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"This is absolutely the dumbest idea."
"And yet, you're still coming with me."
"Yeah--why am I coming with you, again?" Minako stopped where she was and stood, arms crossed over her black tank top. Neil had requested that she dress inconspicuously, and to her that apparently meant dressing like a Mission Impossible infiltrator, in both a black tank top and leggings. Of course, a proper spy would have actual tactical gear strapped to her, rather than a novelty cat head-shaped backpack slung on her back. The backpack was black, at least. "These are the kind of hijinks you should have your actual groomsmen along for, right? I'm supposed to be getting my nails done, not standing in for your best man."
Neil held up four fingers and began to tick them off. "Kain's flight from New Zealand doesn't get in until tomorrow--which you know very well. Usagi is panicking over her responsibility as maid of honor so Mamoru's helping her out, and we both know that he's secretly thrilled to be maid of honor-by-proxy for Makoto. Jaden's sound system blew out on the way here so he has to do an emergency fix before the wedding. And Sasha won't." The last sentence required no further elaboration. Sasha won't. Nothing more to be said.
"Also," he added, "I know for a fact that Mako booked you girls in to get your nails done tomorrow. So you see, we have to do this tonight, so you don't wreck your manicure climbing over the fence."
Minako sighed longsufferingly, and hoisted her (very small, novelty) backpack. "You're lucky I like you and also want Mako to have the perfect wedding. Let's get this over with."
Neil grinned and led the way. He was not wearing black (he hardly even owned anything black), but his jeans were dark and the cartoon characters on his t-shirt were faded enough to not be overly visible in the dark.
"So what the heck is a wishing tree?" Minako asked as she followed behind. They were in one of those rare wealthy corners of Tokyo that had actual houses with fences around them and greenspace, picking their way down a side street. It was late--nearing midnight--which further increased the ridiculousness of Minako's suggestion that she should be getting her nails done at the moment. She had lots more cooing over Makoto's dress and flowers to do, but there was plenty of time left for that. Unlike Neil's groomsmen, the bridal party did not have to travel in from anywhere, so they were significantly less pressed for time.
"A wishing tree," Neil explained like he was reciting from a textbook (probably, actually, a Wikipedia page that he'd skimmed after Makoto expressed her need for such a thing), "is a tree that people leave their wishes on. You set it up at a wedding reception with slips of paper that guests can write their wishes for the couple on, and then they tie it to the tree."
"Oh, like we do at Tanabata."
Neil snap-pointed at her. "Like that. With less youma involved, hopefully."
"Come on, that was like one time."
"I'm just saying, if youma show up at our wedding, they are not getting cake." He led them down a narrow alley. How many times had he come down here before to scope this place out, that he had such a defined route already?
"So why this tree? Like, with Tanabata, people literally take a stick or a plastic tree or something and shove it in a pot and call it good. The tree itself isn't really the point."
"Because Mako and trees, right? It can't be just any tree." He paused and glanced around. Nobody else in sight. It was, after all, a residential area very late at night. "It happened a couple years ago. Mako wanted to look at some gardens in the area. There's this one that has the most beautiful tea hybrids…" He absolutely did not miss Minako's smirk at the fact that he now knew enough about roses to throw around terms like tea hybrids. "And of course there was a storm coming, we knew there was a storm coming, because Mako always knows, but we wanted to, you know…"
Minako's smirk had reached critical levels now. "Wanted to reenact her favorite romance novel and have wild thunderstorm makeouts in the middle of a rose garden?"
"The book was called, I kid you not, Thunderous Desires."
"Nice."
"So it was late and it was dark and the rain's covering everything and we may have snuck into some wealthy businessman's garden to 'admire the flowers.' But then lightning struck."
"Because Mako."
Neil nodded. "Because Mako. And of course the lightning…"
"Hit a particular tree?"
He grinned. "Now you're getting it."
"Wait, so this all happened when you trespassed to begin with, and now you want to trespass again to steal a tree?"
"Well, I mean… yeah? Was this not what you suspected we were doing when I said to dress inconspicuously to retrieve a tree?"
"This is just an awful lot of illegality to go through for a sweet gesture. Whatever happened to the classics? Flowers, a ring, things you can get in a shop?"
