Was the prologue too much for you guys? I hope not! This chapter is going to be set in reality, I swear! Hope you all enjoy :)

Please don't forget to leave a review!

(Standard disclaimer: I do not own any of the Sailor Moon characters of which I am writing about. This story is an original that I wrote for fun and without compensation. All characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi.)

Two More Weeks

Chapter 1

Homecoming

*Usagi*

She walked into her second period class and took her seat just as the 2-minute warning bell rang. At the same time Yusuke walked into the classroom and they made brief eye contact. Usually they avoided each other at all costs since the time she'd dissed him, but lately she'd been catching him staring at her. She wasn't sure what he was thinking or what he wanted, but she didn't care.

When she realized that her desk was his destination, she focused her attention out the classroom windows. She didn't have time to deal with him. They were not friends.

"What a lucky guy." Yusuke stood before her and she was forced to turn back as he laid something on her desk. She had no idea what he was talking about until she noticed the picture on the magazine in front of her. Mamoru was on the cover.

She wasn't sure how to respond or if she even should. He still recognized Mamoru from all those months ago, which wasn't surprising considering Mamoru was all the tabloids talked about lately. But what was Yusuke's point in showing her this? Even if he said something about seeing them together once no one would believe him. Mamoru was a rich playboy and she a mediocre high school student; there were no credible connections to grasp at. She kept her glare on Yusuke as Ichigo walked into class and made his way to them.

"Morning, babe." Ichigo leaned down to kiss her cheek and said hi to Yusuke, not finding anything peculiar about the two of them together. "Oh, it's that singer!" he said, noticing the magazine on her desk. "I love her music. Who's she with? That lucky bastard."

"That's what I said." Yusuke was still looking at her.

"Wonder what its like to be him," Ichigo said in awe, noticing the other candid pictures surrounding the middle one, all images of Mamoru with gorgeous women.

"I'm sure you two have more things in common than you realize," Yusuke replied, taking the magazine and tossing it in the trash behind them. "You'll understand one day." He gave her an innocent smile.

Ichigo shrugged, having no clue to what Yusuke had been referring. Her fingers drummed on her desk. That piece of shit. She couldn't believe he was still so bitter. Even though she was sure he was just trying to get under her skin, the idea of him having a sort of blackmail over her was sickening.

Thankfully the teacher chose that moment to come in forcing Yusuke back to his seat. Ichigo squeezed her shoulder before moving two rows over to take his own seat, giving her a worried look after he'd realized how pissed she looked. He cupped his hands together to form the shape of a heart and pointed at her. She ignored him.

After class, Ichigo had given her a look like he wanted to talk but she rushed straight to Mako's locker hoping to catch her before the second bell rang again. As usual there was a group of girls surrounding her asking her for the best, fastest, easiest recipes they could make for their boyfriends. Ever since she'd gotten that internship-turned-part-time-job as a chef at a 5-star restaurant in downtown Tokyo, Mako headed straight to stardom herself.

She was the youngest sous chef in town and their high school's very own local celebrity. They even gave her an entire four-page spread on the school newspaper dedicated to her weekly top food picks and her very popular column 'Dishes Under 10 Minutes'. It took a few seconds before Mako realized it was just her tapping her shoulder and not another fan.

"Usa!" Mako looked relieved, pushing the crowding girls out of her way easily. The girls mumbled among themselves as they slowly dispersed, knowing that Mako was no longer listening to any of them. "I wanted to talk to you. Look at what I found!"

She was rummaging through her bag for a few seconds, a couple of pencils falling out before she handed her a rolled up magazine. Like she hadn't had enough of these. Mako bent down to pick up her items while she stared at the magazine in her hand, afraid of what other gossip was going around about the first man she'd ever slept with. She carefully unrolled the paper, but it wasn't a magazine at all. It was a calendar, a swimsuit calendar.

"Can you believe it?" Mako said, her head shaking.

On the cover was a blonde girl laying on a sandy white beach, crystalline water from the shore splashing behind her. She wore a bright blue, tiny bikini and had her eyes closed, head tilted back with smile on her face, lips parted. Her back was arched and she had one leg slightly raised over the other, stretched out with her arms above her head, totally relaxed and totally sexy. It was Mina.

