Sailor Moon: Secondary Characters: Boredom
{Jon Carp}
address: jcarp@med.unc.edu
Conciousness is not a plaything.--R.D. Laing
Plan. That's always important. Just jump into something like
this headfirst and you'll find yourself smooshed into the wall like a
cartoon villain.
So. Time and place. Time and place. Time and place. Well,
time is obvious. Late at night, of course. Who'd think of having
some kind of double-cross ambush slaughter in broad daylight? That
would just be silly.
Okay, place is tougher. The docks? No, it's not a drug bust.
Deserted warehouse? Not safe with all the asbestos. Hi-rise rooftop?
Aha.
Setting: Room with white walls. A large desk and a couple of
chairs. One door with two words on the outside. TEMP STORAGE
Michiru was playing with the paper-clips she found on the
desk, making little abstract shapes out of them, linking them together
to make bigger abstract shapes, throwing them across the room,
starting over.
Haruka was seeming to take immense satisfaction in tapping her
foot on the floor. It was all she'd been doing for hours, anyway.
Michiru wondered when she was planning on throwing a tantrum.
"HI!" a voice called from the door. "How you DOING?"
A small child-like thing walked into the room very happily,
eating ice cream right out of a carton. It was accompanied by a
taller, silver-haired, grey-eyed, less-energetic person.
"Hi, Hotaru," Michiru said morosely. "Good to see you."
"Right," Haruka added, giving a rather violent TAP.
I brought you some Cherry Garcia!" Hotaru exclaimed, handing
out two unopened cartons and spoons that appeared out of nowhere. The
two women took the ice cream, and began to eat unhappily.
"Oh, and this is my friend," she said, gesturing to the other
person in the room. "She doesn't exactly have a name or anything,
seeing as how she technically has never existed, but she sure knows
you two."
The person shyly looked at (Haruka and) Michiru. "Hi," she
said.
"Hey," they grunted.
Silence, much to Hotaru's dismay.
Haruka broke it. "So," she said. "Unnamed person. How's it
feel to never have existed?"
"Well, I can't say it's better than the alternative," the
silver-haired woman said, giving Haruka a look that was meant to say,
"I've...had sex with your girlfriend on numerous occasions." That was
actually impossible with the limited number of muscles in the human
face, so Haruka missed the point.
Death walked in, followed by Makoto.
"Finally," Haruka grunted. "Hey, Death, when are you going to
let us out of here?"
"Your fate is being discussed as we speak," Death said. "As
soon as we figure it out, you'll be moved to your permanent places.
Okay? Okay. Bye."
"Wait a minute!" Haruka yelled. "You can't just leave us
here! What the hell is taking so long?!"
"Listen," Death said commandingly. "You sit down and shut up
or I'll have you reincarneted as a lab rat!"
Haruka sat down and shut up. Death walked out of the room
quickly.
Makoto looked around, confused.
"Setsuna?" Michiru asked.
"I think so," Makoto answered. Hotaru offered her some ice
cream, and they all ate in silence.
"Pluto?"
"Yes, Jupiter?"
"Send them back to earth."
Pluto grimaced. "How many times do I have to tell you?" he
muttered. "I'm not going to do that. Never. Not in a million
years."
Uranus snorted. "Pluto...are you trying to make everybody
hate you? I mean, is that your ultimate goal here?"
"I'm not being an asshole here, Uranus," Pluto grunted. "You
know I'm right. 1. All the big threats to the humans have been dealt
with already. 2. They can all be just as happy dead as alive. And
most importantly 3. They've been brought back to life far too many
times already. It really makes me sick to think that they die, and we
just go, 'Okay, just head on back now!' They're MORTAL, they have to
die sometime, and this, my friends, is their time. Now, if you'll
excuse me, I have to figure out a way to deal with my senshi." He
excused himself from the room.
Usagi was crying before they ever even got to the front door. Somehow, she knew that something was seriously wrong. The flowerbed that Michiru and Setsuna tended so carefully, Haruka's beloved, shining convertable, Hotaru's abandoned swingset that no one had the heart to dismantle or give away... they all seemed so cold and eerie.
It had once been a house where people loved each other. Now, Usagi could tell, it plainly was not.
"Something's wrong," Ami said.
They all nodded. Without another word, they transformed.
"I'll stay out here with Sailor Moon," Mars said quietly. "I don't think she's still in there, but we need to be safe. All right?"
Venus nodded to Mars with a somewhat pitying expression on her face. "They're going to think we're morons if there's nothing really wrong," she said, grinning softly. Then she and Mercury went inside.
