"Want to see it?"
Neptune lay atop the white blanket, with her legs stretched out toward Haruka and her head propped up on her elbow at Haruka's feet. Only a thin near-translucent robe was draped over Neptune's body. The cascade of her emerald waves barely brushed past her bare shoulders.
Haruka lifted her hand off of Neptune's leg, realizing it had been resting on the bandaged ankle.
The hot summer sun beat down on them and the wind rustled the dead grass without disturbing their blanket or hair. The trees were barren, the grecian architecture toppled to the ground.
Although Haruka instinctively knew this wasn't the real guardian visiting her dream, she still kept her gaze respectfully down, away from the curvy body before her. During Sora's birthday party, Haruka had hardly been able to look Michiru in the eye with guiltily remembering the way the violinist had appeared in her nightmare: naked, taunting, tempting.
"Is it frightening?" Haruka asked, an echo following her voice. Her fingers pinched and unclipped the little metal pin that held the bandages tightly together. The moment she pulled the pin away, the bandages slumped around the angle. Slowly, Haruka unwound the fabric.
"Not particularly," Neptune answered.
Suddenly, they were laying upon Haruka's bed— body positions unmoved. But it wasn't her current bed. No, Haruka quickly recognized it as the one she had spent most of her childhood in- purple bed sheets and a Pokemon pillowcase. The scenery remained as it was, but Haruka, from the corner of her eyes, she saw dark figures emerging from the horizon.
Around and around and around, the bandages appeared endless as Haruka's movements did little to reveal the injury they were protecting.
Something jumped under the bed, jolting Haruka.
Neptune laughed. "What? Scared of the monster under your bed?" she sang sweetly.
Haruka wasn't able to reply. Wordlessly, she continued unwinding the strips of fabrics. Now, Haruka could clearly see distorted dark figures closing in toward the bed from all across the field, yet she couldn't look up from Neptune's ankle.
Again something moved under the bed, ramming up under the squeaky springs of the mattress. The impact slammed under Haruka's rear.
She should've moved away...but, she finally saw progress in her unwinding- only a few more rounds of bandages remained. So far, Neptune's leg looked normal.
A sticky, foul smell, akin to sewage, akin to vomit, akin to feces and blood punctured the air. From where it came, Haruka thought she finally saw a peak of red on Neptune's perfect skin, Haruka couldn't tell. The warm sun remained as it was, shining in the cloudless sky and smiling down upon the girls. Yet, the grassy fields and ruins were obscured from the corner of Haruka's vision, only bubbling black flesh surrounded the bed. The creatures loomed as high as the stars, oozing puss and rotting teeth from their wrinkly crevices.
At last, the bandage slipped off.
Haruka paled.
Neptune laughed softly. "Why do you look so startled, Haruka? There's nothing there!"
There was nothing there. No skin. No muscle. No blood, no bone. Just...empty space between Neptune's leg and foot.
Once more, something jumped aggressively under Haruka's bed, almost throwing her up in the air. Neptune giggled again.
"Come on, Haruka," she said softly, "Check what's under there."
Without any willful inner guidance of her own, Haruka's body rigidly turned away from Neptune. On all fours she crawled to the edge of her preteen bed and slowly...slowly, slowly… lowered her head under.
It grabbed her.
It stole her from her bed and dragged her down, tearing her apart limb by limb. Haruka fell endlessly- her scream silent.
Something sapphire glimmered briefly in the distance.
—
Michiru tangled her legs in her sheets. Despite the darkness of the late night hour, she aggressively pressed her pillow over her head. A cool sweat dappled her brow.
Fucking hell, her leg hurt.
Even the feather-light weight of her thin summer blankets pained the aggravated wound. It went without saying that Michiru couldn't go to a doctor- how would she explain a 78-tooth 15 centimeter bite? The pillow muted Michiru's groan.
Michiru curled her body in even more, tangling deeper into the sheets and pressing the pillow down harder. She cursed her visions of finally seeing Sailor Uranus standing before her, gaze settled down on bloodied gloves as the body of a young man lay at her feet. The message was loud and clear- the universe was going to do the job Michiru failed to do: awaken Haruka.
—
"You look like you slept well," John hummed from where he sat at the kitchen island, his cigarette bobbing in between his lips. Haruka scrunched her nose and flipped him off as she slowly shuffled into the kitchen for her third cup of coffee since 2:00 a.m.
