Yes, I admit that I squealed at the screen when I posted this. Actually, I squealed after I wrote that I had squealed, but hey--an update's an update, right?
Oh, promises, promises.
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Notebooks, Not Love Notes
Ala Verity
Chapter 2
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I love Ami to death—quite literally—but boy, can she try the patience of a saint!
"—and I would otherwise be quite glad to tell you all who my own personal role model happens to be, of course," she was saying, wearing that smug Hallway-Patrol-Monitor look on her face that made me want to stab something with a blunt object, "if it were not for the fact that Haruna-sensei explicitly asked us not to reveal the name of our mentor to others at the end of class—which, by the way, Usagi-chan, it was not very proper for you to miss at all, because—"
"—because academic events of the most crucial nature occur at the period between the ringing of the bells signifying the end of one class session and the commencement of another." I groaned. "Do you ever feel the compelling need to breathe when you start doing that, Ami-chan, or do Goddesses of Water all have gills?"
"Doing what? Am I doing something?" She looked around at us, her eyes widening in comprehension. "Oh my God, am I being an aberration from the status quo again?"
Yes, I most definitely should have eaten in the library today.
"No! No, Ami, now will you please stop dancing around like that? You look like you're going to give yourself a hernia."
Minako grinned. "Kind of like you do whenever Mamoru calls you the Odango-Headed Harbinger from Hell?"
I didn't know where she had learned alliteration from (probably her new—and extremely cute—American tutor), but she was going to pay for it. And I would deal in spades.
"Hey, what are you—Usagi, don't you da—EEEK!"
"What about you, Usagi-chan?" Makoto asked, ignoring the muffled shrieks now issuing from behind the newspaper I had sent to attack Minako, with a little help from my crystal (we all cheated a little bit when Luna wasn't around). "Have you decided who you want to write about yet?"
"Hmm? Oh…no, not quite. I mean, really," I added, eyeing Makoto's bento box hopefully, "How can a girl be expected to think on an empty stomach?"
As if on cue, my stomach growled unpleasantly, seconding the idea that Makoto share her generous portion of squid rolls with us. If she got the hint, though, she didn't show it.
"That's absolutely right, Usagi-chan. You know, I've been thinking…well, on my nice and full stomach, of course—"
I love Makoto, but if she wasn't such a darn good boxer, I'd probably sock her.
"—that no person, man or woman, should ever have to think on an empty stomach. Especially…" She sighed, and I smelled the heavenly aroma of fried shrimp on her breath. "Especially if they're already a genius."
"Well, geez, Makoto-chan—I didn't know you felt that way about Ami," I snapped irritably. Stupid squid-scented sadists.
But my ribbing was already lost on Makoto, who had mentally departed for that place known to all of us as MOB—My Old Boyfriend territory.
"Makoto? Hellooo! Jupiter to Makoto!"
I watched in horror as a drop of squid sauce trickled out of her half-open mouth and landed—splat!—right on top of a squid ball.
"Eww, Makoto, that's disgusting!" Ami squealed, thrusting a pile of napkins at her.
In the midst of the chaos, I whipped out a pair of chopsticks and rolled up my sleeves in anticipation. She wouldn't miss one little, tiny, itsy-bitsy—
"What do you think you're doing with my crab cakes, Usagi?"
"Huh?" I looked up. "Oh damn," I whispered. "Busted." And I meant that literally.
I suddenly found myself staring, not at a delectable crab cake, but right at the generously-endowed bust of none other than the cook herself. I flew backwards faster than you could say "death by starvation."
"Er…testing their temperature?" I giggled nervously. My voice cracked mid-giggle.
"Usagi-chan…" Makoto growled.
"Eeps…yes?"
"Do you know what this lunch is?"
I couldn't resist. "…Really, really tasty-looking food?"
"Exactly. And do you know who it's for?"
A spark of hope flared up inside of me. My savior! "Me?" I asked hopefully, wiping away the spittle forming at the edge of my lips.
"Wrong." She might as well have screamed, "Die, hope, die!" and stabbed me through the heart with a butcher knife.
"It's for a very special person," she continued, and I contrived to look hurt. After all, wasn't I, Sailor Moon, champion of justice and extraordinary benefactress of all who are lonely and desperate in a world of darkness, at the very least the epitome of all that was special?
"It's for him."
I threw all hurt aside and forgave her instantly.
"Mako-chan, your attention is all mine. Where's the hottie alert?"
She gave another sigh, the millionth I had heard that day, I swear. "He's not…with us anymore."
Eagerness turned to soberness. "Oh. I'm so sorry, Makoto…I didn't know you had a thing for dead guys."
"He goes to another high school."
"Oh." Silence. Then… "Oh." Well, at least that made more sense. More than a sudden predilection towards necrophilia, anyway.
"Speaking of other high schools," Minako cut in at that moment, having successfully beaten the murderous newspaper to the ground with a protractor—the only time I had ever seen her use it— "What happened during English class todafy?"
Four expressions wearing varying degrees of incredulity turned in the blonde's direction. Only about thirty percent of Minako's questions actually ever make sense in the context she puts them in.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Ami asked, shaking her head sadly at the table. I patted her consolingly on the shoulder. The loss of reason always affected her more than the rest of us.
Minako shrugged, snatching a squid roll when Makoto wasn't looking and popping it into her mouth. "I don't know. That's what I'm asking Usagi-chan. Usagi-chan?"
Four pairs of eyes swiveled on me, and my stomach gave an unpleasant jolt. "Why does Minako get to eat Makoto's food?" I grumbled, pretending to look disgruntled. I didn't have to work very hard to achieve the desired effect.
"Don't change the subject," Minako replied through a mouthful of squid.
"I dunno. I'm just tired, I guess," I finally mumbled, laying my head down on my arms so that I was staring at the artwork etched into the crumbling wooden table, instead of at their accusing stares. "I just needed a break, that's all."
"A dramatic episode, more like," Ami commented.
