Hi guys!

It has been ages, I know. I have a viable excuse, I swear.

I just have to find it.

So while I'm off doing that, why don't you read this conveniently-placed story below?

And big doodled hearts to everyone who reviewed last chapter! –squee!- I love you guys, I really do.

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Notebooks, Not Love Notes

Ala Verity

Chapter 1

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The beautiful, glowing goddess seemed to float as she entered her bedchambers. Waving the door shut behind her with a flick of the wrist, she gave a soft sigh and set herself down gently at her silver vanity.

"I don't like how this is coming along."

Ah, so she wouldn't be alone tonight, after all.

In the mirror's reflection, Selene saw the figure of her best friend walking towards her and immediately busied herself with brushing her hair, which cascaded over her shoulders like a golden waterfall. She heard him sigh. "I don't like this, Selene, I really don't. A dozen things could have gone wrong by now, and—"

"And they haven't," she finished, now watching him from the corner of her eye. Then, quietly, almost to herself, "No. Things, as far as I know, have been more perfect than even I anticipated."

"And you anticipate everything, do you?" Thoth retorted angrily, his loud voice echoing in stark contrast to her soft one. "Look, Selene…" He rounded the bed and kneeled in front of his friend, who immediately immersed herself in her flawless nails. "Look—I know it's hard being all alone up here for endless millenniums. But the fact is, you can't go interfering in the lives of innocent people who have nothing to do with our guardianship duties! And that's exactly what you're doing by sending that Spectacle down there."

"It's no big deal, what I'm doing," she replied, pursing her lips almost childishly. "It's not like I'm going to hurt anybody."

"I know you don't mean to, Selene, but sometimes…I mean, for instance, how are you monitoring these effects if you're not going down to Earth to do so? You're not going down, are you? It's dangerous!"

"Of course not!" she exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips in the very image of being affronted, although her twinkling eyes betrayed her. "I've been living here for the past 2000 years as you have, Thoth, I'm not stupid, you know—"

"Did a good job fooling me," Thoth murmured, the playful upturn of his lips earning him a smack on the shoulder.

"It's this—" Selene opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like another disguised Alethian Spectacle; but upon closer examination, Thoth's keen eyes detected that the golden symbols adorning the cover were different. "It's a Receptacle—complimentary pair to go with the Spectacle. I've been using it to receive signals from our Earth-bound end," she said, tracing the edge of her mirror speculatively. "And this is what I've seen so far."

It was as if an invisible stone had been dropped into a small pond. The mirror surface wavered for a brief moment, crystalline liquid. Then, slowly, a ripple from the center expanded outwards, a plethora of color expanding into the glassy blue until Thoth found himself looking at the image of a girl's diary.

"The Character Flaws of C.M.—" Thoth looked curiously from the mirror to Selene. "Who's C.M.? Not Chibi Moon…?"

"Chiba Mamoru, the high school senior she's got a vendetta against. But Thoth!" she added impatiently, waving her hand over the mirror's border and zooming in on a particular segment of text, "You're not reading it all—come on, you've got to read it carefully!"

"Fine!"

Several minutes of silence passed by as he read, Selene peering eagerly over his shoulder. Then…

"Selene, there's a blemish on your mirror."

"There's a WHA—oh, that's not a blemish, Thoth. I made a note of that passage especially."

Thoth raised an eyebrow at her. "But what in the moon's name did you mark th—" He froze mid-sentence, gaping as realization crossed his features. Then— "Oh, no."

"Yes."

He turned to her, looking mortified. "No, Selene, you can't—"

"Mhmm!" The corner of her eyes crinkled as she smiled and nodded happily, guileless. Perfectly guileless.

"Selene! You don't actually think she means any of that, do you? How could you even think of granting an imbecile w—"

"Of course I don't believe that, what do you think I am, stu—" Selene closed her eyes and waved her hands in front of her face, as if fanning away invisible smoke. "No, we've been through that already." She looked up again, her gold eyes flashing. "But the point is that that girl is obviously going through some serious problems, and we've got to help her! There are some things even the toughest girls can't solve on their own—"

"Like PMS and mood swings—" Thoth muttered.

"And men," Selene forged on, throwing him a dirty look, "happen to be one of them!"

Her friend did not miss the slight. "So what do you propose—theoretically speaking, that is—you—fine!—propose we do? You're not actually thinking of—"

Selene brightened immediately. "Oh, that's the easy part! She's got it all written out for me."

"We're not fairies, we're moon sprites, Selene! She wants the world to hate a man. What are we going to do next, cleanse the world of the male population to make her happy?"

"Oh, she doesn't hate him," the goddess replied with a knowing smile. "I'm going to make her wish come true—he'll learn never to take love for granted again…but with a few adjustments."

"And what are those?"

Selene turned to face him happily. "I'm going to do it by making all of the world fall in love with him!"

Thoth blanched, gaping noiselessly at her before he choked out the next words.

"You have got to be kidding me."

But Selene was no longer listening. Turning once more to face her mirror, she watched the diary's image ripple slightly under an invisible wind, and as the written wish flickered in and out of focus, she murmured, "Tsukino Usagi, your wish is my command."

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Ah…another beautiful, bright and sunny Wednesday morning.

Beautiful, that is, until the day started.

"WAGHHHH! Luna, why didn't you wake me UP?!"

