko hugs the tall brunette, years of practice effortlessly making it maternal. "You were a genius when it came to the design."
She leans back a little to see her daughter reading manga on the couch. Every so often, the small blonde would look up and shoot daggers of jealousy at them both. Wait for it.
Yep! Jealous daggers, and then pink cheeks at having been caught.
Ikiko laughs and hugs Makoto again. "You'd better go to her before she attempts matricide."
The hug is received and returned with enthusiasm, and Makoto's eyes are sparkling as she steps back. She doesn't laugh, at least. She does almost ask if she shouldn't help clean up first - a quick, querying look around the spacious kitchen nearly asks it for her - but then she looks toward the couch and catches sight of Usagi. So when she faces Ikuko again, it's simply to nod and smile.
"I will," she says cheerfully. "Thanks for letting me help with the baking. I'm really glad you're liking the kitchen!"
A brief pause to shed the flour-dusted apron she was wearing, and then Mako strolls out of the kitchen and over to where her friend is hiding behind her manga. "Usagi-chan~" She draws out the name, sing-song and playful.
Ikiko waves a hand. "It's nice having someone help who doesn't try to eat all the batter first."
And besides, cleaning up is almost therapeutic for Ikiko.
Okay, its not, it's her least favorite part of cooking. But if she doesn't shoo away Makoto, Usagi may try to...help.
Usagi looks up at Makoto, face full of So Much Innocence. "Oh! Mako-chan! Are you guys done?" She sets her manga down without putting in a bookmark. She's...been Not Reading it.
She jumps off the sofa and grabs Makoto's hand. "Come on! I'll show you my room!"
Of course, Makoto's probably seen more of it than Usagi has, but that's beside the point!
She giggles and races up the stairs, stopping at the top for Makoto. "I think someone cheated on the plans. I think my room is bigger than it was." Its a whisper and a serious nod!
Mako's seen more of the raw materials of the room, perhaps. She hasn't seen it fully-furnished and lived in. There's a great difference. "Okay, okay," she laughs, and tails Usagi up the stairs.
The whispered suspicion gets a grin and an almost completely failed attempt to look mysterious. "You think so? Hmmmm." There are people who are very good at playing mysterious. Makoto is not one of them.
Not that it matters. Maybe someone did cheat the blueprints, or maybe it's just the sense of newness. More importantly: "Are you glad to finally have your house back?"
It could also be the shade of pink on the walls, one having a bit darker shade. Or could be the way the furniture is arranged. Or it could be some combination of all three!
Or it could simply be she's forgotten how big her room had been in the first place.
Usagi leads Makoto into her room and she plops on the bed, stretching out and basically trying to roll comfort into her pores. "Oh, yes! I mean, I miss sleeping with...you know." Pink cheeks! "But my space, Mako-chan! And look! I think this bed can fit four of you! Maybe twelve of me. Two of Neph-kun."
As she speaks, she pulls at sheets and blankets, making a nice little nest in middle. In the end, she's a blanket hill with two odango poking out. "And I don't hafta keep it made!"
It's possible that Mako is blushing when Usagi mentions that 'you know.' When Usagi mentions Nephrite in the context of how many people can fit in the bed, Mako is definitely blushing. She pushes the momentary flusterment aside by coming across the room to flomp herself dramatically across the foot of the bed.
"You're right," she declares after a moment of settling. "It is pretty comfy."
A little wriggling around, until Mako is lying on her side, halfway propped up with an arm beneath her, smiling warmly at the odangos in the blanket-fort. "I'm glad," she says, not talking about the relative size or comfiness of the bed particularly.
Usagi finally unfolds herself from the fort with a gasp and a flop. "It's summer!" Technically late spring, but the temperature wants it to be summer.
Suddenly, she jerks up in bed, a suspicious look in her eyes. After a moment, eyes narrowed, she lies back down.
(Some miles away, Mamoru just jumped back as Momo lunged across the table.)
Then she's snuggling against Makoto, all happy hums and hugs. "Thank you so much for helping. I have the bestest friends ever. So lucky~!"
"Hm?" Makoto sits up a little herself when Usagi bolts upright, regarding that suspicious look with an expression of mild confusion and fainter concern. It only lasts a moment, though, and then Usagi's snuggling up against her and Mako smiles, curling her arm around her friend in return. "It's only because we love you so much," she says, trying for deadpan and - again - not really succeeding.
"Which reminds me!" she adds after a moment. "Your birthday's coming up. What kind of cake do you want?"
Usagi giggles and snuggles more, basking in the warm fuzzy bunnies of happy feelings! "I love you, too!"
Then she gasps! Her birthday's coming up! She'll be fifteen!
"Oh! Ummmm..." So many yummy flavors to choose from! Augh! "Anything! Except carrot cake. It's evil! It's cake, but...it has carrots." She looks at Makoto and scrunches up her nose. "So evil!"
