Remember Us
Chapter One
"Something Old, Something New"

"Oooohhhhh...! I am in love! That guy over there is just soooo hunky!!!" a blonde gasped.

The brunette with a ponytail turned quickly to the young man the blonde was pointing at. She sighed too, a dreamy look appearing in her eyes. "Ooohh. I see what you mean! He looks just like my--"

"Sempai?" a raven-haired girl interjected in a bored tone. "Honestly, I don't even know why you two are always chasing after boys. Why waste your time? You should do something useful."

"Yes, Rei is right," The blue-tressed girl added, looking up from a book and adjusting her glasses. "It would be much better if you two studied more instead of boy-chasing. That way you will be sure to pass your exams."

The blonde and the brunette huffed in anger.

"What's wrong with wanting to find a great guy?" Makoto asked. "I mean, if we don't want to end up old spinsters, it doesn't mean you two have to come down on us. We're just having fun."

"Yeah, fun," Rei remarked sarcastically. "First, you try to make yourself look beautiful for some man just to get him to notice you. When he finally does, you have to keep impressing him to keep him. Finally, he dumps you for a younger, prettier girl. Sounds like real fun to me."

"Well, sooooorrrryyy!" Makoto yelled at the priestess. "Just because--"

"Please, Mako-chan, Rei-chan, don't fight," Ami interrupted, trying to defuse the argument. "We wanted to get together to have fun. Let's just drop the subject right now."

Makoto nodded and Rei turned back to watching the people in the park. Minako had been staring thoughtfully at Rei the whole time before she finally asked:

"Rei, why *don't* you like boys? I mean, you're pretty and nice and smart. I don't want to be mean, but what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. I just don't happen to like boys. I don't have time for them with my studies and working at the Shrine. But boys really don't interest me."

"Are you gay?"

Rei turned a strange shade of red, whether from anger or embarrassment, no one could tell. Ami blushed fiercely and stuck her nose in her book, trying to pretend she hadn't heard the question. Makoto didn't know whether to be shocked at Minako's boldness or laugh at Rei's reaction.

"I AM NOT HOMOSEXUAL!!!" Rei yelled. Several people nearby looked curiously in Rei's direction, and Minako fell over from the sheer force of her words. Rei took a calming breath and lowered her voice. "I will never love a man because there is only one man in the universe I will love and Kami-sama will not let me have him." Rei's words were almost a whisper at the end of her sentence, and oddly, a tear ran down her cheek. The other three girls were worried at the normally collected priestess' loss of composure.

"Rei-chan... who is he?" Makoto asked quietly, her big-sister mentality kicking in. She would make the jerk pay for hurting Rei like this.

"He is a very handsome man," she responded. Rei's voice had a strange tone to it though. "Oh, I could stare into his blue eyes forever. He is always so kind to me, though I treated him coldly at first. His name is..." Rei's eyes became unfocused as she looked deeper into her memories. They rushed in and flooded her miko mind with almost no hesitation. Rei gasped at the sensation of her mind going places that her body didn't. It was so much more different than her normal meditations. The feelings, the sensations were so real...

The others got even more worried when Rei just sat there looking as if she were staring into a place far away.

"Rei, who is he?" Makoto asked again, more forcefully, shaking Rei a little.

Rei snapped out of her trance. "Nani?"

"Rei, you were going to tell us the name of the one man you would love," Ami said gently.

"What? I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't say that, did I?" she said in a confused tone.

Minako felt like kicking herself for being so nosy. "No, of course not," she lied. Ami and Makoto swiftly looked at her and Minako shook her head slightly. "You're Hino Rei and you don't like boys. Why would you ever say that there is only one man you would love?"

Rei nodded in agreement and rubbed her temples. "Gomen nasai, minna, but I don't feel so good right now. I'm gonna take off and get some rest."

"Sure, Rei. Maybe you've been studying too hard. Sleep will make you feel better," Ami replied, throwing out a random prognosis.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Ja ne, Rei-chan!" Makoto said in a falsely cheery tone.

"Bye!" Minako called as Rei walked away.

The brunette and the blue-haired girl turned quickly on the blonde, piercing her with angry looks.

"What the heck was that about?" Makoto asked. "Why didn't you tell Rei about what she said?"

"Hey! Even I'm not that dumb!" Minako defended herself. "This guy must have hurt her real bad if Rei gets all loopy like that when she thinks about him."

Ami took off her glasses and sighed. "Minako is right. I don't know why I didn't see it before. Rei must bear very deep emotional wounds for her to withdraw like that, especially if she was with us."

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Makoto demanded. "I've never seen Rei so shaken up like that. She even cried! It makes me so angry!"

"Well," Minako replied scratching her head, "whatever we do, we have to be careful about it. We don't want Rei to get suspicious or go crazy or something. Like they say: Hemming up a clock saves a half dozen!"

Makoto and Ami exchanged looks before groaning.

"That's ‘A stitch in time saves nine.'" Ami sighed.

"Oh, yeah... well, they say it that way too..."

Ami and Makoto sweatdropped.