"I'm not an alarm clock, you know," Luna muttered grumpily, watching as I shot out from under my cozy covers and pounced on the real clock. The red numbers flashed at me accusingly. 7:52 a.m.

I groaned as my cat stretched her paws with an ostentatious yawn. "You hit the 'snooze' button one too many times. I must have turned off."

"Ha ha. Not funny, Luna!"

Zooming around the room at top speed, I sent a lurid assortment of pink towels flying over my shoulder as I hunted for my school uniform with one hand and ran a brush brusquely through my hair with the other, chanting an endless refrain of "I'm late, I'm late, I'm LATE! Oh God, Luna, I'm late again!"

Luna regarded my morning antics lazily through one open eye. "You sound like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland."

I threw a pair of socks at her, which went whizzing instead out the open window. I heard the cat next door yowling as my weapon hit its mark. "Well now you know that I can't help being late all the time. Tardiness must be a bunny thing, so it's not my fau—AHA! Here it is!"

And successfully locating my uniform under a stack of comic books, I ignored Luna's "YEOWCH!" as the tower came toppling down on her, wrenched the rumpled garments on in five seconds flat, and sprinted for the door.

Just before I left, however, I couldn't resist poking my head back into the room and giving Luna a dirty look from where she was meowing furiously under my manga collection. "You know, I wish you had an off button sometimes, Luna. And don't forget to clean up the mess when you're finished!" Then I bolted.

Exactly one minute later found me zipping past the arcade, wailing at a volume that alone would have disproved the Doppler effect. I was equally loud EVERYWHERE.

"Oh no! I'm going to get detention AGAAAAAIINN!" I sped up.

One of the days, I was going to break the record for the mile run.

I was too busy thinking about how I wasn't going to include Luna in my award acceptance speech to watch where I was going, which explained the chain of unfortunate events that followed.

"OOMPH!"

"OUCH!"

Patterpatterpingboing THUNK! My textbooks rained down from the sky, bouncing every which way off the sidewalk.

"Ow…" I rubbed my head, wincing. "What—?"

"Hey, you okay?"

"Ye—" My jaw dropped as I looked up, and I immediately amended, "NO."

Because guess who the merciful heavens had decided to drop my way? Actually, don't answer that. I'd prefer not to think about it.

"Oy—look who it is! Odango!"

"If the heavens were truly merciful," I muttered under my breath, getting to my feet, "they would send down a lightning bolt and smite me right now. Or him," I added thoughtfully. "Actually, please make it him, and I swear I'll never ask for anything else!" Except maybe a house made of dark triple-chocolate mocha fudge.

"What are you going on about now, Odango? Trying to put a spell on me with your little witchcraft voodoo?"

Tilting my chin up defiantly at the voice above me, I gave the man standing in front of me as lethal a death glare as I could find it in me to muster up at this time of day. I swear that with any other mere mortal his head would already have burst into flames, but this was no normal human—no, this was Chiba Mamoru, the very last man I wanted to see at the ungodly hour of 8:05 a.m.

But I would have time later to mourn the premature death of a lovely Wednesday morning. Tsukino Usagi, the pitcher has thrown the ball—now hit that sucker all the way out of the stadium!

"Yes, as a matter of fact, that is exactly what I'm doing." I cocked my head to one side. "Only my ugly-fying charm doesn't seem to work on you, because you're too ugly to begin with."

That was a home run if I ever saw one!

"By ugly, I'll assume you mean witty, talented, and charming, so thank you for the compliment." I stuck my tongue out at him in response and ducked under his arm to pick up my biology notebook. "Tell me, Odango," he drawled lazily, watching as I darted around, "do you always pick such handsome men for your victims?"

"Just you," I countered automatically without looking up, hunting for the eraser that had rolled happily to the other end of the sidewalk and disappeared out of sight. It wasn't until I actually felt his breath on my cheek that I realized how close he was standing to me.

"Odango."

I felt my body go shock-still as his arm brushed lightly against mine. I stopped breathing. The low rumble of his voice tickled my chin, and his breath resonated deeply in my ears—or was it the other way around?

Feeling slightly light-headed, I raised my head with painstaking slowness until the very bottom of his face came into view. I never knew until that very moment, suspended in groundless time, that I had a chin fetish. Or that I had a thing for perfect lips. Or even an affinity for noses. But then I chanced a quick peek up at the rest of his face and my heart stopped beating altogether.

Of course, I always knew way, way deep down inside that I had a thing for his eyes, even if I would rather die than admit it aloud. Those gorgeous, drown-in-me deep blue fathomless eyes of a god now twinkled down at me with shadowy amusement.

I licked my lips instinctively. Say something, Usagi! Say something intelligent! Now's your chance to prove him wrong after all these years!

"Er…Y…y-yeeeeees?!"

Great. I sounded like a dying hamster. So much for that opportunity.

Wait! Backtrack! What was I thinking? This was Chiba Mamoru we were talking about! The man who made my life miserable, who teased me every day like an overgrown schoolboy and was the source of my entire life's despair!

'Oh,' whispered a sly little voice in my head, 'But are you sure that that's not what he wants?'

My eyes darted quickly from his demure eyes to his smooth lips, which were now no more than mere centimeters from my own.

"Odango…?" he whispered again. He brought his face so close to mine that I could have counted the number of eyelashes gracing his perfect eyes.

But could it be that he…what if he really did…?

"Wh-what?"

