Prompt 24:
Bah, Humbug.
“Never thought you’d come knocking,” Jun said with a slight edge to his tone. He neither invited her in nor did he even let her in the building, but rather had met her outside once he heard her voice over the intercom. Bundled up in a well worn leather jacket and dark sweatpants, he avoided looking at her directly. Instead, his eyes stared down the street or at the ground. There was a light grin on his face that was in place of an annoyed sneer. He joked again at her presence. “If you wanted to wish me a merry Christmas, you could’ve just called.”
Rei faced him without looking away, a harsh foil to his light-hearted jokes. She was still and somber. The only sign of life from her was the vapor that hung in the air as she breathed. Her violet eyes watched him with either anger or annoyance; he couldn’t tell the difference, and the tone of her voice gave him no hint either. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“One of those ‘bah humbug,’ types, huh? I should’ve known. Good thing I didn’t get my hopes up for a gift, then.”
“Very funny.” Rei licked her lips with hesitation. It was not like her to be so nervous for conversation, and she cursed herself for letting it happen to her now. “You have to come back, Jun.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t do this to them. The others need you. Mamoru needs you.”
“No,” he shot back with a scoff. “They need Jadeite, not me.”
“One in the same, Jun. Mamoru would have never given any other man this piece of jadeite, and you know it.” Rei’s hand rose from her pocket and uncurled to reveal the green stone.
Jun glared at it with a longing, his face hardening into a bitter glare before it softened behind a jovial façade once more. “He also gave me a choice. Come on, didn’t I make the one you wanted me to?”
Rei’s lips pursed into a hard line that did not stop the blonde man from talking.
“You said it yourself, Rei. I’m not allowed to just start over. I can’t just be sorry for things that I don’t remember. It’s better for me this way. Just let me leave because being involved again would be too dangerous. I hurt people, remember?”
His eyes darkened as he spoke the words, and she understood clearly the meaning behind them He was bringing up what she had said that night at the party and throwing it back in her face. Rei did not flinch. Though she had a temper, it was not wasted with pointless screaming. Her violet eyes burned with a righteous anger, however, as she rose her chin up to his challenge. “I remember.”
Jun’s coy smile flickered dangerously at her, his own temper rising. “Then why in the hell are you here?”
“Why in the hell are you running?” Rei’s question was fired back quickly and loudly, overshadowing his point with hers. Her stance held firm as her hand shoved the jadeite stone towards him again.
“I am not running.”
“You are. Making the choice to leave this life behind is one thing, but leaving the stone is just an effort to make sure it never comes to find you again. It’s not that you don’t want this life. You’re afraid of it.”
Jun’s good humor was lost now at the words. He now glared at her with a furrowed brow and grinding jaw. “I see no crime in ensuring that I will not be sought out by any of you again.”
“It’s not a crime to be a coward, even though it should be. Besides, you think returning this stupid rock is going to keep me away if I really wanted to find you? Please, spare me.”
“Why would you want to find me? You’re the one who wanted me gone!”
“I never wanted you gone, you idiot! I wanted you to earn it! Fight back against me, challenge me; show me that you deserve to be with Mamoru because you wanted it that badly! Dammit, how could I trust my friend and future rulers to a man who wouldn’t even stand up to me? I am not the scariest thing in the galaxy – don’t even say it. I’m not in the mood for your jokes.”
But Jun wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even smiling. To Rei’s surprise, his blue eyes glistened with pain. His sneer fell into an offended pout, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Wait, let me get this straight: you wanted to see if I was devoted enough for your standards? I barely met this man a month ago!”
Rei shrugged haughtily. “Time wouldn’t have made a difference. When you meet that person, you just know. Jadeite would’ve.”
“Well I’m not him,” he shook his head as he turned to walk in an angry circle. His arms flew to his side as he rounded on her once more, his finger pointed sharply at her. Jun’s eyes were dangerously close to shedding tears as he snarled at her through gritted teeth. “Everyone keeps expecting me to be him, but I’m not! Maybe Katsumi got the wrong guy.”
“No, he didn’t,” Rei spoke clearly. She took a step towards him, and the hand in which she clutched the stone rested firmly against her chest. Violet met blue as she searched his eyes, examining him for a long time before she finally closed her eyes. “You are the right man. He is a part of you but more than the same eyes or voice. I can feel Jadeite when I’m around you. Your energy is his, and you are him.” Rei’s eyes opened to reveal heavy tears that she would not shed. “I just don’t know why you’re so different now.”
“Different?” Jun tensed at the words, as if they caused him physical pain. “Gods, I don’t know how I’m supposed to act. I’ve done everything you wanted from me.”
“That’s it,” she stopped to breathe, and inhaled with a smile. “You never did what I wanted. In fact, you took great lengths to do the exact opposite of what I wanted. It always made me angry, and you enjoyed seeing me get upset. You pushed my buttons and annoyed the hell out of me, but there was never a time when you didn’t do the right thing. Your intentions were always good, even if you drove me up a wall when you acted on them. So I guess that’s why I pushed you away. I always did so long ago, but you always just came back. You never gave me what I asked for; you knew I wouldn’t ever ask for what I needed. I never thought in a million years that you would have actually done what I wanted from you.”
Jun took a deep breath after another, thinking over the words behind his blue eyes. At long last, he shook out his blonde curls and looked away. “Perhaps I’ve changed in this life, Rei. Even if I am Jadeite, I’m Jun, too. Maybe Jadeite is not coming back as he should.”
“Then I’m sorry,” Rei reached out and laid a hand on his cheek to pull his face towards her. “I’ll have to get to know Jun, but I can’t lie. I will miss Jadeite terribly. The man was a pain in the ass, but he understood me better than anyone. I’m sad to lose that.”
Rei leaned forward and placed a tempered kiss on Jun’s lips. Even he could feel the passion that was held back as she fought to keep the touch gentle and polite. She was saying goodbye to Jadeite and still giving Jun his own space. It was a strange moment that filled up both of them with irrevocable sadness. She pulled away, but immediately took his hand and placed the piece of Jadeite stone in it.
“I know that you said you were leaving,” she spoke. He was surprised to hear how steady her voice remained. “But do not do it because of me. It was wrong of me to assume that you would be the same.”
“No way,” he said, and he could not keep his voice from wavering slightly. “The others are apparently the same. There’s no way you could’ve known.”
She smiled briefly, nodded, but continued solemnly. “Do not leave them. Your Prince will need you, and so will your brothers-at-arms. Go back to them, please. I will not stand in your way again. Merry Christmas, Jun.”
“Bah humbug.” Jun joked and watched as the woman took a few steps backwards before turning on her heel and began to march. There was a disbelief that bubbled into anger that she had done all of this, especially showing up on Christmas night to do so. Yet at her final words, with the stone in his hands, he wondered why his breathing was so panicked at the sight of her walking away. She had given him what he truly wanted and promised not to get in the way. The thought of Rei not giving him a hard time somehow entertained him. Was there ever a time she had made anything easy for him? He then realized that he fought every instinct he had of Jadeite. Not because he didn’t want the same things, only because he did not want to make the same mistakes as before. It only took one more moment for his feet to start flying after her.
