Author's Note: So in case you missed it, the fabulous Beej88 just gifted me AMAZING FANART for chapter 3 (go tell her how gorgeous it is!), not to mention all of y'all giving me such a warm response on chapter 4 about poor Usagi's denial getting shattered, sooo I kind of rushed this chapter out over the long weekend.

What can I say, you all got me jazzed up about my own work LOL

Thank you so so much, everyone who left me kind words (or just excited screaming), and eternal gratitude to my wonderful beta FloraOne for all her support, suggestions, help with Japanese culture, and indulging all my silly, over-the-top tropiness with similar levels of enthusiasm.

You're the best!

Chapter 5 – Hey hey baby do you wanna come over

Her back hit Mamoru's front door, the heat of his body pressing her flush against it. His teeth nipped the sensitive skin of her throat as she keened, nails digging into the tweed of his jacket.

Her other hand fumbled to turn the doorknob, to shove her way into his small apartment, but the door was locked – and the keys were buried in Mamoru's pockets.

It was an excuse to twine her thumbs into his belt loops, pull his hips firmly to hers – an excuse she helplessly took. He pressed into her, the length of him hard against her belly, and she felt a rush of desire dampen her panties.

With a deep swallow, her hand slipped into the slight space between their bodies, sliding into his pocket. Her thumb stroked the underside of his dick, making him groan into her ear before her fingers closed around the cold metal of his keys.

Triumphant, she pulled the ring free. She paused to dig her teeth into the cords of his neck – unable to resist the urge – before she slid the key into the latch.

It turned easily, and they tumbled through the doorway, Mamoru's never-ending kiss pressing her backwards and backwards until she stumbled on the lip of the genkan.

His palm caught the small of her back, his other arm tight around her shoulders as he lowered her down, settling her gently on the floor of his living room.

A tremor passed over her as his feather-light fingers traced her kneecap and along her thigh, dragging her skirt up to reveal the pink lace she wore underneath.

It was his turn to bite, white teeth nipping at the tendons of her inner thigh, making her gasp and tremble as he pushed her legs apart. Then, the pads of his fingers slipped under the band of her panties and found her clit, and she found herself thanking every deity she could think of for the preciseness of his surgeon's touch. He seemed to intuitively know which side of her clit was more sensitive and danced along the line, keeping her whirling on the edge of sensation without once threatening to overwhelm her.

There must be other girls, the half-formed thought bubbled through her daze of pleasure, and even the thrashing of her head wasn't enough to shake it loose. No one just knew how to do this.

She'd been skipping her classes, abusing the flexibility of her shuukatsu not to actually talk to potential employers, but to secretly follow him for over a week now. Immature as she knew it was, she couldn't seem to stop, hoping to catch another glimpse of his smile, to see how different he was with the girls who weren't her.

But so far, her efforts had been fruitless. Each attempt to follow him seemed to end the same way, with him almost immediately noticing her lurking, and her surrendering to the lure of his kisses just as quickly – this was the sixth time this week that she'd ended up on her back on his apartment floor.

Unless Mamoru was planning to bring someone home for a threesome, it was going to be hard to scope out her competition from there.

But in this moment? She couldn't find it in her to care.

Her fingers, so clumsy compared to his, fumbled across the front of his pants, finding the zip and pulling it down.

His practiced touch faltered for just a moment as she slipped her hand inside his boxers, squeezing tight around his cock. But then, his fingers were in motion again, driving her out of her mind.

Despite her best efforts, every nerve in her body thrummed, pleasure radiating out from between her legs. She could do little more than clench and unclench her fingers around Mamoru's now-exposed cock, trying to please him too as she babbled inanely. "Yes, god, there there there."

With no interruption to his unceasing stroking, his other hand tugged her panties partway down her hips, and he slipped two fingers just inside her.

The soft flutter mixed with his steady stroking and it was too much.

She split apart, quaked and cried out and tightened her grip to a point that must have been painful. Through her haze, she thought she heard him cry out too, thought she felt something warm and wet splash across the skin of her throat, but she was too preoccupied, too overwhelmed, too boneless to think about any of that.

As her breathing evened back out, her mind rebooting from the onslaught of pleasure, she realized that she was now lying alone on the living room floor – Mamoru had slipped away from her already.

Her stomach sank as she sat up, mind whirling. Had she hurt him, there at the end? Was he mad at her?

Preparing to make a speedy exit, she reached up to fix her clothes – and realized with a jolt that the front of her shirt was splattered with cum.

At that moment, Mamoru emerged from the bathroom, ears red and a damp cloth clutched in one hand. "Sorry," he muttered as he offered it to her. "I didn't mean to get you."

She took the towel and dabbed at her clothes, relieved at least that in her blissed-out and incoherent state she hadn't accidentally caused him pain. The opposite, apparently.