No! This couldn't be! I couldn't possibly be attracted to this—this…

"Is it just me, or did you just admit that I'm the best-looking man you've ever known?"

—this king of all JERKS!

"YOU!"

My hand shot out to hit him—and so, unfortunately, did my head. For the second time in two days, I felt my skull nearly crack open as it made full contact with Mamoru's forehead, and was sent reeling backwards in a spinning haze. The pressure on my arm instead of my rear end told me that something was keeping me on my feet, but I couldn't keep my vision straight for long enough to discern anything except a groan from somewhere above me.

"Ugh…you really do bring a new meaning to the phrase hard-headed, did you know that? I don't appreciate you trying to ruin my beautiful face by ramming it with your ugly one, thank you very much."

I glared up through the fireworks display blooming before my eyes at where I thought Mamoru's voice was issuing from, jerked my hand away from his surprisingly warm one, and spat, feeling queasy in a way completely and totally unrelated to the aforementioned physical contact, "You don't need help making your face the way it is, Mamoru-baka."

Of course, that man has a way of twisting words that would make Twizzlers look pathetic.

"Oh, so you do think I'm handsome. I didn't know you felt that way about me, Odango."

I could tell even through the twittering canaries orbiting around my head that he was grinning.

"That is not what I meant!" I screeched, making a miraculous recovery from my near-fatal head injury and whapping him across the chest with my geometry textbook. "You take that back!"

"Ouch! I was wrong, Odango…you don't use your books for firewood—you use them as weapons!"

"You—take it back!"

"Violent little girl—OY! Watch where you're hitting!"

It took me a moment to realize that my weaponry—I mean textbooks—had been mere centimeters from making Mamoru impotent for life. And I was about to feel bad for it…until I realized what he had called me.

Whap! "WHO—" My bookbag went flying for the backlash. "—ARE YOU—" More blows. "—CALLING VIOLENT?!"

Who wanted more mini-Mamoru's running around in this world anyway?

"Ow! OW! Odango, stop it, you'll ruin my beautiful handsome face!"

"Like you need help ruining that…pigsty of a thing!" I panted, delivering one last blow to the head with my battered bookbag before collapsing to the ground, completely spent.

Of course, the war never ends with the battle.

"'Pigsty?'" The amusement instantly returned to his voice, battle wounds forgotten in the face of some impending joke—at my expense, no doubt. "Been watching your kid brother's Phonics again, have you, Odango?"

I had to have committed murder—no scratch that, genocide my last life to deserve this. But I hear that the charges for homicide are much more lenient…and really, did this lowlife even count as human?

"You see? You see? This is why I never use developed vocabulary around you!"

"Because you don't have any?"

"NO! Because you're just—just—ARGH! Forget it!"

I think this moment deserves a pause to reflect upon. You see, I threw out a word—'pigsty'—a perfectly legitimate word that, coming from anybody else, would have been overlooked in an instant.

Instead, I get ridiculed for it. Stress levels rocket, self-confidence plummets. And then just like the bullied kid who stops speaking, I stop using my otherwise healthy arsenal of vocabulary. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Everybody assumes that, just because I find school boring and am not exactly the best student, I'm a complete flake. Well, it's partly true. I'm definitely not the brightest bulb in the box, or the most colorful crayon, or…or the squid with the most tentacles or anything. Heck, I can't even get all of my metaphors straight! But as to the assumption that my head is filled purely with pink fluff and thoughts of fuzzy little bunnies, it's neither accurate nor fair. Okay, I admit that there might be more fluffiness and fuzziness going on in my mind than other peoples', but really, is that all so bad?

Why, then, you ask, do I insist on continuing this little charade of outward airheaded-ness? Well, for one thing, not all of it's an act. Sometimes I say things that just seem to come out wrong, because I tend to use my mouth before I use my head. But the other part of it is about expectations. When people see you in a certain way, the image starts to become a part of you, whether you know it or not.

The devil in front of me, for instance, seems to do an exceptionally good job bringing out the "best" in me. Rei comes in a close second, hence the increase in scatterbrain levels in both their presences.

Of course, I can't seem to think straight when staring into a certain pair of blue eyes as it is…

Like right now.

Gazing into those fathomless blue depths, I wondered if Mamoru had always kept his face so close to mine whenever we met and I had just been too busy thinking of the next comeback to notice. Well, I noticed now, all right—and boy, did I ever! Oh God, why couldn't I take my eyes off of him? Say something, Usagi! He's a creep, remember? A creep! A creep who sticks magnets into his eyes, thus rendering it physically impossible to break eye contact with those gorgeous eyes—

"What's the matter, little girl?" he whispered, lips quirked slightly at the corners. "Cat got your tongue?"

I tried very hard not to imagine what would happen if I said that, in fact, there was much more that I wanted to go on with my tongue at the moment, and it didn't involve ca—cats…

CATS! Oh my GOD, was that Luna coming down the street?!

"Shi—I mean, shoot!" What the hell was she doing here?!

Ignoring Mamoru's bemused glance, I jammed the last notebook back into my bag and scanned the premises frantically for a hiding spot. The arcade was too far away, and the spot behind the trash can was already occupied by a wayside bum trying to shave his chin with a rusty spatula. Slowly, I allowed my eyes to rove back up to the quirked eyebrows of my dreaded final option. Maybe if I just hid behind him (making sure not to bump into him in any way, shape, or form), she wouldn't be able to spot me, and we could just pretend—

"Meow…MROW!"

