Her I've Never Touched

A/N: Old, old story. Submitted to sm_monthly , OTP/domestic. Originally supposed to be my contribution for Angsty April, but I didn't want it glaring at me from my unfinished fic list any longer. And for whatever it's worth: out of all the things I've written, this is the one that depresses me the most, but I think that might be an entirely personal thing. And now excuse me, I've got to go and bury myself in chocolate.

I dread the loss of her I've never touched
love keeps me a slave in a cage of tears
I gnaw my tongue with which to her I can never speak
I miss a woman who was never born
I kiss a woman across the years that say we shall never meet.
~ Sarah Kane: 4.48 Psychosis

It's another perfectly ordinary day in his life. As always, he has an early morning, coffee, a parting kiss as he hurries out of the door and then there's work, hours and hours of work. It helps, burying himself in the intricacies of international law, talking to fellow lawyers, judges, clients. His mind no longer strays back to her, and that's a good thing. She's a thing of the past, a moment he can never relive, a hope that died and was never reborn.

After work (lasting longer and longer each day, so that it soon doesn't matter whether it's summer or winter, he never comes home before the sun sets) he returns to his wife. Minako, who lives and strives in the chaos that is their mutual home, always waits up for him. She can't cook and doesn't care to learn how, so there's takeout. They like Chinese, so that's what she always orders. Her work is not too demanding, at least Katsurou doesn't think so. She waitresses in Makoto Kino's café: the customers seem friendly and Minako is a people person, so how hard can it be, he thinks and remembers another woman from another time who commanded armies and saved lives without ever uttering a single word of complaint. Minako likes to complain: her feet hurt, the plates were heavy, someone spilled coffee she had to mop up. Katsurou tries to smile, mimics the genuine sympathy he can see on Mamoru's face when Mina tells him one of her work anecdotes.

Mamoru is happy, Katsurou knows that, he can see it every time his friend holds Usagi in his arms. Reincarnation has been kind to them: they're exactly the same they were in the Silver Millennium. He himself also feels quite like Kunzite, even though that's not something he can say out loud. He feels like himself before he ever met Beryl, capable and collected and not frenzied and full of hate. But Minako is a new person: she looks like Venus, but she isn't her. At first, Katsurou didn't care or rather didn't realise that Venus and Minako were not one and the same. He met this golden girl, saw the woman he loved long ago and in the blink of an eye (32 days, he knows now), they were married.

To people on the outside, they seem happy. Usagi and Mamoru look at them with the relieved and fond expression Katsurou knows so well, Makoto and Ami don't look at them at all and only Rei gives him a look that doesn't speak of friendship. Rei, who is all Mars, knows and sees everything. She wants her friend to be appreciated and loved for who she really is and not who she looks like. Tough luck, Katsurou thinks, and pushes the door to his house open.

"Honey, you're home!" Minako immediately appears in the doorway with a huge smile on her face, and she's almost pretty enough. Venus never smiled this widely, but she had a solemn grace about her that always made him weak in the knees. Katsurou bows down to give Minako a kiss, and his wife leans into his touch. He pulls away: today is a bad day. Like any addict, he has good and bad days. On good days, he can look at his wife and feel some warm affection for her. On bad days, he resents her, a dangerous cold rage that forms deep within him.

Minako lets him walk past her, chattering about the details of her day, but Katsurou doesn't really listen. Taking the chinese from the counter, he heads over to the living room, where the TV is still on and Minako already waits for him. She once told him that she wanted to be an actress herself, but didn't follow it up because it was too hard to combine with being a senshi. Venus was a ruler of her own planet, a member of an intergalactic committee, leader of an army, guardian of Serenity and dedicated lover of a man she was forbidden from touching. Talk about things being hard. Katsurou doesn't understand why Minako can't be more like Venus.

"So how was your day?" Her voice is bright, and he forces himself to smile. She tries so hard, he can see that, but it's not enough, never enough. He can't remember one moment of Venus bending over backwards to please him, and yet she made his world brighter. Now that she's only a memory, his life is dimmer. Endymion, or rather Mamoru, helps somewhat by giving his life a purpose and by offering the companionship that Katsurou craves. Forcing himself into a friendly smile (because it's not as if he doesn't know she doesn't deserve his scorn), he answers.
"Filled with work. You know how it is." He shoots her a quick smile, completely forced, and takes a bite of spring roll.
"Yes, I do," she answers, and he thinks back to the day Venus whispered those words in the evening wind, Magellan's head priest in front of and thousands of candles around them. It is the happiest moment he can remember.

When he's done eating, she curls into his arm, cuddling into the nook between neck and shoulder, pressing her cold nose to his skin. At least that's the same, the physical, the touch, the way she moves when they make love. Of course, now it all means something else, and even though he knows that it makes him a bad person, it means less. Most of the time, he tries to pretend that the woman in his arms is his Venus, that she has returned to him, but then Minako does something Minako-esque and the illusion shatters into a million pieces.

Minako gets up, eyes somewhat darker than usual, but the smile just as bright. "I'm going to bed, are you coming with me?" He shakes his head, and reaches for her hand, pressing it once. "No, I want to watch the news, but I'll be with you soon." She looks at her feet, bare on the cold floor. "Okay. Night." Katsurou reaches for the remote and when he looks up, she's gone. He sighs. In an hour, when he's too tired to keep his eyes open, he will follow her to bed, hug the body that lured him into thinking his beloved was back and then, he can dream of the one that is lost.

The End