She wasn't going there to see the aqua haired violinist.
She wasn't.
She was simply taking the scenic route to the clinic and if she happened to come across an art gallery, then well, it would be a more attractive option than going to physical therapy.
That was it.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the woman who had refused to leave her mind since the day they met.
Sighing in defeat, Haruka raked a hand through her hair, grateful that the streets seemed empty despite the nice weather. This was a terrible idea.
Every rational bone in her body was screaming at her to turn around; Michiru would never have to know just how much she had been tempted to meet her and she would hopefully take the hint that Haruka was not interested in whatever she was offering.
Yet she found herself walking straight to the gallery and upon spotting the woman waiting for her in a light periwinkle dress, Haruka felt her mountain of excuses crumble. The change was subtle but Michiru's own face lit up as she sighted the blonde, and she smiled as the gentle breeze blew her hair to the side.
Ignoring the fluttering of her traitorous heart, Haruka made her way to the front of the gallery, looking anywhere but at Michiru as she asked, "So what do you need me to do?
As much as her artistry had been acclaimed, it was strictly regulated by her mother, and Michiru had found an outlet in this small, neighbourhood art gallery. Its local and modest nature was its very allure for her, a place she could almost claim was solely hers, a part of her own isolated world. As an anonymous benefactor, she consistently donated a large amount of both money and artwork and she had frequented the gallery to savour the feeling of being unknown and enjoy the work of local artists.
Without her name on the pieces, the audience was uncoloured by any expectations and they could truly see her art as it was meant to be seen.
She had never brought anyone to this gallery and yet she had felt an utter conviction, a burning need to bring Haruka and see her reaction.
Subconsciously, she had thought of "The End of the World" as her last painting, the last gasping breaths of her dying artistry. But Tenoh Haruka had swooped in and revived her artistic soul until it was swirling inside her, begging to be expressed.
Wholly unaware of the monumental significance of her presence at the gallery, Haruka wandered around, looking curiously at the various pieces on display.
Despite her extensive experience in attending charity galas and other such public functions, this was Haruka's first time in an art gallery and she found herself at a loss as to what to say. In front of a particularly abstract painting in which she couldn't make out a single recognisable shape, she half-heartedly said, "I like the….shading...The contrasts are very...clear."
Michiru let out a small laugh, "You can freely say what you think. The beauty of art is that there isn't one absolute interpretation, no?"
Moving on to a painting that Haruka was thankful to see displayed distinct objects, the blonde asked, "Did you paint these?"
Michiru remained silent to the question but a small smile played on her face. They separated as Haruka explored the gallery and Michiru watched Haruka to her heart's content, committing every detail of her over and over into her memory.
Haruka came to a halt in front of a small, unassuming painting, depicting what seemed like a unfinished landscape of a desolate ocean. Michiru lightly stepped to the side of the suddenly quiet blonde, curious to see what had piqued her attention so.
"I can't say many people like this piece."
"What do you mean?"
"There are just so many more pleasant looking paintings. This one is a bit underwhelming, don't you think?"
After a deep contemplative pause during which the blonde couldn't tear her eyes from the artwork, she quietly murmured, "The deep sea raises all living things everywhere."
Michiru snapped her head to the blonde, feeling her heart in her throat. The blonde visibly shook off the strange feeling that had overtaken her and moved on to admire the next piece.
The couple exited the gallery and Haruka playfully said, "I've never been a model for an artist before but I'm pretty sure it requires drawing on your part."
Michiru, who had remained reticent for the rest of their visit, took a long pause before asking, "Could we meet the day after tomorrow as well?"
Although taken off guard at the sudden request, Haruka agreed with a certain amount of bemusement before leaving the aqua haired woman, who pensively stared after her.
Mamoru stared blankly at the girl in front of him. When he had agreed to come to the cafe again so that the blonde could repay him for his help, he hadn't really had any expectations, but this was certainly something he couldn't have imagined.
"So, if we look here, we can see that the poet was trying to describe his love in terms of science…"
She struggled, looking deeply at the book as if it would tell her its secrets if she was desperate enough. She'd asked for an English book from Minako that she could use to help teach Endou-san but that was where she'd got it all wrong, wasn't it? She hadn't asked Ami because her books were definitely beyond Usagi's comprehension levels (no matter how much she had improved in her English), but in retrospect, Ami would have understood and given her a book at an appropriate level. Now she was stuck with an English book of poems to make it worse. She'd had a hard enough time in high school with Japanese literature, how was she going to explain a poem in English?!
She took a surreptitious glance at the man sitting in front of her, before her eyes darted back to the book once she saw his expectant gaze on her.
She tried again, persistent to the end, "So if you see, the poet describes the girl like a lot of flower petals and a violet, and, and, he's like a falling apple and, if we translate the first line it says…."