—pretend I was going to live to see another sunrise.

I turned around very slowly, the image of a claw-bloodied face floating ominously across my mind. "Er…yes, Luna?"

"Meow!"

"Oh…hey there, kitty," Mamoru said, looking down at the black cat sitting at his feet. Great, if it wasn't enough humiliation for one morning, now I was going to get a telling-off in front of my archenemy, from my own cat no less! And they think that fighting is the hardest part of this whole defender-of-the-world thing…ha!

"Meeeeeow!"

Wait…Epiphany! That's right! Cats can't talk!

I could practically see a miniature-sized Beelzebub climbing up onto that cozy spot on my shoulder. Praise to whoever decided that felines should be the subordinate, speechless life form on Earth!

Cue evil laughter and dramatic burst of flames.

This meant, of course, that I could have all the fun with my precious little feline I wanted, and not have to pay for it for another eight hours…Ahh, bless her furry worrywart heart.

"Ohhh, Luna!" I cooed, shimmying out from behind Mamoru with a jaunty sway of the hips. "What are you doing so far from home, baby?" I grinned down at her with as much defiance I could put behind my teeth. She hates it when I call her pet names.

"Is it yours?" Mamoru asked, bending down to scratch Luna's ears. She purred and nuzzled up against his pant leg.

"Yup, that's my cat—isn't that right, Luna-pie?"

"Poor thing." I raised my eyebrows at him, and whispered in her ear, "So…does Odango abuse you too?"

"Hey!"

Luna gave another low purr of contentment and lifted her chin up invitingly to his hand. Mamoru chuckled and obliged, staring almost mockingly up at me with these twinkling blue eyes, as if he knew—

Wait—she did what?!

"Luna!" I hissed, feeling more than a little betrayed. This was my stuck-up, too-proud-to-even-put-on-her-cute-face-for-dinner-scraps guardian we were talking about! And here she was, consorting with the enemy! Don't even get me started on how I hate being ignored, especially when it's someone's job to pay attention to me…And did mine ears deceive me, or did that mew sound suspiciously like a…moan?

"Okay, this isn't funny anymore, Luna," I said firmly (I decided quickly—and wisely, in my opinion—that mine ears had indeed deceived me). "We're going home!"

"What are you getting so riled up about, Odango?" Mamoru asked, looking up as he scratched a particularly sensitive spot between Luna's ears. She purred with delight, and he grinned. "Jealous that your cat's paying more attention to me than you?"

Hell yes!

"NO—I mean, no! I'm just—she's not supposed to talk to, I mean, interact with strangers!" I amended hastily, before adding venomously, "And stop doing that to my cat!"

"Doing what?"

"Th-that!" I exclaimed, pointing accusingly at his hand. He lifted the offending extremity innocently, and Luna, noticing the absence of her special treatment, looked up at Mamoru and mewed in protest.

"Ah, sorry, kitty," Mamoru said, ruffling her fur with more affection than I had seen him display towards me in all the months I had known him. "Your owner's jealous that I only like pretty gals like you."

Either Luna was blushing (which I did not want to think about—and why were these disturbing thoughts suddenly flooding my mind anyway?), or I was seeing red. It was probably the latter.

"Baka, you—What are you staring at?"

He raised an eyebrow up at me from his spot on the ground. "I'm not staring at anything, Odango—and anyway, there isn't much of a view from down here, if you know what I mean—"

"Not you—her!"

Mamoru turned his gaze to follow my finger, which was pointed accusingly at a point just over his shoulder. Hovering behind him was a girl who, by the looks of her more sophisticated blue and white uniform, attended the local university. Of course, clothing and manners are two completely different things. She was gawking so badly at him that any passerby would have thought that Mamoru had just transformed into the Incredible Hulk before her very eyes.

"Well?" I demanded, looking between the two of them, as if by doing so their relationship would magically write itself in the air. By the looks of Mamoru's blank stare, however, it seemed as though he had no more idea of who she was than I did. "What do you want? Hello? I'm talking to you!"

The girl gave a little squeak of surprise and flinched, her head whipping around to face me. I saw that her eyes were bulging like a hamster that had been squeezed too hard.

"What are you doing with him?"

"I—excuse me?" I looked around at Mamoru with an incredulous snort, and he shrugged. Luna meowed pitifully. We ignored her. "Who's doing what with who?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," she snapped, before casting a quick look in Mamoru's direction and blushing. "Th-that is, who I'm talking about."

"Who? My cat? She's a girl."

"Chi—Don't make me say it!"

"Say what?" Mamoru asked curiously.

"Yeah, say what?" I repeated, adding dumbly, "You don't mean the devil here, do you?"

"Hey!"

I shrugged. "Hey, she asked."

"Don't call him that!"

I turned to face the girl again, feeling a little annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of what could have been a good argument. "Don't call him what? The devil? That's only because he i—"

WHAM!

"OW! What the—"

I felt as if I had run headlong into a wall yet again—a wall that had come charging just as quickly in my direction. I looked up, head spinning. The girl was clutching her bookbag tightly in both hands, ready for another swing at my head.

"I warned you! I told you not to call him that!"

"And what EXACTLY does it matter to you what I call this freakish jerky king of all creeps—whoa!" I jumped back before the whizzing bag could deprive me of an ear and shouted, "What is your problem?"

