Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Who in the hell is Mamoru Chiba anyway?

Don’t ask him, he doesn’t know. Quite literally, he doesn’t have a clue who he is. And that’s not just due to amnesia. Mamoru’s been walking around alone for long enough that he sometimes feels like he’s in a bubble, separated by some invisible film from the rest of the living, breathing world. Stuck in his own isolated universe. The fog of uncertainty and loneliness hangs around him, and he doubts there’s any light bright or strong enough to break through that haze.

It’s just, lately, he thinks maybe there’s someone out there who does know him.

He’s been seeing her in dreams. And in the dreams, she’s calling out to him, begging him for something (he isn’t quite sure what, yet). But what she’s saying isn’t important. What’s important is that she’s calling to him.

Whoever this is, she knows him. She trusts him. She’s depending on him to bring to her whatever she wants.

And he wants to deliver.

Mamoru Chiba doesn’t know who he is. But he knows who he wants to be. He wants to be the man who fulfills that request. The man Who makes her smile, who makes her eyes light up. Even though she’s lost in a dream shadow and he can barely make out her eyes or her smile.

He wakes up and sees the sunlight reflecting off red rose petals in a vase by his window, and the glimmer is brighter than any crystal.

That’s the most awake he ever feels. Coming off that dream, he feels like he’s been in another world, one where he was connected, where he cared about the people around him. Waking up is like descending back into fog.

And foggily, he walks the streets, without a destination in mind, just picking up little snatches of conversation and vague gestures from the people who mill around him, none of them noticing him or reacting to him at all. And what is there to notice? He’s nobody. He’s only somebody in his dreams.

Then, one day, a test paper flies right through his fog and beans him on the head.

And there’s an upturned hand that flung it – and the yellow of two blonde pigtails pierce through that fog like pure light. Mamoru trembles. He’s exposed. The bubble that protected him from the world is gone.

He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he goes with “pain.”

So he speaks.

“That hurt, dumpling head.”

Chapter Text

“I don’t need to play,” Rei protests.

Ami keeps smiling, her usual implacable expression. Sometimes Rei forgets it’s not Usagi begging her to play the game this time, but Ami’s used to that. “Why?” she says. “It’s fun. And we have to meet here anyway, so why not play while you’re waiting?”

“You sound like her.”

Ami giggles.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know, I know.” Ami steers Rei to the stool, pops a hundred yen into the slot. Still frowning, Rei reflexively slides her right hand over the buttons and grips the joystick with her left hand. Ami reaches between her hands to tap the start button.

On the screen, Sailor V is ready for action. Rei presses a button and she jumps. And Rei jumps too, a little. She jumps again when the other button makes Sailor V shoot out a beam of light, and her eyes widen when said beam of light wipes out a pixelated lizard that was just crossing the screen. “I did that,” she mumbles, and tries it again.

A jumping shot makes a second lizard, crawling in from above, explode in a comic-book explosion, and Rei sits up ramrod-straight, her eyes flashing. “I did it!” she says again, and her hand tightens on the joystick.

Ami leans in. “The first level is supposed to be easy,” she cautions, but Rei’s already gone.

She’s tearing through the level, muttering words of praise for herself every time she successfully makes a jump or kills an enemy. The first boss is straightforward, and Rei effortlessly dodges his predictable attacks and blasts him into oblivion. As the screen flashes “Congratulations” at her, she stands up, knocking the stool down, and declares, “Ha! Beautiful video game genius girl Rei-chan is born!”

She waits for the inevitable crowd to gather around her (it doesn’t, but in her mind, perhaps), then pulls the stool upright. Ami watches through her fingers as Rei delves into Level 2 and is shot down by the same enemy turret time and time again.

Chapter Text

I made it Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon to fit in with a bit of headcanon. Also, whenever I write an anime/manga-based story, I hear the dialogue in Japanese in my head. So it may sound stilted/translated. Sorry about that. I can’t turn it off :3

Chapter Text

She’s had too much, and she clearly needs to be stopped.

Mamoru’s south of sober himself, but his overactive Boy Scout of a mind picks her out of the crowd immediately and decides this is where it’s going to focus. She’s staggering a bit, speaking in slurred, nonsensical cooking metaphors (something about stew), and has lost all sense of spacial perception. She’s elbowing and tripping over people gaily as she makes her way through the mass of people, and Mamoru can’t help but wince in secondhand embarrassment at every bump and teeter. Finally, he reaches a breaking point and starts through the crowd toward her.

“…then you’re no good as a woman!” she’s saying, grin huge, as he reaches her. He lays a hand on her arm and she turns to him, beaming. “Oh, what’s this? You want to dance? Sure, I’ll dance with you!”

“I think you should step outside,” he says, but she’s already dancing with him, little hands planted on his upper arms as she sways to music only she can hear. What can he do? He “dances” their way toward the glass doors that lead out onto the balcony, sliding a hand down to her waist to guide her through.

“Oh, this is romantic,” she says. “Would you go get me another drink?”

Her obliviousness is grating on him a bit. “You’ve had enough, odango atama,” he says pointedly.

Now this perks her up. “My name is Usagi, not odango atama.” She pouts. “Who are you anyway? I thought you wanted to dance, not be a party pooper.”

“My bad,” he replies flatly. “But you need some air.”

She peers up at him. “You’re pretty good-looking,” she says after a moment. “But mean.”

And you’re cute, but a lush, he thinks. “Usagi-san,” he says. “Do you have any friends here? Who can take care of you?”

“Pff,” Usagi says. “Rei-chan and Ami-chan are around here somewhere. Probably looking at some hot guy.” She rises to her tiptoes, looks Mamoru in the face another minute. “No, really, you’re good-looking,” she says. “Why aren’t you dancing with your girlfriend?”

At this, he has to smile. “You needed rescuing.”

Her eyes light up. “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you? You were probably standing all alone by a wall somewhere. Maybe you needed rescuing. Fine, I’ll rescue you. I’m a friend of love and justice, you know.”

“Oh, well. In that case, thank you,” he says, openly smiling down at her now. She grins back. It must be the alcohol that sends that wave of euphoria through his head. Couldn’t be anything else. No way.

She takes several long, deep breaths, reaching for his arm to steady herself. “You know,” she says, “I think maybe I am a little drunk.”

“Just maybe,” Mamoru replies. He has an urge to pet one of those little buns that sits so perkily atop her head. “I should go try to find your friends.”

“No,” she says, and her fingers on his arm tightened. “Stay here with me.”

She leans in then, her head lolling to the side, and as her  head settles onto his shoulder he feels a deep, sweet note quaver through him. Yes, this. He wants to feel more of this. Even as she relaxes, there’s so much energy in her, and he wants to drink it in. So much life. Mamoru so often feels like his own life is a shadow, but she lives at a thousand miles per hour, talking and laughing and pouting and teasing. Being with this girl, this Usagi — Usako, his mind helpfully nicknames her — is like pulling back a curtain and letting sunlight in.

He wonders what her lips would taste like. How her warmth would feel pressed deep into his arms. But no, she’s drunk, he’s not much better, and he still barely knows her. So he’ll track down her friends, get her home safe, and then if he can find her again he’ll try not to make a terrible second impression.

But for now — just for this moment — he’ll linger on the balcony with her and breathe in the sweet night air.

It really is, as she says, pretty romantic.

Chapter Text

Usagi’s a lightweight. This she’s known for a good long while, but it doesn’t stop her, especially when there are cocktails in the mix. To the relief of most of her friends, she doesn’t much like the taste of beer, which keeps her from making too big a fool of herself at most frat parties. But Tau Kappa actually has a bartender, and he makes sea breezes and sex on the beaches, so Usagi’s glad her friends are around to help her stagger back to the Sigma Mu house once the partying is done.

And it’s a blessing that there are cocktails at Tau Kappa parties, because Usagi needs to be a little lit to deal with an evening’s worth of Mamoru Chiba.

He’s two years older than she is, a senior to her sophomore, but he’s still in her Astronomy 201 class. He started just insulting her hair, then he caught a glimpse of her god-awful score on one of the professor’s infamous pop quizzes and now he takes the piss out of her whenever he can, always laughing, never seeming to quite get that his jokes have a blade on the end of them and that she’s the one getting stuck with it. It’s not that he’s mean so much as he has the social skills of a porcupine - there may be a cute creature under all those spikes, but it’s hard to get past them to find it. Usagi herself is the very antithesis of that. She can’t imagine what it’s like to be Mamoru, and honestly, she doesn’t spend very much time trying.

Still, it’s worth dealing with Mamoru to go to a Tau Kappa party. They’re not as boring or brainless as most parties. They actually do interesting things, play games, that kind of stuff. Tonight it’s Twister. Usagi’s sipping on her sea breeze, her friends clustered around her making snide comments as big, bulky frat boys twist themselves into knots and fall down in heaps. Which they’ve just done, with a series of thuds and “oofs.”

“Ouch!” says Minako, as though in sympathy, but she’s gazing eagerly at the pile of man that is currently lying and groaning on the floor.

Not so Ami, who is watching through her spread fingers. “Oh, my!”

“Motoki-senpai is looking really cute tonight,” Makoto declares. “I love that shirt.”

“Is he stupid?” Rei says, and if she had sleeves on her dress she’d be rolling them up. “He should have gone for the other blue dot! I should show them how it’s done.”

Usagi shoves her. “Go ahead, then.”

Rei sniffs. “No way! I’m not getting tangled up with some drunken jerk. You go.”

“Maybe I will!” Usagi harrumphs.

Rei’s about to deliver a retort when a group of guys start up a chant at one corner of the room. At first it’s hard to hear what they’re saying, but it resolves quickly – and to Usagi’s horror.

“Mamo-ru! Mamo-ru!”

There he is, being shoved toward the center of the room by a cohort of his frat brothers, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but there. He’s wearing a plain white shirt with the sleeves pulled up to his elbows, and if Usagi stares a little too long at his forearms, nobody notices or at least mentions it. There’s just something about his wrists and hands that gets to her. They look so… intelligent.

“Be quiet!” he keeps admonishing them, but they just get louder, and finally he throws up his hands. “All right! All right! Geez.” He rolls his eyes and takes off his glasses, handing them to a friend. Usagi is glad to see them go. The sight of him in glasses makes her feel funny. Then again, so do the sight of his eyes, when they’re bright blue and staring her down as though he were looking right through her.

He strides to the Twister board, glaring over his shoulder at the guys, who still let out occasional catcalls. “I said I’d do it,” he chides. “So cut it out.” Usagi feels a giggle rising in her. Seeing him as flustered and frustrated as he usually makes her is gratifying. Not that Usagi wishes a hard time on anyone, but a little bit of schadenfreude isn’t beyond her.

And then she feels hands pushing her forward.

She whirls and scowls. Rei sticks out her tongue. “Now that Mamoru-san’s playing,  you *have* to go!”

“But…”

“Kick his butt, Usagi-chan!” comes a gleeful whisper from her other side. Minako has that look on her face that is so very, very Minako. “I’ll be cheering for you!”

“Minako-chan, you too?” Usagi’s face falls.

One of the frat boys grabs her hand and raises it. “We have a volunteer to play against Mamoru-kun!” The crowd cheers.

“Wait! I…” Usagi turns to protest, but halfway through, her gaze meets Mamoru’s. Electricity shoots through her and she loses her words.

“Do your best, Usagi!” Rei’s is was half a laugh. Minako joins in with a chorus of “Fight, fight!”

Regaining her senses, Usagi turns to her last bastion of hope. “Mako-chan, Ami-chan…”

But the two of them are both backing away. Makoto shook her head, and Ami blushed and whispered, “I’m sorry!”

Usagi knows where they’re coming from. It’s impossible to intervene when Rei and Minako join forces to get something done. Which means there’s nothing left for Usagi, either, but to grit her teeth and just do it. She takes one last swig of her drink, passes it to Minako, and advances on the Twister board like she’s about to face down a dragon.

“Odango atama,” Mamoru greets her with a nod. Thankfully, his voice is low enough that the entire room doesn’t get wind of her nickname.

“Mamoru-san,” she says, looking defiantly up at him.

He looks daggers over at his frat brothers. “Just so you know, I didn’t ask for this,” he mutters.

“Me neither.” She echoes his movement, glancing at her friends.

“Well, I’ll try to live through it if you will.” She has never empathized with him before, but when he says this, the spark of pity and even solidarity that catches in her heart is a huge surprise.

She tries to shrug it off. “Fair enough. I won’t go easy on you, though." 

"I wouldn’t want you to,” he says. His voice is oddly gentle, and she searches his face, trying to figure out the truth of what he’s feeling.  What she sees, instead, is … just maybe… a small smile dotting the edges of his lips. A warm one.

It throws her off, or maybe that’s just the alcohol. Her balance wavers for a split second.