"Mars," Moon whispered after a moment, "do you think she could really be evil?"
"I think she could," Mars replied. "I don't know why we ever even trusted her in the first place."
"We trusted her because she's one of us!"
Mars sighed, then calmly regarded her dearest friend. "Everything is probably fine, Usagi-chan. I probably just made a mistake."
Sailor Moon smiled, and then Mercury and Venus came back out of the house. They were both crying.
Sailor Moon stiffened in horror, then put her hand to her mouth and gasped with even more horror. "Mako-chan," she whispered.
They were frozen for one second that felt like hours, then they all began running away in the direction Makoro had gone for her date. However, it was much, much too late.
She stood on the roof of the building, looking out across the
cityscape. Ugly as hell.
The sun was going down, causing the buildings to glow red at
the top, and some parts had already dissolved into darkness except for
little pinpoints of light that were windows leading into rooms where
people were. She hated those damn lighted windows.
Just like she hated the people walking around below her.
Every single one of them. They deserved her hatred, more than they
deserved the happiness and love they thought was routine.
She was making herself depressed again. Taking out a
cigarette and lighting it, she sat down and went over the plan again
in her head.
When she got to the part about killing them one by one, she
couldn't help but smile in anticipation. That moment would truly be
glorious, a pure moment of blaring victory. It...
Wait a minute. She had just smiled. She'd been doing that a
lot recently. What was it... five? She tried to remember again.
Yes, it was, she'd smiled five times in twenty-four hours. That was a
record.
She almost smiled again, but then a disturbing thought struck
her: Were any of them sincere?
It had occured to her at the thought of killing them that,
yes, she should be smiling, but was that the way it worked with
normal people? Do they say, "Okay, lips, CURL UPWARD!" Wasn't it
supposed to be more automatic than that? Not even killing Haruka
caused that kind of automatic reaction.
Better not to think about it, she said to herself. This is
what you want, or so you've said, and that's going to have to be good
enough.
It was dark now. They had almost certainly discovered . She
stood up and tried her best to radiate evil. She smiled, spreading
her arms out wide. They were going to come. Makoto's blood covered
her fuku.
Was she nervous? Difficult to tell. Was she excited? Who
knows. Did she even care? Not really.
Almost twenty hours, now.
Some guy had come in and installed a television, but all it
seemed to pick up was old Gilligan's Island reruns, excercise
equipment infomercials, and MTV.
Hotaru and her friend had left, saying they would be back "in
a few minutes". It had been nine hours.
No one had spoken for quite a while. Haruka had found a
little rubber superbounce ball and was amusing herself by throwing it
against the wall over and over. Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump!
Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump whump whump boing boing
boing..."Dammit. Could you get that, Michiru? Thanks." Whump!
Whump! Whump! Whump!
"Y'know what the problem with life is?" Haruka asked
rhetorically, catching the ball and holding it. "No matter what you
do, it always turns into this."
"What, death?" Michiru asked absent-mindedly, twisting a
paper-clip into an odd but pleasing shape.
"No," Haruka answered. "Boredom. Everyone has choices they
can make, and we work so hard trying to figure out the best way to go
with each of them. But it doesn't matter, does it? Sooner or later,
usually later, everything just turns into this. It's like a big
running gag that's gotten old."
Michiru nodded, remembering how Haruka got pseudo-
philosophical when she was bored. "Right," she muttered. "That's an
interesting idea, hon."
"Why do you think she did it?" Makoto asked suddenly.
They didn't respond for a minute. "There's no way to know,"
Michiru said eventually, looking up with empathetic eyes.
"I mean, do you think there was something about us that we
HAD to die, to save the future or something? Because..."
"We don't know, Makoto," Haruka said shortly.
"It's not fair," Makoto said, pouting. "I had just met
somebody. Why did she have to do it now? Why not three weeks ago?"
"Please don't feel sorry for yourself," Haruka said. "It's
not what any of us needs right now, okay?"
"I'll feel sorry for myself if I goddamn want to," Makoto shot
back. "I had just met someone who cares about me for who I am."
"Was," Haruka corrected.
"Right. Was. And now... well, who knows what's going to
happen now. We'll either be shipped out or shipped back, right?
Dammit, I hate this waiting."
A pause.
"I hate it more," Haruka said.
"I seriously doubt that," Makoto grumbled. "At least you two
are together. I don't think either of you really remembers what it's
like to be alone."