"Don't bother Upperclassman Chiba with your inane antics, little girl!"

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Did she just throw SAT vocab at me, AND call me a little girl in one sentence? Excuse me, sister, but nobody but Chiba Mamoru calls me that and gets away with it unscathed! And even he's got the teeth marks to show for it!

"Looks like somebody has a fan club, huh, Mamoru-baka?" I growled, rolling up my sleeves. "You don't need a nose to fan-girl, do you? Because I'm going to knock that sucker straight up y—"

"Whoa—hold your horses, Odango!" said Mamoru, who up until now had been watching with a commendable degree of disinterestedness, considering that the near-brawl had erupted over him of all people. He straightened up and stepped between us, and I noticed as he did so that he stood much closer to me than he did to the new arrival. Almost as if he were protecting me.

"First off, let me get one thing straight—" Mamoru began, looking firmly at the girl in front of us. She looked suddenly abashed, as if standing face-to-face with her treasured upperclassman hadn't been part of the agenda. It made me wonder how she could adore a person without having ever met him, and what kind of a shallow person she was, but then my mind wandered to Tuxedo Mask and my question was immediately answered.

"You are absolutely right about Odango and her inane antics."

Of course, the man always has to open his big mouth and ruin the moment.

"Excuse me?" I screeched, raining fists of fury down on his back as the girl gave an adoring nod of approval. She looked like a bobble-head doll. A really, really ugly bobble-head.

Mamoru held up a hand for silence, and I hit that too. "That being said, I think it—ow! deserves to be mentioned that what she and I do is really none of your concern. Although I'm reconsidering that she deserves anything at this point," he added grumpily, casting a baleful eye down at me.

I looked back up at him, blinking. My fists continued to pound on his back, although more out of habit than actual intend to inflict damage now. "You think what we do deserves to be kept quiet?" I asked in a small, awe-filled voice.

"I thought it deserved it."

"What…a…pervert! AIEEE!" Fists came down like hail in a thunderstorm. "You want to lure me into a secret trap that nobody knows about and…and do things to me! Eek! Get away!"

"H-hey, hang on a sec! What are you—what do you—ow, quit it, Odango, do you want to kill me?!"

I would leave that question open for interpretation.

"I'm DOOOOOMED," I wailed, ten decibels higher than even any supersonic bat can stand. "O lonely world, don't forget meeeeee!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl inching away warily, hands clamped tightly over her ears as if she was trying to pry them off, and her looking torn between staying next to her beloved and keeping her hearing. Evidently natural instinct for survival won out, because she finally bolted, a familiar black figure right on her heels.

"NOOOOOO—SAAAAVE MEEEEEE—!" I screeched after her retreating figure.

My last "DOOM," however, died an instant death the moment the pair rounded the corner, a self-satisfied smile crossing my lips.

"Works every time," I said smugly, dusting off my hands and yelling after the long-gone pair, "I hope your ears bleed!" I chuckled.

"What?" Mamoru shouted. He cupped his hands around his ears like a pair of hearing trumpets. "I couldn't—hear—you…I think—I've—gone—deaf—!"

"Har har. Very funny."

"No, I mean it! I think I might have—and is it just the ringing in my ears, or do I hear bells? Do you hear them, Odango?"

I paused to listen, watching in silence as Mamoru tilted his head to one side and shook it vigorously, as if trying to empty his ears of water. And in the distance, I could make out the faintest sound of school bells tolling their morning ritual, proclaiming to all the world that I, Tsukino Usagi…was late!

My eyes went impossibly wide.

"You JERK! Haruna-sensei's warned me that if I'm late again, she's going to KILL me!" My bookbag clung onto my shoulder for dear life as I turned on my heel and sped away, screaming as the school bells clanged away happily in the distance, "It wasn't my FAULT! The devil made me do it!!!"

Mamoru's unrepentant chuckles behind me mingled with the bells of doom like some crack-headed harmony of music, and the whole run there the remembrance of his cocky grin burned like fire in my mind.

'Item No. 137 to the C.M. Hatred Handbook,' I thought furiously as I squeezed through the schoolyard gate, "He grins like the Cheshire cat, which means he's insane.'

I never wrote it, but his teeth were perfectly straight and white like the Cheshire cat's too: the perfect, charming smile. And I'd bet my ice cream money on it that he had never even set foot in an orthodontist's office.

Good. All the more reason to hate him.

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"Hey, Mina-chan," I whispered as I slid into my seat. Luckily for me, Haruna-sensei's meeting this morning had run late, allowing me to slip safely into the classroom without suffering her wrath. "You won't believe the morning I've had!"

I jammed the now-cold toast I had grabbed on my way out the door into my mouth and looked over at Minako expectantly. She had her chin propped up thoughtfully on one hand, watching me.

"Er…this is about the time when you, being the wonderful and caring friend that you are, ask me exactly what happened to make my morning living heck," I prompted helpfully after a short silence.

Minako only gave a wistful sigh in response and turned instead to gaze out the window. "What is it?" she finally asked in a subdued tone.

I raised an eyebrow at the back of her golden head. Aino Minako was one of my best friends, a chipper sort of gal, and she had a sweet tooth for gossip big enough to rival my fetish for yummy desserts. Something was the matter, something that I conceded might even possibly trump meeting the devil on the way to school. "Okay, Minako-chan, spill! What's up?"

