Daydream Believer – Chapter Eight

by taitofan

Rated PG-13 for sexual situations

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.

Author's note: After the last chapter, going to these two seemed to make the most sense.

If you have any CC, please share and I'll listen. Please read, review, and enjoy! Finished 05-27-14

Yaten knew that she was worrying her teammates, and remembering what she did about Usagi, probably the queen too. She felt bad, she truly did, but she couldn't go out there. Not yet.

"You know, it's okay." Seiya's voice was a bit comforting at least. She was the only one Yaten was allowing in, and that was only because she would have starved otherwise. "Taiki and I are the only ones who know. The others won't think anything of it. I mean, it's perfectly normal here on Earth. Hell, all relationships are these days. Just look at everyone just here in the Crystal Palace!"

Yaten knew she was right, but it didn't help. After all, she would know. And she'd lived on Kinmoku for so long—Kinmoku, which hadn't changed as Earth had. She'd had to hear all her life that she was wrong and disgusting, and…

She refused to cry. She was stronger than that.

"You know, I heard Minako talking to Rei," Yaten tensed, but she still didn't say a word, "and apparently that guy you were fighting with once targeted her when he was evil. She two-timed him and that blond guy on a date."

"Great," she finally spoke up, her hands clenched in shaking fists. "So Aino screws over guys too. Nice to know I wasn't special."

"Yaten…" Seiya sighed tentatively placed her hand on Yaten's shoulder. She quickly shrugged it off, and Seiya didn't try again. "You didn't love Minako."

"I should have."

"No!" Seiya's voice was so passionate that Yaten jumped at the sound. The stare she received told her that Seiya was being completely sincere. "You shouldn't have to love anyone you don't want to. If you aren't into women, that's fine. If you like that guy, that's fine! Stop thinking there's something wrong with you!"

"…Everyone on Kinmoku thought there was." Even if she wasn't on Kinmoku anymore and never would be again, it didn't stop the fact it had been drilled into her head her entire life. "Do you know how many times I heard people say how disgusting people like me are? Do you know how hard it was coming to Earth and finding out most people were like me? And then having a girl I tried so hard to love reject me because I wasn't a guy? And then… And then having to go back and hear the same things for hundreds of years? It's terrible! I can't just forget all of that overnight! Especially when the second I get here I find some fashion-challenged guy who makes me feel all of those things everyone said I wasn't supposed to feel for a man!"

She was shaking, and her rising voice cracked near the end. She hated this. She hated being different, and she hated that she wasn't different here in Crystal Tokyo, and yet she still felt that way.

"…I'm sorry," was all Seiya could say. And Yaten believed her. Of course she was sorry—but it didn't fix anything.

"It's fine. Just please leave me alone."

Seiya reluctantly obeyed her request. The moment she was gone, Yaten couldn't help it; the tears fell silently. She hated crying, but not even her pride could stop her now. It hurt so much, and she had many years of pain to work through.

"You're out."

Yaten was barely out of the door when a familiar voice filled her ears. She almost turned around and locked herself in again, but no. She had to do this. Hiding wasn't helping her, and honestly, the knowledge that there was a much more comfortable room waiting for her helped a lot.

It suddenly hit her that the very man who'd set all of this off had been staying in the room next to her the entire time.

"So what?" she asked, making sure her voice held the appropriate amount of haughtiness to fool him. He didn't look put off though, only concerned. She didn't want that, not from him. "I didn't feel like seeing your hideous heels again is all. I had to rest my poor eyes from the sight of them."

"For almost a week?" Had it really been that long? Time seemed to blur when she was depressed.

"They are very ugly shoes." He didn't look convinced—well, at least he wasn't an idiot. She'd hate if her stupid heartbeat was increasing over the mere sight of an imbecile.

"I think we got off to a bad start." It was stating the obvious, but she thought that was better than any pitying words he could give. "I'm Hawk's Eye."

"Kou Yaten," she supplied, humoring him. Or so she told herself. "But considering all of us Starlights are named Kou, everyone just calls me Yaten."

"Alright then, hello… Kou." She felt her face heat up despite herself. No one called her by her given name, even if they didn't know she was a Starlight.

"It's Yaten," she snapped, not caring that she actually liked hearing him say her name. She wasn't going down that road.

"I like Kou more," Hawk's Eye insisted, smirking down at her. She found herself irritated that he was probably much taller than her even if he took his heels off. "You know, I usually find older women more attractive, but you are quite cute… Especially when you're angry, which seems to be all of the time."

If he was trying to get under her skin, it was working. Her face heated up even more at his flirtatious words.

"Really? Because I've heard stories about you trying to seduce Aino, and she isn't old." While she didn't like bringing up Minako, it did the trick. His face flushed at the memory. She wished she knew exactly what had gone on.

"That wasn't one of my proudest moments," he admitted. "Well… None of my time with the Dead Moon Circus really was. Being with Tiger and Fish is really all I can look back fondly on…"

She'd heard that all four of the men who'd arrived the same time as her had been evil, but she couldn't see how such a bright and goofy looking bunch could have been very intimating. An alien and three guys from a circus. It all sound quite silly to her.

"What did you do, anyway?" she asked casually, as if she were asking for the time, determined not to let him see that she was honestly curious. But as he explained the processes in which they had extracted dream mirrors, her stomach turned a bit. "That's… very invasive."

"I know," he agreed, his voice tinged with regret. "What we did was terrible. But, you know, if you just stay in the past feeling sorry for yourself, you can't make a better future."

No, she realized, you couldn't. She could mope around forever, lamenting the fact that she hadn't fit into the neat little box Kinmoku had expected her to. So she liked men, so what? Half the women in the palace did too. Seiya was right—that wasn't anything out of the ordinary here, so why live in the past, hating herself?

Why indeed.

"You're…" It was hard for her to say certain things, like admit she was wrong or apologize. Thanking people ranked up there too. "You're right. I think I needed to hear that."

She quickly turned on her heel and stalked off, not wanting to hear anything more he had to say. She wasn't sure she could handle anymore that day.

"Kou," he yelled after her, "I don't know what the people on your planet were thinking, but you aren't disgusting."

She paused for but a moment before she took off in a sprint. She hated running, but she couldn't stay there. If he'd heard that… Then he also must have heard…

She stopped after she turned a few corners, and her racing heart had nothing to do with physical exertion. He'd heard what she'd said about him… And he'd still called her cute.

A tiny smile formed on her lips. Maybe… Maybe everything really would be okay.