"Yeah, well," I began, exhaling noisily into my sleeve, "Sorry we can't all be perfect like…like…oh, my God."
"Your God?" Minako frowned at me. "Your God is perfect?"
"Oh, he's a god, all right," Makoto sighed, lost in her own little universe.
"Usagi-chan?" Ami asked, frowning. "Usagi-chan, what's wrong?"
"N-nothing," I said, standing up so hastily that I almost knocked over my chair.
"What is it, Usagi-chan?"
"It's nothing. I've got to go," I repeated, fumbling with the strap of my bag as I swung it haphazardly over my shoulder. I saw Ami cringe out of the way as it whizzed past her left ear and came dangerously close to making her the next Van Gogh.
"Go where?" Makoto asked, flipping the squid rolls idly with her chopsticks. Over, and over, and over…
"Classroom—detention, I forgot," I mumbled; and before any of them could catch me in my lie, I was walking away from the lunch table as fast as I could without actually running, fighting the urge to dive into the nearest classroom and scream as loudly as I could. Nobody tried to stop me from leaving.
"Usagi? Usa—"
I was going crazy. I had to be. I was imagining things.
"Where's she going?"
"I thought that Haruna-sensei canceled detention today—something about a lunch date…"
I rounded the cafeteria corner and broke into a sprint, suddenly desperate to leave the roomful of unsuspecting students as far behind me as I could.
Because there was no way that the lunch table, the relatively clean wooden lunch table that I had eaten at with my friends every day for the past semester, was suddenly covered with a million miniscule carvings written inside identical little heart-shaped bubbles, all glaring up at me with the same mocking message:
I love Chiba Mamoru.
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Of three things I was sure regarding today's bizarre events, all of which I now penned hastily into my C.M. Handbook as I sat huddled behind the school dumpster:
1. Mamoru can somehow control peoples' minds.
2. Mamoru is using this power to make people fall in love with him.
3. Was Ami-chan going all goggle-eyed over him at lunch, too, or was that just me? I hope that was just me, because if that wasn't and she was really making those doe eyes at her soda then we've lost all hope for humani— (furious cross-out marks and splotches of black ink) Mamoru is still the world's biggest jerk.
I chewed nervously on the end of my pen, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I reread the words on the open page.
None of it made any sense.
It was the only explanation I could come up with for everyone's behavior today—the odd encounter with the doodled-heart-eyes girl this morning, Haruna-sensei's bizarre explosion in class, the dream-like state of all of my friends, the reminders of him emblazoned all over the place like Big Brother breathing down my neck…My God, it was enough to make a seagull puke, and I knew for a fact that they were physically incapable of doing it.
I raised my hand—to hit something or strangle myself, I wasn't sure what. If the baka himself had been here, crouching behind a dumpster with me, I probably would have punched him.
Of course, I could just be overly paranoid.
"Ugh! This sucks," I moaned, flinging my pen against the trash bin. It bounced off and hit me hard on the nose in vindictive retaliation.
As if the sudden impact was the key to unlocking Pandora's Box, another thought, barging rudely into my mind, nearly sent me flying to my feet in horror.
What if I was next?
I forced myself to breathe deeply, reasoning with myself that the paper bags in the trash probably weren't best option for fending off the hyperventilation attack I could feel creeping up on me. I would probably end up stabbing myself with a disease-infected needle if I dug through that mess.
'You can't be next, Usagi,' I finally scolded myself with as much conviction I could muster in my subconscious voice. 'There must be some sort of prerequisite or—or some sort of weakness that makes someone vulnerable to these sudden conversions. Otherwise, why would you, the sole person who he hates the most in all of Tokyo, be the only one who's still sane?'
I smiled wryly. I was having a conversation with a voice in my head. How sane could I be?
'Sane enough to know better than to like him,' the little voice whispered sardonically in my head.
Fair enough.
"Okay, so I still have my wits about me now," I said aloud. "But what if I'm not the only one? What if all of today has just been one long string of coincidences, and the world isn't going crazy at all?"
'There's one way to find out,' the sneaky voice cooed, refusing to be quashed out of the picture.
I froze. Of course there was.
'Just one little test,' the voice murmured in a pleasing tone. 'That's all it'll take for you to be sure.'
But did I have the guts to do it?
The way I saw it, crouched here at the far end of the school yard behind a week's worth of rotting mystery meat and dumped cheat sheets, I had two options.
I could sit here and pray that the love bug, if it existed at all, did not prefer blondes.
Or…or I could march to where I knew he would be this afternoon, possibly wreak complete and total havoc on the entire population of Tokyo, ruin my reputation permanently, and find out once and for all what I was up against.
Well, gee. I wonder what I was going to do.
Was there ever any question?
"Hang on tight," I muttered to the spine of the notebook as I shoved it back into my bookbag and stood up. I buckled under the weight of my bag, although I was sure that my legs had been shaking before I had even put it on.
"This is going to be one hell of a bumpy ride."
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'Okay, Usagi, calm down,' I told myself as my feet drew nearer and nearer to my self-designated destination of doom. 'It's only a coincidence. Just tell him what you saw. If he doesn't believe you now…well, then you can think about what you need to do…'
Inside my head, the sly voice snickered.
"Ohh, I can't do this!" I moaned, my feet carrying me along of their own volition even as my mind mentally commanded them to stop. "This is social suicide! He'll laugh me straight out of the arcade!"
"If you're talking about somebody seeing your latest test score," an amused voice cut in from somewhere over my shoulder, "then you are dangerously close to being right for once."
I was spitting out the venomous words before I had time to even whip around and face him.
"Mamoru-baka, I'll have you know that your damn comments are not appre—"
"Whoa, whoa there, Odango—easy, you might offend someone with your dirty mouth." The grin slapped across Chiba Mamoru's smug face told me that he wasn't in the least bit offended. "Feeling cranky today, are we?"
"Maybe." I spun around and left him standing on the street corner, praying that he would take the hint and just disappear for the rest of the day.
This, ladies and gentleman, is called wishful thinking.
