this isn't the last chapter, about one more than an epilogue.
Thank you to you guys know who you are!
Usagi's satisfaction lasted until about forty-five seconds after her door closed and locked behind her (and she was already rummaging through the fridge for a celebratory shou cream) when she heard the knock on her door.
She whined out loud in frustration, which she was sure Mamoru heard from the other side of the door.
Can't he just let me have this?! she groused internally. Just a few minutes of that post-confession relief, that in-love high, before it all comes crashing down with his 'we should probably talk about this.'
He knocked again, this time calling, "Usagi?" in that gentle, coaxing way of his that he did sometimes when she was especially ornery. Like she was some kind of wild animal that might bolt.
"Usagi, you have my key…"
She glared at the offending item, where she'd tossed it on the countertop just moments before. Surely she could return it tomorrow? At least give her a night to shore up some preparation for a post by-the-way-I'm-in-love-with-you outburst.
But even Usagi had enough self-awareness to know the chances of her locking herself out again were pretty high, and what would she do with both her key and Mamoru's spare left behind in her apartment?
Besides, she supposed she owed him at least a face-to-face. Ugh, maturity. Usagi grabbed the key off the table and started speaking as she opened the door.
"Before you say anything," she said, and he dutifully remained quiet, plucking his key from her outstretched hand and pocketing it, "I just want you to know that, like, I think you … probably shouldn't rush to an answer because nothing really has to change between us if you don't want it to, but also Motoki said you tend to disappear on confessions and personally I'd rather you, ya know, thought about giving us a chance - that is, us as a, um, thing, ya know? - but if the alternative is you ghosting please don't do that? Like, if you need time then, I mean, take it, but please just continue to be my annoying neighbor in the meantime, okay? Because, um. I'd… miss you otherwise?"
As Usagi babbled, she worked her way into the apartment, hands moving with her speech, twirling nervously in her hair and skirt, until she ended up perched on the armrest of her sofa. Mamoru followed her in a few steps, but hung back, leaning against the kitchen half-wall, watching her with an expression she couldn't read. He remained silent.
Usagi huffed in annoyance, bouncing a little. "Well?!" she said, causing him to blink.
"Oh, I can talk now?" he said, raising his brows a little. Usagi couldn't tell if he was being snarky or sincerely asking, the cobalt blue of his eyes unreadable.
She narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms and pouting. Honestly, how was he making this infuriating?
"Please," she said. And then it hit her how nervous she was, and she tried desperately to hold onto the annoyance but it slipped away like jello through chopsticks and disappeared into the anxiety churning in her stomach. "Wait! No, one more thing-" She exhaled, lifting her bangs from her forehead with a puff of air. "I know I sprung this on you and I know you like to think about things, so if you wanna, like, table this for later, give yourself more time-"
"I don't need more time," he said. In contrast to her babbling, his voice was smooth, his gaze steady when her darting eyes finally met his. "I've wanted to be with you since I was seventeen years old."
"Oh," she said. Then, "Wait. What?!" Her feet flew to the floor, and she took the three light-footed steps to him, searching his eyes as if to find some sort of hidden explanation behind them. "Since you were seventeen? That's like…." for a moment she lowered her eyes, touching her fingers together as she counted.
"Nine," he supplied.
"Nine years!" she said. "You've liked me for nine years! And you've never said anything?! Or done anything?! Or even hinted or-" Usagi was struck silent then, all their years together in a silent rewind in her mind's eye. His amused smile, his gentle teasing, that gleam in his eye she always mistook for smug arrogance but lately seemed to be fondness. Comments that could always be taken as flirtatious or mocking… why had she always assumed the latter? It was like the floor had dropped out from under her.
She vividly remembered in high school, when Motoki had suggested Mamoru be her math tutor, she balked at the idea and Mamoru responded with a sardonic, "Motoki is really overestimating my imperturbability." She'd had to go home and look up both local math tutors and the word imperturbability. New meaning flooded into every inadvertent touch, every sarcastic comment, every disinterested withdrawal from conversations about crushes, boyfriends, dates…
"But you've had dates!" Usagi protested. "And even girlfriends!" She wasn't sure why she was feeling the need to argue with him about his feelings for her, was arguing with Chiba Mamoru just her default now? Was she so set in her ways that she was just going to scream him right out of her apartment after he just confessed to her?! Oh my god, he just confessed to me, she thought - and her shock hit her anew.
