Standard disclaimer that applies to all my stories: I don't own a damn thing

Standard disclaimer that applies to all my stories: I don't own a damn thing.

The title doesn't belong to me nor does the plot line, the only thing that really has me stamped on it the way I write it. I got this idea off of the manga "Dear Myself". This isn't even the kind of story where I started writing thinking I'm being original before realizing that its not original at all – people, I am totally using someone else's idea. Don't sue me, I don't own it, just use it.

Dear, Myself

Chapter Three: The Letter

By: Luna

In the dark, I heard someone crying…

Usagi woke up with a jolt, tiredly rubbing her eyes as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, that damn voice still whispering in her head. She was bothered by it, but for the life her she couldn't figure out why. Wasn't it a good thing that some part of her memory was coming back to her?

And yet, it seemed forced, as if something – or someone – inside her head wanted her to remember faster than she was comfortable with. Why was it pushing her towards Mamoru?

With a sigh she stood up, her fingers unerringly moving towards her nightstand to finger the folded letter. She toyed with the envelope for a while before she fingered up the lip, but she hesitated when they rested on the letter within. She was scared, she realized with a frown. She was scared to read her own damn letter. Despite the fact that that startled a laugh out of her, she still put the letter down and went about getting ready for her day. She wasn't exactly sure what she should do, but she wouldn't focus on that right now.

Fist, shower. Next, get dressed. Then she'd go down and eat something and figure out what to do. If she were honest, the first thing that came to mind was to call Mamoru, and it irritated her. It was all the dreams fault – otherwise, she was sure that wouldn't have been her first thought when waking up. Because really, it was way to cheesy to think that her last thought upon sleeping would be of him, along with her first thought of waking up. Who really did that anyways? Not her, that's for sure.

She sighed again, because she was just trying to convince herself and failing miserably. So she stopped herself from pulling on her shoes and sat on her bed again and pulled out her letter before she could change her mind again. Then, taking a deep breath, she looked down and started to read. It was dated two years before, so obviously she and Mamoru knew each other for a long time before her accident and amnesia.

Dear, Myself

Today is the first day of school! It's going to be so great, so fulfilling, and I can't wait to love it. I'm going to make so many friends and maybe even meet the love of my life. Who knows? Like the saying goes, this is the first day of the rest of my life! Right?

Usagi stared down in disgust at the overly cheerful handwriting and recalled Mamoru telling her once that he hated it when people forced kindness on others, and she was beginning to realize who he had been talking about. It seems her past self stopped writing there and continued on a few weeks later, apparently on the day Mamoru first met past Usagi.

I met a boy today, and let me tell you it's not what you'd think at first. This is NOT the love of my life that I thought I'd meet at school!

He was so mean to me! I approached him despite him always wearing that cold look on his face and glaring at all the students and even when he was rude to all the teachers. I went up to him anyways every day, always saying hello, good morning, how are you, isn't it a nice day today? And you know what he said to me?!

He called me a goddamned hypocrite!

What does that even mean, anyways?

He said he didn't want kindness forced on him; that there were some people I wouldn't be able to treat the same. That I was a hypocrite simply by treating everyone the same and never choosing 'favorites', and that it wasn't fair to others in my treatment of them because I never chose a favorite. But is it really as bad as he's making it sound…?

He said that he felt sorry for me because I'll never fully live, and that he loved himself enough to live life to the fullest for himself, and often by himself. And then he asked me…

Here, the girl was obviously having trouble writing it down, for her following words seemed forced, the pen having pressed in deeply in the paper and the words in a jerky format.

"Do you even love yourself? What good will ever come of you denying yourself completely to please the lives of others? In the end, I think you'll be the sorry one. You'll be the one regretting life alone, pleasing others until your dying breath."

And then he said… He said… he hated me. Well, okay, he said he hated people like me.

But isn't that the same as saying he hated me?

I don't understand. This is the only way I know how to live. What is so wrong with that?

Is it wrong to want everyone around you to be happy? Is it wrong to draw happiness from others? Am I, like he was saying, forcing myself on others through kindness?

I… I don't even know how to view myself anymore.

