Commentary: A drabble for those who are tired of seeing Haruka/Michiru stuff from me. While it's true that they're my favorite couple by more than a mile, I do feel the compulsion sometimes to write others... just to say I can. Whether it's any good, though, is up to you. ;) Please let me know your thoughts.
As always, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Disclaimer: I do not own the BSSM franchise. It belongs to the goddess Takeuchi Naoko.
"Remember, after rain there's always sunshine."
—Chinese fortune cookie
CUIDADO
"You're so mean," the future queen of Crystal Tokyo hisses at him. Her brilliant blue eyes narrow, nearly reptilian; her lips pooch out in an expression that is half snarl, half sneer, and wholly pissed off. Her round pink cheeks glow like angry almost-ripe apricots. Her nails drum on the tile and her hair fritzes right out of its carefully sculpted buns, electric jagged bolts of the brightest blonde.
Chiba Mamoru bites the inside of his cheek as hard as he is able to without drawing blood. He must not laugh. He absolutely must not laugh. He presses his lips together into a flat line against his teeth. He attempts to think of anything except what he has just seen—anything, in fact, that lacks humor. Physics, for example. Physics aren't funny at all. He straightens his shoulders a little, confident. Yeah, that's the ticket. Physics are boring. Physics are solid. Physics are fundamental. What goes up must come down and wow, she really came down, didn't she and—
He snorts.
Usagi freezes. Mamoru looks up. Their eyes meet. The bells of destiny ring and the shadow of the Earth eclipses the moon and one day they are going to get married and have a squalling spoiled splendid child with pink hair and red eyes, and maybe greater things will happen in the meantime like Usagi finally learning to cook, but now? Now she is mad. No: furious. Her face scrunches and she whips the narrow little foot he was absently examining for splinters or sprains right from his questing fingers. It almost smacks him in the chin.
"Ooooh!" she seethes. "You jerk!"
Mamoru doesn't quite think that verdict is fair. "Hey," he puts in, "I tried to warn you—"
"I can't believe you're laughing at me!" she interrupts, fuming. "Again! After I came all this way while it was raining out on a Saturday morning"—oh, and her voice drops into the abyss, quaking with wrath—"because you asked me to and I even brought breakfast, Mamo-chan!"
All right. She has a point. He did ask, and she did bring breakfast—pastries from his favorite French bakery, by the looks of it—and he has laughed at her misfortune in the hall not once, but twice now. Really, though, can she blame him? She came up the stairs whooping his name, her saturated pigtails streaming out behind her, her umbrella still deployed. She threw her arms wide in anticipation when she saw him waiting at his door. Heedless of his warning cry, she sprinted for him. The raindrops on her poncho glittered like diamonds and her galoshed heel caught one of the puddles left by other apartment passersby, and she skid-somersaulted past him, shrieking, arms pinwheeling, mouth a yawning chasm of despair—
She crashed straight into the open broom closet. One of her rain boots flew off. She tangoed with a mop, cha-cha'd with a dustpan, and waltzed with a wastebasket full of dead leaves and candybar wrappers, and she looks up at him now in such disdainful disarray that he is seconds from laughing his lungs out all over again. A wadded clump of toilet tissue is stuck in her left bun.
"Usako," he attempts. He chokes on the endearment. He folds a hand over his mouth in an effort to hide the stupid grin blooming there, but it is for naught. Usagi sees it. She puffs up, an offended yellow marshmallow in her wet rain slicker, and struggles upright. Legs bowed, she crabwalks across the hall, picks up the rabbit-printed boot gravity stole from her a few moments prior, and leans against the wall to yank it back on over her foot. She mutters to herself, most of the words too low for him to hear, but he gets the idea that stupid is in vogue today.
While her head is bowed, he discreetly plucks the toilet tissue away and tosses it behind him into his apartment. "Usako," he tries again. There. His voice is even this time, and he forces his face to exhibit an expression of honest contrition and concern. "I'm sorry."
"You're not." But he notices immediately that she isn't trying quite as hard to get that boot into place. She sulks, "You didn't even ask if I'm all right."
Mamoru could point out that he has seen her bounce over concrete on just her skull with no lasting ill effects on multiple occasions, but he is going to be a king someday, and he is a patient, near-saintly man already. Reaching down to brush his thumb along the dimple in her cheek, he asks, "Are you all right?"
She jerks her head away from him—but not far. She sniffs. Beads of rainwater fly from her flared nostrils. "…I guess," she mumbles. She watches him out of the corner of her eye, both hawkish and hopeful.
He's home free! He frowns at her in his most sincerely serious manner, leaning in close the way she likes it. His lashes brush her cheek. "Are you sure?" he asks. His voice goes gravelly and smooth. "You're looking a little flushed."
Her heartbeat ratchets high and her cheeks do pink rather attractively, he has to admit. She smiles. It's a reluctant twitch at first, but her mouth is so used to it that soon her whole face is brighter than the spring's best sunrise. "Mamo-chan," she giggles. She turns her head and her breath puffs softly against his mouth, and their lips brush, and she presses up onto her toes even as he leans down to her. He nips. She nibbles.
Her boot squeaks a little across the tile, though, and the memory of her skating down the hall on unwilling bananafied heels assaults him. He laughs into their ginger embrace, a hoarse, gentle sound. He feels her prickle indignantly; her mouth opens under his own, and she sucks in a breath to fuss at him again.
He kisses her fiercely, deeply instead, cutting her off, curling an arm around her to rock her to him. The bag of pastries is squashed a bit. There is no one else in the hall to see, and their only accompaniment is the low plip of water as it runs in rills off her slicker to the floor around them, perchance puddles for other lovers.
"Mamo-chan?" she asks when he pulls back, her eyes wide, her small warm hand splayed on his chest. She leaves a wet smear there.
"Don't be mad," he requests. He chuffs his fingers through her soaked, springing hair and tells her honestly, "I'm glad you make me laugh, Usako."
She bites her lip and looks at him through the shutters of her lashes, considering this—and then she beams, shy and searing and sweet, and turns her face into his throat to say, "All right." She pauses, hesitates. She shifts from foot to foot, the nub of her nose a cold damp button in the divot of his collar. At last she ventures, massaging a sodden buttock, "Mamo-chan?"
"Mm?"
"I'm glad, but… making you laugh won't always be so painful, will it?"
The roiling chuckle that echoes next in the hall above the rain's low drone answers her question.