Aisuru Mamo-chan

Author: ellephedre
Translator from the italian language: ggsi

"Chiba-san!"
The doorman of his building – Mr. Shuya – greeted him with more enthusiasm than usual.
"Good evening" Mamoru answered.
"You hadn't informed me that you were waiting for a package today."
Because he hadn't had any idea. "Is there anything for me?" He approached the counter.
Shuya-san bent down and took out something from the underside of his desk. "It's an international delivery. You know I don't usually accept things I'm not informed about, but I didn't want to return it to the sender, as it comes from so far away… Here you are."
Mamoru grabbed the package with both hands. It was voluminous, but quite light.
He leaned towards the book the doorman was handing to him to sign for the pick up. "Thanks for accepting the delivery."
"I can make an exception, now and then."
Mamoru smiled to Shuya-san. He went towards the elevator, looking for the sender's name. He found a white label among various postmarks and stickers.
John Hopkins University
His eyes widened.
John Hopkins?
Ages had passed since the last time he had had anything to do with that university. He had never even arrived alive there: he had been killed before getting to the Baltimora campus.
Why did they send him something now? Usagi had wiped out the memory of his journey to the USA from the mind of anyone involved in the project.
Could it be a complaint?
He shaked the package. It seemed full of paper.
So many documents could mean a huge amount of problems.
Inside the elevator, nervous, he tried to open the box. The material didn't break down. If he persisted in forcing it, he risked damage to the content.
He waited for his floor with his apartament's keys in one hand.
Once out, he rapidly moved towards his door, opened it and went inside. He turned up the light in the corridor and focused on the desk at the entrance. He kept scissors in the first drawer. He found them and put one blade end on the tape that joined the strips of the big brown box.
The package turned out to be full of envelopes.
But what…
One of them, on top of the others, fell down.
Mamoru crouched to pick it up. The letter wasn't closed and there was his name on it, written in English.

Dear Mr. Chiba,
We've had these letters addressed to you for a very long time.
You've never attended our university so we weren't able to understand why these letters had been sent to a dormitory of ours. They piled on each other and after several months they were sent to the Foreign-Students department, then to our general office.
Some weeks ago, my boss asked me to get rid of the entire archive of undelivered missives.
I've noticed the heart-shaped stickers on your envelopes and… well, I couldn't find it in me to throw them away.
Forgive me for opening one, the last of the pile. I've asked a japanese professor who works for us to translate it for me. That's how I understood that it was my duty to find you, Mr. Chiba.
Since there was no return address, I got in contact with Todai University, our japanese affiliate. I was asking them a personal favor which included sensitive information, so it took them one month to let me know that you were indeed studying at their institution.
That's how I've obtained your address. It has been a challenge, but I'm very happy that I am now able to let you have these missives. They were written and sent with dedication, perseverance and, no doubt, a lot of affection.
I don't know how things went with the girl who wrote them, but these letters had to reach you. If there is love for us out there, ignoring it makes our life emptier.
Sorry for the over-the-top familiarity (I know you japanese people don't' appreciate it).
I am sending you the letters and I wish you all the best.

Courtney Mayer
General Secretary, John Hopkins University

By the time he had finished reading, Mamoru knew what those envelopes from America were.
He took off his shoes, slowly, and brought the package with him in the living room, keeping it in his hands with reverence.
Usagi.
He sat on the sofa and took the first letter, checking the date on the stamp.
He checked the date on them all, to go in order. He wanted to read them from the first to the last.
Usagi.
He opened the first envelope and found her messy handwriting in the paper – that one that she had improved by now.

Dear Mamo-chan,
You have arrived well, I hope. How are you? Did you have a good trip?
Is jet lag bringing you down?
Hehe, think of me when you want to sleep. Having me in your thoughts makes you feel relaxed and sleep happily.
I'm in seventh heaven, Mamo-chan! This ring you gave to me is the more beautiful, extraordinary, romantic gift I've ever received from you! I spend all my time admiring it.
But why were you taking it with you? Didn't you want to give it to me? I'm curious!
Anyway, I'm really happy to have it on my finger, hehe. It's a message, right? To tell me I have to be relaxed even if we're far away from each other.
Don't worry, I understand. I won't make a fuss if we don't get in contact every day as we did when you were in Japan. I will be a good girl, because I know that you're thinking of me even now that you are in America.
The distance won't ever be a problem. I think about you every day, every minute.
… in fact, I'm writing this letter four hours after you've left. Uhm, I skipped school, but I had to come to the airport to see you!
I can't regret it, never ever!
Aishiteru Mamo-chan.
My love is boundless, too. It entirely fills this little Usagi heart of mine.

