Smutember 2020 Sailor Moon Fandom E-Zine

Preface

Hi <3

I’m guessing as you’re reading this, you probably already know what this wonderful collection of an E-Zine is about, but just in case you don’t, please let me tell you all about it!

Smutember is a multi-fandom event on Tumblr that you might have heard about before: For the entire month of September, fanwork creators across fandoms come together for a daily prompt challenge exploring sexy themes! However, as daily prompt challenges for an entire month seem a bit intense for a fandom like ours that has been going strong for 25+ years and is mostly made up of adult women with taxing daily lives, I hosted a different sort of challenge for the Sailor Moon fandom that was combinable with the daily word prompts provided, in the hopes to bring Smutember to our fandom. In the second year now, I’ve compiled a list of popular narrative tropes for weekly challenges instead that contributors can pick from to combine at will and include the official word prompts with if they please, and to work with as many as they want or have the energy to! What you see here, compiled by trope, is the result of all the creativity in this bubble that is our beautiful fandom corner. Regardless whether you’ve all seen them before, or if you’re new to us, I thoroughly hope you enjoy what these amazing people have shared with us!

The aim of this event was to create sex-positive content together that celebrates a healthy depiction of consensual sexuality. With sex positivity, we mean the attitude to see consensual sex and its many iterations as a healthy expression of ourselves that is informed and empowered, and as such completely our own choice in how we want to engage with it, or not! This includes the understanding of all expressions of sex and sexuality (as long as they are between consenting people) as

Preface

something positive that embraces open communication about personal limits and desires, and encourages exploration. On the flipside, it excludes shaming practices regarding societal expectations on bodies, genders and sexual identity including its frequency or expression (like body shaming, slut shaming, kink shaming or any attitudes of superiority between the beautifully diverse expressions of individual sexuality, sexual orientation, and sexual desires.) Together, we set out to create more content in our fandom that embraces this attitude for the second year in a row, now.

Erotic fanwork is a beautiful art, especially in a fandom of ours so largely cultivated by women and for women, as well as a strong inclusive focus on queer and gender-queer content and their creators, which, as a sex researcher in real life, I thoroughly applaud. And so that everyone can consume this content safely, we set up rules, with consent being the most important prerequisite requirement: That all characters depicted are of an age and state of mind and consciousness where they are able to willingly consent, as well as have the perceived power to willingly consent to participate in the action. This meant a minimum age of characters set to 18 for explicit scenes (that sometimes required our characters to be aged up, of course!), as well as no depiction of dubious consent or non-con, not least to be mindful of the many people this might potentially trigger. In addition, all other potential triggers were to be tagged as well. Except the aforementioned limitation of harmful content, nothing was off limits, though, and the exploration of kinks of all forms was thoroughly encouraged as long as it was clearly tagged.

On the following pages you will find the beautiful art and fanfiction that fans from all over the world have gifted us with during this event, ranging from ratings from T (Teen and Up Audiences) to E (Explicit). Ordered by tropes, you will find brief information on the content in the headings, including all content warnings. This is intended both to warn you of things that might potentially be triggering to you (or even “just” a squick!) as well as simultaneously provide you with a summary of content you might be specifically looking for, in the spirit of the Ao3 tagging system.

Additionally, you will find QR-codes on every work leading you directly to a place where you can review or comment for the authors and artists to leave them some love! I sincerely hope many of you will use this feature – the people who created these works deserve all the gratitude and compliments for both their amazing craft and the fact they so freely share it with us – and connecting over fanwork is one of the ways that make fandom spaces communities. So, if even only one of you who ends up reading this feels inclined to drop the authors and artists a line, especially if you’ve never interacted with them before, then, to iconicly paraphrase one very corny boy, my job here is done! (And also, you’d make a lot of people very happy. The content creators, as well as ME, lol!)

Lastly, I sincerely hope you find joy in this collection. I hope you have fun celebrating sexuality in this open, sex-positive way with us and try to be unapologetic about your enjoyment of this beautiful form of content by such a largely female-andqueer-gazing creator base. In her book “The Fanfiction Reader”, Francesca Coppa beautifully described smut in fanfiction as the ‘subjectification’ of sexuality (as

Preface

opposed to objectification), in which a thorough gap is filled: Where, unlike pornography, erotica is put into a context of profoundness and meaning, featuring characters we care deeply about in complex relationships with diverse and real approaches to sex and sexuality. In this vein, I hope you find the same in this collection of fanwork. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s celebrate this art form together!

With love, FloraOne

September 2020 (a year in which we all can use some comfort and community!)

Smutember 2020: Sailor Moon Fandom

Aroused By Your______ Nari20: Art 1 Nari20: Art 3 Ninjette Twitch: Usagi The Spectaphile 5

Awkward Sex Daikon: Mood Music 14

Battle Couple Beej88: Art 17

Blind Date Ally Unabridged: What We Could Be 20

Caught In The Rain Ally Unabridged: Drenched 40

Established Relationship ellephedre: Clair de Lune 50 Nari20: Art 57

Fake-NOT-Dating Ally Unabridged: Need You Now 60

First Times Midnightdrops: Art 65

Go Seduce My Archnemesis Antigone2: Exile 68

In Public FloraOne: Playing Outside 78 moonlightusa: Cockblocking 101 98 VenusUnchained: Strawberries And Syrup 108

Introduction By Hook-Up FloraOne: Blind 126

Miscellaneous Beej88: Art 175 Brownsugarheartattack: Nail Art 177 VenusUnchained: Art 179 IamCharlotte88: Art 181 IamCharlotte88: Art 183

Oh Crap There’s Fanfic Of Us FloraOne: Excuse Me, Ami Wrote WHAT?! 190 FloraOne: Oh Crap There’s Doujins Of Us 206 Nari20: Art 221

Pool/Onsen Heavenly Pearl: Stoplight 224

Second Chance Sex Ally Unabridged: Just Can’t Forget You 236

Sexual Fantasies ellephedre: Adult-Only Videotapes 274 Tina Century: Power Play 286

Sex With The Ex FloraOne: Saudade 292

Shower FloraOne: Art 315

Shunga FloraOne: Art 317

Talking In Bed ellephedre: The Devious Plan For The Green Jacket’s Demise 320 TNue: Adorable 330

Trapped Together crescentcompact: August 340 ellephredre: The Almost Quickie In Usagi’s Room 350 Ninjette Twitch: Intentionally Trapped 354

Unresolved Sexual Tension Nari20: Art 363 Queen Risa: Stay 366

Weathering The Storm Beej 88: Art 393 Heavenly Pearl: Distraction 396 Nari20: Art 405 Ninjette Twitch: Thunder, Tea, And Confessions 408

You Talk In Your Sleep Ninjette Twitch: Somniloquy 426

Aroused By Your___ by Nari20

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Aroused By Your___ by Nari20 Artist’s Notes: Inspired by ‘Usagi the Spectaphile’ by Ninjette Twitch!!

I tried to recreate what Mamoru would look like in Usagi's eyes in this wonderful fic!! ✨

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Aroused By Your____ Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Hand Job, Penis-In-Vagina Sex, Glasses Kink Ship: UsaMamo

Usagi the Spectaphile

by Ninjette Twitch

Usagi sat crossed legged on the bed, her chin propped in one hand, sighing as she mindlessly flipped through the pages of her manga. She was officially bored, the quarantine finally having gotten to her. They’d been cooped up in the apartment for weeks, and while at first, she’d loved being stuck inside with Mamoru, now…

She missed her friends. Zoom chatting just wasn’t the same. She missed the outside world and her dates with Mamo at the park. She wasn’t tired of being stuck with Mamoru. She was tired of being stuck; tired of nothing but this apartment.

She looked up; her attention pulled to Mamoru as he shifted in his chair at his desk. He was studying, like always. Even though he was out of school and officially a doctor now, new medical technology and practices were coming out 6

Ninjette Twitch – Usagi the Spectaphile

every day. Mamo-chan was determined to keep up with the ever-changing medical field he loved so much. And while she really did think it was cool that he wanted to make sure he was always up to date, that meant he was always studying! Like, couldn’t he take a break? Sheesh!

She swept her gaze over him from her spot on the bed, and her breath caught in her throat. She’d never get over how incredibly sexy he was. How could one person be so attractive? Even after all they’d been through, as long as they’d been together, he still made her heart race and the butterflies in her stomach flutter enough to make her nauseous.

He flipped a page of the article he was reading before reaching up, casually pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, scrunching it up as he did.

Instantly, she flushed. Those glasses. They did things to her, ignited a fire ignite in her body that burned hotly, coiling in her chest before traveling straight down. He looked as intelligent as he really was, and as much as she sometimes teased him for being a nerd, she couldn’t help how completely and utterly turned on those glasses made her.

She gingerly slipped off the bed, her bare feet lightly touching the floor as quietly as possible. Not that he’d notice. When Mamo-chan studied, he got in a zone. You practically had to sit on him to get his attention. She grinned at the thought.

As quietly as possible, she made her way across the room to stand just behind him, peering over his shoulder at his book, tilting her head slightly. She’d long since stopped trying to understand what it was that drew his interest in all of this stuff, but she was sure she’d be able to get him into something else right now.

She walked around to his side and stood there for a moment. Yup. He was in the zone. He didn’t even look at her, his eyes steadily moving across the page.

With a sigh, she grabbed the edge of the book and flipped it shut.

Cobalt blue eyes widened and shot up to her; confusion etched into the expression on his beautiful, perfect face. “What the...Usako?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

The tenor in his voice slipped from confused to worried as he leaned forward to stand. The movement caused his glasses to slide down his nose a bit, and her breath hitched.

She quickly grabbed his shoulder, pushing him back, and he fell back into the chair with a plop. He huffed as he landed and looked up at her in shock.

“Usako…” he asked cautiously.

Both hands gripping his shoulders, she climbed onto his lap, straddling him as his hands immediately flew to her hips to steady her. He still looked confused, not sure what was going on, but she felt him get a little hard beneath her, swallowing hard past the lump in his throat she knew she’d created.

With a grin, she pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, and she felt him stop breathing, his blue eyes going a shade darker. He opened his mouth

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Ninjette Twitch – Usagi the Spectaphile

to speak again, but she didn’t let him; instead, she grasped the sides of his face with both of her hands and crushed her lips onto his.

His response was immediate, his hands still grasping her waist, pulling her tighter against him as his tongue trailed her bottom lip. She opened to give him access, moaning as she ground her hips into him. Her skirt rode up, the fabric bunching at her waist as she continued to methodically roll her hips into his. She was delighted when the purposeful movements earned an almost pained groan and a breathy gasp from the love of her life as he shifted desperately beneath her.

She pulled away without breaking their kiss and dropped a hand between them, fiddling with the button on his jeans. She felt his grip on her hips tighten as she unbuttoned and unzipped, and he shifted slightly, allowing her to reach in and grasp him tightly in her little hand.

He finally broke free from her lips, cursing against her chin as she pulled him out, setting him free from the constricting confines of his boxers and jeans.

She smiled triumphantly as she began flexing her grip up and down around him.

His head fell back against the chair and she used that opportunity to attack his neck with nibbles and kisses, latching on to that special spot he liked right at the base of his shoulder.

He groaned a husky “Usako” in her ear as his hips jumped with her hand.

She moved her lips back to his, capturing them as her hand worked its magic below.

In one quick motion, he wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her as he stood. Surprised at his movements, she released him, grabbing onto his neck to steady herself, her legs curling tightly around his hips. He reached out with one arm, sweeping everything off the desk in one swift, desperate movement before sitting her atop its scuffed wooden surface. He moved to remove his glasses, but she sucked in an offended breath through her teeth, brow furrowed as her slender fingers curled around his wrist.

“No!” she cried out, yanking his hand back down. “Leave them on.” His eyes darkened even more--if that was even possible-- and he grinned.

He charged her mouth again, molding their lips together perfectly as she grabbed at his pants, pushing them and his boxers down. He stepped out of them, kicking them to the side as he reached under her skirt, tugging at her soaked panties before ripping them off of her in a quick, furious movement. Next came her skirt. She lifted her hips slightly as he jerked the fabric down her hips, giggling against his lips as he struggled.

He broke away from her, eyes wide and amused with mock offense as he stared at her. She shrugged one shoulder with a grin, and he shook his head at her antics.

To get back on track, Usagi crossed her arms and grabbed the ends on her shirt, pulling it over her head, tossing it to land on the pile of his clothes. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes raked her over. Biting the corner of her lip, she

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Ninjette Twitch – Usagi the Spectaphile

reached behind and unhooked her bra, not bothering to see where that landed as she threw it to the side, her eyes fixed on him.

He swallowed hard and crushed his lips to hers again, cupping a hand around a breast, his thumb running over her hard nipple. She whimpered into his mouth, grasping at the front of his t-shirt as his other hand dropped to massage between her legs, fingers tickling around her clit without actually touching it. It was torture!

He was being a little rough, which she was absolutely into right now. It was turning her on more than she thought possible, and she needed him. Now. She jerked at his shirt, forcing him away from her just long enough to pull the shirt over his head. He attacked her lips again the second the shirt was away, pushing her back onto the desk.

Her head hung off the edge, and he cupped his hand around the back, holding her up as he positioned himself with his other hand at her entrance. Her legs twisted around his waist, and she gave him a slight nod. That was all he needed to push into her, sending her head backward as she moaned loudly.

He grunted above her as he thrust in again, and she watched as those sexy glasses of his slid down his nose with the movement. This wasn’t going to work.

Even as he thrust in again, filling her completely, a gasp coming from her as he did, she knew she would have to be on top if she wanted those glasses to stay on.

And dammit, she needed them to stay on!

She pushed herself up into a seated position on the desk, which only earned her a confused look. Because of course he thought he’d done something wrong.

She kissed him again, reassuring him with her lips, before pulling away to look him in the eyes, dropping her legs from his waist. “Bed,” was all she said in a commanding tone and his eyes darkened even more (was that even possible?). He pulled out of her with a groan of regret, and she stood, hand on his bare chest as she pushed him, urging him to move with a sultry grin.

He let her, walking back towards the bed, falling onto it when his calves hit the mattress’s edge. He scooted up, pushing her manga off, and his head fell onto the pillow. Although it probably looked silly, she did the sexiest thing she could think of, joining him, crawling up his body on all fours. She watched him get harder, his cock throbbing as the head trailed down her body as she made her way up him slowly.

“Fuck, Usako,” he groaned and grasped her face in his hands, bringing her down to capture her lips with his again.

She couldn’t help it. It was so hot. Those glasses were so hot. He was so fucking hot. He was putty in her hands, and he knew it. What he probably didn’t know was just how much she was putty in his hands, too. He could flip her over right now and do whatever he wanted with her, and she would love every second of it.