"This is what she's been doing all this time?" She couldn't believe it. Mina had her own calendar? She flipped through the rest of the pages quickly each new picture just as amazing as the last. They were all sexy, but none of the pictures were trashy, like many calendars of this sort tended to be, and she was covered up tastefully in all of them except for one picture she was pretty sure was body paint. "She looks amazing."

"I know. All of the pictures look perfect." She and Mako were silent for a little bit flipping through the pictures again. They hadn't seen Minako in months and were still uncomfortable about what had happened, but it was mutually understood that they were both happy for her regardless. This was what she had wanted to do, model, and they were genuinely glad everything worked out for her. No matter what, they would always be connected. She would always be their Venus.

"Who gave you this?" She turned the calendar over and looked for the release date on the back. It showed the published date of the current month and year, but nothing else beside credits.

"Max," Mako replied, rolling her eyes when Usagi scrunched up her nose. "He said Kunzite gave it him, relax."

"Sure he did," she muttered. "What's up with you two anyway? You can't tell me got you such an awesome job without anything in return. I know something has to be going on there." The school bell rang.

"I told you already. It's not like that." Mako's blush really didn't make her very believable, but due to time concerns she wasn't able to press on. Right then Ami passed, well, more like ran, by them. Mako flagged her down. "Ami-chan!"

Ami hesitated before coming to a stop a few yards away from. She turned around but didn't look like she wanted to talk to either of them. It didn't faze them because Ami acted like didn't have time for anything lately. Or anyone. She just couldn't understand why Ami still spent so much time studying when she'd already gotten early acceptances into all the universities she'd applied to.

"Mako-chan, Usagi-chan." Ami was staring at her watch. "I have to go." Usagi held up Mina's calendar and Ami tensed, but dropped her hand, looking down. It was the same every time. Whenever they mentioned Mina something was off about Ami.

"Look." Usagi tried handing it to her, but Ami didn't take it.

"I saw it already," Ami finally answered. "Fujji-san showed me." She and Mako shared a look. Did every guy own this? "It came out yesterday."

"Oh," she and Mako replied together. That was rather anti-climatic, but it shouldn't surprise them that Ami was always one step ahead of them.

"So why is your 'tutor' showing you such sexy calendars, eh, Ami-chan?" Mako joked and she laughed along with her. "What are you and Zoi 'studying' exactly?" Ami got serious real fast.

"You girls are so retarded."

"Uh-oh!" Usagi snickered, bumping elbows with Mako childishly. "She only says retarded when she's really angryyyy!" They burst into laughter. Ami rushed away from them.

"We were just kidding, Ami-chan! C'mon!" Ami didn't stop walking and hissed when they yelled out her name again, quickly disappearing into a classroom down the hall.

"I'll see you at lunch," she told Mako once they were the only ones left in the hallway. Mako nodded and off they rushed to class before they were late.

* l * l *

She opened the door to her classroom slowly in the hopes that everybody was still settling in. Unfortunately all eyes jumped straight to her as everyone had already started their assigned reading. She fumbled into class and rushed over to her seat, but there were already hushed murmurs going around the classroom, mostly from catty girls that disliked her.

"Tsukino! Quit disrupting the class and take your seat!" the teacher hollered and she quickly moved to the back of the class.

Luckily the class quieted after that and not a peep was heard until the bell rang again, but by then she was out of there. Senior year was not all that it was cracked up to be. Luckily, since she still had some of the best friends in the world (thankfully the school year had reunited her with Rei, Mako and Ami again from the distance summer had wedged between them), her jealous classmates just blended into the background.

In the beginning it hadn't been like this. When the first magazine with pictures of her shopping with Cass came out, everybody was shocked and wouldn't stop asking how she met and became friends with someone so 'hot', 'stylish', and 'awesome' as Koan "Cass" Ayakashi. To her, Cass was fun and weird and sexy all at the same and it was her carefree attitude that she was attracted to the most.