"So, Odango…"
"So what?"
Even cockroaches, who could survive nuclear fallout and the meteor that turned all life on Earth into a pile of ashy goop, did not stand a chance against the stubborn persistence of Chiba Mamoru.
"So are you going to tell me what happened at school today?" he asked, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. "Or do I have to resort to alternate measures?"
I scowled at the cloudless blue stretch of sky, too perfect for such a hellish day as this one was turning out to be. "Since when did you ever care what happens in my life?" I snapped, refusing to look at him.
He was wearing that ugly green jacket again. Only he could wear that awful thing and not be arrested for disturbing the peace.
"Well, gee, almost never—"
"There you go."
"—except maybe now." He grinned at me. "To infuriate you."
"Well, congratulations," I muttered under my breath, speeding up. "You win."
"As it so happens," he continued, not even breaking a sweat even though I felt ready to melt in this smothering heat. "I do have a question for you today."
"What?" I snapped irritably, wishing my moon wand was actually good for something in situations like these. Well, it was good for things, but I didn't think Luna would appreciate me bringing home Mamoru as a boxful of moon dust.
"Why your cat has been following me around all day?"
On second thought, Mamoru in ashes and Luna dying from a heart attack sounded like a very desirable combination.
"What?" I screeched for the umpteenth time, whirling on him. "First you steal my friends, my peace of mind, and now you've stolen my cat?"
Mamoru stopped so abruptly that my raging feet would have carried me halfway across the block if he had not reached out to pull me back. "Wait—peace of mind I can understand, but when did I ever steal your friends?"
Oops. Did I say that out loud? "Never mind," I muttered, trying to disentangle myself from his suddenly too-tight grasp.
"You're almost as bad a liar as you are a student, Odango," he observed.
"I'm only as good a liar as you are a person."
He flashed a rueful smile, and I felt my legs wobble slightly underneath me at the sight. Traitors. "A very good liar, then."
I ignored him and wrenched my hand from his iron grip.
"Let go," I spat, glaring at him when my arm didn't budge. So much for having Sailor Senshi superpowers.
He only grinned wider. "Make me."
"Are you sure you don't want to rephrase that command?" I replied, my fingers inching towards the crystal brooch on the front of my uniform. Two seconds, one incantation…that was all it would take…
"What are you going to do, Odango, whine my ears off?" A wicked gleam flashed in Mamoru's eyes. "Are you bringing home another bottom-of-the-class grade to your mommy today—or would that be bottom of the school?"
"Why, you…"
"'Ooh, nobody loves me, Mamoru! I have meatballs for brains and can't even stand in one place without falling!'"
"Shut up!" I growled, clenching my fists.
"Too bad that's the only way you can ever get Motoki to look at you," he taunted, laughing as a rush of heat flooded my face. "What were you plotting to do this time? Bawl off the ears of a customer? I bet that would get his att—"
Bam!
My fist went soaring through the air and hit him square in the chest.
I barely had time to register the look that crossed Mamoru's face: not pain, or even shock—I hadn't meant it enough to really leave a mark—but surprise. Real, genuine surprise.
And then I was pelting full-speed down the street, hardly caring where I was going or what I was running to. My right hand was still throbbing, and my temples felt like they were about to explode.
Why had I ever thought it would be a good idea to warn him about whatever impending doom was looming over his head at this very moment, anyway? Who cared if a mob of the most adoring, beautiful women in Tokyo threw themselves at the feet of the cold-hearted baka and let him do with them as he pleased?
"H-hey, Odango! Oy! You forgot your bag, you idiot!"
Not. Me.
The arcade doors slid open with a soft whoosh, the sound of cheery clicking and whirring and murmuring saluting my ears.
The moment I had made it safely inside, I snatched one of the magazines off of the counter without looking and stomped over to an empty corner booth in the very back. Then, because my notebook was in my backpack, which was in the hands of the malignant devil-man outside, and which I didn't want now anyway because malignance was probably contagious, I whipped open the magazine with more force than necessary and pretended it was Mamoru-baka's head.
It took me a moment, after I had calmed down a little bit, to realize that I was looking at an advertisement. The picture depicted a couple walking into the sunset on a beach holding hands, the words splashed across the bottom, "THIS COULD BE YOU. HAWAII. THE ULTIMATE ROMANTIC GETAWAY."
My eyes roved angrily across the page, skimming across the shadowy faces of the two lovers, the chiseled outline of the man's features glowing in the fire of—
I blinked.
For a heart-stopping moment, I could have sworn that those piercing blue eyes staring at me from out of the page looked strangely familiar.
'Stop it!' I immediately scolded myself, squeezing my eyes shut. 'He's getting into your head!'
It was only when the thoughts raging through my head had sufficiently beaten my emotions into submission that I dared crack one eye open and turn the page.
"Usagi?"
The full-page spread of a shirtless man advertising domestic silverware went flying up into the air as I jumped in my seat.
"Geez, Motoki," I gasped, "Don't do that!"
"Sorry, Usagi-chan," Motoki chuckled, stooping over to pick up the magazine and handing it to me. "Just wondering if you wanted anything to drink, you've been sitting over here for a while." He looked around with a sheepish smile, his fingers dancing around the fringes of his apron. "Where're Minako and the girls today? After-school event?"
"No idea," I fibbed, glancing over at the arcade clock. 3:30 PM. If my theory (which I was determined not to think about anymore) was right, then they were probably hidden away in a conspiratorial huddle somewhere in a dark alley plotting how best to win a certain man's affections.
And then I remembered why I was tucked away in a corner booth, trying to avoid all possible human contact.
Oh yeah. Because I desperately wanted to punch somebody's lights out.
"I'll have a triple-chocolate malt milkshake," I blurted. I would have to some explaining to do if my fist was suddenly embedded in the side of his too-perfect face.
"At your service," he said, winking. I let out of a sigh of relief as he turned to walk away, but he hadn't gone two steps when he turned around again. "Oh! I almost forgot. Your backpack's still on the counter, should I go get it for you?"