"Amazingly I was able to have a life outside of pining for you," he said, "until you ruined everything by moving next door to me." Usagi realized she was within his reach now, when he gently brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear, the soft pads of his fingertips against her face sending a pleasant shiver down her spine.
This wasn't real. This had to be a dream. There was no way - no way - that Mamoru was standing in front of her (her Mamoru, from middle school, the brilliant upperclassman, the handsome older boy who was always so far out of her league she never even let herself dream) confessing he'd wanted her. No way his hand was still lingering by her face, thumb caressing the delicate skin by her ear, no way was he looking at her with those deep blue eyes so full of tenderness that she almost wanted to cry.
"Are you lying to me right now?" she accused, only half-joking. He gave her the 'really?' face he was oh-so-good at.
There had been so many almost moments, accidental brushes and unsure touches between them, that Usagi appreciated the very purposeful way he bent to capture her lips with his.
He kept his hand where it was gently cupping her cheek, fingers curling through the tendrils of hair at the base of her neck. His lips were hot, firm but gentle, melting into hers with a shuddering sigh that took her steadiness with it. Usagi was on her tiptoes, already off-balance and so Mamoru's other hand, warm on her lower back, supported her as her knees gave out.
She dug her fingers into his shoulders, delighting in the hardness of the muscle there, pressing her body against his and enthusiastically returning the kiss, opening her lips to his. Slowly, he pulled back, dropping one last soft kiss onto her upper lip.
Fluttering her eyes open, Usagi looked at him dreamily for a moment, still clinging to his shoulders. "All that proves is that you are really good at kissing," she managed, finally. "Which isn't surprising considering you are good at everything."
In response, he quirked his eyebrows in such an openly suggestive way that Usagi didn't know whether to giggle or swoon.
"B-but how did you go nine years without saying anything when I couldn't even handle one day?!" she said, her shoulders slumping as she leaned her head into his chest. The buttons on his shirt pressed into her forehead and cheek, and she felt his chest rise and fall with his breathing. Although he was so calm and collected on the outside, his heartbeat was hammering in his chest. Usagi wound her arms around his waist and squeezed in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.
"I also don't get chased out of my room by spiders so…" he said. His gaze must have landed on Usagi's makeshift bed.
"There wasn't a spider," she mumbled into his shirt, and his hand stilled from where it had been stroking her hair. "I just missed you."
Although Mamoru didn't answer her, she felt his breath catch. Maybe that was stalker-y enough he was about to 'nevermind' her and walk right out of there and move with no forwarding address. But then his breathing began again, with a shake in his chest that was almost a laugh. "So it was more than a day, maybe?"
"It might have been, yeah," she admitted into the fabric of his shirt. "Maybe a lot longer. Maybe it was more like years. Maybe I just didn't know."
"That's fair," he murmured.
"If ya just said something," Usagi said, stepping back and pushing him a little, making an exaggerated pout to hide the sheen of tears in her eyes.
He shrugged awkwardly, a self-depreciating half-smile on those gorgeous lips of his. "You never seemed to like me much," he said.
Usagi once again perched herself on the arm of the sofa, thinking. She tossed her hair and raised her fingers as if counting off. "Well, you were super hot and instead of showering me with flowers and compliments, you told me to study and made fun of my hair."
His eyes twinkled. "First of all, I never made fun of your hair-"
"What do you call 'Odango Atama'?" Her voice squeaked at the end.
"It's a nickname, because your hair is-," he cleared his throat, "rather remarkable."
"Uh-huh." Usagi blushed a bit at the intensity of his gaze.
"And second of all," he said, stepping closer to her and leaning against the sofa, his arms on either side of her, "what do you mean 'were' super hot?"
"Oh, sorry you are past your prime now, old man," Usagi said, wrinkling her nose slightly. Her eyes obeyed her commands not to slide their gaze down Mamoru's fit body, or linger on the forearms exposed by his half-rolled up sleeves, or even glance over his cheekbones or ebony hair or anything but those startling blue eyes looking right into hers with an amused light. "But I love you anyway."
She noticed the shift in his expression when she'd said those words - "I love you" - the slight widening of his eyes and enlarging of his pupils - the glint of joy and disbelief - and it made her heart twist. Usagi reached up and gently ran her fingers up his face, into the silky strands of his hair, feeling almost giddy with the fact that she could just freely touch him like this, that it made his eyes close and a sigh escape his lips. She was still sitting on the armrest, his arms braced on either side of her, and it was so easy to straighten up her back and press her lips to his cheek, to his temple - tenderly, slowly.
