Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, I don't own Sailor Moon characters, and I am not sing said characters for profit (so if you paid to read this, you've been duped).

A/N: Okay, so a couple of notices here:

(1) I'm usually not a fan of changing the generals' names in fanfiction, but, in all reality, there is really no chance in hell of four guys becoming friends and all happening to have names corresponding to minerals. It doesn't happen. So, for AU purposes, I gave them normal-people-names. It's pretty clear who's who—the first initials are the same, so you can keep track.

(2) You may notice that I left out any references to Japanese culture in this, westernizing the scene. That is because, to be completely honest, it's the western hemisphere of the world that I'm familiar with, and I didn't want to mess up my Japanese social references. I hope you can enjoy the story, anyway.

(3) The T rating is for language. Nothing more. What can I say, I'm paranoid?

(4) Sorry I'm so long-winded.

Anyway, on to the story:

Awkward

It was getting out of hand.

After all, it was one thing to wear nice, subtle scents, like "cotton" or "rain". It was one thing to occasionally put peppermint leaves in her drawers, since she enjoyed the sharp, clear sensation the scent brought. It was one thing to listen to Mina's tips about hair, and makeup, and even occasionally clothing.

This, however, was quite another thing.

And it was really getting out of hand.

When Mina had said that Ami should borrow some of the new perfume she had bought with Serena, Ami had put up minimal resistance. One simply did not argue with Mina on matters of fashion.

Looking back, Ami noted that she probably should have put up a bit more of a fight. Then again, how could she have known that she would become Mina's fragrance lab rat?

There were some scents that smelled lovely in a bakery, or an ice cream store, or a candy shop, but not on a human being.

In Ami's opinion, this was one of them.

***

She was on the other side of the coffee shop, with her long legs crossed and a certain natural loveliness that seemed to shimmer around her long angelic hair like an aura.

She was, naturally, blonde.

"Zach, buddy, you've really gotta get over this blonde complex."

"I do not have a, as you call it, blonde complex."

"Coulda fooled me." The speaker, a rather tall brown haired man, clearly didn't intend on pushing the subject.

The blue eyed man beside him didn't seem to have such restraint.

"Well, Zackie-poo, if you're so into blondes, you can always have me!" he flung his entire (manly, he would insist) frame into Zach's lap, flinging his arms around the other man's neck. Zach, doing what any self-respecting heterosexual male would do, proceeded to shove Jason onto the floor.

He hadn't intended on Jason's heavy death grip making him fall, and he certainly hadn't intended on bringing the entire cup of peppermint tea down with them.

Reality had never really paid any attention to Zachary Tanzan's intentions. It wasn't about to start now.

Jason toppled…

"Gah!"

…Zach followed…

"Shit!!"

…and landed on Jason…

"Ooph"

…at which point…

"Shit…"

…the pain set in.

"Oh God! Hot hothothothothot!!!!!!!"

Nick's ice water found itself soothing the blazing heat of the peppermint tea.

"Ah…"

Zach realized where he's spilled it…

"Shit."

…and decided that that wasn't really a strong enough word.

"Damn."

Nope, stonger.

"Motherfu—"

A hand closed over his mouth

"Will you please try to act like an adult? For once in your life." A sharp, quietly livid hiss of a voice emitted from a formerly-completely-stoic silver haired man.

His name was Kevin, and if he hadn't seemed quite so pissed off and there hadn't been such a mess on their hands, Zach might even have teased him for being embarrassed.

Instead, Zach proceeded to look up.

Mistake number three (or was it four?) of the day.

Every pair of eyes in the small café were focused on him and his blue eyed friend.

Including tall, leggy, and blonde over there.

Shit.

And her four giggling friends.

Double Shit.

***

"Well, that was certainly exciting for a moment." The girl who Zach had mentally referred to as "tall, leggy, and blonde" commented.

"Rather short lived, though, Mina. What a pity." A tall, solid-looking brunette replied, grinning.

The brief interlude that had so interested the two young women had been the tumbling into a heap (due to unknown causes) of two relatively attractive blonde young men and what could be inferred to be an extremely hot beverage. The situation, though causing quite a reaction from the café's patrons, had dissipated within the ten minutes after its occurrence, which, while fantastic for the embarrassed young men, made life altogether boring for the five women who sat across the room.

This meant that they were back to their old form of entertainment.

Which is how Mina Aino and Lita Kino ended up listening to two of their dearest friends arguing about the merits of men's hair colors. (Said friends had a wide range of argumentation, from politics to clothing to technology. Today's just happened to be a rather shallow subject matter.)

