MAKES YOU CRY
Shiny cocktail dresses and ironed suits, tonight's fancy banquet guarantees its guests with class and sophistication.
Within a crowd, "A toast... to the New Year, and to good resolutions."
Taiki rose her glass in her deepest appreciation to sweet acquaintances, friends and family. They all join the toast as Seiya's direction wanders towards Usagi. Usagi, the flirt, gazes back with a blatant smile and following the intensions of desire to escape this place. She stands, as well does she—Seiya. And the room filled with applaud.
However tonight's amusement resulted itself the inevitable downside of drunken laughs and too much to say towards one another. The music changes.
It had not been half an hour, nor barely an hour until countdown, and already had the celebration gone out of hands. Drunken laughs and there. Some visitors watch in irritation and one murmurs to another, "...These people...have no shame in themselves..."
"May I have this dance?"
Seiya bows and takes Usagi's hand. Despite receiving another awkward reaction, she accepts her in no time. She laughs...
"—and smiles so willingly. It's been a while."
Mamoru keeps to his natural place among his group of elites, men who talk of nothing but their own success. Because they were the important ones of this universe. His bubbling champagne swirls with confusion, stirring in his head. Thirty minutes to countdown and already the men and women share their kisses for an aura of romance.
Mamoru continues to watch his smiling Odango dance with the Star Fighter, in jealousy and bare drowsiness. When he leaves for his private balcony, he sees it already occupied by another one of the kinsmen's escorts. Yaten, the universal Star Healer, appears to be a little intoxicated herself whilst on top of the rose-covered balcony. She glances down the rippling well of the mansion's garden, then up towards the stars in the sky. Mamoru now watches her soothe herself into the cool breeze of the night. But she quickly turns to who had joined her company, "Mamoru, you've come to join me?"
He nods and sets down his glass. "Shouldn't you be socializing inside?"
She accidentally spills her champagne onto roses in attempts to clutch the liquid which sprinkled its petals. She picks off a single flower that had absorbed the wine, and she holds it against herself, feeling its soft petals against her cheek. Crimson. Its thorns prick her chest and onto her heart.
Mamoru observes Yaten's dramatic sways and caresses. She seems, however, to enjoy herself under the moon's light while dancing by the remote sounds of the music. She clinched when a thorn had finally marked across her skin.
"Are you alright?" He asks. "It's getting cold. You should come inside."
"I'm fine." She smears the blood off her cut. A cool breeze blew in from the balcony giving her bare shoulders a shiver. "I'd like to borrow your jacket, if you wouldn't mind."
Mamoru handed it to her. She quickly revises herself from what she thought might have been a commotion if she carried on to make a fool out of herself. He became content.
A closer glimpse of her eyes and her face are hidden in shadow, but the light of the moon traces her figure. The moon makes her look like a fantasy. He adjusts his jacket around her small body. She can feel a connection between her and him. He keeps looking for a light on her eyes, by doing so kisses her instead.
The countdown finally reaches its end, and the noise rises with colours of fire and light flying up against the stars. Happy New Year! Both he and her wonder if they were still under the influence of their drinks, but Yaten is truly aware and she won't move at all. She closes her eyes, only to imagine that the face in front of hers was Seiya's. But she realizes it isn't and she moves away from him. However he insists and pulls her in. She isn't sure if this is right and tells him to stop.
Mamoru's mind no longer swirled in anger or jealousy for his wife. Now he feels desire for her—Yaten. They suffer the same angst and feelings of resentment for the lack of love and trust. "Yaten, you and I are not so different."
In the ballroom, the queen was no longer anywhere in sight. She must be in the hands of the Fighter.
Not even cool air against summer weather suffices feelings of anguish and sorrow. The curtains float softly against open windows that carry in the fragrance of crimson roses. Still, the only source of light in the room is the moonlight shining through windowpanes. Yaten looms toward a bureau where she lays Mamoru's jacket aside. At the far window Mamoru quietly stands, waiting to take advantage of her even if she resists—she can't... Only, he doesn't. He wraps his arms around her and comforts her while she weeped for her flame.
Nothing else mattered.
Time passed unnoticeably and so suddenly that neither Yaten nor Mamoru can remember any last things that might have happened before they awoke in one another's arms. Yaten sprung with a slight ache in her head and throughout her body. She recollected on her way out of the room but surprised herself to see Mamoru still sipping the last of his wine.
"I'll have someone take you home."
She nods. But before walking away, she waits to summon his impulses. Surely he shouldn't resist now. So he casually begins by kissing her forehead, her cheek, her neck, her shoulder, and—cherish to save the last—her lips. What was meant to have happened last night delayed itself for this moment.
Time slows to conjure our fervour; this intimacy and affection carve itself in our memory, ever last so sweet.
There was a loud knock on the door in the afternoon, which Mamoru hesitated to answer, and he would request to be further left alone.
He strokes her hair and whispers, "What makes you cry?"