I wanted to contribute at least a little something for Usamamo Week this year, and this is it! If this is the first you hear of it - it's a whole thing on tumblr! Go check it out! (AND THANK YOU, USAMAMO WEEK HOSTS!)
And just so you know, this is definitely venturing off my frequently beaten paths and instead is a whole giant fluff fest LOL. It's inspired by one line from Daikon's contribution for Day 1, which I had the honor of seeing before today! You'll be able to guess very clearly which line it was lol. Either way, forever thanks to my girl Uglygreenjacket who was my tremendously enthusiastic beta for this even at such short and spontaneous notice! Mwah, love!
Anniversary
Written for Usamamo Week 2022
"You look so happy today."
Ikuko startled a little, and Usagi grimaced in apology. She hadn't meant to sneak up on her mother like that. But Usagi had also not been able to pass her by. The way she sat there smiling, the soft April spring light filtering through the windows and off her hair, Usagi had been mesmerised.
Ikuko looked absolutely beautiful, the way she was smiling so sweetly at a small note in her hand, kneeling in their bedroom in a big mess the likes Usagi would usually leave behind; this one of photos and masking tape and newspaper clippings. Her mother was still in her bathrobe and a towel turban twisted into her long hair.
She tilted her head. "Do I?" her mother asked with a smile.
Usagi knew it was their parent's anniversary. Tonight, they would go on a date like they would every year, come home way too late and slightly tipsy and giggling all the way up the stairs while Usagi would giggle at the way Shingo reflexively would turn up the music up too loud in his room just to ensure he would not hear a single thing if their parents got up to things he did not want to hear.
But it was only morning, her mother had a day of work ahead of her, her father was already out of the house journalist-ing, and Usagi hadn't even been scolded yet for getting out of bed as late as she had- though she supposed now that she had graduated high school, her mother gave her a bit more leeway on that.
And her attention was back on that note. Her father's handwriting, Usagi could make it out just so.
"You do," she said, stepping into the room, too curious not to.
Within the evident photo-album scraps something else was nestled. A small red velvet jewelry box, untied ribbon next to it.
Sitting down next to her mother to an encouraging smile of hers, careful not to wrinkle the photos, she reached for the box.
It came apart with that little plopping sound that sturdy, expensive jewelry boxes tended to make, and a pair of super delicate, sweet earrings, gold and pearl, met her eyes. She gasped. Easily, this was the prettiest piece of jewelry she'd ever seen - and she remembered a life with a royal treasury to her name.
A time when Earth's gold was never to be paired with the pearl of the moon. She couldn't even help the split-second association, flooding her with misplaced emotion.
"Mama," she hushed. "These are so pretty!"
Her mother's smile flushed happily, turning her face all warm and soft and a little squishy. With a start, Usagi realised how absolutely cute her mother looked.
"Your father gave these to me," she said with a blush. "Thirty years, can you believe?"
Usagi blinked heavily, jewelry box and the treasure inside lowered to her lap. "But your wedding was only twenty-one years ago." Surely, Usagi would know if her parents had gotten married at like, sixteen.
Ikuko looked at her like she was being silly, took the box from her, and smiled at it fondly. "It's not our wedding anniversary, silly."
Oh. Oh. Right. Usagi's hand graced one of the photos on the carpet. It was a new one from this year: of her and Mamoru and Shingo taken from behind at Hatsumode. Her mother had taken the picture when they'd all walked up to Hikawa shrine for the first shrine visit of the year over New Year's. She smiled fondly at it, she remembered how nervous Mamoru had been to be invited - overnight at their house no less - to celebrate New Year's with her family.
Her mother was making her yearly photo album, and now Mamoru was in it, too. But then she frowned. Hadn't she already seen the big one with all the family photos in the living room last month?
She shook her head. Instead she got back to the matter at hand, the fact she'd apparently always gotten her parent's anniversaries mixed up.
"I didn't know you'd been together that long already," Usagi mumbled, and picked up another photo. New Year's still, but this one was a photo she'd not seen. It was just her parents, smiling happily at the camera in kimono. Who had taken this?
