Author's notes: My thank-yous for you, readers, and especially the ones who have left comments.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon
Chapter 2: Forming Shadow
The following week's Monday found Rei standing in front of the house of the blonde princess. Her eyes danced from the brown front-door to a certain window of the building's second floor, but her feet remained where they were. Her heart had ushered her this way, although her legs had originally intended to head home soon as their owner finished her graduation rehearsal at TA Girls' Academy.
"How's she?" She remembered asking Minako right after her three fellow senshi let their plan out to Usagi.
"You know Usagi"
"What do you mean?"
She rang the bell and a few minutes were what it took for her to get a response from the house's occupant.
"Usagi?" She had imagined her best-friend's blue-haired mother, but blonde hair was the first thing visible.
"Rei-chan?"
"What took you so long?" The raven-haired girl put her hands akimbo.
"I'm sorry, my whole family is out of town"
That made two surprises for Rei that afternoon. Usagi would usually snap back at her, remarking how grumpy she was being just because she had been neglected outside for a matter of minutes.
"What brings you here, Rei-chan?"
"Oh, that, I…" She let her nails scratch her temple. What brought her here, indeed? Was it not the fact that she was worried of the odango? But that fact was not necessarily important to share right then, was it? "It just feels weird to come home this early still in uniform"
That at least pulled a giggle out of Usagi, even though it lasted shortly before the blonde turned around. "Come in then. I think I have some unreturned manga, too"
Rei muttered 'thank you' after the blonde of the two brought in tea. She waited in the bedroom, wasting time by tracing the bunnies-butterfly-bunnies pattern on the cup's surface as Usagi retreated to the kitchen to put the tray back.
"Hey, Rei-chan" Her concentration was broken. "I thought you would ask the others to meet up at Crown instead"
She shrugged. "Minako and Ami are busy packing. It won't be any fun being only with Makoto"
"But it's not like it would be fun staying here either. There's just me"
Rei had somehow refused to answer that, albeit fully knowing what the answer really was. She was concerned about the odango, but again, her own pride had muffled her emotion to complete silence.
"Well I figure that we will run into these situations once they're away, so I thought I might as well train myself to get used to it…" The miko was about to joke about it on ease, but stopped when she saw a slight twitch on her companion's face.
"That's right" Usagi's eyes found her own feet. "Hey, they said the farewell party would be tomorrow"
"Yeah, Minako said so on the communicator right after I woke up this morning, just for the sake of that information"
"I don't like the idea at all" She heard Usagi continue again. "It makes it sound like we're not going to meet each other again…"
"Usagi, what are you-"
"Sorry" The blonde instantly cracked a smile on her face, one which would make any person question its authenticity. "What do you think we should bring, then?"
The question was let hanging in the air by Rei and Usagi took it as a prompt to go on.
"I think Minako-chan would like a swimming suit! We should get her a sexy one so she can put it on when she shoots her music video, and when it comes out on screen we can flaunt in front of everyone that it was from us! For Ami-chan, it would surely be a textbook! I have no idea what textbook, though. Maybe English or France… Ah, I haven't figured out one for Mako-chan…"
"Usagi" The raven-haired girl cut her to that point. The princess let amethyst eyes stare deeply into her own sapphire ones. "Five years and I am not dumb to still let you fake it"
Lost for words, both of them pretended to permit silence, but even silence could not stay long when the blonde's soft sobs shooed it away. Rei sighed.
"I am so happy for them, really" A choked sob briefly took Usagi's breath.
"Usagi" The senshi of fire called her princess' name for the nth time that day, now attending to her side to comfort the shorter girl. She realized the moon princess would not stop sobbing soon, but decided that the girl needed to let it out. Her boyfriend – no, her future king was gone for a master degree, and three of her dearest comrades had to take absence as well. The fact that the girl still had some sort of power to pretend she was okay still amused Rei.