Then as the weeks rolled by and more and more pictures surfaced of her and Rei with Cass at boutiques and fancy restaurants, the attitude of the girls around her changed. Now she was no longer hanging out with the owner of the hippest spa in the city, but with 'useless trash' 'a slut' 'a celebrity wannabe' 'attention whore', sometimes of which she had no doubt the titles were meant for her as well. It had been hard to deal with the negativity at first especially since she'd always been (in her mind) the happy-go-lucky girl who got along with everybody, but she'd quickly come to terms with it. Haters were everywhere but as long as she knew who her real friends were, she would survive.

"Usa!" It was Makoto running to catch up with her. They walked to the roof together for lunch and sat on a corner, leaving space for Ami despite knowing she wouldn't show up. A group of freshman girls were slyly inching closer to grab them in conversation. They ignored them. "I can't wait to graduate already," Mako muttered as the girls kept looking their way.

"I know," she responded, taking the extra dumpling Mako hadn't eaten out of her box with her fingers. "These girls are so annoying." She popped the whole thing in her mouth as Mako leaned in closer.

"Look at her magazine," she whispered. Mako was referring to their stalking audience. "The page facing us." She tried to squint, but she could barely make out a couple: a blonde girl in a pink blouse, black skirt and cropped nude jacket. Her outfit from two days ago. She almost choked. "Did you go out with Diamond again? Because I think that's what they want to ask you about."

She wanted to rip the magazine out the girl's hand. Instead she leaned over and casually asked them to borrow it. The girls nodded enthusiastically. Mako was right; it was her and Diamond (Mamoru's business stand-in while he was away whom she'd met on a night out with Cass. Long story). He was opening the door for her, his hand on her back as they went into Mako's restaurant together. Oh god.

They scanned the page for any signs of her name, but thankfully there weren't any. They just referred to them as Diamond with a 'friend' out for lunch. She wanted to scream her lungs out. She couldn't believe this. She was only there because she was meeting up with Mako. How convenient that Rei, who was walking behind her, had been strategically cropped out of the picture. Those editing bastards.

"Wait, you wore that on Saturday," Mako pointed out.

"Yeah, that was this Saturday! At Japu's when Rei and I went to get you after work. We were just walking in at the same time and met out front. Rei was right behind me. I cannot believe this."

"At least they didn't see you two out together the first time. That would have been even harder to explain," Mako muttered and she wanted to strangle her. The girls, who had been staring at her the entire time since she took the magazine, covered their mouths and turned around briskly in shock. Mako caught her slipup and apologized quickly.

"Whatever. Let's get out of here." Without hesitating, she ripped out the page with her and Diamond and crumpled it up, pushing it to the bottom of her bag. She didn't care that it only made her look more guilty, she couldn't give it back to them knowing that it was the page they were going to be talking about for the rest of the day. She tossed the magazine back at the group of girls without apologizing and left.

* l * l *

Mako raised no objection when she suggested they skip their afternoon classes and leave school early. Both of them were dying to get the hell out of there anyway; it was just too stressful. School was a burden now that there was such a huge spotlight on them.

Deciding to meet Rei, they took the long route to her school in order to waste some time before it was her dismissal. When they finally got in front of the T.A. high school, Rei and her entourage were hanging outside the school building. As she and Mako approached Rei, some of the girls screamed and one even jumped into another girl's arms in excitement.

"Stop embarrassing me!" Rei snarled, completely disgusted with the way the girls behind her were acting as if they somehow reflected upon her. The girls stopped immediately. "They're so hooked on Max it's not even funny," Rei filled them in after they left the other girls behind and started walking toward the temple. "They act like you being here might make him appear or something. Those girls are insane."

"Why in the world would he be here with me?" Mako huffed. "He works and has a life that has nothing to do with me! People swear like we're dating or something! I just don't get it. Can't two people just be friends?"

"No," she and Rei said in unison. How did Mako not get that concept yet?

"We rarely even see each other for people to believe that!" Mako argued.

"He's flown out to come see you 7 times in the past two months! That sounds often to me." Mako threw her hands up in the air.

