This is another alternate version I originally wrote for the Forced Kiss prompt. I ultimately decided against it because the Silver Millennium storyline seemed more popular.
Anyway, remember episode 93 in S? It's the one where Usagi feels she's absolutely lacking in all departments from cookie-baking to anything, tries to improve herself on all accounts and follows Michiru around in this episode where she is introduced and Usagi compares herself to her endlessly. (And on top of that, we had Luna's speech how Mamoru might leave her one day and it'll all be her fault because she's not willing to approve.) It all got (somewhat?) resolved by the end of the episode of course (and even way earlier, Mamoru was absolutely sweet this episode actually!), but well, I wanted to dabble in it too I guess lol.
A Second Forceful Kiss
He looked down at the watch on his wrist, leaned back against the white marble that made up the inner part of the big, imposing arch that was Keio's main entrance gates, and sighed. Usagi was late.
He had no idea in the first place why she'd insisted to pick him up today. Keio was out of her way. But one moment he'd chatted about some function a few of his co-eds had organised and wanted his help in this afternoon (with a subsequent casual dinner invite afterwards in one of the cheap eateries around which he'd hoped he might get to skip), and the next she'd insisted she come pick him up.
Which was half an hour ago.
He turned a page on his book, not completely paying attention to it, but not completely disregarding it for his surroundings either. Just a more or less subconscious scan for loud and bubbly and bright colors and odangos.
So, he nearly jumped when she started speaking right next to him and he hadn't seen her.
"I'm so sorry, Mamo-chan…" she said, her voice absolutely, completely mournful.
But his eyes bugged out of his head more at the way she looked than the dejected tone of her voice.
No wonder he hadn't seen her.
He almost dropped his book.
Her hair was… Her hair was wrong.
Her hair was piled together in a low, messy bun at the back of her head, all of it. No long streamers of hair, no odangos. It was as if she'd… wait, had she cut if off?!
He stared at her in horror.
And it didn't even stop there. No brightly colored mini-skirt, no cute hopping into his arms. She was wearing dark jeans and a navy colored sweater that was a bit too large on her, and her hands very tightly clasped in front of her. Even her make-up was different. Less.
She was completely wrong.
"I really tried to be on time this time," she said towards her feet.
"What's going on?" he shot out breathlessly.
Her eyes shot up. "Nothing!"
His chest clenched. Where was her hair?
Immediately, his mind tried to go over what he might have done wrong this time. This was about yesterday, wasn't it? The burnt cookies? Her self-conscious cries that she wasn't good enough for him? But he'd eaten every last cookie, and he'd promised her he loved her exactly as she was.
Because he did. And this wasn't her.
"This is about yesterday, isn't it?" he shot out again, still staring.
She frowned down at herself. "Don't you like it?" she said meekly. "I did my best, but the girls wouldn't help me this time…"
He blinked. "What…?"
She pulled at her too big sweater again. This wasn't hers. Whose was it?
"You missed it because of me, didn't you?" she said with a deep sigh, and he blinked even harder.
Uh…
"The thing? Your co-eds going out to dinner afterwards?"
Uh…
"They're just down the road," he tried to assure her - carefully, almost pleadingly - because it really didn't look like he should pile any fails on her whatsoever, lest she go and dye her hair or something. "It's no big deal. They're saving us a seat."
"Oh!" she said, and snapped her head back up, and finally there was a smile in it, and a small glimpse of his Usako, and it constricted in his heart.
"Let's go then!" she cried, and pulled at his hand, and him down the steps.
He followed staring helplessly at that wrong bun.
It all got so much more bewildering when they actually arrived. When he introduced her to some of his co-eds and she was… she was quiet. Almost shy. She stood behind his shoulder and nodded and…
When someone asked her what she was doing, she said she was still in school and hoping to do well there. That she was going to do her best from now on to be worthy of someone who went to Keio.
He nearly choked on his Ramen.
What was it? What had he done wrong?
"Excuse me?!" he screeched, and her eyes widened.
His co-eds looked on strangely. His voice had gotten a bit too loud. As if something in him rebelled to compensate for all this wrong-ness.
"'Worthy'?!" he spat out, and then, "You like video games and naps. You hate school," he told her wide-eyed, too loud, because he couldn't believe he had to remind her.
