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He had been sitting there for hours, just staring out of the window. Whatever was out there, he didn't see it. He simply didn't care. His own mind seemed to him like a bottomless pit. He fell; there was nothing to hold onto and no way to stop. It couldn't be real. But he knew it was.
It seemed strange to Mamoru, that he didn't feel any pain, although he perfectly knew, that Rei had told him the truth. Everything inside him was numb, like someone feels the moment after a strike, being only seconds away from the pain. The fact that he was only on the brink of conciousness, didn't make it seem less real. He couldn't grasp a clear thought, but neither could he conceal the truth inside this mist of emptiness.
He had known something was terribly wrong the very moment she stood on his doorstep. And he had guessed the truth before she had spoken it out aloud. There had been an accident she said, there was nothing they could have done. While she told him everything, she seemed strangely calm.
"You can call me", she had said after he had asked her to leave. "We're all at my place; none of us wants to be alone tonight. We're not going to school tomorrow either."
They were right about staying together. It couldn't make things easier, but it was something to hold onto. Clinging to each other would keep them from falling.
A long time ago, it had gotten dark outside, but he saw no need to turn on the light. What did he want to look at anyway? A home that wasn't a home anymore? It would never be the same. Without Usako his life was empty. Nothing would ever make sense again.
The ring at the door startled him, an unpleasant sound cutting through the darkness. After a while, the bell rang again and then he heard someone unlock the door. Not a hard guess. Only two more people had a key to his apartment and one of them was dead.
"Go away, Motoki-kun," he said, as his best friend turned on the light. "Leave me alone!"
Motoki slowly walked across the room and sat down on the couch, facing Mamoru. "Make me!"
Mamoru jumped up "Get out!" he yelled. "I'm not telling you again!"
Motoki stood up too and grabbed Mamoru's shoulders. His voice was dangerously soft, growing louder as he spoke "Now listen! You can yell around as much as you want! Hit me, if that makes you feel better! But I am not leaving! I won't leave you alone tonight! Got that?" He almost screamed the last words. "I wanna know if you understood me!"
Mamoru nodded. "Good," said Motoki and sat back down again. For a while they stared at each other in silence.
"Afraid I was gonna jump out the window?" Mamoru scowled at him.
"Damn straight!" Motoki didn't take his eyes off, and Mamoru was the first one to look away. For the next few minutes neither one spoke, until Mamoru finally asked him:"Who told you?"
"Rei did. She called me up, and told me to come over! I would have anyway!"
"Motoki-kun, I can't talk about this! I just can't!"
His thoughts wandered off to the pictures on his desk, in the other room. His parents, Usako, Chibi-Usa. Memories. Not even complete ones. Would Chibi-Usa vanish from the pictures, now that she would never be born?
He was afraid to check. The mere thought made him shiver.
He reached for the remote. "Probably they bring something about it on the news. I should have thought of that earlier."
"Do you really think this is a good idea?"
"I want to know." He skipped through the channels. Finally he found a program on the science channel with a self-important scientist talking about vulcanic activity on the Japanese islands during the last ten years.
"Contrary to the opinion of my honored collegues, I am not utterly convinced that the earthquake taking place in East Tokyo during the early morning hours of today was exclusivly caused by vulcanic activity." He waved a paper showing a few mathematic functions.
"Yeah right!" was Motoki's comment. "It was the aliens! It's about time we got our own Area 51"
The scientist now showed something else, the computer graphics of an explosion. "If we assume, a small nuclear explosion took place about several miles below the surface, the outcome would match exactly that of an earthquake this strengh."
"Yeah right," Motoki said again. "Looks like they're dropping some more bombs on us."
"Do you know this guy?" Mamoru suddenly wanted to know.
"Tanaka Ichiro. He does teach at the University now and then, but I was fortunate enough never to have him as a teacher in any of my classes. He's a little weird, you know. He always has these crazy theories about government conspiracies."
In fact Tanaka was now talking about a secret testing of nuclear weapons. Mamoru turned off the TV. The sudden silence felt like the attack of an enemy.
At the Hikawa Shinja no one was asleep, save for Minako, who lay curled up next to Makoto with her head resting in the other girl's lap and her face still showing streaks from tears. The others sat on the tatami mats, huddled around the fireplace. Ami was desperately clinging to a book she had not even once looked at, but she wouldn't let go either.
Rei stared into the flames. The fire, a friend that had often brought her comfort, seemed as lifeless as everything around her. She couldn't remember any time in her life when she had felt so lost and alone before. Yet the others looked to her for guidance. They expected her to tell them what to do, as if she knew it for herself.
She envied Minako for her easy tears. Tears melted the cold grip inside your chest. But somehow she didn't want that grip to melt just yet.
If she had been there one moment earlier, just one moment...
A noise ripped her from her thoughts, painfully loud in the silent room. Ami's book had dropped to the ground.
Ami covered her face with both hands and Makoto put her free arm around her, pulling her close. Minako stirred in her sleep.
Something inside Rei wanted to go over to them, feel the warmth of their bodies, and the comfort of their presence. But she couldn't bear the thought of being touched; she knew that she would crack like thin ice and crumble to dust. And the others needed her. She couldn't allow herself to break, not just now.
She got up and walked over to them, hugging Ami, who cried without a sound; her body shaken wildly by sobs.
Minako slowly opened her eyes in disbelief. It had not been a nightmare, it was real.
With all of a sudden Makoto jumped up, racing to the wall. Again and again, she smashed her fist into the wood.
"It's not fair!" she yelled. "How could she leave us alone? It's not fair!"
She fell to the ground, as if someone had pulled her legs away. Her hand was bleeding. Ami and Minako clung to eacher other, trembling.
Rei wrapped her handkerchief around Makoto's hand and led her back to the fireplace. Indifferently, almost like a puppet Makoto let everything happen to her. It was like the real Makoto was far away from them and could not be reached.
"Listen," Rei said, shaking Makoto until her eyes went clear again. "Listen to me, all of you!" She stretched out her arms placing her hands right over the flames. "I want you to make a promise now. I want you to promise that you never, no matter what the circumstances might be … that you never tell Mamoru what happened last night. No, not promise, I want you to swear it. Not to me, not to yourself, this is a vow, we all give to her. Anyone who breaks it dishonors not only herself but her remembrance."
"I swear!" Makoto's hands were first.
"Cross my heart and hope to die!" That was Minako.
"To Usagi-chan!" Ami was the only one who dared to speak the name aloud. It sounded like a magical spell.
For a long while they stood silently around the flames, holding hands, and letting their thoughts drift. And for just a short moment all the pain and the loneliness faded. They all felt the same; it was like she had joined their midst for an instant.
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