It's In His Kiss
Chapter 2: The Cruelty of a Man
by Aisuru
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com
"Are you sure?" Mamoru asked, "because you kiss just like Sailor Moon."
These words pierced through Usagi's kiss-muddled brain, and she jerked her face away from Mamoru's gentle grasp. She stared at him in shock. 'It is true that he smells like Tuxedo Kamen,' her mind slowly registered, 'and he kisses like Tuxedo Kamen, but is it really possible that Mamoru IS Tuxedo Kamen? Or that Tuxedo Kamen is really Mamoru?' Her eyes narrowed, then widened, and she blinked, trying to clear the image of Tuxedo Kamen that her mind was superimposing over the flesh-and-blood face of Mamoru just inches from her. The image obediently faded for a moment, but she made the mistake of looking into Mamoru's eyes, and in them she saw the glimpse of Tuxedo Kamen's lust-darkened gaze that she had seen through his mask.
"Yes, Usagi," Mamoru was saying -- in Tuxedo Kamen's voice, she noted -- "I know who you really are, and I think you recognize me as well."
"So you are..." she began, her voice unsure.
"Yes," he answered, caressing the word so that Usagi felt it was she that had been caressed.
"Then you and I..." Usagi couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, a rush of images of their earlier activities (as their alter-egos) flooding her mind. She must have sent those images to him again, because a slow, seductive smile teased his mouth and his eyes became even more intense.
He reached his hand towards her face, tracing a path to her lower lip in an unconscious mimic of Sailor Moon's caress of Tuxedo Kamen at the fountain. "I suppose we did," he murmured, his eyes darting from her eyes to her mouth and back again. He leaned towards her again.
That particular kiss would never be delivered. The host of the party burst into the bedroom to announce that their five minutes was up, but before he could speak he was roughly pushed into the room by four very curious, very nosey, supposed best friends. The girls hadn't known what to expect, but Usagi sitting on the edge of the bed, Mamoru kneeling in front of her, touching her face and leaning in for what, according to his expression, was going to be a very passionate kiss, was so far removed from their expectations that they did the only thing four 14-year-old girls could do when faced with such a situation. They squealed.
The sound would have made any normal freshman in college leap to his feet and make a mad dash away from what was sure to be the center of a middle school girl mob scene. Mamoru, though, as Usagi now realized, was no normal freshman in college. Indeed, he was none other than the alter ego of the dashing, daring, kiss-ably wonderful Tuxedo Kamen. With a cool finesse that seemed more in character for the masked hero then for the young man -- whose (he had believed) misplaced interest in someone so much younger than himself had led him to resort to name-calling and teasing like a third grader -- Mamoru stilled his towards-Usagi motion and allowed his gaze to flicker towards the squealing girls.
The next half-second seemed to stretch for all eternity. Mamoru's gaze shifted back to Usagi's eyes, and then, as if the appearance of Usagi's gang had not interfered with what would have been the first kiss with both of them knowing the secret identity of the other, he closed the distance between them and gave her a chaste kiss on the tip of her nose.
~We will talk later.~
Usagi heard the voice clearly as Mamoru pulled away from her, his movements so fluid and balanced that she could even see Tuxedo Kamen in this little motion, but she was sure he hadn't spoken aloud. She was 100% positive of this, because her eyes had flitted to his mouth as he leaned in for the kiss, gone cross-eyed as he kissed her nose, and snapped back into focus on his lips as he moved away. She heard the words, but his lips had definitely not moved.
She didn't have time to ponder what this might mean, because as Mamoru's physical distance from her grew, his demeanor changed drastically. His lips refused to reform the seductive smile after the kiss, turning instead into the cocky, derisive smile Tuxedo Kamen only used on Dark Kingdom generals and their youma, but that Mamoru had used on her all the time. He laughed mockingly at the clear disappointment on Usagi's face and on the faces of her friends. "Poor Odango Atama," he taunted, his face still inches from her own. "You didn't really think I was going to kiss you on the lips, did you? Don't you think you're a little young for me, hmm?"