"My…wait, my backpack?" I frowned. "I didn't leave my backpack there."
Motoki ran one hand through his hair, looking thoughtful. "Yeah—the pink one with bunnies on it, right?" he finally asked. "You must have left it there when you picked up the magazine and forgot about it."
"Uhh…yeah, of course." I blinked. Motoki was staring at me, looking slightly confused. I managed a smile that reassured him I was still sane. Sort of. "I mean, it's okay, I'll go get it. Thanks for reminding me, Motoki."
He nodded and began to walk away again.
"Hey! Motoki?"
He turned around.
"Did…" I swallowed hard. "Did Mamoru…baka, I mean, did he come in?" I asked, trying not to sound as if the fate of the universe depended on his answer.
Motoki's face split into an ear-to-ear grin. He would be the first to go when I figured out how to work this whole crystal mind-washing thing out; the dratted man knew too much for his own good.
"Yeah, he just left a moment ago," he replied with a smile. "I think you can still catch him—er, if you wanted to catch him, that is."
I mumbled an inaudible "thanks," waited ten seconds for Motoki to disappear into the back room, then sprinted for the door, snagging up my pack on the way out.
For a moment, blinking stupidly in the dazzling sunlight outside of the arcade doors, I thought Mamoru's impossibly long legs had already carried him halfway across the city. I finally spotted him, however, standing next to a motorcycle parked in front of the dry cleaner's.
"H-hey! Hang on, baka!"
I ran over to his bike, mentally kicking myself as I went for admiring the leather jacket he had exchanged for his green one. It made him look less like an overgrown weed and more like he actually knew what he was doing.
'Yeah, like making you look like an idiot drooling all over him,' I scolded myself, hurrying over to him before I could lose my nerve and really started drooling.
"Hey, are you deaf or something?" I gasped when I was finally standing in front of him, dragging my bag behind me. "I told you to wait!"
He swung his other leg over onto the motorcycle as if he hadn't heard me and revved the engine a little bit harder than necessary—it roared noisily to life, hissing at me like a live animal.
After a few moments had passed with me standing dumbly in front of his motorcycle, it became clear to me that he wasn't planning on engaging in civil conversation anytime soon. That's when I began yelling over the noise of the engine.
"You know," I began, finding it harder to talk to the stony-faced man in front of me than over the roar of the motorcycle, "I really appreciate the courtesy, but you could at least have the decency—"
"What, so you're talking to me now, are you, Odango?" Mamoru cut in coolly. "No more punches to deliver? Or do I owe this pleasure to some ulterior motive—to please a certain arcade worker, perhaps?" His eyes flitted briefly to my bag before settling, uncompromising, on me again.
So much for civil conversation.
"This isn't about him," I began.
Mamoru's eyes narrowed. "No?"
"I don't know what you're—" I tried again.
"So that episode a few minutes ago," he spat, ignoring me, "and you running out now after talking to him—all of that was just a coincidence? I mention his name once and—"
"And what?" I demanded, hot tears welling up in my eyes despite myself. It had suddenly hit me what all of this was about, and it definitely wasn't a punch. He wasn't angry because I had hit him, or insulted him, or even run away from him; no, of all the things he had a right to be angry about, he was angry because he thought I was acting on Motoki's orders and running after him like an obliging dog.
And that—he didn't have a right to be mad about at all.
"And what?" Mamoru retorted, his voice rising with every word. "And you think I don't have the right to be angry that you can't even stay for a second to have a decent conversation—"
"—who was having a decent conversation—"
"—because you need to run off crying to your…your silly crush—"
"—I ran off because—"
"—the moment you have an excuse to do it—"
"—because you were hurting me, you baka!"
Whatever he had been expecting me to say next…I would have bet my arcade money that that wasn't it.
"Look, you," I finally mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed by the look of disbelief slapped across his face, "I didn't come out here to fight with you, okay? I just wanted to say…thank you. Er…you know, for returning my bag. And sorry. About earlier. I was having…erm…"
I looked for a phrase that didn't involve the words "psychotic," "break," or "too much of you."
"…a bad day."
Well, I guess you could sort of call it that.
I stared at my shoes for so long that, for a second, I thought that he had abandoned the bike and simply taken off running. I finally chanced a peek up.
For a moment, I thought his jaw was going to unhinge itself and fall right off of his gaping face. Mamoru blinked, studied the red helmet in his hands with a contemplative expression, then jammed it without warning onto his head and jerked the bike into reverse gear.
I didn't know much about bikes, but I knew what all of those actions meant: he was going to run for it.
"H-hey!"
Well, hell, the indignant voice inside of my head trumpeted, not if I have any say about it!
I glared at the man sitting in front of me poised for flight, his helmet obscuring those eyes which only a moment ago had been filled with unmistakable horror. I had lost too much precious time worrying over his overinflated head, praying that I would make it through the next meal without seeing his face in every scoop of rice, wondering if the next girl carving his name onto a wooden lunch table would be me—
You tell him, girl! the voice trilled, triumphant.
I gritted my teeth and took a step forward. I had gone through too damn much in one day for him, and he was staying to hear me out, even if I had to say the words that I had been dreading all afternoon, the words that were now bursting forth on my lips…
"Ba—I mean, Mamoru, you idiot—don't you see? The whole world has fallen in love with you!"
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"Selene, please!"
"Shh! It's getting to the good part!"
"This isn't a soap—"
"Shh!"
"I'm just saying," her companion mumbled, flopping onto the couch in defeat. "You know, if you spent half as much time worrying about your own future as you do meddling in others'—"
"Thoth, what in the moon are you going on about over there? Either come over here and listen or leave the room, but don't keep buzzing at my ear like a pixie; the Receptor's sensitive enough as it is."
"If you spent nearly half as much time on your own life," the young man sighed, getting up and conjuring himself a seat next to the goddess, "you might find that you could stop monitoring other people's love lives and build one of your own instead."