"Dammit Serena! Why can't you just realize when you're wrong!"

"Just because I think that blonde men are utterly unattractive doesn't mean that I'm wrong! You…you…meenie-face!"

"Meenie-face?! What kind of insult is that!?"

"A…a…an extremely correct one!!" Serena then added thoughtfully, "So there."

"Yeah, well—!"

The last girl of the five, a petite young lady dressed comfortably in jeans, with a blue t-shirt and even bluer eyes, was far too busy reading to pay much attention to the argument. Well, she seemed to be far too busy reading, she was actually just doing her best to figure out if she still smelled of the terrible perfume that Mina had forced onto her earlier.

She was coming to realize that it is very, very hard to smell oneself objectively, and it was making her a touch peeved.

"I need coffee." She interjected her excuse into the conversation, standing abruptly beginning towards the ordering area.

She had walked no further than two steps before she found herself assaulted by a pigtailed bundle of joyful energy.

"Ami! Are you finally out of book land? Because you simply have to explain to Rei that dark-haired guys are just so much better than blondes. I mean, I know I'm kind of biased what with Darien and all, but that can be overlooked because…"

Ami smiled, and (knowing that it was useless not to answer), muttered something about tall, dark, and handsome being perfectly fine, but having nothing against blondes at all.

As she walked towards the counter, Ami allowed herself a moment to be pleased at her diplomacy, before turning her mind back to the problem at hand:

First of all, did she still smell like The Candy Corner, and, second of all, how many cups of extremely strong coffee would it take to mask whatever smell was left?

***

Zachary Tanzan was, overall, an extremely intelligent guy. Enough so that he would often learn from his mistakes, and he would make a conscious effort to take preventative measures so he would not make the same errors again.

Right now, though, he was a bit stuck.

Preventative measure number one was obvious: stay away from Jason. At all costs. Unluckily, considering the two were cousins, this was a very hard thing to do. So, preventative measure number one, foiled.

Preventative measure number two was to leave the café immediately, but Zach couldn't bring himself to do that. Particularly because he knew that Jason and Nick had a bet going on whether or not he could get the blonde girl's number by the end of the day, and Zach really wanted to see Jason (who had bet against him) lose. Therefore, Preventative measure number two was foiled.

Then there was preventative measure number three, which was to avoid hot beverages of all kinds (particularly peppermint tea) for the next few hours. However, Zach was somewhat addicted to said peppermint tea, and his cravings succeeded in foiling preventative measure number three.

So, Zach thought as he gathered his (second) peppermint tea from the lady behind the counter, that left option four: stick around, talk to Jason, drink peppermint tea, and trust to the fact that it would be utterly improbably for him to do two exceptionally stupid things in one day.

It was a mark of his intelligence that Zach was fully aware of just how much of a longshot it was.

His impending doom of embarrassment was a considerably upsetting subject, so Zach decided to put it away in favor of a far nicer one.

Like blondes.

He didn't really know where his fixation with them had started. Maybe it was tied into the fact that he had always liked the color yellow…yes that may be it…

He had even painted his room yellow; despite his cousin-and-roommate's extreme disagreement with the color choice (Jason often used the room color as ammunition to tease Zach about his blonde obsession).

Yes, that must be it, Zach thought as he pulled the top off of his peppermint tea, placing it on the counter so he could fix it up, I just like yellow…

***

After all, it wasn't the first time she'd ever had a severe fashion faux pas due to Mina's overenthusiastic experimenting, Ami thought, remembering the time that Mina had decided to dye Ami's hair blue. "It comes out in three washes! It can't hurt!" Mina had said.

That was three years ago, Ami remembered, blowing a strand of unnaturally-stained dark blue hair out of her face.

But, then again, she had learned to live with it. She had even become somewhat proud of her subtly unique hair.

She didn't think she could ever feel proud of this disgusting perfume she was wearing.

She had just ordered her first coffee of the evening, deciding that she'd even be happy to have coffee breath if it meant no one would smell the other scent.

Now, she moved to the little fix-up-coffee-and-other-drinks bar on the side of the room (she didn't know what it was called) to doctor her coffee (half-and half and one packet of sugar-like sweetener).

As she reached past the young man standing beside her (also fixing his drink) to grab a napkin, she was struck by a scent.