"Yeah, well at least you like yourself," Haruka said angrily.
"At least you don't know the world would be worse off if they did send
you back."
"Maybe I do!" Makoto yelled. "What reason do I have to like
myself? What good am I? Nobody's ever loved me, that should be some
kind of sign! And you don't even know what I'm capable of! No one
does."
"Oh, shut up," Haruka snapped. "You're a fucking good person
and you know it. You'll get no sympathy from us."
"Excuse me, Haruka? Sympathy? Who asked for sympathy? Did
you hear anyone ask for sympathy, Michiru?"
Michiru's head shot up from her paper-clip art. "I'm sorry,
what?"
"Nothing," Haruka said. "Makoto just thinks she was worse off
than we were."
"It's because I was!" Makoto protested. "Just look at you,
sitting there like some kind of anorexic Fabio, with your beautiful
girlfriend who would and has died for you, and you tell ME that I had
it better? How can you even think that?"
"At least you can sleep at night!" Haruka yelled. "You can
look at the world and just enjoy what you see, instead of having to
pick it apart looking for some kind of danger all the fucking time
At least you managed to get friends at some point in your life, people
who care about you just for who you were, and..."
"Bullshit," Makoto interrupted. "Do you think they'd really
be my friends if I wasn't Sailor Jupiter? If I was just me, they'd
have been scared of me just like everyone else, and left me alone from
the beginning! Besides, you have Michiru. I don't have anybody!"
"Yeah, that's just great, when you have ONE THING that makes
your life bearable and it's in danger every day. You can never
understand how it feels, Makoto. I had to force myself to not care if
she dies, even though I knew perfectly well I couldn't be without her.
Back me up here, Michiru. Tell her what we have to do."
"Don't bring me into this," Michiru said, halfway done with a
little shape she was making. "I like me. I liked my life, I like my
death, and when we're sent back I'll like my life again." She looked
up at Haruka and raised an eyebrow. "By the way, dear, I don't
appreciate being called a 'thing'."
Haruka ignored that final comment, and glared at Makoto. "Do
you want me to tell you the things I've done?" she asked. "Do you
want to hear what I had to live with every second of every day?"
"Who wants sympathy now?" Makoto sneered. "You're not fooling
anybody. You seem to think I'm like Usagi. Not all of us inners are
the same, you know. It's hard, watching them all go about their happy
lives and trying to fake it myself. They're the only people who've
ever liked me at all, and I had to at least try to fit in with them."
"Oh, so you don't feel like you ever 'fit in', huh?" Haruka
snorted. "Well, boo fucking hoo. I certainly have no idea what that
feels like. Do me a favor. Take how people think of you, multiply it
by a billion, and add to it the rumors from walking around with HER
everywhere you go. That's me right there."
"Oh, that's just really freaking romantic, isn't it, dearest?"
Michiru muttered, clearly annoyed.
"I'm sorry, I'm trying to make a point," Haruka said.
"You're dancing around the issue here," Makoto declared.
"You're not alone, I am. It's as simple as that!"
"The hell it is!" Haruka yelled.
They glared at each other. Michiru regarded them with quiet
interest, wondering who would get in the next shot.
It was Haruka. "My parents never loved me!" she yelled, then
leaned back, satisfied.
But Makoto was prepared for that attack. "My parents died!"
she countered.
They fumed. Haruka was about to launch an air strike of
memories of death, but was cut off by high-pitched laughter. They all
looked in the direction of the door. Hotaru was there, tears
streaming down her face, her mouth wide with glee.
"What's so funny?" Haruka and Makoto asked, almost at the
exact same time.
"You!" Hotaru giggled. "What is this, the Most Pathetic
Senshi Competition?"
"No," Haruka answered. "I'm just trying to get Makoto to
admit the truth."
"Oh please, you..."
"Listen, shut up, both of you," Hotaru chuckled. "Neither of
you comes close to the most pathetic senshi."
"Oh really," Makoto grunted. "I suppose it's you, right?"
"Nope," Michiru said. "It's me. I just learned that the
person with whom I'm co-dependent respects me about as much as a used
wad of chewing gum." She glared at Haruka, who gulped.
"You're all wrong," Hotaru said. "Just think about it a
minute. You know who it is."
The most pathetic senshi leaned on her staff and stared at the
inners. They stared back.
And for the longest time, nobody said a word.
A random thought: Do you put on the happy face because you
know the grey skies are going to clear up, or do the grey skies
somehow clear up as a result of putting on the happy face?
