A FALLEN CHARM ~ A BISHOUJO SENSHI SAILORMOON FANFIC
written by hitokiri firefly-sama
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Disclaimers : All characters from Sailormoon potrayed here are not mine and never will be, I'm sure. I'm just playing around with them for a little while, and I promise I won't hurt them ^^. Anyway, don't sue me if you're some guy from Toei or something like that, 'cause I have no money. Really! *grin* Enjoy the story. I worked hard for it.
Light profanity here. Grand total of six (I think) words ^^
Rated PG-13
for waff, angst, romance, and
language.
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Longing for something that you don't have
How long do you want to continue wishing for it?
When I begin to understand that feeling like this
Started from the first time I met you
--- Fly High :: Hamasaki Ayumi
CHAPTER ONE
As soon as Hino Rei opened her eyes, she knew she was late for
school. But instead of panicking and jumping out of her covers and futon, she
just laid there with her eyes fixed on the asbestos ceiling. She sighed. Somehow
she didn't feel as if she had the strength to go anywhere today, even though she
went to bed very early the night before. She rubbed her sleepy eyes slowly. She
hadn't been feeling very energetic for the past few days anyway.
And now that today was The Day, she felt positively lethargic.
Slowly she slipped out from her reverie and forced herself to the bathroom. She looked down at her toothbrush and squeezed an ample amount of the minty paste on the soft bristles that were made to ensure your gums won't get hurt while brushing. /Really/, she thought. /What were those guys thinking?/ If the bristles were made any softer she might as well break all her teeth and be toothless for the rest of her life.
Funny. She was the one who wanted the damn thing in the first place.
After making sure that her teeth were dazzlingly clean and white and that her hair was in place and not sticking out all over the place, she trudged back to her room and put on her uniform. With a faint smile she ran her hand over the brown material, a wave of nostalgia sweeping over her. She remembered the first day she had entered high school. She was younger, definitely, and much more innocent than she was now. She had ambition, and her confidence was as high as the skies, and then some. She was sure that she would get high grades in all her subjects and would be the most popular girl in school, if not the smartest. She knew her limits and understood that she shouldn't push them.
Oh, she still had all those things now, but now that school was coming to an end she wondered if it was worth it. In summary, her life hadn't changed much. She still wanted to be the Jinja's manager, and maybe she would go into enterprising. But a part of her was gone, she knew, and would probably never come back. Back then she had hope, and now that her senior year was almost over she felt she had none of that left.
Even that. She felt so empty, inside.
A sigh escaped her lips. Not for the first time in her life, she felt so unloved. Her mother had died when she was young, and her father was practically a stranger in her life. He had given her away to her ojii-chan soon after her mother's death, most probably because he couldn't bear looking at her without feeling remorse. Rei didn't blame her father, and she still doesn't. But for once in her life she wished that her father would wake up, get a grip on himself and come back to her. He purposely kept himself busy with his work so that he needn't see her.
/Otou-sama.../. (1)
She missed him. Yeah, even though he had abandoned her.
She didn't take breakfast, because of more than one reason. Firstly, she didn't have an appetite. Secondly, she rarely ate nowadays, and not because she was suffering from anorexia, or something like that. She simply lost all interest in food. And since she was in a bad mood she supposed it would be an insult to the food to even look at them.
She stopped walking and looked around her. She was on the Jinja's steps, heading down towards Jyuban street (2). All of a sudden her heart attempted a somersault, and it felt as though it was trying to break through her ribs. Her nervousness wasn't unusual. She always felt like this everyday, every damn school day. When it was the weekend she avoided walking down at this time of the day, afraid to see what she was dying to see. Yeah, she almost laughed at the irony of her fear. She just loved to contradict herself. But as it was, she was very late for school and she couldn't afford to be suspended just when she was about to graduate.
She took a deep breath and resumed walking. Today was the day.
The third anniversary of their meeting.
The first time they had met was by the side of the street, not three feet from where she was standing now. She was just minding her own business when he walked by with a group of other guys. She didn't know what happened, but she fell then. Not as in physically, but something big happened to her, and she knew what it was.
She fell in love. Hard.
But he hardly looked at her, save glancing at her and giving her a small smile, out of politeness. She checked the time and from that day on she made sure she was there at the same time, just to see him (3). Sometimes he would be with his friends, other times he would be alone. But once, just once, she saw him with a girl, whom she assumed was his girlfriend. But she never saw him with her again, so she deduced that their relationship didn't work out. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, for the past year he was always alone when he walked by this blessed street.
Rei stopped when she reached the street. To her immense relief (and disappointment), she saw no one around for about a mile. The street was strangely silent, but since half the city's population had woken up an hour earlier than her, she wasn't that surprised. But still she felt sad, cheated somehow. They were supposed to meet here, like they always did. They had approached each other here, everyday, for the past three years, without fail. Except for the weekends, when she went to great lengths to avoid that street, they saw each other practically every day. It was almost like routine, a routine which she religiously practices, albeit with a bit of reluctance. To break that routine was like committing a terrible sin against Kami-sama. She told herself to walk, to just forget about the whole thing. At least she still has school to go to. At the moment, though, she felt like going back to her room.
Of course, she had also wished that he wouldn't be here.
He. The love of her life.
She thought of him as that, as the love of her life.
Even though they had not spoken a word to each other. Not a word.
Rei sighed and was about to resume her sad life, when she strode smack into a hard object. The force of the impact was so much so she found herself tumbling backwards, her arms flailing at her sides, trying to grab that invisible railing to steady herself. She landed on the hard pavement with a thud that echoed in her brain, and she believed that she had hurt herself in places she would not talk about in mixed company. /What the hell?/ she thought. She didn't remember a tree at this very spot. She could walk to school blindfolded for all she cared.
"Gomen, daijoubu desu ka?" a voice said. Rei looked up and squinted. So she didn't walk into a tree. The owner of the voice had the sun behind his back, and she saw stars that should have disappeared when morning came. Cursing softly under her breath, she took the offered hand and let herself being pulled up.
Then she got a good look at him. Oh, Kami-sama.
It's Him. With a capital H.
She felt like fainting then.
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Glossary
1. Gomen - Sorry
2.
Daijoubu desu ka? - Are you all right?
3. Kami - God
4. -sama is actually
an honorific used to address someone of importance or to be respected, someone
to be revered upon, or just someone who should be addressed with utmost
humility.
5. Jinja - Temple (As in Hikawa Jinja = Hikawa
Temple)
Notes:
(1) I used Otou-sama instead of the more
common Otou-san/Otou-chan to properly translate Rei calling her dad as
"Father". Besides, it's more respectful, and there hadn't been much warmth
between the two of them, anyway.
(2) Is there a Jyuban street in the
world of Sailormoon? I wonder...
(3) Just to straighten things out, this
whole fanfic plot is mine, it came out of my own head. I do realise that the
similarity between my story and that of manga-ka Adachi Mitsuru is uncanny, but
let me state here that at the time of writing I had never even heard of
Adachi-san ^^.
The Hitokiri Firefly (formerly known as Earth Firefly)
Visit my anime/kenshin site, :: Ookina Yume :: at
http://www.geocities.com/shairil_firefly
or mail me at shairil_firefly@yahoo.com
What does everyone seek by fighting?
Does spilled blood cause flowers to bloom?
Until the precious tomorrow is in my hands...
I wander the seemingly dark future... -- Kiseki no Umi