Usagi and Mamoru

Signs of Affection

100 Drabbles

51. Lightening

Mamoru liked to think that he was a relatively cautious person. He preferred to think his options through before making a decision. He preferred to weigh the positives and negatives of any potential action out thoroughly to ensure that he made the correct choice. Mamoru felt that he had a fairly good track record, as far as good decisions went.

So when he screwed up, he did it big time.

"Oooh, Mamoru. Isn't this elegant?" Rei cooed, setting down her cup of tea and leaning across the small table towards him with a little flutter of her long lashes.

Mamoru glanced around the tea house she'd brought him to for their date. Elegant wasn't the word he'd have chosen. It was more like Valentine's Day had been violently murdered and it's viscera sprayed across the walls. Everything dripped in red and pink with little hearts and lots of lace. The table at which they were seated was too small, so their knees bumped against each other. Cozy, Rei had called it. The chair in which he sat was all whirls of spindly white and he felt like he would break it with one false move. His shoulders hunched uncomfortably at the sheer feeling of wrongness about everything in the room.

Rei, completely oblivious to his reaction, just smiled and held up a cookie, playfully holding it out as if she intended to feed it to him.

Mamoru politely plucked the treat from her fingertips and set it next to his teacup. It wasn't her fault. He had asked her out, after all. She was doing her best to make this exactly what she thought a date should be. He stared into his tea cup (what kind of place didn't serve coffee?) and felt guilt wash over him. This would not end well. It wasn't Rei's fault that she was the most wrong part of this whole facade.

He heard a distant rumble of thunder outside the tea house window and found himself hoping that he might be struck by lightening. At least then he could get out of this without hurting anyone any more than he'd already done.

Yep, when Mamoru made a mistake, he didn't go by halves.

xXx

Author's note:

This story. This set of drabbles. Ugh, this collection has weighed on my mind, eating at me and begging me to finish it for SO long. First I convinced myself that it'd been too long and I should just focus on other things. Then I thought that maybe if I updated the older drabbles and ironed out the kinks I'd be ready to continue. Then I got frustrated and said nobody cared if it'd finish anyway.

But I would. I'd care. I have to finish this. I don't know, maybe it'll take me ANOTHER ten years before I do, but I can't fight the danged thing any more. I'm taking down 'new' signs of affection and just continuing on this one. Maybe someday I'll go back and fix the old mistakes, but for now I just need to plow ahead.