Oh, who cares. It's just a stupid song anyway.
{Jon Carp}
address: jcarp@med.unc.edu
Conciousness is not a plaything.--R.D. Laing
Plan. That's always important. Just jump into something like
this headfirst and you'll find yourself smooshed into the wall like a
cartoon villain.
So. Time and place. Time and place. Time and place. Well,
time is obvious. Late at night, of course. Who'd think of having
some kind of double-cross ambush slaughter in broad daylight? That
would just be silly.
Okay, place is tougher. The docks? No, it's not a drug bust.
Deserted warehouse? Not safe with all the asbestos. Hi-rise rooftop?
Aha.
Setting: Room with white walls. A large desk and a couple of
chairs. One door with two words on the outside. TEMP STORAGE
Michiru was playing with the paper-clips she found on the
desk, making little abstract shapes out of them, linking them together
to make bigger abstract shapes, throwing them across the room,
starting over.
Haruka was seeming to take immense satisfaction in tapping her
foot on the floor. It was all she'd been doing for hours, anyway.
Michiru wondered when she was planning on throwing a tantrum.
"HI!" a voice called from the door. "How you DOING?"
A small child-like thing walked into the room very happily,
eating ice cream right out of a carton. It was accompanied by a
taller, silver-haired, grey-eyed, less-energetic person.
"Hi, Hotaru," Michiru said morosely. "Good to see you."
"Right," Haruka added, giving a rather violent TAP.
I brought you some Cherry Garcia!" Hotaru exclaimed, handing
out two unopened cartons and spoons that appeared out of nowhere. The
two women took the ice cream, and began to eat unhappily.
"Oh, and this is my friend," she said, gesturing to the other
person in the room. "She doesn't exactly have a name or anything,
seeing as how she technically has never existed, but she sure knows
you two."
The person shyly looked at (Haruka and) Michiru. "Hi," she
said.
"Hey," they grunted.
Silence, much to Hotaru's dismay.
Haruka broke it. "So," she said. "Unnamed person. How's it
feel to never have existed?"
"Well, I can't say it's better than the alternative," the
silver-haired woman said, giving Haruka a look that was meant to say,
"I've...had sex with your girlfriend on numerous occasions." That was
actually impossible with the limited number of muscles in the human
face, so Haruka missed the point.
Death walked in, followed by Makoto.
"Finally," Haruka grunted. "Hey, Death, when are you going to
let us out of here?"
"Your fate is being discussed as we speak," Death said. "As
soon as we figure it out, you'll be moved to your permanent places.
Okay? Okay. Bye."
"Wait a minute!" Haruka yelled. "You can't just leave us
here! What the hell is taking so long?!"
"Listen," Death said commandingly. "You sit down and shut up
or I'll have you reincarneted as a lab rat!"
Haruka sat down and shut up. Death walked out of the room
quickly.
Makoto looked around, confused.
"Setsuna?" Michiru asked.
"I think so," Makoto answered. Hotaru offered her some ice
cream, and they all ate in silence.
"Pluto?"
"Yes, Jupiter?"
"Send them back to earth."
Pluto grimaced. "How many times do I have to tell you?" he
muttered. "I'm not going to do that. Never. Not in a million
years."
Uranus snorted. "Pluto...are you trying to make everybody
hate you? I mean, is that your ultimate goal here?"
"I'm not being an asshole here, Uranus," Pluto grunted. "You
know I'm right. 1. All the big threats to the humans have been dealt
with already. 2. They can all be just as happy dead as alive. And
most importantly 3. They've been brought back to life far too many
times already. It really makes me sick to think that they die, and we
just go, 'Okay, just head on back now!' They're MORTAL, they have to
die sometime, and this, my friends, is their time. Now, if you'll
excuse me, I have to figure out a way to deal with my senshi." He
excused himself from the room.
Usagi was crying before they ever even got to the front door. Somehow, she knew that something was seriously wrong. The flowerbed that Michiru and Setsuna tended so carefully, Haruka's beloved, shining convertable, Hotaru's abandoned swingset that no one had the heart to dismantle or give away... they all seemed so cold and eerie.
It had once been a house where people loved each other. Now, Usagi could tell, it plainly was not.
"Something's wrong," Ami said.
They all nodded. Without another word, they transformed.
"I'll stay out here with Sailor Moon," Mars said quietly. "I don't think she's still in there, but we need to be safe. All right?"
Venus nodded to Mars with a somewhat pitying expression on her face. "They're going to think we're morons if there's nothing really wrong," she said, grinning softly. Then she and Mercury went inside.
