AN. I know I'm supposed to be writing Repercussions but it's gotten to the point where I actively hate it now and want to stab it many times with a fork and then have Sailor Mars burn it in a fire.

i have a rough plan for the next chapter but it used to make sense and now it doesn't so screw it, sorry, you get this instead for now. (I haven't given up on Rep. tho...)

seemingly unrelated interconnected thingies, at least one for each season (maybe?) and I want to jump around in time we'll see if I do it.

season 1

Usagi couldn't shake the feeling that she was intruding, even though it was a public park and, as she told herself, she had just as much right to be here as Mamoru did.

Still, he seemed to create some sort of impenetrable bubble around himself as he sat there, reading on the bench. Usagi never really noticed that before, usually having unknowingly breached whatever shield he had around himself with various wayward flying objects or her own person, but now that she was purposely - and hesitantly- approaching him of her volition it was almost obvious how inapproachable he really was sometimes.

How irritating, Usagi thought, scrunching her eyebrows together.

All things considered, though, she did have an apology to issue. To either Rei or Mamoru, and both were equally unpleasant tasks, Rei slightly moreso for various reasons related to friendship and gender. Blowing some blonde bangs out of her face, Usagi pondered the unusual idea of Mamoru actually being the lesser of two evils.

But, she figured he'd pass her apology on to Rei, saving the blonde from having to address the issue in question with the raven-haired priestess. That in itself was incentive enough for Usagi to march up and purposely tap Mamoru on the shoulder.

"Hey, you," she said, unceremoniously. Having just found out his name a few days before, she wasn't ready to use it yet.

Her mind was telling her this was not the way to start an apology, but old habits die hard and being annoyed at this guy was a habit that she clung to with a desperation she didn't always understand. Surely he didn't deserve it quite as much as she insisted, but the alternative never really occurred to her. There was a lot going on in Usagi's life and trying to figure out anything other than 'annoying college guy' equaling 'be mean to him now' was not going to compute just yet.

"Don't call me odango atama," she said, warningly, before he could open his mouth in greeting.

"Okay, don't call me 'hey you'," he countered. Usagi shrugged, as if it was something she'd take into account, later, if she felt like it. "I'm surprised to see you and not be recovering from some sort of bodily injury," he continued.

Usagi grit her teeth and reminded herself that she was here to be nice. Five minutes or so of being nice, and then she'd be on her way and things could go back to normal - as normal as her life was these days. Anyway.

"I wanted to apologize for ... I don't know... ruining your and Rei's date or whatever," Usagi said, bowing quickly and then raising her eyes to the sky and chewing on her cheek. Really, though, it wasn't Usagi following Rei and Mamoru that ruined their first date so much as a youma. In fact, if you think about it, Usagi thought, she saved their date. Really, she shouldn't have had to apologize at ALL- her thoughts were interrupted when Mamoru commented:

"That sounded sincere."

"I am sincere, though," Usagi said, making the mistake of meeting his eyes. She hated when she did that, because something about his eyes bothered her. As far as she was concerned it was just one more strike against Mamoru that his eyes were such a phenomenal shade of blue and seemed to hide something. Something that she had to stop some repressed part of herself from scrambling out to find. Why couldn't he just have normal eyes, like everyone else? Jerk. "I don't want to apologize to Rei, but you can tell her, right?"

He raised his eyebrows, and before he could say no, she rushed on. "I mean, just, please, c'mon. She said you two are going out again so tell her then."

"Are you two in a fight or something?" he asked, closing his book and tilting his head. Usagi looked shocked at the question.

"No, why?" Usagi responded, giving him a strange look.

Mamoru opened his mouth as if to ask something, then closed it again. He thought the better of trying to pry into why he'd be the one to pass a message on to someone who this girl was obviously closer with than he was.

There was a moment of silence. Usagi looked down at her satchel, scratching at the handle with her thumbnail. She was still standing awkwardly next to the bench, making no move to leave or sit.

"Why did you follow us, anyway?" Mamoru found himself asking. "Not that it wasn't incredibly amusing, don't get me wrong."

"Rei wasn't amused," Usagi supplied, annoyed.

"Were you jealous?" he teased and she glared.

"Ugh! That's just what Lu- I mean, a friend said," Usagi's anger seemed to dissipate completely when she truncated Luna's name. "But I think- I think I was." Her eyes seemed to focus on something far over Mamoru's shoulder, at the trees that faded into the buildings of her home city, turning pink in the setting sun, lights in windows starting to sparkle on one by one like modern stars.

"Not because of you, conceited," she added quickly, at Mamoru's smirk, "Gross." Crossing her arms, and letting her bookbag dangle from her fingertips she sighed and leaned against a nearby tree. "Just because, jeeze, it happened so easily for Rei. She sees some guy she likes, she asks him out, he says yes, boom! they go on a date. I mean, yeah, it's you, but there's no accounting for taste."

Mamoru rolled his eyes at her disgusted face. "And it's so hard for you, then, is it?"

"It is," Usagi said, still not looking at him. "The guy I'm in love with - it's so much more complicated." Her shoulders slumped. This was just great. How did she end up talking about this? She'd never just be able to ask Tuxedo Kamen out on a date. They'd never pass notes in class or go rowing on a lake or anything like that. By falling in love with him, had she just given up on any semblance of a normal romance? But, as Sailor Moon, could she even have a normal romance with anyone? Oh god, that was the most depressing thought she'd had in a long time. She leaned her head back in utter defeat.

"Cheer up, odango atama," Mamoru said, "I'm sure your schoolgirl crush will work itself out."

Usagi had actually completely forgotten she had an audience. Shocked out of her reverie, she took Mamoru's obvious amusement as a personal affront, and stalked right up to him, looking him right in the eye. She forgot to be unnerved by his eyes' unnatural blue color, or the strange way they always locked right into hers. She forgot to be stuttering angry and bright red and scream insults like she usually did when he pissed her off. She forgot everything but that she had to stand up for her feelings and she had to do it now.

"Chiba Mamoru," she said, "that's your name right?" He nodded the affirmative, eyes wide and very interested to see what Usagi would do next. "You don't know me very well, but you need to know that I may be some silly little schoolgirl, but I can love more deeply, more resolutely, and with more conviction than you ever could imagine! And you can't call what I feel for this person some 'crush' because you can't know, even a little bit, what we share. So if you learn one thing about me, it should be that!"

Usagi blinked and stood up from where she had been leaning over him. She felt a strange sort of ridiculous pride, wondering where something that articulate and resounding had even come from. Maybe the same place her Sailor Moon introductions came from, she thought. She had felt the same sort of semi-familiar detachment as words came from somewhere deep inside her that wasn't her mind or her heart but some strange combination of the two.

"Don't make fun of me for that!" she added, pointing a finger at his chest. "Or I'll scream and cry and everyone in this park will come running."

"I- won't," Mamoru finally said. "And I'll pass the apology on to Rei."

Usagi smiled, and picked up her schoolbag from where she had dropped it earlier, dusting it off. "Anyway," she said, framed in gold by the setting sun, "I just meant to come by and say that I won't intrude on any more of yours and Rei's dates."

As far as Usagi ever knew, she had told the truth.

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this may be more for me than anything ha ha... whatever whatever... ?