It was spring. I remember because of the sakura trees... they were so beautiful that year. I wanted to remember them like that forever, encased forever in my mind in a shroud of protection- unclouded by the horrible events that occurred right beneath their branches. I didn't want to remember the ugliness. But I do. And I fear that darkness will never leave me.
"Usagi!" My eyes opened and my head flew up.
"What?" I snapped quietly. Rei's beautiful face took on an expression of shock. I silently chastised myself; Rei had probably been calling my name for several minutes now, but that didn't change the fact that I had told her three times not to bother me when I dozed off.
"I mean, what is it?" I asked, slightly louder and a good deal more politely. I glanced down at the papers spread over my desk, the papers which had moments before been my pillow. I ran a finger along my cheek, wondering if any of the ink had transferred from the documents to my face. The hard oak desk creaked as I pushed against it, and I looked beyond the dark haired beauty standing several feet from my desk to the window behind ber. The sakura trees were in full bloom. Said beauty's reply interupted my musings.
"I figured you wouldn't mind me waking you up, considering the fact that you're at your desk and not your bed," she retorted sharply as she gestured to the queen-sized bed against the wall to my right. I resisted the urge to ask her sarcastically when I ever slept alone in that bed rather than the couch against the other wall, but the fact that she knew the answer to that question instilled a deep bitterness within me that I hadn't let go of yet- despite the fact that it had been almost three months since our short-lived relationship. I had made her laugh and she had made me happy, but in the end we just didn't work.
"Right, right," I responded in a controlled manner, a silent request not to get in another fight, "so why are you here?" I fixed a sharp blue gaze on her. She had admitted to me once that she found that deep gaze unsettling, and I had used it nonstop since then as my only natural advantage in any fight we happened to get in.
"Ami wants to know if you'll do the shopping," she informed me. Her violet eyes left my own to survey the room with a slightly upturned lip, and I wondered what had ever happened to our friendship. Oh, wait, that's right. It had ended the moment we ended our relationship. It was sad how a month-long romance had ruined almost five years of being best friends. It had made us both unable to let down our guard around each other, afraid that any weakness we divulged would cause the other to jump on it and use it immediately to hurt each other. I wonder if she really hated me as much as I thought she did in that moment.
I sighed and stood, placing my hands on my hips and standing. My shoulders cracked as I revolved them in place and her eyes rested blankly on my face, waiting for my reply. "I'm on it, chief," I told her with a tired smirk and a slouch. She instantly whirled on one heel, making her way to the door and throwing a small square of paper over her shoulder. Her hourglass figure shook enticingly as she left without another word, and I caught the paper in one fist as the fake smirk died on my face.
"Heads up, Usagi," I told myself as I sighed again and looked down at the piece of paper. Scrawled on the tiny square in Ami's small, neat handwriting were the words 'Shopping List'. I cracked my neck loudly as I simultaneously turned and pulled my shirt off, catching sight of my shirtless self in the mirror with no little amount of contempt.
Right after we had graduated from high school, I had decided that I had had enough and broke it off with Mamoru, claiming irrecconcilable differences. The girls had remained behind me as I stood firm in my decision, and Mamoru had agreed that he also had lost any remaining feelings for me and we had split up without any hurt feelings or misunderstandings, still friends. I emailed him every once in a while, but other than that, we didn't talk much.
Shortly after myself and Mamoru seperated, I asked the others if they wanted to move in with me. I remember saying something like, 'The five of us will be like a family!'. Most of us would be gone during the school year off to other places, different countries and even continents, for schooling and such, but that way during the off season and on vacation we would all have a home and a (kind of) family to come home to. The others all agreed immediately, even the ones who already had human families. It was hard to live with normal families who didn't know about the past, didn't know about our secret... the people who didn't know we were Sailor Senshi.
Ami had gone off to Germany to go to some school for doctors. Makoto had gone to France for cooking school. Minako had flown to America to try her hand as an entertainer. Rei and I had both remained in Japan to go to a local college- neither of us had any idea what we wanted to do for the long term. It was spring break, and everyone had returned for a long weekend. I was thankful that I finally had other people around than Rei, but not used to the hustle and bustle of a full house anymore after their absence during the winter.
Shaking myself from my thoughts, I threw the shirt into the pile by my bed and slid the shopping list into the back pocket of my unnecessarily tight jeans (something purchased for me by Minako in the US- she said they looked great on me) and realized that I was still staring into the mirror. Frowning, I brushed a straight lock of silvery blonde hair from my face and wondered if it was time for another hair cut yet. The last time I had been to a hair salon was in August of the past year (I could still hear the stylist's incessant chattering in my ears) and my hair had grown quite a bit. My short bangs had grown out to frame my face, and in the back, my long mane stretched all the way down to my ass. Michiru once told me that as a woman my hair was one of my strongest attributes- personally, it was the only thing I was proud of. Left out of that ridiculous hairstyle Serenity had kept hers in, my hair was silky and straight, my most beautiful feature.
