"Have you ever chased a rainbow?"
Motoki craned his neck to look at her, pulling his head up from where it was pillowed beneath his arms. He winced at the awkward angle, but he always found that looking at the blonde angel currently using his chest as a (very muscular) pillow had a tendency to make him forget about that. Or at least that's what he tried to convince himself of. In reality, not even the great Aino Minako had such power, but it helped him ignore the pain.
"Have I ever what?" he questioned, not quite sure of her meaning.
She glanced up at him, her blue eyes chiding. "You know what I mean. And if you don't, then there isn’t a romantic bone in your body, in which case we are so over."
Motoki chuckled at her idle threat, leaning his head back before he remembered the ache. "Actually, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. Last I checked, rainbows were rather stationary and an optical illusion at that."
Minako scoffed. Motoki could have sworn he actually heard her roll her eyes. "Med students. You're all irritatingly logical."
"I'm afraid science has forever ruined me, my love," Motoki said, arching his back to stretch out his arms. He wasn't sure whether it was the movement or the comeback that earned him the punch in the arm. "Ow!" he whined childishly. He sat up, amused when she adjusted her position that she was resting her head in his lap, but pouting at her nonetheless. "What have I said about hitting?"
Minako stuck her tongue out at him. "Wimp."
"I prefer the term ‘sensitive,’" Motoki corrected sagely.
She gave him a look but decided to refrain from commenting. Instead, she sighed, closing her eyes to shield them from the sunlight. “Didn’t you ever do it when you were a kid? Try to follow a rainbow and see what was at the end of it?”
“Only when I heard there was a possibility of becoming rich,” Motoki said, partially to annoy her and partially because it was true.
Minako didn’t give him the satisfaction of vocalizing her vexation, but he could see it in the set of her mouth. “I used to do it all the time. Still do sometimes if I’m bored.” She paused for a minute and giggled. “I once made my dad drive me around for three and half hours trying to find the end of one. We ran out of gas and had to have Mama come and get us.”
Motoki found that utterly hilarious, partially due to the fact that he had recently had the “pleasure” of meeting Mrs. Aino. He laughed aloud at the mental image Minako’s story produced, her poor, cuckolded father trying to explain to his raging wife where he had been and why he had allowed a child to order him around like a queen.
Once the moment passed, he reached forward and smoothed her hair away from her face, smiling when she practically purred in response. “What were you hoping to find?”
Minako shrugged verbally as moving her shoulders might have been awkward. “Unicorns. Swords in stone. Goblins and witches and faeries and dragons. That sort of thing.
“Not a pot of gold?” Motoki asked.
“I was not as much of a greedy miser as you,” Minako teased.
Then she opened her eyes, suddenly very serious. Motoki found it jarring given the suddenness of it and the topic of conversation. “I’d always been told that the greatest treasure known to man could be found at the end of the rainbow. And those were the things that mattered to me. Magic and adventure.” She paused, her light hued eyes darkening to royal blue. “I was young then.”
Immediately in tune with her dimming mood, Motoki was quick to react. He bent down and kissed her on her nose, making her jump even though she’d been looking right at him. He smiled in a way that he had always been assured was adorable and said, “Well, if the greatest treasure is found at the end of the rainbow, then apparently I have been chasing rainbows.”
Minako raised an eyebrow, not following. “Eh?”
“I found you, didn’t I?”
She stared at him for a moment, blinking. Then she burst out laughing, bringing her legs up to her chest and clutching her stomach as she was wracked with hysterics. Motoki was pleased to see that she was already tearing up and trying not to so as not to ruin her mascara. Still in the middle of her fit, Minako forced out, “I think that’s the corniest thing I have ever heard you say.”
Motoki shrugged nonchalantly. “I do what I can.”
A few minutes later, she had calmed down and she was looking at him with a kind of serenity that seemed to suggest that passing moment of gloom had never been there at all. She smiled and said, “I love you for that. You know?”
“And here I thought you were just using me for utterly earth-shattering sex,” Motoki sighed, sounding disappointed.
Minako’s eyes went wicked, making him nervous. When she was wearing that look, there was about a fifty percent chance that disaster was on the horizon. The other fifty percent was much, much more enjoyable, but he always anticipated chaos for his own sanity.
She sat up quickly, pulling him towards her by the collar. He was almost kissing her when she said, “That’s just a perk of the deal, really.”
Then they did kiss and, corny as it was, Motoki really did wonder if the two of them were sitting at the end of the rainbow.