“Right foot, blue.”

The guy manning the board draws both their gazes. “Mamoru-kun. Right foot, blue.”

“Here we go,” Mamoru mutters, and takes his place on the board.

“Miss…?” The caller is grinning at her. If he grinned any wider Usagi might be compelled to sic Makoto on him, but he’s toeing the line just at the outer limits of taste.

“Usagi,” she informs him.

“Usagi-san,” he says, “left foot, green.”

Well, that’s a relief of a first move. She’s all the way across the board from Mamoru. Still, she can’t help looking at him, and thinking he looks exactly the way she feels right now. It’s immensely weird to be pitying Mamoru Chiba, of all people.

“Mamoru-kun! Left foot, yellow!”

This brings him one row closer to her, so they’re standing at a right angle, his back to her. “Excuse me,” he mumbles as he angles his body toward hers.

“Usagi-san! Right foot, yellow again!”

And here’s where it gets interesting. She turns so her body is angling out toward the top of the board, leaving not a lot of distance between them. She’s got a full view of the back of him, and he’s very… very solid-looking. Her head gets a little fuzzy again, and she just barely manages to resist the urge to reach out and grab him for balance.

He gets a foot call again, and spins so he’s facing her. Which is about the worst time for her to hear “Right hand, red,” and has to lean over sideways to place her hand on the ground. It definitely doesn’t help with the dizziness, and worse, she gets the feeling Mamoru’s staring down at her and laughing. She knows other people in the room are doing the same. She probably looks like a demented starfish, with her other hand flailing in the air to keep her from toppling.

Still, this is Mamoru, so she can’t give up!

“Right hand, blue.”

He learns forward to place his hand on a nearby patch. “Uh-oh,” he says as he teeters briefly, and Usagi wonders if he has been drinking too.

“Are you all right?” she finds herself asking. Their faces are at the same height right now, even though hers is rotated toward the floor.

“I’m fine.” Maybe it’s just the angle, but he almost looks worried. “Are you?”

She shakes her head proudly. “No problem!”

He grins. “Good luck, then.”

Again with the smile. Has she ever noticed how cute his smiles are when they don’t come with a cutting remark?

“Usagi-san! Left hand, red!”

She slides her hand - and shoulder, and head - underneath Mamoru to get to the spot. With both her hands and feet down, she can’t carry on a conversation with Mamoru any longer – but she can feel his breath, warm and regular, puffing against the back of her neck. The hairs there stand up. She can feel them, and she’s sure he can see them.

The frat boy at the spinner makes another call. Mamoru moves his foot. Now his whole body is sliding just over hers, chest against her back, and he mutters “sorry.”

Usagi has no idea what he has to feel sorry for. This contact is a revelation to her. She hadn’t thought much about how Mamoru would feel if she were to touch him, but she wouldn’t have guessed in a million years it would be like this. Cold and clammy, maybe, or sticky and sweaty. But not this– this incredibly *gentle,* constant warmth. It floods her body, makes her catch her breath. She’s a slurry of intoxicated sensation right now, ready to melt down into the board, but somehow she manages to stay up. Defiantly, she pushes back upward against his body. And it’s possible that she hears *him* catch *his* breath.

“Left hand, yellow!” She reaches, wobbling, for the space. Her arm comes down next to his. They’re both trembling, and their bare skin touches. A jolt of heat goes flying up into Usagi’s head. She gives an audible gasp.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Mamoru says to her in a low voice. “You can stop. You don’t have to…”

“Who are you,” she demands back, “and what have you done with Mamoru Chiba?”

And he laughs – a rich, dark laugh that rumbles against her. “I promise you, odango atama. I’m right here.”

It’s comforting – and thrilling – to hear.

“Right hand, yellow!”

There’s only one yellow spot he could possibly reach right now. It’s the one she’s on. She takes a desperate look over her shoulder, and catches a glimpse of his eyes. They’re bright with determination.

His hand comes down, settling warmly over hers.

Oh, god, everything’s spinning.

The caller can’t even name the next move. Usagi’s down, her joints all giving way at once as she collapses to the floor. Her hand goes flying, and Mamoru loses his balance, too, settling over her. She fights her way onto her back. For an instant they’re pressed together, and Usagi can’t breathe, she’s all lit up inside, and she doesn’t want the weight and warmth of him to leave even for a second.

“Usagi,” he murmurs, and it’s the first time he’s ever used her name. But it’s not all that’s changed.

He rises up onto his hands and knees and looks down at her. A question passes between the two of them, unsaid. A smile touches her lips. His hand covers hers again, just for a moment.

Then he’s helping her up, and the room is cheering. Her friends are in stitches, coming toward her to offer congratulations. It’s all a blur to Usagi, everything happens in slow motion. Except for Mamoru. He’s there, present even as she’s led away from him, warm and new and exciting. She wants to lean over her shoulder and call out to him, make sure that what happened wasn’t her imagination. But she doesn’t have the presence of mind to break free from Rei and the other girls, not with her world whirling in distant fragments far above her head. She just has to trust that he’ll be there tomorrow.

Because they will have so, so very much to talk about tomorrow.

Chapter Text

The nice thing about being a lightweight is that you don’t get hung over. No pounding headaches, no oversensitivity to light, no painful black gaps where memory used to be. But as Usagi wakes up the next morning, she gets the feeling today might be an exception to the rule.

Oh, she feels fine, if a little groggy, when Minako pulls the covers off her and demands she wake up. “Where’s Ami?” she mumbles, because it’s usually Ami coming by to force the both of them out of bed so they’re not (too) late for class. But no sign of Ami today, just Minako insisting very harshly that she get up, get dressed, and head to breakfast because they have to *talk.*

It’s when they get to the dining hall and the girls crowd into the table around her that Usagi starts to think maybe she’s not remembering something right.

“So,” Rei says bluntly. “Last night.”

“Last night?” Usagi blinks.

Ami clears her throat. “Last night and you,” she begins, and can’t quite go on.

That’s OK – Minako will complete the thought for her. “And Mamoru!” she trumpets. “Last night and you and Mamoru, Usagi-chan! Talk!”

“Talk?” Usagi remembers they played Twister. But that was in the full view of all the girls. Nothing to say that they didn’t already know. Unless… unless there was a part of last night she wasn’t remembering, maybe a part where she and Mamoru ended up alone together? Or worse, did something in *front* of people? She has no memory of it – she *thinks* she remembers everything, right up to Rei shoving her in bed and slamming the door after muttering about how annoying it is to deal with Usagi when she’s drunk. But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe something actually *happened*.

“Yes!” Minako replies. “Tell us everything and don’t leave anything out.”

“What did happen between you and Mamoru?” Makoto pipes up, albeit a bit shyly. “Something obviously happened, Usagi-chan. Can you blame us for wanting to know?”

“I don’t–” Usagi’s at a loss. She doesn’t know what they’re talking about. After all, there’s no way they could know that anything happened at the game. They weren’t inside her head. She didn’t let it show – not the warmth that she’d felt when he was close to her, not the way she’d wanted to reach out and grab him and pull him close when they were finally torn away from each other. No, her friends didn’t know about any of that. Which means something else happened – something she can’t remember at all.

But now she’s remembering how Mamoru felt, and how kind he was to her, and how at the end they’d smiled at each other like they were sharing in some ineffable secret joke, and now Usagi’s smiling, which means her friends are leering in toward her (Rei’s halfway over the table, she’s leaning in so hard). Usagi becomes aware of them all at once and promptly goes red and incapable of speech.

They part after a final “We’re going to get it out of you sooner or later, Usagi!” and Usagi sighs heavily as she heads toward her first class of the day. She’s got three today, and the last one, in midafternoon, is astronomy. Which means Mamoru. And, depending on what it is she’s not remembering, could mean humiliation. Or it could mean something else… something scary and potentially wonderful. Her heart pounds oddly in her chest, and Usagi lays a hand across it, trying to calm down.

Her first class is a snoozer, a waste of time where she doesn’t have any friends in the class or any real reason to be there. It’s social sciences, and as the professor discusses primitive cultures and their social rituals all Usagi can think of is the social rituals she’s been through in the past 24 hours. Somehow in the span of one evening her life has gone from predictable to totally off the wall. She no longer knows what she did or how she feels. Even if she did remember what happened to her last night, how would she begin to explain it to Rei and the others? She doesn’t understand the implications of the part she does remember.

The professor calls on her. Usagi attepts to answer and in her addled state nearly falls out of her chair. The class laughs. The professor frowns. Usagi thinks perhaps she should never have gotten out of bed.

Between classes Usagi runs into her friend Naru. Naru’s not a Sigma Mu sister, but she’s a nice girl nonetheless, and Usagi always enjoys the air of normalcy that pervades the air when they talk. Her other friends are all so intense in one way or another, but Naru’s just well-rounded, pleasant, and doesn’t treat Usagi like the klutzy bundle of overenthsiasm Usagi knows she is.

“Have you ever gotten really drunk at a party?” Usagi asks her. “I mean, so drunk you can’t remember what happened?”

Naru shrugs. “I don’t really go to that kind of party,” she confesses. “But I’ve seen other people do it. Umino once had so many margaritas during a Game of Thrones marathon that he swears he doesn’t remember the Red Wedding. I think he just doesn’t want to admit it happened at all.”

“Gme of Thrones? Is that, like, a game show? Sounds fun.” Naru and her boyfriend, Gurio Umino, are into some pretty nerdy stuff.

Naru laughs uncomfortably. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.” Usagi pouts a bit. She loves game shows, and weddings. A red one sounds festive and cool.

“What are you worried about, Usagi-chan?” Naru asks. “Did you black out?”

“Maybe,” Usagi admits. “I honestly don’t remember blacking out, but everyone seems to think… well, it’s obvious something happened and I don’t know what it is.”

“Ooh.” Naru winces on her behalf. “Sounds tough. And your friends aren’t telling you?”

“Thehy’re the ones asking!” Usagi wails.

“It’s something with a guy, isn’t it?” Naru nudges her playfully.

“Naru-chan!”

“It is!” Naru laughs. “Why are you so worried about it? That’s great news.”

“What are you talking about? It’s terrible news.”

“Usagi-chan. It’s romance. How can you think that’s a bad thing?”

Usagi stops and thinks about this. She *was* completely in love with the idea of romance when she was younger. Still is, kind of. But romance with *this* guy, in *this* way? It seems unfair, how completely awful the situation is. Other girls get the guys of their dreams, and she’s managed to get herself tangled up – literally – with the guy who pokes fun at her and always looks like he’s laughing at her, even when he’s not saying anything. That delight he gets in his eyes whenever she shows up, that’s not the way a guy looks at you when he’s interested.

Except for… what if it is?

What if that really is delight in his eyes when he sees her? What if he’s just… really, really clumsy, like she is, but instead of falling all over himself, instead of dropping his books and getting food all over his mouth the way Usagi does, what if he’s clumsy about… talking, about relating to people?

The thought makes her sad. That must be so hard, not to know how to talk to people and let them know how you really feel. To have the wrong thing come out of your mouth every time. And now that the seed’s lodged in her head, this idea of Mamoru as desperately trying to come across as engaging or clever, and it just coming off mean-spirited instead, she can’t dislodge it. Her heart speeds up. She wants to see him again – just to test and see.

Makoto is in her next class. It’s a literature class, and they’re both kind of inept at it, despite liking most of the stories they read. It’s when it comes down to finding deeper meanings and symbolism that they’re both out of their depth. The professor goes on at length about the significance of the color of a kimono while Usagi and Makoto sit in the back and sigh.

“Ne, Mako-chan,” Usagi whispers. “Do you think Mamoru-san’s a good guy?”

Makoto blinks. “You know him better than I do.”

“But I don’t, really,” Usagi says. “I mean, I never saw him like last night, when all the Tau Kappas were on his back. He was kind of shy about it. Have you ever seen him like that?”

“I don’t even have a class with the guy,” Makoto protests.

“But you’ve run into him.” Usagi remembers at least one incident when she and Makoto were heading back from the student center and Mamoru passed them on the street. Well, he didn’t pass, at least not before saluting, saying hello, and letting her know her buns looked especially tight that day – which might have been meant as a compliment, especially after he clarified he was talking about her hair. But at the time Usagi did not take it well. Makoto had calmed her down all the way back.

“Maybe.” Makoto shrugs. “I don’t know him, though. But I never understood why you hated him so much. I mean, you like me. And I was kind of mean when you met me.”

“No, you weren’t!”

“I was, though. You just saw the good things in me anyway. And look how mean Rei still is to you.”

“Rei’s different.” Usagi hears herself say it, and then has to fumble for why. “She’s … she’s a Sigma Mu sister. Your sisters are different.”

Makoto laughs. “I think you just like being teased, just a little.”