"I'm sorry," she murmured against his skin. "I'm so sorry I didn't see. That I didn't know enough to see."
Mamoru's arms came up to wrap around her, lifting her up against him and crushing his lips to hers. Usagi wound her arms around his neck, keeping one hand buried in his hair, the other bracing around his shoulders. If their first kiss had been purposeful and tender, this one was frantic and passionate - his mouth coaxing hers open and his tongue caressing hers as she responded in kind. His scent surrounded her - that spicy, darkly floral aroma that she'd inhaled on his sheets, in his living room, whenever she'd had a chance to be close to him - and now she could taste him too, melting like chocolate on her tongue.
She locked one long leg around his hip to steady herself, the broken moan it elicited from his throat sending a wave of desire through her. Thanks to the power outage, Usagi had recently become privy to the knowledge that Mamoru may have been able to maybe be physically attracted to her - under the exact right circumstances - but she'd clearly had no idea of the reality of the situation. Well, it was certainly obvious now. Not that she was any better. Usagi couldn't be smug about anything at the moment, when she could barely stand to come up for air, like it physically hurt not to be pressed against him, mouth on his.
After a few moments, Mamoru ended up guiding them a few feet over so he could sit her on the sofa, and she reluctantly - very reluctantly - disentangled her arms and legs from him.
"So…," she swallowed, curling up against him as he sat down next to her, swinging her legs across his lap and leaning her head on his shoulder. "What does this mean?"
"Hmm?" Mamoru looked over at her with slightly glassy eyes, fingers still caressing the strands of hair that had escaped from her buns.
"Does… this mean…. we should go on a date?" she said. "Or… I mean, technically we've hung out at each other's places so much already…"
He continued to look at her, with an affection in his gaze she thought she might never grow used to, or tired of. "What do you want, Usagi?"
She flushed, eyes straying to her makeshift bed by the wall. It was obvious what she wanted, lovesick and pining, and she wasn't ashamed of her feelings but she didn't want to scare him off - not when he was finally in her arms.
Following her gaze, Mamoru squeezed her hand gently. "After you slept in my bed, I didn't change my pillowcase for a week."
She whipped around to look at him, wide-eyed. "Mamo-chan, I was sick!" Usagi realized her slip-up but he didn't react to the nickname except with a slight intake of breath, instead, he nodded in response to her exclamation.
"Yeah, I know. It was incredibly poor judgement. But the pillow smelled like your shampoo. And I -" he paused, swallowed. "I think it's clear now how crazy I was for you."
She leaned forward, her nose almost touching his. "When you caught me after I fainted-"
"You scared me so badly-"
She interrupted with: "When you always saw me in my pajamas on laundry day?"
"I never knew I found flip-flops sexy until just then."
"That time you laughed at me on the balcony with the bug-"
"Oh, that was just because it was hilarious…"
She grabbed a pillow and flung it at him, somehow missing spectacularly even though he was inches away, and he caught her cheek in his hand and kissed her again, close mouthed, soft, with a gentle suction on her lower lip as he pulled away.
"I want you to be my boyfriend," Usagi said, before she even realized what she was saying. Mamoru kissed her cheek, her ear, his hands back in her hair.
"Yes," he said, his mouth behind her ear, trailing down her neck.
"And… in a few months I'll move out of here but…," she sighed as his tongue darted out to taste the junction of her neck and her shoulder, "... I still don't have your key… or even your phone number." Her voice took on an annoyed edge, even as his breath on her skin was sending pricks of sensation down her spine.
"You can have my whole damn phone," he mumbled into her skin, "my whole apartment, I don't care, Odango Atama, everything is yours…"
"And you can't call me Odango Atama anymore," she said, firmly. His mouth was on the shell of her ear, hot and wet, and she fought down a moan.
He paused for a moment, then resumed kissing her. "Usako," he murmured, then, and she sighed her approval, the affectionate name sending warmth flooding through her veins.
Mamoru hadn't actually said it, Usagi knew, not out loud - but nine years of steadfastly standing by her side, of silent smirks and gentle teasing, of that amused light in his eyes - he loved her, had always loved her, and she'd been too blind to see it.
But not anymore.
