Catharsis
As the R break up stretches on with no explanation, Usagi uses the disguise pen to try to find the truth from Mamoru
I wrote this for Floraone, when we decided to do an impromptu fic exchange (check out her offering, Pretending, which is just *chefs kiss*)
Because it's for Flora, you know it's gonna have some angst, some R-break up, and the disguise pen thrown in for fun.
So yes, Usagi is in disguise as a college student, trying to suss out the truth of why Mamoru keeps insisting they aren't meant to be. Is there someone else? ... and if there is, Does she really want to know?
The rest of the students poured out of the lecture hall like kids freed at recess, already jubilantly discussing lunch options and weekend plans, but Mamoru trudged out behind them like a man headed to the gallows.
Not for the first time, class had been a welcome distraction. Throwing himself into academia - allowing his brain to focus entirely on particle physics and mathematical equations and not his crushing loneliness - had been a go-to for as long as he could remember.
It'd been less effective lately, but was still better than the silence of his apartment, the crowded city streets where his eyes searched every face despite himself, both hoping and dreading he'd run into Usagi.
He shifted his messenger bag on his shoulder, pushed too-long strands of hair from his eyes and started the walk home. Subsisting only on a steady stream of caffeine and self-loathing had begun to take its toll, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
"Um… excuse me, but could I ask your help?"
The voice was so familiar, Mamoru was half-way turned around with a glare and a harsh word at the ready, until he realized that Usako never spoke so formally.
It wasn't her. Of course it wasn't her, on a Friday afternoon on his school campus, politely asking for assistance from a fellow student.
Not for the first time, Mamoru felt like he was losing his mind. The want of Usagi would conjure her face in every stranger, her voice in every sound, until he ended up locked away in a white room, babbling incoherently at the walls, finally torn down by the sheer obsession of this love.
She was talking, the brunette in front of him, tugging slightly at her cropped sweater, fumbling with the tartan book bag on her shoulder. "I'm a recent transfer and um… it's just that I'm kind of… lost?"
Mamoru set his jaw, knit his brows. He wasn't exactly the 'please come ask me for help' type, didn't exude friendliness nor helpfulness. Especially lately, when all he seemed to radiate to people was 'leave me the fuck alone can you see I'm on the edge of a nervous break down?'
"It's just I didn't want to interrupt everyone else who was …" She gestured vaguely with her hand, and her mouth stretched into a guilty grimace as she realized what she was saying.
Everyone else had friends they were walking with. Right.
"Sorry, I won't be much help. Good luck." The words were right on his lips, with some cold arrogance thrown in for good measure, but somehow they wouldn't come.
It was the way she stood, hands dancing awkwardly as if she couldn't decide where to put them, her soft giggle that cut through him with because of how much it was like -
"Um…?" She tilted her head and looked at him, eyes searching his in a way that felt too intimate, too forward.
"Where do you need to go?" The words were out of his mouth before he really thought them through.
But something about her made him loath to leave her with some rude words and curt goodbye. He'd been doing that enough lately.
She relaxed a bit, smiled - and something in her smile hurt somehow - so he looked away as she fumbled into her skirt pocket and pulled out a map. "This lecture hall?" She pointed.
"That's all the way on the humanities campus," Mamoru said. "You have to head across the street and past the student center."
Her brows rose, lips pouting a little. "But I thought I was near the library."
"The technical sciences library," he explained, "not the main library."
She swallowed whatever she was going to say, her eyes bemused and almost offended. As if the idea of more than one library was something she wanted no part of. But, she was a student here, which meant of course that wasn't what she was thinking. That was how Usako would've reacted, he thought, and mentally chided himself for thinking of her, how he'd never gotten to show her around campus, how he'd never get to actually see her reaction to what she'd surely see as an unforgivable excess of academia.
"Will you show me the way?" she asked. "Unless you have…. plans?" Her gaze was suddenly and strangely full of dread. "Like a… date or something?"
"Date?" He spat out the word like it tasted bad, and she cringed a bit.
"Well, it is Friday," she said, defensively.
He sighed. "I'll show you the way." He tilted his head toward the street. "Come on."
She jogged a little to keep up with his quick stride, and Mamoru was struck by an unpleasant similarity to being chased by Natsumi and Usagi, before he had his memories back. When he'd treated Usagi so unforgivingly, while warming up to Natsumi despite himself. While Usagi was surrounded by friends and admirers, Natsumi had seemed lost and lonely, a lot like him. And, he'd had no confusing, romantic feelings for - or attraction to- Natsumi, which made her a lot safer to gravitate toward, even as she threw herself at him.
He was such a coward sometimes.
With a deep sigh, he forced himself to slow down, to match his companion's pace. A small gesture, perhaps some pathetic attempt to make up for what a jerk he could be, had been, would have to continue to be, to the best person in the universe.
"I'm Chiba Mamoru," he said, finally. Trying. He was trying.
"I'm…."