Neil paused to scratch at his stubble. Mina really hoped he planned to shave before the wedding. She made a mental note to text Kain to make sure of it. "Flowers. Yeah. Like the ones she arranges all day. Or chocolates? Like the ones she comes home and practices making all night? Damn, she better not start making jewelry or I'll be completely out of ideas." He picked at a stray thread on his shirt, and Mina found herself wondering since when Neil was sheepish about expressing his feelings. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I am about to marry the most amazing woman alive. Like she has all these ambitions and dreams and she's making them happen and she is always creating things and she does so much for me, all the time, on top of that. So like, I know it's kind of a ridiculous gesture, but Mako appreciates gestures. She appreciates symbols. She cares when she gets a flower that means the right thing and she cares about a tree that reminds her of something we shared. So yeah. If I'm going to marry her, I'm going to give her a very special tree, even if I have to personally break into some rich guy's garden to do it."
Minako found that her eyebrows had arched higher and higher during the length of his speech until they were surely lost behind her bangs. He had put a lot of thought into this. As much thought as Makoto did, when she baked something special with one of her friends in mind, or when she assembled a bouquet. She snorted, and shook her head. "Goddamn, you are just as much of a romantic sap as she is. You're both going to be even more insufferably cute once you get hitched, aren't you?"
He grinned in return. "If we aren't still grossing out every one of our friends after we're married, then what's the point even?"
She started walking again, giving him a friendly punch to the abdomen as she passed. "We better move, loverboy. You've got a tree to steal."
The wrought iron fence was easy enough for two superpowered warriors to scale. Minako even added a little flip to her vault over it, just to be a showoff. She glanced around the garden. With all the trees, and the lights of the house off, it was actually quite dark here. They paused in the corner of the yard, where the brush was thick enough to keep them hidden from the house. The area was thick with the smell of roses. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Okay, where's this tree? And are you planning to like, chainsaw this thing? Because I think maybe people will notice that."
"I brought a perfectly respectable manual saw and we don't need the entire tree. Just a branch. There's one that was hanging off pretty loosely last I checked."
"Okay well hurry up before we get arrested. I'll stand guard or whatever it is you actually brought me to do here."
"I brought you for your outstanding moral support and optimistic outlook."
It was too dark for him to see the gesture she made at him, but he could feel it all the same.
The seconds ticked by while Minako stood in damp grass, squinting at the house and watching Neil's shadow creep across the yard. It was times like this that she wondered where her life had taken such an odd turn to put her here. Marriage was supposed to be a perfectly normal step in an average life, wasn't it? A sign that they were all making their human lives work despite the constant call of duty and magic. Here two of her closest friends were taking that first step into something new, grasping onto that normal and beautiful and precious gift of love between them in only a few days time, and here she was, trespassing in the middle of the night to steal a tree branch. Love moves one to strange places, after all.
That warm, fuzzy thought really should have been a sign to Minako that things were about to go south. The string of hissed curses from the other side of the yard was her first clue. "Neil? What?"
"It's not here!"
"What?!"
"The tree's not here! They cut it down! I swear it was here yesterday!"
"Are you kidding me? How can theyeeeeEEEEE" Minako's whisper broke into a shriek as she was suddenly struck with something on all sides. It was cold. It was wet.
The beautiful garden came with a very expensive sprinkler system.
A light flicked on in the house's bedroom window, painting a spotlight precisely on where Minako stood. Suddenly Neil was grabbing her by the arm. "Run!"
Minako had to explain to a very polite manicurist the next morning that the reason her nails were so dirty and broken was because of all the baseball she had been playing. This earned her a look from Rei, who knew very well that Minako had not played a single game of baseball since high school. Minako looked her dead in the eye while brightly describing her home run in this fictional game. She was in too deep to abandon ship now.
A few chairs down, some of the other manicurists were cooing over Makoto's phone. Probably showing off her dress again. "It's such a lovely idea! The tree looks so unique."
"It was struck by lightning," she heard Makoto say, beaming as much as any bride could do on the day before her wedding.
Minako startled so abruptly that her own manicurist, already struggling to deal with the poor state of her nails, clucked her tongue. "Wait, the wishing tree? You got it?"
Makoto blinked across the room at her. "Oh, did Neil tell you about that? Yeah, I asked the owner about it. They planned to cut it down anyway since it was a hazard."
"You just… you just asked? And they gave it to you?"
"Well, yeah. What else was I supposed to do, break in and steal it?" She giggled. Everyone giggled. Minako, too, managed to force out a giggle.
Her phone buzzed. With the hand that was not currently being polished to sparkly pink perfection, she dug it out of her purse and saw Neil's name. "Yo turns out they just leave trees growing in city parks can you imagine? Also nobody questions it when you just walk up to one with a saw and take off a piece."