"What?"
"Never mind," he muttered in a resigned voice, settling in closer for a better view of the mirror. "It's nothing."
"Good. Now if you're all finished with your complaining…Alethia-o-meter, let the real fun begin."
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Even through his shaded visor, I could see his blue eyes widen.
He stared at me for a second, looking as stunned as if I had just whacked him over the head with a sledgehammer. "What?" he finally managed, blinking.
"Wa-wait, don't get me wrong!" I cut in hastily, seeing where this was headed. Nowhere good, that was for sure. "I don't mean I—I mean, the whole isn't me—what I mean is, that—ARGH! You're so dense, baka!" I lowered my voice to a hiss, looking all around us as I spoke. I could see more than one pair of eyes pressed up against the arcade glass, glowering in our direction. "Don't you see it?"
"See what? That you've gone completely nuts, Odango? Because, yes, funny enough, I seem to be beginning to feel—"
"Stop being a smart ass for once and just listen to me, okay, baka?" The change in my tone must have caught him by surprise, because he pulled off his helmet and looked me straight in the eye. I took a deep breath and continued. "Just…just stay inside or something, okay? Lock your doors and throw up the barricades, I don't care. But you've got to trust me on this one. Something's happened to Tokyo—maybe you did it, but judging by the blank look on your face—"
"I'm just imitating you," Mamoru began, but I silenced him with the dirtiest look I could muster.
"—but judging but your look," I went on, glowering at him, "I don't think that's the case anymore. So just—just disappear for a while, okay? Go AWOL. Because for once in my life, I'm nearly positive that I almost kind of know something…for certain."
For a moment, I thought that my message had actually sunk in. I thought that maybe for once, that last less-than-reassuring statement wouldn't throw him off. I could see his brain shift into overdrive. He was considering it, at least.
And that's when the damn idiot's face split into a wide, 500-watt grin.
"Sure, Odango," he laughed, his jaunty swagger back faster than a cheetah on steroids. "I believe you. And I tell you what, I'm going to crawl into my little hole now, okay?"
I smacked myself hard on the forehead and prayed that a bolt of lightning from above would split this man's dense skull open. There was no hope of getting through to him otherwise.
"Mamoru, you are so stupid sometimes!"
"Flattering that you only think I'm intellectually-impaired half of the time," he chortled, stuffing his helmet back onto his head and flipping up the visor so he could wink at me. "It's been really interesting talking to you today, Odango. You almost had me going there for a second!"
"No, you don't understand—" I tried again, but he had already flipped down his visor again.
"Jaa, Odango," he yelled over the roar of the engine, pausing for a second to turn and wave to me. I could barely make out his eyes, full of mirth…and something else I couldn't quite read in his shrouded expression. "I don't know how you do it, Odango, but you've got me going up and down like no other person in Tokyo!"
"Listen to me, you idiot," I shouted, "You can't—!"
But he was already gone.
"—go…out there. Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I scolded myself, turning away from the curb. I didn't know who I was more angry at at the moment: Mamoru-baka, who was dooming himself to an Apocalyptic end, or the girls inside the arcade who still had their fingers pressed up against the glass and were now glaring at me like a pack of underfed wolves, deprived of their prey. "Oh, scram, you minions of the Netherworld," I snapped, slamming a hand against the glass and sending them scurrying back into their dark caves of brewing plots.
There was nothing more for it. I had tried my best, and…
'Ah ah ah, not so fast,' the little voice in my head crooned from its spot in the very corner of my mind.
Hamlet would have been considered sane compared to me.
'We are not having this conversation,' I mentally snapped back, irrevocably and unconditionally binding myself to the conversation that I was determined not to be a part of.
'What harm could it do to talk?' the sly tongue slipped in again. 'What about that little back-up plan we originally discussed, hm?'
"A strawberry parfait," I compromised in desperation, playing for time. "A strawberry parfait at home, and then we'll talk."
'Deal,' the little voice replied smugly, settling back into its dark corner with a satisfied laugh. 'It's so much more fun talking to you when you're on a sugar high, anyway.'
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The only thing I have to say about it is, I never got to eat that strawberry parfait.
Part of it was because Luna, that good-for-nothing traitor, had rigged the refrigerator.
Another part of it was because, by the time I had trudged all the way home, dragged myself through the door, confirmed my previous suspicions of Luna's absence from the house, and unsuccessfully tried to pry open the fridge door, I was dead beat.
But the honest part of me, the part of my heart that harbored that sly little voice, knew that it was because I didn't want to think about what was coming next.
So I kicked off my shoes, passed by the kitchen with a grumbling stomach, and shuffled down the hallway.
My parents were both in the living room, their eyes glued to the television set as dramatic music issued from it, announcing the seven o' clock news. Neither of them noticed their hungry, slightly under-the-weather daughter trundle past; my dad, who I assumed had come home early from work, was sitting less than a meter from the screen, his head blocking from view whatever story it was that anchor guy Bob Smile-A-Lot was currently letting his toupee fly over. Nobody bothered asking me if I was hungry.
I was.
That might have been the reason why, when I finally crawled into bed in my darkened room, threw the covers over my head, and felt myself drifting off into a restless sleep, I dreamt.
I dreamed I was back on the sidewalk in front of the Crown.
The sun was blazing brightly overhead. The cars driving past on the streets faded into a low hum in the background, the conversations of passerby a soft tinkling in my ears. The air surrounding me felt oddly still…peaceful.
A red motorcycle was parked next to the curb.
I turned away from it and looked instead into the Crown, whose dimly-lit interior revealed one or two customers sitting at the counter. Motoki was nowhere in sight. He was probably still in the back room, weathering the lull between the morning rush of coffee-mongers and the students who would flood into the arcade after the school bell rang.
I turned and began walking in the opposite direction. There was no point of me going in at this hour. It wouldn't be the same without…
…without what?
I stopped in my tracks. Something else was missing. Something important.
But I felt better than I had in a very, very long time. For once, I felt complete. What could I possibly be missing?