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Ninjette Twitch – Usagi the Spectaphile

But right now, he was hers. And she proved that when she positioned herself above him and slowly dropped down, encasing him inside her. He hissed, his fingers digging into her hips, and her mouth opened in a silent gasp. This was it; heaven. Home. Whatever you wanted to call it. This was it!

She sat still, enjoying the simple connection between them, and he stared up at her through his glasses, awe in his eyes. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said softly. And she could have cried. Because obviously he was the most beautiful thing!

With a small whimper, she leaned over, crushing her mouth to his as she started moving. He groaned into her mouth, his hands clutching her waist, and she could tell he was refraining from moving her faster, letting her be in control for the moment.

She pushed herself back up, sitting straight up on him, sending him deeper into her still. She moved, lifting herself off of him before dropping back down, each impalement eliciting a grunt from him, and his hips started lifting to meet hers. Her hands on his chest helped her keep balance as she rode him, his cock twitching inside her with every drop.

She sped up, watching his face as it twisted up with her speed, clenching her muscles around him as she fell. He was coming undone beneath her, and it was most certainly the best sight she’d ever seen, head tossed back, breathing ragged.

She bent over again, kissing his chest, his neck, his shoulder, anywhere her lips could land as she rode him faster. His moans, his gasps, his soft curses, they were getting louder, and she knew he was almost there. She was, too. As his hips bucked underneath her, meeting her thrust for thrust, she dropped her hand to her clit, rubbing herself.

His eyes moved over he as he watched her pleasure herself above him, the sight making his hips jump to hers even harder.

She cried out as he sat up, one hand behind him to hold himself up, the other around her neck, pulling her lips to his. Her fingers wreaked havoc on her clit, and she cried into his mouth as she bounced on him.

One last thrust threw her over the edge, and she stiffened up, her fingers holding tight as she came around him. It washed through her from her head to her curling toes.

He pulled away from her mouth to watch her, holding the back of her head to gaze into her face as she unraveled, thoroughly wrecked. Her breathing ragged, coming out in harsh gasps, her forehead falling to his shoulder when she realized he hadn’t come yet. He’d held still, letting her ride out her orgasm.

She gripped her muscles tight, clenching him inside her, and he gasped, his arm moving to circle her waist, pulling her tight against him. She started moving again, and his hips began moving with her.

She knew it wouldn’t take long for him. He was almost there before she came first. He was so close. And as he groaned loudly in her ear, she gripped at 10

Ninjette Twitch – Usagi the Spectaphile

the hairs at the back of his neck and tugged. She knew exactly what would set him off.

“Mamo-chan,” she moaned hot breath into his ear, nibbling on his earlobe.

“I love you.”

He shuddered, groaning as his arm tightened around her, and he bucked hard. It only took two more desperate thrusts before he pulled her against him, burying his head in the crook of her neck, and cried out as his orgasm tore through his body. She rocked against him as much as she could in his tight grip to prolong the pleasure she knew was coursing through him.

She slowed to a stop as his hold on her loosened, but he didn’t let go.

Instead, he slowly lowered them back to the bed, keeping her on top of him the whole way down.

“Usako,” he breathed, still not having fully calmed down. “Not that I’m complaining in the least, but where the hell did that come from?”

She grinned, giggling a bit as she lifted herself just enough to look down at him. With her elbows framing his head, she reached her hands up, adjusting his glasses on his face. She could tell they were a bit bent from their activities, but she was confident he would be okay with it.

“I was bored.” She gave his lips a chaste kiss. “And you were reading.” She kissed his jawline, and his eyes slid shut. “And you were so sexy,” she kissed his neck, “and so serious.” She kissed the base of his shoulder.

“And I was wearing my glasses,” he teased with a chuckle, his fingers tracing designs on her back.

She grinned and moaned softly with appreciation as she trailed her lips down his chest. “Mmm, that definitely helped.” She placed a light kiss on his nipple as her hands ran over his taut stomach.

“Usako, I really should be studying,” he complained even as she felt him start to stiffen inside her again. The knowledge that she only had to kiss him to make him hard turned her on, and she felt herself begin to pool around him. She trailed kisses back up to his neck and heard his breath catch and his cock get even harder inside her as she grabbed one of his hands and brought it to her breast.

“You’re a doctor,” she whispered huskily and brought her finger up to push his glasses into the right position as his fingers started to tweak her hardening nipple. She rolled her hips into him, her wet muscles teasing his still very sensitive hardon, earning her a hoarse groan. “If you need some anatomy to study, study mine.”

“Oh, I can do that,” he grinned and rolled them over, pushing in further as he hovered above her. Once he was buried in deep, he stopped, leaning down to softly kiss her neck. He’d be taking this time slow, and she was completely fine with that. It gave her more time to look at those amazingly sexy glasses.

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Ninjette Twitch â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Usagi the Spectaphile

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes I hope you guys liked this one! Please review and let me know what you think!

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Awkward Sex Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Cunnilingus, Interrupted Orgasm, Flirting Ship: Usamamo

Mood Music

by Daikon

Morning light spilled in through the blinds over the window, bathing tangled limbs in a warm glow.

Usagi’s panting gasps mingled with the sultry music drifting from the Bluetooth speakers on the shelf beside the bed, and her fingers tightened their hold in Mamoru’s dark hair. His tongue moved between her thighs, and she let out a keening wail as he deftly pushed her nearer and nearer to the edge.

“Fuck, please, please, Mamo-chan, I’m so close…”

Suddenly, he pulled away from her, and she whined her displeasure as he sat up, taking his perfect chest much too far away from her, only to lean over and begin fumbling with his phone.

Her jaw dropped in righteous indignation as the almost-crest of her orgasm slipped away from her – and Mamoru was still on his phone.

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Daikon – Mood Music

What on earth could be on his phone that was more important thanI'm sorry I'm not candid. I can say it if it's in my dreams.

Her eyebrows furrowed as her ears picked up an oddly familiar melody.

Was that…?

“Dammit, I can’t get the thing to…” Mamoru repeatedly jammed at his phone screen with his thumb as Usagi began to howl with laughter.

My thoughts are about to short circuit. I want to see you right now!

“You, you…” she stuttered through peals of giggles. “You have the Sailor Moon Theme in your sexytimes playlist?!?”

His ears and neck burned red. “Not on purpose! I meant to put it on another playlist.” Usagi continued to howl, and Mamoru’s shoulders hunched forward as he finally got his phone to cooperate and skip to the next song, a sensual slow-jam.

Usagi wiped tears from her eyes, still cackling with laughter. “Thank god, Mamo-chan, because Sailor Moon? That’s like, the least erotic thing ever.”

He arched an eyebrow at her as he set his phone down again. Leaning in close, he caged her against the mattress with his body and arms. At the press of his firm chest against hers, her giggles abruptly stopped.

“You think so?” His warm lips brushed softly against her earlobe as his voice lowered to a purr. “You can’t see anything alluring about the memory of my gorgeous wife regularly kicking ass?” As he spoke, his fingers brushed along her knee before slowly trailing up her inner thigh, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. “Nothing at all seductive about the fact that she did it in the world’s. shortest. skirt?” Each word was punctuated by a gentle nip to her throat.

She inhaled sharply and shivered as his fingers stopped just a millimeter shy of brushing against her; her teeth worried her bottom lip as she fought to hold back a moan. “Mamo-channn,” she whimpered, and he chuckled against her neck.

“Or do you mean to tell me you never fantasized about Tuxedo Mask?”

“Fine!” The breathy exclamation burst from her as she squirmed beneath his fingers, trying to make them actually touch her. “Fine, fine, listen to whatever you want, just… stop torturing me, please.”

The cocky smirk against her neck was palpable, but she couldn’t find it in her to care in the least. Rising up, he wrapped practiced fingers around her knees and drew her close again.

“Gladly.”

Author’s Notes Eternal, enormous thanks to FloraOne for coordinating this event and for looking over my (relatively tame) attempt at smut. She is such a gift to our entire fandom, I swear. I hope you enjoy!

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Battle Couple by Beej88

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Blind Date Additional Tropes: Pining, Go Seduce My Archnemesis Contains: First Date, Getting Together, Snogging Ship: Usamamo

What We Could Be

by AllyUnabridged

Chiba Mamoru wasn't close to many people. It just wasn't his nature. He had a few good friends, and one best friend, and he was content with that, for the most part. Besides, he always told himself that he was far too busy for anything else. Romantic attachments could come later, especially after a few disastrous attempts in his first year of college.

However, as his friends began to pair up, for some inexplicable reason they decided that his single state was an affront to their happiness, or something equally ridiculous. He didn't understand it, but suddenly they were trying to set him up with every single female acquaintance they ever met, every cousin or friendly girl who checked them out at the conbini, really anyone. And it was beyond frustrating. Usually he managed to brush them off with excuses.

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AllyUnabridged â&#x20AC;&#x201C; What We Could Be

Just a week ago, though, his friend Kobayashi Naoki, another resident at Mita Hospital, somehow managed to get him to agree to a blind date, of all things.

Maybe it was the sake they'd been drinking at that izakaya after a particularly long shift, or maybe he was just too exhausted to put up a fight anymore. This was only Naokiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tenth attempt in less than a month, after all. NaokI, who had just gotten engaged and still had stars in his eyes, the poor bastard.

Once he was sober, Mamoru had tried to back out of it. He was sure no woman would want to work around the crazy schedule he kept as a second-year resident. Most nights, he barely had the energy to do more than go home and collapse in bed after a hasty dinner picked up from a conbini on the way.

Naoki had been adamant, though. His sister's coworker would be perfect for Mamoru; he just knew it. She was sweet and funny, with enough brightness to make anyone smile, even a sourpuss like him. Naoki had leaned over in the break room where Mamoru had ambushed him and confided in a whisper, "Plus, she's ridiculously hot. Legs for days and the prettiest blue eyes you'll ever find outside a magazine."

Mamoru had a weakness for blue eyes, he had to admit. So rare in Japan, and he'd been obsessed with one particular pair for years, although he'd long since given up any hope of her noticing him as anything other than an annoying acquaintance. When he was around her, he couldn't seem to get his mouth to connect correctly to his brain. Resigned to the idea of at least attempting to find a replacement for the girl he could never have, Mamoru had agreed to let Naoki arrange the date, as long as the woman in question agreed.

That was how he found himself standing on the bridge in Arisugawa no Miya Park, holding a red rose. He felt more than a little ridiculous as couples and families passed by, laughing or speaking in low murmurs, obviously enjoying the warm spring day. He ran a finger along the collar of his pink button-up shirt. He'd already rolled the sleeves up part way as he waited and the sun began to beat down on him.

A larger group passed over the bridge behind him, friends obviously on their way to a picnic if the basket they carried was any indication. He watched curiously as they went by, wondering where his date was. She was ten minutes late, he realized with annoyance as he checked his watch.

Mamoru turned to pace to the other side of the bridge once that group of friends passed. That was when he saw her, standing still as a statue in the late afternoon light. Golden hair caught up in two buns then trailing in ponytails from each, large blue eyes fixed on the red rose in his hand. Her face was paler than usual, and he knew it wasn't because of the pink dress she wore since she had many clothes that same color.

"You have got to be kidding me," he heard her mutter through gritted teeth. It was only then that his eyes dropped to her hands, clenched in tight fists at her sides.

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AllyUnabridged â&#x20AC;&#x201C; What We Could Be

Her eyes slowly dragged up to his, taking in his pink shirt and the way his jaw had dropped. He thought he read horror and panic there, completely understandable. After all, if there was one person in all of Tokyo she probably never considered going on a date with, it was him.

She didn't even bother addressing him properly.

"Please, please tell me you aren't here to meet someone for a blind date."

The words sliced through the air between them, and he swallowed painfully. Of course, her first thought was hope that he wasn't her date. Could he blame her?

He hadn't seen Tsukino Usagi in months, not since his best friend Furuhata Motoki's birthday party. As usual, he had put his foot in his mouth, and she had flounced away. They'd said maybe a total of five sentences to each other that night, and yet Mamoru hadn't been able to stop himself from looking in her direction every time he thought he could get away with it without her catching him.

They'd known each other for years, ever since they were both teenagers hanging out at Crown Arcade and Fruits Parlor. Two years his junior, she'd always been an object of fascination for Mamoru; he didn't understand how she was able to connect with people, although he had ample examples of it. Thrown off balance by her cheerfulness, something in him hadn't let her accept her initial friendly overtures. And once she'd accepted that his coolness and teasing weren't going to result in friendship, she'd apparently given up.

Somehow, that had spurred Mamoru into trying to bridge the gap between them, although he was remarkably clumsy at it; Motoki always told him he had the social skills of a five-year-old. Whatever the case, his overtures somehow resulted in her thinking he was teasing her unfairly. Somehow, that became their dynamic, and he couldn't find a way out of it even as he graduated from high school and started attending medical school, spending less time hanging out with Motoki as a result of his heavy course load.

Although he'd finished medical school in almost half the normal time as a result, it meant he hadn't actually seen Usagi more than a few times a year in the past four. Always for Motoki's birthday. Occasionally, random encounters that left him in no doubt that they hadn't managed to move past their adolescent teasing.

That hadn't stopped him thinking about her, of course, but every time he considered reaching out to Motoki, asking how she was, he hesitated.

She had no interest in him, he was sure. He didn't want to seem like a stalker or give Motoki cause to tease him more than he already did about, well, everything.

Realizing that Usagi still stared at him, impatience nudging out panic as the dominant emotion in her eyes, he sucked in a quick breath.

"Wish I could tell you that, Odango Atama. Looks like the fates are playing tricks on us today."

Her cheeks went from pale to bright pink in seconds while he mentally slapped himself. Why? Why had he said that? Couldn't he just have pretended he 22

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was here taking in the scenery or at least that his date had just left. Something, anything other than provoke her yet again? Although he had to admit, the flare of annoyance in her blue eyes was at least more attractive than the horror and panic.

"I am going to kill Mizuki-san," he heard her mutter as he moved closer, hoping to make up for his mistake.

Just as she spun on her heel to stalk off, blonde hair smacking him in the arm, he reached out and grabbed her hand. He dropped it quickly, appalled at what he'd done in his own panic because she was obviously leaving, the last thing he wanted to happen. It was enough to stop her in her tracks and make her turn back to stare at him as if he'd grown two extra heads.

"Wait, Usagi. Please." He didn't trust himself to say anything more. Not that it mattered since she burst out with a protest.

"I never gave you permission to call me that!" She crossed her arms over her chest, chin lifted in a mutinous expression, drawing herself up to her full height, which meant the top of her head still barely reached his shoulder.

Mamoru couldn't help it. He chuckled. "You've been telling me to call you that for years," he countered.

She huffed. "Well, I take it back, then!"

He raised his eyebrows. "So you want me to call you Odango Atama now?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Why are you always so difficult, Mamoru-baka?" Usagi ground out, eyes narrowing at him.

