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The Clearing Sky
The sky over Tokyo was an ominous swirl of gray storm clouds. All over the city people were rushing into buildings to escape the inevitable onslaught of torrential rain. Lightning fizzled through the air, brilliant streaks of blazing light through a darkened city. Thunder crackled, sending tremors skittering along the city streets. Clouds hung heavy and black as far as the eye could see and the air was thickly humid.
School children took solace in the nearby arcade, scampering in from the park across the street. The bell at the door jangled noisily at the steady stream of customers taking shelter from the coming storm. The man behind the counter peered out the window to the park, where a lone figure was seated on a bench near the lake, beneath the dubious shelter of a few straggly willows. Her blonde hair hung over the back of the bench, brushing the grassy earth beneath it. She didn't look at all concerned about the current weather. In fact, she looked as though she intended to stay right where she was.
And she did. Tsukino Usagi normally hated storms. But this one was different. She looked up at the roiling mass of clouds high above the city and saw herself. They rumbled and rolled and tossed about threateningly, and yet stubbornly refused to shed the rain that surely must be straining against them.
'I,' she thought, 'am just like those clouds. I carry around all my emotions, all my feelings, and I can never let them out. There is nothing I would like so much as to be able to cry and scream and be truly myself. But as long as there are people who depend on me, I must always be strong. I have to keep everything locked up tight inside and never let anyone see that I'm not what they think I am, that I can't ever be what they need me to be. I must always come in second. I must always put others before myself. And I must never, ever let anyone know that this isn't what I want.' She lifted a trembling hand to stifle the tiny sob that had risen, unbidden, in her throat.
'In a few minutes, I'll have to go inside and pretend all over again. I'll have to smile and laugh and have not a single care in the world. I wish I could cry. Just once, I wish I could cry.'
A hand reached around behind her and shoved a golden braid over her shoulder so it fell into her lap. She jerked in surprise as she realized that it was her own hair, and she hadn't even felt someone braiding it. Her shock grew as the culprit took a seat beside her on the bench, revealing himself to be none other than Chiba Mamoru.
"So, do you want to tell me why you're crying, Odango-chan?" Mamoru spoke the hated nickname as though it should be a term of endearment rather than an insult.
"I'm not crying," Usagi responded immediately, touching her cheeks to be sure. Mamoru swung towards her, surveying her face carefully.
"You look like you want to, though. Why?" Mamoru's eyes were focused right on hers, and the quiet scrutiny made Usagi feel uncomfortably like a child being pressed for information by a parent.
"You wouldn't understand," she said stubbornly, taking care to avoid eye contact with the man who, until just this afternoon, had been the bane of her existence.
"Why wouldn't I understand?" His voice coaxed her to look at him, but Usagi fixed her gaze straight ahead, resisting the lure. She had an eerie suspicion that if she made even one concession, he would take and take all he could until he'd gotten to the very heart of her. And Usagi wanted no one looking into her heart, least of all Chiba Mamoru.
"You just wouldn't understand. You couldn't. I don't have a problem that you can solve, Mamoru-baka. I don't have a problem at all."
"I see," Mamoru replied neutrally, turning away from her to look up at the gray sky. Usagi looked at him in wonderment. He never ceased to confuse her.
For so long he'd teased and tormented her, and now he was threatening their comfortable animosity by showing genuine concern for her. It was disconcerting. Suddenly the tables were turning and a new, fragile, and completely unexpected relationship was forming, and Usagi was finding that the change made her uncomfortable and wary. She closed her eyes against angry, frustrated tears.
"You don't know anything about me. How dare you come here now and talk to me as if we're friends? How dare you meddle in my business as if you have the right to do so? How can you sit there and pretend to be friendly? Are you going to throw this in my face tomorrow?" Her voice cracked, and she glared at him angrily. But he only seemed to be confused.
"We've always been friends, Odango-chan. I thought you knew that," he said simply.
"You were never my friend. You've only ever hurt and insulted me," Usagi maintained.
"If you had ever really been upset, I would have stopped. I really thought you would know yourself better than that, Usagi-san. You never wail when you're really, truly upset. You brood, just like now." Mamoru shook his head, as though he was surprised that she hadn't seen it herself.
Usagi was startled to realize he was right. He was frustrating and exasperating and often annoying, but she'd never truly been hurt by anything he'd said or done. She'd never really cried over his remarks.
They sat in silence for long minutes. Usagi was tense, but Mamoru seemed as relaxed as if he were sitting with Motoki instead of Usagi, who'd considered herself his mortal enemy for the better part of four years now. Her muddled mind tried in vain to invent some excuse that would allow her to absent herself without seeming rude. He was confusing her with his insight and she wondered how someone she'd never considered herself close to seemed to know her better than anyone. She wasn't sure how she felt about this new situation, this strange new relationship with Mamoru.
"I," he began finally, startling Usagi out of her flustered thoughts, "am a lot like those clouds."
He wasn't looking at her. Rather, he was gazing up into the angry jumble of clouds that obscured the sky. Usagi stared at him incredulously.
And softly, silently, it began to rain.