"Open a goddamn window," Haruka growled.
"They're open."
Haruka squinted up to see that, sure enough, her brother wasn't lying. "Well, it still stinks," she growled as she switched on the coffee maker.
"Sorry," John grumbled and continued tapping away on his laptop, doing absolutely nothing about the smoking cancer stick in his mouth. Without picking his eyes up from the screen, John asked, "You're not going to bail out of the race at the last second to go on some fruity cruise with some artists again, are you?"
Haruka swiveled around with a sharp glare, her hand curled around the handle of a particularly large mug. She was half expecting to see some hideous blob of a monster, insect-like and littered with fangs, typing away at a beat up laptop- but instead it was just her mid-20s blonde brother sitting in an unbuttoned work suit, staring blankly at the lit screen before him.
John glanced up at her. Haruka's glare remained, but displayed more annoyance than malice now. "It happened once. Let it go," she said, "It was for a friend."
Haruka set her mug under the coffee machine to fill it.
Her brother shrugged and pulled the cigarette out between his lips. By the ash tray that he pressed the stub out in, an open carton of cigarettes lay. John spotted Haruka eyeing them.
"You hate them," he told her.
"I know." She hesitated. "But they're relaxing, aren't they?"
John shrugged. "For me."
Begrudgingly, Haruka came over and pulled a cigarette out. "I'll try it again. Just a few drags."
John pulled out his lighter. "Coffee and cigarettes for breakfast? You're acting like an old woman," he said and flickered the flame on.
Haruka lit the end of the cigarette with one hand while the other tugged at the collar of her school uniform top. "Shut up," she told her brother.
—
"How are you feeling?" Kai asked Haruka as she zipped up into her racer suit.
"Like an overgrown ketchup bottle," Haruka deadpanned, looking down at the bright red costume the sponsors requested she wear.
"Mm. Better that than like a used tampon!" Kai said cheerily and smacked Haruka on her back. She almost stumbled from the impact, but her lips did quirk up some.
For the tenth time that half hour, Haruka picked up her phone and eyed her text messages. Dissatisfied with what she saw, Haruka let out an exasperated huff and ran her fingers back through her blond hair.
Once again, Haruka opened her messages and reread, not for the first time, her last conversation with Michiru Kaioh, along with the unreplied to texts she sent today.
-6:53 -
/Hey. When r u free?/
-15:04 -
/i have a race today after school. i doubt its ur thing but u should come w the girls. i want to talk about some things. if u can't make it, im free all week after this./
Kai mentioned something about her new helmet, but Haruka didn't quite catch it.
In her hands, her phone softly vibrated. It was another text from Momo- telling Haruka she and Ino were there, eager to cheer her on.
For the first time since Momo got Haruka's number, Momo got a reply:
/hey, thanks for showing up! Is Kaioh with you?/
/um no, she's not. should she be? she told us friday she wasnt planning on showing up/
/why? did she tell u something different/
Haruka chewed her cheek.
/nah, not really. thanks for letting me know/
/no problem! she's probably practicing tbh, thats what she usually does after school so maybe she'll show up later!/
/say...do u know if any of those cute college racers are single?/
Haruka didn't bother responding, she set aside her phone and tried on the helmet Kai passed her. Once it was on, she let her brother inspect it while she turned her gaze to what she could see of the stadium.
"Looking for someone?" Kai asked. "Not really," Haruka replied. Once Kai gave her the thumbs up to pull off the helmet, she did so.
Kai eyed her with open skepticism, but Haruka pretended she didn't notice it. "Don't you have a car to tend to?" Haruka grumbled to which Kai shrugged lazily, but stepped away from her.
There was still sometime before the race began. "I'm going to walk around, I need to clear my head," Haruka murmured and all she got in response from her brother was a little hum.
Stalking down the perimeter of the track, where all the storage rooms and racer stations were located, Haruka got a better view of the crowd that was watching today's event. There was no sign of Michiru, even though Haruka knew she had no right to expect there to be.
Despite how hard Haruka fought to not think about the violinist, the girl's injury was always at the back of Haruka's mind. What did it really look like? How did she get it? Did it hurt?
Haruka wondered if Michiru had similar nightmares.
A startled cry from up ahead broke Haruka out of her thoughts. She frowned. It sounded as if someone had fallen in the unused repair room up ahead.