It seems she picked up the story a little while later, after they got over their argument and when they started to "fall in love".

He smiled at me today.

He smiled at me, and I swear my heart just dropped to my feet and I couldn't stop staring at him. It made him self conscious, for he dropped it and immediately started pretending as if he never smiled at all and started being an ass to me, but I will never forget it.

Usagi winced at this.

It was so beautiful, and it made him beautiful. All that loneliness seemed to just fade away, and all that darkness turned to light and for once he actually looked his age. He looked young, he looked carefree, and (OMG I can't believe I'm going to write this) he looked as if he loved me.

But that's just silly, right? Mamoru, loving me?

After, he seemed to just fall into himself, as if that one small opening; that one small chink in his armor made everything he built around his heart crumble and his past just rush at him before he was ready, and the Mamoru that I knew seemed to fade before my eyes. He started looking haggard and thin, as if he wasn't eating anymore, and when I started grilling Rei, it seems that's exactly what was happening.

He stopped eating, he stopped speaking, and apparently he wasn't sleeping very well. Then I… I did the unthinkable.

I approached Rei's father.

If you're laughing now, believe me, it's no laughing matter. Rei's father is probably the most scariest man I've ever seen or spoke with, and I bet the reason he's so successful at what he does because he literally scares away the competition. Rei definitely didn't get her good looks from him

Usagi had to laugh at that, wondering what the man actually looked like.

I asked him about Mamoru and his past, and he actually gave me a straight answer. Despite his scary demeanor, Rei's father seemed to genuinely care for Mamoru and, even scarier, he seemed to think as if I were the one to save him.

He told me that Mamoru had been abused and beaten all throughout his childhood, and though unconfirmed; he might have been abused in more ways than with fists and words. After his parents died in an accident and left him with amnesia, everyone in his life seemed to abandon him or hurt him, and that was the reason why he seemed to be so gruff and unapproachable. Mr. Hino said that Mamoru seemed to change when he met me though and it gave Mr. Hino hope.

Mamoru actually seemed to relax at home and seemed to be enjoying life.

And he said that it was because of me.

ME!

I don't know what's scarier: the fact that I'm in love with him, or that he might be in love right back.

She keeps on writing about how they actually kissed once or twice and the trials they both went over to help him with his past and how she's never felt more herself than when she was with Mamoru. The letter stops and seems to pick up a few days before Usagi's accident.

I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him…

And I'm going to tell him.

Today.

It's taken so long for me to continue this letter, but it's taken me that long to get the nerve up to actually tell him. I know he knows. I know he feels the same. But we've never actually came out and told each other, and I think it's about time we try. I've already called him and asked him to meet me at the park, and again I know that he knows what it is I want to tell him.

It's taken us so long to get here, and I've grown in so many ways thanks to him. He smiles at me now, and I've never seen such a beautiful expression. It makes me happy, and in the end I realize everything just comes down to one simple fact.

I love Mamoru, and I want him always to be smiling.

Don't you?

The letter ended, but that wasn't the only reason Usagi had to stop reading. The words started to blur, and it was only then that she realized that she had been crying. Why…?

She didn't understand, and she didn't know exactly what she was doing, but by the time she realized she had already pulled on her shoes and was heading out the door, knowing instinctively where she was going.

She was going to see Mamoru.

Hopefully that was a good enough chapter for everyone! I know it's taken me FOREVER to update, but there was a reason, I swear! I'm making a BIG move from D.C. all the way down to Florida, and I've been busy packing my things and settling things at work that I haven't been able to find time to write. I've just gotten settled into my new rented room, but I still have to go to Starbucks so I can use the wireless internet they have there.

And now that I'm taking night classes that last from twelve to three and then five in the evening to one o'clock in the morning… well, I have even less time than before, since I use my mornings to work out for at least two hours, take a shower, then run over to my school and study for two more hours before I go to school for seven or so hours.

But thank you for sticking with me! Again, hopefully it was what you guys were looking for. Stay tuned for the next Sailor Moon story that I've been writing! (And if you're an Inuyasha fan as well, stay tune for a brand new story I've been cooking up that's coming out soon as well as updates to My Sixth Sense!)

Luna