He took a deep breath. Maybe he could finally get his unruly tongue under control. He never had this problem with anyone else!

"I don't mean to be." The words came out slowly, carefully, and he even tried to add a smile to them for good measure. That didn't soften her stance at all, however.

"You could have fooled me." She sniffed and continued glaring.

Mamoru sighed and barely restrained the hand that wanted to lift and comb fingers through his hair. How could he explain to her when he didn't understand it himself? He looked out over the water and sighed.

"For some reason, my brain and my mouth have this disconnect when it comes to you." There, he tried. A quick glance at Usagi told him she was confused and still defensive, but at least she wasn't leaving again. However, she seemed to still be waiting, as if that hadn't satisfied her. He couldn't exactly blame her.

"I want to have nice, normal conversations with you, but I always mess it up." He shoved the hand not holding the rose in his pocket and shrugged, shoulders hunching a little under her stare.

To his surprise, Usagi uncrossed her arms and sidled close enough that barely an inch separated them. She laid her arms on the stone bridge and leaned on them so that she could look down at the water for a moment. When she looked back up at him, her eyes held only sadness.

"Why?"

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There was no way he could tell her that he'd fallen in love with her at some point during the initial years of chance encounters and teasing. Apparently, for him love meant losing his mind completely and being unable to act like a normal human being. Not a huge surprise there, all said and done. His childhood had been far from normal.

Instead of answering her question directly, he leaned back against the balustrade as well, with his back to the water, crossed his own arms, and sighed.

"It's complicated. I guess...I wanted to impress you, but I didn't think I could. I guess that created a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy."

She snorted. "What, like you're fated not to be able to speak to me or something?"

When she put it that way, it did sound pretty silly. He chuckled. Eyes closed and face raised toward the sun, he sighed again.

"I'm sorry if I've hurt you before. I never intended to."

Mamoru's eyes shot open when he felt her hand on his arm. He looked down at it first, then up into her eyes. There was still sadness there, and a little wariness, too. But he thought...he hoped that he saw forgiveness as well.

"Even if this turned out to be a mess of a blind date, it was worth it to hear that from you," she told him softly.

He licked his lips and took a chance. "It doesn't have to be, you know."

Her nose scrunched up. "Huh?" "I mean, we could, you know, actually finish the date? At the very least, I owe it to Kobayashi-san and his sister for getting us to the point of actually talking instead of annoying each other." Oh, what an excuse that was. And a weak one at that. But he prayed that she'd buy into it.

To his relief, a slow smile spread over Usagi's glossy pink lips. She tilted her head to the side and looked up at him through her lashes. "Are you asking me out on a date, Mamoru?"

He cleared his suddenly tight throat and gave a short nod. "Um, yes?"

"You don't sound too sure."

Eyes wide, he straightened and fumbled, "No! I mean, yes, I am definitely asking you out!" He actually almost shouted that last part, drawing looks and snickers from a few passing teenagers.

Her smile widened, and she held out her hand. "Well, then, don't you have something for me?"

Looking down at the slightly-crushed rose in his hand, he placed it gently in hers. She twirled it for a moment then lifted it to her nose, inhaling its delicate fragrance. Then she tucked it into the small white purse she carried so that the top was sticking up, zipping it carefully so that it wouldn't fall out.

"So, dinner?" she asked, her blue eyes sparkling in a way he'd often admired and wished would be turned toward him.

He offered her a tentative smile of his own. "I was thinking maybe walk through the park first? When I-I mean, when this was supposed to be a blind date 24

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with someone I never met, I thought it was a good place to get to know her. You, now."

Mamoru wanted to smack himself, but thankfully Usagi seemed to understand what he was trying to say. Her smile grew softer, less teasing. Then a different sort of light entered her eyes, one that he'd never seen before.

"Oh, I have an idea!" she squealed, clasping her hands under her chin and giving the most adorable little skip in place.

Eyebrows raised, he waited for her to continue.

"Why don't we pretend this is a blind date!"

"Um, not to ruin things here, but that's what it is," Mamoru couldn't help but point out.

Usagi rolled her eyes. "No! I mean introduce ourselves and do all that getto-know-you small talk that comes with first dates?"

Lips pursed, he studied her for a moment. "So you want to start over?"

She gave an enthusiastic nod, obviously ignoring his skepticism. "Sure!

Why not?"

He groaned a little. "I've never been good at acting, Usagi," he muttered.

"So? It's not acting, really. I mean, other than who our friends are, how much do we really know about each other? Remember, we've barely even managed to have just this one civil conversation," she pointed out with heartbreaking accuracy, at least on her part.

Mamoru could have told her that he knew so much about her, not even just who her friends were. For years, he'd listened as she talked about her family, her schoolwork, her dates-those had hurt-her favorite things in the whole wide world that she couldn't help but gush over to anyone who would listen. Anyone except him, that is. Usually, he tried to pretend he wasn't paying attention, but he always had.

He knew it wasn't the same for her. For one thing, she had never even considered him as a friend, let alone something more. And he didn't let many people in, let alone talk about himself and the things in his life in public the way she did. So really, maybe this would be more about getting her to see who he really was, above and beyond the annoying guy who'd been plaguing her for years.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded. "Okay. Fine. Um, how should we...meet?"

With a giggle, Usagi backed away. "Well, you could be waiting for me just like you were before," she suggested.

Mamoru shrugged and moved back to the spot where he'd originally been waiting. This felt incredibly silly, but if it kept her here with him, if it made her feel better about their date, he was all for it. Thankfully, she didn't make him wait long.

"Hi! Are you Kobayashi Naokiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s friend?" Her voice was bright and bubbly as always when she was speaking to someone new.

He turned and offered her a small smile. "Yes. I'm Chiba Mamoru."

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"I'm Tsukino Usagi. Nice to meet you. I've heard great things about you from Kobayashi-san's sister." Her dark lashes fluttered at him, blue eyes shining bright underneath, and something shot through him when he realized she was actually flirting with him.

Mamoru's smile grew in return. "Kobayashi-san also had good things to say about you." He gestured around them. "Would you like to walk in the park and talk a little bit before dinner? I thought we could get to know each other a little."

"I would love that."

Side by side, they strolled across the bridge and onto the winding steps that led deeper into the park. For once, Mamoru began to feel totally at ease in her presence. Is this what others felt when they met her, the magic she seemed to wield that turned everyone into her friend?

Almost to the top, Usagi slipped. Mamoru caught her by the elbow and steadied her. She flashed him a sweet smile.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

It was such a simple exchange but one that would have seemed impossible even an hour ago. He reveled in the feeling of his hand on her skin, although he let it drop as soon as he was sure she'd found her footing again.

"It's so beautiful here, surrounded by trees and bushes and flowers. I can almost forget I'm in the city," she commented, gazing around them with wide eyes.

"Have you been here before?"

She shook her head, blonde pigtails swinging against her shoulders. "My parents took us a few times when we were little, on Sundays when Papa had the day off. But they were usually so busy. If they wanted to get away from the city, they took us on real trips, anyway. I think they enjoyed those getaways better."

Mamoru navigated them onto his favorite path, one where flowers bloomed thickest along each side.

"You sound very close to your family."

Her nose wrinkled in the most adorable way. "I was when I was younger.

And I still love them. But I think my parents are disappointed in me. And my brother and I aren't as close as we were when we were children. He's very busy in his first year at university."

She sounded so wistful that it hurt his heart. "Why do you think you've disappointed your parents?"

Usagi shot him a look before seeming to remember that they were playing a game where they'd never met before. She sighed. "I didn't go to a prestigious college like they wanted. I couldn't pass the entrance exams, and I knew it, so I didn't even try. I decided to follow my passion instead and damn the consequences."

Mamoru stayed quiet for a moment, keeping his steady pace and trying to find the right words. "Where did your passion lead you?"

With a grimace, she admitted, "Manga."

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His eyebrows shot up when she put it that way. He already knew what she did, of course. Just like he knew that she lived with her friends Minako and Makoto, that she still slammed down a chocolate milkshake without pause to think about brain freeze, and that she'd adopted a pair of stray cats a couple years ago that she shared with Minako but that Makoto barely tolerated.

"What about it?" He kept his voice neutral.

"I'm a secretary at a manga publishing house. It was the closest I could get.

And I'm proud of what I do. It takes all types to run a company, you know? From the smallest, easiest jobs up to the CEO. But I know my parents would be happier if I was in line to become one of those CEOs one day." Her shoulders tensed as she waited for his response. She wouldn't even look him in the eye, although he tried to catch hers.

"Your parents might be happier, but what about you?"

Startled, she finally looked at him. Apparently seeing his sincerity, she gave a small, surprisingly shy smile. "I would hate being on the fast track. It's too much pressure, too much competition. I actually love my job. Constant interaction with other people, working in a team with some really great women, and I get discounts on the manga we publish." The smile turned into a grin.

Mamoru had never thought of Usagi's job that way; if anything, he'd always assumed she'd be bored. And she wasn't the most organized soul in the world, he knew that just from observing her. He doubted that had changed much since the days when they'd had near-constant encounters. But somehow, now that he heard it from her, it did seem like a good fit for the sunny woman next to him.

"Interacting with other people is my least favorite part of my job," he confessed suddenly. Then he clamped his lips tightly on the rest. Why had he said that? He must look like an asshole, complaining about being a doctor, for goodness sake.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to think so. In fact, the glance she gave him was sympathetic. "That must make being a doctor difficult."

There was no censure in her words, but still Mamoru found it difficult to open up. He had started this, though, letting his mouth run away with him again. At least this time it hadn't annoyed her.

"I don't mind the patients so much. I understand that they're in pain, or they're scared, or even just worried. But their families, the other doctors, the nursesâ&#x20AC;Ś" The latter were especially frustrating. So many of the nurses at Mita seemed to think that a single doctor was fair game; although admittedly, they even tried for the taken ones more often than not. He'd never responded to any of their overtures, but so far that hadn't stopped the steady trickle that came his way.

"Does practicing medicine make up for it?"

That was a question he often asked himself. Sometimes, he was tempted to switch over to research. But then he saw the grateful eyes of a patient or heard their thanks, and it was enough for him. That was what made all the other frustrations worth it.

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"It does."

The smile she gave him nearly blinded him. "That's the important part, then."

They were quiet for a few moments. Then the dreaded question came up.

"And what does your family think of your success? Are they proud of you?"

Mamoru closed his eyes to the beauty around them for a moment and thought about how to answer. He considered an abrupt change of subject, but he'd agreed to this. He'd even suggested it, in a way. It wouldn't be fair to avoid her question, not when he actually wanted her to know. Out of everyone in the whole world, she was the one he would prefer to confide in.

"I don't have any family."

He stared straight ahead, even when he heard her gasp.

"Oh, Mamoruâ&#x20AC;Ś" Apparently she was willing to drop their strangers-on-a-blind-date act when confronted with his pitiful confession. He felt her hand on his arm, and while part of him wanted to revel in the fact that she was willingly touching him, the rest of him shied away because of the reason why.

"It's fine," he tried to reassure her. "I don't even remember them."

Usagi's hand on his arm tightened, and he jerked to a stop. Now he felt he had no choice but to look at her. He dreaded the pity he expected to find in her eyes. When he finally found the courage to meet those wide pools of crystal blues however, all he saw was sadness and something he thought might be compassion.

A small, sad smile turned up the corners of her lips.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pried."

He shook his head. "No, I started it, asking about your family." He cleared his throat and gestured to the path. "Maybe a more cheerful topic?" He suggested as her hand dropped back to her side and they began walking again.

"Favorite color?" Her shy question made him smile, but that was definitely a safer topic.

"Black."

"Really? Mine's pink."

He laughed. "I know."

"Hey, how do you know?" Mamoru heard the laughter in her voice even as she tried to be huffy.

"Are you kidding me? Half of what you own is pink. And you had me wear a pink shirt."

Usagi sniffed. "Shows how much you know. I just thought there wouldn't be many guys here wearing pink. I wanted to be able to recognize my date easily."

"The rose wouldn't have been enough?"

"Two step verification," was her haughty reply.

He slanted a glance toward her. "And that was your idea?"

She glared at him for a split second before giving a resigned sigh. "No. Minako's."

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That made much more sense. He chuckled, and she swatted his arm lightly in response. It felt good to tease her without either of them getting worked up about it.

A comfortable silence fell between them as they continued down the stone path. Usagi stopped several times to admire the purple and white flowers on the bushes lining either side. Normally, Mamoru would have been just as engaged; he loved flowers, and this was one of his favorite parks. However, this time he found himself far too distracted by his companion.

The sunlight turned Usagi's hair into a river of shimmer gold down her back streaming toward the ground. Even more than normal, he wanted to bury his hands in it. He could even be content running several strands between his fingers, playing with the golden ribbons as they wound over and around his hand.

Mamoru was torn from his fantasy when Usagi turned back to him, her eyes bright and cheeks pink.

"Umm, about dinner?"

His stomach dropped. "Yeah?"

"Could we go now? I'm starving. I hardly had a chance for lunch today because a staff meeting had to be rescheduled last minute." She gave him another of those delightful pouts.

Mamoru let out a laugh louder than he'd intended, but at least she didn't seem to think he was laughing at her. "Sure. Let's go. Our reservations are in half an hour, anyway, and it'll probably take almost that long to get out of the park and get there."

She gave a little skip that made her breasts bounce, and he blushed to even be thinking about that even as it caught his eye. Granted, she'd starred in probably too many of his fantasies over the years, but that was in the dark of his room or in his shower, not out in broad daylight while he was looking directly at her!

Mamoru picked up his pace toward the path leading out of the park, Usagi now chattering brightly beside him in her happiness to be going towards food.

She tried to get him to admit which restaurant they were going to, but after realizing who his blind date was, he realized what Naoki had meant when he said she would like anything. He took a certain pleasure keeping her guessing, although by the time they left the park and were out on the sidewalk, he decided he'd teased her enough.

"So, do you like Azabu-Juban Kai?" he casually asked as their footsteps made the subtle transition from stone to concrete.

She lit up brighter, if that was even possible. Hands clasped under her chin and stars in her eyes, she let out a gusty sigh. "They have just the best hot pots."

He laughed. "I'm glad you like it. We may want to hurry, though. I put my name on the list for," he checked his watch, "fifteen minutes from now. Don't want to be late and miss our spot!"

To his surprise, Usagi grabbed his hand. "Let's go!"

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He should have remembered how serious she was about her food, he thought in amusement as he let her drag him east through the thinning late afternoon crowds. They should reach the izakaya long before the normal Saturday evening rush, which was his goal. He was even happier that he'd planned it that way now that Usagi was his date.

