Twenty-four hours later, Mamoru was still sick of it.
“Why don’t you just call her?” he asked for what felt like the fiftieth time, feeling that he was being perfectly reasonable about the situation.
Motoki let out the most depressing sigh Mamoru had ever been forced to witness. “No.”
“And why not?”
Motoki dragged his dirty dishtowel over the countertop without his usual enthusiasm. “She won’t answer.”
Mamoru blinked very slowly. “Well, have you actually tried calling her?”
Motoki looked like a child whenever they are confronted with sound logic. “No.”
“Then how do you know she won’t pick up.”
“’Cause she won’t.”
Mamoru ripped open a sugar packet with more vehemence than was necessary, dumping it into his already oversweetened coffee. “You are the most pathetic human being currently alive. You do realize this.”
“Yeah.”
There was a great deal more that could be said in response to this, but Mamoru was momentarily distracted by the sound of the doors opening. He was expecting Ami and Rei to arrive at any moment, but he was marginally annoyed to see that it was Usagi and her little brother coming for a visit. The boy looked a little pale, jumpier than he had been before, but he wasn’t so nervous that he couldn’t scowl in Mamoru’s direction.
“He’s here,” Shingo murmured to his older sister.
“He does that,” Usagi said, shaking her head. She paused to wave at Motoki and called out, “Hello, Motoki! Are you feeling any better today?”
Mamoru laughed dryly. “That would be a no.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be his friend?” Shingo asked, still scowling.
Mamoru leveled a glare at the young boy’s direction. “Aren’t you supposed to be seen and not heard?”
Usagi rolled her eyes dramatically and reached into her pocket, giving her brother a handful of coins. “Shingo, why don’t you go play the Sailor V game? See if you can beat my score.”
Shingo scoffed. “Can’t be that hard.” Usagi looked ready to yell at him for that, but he scooted off to do as he’d been instructed. But not before giving Mamoru one last dirty look.
Usagi hobbled over to the counter and took a seat a space down from Mamoru. It took her a moment to get properly settled, but she seemed a bit more used to it than she had been before. She shook her head and said, “He’s been a bit weird ever since the attack. This is the first time I’ve been able to get him out of the house, and I think that’s just because I said I’d pay for everything.”
“That’s all right,” Mamoru grumbled, taking a sip from his coffee.
“I wasn’t apologizing. Actually, that’s the most normal he’s been for days. I was saying it so you wouldn’t be mean to him anymore.” She paused, frowning at him. “But I don’t know why I bothered since it’s you were talking about.”
Mamoru clenched his jaw. “Bundle of sweetness and light, you Tsukinos are.”
“We know, but thank you,” she chirped entirely too brightly. “So, what’s the matter with you, Motoki? I don’t like seeing you this upset every time I come in here. Come on. Tell me your problems. I’m sure I have a better chance of helping that Tall, Dark, and Annoying over here.”
Mamoru shook his head, swallowing. “See, you border on the edge of clever, but you just never quite make it.”
“And you’re still a jerk,” Usagi maintained, sticking her tongue out for good measure. She reached forward and patted Motoki’s wrist sympathetically. “Come on. Talk to me.”
“You really don’t want to open this can of worms,” Mamoru warned her quietly.
Usagi glared at him and hissed, “Just because you’re incapable of human emotion—"
“I am not incapable of anything.”
“You can’t seem to be nice to save your life.”
“I kept you from falling over the other day, didn’t I?”
“You were probably planning on dropping me again but decided not to when you remembered there were witnesses.”
“Do you sit up all night thinking about this crap?”
“Oh, is that how long it takes you to come up with all your comments? I had been wondering.”
“You sound like an old married couple,” Motoki interrupted despondently. “Stop it. You’re depressing me.”
Usagi turned bright red. “We do not! We absolutely do not; how dare you say such a thing!”
“Thanks for the nightmares, Motoki,” Mamoru drawled, holding up his mug in a mock toast. “I owe you absolutely nothing.”
Motoki visibly deflated, his shoulders drooping painfully. “I’m never going to get married.”
Mamoru shook his head, cursing the moment Usagi had walked in the door. “Here we go again.”
“I’m never going to fall in love again,” Motoki continued. “I had my chance. But then I let it go. I walked out of her apartment, out of her life, out of everything because of that God damn letter.”
“You sound like you’re still drunk,” Mamoru confided. “Stop talking.”
Usagi held up both of her hands, her blue eyes wide. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that you… have a girlfriend?”
“Had,” Motoki corrected morosely. “Past tense.”
