Title: How you remind me
Author: Winter Goddess
Disclaimer: I don't own sailor Moon or the song 'How you remind me'...which is by 'Nickelback' by the way.
A.N: Just something that came into my mind when listening to the song

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Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
Tired of living like a blind man
I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling
And this is how you remind me
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
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No matter how he tried he just couldn't get what she had said out of his mind. He had tried to be his normal self, he had tried to be more mature then her, but it backfired.

~Flash back~

"Odango you know you really need to get your act together, you'll never get anywhere in life if you don't..." he had stated as he yelled at her in their usual yelling matches. This time he didn't know what he had done, but it was different.

She stood stock still at his remark and blinked, no tears where visible, and no wail in sight. "Mamoru-san, you have lead a sad life, that is true. I know that you've had no family, and that's why your partially happy stealing girls hearts. But that never lasts... does it? Doesn't it get tiring to know that you have no one to really love you, that you push everything aside?" She asked.

Her tone was not demeaning in any manner, or angering, it was more in a perplexed manner that she spoke. Almost like she really cared. Cared about her nemesis, her daily yelling partner. He just blinked.

~End Flashback~

She had a point, he knew then, and looking back on it then that she had a point. And the point was simple. He was cold, cold to the world after his parents death.

Her words created a ripple effect through him. It told him and brought up the memories of the past girlfriends he had. The ones that lasted a week, or a day but never long at all.

One question was in his mind, well two really. How did she know? How did she know him so well?

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It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
for handing you a heart worth breaking
and I've been wrong, I've been down,
to the bottom of every bottle
it's the words in my head
scream "are we having fun yet?"
-----------------------------------------------------

He walked through the streets not really paying attention to where he was going. He arrived at the park though, and sat down on a bench to look over everything. He was so concentrated on his thoughts he didn't hear her come up to him. All he felt was her hand on his right shoulder.

"Mamoru-san? she asked, her voice a little shaky. She had never had to do this for him, only for Rei, her teachers, and her parents. The only thing she really ever had to do this before was for their daily run ins when she was late for school.

He looked at her in a somewhat shocked manner. Wasn't it a little late for her to be out at night? Wouldn't her parents kill her?

"Gomen nasai, mamoru-san. Gomen nasai." She said just before she disappeared from his sight. He wasn't expecting that. He thought she might rub salt into his wounds that she had opened up. But not that.

After she said the words though he knew one fact. He loved her. Loved her more then before, and his heart was on a silver platter held out in his shaky hands to her since the day they met.

He knew more then that though. He knew that their daily fights where his fault, and every tear she shed. He knew that with ever tear that she had ever had run down her face as a result of his teasing might as well have been a drop of blood from his offered heart.

That's when he went to the liquor store, he spent over 100 dollars there. Today he'd need every bottle that he bought. Whether it be Vodka, Whisky, Beer, Tequila or the others that he bought. The man behind the counter had looked at him weird, but let him buy that all none the less. And so he took his expensive load of drowning fluid home in hopes to drink every bottle down to the last drop. Maybe passing out first, or maybe resulting in alcohol poisoning, he didn't really care at the moment.

As he reached for the second last bottle of beer in the 6 pack, after finishing off the whisky and vodka he heard his little inner voice, the one he hadn't heard in so long speak to him.

'Are you finished yet?' it asked.

'Iie.' was his simple answer.

'Then are we having fun yet?' it asked, this time a little more insistent. He wavered on this.

-----------------------------------------------------
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
-----------------------------------------------------

His brow tilted together as he went though the answers that he could give his inner voice.'Was he having fun?'

Yeah, fun drowning his sorrows in the precious liquid. Yeah, having fun beating himself over the fact that he loved Usagi. Yeah, he was having fun thinking about how many hearts he broke...

No, that was wrong, he had hurt them and that wasn't fun, it made him hurt. No, he knew that Usagi deserved better then he could ever offer.

He continued to waver wondering what to tell his inner self. 'Yeah.....yeah.....yeah...no....no.' He shook his head and sighed. 'No, we are not having fun yet.' he finally answered.

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It's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause living with me must have damn near killed you
-----------------------------------------------------

He woke up the next day, a killer headache in his mind as he walked out of the door still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, smelling slightly still of some of the alcohol that he had gone though. He run into HER again, as if that wasn't to be known.

"I loved you..." he whispered to her, hoping that she didn't hear him. He then walked away quickly from her, he couldn't wait to fins out if she had heard him or not. He wasn't aware of the stunned blond he left in his hazy wake.