This time, Makoto can't quite help but laugh. "I promise I will never try to make you eat carrot cake," she assures. "You don't need to worry about that. But, hmm... well, there's still a few weeks for me to come up with something good." One eye closes as Mako smiles playfully. "Look forward to it!"
She lets out a squeal and hugs Makoto again. "I will! MakoCakes are the best!"
She jerks a teeny bit and looks at the door, expecting her mother to be giving her the death glare. Or worse, hurt eyes!
"Just don't tell Mama!"
Then her mind makes a leap that is logical to her, but probably not to others. "Oh! I ran into Minako the other day! I totally wasn't following her or anything." Shifty eyes! "But things are better! I hope things are better with everyone, soon, too!"
"I won't say a word," Makoto promises. Far be it from her to tread on any maternal feelings - besides, if Usagi's mother also wants to make her daughter a birthday cake, then hey, two cakes!
She stills when the subject of Minako comes up, brows lifting as she processes what Usagi is saying. "Totally wasn't following... meaning, you were totally following her?" She has known Usagi this long, after all. But that's not really the concern here. Now that she thinks about it, Mako hasn't actually seen Minako since... well, D-Point.
There are some mixed feelings there, to say the least. But what Makoto says, speaking carefully, is, "I'm glad things are better with you and her. Maybe soon, she'll feel like she can talk to the rest of us a bit more."
Mmmm, two cakes!
Usagi shifts a bit in place, watching her fingers tug at her blanket. "Well, yeah, I was, but I miss her." She shrugs and feels a bit silly for what she's about to say. "I mean, it's like with all of you. A part of me is missing."
Then she looks up at Makoto with hopeful eyes. "I hope so! I think she feels...she told me she was sorry. So..."
"I know," Makoto answers the attempt to explain, soothing. Maybe it's not entirely a true thing for her to say - Usagi's feelings where Minako are concerned are something Makoto doesn't fully understand - but it's close enough to true. What's important is that these are Usagi's feelings, and Makoto doesn't feel any need to have them justified to her.
And Minako told Usagi she was sorry. Mako considers that for a moment. "...I don't have any idea what she's been dealing with," she admits eventually. "It's good that you two were able to talk. I'd really like it if we could all be a team one of these days, when she feels like she's ready."
Her eyes sparkle. "I know, that would be amazing!" Her mind wanders in a day dream of all of them fighting as a team. Such an amazing thought!
Then she sighs and flops on the bed.
When she looks at Makoto, there's a devious glint in her eye. "Soooo. How're things with you and Neph-kun? Hmmmmmm?"
Of course, the hue-hue-hue is heavily implied.
Makoto of course promptly blushes bright pink, hastily looking away from Usagi's devious eyes and silent hue-hue-hue. "Good!" she says, too quickly and unusually high-pitched. "Things are good. A little confusing, but--"
She catches herself with a quick shake of her head; no, no buts. "It's nice," she says instead. "It's fun. It's a little scary, but not exactly in a bad way. I mean--"
That didn't come out right either. Makoto is starting to look like maybe she wants to hide under the bed.
Usagi gives a dreamy sigh, noticing Makoto's unease but going for the more fun topic of boys rather than discomfort.
"The best kind of scary. Like a roller coaster scary. Only without the fear of slipping out and plummeting to your death."
She cannot argue with that description at all. "Yeah," Mako agrees, settling down a little and no longer looking quite so much like she's looking for an escape route, "it's kind of like that."
She lets out a breath, snuggling down. "...Actually," Makoto's breath hitches out of her in a tiny laugh, "it's kind of silly - I think maybe he and I are both a little scared of asking for too much. But I like being around him. I like being his girlfriend. I want to make him happy. You know?"
Usagi can't help it. She giggles when Makoto agrees with her.
Then she's sighing again, twelve different kinds of happy. "I do! Sometimes I still feel that way. So I try to be good!" Firm nod!
She snuggles down, as well, moving so she's laying on her side and looking at Makoto. "Even when you're having a bad day, and are grumpy, if you can make him smile just a little, your whole day is suddenly better? Like that?"
"Mm." It's a noise of agreement, and Makoto nods a little in answer to Usagi's question. "Like that."
She falls quiet for a little bit then, until in a sudden motion she rolls over onto her back and looks up at the ceiling. "Hey, Usagi-chan." She's trying to keep her voice light, but as usual Mako is not great at hiding her real feelings and it's kind of obvious that it's a conscious effort rather than true nonchalance. "It's probably none of my business, but... Ami-chan mentioned something you said, about Mamoru-niisan and Kunzite." She's blushing again, fiercely pink, which may give some clearer indications of just what involving Mamoru and Kunzite Ami found significant enough to mention.
Oh, goodness. Usagi's cheeks turn pink and she looks a bit flustered. "Well, you know." She looks at Makoto. "I'm really okay with it. I know how he feels about me, you know? And it was really important to him because he told me even though he was afraid how I'd react. And I'm understating here. He even looked terrified."