With Usagi in the lead, they made it to Azabu-Juban Kai in record time, actually a few minutes before their place on the list to be seated was up. She even charged up all six flights of stairs, to his amusement, still not letting go of his hand as if afraid he wouldn't keep up otherwise. He requested a table on the patio from the host, if there was one available. They lucked out and were soon seated in a cozy corner of the airy, open space with an amazing view of the Roppongi Hills towers.

"My friends and I have never been out on the patio before. They don't know what they're missing!" Usagi gushed before getting down to the very serious business of ordering. She gave her hot pot and drink order to the server and then added gyoza as well as yakitori.

Mamoru grinned and ordered his own hot pot and drink, resolving to steal a few of her gyoza even though he knew she was terrible at sharing food with her friends. He was counting on this being a date to soften her up, though, because the gyoza here was another of his favorites.

They settled in with glasses of water to wait for the food and alcohol to arrive. Mamoru expected things to become awkward at that point, as per usual for the dates he had been on, but he should have known better. Usagi smoothly began a stream of stories about her friends and coworkers that had him grinning and laughing. It helped that he already knew most of her friends, but he was sure even that wouldn't have mattered. She had a natural way of telling a story and using her hands and facial expressions to convey more than the words alone could ever have hoped to, something that kept him engaged and interested in not just what she was saying but every aspect of her.

After the server placed the trays with the hot pots and the glasses with her umeshu and his sake in front of them, then arranged Usagi's gyoza and yakitori to her liking, they began to tuck in. He wasn't surprised at all that she ate faster than him, slurping and giggling and moaning in ways that made him shift uncomfortably. This time, he kept jokes about her appetite, always an easy target, to himself. Maybe another time. If there was going to be another time.

That thought kept recurring as they finished their meal and ordered a second round of drinks. Would she be willing to try a second date with him? Or would she look at him like he was crazy if he suggested it? He supposed there was only one way to find out. Taking a big gulp of his sake to burn away his nerves, he looked across the table where she sat staring at him with a small smile flirting on her lips.

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"This has been more fun than I expected, Mamoru," Usagi said before he had a chance to speak up. Her smile widened and she winked. "I wouldn't mind a repeat."

Mamoru's mind went blank from the shock. Then he began to panic as Usagi's smile fell.

"I mean, if you don't want to, thoughâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" "No!" He practically shouted and then winced when her eyes widened. "I would love to go out with you again. I was just about to ask if you would like to. You shocked me. That's all. I didn't think you would...I mean, I wasn't sureâ&#x20AC;Ś" He went from rambling to stuttering and stopped when she held up her hand, blue eyes sparkling in the lantern lights strung above them.

Usagi's gentle laugh settled him further and made his heart lift in hope. "I get it, I think. So both of us would like another date."

All he could do was nod. She sat back in her seat and picked up her umeshu, taking a dainty sip.

"Good."

Mamoru watched her in bemusement, his own drink forgotten for the moment. She amazed him with her easy ability to say what was on her mind, to put her feelings out there no matter what they were. She always had. It was one of the things that had first caught his attention, and even though they weren't teenagers anymore, thankfully adulthood hadn't stamped that out of her.

Conversation after that was easy, with Usagi drawing out details of the last few years, when they hadn't had much contact. He indulged himself in asking his own questions, things he'd wanted to know and hadn't been able to pick up just from listening to the conversations around him at gatherings or the few times he'd tried to pump Motoki for information on her. They each had another round of drinks as they talked, but finally their time was up and they had to leave.

Once outside the izakaya and on the street again, Mamoru was almost able to completely ignore the growing night time crowd rushing around them when Usagi took his hand again and gave him another of those big smiles. He would have been happy standing there just like that, allowing himself to drown in the crystal pools of her eyes. However, she started tugging him again.

"C'mon, Mamo-chan, walk me home," she said with a giggle, her words only slurring a tiny bit.

"Mamo-chan, huh?" He shook his head and smiled, kind of liking the sound of it no matter how cutesy it was. No one had ever given him such an intimate nickname, and at this point, Usagi could call him whatever she wanted if she just kept holding his hand and stealing glances at him while they walked, like she was just then.

Usagi rolled her eyes. "You like it, and you know it," she accused, her gaze dropping some to the smile he hadn't realized had curled up the corners of his mouth.

He shrugged. "I guess."

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With a laugh and a shake of her golden head, she continued guiding him through the streets. Conveniently, her modest three-story apartment building was located only a few blocks from Azabu-Juban Kai. She unlocked the lobby door and then turned to look at him, head tilted to the side?

"Come up for a little bit? Minako and Makoto are both out tonight, too."

Mamoru hesitated. He didn't want to give her a bad impression of him. But she was the one who asked him, after all. And really, nothing had to happen, right?

Not that he would complain if it did.

"Yeah, sure," he said, trying to play it cool.

The stairs up to the third floor were brightly lit. Whether it was the slight haze of alcohol from drinking or just the fact that he was here, alone with Usagi, after an actual date, he couldn't help admiring her curves, highlighted by the yellow glow above, as he followed her up. Her slender shoulders, the dip of her waist flared out into rounded hips. The curve of her ass was hidden by her skirt, and suddenly he wanted to find out the shape with his hands. His fingers twitched.

"Sorry we're at the top. I told Minako and Mako-Chan that we should have gotten a place with an elevator," Usagi apologized, glancing back at him with a grimace.

He shrugged and tried to pretend he hadn't just been contemplating grabbing her butt. "It could be worse. You could be at the top of my building with no elevator."

"How tall is yours?"

"Twenty stories."

Her nose wrinkled. "Yeah, that would be awful."

He chuckled and then sighed to himself because they had reached the final floor and he no longer had the view he'd been enjoying. But her hand was in his again as she led him down the quiet hall to the last door on the right. In fact, she kept a firm grip on his hand even as she unlocked the door and twisted the brass handle, dragging him in behind her. He saw her lift a hand to the wall on the left, and then her genkan flooded with light. He shut the door behind him and barely had a chance to take in the colorfully decorated entry, pictures and shelves with plants clustered on the walls above shelves for shoes, before he found himself pressed back against the yellow-painted wood.

Usagi's hands, flat against his chest, slid up to his neck. Her smile was different than it had been all night. None of the openness or bubbliness from before, she peeked up at him through her eyelashes.

"There's one thing I need to know, Mamo-chan," she whispered, swaying just a little so that his hands came up almost automatically to curve around her waist and steady her.

"What's that?" Although he was pretty sure he knew as she inched even closer and suddenly her body met his in a combination of hard and soft that threatened to make his brain melt.

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"You turned out to be a pretty great guy, but," and one of her hands slid up to tangle fingers into his black hair, "how are you as a kisser?"

Usagi stretched up so that her lips were a breath away from his. That was all the invitation he needed. Mamoru leaned forward so that he could press his lips to hers.

His intention for a soft, sweet kiss quickly changed to a desperate need for the taste of her mouth. Once would never be enough, could never satisfy him anymore. He became intoxicated on an entirely new level as their mouths explored, teeth scraping against lips and tongues sliding together and then apart in the most erotic dance of his life. Her fingers in his hair became a fist that tugged him in the direction she wanted, one he willingly followed as angles changed.

Meanwhile, his hands ran along her back almost with a mind of their own.

One followed up her spine to pull her closer, which might have seemed impossible moments earlier but now was a desperate need. The other slid down to cup one cheek of the enticing ass he'd watched on the way up here. The firm, round flesh felt as amazing as he'd imagined.

When they finally came up for gasps of air an unknown amount of time later, panting and staring at each other, his brain tried to switch back on. Really it did. Her slow smile halted that feeble effort even as it made him want to kiss her all over again.

"Well, looks like I can add 'outstanding kisser' to your good qualities." She sounded as breathless as he felt.

"I'm glad." What a stupid thing to say. He couldn't help it, though, because she had just giggled, and her breasts still pressed against him jiggled, and that caused what few scraps of rational thought he still possessed to disappear.

Her eyes dropped to his lips again. "Maybe, just one more?" she murmured.

How could he argue with that? He didn't even try. Instead, he bent his head and brushed his lips against hers again. This time, he went slowly, carefully, but the heat was still there. She followed his lead, even though she still leaned against him and her hands traced lazy circles on his neck and shoulders, sending chills through him. He ran his own hands up and down her back, loving the way her muscles tensed just a little and then released in her own shivers.

Although he didn't want to ever stop kissing her, another part of him had to know the taste of her skin. His lips trailed away from her mouth, along her jaw and down her neck. Usagi let out the most delicious moan when he hit the spot just below her ear, and then she giggled when he went farther down, close to her collarbone.

"You're ticklish? I'm going to have to remember that." Where had that smooth voice come from? Surely that wasn't him. But the way she held him tighter and tilted her head back even more as he kissed along her collarbone finally, distracted him. He was so close to her breasts, and he had a feeling just then he could do anything he wanted and she'd let him. Something held him back, though.

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He wanted to take his time with her. And here they were, standing in the middle of her genkan. Her roommates could come home anytime.

That stupid thought dashed ice water on the heat he felt from tasting her skin. He drew back with a sigh and looked down into her half-lidded eyes.

"Usako. We should probably stop."

Usagi pouted and let out a sigh of her own. "I guess."

Mamoru smiled, trying not to let any of the triumph he felt shine through.

"Got anything for dessert?" He knew Usagi, more than she thought he did, and if anything could distract her, it was sweets.

As predicted, her eyes lit up. She pulled away from him, and for a moment, he missed the heat of her body. But the way she stayed close even as she slipped off her shoes made him feel better, especially when she had to reach for the sparkly pink slippers and barely snagged them with her fingertips. Although when she pulled a large pair of black slippers out of the closer pile, he wanted to growl.

"Here," she said, smiling. "These should fit you. We had to buy some extras in men's sizes because Minako, well...because Minako." She shrugged as if that should explain it, and while it didn't, not really, since he had never paid half as much attention to her friends as he did to her, the explanation as to why she and her friends would have men's slippers lying around appeased that odd spark of jealousy he almost, almost felt guilty for having.

He took off his street shoes and slid on the slippers while she began to bustle around the small living space of her apartment, turning on lights. Two comfortable sofas, one green and one pink, graced most of the space, with a low table between them. The kitchen off to the side was just enough to make quick meals, but it did have a full size refrigerator. Usagi made her way over to it and opened the freezer, pulling out two familiar blue cups.

"Is chocolate Super Cup okay?" she asked over her shoulder.

He cleared his throat. "It's great."

"We have vanilla, too," she offered even as she juggled the two cups and scrounged through the closest drawer, producing two silver spoons.

"No, I uh, really like chocolate," Mamoru admitted, wincing as he remembered all the times he'd teased her about her chocolate milkshakes when they were younger.

"Oh, really?" Her arch tone and the side eye she gave him even as she handed him his cup and spoon just compounded his guilt.

"Yeah. About when we were teensâ&#x20AC;Ś" Usagi shook her head and made her way over to the pink couch. She sat down, set her spoon on the table, and patted the spot next to her, obviously inviting him to sit as well. She didn't comment as she ripped the top off her cup and picked up her spoon, not until he was already sitting and copied her movements.

"I always knew you were full of it, anyway." The way her spoon jabbed into her creamy confection spoke volumes about how she still felt about that.

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Mamoru narrowed his eyes even as he scooped up his own first spoonful.

"I wasn't full of it."

"Oh, yes, you were! Always so full of superiority." She snorted and took her first mouthful.

He shrugged, pretending nonchalance. "If you've got it, flaunt it."

Usagi's eyes almost rolled into the back of her head. "No one has 'it' at sixteen, Mamo-chan, not even you," she scolded around a mouthful of ice cream.

"Well, you sure did at fourteen. It was incredibly infuriating."

She waved her spoon at him. "You never thought that."

"Wanna bet?" He shoved his spoon into his mouth so that maybe he'd shut up for a minute. He wasn't sure that he wanted her to know exactly how long he'd wanted her, wanted this.

Usagi gazed at him, and he hated the doubt in her eyes. Hated that he'd put it there. So once he finished his bite, the ice cream almost getting stuck around the lump in his throat, he felt like he had to continue.

"You were this amazingly kind, beautiful girl who everyone loved. You could make friends with anyone, you weren't afraid to speak your mind, not even to an asshole, and you lit up any room you entered. It was very...intimidating."

Her spoon dangled from her fingers, as forgotten as the ice cream beginning to soften in her cup. The silence stretched between them for achingly long seconds. Mamoru filled it the only way he knew how, by taking another bite of ice cream, and then another, barely tasting the rich chocolate.

Finally, her fingers tightened around her spoon. She used it to point at him.

"You. Were intimidated. By me?" Now the spoon pointed toward her own chest.

He frowned. "I didn't have a lot of...close social interaction growing up.

Motoki was pretty much my only friend for a very long time. I had no idea how you did...any of what you did. At first I thought it had to be an act. No one was that nice, and you certainly had a temper when it came to me. But then I realized that you just...were such a good person. I didn't know how to handle that. No one I knew was like that."

The surprise melted from her eyes into something much softer, and finally she took another bite of ice cream. He shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what that look meant or what she might be thinking. All of what he said was true, though.

He'd had years to contemplate why, exactly, she had rubbed him the wrong way when they first met and why he couldn't get her out of his head, even as they grew into adulthood.

Usagi seemed to sense his discomfort and smiled after her third bite. "You know, I wish we'd gotten along better back then. Who knows what could have happened."

They were back to easy banter, Mamoru realized with an internal sigh of relief. This he could handle.

"I probably would have found the nerve to ask you out, eventually," he confided.

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"I probably would have said yes. You're sinfully handsome, you know." She said it so matter-of-factly, but he still blushed.

"I've been told that a time or two." Never by her. It sounded so much better, coming from her.

She rolled her eyes, that playful sparkle back. "I bet. Well, the other girls will just have to back off now."

He raised his eyebrows at that. Not that he minded. "Really?"

She dipped her spoon back into her ice cream and this time licked it off, practically making him go cross-eyed with the heat that spiked through him at the sight.

"I don't share well with others."

"Does that...I mean, I would like it if...if you wanted toâ&#x20AC;Ś" Suddenly, he was a stuttering, stumbling mess unable to get out a coherent sentence. Once again, she seemed to understand exactly what he meant, though.

Usagi leaned forward, scooped some of his ice cream out of his cup, and popped the bite into her mouth, eyes on his the entire time. She obviously savored it, moaning just a little and causing his pants to get even tighter.

"Wanna be my boyfriend, Mamo-chan?"

The question was so casually put out there, but her eyes told him that she was completely serious. So was he as he mirrored her action, leaned forward, and stole a scoop of her ice cream. She let him, amusement growing in her eyes at his boldness.

"I'd love to, Usako."

The smug smile on her face was worth the second bite she stole from him, although she waved her spoon warningly when he tried to retaliate. They finished their Super Cups in silence, although they somehow managed to scoot closer together so that her left leg was pressed along the length of his. He honestly couldn't have said which of them moved, though. He was more interested in studying every inch of her face, even though he'd had it memorized long ago. It felt marvelous to have the freedom to do so openly.