"I can't be like this. I just finished high-school. I am about to enter college for gods' sake. It is wrong for me to still cry over something like this"
"No, it's not" The taller girl said. "You're just grieving. It's very human-like"
"No, you can't say that, Rei-chan. You have to be mean to me. You have to so I can grow up and stop being childish…"
And the girl buried her head in her knees, only showing trembling shoulders. Rei reached out her two arms to envelope those shoulders, but stopped midway before landing her palm to caress her princess' back instead.
Ami stared at red liquid being poured down into her bordeaux by Makoto. It was in her knowledge that the tallest of the team possessed complete set of cooking utensils in her kitchen, but having a set of wine glasses was new information.
"Thank you" She uttered, noticing how small the volume of her voice was compared to the bombastic one of the karaoke-mode Minako. 'Sailor V' had insisted to bring her mic to Makoto's apartment and attached it to the brunette's music player.
Usagi was waiting for her turn for the next song as she cheered on Minako every now and then. Rei spent her time reading one magazine she had taken from a stack, although Ami doubted her miko friend could have luck concentrating in the midst of the blondes' little concert. There was Makoto, of course, who was then fixing her eyes on the event taking place at her very own living room.
"Is it alright that they're still singing? They may take a while more and your train is leaving at five. That's seven hours from now" The blue-haired girl looked at the blurry image of the number eleven at the clock, feeling herself a bit tipsy from the wine.
"It's alright, I might not see this kind of crowd starting from seven hours and ahead" Makoto gave Ami a chuckle. Her gaze was still on her other three friends, but the look she gave Aino Minako was secretly distinctive.
The self-proclaimed 'Goddess of Love': someone she used to bicker with over a hot-looking lad when they were teens. Either her friends would laugh to tears or think she had fever if they had ever heard her confess the truth – that she thought the blonde's maturing beauty had captivated her. Either way, it was unbelievable to anyone, even to herself sometimes.
Thirty minutes or so had passed when the blondes gave in to the tired muscles of their vocal cords at last. Rei looked around, noticing that Makoto had begun cleaning up the room and Ami was calmly putting back her stuffs to inside her dark-blue baguette. No one said anything. In fact, nothing they had been doing since the party started was touching the goodbyes. Rei sighed.
"Usagi" She sat on the vacant space on the sofa next to the odango. "The gifts"
"Ah, right"
"Minna, I think I should head home now" Ami looked up with a smile.
"Ami-chan, wait" Rei stopped her motion just when she stood up. "Usagi and I… We have something for you all"
Usagi had then proceeded on unpacking a pink box. One by one she drew out what appeared to be sets of keychain. It was only after the odango handed each one to the four that they could see the clay figurines of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus respectively.
"I have been into clay-modeling lately, eheheh…" A shy grin brushed the princess' face. "I toyed with the idea of gifting each of you with what you favor but… I guess something like this will be a better reminder of… each other. They came out a bit ugly, but they're made with pure love!"
None of them was really paying attention to the odango's subtle justification upon her own creation. Minako's eyes did not move from the figurine, as if scanning the keychain. The bright light of Makoto's apartment allowed her to spot the little-Venus' asymmetric eyebrows, the oversized cheeks which mirrored those of a bee-sting's victim, a slight crack on her mid-section, and last but not least, the disproportionate legs. She did not have to peep to know that the other 'mini-senshi' would have similar flaws. Even so, it was not doubted that the extension of their princess' warmth had found its way into their hearts through the little goodies.
"And here's something from me" The raven-haired miko spent a few seconds raking inside her bag before finally finding four fortune-cookies message bottles. She passed one for each of the three before smiling. "There are about a hundred inside, if I counted it right. It is believed that as you encounter new quests in your life, you have to do one thing that lifts up your spirit each day for a hundred days ahead, so as to prevent relinquishment. That was the idea behind these"
"Wow, R-Rei… Did you seriously make about three hundred in total?" The calculation was a cinch for the brain of the group, who then gasped a little.