Now, at least, Makoto dares to look towards Usagi again, her expression questioning and faintly anxious. "I don't quite understand," she admits quietly, "but... you're really, really okay with it? You're not holding anything in because you want him to be happy?"
There was a time she wouldn't have even thought to worry about these things, but, well... a lot has happened, and Mako wants to be sure.
Her smile at Makoto is full of affection. "Of course I am." She tilts up her nose a bit. "Do you really think if it bothered me at all I could keep it hidden? I'm not that good of an actress!"
She shrugs and snuggles against Makoto. "And I get it, you know? It's the same as...I don't know, I just get it."
She can guess what else Ami told Makoto! "And don't worry, I'm not gonna kiss you."
"I wasn't worried about that!" Mako protests hastily, sitting up with suddenly wide eyes and waving both hands in front of her. "I mean - I didn't think you were going to. And even if you did it's not like I'd freak out. I mean--"
Frankly at this point it's not clear if Makoto herself even knows what she means. If Usagi weren't snuggled up to her, this time she really might have tried to hide under the bed or at least gone facedown so that she could hide her face against the blankets. Instead she settles for flumping back down and hugging her friend.
"...Maybe," she murmurs, face mushed into all that blonde hair for a moment as she backtracks a little to that do you really think. "I don't know. You got good at holding things in, during the Dark Kingdom stuff... I just wanted to make sure I wasn't letting anything slip by me."
A moment's pause; the breath goes out of Makoto in a sigh. "I don't get it," she admits, guity now. "But I don't really have to, as long as you do. If you're happy, and they're both happy, it's fine."
Usagi sighs. "Well, okay. It's just...sigh!" Yes, she actually says sigh. "With Ami, there was like, a billion years where I thought she'd be sad that I realized it's platonic. Talk about your emotional roller coasters!"
She fidgets a little. "I know...but between what you'd said, and its really hard to hide things from Mamo-chan... I promise, I'm really really okay with it. Like, five reallies, even."
She shifts a bit and boops her finger against Makoto's nose. "It's okay you don't, silly. And besides! Our smoochy times haven't gone down."
"Okay," Mako says, and Usagi can feel for herself how she relaxes - still not entirely at ease, maybe, but definitely convinced now, and relieved. "That's good, then."
Her nose wrinkles, a slightly delayed reaction to the nose-boop, and Mako laughs a little. "--so you and Ami-chan talked things out?" she asks, just curious now rather than anxious. "She was pretty worried, too, but I told her you'd be too busy worrying that she was upset to get upset yourself."
She nods. "We did! And you're right!" Her hand flies to her chest. "I was so worried she'd be sad! Or hurt! And even if I did feel that way and she didn't, I'd be worried she'd be worried! I'd be worried she'd feel she had to try! Oh dear!"
She frets for a long moment over what might have beens!
"Boy, I'm glad that didn't happen!"
It's automatic, the way Mako reaches to pet Usagi's hair when she starts fretting. "I'm glad, too," she agrees. "Now if we can just rescue Mamoru-niisan's alien friend from the evil space flowers and get Agera to stop being a butt, we'll all be doing pretty good."
Usagi, of course, leans into the hair petting and gives a happy hum.
Then she sighs. "Ami-chan says we need to go to the asteroid. I think she's right." Her nose scrunches up. "I hope when we do rescue him, I'm not mean to him."
Then she rolls her eyes. "And uggggg! Taka-baka! I am sooooooo disappointed in him. I totally thought he'd behave better than that."
"I didn't," Makoto says, blunt and unrepentant. A beat, then she amends: "--well, I didn't think he'd blow up that badly, but I knew he wasn't gonna take it well. That guy was a freakout waiting to happen, with all that dark energy in his system."
She reins herself in before she can continue any further in that vein, and deliberately turns her thoughts to contemplating the rest of what Usagi has said. "...so it's looking like we're gonna go into space again, huh? Well, we did go to the moon. I'm sure between Ami-chan and Neph we can make it to an asteroid and back without any problems." Good old Sailor Teleport.
She gives a happy nod! "I know we can! They're both really smart about stuff like that."
Then she lets out a wiggle and a long 'ug.' "Mako-chan its been forever are the pies cool yeeeeeeeeeet?"
A split second to catch up, and then Mako breaks out into giggles. "I don't know," she says; disengaging from Usagi in order to situp, she can't resist a playful little tickle. "Wanna go find out?"
Usagi, of course, squeals and giggles! That's cheating!
And then she perks up! "Yes! Mmmm pie!" She hops off the bed and wiggle about. "Come on come on hurry up! It's pie made by the two awesomest cooks ever! Hurry up, Mako-chan! Hurry hurry hurry!"
Smiling warmly with affection and contentment, Makoto dutifully follows Usagi up off the bed and out of the room to head downstairs in search of pie. "Okay, okay~"