"Mars," Moon whispered after a moment, "do you think she could really be evil?"
"I think she could," Mars replied. "I don't know why we ever even trusted her in the first place."
"We trusted her because she's one of us!"
Mars sighed, then calmly regarded her dearest friend. "Everything is probably fine, Usagi-chan. I probably just made a mistake."
Sailor Moon smiled, and then Mercury and Venus came back out of the house. They were both crying.
Sailor Moon stiffened in horror, then put her hand to her mouth and gasped with even more horror. "Mako-chan," she whispered.
They were frozen for one second that felt like hours, then they all began running away in the direction Makoro had gone for her date. However, it was much, much too late.
She stood on the roof of the building, looking out across the
cityscape. Ugly as hell.
The sun was going down, causing the buildings to glow red at
the top, and some parts had already dissolved into darkness except for
little pinpoints of light that were windows leading into rooms where
people were. She hated those damn lighted windows.
Just like she hated the people walking around below her.
Every single one of them. They deserved her hatred, more than they
deserved the happiness and love they thought was routine.
She was making herself depressed again. Taking out a
cigarette and lighting it, she sat down and went over the plan again
in her head.
When she got to the part about killing them one by one, she
couldn't help but smile in anticipation. That moment would truly be
glorious, a pure moment of blaring victory. It...
Wait a minute. She had just smiled. She'd been doing that a
lot recently. What was it... five? She tried to remember again.
Yes, it was, she'd smiled five times in twenty-four hours. That was a
record.
She almost smiled again, but then a disturbing thought struck
her: Were any of them sincere?
It had occured to her at the thought of killing them that,
yes, she should be smiling, but was that the way it worked with
normal people? Do they say, "Okay, lips, CURL UPWARD!" Wasn't it
supposed to be more automatic than that? Not even killing Haruka
caused that kind of automatic reaction.
Better not to think about it, she said to herself. This is
what you want, or so you've said, and that's going to have to be good
enough.
It was dark now. They had almost certainly discovered . She
stood up and tried her best to radiate evil. She smiled, spreading
her arms out wide. They were going to come. Makoto's blood covered
her fuku.
Was she nervous? Difficult to tell. Was she excited? Who
knows. Did she even care? Not really.
Almost twenty hours, now.
Some guy had come in and installed a television, but all it
seemed to pick up was old Gilligan's Island reruns, excercise
equipment infomercials, and MTV.
Hotaru and her friend had left, saying they would be back "in
a few minutes". It had been nine hours.
No one had spoken for quite a while. Haruka had found a
little rubber superbounce ball and was amusing herself by throwing it
against the wall over and over. Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump!
Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump whump whump boing boing
boing..."Dammit. Could you get that, Michiru? Thanks." Whump!
Whump! Whump! Whump!
"Y'know what the problem with life is?" Haruka asked
rhetorically, catching the ball and holding it. "No matter what you
do, it always turns into this."
"What, death?" Michiru asked absent-mindedly, twisting a
paper-clip into an odd but pleasing shape.
"No," Haruka answered. "Boredom. Everyone has choices they
can make, and we work so hard trying to figure out the best way to go
with each of them. But it doesn't matter, does it? Sooner or later,
usually later, everything just turns into this. It's like a big
running gag that's gotten old."
Michiru nodded, remembering how Haruka got pseudo-
philosophical when she was bored. "Right," she muttered. "That's an
interesting idea, hon."
"Why do you think she did it?" Makoto asked suddenly.
They didn't respond for a minute. "There's no way to know,"
Michiru said eventually, looking up with empathetic eyes.
"I mean, do you think there was something about us that we
HAD to die, to save the future or something? Because..."
"We don't know, Makoto," Haruka said shortly.
"It's not fair," Makoto said, pouting. "I had just met
somebody. Why did she have to do it now? Why not three weeks ago?"
"Please don't feel sorry for yourself," Haruka said. "It's
not what any of us needs right now, okay?"
"I'll feel sorry for myself if I goddamn want to," Makoto shot
back. "I had just met someone who cares about me for who I am."
"Was," Haruka corrected.
"Right. Was. And now... well, who knows what's going to
happen now. We'll either be shipped out or shipped back, right?
Dammit, I hate this waiting."
A pause.
"I hate it more," Haruka said.
"I seriously doubt that," Makoto grumbled. "At least you two
are together. I don't think either of you really remembers what it's
like to be alone."
"Yeah, well at least you like yourself," Haruka said angrily.