Holding her helmet over her shoulder, Haruka set her hand on the half-open garage door and ducked her head under it as she asked, "Is someone there?"
Stepping in, Haruka immediately spotted the figure of a young man double down by the wall. "H-help me," he begged with a broken sob.
—
In hindsight, Michiru wholeheartedly acknowledged this to be the turning point in her hypocrisy.
For all her talk of doing what was right, what was needed, she should've stood back and let Uranus awaken. The dream had shown Michiru the daemon emerging, the liprod appearing before Haruka and victorious Sailor Uranus standing alone in the poorly lit room. The race would begin and end without a prodigious teen driver. Yet, the thought of Haruka's eyes staring blankly at blood soaked gloves made Michiru's heart lurch in a way it never did it hadn't for the sight of millions dead.
If Neptune was there besides Uranus, Michiru reasoned, she could go against the vision and cleanse the daemon before Uranus had to deal with, saving Haruka from the mental anguish. Yet, as Michiru watched Haruka's long fingers tentatively reach out to her liprod, one that was as blue as Michiru's painting, Michiru heard herself yell, "Don't!"
For all the sacrifices of all the lives Michiru had told herself she was ready to make, she realized she wasn't ready to see Haruka Tenoh lose herself.
Michiru's words shattered Haruka's daze. With a dull click clack, the liprod bounced as it hit the floor, rolling to rest an equal distance between Michiru and Haruka.
"You mustn't touch that," Michiru told Haruka when the girl spotted her. The withering monster had begun finally regaining its senses, recovering from the blinding light.
"If you do," Michiru said as she pulled out her liprod, "You won't be able to go to a normal life." She turned to look at Haruka with a hardened gaze. "You'll become like me."
There, for the first time at the witness of another, Michiru raised her emerald crescent moon high and transformed.
—
Within a blink of an eye, the sailor guardian vanished from Haruka's ogling line of sight. With parted lips, Haruka realized that for as long as she lived, she would never forget the image of Sailor Neptune standing tall in the light of day.
With a loud clamour, the monster was flung into the wall. The speed with which Neptune moved made Haruka dizzy, if she didn't focus, it almost appeared as if Neptune was teleporting. But...there was just the slightest stager to the guardian's movements.
A dust cloud erupted as two heavy shelves, stacked with power tools and other motor supplies, toppled upon it. For a split second, Haruka could've sworn she heard the broken cry of the victim.
Neptune's image flickered before the toppled cases, regarding them and the twitching tail of the monster beneath them.
A chill ran up Haruka's spine at the sight of Neptune's empty gaze. Haruka had been wrong, when she had concluded that Neptune and Michiru had totally different eyes. As clear as day, Haruka saw the young and tired violinist behind the calculated gaze.
Haruka's heart knotted as she remembered the boy's plea for help when she had raised the crowbar in defense. She wondered how much Neptune's attack had hurt him.
With the oddest sense of deja vu, Haruka sprang to her feet and moved to stand in between the guardian and her future victim.
"Stop!" Haruka yelled, eyes locking with Neptune's and hands balled into fists in front of her, "He was human just a second ago!" She didn't know what the monster was, or how to get rid of it, but she did know that killing it would murder the boy. What she also knew was that Michiru didn't want to do this. Michiru didn't want to hurt anyone.
For a second, Neptune halted and regarded Haruka. So many of the guardians movements moments and mannerisms were hauntingly familiar. And so many more felt entirely alien to Haruka.
"Unless I do what must be done," the guardian spoke with the same intonation and manner as Michiru Kaioh, "there will only be more casualties."
The coldness of Neptune's voice conjured up no images other than Michiru sweetly smiling down as she hugged a little birthday boy. Haruka yelled at Neptune, "You really believe the ends don't justify the means?!"
"Yes!" Neptune snapped, "I do!"
Haruka remembered how Michiru did her best to keep up with the cops and robbers game, despite her hurt leg. "I don't believe you!" Haruka yelled.
Behind her, the shelves erupted. The nails, power tools, paint and more flew up in the air. With a furious snarl, the monster lunged for Haruka- countless twisted fangs lunging for her face.
"Look out!"
Haruka's legs were knocked out from under her. With a strangled choke, Haruka's breath caught in her throat as she watched the daemon's fangs and claws miss her face by a hair. They swung clean through Sailor Neptune's body.