"Of course he's going to come check up on me, I'm like a freaking investment!" Mako argued. "It's his ass on the line if I mess up. I'd do the same thing!" In a calmer tone, she looked straight ahead and spoke seriously. "I really appreciate what he's done for me. My boss said his letter of recommendation was the best he'd ever read. I'm just a teenager and yet he's risked his reputation to help me. I feel nothing but gratitude towards him."

"Isn't that his job anyway? He's like a talent seeker or something?"

"It's called a scout, but that's only for the main company, not any of its subsidiaries." Mako stopped talking when she realized that she'd lost her and Rei. "That's beside the point! He's a wonderful person is all I'm trying to say. If anything, he's like a mentor to me."

"But he's so hot! You can tell us if there's something happening," she begged. "We swear we won't tell anyone."

"Usagi," Mako spoke to her slowly like a child, "you of all people should be able to understand. Just because something appears one way, it doesn't mean that's what it is. Like you and Diamond, for instance." She begrudgingly pouted and Mako proceeded to inform Rei about the picture from earlier. "Even though that's a little harder to explain because while me and Max just talk business—and have never been anywhere alone, might I add—you two actually went out on a date. So you try explaining that."

"It was one time!" she exasperated. "And I told you two already. Totally innocent!" They both gave her that look and her defending argument continued on until they reached the temple. "I swear I don't even like him that much," she said as they entered Rei's room. "When he asked me out, I just couldn't say no. He's so nice." She turned on the TV and all three of them laid on their stomachs across Rei's bed.

"Don't forget about Ichigo," Rei added, "he's a nice guy, too."

"A little too nice if you ask me," Mako muttered.

"I like him," she said defensively.

"You like everybody." Mako had a point.

"You just don't know how to say no," Rei sighed. "It's always been your problem. You should have just told Diamond you had a boyfriend, but you didn't because you're stupid."

"I know!" she cried because Rei was right. It was a stupid move. "But it's because me and Ichigo are, like, weird together… I don't really see us as a couple honestly." Mako rolled her eyes.

"You should probably tell him that some time."

"Speaking of Usagi's hook-ups," Rei said, turning their attention to the TV. "Look who it is."

It was Mamoru except, oddly, there was no woman at his side. He was with Jed and the footage they were viewing was taken by paparazzi bombarding him as he walked down the sidewalk. Cameras were flashing and reporters were shooting question after question. "Were negotiations really that difficult to reach?" "Is it true that Soi-san no longer wanted to be affiliated with Chiba Incorporated?" "How does it feel knowing that despite the dispute being settled, they're still competing for your position?"

Her phone rang and she jumped startled, but reached into her bag to silence it without turning away from the screen. There was nothing more urgent than the two female correspondents currently relaying this very important news: "After much negotiations, a CINC representative has confirmed that a compromise has been reached and that all parties involved are quote, satisfied with the results." They went to footage of an older man talking to the press on a podium. "We are happy to announce that we were able to maintain our relationship with our foreign investors and will finally resume our business as usual."

The scene cut back to the female correspondents. They were skinny and fashionable and when they showed pictures of Mamoru in the background, they just looked at each other knowingly. "What that means is that our handsome CEO is finally able to come back home." One girl elbowed the other. "A cause for celebration, ladies. Even Chiba-san himself believes so."

The video of Mamoru and Jed was played again and this time is was clear that their destination was to a club. It was late out and they were nearing the entrance marquee. Large bodyguards blocked the reporters from getting any closer. Jed and Mamoru disappeared inside without a single glance at the cameras.

"This was taken just last night right in front of the posh club, Lo, that we know he frequents in downtown Tokyo. That's right, you heard correct ladies. It's official. Chiba-san is back in town!"

She couldn't do anything more than stare at the TV despite the two women having moved on to their next segment. Mamoru was back. For real this time.

The shrill of her phone echoed throughout the room as she received another call, but neither Mako nor Rei said anything. They understood. It was most likely Ichigo calling her to ask where she'd gone after school. Maybe even to question her about the rumors of her and Diamond being true. None of it mattered though. Not even a little bit.

Her and Ichigo were so over.

*Motoki*

It has been about two weeks since he and Mamoru landed back in Tokyo and yet he still wasn't fully unpacked. Well, that was untrue. The twenty or so boxes neatly piled up across his apartment entrance weren't exactly his.

