Usagi Tsukino opened her eyes.
A blistering headache crept up her temples and her shoulder throbbed with a dull ache. Usagi winced in pain and buried herself deeper into the sheets. The morning could wait. Last night, Zoicite's latest youma had been the rare kind with good aim. She and Naru had been at a street market in Roppongi when the crowd was ambushed. She managed to split away from Naru and transform. The screaming festival-goers and the whoosh of the sharp knives from last night still rung in her ears.
Usagi's head spun. She knew she needed to get dressed to meet the girls for the senshi meeting soon. It was probably way past the morning. But something about the warm bed and her lingering headache made her want to lose herself and crawl deeper under the covers. Usagi groaned. The other senshi hadn't arrived in time and she had had to fight the youma by herself. Her limbs ached with exhaustion and the sharp throbbing in her right shoulder refused to go away. She would hold this over Mina-P's head for at least a week.
Reluctantly, she swung herself out of bed.
As she took in her surroundings, Usagi grew painfully aware of a few things.
The first — she was not in her own bed. She was alone in a large bed of crisp, white sheets that smelled faintly of lavender and magnolia blossoms. Soft light filtered through a curtain billowing on a small balcony. Usagi swallowed back a sense of dread. This was bad.
The second — she was not in her own bedroom. This was definitely not the small, cluttered apartment she and Minako shared in Juuban. "Okay, focus", she breathed to herself, trying to calm the pounding in her chest.
The third - there was a large bandage tinged with dark, copper blood, going from her shoulder all the way down to her right bicep, stopping just above her reinforced white glove. Damnit, she must not have been as good at dodging the youma's blades as she'd thought.
Usagi squinted her eyes through the piercing pain still ringing through her forehead and tried to adjust to her surroundings.
The room she found herself in was small, but not cramped. Not a single piece of clothing laying on the floor gave it the touch of a clean freak (Or a serial killer! Usagi gulped). There was an oak desk in a corner, piled with heavy books and several black notebooks. On the bedside table next to her, Usagi spotted a pair of reading glasses, a leather-bound address book, and a mug with a dark ring of coffee pooled on the bottom. So… a serial killer who wore glasses? It couldn't be that bad.
Usagi rubbed her eyes and brought her fingers up to her temples. Oh no. She took in a sharp inhale. Oh no. She could feel the cool metal of a golden tiara under her fingertips. Her fingers brushed the garnet jewel at its center. Oh crap. Her tiara?!
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.
No no no, this couldn't be happening. Usagi looked down, dreading what she knew she was about to see. The white fabric of her bodysuit clung to her form, its pink ribbon point up at her, mockingly and confirming her worst suspicions.
Sailor Moon, not Usagi Tsukino, had woken up in a stranger's bed, still transformed.
"Usaaaagi… Earth to Usagi! Are you paying attention?"
Usagi opened her eyes and looked up into four pairs of concerned eyes. She had dozed off in their booth at the Crown Café, her head in her arms, drooling slightly onto her pink sweater. Aino Minako was staring daggers into her. She had been mid-sentence into a new part of her fifteen-point plan to finally get somewhere in their search for the elusive Moon Princess, when Usagi's gentle snoring broke the flow of conversation. Makoto snickered, but stopped herself, not wanting to redirect the wrath of the blonde senshi of Love her way.
Ami put a gentle hand on Usagi's right hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze. She turned to Minako. "We should take it easy on Usagi-Chan today. She did fight that battle on her own last night."
"I.. did?" Usagi shook her head and blinked her eyes, as Rei threw her another exasperated look and sighed. Yes, that's right. She remembered now. She had been at a street fair when Zoicite attacked. The events of last night were slowly began to piece themselves together into something coherent. Her right shoulder still stung.
Makoto put an arm arm around Usagi. "Maybe we give the Princess thing a rest, just for today?"
Their search for the elusive Princess of the Moon had entered its third year. The battles continued and the Dark Kingdom generals grew more desperate. Usagi knew it was taking the strongest toll on Minako. As the leader, she felt the weight of making progress on her shoulders. Usagi sensed that they were all worn down, frustrated at battles that went nowhere, at senseless fights that seemed to annoy Zoicite as much as them. The weekly senshi meetings at Hikawa shrine turned into an almost daily brainstorms. Today's session had at least took them to the Crown Cafe, which had comfortable seats and chocolate ice cream.
Usagi returned Makoto's gesture with a half-smile and put her head on the tall girl's shoulder. Minako gave them a resigned sigh, reluctantly agreeing with a half-nod, while Ami nodded quietly in agreement and went back to her textbook: Principles of Tumors: A Translational Approach to Foundations.
Rei, however, was still looking straight at them, her violet eyes suspicious. Usagi felt hot under Rei's piercing gaze. She had to had known something was off. Could the miko tell that she had woken up in the bed of a stranger? That she did it while still transformed? No way. If she did, Usagi wouldn't hear the end of it.
She tore her eyes from her chocolate shake and twirled her straw absentmindedly between her fingers. The events of the morning replayed in her head. The memory of that white bed, the soft sheets and pillow that smelled like fresh rain and magnolias brought a fresh flush back to her face. The scent almost.. familiar, like something she knew from a long time ago.