“I WHAT?” Usagi stands up. The entire class stares at her. She slinks back down into your seat. “I do not!” she hisses.

“Sorry!” Makoto winks. “I just mean, you’re very energetic. I think you like having a place to put that energy. You know, even when you’re pissed off, you’re excited…” She checks herself. “Oh, but maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Sorry. Never mind.”

“Hmph,” Usagi says, but now she’s thinking about it.

And all the way through lunch she thinks about it, and almost asks Ami her opinion, because Ami’s so smart she’d be able to figure out all the confusing jumbling things in Usagi’s brain right now. But somehow it just never comes up. Ami’s looking at notes, or has her nose in a book and eats bites of sandwich between turning pages, or is very busy asking Usagi what she thinks of three different ideas Ami has had for sorority activities. Ami has a surprisingly good head for these things.

So Usagi’s left to herself to wonder about Mamoru, and about herself. Not to mention whatever happened last night that she’s not remembering. But mostly about Mamoru. The more she thinks about him, the more she sees him as a guy who’s trying so hard and keeps screwing up. She can relate to that. A lot.

For example, she’s just collided with someone on the way in to astronomy class.

Not just someone, she realizes, as warmth fills her body. But of course. Who else could it be?

Mamoru looks like someone’s just whacked him with a two-by-four. He stares down dumbly at Usagi, face slack. If it weren’t for the flicker of life in his eyes, she’d be tempted to ask if he was running a fever. But then again, she’s not doing much more than staring herself. It’s Mamoru, and he’s right here so close to her. The moment she’s dreaded and waited for all day long is here, and she can’t bring herself to say a word, or even think straight.

He snaps out of it first. “Hey, odango atama,” he says, smiling widely. He gives her a salute, then heads down the aisle toward a seat.

She stares dumbly for a moment. Her mind is doing that jumbled-up thing again. *He called me odango atama.* *Somehow, that doesn’t seem so bad now.* *He really is cute.* *Does he remember what happened last night?* *Does he remember something I don’t?* *What was that smile about?* *Maybe he doesn’t feel anything at all.* *Well, damn it, I feel something!* *What DO I feel?* *I don’t know, but I have to find out.*

That last thought galvanizes her. She marches down the aisle, her hands in fists, her brow furrowed. Stubbornly, she shoves herself into the seat next to Mamoru’s and pouts up at him. “We need to talk.”

Again, he looks like someone just smacked him between the eyes.

The professor starts the lecture then, and Mamoru’s focus goes to that, at least for a few minutes. But Usagi keeps glancing at him, and soon enough, she finds him glancing back. Their eyes meet. Usagi gets a lump in her throat and has to swallow hard.

Finally he leans over. “What do you want to talk about?”

She stares at him flatly. “Are you dumb? Last night.”

“Oh.” He frowns. “What about last night?”

*Oh, God, what if he doesn’t remember anything? Or what if it doesn’t mean anything to him?* “Nothing,” she mutters. “Never mind.” She stares at her notebook defiantly. Forget it. If he’s going to be blase about it, then what does she need with him? Who cares about stupid Mamoru Chiba anyway…

Inwardly, she whimpers. She knows the answer to that question.

She’s about to say something and make a fool of herself again when Mamoru leans in. His breath touches her ear, and goosebumps erupt through her body. “This isn’t the right time,” he says.

“What?” Along with the feel of his breath, she can sense his proximity, his warmth, and it makes her want to do something crazy. Her heart pounds.

“After class,” he says. “You’re right. We do have to talk.”

Usagi spends the remainder of the class simultaneously willing it to end and hoping it never does. Her little heart is running around in her ribcage like a crazed cat. She shuts her eyes tight, balling her hands into fists and trying to calm it down, but the effort only makes her more aware of Mamoru’s presence right next to her. She should have sat behind him. She should have never sat down at all. She should have just run away the minute they collided…

“Usako.”

Her eyes fly open. She can feel herself blushing from head to toe. Did he just…?

Mamoru’s fingertips are light on her shoulder. “Let’s go,” he says.

Walking out of the class is like a dream. She’s barely conscious of where they’re going or how they get there. She just knows Mamoru is beside her, strangely silent, and that a while ago he called her *Usako* and where did he get that, is that part of what she doesn’t remember from last night or… and when did everything change, when did the presence of him start to feel like this? She’s used to her heart pounding when he’s around, but it was from anger, and suddenly now it’s…

“So. Last night.”

She perks up. Mamoru’s led her to a shady alcove on campus, a green place where a thick tree shields the two of them from passersby. It would be a good place to read a book, if Usagi were the book-reading type. Quiet, with gentle light and a sloping, soft bank of grass. Although they’re outside, it feels as though she’s alone with him. Her heart tries to fly into her mouth, and she swallows it down again.

“I don’t remember,” she blurts out. “I didn’t think I was that drunk, but I don’t know what happened. All I remember is the game, and then…”

“The game.” His lips quirk into a smile. “That was pretty fun, in the end.”

Why does everything he says have to make her feel three different things at once? She wants to heartily agree, but she’s also brimming with the implications of him saying it was fun, when it involved their bodies moving together like that, and she also still doesn’t know what else happened. She nods, momentarily lost for words.

“But I’m confused,” he goes on. “If you remember the game, what don’t you remember?”

“I don’t know,” she complains. “I don’t remember it.”

He laughs, and when did that infuriating sound become so warm and welcome? “Well, if you don’t remember and I don’t remember, then nothing happened.”

“But my friends keep asking me about…” She blushes. None of the implications are even remotely G-rated.

“About?” Mamoru raises an eyebrow.

“Us,” she finishes lamely. “About something to do with us and last night.”

“Oh, God.” The expression falls from his lips without warning, and he reddens. “Maybe they saw.”

Usagi panics. “Oh, no! Saw what? Mamoru-san, what did they see?”

To her horror and shock, he suddenly bows stiffly. “I’m very sorry!”

“What? What are you sorry for? What happened?”

He looks as though he’s about to tread into a swamp. “You might hate me for this.”

This pisses her off. “You never cared whether I hated you before. Just say it.”

“That’s not true–” But she’s still scowling at him. “Anyway. We were playing Twister. And you were very close to me, and I–”

He looks down at himself, as though that’s supposed to be a hint. If it is, Usagi doesn’t get it. “What!?”

“I might have…” His face is as red as she’s ever seen it. He turns away. “I might have been a little… excited.”

“Excited? What do you–” And then it hits her, and now they’re a matched set of tomato-colored faces. “Oh, my God.”

“After we fell, we both stood up, and everyone was looking at us. It must have been then, they could see…”

Usagi wants to hide her face in her hands, or run screaming, but she can’t stop looking at Mamoru. His shoulders are hunched over, and the quaver in his voice is like nothing she’s ever heard before. He’s just so abjectly miserable that she feels comparatively OK with it. “It’s all right,” she offers lamely. “It happens to guys all the time, for lots of reasons.”

He’s silent.

“Mamoru-san?”

He turns just a few degrees toward her. “You were the reason,” he says in a small voice.

“I– what?”

Mamoru stiffens slightly, and as he turns to her he looks pained. “You probably hate me,” he says, “but you were the reason. Usako–”

Finally, something else she can grab onto. “And that name,” she says. “You never called me that name before. Did that happen last night? Where did that come from?”

Mamoru’s shoulders droop. “I’ve been calling you that in my head for weeks,” he says.

So much for holding onto anything. Usagi’s dropped into the whirlpool now, and she can’t keep her head above water, much less swim for shore. “I don’t get it,” she says dully. “Why? Why would you do that? You hate me.”

“No, I don’t.”

His hand is moving. He’s going to touch her. She winces, trying to prepare herself for the contact.

He takes a strand of her hair and tucks it behind her ear. “I very much don’t hate you, Usako,” he says.

Now he’s staring straight at her, and she can only stare back, dumbfounded. “You… like me?”

He nods. Soft but firm, and he might has well have shouted it to the skies.

“And…” She’s searching for words. “And that’s what happened last night? Nothing else? We didn’t do anything?”

“Not even a kiss,” he says.

A golden light is starting to pour through her whole body. It’s happiness, pure and simple, but a kind of happiness she’s never felt before. This is heart-pounding and gorgeous, and she wants to feel it more and more. “What about now?” she asks, shyly. “What do we do now?”

“What do you mean?”

She stammers it out somehow. “Not… even a kiss?”

A smile slides onto his face. He straightens up and steps forward. She closes her eyes.

His lips on hers are soft, gentle, and they leave her wanting more. One arm slides around her waist. Then she’s nestled into him, his arms around her, and it feels like a puzzle fitting together, every last thing in place and so very right. She exhales and lets her head rest onto his chest.

“Usako,” he breathes, the words soft and wonderful in her ear. “I’ve wanted to hold you like this for so long.”

“Mamoru-san,” she starts to say, but only the first two syllables get out. Then she has an idea that makes her giggle. “Mamo-chan,” she says, laughing over the words.

He draws back, jaw dropping. “What?”

She shrugs. “You called me Usako. So that makes you Mamo-chan. It’s only fair.”

He shakes his head, laughing incredulously. “That’s terrible. If the guys heard that…”

“It’s not terrible, it’s cute,” Usagi insists. “Plus, you love it.”

“I do not!”

She looks at him pointedly.

“Okay, maybe I do a little. And I guess it’s only fair.”

Usagi grins and flashes the victory sign. “And now I have to go.”

“Already?”

She nods. “I have to tell my friends what happened last night!”

Chapter Text

“Are you drunk?”

But the answer is obvious from the minute Usagi turns on the light. There are at least four bottles of beer sitting on the floor, and Mamoru is slumped on the couch, his head lolling to the side as he murmurs a noncommittal “Mm.”

Usagi came in a few minutes ago to a dark apartment. At first she thought Mamoru wasn’t even there, but then he’d spoken, and from what he said, she’d thought he’d completely taken leave of his senses. Thank goodness he’s just drunk instead.

“You are. You’ve been drinking,” she says, perkily, hoping her cheerfulness will make him forget about what he just said and pull himself together. “I wondered why it was so dark in here. I’ll make you some rice and you can sober up. Don’t worry, I’ll use the instant kind. I know how to make that!”

“Usako.” His voice is firm, even though he drawls out her name over the space of a few seconds. “I mean it.”

“No, you don’t!” She turns on her heel and faces him. His abject expression rips her heart out, but she goes on. “Why would you even say something like that? Why on earth would you ever think you should *quit* being Tuxedo Mask?”

“Tuxedo Mask protects Sailor Moon,” Mamoru says. His voice is still dulled by the alcohol, but there’s a fire in it now that gives Usagi goosebumps — and not the good kind, either. “That’s what he’s there for. But you don’t need me to protect you. You’re so strong now. You and the others are so powerful. I’m in the way.”

He sounds so miserable. Usagi wants to cry. She swallows the lump in her throat and comes to sit on the sofa beside him. Her hands fold over one of his. “You’re strong too,” she says, fumbling for a place to start.

“You defeated Galaxia on your own,” he said. “And Nehelenia, and the Death Busters. I wasn’t able to help at all. I don’t have any special powers. So I remember how to use a sword from my past life. That’s all.”

“But you…” She tries to find something encouraging. “You can fly. And you saved me hundreds of times.”

“If I hadn’t saved you, Mars and the others would have,” he says. “Or you would have saved yourself. You have protectors already. You don’t need me.”

“Of course I need you!” Usagi’s outraged now, mad that he could say something so selfish. “You say I’m strong, but I feel weak. I still feel like I did the day I started, when you saved me for the first time and told me to believe in myself. You help me remember that. Whenever I’m scared, you’re there to help me believe.”

He sighs heavily. Silence hangs in the air for a long moment. Maybe he’s thinking about it. Maybe he’s changing his mind.

“I don’t believe,” he says finally.

Fear clutches Usagi’s heart. “What? What don’t you believe?”  She remembers the cold hand of a lover pushing her away — once from a misguided fear of the future, once when his mind had been corrupted by a golden shard — and tries to steel herself for whatever comes next, but it’s Mamoru and she can’t go through this again, she’ll break! Tears start to well up in her eyes.

But he’s finally turned to look at her, and his eyes are sadder than she’s ever seen them. He lifts a hand to press against her face, and she leans into it. “If I quit being Tuxedo Mask — if I’m just Mamoru Chiba,” he says, “what would you do?”

A few tears spill over and run down her cheeks. He’s there, mopping them up with a soft finger, but Usagi feels as though she’s drowning in tears. “Why would you ask me that?” she says. “How can you ask me a question like that? It’s cruel!”

“I guess you would hate me,” he says. “I thought so.” His hand drops, and he looks down at his feet again.

If Usagi’s heart had sunk low in her chest before, now it plummets to her feet. She rises up onto her knees, leans forward and hugs him fiercely.