They were just finishing their ice cream when the apartment door opened.

From the pink couch, he could see Makoto and Minako stumbling in, laughing.

Although they came up short when they saw him sitting next to Usagi. Green eyes and blue looked back and forth between the two of them, and Minako even raised her fists to rub her eyes.

"Oh, quit the drama, Mina-chan," Usagi cried, waving her empty spoon in the air. "You act like you've never seen Mamo-chan before!"

Of course, their eyebrows shot even higher at the nickname, but Mamoru felt that same warm glow as he had when she first used it. This was even better, though, because Usagi was claiming him, in front of her friends. Granted, her friends had been there for some of their more epic arguments during their teen years, so they probably thought she had lost her mind. He wouldn't blame them.

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"Um, Usa-chan, weren't you supposed to be on a date tonight?" Makoto carefully asked as she slipped off her shoes and put on a pair of green slippers.

Usagi nodded enthusiastically. "Can you two believe it? The person Mizukisan set me up with was Mamo-chan!"

Their eyes swept back and forth between the couple on the couch again.

Mamoru wanted to laugh at the comedy of it all, but he stifled the impulse.

Minako, finished changing into orange slippers that rivaled Usagi's for the amount of sequins, settled her hands onto her hips even as she strode into the living area. "Let me get this straight. Your coworker," and she pointed at Usagi, "and your coworker," her finger swung toward Mamoru, "are brother and sister.

And they set the two of you, who have known each other for years, up on a blind date."

Mamoru and Usagi nodded.

"That pretty much sums it up," he managed to say.

"And now Mamo-chan is my boyfriend. So you'll be nice to him, right, Mina-chan?" There was a note of steel in her voice, one that Mamoru had never heard before. It made him wonder exactly what Minako had said behind his back all these years, probably trying to comfort Usagi after he upset her. Not that he could blame her for that.

The blue eyes Minako turned on him would have seemed guileless if it weren't for the warning he read in them. "Of course, Usa-chan. So, Mamoru-san, I guess we'll be seeing a lot of you."

He ducked his chin, trying to convey without words that he wasn't the villain she must think of him. "I suppose so." He cleared his throat. "Um, I should probably get going, Usako. I have some errands to do tomorrow since the next six days are shifts."

Usagi jumped up and pulled him with her, their cups and spoons forgotten on the low table. "I'll see you out," she said, practically shoving him past Minako and giving her friend a dirty look in the process.

Before they could get to the door, they had to pass Makoto as well. He stopped short, seeing her standing with crossed arms and narrowed green eyes, looking him up and down. She stepped closer and leaned forward.

"You hurt her, and they won't find the body," she said softly but with firm conviction. Mamoru believed her. He also respected her for speaking her mind, especially because it was in defense of Usagi, so he gave a brisk nod in return.

"Of course."

"Omigosh, you two. Calm down. Go grab some ice cream to cool you down or something," Usagi practically growled, tugging on his hand once more to get him moving toward the door.

Once there, he changed quickly into his street shoes. Then he glanced over to see Makoto and Minako taking Usagi's suggestion and rummaging in the kitchen. Thankful for the reprieve, he stepped close to Usagi and tilted her chin up

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towards him. He dropped a short but sweet kiss on those gleaming pink lips, enjoying the taste of Usagi mixed with chocolate.

"Maybe we could meet for lunch tomorrow," he quietly suggested when he pulled back.

"I'd love that," she said, eyes shining.

He nodded and turned to go. "I'll come get you at noon?" he asked over his shoulder.

"For sure. Now go, so they can interrogate me and I can reassure them that this is fine," Usagi said with a giggle.

He sighed and left, the closing door taking away his last sight of her as he glanced back. Then he smiled, realizing that this wasn't the end at all. He only had to wait until the next day, he told himself as he made his way down the stairs and out to the street. That wasn't so bad, and then he'd be with his Usako once more.

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes This turned out a little less steamy than I expected, but still lime-worthy. I hope you'll enjoy it even without a full-blown lemon!

Many thanks to my beta, Ninjette-Twitch. Without her, I may not even have finished this story! She helped me wrap it up into a nice little ending for you all. As always, reviews are love.

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Caught In The Rain Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, Weathering The Storm Contains: Hurt/Comfort-ish, Fingering, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Drenched

by AllyUnabridged

Lightning flashed as rain beat against the windows, followed by a boom that nearly shook the apartment building. Mamoru looked up, a frown in his dark blue eyes. Then he shook his head. There was no way she would be out in this; she would wait until the storm passed. He sighed, his frown deepening. He hoped the storm wouldn't last so long that she wouldn't make it at all.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he heard a frantic pounding on his door. Mamoru jumped up, thick book falling from his lap onto the hardwood floor with a thud that could barely be heard over the rain as well as the cacophony at his door. He ran into his genkan and threw open the door. Within seconds he found himself holding an armful of soaking, sobbing blonde.

"Mamo-chan!" she wailed, teeth chattering.

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"Usako! Why didn't you stay home?" He pulled her inside as he fussed, closing the door behind them.

"I was out with Rei and Makoto."

Usagi clutched his waist with frantic fingers as she buried her face into his black shirt. He smoothed back the strands of wet hair clinging to her forehead and pressed a kiss to her damp skin, his other hand rubbing her back in circular motions.

"We should get you dried off. And I can make you a cup of hot chocolate.

That would help, wouldn't it?" Mamoru murmured as he started to lead her away from the door.

"O-okay." Her whimper tore at his heart.

Mamoru managed to peel her away long enough to help her slide off her water-logged shoes and socks. Just as he was about to help her into her fuzzy pink house slippers, another flash of lightning washed the genkan and living room in white light, followed by thunder that barely drowned out the yelp Usagi let out right next to his ear as she threw her arms around his neck and hid her face in his shoulder.

Off-balance, Mamoru was grateful for his quick reflexes as he managed to scoop up the slippers and Usagi in one go. He stood and carried his bedraggled fiance into the living room. With Usagi still latched on with all of her notinconsiderable strength, he made his way down the hall to the closet where he stored linens.

"Usako, I need to put you down so that I can get us some towels."

She let out little hiccuping sobs and clenched him tighter for a few seconds before nodding and sliding down. He did his best to ignore the sensation of her curves moving against him; now was not the time, he scolded himself. Instead, his hands now free after setting down the slippers as well, he opened the closet and rummaged through it, pulling out three fluffy gray towels.

Mamoru wrapped one around Usagi's shoulders as she sniffled, carefully pulling up the long ponytails trailing down from sadly misshapen buns on either side of her head so that they wouldn't get caught underneath. He set the other towels on the ground for a moment as he began to chafe the towel gently along her arms and back.

"We need to get you into something dry," he decided out loud. She nodded and offered him a small smile, not nearly the grin he was so used to.

"C'mon." He gathered up the extra towels and her slippers before wrapping an arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward his bedroom.

Usagi leaned into the heat of his body, and he felt her shiver against him.

He wasn't sure if it was from the chilly air of his apartment or the ordeal she'd just been through, running through a thunderstorm of all things. He knew her fears as well as his own these days. Her reactions told him she was just as terrified of thunderstorms as always.

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Once in his bedroom, he let go of her, dropped the towels on the bed and slippers on the floor, and began to pull items from his drawers. Some of her clothes were here; that was inevitable these days. But he thought she'd find some comfort in wearing something of his, so in addition to her underwear and a pair of leggings, he selected one of his button down shirts, the kind she liked to dress in on lazy Sunday mornings when, for once, she didn't have a class and he wasn't pulling a shift at the hospital. He spread the clothes on the chair near his bed and then turned back to Usagi.

Even bedraggled as she was, with rivulets of water still trickling down her cheeks and neck from her hair, she looked gorgeous to him. Her wide blue eyes were full of trust and love, emotions he still found difficult to believe were directed his way. He took the few steps to cross the room to her, gathering up a second towel along the way.

"Let's get your hair dried a little so it won't soak the fresh clothes," he murmured, running soothing hands over her head. She nodded and tried to smile, although it dropped quickly when the room lit up with a flash from the partially closed blinds, and she jumped at another crack of thunder, this one thankfully much shorter.

Mamoru picked up one tail of hair and wrapped the towel around it at the top, squeezing. The terry cloth fabric caught most of the water, but a few drops ran down her hair and splattered on the wood floor. He ignored that and kept going until that side of her hair was just damp, not saturated in water. He repeated his actions on the other side of her hair as quickly yet gently as he could. She didn't complain that he was pulling, so he hoped he was doing a good job.

"Okay, it's not too bad now. Why don't you get dressed?"

Mamoru moved to leave, but Usagi's hand dropped one side of the towel covering her and shot out, catching his wrist. At that same moment a brighter flash of light highlighted them both.

"Please don't go!" she squealed over the next, longer period of thunder that shook the air, this one several seconds after the lightning.

Mamoru was torn. He'd seen her naked before, of course. She'd spent the night plenty of times over the years they'd been together. But he wanted to focus on taking care of her, not letting his libido get carried away. On the other hand, she was begging him to stay.

With a deep breath, he nodded and pried his fingers loose. "Of course. Do you need help?"

Usagi shook her head. "No. Just be here with me?"

He could do that. Mamoru moved over to the window to give her room to maneuver around his bedroom. He tried to ignore the sound of the heavy towel around her shoulders falling to the floor, but he was weak and so peaked over. Her sunny yellow top and pink skirt were plastered against every curve he knew so well, and the thin fabric more than hinted at the lacy bra and underwear underneath. His

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breath caught in his throat and he wrenched his head back around, trying to pay more attention to the storm outside than his stunning fiancĂŠ and her body.

Now was not the time, he scolded himself despite the way his body had hardened. He heard rustling and more soaked cloth slapping against the hardwood as it dropped from her fingers. His hands clenched into fists as he restrained himself from turning around again.

Another slap of wet fabric on wood caused him to flinch. However, at that same moment light flared in the room. Before he could turn to check on Usagi, he felt her crash into his back. Her arms wrapped around his waist and he felt her whole body flinch at the boom less than half a minute later. She held him so tightly he almost couldn't turn around, although somehow he managed it, gathering her into his arms and trying not to think about the fact that she was currently covered only in strategically placed lacy white or how her skin felt against his palms.

"It's okay, Usako. The storm's passing. Did you hear how much longer it took for that last thunderclap to sound after the lightning?"

Mamoru figured his best bet was to distract her so that she'd start moving again and finish changing into the dry clothes waiting for her. He let out a sigh of relief when she nodded into his chest, although looking down he saw her eyes were still scrunched tightly closed. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he continued.

"The more time between lightning and thunder, the farther away from us the storm is. That means soon we shouldn't be able to hear the lightning at all."

That was an exaggeration, of course. It would probably still be a good half hour before the storm let up that much, but he wasn't going to tell Usagi that.

Instead, he forgave himself that little white lie. After all, if he could get her dressed and drinking hot chocolate, she probably wouldn't notice the receding thunder nearly as much. He had his reward when she lifted her head and opened her eyes, now full of hope.

"Really?"

Mamoru nodded. "Really."

Her smile blinded him more than any lightning ever could. She stretched up and pressed her lips to his. At first it was a simple kiss, the kind they'd often exchanged, full of affection and happiness but little else. He wasn't sure which one of them moved to deepen it, heat springing up between them, but he was helpless against the waves of desire that crashed into him as the kiss grew frantic with need.

Hers or his, he wasn't sure, which was often enough the case.

He let his hands roam over her back when he felt hers go to the buttons of his shirt, making quick work of unbuttoning each one. Meanwhile, he moved his mouth away from hers only to place worshipful kisses along her jaw, under her ear where he elicited a breathy giggle and squirm that delighted him, and along her shoulder before making his way back up to her lips. Her head was thrown back, eyes hooded, and he realized that this was taking her mind entirely off the storm.

With that added bonus, he threw himself into distracting her with complete and utter abandon.

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Picking her up, he walked over to the bed and gently laid her down, climbing in next to her a moment later. He kept his eyes on hers as he ran his hands over her stomach, feeling the muscles there clench as she drew in a ragged breath he could barely hear over the rain. His mouth followed his hands, peppering kisses on the skin next to her navel, just under the swell of her breast along one side, back down the other side to the dip above the waistband of her panties. When even that didn't feel like enough, he ran his tongue along the same muscles his fingers had just traced, and she moaned his name, shifting underneath him. Her fingers dug into his scalp as she carded them through his hair, but she didn't tug his head up towards her. He took that as permission to continue.

As he moved back up her stomach, his thumbs brushed the sides of her breasts, rubbing small circles just the way he knew she liked. Mouth still busy, he moved his thumbs closer to the center, still rubbing. He knew this bra. Right at the center should be...ah, he flicked the little gold clasp he knew was there in triumph.

Sliding his hands under each lacy cup, he pushed them to the side while getting handfuls of soft, cushiony flesh. Usagi squirmed again, fingers raking his scalp, tugging at his hair this time. He smiled against her stomach and pressed kisses up her abdomen.

"Mamo-chan." There was so much need in her plea that it took his breath away. He couldn't even think of doing anything other than giving in to her every whim. Thankfully, he knew exactly what she wanted.

The second his lips clamped around one rosy pink nipple, her body almost arched completely off the bed. He suckled once, twice, and then scraped his teeth along the sensitive tip as he released it. She gasped and moaned again. He repeated that treatment for her other nipple, always eager to give equal attention.

Meanwhile, his hands slid back down her sides, thumbs hooking under the lacy waistband. When he released the second nipple, wet and shining now as its twin, Usagi lifted her hips eagerly, all but begging him to slide her panties over the sweet curve of her ass and down her legs. So he did.

Mamoru took a moment to appreciate the sight before him. Usagi, spread out on his bed, golden hair flaring to either side in silky pools, blue eyes full of love and lust for him. Her hands reached for him, and he allowed her to pull him back down to her for a long, heated kiss. One hand ran down her side and along her thigh, teasing strokes that made her writhe when he hit particularly tender spots.

His hand worked inward as his tongue explored her lips and then slid along hers in a dance older than time itself, one they knew well from two lifetimes now. His fingers finally found the soft curls at the apex of her thighs, and she twisted towards him, thrusting her hips up to meet his hand.

"Please!" Usagi moaned into his mouth. He pulled away just to lean closer, his lips against the shell of her ear.

"What do you want, Usako?" he teased her, knowing at this point she was rarely able to string words together.

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"Touch!" The rest of what might have been words ended in another moan when his fingers pushed further in, separating curls and slick flesh, rubbing circles when he found her clit.

