Have a sweetened coffee break this fine Tuesday, guys :)
In Kiss In Public
It was a rare occasion that Usagi got up before him. In fact, he couldn't remember it ever happening before. And so, for the first time, he found himself waking up alone in her bed.
He ran a hand across his eyes in disorientation and turned on her soft mattress. Her pillow smelled of her, even when her side wasn't warm anymore, and when his wrist hit her pillow, it landed on paper.
I had to help Mama bring a few cakes to Shingo's school fair, I'll be back before you miss me, promise!
The note was signed with Usagi's signature doodle of a bunny, its x-mouth replaced by what he ventured was supposed to be a kiss. His smile at it was probably a little too dopey.
He wasn't supposed to be here, of course. He'd slipped into her room in the middle of the night, because these days he couldn't hold back. Though, by the way her mother had reacted when she'd stumbled upon him that one time in the bathroom, her parents weren't actually quite as unaware of his frequent presence in their house as he'd originally thought.
He dressed leisurely, sat at her desk, and after reading the news on his phone, he flipped open her homework that lay discarded on her desk for want of anything better to do while he waited. After erasing and replacing a few incorrect answers, he closed the folder again and pushed it a bit neater to the side of her desk.
Underneath, he came across a stack of purikura photo strips and an empty photo album. The stack toppled over and spread across her desk.
He smiled. There were tons of the girls in various constellations, even one with just Usagi and Michiru, making faces and striking poses sillier than the next for the camera. They were decorated bright and glittery - Usagi tended to go crazy with that function.
The upper two showed Mamoru with Usagi. His smile grew at the one she had enlarged of them. Usagi was pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek, he was rolling his eyes but sporting a blush (he wasn't the best at getting his photo taken, especially when in a crowd and loud arcade with groups of school girls chattering as they queued up excitedly in front of the occupied booth). There were two copies of the strip, and while he hadn't shown interest on the day they took these, he wondered if Usagi would give him a copy if he asked.
Then his eyes fell on a strip of photos farer down the pile.
Seiya, other than Mamoru, didn't look uncomfortable in these pictures at all. In fact, the handwritten script on the decorations wasn't Usagi's. He recognized the booth backgrounds, it was one exclusive to an amusement park Usagi loved to go to, took plenty of pictures with the girls at, and Mamoru tended to refuse to go. Hanayashiki Park.
Seiya obviously hadn't. Seiya wrote 'Seiya and Usagi's doki doki date' in sloppy characters surrounded by hearts across a picture of Seiya lifting her up with a giant smile on his face and Usagi being the one to roll her eyes with a smile in the photo.
He frowned at the picture. A heavy, uncomfortable knot furled and unfurled in his gut, and he pushed the photo underneath all of the others.
He was still frowning when Usagi returned with a bright smile and the announcement that she'd successfully secured two slices of her Mama's legendary lemon tarte for them under risk of her life by Shingo's menacing discontent.
"Maybe later," he'd grumbled, glaring at the now neat pile of photos stacked on the empty photo album.
He was in a grouchy mood and irritated with himself, and Usagi started to notice. He was about to excuse himself and call it a day and retreat to spend his Saturday buried in textbooks in his library when he called himself out of it, telling himself harshly not to punish this wonderful woman he was allowed to call his girlfriend with his insecurities.
Instead, he whirled around, startling her out of her dimmed smile.
"Do you want to go to Hanayashiki Park today?" he rushed at her with maybe too much intensity.
But her eyes brighted up, flashed at him in all their excited, powerful, disarming glory which managed to take his breath even now.
She clung to his waist in that excited way for the short ride across Minato, the wind pushing at their hair as he bent and curved and drove them there on his motorcycle.
She was radiating joy, hopping and jumping and clinging to his arm.
He found himself trying his hardest to be the most comfortable, most doting. He didn't roll his eyes once, he agreed to queue for the wildest rides, he didn't make a fuss at all.
He was trying to prove a petty point.
It was in that very photo booth (he'd suggested they queue immediately upon spotting it), that she first grew suspicious.
The photos turned out sweet (they always did), but when they stood around the back of it at the small touch screens to decorate, and he raised the second pink stylus to partake in this endeavour, Usagi stood staring at him with confused eyes. He shrugged it off, kept from blushing by sheer willpower, and wrote in pink with his indefinitely neater handwriting, 'Usako and Mamo-chan's doki doki date'.
He felt Usagi's dumbfounded stare burn through his skin.
She was still staring, her brow creased in that way too adorable but much too incriminating way, alternating between him and the small strips of photos in her hand when he dragged her by the elbow to the next attraction.
He stopped when he spotted the taiyaki stand. She'd want one, right?
Usagi stared harder.
He found her eyes, looking down. They were surrounded by people, loud and excited almost as much as she'd been. In front of them was a group of girls younger than Usagi, glancing back at them and giggling. Behind them was a mother and her two kids, the boy tugging at her mother's jeans and asking her why 'that man is so tall'.
The expression in Usagi's eyes as she gazed up at him now was thoughtful, almost concerned.
Because he wanted to, and because he was still proving a point, and because her concerned look itched across his heart and he wanted to replace it, he did what he normally wouldn't do in public, and certainly not in a queue sandwiched between a group of giggling girls and inquisitive little kids.
He bent and captured her surprised lips with his.
She responded - of course she responded. Her lips were soft and sure and brushing against his in that grounding, comforting way that almost distracted him from the contrasting ways his own lips seemed to tremble in his sudden, uncharacteristic nervousness.
When he pulled away, her hand was on his cheek, the other on his chest, the little boy behind them was loudly fake-retching as his sister made kissing noises while his mother tried unsuccessfully to hush them, the girls in front of them were blushing wildly and turning their backs to them completely, and Usagi's eyes had grown even more concerned.
Mission failed, it seemed.
She was barely touching her taiyaki when they sat on a bench a little later.
He reacted in the same way to her concerned eyes then, too. Bent down and kissed her soft lips.
This time, she didn't respond. Instead she started speaking the second his lips touched hers.
"You don't need to do that, Mamo-chan."
He withdrew his mouth only slightly with a frown, answering with his eyes still very close to hers.
"Kiss you?"
Her brow creased further. "Prove something."
He sat back. Sighed. Allowed the corners of his mouth to settle into the displeased expression from this morning.
"You'd prefer it if I were more open," he answered after a little back and forth of mutual staring that turned continuously charged.
She shook her head. "I prefer you just the way you are, Mamo-chan."
Her eyes were stern and calculating and when he sighed this time, it felt like something heavy dropping from his heart and at her feet.
This time, when he leaned in, he allowed himself the spiel again. He looked around carefully, and only when he saw no one was looking, he slipped his hands against her cheeks and drew her mouth to his.
This time, she responded, slipped her fingers against his temple and opening her mouth and he sighed, relieved, into the warmth of her mouth, completely undetected and finally letting go.
Her lips puckered against his two, three, four more times in sweet, soft, Usagi-kisses, until they ventured further up and dropped a small, sweet little peck to his nose. She was crinkling her adorable nose in a sweet, relieved smile when his eyes fluttered back open.
"Wanna go back home and eat Mama's tarte?" She smiled at him.
He smiled back. The sigh it accompanied felt like breathing deeply again, like something freeing. "Yes, please," he whispered.
Obvious Setting Tag: Post-Stars
Anyway yeah baby boi is definitely not a PDA person and Usagi and Seiya are my BROTP and Mamoru would definitely get a little jealous (but hopefully not in the ways that would hurt her) so there lol.