As she cleaned herself, leaving damp splotches across her pink button-down, she realized it wasn't just her shirt – her neck and chin were also slick with his release. Her skin warmed as she scrubbed it clean, then glanced up again to find Mamoru standing in the little hallway. One hand was buried in his pocket, the other held out blindly, apparently waiting for her to give back the cloth. He resolutely studied the vase of roses on his genkan cabinet, as though he was afraid that if he met her eyes, they would need to discuss what had just happened.

She almost snorted at the absurdity of the thought, as if there a world where Mamoru would be willing to discuss sex or feelings or... anything with her, really.

He probably thought she was going to tease him for being quick on the draw.

Once, she might have. But he wasn't, really, and she'd definitely still gotten off, so even if he was, what would it matter?

If he'd been anyone else, she might even have been a little flattered. A few times in the past she'd had a boyfriend lose it early because the sex was so hot – although the idea of something like that happening to the eternally cool and regimented Chiba Mamoru was even more ridiculous than a world where they shared their feelings with each other.

She blew out a little breath, slapping the soiled towel into Mamoru's hand.

His fingers closed around it like a vice, and he disappeared almost instantly into the tiny off-suite bathroom.

Sucking in her lips, she attempted to rearrange her hair, straighten out her rumpled outfit. Tried again not to think about the way he'd looked at her the day of her terrible interview, the moment that had set this whole mess spiraling painfully into motion.

Maybe Mamoru at least thought the sex was a little bit hot. He had to, right? To keep doing it?

Nothing in this world was enough to make her ask.

He reemerged and paused in the hall with an owlish blink, like he hadn't expected he'd find her still sitting on his apartment floor. Like she should have slipped out while he was still in the bathroom and saved them both the trouble.

Her heart pinched.

"Uh. Did you… did you want something to eat?" he tilted his head at the small kitchenette, and she shrugged. After the way he'd just looked at her, all she wanted to do was go home and sob into a pillow, but that would mean questions from Minako and Luna.

His mouth pulled into a frown. "Are you sick?" he asked after a long moment, and she crossed her arms over her damp chest protectively.

His eyes seemed to follow the motion of her arms, momentarily hovering over her breasts and then immediately darting away, as though he couldn't stand to even look at her.

He was so visibly uncomfortable, so clearly eager to be rid of her, and whatever appetite she might still have had shriveled up completely.

"Just because I'm not hungry it doesn't mean I'm sick, Mamoru-baka."

He arched an obnoxiously elegant eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes.

"Or that the apocalypse is imminent. I'm allowed to not be hungry occasionally."

He tilted his head, the way she'd seen him do sometimes before she left when he was sitting in bed reconciling his notes with his readings, like he wasn't sure all the information was quite right.

"Do you at least want a Crunky bar for the road?"

For the road. No question that she wouldn't be staying. Maybe somebody else was coming over and that was why he was trying to shoo her out. Seemed stupid to bring her back here in the first place if he had another date coming over so soon after, but sometimes guys seemed to think with their dicks more than their brains.

"Nah, I'm good," she said, scooting her butt along the floor so she could settle her feet – still clad in her Mary Jane shoes – back in the genkan.

"See you," she said, and glanced over to find him smirking at the ground.

"Probably sooner than I think."

Her already fragile heart bottomed out.

She'd hoped he hadn't made the connection, hadn't noticed she'd been around so much, but six sexual encounters in as many days was kind of a lot, even for them. He knew to look for her now.

But how else was she supposed to get intel on his other sexual partners? It would all be fine if he would just stop noticing her so damn quick. If she could hide… better...

Oh.

Wait.

Now, she definitely couldn't go home and cry, because there was no way in hell that Luna was ever going to sign off on this new plan.

Her heartbeat was unreasonably fast considering that she knew that Mamoru wouldn't be able to recognize her. Maybe her pulse was up because she was breaking the rules – Luna had told her the disguise pen was only for official Senshi business, and so far she'd abided by that.

Until now.

She'd borrowed the form of some gorgeous model from one of Minako's magazine covers – because if she was going to do this, she was going to do this – and had posted up on the street outside Mamoru's apartment, waiting for him to come down.

She was ready to see what exactly it was he got up to when he didn't think Tsukino Usagi was watching.

Nothing.

She'd been following him for the last five hours, and the answer was a big, fat nothing.

He'd gone to the library and returned books and hadn't even flirted with the cute librarian.

He'd gone to the Crown and drank coffee with Motoki and whirled to look behind him every time the entry bell chimed.

And then his beeper had gone off, and he'd had to go report at the hospital. On the walk back to his motorbike, he hadn't even checked out any of the five or six different pretty girls they'd passed on the street.

This was weird.

She'd had to get the train, so it took her longer to make her way to the hospital, and then she'd had to turn herself into a lovely nurse so she could get past the waiting room. But, in the halls of the hospital, Mamoru was all polite professionalism.