He applied the pressure he knew she craved even as her hips bucked against him, round flesh grinding against the erection straining his pants. This was about her, so he ignored that as best he could. Instead, he watched her face as she panted and mewled beneath his touch, adding one and then two more fingers to her slow, sweet torment. Her lips, swollen from his kisses, parted, tongue darting out to wet them every few seconds in the most tempting way; her eyes, glazed yet gazing up at him through thick lashes. She was the most erotic creature ever born.

Her breathing grew more labored as he picked up his pace, allowing his fingers to rub along her clit, dipping just into her vagina, and then back up again, over and over. Then he twisted them, something he'd discovered was almost enough to send her over the edge by itself. Once, twice, rub, and then twist again.

Finally, he watched as she almost screamed his name, her hands fisted in the blanket underneath her. Her hips bucked fully off the bed and the muscles of her vagina gripped his fingers rhythmically before she collapsed back onto the bed, her head lolling to the side so that her eyes could find his.

"You're so beautiful," he told her as he withdrew his hand slowly, rubbing circles on her stomach now.

"Mmmm."

Mamoru smiled at her typical response, a smile she returned in full force.

Then her eyes widened.

"Mamo-chan, not fair!" she said, hands on his shoulders.

"What's not fair?"

"I had all the fun." Now she was up to a full sentence. That was promising.

"Did you? I thought it was pretty fun, too," he told her, eyes traveling up and down her body several times.

"I can tell." Usagi wiggled against him, her hip pressing against his erection once more. One that seemed to grow even more now that she was doing that.

She sat up, pushing him onto his back in the process. One of her hands ran over his stomach, causing him to groan.

"We don't have to, you know. This was about you."

"Well, I want more. Are you going to deny me that?" Her blue eyes danced with a teasing light above him, and then her lips found his again and he forgot whatever protests he'd ridiculously considered making.

As their kiss deepened, he felt her hand travel down his stomach to fumble with his belt, much more difficult to undo one-handed than her bra had been. But she managed. Even as her teeth nipped his bottom lip, he heard the jingle of the loose buckle. Within moments she had unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, and her fingers slid into his boxers to wrap around his erect cock. It was Mamoru's turn to groan as her grip firmed around him and she began to rub up and down.

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That wasn't enough for her, though. It never was, and he was incredibly grateful, if he was being honest. Her hand left him only to start tugging at his pants.

Their kiss broke long enough to push down his pants and boxers, leaving him with just his open shirt. Neither of them bothered to remove that, too focused on what came next.

Still laying on his back, he watched Usagi swing a leg over him. Her hand found his cock again, and she grinned down at him as she rubbed the tip. He knew it was his turn to squirm and gave in to it fully since she never tortured him this way too long. And he was right. Soon she raised up over him so that the tip of his cock was at her entrance, and then she sank down on him, inch by slow inch, engulfing him in wet heat. His hands found her hips, sinking into the soft flesh there, as she began to ride him.

Up and down, she moved over him as he thrust up into her, their bodies in perfect sync due to long practice and their close bond, heightened by touch.

Mamoru watched her breasts swinging and bouncing over him, and at one point he reared up so that he could capture one pink nipple, sucking and licking it while her movements grew more erratic. She slowed so that they could match pace again while he continued to kiss and lick her breasts, one after the other. Then she swirled her hips in a circle and he dropped back to the mattress with a low growl.

Her grin when he looked up at her told him she knew exactly what she had just done, even if her pink cheeks and pants said she was as close to losing control as he was.

Two more swirls of her hips later and he came completely undone, the waves of his orgasm crashing over him with surprising intensity. He throbbed inside her still when her hand snaked between them and she began to rub herself.

Too weak to help, he watched her come undone on top of him, finally toppling onto his chest with a moan as the muscles of her vagina clenched him in her own climax.

Mamoru wrapped his arms around her, hands smoothing over her back in lazy circles as they lay there. Distantly, he realized that even the rain had stopped, and he hadn't seen lightning or heard thunder in...he wasn't sure how long, to be honest. But with Usagi still on top of and wrapped around him, he couldn't bring himself to care very much.

Eventually he found the energy to gently push her off of him. She slid bonelessly to the side, a dazed and satisfied expression on her face, the kind he loved seeing. Without a word he got up and found the third towel, the one he hadn't had a chance to use to dry himself off earlier. He cleaned himself and Usagi as best he could, with her protesting a little at having to move at all. Then he slid on a pair of pajama pants, moved Usagi further up the bed and pulled the blanket over her, and then went back out into the main part of the apartment.

Minutes later he came back to the bedroom, a steaming cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a brush in the other. He came around to Usagi's side of the bed and set the mug down on the nightstand before nudging her from her 46

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half-asleep state. She sat up, hair now in complete disarray, blanket falling to expose her breasts, and stared at him.

"I brought your chocolate, Usako. You should drink it, and put on clothes so you'll be warm."

Her eyes lit up at the mention of chocolate. "You're the best, Mamo-chan!" she squealed, greedy hands reaching for the mug.

He chuckled and went to the chair on the other side of the room. He gathered up the clothes he'd set out for her earlier and brought them to her. As she took sips of the sweet drink, she let him help her into the shirt. Then she slid on her own underwear and leggings between more sips, while he gathered up her wet clothes and towels from the floor and put them into the hamper next to his dresser.

"Thank you."

Mamoru looked up to find Usagi looking at him over her mug, her eyes soft and sweet. He ducked his head, blushing. Did she realize that he'd started all of this as a means to distract her? Probably. Did he care? Not really, he supposed.

"You're welcome."

Neither of them elaborated. Instead, he joined her back in the bed, brush in hand again, and began to untangle her still-damp hair. He loved that she let him take down her buns, that he was one of the few people to see her like this, a cascade of gold down her back instead of her signature hairstyle. The knots unwound fairly easily from the silk mass, and then he was brushing for comfort, hers and his, while she chattered to him about her shopping trip and they settled into the normalcy of a night together, the storm a fading echo in the distance.

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes Thanks again to my lovely beta, Ninjette-Twitch, for her efforts. Any mistakes are my own!

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Established Relationship Additional Tropes: Mutual Masturbation Contains: Newlyweds, Fingering, Hand-Job Ship: Usamamo

Clair de Lune by ellephedre

In the first three days after returning from their honeymoon, Mamoru and Usagi barely had time to breathe.

She started classes at college and he resumed his job. The apartment was in fine conditions, but most of Usagi's things were still lying in a few boxes in the hallway. Mamoru worried about the groceries and she tried to cook a dinner worthy of the name.

They slept early to recover from the time difference. A week spent in the middle of the Pacific Ocean had taken its toll on both of them.

They were exhausted and overworked, but that didn't stop them from feeling like they were on cloud nine.

Mamoru in particular, in the morning, felt like he was waking up in his personal paradise. The sweet, numbing scent of Usagi's skin led him to gently open his eyes to a golden sea of hair. Her tails rested on his arms, on his legs. They 50

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were like a soft and precious waterfall, emanating a pleasant perfume of fruit shampoo.

He was getting used to arising with a giant smile on his face, holding against his chest the back of his wonderful Odango - the most delicious and sensual girl on the entire planet Earth. And if he, the future King, said as much...

He slipped a hand under her pajamas, caressing her stomach. He would never tire of touching her skin: it was so silky, so velvety...

He heard a grumble of protest.

Usagi didn't like waking up in the morning, but the day had so many wonderful things to offer to her.

He began to unfasten her pajamas. When he had taken care of all the small buttons, he caressed her body from the neck to the navel.

Her sleeping murmur contained a trace of enjoyment.

So as not to keep her waiting, Mamoru turned her on her back and bent his head over one of her breasts.

He loved the rosy texture of her nipples. They were smooth, almost without protuberances on the areola. They looked enchanting, innocent, foreign to the tongue games he planned to torment them with. He pulled a wet tip out of his lips, to introduce it to the pleasure of the senses.

Usagi woke up with a moan. Gently, with diligence, he trapped her wrists in one hand, holding them over her head. "...Mamo-chan?"

He bid her good morning with a slow lick that flattened the tip of her breast.

She closed her eyes as soon as they were opened. "Hmm... what's got into you?"

You got into me. Answering her would take his mouth away from the game he was using to subjugate her.

With rapid and calculated tongue strokes, he forced her to arch her back upwards.

"Mamoru!"

He loved his full name on her lips. Usako called 'Mamoru' a man who wasn't her tender and obedient Mamo-chan, so hopelessly in love that he would comply with her every request. Mamoru was the lover he struggled to find inside himself, but when he freed him...

He kept on teasing her, submitting that single breast to his cravings with light bites, sudden suctions growing in intensity... and more tongue strokes, when the tender rock-hard protuberance became flame-red, sprayed with blood.

She was panting in jerks: she had been wriggling under him the whole time.

"Mamoru."

If she called him like that again, he wouldn't be held accountable for his actions. He let go of her wrists, only to go down with his hand along her body, 51

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putting it under the elastic band of the polka dot pants at her waist. His fingers found almost immediately a thin layer of slippery and cozy moisture.

Usagi released a squealing, her mouth wide open, not even trying to escape from him.

Mamoru contemplated her ardently.

How many times had he watched her on the verge of paroxysm, not interrupting the moment even when the urge to join her nearly overcome him?

Actually not a few times, but not enough, never as many as he would have liked.

Usagi's sensuality was enchanting and precious. With a quivering lip tight between her teeth, her cheeks inflamed and her hand abandoned at the side of the bed, she was waiting to sacrifice herself on the altar of his desire.

He had no intention of hurrying. He wanted the moment suspended in time to continue as long as possible. So, instead of rubbing the edges of her wet flesh, he barely touched it.

She bent her head back on the pillow, clutching the sheets. "Oh, Mamochan." She swayed her hips in time with his caresses. If she thought she was softening his resolve like that, she was wrong.

He went down with his mouth, just over her navel. "Tu es so belle..."

His French caused her a jolt that in no way gave her satisfaction: for an instant he had retracted his hand.

"So belle," he insisted, lingering in mid-air above her breasts, looking at her in the eyes as he went back to caress her ever so slowly between the thighs.

Usagi could no longer keep silent. "Why do you...? Oh, please, please, please..."

Love, emotion, and her beauty took possession of him.

He moved on to the breast he had overlooked, bathing it with endless dedication.

Usagi gasped once more, clinging to his arm. He recognized the nature of the throb against his fingertips and didn't stop. He indulged the pulses lightly, inexorably increasing the pressure.

Usagi's cries grew in volume. "Oh, yes. Oh, yes..."

There it was, the sight he rarely had the opportunity to witness: the most beautiful woman in the universe who melted away in pleasure, with him finally allowing himself to observe her without eagerly jumping over her body. He rubbed his finger up and down the crest of her clitoris.

"Ah! Ah!" Usagi tightened her legs, to hold his hand in place.

Mamoru didn't show her the slightest pity: he didn't let her come down from the wave of sensation, he kept her firmly on top, raising the temperature. He drew a continuous circle on the apex of her quivering flesh.

She covered her head with her arms, going crazy. But he wanted to see her. "Take them off."

She was now groaning without restraint. She had reached her climax, but she could stand it - he was there to keep her in balance.

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"Hands off" he repeated.

Usagi listened to him as her hips moved convulsively on their own animalistically strong, as he had never felt them before.

The assault on his wife's senses was fierce, but she learned to enjoy it. She released a lustful sound as she kept on riding his hand while lying down, now one and only with the endless orgasm she was experiencing.

Mamoru felt a devilish smile reach his lips. "Should I stop?"

Usagi's answer was an incoherent grumbling. Her lower abdomen was shaking violently, but always more and more slowly. Mamoru decreased the pressure of his touch, allowing her to begin the descent.

"Hmm..." While the wave of sensations still ran through her, rocking her body, Usako grabbed him by the shoulders and engaged him in a long kiss. To please himself, Mamoru didn't stop stimulating her, even though his hand was now drenched in moisture.

He stopped only when Usagi pressed on the hollow of his wrist, asking him to move his arm away.

She was panting as if she had just finished a miles-long marathon. "It's too much."

"It didn't seem so."

"I'm wetting the bed."

"We'll change the blankets."

Up until that moment she had kept her eyelids closed for the most part - as if she wanted to hide from the delirium she had plunged in - but for that joke she opened her eyes wide, allowing him to see her laughing blue irises.

They kissed each other tenderly, as she gradually wriggled out of his embrace.

Usagi sat on her knees. "I don't know what you have done to me..."

He had half an idea.

"But I know what I want to do to you now. Lie down." ... really?

Because of the ecstasy she had recently experienced, Usagi's lips were cherry-red. She licked them voluptuously. "You'll find out how I plan to use this mouth on you."

From wolf Mamoru became a lamb. "Usako... It'll take so little...."

She had already pushed him backwards, pressing on his chest. "Who says so?" She took off his pants firmly, only halfway down his thighs. "Now you are mine." She grabbed him in her hand. "And you will come when I say so, won't you?"

Crushing the back of his neck against the head of the bed, he nodded with tight teeth.

Usagi began to move her palm up and down on him, squeezing. "I like you so much, Mamo-chan. If you had used more than your hand on me... I think I would have died."

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He closed his eyes, eclipsing himself in pleasure.

At breakfast, after a hot shower and with a nice soft sponge bathrobe on her body, Usagi observed intensely the man she had married.

She didn't often think of him as a 'man'. In her mind, more often than not, Mamoru was an extremely mature young man - a composed, polite and charming male creature, terribly sweet and tender when he chose to be.

She didn't feel the need to call him 'man' - because men were full-fledged grown-ups, perhaps even a little old, that she felt quite distant from her.

But sometimes Mamoru would surprise her and she could call him nothing but a man - like during that morning, when he had guided her senses beyond every peak she had ever reached. She assumed, in turn, that she had impressed upon his mind how much of a woman she was - as she sucked him from top to bottom like a tasty candy.

Sitting on the stool in front of her, Mamoru was still staring up in the air, lost in the bliss of his recent physical gratification.

He noticed her gaze and smiled as he brought a cup of coffee to his mouth. "What?"

"If I had known that I was signing up for mornings like this by marrying you..."

He found her amusing. "What would you have done?"

"I would have married you sooner."

His face was invaded by an open and candid smile that turned him back into a boy. Her beautiful and special boy, her Mamo-chan.

"It will be a great marriage, Usako."

The hold that took her heart touched her soul too. How did he do it? "For all the thousand years we will live?"

Mamoru nodded, convinced. "In every moment. And when we'll argue... we must remember to make peace this way."

Not that she would mind, but... "And if I only wanted a hug?"

"You'll also get that from me. You'll have everything from me."

Usagi went around the counter and wrapped him in an intense grip, rubbing her face against his chest. "I'll become a woman with you."

"Uh? It seems to me that you already are one."

"I mean... Oh, it's complicated! I wanted to say that I'll grow up in every possible way - not just in bed. I'm good there, aren't I? I deserve an A!" Mamoru burst out laughing. "I'll give you the plus too!"

