Mamoru

By the time things had finally calmed down, Usagi looked worse for wear.

Setsuna had told us what she had discovered and recommended she go alone to retrieve Usagi. If this Pitre character was as ruthless as she had made him out to be, it was ill-advised for all of us to appear at once. We didn't want to alert him we were there too quickly, she said, for fear his power would be too overwhelming. We had to extract Usagi out of there and use her knowledge to infiltrate his castle.

But when they arrived back at my apartment from the far-off dimension, something seemed off. Usagi, for one, was dazzling in a black fitted gown, and as beautiful as she was, she looked as if her soul had just been crushed. I expected her to be fearful, but I also expected her to be relieved, and when she wasn't, a strange mixture of disappointment and rage boiled in me. Coupled with that was Setsuna, who looked positively pissed off, and who left shortly after debriefing the others on what had occurred.

All of us had come to greet her. Even Ami had travelled from the U.S. to aid in the fight. And yet, Usagi was not grateful. The sparkle that normally burst off her in spades was as black as her dress and her concern seemed to sit more with the fact that she left Dimande's clutches, not that she had been taken in the first place.

Everyone else chalked it up to being tired from such a horrifying experience, but I knew better. Something had happened to her there—something had fundamentally changed her. I tried to stifle my anger.

After what I had put her through, I was not naive enough to think I deserved her undying love and affection upon her return. I was not so disillusioned that I thought she would run to me and wrap me in a warm, loving embrace. But her behavior now this was different. This was not the iciness of a lover scorned, this was the pure, agonizing pain left behind by a shattering of the heart. Cracks bent all around her, exposing her in a way that I don't think I had ever seen. Behind her eyes was a simmering vacancy. It was cruel and it was painful, and it took all of me not to fall to my knees and beg her to explain what had happened.

She told everyone she needed space and I knew she meant me, too, but I convinced her to stay for at least a little bit longer.

Reluctantly she took a shower and put on some spare clothes she had left here. She stood in my living room watching listlessly out the window, her expression tight and worried. Grabbing the neck of her sweater, she fidgeted and shook her head. Her eyes were glassy, heavy with tears, and she let out a mournful sigh that ebbed under the pressure of a sob.

Rain had started to fall and it created a sheen against the glass. It was late into the night now, and despite it, the city still vibrated with energy and light-a harsh juxtaposition to the woman I could see withering away.

I had thought about our reunion constantly, pictured scooping her up in my arms, declaring my love for her, telling her I was wrong, promising her that I would never forsake her again. But the words were meaningless now. Something else entirely consumed her as she watched the rivers of water splinter on the pane of glass. I knew the look. I knew it well.

It was the look I had worn the past five days: Of a lover lost.

"It's okay, Usako," I whispered. "It's alright. You're safe now."

I wanted to touch her, to feel the burn of her skin on mine. I inched closer but she did not turn, so instead I let my fingers brush the sides of her arm. For as long as I could remember she was delicate, so small and yet so fearsome in the throes of battle. Somehow she seemed even smaller now.

As my hands reached her elbows, I could feel her jolt. A lump formed in my throat but I pressed on.

"I thought you were gone forever," I said softly, a bit too close to her ear. I could tell she didn't want me. I could tell she didn't want this. But I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. "I thought you were never coming back."

She went to speak—to turn—but she only managed to stammer out a few incoherent sounds. Her body was locked into place, hard as stone against my loose touch. I knew. Even if I didn't really know, I knew. I could see it. And hard as I tried to sink it down, it bubbled up in me, coursed though my soul and onto my skin.

But I was a man who never learned. I needed her to understand despite myself, even if it meant saying the exact wrong thing.

"It's been a long time," I said quietly. "You don't have to tell me what happened if you don't want to. He was probably so cruel to you. I can't imagine the pain you must feel."

Somewhere in my misguided mind, I still believed I had a chance for her to turn around, and when she didn't, I had the answer to my question. She was longing, alright, just not for me. Not for the life we had built and had promised each other. I had lost her. I had lost her to him.

The only cruelty he had exacted upon her was his imprint, the shadow of doubt he had cast. Had his hands touched her where mine had? Had his lips been so lucky to taste her? Had she invited it, gave herself to him under his gravity? Where had his vile seduction begun and her mourning heart ended?

