Another anniversary theme. This one's a comedic piece, mostly dialogue on Usagi's part. I actually kind of like this one because the idea makes me giggle. I feel like Mamoru's the teeniest bit OOC again, but since he doesn't have that many lines, it's not too horrible. Hope you enjoy!
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The Luck of the Irish
A One-shot
By Natsudori Lina
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"But Haruna-sensei, it's true!" Usagi exclaimed. "I really couldn't do my homework last night!"
Mamoru paused outside the classroom door, lips twitching in amusement. He had been on his way to pick Usako up from detention, but decided to wait a minute. This should be interesting.
"See, Haruna-sensei, we were all in Crown, right?" Usagi said earnestly. Haruna nodded, lips pursed, as she clenched her hands together tightly. Probably praying for patience, Mamoru thought, chuckling inwardly.
"But then, we heard this yell! So we all ran out to see what was going on, but there wasn't a youma attacking anybody or anything. There was just this creepy looking lady standing there and screaming and it was this awful scream, Haruna-sensei, even worse than mine. And then she pointed at me and me and Ami-chan went like this--" Usagi sucked in a quick intake of breath, her expression comical as she did so. "Do you know what it means when Ami does that?" she asked intently, expression grim.
Haruna shook her head, amused despite herself.
"It's never good," Usagi said, shaking her head so that her pigtails flew from side to side. "She usually says something that reeeeeally complicates things and it was the same thing yesterday. She got all worried and asked me if there was anybody Irish in my family and I wasn't sure so I called Mama and asked her and she said that her great-great-great-great-- I don't know how many greats-- grandma was a Ka-va-nagh," she said this very carefully and with great concentration.
"So, Ami-chan kind of groaned, but so did Mamo-chan! And then he turned to me and asked me how come dating me was never simple and then I yelled at him and then he—uh… stopped me." Mamoru ran a hand through his hair embarrassedly.
Haruna buried her face in her hands, shoulders beginning to shake with helpless laughter. She waved a hand for Usagi to continue. She did so happily.
"So then they told me that the ban-shee," she slowed down again momentarily before plunging heedlessly on, "pointing at me meant that I was gonna die!" She paused and muttered something that Haruna didn't pick up, but Mamoru did, and he couldn't help frowning. "Dunno why she never bothered to show up before now." She raised her voice again. "Anyway, everybody freaked out a little. We went to Mamo-chan's apartment and Mamo-chan and I went in his room and looked at his plants, where he… uh, found me a four-leaf clover and he put in my uh… pocket! for me." Mamoru cringed.
"Then, Mako-chan found this old dirty horseshoe and made me wear it around my neck." She wrinkled her nose. "It was yucky. But that wasn't the worst part! Rei-chan found some old scroll that said rabbit feet were good luck! First, I thought of Chibi-Usa, but she isn't… in town to hang around me. Now, I thought my own feet were good enough, but they all said no. It had to be a real one. And Minako-chan had one," she said in righteous indignation. "I wasn't gonna wear it. In fact, I got so mad that I was gonna leave right there! But then Mamo-chan—uh, made me stay."
He flushed embarrassedly.
"So, anyway, we were all at Mamo-chan's apartment to hide out, and there was this knock on the door, and I went to answer it even though Mamo-chan told me not to move and it was a youma! And it took it's arm-sword-thingy and tried to cut my neck right open! Luckily, it missed and hit the horseshoe, so I just fell over and kinda coughed a lot because it banged into my neck a lot and it really hurt. Mamo-chan was reeeeally mad at me—and it," she added as an afterthought.
Too right, he was, Mamoru thought savagely.
"Then I got up and I yelled at it and then we all tr--"
"Oi!" Mamoru yelped, leaping into the room. Usagi stopped speaking to stare at him. He cleared his throat. "Oi. Odango. You ready?"
She frowned. "Mamo-chan, you know I don't like it when you--"
"Ahem." Haruna cleared her throat to get their attention. "Usagi, you may leave. I really should give you detention for that outrageous lie, but just because it seems like it might have required a bit of research, I'll let it slide this once."
"But it wasn't--" Usagi started, brow crinkling in frustration, before Mamoru grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room. She gave up, yelling out "Arigatou, Haruna-sensei!"
Once they were outside, Mamoru handed her a pink helmet and fastened it onto her head properly. "Usako, you almost slipped up in there," he admonished, tapping her on the nose chidingly.
"Did not!" she insisted, a slightly guilty expression flitting over her features. "I had it completely under control. I was going to say that we all… tried to get away!" she exclaimed triumphantly.
"Yeah, okay, okay," he said, climbing on the bike and gesturing for her to do the same. "Oh, and Usako?" he asked, as she put her arms around his stomach, feeling a grin pull at the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah, Mamo-chan?" she said curiously.
He let the grin spread across his face. "You're full of blarney."
She shrieked as they roared away. "I am not!"
"…Ne, Mamo-chan, what's a blar-nee?"
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Information on banshees came from this site: h t t p / w w w . i r e l a n d s e y e . c o m / a n i m a t i o n / e x p l o r e r / b a n s h e e . h t m l (without the spaces) . And I poked around the net a bit to find out that the Irish consider horseshoes, rabbit feet, and four-leaf clovers lucky. And, blarney is… "the gift of gab." /grins/