“Oh,” Usagi said, her voice very small. She looked down at her hands resting in her lap, her fingers twitching and playing with each other as if there was something of interest to play with. Her lips trembled a bit and her voice definitely broke. It was easier to tell with Usagi. She was more prone to crying. “I hadn’t… I hadn’t known that you were seeing someone.”
Motoki laid his chin inside of his palm and closed his eyes. “If I’d known it wasn’t going to last much longer, I would have hired skywriters to say, ‘I love Nishimura Reika.’ Do you think that would have fixed things?”
“I doubt it,” Mamoru assured.
“You loved her,” Usagi repeated, sounding as if she was about to start wailing at any moment. “I guess you really, really loved her if you’re this upset about losing her.”
Motoki nodded. “You have no idea.”
Usagi took a deep breath, licking her lips. “Did she, um… love you back?”
“I like to think so,” Motoki answered quietly. “I like to think she’s just as miserable as I am.”
Mamoru remembered the previous day’s events and his near molestation at the hands of Reika. Afraid that Motoki would somehow be able to read the guilt on his face, Mamoru turned to look more at Usagi, who suddenly looked fragile. He’d started to think of her as strangely resilient after everything she’d been through. He remembered the jewelry store, the flower shop, her bemused face just before Jadeite’s last attack, the crutches laying against the bar. She’d survived all of that, and this was threatening to crush her. He didn’t know whether to be sympathetic or disappointed. After all, she was only a kid getting her heart broken for the first time.
“I hope everything works out,” Usagi whispered sincerely. “Excuse me. I’m just going to go check on Shingo.” She sniffed loudly and began the struggle to get down.
Mamoru chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second. “Do you need help?”
“Not from you,” she muttered, perhaps more sharply than intended. He could never be sure if she meant to be as caustic as she was with him when she really was all sweetness and light to every other person she met. Whatever the case, he let it go, ready to come to her rescue if she fell again.
She made it one piece, hobbling off to the bathroom at the back of the arcade.
Mamoru exhaled, shutting his eyes after she left, turning to look back at Motoki. Not surprisingly, he was clueless as to the damage he’d caused. Motoki was generous, but when he fell to pieces, it was difficult for him to see the cracks in other people.
Shaking his head, Mamoru turned to see if Ami and Rei were going to pop in and save him from this horrible scenario. However, what he actually saw was not the sort of thing that would make things better. It was going to be another wrench in the works.
There was Reika, obviously still tipsy from the night before, and hanging on the arms of two equally unsteady, good-looking men. Both of them looked thrilled at the fact that Reika was even paying attention to them, making Mamoru question the taste of the other members of his sex. And to top it off, they had decided to stall in the most inappropriate place possible: directly in front of the glass front of the arcade.
“Hell,” Mamoru swore, wondering if there was any way he could prevent this confrontation from occurring. He was about to distract Motoki by spilling coffee all over the place when one of the men stepped just close enough to the sensor to open the doors.
Motoki glanced over on instinct. He stopped. He took in what he saw. And then he turned a very funny color and looked decidedly less pathetic.
“Be right back,” he grumbled, hopping over the counter and tossing his apron onto the floor.
Mamoru quickly got up and followed. “No way am I just going to sit here.”
Motoki didn’t seem to notice. He just stalked right out to the sidewalk where Reika was, laughing and tripping over her own feet. She tossed her hair and caught sight of Motoki. She seemed to trip and land in Buffoon #1’s arms on accident, but Mamoru knew that sometimes women pretended to be klutzes in order to be saved. He’d always thought better of Reika.
“Oh, hi!” she practically shouted, her voice shrill and grating. “What a nice surprise. Boys, this is my old boyfriend. The schmuck.”
In the time it took Mamoru to blink, Motoki changed from a man who had just been emotionally punched in the stomach to a man perfectly willing and able to punch someone else’s stomach. He’d never been a particularly intimidating force, but even Mamoru was surprised by the amount of venom in Motoki’s voice. “Schmuck or not, so help me God, I will rip you both three new assholes apiece if you don’t get off her. Now.”
Mamoru had never been so grateful for a sudden mood swing in his life. Both of Reika’s companions seemed to think that it was more important that they go home and sober up than fight for the affections of one woman. This gave Mamoru hope for the remainder of his gender, so he viewed their retreating backs with a measure of satisfaction and relief. However, there was still a very large problem to resolve in front of him.
Reika pouted and hopped onto the hood of a parked car, crossing her legs in a manner that would have been fetching in another circumstance. “You chased them away. That’s very rude, you know.”
Motoki clenched both of his fists, his knuckles white and his frame trembling. “I don’t believe you. I have been… I have been an absolute wreck, and you’ve been out barhopping?”