And now that she thought about it - the family albums were full to the brim of family photos, but she rarely saw photos with just the two of them.
Yet, here, on her mother's bedroom carpet, lay dozens of them currently. From this year alone. How weird.
She reached for another one. This one was clearly a new one too, but she had no clue where this was. Some fancy restaurant, her mother in a pretty magenta dress, no sight of Shingo or her anywhere to be seen.
"Are you making a second family album?" Usagi asked, confused.
But her mother smiled, shook her head no, and opened up the sliding door of the Japanese-style storage closet that covered the entire length of the wall. The dark wood slid along the frame with a bit of a whooshing sound, and nestled between winter bedding, suitcases, and a wall of boxes was a little bookshelf entirely filled with what looked to be photo albums. Twenty-nine of them, a quick count revealed.
Thirty, if one counted the one still in disarray construction on the floor. One for each year her parents had been together. Usagi knew what they were before she ever flipped the first one open.
Photo albums. Couple photo albums. Photos of her young parents smiled back at her, and Usagi's heart started to thrum with the strangest feeling, touching the photos with the most careful hands.
Her mother had made one for every year they'd been together. How did she not know these existed?
Her mother got excited, showing her these. Reached for a few and flipped them open, explaining along the way. A school club photo that had both of them in it where they'd met. Ticket stubs from the film they'd watched in the cinema on their first real date. Her young parents, younger than she was right now, staring at her from the pages in evidence that they'd led a youth she'd never had a chance to know them in. Years and years of them. Their first vacation at Lake Yokai in Yukata and wind-kissed red cheeks in a yellowed photo. Photos of them travelling - she didn't know what all these landmarks were, but the people in the back of the photos were looking decidedly western and the fashion her parents wore was decidedly old and fashionable for the time, but super out-dated now.
It felt like ages until she got to albums that had photos of her and Shingo in it. Photos of her young Papa with tears in his eyes as he held his baby for the first time, a close-up portrait of a father and his newborn that focused on the father, less the newborn. She'd seen a different version of this photo all her life. It hung in a wooden frame among dozens of other children's photos of her and Shingo the entire length of their staircase. The one she knew was all her, her father's chin and smile only a corner on the side.
But these... These albums were about the two of them. Experiencing life and parenthood and dates. So many dates. Even when Shingo and Usagi were young in these albums, there were entire pockets of photos she had never seen. Her mother looking exhausted and happy at one of Usagi's birthday parties. Her father giving her mother a look through the camera while carrying Shingo on his shoulders on that one hiking trip to the mountains that Usagi remembered with disdain. Here and there, newspaper clippings of her father's work together with the post-it notes he'd left them out for her mother with. At restaurants just the two of them. That long summer trip that Shingo and Usagi didn't accompany them on but instead spent the summer at grandma's, her Mama in the sun on a beach in Okinawa, holding on to her hat and happily beaming at the camera. Catching a side of her mother she had never seen. The one that was a person with a personality first, a woman somewhere second, and a mother not visible in that moment.
Her father took exceptional photos. Logically, she knew that. He did that for a living. But seeing it like this? Seeing her mother through his eyes made her feel like there was a side to him she didn't really know.
And anniversaries. Year after year, there were commemorating photos of their anniversaries.
These were her parents and yet all of a sudden she felt like she was looking at glimpses of a life she didn't know so well.
She didn't know they had these traditions. They were beautiful.
Long after she'd left her mother's room and her excited explanations over her treasures, Usagi mulled over it all day. And when she was done mulling over the life her parents lived when she wasn't looking, she mulled over their wonderful traditions, and got a bit sad.
She didn't have things like that with Mamo-chan. She didn't have couple's photo albums and she didn't have enough photos to fill them with if she'd wanted them. Her years with Mamo-chan had been full of battle, abductions, blood and tears and heartbreak and death. So much so, that she was sure she'd fill an album with sightings of Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon more than of candid photos of Mamo-chan and her, and that didn't feel very uplifting.