"So…" Minako edged closer, senshi business forgotten, and ready to move onto a new topic. "Artemis told me… that Luna told him… that someone didn't come home last night.. Would that, by any chance, have anything to do with the fact that you've been making bedroom eyes at Chiba for the past hour?"
A wolfish grin spread across Minako's face. She lowered her voice, "You know, if you and Chiba-san finally turned that frenemies thing into a frenemies-with-benefits thing, I would be the last to judge", with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows. Minako's gaze ate into Usagi. She wanted to crawl further into the booth until she disappeared fully into its maroon upholstery.
Oh, Mina-P, if only you knew..
"Okay, Usagi, don't panic. There has to be an explanation for this, right?"
Usagi clutched at her brooch, relieved to find it still nestled between the red bow atop her chest. She steadied her breath and tried to focus away from the loud heartbeat pulsing in her head. Whoever had brought her here hadn't taken the brooch off to release her transformation. Which meant they had no desire to find out her secret identity. Which meant it likely hasn't been the enemy. Usagi breathed a sigh of relief.
Still, that didn't fully rule out the serial killer hypothesis.
Sailor Moon shivered, fighting off the waves of panic in her stomach. She was sure that she had dusted the youma with her tiara, the same one that sat on her forehead now, mockingly reminding her that either a Dark General or an unsuspecting resident of Tokyo was about to find a superhero tangled in their sheets. No. No way the Dark Kingdom had nice sheets. She was pretty sure they didn't do laundry service wherever they lived.
Okay, so an unsuspecting resident of Tokyo it was. Even worse, not only was there a superhero in their bed, but she was wearing knee-high boots, scuffed and crusted with dirt from battle. She stifled a laugh at the absurdity of it all, wincing when the pain in her bandaged shoulder came roaring back.
Except.. she wasn't wearing her boots. Either she had taken them off herself or someone had done it for her. This… was going to be a problem.
Okay Usagi, think. Think this through. What was the last thing you remember?
There was the crowd of screaming girls in yukatas, a goldfish-catching stall in disarray. The youma.. she kept coming back to the youma, but was sure that she defeated it after Tuxedo Mask swept in, guiding her away from the monster's sharp projectiles. Her heartbeat rose again, at the thought of the masked superhero pulling her closer to him, his hand on her hips, the other lacing through her fingers as he swept her away from danger.
Usagi paced the room. She needed to get her shoes and leave, preferably through the balcony, before the owner of the apartment came back. Or worse, before Luna noticed her gone. She tiptoed across the bedroom and lightly pushed open the bedroom door.
That's when she realized she know exactly where she was. She'd been to this apartment before.
Her mind spun, the headache coming back to pulse at her temples. None of it made sense.
The living space was familiar from the few times she trailed Ami to a study session and the drinks Motoki had insisted they host at Mamoru Chiba's apartment, in spite of his muffled protests. The room was as plain and boring as Chiba. She snorted to herself, mentally making a note to remind him he had the interior design sense of a carrot next time she saw him.
Usagi racked her brain for how she could have ended up in Mamoru-baka's apartment, let alone his bed. As she scanned the living room, her eyes fell to the open medical kit on the kitchen island— gauze, butterfly stitches, and iodine pads. Usagi looked back at her bandaged arm. Oh.. She winced in pain, her shoulder still wrapped in a bandage, traces of copper blood across its edges. She had so many questions, but staying in the apartment any longer would be a liability. Usagi finally spotted her knee-high boots on the genkan. Of course that nerd had taken off her shoes before bringing her inside. She tip-toed to the entryway as quietly as she could, picking up her bright red boots and slipping them on in a surprising show of grace. She quickly crossed the living room, chiding herself for not putting the shoes back on the balcony.
But then Usagi stopped herself.
Mamoru Chiba lay sleeping, draped across his beige sofa in a grey dress shirt and loose sweatpants.
His chest rose softly with the rhythm of his breath and his forehead, so often scrunched in concentration over a boring medical textbook looked so serene. She hadn't realized that she had crossed back across the room until she was kneeling down by his side, brushing a few strands of his bangs that had fallen over his eyes. Her fingers lingered over his face and she found herself tracing the contours of his cheekbones, his jaw, his chin with her gloved hands. Her eyes found his lips and she brushed her index finger over its outlines. Despite being so uptight, Mamoru was handsome, his defined features and piercing cobalt eyes..
Her breaths were shallow now and she felt her heart beating in her ears. Okay, calm down Usagi, you total creep.
Yet, something about this moment, seeing him asleep, had a perverse familiarity, almost like she had seen his sleeping face before. She inhaled, bending ever so slightly to his face, until she could feel his breath brush against her warm lips. Usagi shivered…
Mamoru's thick, dark eyelashes stirred and she was knocked back out of her trance. No, no, no, no. This was not okay. Mamoru couldn't wake up to find her mere inches away from his face. Even worse. Mamoru couldn't wake up to find Sailor Moon hovering inches from his face. How was she going to explain that to Luna? Even worse, she could picture Mina-P's snickering face.
Usagi turned on her heels, her boots clicking as quietly as possible on Mamoru's wooden floor. She tip-toed towards the opened balcony with its white curtains billowing in the morning breeze. With a swift jump she leapt off the balcony and onto the neighboring rooftop, fighting back the tears streaming down her face.