“Never,” she whispers, her arms tight around his shoulders, fingers stroking his hair. “No matter what, I’ll never hate you, Mamo-chan. I’ll always, always love you.”

“I’m nothing,” he says, and she thinks she hears his voice break a little. “I’m not cool, I’m not a hero. And you’re everything, and I can’t do anything to help you.”

“You help me every day,” Usagi cries out. “As long as you’re you, you’re helping me.” But that’s all she can say before the tears overwhelm her again. “Mamo-chan, this is scary. Please tell me you’re just drunk and let’s go to bed and you’ll feel better in the morning. Please.”

“Yes.” His head drops against her shoulder. “Yes, I’m being stupid. Forget about it.”

“I won’t forget,” Usagi tells him. “I won’t forget, so don’t you forget my answer either, okay? Don’t ever forget I love you.”

He lets her walk him to bed, and she manages to giggle a little when he stumbles, despite the air of tension hanging over them still. “You’re a lightweight, Mamo-chan,” she teases, and he groans.

When he falls into bed, it’s so heavily that she thinks he’s going to start snoring then and there. But a moment later he reaches out for her, pulls her onto the bed and into his arms, and mumbles, “Stay with me.”

She leans her head on his chest, closes her eyes, and whispers, “Forever.”

Chapter Text

In the morning, predictably, Mamoru feels better. Even the hangover is a relief – better a stabbing pain in his eye than an ache in his heart any day. Plus, he wakes up next to Usagi, which is always a blessing. He groans and squints up at her. “Is it morning already?” She giggles and threads his fingers through his hair, and he relaxes into her touch. Yes. This is better.

she’s relieved, too. “So you’re not going to quit?” she asks over breakfast. “Honest?”

“Honest.” He raises his right hand like he’s swearing on the Bible. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“Good.” She looks at him a little too long then, like something’s caught fire in her brain.

He gets nervous. “What?”

“What about me?”

“What about… what?” He’s hesitant. He knows how something can occur to you and spin out of control in her head until it becomes not just a stray thought but an inescapable reality that she has to inflict on those around her. At its best, it’s dizzying imagination; at worst it’s deep-seated paranoia.

“What if I wasn’t Sailor Moon anymore?” she says, and her eyes shimmer, quavering blue like a river in the rain. The idea frightens her, too.

“You’re not serious, Usako.”

“Yes, I am!” Her conviction lasts approximmately half a second. “No, I’m not. But what if I was? What if I’d never been Sailor Moon?”

He shakes his head, hoping a warm smile will dispel her doubts. “Usako, you *are* Sailor Moon. It’s part of who you are.”

It isn’t the answer she’s looking for. She sighs. “Do you remember when we first met?”

“Of course I remember.”

“But not when you met Sailor Moon. When Chiba Mamoru met Tsukino Usagi. Do you remember that?”

At first he thinks she’s trying to catch him at something. He always ends up playing this game with her, putting his foot in his mouth and ending up drowning in a torrent of tears.

But she doesn’t cry. “‘That hurt, odango atama,’” she says. “Those were your first words to me. And they didn’t get any kinder.”

A deep dread settles inside Mamoru. Usako has never spent much time reflecting on what they were before they were lovers. He’d hoped she’d forgotten all about it. No such luck. Every word he’s about to get, he deserves.

“You made me cry,” she says. “So many times. I wasn’t much nicer to you, either. Did you ever think, if it wasn’t for Sailor Moon…. for Serenity and Endymion… we’d still just be two strangers on the street? I’d still think you were a big jerk, and you’d still think I was a stupid dumpling head?”

“I didn’t think that,” he protests.

“Yes, you did!” she protests. “Of course you did. And I thought you were…” She blushes. “I…”

“I’m sorry,” he offers lamely, after a minute.

She shakes her head. “I’m not angry at you,” she says. “I’m just remembering. Tuxedo Mask always told Sailor Moon she was great. And she loved him at first sight. But did Usagi and Mamoru ever fall in love? Really?” She gets up from the table and walks toward the living room couch. “When did we stop hating each other?”

“I never hated you,” Mamoru says, meaning it.

“Mm-hm.” She sits down on the sofa.

He gets up. “Usako.”

No answer.

He comes over to the couch, standing behind her, and puts both his hands on her shoulders. “I was crazy about you.”

At this, she looks up, blinks. “You what?”

He rounds the couch, suddenly full of energy, and kneels in front of her. “Usako. I was *crazy* about you.”

Her face fills with color. It’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous. Mamoru fights the urge to grab her up in his arms and kiss the life out of her.

Instead, he keeps talking. “I didn’t know it myself, at first. I just knew that you made the craziest faces and said the craziest things, and I picked on you because I wanted to see those faces more. I didn’t realize what I was feeling until Motoki said something to me. He told me I ought to be nicer to you, and I remember telling him I didn’t mean it, that it just always came out that way. And I kept looking at the door to the arcade, imagining that you’d come back through it with something to yell at me about or some new dream to tell Motoki about, and I couldn’t stop smiling.”

Usagi’s still blushing. “Mamo-chan,” she manages, and can’t say anything more.

“I was so confused!” Mamoru goes on. “I was helping Sailor Moon, and I was dreaming about this princess, and then there was you, and I didn’t know what my heart was doing. But then came the Starlight Tower, and you transformed, and my whole life felt like it made sense for the first time. I kept thinking, of course. Of *course.*”

She’s smiling now, shaking her head. “I couldn’t stop thinking of you,” she says.

His heart feels like it’s going to fly out his mouth like a balloon. “Usako..!”

“Because you made me so mad, and then because you were dating Rei-chan, and then because you just… you just existed, and it was frustrating me, and I didn’t know why.” She’s beet red, and grinning widely. “Maybe somewhere deep down I knew, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I mean, how could I stand it if I fell for that big jerk who hated me so much?”

He can’t stay still anymore. He moves to the couch and gathers her up in his arms, presses kisses to her forehead and hair.

She sighs happily. “I’m so glad,” she says. “We had a love story after all. We were just too dumb to know it.”

He nods, laughing a little. “We are a pair of big fools.”

“You’re the bigger fool,” she says, shoving him gently.

He can’t find a single reason to disagree.

Chapter Text

Usagi Tsukino is as far from royalty as a person can get.

She’s dragged out of bed every morning by her housewife mother, stumbles downstairs in time to see her salaryman father head off to work, annoys her little brother, and often forgets her lunch on her way out the door. It’s public school she attends, and while her favorite subject is lunch, you’d be forgiven for thinking she was majoring in detention. After school she’s at the bookshop for new manga, or the game center to waste her 100-yen coins and dream of an alternate universe where the guy behind the counter thinks of her as more than a little sister type. Not a glamorous thing about her life, except, maybe for her dreams.

And Ami, who is the closest thing Usagi knows to a princess. Ami Mizuno quite inexplicably thinks Usagi’s great, which is pretty impressive considering Usagi considers her basically the best thing since the 60-yen sale on melon bread. Ami’s mother is a famous surgeon, her father an esoteric (and mostly absent) artist, and Ami herself is a girl genius with national exam scores that have gotten her into newspapers.

Despite her pedigree and achievements, Ami is timid; today she’s practically shaking. Usagi notices her nerves over lunch. She pushes aside the urge to ask “Are you going to eat that onigiri?” and instead leans over and pats Ami’s shoulder. “You’re not hungry,” she says. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Ami says reflexively, and follows the lie with a sigh.

“Come on,” Usagi eggs her on. “You can’t fool me. What’s up?”

Ami gives another little sigh, and her shoulders droop. “I have to go to this party,” she says, “and Mother’s going to be out of town, and I’m scared.”

“A party?” Usagi cocks her head. Scared and party don’t go together in her vocabulary. “What kind?”

“It’s some sort of to-do for the prince, and Mother says I have to go, that it’s very important I be there, but you know me, Usagi-chan! I’d rather be at home reading.” Ami looks up at this, hoping to find a speck of sympathy in Usagi’s gaze to hold on to.

But Usagi has stopped breathing at the word “prince.”

Mamoru Chiba is the grandson of the Emperor. His Majesty is pushing eighty by now, but a horrible accident took the life of his son and daughter-in-law about 10 years back, which makes Mamoru the sole heir to the throne of Japan. At 18, he’s also considerably more attractive than his grandfather, and is often the one attending ceremonial events such as public shrine visits and official state balls. He’s done a few publicity photo shoots that now hang in the bedroom of every teenage girl in Japan. The emperor has no power, but the prince is one hell of a figurehead.

“Usagi-chan!” Ami waves her hand in front of Usagi’s face, snapping  her out of it. “I know it’s the prince, but it’s just going to be a boring ball. He’ll probably be at one end of the room with twenty guards between him and the rest of the party.”

“But you might still see him!” Usagi says. “Ah, Ami-chan, you’re so lucky. I wish I could go with you….”

Ami blinks.

“The prince… at a ball…” Usagi’s gone into her personal wonderland now. “Just like Cinderella!”

“Usagi-chan.”

“If I were there I’m sure our eyes would meet and he’d march right past his guards and invite me for a dance…”

“Usagi-chan!”

“…and then I’d be the prince’s girlfriend and I could visit the palace even when it’s not New Year’s…”

“Usagi-chan!!”

Ami’s shout is loud enough to draw some stares and shake the desk. Usagi snaps out of it. “Hm?”

Ami blushes. “Actually,” she says, “I do have an extra ticket for my mother…”

Usagi’s whole field of vision erupts in stars and hearts.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

A lot has changed for Mamoru since he and Usagi found each other again. His mood is lighter, his life more full of energy and action than it was before. He’s got purpose again. And happiness, that elusive butterfly, is fluttering in his cupped palms. He’s a little afraid of letting his guard down, for fear it’ll slip away. But every so often, he still has a weak moment.

He doesn’t notice when Usagi slips through the door into his apartment, even though he’s left it open for her to come up before their date. He’s watering his plants, and the sun is streaming through his window promising a truly stellar outing. And Mamoru is humming. 

Not loudly, not very ambitiously. Just a song he’s heard on the radio a few times. But something about the sound of his own voice in his ears lends itself well to his mood right now. He wonders if the plants can hear it. It never crosses his mind that someone else can.

But then there’s that sensation that the sun is at his back, and he turns and finds her standing there.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” she says quietly.

He hurries to put down the watering can, trying not to glow as he moves through the apartment to meet her. “I wasn’t singing,” he says. “Just humming a little.”

She reaches out and touches his arm, blushing a bit. “It sounded nice,” she says. “You should sing a song for me.”

Now it’s his turn to blush. “Sing??”

“Yes!” Her smile is full of clueless rapture. “Sing me something now! Sing TOKIO’s new single!”

“Oi, Usako, I’m trying to tell you I don’t—”

“SIIING.” From zero to terrifying in 2.0 seconds, and what can Mamoru do? He takes in a thin breath and tries to get through the first two lines of the song. Any minute now she’ll figure out that he’s actually the world’s worst singer, and if he’s really lucky, she’ll let that go and not slam the door in his face. He actually has been looking forward to this date…

But a second look at her face and he knows that’ll never happen. He should have guessed it: Once Usagi got in her mind that he was good at something, he was fated to never be able to prove otherwise.

“It’s so good!” she enthuses. “We all have to do karaoke now! You’ll come, right? And sing for everyone? Maybe you should do a duet with Rei-chan or Minako-chan… although maybe I don’t want you singing love songs with them… but—”

Oh, God. He has to do something to stop this. Something fast.

“Usako,” he says, placing his hands on her shoulders. It’s a move that never fails to quiet her.

Good, step one complete. She’s looking up at him with big blank eyes.

He fumbles for words. “Maybe… we could just keep this between us? You know, our little secret. It’d be more… romantic that way.”

Her eyes light up, and he knows he’s safe. “A romantic musical secret! So you will sing for me, but only when we’re alone, right?”

He nods, infinitely relieved. “Sure, Usako. I’ll… sing for you.”

After all, torturing his own ears is probably better than torturing the ears of friends, right? At least now the damage will be contained. He makes a mental note to get some non-glass vases for his flowers.

Chapter Text

Did you ever hear about the time Mamoru tried to take up smoking?

Oh, come off it. He’s a Japanese college kid. You know how prevalent smoking is in Japan? And friend of justice or not, the guy has to have a few vices. He’s not into girl-chasing, he hangs out at the junior high’s favorite spot a lot, he seems to have attracted a 14-year-old almost-girlfriend… and when Motoki starts teasing you for being a Boy Scout, you know you have some street cred to build back up. Motorcycle or no motorcycle.

So, Mamoru is with some pals at the drugstore near campus, and they’re all picking up some smokes. And Mamoru, suddenly incredibly conscious of what’s going on around him, buys a pack, too. He’s too smart to try to smoke them in front of his friends, though. No doubt he’s gonna choke the first time. Nope, he’ll do it somewhere out of the way, an alleyway, maybe, or a rooftop, where nobody can see him, and he’ll master it on the sly, then start puffing along with his friends like it’s no big thing.

