Chapter 4
Love is a torment
Whenever we hide it.
Why not lay it bare
Like the moon that appears
From behind the moutain ledge?
Man'Yoshu (Anonymous)
Having met you as in a dream,
I feel I would dissolve, body and soul,
Like the snow that falls,
Darkening the heavens.
Anonymous (also from Man'Yoshu)
I could sleep for three days straight letting hours fall like snow. Ami mused, stifling a yawn. As it was she had slept for six hours after her last final. She was exhausted, but she had finally awoken to find the first snow drifting outside her window, filling up the joints and crevices of the branches outside her dormitory. She watched the snowflakes melting against her window frame, each shape tantalizing her eye before quickly being lost in small spaces of white. Ami settled her armchair near the window dragging her sketchpad across her knees. Drawing dark, swift lines across the page, she tried to capture the branches in stark relief against the snow. Her long fingers swept across the page in graceful, carefully measured strokes. She sighed massaging her palm as she studied her handiwork. It lacked the magic Mamoru succeeded in freezing inside each of his photos.
Watching the snow fall, floating like cherry blossoms...dancing, she became nostalgic. Memory, identity, the past all seemed to drift among the snow and ice crystals. The weather reminded her of warm sake drunk on cold nights and mulled wine. She shook her head gently, she couldn't imagine herself in any life drinking alone on such twilit day.
She stood up stretching slowly, the circulation rushing back into her cramped limbs. Ami reached for her jacket, scarf and hat pausing a moment at the door as she heard a group of students laughing outside. The sound created an echo in her memory of a deeper laugh, more masculine and taunting. She stood blindly as she remembered small fragments --the breadth of a shoulder, an open collar revealing the hollow of a man's throat followed by a warm smile, a wryly turned grin. She sucked in a breath. Who was that? Memories haunted her for a moment. She reached inside her pocket half-expecting to pull out her communicator. Instead she looked down puzzled at her empty hand.
It had been so long since memories of the Silver Millennium had bubbled up in her mind. Initially after Usagi's revelation, they gained many in such a short time then they were only left with large empty patches. Spaces unaccounted for,
spaces that would have contained family, interests, perhaps the minute daily observations of life and time, personality. The only memories they gained though were those pertaining solely to their duties towards the Princess. Ami sighed again, it seemed even in the past they did not exist beyond their roles as senshi.
She pulled her cap tightly over her mussed hair and strode out into the snow. The snow stung her eyes as she walked aimlessly through the deepening drifts. Destiny, fate, she seemed to grant only loneliness for each of them. Her thoughts whirled: we are all alone, floating with our only attachment to Usagi through duty, friendship, loyalty. We are stuck in this cycle without even the comfort or distraction of family. Only Usagi had a mother and father, even a brother in this life. The others, all of us, were without: Makoto losing her parents; Rei abandoned by her father with only her grandfather to care for her; Minako isolated by her early career...and I, a ghost mother and a father even more distant. She closed her eyes listening to the soft sound of snow falling: there was a melody in it fainter than rain. I just want to know who I am, who I was, to find ...fulfillment. She cupped her hands over the hollow ache in her chest. She wanted these lonely thoughts to be windblown away into the encroaching night. She opened her eyes, surprised to find herself in front of Mamoru's apartment. Feet where have you taken me? With a small shrug she rang the doorbell. She grabbed the door as the buzzer broke her reverie.
Mamoru rubbed his palms into his eyes. I'm tired of this. He started as the buzzer sounded for the door. He sighed audibly. Paul must have realized he forgot his toothbrush. He pushed his feet into his slippers leaning against the buzzer for the door. He pushed himself away from the wall and decided to give Paul at least a little bit of grief. Opening the door to the hallway, he almost closed it again. Ami was ascending the stairs, white toboggan haloing her blue hair,flurries of snow still clinging to her hair and jacket. Somehow he thought to smile even as guilt pounded his stomach over the stolen kiss. She smiled innocently in return unaware of the affect of her simple expression on Mamoru. He sighed softly under his breath as she walked past, a few cold snowflakes that had not melted stung his cheek. He rubbed his neck looking down at his wrinkled button down shirt, half untucked over his jeans.
