Wednesday

"You're early," Rei commented, without looking up from her manga. The shrine was deserted except for her, and now Usagi, who looked at the clock on the wall in confusion.

"It's three-fifteen."

"Yeah."

Usagi knitted her brows in confusion. "You guys said to meet at three-fifteen!"

"Yeah, we tell you three-fifteen. That way you show up at three-thirty. Or sometimes, three-forty-five." Rei turned the page without looking up at her friend.

"Yo-you- what? What's the real meeting time?"

"Three-thirty." Rei still didn't look up from the manga she was reading. "Close your mouth, you're attracting flies."

Usagi closed her mouth, keeping the offended expression in her eyes.

"Well, what do you wanna do for fifteen minutes?" She settled down, next to her dark-haired friend.

Wordlessly, Rei handed her the newest issue of the weekly manga magazine she knew Usagi was dying to read.

With a delighted squeal, the blonde took it and opened it eagerly. After a few minutes, Usagi sensed Rei's gaze and looked up.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Usagi asked. "All smug."

"No reason." Rei was smiling as she returned to her manga. "I'm just happy for you."

"Aww, Rei!" With shining eyes, Usagi reached over but was stopped by one look from the raven-haired miko.

"One more word, and I swear to the gods I will strangle you with your own pigtails."

"Right," Usagi nodded. She returned to reading the manga, but every so often she snuck side-eye looks at Rei, a mushy smile on her face.

Rei glanced longingly at the clock on the wall. Oh, god, how much longer until someone - anyone - else showed up?

Usagi was convinced she was surrounded by sadists.

The meeting was seriously a downer thanks to Luna and Artemis. "Don't rest on your laurels, everyone!" "You never know when a new enemy might appear!" "Don't let your guard down just because we won the last two battles!"

And then the conversation kept turning toward gossip about how things were "progressing" between her and Mamoru. Usagi didn't know how many times she would repeat the phrase "it's been, like, four days" before it began to lose all meaning.

And Minako was all, "Well, Usagi-chan, you know, Rome was built in four days!" Which wasn't even right, according to Ami. And what did Rome have to do with anything, anyway? Usagi didn't even really like Italian food that much.

"Why are you in street clothes, Usagi-chan?" Minako asked, interrupting Artemis, who shot her a glare. "No one was listening anyway," Minako told him, making him glare harder.

"I was listening," Ami whispered to him, kindly.

Usagi shrugged. "No reason, just felt like changing out of my uniform today."

"Uh-huh. Have plans after this, by chance?"

"I might go for a walk in the park on my way home," Usagi examined a fingernail, willing herself not to blush.

"By yourself?" Makoto asked, tilting her head to the side.

"There are, like, a billion people who live in this city so I probably won't be completely by myself, no." Usagi was ridiculously proud of her comeback.

"The population of the general Tokyo metropolitan area is actually about 10 million people," Ami chimed in. "Not a billion."

"Thanks for the geography lesson," Minako said.

"That's not geography, that's demography," Ami sounded a little exasperated.

"Tomato, Po-tay-to!" Minako said breezily.

"That's not even the right saying!" Ami's sweet voice was just barely starting to crack.

The other girls were watching with undisguised amusement.

"Let's leave Ami alone for now," Rei said, earning herself a grateful look from her genius friend. "And get back to torturing Usagi." The other girls glanced at Rei, and at her approving wink, they knew it was okay to continue.

"So are you going to meet your boyfriend later or what?" Makoto saddled up to her friend, and Minako pressed her shoulder against Usagi's other side, effectively trapping her.

"We saw you kiss him at the cafe," Makoto added.

"Not that that even counts as a kiss," Minako added, dismissively, "I kiss my grandmother like that."

"Yeah, but I doubt your grandmother stands there like an idiot for ten minutes afterwards," Rei spoke up.

This time no amount of willing could keep the blush from Usagi's face. "What?"

"I've never seen Mamoru-san blush before," Makoto said, thoughtfully. "And I once almost strangled him. By accident!" She added when she saw the looks everyone was giving her.

Usagi was still staring straight ahead, a strange, unsure look in her blue eyes. "He was really blushing?"

"He's got it bad," Minako said, tossing blonde hair over one shoulder. She began rummaging in her purse for a bottle of pink nail polish she knew was buried in there somewhere. "The way he was looking at you yesterday made me want to take a cold shower. A-ha! Found it!"

She held the bottle up triumphantly. "Wanna try it? It's totally your color." She held it against Makoto's skin.

"Ah, I don't know, I don't usually wear nail polish..."

"But this is so subtle!"

"This meeting is over, isn't it?" Artemis asked.

"What was your first clue?" Luna said, rolling her eyes.

Usagi watched the two girls discuss the polish without really seeing them. She looked vaguely as if she'd just seen a ghost.

"Usagi, are you okay?" Ami asked.

"Um, I guess?" She was playing with her hands and the ends of the pigtails in what Rei recognized as a very nervous gesture.

"How could what Minako said possibly make you feel less confident?" Rei demanded. Everyone looked up curiously.

All Usagi could do was shrug. "I guess because it's so different... now. Between us. Now that he remembers everything."

"He sometimes looked at you that way before, too," Minako said, dragging a the polish brush over one of her nails and then blowing on it delicately. "If that makes you feel any better."

Strangely, it didn't.

"Maybe I will try some of that nail polish," Makoto said.