"A- Actually Yuuichiro and Grandpa had a hand in this as well" Rei's nails scraped against the base of her dark hair. Nothing of the transparent little jar was necessarily worth a commendation for her or the other two workers of the shrine, and she earnestly hoped none of her best friends would make it sound that impressive because, really, all it had required was taking those good-luck sheets from the temple's stock, rolling them before chunking them into the bottle.
"That's not fair, Rei-chan! You didn't make one for me!" Twin dumpling rolls had popped up somewhere next to her and Rei smelled nagging coming soon.
"Usagi, all you need to do is a short walk to Hikawa and take the papers yourself!" The miko folded her arms.
The moon-princess' expression had sunk into a deep sulk. "Rei-chan you're so-"
"Mean" Rei looked away, but her hand had moved to the contradicting direction, revealing another pink-capped bottle which successfully widened Usagi's pupils. "Of course I would make for everyone, baka! Here take yours!"
"Thank you, Rei-chaan! I knew you wouldn't forget me just like that!"
Makoto chortled upon the sight before her. "I sure would miss your arguments and tongue fights"
"Thank you, Usagi-chan, Rei-chan" Ami had subconsciously enveloped the bicker-master couple with her short arms.
Feeling touched, the brunette did not take long to snuggle between them. "Don't think twice to call us should anything happen"
That left the other blonde, who smiled before joining the group's bear hug. "And don't forget, Usagi-chan. I would call very, very often to check if you wake up for classes and if you don't fall asleep doing your assignments"
"Hey, I will turn off the communicator!" The odango released her arms from the tight embrace between them, slightly ruining their feet's center of gravity.
"Alas, then I will buzz Rei-chan for the report"
"Don't include me in that!" A snarl was the fire-senshi's response, which invited nothing but guffaw from the people who had known her inside-and-out for half a decade.
A figure was standing tall facing the mirror; auburn, loosened hair combed neatly to the front of her right shoulder. The woman in her mid twenties was in her yellow nightgown. A pair of matching bright orange slippers wrapped the white skin of her feet. One would think the lady was in her perfect form if not for her eyes. The bloated eyes that were moist tainted with red.
Motoki had cheated. Her fiancé had cheated. Such a thing was never surmised to be committed by the good-natured blondish man, not when he was three months away from uttering his vow on the holy altar to her.
"How could you… How could you!?" The torn woman had banged her palms onto the edge of the sink, as if the white, marble object had been her lover and not a static thing. Her wish to cry it out loud came back, but she had spent all her tears on the way home and she felt like no liquid was left.
What more would she sob for, though? For the fact that she had seen Motoki at the back of the café where he worked, passionately putting wet kisses all over the stranger's neck? For the realization that the marriage she had dreamt about had to be put down? And for the faltering smile of her parents when she could finally muster up courage to reveal the truth to them?
Nothing. Nothing was left anymore. She was sure that she had been broken so badly that no one would ever be able to put the pieces of her back together anymore. If anything, the only emotion she felt flooding her heart at that very second was bitterness – the complete mixture of anger, jealousy and all the negativity that her soul could register.
She held her breath for a moment, completely oblivious to a dark blurry shadow then forming in her background.
"That's right" Eerie, almost devilish, tune rang through her ears, and only then did she bother to move her focus from what had occupied her. She looked up, only to find the shade of darkness – the blackest she had ever seen – began towering over her. "All that is left from you is anything but good in this world. Forget whatever is virtuous, whatever is graceful, whatever is amiable, and whatever good for the soul. If anything is abhorrent and loathsome, think about such things"
Oddly enough, she did not run away nor scream. By the time the dark smoke had made contact with her skin, something inside her burst out, subtly, yet strongly, and found an escape from her physic. Her own shadow, which was barely visible under the dim ray of the bathroom, started moving on its own accord. She had lost her consciousness by half; through lidded eyes she witnessed her own shadow resurrect from its still form on the blue-tiled floor. Before she could even pay a more detailed look, her body shut down in its entirety. Another roar of atrocious laughter and its echoes in the room were the last her hearing could pick up.