"So what brings you here, Ami?" He desperately hoped he didn't sound as suspicious as he felt.
Ami turned around after hanging up her coat, letting silence settle around her before she turned to him with a gentle smile. "Just seeing how you are faring after finals." She looked him up and down doing a quick assessment before putting her hands on her hips, "Seems like I came just in time." Her head tilted, her smile askew as if hung up on a crooked joke.
Before Mamoru could stutter out some lame excuse for his behavior and attire, she took off towards the kitchenette. "Do you have any cocoa, Mamoru,"she called over her shoulder.
He finally came to his senses he was being a terrible host to his friend, gawking like some thunderstruck teenager. "Ami...I can..."
She poked her head around the corner, "No, no I realize I'm no Makoto in the kitchen but I think I can manage a simple pot of cocoa."
Mamoru eased back into his battered arm-chair, plucking at the spare threads on the arm. He felt crippled by guilt. He ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair. He couldn't say anything to Ami or Usagi. Hell, he didn't know what he would say anyway; he could barely puzzle out his own swirl of emotions. All he knew is that it would be a long Christmas break if he completely avoided Ami altogether. He slumped deeper into the chair. What have you done now, Chiba? Screwing up the future, your relationships with two of the sweetest women ever living? He straightened up as Ami came back in carrying two steaming mugs of cocoa.
"Be careful it's a bit hot still..." she delicately handed the cup to Mamoru, their fingers barely brushing. She studied her mug as she sat down, the slight touch of his fingers burned into her skin. She pulled away, almost hissing at the sharp sensation before sitting down quickly across from him. She brushed her hair away from her face carefully avoiding his eyes, composing her features before finally glancing up. The intense feeling, he must have felt it as well. Perhaps not. Ami turned her thoughts instead to the brief memory that had flickered in her mind earlier. Warm sake, a cup being raised to a smiling mouth, a deep laugh, the open collar. What could it mean? Why remember such a small event now?
Mamoru tentatively ran his fingers around the rim of the cup, the stickiness of the chocolate on his fingertips.
Ami cleared her throat and looked up nervously at him. "Mamoru, what do you remember of the Silver Millenium?" she finally asked in a hushed tone.
He stared at her for a moment trying to puzzle out intentions and memories. "I remember Serenity..." He paused. What DID he remember - bare scraps of memories, a skeleton actually...he remembered the Shitennou barely, their loyalty, his feelings of confidence and brotherhood with them but no childhood memories to sustain such emotions. He remembered his meetings with Serenity, her innocence and beauty shimmering brighter than the moon. He knew enough of Serenity to see the differences and similarities between her and Usako. The senshi, he remembered brief moments of seeing them like phantoms clinging and haunting the presence of his princess. Just impressions of his late life, he shook his head then studied Ami.
"I remember Serenity. Her, the other senshi, our duties, feelings of loyalty and love. But I can't remember Mercury all that well, nor my parents." Ami sighed softly.
"Why are you thinking about this now Ami?" Mamoru leaned forward taking a slow sip of his cocoa.
"Just today I had some memories return, not much." Her hands fluttered out of her lap. He leaned back again in the armchair, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He held out his hand, empty and waited for her to continue. "I'm not sure what it means. Just something I think related to this first snow. I saw or rather tasted warmed sake." Ami could picture the delicate porcelain cup steaming in her hand, her blue eyes reflected on its clear surface. "Then I could hear laughter, a man laughing..."
"Laughing at you?" he interjected.
"No, no, nothing like that. It was a gentle laugh. Mercury obviously enjoyed the company because I feel friendship, nostalgia." Ami stopped she suddenly realized that the loneliness, constant and aching had vanished ever so slightly with the memory's return. "I'm not certain why I would have such a memory right now or even what its significance is...I just..I don't know." She shrugged in defeat. She felt so tired of this confusion, over duties, over the past and the future all muddling up the present. She, for once, wanted to forget she was a senshi, but these other lifetimes kept invading her present life. She was less than the snow, less than the ghost of snow feeding off of bare memories and glimpses of a far off future.