Just A Kiss Goodnight
Set: Gray
Theme: Help
By: Usagi Carter
Last Revised: October 31, 2011
Summary: One moment in time where a certain odango and our favorite baka bond of over math homework
Rating: T
Setting: AU Season 1
Character(s): Usagi/Mamoru/Motoki
Author's Notes: Come and visit the multi-fandom message forums that I run with my brother and sisters – Valhalla: Home Of Honored Heroes: www(dot)valhallaboard(dot)com/forum/index(dot)php
Dedication: To Ang, Baine, Alicia Blade, Loki, Lynette, and the countless other friends, fans and authors who've inspired me over the years.
Smtk
The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all. - Leo Rosten
Smtk
He'd been watching her for nearly four hours. He'd gone through six cups of coffee, and knew he was going to be wired for sound, and she still hadn't moved from her spot. It was Saturday, and instead of being off at the mall with her friends, she was tucked into a booth, out of the way of the screaming children and laughing teenagers who were spending their money on arcade games. He'd debated going over to bug her, but something about the way she was sitting, not to mention the stack of school books, notepads, and pencils around her warned him today was not the day to tease the pretty blonde.
"I have never, ever seen her look that depressed or lost," Motoki murmured, leaning against the counter. His voice was just low enough for Mamoru to hear. "It's Saturday, she shouldn't be cooped up doing homework."
"If she did it the rest of the week, she wouldn't be doing it on Saturday," he uttered back, turning from staring at the blonde haired beauty to staring at his grim best friend.
Motoki seemed, to him, to be mulling something over before he spoke. "She needs help."
"In case you haven't noticed, Ami-chan's tried, countless times," he pointed out.
His best friend's eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned. "Ami-chan uses words that even you and I don't understand sometimes, what makes you think Usa-chan has any better luck studying with her."
Mamoru gave a sour look as he picked up his cup and sipped. He had a stinging retort on the tip of his tongue, but when he closed his eyes, the pained expression on Usagi's beautiful face played across the backs of his eyelids and made his heart clench and throb in a painful way. There really was no winning against the agonized look, or the glare Motoki was aiming at him. "Fine. Another cup of coffe, Toki, while I go see if Odango can stand my company long enough to help her." Pushing away from the counter, he slowly made his way over to the booth.
He was both annoyed and alarmed when the odango-haired goddess didn't acknowledge his presence. She had her math book in her lap, a pad of paper and a pencil on the table, and her calculator to the side. He watched her for several seconds before realizing she hadn't written a thing on the paper and was, instead, staring at the book, her normally bright blue eyes filled with tears that just seemed to slowly run in rivets over her cheeks. He watched her eyes move over the instructions and then equations before going back over them. When she reached up to wipe the tears with the back of her hand, he felt his heart break for her.
He knew she wasn't stupid, she couldn't be with all the wicked things she came up with as insults; but he also knew some people just didn't do well in school with the forced memorization. "Usa," he murmured, sliding into the seat next to her, scaring her slightly. She looked up at him, opened her mouth, but he didn't let her say anything. "Come on, hand me your book so I can see what you're doing," he told her, gently taking it from her.
"Mamo…"
"Relax," he told her, reaching for her pencil as he looked at the instructions and then the problem. "So, you basically have to find the common number both sides of the equation can be divided by to figure out what X equals."
She looked down at the problem and then watched him write out the equation. He could see her thinking about what he'd just said before she took the pencil from him and carefully factored out the two numbers. He couldn't help but smile as she erased a number and rewrote another in its place before looking up at him. "Good. Now eliminate…" he started but she was already a step ahead of him.
When she hesitantly smiled up at him, he looked to see that she had an answer of two, which was the correct answer. "See, you can do this."
"It's so hard to understand the instructions…" she whimpered before more tears welled in her eyes.
"You're only going to get better at this the more you try. And that's what I'm here for, to make the big words understandable."
"Thank you," she uttered softly before leaning over and kissing his cheek. It was the tiniest of pecks, and she went back to her homework seconds later, but he was left, awestruck, staring at her.