But her cheeks flushed in that way they used to do back when he was an idiot in the streets of Juuban and one of his foolish insults went a bit too far and it all died in his throat.
"I'm trying to do better," she told her bowl of Ramen.
And he realised then that she wasn't holding it up to her mouth, wasn't slurping the noodles with a blissful smile on her face and humming into her food as if it came straight from paradise. She was holding her chopsticks in the proper way and stabbing nothing with them, and she picked at her food like a bird.
What the fuck had he done?! When did he do it?
"I like video games, too," Saito-kun across from her said in a somewhat apologetic tone. Because there was a mood here and not only he was picking up on it, it was there.
Usagi flashed Saito a too small, too grateful smile and then didn't start chattering about her favorite games.
Something in his chest flared painfully.
"You don't have to do better," he almost barked.
She pursed her lips. "I really do," she pressed out towards her food.
"Do you not like it?" he said, too loud again, and around him chatter was dimming, heads were turning, and he nodded to her food. "We can go get something else if you don't like it. We can leave."
It was a rude thing to say so loudly, so openly. The chef was right there behind the counter.
He had no idea why she suddenly wanted to tag along to get-togethers with his co-eds anyway. He wasn't friends with any of these people. He really didn't want to go in the first place, had she not insisted to accompany him.
"No, I like it," she pressed out, flushing harder, flushing in the way she used to when she was so angry with him…
"We can go for milkshakes instead."
"I said I'm fine."
"Usako," he hissed.
With that, her eyes flashed up to him, and they were… they were so sad.
He froze.
But she broke out of it, licked her lips, and looked around the place. His eyes followed hers and he found her slumping in relief when she spotted the sign for the restrooms.
"Excuse me…" she mumbled, and then untangled herself from the small stool in a way he'd never seen her move.
He inhaled and exhaled harshly when she'd gone, tried to control his breathing, his irritation.
"Hey, are you guys—" Saito was saying.
Mamoru stood up abruptly, without replying, yanked his wallet from his pocket and threw some bills on the table, then grabbed both her purse and his book bag and left the table without saying goodbye.
The restrooms were just beyond the entrance.
He stood there restlessly, leg jiggling. She took a while. But when she emerged, he grabbed her arm, and pulled her, startled as she was, out of the restaurant.
Mita was busy this time of day. The buzz of opening izakayas in an area known for its many cheaper restaurants just behind them, the bright glare of neon signs for chain restaurants all around them, Tokyo Tower starting to glimmer against the light of the now almost dark blue sky.
"What are you doing?" His tone was absolutely appalled as he turned her toward him by the shoulders, still so way too loud.
"Nothing," she mumbled, and he kind of wanted to growl at her.
And so, he did. "What's wrong?" he growled out in the most concerned growl anyone had ever heard, he was sure of it.
The kind of frustration in it of a boy who was faced with perhaps losing what he found most precious about the girl he loved.
"You're pretending to be someone you're not," he accused.
She met his eyes. Her lips were downturned, her tone defeated. "You don't think I could be better?"
His heart hurt at that look.
"Usako!"
Her shoulders slumped and she sighed hard. "I am," she said, and his brows furrowed.
"Pretending," she elaborated.
"Why?" he shot out breathlessly, the growl gone but now left with all the concern.
She shrugged and looked to the side, and the neon light played off her golden hair.
People were making wide circles around them on the narrow pathway and throwing them looks, and for once, he really couldn't care less.
"You said you wanted to introduce Ami to one of your professors once. You never want to introduce me to anyone…"
He recoiled. "What?"
But she shook her head in consolation (it was so wrong with that hairstyle), put all the 'that's not it' into her expression, and yet…
"You always say such nice things about Ami, and now Michiru, too, and I…"
His eyes flashed.
"Luna said…"
"What did Luna say?" he almost growled.
She shook her head again with a sigh. "It doesn't matter."
"Oh, it really does…"
He left the sentence hanging, kept waiting, and finally Usagi looked back up, kept his gaze.
Why? Why did she look so sad?
She slumped back against the wall of the restaurant behind her, and he moved closer, bent down toward her, when her eyes once again threatened to stray. And so, he chased her gaze, moved with her eyes to stay in its trajectory.
