Prompt: #06. First Meeting
Betas: None. You have been warned.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, nor am I making any money from them. I merely borrow them from time to time.
Rating: G
Notes: Cross-posted on my LJ.
Summary: To be honest, he probably wasn't the handsomest man she'd ever seen, but somehow she was just so attracted to him—she would go as far as to say, she was mesmerized by him.

~-0-~

Mesmerized

She peeked over the bush. A satisfied smile appeared on her face; if life were an anime, she'd guessed that imaginary hearts would've taken over her pupils.

Sitting behind the window was a man, perhaps in his twenties or perhaps early thirties, she couldn't really tell. He sat casually with his back against the chair as he read something from his laptop that was perched on top of the table in front of him. Long, white-blonde hair brushed his shoulders whenever he turned his head, and she had the urge to run her hands through those locks, just to see what they feel like. His suit jacket and tie were both carefully folded and placed on the chair next to him. The top three buttons of his pristine white shirt were opened, which granted her sneak peeks at his muscular chest whenever he moved, and judging from the long legs under the table, he was much taller than her.

Dear Selene, he was beyond perfect—and that wasn't something that Aino Minako said about every man she'd crossed paths with.

To be honest, he probably wasn't the handsomest man she'd ever seen, but somehow she was just so attracted to him—she would go as far as to say, she was mesmerized by him. There was just something about his calm, slightly stern face that wouldn't leave her alone. The thought of causing uncontrollable emotions to appear over those composed features became the main focus of her daydreams nowadays.

True, she had become infatuated many times, but it was different this time. She could tell.

"Minako-chan!"

She whipped her head around, looking for the cause and found her friends closing in on her. As if burned, she stood up straight, her cheeks hot.

"What are you doing?" asked Usagi.

"Erm … nothing. I thought I lost something. My henshin pen! Yes, here it is, see? Silly me," Minako explained hurriedly. "Now, should we go in for a drink?"

"I thought we were going to go shopping today?" Makoto questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Shopping, yes, but it can be after we have a drink, no?" Minako asked.

"Are you hiding something?"

The suspicion on Rei's face almost made Minako balk inwardly. Thankfully, Minako wasn't an aspiring actress for nothing.

With an exaggerated laugh and flamboyant wave of her hand, she said, "Of course not! Let's go inside."

Without waiting for her friends' confirmation and completely ignoring how they weren't the least bit convinced, she grabbed Ami and Usagi and hurried into the coffee shop.

After being seated at one of the booths (she insisted to the waitress that she wanted a seat near the window), she gave each and every one of her friends a brilliant smile.

"Let's see what I'll have today," she announced as she picked up the menu and pretended to read over the contents.

She glanced to the right and found, much to her pleasure, how much closer she was to the handsome man. She wondered how he would look like with a smile on his face.

Another mission for daydream session: Be the one to make him smile.

Without warning, the menu was snatched from her hands. She glanced up in shock and found Rei's eyes now trained on the man.

"Aha," Rei said softly. "I knew something was going on."

"Well, I can't say I blame her. He is very handsome," Makoto spoke up with a nod of her head.

"That's no excuse for springing this on us," Rei said. With a smile, she added, "She could've just told us from the beginning that she'd found another victim."

"Hey!" Minako protested, now thankful that the booth was far away enough so that the gorgeous man couldn't hear their conversation.

"Did you talk to him before?" Usagi asked.

The bubbly tone of her voice made Minako scared.

"N-no," she stuttered, taken aback. "Usagi-chan—"

However, it was much too late. Her Princess was already halfway there.

~-0-~

Bessho Kiyoshi was just getting ready to put his work away when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. When he glanced upwards, a look of astonishment appeared on his face.

"Hello!" Although her greeting was filled with enthusiasm, no words followed. Instead, she scratched the back of her head in a rather sheepish way. "Er—"

"Usagi-chan!"

A hand extended and grabbed Usagi, pulling her backwards. The owner of the hand was another young lady, and when Kiyoshi registered her face, his eyes widened. If Zachariah saw him, Kiyoshi was sure he'd have a field day.

"Minako-chan—" Usagi protested.

"What do you think you're doing?" Minako hissed.

"I was going to ask for his name," Usagi said, "until you stopped me."

"That wouldn't seem weird or stalkerish at all," Minako whispered, though Kiyoshi's well-trained ears hardly missed it at all.

"Usako?"