Usagi's eyes widened in surprise and then horror as Mamoru flicked her on the nose -- it didn't hurt but was humiliating -- and then rocked back smoothly to his feet. Usagi jumped to her own feet and practically flew from the bedroom, pushing past her friends and knocking over the surprised host, who had just gotten to his feet after being trampled by the squealing quartet. "Usagi was right," she heard Rei say, her tone so cold it burned. "Mamoru is a total jerk."
Then Usagi was barreling through the crowded living room towards the door, the front door her destination. She plowed into Motoki, who had stepped in front of her on purpose. "Hey, what's the matter, Usagi-chan?" he asked, tilting her face up to look into her teary eyes.
Usagi choked on her response, humiliated more than she had ever been in her life. How could she explain that during the past 17 hours she had received her first kiss, to a superhero no less, had accidentally sent telepathic erotica to said superhero, and had made out with said superhero; and that within the past five minutes she had discovered that the identity of the superhero was her arch nemesis, and had been alternately kissed and humiliated by said arch nemesis? She managed to croak out a name, "Mamoru..." before pulling out of his grasp and fleeing the apartment.
She was waiting for the elevator, cursing how its slowness was spoiling her dramatic escape, when the apartment door reopened and her friends stepped out. "Don't worry, we'll take care of Usagi," Minako was saying.
"I don't know what Mamoru's problem is," Motoki answered. "This goes way beyond cruel."
"Tell me about it!" Rei huffed.
The elevator arrived then, and she tried to escape into it, but Makoto's stuck her arm in the door, causing it to reopen. "You can't escape us, girlfriend," she said with confidence. Usagi's only response was a watery smile.
The girls ushered Usagi to the temple, where they congregated in Rei's room and tried to distract Usagi with the latest manga. Usagi pretended to be absorbed in the stack of comics to avoid the eyes of her concerned friends, but her heart wasn't in it. The magical girl manga gave her bitter reminders of her recent interactions with Tuxedo Kamen, and the romantic comedies were just too much to handle. Eventually she found herself staring blankly at a page, forgetting that she needed to turn the pages to keep up the pretense of reading.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Minako offered, breaking Usagi out of her trance-like stare at the page.
Usagi looked up at her friends before glancing back at the manga and giving a weak laugh at a joke on the page. "These are really good," she said to Rei, trying to draw the attention away from herself.
"Hey, girl, its okay," Makoto said. "You don't have to spill just yet. No pressure."
"Just know we're here for you," Ami added. Rei nodded.
Usagi smiled at her friends' understanding, and turned her eyes back to the pages in front of her. "You'd better treat my manga with a little more care, though, if you're going to keep pretending that you're reading them," Rei cautioned, narrowing her eyes to glare at a page Usagi was bending.
"Oh, oops!" Usagi exclaimed, making a show of smoothing down the page until the girls went back to their own discussion, which sounded suspiciously like they were planning unfeasible torments for Mamoru.
~Usagi.~
Usagi froze, her hand stilled on the page, at the clear sound of Mamoru's voice. She glanced up to find that the other girls made no notice of having heard the voice. 'Oh, great,' she thought, blinking furiously to keep tears from filling her eyes. 'Now Mamoru has an invitation to torment me in private.'
~Usagi, we need to talk. Meet me by the fountain at the park as soon as you can.~
An image of an earlier event at the same fountain flittered into Usagi's mind before she cringed and decided to never think of that again. 'As if!' Usagi thought venomously. She let the hurt of her rejection turn into anger, refusing to cry. 'I'll just ignore him,' she decided. 'Maybe he'll think I can't hear him and he'll go away.'
A long telepathic silence followed, and Usagi returned to Rei's manga. The other girls eventually bored of their planned destruction of Mamoru and busied themselves with manga of their own to avoid the temptation to ask Usagi just what exactly had gone on during that five minutes. Then the projections began. Mamoru was trying to telepathically seduce her! Images popped into her mind's eye, images of Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen engaged in a passionate kiss by the fountain, explorative caresses on the rooftop; she and Mamoru in the bedroom at the party, before they had been interrupted. Accompanying these images, however, was an intense hunger that seemed to be emanating from Mamoru. 'The nerve!' Usagi thought, growing quite uncomfortable under the assault. 'How dare he, especially after the way he treated me: turning back into that cold hearted jerk and saying I'm too young for him! Now look who's being childish!' The images weren't childish, though, not at all. They grew more heated, more intense, until they hinted at things that went well beyond her recent experience. She blushed, trying to force the images and their associated feelings away. Finally she could take it no more.