Sigh. "Nothing."

I tapped my pencil against my lip impatiently, torn between finding out what had Minako looking like her kitty had just died and spilling my own guts on the tirade that was threatening to boil over inside of me. I made a quick mental compromise.

"Artemis isn't dead, is he?"

"No."

"Oh."

Okay. At least now I could vent without feeling guilty.

"You won't believe who I ran into today!" I paused, waiting for the appropriate 'who?'—but it never came. I forged on anyway. "That conniving, selfish, egotistical jerk of all jerks, Chiba Mamoru!"

Minako's head swiveled so fast in my direction that her flying blonde tresses whapped me smartly in the face. "Mamoru?"

"Ouch! Yeah, Mamoru the devil…er, why?"

"Oh, nothing." And Minako turned around again, letting out such a heart-wrenching sigh that I couldn't help asking again, "Are you sure Artemis isn't dead?"

My interrogation was cut short, however, by the clicking of heels on the hallway tiles that announced the approach of a woman whose wrath was second only to Queen Beryl's herself—Haruna-sensei.

"Hello class!" she chirped, tossing her briefcase—which I am convinced holds all of her spare whips and chains—onto the floor next to her desk. The bag gave an ominous jangle as it hit the floor.

Haruna-sensei redefines the meaning of the word "PMS." She can go from hot to cold faster than you can blurt out, "The answer is the positive or negative square root of 365 i!" And trust me, Ami can spew out answers pretty darn fast when she wants to. I don't know what cruel twist of fate decided that the year I graduated from middle school would be the year Haruna-sensei was promoted to Juuban High School, but whoever managed that little feat has a pretty damn sadistic sense of humor.

"So today," Haruna-sensei began, perching on the edge of her desk like some over-precocious owl, "is the beginning of another wonderful day with all of my lovely, bright-eyed students! And what better way to start the beautiful morning off than with a writing assignment?"

Those of us who weren't already asleep groaned. I, feeling surprisingly refreshed from the morning's spar with Mamoru, was one of them.

Haruna-sensei held up a hand for silence. "You will have one day to complete this writing project, but in the meantime I will not assign any other homework tonight."

"Oh no," whispered a disappointed voice from the other side of the room. Everybody turned in their seats to stare at the girl, but I didn't have to look to see who could possibly feel let down by the loss of a night's homework.

Mizuno Ami, the genius of our class, happens to be one of my closest friends. She also just so happens to have the highest IQ of any fifteen-year old in the country. I think she's read every book in the world; one time I swear I even saw her nose buried in a copy of Hogwarts, A History, never mind how she managed to get her hands on it in the first place, and we all know how many people in the world have read that hulk of a thing. I've heard that if her brain keeps expanding at the rate that it is, it'll explode within five years. I hope it isn't true, otherwise my homework will never get done!

"But that means that the projects we have been working on for the past week will have to be postponed, doesn't it, Haruna-sensei?" she asked presently, her hand raised high in the air.

There were some cheers from the rest of us. A rogue paper airplane whizzed past me and hit Umino in the back of the head.

"Yes, Ami, it does."

"But I've already finished the entire textbook in advance, and reviewed the lessons for the next three weeks!" she complained, but very politely. I could see her repressing the complete extent of her woes for lunchtime, and made a mental note to eat in the library where she would never think to look for me. I loved Ami to death, but I was going to have to avoid her if I wanted to keep my ears from getting bored off of the sides of my head. "Does this mean that we will be forfeiting the agenda scheduled for the last day of class, Haruna-sensei? Because I've already done the work for that day, too—"

Those of us who were still awake (we were approaching one-third of the class now) groaned again. Typical Ami nonsense.

"Let me assure you that this assignment will serve as ample opportunity to put you on your life's path to a better and more successful future," Haruna-sensei said with a small smile, before turning and casting a baleful glare in my direction. I stopped chewing the toast I was still working on long enough to strive for an innocent look. "Although many of you would do well to learn from her example."

Ami flushed red with pleasure. I think her brains constitute half of the reason why Haruna-sensei seated us on opposite ends of the room; she probably thinks my bad grades are contagious or something. Good thing it doesn't make me feel like I've been contaminated with the bubonic plague or something equally hideous.

"Yes, Haruna-sensei," Ami murmured when she found her voice again. "But can we still make the assignments due tomor—mmph!" A hand clapped over her mouth.

"Ha! What a little joker you are, Ami-chan!"

I grinned. Makoto to the rescue, as always.

Kino Makoto transferred a year ago from another district. She's more brawn than brains, and she's definitely the strongest one of the group, but don't take her tough looks at face value; after all, she is the one sitting next to Ami. She was the fourth addition to our little group—Hino Rei, whom I already mentioned as being a pyromaniac being the final one, but she goes to another high school—and I've found that Makoto actually prefers donning an apron to sweaty gym clothes. And of course, the food she makes is like heaven melting on your taste buds.

"Ew, quit drooling, Usagi!" someone behind me hissed.

Oops.

Haruna-sensei looked over at the bunch of us and harrumphed. "As I was saying…you would do well to learn from the examples that others set for you. While we're on the subject, I expect a five-page report by tomorrow on the person who most inspires you, or who you think makes a good role model and the reasons why. You may include examples of what they have inspired you to do or made you realize about your own future goals. It is due at the beginning of the period first thing tomorrow."