For a guy who can automatically sense when a certain superhero is in danger and fly across rooftops to save her just in time, he is remarkably dull sometimes.

He’s in a quiet corner of the park, no one but the pigeons there as witnesses, legs crossed as he looks furtively around to make sure nobody’s coming around the bend. He lifts a cigarette to his lips and flicks the lighter open. A thin lick of flame pops into existence. He moves it toward the cigarette and…

“Ma-mo-ru-SAN.”

Sudden Usagi fills his frame of vision, snatching the lighter away with one hand and plucking the cigarette right from his lips with the other.

Mamoru sputters. “Odango atama…? What the—”

“Smoking, Mamoru-san? Really?“ Usagi tsks loudly. “I can’t let you do that, you know.”

“It’s none of your business.” Mamoru considers pulling his lighter out of her hand again, but he can’t bring himself to even make a violent motion in her direction. More of his Boy Scout-ness. He gets to his feet and at least tries to look intimidating.

“It is my business! Rei-chan is my friend! Do you think she wants to hang out with you if you smell all smoky and gross? Who’d want to kiss someone with smoke breath?”

“We haven’t—” Mamoru groans. “Anyway, let her decide.”

“I’m thinking of you, too!” Usagi wags her finger at him. “That stuff is terrible for you. You want to grow up to be one of those old guys who sits in a pachinko parlor and coughs his lungs out all day?” She does a sudden, remarkably accurate impression. “Ah, I hit the jackpot! *cough cough*”

Mamoru doesn’t even bother asking what pachinko has to do with it. “Fine, just give me back my lighter.” He crushes the pack of cigarettes into his back pocket.

Usagi hesitates a moment, then reluctantly holds out her hand. “I better not see you smoking again,” she adds hastily after Mamoru takes back his property. “Or I’ll punish you!”

Oh, for Pete’s sake. Everybody wants to be Sailor Moon these days. “Noted,” he says and walks off. He’ll just give it a try somewhere else, when she’s not looking. It’s not like she can be everywhere.

Oh, how wrong he is.

She catches him again in an alley just behind the game center. “I thought I told you not to do that!” she shrieks, and Mamoru throws up his hands and flees before she can call in that huge friend of hers. She finds him behind a curtain in the manga cafe and whacks him with a double-thickness issue of RanRan. Inexplicably, she’s at the library, stopping him from lighting up in the smoking section. He’s cig-blocked at every turn by a pair of angry eyebrows, flashing blue eyes and a well-placed sharp word about how he’s going to ruin his life if she’s not there to save him from himself.

Finally, Mamoru gives up the ghost. He didn’t want to do this, but the last resort is all he’s got left. He steps out onto the balcony of his apartment, along with a small dish to use as an ashtray. As clever as Usagi is — and he does have to admit he’s impressed with her dedication — there’s no way she can climb eight floors’ worth of balconies like a panty thief, or force her way through a locked door. He sticks a cigarette in his mouth and opens the lighter.

I can’t let you do that.

Her voice sounds loud as anything in his head, and he sighs. Great, now she’s scolding him without her even having to physically be there. A wave of guilt rises up in him, building with every inch the lighter comes to the cigarette, and when the paper finally catches, along with the first inhalation comes disgust so profound he spits out the cigarette and crushes it beneath his heel. He just can’t do it. Not with a mental Usagi perched on his shoulder like a particularly shrill guardian angel.

He’s doomed to be a Boy Scout forever. Oh well. At least he’s got the motorcycle.

Chapter Text

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Usagi is having an aggressively bad day. She was late to school this morning and had to stand outside in the hall with a water bucket on her head. At lunch, Umino tripped and cast her perfectly prepared bento onto the floor. Only the onigiri was salvageable; the rest was quickly trod on by classmates to an extent that even Usagi wouldn’t eat it. She met the others at Hikawa Shrine to talk strategy, but it devolved into her and Rei yelling at each other until Luna yelled at both of them. And when she stopped to buy a crepe on her way home, she didn’t have enough money and had to watch jealously as a bratty kindergartener walked away with a delicious-looking portion, making faces at her as he went.

Today is looking like even the game center can’t salvage it, but damned if Usagi’s going to give up without one last try. Maybe Motoki is working today. He always seems to cheer her up.

But no Motoki in sight as she walks into the flashing lights and dings and buzzers of the arcade. She sits down, moping, by the Sailor V game, fully intending to stick a coin in and start the game but somehow not having the energy to.

“At least things can’t get much worse,” she mutters to herself.

“Yo, odango atama!”

Usagi should really learn not to say things like that.

She winces and turns around, knowing what she’ll find – and there they are, sharp blue eyes and a teasing smile, and that god-awful green blazer. “What do you want?” she snaps.

He jumps back as though shocked, overdoing it for dramatic effect. “Wow, you’re in a nasty mood.”

“Yeah, I am,” she agrees readily. “Maybe you could leave me alone for one day, just so it doesn’t get worse?”

Naturally, Mamoru does the polar opposite and sits down at the machine next to hers. “Aw,” he says, still in that same teasing tone, “what happened? Fail another test? Boy break your heart?”

“It’s none of your business,” she says, turning up her nose.

He nods. “Fair enough. But you shouldn’t scowl like that. Girls are prettier when they smile.”

“Like you would ever think I’m pretty!” Usagi harrumphs and slams a coin into the slot. She expects a nasty retort, but it never comes. Fine. Let him sit there in silence. She has a game to play.

Sailor V bites it about halfway into the first level, and Usagi can’t get her groove back after that first death. She sighs as the pixelated soldier gets her butt handed to her again and again, then slumps over the machine in defeat. She can’t even find it in her to get angry about it. Life just hates her today.

“Hey,” says a soft voice next to her.

Usagi turns, but it’s still just Mamoru again. Funny, that didn’t even sound like him.

He clears his throat. “So, if you want,” he says uncertainly, “I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

She blinks hard, as though she’s just imagining him and someone nicer will show up upon second look. But no, there’s Mamoru, looking away and taking a slow breath. “Did you really just say that?” she says, still unsure she’s not having a really weird dream.

“Me?” Mamoru looks furtively around. “I…” He frowns. “Of course I said it. Don’t look at me like that. You want the ice cream or not?”

There’s a funny look in his eye, like he really cares whether she says “yes” or “no.” Usagi stares at him for a moment. Finally, she sits up straight and points a finger at him. “It just so happens,” she informs him, “I have a policy of never turning down free ice cream. But don’t think for a minute it’s because you’re asking.”

Weirdly, he smiles. And weirder still, his smile does something funny to her insides. “Good,” he says. “That’s my odango atama.”

“My name is U-SA-GI,” she retorts as they get up and make their way to the cafe.

* * *

The ice cream is good. Really, brain-hurtingly, tongue-freezingly good. And with each spoonful she gets a little looser-tongued, until she’s tearfully explaining each and every thing that went wrong today. And Mamoru, uncharacteristically, just listens and nods. He never stops watching her, even when she’s gulping down heaps of whipped cream and fudge. And that should weird her out, too, but instead it just makes her feel oddly warm.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asks suspiciously once the last spoonful is gone.

He shrugs. “I know what it’s like to have a bad day,” he says.

She regards him for a long moment. “What are your bad days? And don’t say it’s the days you run into me.”

“I wasn’t…” He actually looks shocked. “No, that’s not it. Not at all.”

“Then what?” she prods.

He heaves a sigh. “Honestly? It’s the days I’m alone all day. It gets lonely, not to have anyone to talk to.”

“And that’s why you come to the arcade,” Usagi guesses. “To talk with Motoki-oniisan.”

Mamoru nods. “Sometimes. When he’s here. When he’s not, though, it’s pretty depressing. I don’t want to go back to my apartment. So I sit here sometimes and watch people. Or I play a game. And I hope y…” He stops himself. “I hope someone will come in that I know.”

“Sorry it was just me today,” Usagi says. She wants to sound tongue-in-cheek about it, but somehow her voice can’t lift into the lilt she’s going for. She just sounds depressed.

“I’m glad it was you,” he says, and then flushes. “I mean… You’re not so bad.”

And weirdly – not that “weird” doesn’t define this whole encounter – that feels like a compliment. “Thank you,” she says, and finds she means it.

He looks across the table at her, silently. She can feel the pressure of his gaze, and it makes her feel all hot inside. Her cheeks must be turning red. She fidgets, wondering what comes next. Does he just say goodbye now? “Good talk, see you tomorrow when I’ll be back to teasing you”? What does she do to extricate herself from this situation?

Mamoru finally looks away - to glance out the window and notice a streetlight coming on. “It’s getting late,” he says. “I’ll walk you home.”

“You’ll what?” This whole situation is bordering on unbelievable. Usagi tries to think fast. Does she want this guy knowing where she lives? What if he starts being a pest?

But she doesn’t want to wander home alone, letting her brain take her on all kinds of uncharted tours of misery. And right now, Mamoru’s presence is actually more comfort than not.

“I guess that’s pretty strange to ask,” he admits. “Never mind. I hope you’re feeling better, I’ll let you get home–” and he starts to get up from the table.

Usagi catches his arm in one hand before she even knows what she’s doing. The contact startles her as much as it does him, and she struggles to find words as he looks down at her fingers, mouth open in surprise.

“Please,” she says when she can get the breath to say it. “Please walk me home.”

* * *

She learns more about Mamoru in that walk than she ever has in all the weeks they’ve known each other. He studies genetics and biology, whatever they are – Usagi has no more than a vague idea. He owns a motorcycle which he barely uses and a car he inherited that he uses even less. He wishes he had a garden, but all he can do is keep plants in his apartment. He has a tendency to look upward, as though at the moon, when he’s thinking.

And his arms and legs are very long, and there’s something nice about the way he walks. And when they come to a narrow stretch of sidewalk, he lets her go first. And he doesn’t let her cross the street until he’s sure no cars are coming.

And she doesn’t know how to feel about any of this.

When they come close to her block, she stops. “If Papa sees me walking with a boy he’ll go crazy. You should head back now.”

“Oh.” He looks disappointed. “Of course. Um, good night.”

“Mamoru… san?” Saying his name makes her feel funny, too. It’s such a different feeling from saying “that guy.”

“Hm?”

“You, uh…” She’s blushing again. And she feels all shy and awkward, like she’s going to trip over her own tongue. “You made my day a little better. Thank you.”

And the smile he gives her then makes something inside her break off and melt. “You’re welcome.”

Something weird comes over her then, and she rushes forward. Her arms are around his waist before she knows what she’s doing; the only thing she’s aware of is the sudden warmth all around her. Then she knows – she feels – his arms go around her, instantly, engulfing her, pulling her close.

Mamoru. This is happening with Mamoru. But it’s happening, and they’re hugging, and she feels so good and strangely hot in places and like she never wants to let go. She doesn’t go around rating hugs, but this has got to be somewhere in the top five. It’s all warmth, all Mamoru’s arms and chest and stomach, and for a second she feels so safe and comforted that she thinks she might never have a bad day again.

“Usa–” she hears him start to say, but he never finishes her name. Instead, his head comes down to lean on hers, and she dimly feels what might be his lips atop the crown of her hair. She thinks, not knowing why or what: Yes. Just… yes.

He squeezes her tight for a long moment, then draws back, looks down at her. His eyes are wide with surprise, or wonder – something – and he’s breathing shallowly. She stares up at him, feeling equally as shocked. What’s happening here? What should she do now? Probably let go – oh, god, they’re still holding on – him gently, her like she might fall into an abyss if she lets go.

“I…” he says, and shakes his head like he doesn’t understand his own words. “I really…”

“I don’t know,” she hears herself say. “I don’t understand…”

“Usako,” he says. The name sends rivers of hot liquid through her. “Right now, I really want to…”

And instead of saying it, he does it. He bends down and brushes his mouth against hers, quick, soft.

Something blooms in Usagi’s chest, huge and bright. Her heart jackhammers wildly. She stares up at him, knowing she’s slack-jawed and blank-eyed, unable to do anything about it. She’s in a heat-induced haze, and everything’s floating, like a dream.

Reality only seeps back in when he pulls away. “Maybe… maybe I shouldn’t have done that,” he mutters, and his gaze falters. “I’m sorry. Um. Good night, Usako.”

Usagi’s emotions snap into focus. A grin spreads, wide and unbidden, over her face. The night air soothes her with cool fingers, and she’s relaxed and giddy all at once. “Good night,” she says easily. “Mamo-chan.”

“Ma–” He starts, looks at her, sees her grin, and seems to inflate inside. The smile comes to his face in another second, and he nods, chuckles, then takes off with a little spring in his step.