No illicit makeouts in supply closets, no heated flirting with his patients, no casually inviting the prettiest nurses out to an izakaya after work. Just… cool, clinical detachment.

What was happening?

"Yamamiya-san." Mamoru clicked a pen and looked directly at her.

Nearly leaping out of her skin, she spun to check behind herself before looking down at the nametag pinned to her magenta scrubs, realizing embarrassingly late that he meant her.

"Um, yes, that's me!"

"Could you give Sato-san in bed eleven 50ccs of haloperidol and then do a blood draw on Masuda-san in bed thirty-one?"

Her eyes went big. She had very much not thought through the possibility of being asked to do nurse tasks when she'd snuck back here. She didn't even know what 50ccs meant.

"Um… well actually Chiba-sensei, my, um… my shift just ended? I was about to leave?"

He looked up from the chart in his hand, a distinct furrow between his eyebrows. It was the same kind of incredulous look he so frequently gave her when she wasn't disguised, the expression she not-so-affectionally thought of as his 'What, are you stupid?' look.

"Yamamiya-san, if your shift is over, you really shouldn't be out on the floor."

"I know that!" she snapped, even though she knew no such thing – she just hated that impatient tone. "I just, um." Her tongue darted out and moistened her lips. C'mon, this was the whole point of doing this. "I just thought maybe you'd like to get a drink with me after work? Maybe we could go to Hiroo Miya?"

She hadn't known it was possible, but his expression somehow became even more withering before he turned his gaze back to his chart, dismissing her. "No. Thank you."

Her heart seemed to shrink in her chest, even though she knew his ire wasn't really directed at her.

"Wh-why not?" The words slipped out without her consent.

He shrugged. "It would be pointless," he said, and turned and walked off the floor, leaving her standing alone on the ward between dozing patients.

The moment she was out of the hospital and able to breathe again, she slipped into an alley and dropped the transformation. Her mind was a gyroscope. She had no idea what to make of what had just happened, the puzzle of Mamoru's words. What did he mean, 'pointless'?

She wished she could talk to Ami, knowing her sensible friend would be able to work out what was going on – and that it was for that exact reason that she couldn't go to her.

Dropping her head low, she blew out a deep exhale and then raised her head as a jangling sound reached her ear. Not her communicator this time – her cell phone.

Sucking in on her cheek, she pulled the phone from her bag and clicked it open, pressing it to her cheek. "Hello hello?"

"Hi, is this Tsukino-san?"

"Yes, I am."

"This is Uchida Sachio from International Social Services Japan. We met the other day?"

She almost dropped her phone in shock. "Yes! Hi!"

"I was calling because we thought you'd be a great fit for our open caseworker position. I hope I'm catching you before you've accepted some other job!"

Her jaw went slack and she shook her head. "I'm sorry, you said… you said you want to offer me the job?"

"Yes, if it's not too late."

A bubble of emotion swelled in her belly and she took a sharp, nervous inhale. "No! I mean, yes! No, no it's not too late. And yes, I would love to take the job, th-thank you very much for trusting me with this opportunity."

"Wonderful! We'll be in touch with the details soon. You'll be able to start on the first of April?"

She nodded dumbly before realizing that she was still on the phone and Uchida-san couldn't see her. "Yes. Yes, absolutely. Thank you."

"Of course. I will send you the paperwork in the mail. The address on your CV is correct, I trust?"

"Yes!" She'd quadruple-checked, and then forced Minako to triple-check it, too.

"Sounds good. I look forward to working with you, Tsukino-san."

"You as well, Uchida-san."

"Take care."

The phone clicked off in her ear and she lowered her shaking hand to stare at it. She'd gotten the job. How had she gotten the job?

She'd done everything in the interview wrong. Her grades in university may have been a lot better than what they'd been in middle school, but they definitely weren't that good.

Her whirling brain ran through the phone call again – the parts she could remember, anyway – but this time, it snagged on an important part of the conversation: If it's not too late. I hope I'm catching you before you accepted another job.

The momentary happy bubble of excitement in her belly deflated.

They really had offered the job to other people first. Other, more qualified, didn't-blow-their-interview people, who'd already got other jobs and turned it down.

Her bottom lip wobbled and she dragged the back of her hand along her cheekbone.

She'd gotten a job in her field. She'd finished her shuukatsu with time to spare – she wouldn't end up having to move home with her parents, shamed and disgraced. This was a huge accomplishment.

So why did she feel so much worse?

AN: For those of you screaming in the comments for Usagi to just talk to Mamoru already… isn't this so much more in character? LOL sorry not sorry, see you next time 😘

PS: Beej's art is viewable here (remove the spaces and replace the dots with periods): daikon1 dot tumblr dotcom / post / 655789628207579136 / oh-my-god-thank-you-its-so-so-good-you