"An object need not be large to have great volume," Mamoru helpfully supplied and with a relieved exhale, Usagi brightened.
"Yes, that's right! An object need not be lar-"
She stared at him with accusatory eyes that made him feel a tinge of guilt, "Wait a minute, are you good at English?"
"Perhaps," he admitted.
Usagi slumped down onto the table, utterly defeated. Her head turned to look pitifully outside of the window.
"I really wanted to pay you back for helping me and I thought teaching you English would be the most helpful for you," she mumbled. Mamoru couldn't help but smile at her innocent explanation but was at a loss for how he could comfort the devastated girl.
A little boy carrying a multitude of vibrant, shaped balloons in one hand and cotton candy in the other became visible in the window, and Usagi watched him pass by with a longing look on her face.
"That looks yummy. Amusement parks are such fun," she said wistfully, eyes fixated on the fluffy spun sugar.
Mamoru chuckled, "I'll take your word for it."
The blonde snapped up to look at him incredulously, "What?! Have you never been to one before?"
Surprised by her dramatic change in mood, Mamoru said curiously, "I can't say I have."
For once, he seemed to have been the one to make her speechless and not the other way around. She gaped at him before slamming her hand on the table with a determined expression.
"Endou-san, I know how I can repay you!"
For some reason, her declaration filled him with more uneasy anxiety than excitement.
Questioning glances were sent in his direction by the mass of families in the park and his mind racing, Mamoru quickly pulled Usagi into a nearby little shop.
"It's a bit hot. Why don't you get something? I think I'll just get this cap."
He picked out a nondescript black baseball cap that would help cover his face and let him go undiscovered. He wasn't doing anything wrong with the girl (of course not!) but he certainly didn't want pictures of their outing displayed on the front pages of magazines and newspapers the next day.
He went towards the cashier where Usagi was giddily waiting, and was startled when she pulled out two amazingly fantastic hats from behind her back, a bubblegum pink cap with oversized, round mouse ears, and an identical cap in black.
He weakly asked, "Those are both for you, right?"
How had he gotten to this point? He was 28 years old and the vice chairman of one of the largest conglomerates in Japan, and he was standing in an amusement park wearing large mouse ears. How had he let her talk him into this?
("Your amusement park experience won't be complete without them!")
With pink cheeks, he noted that the glances in his directions were no longer full of curious familiarity but stifled giggles. With his tall stature and formal suit that was entirely inappropriate for an amusement park, he already struck out from the crowd, but the mouse ears attracted even more attention. He pointed the cap further down his face in a futile attempt to hide when Usagi bounced out of the store.
He stared at her blankly before doubling over in laughter, his own embarrassment forgotten. With her hair already up in buns, the pink mouse ears made it seem as though she had a complete assortment of rainbow odangos on her head.
She laughed loudly with him and sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck with a wide smile, "It's a bit much, isn't it?"
His laughter subsided and Mamoru quickly said, "No, no…It's cute."
Usagi beamed at him and he suddenly found himself being dragged forward with an amazing amount of power by the petite girl.
"Hurry, let's go!"
The rollercoaster shot down and Usagi screamed joyfully even as fearful tears streamed from her eyes. Mamoru gripped the bar tightly, his own eyes open wide with fear. This was it. This was how he was going to die.
They wandered into the zoo section of the park and with each animal, Usagi's excitement increased exponentially until they finally came upon the new baby pandas, at which her excitement seemed to explode and she squealed incoherently, jumping up and down while holding his arm. While her eyes were glued to the animals, he took the time to watch her.
Usagi scarfed down a box of takoyaki as Mamoru looked in sheer amazement at the mountain of empty boxes he suddenly found himself holding.
She offered him a bite from the cotton candy that was at least twice the size of her head, and Mamoru accepted, taking a bite from the fluffy pink ball. She looked at him with glittering eyes and although he personally didn't like overly sweet things, he said it was good and watched her expectant face bloom into a smile.
Although he had remained silent throughout most of the haunted house with Usagi doing enough screaming for the both of them, he faced the most terrifying sight of his life in the ticket booth. He jumped backwards in fright at the ticket collector, whose deeply sunken in face conveyed a lifetime of suffering. Nearly crashing into other park goers, he found his arms spinning frantically as he tried to catch his balance. Usagi had been scared but not nearly as much as Mamoru and she laughed at him to the point tears spilled out of her eyes. Blushing, Mamoru looked at the laughing blonde before joining in her laughter.
The two walked out of the amusement park against the backdrop of a warmly glowing sunset.
"That was fun, right Endou-san?" Usagi asked, still full of energy.
Although he felt exhausted, Mamoru had genuinely had fun and he voiced his sentiments, much to her joy.
