And, as a side note, this story was not written to give in to Happy-ending syndrome. I was only curious to see if I could successfully use the same song for both parts of a story and make it work. So please tell me what you think.
Mamoru was nothing, if not befuddled, at the sight of the umbrella that lay on his doorstep. The girl, Tsukino Usagi as she was called, must have put it there. But how? She couldn't know where he lived.
Tsukino Usagi. A strange name for a strange girl. She perplexed and intrigued him more than any other female ever had. Something was vaguely familiar about her, though he could not put his finger on exactly what it was.
For months now, he'd had a strange sensation that something wasn't quite all right. Something was missing from his life. His days were ordinary. He got up, attended class, went to work, and then went to see his girlfriend Rei at the café she liked to frequent.
Rei was a sweet young woman. She was a wonderful confidant, and her conversation was pleasant...but Mamoru had a sinking feeling that she was not right for him after all. He enjoyed her company, and when he was with her, life seemed a little brighter...but he did not love her. When she realized that, he would be alone again. Perhaps he just wasn't made for love. Perhaps some people were just meant to be alone.
Sighing, he dragged his hand through his disheveled hair and picked up the black umbrella. He squinted into the bright sunlight, surprised that the storms that had plagued the city recently had passed so quickly. Checking his watch with a backward glance, he grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it. Rei would be waiting for him at the café by now.
"Mamoru-san." Rei greeted him with a warm smile over the mug of coffee she was sipping delicately. Her violet eyes were laughing and bright. Mamoru had never met such an open, caring person as Hino Rei. One day, he hoped he could be more like her.
"Rei-chan. How was your evening?" Mamoru sat down across from her, motioning to the owner of the café, Motoki Furuhata to bring him some coffee as well.
"Just fine, Mamoru-san." She paused to sip at her coffee again, then idly traced a strange pattern on the table. "That strange girl came by the temple this morning. She prays with a greater passion than anyone I have ever seen. I tried asking the Fire what it was she was seeking, but it refused to show me." She took a deep breath, tracing symbols on the table now, an ancient sort of talisman to protect Mamoru from harm. She cared for him. Closing her eyes briefly, she plunged ahead.
"Don't you think it's time we gave up the pretense, Mamoru-san?" She smiled serenely, tilting her head to one side so that her dark hair spilled over her shoulder. "I know you don't love me. And I don't love you, either. I like you, certainly...but I don't think there could ever be more between us, Mamoru-san. We were meant for different people. I still would like to remain close friends...you've been a wonderful companion to me. I don't want to hurt you, but I don't think we should keep up this farce of dating any longer."
Mamoru blew out a breath, leaning back in his seat. He regarded her silently for a moment.
"I understand completely, Rei-chan. Thank you for telling me." He stood, tossing some money on the table, leaned to kiss her cheek, and was out the door of the arcade before Rei had a chance to respond.
Alone again. It seemed unfair that he'd been condemned once again to loneliness on such a perfect day. The sun was bright, the weather was clear, calm, and warm. Birds chirped merrily in the trees. And down the park path, a lone figure with long, blonde hair walked slowly, an umbrella clutched in a small hand.
What an unusual girl. When it rained, she carried no umbrella, and when it shined she did. Without thinking, he jogged across the street and down through the damp grass to catch up with her.
"Tsukino-san!" he called, causing her to whirl around in surprise. Her lovely blue eyes widened impossibly. The large umbrella cast shadows across her face, and he was prompted into speech when she said nothing.
"You said we'd never see each other again," he said accusingly. She shrugged, and turned to continue on her way, her words drifting back to him on the light spring breeze.
"I did not seek you out, Chiba-san. Besides, how could I leave the country so quickly? I have arranged to leave in two weeks. Perhaps you could avoid me until then." She said.
"But where will you go?" He asked curiously. She paused, looking over her shoulder.
"England. I hear it rains often there," she said on a sigh.
"Why do you carry an umbrella today? Why not yesterday, when it rained like it would never stop? How do you know where I live? How do you know my name? How do you know I tend the roses?" Questions burst forth from him like they were expelled from his soul. She regarded him curiously for a moment. And he imagined she almost appeared to be drinking in the sight of him.