*~Stop it!~ *
~Ah, so you can hear me, Usagi. Trying to ignore me, were you?~
Usagi remained stubbornly quiet.
~We really need to talk, Usagi.~
*~...~*
~Face to face. With no interruptions.~
*~...~*
~If you don't come to me, I'll come for you. Don't think I can't find you. Our connection has been growing steadily stronger since our first kiss last night. I'll come for you as Tuxedo Kamen and steal you away into the night. Try explaining that to your friends!~
Usagi realized that if the senshi saw Tuxedo Kamen coming for her when she wasn't Sailor Moon, it was going to bring on a lot of questions she didn't feel like answering right now, and the girls' reactions would probably give away their identities as senshi. She really had no other choice.
*~Alright, I'll meet you.~*
~Good. I'm looking forward to it.~
Usagi looked up to see that her friends were staring at her, odd expressions on their faces. Ami was scanning her with her computer.
"What the heck was that?" Makoto exclaimed.
Usagi just blinked.
"I've never seen you fall into such a deep trance before, Usagi," Rei muttered.
"Where did you go?" Minako asked.
Usagi just blinked again. Then she turned to Ami, who was still scanning her, and forced a yawn. "No need to start with the medical testing, Ami," she said. "I'm just really sleepy. It's been a rather stressful day. I think I'll head home now."
"I'll walk you," Makoto offered, starting to stand up.
"No!" Usagi objected, jumping to her feet. Then, realizing how foolish she sounded she added, "No, you hang out a little more. Its only, what, 9 o'clock, and its a Saturday night. I'll just transform, that'll be safe, right? And look, I've got my communicator right here. I'll call if there's any trouble."
Makoto hesitantly sat back down. "Well, okay, if you're sure." She was a little disappointed that she wouldn't be alone with Usagi -- her curiosity was killing her! -- but she could understand that Usagi might want to be left along. After all, she had been the butt of one of the cruelest jokes Makoto had ever seen: led to think that she was going to be kissed and shot down at the last moment. Even her old sempai hadn't been so heartless!
"Are you sure?" Mamoru asked, "because you kiss just like Sailor Moon."
These words pierced through Usagi's kiss-muddled brain, and she jerked her face away from Mamoru's gentle grasp. She stared at him in shock. 'It is true that he smells like Tuxedo Kamen,' her mind slowly registered, 'and he kisses like Tuxedo Kamen, but is it really possible that Mamoru IS Tuxedo Kamen? Or that Tuxedo Kamen is really Mamoru?' Her eyes narrowed, then widened, and she blinked, trying to clear the image of Tuxedo Kamen that her mind was superimposing over the flesh-and-blood face of Mamoru just inches from her. The image obediently faded for a moment, but she made the mistake of looking into Mamoru's eyes, and in them she saw the glimpse of Tuxedo Kamen's lust-darkened gaze that she had seen through his mask.
"Yes, Usagi," Mamoru was saying -- in Tuxedo Kamen's voice, she noted -- "I know who you really are, and I think you recognize me as well."
"So you are..." she began, her voice unsure.
"Yes," he answered, caressing the word so that Usagi felt it was she that had been caressed.
"Then you and I..." Usagi couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, a rush of images of their earlier activities (as their alter-egos) flooding her mind. She must have sent those images to him again, because a slow, seductive smile teased his mouth and his eyes became even more intense.
He reached his hand towards her face, tracing a path to her lower lip in an unconscious mimic of Sailor Moon's caress of Tuxedo Kamen at the fountain. "I suppose we did," he murmured, his eyes darting from her eyes to her mouth and back again. He leaned towards her again.
That particular kiss would never be delivered. The host of the party burst into the bedroom to announce that their five minutes was up, but before he could speak he was roughly pushed into the room by four very curious, very nosey, supposed best friends. The girls hadn't known what to expect, but Usagi sitting on the edge of the bed, Mamoru kneeling in front of her, touching her face and leaning in for what, according to his expression, was going to be a very passionate kiss, was so far removed from their expectations that they did the only thing four 14-year-old girls could do when faced with such a situation. They squealed.