'Not that I have much to compare it to,' I thought with a scowl as my eyes swept up and down my figure. Unlike the other inners (even Ami), who had developed gorgeous hour-glass figures through highschool, my breasts remained small, my hips wide, and though I admittedly had quite a nice ass, my figure was more scrawny and girlish than the others. Fortunately, I had lost the baby weight that I had feared would plague me forever, but it left my body all hard angles and muscle and my face sharp.
I shook myself away from the mirror. 'Stop complaining,' I snapped mentally at myself. 'You could be off a thousand times worse.' I grabbed a black tank top and a zip-up white hoodie with a dragon on the back from my dresser and was out the door before my shirt was halfway on.
I made my way down the slightly less crowded lunch-time streets of Tokyo with a bounce in my step as I hummed along with the mp3-player hooked into my ears. It was currently blaring out the ripped American pop music from a CD I had asked Minako to bring back for me- a favorite I had developed after finally starting to pay attention in my English class the year before last and began listening to American music. It was a song called 'Leave Out All the Rest' from a Linkin Park CD that had confused Minako- which in turn had confused me. After which she had explained to me, laughing, that it just hadn't seemed like the type of music I would like.
I was sinking deeper and deeper into the lyrics, not paying attention to my surroundings, when I saw him.
He was- beautiful. Ethereal. He radiated a light that I knew in half a second could not be human. He was tall, probably either twenty or just below, with short, slicked-back dark hair, a long black trench coat, and purple eyes the exact same shade of Rei's. I let my gaze sweep past him with only a momentary pause, realizing what he was just as I stepped beside him.
It was like time paused. My silvery hair brushed across my face. The people around us seemed to stop. He half turned his head to watch my hair as I passed, but I kept my gaze facing firmly forward, even as I opened my mouth.
"Good morning, Shinigami-san." And then I was gone.
I fit into the crowd seamlessly, calmly back on track towards the supermarket. But my heart raced with excitement, blood pounding through my veins. It had been so long since I had done anything related to magic or Senshi business that even passing a simple demonic Shinigami on the street made me jump for joy on the inside.
For a moment I could hear him some ways behind me, trying to follow me- I realized that he had been invisible to most humans' eyes when I had spoken to him- but then I was too far away, and I could no longer make out any signs or disruption from the normal crowd behind me. My throat shifted as I swallowed, and I stopped by the side of the road to wait for a pause in the cars so I could make my way to the supermarket. The list in my back pocket shifted as though reminding me, and I tugged at my belt loops. After a moment, there was a lull in the traffic, and I sprinted across the road in the quick pause. However, two steps across, I realized that my cell had slipped from my pocket and hit the ground behind me, and I had just stooped down to reach for it when I heard the car's horn blast. My heart stopped. I had just snatched the phone off the ground, unable to stop from my original movement, when I felt a force like a freight train slam into me from behind.
We hit the ground of the sidewalk with an audible thud, and my ear phones popped out. My eyes snapped shut and then open as we flew through the air and hit the pavement, and they stared widely up at my savior as we laid prone in a circle of concerned spectators. The air had all been expelled from me with a loud exhale as we had hit the ground, and I struggled to catch it as I stared at the second beautiful man I had had the pleasure of seeing today. My hair had spread below me on the ground like a halo, my ear phones lay blairing American music loudly enough for me to hear even several inches away from my ears, and my face was probably as red as a cherry from our provocative position. My legs were spread wide open with one of his knees propped up in between them, my arms were out to my sides with his hands resting on either side of my shoulders, and his face was close enough to mine for his silver bangs to brush my cheek.
Despite most likely being around fifteen years older than myself, he was undeniably gorgeous, and knew it, judging from the smirk on his face at my blush. His right eyes was a smooth, dark gray, and the other was a startlingly light silver that made it noticeably different from the right- it would be covered by his bangs when in a normal position, I could tell. However, that smirk was gone in a second as he sat back on his knees and then stood, putting out one hand to help me up. I took it thankfully, grabbing my earphones with my other hand and throwing them over my shoulder, willing the blush on my face to go away unhelpfully.
"Are you alright?" He murmured softly, giving me a once-over as I stood. I nodded, unable to verbally respond, and my blush didn't disappate as he kept my hand in his. He tilted his head to the side and nodded, pulling a card from his pocket with the other and pressing it into my hand that was still trapped in his. "I'm a doctor," he assured me in a deep, smooth voice as he gave me the card. "Make an appointment if anything seems off. Wouldn't want you to suffer from any lasting effects." The gorgeous, white-clad doctor waited as I took the card, bowed, and thanked him quietly before making his way into the yielding crowd. I ignored their quiet mutterings as they dispersed and looked down at the card in my had. Muraki Kazutaka, it displayed proudly in thick black kanji above his title, office, and phone numbers. "Muraki Kazutaka," I whispered to myself as I looked in the direction he had gone. The blush came back full force. I popped my ear phones back into my ears and started down the street again just as 'Valentine's Day' began.