They didn't even have an anniversary.
"What do you think our anniversary would be?" she asked that night over her toothbrush.
"Uh," came the confused reply over the speaker of her phone, followed by a long silence.
How do you pick one date you got together when like... you met in a past life and then met again but hated each other until you died for one another and then time literally turned back and he forgot you but you didn't and...
"That's... a difficult question," he hedged eventually.
She sighed, spit out her toothpaste, and sighed again with more woe-is-me drama to it.
"I want us to have an anniversary," Usagi sulked, picked up her phone, and trodded back to her bedroom.
A beat, then Mamoru's voice sounded closer to the phone. Like he'd put his book away, taken the phone in hand, and gave her all his attention for once. "Maybe that time after Ail and An? When we went on that boat ride in the park?"
She frowned, clicked the door shut behind her, and switched her phone away from speaker-phone and pressed it to her ear instead. "You'd sacrificed yourself for me three times by that time. And also you broke up with me the day after."
Mamoru's flinch was audible.
"The day we met in front of Osa-P?" he tried again.
"Do you know what date that was?" she asked.
Another flinch.
She sighed. Sometimes it was unfair they never got normal. She flipped the comforter back from her bed and let herself drop heavily onto the mattress.
"Well," Mamoru said from her pillow now. "How about we pick one?"
She blinked, turned with him onto her side. "You want us to just pick a day for our anniversary?"
"Why not?" he asked.
She blinked, looked outside the window and to the full moon. A reflex.
"It was always spring," Mamoru said. "Osa-P, that boat-ride, even when we met in the Silver Millenium. Even when I didn't remember you after Beryl but you remembered me, there were cherry blossoms blooming." A sound from his side of the line. The faucet? Or maybe he was pacing. "Why not pick any spring day? It would have been April-ish, I'm pretty sure."
She turned in her bed, her back to the moon, and cuddled both the comforter and her phone. "What year would it even be? How do we even count how long we've been together? With the being reborn stuff? And we repeated that one year? How do we count that? And what about the break up? And galaxia. And-"
He interrupted her sharply. "A thousand. At least."
That made her smile. "The Silver Millennium was way longer ago than that."
"But this way we get a song," he joked, and his voice was nearer still, huskier. Sounded like he lay in bed now? "I've loved you for a thousand years and I'll love you for a thousand more." His sing-song was all the ways silly and she didn't have to see him to know his grin was cheeky. It made her smile. It had taken him a long while to be this carefree after Galaxia, even with her. Really, it was good that he interrupted her there before she spiralled them back into those memories.
"Let's pick one," he said again.
She pouted both into the pillow and her phone. "But then it's not a real anniversary."
"We can make it real."
She smiled. Really, when he wanted to be, he was the softest person she knew.
"We can take all the photos like your parents. We can make it special. In thirty years, we won't even remember we made it up."
She huffed another smile. She was pretty sure he was being so sweet about this only to cheer her up, but really, she didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and just went with it. Maybe she could even negotiate more amusement park dates out of this, or something.
"What day would you pick, then?" she asked.
A huff. "Today?"
She snorted. "No!" she said. "Today is my parent's anniversary, remember? Plus, then we missed it."
"Ah." The smile was back in his voice. "Tomorrow, then. I'll pick you up first thing in the morning."
"But then we have no time to prepare!" she argued, affronted.
"C'mon," he said. "We can start traditions whenever. It's Saturday tomorrow. I have the day off. It'll be fun."
And well yes, she did get excited. "Can there be food in our traditions?"
"Obviously."
"And purikura?"
"For sure."
"As many as I want?"
"Until they kick us out."
She giggled.
And eventually, she fell asleep to his voice, and got woken up early in the morning by the door bell first thing.
"Usagi-chan!" her mother called up at a truly appallingly early hour of the morning, "It's Mamo-chan!"
Because Mamo-chan wasn't playing around when he said first thing in the morning. Ugh.