This is not surprising, since scents had been the main subject matter of her thoughts for the last few hours, but what was odd about this was that the fragrance was not that of her perfume, or of coffee, or even the smell of baked goods that often permeated the café.

No, what she smelled was most definitely peppermint.

As she pulled back (taking the napkin with her), she looked at the young man next to her, who was undoubtedly the source of the heavenly scent.

Peppermint. It freshened the mind, the senses. It helped to stimulate intelligence. Fresh, clear, clean, sharp, relaxing. It was her absolute favorite scent in the world—it always had been.

She snuck another glance at him, and decided that she had always been rather fond of blondes.

***

He had always been rather fond of blondes (Zach decided, his thoughts rather scattered and repetitive at the moment). And yellow and long legs and chocolate and blondes and...

Chocolate.

Why, pray tell, was he smelling chocolate?

Not that he minded, of course. The smell was enough to make his mouth water. But where did it come from?

He glanced around. It was certainly not coming from his drink, no, that wafted only peppermint scent. He tried to (surreptitiously) smell himself, only to find (as Ami had not long before) that it is very hard to smell oneself. But why would he smell like chocolate? He wouldn't, that's why. So it must not be him.

His eyes darted around the counter, the rest of his body suddenly motionless: pitcher of ice water in front of him? No. Bowl of sweetener packets off to his left? No. Stack of napkins between him and said bowl? No. Cup of coffee to his right? No. Pitcher of half-and-half even farther to his right? No. Girl standing behind said cup of coffee? No, that's redicu…

Wait…

Yes!

Ridiculously enough, the girl—young woman, actually, he thought as he glanced at her—had the smell of chocolate hovering around her. Not just a hint of it, either. In fact, the scent was nearly overpowering once he was fully paying attention to it.

Zach found himself struck by the thought that this here young woman must have positively rolled around in a field of chocolate to smell of it so strongly.

Still, the scent was intoxicating, and his thoughts were becoming less coherent by the moment as he lost himself in the smell.

Finally, it was just too much. He had to know. He knew it was a bit rude, but he simply had to ask; the urge, the curiosity was getting out of control. He turned to her, mouth opening to say something like "Excuse me, ma'am, but could you please clear up a small issue I'm having?" (very polite) or "Miss, you smell lovely, what are you wearing?" (very suave) or even "Why do you smell like chocolate?" (more blunt, but still to the point.)

However, he did not actually get past the "mouth opening" part, because as soon as he turned to her, he found himself faced with—not her face, not even her profile—but the bare, slender back of her neck.

His mouth closed with a (very quiet) snap. She was facing the opposite direction from him; pouring half-and-half into her coffee (she seemed to be having a problem with it).

Her hair was dark blue, he noticed.

Her hair was blue, and she still smelled excruciatingly tasty.

So Zach did what any human, male, chocolate-loving, nose-having, slightly dazed person would do.

While she struggled with the pitcher, he leaned—not to far, he thought—in to gain another whiff of heaven.

Then, quickly, purposefully, she spun around, arm moving to reach for the Sweetener. It never got there, instead falling to the counter to steady herself.

The turn had put her nose-to-nose and toe-to-toe with Zach, and he found himself noticing that her eyes—wide and surprised, right then—were very, very blue. Even bluer than her hair. Which was short. And rather clean looking. And she still smelled like chocolate. And…

Oh shit. She was looking at him.

Suddenly, all the questions had been meaning to ask flooded his mind, clamoring to get out of his mouth. His curiosity! His quest for chocolate based knowledge!

So, without any further thought, Zach opened his mouth to ask his very polite, suave, to the point question out:

"You smell delicious."

Shit. Where did that come from? Now she was looking at him with a sort of confused, skeptical, embarrassed look on her face—could someone really get all that onto their face at once?—and he knew he was going to have to say something pretty damn eloquent to avoid looking like a total creeper.

"I mean…well…not like…you know…but…well…um…"

There went eloquent. And she was still looking at him. It was making him very, very nervous.

She was very close; neither of them had moved significantly since she'd turned around. Hazily, Zach wondered why not. Still, he made no move to change the situation.

"You smell delicious."

Well done, Zachary. Really. Now you're back where you started.

"Like chocolate."

Apparently, that was not the right thing to say, because the young woman's face became rather pink, entirely taken over by embarrassment. She glanced around—trying to do anything but meet his eyes, which was hard in such close proximity.

"Oh. Yes. I-it's perfume. My friend…that is…she…I…and…it's just…terrible, isn't it?" She murmured, her voice getting quieter and quieter (and it was none to loud to begin with), making him lean even farther forward to hear.