He slowed and turned just in time to see her cringe. One black Mary Jane shoe crunched on an errant leaf. Summer was fading into fall. "Akina," she said finally. "Uh…. Akina Akiko."
Her name slid over him with no consequence; he barely listened. It was all just going through the motions, until he could get home and fall asleep and watch Usako die in his dreams.
They stopped at the cobblestoned plaza near the clock tower. "The humanities campus is just there," Mamoru pointed. "The lecture hall you need is on the left."
"Um, wait, though," Akina said, shifting her weight from foot to foot in a movement that screamed Usagi and made Mamoru half want to cut and run and half want to stay. Chibi-Usa reminded him of Usagi, too, in that same painful but addictive way. "Let me say thanks by, um…" She pointed at a small pink cottage-like building underneath a large old growth tree. The small student cafe that sold mediocre coffee and rather delicious bagels. "Buying you a… coffee?"
He had no idea why he agreed, but agree he did, and found himself sitting across from Akina - who ordered a hot chocolate with whipped cream - feeling oddly as if he was being haunted.
Akina shifted in her seat, tugging slightly on one of her brown braids in a movement that made Mamoru's throat close uncomfortably.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" The words pushed out in a rush, almost accusatory, snapping Mamoru into meeting Akina's eyes in a moment that seemed oddly charged.
"W-what?" he sputtered.
She blinked rapidly, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. "I just… you seemed on edge being here and I thought you might be worried about a jealous girlfriend or… someone who… like…" She licked her lips. "Is there someone?" She looked strangely frightened of the answer.
Mamoru's jaw worked. "There's someone," he muttered finally, mostly to his mug of coffee. Black, two sugars, just how he liked it. Odd that she knew.
"So you do have a girlfriend?" Her voice was strangled, her fingers digging into her knees.
"No, actually." It came out clipped, angry. Good. He was angry. At himself. At the universe. At fate. At this strange, unnerving girl who felt like Usagi but wasn't. The coffee cup hit the table with too-hard of a thunk, a bit splashing out onto the table. He didn't apologize, he didn't say good-bye. He just stood up to leave.
"Wait!" She stood up to follow him and her legs caught on the table legs, and she stumbled forward, arms flailing.
He caught her, a strange second nature. At his touch, she sucked a breath in through her teeth, sharply and he steadied her and let go, stepped away.
"It's just…" she babbled, looking straight ahead at his sweater-clad chest, "I went through a bad break-up recently. It's… it still hurts and I..." Her voice became a whisper, her gaze turning inward. "… it hurts so much."
She swallowed. "How do you fix a shattered heart?"
"Don't have one in the first place," Mamoru said, in a voice like ice. He left his coffee behind, and walked out into the chilling air.
"Is it really better?" She'd chased him down, out to the emptying plaza. Her voice was hitching, any decorum and manners gone in wild-eyed desperation. "Is it better to deny your heart completely?"
Mamoru shoved his hands deep in his pockets, clenched and unclenched his teeth. "I used to think so."
He didn't know why he even answered, what sort of odd yet familiar hold this girl had on him. Perhaps it was nothing but guilt, pure and simple. Usako had asked him similar sobbing questions in the same thick, shaking voice, and he'd left her with nothing but harsh, careless words.
"And now?" she pressed.
At his silence, she stepped forward, a hesitant hand reaching for his sleeve and then pulling back. Tears were now freely flowing down her face, she made no effort to wipe them away.
Mamoru ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I'm sorry but… I'm not good company right now. Especially not for a crying, heartbroken girl. I'm not… I'm not the one you should be talking to."
"Because you turned off your heart," she confirmed, sniffling a little. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, looking at him with expectant, watery eyes.
"Because… because her absence is all I HAVE of her!" he said, raising his voice slightly as the dam broke. In full Tuxedo Kamen dramatics, he flung out his arms. "I'd die for her, kill for her, crawl back from the dead for her but the knowledge of what I can never have is all I'm allowed to have!" He clenched his fists and glared at the ground, breath heaving slightly. In the background, he could hear the muffled sobs of his audience of one.
"Who is she?" she whispered. Mamoru looked up, and she stood there, utterly crushed. Her hands shook and her eyes streamed tears and her chest shook with unreleased sobs. Just like Sailor Moon had when she'd collapsed on the ground, weeping as torn rose petals drifted down around her.
Mamoru looked away, toward the milky purple of the setting sun.
Who is she?
Tsukino Usagi. Sailor Moon. Princess Serenity. Usako. Silly and kind and brave and strong and loyal and sweet. Who is she? "Someone I don't deserve."
He left her standing there - hands clasped together, tendrils of hair that escaped from her braids blowing slightly in the wind, eyes red and damp and utterly confused.
"I called her odango atama," he murmured, almost to himself, lips pulling up in what could almost be a smile. The saddest smile.
He didn't know if his impromptu confessor had even heard him. When he turned around, she was gone.