"I like the rain," she said, looking down the path towards the rose garden. She took a hesitant step towards it, and decided she would answer one last question before going on her way. "And maybe I'm not yet ready for sunshine."
Mamoru studied the girl called Tsukino Usagi carefully over the next couple of days. Each day, she would walk by the arcade, glancing inside as though searching for someone. Twice, she met his eyes. Rather than blush and turn away as he suspected she might, she stared back at him almost defiantly. Finally, on the fifth day, she slowed her pace enough to push the door open slowly, almost cautiously. Mamoru watched curiously as her gaze darted about the café. He raised his newspaper to obscure his face.
She fairly tiptoed inside, seating herself at the bar. She flashed Furuhata Motoki a falsely bright smile, and said,
"May I have a cup of coffee please, Furuhata-san?"
The man smiled back in reply, reaching for the coffee pot across the counter.
'Coffee?' Mamoru thought. 'No, that's not right...she never drinks coffee, she drinks...'
He didn't know. And yet he did. He'd known her for only a few days, and yet he knew...knew that she didn't drink coffee. He tried to rid himself of the odd feeling. But when he closed his eyes, a strange vision passed before them.
"Gross, Mamo-chan! Coffee is disgusting. How can you drink that stuff? It makes you short, you know." The girl called Tsukino Usagi made a face, and winced as he took a sip of the black liquid.
"You're short enough as it is, Usako," He'd replied, sliding his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer. She rested her head on his shoulder, sighing sweetly.
"I love you, Mamo-chan."
Mamoru shot up from the booth, nearly upsetting his own coffee. At the front of the café, Tsukino Usagi had received her coffee and her change. She slipped the money into her pocket, and raised the cup to her lips...only to have it snatched away by a very perplexed looking Mamoru.
"You don't drink coffee." He said, placing the cup on the counter. He studied her intently, knowing somehow that she had all the answers. She knew why he was so intrigued by her. She knew why. But everything in her eyes said she wasn't going to tell him. For an instant, something that looked remarkably like despair crossed her lovely eyes. He reached out to touch her face, and in an instant she rocketed off the stool she'd been occupying and flew out the door to the café. Her coffee sat, untouched, on the bar.
It was Thursday, and the rain had come again. By all estimates, if she had told the truth about leaving for England, she would be gone by Tuesday. Something about the thought of her leaving filled him with sadness. She could not leave before he had the answers to the questions plaguing him.
He grabbed his jacket and umbrella, and walked across town to Rei's temple. She prayed there often. He would ask Rei to take him to where she prayed. When he arrived at the temple, he left his umbrella and jacket outside. As soon as he entered, he slid off his shoes. He padded silently across the wooden floor, surprised to see Rei kneeling before the fire, with her hands folded together. She appeared to concentrating very hard. Her lips moved in a silent, ancient prayer. He nearly gasped allowed when a burst of heat and wind flooded the room, throwing Rei back a few feet.
"Dammit!" she cried, picking herself up off the floor. She sensed she wasn't alone, suddenly, and turned towards Mamoru. "Welcome to the temple, Mamoru-san"
"Thank you, Rei-chan. Can I ask what you were doing?" He said as she straightened her now rumpled priestess garb. She sighed in frustration.
"I was attempting a reading on the girl called Tsukino Usagi. I've been trying all morning, but I keep getting the same response. I am not allowed to know this information. It is not for me to see." She blew a few strands of dark hair away from her face, and smiled.
"Can I help you with something?"
"I just came to pray. I was wondering if I could pray in the same place that Tsukino Usagi does." Mamoru asked hopefully.
"Of course. She prays right before the fire, as I do. I can give you some privacy, if you like. I should sweep the steps, anyway." Rei moved to leave the room, but Mamoru stopped her.
"It's raining. You won't be able to sweep in this weather." Mamoru knelt near the fire. The warm glow was calming. He assumed the position he'd seen Rei in, and closed his eyes. He wasn't certain what he was supposed to be doing, as he had never prayed at Rei's temple, but his desires rose in him, unbidden. He wanted to know what Tsukino Usagi prayed for. He wanted to know everything about her.
She was kneeling by the fire, hands clasped desperately, body shaking with silent sobs. Tears traced her delicate cheeks, and her lips mouthed one phrase over and over again.