"I don't know, I rather like it." Zach said, giving her a small smile.

Her eyes shot up to meet his once more, her eyebrows coming together with a small frown. She spoke quickly, "Really? It's a nice smell…but on a human?"

"Well, I suppose you've got a point. It is slightly odd."

"And it has a tendency make people a bit—"

"Hungry?"

"I was going to say overwhelmed, actually."

Another pause. She spoke again, her voice still rapid with—nerves, perhaps?

"You seem to have better taste, though." As soon as she finished speaking, Zach observed a mortified look to appear on her face. He felt better, knowing he wasn't the only one not in control of his mouth.

Zach replied, "But I'm not wearing anything."

"Scent-wise, that is." he clarified. "I'm wearing lots of, you know, actual things."

There was that skeptical look on her face again. It made him a bit ashamed, actually. She continued:

"I'm surprised. You smell like peppermint."

"Oh yes! I…" Now it was Zach's turn to blush and talk quickly, "…spilled some peppermint tea on myself earlier."

She didn't say anything.

Just looked at him.

Damn, he couldn't take this.

"Do you…not like peppermint?"

She looked at him, surprised, "No! No, I love it…it's…nice."

"Really?" he asked, echoing her question from earlier.

"Really. It's clear and clean and refreshing. Sharp, intelligent. Relaxing. You know," she said, looking at him, "that peppermint helps you to think clearly?"

Zach was suddenly struck by the fact that he was still standing very close to her—faces only about three inches away—and that her large blue eyes could be described precisely the same way she had just described the scent of peppermint.

***

"C'mon Mina, we don't want to keep Miss Temper waiting," Lita gestured at Rei, who was chastising Serena for taking so long to get her stuff together.

"Hold on a moment," Mina replied, scanning the room for her blue haired friend and wondering why it took so long just to get a coffee.

Her eyes caught on the slightly secluded counter where Ami was standing exceptionally (shockingly, for Ami) close to someone who was tall, attractive, and most definitely male.

Mina looked the man up and down speculatively, taking in a slender figure—almost girlish, yet somehow doubtlessly masculine—and long, curly, dark blonde hair—once again, somehow clearly male despite feminine overtones—pulled back in a low ponytail. Normally, Mina didn't really care for men with effeminate features, but this one could really pull it off.

A mischievous plan began to take hold in her mind. Her lips curled slightly at the edges.

Outward appearances were very important to Mina, to the point where, upon seeing a potential suitor for one of her friends, she immediately looked to see how attractive they were. However, she was not a shallow woman, so the young man's obvious good looks were not what made up her mind to go through with said plan.

Instead, it was the intent, slightly baffled way that his green eyes locked upon Mina's friend's face that convinced her.

The formerly tiny smile on her face was now a full blown, Cheshire-Cat-style grin.

Pulling a stray napkin off the table, she ripped off a small piece and rummaged in her purse, triumphantly pulling out a pen after a thorough search. Mina took a moment to write something on the piece of napkin with a purposeful air, then checked to make sure she had all her things. Yes, yes she did.

She got up, and began to make her way over to the counter at the side of the room.

***

If Ami Mizuno had been asked "How's your day going?" that morning, she would likely have answered "Just fine, thank you."

If she had been asked the same question about an hour ago, she would probably have put her head in her hands and groaned.

Now, should she be asked the question, she would be completely unsure how to answer, and, at the end of a relatively long thinking period, the only response she would be able to supply would be "ridiculously odd".

It had started with that blasted chocolate perfume. Then, as if the world were conspiring against her, the half-and-half pitcher wouldn't turn to the "open" setting, so she had to fight with it to get the right amount into her coffee. She didn't think she was going to get to put sweetener into it, because when she had turned around, there had been this young man who called her "delicious" and had these bright, clever green eyes and was now staring as though she were the only thing in the world…

…and, to add the most odd of all the oddnesses of the day, she wasn't quite sure that she didn't like it.

***

Zach found himself surprisingly interested in this petite young woman. For, indeed, he had noticed that she was quite petite. He had also, in the last few moments, noticed that she was wearing comfortable looking shoes (no scary heels, he admired that), that she had plain features and that her eyes held an unmistakable spark of intelligence in their depths.

He had a sneaking suspicion that it was that spark which just wouldn't let him go.

He knew he should move—then again, maybe she should move! Well, someone should move. They were standing way closer to each other than two strangers in a café should be, even if they did rather enjoy one another's fragrance.