Over the pained cry of the guardian, Haruka heard the sickening sound of tearing fabric and flesh.
"Neptun-!" Haruka's shout was cut off by Neptune roughly shoving her away, practically throwing Haruka to the other side of the room, before she whipped around and punched the monster.
Haruka's eyes widened at the marvel of the guardian's strength, for a brief moment forgetting all about the humanity of the creature she had just tried so hard to defend.
For all its size, it was disturbing quiet when it lunged in the girls' direction to retaliate. Haruka squeezed her eyes shut.
"Deep Sea Submerge!"
A cool warmth cradled the room. So sweet, so gentle, so kind it was. The scent of the sea, the taste of hyacinth and lilies upon the wind...every ache Haruka ever felt melted away into a distant memory.
Haruka blinked her eyes open, and just like the night at the hospital, she squinted against the receding pale green light, watching it sink back into Sailor Neptune's gloved fingertips. In place of the monster, was the boy- his breathing steadily, his body unharmed.
Drip.
Drop.
Sailor Neptune slowly turned to look over her shoulder at Haruka. The deep gashes on her back and arm overflowed with scarlet.
Drip. Drop. Little red tears cried to the little red puddle on the floor.
At last, Haruka's fell to Neptune's exposed leg. She swallowed her horror at the sight of scores of blunt, sharp, crooked and straight teeth incision marks circling Michiru's calf. The wound had been slowly Neptune down, it had must have been beyond obvious to the guardian that she wouldn't have been able to dodge the attack when saving Haruka.
Their gazes met. Haruka staggered to her feet.
Neptune's legs buckled.
Haruka caught her.
—
"Michiru! Michiru!"
Her head throbbed, her mind spun. Neptune was confused. Why...where was the cold hard floor? Why was…Hadn't she fallen?
With her vision blurring and focusing, blurring and focusing, Neptune slowly opened her eyes. Quickly, she pieced together her surroundings and remembered what had happened.
There was a sharp ringing in her ears, but Neptune heard the panic in Haruka's voice. She also heard the girl fumbling over her words, saying how they needed to get her medical attention. Weakly, Neptune hushed her, saying she was already healing. Haruka's arms were so comfortable. With a pained grunt, she tried to sit up, but couldn't. Instead, her hand limply gestured to her leg— showing Haruka the old wound beginning to properly close. Its scars would be gone within the hour.
Haruka was ready to protest, but when she saw her hands were bloodless despite cradling Neptune's wounds, she relented.
"Where is it-" Neptune's voice trailed off. The bleeding had stopped, but the back of her throat felt flooded. She didn't trust herself to speak without her voice cracking. The concerned expression that Haruka was wearing… Michiru's heart sank. Why was it that all she could do was make this girl scowl or frown? It'd be nice to see Haruka properly smile at her some day.
"He's okay," Haruka reassured her quickly, "The boy's human now."
Tension Neptune hadn't realized was pent up in her body flowed away the moment she heard those words- her muscles relaxed and her body sank a little deeper into Haruka's hold. The second the pain subsided, Neptune promised herself she'd pull away from Haruka.
"You were right," Neptune whispered hoarsely with a bittersweet smile, "I could've killed the child."
Ignoring the screaming protest of shot nerve endings in her body, Michiru slowly turned her head to the side to look at the boy.
"Who knows what will happen next time," the words tumbling from her lips as she remembered Yasho and Dr. Sato and the texts from Haruka she had been too scared to reply to, "Sometimes I don't know if the choices I make are the right ones...sometimes I don't quite know what I'm doing...everyone's so different...everyone's pain comes out in such different ways..sometimes… I don't know if there is hope...or if I should kill…"
Why was she talking so much?
"I don't want to make these decisions. But...I'm a sailor guardian…and this is the life I chose."
Just a little, Neptune's eyes stung. This was the life she chose and although it was proving difficult to live her life without regrets, everything she did seemed to go wrong these days, Michiru didn't knew this didn't have to be Haruka's fate. Just like how Michiru had stopped her visions today, she could stop them again tomorrow. Afterall, this wasn't a life suited for a highschool girl with friends and family and dreams.
"But why...why…" the gentleness in Haruka's voice surprised Michiru, "...did you let yourself get hurt to protect me?"
Gingerly, Haruka reached for Neptune's wrist and carefully lifted her arm to see the wounds that Neptune promised her would soon be healed.
