Author's Note: This fic takes place within my #mamoru in college series on Tumblr, a collection of humorous snippets of what Mamoru's campus life at Harvard might be like if he'd made it to America after all.
The series as a whole is not committed to any particular canon. This particular fic is set in the Crystal universe, and references the anime canon.
Very reluctantly, Mamoru had let himself be talked into joining his friends on a St. Patrick's Day bar crawl. When he'd first declined, Steve insisted it was an American tradition he had to experience, to which Mamoru replied with some puzzlement, "I thought it was Irish?"
Apparently details like that weren't important. There was only one that mattered—as he and his roommate prepared to leave, his roommate stopped him and asked if he had anything green to wear. He did not, unless the shirt he had won at a campus "Crimson Goes Green" rally counted. The word "green" was green though everything else was not, but his roommate had advised him that "only a dweeb" would actually wear it, and Mamoru didn't like the shirt anyway. Tank tops weren't really his preference.
So he said no, he didn't own anything green, and his roommate clucked his tongue as if he'd committed some great offense.
"That's not gonna do. With a face like yours, your ass is going to get pinched. A lot."
Mamoru chose to assume that was a compliment if a strange one, and simply watched as his roommate dug around in his closet and pulled out a dark green blazer.
"Try this on. I borrowed it from my dad for some stuffy dean's luncheon, but everyone'll be too wasted tonight to care what it looks like."
Mamoru put the jacket on and glanced in the mirror on the back of the door. The shoulder seams were too wide and the length was awkwardly long, but if the garment kept him safe from unwanted pincers, he too didn't care what it looked like.
The revelry, which began on the train well ahead of their downtown destination, was everything he dreaded it would be—loud, crowded, and bursting with more green than Elysion in springtime. From the decorations to the drinks to the coasters—some people had even painted their faces green. It was literally a sea of noise and bodies, with constant jabs of elbows and shoulders from every direction.
At least he hadn't been pinched yet.
Normally he wasn't much of an imbiber, but tonight he found himself downing his drinks rather quickly simply to avoid spilling them. Three bars later, all of that artificial green was starting to look even greener, to the point of near luminescence, and he was uncomfortably hot inside the jacket. But even if he'd had enough room to take it off, he might not have dared because by now, he had witnessed for himself that pinching was indeed a thing that happened.
And it was hardly an insult. No, it seemed to mean quite the opposite.
With their drinks refreshed, he and his friends were attempting to escape the crush at the bar and make their way towards the seating area. As they wormed and shouldered their way through the crowd, Mamoru came across someone wearing the exact same jacket he was. It was an uncanny coincidence in the mire of novelty shirts and accessories. Mamoru was about to slither past those ill-fitting shoulder seams when the person turned around.
And he found himself face to face with…himself.
The other Mamoru looked weary, and his eyes were full of such deep anguish that Mamoru forgot to breathe. Despite his solid-looking form, something about him felt tenuous. His energy reminded Mamoru of the wind that stirred then died before the true storm hit.
When he didn't speak, Mamoru asked in Japanese, "Who are you?"
The other Mamoru looked at him in despair. "I never made it off the plane."
His words chilled Mamoru to the core. The uncomfortable heat he'd been feeling a moment ago evaporated instantly, replaced by an icy dread so consuming, it nearly floored him. His stomach dropped, his heart began pounding, and he would swear the entire world seemed to lurch. His guardian reflexes kicked in when the vertigo made everything sway, keeping him steady.
The one thing that didn't move were those pleading eyes—his own eyes—filled with unfathomable pain.
Someone touched his shoulder and Mamoru jumped.
"Chiba? You okay?"
His panic began to abate, as if the hand on his shoulder had re-anchored him to the room and to the moment.
But his other self was gone.
"Who are you talking to there? One of your ghost buddies again?"
He shook his head and replied before he could think better of it. "I was talking to me."
His friends exchanged looks, and another hand came around to his other shoulder to gently steer him towards the booth they'd somehow managed to secure.
"Why don't you sit down for a minute? We'll get you some water."
"I'm not drunk."
While that was likely untrue, inebriation wasn't his main problem right now. Or was it? Had that other self simply been some kind of sozzled hallucination?
"Um. Say again?"
"Wow. He's so wasted, he forgot English."
"Don't be a fucking dick, Steve."
"I'm not! You heard him, didn't you? I'm just stating the obvious."
Mamoru finally realized that he had inadvertently replied in Japanese.
"I'm fine," he insisted, in English this time, but he did accept the seat at the end of the booth that his friends made room for. A glass of water eventually arrived for him too, and he tossed that down, too preoccupied to care what his friends thought of his drinking prowess.
Unfortunately, everything still seemed suspiciously off—the green hues that seemed too sharp, the pounding music that sounded hollow. His gaze darted around the room nervously, eyeing walls and windows, the glass shelves behind the bar, and the glare of the pendant lights above the bar top. It felt like if he looked hard enough, he would be able to see behind them, to see the truth.
A shimmer in the air beside him made him jump—and his friends look at him—for the second time that evening. But Mamoru relaxed when he recognized the source of this apparition.
The tall, imposing form of his lead guardian spirit appeared next to the booth—or, it would have been imposing if anyone besides Mamoru could see him. The shock of white hair, gray uniform, and ramrod posture looked comically out of place in a pub full of St. Patrick's Day revelers.
"Master." Kunzite bowed respectfully as always, but his disapproval rolled off his incorporeal form in waves. The disdainful side eye he cast about the establishment had no rival. "This is…ill-advised."
Though Mamoru was glad for his presence, the dread that seemed to have taken a permanent hold of him made him uncomfortably suspicious of his guardian as well. After all, Kunzite and the other Shitennou were unequivocal proof that worlds beyond this one existed.
"Kunzite." It didn't matter anymore if his friends heard him talking to apparently no one. "Is this real? Is any of this real?"
End Note: I haven't decided yet whether Mamoru's collegial detour is canon-compliant, occurring post-Stars, or whether it's a divergent timeline post-Dream. Personally, I enjoy the ambiguity and the tantalizing possibilities it leaves open.