My soul twisted and churned, a violent storm in a sea of my own making.

"I'll love you forever, you know." I held back tears. I had never meant it as much as I did then.

Usagi had left without saying much and I wasn't too far behind her. I asked if she wanted me to follow and she said firmly that she did not. I could hear her softly crying as she walked down the hallway toward the elevators.

How fitting that was how she was leaving my apartment once more.

I followed her until she got home, giving her a wide enough berth that if she did realize I was following her, she would think it protective and not overbearing. Well, I thought that anyway. On my walk over, I realized I was completely unsure of how she was feeling. I used to be able to read her so well, but now she felt more like a stranger. Five days had ripped a hole in her chest and I feared he had filled it with a dark, insipid smoke.

A light in her room flickered on and I turned on my heel, my hand gripping my umbrella and my knuckles nearly white.

The rain splashed all around me as if Earth was crying, too. Our love had transcended time and space and yet it was bleeding right in front of my eyes. My feet slogged down the road which, despite the rain, was bustling with people. Red, neon lights blazed against the sheets of water cascading down, and the word 'BEER' was an inviting promise of numbness.

It was a dark lounge with a long polished bar illuminated by a string of orange lanterns. Bottles and bottles of varying colored liquids sat at attention along the back shelf, bathing in a sea of red from the mood lights above. It was narrow and there were only a few tables where men in suits longingly looked into their drinks.

A slender man was seated at the bar and sipped on a highball glass of what appeared to be whiskey or bourbon. He was dressed sharply in a smart, navy blazer, looking far too put together to be in a place like this. His blond hair glistened under the light and as I looked around for a seat at the opposing end, it dawned on me where I knew him from: It was Haruka.

Her eyes shifted to me and she formed a wry smile. I wasn't sure if it was fate that had brought her here, or if she knew this is where I intended to be, but her smile was not as inviting as it should've been. I couldn't muster one to return. The only thing I could do was make my way to the empty seat next to her and order a drink for myself. Before I even reached her, she was coming to my aid.

"Sota," Haruka lifted her hand to catch the bartender's attention. "He'll have an Old Fashioned."

"Do I look as pathetic as I feel?" I asked as I slid onto the barstool. She let out a little laugh.

"Well I don't know," she chuckled. "Do you feel like dog shit? Because that's what you look like."

I wanted to laugh with her but I was feeling much too sorry for myself. We sat in silence as she examined me, her eyes roving over and over like I was some sad charity case she had been assigned to. Sota placed my drink in front of me and gave me an even more sympathetic look. If the bartender felt pity for me, that was a bad sign.

The burning smell of bourbon filled my lungs and I grabbed the glass, letting the cool condensation trickle down my fingers.

"I talked to Setsuna today," Haruka mused. "She told me all about what happened between you and Usagi, and how she found her at Dimande's castle."

"She didn't tell me much," I said quickly. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what Haruka knew and it appeared that she understood. She nodded and took a long drag from her drink, wincing just slightly as the bourbon hit the back of her throat.

"I always forget how strong these are," she smiled. "Love the feeling when it hits, hate sometimes how it goes down."

I nodded and took a drink of my own. It was strong and smoky. Sota must've seen what Haruka did: A man in despair, one in need of a stiff drink.

"I'd like to lie to myself and say I don't know what happened, but unfortunately I think I do." My voice was hollow. Haruka nodded again and swirled her drink, the ice cubes clinking against the glass. "I'd be a fool to say I didn't understand."

"And what, exactly, do you understand?" Haruka asked, her tone pressing. She knew, too. I could tell.

I shrugged. "That I forced her out. That I let her flounder. That she loved me and waited for me and I just…"

"Let her go?" Haruka finished for me. Hearing it made me wince.

It killed me how much I understood. If I had known the moment she walked through my door that night that our choices were going to send us into a cataclysmic collision, one that left us reeling and bloodied for different reasons, then maybe I would've been kinder. But the reality was I didn't do any of that. I let my festering, worldly needs blind me and eclipse our relationship. The stinging of my actions pelted my skin like a whip. She was reaching for me and I was too busy to see her drowning, and now it was too late. I had driven her away from me. I had driven her to him.

"I know I wasn't there for her like I should've been," My throat contracted. "But that doesn't mean she can just go off with the first guy she meets."