Usagi became proud beyond words. "I worked very hard!"

"I agree." With his hands he found the knot on her bathrobe and untied it.

"Work a little harder."

Usagi stood in front of him, blushing. "What should I do?"

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"Don't cover yourself up this morning. Let's walk naked around the house."

What had happened to her Mamo-chan? "Hentai!"

"I am very hentai. Who knows what I could do to you while you're walking in our apartment in this state..."

She ran far away, towards the bedroom. "Almost nothing! You must go to work!" From the hallway she saw the surprise on his face.

"That's true..."

Had he forgotten? "I'm making you lose your mind, Mamo-chan."

He smiled, stood up and took one last sip of coffee. "Yeah."

She wanted to give him a good reason to leave the house and come back.

"I'll wait for you here like this, without clothes."

He clenched his teeth. "Don't get me fired."

"Uh?" "I'm still on the honeymoon phase, but I don't think they'll appreciate it if I walk around the office with a hard-on."

Usagi sunk her face into the palms of her hands. Now even the dirty jokes!

"Go to work before you become even more hentai!"

"Otherwise you won't be able to restrain me?" He entered the bedroom, to get dressed.

She answered him with a shrug.

While opening a drawer Mamoru raised an eyebrow, allusive. "What will save you from me on weekends? There will be nothing to keep me away from home."

Even though they had engaged in every possible sexual act together since dawn, Usagi blushed to the tip of her hair. "You know, in the future I'll keep my mouth far far away from certain parts of your body. I've bewitched you."

She was ashamed of her own words, at least until she saw his distraught embarrassment. She laughed and grabbed the first garment available on the bed, to cover herself and take dirty thoughts off his head. "It was just a lie! But run to work, Mamo-chan! Transform yourself back into my very composed fiancĂŠ."

"Husband."

"Into my very composed husband. I haven't married a shameless man."

That was to be seen, Mamoru thought. Even if he had to admit that, when he walked out of the apartment, he had to make a 180 degrees transformation to feel calm and normal again.

He loved going a little crazy with his Usako, he thought smiling.

He took one look at his wife, who was trying to dress without showing him naked flaps of skin.

Love and happiness fit him well - indeed, he thought, love and happiness fit them both wonderfully.

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Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes Translated From Italian Actually, this is just the first chapter of a collection of one shots dedicated to the married life of Usagi and Mamoru in my Sailor Moon saga. Let's call it a preview for you. The other chapters contain way more spoilers of the events that I've narrated, that taken out of context would be difficult to... Not to understand, not really. To feel, as much as the characters do.

For instance, in here you saw Mamoru speak a little French. There is a reason for that in my saga, related to a difficult battle he and Usagi had to face some months before their wedding.

All in due time, I hope I'll be able to translate everything from the very beginning. As of now, I've started with 'Beyond the stars', set just after the end of the fifth season. In Clair de Lune Usagi and Mamoru have obviously plenty of sexual esperience... Beyond the Stars tells you all about their first time instead.

Thank you for reading, let me know what you think!

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Established Relationship by Nari20 Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: Theme is Established Relationship (with a hint of Sexual Fantasy)! I'm planning to do one more before the month is over! Thanks to our wonderful FloraOne for hosting, always!â&#x2122;Ą

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Fake-NOT-Dating Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Dry Hump, Fingering Ship: Usamamo

Need You Now

by AllyUnabridged

Sailor Moon alighted on one of the tallest rooftops in Minato City, her narrowed eyes taking in the concrete expanse dotted with utility structures. Red lights glowed around the edges of the building, giving the roof eerie shadows unrelieved by the brighter city lights below. She carefully made her way toward the center, where a tangle of pipes and whirring mechanicals connected the various utility rooms. When she reached the corner of the closest, a gloved hand shot out and gripped her upper arm.

“Were you followed?”

She was expecting it, yet still she had to stifle the squeal that wanted to break loose. Turning it into a snort instead, she felt her tense muscles relax.

“Of course not,” she countered even as she was pulled against a firm chest.

“I told Luna I was going to patrol a little after the battle. She’s proud of my initiative.”

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Sailor Moon was sure that even in the dim red light, he could see her eyes roll at the naïveté of her guardian. His chuckle rumbled against her shoulder. She turned to look at him fully, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. That was the signal for both of them. Transformations dropped, they melted together for a kiss.

Her hands crept up to grip his black shirt, handfuls of crisp cotton.

His mouth slanted over hers, lips soft yet firm and so familiar by this point.

Usagi opened hers to him, allowing him to slide his tongue against hers for a moment. Finally, they drew apart just enough to take in air in deep gulps. She studied what little she could see of his face in the dim light.

“I’m sorry about this afternoon, Mamo-chan. I hope the stain will come out.”

She felt him shrug beneath her hands, another laugh building between them because what else could they do? At the same time, his grip on her waist tightened and his lips twisted in a semblance of the smile she loved. She missed that smile.

Even though battles had been more difficult when it was just the two of them, most of all she missed being able to spend time with him after a fight without worrying about interference. Her thoughts darkened for a moment as she thought about the offers of help she’d received from her teammates, none of whom seemed to think she could handle a simple patrol on her own. Mamoru’s next words jarred her out of her thoughts.

“The pants will be fine. I’m sorry, too. I hope you know I didn’t mean anything I said. Right?” His voice pleaded with her to believe him as his thumbs rubbed circles through the thin pink fabric of her dress.

This was their ritual now. Minutes of reassurance once they could reunite, always following cruel words and actions flung at each other in public. Usagi has to admit to herself that she was exhausted by the public faces they had to present, although she would never tell him. As long as he wanted to keep his identity a secret, she couldn’t let Luna or the other three Senshi know her true feelings for either Mamoru or Tuxedo Mask. She also knew that she had to keep the secret so that her erstwhile guardian and team wouldn’t try to separate the two of them.

They never believed her when she said that Tuxedo Mask could be an ally.

Usagi lifted a hand to Mamoru’s cheek. “Of course I know you didn’t mean what you said.” It had stung, of course. But she’d seen the look in his eyes, the same misery she felt that they had to do this. That had soothed her nerves as much as the situation allowed.

She wished she could see him in full light, see the love she knew was in his eyes for her when they weren’t pretending. However, they didn’t dare. All it would take was someone they knew seeing them together to bring down the whole mirage they’d so carefully constructed for months. So they were consigned to the shadows, at least until their mutual goal was met. Find the Moon Princess and the Legendary Silver Crystal, and then defeat the Dark Kingdom. Only then could they openly be together.

“I missed you.”

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He buried his face in her neck, one of her ponytails sliding over his shoulder as if to embrace him as well. Usagi threaded her fingers through his dark, silky hair, over and over, as she felt his lips press small butterfly kisses that made her stomach flip and jump in anticipation “I missed you, too.”

It didn’t matter that they saw each other practically every day. Their encounters were never enough. They couldn’t really talk, touch, kiss…

Usagi tugged at Mamoru’s hair to make him lift his head. The small kisses were wonderful, but what she needed was to feel his mouth on hers once more.

This kiss was a desperate meeting of lips and tongues, hands stroking, squeezing, fondling. No touch was off limits, as if they were trying to cram a lifetime of caresses into each movement.

At one point, he spun her around to press her against the concrete wall beside them. Usagi barely felt the roughness through the thin material of her dress. Instead, all of her attention was on Mamoru’s body pressed against every inch of hers. The ridge of his growing erection pressed into her stomach as his fingers danced over her breasts and his lips burned against her throat again, this time in trailing, open-mouthed kisses.

Usagi’s own hands and mouth were just as busy. She followed the lines of his pecs and abs with one hand while keeping her grip on his hair with the other, her lips teasing the shell of his ear. Her trailing hand dipped lower to rub against his erection, causing him to press into her harder and moan into her neck.

They rarely went farther than this, but this time his hands moved to her waist and lifted her up, his hips now pinning her to the wall. Her hands clutched his shoulders to steady herself, and she wrapped her legs around his hips instinctually so that his erection was pressed directly against her damp crotch.

“Mamo-chan!” she panted, grinding against him for the friction she craved.

“Shhhh. We don’t want attention.”

His hands slid over her hips and down her thighs until he reached the edge of her skirt, now bunched up between them. Eager fingers pushed aside the soft fabric, found the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, and tormented her in the sweetest way. She squirmed and bit back a moan, her fingers biting into his shoulders.

He covered her mouth with his own again, swallowing her cries. At the same time, his hips began to move, and he thrusted against her, over and over.

The angle was just right to start building the delicious pressure she craved. One of his hands slipped between them nudging aside her underwear and rubbing in just the right spot, while the other found a ponytail and wrapped it around and around his fingers, then used it to pull her head to the side with a pleasurable tug, exposing her neck for his mouth again.

Usagi shattered into a million pieces and cocooned in his warm at the same time, her mind deliciously blank. His hips ground against hers once, twice more, and then he shuddered. Her limp legs dropped, wobbly feet barely finding 62

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the ground, while his weight still pressed her against the wall and his face stayed buried in her neck, her hair still wrapped around his hand.

Eventually, they managed to untangle themselves. He still held her close, though, his cheek pressed against her hair. She clung to him, eyes closed, and pretended that they could stay like this. That they weren’t on a lonely rooftop high above the city. That they didn’t have to live double, even triple lives. That they could be normal for a little while, just two people in love.

Too soon, Mamoru gently pushed her away. His eyes were swollen, although she was sure he hadn’t cried. Not yet. Her own tears leaked out, trickling down her cheeks. He raised a hand and brushed the drops away, his skin still warm against hers despite the wind that was picking up.

“You have classes tomorrow?” This was their other routine. Talk about the days ahead, plan so that they wouldn’t be surprised by an encounter.

Usagi nodded. “Not too early, though. My first doesn’t start until ten. I’m going to meet the girls at Crown for lunch.”

“I have a shift tomorrow at the hospital. But I could get away for lunch.

Motoki’s manager at Crown tomorrow.”

She tried to smile. “That’s convenient.” Taking a deep breath, she continued, “On Saturday, I’m going shopping with Rei and Makoto. We’ll be at the mall most of the day.”

His answering smile was a smirk. “You know, there are some books I’ve been wanting to buy. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

Her heart lightened a little, even though she knew they’d have to pretend when they saw each other again. At least there would be something in the next couple days to look forward to, even if it was just seeing his face. Even if they couldn’t really be together.

She took a deep breath. “I guess I should transform and head back. Luna will be wondering if something went wrong if I’m gone much longer.”

Mamoru sighed, his chin dropping toward his chest for a moment. “I know.

I love you, Usako. Please remember that.”

Hand clasped over her broach, she gave him a watery smile. “I love you, too. We’re gonna be fine.”

With that she transformed. By the time the ribbons and lights died down around her, he was gone. She ran to the edge of the rooftop, in the direction of his apartment, and watched the caped figure jumping from building to building away from her.

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Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes For the final week of Smutember, I chose the trope "Fake NOT Dating." To me, the perfect setting for that is Season 1, with a canon-divergent AU in which Usagi and Mamoru started dating before the other Senshi show up but can't reveal to anyone that they're in a relationship due to pressure from Luna on Usagi and Mamoru's distrust of pretty much everyone except her. That idea intrigued me to the point where it's actually going to become a much longer story, but I chose to do a "pre-outtake" of sorts for Smutember because, folks, that one's probably going to be longer than I can manage to write in a week! So, stay tuned for more in this universe after SOSN takes off and I get a few more projects in my queue taken care of.

Thanks so much to Ninjette-Twitch for the beta and convincing me that doing this "pre-outtake" idea in the first place wasn't completely crazy! You have her to thank that this story exists at all right now. As always, reviews are love!

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First Times by Midnightdrops Artist’s Notes: My contribution to Smutember 2020! This one is the prompt “First Time” with Serenity/Endymion, specifically fem!Endy <3 This takes place post-first time, with post-sex smooches! :’) Many thanks to the lovely FloraOne for hosting this month! I’ve loved seeing what everyone has put out so far! <3

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Go Seduce My Archnemesis Additional Tropes: Sex With The Ex, Battle Couple Contains: Light (Consensual) Power Play, Body-Marking (Hickeys, Scratching), Penis-InVagina Sex Ship: Evil!Serenity x King Endymion

Exile (Crown Me Nemesis Interlude II)

by Antigone2

Neo Queen Serenity slipped through the Crystal Palace forcefield with nothing but a shiver of static evaporating into the silent air. It was a powerful forcefield, fueled by the senshi, and absolutely impenetrable by any outsider especially those from the dangerous and hostile Black Moon.

But, despite the Black Moon insignia on her forehead and the black stone earrings dangling sharply from her ears, the Crystal Palace recognized its queen, and the senshi's powers yielded to their princess.

A smirk of confidence barely had time settle over her lips before an opposing push of charged power shifted around her, curling around the center of the palace in a protective coil.

Although she had made it within castle limits, the heart of it all -the entrance to the time gate, the inner sanctuary of the palace that housed the senshi,

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the security systems, and most likely the Silver Crystal she sought - was now completely blocked to her.

She scowled as she sensed the source of this defensive power. Queen of Crystal Tokyo she may be, but the Golden Crystal wasn't beholden to her.

Its wielder, however, just may be.

Serenity bit her lip despite herself, knowing her continuing desire for Endymion could be exploited as a weakness. Certainly Wiseman had helped her purge the treacherous and fraudulent complications of her feelings for him. It was sickening, how completely and utterly she'd been in love with him, little knowing that love itself was the cruelest hoax.

Serenity swept along the empty hallways, past broken stained-glass windows and fallen pillars into vacant ballrooms and grand halls that opened into empty, dying courtyards.

But no matter what passageways she stalked through, what corners she turned, what doors she slammed open - the center of the palace was effectively blocked to her by that enraging spiral of power.

The source of said power was somewhere nearby, Serenity knew, he had to be. Had he blocked himself up inside it, like a coward, or was he waiting outside of it for her, like a fool?

Her answer came soon enough, after she'd pushed over one of the few remaining unbroken sculptures to the ground, where it smashed with a satisfying shatter into a door that leaned on its hinges. Endymion stood leaning against the frame, arms crossed. He considered her temper tantrum with a tilt of his head, sending a fringe of smoky hair into his eyes.

"Have you lost your way?" The familiar smooth baritone of Endymion's voice didn't affect her, because nothing did through the fog of Nemesis. But somehow, still, goosebumps rose along her skin.

She glared at him, fisting her hands around the fabric of her dress. "Lost in my own palace?"

He cocked his head, raised an eyebrow. Far too confident. Far too smug.

He had to know how dangerous she was, how precarious his position, and yet he smirked. "I seem to remember it happening before."

Serenity blinked in shock, as a strange, foggy memory of the mass of hallways seeming so intimidating and confusing even though she'd help create them, even though they were part of her. Of the girls laughing at her, Endymion jeering. It was blurry. It was infuriating.