She went though the whole day letting those words echo through her head. She was torn inside. What would she say to him? Did he even know that she heard? That's when she thought back to the other encounters that they've had. And she wondered how she didn't see it before how he felt.

She was near her end, near her death of heart when she was let out of school. She made it without detention as she was trying to seem as attentive as possible. She made her way to the Crown Arcade where she knew that he would be.


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And this is how, you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how, you remind me
Of what I really am
-----------------------------------------------------

He sat on the stool that he normally did as he thought about what he would say to her, would he try for their normal argument starting with calling her 'Odango Atama'? Or would he try to be nice to her?

That's when he heard the door open, the bell signalling her arrival. He looked over to her, then back to his coffee that lay between his hands. He stared into it, bitting his lip.

He heard her approaching him, then he felt her hand, then body press against his back as her smaller size tried to reach where she wanted. She made it in less then a minute. Her whisper and breath played across his left ear as she whispered the words that he was both wishing and dreading to hear.

"I heard you." Such simple words but they hit home. They reinforced everything that he knew of last night before he became to drunk to realise. It made him remember.

It made him realise that she didn't think he was so cold, it made him realise that he WASN'T the same person he had been just days before. It made him realise that he did have feelings.

-----------------------------------------------------
It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
for handing you a heart worth breaking
and I've been wrong, I've been down,
to the bottom of every bottle
it's the words in my head
scream "are we having fun yet?"
-----------------------------------------------------

He turned around after she said it and gave a little smile. And spoke softly while all the Arcade was now listening. "Gomen ne, Usagi-san" he said in a soft voice that seemed to travel to everyone's ears none the less.

She smiled at him, gracing him with a light that he didn't think he deserved. Everyone else in the Arcade was gawking at what they had just heard. They expected another argument to abrupt. It just wasn't natural to have Chiba Mamoru apologise to Tsukino Usagi. It was against nature.

The arcade was still listening though as Usagi said another set of words that would have shocked the hell out of all her friends had they heard it, even more so then it shocked the arcade, that is with the exception of one waiter, Motoki.

"I love you, always have." She said to Mamoru as they smiled slightly to one another. What really hit home to him though was the fact that all he had done had caused her real tears, and that it wasn't just his heart that was hers, but hers his. Hers was precious, and pure. And that's why she stuck around.

She recalled what used to happen

~Flash back~

She popped at least 6 pills into her every day if her love for him had been worth it with all the headaches that he had caused her. They didn't seem to want to go away. She had spent a good share of her allowance for the past year on bottles of aspirin since it took two to dampen her head ache even a little only to have it come back the next hour.

She had always heard the words in her head, her inner voice can't out 'Are we having fun letting him control you? Are we having fun yet?' it always got louder with that sentence but she never cared.

-----------------------------------------------------
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
-----------------------------------------------------

Her voice used to yell at her to try and not be addicted to Mamoru, to try and get over him. She used to give in, used to say 'Yeah, yeah, yeah'. Only to a moment later shake her head and say 'No, no'. It happened time and time again.

That is to say at least four times a night before her brain would give up it's quest until the next verbal bashing from the one she loved. She must have had to put up with it. That was all that she really thought about during her mental clash with herself.

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Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
And this is how you remind me
This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
-----------------------------------------------------

He pulled her in then and hugged her. They loved each other. And no matter what their inner beings where screaming at them for the moment they knew that the little voices where really smiling at the scene.

Of course that didn't stop Mamoru's mind from telling him 'You know your not very wise, and your still stealing.'

Mamoru only whispered back to the inner voice 'I never said I was wise. And I'm still poor, but at least I have her love.'

The voice just shook it's invisible head and watched as Mamoru spoke once more about his love for her. And how she spoke in return. They also took the time to speak what they really thought of one another.

How she was kind, sweat, and every other good thing. She told him how he was smart, and handsome, and said in detail what she loved about him.

It told them of what they really were, or at least in each others eyes.

-----------------------------------------------------
It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
for handing you a heart worth breaking
and I've been wrong, I've been down,
to the bottom of every bottle
it's the words in my head
scream "are we having fun yet?"
yeah yeah
are we having fun yet
yeah yeah
are we having fun yet
yeah yeah
are we having fun yet
yeah, yeah, no, no
-----------------------------------------------------

Years later it would be repeated time and time again to their children of how they realised their love for one another. Never leaving out a detail of the first time they said they loved one another. And how they came to that conclusion.

They wouldn't even leave out the fact that Mamoru got horribly drunk. They would only not mention their honeymoon. But that was to be expected since no child wants top really hear about their parents sex life.