Usagi watches him go until he’s around the corner and out of sight, then wobbles hard. Her legs feel like jelly, and she leans against the neighbor’s fence to stay upright. That happened, she keeps thinking. That happened. Mamoru. Chiba Mamoru. He –

He kissed me.

She has no idea how she makes it home. Vaguely, she remembers Mama saying something about her looking flushed, but Usagi just nods and makes her way up to bed. She puts on her nightgown, takes down her hair, checks on a happily snoozing Luna, and turns out the light. Finally under the covers, she sighs and thinks back on her day.

It was a really wonderful day.

Chapter Text

Mamoru steps out of the bedroom with a smile on his face. “He’s asleep.”

Usagi’s face lights up. “Finally?” she says. “Wow, you’re magic. How did you get him to go down?”

“It’s a little thing I like to do called being quiet,” Mamoru retorts pointedly. “You might try it sometime.”

Usagi gives him the thumbs-down. “Overrated.” The laughter in her eyes throws Mamoru off. For a few moments, alone in the other room with Manami, he’d thought he’d gotten his equilibrium back. No such luck. All it takes is one word from Usagi and he’s navigating uncharted waters.

Why does she do this to him? He’s been watching her all day, horrified with a side of fascinated as she’ went from crisis to crisis. Maybe the baby’s sick. Maybe she’s hurting him. All of this, and she never noticed that when Manami did smile, he was doing it at her. She has no idea the talent she has, Mamoru thinks. That special ability to light up someone’s day.

She sits there a minute, stewing, and then frowns. “What is wrong with me?” she wonders aloud. “So I don’t know how to be quiet. Do you think I’m going to be a terrible mother someday? I don’t want to be terrible.”

He can see the waterworks coming a mile away. “Of course you’re not terrible.”

“But I couldn’t even put him to bed! My kids are going to be sleep-deprived.”

“So that will be your husband’s job,” Mamoru teases, then wishes he hadn’t. She looks at him with such sorrow then, and he’s reminded of the time she latched onto him, declaring that they were meant to be – is she still carrying that crush around? He’d thought for sure she was over it. It would serve him right, to have her completely over him just as he’s starting to feel like she might be just the thing he’s missing.

“Anyway,” he says, steering the conversation away from that iceberg as fast as he can, “so I’m better at putting him down. So what? You’re better at cheering him up when he is awake.”

This perks her up a bit. “So maybe,” she says uncertainly, “there’s room for both of us?”

“Sure,” he says. “Something like that.”

And it occurs to him to ask – what about me? Is there room for me in your life, Odango Atama? But what would that do, besides drive her away? She’s so skittish right now, and he has nothing to offer her but more uncertainty. What kind of boyfriend would he be? With his studies and his tendency to withdraw into himself. Soon enough she’d be sick of him, find someone with an outgoing style and a flair for romance, and be endlessly happy. He shouldn’t get in the way of that.

“I should probably go home,” she says. “Thank you for letting me come over and help.” There’s a cloud over her voice, and as she demurely gathers her things, he feels cold water running through his veins. He doesn’t want to let her go like this. She should feel good about what she’s done today. The last thing she should be doing is doubting herself.

She’s already making for the door. He moves quicker than he thought he could, blocking her path. She looks up at a wall of him and takes in a little breath.

“Thank you,” he says, at a loss for what else to say. “You helped me out a lot today.”

“Really?” Her big eyes implore him. “I didn’t just get in the way?”

“Really.” He reaches out to touch her shoulder. A gentle pat of support, or that’s what he thinks he’s going to do. But when his hand comes in contact with her skin, warmth rushes through him and he’s suddenly possessed of a thousand images he shouldn’t be having. Usagi stock-still, her eyes closed as he strokes her neck. Her chin tilting upwards as he bends to kiss her. Her skin flushing pink under his touch.

Her cheeks are flushing now, with the prolonged contact. “Mamoru-san?” she asks.

He fights down the urge to grab her up into his arms. “Usa–” he starts, then realizes how close he’s coming to uttering his secret nickname for her. He has no right to refer to her like that. He withdraws his hand, but her warmth still pulses just beneath his skin.

She’s turning redder. “I should really go.” She tries to push past him.

He can’t. He can’t let her go. But what is he going to do? He lets her pass. The air is quiet as she moves past him, out into the hallway.

And then his hand moves of itself.

His fingers loop around her wrist, and he stares at his arm helplessly as it bends, pulling her back with a flurry of hair and fabric against him. Hopelessly, giving up all thought of fighting it, he wraps his other arm around her, groaning as her body tucks in tight next to his. He closes his eyes and breathes in, smelling her shampoo, feeling all sense leave his life.

“You were great today,” he murmurs into the top of her head. “And you will be a wonderful mother someday. And a wonderful wife to a very lucky husband.”

“Mamoru-san…” There’s pain in her voice, but not the physical kind. It’s sorrow, or longing, and for an instant he’s convinced she must love him. What else could it be? How can she feel anything but the same, when he knows this acutely in this moment how much he loves her?

His heart twinges as he lets go. “Good night, Usako,” he murmurs, and retreats through the door as she still stands there in the hall, stunned. It’s not until his door closes that his heart starts pounding so painfully he thinks it’s going to go through his chest. He leans against the back of the door, one hand on his chest, trying to keep his heart from breaking through his ribs and escaping.

“Mamoru-san.”

His imagination? A memory? No, real… her voice through the door… He leans against it, imagines her on the other side doing the same – only wood to separate their embrace. “Usako,” he whispers, though it’s probably not loud enough for her to hear.

“Thank you.” And though he can’t see her walking down the hall toward the elevator, he can feel her presence fade away.

That “thank you” is enough, somehow. He gathers himself and heads toward the bedroom. He may not find sleep easy to come by tonight, but he neds it. And when tomorrow comes, it will be a changed world he wakes up to. One, perhaps, with a golden sun waiting to shine on him.

Chapter Text

It’s about this time of night that everything slows down and starts to make sense. Life with Usako is a whirlwind, and life as Tuxedo Mask, and with Sailor Moon, can be even more disorienting. But when Usako lets her hair down, brushes her teeth and slips into her nightgown, Mamoru can feel the tension of the day start to drain.

He’s usually in the kitchen, doing the last of the dishes, when he hears her humming drifting from the bedroom. She hums as she’s going through her paces, getting ready for bed, and though it’s really kind of tuneless (not that Mamoru can do much better), it still makes his heart thrum with fondness. He dries his hands on the towel by the sink and smiles as he heads into the bedroom.

Sometimes she’s twirling, dancing to the song running through her head. Sometimes she puts tiny bows in her hair, “to keep it from tangling” she says, though he doesn’t know exactly how that works. Sometimes she bounds into bed and snuggles down so far into the pillows and comforter that he can barely find her.

But when he eases out of his clothes, she’s so often there to rub his shoulders and ease out the tension of the day. She plants little kisses on his neck and ears that either arouse his passion or soothe him further. Depending on which, he either carries her to bed, or she leads him. On the nights where they don’t make love, he falls like liquid to the mattress, groaning as the rest of the tension leads his body. And she curls up like a kitten next to him, warm and affectionate. The rest of the room fades away, and it’s just her warmth and him and the soft embrace of bedclothes.

There’s not a single night he goes to sleep where she’s not the very last thing he knows. And not a single morning where his love for her doesn’t awaken him again.

“I don’t want my toenails painted,” Mamoru reminds her for the thousandth time.

“It’s not about the painting,” Usagi repeats. “It’s about the experience. Put your feet in the water. See, it feels nice.”

Mamoru grumbles. He doesn’t want it to feel nice, and he feels super weird having bare feet outside of the beach or the shower. But the warm water is soothing, and to his great relief, Usagi ignored Minako’s rather vehement offer to be the one to administer the pedicure. (Had that been an evil gleam in her eye at the opportunity? Mamoru does not want to think about it.) So the lady kneeling at his feet is a professional, and Mamoru keeps telling himself, she’s seen uglier feet than mine.

Still, he winces when she starts in on him with the shears. “Usako!” he hisses. “Is it supposed to hurt?”

She glances up from her magazine. “Don’t be a baby. She’s cleaning you up.”

This is an odd bit of role reversal. Here, Usagi’s in her element, and Mamoru’s the awkward, bumbling one who wants to disappear into the floor. He bears it like a man, even when he’s sure he’s going to end up with a toe cut off, and tries to ignore the curious stares of the ladies who aren’t used to seeing a man in that chair.

Turnabout is fair play, he guesses. God knows he spent enough of their early days making her feel uncomfortable. At least he’ll get healthier feet out of this.

Usagi has never seen Mamoru like this.

If anything, she was expecting the opposite – Mamoru has always been the calm, patient parent, the level-headed one. Of course, that was back when their daughter was not theirs, exactly. Now that he’s lived through the pregnancy and the birth, though, he holds Chibi-Usa like he’s terrified of dropping her, like she’s some sort of precious thing he has , to handle very carefully, or the absolute worst will happen.

“Mamo-chan,” she lectures. “You have to burp her a little harder than that.”

He keeps absently patting. “I’ll hurt her!”

She rolls her eyes. “She’s not that delicate, you know. Here, let me do it.” And she unceremoniously scoops Chibi-Usa out of his arms, with such abruptness he gives a little cry of panic. “It’s okay!” she scolds him. “Look, she’s fine.”

“Amazing,” he says when she gets a burp out of the baby, and scratches his head like he can’t figure out how she did it.

“I know,” she says cheerily. “I’m the best mom.”

It’s not that Usagi’s lost her ability to spaz out and panic. It’s just that, from the moment she knew she had a baby in her belly, she knew her. She’d waited so long to meet Chibi-Usa again, and tears had sprung to her eyes when the nurse handed her new baby to her, and from that instant her instinct was infallible. Of course she knew how to take care of her baby. She had already met her, and she’d turned out fine.

Why Mamoru doesn’t feel the same way, she doesn’t know. But boy, is it amusing.

Chapter Text

Numbers were the bane of Usagi’s existence. They floated through her head, did little spinning dances, and absolutely refused to get in order the way she willed them to. At least back when math was 2 + 2 it was easy for her to count up sweets until she found the right answer. But now there was algebra, and the little x’s and y’s made her poor addled head spin.

“So if 2x + 5 = 17,” her tutor was saying, “how do we find x?”

“What do you mean, how do we find it?” Usagi said peevishly, pointing to the paper. “It’s right there.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “What’s the value of x?”

“17,” she replied promptly.

Veins appeared on her tutor’s forehead. “How in this world did you get 17?”

“It’s right on the other side of the equal sign!” she said, pouting. This Mamoru Chiba fellow was not the best tutor she’d ever had in her life. He seemed to lose patience so easily. Too bad, because he was a cool-looking older guy and Usagi could totally get a crush on him, if he wasn’t so darned annoyed at her all the time.

Mamoru put down his pencil and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “No,” he said in that barely-even voice, “x doesn’t equal 17, 2x plus 5 does. Do you–”

He cut off. Because Usagi was already halfway across the room reaching for a container of Choco Pies. “What? Math makes me hungry,” she explained when she saw him staring.

He started to say something, then shook his head. “There’s got to be a way to explain this to you,” he said. Drawing a deep breath, he sat up, and his eyes caught hers, just for a second. She nearly keeled over. Those were some beautiful eyes, and they were flashing with some emotion. She couldn’t tell what.

“Supposing,” he said slowly, “I gave you two packages of Choco Pies. And then I gave you five more Choco Pies.”

“You’d be my favorite person in the woooorld,” she sang, mouth half-full of creamy chocolate-covered cake.

“So you open up the packages, and you count all the Choco Pies you have.”

“Ten gabillion.” She was drowning in a veritable flood of Choco Pies, at least in her mind’s eye.

“No,” he said, frowning a little, “you have seventeen Choco Pies. How many Choco Pies were in each package.”

She held up one of her packages. “Two.” Because that’s how many came in a package.

His jaw twitched. “No, not two.” He shook his head. “Yes, two,” he said. “I gave you two packages of Choco Pies, and each had two in them.”

She knew this one. “I have four.”

“And then I give you five more.”

Math was easy. “Nine!”

“And then I give you another package.”

“Ten… eleven?”

“And another.”

“Thirteen!”

“And another…”

“Fifteen!” The whole world was Choco Pies.

“And I give you one more.”

“Seventeen!”

“Yes, seventeen! So here’s the question, Usagi-chan. How many packages did I give you?”

She blinked. “What?”

“How many packages of Choco Pies? Think about it and count.”

Usagi had an excellent memory for sweets. “Six packages. And don’t forget the five other ones you gave me, because you’re the nicest man in the world.”