"If you had injured this hand any more... you might not have been able to ever play the violin again."
"Haruka…" Neptune finally properly looked up at the blonde. She almost smiled. "I...I wasn't finding information about you just because you were a guardian. Truth is…" Michiru's heart raced in her chest as she quietly confessed, "I was interested in you long before. I was there at your first race, watching and cheering you on…But when you realized who you were, I was so happy…"
Haruka's gaze never faltered, the color of the sky paralleled the color of the sea. With wet shining eyes, Michiru chuckled weakly.
"You're such an independent spirit, Haruka," Neptune scolded the girl softly, as she remembered how Haruka pushed the medics away from her and ran to the other crashed car, "You're so honest, you don't hide your feelings," Michiru remembered how Haruka had played with Momo's hair in the restaurant, how she disregarded the comments she received from bystanders and netizens about her appearance at track meetups and online.
Carefully, but definitely, Neptune could feel Haruka's arms tighten around her.
With the slightest motion, Haruka shook her head. "I...I'm not honest," she whispered hoarsely to Michiru, "I always run away."
Michiru felt a tear roll down Neptune's eye. If Haruka wanted to run from the monster, no one would've blamed her, but instead she had been ready to go against her dreams and transform to fight.
"Ah, it looks like I know you better than you know yourself," Neptune told Haruka before her voice softened, "I don't want you to walk the same path as me."
Haruka followed Neptune's flickering gaze to the sapphire liprod that lay on the floor. The small innocent object thrummed with an indescribable energy that captivated them both, but Neptune was the first to look away from it. Through the tears that brimmed and boiled at her eyes, she watched Haruka. Just watched her, in peace— taking in the close curve of her cheek, the shape of her ear, the angle of her jaw, the slope of her nose and the color of her lips.
Neptune exhaled weakly and Haruka turned back to her, "I've said too much. I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tell you all this."
Haruka's gaze clouded and she hung her head low. For a moment, she didn't reply.
"You…" she said shakily, "you're an idiot." Neptune's eyes widened and her lips parted in surprise at the accusation. And then she laughed softly, a shaky wet laugh.
Her pain had subsided considerably, but she couldn't pull away from Haruka, who now looked at her with her own pair of shining wet eyes. "You're the one lying here...injured...bloodied and you're apologizing to me…?"Haruka whispered, her voice cracking and shaking. The arms around Neptune grew firmer, bringing her closer to Haruka. With the softest tap, Haruka's posture slumped and her forehead rested against Neptune's.
Neptune exhaled softly and closed her eyes, drowning in the feeling of Haruka's soft temple against her own.
How oddly warm Neptune felt, on this cold hard floor with all the tears and blood around her. When she tilted her head up just a little, the tip of her nose brushed against Haruka's. She felt the girl's delicate breathing against her lips. How good Haruka smelled. How sweet it tasted, just being next to her. For all of Neptune's appearance and power, this was the most human Michiru had felt in a long time.
Neptune pressed her forehead back up against the girl's. "My duty is to protect the people of this city, of this planet," she said quietly, "But, I had forgotten that meant you, as well, Haruka."
With all the physical and emotional strength she could muster, Neptune pulled herself away from Haruka. Slowly, she stepped upon her feet, swaying a little in the process. For a brief little while, Haruka's hands hovered at the small of the guardian's back. As the skin mended, so did the fabric of her uniform.
Wincing only slightly, Neptune walked over to the lonely sapphire liprod that lay on the floor. Instead of a crescent moon, a full moon sat at the top. Horns emulating Uranus' rings framed the golden star at its crown. Neptune smiled softly as she picked it up, her thumb brushing over the golden heart at its center.
Haruka came to stand beside her. Neptune faced her. Because she was taller than Michiru, the distance between her and Haruka's face was far less now. Both their eyes fell to the liprod in Neptune's hands.
"The moment your skin meets this," Neptune told Haruka quietly, "you will become Sailor Uranus."
Neptune looked back up at Haruka, who a second later met her gaze. "You have a right to your life just like anyone else," she told Haruka softly, and with a small smile, "So, for as long as I can…" Neptune drew the liprod to her chest and cradled it at her heart, "...I'll make sure you can live it."
Just as she finished her words, an announcer over the speaker remarked that the race would be beginning in less than 15 minutes, all cars were now being driven out to their starting line.