"I don't know how to bake," she finally admitted in a small voice, and he frowned. So, this was about yesterday. But he'd eaten all the cookies, he had.
"And I don't know anything about gene-manipulitation. And I don't know how to wear a kimono the right way. And Luna is right, it'll be my fault when you look at me one day and don't want to be with someone like that anymore—"
He nearly choked on his saliva. What?!
"So I… so I wanted to try. To be better for you."
His heart was screaming.
"Why would you think I wanted you any different?" he asked, perhaps a bit too close now, and she had to crane her neck. Her cheeks turned just that little bit pink when he started to curl one of those stray little baby locks around his finger that had fallen out of her (wrong!) bun and curled around her face.
But her face was still in that too sad pout, her voice too quiet. "You keep complimenting what strong, independant and accomplished women my friends are."
The look he sent her must have looked incredulous, because she flushed and hurried to explain.
"I couldn't even transform on my own anymore. I needed your help even for that."
He shook his head now, wide-eyed. Wait, what?!
But she'd… she'd been happy about her new brooch and...
She turned her eyes to his chest, and he couldn't bend so low as to catch them there.
"You said you like strong women when you broke up with me."
All his breath left his lungs as if she'd punched it out of him.
"Usako…" he whimpered.
No.
His voice turned begging.
"Usako, I was talking deliberate bullshit and it didn't even make sense. You're the strongest woman in the fucking world," he begged.
She shrugged.
"Usako."
Her eyes were now back at that stupid, stupid wrong sweater she wore, and he had enough.
He reached forward and yanked at her bun.
Her eyes found his, startled, but he kept going.
When her hair cascaded down her shoulders finally, he couldn't keep out the breath of relief. She hadn't cut it. It was all there.
He leaned close, cradled her face, right there on that busy street in Mita, some of his co-eds in the window of the restaurant, watching, and shitdamn could he care less.
"I love you just the way you are," he repeated his words from yesterday, a bit harsher, a bit angrier, but nonetheless a promise. Leaned down towards her, and her eyes flashed in a small smile.
He forced her mouth up. Pulled at her face and pressed his lips to hers and kissed her way too harshly. A bit too deep, a bit too forward. Growled against her and dragged his teeth across her lower lip, and when he let go of her, her cheeks were flushed in a way he loved much better.
"Don't do that," he glared, his words puffing out against her reddened lips forcefully. "Give me my girl back now, ok?"
And then, finally, there between his hands, her cheeks dimpled and her eyes had her smile back.
"Ok," she breathed, precious face nodding between his tight grasp on it.
He sighed in relief.
"Milkshakes?" she asked with a sheepish smile, and his lips quirked up.
"Sure," he smiled.
"And can we get more food?" she smiled up, and he crushed her to him in a tight hug, her arms fluttering to his sides underneath too long sleeves.
"Sure," he said again into her hair, and breathed deeply. Relieved. So, so relieved.
Obvious Setting Tag: S (specifically, Episode 93)
Though I think it's not AS obvious here exactly. You know, by the time Super S rolled around Usagi was confident and secure in that relationship and had learned to trust him irrevocably. But early S? Episode 93 is 3 episodes into S. It's fresh, fresh, freshest post-break-up with canon not actually showing us any communication around the matter? Overall, this was where she was still quite insecure about them, jumping on Rei and Ami for flirting, etc, etc. She started S out with being terribly distraught about being the only person not being able to transform anymore, Mamoru made comments about not seeing her until she got her grades up, and she had that episode where she compared herself with Mamoru, and then the girls, and then Michiru, right here, and found herself lacking. So, this is here. She gotWAY more confident about herself and him and their relationship the longer they were together even if never as much as she did in the manga, and not to the point she didn't still think he'd just abandoned her in Stars, but she DID get better about it. (And besides, let's not forget they're pimple-nosed teenagers at this point! Both of them! Insecurity is kind of their job!).
Also, because while Mamoru was PERFECT in this episode, it didn't quite fit the things he's said in previous episodes, so I wanted some continuity. Anyway, I actually love that episode, and how secure she IS in the end, I just wanted to play it up a little, but in the end decided against it. But here you have it anyway, I guess lol.