I spun around again with a feeling of mounting annoyance, waiting for the arcade doors to slide open so I could go inside and ask Motoki if there was anything he needed. Maybe there was an errand he had sent me on that I had forgotten about.
The feeling of wholeness inside of me shook a little at the thought; that wasn't it. It wasn't Motoki.
Then I realized that the doors still hadn't opened.
I frowned, tapping my fingernails against the closed doors. The couple sitting at the counter did not turn to look at me. Through the dimness of the room, I suddenly spotted my backpack sitting on the counter, two seats away from them. What was it doing there? Was that what I had been forgetting?
I had just raised my fist to knock on the glass when I felt a something warm press against my shoulder. I whirled around in surprise, only to find myself staring into a pair of ice-blue eyes.
His eyes.
"Mamoru…" I breathed.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips at the sound of his name, and he let his hand fall to his side. I waited for his usual caustic remark, but none came.
"Hey," I said suddenly, tearing my eyes away from his intent gaze and blinking. "That's mine."
I had just noticed my backpack, slung casually over one shoulder.
He handed it to me without a word and I took it from him, slightly confused.
"But my backpack…" I began, pointing inside to where I could still see an identical bag sitting on the counter. Even as we watched, however, the girl sitting closest to it reached inside and pulled something out to show to the man. I recognized the object in her hand immediately.
It was my notebook.
"H-hey!" I exclaimed, rapping hard on the glass. "Hey, that's mine!" I held up the backpack to Mamoru. "You must have picked up the wrong backpack, Mamoru, this one's n-not…mine…"
The rest of the words died on my lips as I saw what he was holding in his hand.
My notebook.
"H-how did you get that?" I demanded when I finally found my voice again, staring in astonishment between the two books. "Where did you find it?"
He didn't answer.
"Y-you…haven't read it, have you?" I asked in a whisper.
His eyes grew a little softer.
I reached out to take the notebook from him. It felt heavy in my hands, as if it carried the burden of many unspoken secrets. And although he did not say a single word, I could read his thoughts plainly in his eyes.
Open it, they whispered to me.
I held Mamoru's gaze for one long, final moment, unwilling to break the moment of contact. I managed to pull my eyes away from his long enough to glance down. The book almost slipped from between my fingers when I saw what was there.
Written in an elegant scrawl that spilled across the entire page was the same message, over and over again:
Tsukino Usagi loves Chiba Mamoru.
I turned the page, my hands trembling. And another. And another. The words jeered at me from the page, mocking the sense of horror welling up deep inside of me.
Tsukino Usagi…
Usagi loves…
Chiba Mamoru, Tsukino Usagi loves…
"No!" I cried, tearing my eyes away to look up at Mamoru. "I didn't—that wasn't—"
I froze.
His expression had changed. The small, slightly crooked smile of only seconds before had twisted into something awful. Something I couldn't bear.
Hatred.
Loathing burned in his eyes.
Before I could move, I heard the sound of ringing laughter behind me.
I wrenched my eyes away from his in time to see the couple inside the arcade looking at us. The lady had finally turned around in her seat, and the mere sight of her stopped my heart. She was beautiful. The pearl-white gown that she wore followed the smooth curves of her body and swept past her ankle to the floor, mirroring the cascades of her silvery hair as they flowed, immaterial, down the length of her back. She covered her mouth with one hand as she giggled, her entrancing gold eyes never leaving mine.
Familiar eyes. Eyes I knew.
I couldn't make out who the young man beside her was. His face was shrouded by the shadows.
"Mamoru," I pleaded softly, turning to face Mamoru again. I had to tell him…I had to show him before it was too late…
But he wasn't there.
"Mamoru?" I whispered. Then, desperation building up inside of me… "Mamoru?"
I whirled around to face the beautiful goddess inside; she would have seen him leave, she would know where he was headed now…
She was suddenly standing on the other side of the glass. She smiled.
Usagi.
She pressed her hand against the glass, inviting me with a look to do the same. Her fingers left no imprint where they touched. Her serenity calmed me, and for a moment I forgot everything except the etherealness of her presence. My own hand shook as I raised it slowly to hers and, holding my breath, placed it to thin sliver of transparency.
Immediately, I felt a warm glow course through my fingertips and fill my entire body. Something lost, something regained…
I looked up at the young woman in astonishment.
The golden eyes had turned to blue.
Usagi.
A mirror.
Usagi…
So familiar…this warmth…this feeling…
Serenity…
Somebody was calling…I didn't want to go back…
Serenity, please…
Not now…not when it was all coming back to me…
Tsukino Usagi…I command you to wake up.
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My eyes flew open.
My right hand was still raised above my head, grappling for a hold on something that was not there.
I slowly lowered my hand and clenched the covers, letting the cold sweat press into my palms. Time passed without taking me along with it—it could have been a minute, an hour, a day that I lay there in the dark, unmoving, unseeing. And then something suddenly occurred to me.
I sat up and fumbled for the light.
I had no idea what the dream was supposed to mean. I had never seen that woman and man before in my life. I didn't know who Serenity was or why somebody was calling her name.
But I did know what this was about.
I wrenched open the drawer on my bedside table, bracing myself for the inevitable.
There.
The golden symbols on my notebook glowed under the lamplight.
I picked it up cautiously by the spine, as if afraid that it might burst into flames in my hands and destroy all evidence that the past two days had really happened.
When no sign of sparks appeared, however, I cracked the notebook open to the first page and immediately let out a sigh of relief. The words that I had written across the top when I first received the book, CHIBA MAMORU alias "Jerk Extraordinaire," "Devil of the Middle-World," "His Royal Weenie-ness," etcetera etcetera," were still there.
The feeling of relief, however, passed as quickly as it came. A feeling of panic constricted my chest.
My dream was obviously not a work of my imagination. There was no way that I, the only girl in class who had managed to fail art class in primary school, could have made all of that up inside my own head.
No, it was trying to tell me something. Something important. Regardless of how those thoughts had gotten there, they had found a way to send me a message.