All the noise from the world suddenly rushed it— the voices over the speaker system, the chattering of the anticipating crowd, the revving engines of eager cars, and the buzz of an exciting summer day in Tokyo.
The boy against the wall stirred, grunting weakly.
Neptune set her hand on Haruka's chest and with two fingers, gently pushed her away. The wounds still ached terribly, stealing the grace and fluidity of Neptune's usual movements. "Go race," Neptune told Haruka, who had been silently taking in every bit of the guardian before her.
"No." Haruka lowered her eyebrows. "No way. You're still hurt, the kid is still—"
"Call medics for the boy," Neptune interrupted in a gentle tone, "Say you found him at the bottom of the toppled shelves and pulled him out. They'll tend to him and make sure he's okay. But go— you need to get ready and live your dream."
The pitter patter of Michiru's heart within Neptune's chest slipped a beat when Haruka's fingers curled around the hand at her chest. Haruka squeezed Neptune's hand.
"I don't want to leave you… alone."
Neptune blinked in surprise, but smiled softly a moment later. More firmly this time, she pushed upon Haruka's chest."I'll be waiting for you after you win the race," she said solemnly. "Now, go."
For one more moment, Haruka hesitated. Neptune gave her a pointed look and then finally, reluctantly, the girl turned around and ran out— shouting for a medical team as she ducked under the half-open garage door.
—
The win was incredible, Kai had never seen anything like it. The moment Haruka's foot fell to the peddle, her car took the lead. There was a dirty impatience in her racing, a starving consumption of speed just to get to the damn finish line already. Ironically, despite all the impressed noise from the commentators, the race had become almost boring to watch, from the starting line the the winner had been determined. Still, the crowd cheered and roared when Haruka's car crossed the finish line, over ten seconds ahead of the first car behind her.
Cameramen flocked Haruka before her team got to her. In response to the unusually high number of girlish squeals coming from the audience, all Kai could do was chuckle. For better or for worse, the commentators had misgendered Haruka again. The mystery of her foreignness, her young age, her ambiguous gender and also her good looks were attracting more attention than either Kai or Haruka had ever imagined.
Although Haruka had never been one to shy from attention, it surprised Kai how unphased by this popularity she was. Frankly, she seemed irritated by it. This time, she didn't even bother to stand still for all the photos and questions. Hastily, she pushed through the growing crowd of microphones and cameras to make a beeline to Kai.
"When the medics came to the room," she hurriedly said, grabbing Kai's arm, "Was there anyone else?"
Kai gave her a look over, one brow raised. "Was there supposed to be?" He asked lightly.
Haruka's gaze flickered to the bleachers, then to the flocking crowd around her with a terribly stressed expression before she turned back to Kai. "Where's my phone?" she quickly demanded, squeezing Kai's arm. Her erratic behavior was beginning to genuinely worry him. "It's back in my bag—" he answered.
"Can you get it for me?" She urgently requested just before she let go of his arm and reluctantly let herself be pulled away. The other placed racers who were coming over to congratulate her.
Over the speakers, Kai heard that Haruka had just set a personal record today. With a frown, Kai watched Haruka barely manage to strum together a tight polite smile as she shook hands and answered questions. At first, Kai had dismissed his sisters odd moods as girl troubles- the nightmares were surely just a symptom of some unrequited crush, he thought- but now, he was worried it could be something much more serious. Drugs? Gangs? Haruka was rash, but not stupid, Kai couldn't imagine her tied up with either. Whatever it was, Kai decided he would address it on their car ride home. It took a good bit of his willpower not to peek at the messages blowing up her phone.
With the sky darkening, Haruka finally came back to her station. Her agitation was visible, but she still exhaled a hastily, "Thanks," when Kai extended the phone to her. He watched her pace side to side, chewing on her nails as she dialed and redialed a number that just wasn't picking up.
"Damn it," Haruka cursed under her breath.
"Oi, Haruka," Kai spoke up as she saw her redial the number. He put a hand on her shoulder. "What's going on?"
It wasn't the first time Haruka had shrugged Kai's hand away or gruffly told him, "Nothing," but this was the first time her words sounded so icy, so distraught. Kai frowned as he pulled his hand away and watched his sister drag her fingers through her hair before hitting another contact to call. A moment later, with vibrant fake cheer, Haruka said, "Hey, Momo! I saw you and Ino on the bleachers! How'd you like the race?"
