AN: I did not think that I would finish writing this chapter! I get so impatient with the pace of my own writing. This took about four hours to write, and while that may seem a little … short in the time spent, I know myself too well to let an idea go only half-writ... it stays half-writ!
Thank you to the person who reviewed. It made my night!
Usagi lay flat on her back beneath a thick blanket with a look on her face as though she had spent the last two days awake without a wink of sleep, but this could not be further from the truth as she had just slept nearly ten hours from the night previous. She had awoken by the sound of the alarm clock sitting on her desk some three minutes ago, and it continued (untouched) to sound off dimly the latest radio hit by Minako Aino. Her thick blonde hair, which was tied into two buns on both sides of her head, was tangled over her neck and chin like a great big scarf.
A faint dusty light peered filtered through her curtain and provided the room with a light source. The door was slightly ajar and allowed the room a dim promise of what awaited below: pancakes, bacon... and the popping sound of egg-whites splattered from sizzling oil. Mama Tsukino's favorite tradition was making breakfast for her children on the first day of school, and it seemed this year would be no different.
But the scents and the alarm-radio had failed to instill life and motivation into Usagi. She had dreamed something, and it was an important something, but the more she tried to recall what she had been dreaming, the less important it became to a rational mind. She for certain that there had been two cats with tiny crescents on their forehead... that they had been talking... and they had been talking about Minako Aino. Usagi felt giggly at the very thought and pulled her duvet against the bottom half of her mouth.
She closed her eyes to try and remember what else the cats had talked about, but it was difficult. All Usagi knew at the moment was that they had taken themselves far too seriously for such small, cute kitties! And yet... why had they been talking about Aino Minako? Usagi couldn't believe that she had become that obsessed with her favorite pop idol... yet. At least not to the point where she was having dreams talking about her.
"U-sa-gi," Mama called from downstairs. "You should already be awake!"
"Mama..." Usagi cried back. "Fifteen more minutes!" She ran her fingers over the nearby desk to find the top on her radio-alarm. "I just hit my snooze button."
The door opened. Shingo entered fully dressed and with a look of incredulous disgust. This, Dear Reader, is Usagi's little brother. "Usaaagi... you don't need to hit the snooze alarm. Are you too lazy to get up when you're actually supposed to?"
Usagi wasn't going to stand for this. Living under the same roof as Shingo was bad enough, but that he would enter her room unannounced and just to insult her when she could barely piece her own mind together was a last straw. "Mama," she called before shooting at Shingo, "Get out—this is my room, go be a pest somewhere else!" Then, a final, "MAMA!"
From the kitchen, Mama responded neutrally, "Breakfast is nearly done!"
Shingo did not leave immediately, but canvassed the room with his eyes and murmured, "Your room is like a pigsty." He held up object that Usagi did not see previously: a small brush with lots of blonde hairs poking out conspicuously from its bristles. "You don't know how to do anything right. Including picking up after yourself in the bathroom." He dropped it carelessly on the floor.
"Stop touching my things and maybe I would want to pick them up without any Shingo-germs on them," she shouted back before stabbing her tongue in his direction.
"Girls are the ones who have cooties." Prematurely bored with the banter, the smaller boy decided to leave the room—but not before Usagi managed to whip a spare pillow at his direction. He used the door as a shield and blew a slobbery raspberry at his sister before shutting the door entirely. The pillow ineffectively rebounded to the floor.
Mildly annoyed, Usagi easily forgot about her dream and the two strange cats, though when she scrambled to her feet, she looked at the window as if she expected something or someone to be there. Nothing greeted her beyond the curtain except for a hepatic tinted sky, partially from sunrise and also in part from the red star that seemed to tail the sun's progression through the sky. Even its meager pin-sized presence in the sky made her skin crawl, and she pulled her curtains shut to begin a hunt for her newly pressed uniforms (pressed, thanks to her Mama).
Downstairs, the TV was on and switched to a local news station. The anchorman's voice filtered through the sounds of Mama Tsukino's preparation of the dining room's table. Two plates, one of fluffy pancakes and another of eggs were sat on either side of a fruit bowl. Lunch boxes for both Shingo and Usagi had been prepared, but only one remained now; by the time Usagi had finished dressing her little brother had already ate and caught the bus to his own school. Usagi sat down sleepily and watched the TV set's screen as Mama slid an empty plate in front of her daughter.
…reports from the hospital that more people are reporting flu-like symptoms. Drowsiness, nausea, fatigue...
"Usagi! Why is it always the same? Can't you learn to set your alarm clock earlier so that by the time the snooze alarm wears out you've woken up on time?" Mama Tsukino served her daughter's plate from behind, unaware of how loud she was being.
She was loud enough for Usagi to miss the next few lines from the anchorman. "It doesn't work that way, Mama.. If I do it that way, then I would have to hit the snooze alarm twice. Don't you know how it works for young girls? It's been too long, how can you remember?" She asked gloomily, as if she had somehow been unjustly maligned by Mama's suggestion.
...are unsure what has caused this epidemic. Sources have suggested it may be a new strand of the recent NH17 virus that gave a tough fight the year before last. Doctors are now advising for people to keep current on their vaccinations and to try and keep in good health...
"I'd like to think I'm young enough to remember how nice it is to sleep in, Lord knows I would appreciate that luxury back in my life. You have to grow into a lady sometime! Now turn around and eat."
"Mama! My food is missing!" Usagi exclaimed as she checked her plate: there was only a small bunch of grapes, one apple and a banana. "What is this?" She picked a grape between her fingers and examined it crestfallen before she tried reaching for the platter of pancakes.
