Sending you into the weekend with an absolutely new kiss! Happy Friday, guys! I hope you like this one!

A Kiss In A Place Of Insecurity

Normally, it was the other way around. Normally, Usagi accompanied him to social events, made them more bearable for him; oftentimes even enjoyable. He, on the other hand, rarely did the same for her. Mamoru realised this suddenly; it hadn't ever before been conscious in his mind. Now, it really much was.

He felt completely out of place.

And that meant something, considering the fact that actually, the people he would call his closest friends were present in this room.

But he wasn't with them today. Not really. This wasn't an afternoon at the Fruit Parlor, or going out to support Michiru and Haraku in their careers together. This was altogether different.

"You sure you don't have any talents to contest with?" Minako sidled up to him out of nowhere, clad in some outrageously bright outfit that mirrored those of the other girls exactly (and Makoto's seamstress-talents were bigger than he'd assumed), and with her even brighter clipboard. "We could use some male models you know. Only girls seem to sign up so far."

He shook his head at her in exasperation with a grim glare.

Minako just rolled her eyes, elbowed him in the side, and left him in peace at his wallflower spot near the doors.

He watched her join Makoto back at the stage - a surprisingly gigantuan monstrosity in the back of this surprisingly enormous school gym that was lined with further booths - where Makoto was diligently hanging rows and rows of flowery, pretty bunting, before she skipped off to chat up some other unsuspecting victim with her clipboard.

Usagi appeared with a box of more of the same bunting, hopped up the ladder on the other side of the stage, and called across the space to Makoto for instructions.

It was tradition, apparently, that the third year students organise the talent show that Juuban High was famous for. He hadn't heard anything else for weeks, it was the girl's constant topic, and Makoto had sewn 'staff' outfits, bunting, made honeycomb garlands and Minako had planned half the acts.

Ever so often, Usagi would look over the crowd and search him out. When she did, her whole face lit up, and she sent a beaming smile at him that would make the corners of his lips lift and his heart fill, but then she'd look away again, busy as she was.

Ami was at a booth the computer club was manning somewhere in the main building, and even though Unazuki and Motoki had promised to join him for this visit of the girl's school fair, they were nowhere to be seen yet, seeing as he was about an hour early.

He was happy to support them, that really wasn't it.

He'd offered to help, just so he wouldn't stand around so helplessly lost, but Makoto and Usagi has insisted he just enjoy himself. And so he stood at the back and watched and did not enjoy himself.

"Um, sir, if it's not an inconvenience, could you unlock the teacher's room for us? We need to get the lighting."

Mamoru rolled his eyes and glared outright at the same boy he'd been glaring at the past three times he'd approached him. Young. He looked so young to be a third year high school student. How could this boy be about to graduate?! How could this boy be only about three or four years younger than him?! A head shorter than even Usagi, and Usagi was tiny.

"Still not a teacher," Mamoru growled out, losing the manners this time. He looked down at himself self-consciously. He was wearing his pink shirt. Minako used to say only the green jacket made him appear so much older than he was. That the pink shirt was safe.

The boy looked back up, startled, and flinched, now truly looking at Mamoru. "Oh, I'm sorry to bother you, sir."

Mamoru glowered at the 'sir', and sighed as the boy scurried off.

He didn't even know that boy's name. He was pretty sure he'd seen him before, pretty sure he was in Usagi's class, but he really had no idea who he was.

Usagi wouldn't have that problem, he realized. Usagi knew more of his co-eds than he did. Ever since Edward's party - his first ever college party - that got interrupted by a daimon, back when she was only a third year middle schooler, he'd been asked to bring his 'charming' girlfriend whenever he got invited to anything. That only increased when, in the same year, Kobayashi had met her too - socialite numero uno at the Mita campus - and soon Usagi was on first name basis with half his peers, including people he'd never talked to, and it wasn't strange these days for him to be invited as the tag-along when she was invited to his college parties.

(Not that he had any trouble talking to his peers. He didn't. He was polite, he was respected, he liked a lot of them, he met people for study groups and helped them out with their papers and labs... He just wasn't... Usagi.)

But he realised now he'd not nearly returned the effort for her. Not at all. Not even a little.

And so he stood around in a flood of he peers and felt absolutely out of place.

Minako walked back in with her clipboard and a boy with an instrument case at her side and Mamoru stepped into her path.

"Do you need any help with anything?" he asked desperately.

Minako blinked at him. "At… chatting people up that you don't know and convincing them to fill the last free slots and spontaneously perform in front of the whole district?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

The poor guy's eyes widened at the mention of the 'whole district,' stagefright claiming him quite vividly and visibly, and Mamoru sighed and murmured a "Nevermind," and walked back off.

Too late, he realized he could have introduced himself to stage-fright guy.

When Usagi looked around to find him this time, she jumped. He'd stopped standing right behind her with a pout.

"Can I help you?" he asked again.

Her startled eyes morphed into concern in one smooth, abrupt transition and she stepped one rung down her step-ladder, and her hand flew away from the bunting and up to his arm and curled into the pink fabric of his shirt.

The bunting slipped down a little, but held, and she was still not at his height even though she was still standing on that first rung of her ladder.

"Is everything ok?" she asked, searching his eyes, closer to him than usual.

He frowned a little too darkly. "I don't know anyone here and it's awkward and your classmate keeps mistaking me for a teacher."

"What?" she gasped, appalled, and stroked her thumb across his arm. "Who?!"

"The guy who postponed puberty until college." His voice was all the petty.

She snorted. "Ah. Riko-kun," she nodded. "Don't mind him, he's a bit scatter-brained."

He sighed again. One of her classmates - he had no idea what her name was - scolded Usagi to not get distracted, they were running out of time, and he pouted harder for it.

But Usagi didn't pay her classmate no mind, instead she cocked her head and studied him with concern and love and intense care. "You're totally uncomfortable," she concluded. It was a fact, not a question.

He shrugged. He knew he hid it well, he always did. He probably was back to looking like an arrogant douche, but Usagi saw right through him.

"Motoki and Unazuki are gonna be here soon," Usagi promised, and he wanted to snort. He felt a bit stupid, and her need to reassure him as if he was a child didn't help. "And once I'm done with setting up I have time between presenting the acts! Minako and I keep switching."

He nodded, buried his hands in his pockets, and turned to walk off. She was busy. He'd be fine.

"Hey," she stopped him, slid her hand from his bicep to his chest, and he turned back to find her lips at his cheek - once, twice, thrice, until he smiled.

"Thank you for coming today," she smiled at him.

It was that warm smile. That Usagi smile. That sweetest of all smiles. And his lips couldn't help but curl up and his heart couldn't help but fill with warmth and who the hell cared that he was out of place here? He was right where he belonged.

He leaned down to press a short, barely lingering peck to her lips, as innocent as he could get away with in her school gym, and when he retreated, she was grinning.

"Of course," he smiled back.

Somewhere behind him he could hear the obnoxiously annoying voice of that boy whisper-hush to someone whether Usagi was kissing a teacher? - and he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Can I please help you?" he asked again, desperately, and this time she laughed, and held out the bunting.

"All the way around," she ordered, and he sighed in utter relief, grabbed her hips and lifted her off the step-ladder, and took over.

Obvious Setting Tag: Post-Stars

(Also why yes this IS a prompt to make all of you write me snippets of Mamoru's college parties that USAGI gets invited to.)