Title: Breaking

Author: Koohii Cafe

Rating: K

Fandom: BSSM

Disclaimer: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belongs to Takeuchi Naoko.

Summary: A collection of moments from a world where Stars does not end... quite as joyously.

Author's notes: I'm writing these pieces out as they come, and they may or may not be in chronological order. Please forgive if a piece is somewhat vague, it will all begin to make sense as I write more and more.

Crying

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Her lips trembled despite her best efforts, and her nails dug deep into her palms as her fists tightened. She wouldn't- she couldn't- let it escape, and silken blonde locks were sent flying as her head shook in refusal, eyes squeezed shut with all her might. If she did, it would never stop; if she did, it would mean that it was true.

She didn't want to see the looks on their faces, to see the sympathy, compassion, the pity sure to be in their eyes. They would try, god knew they would try, but how could they ever even hope to understand? After all, they were alright. They were together, happy, with all of their loved ones. They would never know the hollow feeling, the empty pain that clenched in her heart, and she would never wish it upon them. They could be happy; she wanted them to be happy, but- she couldn't bear to see it.

A hand touched her shoulder, gentle, and she flinched. Eyes still closed, she didn't see the hurt the movement caused, and she couldn't have brought herself to care even if she had. She could barely stand her own pain. Without looking, she shook her head again and backed up a step, away from the touch, before turning and running.

~*~*~*~

"She- she'll never be the same again. Will she?"

"No, I'm afraid not." The voice was soft, mournful, and a quiet murmur of agreement joined it. Fingers interlaced with another's as the speaker watched the fleeing form. "This is a wound even she can't heal."

"Then we've really lost her."

"No." Surprised eyes turned at the firm denial. "We'll never lose her. We just have... to give her time."

~*~*~*~

Get up early and get ready. Leave for school before anyone else wakes. Pay attention in class and steadily ignore the palpable concern of the others. Go straight home and work on homework. Go to bed and remember that everything is alright. Rinse. Repeat.

It was how she managed to get through life a day at a time. As long as her thoughts never ventured beyond her set routine, she could survive. Her grades were even soaring, better than they'd ever been. Her family and friends should have been excited by her progress in school. Instead, all they did was worry. They stared at her when they thought she wasn't looking, unspoken questions beating against her silent wall of solitude, and she couldn't stand it. Part of her wished that they would just leave her alone, that they could understand how much it hurt just to be alive, to be so empty, and yet, she would never have wished these feelings upon the people she loved. That was something, at least, that she could cling to. They had been spared this fate. Her family, her senshi, had been spared this pain.

But then... others hadn't. And it was with those others that she was finally able to take solace. They, too, knew this fate.

~*~*~*~

It was inevitable. They were the only ones who could understand each other. Those around them tried, tried so hard, but it only managed to push them farther away and closer together. At school, they took to eating lunch together in private to escape the suffocating concern of their friends. In that time, they found that they could finally have a peace somehow, in shared heartache, shared grief. The desire for that peace, the burning demand for that peace, brought them together outside of school as well. She found herself taking her homework to their home, instead of her own, or her friends'. They dropped from the limelight that had been their life before, even going as far as to change their own identities. They welcomed her into their company, the only one with such a privilege.

It was there, one day long after everything had happened, that she found herself finally unable to hold back any longer. When the tears slipped down her cheeks for the first time since that day, they held her in their arms, and they cried with her. They cried for her, and she for them, and the tears fell from each of them for all of them.