If he were being honest with himself, though, he would admit that he didn't want to move. He liked being close enough that he could feel her warm breath on his neck, and see the flicker of emotions through her eyes, and sense the heat coming from her—

"Hey! Blue!"

Zach's speed in jumping away from the young woman was only matched by her speed in jumping away from him, both blushing profusely.

"Tall, leggy and blonde" (who had done the interrupting) didn't seem to have noticed the awkward moment she had walked into, gently bonking the blue-haired girl on the head while she chattered nonstop.

"I've called you like three times. Really, you have to pay more attention. Anyway, do you have your coffee? Because we really have to go—"

She was still talking, chattering on mindlessly, and Zach was finding her to be more annoying by the second. Whether because she had interrupted—what had she interrupted? He didn't know, but he still didn't like it—or because she was still talking, he was not sure.

Then again, it might have been the fact that she had said that they—his chocolate-smelling new friend included—had to go.

"—girls have all packed up and only all your books are left and Rei will throw a hissy fit if we don't go like now, not that I have much of a problem with—oh, is that tea?"

The blonde girl reached in between the other two, grasping the tea that had been sitting on the counter and bringing it to her lips. Zach and the blue-haired girl stared in shock as she took a sip.

"Mmm, peppermint. How lovely. Alright, you take this—" She pressed the tea into Zach's hands, being surprisingly careful that he had a good grip on the cup, "—and you, come on already. Now, as I was saying, I really don't have a problem with—" the blonde didn't seem to care if anyone was listening, making her way towards the entrance as she chattered and leaving her friend behind.

The blue-haired girl seemed to suddenly become mobile then, quickly putting a top on her coffee (forgetting to put the sweetener in) and stammering a goodbye as she avoided his eyes.

Before he could even make a move, she was gone, over at the table her friends had been sitting at and trying to juggle all her books—she had quite a few—with her new coffee.

He found himself feeling a little bit cold without her close presence, though his hands were warm. Why were his hands…?

Oh. He put his tea down on the counter—peppermint. She likes peppermint. Clear, relaxing and intelligent, like her eyes—his gaze never leaving her frantic movements around the table.

He felt the flutter of paper next to his hand, and saw a slip torn off a napkin sitting there. He looked at it quizzically, then glanced at the young blonde woman waiting at the door, remembering when she pushed his tea into his hands.

Ah! So there's where it came from. He looked back down at the paper, reading its message.

It had a name written on it: "Ami Mizuno," and ten digits, ostensibly a phone number.

Zach glanced once again at the blonde, not amazingly surprised that she had given him her number. After all, women were often attracted to him. He was, if he did say so himself, rather good looking.

What did surprise him was his sense of disappointment. Why should he feel disappointed? Only fifteen minutes ago he would have killed for the blonde woman's contact information.

Now, he couldn't keep his eyes off of her short-haired friend with the intelligent blue eyes, still packing up her books.

"Oy! Mizuno! Are you coming?" he heard the name written on the paper and his head jerked up to look at the café entrance. There, a dark haired woman looked impatiently towards the café table.

Wait…the café table…what…could it be?

Another call broke up his thoughts, this one definitely directed from the blonde woman to her chocolate-scented friend:

"Ami, come on…Ami!"

Ami.

"Coming, coming," he heard the girl mutter, confirming Zach's suspicion. He looked back down at the slip of paper, grinning from ear to ear.

Her name was Ami.

As she ran towards the entrance to join her friends, his eyes followed her. So he saw when the blue-haired girl—Ami, her name was Ami—looked back, flashing him a shy smile.

He didn't need to put in effort smile back, because he was already grinning like a madman. Tucking the napkin in his pocket, promising himself to call the number written down on it soon—very soon—he grabbed his tea and made his way back to his friends.

He wondered how his room would look in blue.

END

Concluding A/N: I love Ami/Zoi, because I love intelligent characters. Brains, in my humble opinion, are often underrated. Anyway, some of my friends and I were talking about the oddity that chocolate perfume would be, and this kind of took shape in my head. I hope you enjoyed it. Speaking of which, look for the sequel, Diaphanous, Which deals with the phone call Zach just promised himself he'd make. As usual, things don't go precisely as planned...wait! There was a plan?

Furthermore, in the universal plea of fanfic authors around the world, I beg you! Review! Consider it your good deed for the day—a few words can make one person's life just a little bit brighter!

~FB~