Again and again, Haruka ran her fingers through her hair, paced to and fro, and continued to chew on the corner of her nails as she listened to the answer of the question she herself asked. Soon, the speakers called all top three racers to gather for the small ceremony where they would be awarded their flowers, prize money and medals.
Kai slowly stepped forward, unfurling his hand to get his sister's phone. He glanced up at the big monitor on the stadium, which was showing everybody a glimpse of Haruka's back as she held the phone to her ear and paced. She glanced at him and then reluctantly began to pull her phone from her ear. "Thanks, thanks, Momo," Haruka said hastily, "Just uh, text me if she shows up."
Without meeting her brother's eyes, Haruka tossed him her phone and stalked away to where she needed to be. Kai glanced at Haruka's phone screen to see that she was down to 1% battery. There was no charger around. With a groan, he knew he was going to be the one that was going to have to tell her it had died.
All the stadium lights had flickered on by the time Haruka ascended to her first place stand. As the sky faded from a gentle dusk, to the greyish blue of early night, Haruka bowed as she accepted the flowers and a medal around her neck. It was still a Monday, so the crowd on the bleachers thinned out before the formalities were over. Still a few lingered, notably a handful of high school girls that were debating whether or not it was worth overcoming their shyness to catch the winner's attention.
When it was time to finally leave, time for Haruka to take out her aggravation on Kai, she said nothing— even when she had to stare down at the reflection in the dead black screen of her phone.
"There might be a charger in the car," Kai said, to which Haruka didn't respond.
In a rare silence they walked out to the parking lot which was littered with car fanatics, racers, and new fans- all slowly retreating into their cars. A group of teens, larger than the one that had collect at the last race, lingered not far from the exit of the stadium the Tenoh siblings had stepped out of. They were all chatting amongst themselves, laughing, gossiping and giggling. Already, Kai recognized a couple of recurring faces from the previous races. As well as... someone he truly hadn't expect to see.
Kai glanced at his little sister, who stood half a head taller than him, but had her gaze fixed down on her shoes. The frown on her lips deepened a little when Kai nudged her with his shoulder and she shot him an irritated look. In response, he just rolled his eyes and subtly nodded his head in the direction of the small crowd they were approaching- particularly, in the direction of the three girls that stood in high school uniforms of short white tops and long baby blue skirts.
Haruka halted in her step, her lips parting. Kai smiled softly.
"Oh! There she is!" the girl in the pigtails spoke up, raising her arm high in the air and waving it just above Michiru Kaioh's head.
The moment Michiru met Haruka's gaze, her pretty face softened into a rather apologetic expression. Her hand rose to catch the curls that were rustling in the wind, in front of her face. There was a faint color rising to her cheeks.
In brisk long strides Kai's sister left his side and closed the distance between herself and the crowd.
Before Michiru Kaioh could finish saying, "Hi-" Haruka's arms wrapped around her, enveloping her in a tight hug.
Friends and fans blinked in surprise, but Kai just chuckled.
Slowly, Michiru arms tentatively rose to Haruka's waist and then, with her small hands clutching the fabric of the racer's shirt, she hugged Haruka back.
"Haruka," Kai heard Michiru murmur, tears dancing at the corners of her shut, smiling eyes, "You're squishing me, Haruka." There was a hint of laughter to her words.
With a relieved sigh and a smile, Kai just shook his head as he watched his little sister immediately pull away and stammer out an apology.
A/N: Ah this chapter...honestly, when I started this fic I was ready to make it smutty as hell. Just sex and flirting and minimal angst- I was eager to get past this scene because I saw that as my gateway to finally being able to write the funbits of Haruka and Michiru falling for each other. But when I finished this scene, when I finished what was shown to us in the anime, I couldn't post the chapter for the longest time because I had absolutely no idea what to do with them next? What to write next? Really, I didn't even know if I needed to write more of them, because however they had their first kisses, their first nights together... I don't know if it mattered? still, it took my writing out the next chapter and a half to get the confidence to post this one. I think, as of now, little of the story will be so chronological, so scene by scene, it'll probably mostly be snippets into their lives, because frankly...i think they already fell for each other. Anyways! Thank you for all the reviews! They give me motivation! Lmk if there's anything y'all would want to see happen between them!:)
— aisiwjsjsjw. made a quick edit, mainly to Neptune's confession by making it more in line with what she says in the anime