Commentary: This story implies and will eventually feature Kou Seiya and Tsukino Usagi as a couple. If you are a diehard fan of Usagi and Mamoru, I still encourage you to keep an open mind and give this tale a shot. I'm not in this to bash Mamoru—I like him well enough. I simply believe in diverging destinies, and different kinds of love, and threads of red string that tie together more than two people across time. I hope you can believe, too.
This is dedicated to YoukaiYume, whose beautiful artwork featuring destined couples, especially this one, continues to inspire my love of Sailor Moon. Regardless of whether you ever see this: thank you. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own the BSSM franchise. It belongs to the goddess Takeuchi Naoko.
"We're allowed to dream of something besides our duty as a soldier, right?" – Kou Yaten, episode 192
CONSTELLATIONS
Prologue: Fighter's Resolution
He strums his fingers over his guitar strings, his eyes fixed on empty space, unseeing. His soul yearns. His companions feel it and shuffle like birds, sometimes toward him and then away from him again, their feathers ruffled. He is their leader—they trust him. But they worry too.
His heart calls to another. Its song is strong enough to circle worlds.
"Seiya," Taiki attempts. Further words fail him. He licks his lips and glances sidelong at Yaten, whose eyes have narrowed into cattish slits of pure aggravation and dismay.
"Uh?" Seiya responds. He looks up at them both and smiles. Though he means to reassure them with it, he only adds fuel to the fire of their concern. It's a dreamy smile, full of wistful longing and a bone-deep ache that his two friends can see just as easily as a flashing neon sign. His fingers strum again: the note they produce glows in the air, a jewel held to the light.
Yaten grinds his teeth, his hands clenched over his knees; Taiki winces and turns his head away. In these stray sounds, they can hear Seiya's song shifting from a search to a serenade: from their princess to a rogue schoolgirl with pigtails and a big mouth and absolutely no sense of grace or tact. In a way they can't blame Seiya—after all, her flaws aside, they like the girl well enough too! Yaten knows there's good in her because she cares deeply for her cat, it's true, and her antics shatter Taiki's serious demeanor into sheer shivering laughter. Her white-diamond light shines from her every pore, so brilliant and unexpected that it takes their breath away. In her sprinkle-specked smile they see the same kind of hope that drove them here, to this rural backwater planet, from across the spirals of the stars.
But to fall in love with her! Only Seiya could do that!
Yaten makes a clicking sound with his teeth, an art he has perfected since its inception in his early childhood. It makes their leader frown. His fingers pause in their caress of the guitar strings; his cornflower eyes flicker, sharpen. "What?" he demands.
"That girl," Yaten murmurs, locking eyes with that leader. "That stupid—!" His voice falters and he bites his lip, jittering back a little in his seat. His silver hair bristles.
Seiya stares at him, blinking, bemused. "Oi," he cuts in, but Yaten refuses to let him finish.
"The princess," Yaten manages in a weak but cutting hiss. "Have you forgotten her?" His thin, wiry body shudders with the force of the question. Taiki touches his shoulder and he shrugs it off, leaning forward despite his normally restricted nature. Seiya leans away, startled, but even so their flat chests brush. The friction must upset Yaten, because tears bead in his bright viridian eyes and he finishes, his voice a hoarse shadow of its usual clarion ring, "Are you singing to someone else? That dumpling-headed girl from school?"
A storm boils into existence over Seiya's features. Taiki sees the potential thunderclap on his lips and pushes his two friends deftly apart with his own body before it can boom. As with Yaten's little clicking noise, he's been doing this since early childhood too, and the space between them feels to him as snug as his own skin.
"Calm down," he advises them gently. He looks down into Seiya's furious face: teeth clenched, eyes burning, two spots of color riding high on his scissor-sharp cheeks. He feels Yaten's fingers twine and twist in his ponytail, and the press of the man's other palm in the small of his back is like a hot star. Taking a deep breath, he waits. Sometimes they get angry enough to claw at each other around his hips; sometimes they reach through the handles of his elbows. Once Seiya even climbed him like a tree. He's had enough experience wresting them from one another to be ready for anything—he'll pull them apart, no matter what, if he must.