He still hadn't known what had caused him to ask her to move in with him, but he felt that it had been the right time. He finally had been able take the next logical step, the one he had been afraid to make just a couple of months ago but that she had thankfully cured him of. He had been confused back then, utterly and completely, but she broke him free of that stale mindset. She, with all her persuasive abilities, had been able to make him see that this was where he needed to be. With her.

Oh Cass. He walked up and rubbed his girlfriend's shoulders soothingly, pushing aside her long brown hair. She turned around and smiled at him, her dark eyes shining. She was never going to speak to him again after she learned about Reika.

"Could we go to that restaurant again with the performers?" Reika asked. He nodded in response to her request. Honestly, he was tired of the place but he'd do it for her.

"I'll get dressed," he said, heading off to shower and get ready.

Even though it was nearly 7 in the evening, he was still walking around in only his underwear. Lately, he'd been bumming around the house a lot and it was starting to become routine, but it's not like he had anything better to do.

Since he had gotten back a whole month into the school year, it had been too late to register, forcing him to wait for the following semester to take classes and thus prolonging his graduation for yet another six months. So that left his schedule wide open with a shit load of free time that he mostly just wasted on, guess what? Video games.

Whenever he didn't have a meeting, he would wake up late and have lunch with Reika until she had to leave for work. Then he would play video games until he got bored and then maybe go outside to pick up whatever house necessities Reika asked him to. He would wait until she got home to go out to dinner and then afterwards go visit those museums/operas/ballets/violin concerts that she loved dragging him to.

It had been quite a different pace, but he realized it wasn't all that bad. He'd never done those types of artsy events before and although some of them were boring as hell, there were a handful that he felt had actually expanded his mind. And it was those new experiences that he loved most about Reika.

No matter what she was doing, her eternal thirst for knowledge forced him to search for his own interests. Her passion was all about seeking answers, finding the truth, or at least coming as close to humanly possible; she was an archaeologist, a history expert and constantly bombarding him with new facts. She sought wisdom, but what did he wish to find in the world? He had no fucking clue, but he knew that Reika was here to help him figure that out. She had already taught him so much.

She made him realize that perhaps business management wasn't as worthy of his time as he'd originally thought. After he'd returned from his trip, he had only gone back to check up on the arcade twice and not once to the parlor. How could he put this… He just didn't care about them anymore. He was planning on telling his parents that when they came to visit in a couple of weeks for their French holiday off, but it was not something he was looking forward to doing. They were not going to like the idea of hiring another full-time manager to look after the place, but he had already made up his mind. Hopefully they wouldn't be too mad at him.

He didn't know how to tell Mamoru all of this either, especially since they were also business partners. Mamoru would probably tell him that he would be wasting over 4 years of his life if he quit, but he doubted that he'd offer any solution other than 'suck it up and stick it out'. And since that was the last thing he wanted to do, he didn't want to hear anything Mamoru would have to say right now. Besides, their relationship wasn't the best at the moment so he wouldn't tell him until he had to.

Things between them had changed dramatically since he'd been with Reika. At first they both overlooked it knowing that relationships tended to be obsessive in the beginning and couples hardly wanted to spend time away from each other. But it's been about three months since he and Mamoru had spent a single night out. They only saw each other at work and did not talk outside of the business environment. When they saw each other at the office they exchanged a few words maybe depending on how their meetings had gone, but otherwise had very little contact.

He had this awful feeling that Mamoru didn't like Reika. At all. Actually, that was a lie. He knew deep down that Mamoru hated her; he could just feel it. It didn't matter how nice he appeared to be to her, whenever Reika and Mamoru were in the same room it was unbearably awkward. There would be so much tension between them that he wouldn't even know what to do with himself.

Which wasn't surprising since Reika didn't like Mamoru either. She thought he was a bad influence and although she explicitly didn't say to stay away from him, she hinted at it all the time. He liked to believe that he was a better friend than to listen to her, but the truth was that he wasn't. He had honestly been avoiding Mamoru altogether so that he wouldn't have problems with Reika.