“Six packages? Are you sure?” Oh, no. He was smiling, and his eyes were glinting again, and really, did he have to be *that* cute? Because it was really giving her problems. She sort of wanted to crawl into his lap, smooth out that eternally wrinkled brow with one hand. He should really relax. He’d be so very handsome if he’d just relax…

“Usako?”

The nickname didn’t even register. “What?”

“Six packages?”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

He out-and-out grinned. “Yes you did. Do you know what else you just did? You just solved for x.”

Her jaw dropped. “I did?”

“Yes. Come here.” He took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote a single “x” on it. Still munching, Usagi tucked in next to him and looked down at the paper.

“X is the number of packages,” he said. “And each package has two Choco Pies.” He wrote a 2 next to the x. “And then I gave you five more–” he added a + 5 to the paper– “and you have how many?”

“Seventeen!” she exclaimed, glowing. Nodding, Mamoru wrote “ = 17” on the paper.

Usagi stared at the scrawl. Then she looked back at the problem in her book. They really were one and the same. Giving a little squeak, she flung her arms around Mamoru and squeezed hard. “I’m a mathematical genius!”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, a hint of reproach in his voice, but he was smiling at her.

And she was smiling back at him, and her arms were still around him, and gosh his shoulders were really warm. The smile trailed off his face, and his eyes darted down to her mouth for a single heart-stopping second. Heat rose up through Usagi’s cheeks, and she stared at him, frozen and burning all at once.

He broke first. “Good job,” he said, averting his eyes and pushing her away gently.

Usagi’s heart was hammering like an insistent woodpecker. “B-but that one was easy because it was about Choco Pies,” she said. “Can I make them all about Choco Pies? What about the next one?”

4x - 7 = 29

He glanced at it, then scratched his head. Offering her an uncertain smile, he heaved a breath and asked: “Do you have any sweets that come in packages of four?”

Chapter Text

“On your face, now hold still.”

Mamoru tried, but Usagi’s shaking finger terrified him. “Remind me why I need to paint my face even though I wear a mask?”

“Because if someone takes off the mask, you don’t want them to know who you are. Remember what happened with Zoicite?”

“So face paint is the answer?”

“I saw it on a TV show, hold still, Mamo-chan!” Mamoru tried to suppress a groan as she dragged her paint-covered thumb under his right eye. Damn the influx of American superhero shows. 

“You don’t even wear a mask!” he pointed out as she kept on painting. “Why shouldn’t I be painting your face?”

She frowned, and her finger paused at the corner of his eyes. “Because… because… it works different for me!”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know! Magic or something!” She flailed, and he winced as dark paint spattered against his cheek. Whimpering at the sight, she went for a tissue. “I told you to hold still! Now you have polka dots!”

“You’re the one who–” But there was no point in finishing the sentence. He was going to end up as Tuxedo Raccoon before this night was over, and there was no escaping it. Sighing, he resigned himself to his fate and resolved to just enjoy the adorable determination on Usagi’s face.

Chapter Text

Mamoru sees a princess in his dreams. He wakes up and sees sunshine.

She’s curled up a little, arms clutched around a bit of blanket, and her hair streams forever along her shoulders and arms and back. He’s never seen so much hair, and he marvels that she keeps it so controlled and managed all the time. For the first time, he appreciates the odangos. A rush of golden strands flows down over her waist and onto the sheets, and he strokes it idly before he knows what he’s doing, the soft lightness of it smooth against his hands.

It’s hard to believe this is the same odango atama he’s been teasing all these weeks. In sleep, she’s silent, and in silence, she’s beautiful. Her lips are pursed, and when she licks them in her sleep, the flash of pink tongue hits Mamoru in the gut. He shouldn’t think about her that way, but she’s all virgin innocence and sensuality, and he can’t help but want. The only thing that’s missing is the bright sharp blue of her eyes, and he finds himself longing for her to awaken, even if it breaks the languid silence of the moment.

He touches her cheek, softly, trying not to disturb her. But she murmurs and stirs under his touch, and the warmth of her skin seeps into him, making him slow to remove his hand. She nuzzles into the warmth of it, like it’s the touch of a familiar lover, and he’s suddenly, painfully jealous of whoever she thinks she’s with.

She speaks again, and the words are clear this time. “Tuxedo Kamen-sama.”

A shot of joy and hope flies up Mamoru’s spine, and his heart throbs. Did she really…? Is he…? A thousand unfinished questions fill his head, and through all of them the most confusing of all: why does he care? Why does the thought of her loving him fill him with such happiness?

But he knows the answer. He’s always known.

Those clear crystal blue eyes open now, and she reacts not with revulsion but with sleepy acceptance. “Mamoru-san. That’s right, I remember.” She doesn’t shy away from his touch.

He wants to tell her a million things, but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is “Beautiful.”

“Hm?” A soft half-smile on her face, and it’s perfect and coy and makes him want to kiss her so much it hurts.

He shakes his head and smiles himself, a rueful smile full of knowledge that he’s crossing a bridge that can’t be uncrossed. “You’re beautiful,” he repeats. And then, out of nowhere, a name comes to his lips. “Usako.”

She flushes, and wakefulness comes over her all suddenly. She sits up in bed. “You’re teasing me.”

“I’m not,” he protests, sitting up as well.

She pouts. “But you hate me.”

“I don’t.” Her hair is still mussed and spilling all over and he wants to gather it up and run his hands through it.

“You don’t?” she echoes, her flush growing deeper. Now she’s becoming aware of the situation, and she pulls the blanket up around her, as though she’s been caught naked. All she covers is a wrinkled T-shirt.

He wants to laugh at the futility of the movement, but instead he inches a little closer, propelled by some boldness he doesn’t know how he’s obtained. “Do you hate me?” he asks, and perhaps there’s a little of the old teasing Mamoru in the question, because her expression goes from embarrassment to indignation.

“Of course not,” she says. “I don’t hate anybody.”

“Do you like me, then?”

The words have a double meaning, and Usagi knows it. She turns up her nose. “No!” she declares. Mamoru winces, and she sees it and relents. “Maybe not ‘no.’”

He stares at her a long time then, and she sits there and takes it, gazing up at him through half-lidded eyes. It’s the look of someone trying to figure out a puzzle. He wants to help her solve it, and what that means, he realizes, is that he wants her to know the real him. All he has to do, to help her, is let her in.

“I don’t have a family,” he says. “I don’t even have a memory of a family.”

The blanket drops. Her hands fly to her mouth.

He tells her the whole story then, the accident and the hospital and what’s come after, and she sits there with her little hands over her mouth and her eyes shining with a million emotions. By the end, she’s inched closer to him, and when he stops speaking she lays a hand on her arm.

“I didn’t know,” she says. “It must have been hard.” Cursory words, but there’s real concern in her eyes. He looks at her and feels like the worst person in the world. This whole time he’s been so hard on her, and this is all he really wanted. To have her look at him with caring in her eyes. How many more easy ways could there have been to earn that gaze? How horribly wrong he’s gone.

He thinks about telling her the whole truth now. That he’s Tuxedo Mask. That he needs the Silver Crystal for his memories. But what would any of that mean to her? She’s just a normal girl. Tuxedo Mask is a faraway fantasy to her, someone she’s heard about on the news or seen blurry pictures of in magazines. She probably thinks the Silver Crystal is something you can buy in a charm store.

“Do you want some coffee?” he asks, dumbly.

She slowly remembers that there’s a fresh-painted apartment around them, couches covered in tarps and a kitchen with white tile. “Um,” she says, and stands. “I should probably go home. Thank you for letting me stay the night.”

“Don’t,” he says before he can stop himself. “Stay for coffee.”

She looks away. “I shouldn’t.”

“You should.” He gives her as bright a smile as he can muster. “I want to hear about you. You listened to my story. Now tell me yours.”

“I don’t have a story,” she says, blushing and still averting her gaze. There’s no way an expression like that doesn’t have a story.

He stands, moves in close and puts a gentle hand on her arm. She stares at the spot where skin meets skin. He wonders if his hand feels hot to her, if she knows how warm he is all over just looking at her. “Usako,” he says dumbly.

“Where did that come from?” she asks. “'Usako.’”

He shakes his head and smiles. “I don’t know. It seems right.”

“Don’t call me that in front of my friends,” she says, that little head tilt of indignation making a return appearance. “They’ll think you like me.”

“I do like you.” The words are out before he can hold them back.

Her face goes still redder, and she’s been pink in the cheeks practically since she woke up. He wants to laugh at it. “Don’t say stupid things,” she replies after a moment’s pause. She shakes free of his hand and turns toward the door.

Mamoru loses his mind then, takes complete leave of his senses. Somehow or other, he rushes between her and the door and starts babbling. “Stay for coffee,” he hears himself say. “Stay. I like you and I want to hear your story, and then afterward, when you leave I’m going to kiss you goodbye. So come into the kitchen and let me make you coffee.”

And with that, reality returns, and he stands there absolutely dumbfounded. There ought to be a black hole he can conveniently throw himself into. Perhaps he should go out on the balcony and throw himself off. He cannot live in a world where he’s said all that.

Worse, her eyes begin to tear up. “You’re making fun of me!” she says, sniffling loudly and passing a hand across her face to wipe off the overflowing tears.

Mamoru panics. “I’m sorry,” he says wildly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Teasing me,” she whines, “all that nice talk about coffee and k-kissing and you’re just trying to make me cry.”

“I’m not. I promise, I’m not.”

“Why would you say those things? Just because I slept one night here, you think I’m going to believe you?” Her pain spills over into anger, and her eyes flash fire at him even through the tears. “I don’t believe you like me. I don’t believe any of this. Let me go home.” She tries to march around him toward the door.

When he grabs her, it’s loosely enough that she can wriggle free, but she doesn’t. She goes limp and looks up at him with shining, wet eyes. Mamoru realizes what he’s doing, what he’s about to do, and maybe some small part of him tries to stop it. But he can’t hear it. All he can think is, maybe she’ll believe me if I show her.

He kisses her softly at first. She takes in a small breath – the air hissing cold against his lips – but her lips are warm, and softer still than he imagined. He presses in further, taking her in his arms, kissing her thoroughly. He licks at her lips, tastes her when her mouth opens in surprise or passion, sucks softly on her bottom lip. When she purses her lips against his and begins to kiss back, a wave of heat assaults him, and he makes a soft noise into the kiss.

He walks her back to a wall, presses her against it. Her hands fall like rain over his cheeks, his neck as she struggles and pushes upward to get closer. Their lips purse, part, come together again. Soft whimpers sound in his ear and make him crazy. He rakes his hands down her sides, needing to feel more, wanting there to be skin there instead of soft cotton but knowing there’s a line he mustn’t cross. It feels far too soon when they part, both breathing raggedly, both flushed with lips wet from kissing.

“Stay for coffee,” he says again, lamely.

She touches her lips. They dart into a brief smile. She nods.

Chapter Text

Usagi knew this was going to be a nightmare, but she had no idea it would be THIS kind of nightmare. Her friends are watching from the wings, and this might be the only situation in which she wishes they weren’t there for her. Because oh, God, she’s in real trouble now.

Mamoru has her hand in his. He’s gazing down at her with rapt attention on his face. And he’s just declared:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Usagi knows her cheeks are on fire. Her whole body is on fire, really, but she’s aware it shows in her face, and she’s absolutely mortified. This is acting, she reminds herself They’re just pretending. She doesn’t even like Mamoru Chiba. But he’s playing Romeo, and at least Juliet’s supposed to like him. Maybe she can tell Rei and the others she was just acting. The blush was totally on purpose.

Her voice quavers as she responds, and she has to think hard to remember her lines. Lines! Who could possibly concentrate on lines when the guy she hates is looking at her like she’s his entire world. It’s enough to blow a girl’s mind!

“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,” she recites carefully, and trails off a moment, staring at her hand in his. His hands are so very big, and the hand wrapping around hers is warm, gentle in its touch. She would have thought he’d crush her hand with those big brutish hands of his. Not like he’s particularly gentle in his manner.

Except for right now. Right now he’s all tentative wonder, and Usagi has to remind herself again: he’s acting!

“Which mannerly devotion shows in this,” hisses Rei from offstage, apparently fed up with Usagi delaying her next line. Usagi bristles, turns around and shoots Rei a dirty look. Finally a break in this parade of humiliation. But she goes on and repeats the line, and remembers the rest. “For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”

Yes, palm to palm is good, she can almost handle that. So his hands are big and gentle. At least she can stay at arm’s length. If he moves a step closer she thinks her body might explode.

Naturally, he moves a step closer.

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” He’s teetering on the line between shy and bold, and his little smile sends butterflies flitting all through her stomach and chest.

She turns, looks down at her feet, certain she’ll turn to flame if she looks at him one more second.  "Ay, p-pilgrim,“ she stutters, "l-lips that they must use in prayer.”