But gradually Seiya's features smooth over. The fuming flush fades from his face—his mouth quirks into its usual gamine grin, and he slides around an apprehensive Taiki to face Yaten directly. Yaten is right on the verge of crying, his collarbones blotchy and hitching, his eyes swimming with tears. The desperate anger and disquiet in his expression soften the last bit of brittle brine in Seiya's gaze, and the leader takes Yaten in his arms and embraces him. It's a little like hugging a constipated tiger, complete with high risk of hideous maiming. This time, though, Seiya is lucky, and Yaten leans gingerly into him.
"Come on," he assures the smallest member of their trio. He chuffs his chin through Yaten's hair. "I like Odango—I think she's special. I won't lie about that." A pink frost laces over the bridge of his nose, and Yaten stiffens a little as he looks up through his pewter lashes, suspicious. "There's nothing wrong with liking someone, is there?" Seiya finishes. He sounds defensive.
"There is if you like her more than the princess," Yaten growls sullenly. His lip wobbles and he saws his teeth over it, and Taiki cups his elbow, and Seiya tightens his arms. They all miss her terribly in that moment as they think of her smile, so soft and bright and warm. The smallest recalls how her laugh lit up everything like a tideline horizon; the tallest recollects the sincerity of her words and the glint of sunrise in her hair. Their leader, last of all, remembers the brush of her fingers and the strength of her scream when their world ended.
For those scattered seconds, they yearn together.
"Don't be stupid," Seiya soothes Yaten. "I love our princess."
His statement is so true that the air in the room is almost raw with it. It seems to comfort Yaten, at least, and after another short moment the silver-haired idol pulls briskly away and straightens his uniform.
"Good," he says. He's trying to be gruff and aloof—it works with his fans, but his friends see through it as they see through glass, and Taiki sighs and Seiya chuckles. Rubbing a gold button with his thumb, Yaten mutters, "She's really obnoxious, isn't she? In a clueless kind of way, I mean. Unbelievable."
There's no denying that he's talking about Usagi, and the exasperated fondness in his observation, not to mention the truth of the matter, are the only things that keep Seiya from breaking Yaten's pretty little nose.
Fortune smiles on Seiya yet again, because Yaten misses the annoyed twitching jaw muscle and fist-clench of his fellow Starlight. Apparently deciding that he's had enough love and cuddling for now, the green-eyed youth announces, "I'm going to make a sandwich," and slips from the studio. Taiki and Seiya are left alone in its padded confines, between walls that bounce around acoustics and emotions equally well.
Letting out a breath in an explosive gust, Seiya offers Taiki a small, cracked smile, places his guitar lovingly back in its case, and mutters something about going to get some air. He's gone in a flash of blue-black hair and crooked elbows, hands stuffed in pockets. His crescent earring winks like a talisman.
Taiki waits: for one minute, two. The fan blades of the studio churn through dead air, giving off an amniotic whup-whup-whup. Soon he follows Seiya to the roof.
He finds their leader silhouetted against the city lights, his legs planted in a firm V, fingers steepled in rigid triangles over hips, head thrown high. He's humming something under his breath, and Taiki can't be sure, but he thinks it might be one of their songs.
He goes to Seiya on silent feet until they are side by side. Taiki's shadow falls over the shorter man. He folds his arms, gazing out over Tokyo: its winking expanse burns and blossoms and bubbles with life. The streets teem still with evening commuters; to the west, the N-line choom-chooms toward its station and sends a pale gray wisp of smoke streaking skyward. A mother yells at her child and somewhere in the nearby park, a small dog yaps incessantly and chases a candy wrapper.
"Seiya," Taiki allows for the second time this evening.
Seiya turns to look at him. They lock eyes, lavender on blue: they peer into one another, these two friends who have exchanged secrets and diaries and disgust over boys since the days of scabbed knees. The question hangs between them, unspoken but certain: You love our princess—but you love her too, don't you, Seiya?
The tallest idol sees the answer he suspected in Seiya's proud, shameless gaze.
He stands there a moment more—perhaps he's waiting for Seiya to look away, or to say something. He taps a foot. His forehead creases and there's a tightening in his chest, something like envy, something like rage. He is sorely tempted to remind the head of their trio about duty—about their mission, about the princess—but knows he'd have better luck attempting a conversation with a telephone pole. Seiya has seen destiny done up in a sailor uniform and blonde pigtails, and really, what can Taiki say to that? At last he throws up his hands in a small, helplessly exasperated shrug and turns to retrace his steps, disappearing down the well of the utility staircase.