Mamoru felt a pang in his chest: while Usagi was writing those words, he had already been dead.
She had sent him sixty letters at least – he had counted them.
Had the tone remained the same? Full of hope for a quick reply that would never arrive?
He was afraid of what he would find in the last missives, but he needed to know.
He opened the second envelope, brushing the heart-shaped sticker Usagi had used to seal it.
He read about her school day and the arrival of the Three Lights. Usagi didn't mention the enemy she had fought against during those days. He had assured her that he would come back in case of necessity, so she had decided to prevent any trouble.
He went on with the reading.
At the beginning, the letters were sent almost every day.
A month after he left, without any sign from him, Usagi had started to suffer the blow.

You're very busy, aren't you? But I'm sure you're reading my words.

Mamo-chan, there's a problem with the telephone number you left in your answering machine. My English is terrible as usual, but the person that answers says she's never met you. She doesn't recognize your name. I'm a little bit worried.

I'm dumb for being paranoid. You're fine, there's no doubt about it. A sign for the girl who loves you madly?

You're right: you meant to reassure me with that ring, so I don't have to be anxious. It's only that… I miss you.

… you prefer to communicate quietly, Mamo-chan. This is some kind of test, right? I feel as if you are with me, nodding. I remember the warmth of your kisses, the strength of your hugs. You're always with me, Mamo-chan.

Usagi sometimes mentioned Chibiusa.

Do you miss that little brat too? Finding myself at home alone, without you and her… I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want her to be here with me. When will she make up her mind to come back?

Hehe, I know, Mamo-chan. It's better she isn't here, right? She'd move heaven and earth to find you, she wouldn't accept that she can't hear your voice. She's still a baby.

In those words he could sense Usagi's own desire to hear from him.

Do you remember when we went to the movies, that time? Chibiusa was eating pop-corn and I was stealing a kiss from you while she wasn't watching. Our lips tasted like candies. Yesterday I went back to that cinema to buy those sweet. I chose the strawberry flavour, like that day. Then I bought some lemon and orange ones too… I imagine how we will kiss when you come back.

I miss you.

Mamoru was trying hard not to crumple the paper in his hands.
He picked up the next letter, determined to keep torturing himself.
It was the thirtieth among the ones that Usagi had sent.
He had just arrived at midpoint and he already felt sick.

Dear Mamo-chan.
Do you remember Seiya? It was his free day yesterday. He felt alone and asked me out on a date. We went to the luna park and then to the zoo. We got on a ferris wheel too. I tried to joke about the paparazzi who could notice us. He said he didn't care.
He's such a ladies man.
By the end of the day Seiya brought me to a disco and we suddenly found ourselves alone in a room.
I was blushing as a ball of fire. He moved very close… but all he wanted to do was bring me to dance downstairs.
I felt so stupid.
A little later, there was a black-out in the club. To protect me, Seiya embraced me.
It was so strange to feel somebody else's warmth on me…
Maybe I'm still thinking about it.
Hahahaha, did you believe it, Mamo-chan?
It's all a lie, I made up everything!
Have you felt a little bit jealous? Have you thought that you don't want to me with another guy?
… I know you do.
Sorry for the cruel joke.
I always think of you and you alone. There's no temptation for me.
If… if somebody tried to touch me that way, I would drive him away!
I can't forget how much I love you.
I wrote those foolish things because… I don't know. Maybe you would have had an enormous desire to call me, if you felt jealous.
Baka-Usagi, I know.
There is only you for me, Mamo-chan, always.