"Oh, did you see that Namiko Inoue was wearing a color like this in the last episode of November Rain?"

And the conversation turned toward dramas, actresses, actors and make-up, Usagi sighed and shut her eyes. She opened them in surprise when she felt Rei's arm around her shoulder.

"Cheer up, Usagi. As usual, you are making a big deal out of nothing."

"What if it gets screwed up? What if I lose him again?"

"It won't. You won't."

"But-"

"Hey, Usagi, what time were you supposed to meet him? Because it's five o'clock now."

This time she greeted Mamoru with a hug, dropping her bag and throwing her arms around his waist and resting her head on his chest. For just a moment, she felt his heart beat a fierce rhythm against her cheek. Then she jumped back, linking her hands behind her back, and smiling apologetically.

"I'm so sorry I'm late! I lost track of time, talking with the girls." Usagi sheepishly put her arm behind her head. "They really go on and on."

"It's okay," he said. His eyes were kind as he looked at her, it made her flustered. She retrieved her school bag and linked her arm through his and they walked along the path.

"So, how was school today?"

"Normal. Boring. Whatever, it was school."

"How was the meeting with the girls?"

"Good. Luna and Artemis were going on about how a new enemy could appear any second, so be sure to sleep with one eye open, Mamoru."

He chuckled.

"And they all wanted to know what was going on with you and me, of course." She stared straight ahead at the path ahead of them, the shadows thrown by the sun hanging low in the sky. Without realizing it, she had loosened her grip on his arm, so he let it fall from her hand. Already he missed the contact with her, it felt a few degrees colder as she pulled away, a few steps ahead of him.

"Why?" he said, easily.

"'Cause they are nosy," she emphasized. Then sighed, and brushed a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. "Because they care about me." She caught his eye and grinned. "Mostly the nosy thing, though."

"What do you tell them?" His eyes were still regarding her so affectionately. It was disconcerting.

She perched on a bench underneath the wide, sheltering branches of a tree, dropping her bag on the ground again. She curled her fingers beneath the bench and linked her legs at the ankle.

"That ... I don't know." She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. "I'm not entirely sure how to act around you when you are being so... nice."

Ouch. "I can be nice!" he protested.

"Oh, I know!" She said, "I've seen it with my own eyes! You are really great." Her eyes softened when she looked at him. "You are nice to Motoki, and Rei, and even Natsumi. And baby Manami and -" Usagi looked down, kicking the dirt with one toe of her white tennis shoe. "You are a really good guy. Even if you did call me 'odango atama' and tease me all the time."

He sat down next to her. "What can I say, you made me do strange things." He put an arm around her shoulders, drew her close to him. "Like black out and wake up in the middle of a battle, in a tuxedo, attempting to distract some giant monster long enough for you to blast it."

She giggled. Mamoru smiled at the sound. "Or search tirelessly for some magical crystal I knew nothing about," he continued.

Usagi sighed, putting her hands up to her chest in a perfect impression of Princess Serenity, whether she realized it or not, "Although you kept trying to take the rainbow crystals from me."

"Well, what can I say, being reincarnated royalty is not an exact science."

She was giggling again, burying her face in his shoulder. "Oh, god, tell me about it."

He put his chin on her head, just relishing the closeness they had, how comfortable he felt.

"I was nice to everyone but you. Because you, Tsukino Usagi, would just drive me crazy," he said, half to himself.

Images of Haruna-sensei, Luna, and Rei flashed through Usagi's mind. "I seem to have that effect on people," she muttered, looking up at him with an apologetic glint in her blue eyes. He put a hand to her face, brushing blonde wisps of hair back from her face. Usagi stared with wide-open eyes.

"I don't mind your effect on me," he murmured. He kissed her forehead, and she shut her eyes. Her heart was pounding her chest so hard she was afraid it would burst right out of her. Couldn't he hear it?

She opened her eyes and turned toward him, parting her lips to speak. But no words came. He gently brushed her lips with his, meaning to pull away - to keep it innocent. But Usagi linked her hands behind his head and pressed her mouth to his eagerly. She was not one to do anything like this halfheartedly.

He gave in completely, melting into her and how she was so sweet, and so warm, and so real - how he wanted so very much to be steady and cool and in control, but with her he was always spiraling into some sort of madness where he was very much not himself. Or maybe the closest he ever got to his true self.

When he pulled away, they were both blushing. "I've wanted to do that for a really long time," Usagi confessed, with a smile that just took his breath away. "Longer than I'd ever want to admit."

"I know," he said, with that arrogant smile she always loved to hate. He twirled a strand of blonde hair through his fingers, thinking that it was just as silky as he always thought it would be. She leaned in for another kiss and he gladly obliged, dropping his hands to her shoulders.

There wasn't much spoken for a while. As it turns out, in precious few things, Usagi actually had a very impressive amount of focus.

It was finally the setting sun in her eyes that startled Usagi into jumping up and crying out. "Oh my god! I was supposed to be home half an hour ago!" She grabbed her bag. "I bet my parents think I'm dead in a ditch!"

Mamoru just looked at her, mystified.

"You know how many times in my life I've been late for a meal?" she joked, "I gotta get home before they send the police after me." She twirled around one last time and planted a quick kiss on Mamoru's cheek, just like at the Crown the day before. "I'll see you!"

"Bye," he managed to choke out to her disappearing form and the growing shadows of the evening.