NOTE: So, not quite a WiP, while being one. Yeah. Despite having already started Part III, please don't expect anything out on a schedule, or even relatively expediently. I don't do schedules or expedience well, I'm afraid.
In A Foreign Land – Part II: Confrontation
Ami is still convinced that she will be moving out soon. She says it to herself in the shower at night, with the sometimes-hot-sometimes-not shower pounding on her back, to ease away the muscle strain of carrying so many books in her new book bag. There, in the small, curtained shower, no one can hear her talk to herself and tease her, and she can hear herself form the words within the roar of the pummeling water.
Sometimes, she knows, it is better to speak, than to just think. It is not an easy thing for her, however, and so she does it in secrecy.
In the morning, she mouths it in front of the mirror, after she rolls out of bed at the chirping sound of her alarm clock, and the muffled thud and creative curses of Mamoru falling onto the floor in his room across the hall. Instead of remembering all those times that Usagi has complained about Mamoru being such a morning person and realizing that, no, he isn't really a morning person, he just does what he has to do, and ungracefully, at that, she watches her lips shape the words while she brushes out her short locks, and when she cannot because she is busy brushing her teeth, she thinks them.
It is repetitive, mechanical. There is no feeling in it. Because, despite the words, sometimes spoken and sometimes not, it is really only a superficial conviction: she doesn't really believe it.
If she believed it, she would have already moved out, would have found her own apartment or signed up for a last minute dorm room. Would already have been picking out nice reading lamps to put beside her comfortable sofa. She comes from money, after all, and does not have to live in a dump like the one Mamoru rents out.
I am leaving as soon as I find a place, she murmurs, the sound of water like many troubled heartbeats all around her. She welcomes the cold water that the heater supplies, the temperature calling to the icy strength hidden inside her. I have no attachments here. We are bound only by a duty that has no place here, in this time of peace, in this new, foreign school.
In her dreams, she curls up on an old divan, an American Sailor V poster across from her, and a good book in her hands, and Mamoru walks casually over to turn on the garage sale lamplight. She smiles up at him, and wakes with a silent, trembling cry.
III
"Let's go out for lunch."
Ami cannot hear him, because her headphones are on, and her music is loud to block out the nonsense-thoughts that always run around her mind, like hyperactive children pointing to anything and everything and asking, "What's this?" and "Why?" and a thousand other things. She could get lost in her mind if she let herself. She cannot hear him, but she can read his lips, easily, and she thinks, Yes, because we eat lunch together all the time, and a change might be fun.
They have never eaten a meal together since her first night there.
She opens her mouth to speak, and when she cannot hear her words she realizes that she has forgotten to take off her headphones. She blushes, and remedies the matter. "Are you sure?"
Mamoru blinks at her, as though she has just asked the stupidest thing on the planet. In the back of her mind, something riffles through her memories and remembers that he does that a lot during senshi meetings, and that Usagi used to – and still does, in fact – get blinked at a lot. Ami doesn't let it bother her. She knows that she is not stupid.
"Of course. Why else would I ask?"
For a lot of things: as a joke, as a prank, to get answers from me, to get something else from me. Her mind, ever quick, brings up memories better left forgotten. A lot of things; I know.
But this is Mamoru, future King of the Earth and Usagi's sweetheart. He is not using her, at least, not in those ways - no, not in those ways. He has different motives, she is sure, and wonders if it is cruelty or obliviousness that makes him use that phrase. He does not know what a knife it can form, to whittle away pieces of your soul when you are unsuspecting.
Ami has taught herself to always be aware of the ways of the wicked. Ignorance is not bliss.
"All right. Let me put my books and notes up, and I'll grab my shoes and we can go, okay?" The smile he shines on her could light up the world, and Ami reminds herself that she's supposed to be moving, not staring like a star-struck groupie. That was always more Minako and Makoto's forte, than hers.
Right, she thinks. Moving; acting instead of reacting, and her mind buzzes with possible scenarios and ulterior motives. She has been a soldier for years, and she is brave enough; and she knows, now that she has grown out of her childhood, that it is better to go for the jugular from the get go. That way she will not be distracted by false hopes for long.
She is a very cynical person, she realizes, and even all of Usagi's goodness has not managed to change that fact; has not managed to balance out the harsh lessons nerdy, outcast Ami learned young.
Why would he ask, indeed?
III
Lunch is spaghetti and cool iced tea at an outdoor café, where they can sit and watch children play across the street. It's picturesque and expensive, and Ami uses logic to convince a logical mind to allow her to pay for herself. Mamoru is an orphaned college student, after all, and Ami has her wallet with her.
They pass the time with nonsense talk, about classes and professors, entering for a few minutes into a gentle banter over the pros and cons of leaving in the West Hall vending machines or extricating them in order to have a deli, and what would be the best campaign effort to bring the school populace to their side - a logical or emotional appeal, or a simple appeal to their bellies?
It's nice, enjoyable, and Ami allows herself to appreciate being with a person whom she doesn't have to curb her language around. She could use five syllable scientific terms or Latin verbs, conjugated, and not have to worry about explaining what, exactly, she is on about after.
It's dangerous, she reminds herself, knowing that she could be falling into a trap, or climbing up to better the fall when reality and people let her down, again, and for an afternoon does not care.
But in the end, she chastises herself for allowing her emotions to overrule her mind, and knows that she needs to end this, to scrape away the prettiness to get to the possible ugliness underneath. She hasn't been able to talk to Usagi on the phone without her trying to cajole her into staying, the strange, silly, overly trusting girl, and Ami is getting wearied by it.
Casually, as they are strolling through the park, eating ice cream and admiring the way the trees are just beginning to turn, Mamoru says, "By the way, there's a nice swimming pool not two blocks from here."
Ami cannot help herself. She is too tired to be timid, and this feels far too much like a date for her peace of mind. "You're trying to bribe me into staying, aren't you?" She should blush, but she doesn't; her eyes narrow instead.
Glancing sideways at her, Mamoru blinks, and this time it isn't the stupid-blink, but something a little more like startled respect, and Ami thinks she could get used to that. She doesn't want to get used to that. "Yes," he says, candidly.
Ami nods, "I thought so. Why?"
At this, Mamoru's eyebrows shoot up, and he gives her a stupid-stare, which is even worse than the stupid-blink. She frowns, her face flushing, and she doesn't know why she's getting so worked up, but she is. "I have my suspicions," she defends herself, "but they're only hypothetical, not conclusive, and why shouldn't I ask you, after all?"
Beneath her words lies an echo that sounds uncomfortably like why should I trust you.
"Alright," he concedes, perhaps hearing what she doesn't say. "Because I need someone to room with me; I can't afford the rent on my own."
Ami wonders if he is being purposely dumb, and then chastises herself for being so mean, even though, she knows, she has been meaner to other people in her thoughts that day. "And me? Why me, specifically?"
"Well you're here, aren't you?"
And that is possibly the rudest, truest, simplest, purest thing he could have said, that Ami wants to hit him for it and thank him at the same time. "I don't believe you," she says instead, in a moment of daring boldness. "I don't believe that that's all it is. What do you want?"
Mamoru looks at her, bewildered, and says nothing.
III
Fin.