The two girls turned around, nearly identical looks of surprise on their faces.

"Oh, Kiyoshi, you're already here," Mamoru said with some difficulty as Usagi bear-hugged him.

"Why are you here, Mamo-chan?" Usagi asked, finally releasing him.

"I was meeting with my friend," Mamoru replied, gesturing towards Kiyoshi.

"Oh, so his name is Kiyoshi," Usagi murmured to herself, sneaking a glance at Minako who glared back at her.

"Usako …" Mamoru said a bit warily.

"I'll tell you later," Usagi whispered.

Mamoru laughed and touched Usagi's face gently, the fondness he had for his girlfriend apparent.

"So do you want to join me and Kiyoshi?" he asked.

"Sur—"

"We have to get going now!" Minako said loudly, successfully stopping Usagi's words. "We have some girl things to talk about and I'm sure you two have some boy things to talk about. Nice seeing you, Mamoru-san."

Minako's eyes met with Kiyoshi's momentarily, and she quickly averted them again out of shyness. Ignoring Usagi's objections, Minako pulled her towards a table not too far from where Kiyoshi was sitting, all the while squabbling over something that got swallowed by distance and other sounds inside the coffee shop.

Mamoru sat down, but before they could say anything, the waitress came over. While Mamoru ordered his usual coffee, Kiyoshi spent the time clearing the table of his work papers.

"Sorry about that," Mamoru apologized, once the waitress left.

Kiyoshi shook his head. "There's nothing to apologize about." He allowed his eyes to travel over to the table where the girls were sitting at. "They don't remember anything anyway."

The melancholy in his voice was too much for his liking, and he almost wished that his Prince wouldn't notice it.

But of course Mamoru didn't miss it.

"I could talk to them about it," Mamoru offered.

"No," Kiyoshi—formerly known as Kunzite—said, snapping his eyes back towards Mamoru. "That would be unwise, your Highness."

"Mamoru," his Prince corrected.

"Mamoru-san," Kiyoshi repeated.

"They'll have to know one day," Mamoru pointed out with a frown on his forehead. "You can't expect—Once Crystal Tokyo is here, they'll find out. You can't expect to stay, I quote, 'out of their way' forever. The way I see it, you're not even in their way. In fact, if there's a new enemy, you'll be an asset to the team."

The waitress came back with Mamoru's coffee, and after placing it on the table, she left.

"Still naïve," Kiyoshi murmured.

"I resent that."

"We won't be an asset as long as they feel that we're their enemy," Kiyoshi said.

"Which is why I'll explain everything to them. It's not your fault that you were brainwashed, and you happen to remember that I was brainwashed this lifetime, too, don't you? It's not the biggest crime in the universe."

"You're different," Kiyoshi said.

"How am I different?" Mamoru was now looking at him with that stubborn look Kiyoshi knew all too well.

"You never killed your Princess, the person you loved," Kiyoshi said.

"I nearly did," Mamoru countered.

"That doesn't count."

"How doesn't that count?" Mamoru demanded.

It was only when Kiyoshi glanced warningly over at the other table that Mamoru visibly reined his temper back in.

"How doesn't that count?" Mamoru asked, this time in a much lower voice. "If she hadn't fought back, if she wasn't that strong, I would've killed her without a second thought. How is that different from what you've done?"

"You still do not have her blood on your hands," Kiyoshi said through gritted teeth.

"Minako-chan doesn't remember that," Mamoru said, almost triumphantly.

"It doesn't matter. She'll already hate me for what I've done this lifetime. When she remembers the past, she'll hate me even more."

Kiyoshi looked towards the Senshi table again. This time, his eyes met with Minako's. The beautiful blush that blossomed on her cheeks was so delicate, so endearing, that it took all of Kiyoshi's strength not to go over there and embrace her, so that no one else could see what should only belong to him.

But she no longer belonged to him. Brainwashed or not, he forfeited that privilege because of his actions.

"You know, you might want to stay away from her," Mamoru mused, obviously having seen the small interaction between the two, "but that doesn't mean you can make her do the same."

Kiyoshi didn't answer. He didn't know how to answer because he knew Mamoru was right. His Princess, his beautiful soldier from Venus was persistent, and if she was anything like the woman he had once known, she wouldn't stop until she'd made a nice and cozy home inside of his heart.

And the worst thing was, hope and anticipation took that as a cue to start breaking down his resolve to stay away from her

~-0-~