“It’s called moving on, baby,” Reika informed him in a sickly sweet voice. “And speaking of moving, I really can’t sit here looking pretty all day, but I’m sure you’d just follow me down the streets like some lost puppy dog until you’ve had your say, so have at it. But make it quick, there are better places for me to be.”
At first, Mamoru thought Motoki would crumble beneath the familiar dog analogy, and for a moment, it looked as though he was right. But just as Motoki seemed to be crushed beneath her arrogance, Motoki pulled himself together. He relaxed his muscles, straightening his hunched shoulders and looked her directly in the eye.
“Reika, what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” she insisted again. “I’ve gotten better, far better than I could have ever been attached to you.”
Motoki shook his head. “Are you trying to put on some kind of show because you lacked confidence about getting the fellowship?”
Reika snorted and examined her nails. For the first since Mamoru had met her, the polish was chipped. “As if I care about that studying abroad anymore.”
That made both Mamoru and Motoki balk. “What?” they chorused.
Reika sniffed. “I think I’m just a little too fabulous to be trotting around Equatorial Guinea in khakis, don’t you agree?”
Mamoru narrowed his eyes. Something about Reika was definitely not right. Up to this point, he’d assumed what Motoki had proposed: Reika was trying to assert her independence and confidence in the wake of the break-up. It was intervention worthy (just not from him) and disturbing, but this added layer to her personality made him wonder.
“The Reika I know wouldn’t give up an opportunity like that for eye candy,” Mamoru murmured quietly.
Motoki nodded, looking frantic. “You’re starting to scare me, Reika.”
“Already scaring me,” Mamoru muttered, looking around. He couldn’t be sure if he was right, not without Rei. Haruna and the Senator had been frenetic, absolutely crazed when infected by the Dark Kingdom’s magic. Reika was acting oddly, but it wasn’t the same. She seemed perfectly in control, alarmingly so. She’d always been capable, but now there was a kind of cold competence that hung around her shoulders. It wasn’t flattering.
Suddenly, the doors slid open behind them. Usagi and a visibly uneasy Shingo exited the arcade. She kept her head down, but Mamoru was willing to bet she’d been crying.
Before Mamoru could analyze her disposition any longer, a sick feeling rose in his stomach, just as strong as those waves of nausea. He fought to stay on his feet. He knew this feeling intimately. It was the same as he’d felt before many of his battles, including the last one although it had not been this strong. He’d never been able to come up with a good reason for why it only happened sometimes. Now there seemed to be a very good if completely inexplicable reason.
Usagi had been present every time.
“Oh,” Usagi whispered when Shingo stopped her from bumping into Mamoru. “Sorry, I wasn’t…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “We were just leaving.”
Mamoru’s head swam. He could barely think. The coffee in his system was threatening to come back up the way it came, and sweat had broken out all over his body. He had to get Usagi out of there quickly. This pain confirmed his worst suspicions, and if his calculations were correct, things were going to explode at any minute.
“Motoki,” Mamoru ground out between his teeth. “Why don’t you help Usagi home?”
His friend gave him an incredulous look. “Mamoru, this is hardly the time. If you’re so gung-ho about it, why don’t you do it?”
“The kid will kick me,” Mamoru drawled, not doubting this fact for a minute.
“I don’t need any help,” Usagi said coldly. It was new for her and a bit of a shock for Mamoru’s system. “Come on, Shingo.”
Brother and sister gave Mamoru an almost identical withering glare before turning and walking away. As a final test to his theory, Mamoru closed his eyes and focused on his own pain, shutting the argument between Reika and Motoki out of his mind. He faced it head on, experiencing every moment and refusing to shut it out. All he thought about was his own agony, and he waited.
It lessened.
Mamoru opened his eyes and saw Usagi and Shingo slowly making their way across the street. It seemed with every step, his torment lessened. The churning in his stomach subsided and his head stopped threatening to rip itself apart.
So she was the key.
And what the hell did that mean?
AUTHOR’S NOTES
This scene ultimate got rewritten because there was no reason for Usagi to be there, and I decided that it was way too early for Mamoru to find out about the root of his physical freak-outs. I actually wasn’t planning for that to happen in this chapter at all, but then Mamoru figured it out on his own. There’d be no way to hide that information from him without making this fanfic into Heroes, where character intelligence is sacrificed for the sake of plot. That certainly wasn’t going to happen, so out Usagi went. It makes the chapter spiral out of control a lot faster than I expected, but I think that wound up working all things considered. So, this goes here as there was some good Usagi/Mamoru dialogue I didn’t want to lose forever.
