Authors Note: Hello all. I have written this very short oneshot as a birthday present for my awesome friend AquariPoet. I hope you enjoy it Aqua :) I have made Hotaru a bit older in this.
Disclaimer: If I owned Sailor Moon, I would already have all the mangas. Aquari, who is mentioned in the chapter, belongs to AquariPoet.
Juuban Shopping District/No POV
The clouds were high in the sky and the chills of February lingered through the streets. The shopping district was full of people looking for bargains, rushing around the shops as if time was about to run out. Walking slowly through the commotion was a dark haired teenager. She was wearing a form fitting black top and a dark purple skirt that came down to her knees. Over this she had a thick black coat. Hotaru Tomoe was taking her time to eye the various displays in the shop windows. She would stand at a window for minutes before moving to the next one. As of yet the teenager hadn't entered any of the shops she had observed. Today she wasn't looking for just anything, she was looking for the perfect birthday present for a special friend of hers. There were many ideas inside the senshi's head and near enough all of them had failed already. Hotaru giggled to herself as she thought to herself, only I could make shopping this hard.
She stopped when she noticed that she had reached the music store. The teenager decided to enter the store and take a look. She knew he liked music so there might be something there that is perfect. As her eyes wandered over the shelves of CDs, the senshi looked at the titles to try and find one that would be suitable. Her disappointment started to show as she passed by more and more of the loaded shelves without finding what she had been looking for. This was when her eyes caught the title of a CD on the shelf to her left. The artist name seemed familiar so she went to look at the disk more carefully. The singer was Lupe Fiasco. Sounds familiar, she thought. Then it struck her, it was so familiar because she could remember her friend had mentioned him before. She now remembered how mush her friend liked the singer. Hotaru smiled and picked up the disk from the shelf. The senshi looked happy with what she had found but wasn't fully satisfied and put the disk back where she had found it. It was such a good present idea but it wasn't as perfect as she had hoped for.
As she walked back down the street she came to a small coffee shop. The young woman entered and was surprised to find a taller, aqua-haired woman sat at a table in the corner of the shop. Hotaru greeted Michiru happily and sat in one of the empty seats at the table. When she was comfortable, she ordered herself a coffee and engaged lightly in conversation with the woman, who she always thought of as a mother. The teenager found that Michiru was biding time before Haruka picked her up from her small shopping trip. Throughout the conversation, the senshi of Neptune noticed that her companion seemed disappointed and decided to ask her about it. "I'm having trouble finding the perfect birthday present for Aquari-san" the dark haired teenager replied. "I see" came the response. There was a moment of silence between the two of them. "Well, what do you want your present to say?" the older woman inquired. Hotaru blushed slightly at the question and hesitated before she managed to give her reply. "umm...well I want it to say that I think he is a...great friend and that I will...always be there for him". With that said, she let out a sigh of relief to disperse the tension. Michiru formulated ideas in her head before deciding on one of them. "Ok firefly. Why don't you get him something that will last for a long time. It is a way you can symbol a long friendship.". Hotaru smiled politely and thanked her. She knew the idea was good but she didn't quite know how to interpret it. After the two senshi had finished their drinks, Michiru headed away to meet up with Haruka while Hotaru decided to browse more shops.
Before long, she came to a book store she had never seen before. Intrigued, she opened the door and headed inside to see what she could find. Most of the books she could easily dismiss but then she saw the section marked poetry and headed towards it. On the shelf sat a book with a dark purple cover that simply stood out to her. The teenager picked it up and opened it to the first page. She read the poem it contained and the words inspired her. The poet had shown their feelings so well that everyone could pick them up from the words on the page. A light bulb flashed in her mind and she had a perfect idea of what her present should be. She swifly left the shop and headed towards the bus stop. Twenty minutes later she opened the front door to her home.
Once inside she went into her bedroom and pulled several pieces of paper out of her neat file. Placing them on her wooden desk, she got a black pen and started to write her own poem. The words in her poem expressing her thoughts to her friend, saying what she wanted her present to mean. Time flashed past as she drafted and redrafted the poem, leaving several scrunched up balls of paper in the bin. Finally, it was finished and she decorated it with her coloured pencils, making it stand out. When the senshi re-read what she had written she beamed.
She had it, the perfect present, and she couldn't wait until he saw it.