Usagi

Mamoru read the letter twice. When he was about to put it aside, he heard a noise from the hallway.
"Mamo-chan! Are you home?"
Hearing Usagi's voice was a blow. He still had her words from the past in his head.
Two years had passed since the time of those letters. Everything had changed for them since then, but that period had existed and Usagi had experienced it fully.
Mamoru put the letter on the table. "I'm here."
She was already in the dining room, beaming in her school uniform. "Hello, Mamo-chan! I didn't expect to find you at home. Wow! So many letters! Who wrote them?"
Mamoru couldn't manage an answer.
Usagi got closer, intrigued, and crouched near him. She observed the envelopes and the opened letters.
She recognized them and turned pale.
«They're the ones you sent to me» Mamoru said.
Usagi touched them lightly, her hand trembling.
«They didn't disappear, Usa. A person from theaAmerican university got in contact with me and sent them to me in that package.»
Usagi brought her hand to her mouth.
Mamoru observed her, searching for the reason of her terror.
"Did you… did you… ?" Usagi stammered.
Mamoru gave her a letter. "This is the last one I've read."
Usagi stole a quickly glance at it and started to shake her head. "No. No, please, don't read them. I wasn't aware of what I was writing then. I was so sad, I thought…"
He grabbed her by the shoulders. "It's okay."
"It's not okay. I… I would have preferred not to ever remember that period." Forcefully, she mixed up the envelopes on the table. "They're not important!"
Mamoru touched the letter about Seiya Kou. "This was something that happened for real, right?"
He allowed Usagi a moment of thought. She was sitting on the floor, hugging herself.
"Usa… I won't blame you for anything written in here." Maybe he would become sadder as he continued with his reading. But he trusted her. And he understood.
Usagi lifted her head. "It's not that I'm feeling guilty. It's just that…"
Mamoru showed her the letter he had mentioned. "You were feeling abandoned. That's why you told me of your date with him and then specified it was a joke."
For a moment, Usagi didn't understand. She needed to look again at the letter to see.
Her eyes dimmed with tears. "Oh, Seiya." She smiled. "We had fun that time. I was so dumb then…"
Noticing his reaction, she spoke tongue-in-cheek. "Yes, Mamo-chan. There was a hug that confused me. Then I wrote this letter and never thought of it anymore. Despite your silence."
"If you're not worried about Seiya, why don't you want me to continue reading them?"
Usagi gazed gloomily at the envelopes. "You will feel worse as you go on. I was so depressed during those months. I had come to think that…" She sighed, a long, heavy breath. She looked at him. "There is no way I'll convince you not to read them, right?"
"I want to know why is making you cry right now."
Usagi smiled sadly, two tears falling down her cheeks. "If that's the reason, then…" She went through the envelopes. She understood that they were in chronological order and picked up the last. She gave it to him.
Mamoru opened it with a burden in his heart.
Usagi fixed her eyes on the moquette. "It represents the fears of a girl who was sure she had been abandoned."

Mamo-chan.
You never call me at home. You don't even reply to my letters.
I've thought so much about it, all the time.
At first, you told me to wait. And I did, but then I wrote you that I miss you so much, always more and more. And yet you choose not to reply anyway.
You're acting like this on purpose, obviously. Is there something you want to tell me?
Have you fallen in love with another girl? You don't know how to confess it to me, right?
I'm writing and crying.
I can't believe what I'm saying, but I don't understand why you don't get in contact with me!
Maybe I'm simply stupid. I know it's the very first time I'm accusing you not to write to me, but…
Why, Mamo-chan?
I'll ask Ami to call in America for me next week. I feel so ashamed!
You've never written me, Mamo-chan, not once! I've never told the girls. They will think that you…
Yes, maybe you've forgotten about me.
You're so far away from here, with so many more interesting and intelligent people than me surrounding you… maybe you've started to wonder. Why do I have to stay with Baka-Usagi, who's in Japan? Why can't I take a time-off?
That's not fair, Mamo-chan!
I'm stupid, but this isn't right! You know I'll be so weak when you come back, that…
Are you reading? Can you feel how I desperate I am?
But now that I've cried over this… I feel better.
Maybe there's a reason if you have doubts at the moment. But I know you'll get through them.
A love like ours doesn't end.
… Or I'll win you back again when you return.
I'll take you away from whatever girl has you now, Mamo-chan.
You're always going to be my Mamo-chan.

Usagi

P.S. Please, call me and tell me that I'm just a stupid who has imagined everything. Please!

