Author: Abigail aka Moonchild aka Drive Me Mercury
Email: abigail@makenai.org
Rating: PG-13
Chapter started: 1-02-03 Chapter ended:
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters and settings belong to the one-and-only Naoko Takeuchi. All created characters and plots within this story are my own.
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*Chapter 4*
-Chasing After You-
Miya's mind was a storm of questions and confusion. Those men on stage – Three Lights – who were they? Did they have some connection with her own past? And if not, why had she felt such a strange connection with them? In their song, she had been drawn into the melody and it felt as if they were singing solely for her. They each had incredible auras, like she had felt from no other human before, but she was drawn toward Seiya's more than the others, and she couldn't understand why. Since she was a young child she had felt things and sensed things that other children might laugh at if they knew, but never like this. Never with this intensity.
Which was why she now had burning desire to find out exactly what kind of people Three Lights were.
She couldn't believe her luck when she spotted the figure escaping in the opposite direction that most of the crowd was dispersing in now that the concert was over. She squinted in the sunlight to make sure her eyes hadn't deceived her. He was now wearing a rumpled gray T-shirt and worn jeans, hands shoved deep into the pockets. He kept his head down so that his face was shielded by the low brim of a dark baseball cap, which also served to hide the long black tail tucked underneath its crown. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes - but his aura was unmistakable.
The other two were nowhere in sight, but the fangirl screams directed at a departing black limousine were an obvious hint. That only made Miya wonder why her stalkee was not with them. Perhaps the limo was nothing but a decoy.
She lost him several times among all the people, only to spot the ubiquitous figure once again, walking away at a steady pace like a thief hoping to blend in and escape unnoticed. Once away from the throng and back on the normal streets, he slowed his steps. Miya followed at a safe distance, even though the man seemed too absorbed in his own thought to notice the short girl lingering several yards behind.
At one point he stopped in front of a flower shoppe, as something in the window display seemed to attract his attention. Oblivious to anyone around him (in the same way all except one person on the street paid no attention to him), his fingertips lifted to touch the glass that stood between him and a lovely bouquet – small, delicate orange-colored blossoms gathered in clusters on their stem, framed by long tendrils of green leaf. From her vantage behind a streetlight, Miya watched the private moment in silence. She didn't even know him, but she wanted to know what he was thinking, and what was troubling him. Did the flower hold a special meaning for him? After several seconds, he turned to walk away, but then another sight in the window caught his eye. His hand drifted from the orange flowers to another one.
Miya craned her neck trying to see what his new object of attention was, but his body blocked her view. Intensely curious, she stepped out… straight into the path of a woman with an armful of groceries. She cringed at the sound of twelve aluminum soda cans clattering to the ground together with several other goods, as she stuttered a quick apology. The noise startled Seiya from his reverie and he looked straight in their direction. Feeling her heart jump like she'd just been caught, Miya ducked behind the woman she'd just bumped into busying herself with picking up the spilled groceries. When she popped her head up several seconds later, he was already walking the opposite direction. She abandoned the already irritated woman to her own mess to start following her target again before she lost him. But before she did, she peered in the flower shoppe window and saw the second thing that Seiya had been so interested in:
Pink roses.
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"Didn't you feel it? During the last song."
"You think it was –her-?"
"It wasn't the Princess," the auburn-haired man stated matter-of-factly as he set his teacup down on the coffee table. "It's not the same energy."
Now away from the overwhelming crowds and fans, Three Lights were back in their modest private apartment. The room was dim, since no one had bothered to turn on a light while the sun slipped slowly behind the city skyline. The one who had just spoken was Taiki, tallest and most level-headed of the three. Yaten, the silver-haired shortest band member, lay stretched along the length of the sofa, slippered feet propped up on one of the cushioned arms. Meanwhile Seiya, their raven-haired companion and passionate leader, paced the floor, uncharacteristically deep in thought. He had opted to walk home today after the concert instead of riding with Taiki and Yaten, but the long walk hadn't helped to clear his head. He probably had more questions now than ever before.
"Then who?"
"What does it matter?" Seiya stopped midstep. "It was an answer, wasn't it? We know that our message is reaching someone. That's hope, isn't it?"
This caused Yaten sit upright and confront his partner. "We don't want it to reach anyone but her! Our message is only for one person, Seiya. And one person alone."
"I know that, Yaten," Seiya glared, resenting the hidden accusation in the other boy's tone. The other two could never understand his feelings.
"All we can do is keep singing," Taiki stated.
The silver-haired idol fell back onto the sofa with a sigh. "I'm tired of singing," he whimpered.
"For god's sake, Yaten, quit complaining! You're the one who just said we're doing this for our Princess' sake," Seiya snapped, not in the mood to be compassionate, even if he did feel the same way.
"Stop it," Taiki interjected, ever the peacemaker.
Yaten returned a deadly glare at Seiya but let it drop. After another disappointing concert, he didn't have the will or energy to argue tonight. He watched the arms of the ceiling fan move lazily around their axle. Turning, turning, but never going anywhere. After a minute or so, he broke the silence. "If it wasn't the Princess, whose energy was that today?"
"I don't believe it was any human's," Taiki replied, taking up his tea again.
"An enemy, then?"
Yaten craned his neck around when Seiya seemed to ignore the conversation and move with a sudden urgency toward the apartment's single window. "What are you doing?" he frowned.
"I saw something move outside." His two companions only exchanged cocked-eyebrow glances while Seiya shoved the window upward to let in the cool evening air and stuck his head outside.
The alley was empty. Was it his imagination? But he could swear that for just a moment he had seen a face – a child's face. 'You've really lost it, Seiya. Now you're having hallucinations.' Perhaps he was just tired, but the image of that face kept coming back to him – the one in the front row of today's audience. For some reason she felt oddly familiar and he couldn't place why. Yet at the same time he knew he'd never seen her before in his life. And the mysterious response to their song that day made the feeling even stranger. A slight breeze played through the window and tingled on his skin, sending the slightest shiver through his body.
"I'm sure it was nothing but a cat or a rat on the windowsill," Taiki spoke.
"Yeah, close the window already," Yaten grumbled. "That alleyway stinks."
"In any case," Taiki continued with the previous conversation, "it may have been an enemy, but I don't think we should be worrying about it. It was too faint to warrant much concern."
"No… it was stronger," Seiya spoke softly to the quiet alleyway… unaware that he had just been overheard by a small figure pressed against the brick building exactly beneath him.
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Authors notes: This chapter was supposed to be longer, but as I'd fallen behind and people were already asking when it would be out, I decided to post what I had written. I'll try to make the next chapter longer. If you're wondering what the flowers are supposed to mean that Seiya was looking at, yes, there's a bit of symbolism there. The orange flowers are obviously olive blossoms and represent Kakyuu. And if you read the prologue you can figure out who the pink roses are. I never meant to carry that metaphor beyond the prologue but perhaps now I'll make it a theme running through the whole story.
Thank you so much all the readers. ^_~ And if you ever want to make a comment or suggestion or just say hi, drop me an email.
