All Usagi knew when she came to, her head throbbed, again. Something, maybe instinct, let her know that someone else was in the room with her, so she kept her eyes shut tight and tried to fit together her scattered thoughts. She woke up that morning, the girls came over, and then she went to work.
There, that's when it all flooded back into her, like a cold that oozed from her head down to her toes. The voicemail.
I must have passed out. Nothing in her power could be done to ebb the tears that fell from the corners of her eyes. Even though she squeezed her eyelids so much her head pounded worse than ever, they kept coming. Finally, she relented and opened her eyes to an unfamiliar room. A strange bed, as well, and her heart rate quickened for a moment. That's when he spoke.
"Hey." Her blue eyes shifted to her right, where the tall form of her redheaded boss leaned into the wall, his arms crossed. Usagi tried harder than ever to stop crying, wiping at her tears fiercely. "Omi refused to go back to work if I didn't stay here. This is his room."
As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, as though she weren't an emotional wreck, Aya spoke to her in his usual even tone. Though she found it disturbing, something in the stability of his emotion was comforting. She offered a broken laugh before saying, "That sounds like him. I haven't been out long, right? I'll get back to work."
"Wait." The blonde froze, her legs dangling over the edge of the bed already. His intense violet eyes rooted her to the spot, however, and she didn't move an inch while waiting on him to speak. It took a minute or two for him to finally ask, "Why?"
"Why?" Usagi echoed, meeting his gaze. Everything about Aya, ever since the first day she walked into the flower shop, the whole time she had worked there, she never understood. He embodied a complete enigma to her, and she wondered, did he expect her to know what to answer just by that one word question?
"Why are you still here? Why are you still smiling? Why do you keep coming into work like nothing is wrong?" He fired the questions at her one after the other, catching her totally off guard. Of all the people to question her, she never thought it would be Aya. She drew in a steadying breath before she answered.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Usagi stood then, brushing imaginary dust from the blue jumpsuit she wore, courtesy of Minako, and looked at Aya with a smile. "What should I do instead? How should I act? I wish I knew the answer myself. I just know that sitting at home crying all day is not me. Being depressed won't make anything better, and I think wherever Mamoru is he would be upset if I was acting like that. I'll get back to work."
As she walked out of the room, still working out why Aya had asked her all those questions, a thought came to her. Maybe Aya lost someone. Maybe that's why he acts like he does. Maybe that's why he asked those things.
Usagi paused in the stairwell, only a few steps away from the entrance back into the shop. Shaking her head, the blonde knew she would never gain the courage to ask the redhead personally, so it was better not to dwell on the matter. She passed through the door silently, grabbed her apron, and finished tying it before Omi turned and noticed she was there. As she observed the clock, realizing she was only out for an hour, the younger blonde enveloped her in a hug.
"Um, Omi-kun?" He instantly jerked away from her, red as a beet, realizing just what he'd done. The look on his face made her smile, and she said, "Thank you for worrying about me, Omi-kun. Oh, and for letting me borrow your room."
"N-No problem," Omi responded, returning to the counter as a customer walked in. Usagi retrieved the orders for flower arrangements and retreated to her work table, nodding to Ken and Yohji as she passed them. As she engrossed herself in the flowers, she let her thoughts slip from her mind, she felt at peace.
In that sense, the day passed by quickly, much too quickly. When the last arrangement made it to the truck for delivery, she walked around the counter and hung her apron on its designated hook. Turning, her eyes fell instantly on the pink cell phone sitting next to the register. Her heart jumped in her throat.
Don't be stupid, her mind chided as she closed her hand around the phone and slid it into her purse hastily. She grabbed the purse and headed for the door, nearly colliding with the person standing behind her; Aya.
"Oh, Aya, you startled me." Usagi flashed him a smile before she stepped around him, but he didn't let her get too far before he stopped her.
"Wait. I'm going with you." The blonde girl turned with her eyes widened in surprise. Ken had already disappeared from the shop, but Yohji watched the scene with interest. Aya walked around the frozen Usagi and toward the door, until she finally regained semi consciousness and followed.
"What do you mean you're going with me?" She implored after they reached the sidewalk.
"The bus stop is several blocks from the shop. I'm walking you there." Aya elaborated, still walking. Usagi opened her mouth to question him further, but decided against it. Instead she sent glances at him every few seconds, wondering what spawned the sudden concern for her well being. She couldn't shake her earlier thoughts, and found herself wondering more than ever what had made Aya the way he was now. "We're here."
"Oh. Thank you, Aya-kun." Usagi nearly bit her tongue. She never called him 'Aya-kun,' he was her boss after all, but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, the redhead only nodded at her, the only acknowledgment he heard her at all, and continued to stand there. "You don't have to wait here with me, I'll be fine."
"It's not a problem." Aya said, his violet eyes focused down the road, waiting for a visual of the approaching bus. The blue eyed girl silenced, looking at her shoes, as her mind wandered back to the phone barely poking out of her bag. The message replayed again in her mind, but she pushed it away. The last thing she wanted was to start crying in front of Aya again. She shifted her line of vision to the opposite side of the street.
"Aya," she whispered, as softly as she could. The redhead still heard her, because he turned his head to look at her, his eyes questioning. Just as she prepared to point out the form she thought stood below the overhang, she turned back and they were gone. Just like that. A chill, like an ice cube sliding down her spine, enveloped her completely.