"Please let them be happy. Please let them be happy. Please let them be"
Though the outfits and hairstyles changed, it was always Tsukino Usagi kneeling by the fire, crying, mouthing the same words.
'Them?' Mamoru thought, "Who's 'them'?"
She held a photograph in her small hands. A group of people, all smiling, were seated on a red and white checkered blanket, beneath trees heavily laden with cherry blossoms. Motoki was there, with his girlfriend, Reika, Rei was holding hands with a strange, brown-haired man. And Mamoru sat, resting against the trunk of one tree, a brilliantly smiling Usagi in his arms. Three other girls he did not know but who seemed strangely familiar to him were also in the picture, waving and smiling happily.
His eyes snapped open. Quite suddenly he realized that, in the short time he'd know her, Usagi had always been alone. No friends walked with her in the park. No friends sat with her at the café. No friends accompanied her to the temple to pray.
"What did you see?" Rei was kneeling by his side, eager to hear what he'd discovered.
"I...I'm not sure. Rei-chan, do you remember Tsukino Usagi from somewhere? Were you ever friends?" Mamoru asked.
"No, I don't think so. She seems familiar to me in some way, but the only time I've seen her is when she comes to the temple to pray." Rei said, cocking her head to one side, curiously.
"She has a picture of us. You, me, Furuhata Motoki and his girlfriend, and some other girls I didn't know. She was in it with us. We all looked to be very good friends." Mamoru sighed heavily.
"I don't know what I'm missing," he said, frustrated. "There's something that I don't know. There's something that's keeping me from being happy, and I don't know what it is. I want to be as happy as I was in the picture she had. Is there any chance that the visions I had were false?"
"I doubt it." Rei said, biting her lip. "My visions have never been wrong"
"I have to find her, then, and make her tell me why I can't stop thinking about her. She knows something. I can feel it every time I'm near her. I can see it in her eyes. There's something that she knows...but she doesn't want to tell me." He stood and helped Rei to her feet, kissing her forehead in a brotherly fashion.
"Thank you, Rei-chan." He said, collecting his jacket and shoes.
"Do you need help looking for her?" Rei called, as he walked briskly from the temple.
"No, thanks. It's raining. I know where she'll be." He called back.
He was only a block from the park before he realized he'd left his umbrella at Rei's temple.
She had no umbrella, and this time he noticed her tears. She did not see or hear him enter the rose garden. She was far, far away. It was an all too familiar sight to him. When his hand touched her shaking shoulder, she was jolted out of her reverie.
"Why are you crying?" He asked, touching her cheek gently. He wiped away the tears and raindrops on her cold cheek. She turned away from him, swiping her cheeks furiously.
"No reason," she said, moving to stand. His hands gently restrained her, forcing her to stay seated on the bench.
"No. I'm not going to let you run away this time." He said, circling the bench to stand in front of her. "I want you to answer some of my questions this time"
"Can't you just leave me in peace?" She asked forlornly.
"Not until I get some satisfactory answers out of you. You've been nothing but a mystery to me since I met you, and now I want to know a few things. I don't think it's too much to ask."
She refused to look at him, so he knelt on the cold, wet grass before her, keeping a good grip on her shoulders.
"Why do you have pictures of me, Usagi?"
She gasped, but either at the shock of the question or the informality with which he addressed her, he didn't know.
"How could you know about that?" she whispered.
"I went to Hino Rei's Temple to pray where you pray. I received strange visions from the fire. Why is it that I don't remember having pictures taken with you?" Mamoru was prepared to beg for the answers only she possessed.
"Because...because..." her lower lip trembled, and she was clearly on the verge of tears once again. But she steeled herself against them, blinking them away.
"Because...?" Mamoru prompted.
With a pained cry, she forced his hands from her shoulders, shoving him backwards. She darted around the bench, and made it to the exit of the garden before she turned to look at him, picking himself up slowly from the grass. He would not chase her.
"Because it was my wish," she spat angrily. "I just didn't know that being forgotten would hurt so much."
She thought she'd left him far behind, and had intended to make her way home and continue packing for her upcoming move, when her wrist was caught none too gently, and she was yanked right up against him.