And I had a sinking feeling that I knew what that message was.
'Finally caught on, have you?' the sly voice in my head whispered, one step ahead of the game.
I shook my head vigorously, trying to drown out my own thoughts.
'No use, no use,' it cooed, pushing to the forefront of my mind. 'You know exactly why you had that dream, and now you know what you need to do about it…'
"No!" I shouted, hurling the notebook to the floor and covering my ears with my hands. "Stop telling me what to do!"
For once, over my ragged breathing and tumultuous thoughts, the voice stayed silent. After a moment, I got out of bed and picked up the notebook again, staring at the reflective light dancing from the gold lettering.
Yes, I knew what I had to do.
"Okay, so I still have my wits about me now," I said aloud. "But what if I'm not the only one? What if all of today has just been one long string of coincidences, and the world isn't going crazy at all?"
'There's one way to find out,' the sneaky voice cooed, refusing to be quashed out of the picture.
I froze. Of course there was.
'Just one little test,' the voice murmured in a pleasing tone. 'That's all it'll take for you to be sure.'
And that's when it hit me, standing in the middle of my room, still dressed in my rumpled school uniform and clutching onto the notebook in my hands, what I was going to have done by this time the very next day.
I was going to kiss Chiba Mamoru.
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For those of you who think I'm off my rocker for making that last jump to a conclusion that probably makes no sense to you whatsoever, I have two comments:
One, you're probably right. I probably have gone insane. But then again, you're probably crazy too for reading a story being told by a nuts person. So congratulations to you for being right, you crazy person, you, and no, you don't win a cookie.
Two, my idea makes perfect sense. Let me explain why.
If I wanted to make Mamoru see what was really going on here, then the best way would be for him to see for himself, right? And the only way to accomplish that, without knocking him over the head with a hammer (although that's still an option), is to take it to extremes.
Now, you're asking yourself, how exactly do you go about showing a man that, say, the entire population of Tokyo—besides yourself, that is (and by "yourself," I mean me, because in all probability you already love him with a passion, or you wouldn't be here reading this)—has fallen in love with him?
Simple. You do what the actors in the movies do when they need someone to profess their love but only have ten more minutes of screen time left before the movie ends.
You make them jealous.
And the best way to do that?
Bingo. You guessed it. And no, you still don't win a cookie. My cookie.
And then you sit back and watch all of Tokyo fly into a manic uproar.
Not bad, huh? Minus the whole kissing-my-arch-nemesis-for-reasons-unknown-to-even-myself thing, of course.
So all of you who fell off a few stops back…welcome back aboard the train! Passengers, please fasten your seatbelts—if you're ready to keep moving, the story is about to continue.
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Three things happened when I woke up that next accursed morning.
The first was the newspaper article.
The second was school.
The third is the best part of the story, and in order to stave off the inevitable point in time when you realize that this story has no intrinsic value whatsoever, I'm going to keep you in suspense until after I finish with the first two points.
Okay, so on with the newspaper.
I was trudging my feet down the hall the early the next morning—trudging, because that's what people do when they're feeling down about certain things, like being condemned to premature doom in a few hours (as it so happened in my case)—when I heard my parents' voices coming from the kitchen. I raised my eyebrows. What was anybody in the house doing up at (I squinted at the clock) 5:45 a.m.? Was that even legal?
Apparently, that's the same question that my parents had on their minds when they saw me, because my dad screamed and my mom dropped the frying pan. Scrambled eggs hailed down from the ceiling, and if I hadn't been unusually conscious of how real the situation was, I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven. I mean, it was raining food.
"Usagi!" Mom gasped, one hand clutching her heart and the other sweeping up the mess of eggs with a broom that had appeared out of nowhere.
I grinned. Mom the Miracle Worker, back in action.
"Usa?" my dad asked, wiping his glasses furiously and shoving them back onto the bridge of his nose. "What are you doing up? Er, honey?" he added hastily.
"Wanted to get an early start," I said, shrugging. Which was true. I did want to be savor as many hours as possible before…well, you know.
"Have some bacon, Usa," my mom said, ever the sensible one. She swept a mound of food onto my plate that would have made King Midas' feast look tiny in comparison and pushed the entire savory heaping under my nose. "Enjoy!" she trilled.
"'Fanks, Mum," I managed through a delicious mouthful of sausage.
She beamed at me, her hands scrubbing at the counter all the while.
"Pass the sugar, please," Dad said, having finally managed to regain his composure and taking a seat at the table. I passed him the sugar bowl, which he missed, grabbing the salt shaker instead and dumping a heaping into his coffee as his eyes scanned the newspaper in front of him.
"Dad, it's kind of creepy when you go without blinking like that."
He blinked once and went on reading.
"Wharre you—" I swallowed and tried again. "What're you reading, Dad?" If I could get him to look up at me for even a second, I might be able to wrangle the comics page from him.
"It's just an art—echhh!" Brown liquid went flying. I ducked under the table, my face splitting into a wide grin.
My dad had tried drinking out of the salt mine that had accumulated in his cup.
"What the…?" he demanded, spitting out mouthfuls of coffee onto the floor (my mom glowered from the corner where she was polishing the countertops). "What happened to my coffee?"
I lunged across the table, where my dad was still yelling at the coffee mug (I guess talking to inanimate objects runs in the family), snatched up the newspaper, and ran off into the living room with a gleeful whoop.
"Now…" I said to the paper, plopping onto the couch where I would be safe from interruptions, "Where are you, my little comics?"
Hey, I told you it was a genetics thing.
My triumphant victory, however, died a quick and painful death.
The article my dad had been reading trumpeted at me out of the pages. Emblazoned across the top of the recto was a large headline:
"Prodigy Announces Her Worthy, Idolized, Incredibly Good-Looking Inspiration"
But it wasn't the overblown title that stopped my heart. It wasn't even the picture that I could have easily convinced myself was not who I thought it was before flipping the page.
It was the name.