The sound would have made any normal freshman in college leap to his feet and make a mad dash away from what was sure to be the center of a middle school girl mob scene. Mamoru, though, as Usagi now realized, was no normal freshman in college. Indeed, he was none other than the alter ego of the dashing, daring, kiss-ably wonderful Tuxedo Kamen. With a cool finesse that seemed more in character for the masked hero then for the young man -- whose (he had believed) misplaced interest in someone so much younger than himself had led him to resort to name-calling and teasing like a third grader -- Mamoru stilled his towards-Usagi motion and allowed his gaze to flicker towards the squealing girls.
The next half-second seemed to stretch for all eternity. Mamoru's gaze shifted back to Usagi's eyes, and then, as if the appearance of Usagi's gang had not interfered with what would have been the first kiss with both of them knowing the secret identity of the other, he closed the distance between them and gave her a chaste kiss on the tip of her nose.
~We will talk later.~
Usagi heard the voice clearly as Mamoru pulled away from her, his movements so fluid and balanced that she could even see Tuxedo Kamen in this little motion, but she was sure he hadn't spoken aloud. She was 100% positive of this, because her eyes had flitted to his mouth as he leaned in for the kiss, gone cross-eyed as he kissed her nose, and snapped back into focus on his lips as he moved away. She heard the words, but his lips had definitely not moved.
She didn't have time to ponder what this might mean, because as Mamoru's physical distance from her grew, his demeanor changed drastically. His lips refused to reform the seductive smile after the kiss, turning instead into the cocky, derisive smile Tuxedo Kamen only used on Dark Kingdom generals and their youma, but that Mamoru had used on her all the time. He laughed mockingly at the clear disappointment on Usagi's face and on the faces of her friends. "Poor Odango Atama," he taunted, his face still inches from her own. "You didn't really think I was going to kiss you on the lips, did you? Don't you think you're a little young for me, hmm?"
Usagi's eyes widened in surprise and then horror as Mamoru flicked her on the nose -- it didn't hurt but was humiliating -- and then rocked back smoothly to his feet. Usagi jumped to her own feet and practically flew from the bedroom, pushing past her friends and knocking over the surprised host, who had just gotten to his feet after being trampled by the squealing quartet. "Usagi was right," she heard Rei say, her tone so cold it burned. "Mamoru is a total jerk."
Then Usagi was barreling through the crowded living room towards the door, the front door her destination. She plowed into Motoki, who had stepped in front of her on purpose. "Hey, what's the matter, Usagi-chan?" he asked, tilting her face up to look into her teary eyes.
Usagi choked on her response, humiliated more than she had ever been in her life. How could she explain that during the past 17 hours she had received her first kiss, to a superhero no less, had accidentally sent telepathic erotica to said superhero, and had made out with said superhero; and that within the past five minutes she had discovered that the identity of the superhero was her arch nemesis, and had been alternately kissed and humiliated by said arch nemesis? She managed to croak out a name, "Mamoru..." before pulling out of his grasp and fleeing the apartment.
She was waiting for the elevator, cursing how its slowness was spoiling her dramatic escape, when the apartment door reopened and her friends stepped out. "Don't worry, we'll take care of Usagi," Minako was saying.
"I don't know what Mamoru's problem is," Motoki answered. "This goes way beyond cruel."
"Tell me about it!" Rei huffed.
The elevator arrived then, and she tried to escape into it, but Makoto's stuck her arm in the door, causing it to reopen. "You can't escape us, girlfriend," she said with confidence. Usagi's only response was a watery smile.
The girls ushered Usagi to the temple, where they congregated in Rei's room and tried to distract Usagi with the latest manga. Usagi pretended to be absorbed in the stack of comics to avoid the eyes of her concerned friends, but her heart wasn't in it. The magical girl manga gave her bitter reminders of her recent interactions with Tuxedo Kamen, and the romantic comedies were just too much to handle. Eventually she found herself staring blankly at a page, forgetting that she needed to turn the pages to keep up the pretense of reading.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Minako offered, breaking Usagi out of her trance-like stare at the page.
Usagi looked up at her friends before glancing back at the manga and giving a weak laugh at a joke on the page. "These are really good," she said to Rei, trying to draw the attention away from herself.
