SailorStar9: Well, the prologue is out, and this is Chapter One. Remember boys and girls, reviews are an author's subsistence. So, please be a dear and read and review. And is it so difficult for you guys to review instead of just putting this fic up in yor favorites and alerts?
Disclaimers: I do not own Sailor Moon or the pairings. The only thing I do own is the plot.
Chapter 1: Beginnings, Part One
Usagi was drying herself once she was in her room, when her eye rested on a photo frame which held the image of her aunt. While it was true that she had sworn that she would never be poor again after her mother died and that she would rise above her circumstances, it had been her aunt who set her on the path of marrying into high society.
Haruno Isako was actually Usagi's aunt on her mother's side who worked in a matchmaking-cum-bridal-gown shop in the first floor of her two-tiered detached house on 7th Avenue. Usagi had been born out of wedlock after her father abandoned Usagi's mother when he knew of the pregnancy. After Usagi's mother died of overdosing on heroin and meth, this meant Isako became Usagi's legal guardian at a very young age.
The first thing the greedy woman noticed about her neighborhood the second she moved in was that it was merely four streets away from where the country's elites lived; the families that had the best lifestyles and bank accounts in the world and always wanted to join in on their luxury despite her low status.
So, Isako tried the one way she saw available to her: marry into one of the families and use their benefits as her own. To accomplish that, she then set up a matchmaking-cum-bridal-gown shop below her house. Using it as an avenue, she tried to lure the bridegrooms-to-be that entered her shop away from their future wives.
Problem was that's easier said than done and the worldly family heads were not that easy to fool.
Granted, Isako was not the only Haruno in her generation to improve the familial status; Usagi's mother, Natsumi, had tried more… proactive ways to gain power. She had slept with men in power, trying to bear their children in order to have blackmail material to use against them. She even attempted to seduce members of the elite families, to no avail.
Isako, on the other hand, tried a more subtle approach by trying to form a subtle parasite relationship with the elite family heads, all without any success.
In the end, it had been Usagi who managed to enter high society life, using her beauty and the skills Isako passed on to her.
I just hope my biggest secret doesn't come out. Usagi prayed, knowing that if her most prevalent secret was ever leaked out, namely the one that concerned her ancestry, it would be the end of everything; Mamoru would divorce her without a second thought.
SailorStar9: Now that's done, read and review.