"At least you don't know the world would be worse off if they did send
you back."
"Maybe I do!" Makoto yelled. "What reason do I have to like
myself? What good am I? Nobody's ever loved me, that should be some
kind of sign! And you don't even know what I'm capable of! No one
does."
"Oh, shut up," Haruka snapped. "You're a fucking good person
and you know it. You'll get no sympathy from us."
"Excuse me, Haruka? Sympathy? Who asked for sympathy? Did
you hear anyone ask for sympathy, Michiru?"
Michiru's head shot up from her paper-clip art. "I'm sorry,
what?"
"Nothing," Haruka said. "Makoto just thinks she was worse off
than we were."
"It's because I was!" Makoto protested. "Just look at you,
sitting there like some kind of anorexic Fabio, with your beautiful
girlfriend who would and has died for you, and you tell ME that I had
it better? How can you even think that?"
"At least you can sleep at night!" Haruka yelled. "You can
look at the world and just enjoy what you see, instead of having to
pick it apart looking for some kind of danger all the fucking time
At least you managed to get friends at some point in your life, people
who care about you just for who you were, and..."
"Bullshit," Makoto interrupted. "Do you think they'd really
be my friends if I wasn't Sailor Jupiter? If I was just me, they'd
have been scared of me just like everyone else, and left me alone from
the beginning! Besides, you have Michiru. I don't have anybody!"
"Yeah, that's just great, when you have ONE THING that makes
your life bearable and it's in danger every day. You can never
understand how it feels, Makoto. I had to force myself to not care if
she dies, even though I knew perfectly well I couldn't be without her.
Back me up here, Michiru. Tell her what we have to do."
"Don't bring me into this," Michiru said, halfway done with a
little shape she was making. "I like me. I liked my life, I like my
death, and when we're sent back I'll like my life again." She looked
up at Haruka and raised an eyebrow. "By the way, dear, I don't
appreciate being called a 'thing'."
Haruka ignored that final comment, and glared at Makoto. "Do
you want me to tell you the things I've done?" she asked. "Do you
want to hear what I had to live with every second of every day?"
"Who wants sympathy now?" Makoto sneered. "You're not fooling
anybody. You seem to think I'm like Usagi. Not all of us inners are
the same, you know. It's hard, watching them all go about their happy
lives and trying to fake it myself. They're the only people who've
ever liked me at all, and I had to at least try to fit in with them."
"Oh, so you don't feel like you ever 'fit in', huh?" Haruka
snorted. "Well, boo fucking hoo. I certainly have no idea what that
feels like. Do me a favor. Take how people think of you, multiply it
by a billion, and add to it the rumors from walking around with HER
everywhere you go. That's me right there."
"Oh, that's just really freaking romantic, isn't it, dearest?"
Michiru muttered, clearly annoyed.
"I'm sorry, I'm trying to make a point," Haruka said.
"You're dancing around the issue here," Makoto declared.
"You're not alone, I am. It's as simple as that!"
"The hell it is!" Haruka yelled.
They glared at each other. Michiru regarded them with quiet
interest, wondering who would get in the next shot.
It was Haruka. "My parents never loved me!" she yelled, then
leaned back, satisfied.
But Makoto was prepared for that attack. "My parents died!"
she countered.
They fumed. Haruka was about to launch an air strike of
memories of death, but was cut off by high-pitched laughter. They all
looked in the direction of the door. Hotaru was there, tears
streaming down her face, her mouth wide with glee.
"What's so funny?" Haruka and Makoto asked, almost at the
exact same time.
"You!" Hotaru giggled. "What is this, the Most Pathetic
Senshi Competition?"
"No," Haruka answered. "I'm just trying to get Makoto to
admit the truth."
"Oh please, you..."
"Listen, shut up, both of you," Hotaru chuckled. "Neither of
you comes close to the most pathetic senshi."
"Oh really," Makoto grunted. "I suppose it's you, right?"
"Nope," Michiru said. "It's me. I just learned that the
person with whom I'm co-dependent respects me about as much as a used
wad of chewing gum." She glared at Haruka, who gulped.
"You're all wrong," Hotaru said. "Just think about it a
minute. You know who it is."
The most pathetic senshi leaned on her staff and stared at the
inners. They stared back.
And for the longest time, nobody said a word.
A random thought: Do you put on the happy face because you
know the grey skies are going to clear up, or do the grey skies
somehow clear up as a result of putting on the happy face?
Oh, who cares. It's just a stupid song anyway.