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,” he replies, moving closer still, and now she can feel his body heat. Why isn’t he colder than a fish, the way she’d always imagined? Why does he have to be so, well, hot?

He pulls her in, forcing her to turn back to him. “They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

How have they ever rehearsed this before? Somehow they used to get through this bit alive. But there were always scripts in their hands before, and their touching was all perfunctory. Even the stupid stage kisses were no big deal, Mamoru’s lips on the corner of her mouth, a little heart-pounding but no reason to panic. But now everything’s memorized, and they’re on stage, and it all feels too real. “Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake,” she protests, shaking her head.

Mamoru – Romeo, she reminds herself, it’s not Mamoru, none of this is real – lifts a finger to her lips. “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take,” he says, the little curling smile on his lips widening.

And oh, God, he’s really going to do it.

He leans in, murmuring his final line. “Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.”

This is the part where somebody interrupts, Usagi thinks wildly. This is the part where a youma crashes in and I have to run away and transform. Something stops us. Soon. This doesn’t happen.

But nothing does, and their lips catch, and something achingly sweet blooms inside Usagi’s chest. Lips are so soft against lips, she realizes. So soft it barely feels like a touch. More of a taste, like eating soft whipped cream, like the juice of a strawberry inside your mouth. So this is a real kiss. Now I know.

His fingertips alight on the edge of her jaw. They’re pushing, easing her out of the kiss, and she realizes it probably went on too long. She didn’t want it to end. She still doesn’t want it to be over.

“You have a line,” Mamoru whispers,

“I–” Usagi honestly can’t think of it, especially not when he’s touching her face like that. She catches the edge of his wrist in one hand, guiding it away, and looks up at him.

Her eyes widen. His cheeks are pinked, too. His mouth is open, parted, and in his gaze shines something that can’t be acting. Whatever this feeling is that’s welling up inside, her, Mamoru – and it is Mamoru, not Romeo, not at all – is feeling it, too. The knowledge fills her with inexplicable joy.

“Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper itself. Her friends, whose presence she felt so keenly before, seem to have drifted a thousand miles away.

He gathers her up in his arms, and it feels like home.  

ROMEO

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

JULIET

You kiss by the book.

Chapter Text

jocicausa asked: I fell into the orchestra pit and landed on you again with usagi/mamoru or dean/cas please ♡

That jete, Mamoru thinks as he picks himself up off the floor, wasn’t so grand after all.

“Sorry, so sorry!” the blonde whines as she straightens up and examines herself. Her tutu’s all crooked, and there are bedraggled strands of long hair coming undone from her bun. Mamoru had always thought ballerinas were naturally graceful and elegant in all circumstances, but apparently that’s not the case.

Annoyed, he snaps at her; she cringes, then snaps back, like a cornered cat, and stalks off through the rows of chairs, knocking over sheet music as she goes. What a beautiful disaster, he thinks with some amusement. Still, at least it happened in rehearsals, which means it’s not going to happen on opening night.

It happens again on opening night.

Usagi – he knows her name because all the other ballerinas hiss it, in horrified unison – spends the rest of the dance crouched next to Mamoru’s timpani, covering her ears. She sneaks off backstage between numbers, and Mamoru puts a note in his score to watch the skies at that point in the ballet from now on. Beware flying bunnies.

Usagi feels terrible, but even terrible isn’t quite so terrible when her poor overheated head is in Mamoru’s lap, and he’s stroking her sweat-dampened hair with a soft hand. She offers up a feeble whine – “Mamo-chan, help, I’m going to die“ – but it’s as much energy as she can muster right now, with the fever dragging all the vitality from her body.

“You’re going to be fine, rest,” he replies, a little tic of annoyance in his voice, the last remnants of the Mamoru she’d first met a few years ago. But he slides his hand down her shoulder to her arm and rubs soft strokes there, and she feels like she’s melting, her labored breathing easing to the gentle rhythm. He squeezes her shoulder briefly, a hug in a single hand. She smiles and nuzzles his thigh like a kitty settling in for a nap. Mamo-chan is the greatest, she thinks sleepily. Just the greatest.

When she wakes up in an hour or two, she’ll find herself in his arms. He’ll have lifted her up in her sleep, perhaps fully intending to lay her in bed and sneak out to work on his papers, but her warmth will suffuse his whole body and he’ll sigh, wrapping his arms around her and settling down onto the bed for a bit of a nap himself. She’ll fret for a minute – what if he goes and gets sick now – but then be so caught up in staring at his slack face and softly pouted lips that she’ll forget all about her worries. Her fever will have broken, and she’ll ease herself out of his arms to go take a shower while he continues to nap. He deserves the rest. He’s been taking care of her for so long.

But that’s when she wakes up. Right now, she’s drifting off, vaguely dizzy, feeling as though she’s aboard a boat traveling to a foreign land. She curls her fingers against Mamoru’s knee, taking a fistful of cloth in hand, and lets the world rock her to sleep.

“Quick, in here!”

Mamoru ducks the youma’s attack and pushes Usagi through the open doorway. The youma turns around in midair for a second pass, and Mamoru only barely manages to throw himself through the doorway and slam the door behind them.

First thing that registers is, phew, we’re safe. Second thing is, I have to get out of here so I can transform.

Third is, damn, it’s tight in here.

He seems to have thrown the two of them into some kind of storage closet. And not an empty one, either. There’s boxes and trinkets and piled up cloth everywhere, and even with Usagi flat against the wall, he’s pressed up against her in a not entirely comfortable way, his arms folded weirdly in against his chest and straining not to collapse against her skin in a way that wouldn’t be polite at all. His upper arms are starting to ache with the exertion of the weird pose.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and tries to adjust. He ends up pressed against her in an even more compromising way, and she gives a frustrated yelp. He switches back with another hasty “Sorry,” but she’s still glaring at him.

“Chikan,” she declares in a stage-whisper.

It’s a pretty nasty word, implying a deviance that a simple Ecchi doesn’t. “It’s not on purpose,” he snaps at her. “As soon as that thing’s gone, I’m out of here.”

“Is it still out there?” She cocks her head, as though trying to listen.

He does the same. The sounds are fainter, but he can still hear it swooping around like some kind of demented bat. “I think so. Just stay still, all right?”

She nods. There’s some fire in her eyes right now that he wants to examine, to understand. Now is not the time, he scolds himself, and concentrates on holding this ridiculous pose without slumping against her.

It hurts. His muscles ache. “Sorry,” he warns in advance, and lets himself slump for a few seconds. His weight droops against her, and she gasps but bites back whatever reproach was on the tip of her tongue. “I can’t help it,” he explains lamely. “It’s an awkward position.”

She regards him for a moment. “Put your  arms around me,” she says.

“What?”

She rolls her eyes. “Hug me. It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Who wants to hug you?” But already he can tell how much more natural that pose will be. It’s the most efficient use of space. And this is not the time to be modest or picky about who you cuddle. They can be awkward about it later. Right now, there’s a monster outside trying to kill them.

Sighing, he slips his arms around her and presses his face against the side of her head. Pushing in close, he settles in to listen, and wait, and count the seconds until this humiliating moment is over.

Except for wow, her hair is actually kind of soft and nice against his cheek, and when her little hands fold against his back their heat goes straight up his spine. She’s warm, surprisingly so, and the way her body presses against his is … well, nice isn’t the right word, but it’s close. His arms are full of girl – beautiful girl, his mind insists – and Mamoru’s sure he’s never felt anything like this before.

Is it just because she’s female? It doesn’t feel that way. There’s some part of this that is special because it’s Usagi, that frustrating fascinating kid that always seems to be getting on his bad side, and he wonders for a bright sweet moment what would have happened if he’d done things differently when they first met. Suppose he’d picked up that test paper and tossed it into her waiting hands. Suppose they hadn’t barked insults at each other every time they met. Suppose this hug was happening because they wanted it to happen.

He’s thinking crazy things. It’s because of the danger, because he’s concerned about her life being in peril. It’s sparking some sympathy response in him that’s making him go all soft. But why, then, does he feel that sharp sting of protectiveness, the kind Tuxedo Mask feels whenever Sailor Moon is in danger? Why is he sure he’d hold her forever, if it meant she’d be safe?

“Oi.” She hisses at him.

“Hm?” Is he stepping on her feet? Pulling her hair? He shifts, tries to make sure he’s not hurting her, and holding her from a new angle brings up another flood of warm feelings he doesn’t know what to do with.

“I think it’s gone.”

He gasps. He had forgotten to even listen for the youma. A moment more of silence, and he nods, agreeing. “Right.”

“So you can let go now.” She looks up at him, brow furrowed in consternation, but when their eyes meet the anger melts away from her expression. She stares up at him blank-faced, mouth pursed into a small O. And her hands are still clutching his shirt. He stares back down at her, frozen, captivated. There’s warmth everywhere, in his heart and in his hands and burning up his brain. What is this sensation? It feels strangely like he’s been in a faraway place, and he’s just now come home.

But that youma’s still out there. And if Sailor Moon doesn’t need his help with it now, she’ll need it soon. He has to move. Carefully, he eases the door open, then lets go and spills backward into the larger room. It’s trashed, and that youma could be anywhere by now. “I have to go, odango atama,” he stars to explain, turning back to her…

except for she’s gone.

His mind reels. How did she disappear so quickly? Is she okay? Did the youma sweep back and steal her away? Fear fills him, and so does the hot rush of adrenaline. But then his brain tingles with the familiar sensation that tells him Sailor Moon is in danger. His worry about Usagi will have to wait. He has a job to do.

He leaps into the air, and when he lands, he’s Tuxedo Mask.

Chapter Text

“That is not how sentences work,” Mamoru mutters as he takes a red pen to the latest page. Usagi Tsukino clearly doesn’t read what she writes, or she’d realize that she can’t throw clauses here, there and everywhere. Nor can she just add in a bunch of additional information to a random sentence and throw a set of commas around it. Mamoru works studiously to find a home for the excess information, poring over the document and trying three or four different wordings out loud before he finally decides on one. 

Why is his life like this? Why is he relegated to reading the latest girly claptrap from Japan’s hottest new author? Granted, Usagi Tsukino is adorable, with a face and persona more that of a pop idol than of a reclusive novelist. Her manner of speaking and her winning smiles have garnered massive media attention, and book sales to match. She’s a literary juggernaut.

For some value of “literary. The girl can not write. Her metaphors are mashed and her characters are cardboard. Still, something about her has captured the imagination of the public, so it’s Mamoru’s job to take a mallet to her warped prose until it at least stands sturdy. Someday he’s gonna meet her face to face, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to keep his mouth shut. Somebody’s got to tell her she’s not all that. He turns to a poster of her on the wall, intending to give it a stern talking-to.

But he ends up just staring at the poster and sighing. Damn. She really is adorable.

Chapter Text

“Is there something wrong with me?”

It’s Mamoru’s voice, Mamoru’s back turned to her, and although Usagi had meant to sneak up on him and surprise him (serves him right), for some reason this stops her. She turns back around the corner, flattens herself against the wall and listens.

“I don’t see how,” answers Motoki with a laugh. “It sounds pretty normal to me.”

“Really?” Mamoru sounds skeptical.

“Really. Mamoru, you like a girl. That’s about as normal as it gets.”

Mamoru has someone he likes? Haha, she’s probably hideous. Usagi can’t even begin to fathom the kind of girl a curmudgeon like Mamoru would be interested in. Probably an older woman. Some middle-aged lady who’s as much of a sourpuss as he is.

“Like her? That’s kind of reaching, don’t you think? All I said was whenever she’s around, I can’t seem to pay attention to anything else.”

Yeah, okay, Mamoru, that’s pretty much the definition of liking someone. Usagi holds back a snicker. Oh, this is too good. She’ll have so much dirt on him at the end of this conversation. Just keep talking, Mamoru.

And, bless him, he does. “It’s not like I want to think about her this much. She’s not even my type. But there’s just something about her that I can’t look away.” There’s a frustrated edge to his voice. “So I end up saying all this stupid stuff, and she gets so mad. I don’t even mean to make her mad. It just happens.”

Hah. It’s nice to know that Mamoru’s his stupid bratty self even around the girl he likes. Sounds like he treats her almost exactly the way he treats Usagi. That ought to show him that it’s not her, it’s him…

And something clicks inside Usagi at that point, something that unsettles her. A thought that maybe, just maybe…

“You should be more honest with yourself, Mamoru. She’s a cute girl, and you want to talk to her. Why don’t you try?”

Mamoru sighs. “I’m just no good with people. Heh. She is, though, isn’t she? Cute, I mean.”

“She really is,” Motoki says. “You should talk to her. Just… try it.”

The unsettling feeling calms down a bit now. After all, there’s no way Mamoru would ever think of Usagi as cute. Not to himself, or Motoki.

Usagi just wishes that didn’t feel so darned disappointing.