Since Mamoru's reputation as a womanizer extended far and wide, she was afraid that Mamoru would somehow make him cheat on her. She was insecure obviously, but he understood that she wasn't all that far from the truth. Partying with Mamoru could get intense and he didn't mean like drinking heavy, crazy drugs intense. No, he meant that in the most sexually graphic way possible—and she knew that. Orgy type behavior at private clubs weren't all that uncommon and the last time he'd been in that kind of environment was the last time he'd hung out with Mamoru around mid-August—the night before he met Reika.

His relationship with Reika was a strain on their friendship for sure, but he'd slowly been able to accept it. Although they'd always been closer than friends, perhaps this was just a break that they needed. For so many years, they'd depended on each other and maybe now was the time for them to pave their own independent ways, mark their own paths. Everybody needed space to grow and relationships were always changing. Years ago he would not have believed it, thinking that he and Mamoru would be friends forever but now he knew the truth and the truth always hurt.

*Mamoru*

His new apartment took some getting used to. It had so many more amenities than his last one and he still mistook rooms for closets. Still, the added privacy and security features were a welcome change that he couldn't fathom how he'd managed to survive without them.

His favorite so far was the security vault he had on the second floor the size of a standard bank's gold deposit. The vault was amazing because he was able to keep a decent amount of cash at home securely. The manufacturer guaranteed that in the event of a disaster, the enforcements around the safe ensured that even if his building went down in flames and burned for a week straight, his assets inside would remain intact and unaffected.

Then there was the helicopter landing-pad on his roof. It assured him the utmost privacy and speed—two things of which he was seriously lacking these days—when trying to leave and arrive home. Even his lobby had much stricter rules regarding entry and visitors. Not only would guests have to go through a sort of tagging system if they weren't with him when they arrived, but nobody besides him had access to his apartment on the premises.

The possibility that he would be screwed if he ever came home too drunk to remember the security codes did pass his mind before, but he doubted that it would ever come to that. When in a compromised state, he learned that it was always best to just stay at a hotel, especially when he was hooking up with random women. It made everything just so much easier. Not to mention, he didn't want to repeat any mistakes that were the reason why he had to move in the first place.

On the thought of unfavorable women, it was annoying him beyond measure that he was starting to see Reika in his offices every time Motoki was in the building. It was almost as if she would do it on purpose just so that they couldn't meet alone. That woman seriously had issues and he wondered when it would be that Motoki would finally realize it. So many times (especially since they'd arrived last month in Tokyo and he'd expected Motoki to dump her ass so he could get back to Cass), he'd just wanted to call him and invite him out, but he knew that Motoki wouldn't go with him if he was still with her. 'Couldn't' was a better word.

He'd come close a couple of weeks ago to telling Motoki to screw that bitch. He and Reika had been friendly to each other when they first met and he'd once even believed her decent, but it wasn't until they found each other alone without Motoki's company that he'd seen her true colors. He was on his way back to their hotel in Hong Kong when they'd bumped into each other on the elevator going up. She'd given him the dirtiest look and granted the girl at his side was barely dressed and already fumbling with the buckle of his belt before the elevator door even closed. But it wasn't as if she'd seen the girl and was judging her. No, she'd only been looking at him the entire time as if he was the dirty one, a toxic that she—and Motoki—needed to stay far away from.

When they reached their floor, she pushed past them and went inside the apartment first and he remembered being furious with Motoki for giving her a key. Before he even reached the door with his 'date', Reika had already dragged Motoki out the apartment and was leading him away. Motoki hadn't noticed him in the distance, but he could hear Reika talk too loudly as they took the stairs, saying something about his living conditions being 'filthy'.

He'd wanted to yell at her and call her the types of names that were probably better suited to fit the girl at his side, but then said girl chose that very moment to live up to the stereotypes and started blowing him in the middle of the hallway. So what more could he really have done after that? Anyhow, after that day he couldn't even pretend to like Reika and slowly he and Motoki started talking less.

There were rare occasions abroad when they would be in the apartment together, but due to their conflicting schedules, aka Reika's interventions, it would be impossible if they even saw each other for breakfast. Sadly, this all still seemed to be true even back home and he knew now that there was probably nobody on the surface of this planet that he hated more than her.

