AN: This is a one-shot A/U where Usagi is 21. She's responsible and mostly mature. Hope you enjoy!
Part 0
Relief overtook Usagi as she slumped onto her bed from the month's worth of activities. Too often had she been told certain priorities had precedence in her life, and so she'd been shuffled this way and that for the past month.
Go to class. Finish the homework. Attend seminars. Interview for jobs. Take responsibility.
Her life seemed full and meaningless in one kaleidescope scene after another. Everything appeared to be dictated, orchestrated to suit a need not her own. It had not been long since she was told that she was "grown up" and needed to "learn some responsibility," yet something in the back of her mind told her this wasn't what she had been searching for.
Quite persistently her subconscious knawed at her almost imploring her to find the answer it wouldn't ask the question for. The thought of it surged unspeakable frustration over how helpless she truly was to quell the yearning for what she didn't know.
Overtaken by confusion and exhaustion, she faded into soft slumber having wrapped the sheets around her.
"If only.." her mind thought as it quickly lost its battle against the impending rest her body commanded.
Part 1
Tumbled in her sheets, her unconscious slipped into quandary trying to grasp the last meaning of the ebbing memory of the dream.. Twisted in the once-consoling warmth, frightened panic gripped her as the heat became suffocating. Once on the floor, her body stopped fighting inanimacy to notice her very tangible surroundings.
Texts, notes, books strewn about the carpet looked back with accusatory eyes demanding attention never paid. Clothes lay in small heaps akin to the mounds of dirt unearthed by ants. Lines of business cards, company memorabilia, papers, and flyers littered the only free space untaken by the books and clothes. Every corner and crevice of the room teemed with the implication that its situation had purpose. Her cat, Luna, having fallen fast asleep on one of the cleaner piles of clothing.
"Sigh," she breathed. "I really ought to clean my room."
Her body fought her mind's urge to get out from under the covers. Something within her willed her to return from the futon from whence she fell... and another half told her to get out of her current position.
It had been early afternoon when she fell into slumber. Now broaching upon lucid, the dull green of her clock blared the ungodly hour of 3 AM. All decent people having gone to bed hours ago leaving her wondering what could possibly have gotten her up.
Part 2
It always, always takes forever just to find a moment.
Blink. A translation. Suddenly her world altered to embrace a different light.
She looked to the world outside. A single man sat on a bench on top of the grass outside her third story apartment. He was illuminated by the street lamp which hung its head a mere five feet above his, gazing down, seemingly drawn by the man's obvious state of calm yet deep repose.
He was dark, yet somewhat outlined by the streetlamp, and she could make out a dark green jacket, with the man's head covered in shadows.
The girl was taken aback somehow, startled at the sudden life this man seemed to bring, personifying all. Yet something familiar took her, like the feeling the way her mother's food had made her feel when she was sick.
It was comfortable, warm, embracing.
The man took another moment and then looked around, searching for something in the black. He stood to get perspective, but the gloom seemed too oppressive to find anything beyond the light of the lamppost. He cocked his head to the side, straining for a sign, a sound, or a glimmer of light that would signal the arrival of whatever it was he was seeking with such intent.
The girl could not help but watch. She kneeled down by the windowsill and crossed her arms, exposing only her eyes. Time passed. She waited with the man for hours that night. Watching the man sit, stand, always watching in the distance for something just out of reach. She knew about things just out of reach, she knew that that last inch to the end of the rope was always the hardest. She dared to ask herself if it would ever come. Where could it be?
It dawned on her a few hours later that the sun did not appear to want to rise. Had it been it waiting for him, too?
Her eyes reached out to him. She wanted so badly to know what this man desired so much, but more that that, she wanted the man to find it. He needed it, he needed to discover again this thing so close to his heart, this thing growing ever closer to hers. She wanted the man to be happy, yet she did find comfort in knowing that someone else waited, someone else just couldn't find what they were looking for. She couldn't find it, and the more she looked the less likely she seemed to think she'd ever see it. Was it even real? Or was it a figment, an elusive hope, a dream that she could not quite remember? Did he know for what he searched?
And then, there out in the darkness, the man saw it. She could see the man's face, and from it she knew he had found what he had been seeking.
"I'm right here", the girl whispered, "I'm right here". The man looked up. Somehow the lamppost seemed to be straining to be noticed, too, and it's light bled across the man, creating a halo that encircled him completely as he stared upward at the object of his desire. His mouth was agape, and it seemed that every breath he took was a Herculean effort for him. He stretched his arm upwards toward her and shedding a single tear he let himself say slowly, and deliberately:
"I didn't know what I was looking for until I found it. Thank you for discovering me, thank you for discovering yourself." Mamoru chuckled, and then choked on the last words.
"You are so bright..."
The clock struck 3:01.