"I already told you I'm fine, Minako," I laughed as I swung myself onto the stool next to her and leaned on the counter. I shot Makoto a cheesy grin as she passed by with a tray of cookies, but she moved them just beyond my reach with a giggle as I attempted to snatch one.
"After dinner," she laughed as she made her way out to the dining room. Minako rolled her eyes and called my attention back to her with a snap of her fingers, but not even her serious attitude could dispell my good mood. I juimped back off the stool and grabbed her arm, pulling her off with me as I pressed a button on the radio sitting a foot away on the kitchen counter.
"This is a serious matter!" The blonde-haired beauty tried to press upon me over the dancing music suddenly blasting through the speakers. Ami laughed at us from her place several feet away at the sink and I grinned at her, then at Minako.
"C'mon, Aiko-chan, dance with me!" I yelled over the music with a saucy wink as I shifted back, avoiding the returning Makoto, and pulled Minako's arms into mine. After a moment she rolled her eyes again and stopped trying to resist my charms (hah), giving in and dancing with me. Stupid grins adorned both of our faces and Ami and Makoto were both smiling and laughing (not that we could hear it) at our childishness as they finished making dinner. I didn't allow myself to think about Rei, who had stormed off in an unreasonable huff earlier that day after I had told the others about my near-death experience with the car, avoiding mention of the Shinigami and any description of my savior.
I couldn't hear the door swing open, but I noticed Ami and Makoto both stop laughing as they turned to look at it- a moment too late obviously, as Minako and I had just begun a particularly provocative dance move. I turned around too late and was pulled forcibly from Minako by my arm just as she reached out and switched off the radio.
"What the hell, Rei?" I demanded loudly as I shrugged off her arm and whirled violently to face her. Her beautiful face was twisted in anger, disgust, or some other strong, negative feeling I couldn't identify, and her dark hair had begun slipping from the bun it had been pulled into on the back of her head to curl attractively around her shoulders. I felt a drop of sweat drip down my neck and swept my hair over the shoulder of my black tank top as I felt Minako come to stand behind me.
"What the hell are you getting nasty at me for? I'm the one who came in here and found you guys grinding and sweating like a bunch of disgusting animals." Rei snapped. This was the first time she had gotten nasty at any of the others. I was surprised, but I saw Minako's attractively flushed face become slightly offended.
"We were just playing around Rei, there's no need to get so rude. This is our house too." Minako told Rei rudely with a scowl, shouldering her way in front of me.
"Playing around?" Rei scoffed, stepping up so that her nose was inches away from the blonde's. I frowned, pulling at the front of my tank to try to cool myself down. "You guys are always all over each other!" I opened my mouth to retort and placed a hand on Minako's shoulder to calm her, but I was shocked out of my action when Minako pulled one hand back and slugged Rei in the face.
"Minako!" I shrieked, covering my mouth with my hands as Rei staggered back.
"I'm tired of you always going off on us for stupid shit and getting pissed off about things that aren't our fault!" Minako screamed in Rei's face. I glanced back to look at Makoto and Ami, and both of their jaws were hanging on their hinges. Rei's hand was clutching her nose, and blood was dribbling down over her lips.
Minako pushed Rei into the living room and I could hear them screaming at each other for several moments. Ami led me over to the counter and I sat in between her and Makoto for those tense minutes as we waited for silence, a truce, thuds- anything other than that continuous screaming. I stared down at my hands, pale, cold all of a sudden. I accepted a cookie from a shrugging Makoto with a slightly hysterical giggle and was facing the door in a split second as Minako stepped in. She didn't say anything or look at us as she made her way to the refrigerator, and we heard the front door slam shut as she opened it. We all stared at her as she grabbed a random bottle of alcohol, popped of the top, and chugged it. The hum of the open fridge was silenced as she sighed, put the bottle back, and closed it. Then she turned to face our awaiting expressions and stared at us for a moment before shrugging slightly.
"I told her not to come back again before she got her act together," she told us uncomfortably, avoiding our eyes. Suddenly I flew into her shoulder, hugging her against me. She held me as I sobbed, no one saying anything about the slightly swollen eye she had surely just gained in the other room.
So, seems like it's time for a new start. Having lost any and all inspiration I had for After Death (for those of you who remember the FIRST YnM/SM crossover), I recently decided to start writing again. Lack of reviews kinda caused a lack of inspiration last time, haha. So, if you like it, let me know. Reviews make meh happeh. Oh, and I have no idea where this is going, by the way. It's not going to be anything like After Death, and as you can already tell, it has a little shojo ai in the beginning. For those of you that makes go 'squick', however, don't worry. Rei's not as evil as she's looking so far, but Usa's probably gonna end up with a dude. If you want to know who I have in mind so far, go back and read the first paragraph. It's not who you're thinking, though. :D