Suddenly struck with a revelation, she turned to him with a concerned look in her eyes, "Endou-san, do you have a family?"
He coughed in surprise before quickly reassuring her that he did in fact have a living family. She smiled in relief, "I was worried. Wait a minute, if you haven't been to an amusement park before, have you ever visited a shrine for New Year's?"
"No," Mamoru professed.
"Participated in hanami (flower viewing)?"
"No."
"Eaten toshikoshisoba right on midnight on New Year's Eve?"
"No."
"Gone to a ryokan?"
"Yes." (for business)
"Visited a Tanabata festival?"
"No."
"Eaten ramen?"
"Yes," Mamoru said wryly; he was still a full blooded Japanese person after all.
But Usagi seemed to be of a different mind, and her eyes turned wet with tears.
"Endou-san, you're worse than a foreigner who's never been to Japan. How on Earth have you never done any of these?" she lamented before switching gears and turning drastically serious. She grasped his hands tightly, "This is no longer the simple matter of me paying you back. This is me doing my duty as a Japanese citizen, making sure you experience what every Japanese person should have experienced before becoming an adult. Will you meet me at Hikawa Shrine tomorrow?"
Mamoru was startled but he smiled warmly at her solemn declaration and Usagi felt her heart flutter.
"Okay."
No one had ever grasped the meaning behind her art.
Of course art critics tried to, explaining away her fixation on bodies of water and other such natural landscapes as being a commentary on the fast-paced and industrialised nature of modern society. Reporters of salacious, third-rate magazines connected her use of bright, scarlet shades to Mamoru supposedly cheating on her.
No one had grasped the significance of her art like Haruka had, not even mentioning how instantaneously Haruka had understood it. It was exciting and utterly terrifying at the same time.
She hadn't been lying when she said that particular painting wasn't liked. In her observations as an unknown visitor of the gallery, most people took a single glance at the seemingly unfinished piece and moved on from its overall depressing nature. But that painting was one Michiru held dearly to her heart, seeing it as both a reflection of herself and a hope-filled homage to the deep sea that raised all living things everywhere.
She stared at the smirking face she had sketched in front of her and shivered when a small breeze flew in from the open window. With the season becoming warmer as spring slowly arrived, she had started to keep the window open more often.
She focused back on the blonde's face, hoping it would give her the answers she sought but was left in a deeply contemplative state.
Tenoh Haruka was dangerous.
Haruka nursed a beer, hand clutching her dully throbbing chest.
She had felt her barriers faltering in her interactions with the artist and the old pain in her chest had flared up almost instantaneously, as if her body was reminding her that she wasn't allowed to enjoy it. She had no right to enjoy it.
The image of the strange painting of the sea and the desperate need that always seemed to fill Michiru's beautiful face took over her mind and Haruka groaned in pain before quickly shutting the woman out of her mind.
Yet the unending depth of Michiru's enigmatic, cobalt eyes remained and with a generous swig of her beer, Haruka darkly mused:
Kaioh Michiru was dangerous.
She used all of the muscles in her face when she laughed.
The women in Mamoru's life always had false or pinched smiles. They were scared of wrinkling their smooth skin or were unable to move due to an overuse of Botox. Smiles were nothing more than tools to maintain the pretense of civility and luxury between people who could only be called fair-weather acquaintances at best.
But Usagi had none of that.
When she laughed, she did so without restraint, the skin around her eyes freely crinkling as her entire face innocently conveyed all of her joy.
The image of her various reactions from their outing earlier in the day lingered in his mind despite the extensive paperwork that swallowed his desk and Mamoru drank the finest scotch in all of Japan in a single shot, a move that would have brought tears to liquor connoisseurs. The burning sensation gave his distracted mind something to focus on and he shut the mouse ears cap away into a drawer.
Tsukino Usagi was dangerous.
Usagi sprawled out on her bed, a content smile on her face.
The first day of spring break couldn't have been more perfect. Even though she was completely devoted to becoming a social worker, sometimes she just needed to forget about everything and have fun.
Her belly was perfectly full with various foods from the park and she was more than ready to go into a deep and restful sleep after her eventful day. Her half-awake mind wandered over to the man she had visited the park with.
Endou-san was...really handsome and cute and… (zzz)
A/N: Because the episode of Usagi's date with Seiya was cute, but I really wanted to see it with Mamoru. (Also, I feel like my Mamoru has turned into a mixture of Mamoru and Tsuruga Ren from Skip Beat! but I don't know how to stop)
The deep sea quote is taken from one of Michiru's poems in the Sailor Moon CD's. The poem mentioned is actually a Korean poem, The Physics of Love, that was mentioned in the drama Goblin (which I recently watched and adored).
Thank you for reading!