Mamoru crumpled the paper in his fist.
Usagi was observing his hand and the letter. «You know… this wouldn't have happened if I had been better at English. I would have called the university myself and I would have known you never arrived." Her eyes experienced grief again. "I would have known that you were dead." She took the paper away from his hand, exasperated. "No, things went as they should! All this pain was nothing compared to what I would have felt if I had known that you…"
Mamoru grabbed her, hugging her with all his strength. "I'm sorry."
"Don't talk like this!"
"I'm sorry."
"No! I felt stupid and miserable for thinking myself abandoned during those months when it was me that had abandoned you! It was my duty to make sure that you were fine, but I let a stupid misunderstanding –"
Mamoru seized her head with his hand, covering her mouth with his own. He pressed his lips on Usagi's until it nearly hurt, then she grabbed his shoulders and together they fell into grief.
"There wouldn't have been another girl, ever", he said.
"I know."
"I would have called you the day after arriving."
"I know."
"I said that I was going to be busy because I had yet to learn the timetable of the lessons, but then we would… "
He repressed a sob of anger in throat.
Usagi pressed her forehead against his. "I should have known all of this. It hasn't been your fault." She was shaking her head against him, slowly. "It's in the past, Mamo-chan. You should have never read these letters. I had forgotten about them."
Was it possible, he thought, to forget those kind of fears? But, with Usagi's body in his arms, he remembered that both of them have done exactly that. From the moment they had reunited with each other, they had loved each other fully, talked and grew up together.
Usagi dried her tears. "Don't be sad anymore. Since then, you have made me happier than ever." She heaved a sigh. "I'm sorry too that these letters have made you unhappy now."
He smiled sadly. "Someone took an interest in those heart-shaped stickers and sent the letters to me." He realized something. "I want to read all the other letters too, Usagi."
"Mamo-chan."
"I know how they end. It won't hurt much."
"Why do you want to do this?"
"Because afterwards I want to comfort you."
"You've already done it."
"I want to do it again, for myself. Even without knowing the whole truth, I've always imagined how bad you felt during those months. Too much, for me to really understand it."
Usagi sniffed. "This is… masochism, Mamoru."
He smiled. "Mamoru? Wasn't I your Mamo-chan forever?"
Usagi tried to keep down the corners of her mouth. "You're Mamoru when I scold you for something."
He looked at the letters. "These are the proof that I have a person who loves me despite four months of silence."
Touched, Usagi tried to shrug.
He continued. "I have a girl who treasures me so much that she rejected an idol." But he didn't like to remember the details of the episode.
Usagi got smart. "That idol even declared his love for me some weeks later." She understood that she had overdone the joke and shook her head. "But I've never considered Seya, ever. As you've already read, you were the only one for me. Even in the case you had been unfaithful."
"I didn't."
"If you had done it, I would have won your love again. Then, I would have proceeded beating the hell out of you."
They laughed.
Mamoru brought Usagi on his knees. "Maybe I would have come back if I have known about the date."
"Really?"
He tried to be more realistic. "First, I would have broken something in my room. Then, I would have called you and insisted to have a talk with this guy. Simply to let him know that I existed."
Usagi bent down her head and got lost with him in a kiss.
To forget the pain, to remind themselves of their own happiness, they kept on losing in each others for hours and hours.

By the time it was night, Mamoru took a pen in his hand.
He didn't know how to start.
Thank you for sending me all those letters. They were important.
Of course that was the essence of the message, but he wanted Miss Mayer to understand how much her gesture had counted for him.
Usagi appeared behind him and peeked above his shoulder. "Oh, you want to write to her!"
"Yes."
"No no, I want to do it myself. After all, those were my letters. Believe me, she wants to hear from me." She rolled up the sleeves of the shirt she had borrowed from him. "Mayer-san probably thought that you had cheated on me, but that you should know how much I loved you to give us a second chance, even if so much time has passed. She will be so happy to know that we are still together!"
He laughed for her enthusiasm. "What will you write to her?"
Usagi scratched her naked thigh. "I'll let her know everything, of course. Uhm, I won't mention any monsters, aliens or battles."
Mamoru got up, leaving his place at the desk. "Here."
She snatched the pen. "I will do an excellent job!"

END

Author's note: this is a one-shot. In it I made subtle references to another story I've written years ago. It's called 'Oltre le stelle', and in it I narrate the story of Usagi and Mamoru's reunion immediately after the end of Sailor Moon Stars. She had just learned he had been dead for a long time, he thought that she had forgotten about him for months… They had issues to solve between them. I decided to write about this and their first experience with lovemaking, since I felt that such pain made them mature enough for this next step.
'Oltre le stelle' was the story with which I started to write in the Sailor Moon fandom, in 2008. Since then, I've never stopped.
'Aisuru Mamo-chan' was written in September 2014, after my re-watch of the full 200 episodes of Sailor Moon.
I've written so much about Sailor Moon in italian and gained many dedicated fans because of it. One of them, the precious ggsi, decided for herself that 'Aisuru Mamo-chan' needed a speedy translation, so she worked on it with my permission and here it is.

If you found something interesting in this story, we both will be happy to know your thoughts :)

Elle

P.S. If there are English errors, we are here for that too :)

Notes:
'san' = Japanese suffix used for strangers. It indicates respect. It could be translated with 'mr' or 'mrs' but it goes a little beyond that.
'chan' = Japanese suffix that indicates familiarity. Also an endearment.
'Baka' = Japanese word for 'stupid'
Aishiteru = Japanese expression for a deep 'I love you'.
Aisuru Mamo-chan = 'Dear Mamo-chan…' That's how Usagi began the episode introductions of Sailor Moon Stars.