My eyes stayed open just long enough for me to read the caption:
Chiba Mamoru, the perfect man.
And then it all hit me at once.
The news report last night.
My dad home early from work.
My mom's unusual cleaning frenzy…a neat freak, just like—just like…
"Oh my g—"
And that's when the room went black.
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Okay, so maybe I overreacted a little. Alright, maybe I overreacted a lot.
Next thing I knew, however, I was off on my jolly way to school (I told my parents I had knocked my head on the coffee table after tripping over the rug, a story which, bless their souls, they believed). My nose was still buried in—you guessed it—the newspaper.
Granted, I already knew the article back and forth better than Ami knows the World Encyclopedia.
But I was also feeling a little peeved at Ami at the moment; not least of all because, after rereading the introduction at least five times, it finally sank in who had written the dratted article itself.
Do I even need to say it?
So I was early to school. It was a beautiful Thursday morning. The birds were chirping in the trees that, for atmosphere's sake, we'll imagine were not being smothered with the exhaust of rush hour traffic.
Except this morning, there was no rush hour traffic.
The streets were completely empty. I crossed the street without glancing up.
Then I passed by the arcade which, if I had not been quite so preoccupied, I would have noticed was nearly bursting with a whole lot of estrogen and one happy-looking Motoki.
I kept walking.
I managed to make it all the way to school and inside the gates without once looking up from the paper, up the stairs and all the way to my classroom.
Then I looked up—and immediately wished I hadn't.
I felt my legs buckle dangerously underneath me as the red lettering splashed across the entire classroom door glared at me.
School canceled indefinitely—National C.M. in Effect
The scream that followed reverberated throughout the entire school, shattering the windows the lined the hall.
And that, ladies and gentleman, brings us to hellish Point Number Three.
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Now that the entire school had gone over to the Dark Side, I knew that nowhere was safe anymore. Home was no longer an option. I didn't want to spend the remainder of my days sitting by a dusty chalkboard, either, although I suspected that nobody would think to look for me at school. That left only one place where I would still stand a change of retaining my sanity.
Of course, I didn't know how long I would keep my head at Mamoru's place.
That was why I, the slightly blasphemous atheist schoolgirl who frequently invoked higher beings as a form of cursing, was now praying outside of the definitely-over-maximum-occupancy arcade as if my life depended on it.
It did, in a manner of speaking.
'Make Mamoru walk by right now and let me get this over with so that I don't have to deal with it later," I thought furiously for the umpteenth time, my eyes squeezed shut in concentration, 'and I swear I'll give up chocolate—er, maybe just chocolate mousse—for life.'
I cracked open one eye. Nope. Not a living soul in sight, except for the hundred-odd girls still jammed up against the arcade window.
I blew my bangs out of my face and shut my eyes again, trying to drown out the sound of their jostling and shrieks for a spot by the glass. 'Fine,' I amended in exasperation, 'chocolate, then, you big greedy Almighty up there, I'll give up choc—'
"What're you doing, Odango, trying to give birth to a block of chocolate or something?"
My eyes flew open.
"M-Mamo…? Ohmigod, Mamoru-baka!"
And without thinking, I threw myself into his arms.
I heard an indistinct roar shake the entire arcade.
I ignored it because they were annoying little prats, and I had seen this coming. He ignored it because…well, because I think he was incapable of seeing anything but me at the moment, thank you very much.
To say that he looked "surprised" would probably be the understatement of the millennium.
"O-Odango?" Mamoru finally stammered, heat rushing visibly to his face. "W-What're you…?"
I lifted my face from where it was buried in his chest—no wonder he wore that ugly green jacket all the time, it felt good—and raised my eyes to his.
His very, very shocked blue eyes.
His arms tensed automatically like stone around my body. This had the unanticipated effect of drawing me closer to him, which I was perfectly happy to let him do (though I couldn't explain even to myself why this was). I could feel his breath tickling my forehead, could make out every detail of his handsome face that I had been able to see up close only once before, an afternoon ago.
All in all, I had done a pretty good job putting the pieces into place without even knowing it.
I cursed myself silently. Couldn't I even learn to delay a seduction properly?
"Mamoru-baka," I said firmly, refusing to let myself be disentangled by his strong hands, which did not seem to be pushing me away anyway, or distracted by those gorgeous blue eyes. "I'm doing this for your own good."
I looked up at him—for some sign of confirmation, rejection, even repulsion—and found only bewilderment in his eyes.
Good. He wouldn't even know what hit him.
I took one last look at the arcade window, through which I could make out Rei's head bobbing up and down among the rest of the faces pressed up wildly against the glass, and turned to face Mamoru with a surge of fierce determination.
"You'll thank me for it later," I repeated, bracing myself.
Then I reached up, grasped his coat lapels tightly in my hands, squeezed my eyes shut, and brought his lips crashing down to mine.
The last thought that rushed through my mind before our lips touched, in that instant when I felt his sweet breath mingling with mine, was that if I had not had to kiss Chiba Mamoru, I probably would have wanted to do it anyway.
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End of Chapter Two
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Darn me, I know.
But please, don't let your sudden urge to throw a rotten tomato at me build up inside of you. Let it out!
(In other words, review!)
Nothing like a new chapter to start off the year, eh?
And for everybody who was waiting for this chapter, or not waiting for this chapter but now reading it and thinking that they could have been waiting for this chapter, I commend your enduring patience. Honestly, what were you thinking, waiting around for me to update?
Probably something crazy like, "I hope she hasn't been massacred by a rogue Abominable Snowman yet." Hey, it sounds like a justifiable fear to me.
Anyway, I'll let you be merry and go off to leave an over-praising, ego-soothing review now. Gold stars if you manage to spot all of the instances of symbolism in the dream, or if you noticed that the end is ridiculously rushed because I was trying to meet today's posting deadline (in which case I'm happy enough that you noticed, and don't mention it ever again).
Happy 2009, all, and hope you're all looking forward to the next installment of "Notebooks!"