Seiya stands alone on the roof. He looks for a long time at nothing, though his eyes sweep the cityscape thrice and again. His brow beads with sweat despite the cool breeze, and his heart throbs so furiously that he can feel it in his throat. He picks up humming again, toneless, idle; his fingers worry the rims of his pockets. Eventually he takes a seat and hooks his hands over his ankles, his thoughts running and roaring between his temples, and he wonders what his princess would say.
Seiya has always given his everything for her, his planet, his friends. The trait earned him his name as a soldier—Fighter—and got him scars on his knuckles. It forced him here in the wake of his planet's annihilation, leaving no time for grief or sorrow. It led him to suggest a male disguise on Earth—to, in fact, encourage Taiki to modify Seiya's henshin brooch first, lest the transformation from one physical body to another go wrong. So devoted to his mission and to those he loves, he has never put his wishes before the needs of others. He has sung with fiery passion during every Three Lights rehearsal and ensuing concert: until his chest heaves, his eyes water, and his voice leaves him only words in a sandpaper rasp. He has allowed his soul to stretch, to shout out across the heavens of this lonely world.
He never expected Odango to answer him.
He draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, pillowing his chin on top. He sighs. When he caught sight of her that first time, he felt a part of his secret heart shudder and cry out—and when he heard her voice, and her laughter, oh no! He knew he was in trouble! Hooked! Snared! Caught! Captivated!
She's got him like a firefly in a jar. Even so, he doesn't mind, and he knows that he'll burn as brightly as he can for her until there's nothing left of him but a smoldering ruin.
Because she heard his call in a way no one else ever did, or could, and she came to him, even if it was accidental. She saw his need for a friend and fulfilled it as easily as breathing. She has embraced him in joy and fear; she has taken his hand and held it gently, and grabbed his ponytail to yank it hard. They have danced together, and ridden rollercoasters, and crouched in a closet with hips brushing and knees knocking, and she once even called upon him to kill the queen of all cockroaches. She fills all the empty spaces inside him he never knew he had—not until they found one another. She finishes him, the other half to his whole.
She is all he's ever wanted for himself alone, and he has no idea what to do about it. So he thinks again and again, over and over: what would his princess say?
He hides his eyes from the city, pushing his face down into the cradle of his arms, as he contemplates. He knows now is the worst time to have suddenly cultivated a romantic interest. The fate of this planet hangs in the hands of the maiden for whom he longs: is it really his place to distract her from that fact? Furthermore, their princess is still lost—back across the constellations, their planet lies in silent devastation. They have problems enough on their own, the war on this particular world be damned.
Still, Seiya can't help what his heart wants, and deep within himself—despite his irritation at the timing, and the anxiety of his friends, and the tenuous circumstances altogether—he is not sorry for his feelings. He knows no greater joy than that which seeps into him whenever he sees her: her buns bobbing, her uniform wrinkled, her eyes wide and wandering and wonderful. He would trade it, that silver spark Tsukino Usagi inspires in him, for nothing.
He thinks his princess would be proud of him. She has always been proud of him. Why would now be any different? That realization hits him hard, so much that he nearly reels. He puts his head in his hands, runs his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, and sucks in a breath that's almost a sob. He thinks—no, he knows she would tell him the same thing regarding this situation that she has every other time he's found himself in a snit. She would tell him to give it his best shot.
She would tell him that she called him Fighter for a reason.
Lifting his head a bit, Seiya turns his gaze toward Juuban. He can see his school from here, though only just. Its clocktower glows like an open, all-seeing eye.
His hands fold into fists; he pumps one in the air, mute but firm, and climbs to his feet. He likes a challenge, and Seiya is no fool. He knows this is a battle wherein all odds are against him. He has a princess to find, a planet to revive—she has a galactic warlord to fend off, a world to protect, and some deadbeat boyfriend somewhere who holds her glass heart in stonewall hands.
Stealing it won't be easy.
This is a fight he might not win.
Under the stars from whence he came, Seiya smiles.
He'll die trying.
Notes: This is only the sparse beginning of a much longer story, the majority of which will take place in Crystal Tokyo. Per usual, I adore critiques, comments, and suggestions, so please don't hesitate to leave any or all of them. Send me mails if you like—talk to me, ask me questions. I've been told I'm very friendly!
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.