What if someone really is after me? They know where I work, where I live, who I know, and they want to kill me. Or worse. Usagi stuffed her hands into her pockets, not wanting Aya to notice that they were trembling. The implication that whoever murdered Mamoru was after her and really wanted her dead, it was something she realized before but didn't completely consider. But the man she'd seen in the window that afternoon, and on the way home that evening, didn't he resemble the person she just saw? The same she thought she saw in the window again the next day?
"Something is wrong." The blonde jumped, visibly. Her world spun. Did he see the same guy? "You're shaking."
"Oh, well, it's getting kind of cold, don't you think? Look, here comes the bus." Aya's violet eyes finally turned as the bus pulled up. The doors opened, and Usagi smiled at him as well as she could with her thoughts still teeming, "See you tomorrow, Aya-kun."
xXx
He'd seen it. Oh, had he seen it. There had never been anything so beautiful; the contortion of features on her face while her body went as rigid as a stone. He was extremely pissed when she walked out with him, with one of the kittens. Tonight should have been a big night: he was to allow her to see him again, face to face, but not with him around. Now his anger subdued, the look of pure horror still etched in his mind.
She would be his; she was falling right into his hands. He couldn't have imagined it going any better. Since their meeting had been prolonged, he decided he would wait one more day for his next victim. One more day.
xXx
Usagi stood at the kitchen counter, part of that morning's newspaper spread out on the surface in front of her and the telephone receiver to her ear. Ikuko Tsukino, busy bustling over the stove for their dinner, hardly noticed what her daughter was doing. When she began to set the table, however, the snippets of conversation she overheard caught her interest. Only a moment passed before she realized the piece of newspaper was the classifieds.
"Next week? I really need tomorrow. Yes. Yes. Okay, thanks anyway." The blonde placed the phone back and sighed, crossing off another square with a black magic marker. While Ikuko set the food out on the table, she kept her attentions on her oldest child.
Finally, she asked, "Usagi, dear, what are you doing?"
"Nothing," Usagi responded automatically, her finger running across the page to the next circled square. Picking up the receiver, she quickly punched in the numbers at the bottom of the ad and waited as the line rang. In a moment, the person picked up. "Hello, this is Usagi Tsukino. I'm calling about the apartment you advertised in today's paper. Yes. Nineteen. Yes. Tomorrow is perfect; I can have the deposit ready. Thank you!"
"Usagi." As the blonde spun around, a smile of satisfaction on her face, she nearly ran into her mother head on. The blue haired woman was standing, hands on her hips, glaring down at her only daughter. Usagi gulped. "You are not moving out of this house."
Instead of the temper she expected, or the whining, Usagi didn't protest at all. She said, as calm as ever, "I am. Thank you for letting me stay the past couple of days, but if there's a chance any of you may be in danger because of me, I don't want to stay. Besides," she smiled cheerfully, as though the gloom of her previous statement hadn't existed at all, "it's a lot closer to work and it's really cheap."
"Usagi, I'm worried about you," her mother enveloped her in a hug, and the blue eyed girl returned it full force, smiling. "If you move out I'll worry about you all the time. Please just stay here, okay? You'll be safer, and nothing will happen to us."
"You don't know that." Usagi pulled away and squeezed her mother's hands in her own, smiling brightly. "Just trust me, okay?"
xXx
Usagi smiled and waved as the moving truck finally pulled away. Once the door shut on her new apartment, however, she groaned and collapsed onto the plain blue couch. Her own blue eyes surveyed the many unopened boxes of stuff, half from her old room and half things the police dropped off at her parent's house that morning, declaring it irrelevant to the case. The prospect of not having to wear her old high school clothes excited her, but it hit even harder than ever that Mamoru was gone.
"We still haven't gotten any leads," the detective had told her apologetically. The blonde wondered, if life were like a crime scene television show wouldn't the bad guy be caught and brought to justice already? Sighing, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket again and hit redial for the third time that day.
Oh yeah, one more thing Usako. I love you.
"I'm pathetic." Usagi shoved the phone back into her pocket and stood, stretching her taut muscles. Exhaling, she looked around and picked the first box to start unloading. For several hours she unloaded one box at a time, pausing only when she came to photo albums and picture frames of herself and Mamoru. There were so many things to remind her of him. She repacked all of these pictures into one of the empty boxes and stuck it in the closet.
Finally, she faced the very last box, the one she dreaded the most. Cutting through the tape with a kitchen knife, she gently opened the four tabs and peered inside, as though an animal were waiting to jump out and attack her. Instead, it was a green jacket.
Again the tears came without warning. Silently she walked to the front door and locked it, engaging the chain for good measure. Then she returned to the open box, and dug around until she found a simple button up white dress shirt. She slipped off her pink sweater and slid the shirt on over her camisole, buttoning up the buttons.
Walking into the single bedroom of the small apartment, she lay down on the bare mattress and curled into a ball, letting the faint scent of Mamoru's cologne surround her. Her eyes fell on the ring still around her finger, never taken off. "Am I going to live like this forever?"
The empty question echoed in the room. Usagi lay still, trying to drift off to sleep, for at least an hour until she heard her cell phone ring. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the caller id, an unknown number. Still, she hit the talk button and said, "Hello?"
"Usagi, come to the hospital right now."
xXx
Gasp! Another evil ending! D: Guess you'll just have to review for more!
SachiNyoko