"What on earth was that supposed to mean?" he asked, suddenly just as angry as she had been.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Chiba-san. Please release me." She tugged at her hand back, but his grip was firm.
"No, dammit! I want you to tell me, Usagi. I want you to tell me everything you know that I don't, even if you think I won't believe it." Mamoru pulled her closer, threading his free hand through her wet, silky hair. It slid through his fingers like liquid. Ever so gently, he pushed her head to his chest. She turned her head to the side, cradled protectively against his body. He released the wrist he'd been holding so tightly, and slid his arm around her back, ensuring that she'd stay in his arms until he chose to release her.
"Cry if you need to," he said softly, still stroking her hair, "I don't mind. But when you're done, you're going to tell me why. I want to know why I don't remember that picture. I need to know why."
"Why do you need to know?" She murmured tearfully against his chest. "Why can't you just forget me again?"
"Because I'm in love with you, Usako." He used the nickname from his first vision, surprised at how easily the endearment came to his tongue. "And you don't want me to forget you again. Even if there's something important that I don't remember, I want to remember this forever." And he kissed her.
He didn't ask permission. He just did it. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to him. And maybe, somehow, it was. He didn't remember kissing her before...but there was definitely something familiar about the way she felt in his arms, the way her lips tasted like sugar...the way she smelled like strawberries. And he knew, without a doubt, that the perfume she wore had been a gift from him. Bought because he loved the scent of strawberries...and he loved her.
Neither noticed that it had stopped raining, or that the sun had begun to make itself known in the far reaches of the sky. All he noticed was that she was staring at him as if she wanted to laugh and cry all at once. And all she noticed was that he was staring at her as if he'd loved her all his life.
"Usako," he breathed, placing a small kiss at the corner of her mouth, where her lips had begun to turn up in a small but genuine smile. "Please don't leave me. You make me feel. I need you here with me. I promise you, I'll love you more than anyone else ever has. I'll love you more than I did before. All I want...all I need to be happy is you. I'll do my best to make you happy, as well. Just give me a chance."
Usagi studied his face carefully. There was a wealth of emotion in his eyes, a desperation that she had never seen before.
"What if you never remember?" She asked hesitantly.
"I don't care if I never remember, Usako. I don't need to remember loving you in the past to love you now." He kissed her lips again, so gently, but with so much emotion that Usagi forgot her fears for a moment.
"Can't you see it?" He asked after he'd broken the kiss. "Can't you feel it when I kiss you? I need you, Usako. I need you to love me as I love you."
"I do, Mamo-chan, you know I do." She said fretfully, tears welling in her eyes. "But what will I do if you forget me again? I can't go through it again, Mamo-chan. It hurts. It tore me apart to see you with Rei-chan. It was killing me to live so close to everyone, and see you all have wonderful lives without me"
Mamoru brushed the few tears that had escaped her eyes from her cheeks, and stroked his hands through her hair soothingly.
"Someday, you are going to have to tell me everything, Usako. I want to know everything that happened that I don't remember now. I want to know who the other people in that picture were. But right now, I want to take you out for lunch...where you can tell me everything there is to know about you. And then you can promise me you won't be going to England after all." Mamoru brushed a few wet strands of hair from her face, smiling down at her. Usagi smiled back, a beautiful thing, since this smile reached her eyes. She looked genuinely happy for the first time.
"Tell me you'll stay with me, Usako," he murmured huskily, tightening his grip on her a fraction. Her arms slid around his neck, and she stood on tip-toes to kiss his cheek.
"I'll stay, Mamo-chan," she whispered.
"Thank god," he said, relieved, "I didn't want to have to kidnap you, but..." he trailed off, grinning wickedly, and Usagi giggled. He slowly released her, and held out his hand for her to take. She slid her small hand into his, gripping it almost as if she were afraid to let him go.
"We'll go change clothes, and then find a nice restaurant, all right?" Mamoru suggested. He squinted up into the bright, now cloudless sky, finally noticing the rain had gone again.
"Sorry I don't have an umbrella for you, Usako. I left it at Rei-chan's temple," Mamoru said apologetically.
"Oh, Mamo-chan," She said, smiling. "Didn't you know? I love sunshine."
The End. Really, this time.
With love,
Shellie