He came up, a camera strapped around his chest, and peppered her with kisses until she agreed to be peeled out of bed.
And they did have the best day. Including a boat ride and a stroll around Osa-P and taking photos with the cherry blossoms while they had Cremia ice cream on their way to Crown to block the purikura booth for a considerable time frame. She even got a few kisses in public without him being weird about it.
When they stood at the waterfront where he'd kissed her that time during the Black Moon Clan, that time she'd found out about his nightmares and taken no shit, he reached into his pocket and turned to her.
"Here."
He said it in the way he, ya know, tended to always hand her jewelry boxes. Nerd.
Her eyes blew wide.
But... how had he gotten her something so fast? He'd had no time between last night and this morning! She had nothing for him! Had he already had this?
And with that thought, her eyes blew even wider, her breath coming only in staccato hiccups. Because this was a small box. And the last time he'd handed her one it was a promise ring. And they'd said they wanted this evening to be meaningful. A real anniversary. And oh god no, was this it? Was he gonna propose for real? Nobody was taking photos!
He read her face seemingly with amusement, which didn't make any of it better, and damn her heart was beating a symphony against her ribcage as she opened it with ever-so-slightly trembling fingers.
But what met her eyes was not a plush little pillow with a ring nestled into it, but three little pairs of rattling miniature clay earrings.
She groaned in exasperation to his boyish cackle.
They were all dumplings. In fact, they were all little dumpling heads. With cute little smiley faces and pink-dotted blushing cheeks. Gyoza, meat buns, and yes, a pair of three little stacked and hugging dango.
"Because of," he needlessly made a swirly motion over his head where her hair buns would be were they on his own head, grinning so wide and happy it was almost foreign to see the expression on his face. He was clearly very pleased with himself. "You know. Odango Atama."
She rolled her eyes all 'duh' and 'no shit, Sherlock,' but she couldn't fight the amused twitching of her lips.
OK. This was mean. And so friggin cute. She slapped the back of her hand weakly against his upper arm and he cackled louder.
"Of course they reminded me of you," he grinned, all teeth and crinkling eyes. "Spitting image and all."
She slapped her arm back against his, and he honest-to-god giggled.
She threw him a look, but she couldn't keep it up, because then he took the box from her, stepped up into her personal space with the brightest smile ever, all his attention on her, and reached for her ears. He brushed the hair away from her face with those fingers of his that touched her like adoration and treasure always.
"Let me," he said giddily, and peeled her little nondescript glass crystal studs from her earlobes with the gentlest touch. And after a little rattling with the box and man-handling of her ears, she was wearing dumpling earrings (the dangos) and he was looking at her with the dopest grin as if she'd never looked cuter, cradling her cheeks and all while beaming at her.
Well, guess she now had to go get him a custom gold name necklace, spelling out B-A-K-A. He had it coming.
They did take a hundred photos that day, tons and tons of sickenly sweet couple's selfies. Purikura photo strips while eating cupcakes in the booth and Mamoru licking cream off her nose. Sickly sweet, for real. And then they made a habit of taking more photos. Any occasion. Birthdays, parties, that day Rei fell face-first into Mako-chan's rhubarb pie. And very soon, Usagi filled their first album. Then her second. Then her third. They made new traditions for themselves along the way. And new anniversaries.
And turns out, the promise ring never was a promise ring. Baka should have fucking told her.
The day they got married was on that day they picked, making that anniversary very, very real. Her something borrowed were her mother's anniversary earrings, pearls and gold.
Her mother handled her earlobes even more tenderly than Mamoru had that time, putting them on her.
"You look so happy today," her mother told her that day, her eyes shining glassy.
Needless to say, I followed the Day 1 prompt: Pearl/Here, this reminded me of you.
Hope you liked my stray walk down fluff lane lol. Please go check out some of the other contributions for usamamo week on the official tumblr for it should you be in the mood, and leave them some love if you have it to give! (And if you wanna leave me some below too, I promise to greedily gobble it up lol)