"Hey, girl, its okay," Makoto said. "You don't have to spill just yet. No pressure."
"Just know we're here for you," Ami added. Rei nodded.
Usagi smiled at her friends' understanding, and turned her eyes back to the pages in front of her. "You'd better treat my manga with a little more care, though, if you're going to keep pretending that you're reading them," Rei cautioned, narrowing her eyes to glare at a page Usagi was bending.
"Oh, oops!" Usagi exclaimed, making a show of smoothing down the page until the girls went back to their own discussion, which sounded suspiciously like they were planning unfeasible torments for Mamoru.
~Usagi.~
Usagi froze, her hand stilled on the page, at the clear sound of Mamoru's voice. She glanced up to find that the other girls made no notice of having heard the voice. 'Oh, great,' she thought, blinking furiously to keep tears from filling her eyes. 'Now Mamoru has an invitation to torment me in private.'
~Usagi, we need to talk. Meet me by the fountain at the park as soon as you can.~
An image of an earlier event at the same fountain flittered into Usagi's mind before she cringed and decided to never think of that again. 'As if!' Usagi thought venomously. She let the hurt of her rejection turn into anger, refusing to cry. 'I'll just ignore him,' she decided. 'Maybe he'll think I can't hear him and he'll go away.'
A long telepathic silence followed, and Usagi returned to Rei's manga. The other girls eventually bored of their planned destruction of Mamoru and busied themselves with manga of their own to avoid the temptation to ask Usagi just what exactly had gone on during that five minutes. Then the projections began. Mamoru was trying to telepathically seduce her! Images popped into her mind's eye, images of Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen engaged in a passionate kiss by the fountain, explorative caresses on the rooftop; she and Mamoru in the bedroom at the party, before they had been interrupted. Accompanying these images, however, was an intense hunger that seemed to be emanating from Mamoru. 'The nerve!' Usagi thought, growing quite uncomfortable under the assault. 'How dare he, especially after the way he treated me: turning back into that cold hearted jerk and saying I'm too young for him! Now look who's being childish!' The images weren't childish, though, not at all. They grew more heated, more intense, until they hinted at things that went well beyond her recent experience. She blushed, trying to force the images and their associated feelings away. Finally she could take it no more.
*~Stop it!~ *
~Ah, so you can hear me, Usagi. Trying to ignore me, were you?~
Usagi remained stubbornly quiet.
~We really need to talk, Usagi.~
*~...~*
~Face to face. With no interruptions.~
*~...~*
~If you don't come to me, I'll come for you. Don't think I can't find you. Our connection has been growing steadily stronger since our first kiss last night. I'll come for you as Tuxedo Kamen and steal you away into the night. Try explaining that to your friends!~
Usagi realized that if the senshi saw Tuxedo Kamen coming for her when she wasn't Sailor Moon, it was going to bring on a lot of questions she didn't feel like answering right now, and the girls' reactions would probably give away their identities as senshi. She really had no other choice.
*~Alright, I'll meet you.~*
~Good. I'm looking forward to it.~
Usagi looked up to see that her friends were staring at her, odd expressions on their faces. Ami was scanning her with her computer.
"What the heck was that?" Makoto exclaimed.
Usagi just blinked.
"I've never seen you fall into such a deep trance before, Usagi," Rei muttered.
"Where did you go?" Minako asked.
Usagi just blinked again. Then she turned to Ami, who was still scanning her, and forced a yawn. "No need to start with the medical testing, Ami," she said. "I'm just really sleepy. It's been a rather stressful day. I think I'll head home now."
"I'll walk you," Makoto offered, starting to stand up.
"No!" Usagi objected, jumping to her feet. Then, realizing how foolish she sounded she added, "No, you hang out a little more. Its only, what, 9 o'clock, and its a Saturday night. I'll just transform, that'll be safe, right? And look, I've got my communicator right here. I'll call if there's any trouble."
Makoto hesitantly sat back down. "Well, okay, if you're sure." She was a little disappointed that she wouldn't be alone with Usagi -- her curiosity was killing her! -- but she could understand that Usagi might want to be left along. After all, she had been the butt of one of the cruelest jokes Makoto had ever seen: led to think that she was going to be kissed and shot down at the last moment. Even her old sempai hadn't been so heartless!