***Author's note: don't own any characters, nor Sailor Moon. On with the show.

"I'd love to go, but I don't feel well tonight."
"You worry too much, Ami. You're exhausted probably."
"Maybe, Shingo, Maybe. Tell me how Minako's gig went. Loves."
"Kisses. Bye." Shingo pocketed his cell phone, and, putting his hands in his pockets, strolled alone to Crown Parlor and brooded.

He and Ami had been going out now and then for three months. It had naturally and easily turned into a bit of a relationship. Ami had always had a lonely home life, Saeko's allergies had precluded the notion of getting any kind of pets, and though she had tried goldfish several times, they always died after a day. Or Luna or Artemis would get to them if they lived long enough for Ami to take them around to show her friends. She loved it. But Shingo felt weird about it.
He had a crush on her when he first saw her, but now that they were actually an item, it wasn't the same. He felt like he was in a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, that American writer they heard a bit about in English class. All those years uncertain, and now here's a great prize, his sapphire goddess. Shingo couldn't care. It was empty.
Clingy. That's what she is. He was relieved to think it, but that relief was immediately matched with a feeling of oh my God, I'm terrible. She would snuggle with him, call him every day, and he was glad for it, but more and more he was finding himself thinking that Ami was grand, the idea of the union was grand, but being with her left him cold. She would be on the edge of tears when they would part, and he would to, but it was because she was crying that he cried.
Geez, I start going out with her just as all the girls in my class start to have eyes for me. and that got him as well. He didn't want to be a two-timer, he had seen his sister's friend Mina do it, he had even seen his sister do it.

He was a good person truly, but more to the point he had in his head an object lesson that he really didn't want to go there. Usagi was in an affair – a sexualaffair – with Makoto, and everyone knew this. What he, Usagi, and Makoto, and Rei, and Mamoru, and probably Ami, knew, was that this had gone on while Usagi and Mamoru were still together. Their relationship was on the rocks, hanging on by a thread, grasping at straws, etc., etc., but they were still going out now and then Saturday nights. Everyone, including Usagi, felt this was monstrously unfair – Mamoru was in K.O.'s College of Medicine, and a big-shot biophysicist from America had just come over to run the place, and he now worked tirelessly to change K.O. from a playboy-ish institution to a powerhouse school, literally a brain farm. So now Mamoru was suddenly in the most grueling medical program in the country, possibly in the world. So his free-time evaporated. Usagi felt bad about the two-timing, but her abandoning Mamoru gave her no pause for thought. He could have chosen between his princess and his petri dish, and he chose his petri dish. They had never done it, but Makoto was a beast in bed. That solved the question for Usagi.

And yet Usagi was still a nervous wreck those two months. She never wavered in her plan, but the idea of her life being so frigging complicated, just from not voicing her intentions to an older man who still honestly loved her, was boggling. That was a big part of the pain. She never actually said, Shingo, never do what I did, and all came out well – for her – in the long-run, but it was conspicuous by its absence, and Shingo was certainly impressed by that notion.
Eventually he got to the Crown Center. He could have taken the rails, but he walked whenever he could, he liked the time to think. In that respect he did resonate with Ami.
When he went in the room was packed. It was Saturday night, Open Stage Night, and Minako would be opening with a backing band of a guitar, synth, and drum machine, the Dandy Lions. It was pretty much a Rie Fu cover act. The crowd went wild. Usagi, Mako, and Rei were up in the front row. Shingo was glad for this; he could just slip in at the back row, and book it out at the end. He wasn't in the mood to explain tonight why Ami wasn't with him, and Usagi would demand this, and her stupid friends would all follow the leader.

"Isn't it great, Shin-chan?"
"Huh – Mrs. Mizuno?" Indeed it was. One of the top doctors in Japan, at an amateurish J-pop concert. and a brown paper bag with a suspicious glass bottleneck therein. Saeko's hair and clothes were immaculately neat as usual, her persona was that of some goddess out of an Arthurian myth, but her face was very red.
"Where's Ami?"
"She's back home. She wasn't feeling well."
"Aww, that's too bad. Well I've got nothing to do tonight, whole night off," and as she wallowed in the sordid slough of drunkenness she broke out laughing and fell off the side of her chair. Mercifully, Mina and her band were now doing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," so none could note the disgraceful scene.
"Mrs. Mizuno, do you want to go home?"
"Yes, lead the way, sweetie."
Shingo couldn't help but blush. Mrs. Mizuno was old, but she was alright looking. Had some up top. And she was actually fitter than her daughter, who had had always been plump like Usagi. And (besides Ami) she was smarter than any girl Shingo had ever met.
The two walked home, and at some point they started to hold hands.
Ami didn't hear them come in. She was fully asleep and dead to the world when Shingo eased the door shut.
Saeko sat down on the tasteful couch, head in hand. She was sobered up a bit and things were moving on and looking slightly prosaic and dull. Shingo looked for something good to say.
"So, Mr. Mizuno…"
"Gone. When Ami was five. Get a postcard and a fifty-dollar bill every year from him. Sends Ami a picture for her birthday every year. He lives on Castro Street in San Francisco. Makes a living as an artist."
"You miss him, don't you?"
"No."
Shingo didn't know what to say at this.

"I mean, it wouldn't have been easier or harder if he'd stayed. I always made most of the money. He was just a struggling artiste before he left. And he did leave, so he isn't much worth missing, is he? Ami misses him, but then she barely remembers him. I do. Especially when he hit her. Twice. That's when I started to think it would be good if he went." Not with ire. Just analytically and coolly, as if carefully tracing a strand of protein or coding with PyMol.
Shingo started to speak, stopped himself, and the two were silent. Then, before he knew what he was saying, "Can I help you any way?"
Tears welled up in Saeko's eyes. "Shingo, could. Could. Could you, just. Just hold me?"
He did, and they kissed, and they went to her bedroom with clear conscience and quiet footstep as Ami slept in the next room. She stirred once as the bedsprings rattled in spite of their caution, and after an agonizing moment of silence Ami took up snoring again and the two continued their tender love. They fell asleep in each other's arms and dreamt of locked doors opening.