A hand shot up in the air. "Can we gather examples from people we don't know personally, but whom we admire anyway?"

She nodded. "Yes. That's a very good point. People you admire do not necessarily have to be people you know personally."

"Does it have to be limited to five pages, or can we write more?"

I started to roll my eyes, but I was barely accompanying it with an exasperated sigh when my mind registered something strange.

Ami didn't have a guy's voice!

"Well…it can be more," Haruna-sensei was saying, to my slack-jawed amazement. "I can understand if you have a lot to say about the person you admire—let me be the first to admit that love is a many, many-splendored thing…" A dreamy, faraway look misted over her eyes, and I wondered which guy had the unpleasant honor this time of being the object of our unflattering teacher's desires.

"I agree," said the boy who had spoken, and to my surprise, a chorus of murmurs and nods joined his firm declaration of love, or whatever it was that would drive a guy to want to write more than the suggested amount. She had better be one hot babe.

"So…" Haruna-sensei said, pulling herself out of a reverie that had made her look more docile than a wide-eyed doe. "Since you brought it up, now would be a nice time to share. What sort of a person is this role model that you are going to be writing about?"

We all turned in avid anticipation. My mouth was still hanging wide open, but everybody was too busy watching the sideshow to care, except Minako, who was soundly asleep beside me.

"Well—" the boy began. "He's older, an upperclassman—"

I choked. "He?" I exclaimed, looking incredulously at my classmate. He threw me a dirty look. "Wait—so you're saying this person you're supposedly in love with…is a guy?"

There were more murmurs, but this time I noted a slightly more hostile undertone to them than before. The boy turned slowly in his chair to face me.

"Don't…call him that!" he snarled.

Now where had I heard those words before? I couldn't quite place it, but they definitely had a familiar ring to them. I tried to remember, but the he was glaring so fiercely at me that I finally gave up and asked instead, "Call him what?"

"That! 'Guy!'" The boy scoffed in disgust. "As if he was some common…some lowlife, normal man!"

I snorted. "Now he's a man, is he? So what, did your guy just get a growth spurt, or is he going through puber—"

"I told you not to call him that, you little—"

"Alright, alright class, settle down! That's enough!"

I stuck my tongue out at the boy, who looked like he wanted to strangle me but didn't want to get my guts all over his cleanly pressed shirt in the process. Come to think of it, his uniform was so unusually tidy that it could have rivaled even neat-freak Mamoru-baka's; even his jacket, slung casually over one shoulder, made him look like an exact copy of the man himself.

Add Number 138 to the list: C.M. is officially classified as a disembodied spirit capable of practicing black wizardry; he makes possessing high school students and forcing them to dress like him his favorite past-time.

I could hear Haruna-sensei in the background, asking another student who their role model was. Nobody was paying attention to me anymore; I cast a furtive glance around the classroom and slipped a hand into my backpack, intent on eating my lunch and forgetting about the strange episode altogether. After all, it had been nearly ten minutes since I had finished off my toast, and I hadn't even had the chance to wash it down properly with some noodles and chicken.

As I rummaged through my pack, however, my hand collided with something searing hot. I pulled my hand out quickly, figuring I had burnt it against an unusually hot lunch—but then I realized with a sinking feeling (and a miserable growl from my stomach) that I had left my lunch at home yet again.

So what could it be?

I reached a cautious hand back into my backpack, feeling slowly around the edges until the radiating heat simmered pleasantly against my skin. The moment my finger made contact with the object's surface, however, the heat disappeared; it was the cool cover of a notebook.

"You again?" I murmured, pulling the black book out and placing it on my desk. The golden symbols twinkled happily up at me. I looked down at my watch, which read 8:17. There were 43 minutes of class left to kill before I was officially one-sixths through with my school day, and that was only if I managed to squeeze through without getting detention. I raised an eyebrow down at the leather-bound covering. "Alright, if you insist…"

And the words came to me. They flowed faster than liquid onto the paper, faster than my hand could write, as if some invisible force was drawing the expressions from the depths of my mind. After fifteen minutes, the list of things that I could not stand about Chiba Mamoru had expanded to 152; after half an hour, I had filled twenty pages and moved on to possible scenarios explaining his much-resented popularity, among which included hiring brainwashing agents from an underground intelligence agency run by three-foot tall mole rats. By the time the class period was about to end, I had just concluded what had been a mock letter to Mamoru listing all the reasons he made my life living hell. I was just shutting the notebook with a satisfied sigh for a productive day when a shadow loomed over my desk.

Looming shadows are never a good thing. They either mean that a youma is about pop out of some nearby bushes to attack you, or that somebody is about to make some incredibly ironic remark that will land you in deep doo-doo. In this case, I vouch for option two playing out.

"Why is it that the only time you'll ever be induced to write is when it involves not paying attention during class, Usagi?"

Bingo. I looked up very slowly from the open page to see Haruna-sensei hovering at the edge of my desk, her hands poised in the characteristic hands-on-hips gesture.

"I'm…starting on my assignment?" I laughed weakly.

"Let me see it."

"NO!" Haruna-sensei raised an eyebrow at my outburst. "W-wait—what I meant was, 'no,' I can't let you see it and deeply apologize for it because…because I haven't finished the assignment yet! Yes, that's it! And I don't want anybody to read it until I'm done."