"No, Usagi. I gave you exactly what you need," Mama Tsukino scolded. She used a pair of tongs to bat the blonde's fingers from the pile of pancakes. "This is for Papa and I to share. I'm putting you on a diet."
"What!" Usagi did not want to believe what she was hearing readily refused to at once. "I don't need to go on a diet." She tried to prove this to her Mama by grabbing what she could of her stomach through her uniform and pinching it into a pouch. That she couldn't grab much seemed to justify her stance of not needing a diet. "Why can't I have pancakes? What about.. what about some eggs? What if I didn't have the syrup?"
...no discrimination. Both old and young are at risk. Fortunately there are fully capable teams of experts working on a solution, and so far our Sources have said that there is a good hope for a nearby vaccination in the future...
"Haven't you listened to the news?" When Usagi shook her head, unable to make the connection that her Mama obviously had, the elder woman made an exasperated sigh that caused Usagi to recoil into her seat sulkily. "You need to eat healthy so that you can be fit and strong. Besides, it's your first day. When you eat junk your mind goes bunk," (Usagi had groaned at her mother's witty advice), "which is why you're going to eat this and enjoy."
"I can't enjoy it now," Usagi said dejectedly and stared at her plate as though it were the immediate cause of all of her discontent in life. "Not when I know there's something so delicious beside it!"
…have gone so far as to make their own opinion on the occurring sicknesses known. Here we have with us Claude Wille, an officiator for The Hand's sect. Claude?...
"You're going to make Mama very sad if you don't eat," Mama Tsukino insisted emphatically. "Mama is only looking after your best interest! Won't you make her happy?"
Usagi adapted her mother's emotional third-person switch with a terribly pronounced pouty-face. "Mama should know that she made Usagi very sad!" She added a demonstrative sniff afterward before handling her apple and eying it critically. "Usagi's stomach is going to growl all the way until lunch time."
"...no doubt a sign from the Red Star itself. Those who call out and accept God's grace, of course, have nothing to fear... but I suspect we should find many more wicked souls on their white beds and with the cough of death..."
"Well Usagi is going to be very hungry if she doesn't hurry up and eat." Mama Tsukino dropped the third-person speech pattern and patted the top of Usagi's lunch box. "I've packed your lunch with something that should tie you up for the rest of the evening. It's already," she flicked a glance at her wrist-watch, "twenty before the hour. Take the banana and apple with you. Papa can have your grapes."
"Well, that was Claude Wille! Do you have your own opinions? Call this number on the screen or text your opinion. We'll be airing some Twitter quotes we've collected the past week that are sure to amuse or just plain baffle you!"
"You're so mean to me," Usagi accused her mother, and tucked both apple and banana into a small shoulder pack she planned on taking with her. Mama Tsukino didn't know what was hidden in Usagi's bag and the young blonde felt particularly glad about it. Yesterday Usagi had visited a small corner store on the way home and spent the majority of her allowance on some chocolate bars that were wrapped in in pretty foil colors. Both her and her best friend Naru came away with bulging sacks and, when they had tasted the candy, they both felt they were well worth the price.
It seemed that the abundant purchase of chocolates would be Usagi's breakfast this morning. As soon as she got out of window-spying distance from the house, she dug a foiled bar out and proceeded to feast on its chocolate goodness.
At some point before she reached the actual school district, Usagi could hear the school bells chiming from several blocks away. The preoccupation with chocolates along with general distractions had slowed her pacing considerably, and Usagi felt she could not be entirely blamed for this. For at least half of her walk she had the distinct impression that she was being watched by a pair of eyes she could not see. She had rationalized with herself that it had been the all-seeing eyes of her Mother as she started on her third candy bar, but that had made her even more uncomfortable with her actions and she ended up feeding the third chocolate bar to the nearest trash bin.
Lunch-box firmly tucked beneath her arm, Usagi waited for the last stop-light inhibiting her path to the Juuban Junior High School building. It was one of those pesky lights that wanted to take their sweet time despite the fact that there wasn't any cars oncoming through the street she needed to cross. She failed to notice as she her eyes plastered on the dusty red stop-hand the approach of one individual to her right side. But she did notice when the individual, a tall older man who looked as if he just reached adulthood, looked over his shoulder in her direction with a peculiar frown.
Usagi attempted to ignore him but two things made it difficult: his attractiveness (thick black hair, well dressed, dark eyes), and the intent with which he looked at her. Indeed, it felt as if he simultaneously mapped the entirety of her small body and judged it in the same instant. It left a slightly amused quirk on his lips, and because of his smirk, a cool sensation in the pit of her own stomach that left her feeling … slightly crept out, and another emotion that she was too inexperienced to name.
Even by the time the dark-haired man returned to minding his own business—that is to say, the road in front of him—Usagi felt the need to confront him, "Uhhh! If you took a picture, it would have lasted longer." She managed her best alluring smile at him.
It took a moment for him to decide if it was worth replying. "I think I'll pass on that."
Usagi's smile pinched out into a narrow-lipped stare. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The light turned green, but he humored her question with a glance at her. "You have a little something... here." He touched a finger to the corner of his mouth... and then began walking briskly across the street while he was still able.
"What?" Usagi repeated in less words and scooped at the corner of her mouth with an index. When she examined her finger-pad she was appalled at what she saw: smeared chocolate—and she could imagine how much was actually there. She scrubbed so furiously at her mouth, and so zealously with the back of her knuckles that she forgot to cross the street altogether and found herself waiting another two minutes for the walk signal. It did not matter much in the end because time had suddenly stopped existing for her as her thoughts raced ahead self-consciously.
As with the other chapter, please, if anyone has criticisms for how I'm portraying Usagi—I'm all open ears, and I'm not afraid to go back and rewrite something!