He knew that a lot of people hated him and for good reason, but Reika? What the fuck had he ever done to her? Yet she still went at him attacking. The worst of it all was that she had actually stolen from him the one thing that he cared about most.

His friendship with Motoki wasn't completely lost yet, but he knew it was reaching that point. He hoped Motoki would come to his senses soon because otherwise there was nothing he could do. He couldn't interfere without making it worse. There was no point in him telling Motoki that Reika sucked ass, it would only make him want to stay with her more. And he was in no rush to lose more than he already had.

He'd always believed that it would be Cass's job to snag Motoki away from him, but low and behold—Motoki had brought Reika back with him and totally forgot about the girl that he was actually in love with for the past couple of years. Mamoru would rather lose to Cass a million times over than to that stupid bitch Motoki found in Hong Kong.

In the back of his mind, he had always known that their friendship had to change when they eventually got into serious relationships, but he hadn't thought that would happen for years. It was scary thinking that he was losing his best friend to some random woman he didn't even like. He would have thought that Motoki would have at least cared for his approval. He would want the same from him.

Everything about Reika was mediocre, her face, her body, her attitude. But he knew Motoki long enough to know that being flashy was never his thing. He didn't like living his life as extravagantly as he could, nor did he inherit the spontaneous streak from his parents. Motoki always liked to play it safe and Reika was perfectly safe. On paper it might look like they were the perfect match, but he knew better even if Motoki didn't.

He hadn't bothered mentioning a lick of his situation to Cass even though he knew that she knew already. He dreaded the day that Motoki and Cass would ever bump into each other because although she refused to acknowledge what was happening, he could tell she was bitter about it.

Even the way Cass talked to him had changed. She hadn't even bothered to invite him to the spa that she had worked so long and hard on despite him asking her continuously after he'd gotten back. Whenever he had his schedule free, she happened to be busy and would promise him another time, but he knew she was just blowing him off.

However, with it being a full month since his arrival, enough was enough. He had already dealt with her crappy attitude when she didn't even tell him about the grand opening even though he had been legally obligated to attend. So yesterday he had gotten ahold of the security company that covered the spa and showing them his contract, had managed to get the security codes himself and all spare keys to the facility. If Cass wanted to be difficult then she would have to deal with him going against her will. He had every right to inspect where his money went.

The security company seemed to have tipped her off because just this morning he had gotten a call from Cass's assistant saying that on Monday she was going to close the spa early so he could come check it out. He agreed to it because there was no use not to. Ultimately if he went with or without her it still all led to the same results. The whole point had been that he wanted her to show him around because it was something that he knew she was extremely proud of.

He understood that she had put so much work into it and he had the feeling that Cass thought he wasn't appreciative, but he was. Hopefully when they saw each other, she would let go of any hard feelings; she couldn't stay mad at him forever. If he knew anything about Cass it was that there was always a way to make it up to her. Most women he knew were funny like that.

* l * l *

Returning to his chores, he leaned over to the railing to grab the water basin and poured the remainder of the rain collection into the dry pot in front of him. The balcony was cheerfully bright despite the nasty weather outside, however there was this one plant in particular that looked wilted.

The vase of carnations had a few stems leaning a little too much to the left and a couple of the leaves were turning brown. Touching the unopened buds lightly with his pointer finger, the flower reacted immediately and opened its petals like an unraveling band. The leaves turned green again and the stem stood a little straighter. Who needed a gardener when they had his green thumb?

After studying his aura sensing, he'd tried to figure out what else he could use it for and had discovered this a few weeks ago. He realized that by pushing his own aura into living things, he could reenergize it. He should just call himself a magician since it seemed like he always had some new trick up his sleeve.

It seemed like a new ability, although it was quite possible that he'd always had this power since Tuxedo Kamen created roses out of nothing, so maybe this was just what he'd been doing all along. Who knew. All he understood was that now he had one more thing to add onto the many gifts that made him more special than the average guy—as if his list wasn't long enough.

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-CattyKitty