I crossed my fingers underneath my desk and prayed fervently that all the times I had spent lying about to Luna about what I had been doing instead of studying had paid off.

"Lying will cost you one detention, Usagi. You know the drill."

Of course, none of my lies had actually ever worked with Luna, so I didn't see any reason why the almighty gods of fate should let it start working now.

"Hand it over, unless you want to make it two. I have plenty of time to spare, you know."

I knew better than not to believe her. I didn't move. Haruna-sensei reached for my notebook and I squeezed my eyes tight shut, willing the book to spontaneously combust in her very hands.

"Let's see…a letter, hmm? Ah, very interesting…"

I chanced a glance up at her through slitted eyes. Haruna-sensei was thumbing through the last pages of the notebook, reading the letter I had written. Her eyes glinted menacingly as she looked up at me, her fingers still working their way automatically to the salutation page. She always out to do me in, that woman, and now she was going to use this to make fun of me until the end of time.

Her next words, however, were worse than a lifetime's worth of jokes and caught me completely off guard.

"So…writing love letters, are we, Usagi?"

"WHAT?"

My mouth opened and closed noiselessly, and I watched in growing horror as Haruna-sensei's misinterpretation turned into confidence at my reaction. Evidently, she felt that such a strong response necessarily meant that she was right, which was as far from the truth as it could get. As if I would ever write a love letter to that awful, hideous, cruel, evil—

"And who," she was saying with the wickedest smile I had ever seen (with the exception of Mamoru himself), "is the lucky recipient, I wonder?"

Unfortunately, I knew what the misguided answer to that question was going to be. And I wasn't about to let it come out, either.

"Oh, this is going to be good, I can feel it…!"

A diary, a collection of primary sources, my memoirs—let it be anything, anything but what she took it to be!

"I-It's just a notebook, not a love letter!" I finally blurted in one final stand of desperation, but she didn't seem to hear me as her eyes landed on the open page. I watched as the blood drained out of her face faster than if a needle had drawn it out. She gaped at the words written in the notebook and looked from me to it, and back at me.

"Ch…You…Chi…Chib—"

RIIIIIIING!

"That's the bell!" I roared, snatching the notebook out of her hands and wheeling around with the evidence clutched tightly in my hand like a weapon.

"Wait! You! Tsukino Usagi, you come back right now—"

I could feel the blood pounding in my ears, drowning out her shouts. I pushed past two of my classmates standing by the front rows of desks and bolted for the open door.

"—and tell me what exactly you business you have writing love letters to Chiba Mamoru!"

A flurry of exclamations filled the room as students craned their necks to get a better view of me as I ran, and one of the girls in my class squealed, "Did she just say 'Chiba Mamoru?'".

But I was already out the door and sprinting as fast as my legs could carry me in the other direction. I ran until the sound of my classmates' shouts behind me gradually faded into the hum of passing period, until finally the last voice died away, echoing the very name that had been inscribed innumerable times into the notebook grasped in my hand.

'What's wrong with me?' I thought as I raced through the busy corridors, weaving automatically in and out of crowds of people shooting curious glances at me. I ignored them and willed my feet to go faster, to take me away from this place. 'Why am I so mad that Haruna-sensei thought I was writing love letters to Chiba Mamoru? And why was everyone making such a big deal about it? Is it so impossible to believe that he would ever feel…It's not even like I…it's not like I would ever…'

"Hey! Watch where you're going!"

I pushed open the front doors of the school and burst outside into the streaming sunlight descending from the bright morning sky, fighting back the tears threatening to spill over.

"It's not like I would ever actually like him!" I shouted to the empty schoolyard, ready to defy anyone who would contradict me. Nobody did. I dragged my suddenly heavy bookbag into the shade of a tree at the edge of the yard and sagged down next to it, hugging the leather-bound book tightly against my chest. "It's not like I would actually…ever like him…" I whispered again to the notebook's spine.

The school bell clanged away, signaling the start of second period.

So if this was what it felt like to hate him, why in the world couldn't I stop thinking about him?

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So! What did you guys think?

And while you were all (happily, I'm sure) reading away, I thought of a few potential explanations as to why this chapter took so long to get out, and possible explications as to why more writing should be happening in the near future:

*It has been a crazy emotional ride on this past two month's rollercoaster. Life, as always, has its share of ups and downs, and I'm sure you'll all be understanding if I say that the Ferris wheel was under maintenance, with me stuck at the top with only my metaphorical vertigo to keep me company. And let's say I needed to use the bathroom, too. In other words, it was pretty miserable for a while back there.

*An onslaught of work and deadlines. Not an excuse, since it's never hindered me before, but it didn't help much. What we need is a week off every month to write. Does anybody want to sign an international petition for it?

*Finals—brings new meaning to the word stuDYING. Enough said, I think

*Sickness—Yup. After five months, I am still not better. In fact, I'm doing worse than those in-between 3 months of relative peace with the germs. What with the lack of sleep going into these final days of studying, and the strain that came before it with interviews, end-of-the-year activities, and auditions, my body hasn't been able to take it very well. :( But hopefully the end of this term won't finish with me crashing and burning! Because I'm going on vacation in one week! Lalala~!

That being said…

*Summer is officially here in one week! This means, after I return from my vacation time in the tropics, that I will have time to write leisurely again and hopefully, recover.

*And if I get more time to rest, the quicker I'll get better, right? And clear minds write better!