Haruka looked at me through her long lashes and shook her head. "That's not fair."

"Isn't that the point of predestined love—that you won't just give up on each other?" I was frustrated, fuming.

"You gave up on her," Haruka's voice was sharp. "I don't know exactly what happened with Dimande, but I do know that we all failed her if she was so quick to run into his arms."

Her words stung. Haruka was right. I was mad at myself, mostly, disappointed that I had let something so precious just slip out of my fingers. But I was mad at her, too, at the fact that I had this sinking feeling that she and Dimande had shared something more intimate than that of the typical villain and his captor.

It was eating away at me, twisting me until I cracked under its pressure. The thought of him. The thought of her.

"Were they together?" I asked suddenly. It came out before I had the chance to even really know whether I wanted the truth. "Did Setsuna see them together?"

Haruka studied me for a moment and then her eyes went back to her glass.

"She did." Her voice was low, mournful, like she knew the weight of them would crush me.

"Did they look happy?"

She sighed. She was considering what to say. What to do.

"Mamoru," she said calmly, controlled. "I don't know if I can answer that."

"Because you don't know or because you don't want to say?"

"I wasn't there," Haruka doubled down. "It's not my place to say what did or didn't happen."

"But you know?"

She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. Bringing her fingers to her temple, she rubbed gently and cradled her forehead. "Mamoru…"

"Just tell me, okay?" Desperation filled me. I wanted to feel the pain as a penance for my behavior, and her words were a flagellation that stung because I needed them to. "Please."

"Setsuna…" She was choosing her words carefully. "Setsuna was angry when she came back and... I don't know man. She didn't like what she saw and that's all I can really say about it. That what she saw was upsetting to her because she didn't think that…"

Haruka trailed off. She inhaled deeply and shook her head.

"She didn't think that Usagi was capable of doing something like that." Haruka finished.

"They were kissing," my mind was racing. "They were together, like that, weren't they?"

Everything in me was begging Haruka to just say yes, and when she didn't—when she looked away and stared off in front of her, her jaw flexing to draw back the words about to spill out of her mouth—I knew it was worse than that.

"They were having sex, weren't they?" My voice was a whisper and I could feel the ache of tears rushing to my face

Haruka bit her lip and exhaled, slowly nodding her head.

A hole had formed underneath me. A cavernous, black pit. And as I fell, as I braced myself for the sinking feeling, I kept waiting for my skull to hit the concrete. I wanted the pressure building behind my eyes to ease and for my blood and brains to spatter and crack, so that my body might feel the weight of what I was feeling in my soul.

A fierce wind sucked me down and contorted me in so many different ways my limbs felt liquid. I begged for it, for the sweet release of death that would free me from the demons I had conjured myself.

Imagines of him and her, tangled in blood red sheets, their limbs moving and her eyes sparkling. A twisted smile smattering across her face. Dimande's mouth moved against her ear and he bit down gently, making her face flush and squeal in delight. My chest heaved and I felt the air pinch out of my lungs, and then my face and fingers tingled and went cold. I had abandoned her. She had forsaken me.

Why had I not run after her? Why? Why? Why?

But when I blinked I was back in the bar, squarely on my stool, staring at Haruka, her face concerned but stoic. Seeing her was like a slap of cold water hitting my skin.

"Mamoru," Haruka's voice grew serious. "Are you okay?"

"No," I whispered, letting the tears spill over.

"Mamoru." She was serious now, her eyes burning with intensity. "I know this really hurts to hear, but the reason I'm telling you this is because you need to try and fix this."

I nodded my head.

"If you want to win her back you have to show her—prove to her—that you're there for her," she continued. "She needs you more than ever. We don't know what Dimande did or said to bring her there. She was hurting and vulnerable and Dimande was born with a silver tongue. He had pined after her for years. You don't think he didn't prey on her kind sensibilities?"

I didn't know. I had no idea.

"The point is," she said. "Usagi and you—you belong together. Whatever hold he has on her now is temporary. You're forever. Show her that. Remind her how much you love her."

"What if it doesn't work?" I choked. Haruka grabbed my shoulders and leaned in, giving me a genuine smile.

"What if it does?" She shook me just slightly. "If you really love her, you will fight to win her back."