"You pinged the security system as soon as you passed the forcefield," Endymion continued, a nonchalant expression on his handsome face. Serenity clenched her teeth.

"Is that when you set up," she gestured vaguely toward the impenetrable swirl of energy protecting the vital heart of the Crystal Palace, "this monstrosity?"

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"The Golden Wall? I'm rather proud of it, myself," he said, and that secret amusement was back in his eyes, like he didn't realize she could murder him where he stood.

"How's your side?" she asked, hiding her anger behind wide-eyed fauxinnocence, behind veiled insults - wanting to make him angry, wanting him to glare at her, wanting anything but this unsettling spark in those deep indigo eyes as he looked at her like he knew her, like he knew anything about her. "Still hurting where Demande wounded you so badly?"

"Much better actually," he said conversationally, as if she'd asked out of actual concern instead of bitterly mocking him. He pressed his fingers gently into his side, looking down at the fabric of his shirt which covered the bandage. "We've been working on purifying it from the dark energy in order to allow my natural healing ability to take over."

We. Serenity curled her tongue back behind her molars, pressing slightly until she tasted blood. Endymion seemed to realize his mistake, and he swallowed, the amusement dying from his eyes but not in the way she'd wanted it to.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it, looking for a moment like a lost a child, unsure of the right away forward. For a moment something sparked in her heart, and was snuffed out almost instantly.

"Well, deepest apologies if I'd made it worse," Serenity said, sarcasm dripping from her words, even as she referenced the frenzied, explosive sex they'd had last time they'd met - despite his injury. She sashayed toward him, knowing she had both the power of Nemesis and of the full moon that hung in the sky - it would answer to its princess, good or bad. Even without the Crystal. "Or if I inflict further injury when I take you and your pathetic 'Golden Wall' down."

She was mere inches away from him when he caught her raised wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. Serenity realized with a start that even though he was outside of the wall he'd made, the Golden Crystal was still somehow protecting him. Any power she could throw at him would definitely hurt but may not be enough to destroy the wall he'd built.

Endymion tsk'ed, shaking his head, the curve of his lip pulling up ever-soslightly. "Never touch without permission, right, my dear?" he said, echoing the words she'd spoken to him the last time they were together.

Serenity's eyes flashed. Did he expect her to ask? Like he had the last time, begging for her like some sad little puppy, pretending like lust was akin to love, that desire meant devotion?

His thumb traced the pulse point of her wrist.

Then again, perhaps if his concentration was elsewhereâ&#x20AC;Ś. Then, thenâ&#x20AC;Ś the stupid Golden Wall would weaken. And then Serenity could finally erase the fond amusement from those beautiful eyes, make him watch as the last of the kingdom fell to the woman who had never been enough for him.

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"You think I'm the one who should be asking?" she hissed, even as his fingers caressing her wrist sent a thrill down her spine, pooling in a subtle, pleasant warmth between her legs. His breath was hot on her neck, his eyes half-lidded, framed by thick, dark lashes.

"Well, you did come here," he pointed out, as if she'd shown up for him and not for the palace and crystal that belonged to her in the first place.

And how dare he?

Her kiss was an attack, a challenge, a territorial claim. Her hands fisted in his hair, tugging his face forward and down to angle her tongue up across his teeth, sweeping it into his mouth hot and angry and demanding.

Then it was his arms clutching her and pulling her up flush against him, large hand curving around the back of her head, fingers pressing into the flesh at the nape of her neck, returning the kiss just as passionately, just as possessively.

Her teeth nipped at his lower lip, pulling a moan from his throat as he stumbled back with her through the door of the room. Serenity pulled back, looked at him with a burning, furious, hungry expression. Her hands moved from his hair to his shirt, her leg winding around his waist, pulling his hips closer, his hardening arousal pressing his pants zipper against her inner thigh. She turned her head and his lips chased hers with a soft grunt of objection, before settling in to taste and suck the soft skin at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Serenity took in her surroundings: furniture was knocked askew, mirror broken, some chairs covered in white sheets as if they were haunting the nothing that was left of this room in the visitor's hall. And, by a cloudy window half covered by what was left of a gauze curtain, the bed.

As quick as a flash, both her hands moved to Endymion's shoulders and she pushed him away, causing him to stumble a few feet further into the room. He looked at her, lips bruised and hair mussed, shirt half ripped open and erection straining against his pants.

"The visitor's stateroom," she said, seething. "You just happen to end your little 'farce-field' in a bedroom."

His hands spread, lifted slightly. "Coincidence," he insisted, without nearly enough terror in his voice.

"Presumptuous!" she snapped, danger flashing her eyes. Never mind the last time she'd fucked him into the ground outside in the middle of a rotting courtyard, the gall of him to expectâ&#x20AC;Ś In two long strides Serenity closed the space between them and shoved him again, this time backwards onto the bed, eliciting a startled cry as his back hit the mattress with a slight bounce. He looked up at her for a heady, charged moment - all dark, wary eyes and deep shuddering breaths and absolutely no attempt to leave.

She leaned herself over him, bracing her hands on either side of his head.

Twin streamers of hair fell across her shoulders, curling loosely on Endymion's chest. The black earrings swung beside her face.

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Her breathing was harsh and hard, her gaze burning into his: daring him to be scared, to be offended, to run from her and into the easy, pliant arms of an adoring other.

In response, he reached up and cupped her face in his hand, thumb running along her cheek in a move so nauseatingly tender she wanted to slap him.

She kissed him instead. Not tenderly.

Endymion leaned up and fully into the kiss, and Serenity could feel his stomach muscles pulling taut along her belly and she moaned into his mouth, teeth scraping along his lower lip.

His hand was hot on her bare thigh as it slipped easily through the high slit in her white dress along to flex eagerly into the soft flesh of her bottom. One long finger moved underneath, slowly, torturously stroking her wetness from behind just once.

She swallowed her pleading whimper beneath a growl, bucking her hips into his, and he hissed as she rubbed against his aching cock.

"How long will you continue to be stubborn?" Serenity murmured into his ear, sliding herself down lower, so her breasts pressed against his chest and her hands moved back, bringing her further onto the bed. "To refuse to relinquish my city?"

He shifted his hands to her waist and with one swift, strong movement he flipped them over so she was fully on the bed, and under him. She clenched her teeth against the frustratingly delicious feeling of his body on hers, of his arousal pressing achingly into her thigh.

"You forget, Your Majesty," he said, his mouth wet and hot against the shell of her ear, "your city is on my planet."

With a snarl, she curled her nails into his scalp, and pulled his lips back to hers for a long, open-mouthed kiss, wet and hot and sloppy and hard. His hands slipped under her dress, pulling the garment delicately and gently up her sides until she had to break the kiss to pull it over her head and off to the side.

His hands were reverent as they stroked her breasts, circling her nipples and following his caresses with soft, delicate kisses butterflying along her skin.

With a growl of impatience, Serenity tore at his shirt, not caring if she destroyed it. Wanting to destroy it, this inconvenience between her hands and his skin. The scraps fell away and she was rewarded with the smooth, warm expanse of his chest, and the shudder-moan he made in response to her nails running lightly, then harder, across his skin.

The bandage on his side was clean and new, expertly placed and very recently. Her eyes skated over it, narrowing, as she reached down to push his hands away from where he was working on unbuttoning his pants. She pulled the fabric apart until it also ripped, button flying off and zipper destroyed.

"Was that really necessss- oh," his voice died in a half-swallowed guttural moan in response to her touch. His eyes closed in bliss, dark lashes brushing his cheeks, lips parting slightly in an expression Serenity refused to find beautiful.

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"Yes, it was," she answered, her thumb expertly stroking up to his tip, her fingers caressing the velvety skin of his shaft, the sensitive areas at the base. Her mouth found his collarbone and sucked gently, and then not-so-gently.

It was utterly necessary that he return to his golden sanctuary with clothing in shreds, evidence of her absolutely painted on his body, obvious and visible and claimed.

His hands wandered her body at a faster pace now- fingers flexing into her breasts, then splaying across her side, then cupping her bottom, sliding across her wetness in a torturously light touch.

She fought the urge to thrust toward his hands, clamped down the pathetic desire to writhe and moan and beg for those long, tapered fingers to make her fall apart in the most delicious of ways. Instead, she curled one long leg around him - a flex of her thigh making him gulp, his cock twitching in her hand. She pulled him toward her, guiding his hard-on closer still, rubbing the tip slowly along her slit.

He braced himself on his elbows, shifting his head until they were nose to nose, his breathing ragged and mouth slightly open, eyes dark, pupils large, as he searched her gaze deeply, desperately. "Serenity-" he breathed, aching with longing.

She dug her nails into his shoulder. "You will address me with more respect," she admonished, although her voice hitched when he thrust his hips forward, his erection pressing up against her in a way that flooded her with pleasure.

Endymion lowered his head, his nose brushing along her cheek. His voice was a whisper, a confession, a plea: "Usako."

Her nails in his shoulder drew blood.

And she slammed her hips up to take him in fully, squeezing her muscles around him. Her fingers flexed into his buttocks as their movements grew frenzied, and he slipped his hand under her, fingers reaching up from behind to further tease her sensitive areas. She wove her fingers through his hair, laced her tongue along his ear, nipping at the lobe. A loud, guttural moan pulled from his throat, and their pace quickened further.

The room soon filled with a staccato rhythm of moans, gasps and raspy, frantic breathing. The bed creaked loudly and warningly as it shuddered under their undulating bodies.

The ecstasy was building up in Serenity with each push, each swirl of his fingers, each gasp of his breath in her ear, and she strangled her scream by sinking her teeth into Endymion's shoulder. The small burst of pain brought a roar of pleasure from his throat, and he pumped deeper into her.

Serenity was so, so close to the edge, arching her back, slipping her other leg around him, clutching his hair in her fists - and Endymion knew just what to do.

He circled his hips against her, scraped his teeth gently over her nipple, all while continuing with deep, long thrusts. Her teeth clenched against a cry, eyes squeezed shut, and Endymion pressed a gentle, soft kiss to the Black Moon on her 73

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forehead, the same time he pressed his thumb up and hard against her swollen clit.

The orgasm ripped through her, and she threw her head back, a dry, tortured cry tearing from her lips before she could stop it. "Mamo-chan!"

His body tensed and quaked above her as he came, a strangled moan escaping his throat and his far-too-handsome face twisted with the most intense pleasure Serenity had ever seen.

Endymion had barely come down from the shuddering high when she pushed his shoulders up and squirmed out from under him, all long legs and glossy hair and sharp elbows.

"Sere-" He reached for her, still feeling the afterglow in his muscles.

Serenity gathered her dress up to her body, raking her eyes over Endymion, who lay on the bed gazing at her with cloudy, dazed eyes. His chest was scratched and a hickey was darkening on his neck, bite marks on his shoulder and torn pants hanging from one leg. She bit her lip against the surge of lust that assaulted her at the sight, and took two quick steps toward the door, pulling the dress over her head in a smooth, practiced movement.

"How?" she snapped, turning back to him with fury burying the lust in her eyes.

At Endymion's knitted brow, Serenity gestured at the protective wall that began just outside the door. Far from being weakened by Endymion's distraction and post-coital exhaustion, it was stronger than ever, the push and coil of shimmering power keeping her from tearing through the heart of the palace.

"How did this not make you weaker?" Her voice cracked with frustration, with rage. She'd completely come undone in his arms, uttered a name she swore she'd never say again, and for what?

With an animalistic growl, she slammed her fist against the door, causing it to shutter and collapse in a cloud of white dust.

"Love doesn't make someone weaker," Endymion said, quietly. "Only stronger."

"Love?!" she screamed, and black lightning flashed outside the windows.

The palace began to shake slightly on his foundations. "Love is a lie!"

Endymion sat up, moistened his lips and looked at her with a wary, searching expression. "Sere-," he reached out his hand, slowly, "please, liste-" "You may be unfairly hot and mind-bendingly good in bed, Endymion, but don't try to ever bring up 'love' around me again."

Because the Golden Wall was growing stronger and expanding even as she stood there, Serenity turned and stalked off in a rage rather than stay and face this new and concerning power of his.

When she appeared in the black crystal halls of Nemesis, Saffir looked up with a sarcastic expression.

"How was storming the castle?"

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Serenity glared at him. "I'm your queen so show some respect," she started, then frowned intensely as he gave a sarcastic bow. Blaming her for his brother's death, Saffir hated Serenity almost as much as she hated him. "And there was a … complication," Serenity said, thinking of the Golden Crystal and the powers of the Earth that she was up against. "I'll figure it out." She pushed past Saffir and swept down the hall.

"A 'complication' that left a hickey?" Saffir sneered to her retreating back, and Serenity's eyes widened.

Sure enough, the ornate mirror in her chambers showed a deep purple bruise blooming just above her collarbone. She could use the power of Nemesis to heal it, make it disappear into the smooth, flawless skin of her chest. She could erase Endymion from her body - just as she was certain he was healing his skin of her marks back inside his precious bubble of safety.

Serenity looked in the mirror for a long time, fingers brushing the mark. In the end, she left it there. She didn't dwell on why.

Author’s Notes: I'd suggggest reading 'Crown Me Nemesis' and 'Interlude to Crown Me Nemesis' because CMN sets everything up and this story references the events in Interlude.

But, if you'd rather not, here's a rundown: Basically Crystal Tokyo as it is in the 90s anime - senshi in stasis holding a forcefield, ChibiUsa in the past, Sailor Pluto at the time gate. Instead of being entrapped in a giant crystal, Neo Queen Serenity is taken by the Black Moon and turned. Instead of being a hologram, King Endymion is wounded but mobile.

Sailor Pluto and he are the only ones holding the palace - and the Silver Crystal - from NQS who, like, really wants it back.

Ok! you are all caught up.

Thank you to my bae-ta, Irritablevowel for literally everything! And to Floraone for the encouragement and for running the UsaMamo side of Smutember.

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In Public Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, Caught In The Act, Aroused By Your___ Contains: Mutual Masturbation, Superhero Kink, Semi-Public Sex, light portrayal of wing kink Ship: Usamamo

Playing Outside

by FloraOne

Really, the first time it just… kinda happened.

So, it wasn’t her fault her boyfriend had only like, the biggest superhero kink. And yes. Yes, she did take advantage of that.

She’d only had to crook her finger this time. He’d left his group behind without a word, barely looked left and right, and followed through the crowd until they were alone.

She’d been passing the time in Ikebukuro. Mamoru was there with Reika and two of Reika’s friends, watching some modern take on a classic lit Sōseki play that Usagi had immediately begun mock-retching about when Mamoru had so much as started suggesting she might come along, and so instead they were going 78

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to meet up to grab dinner in Ikebukuro when the play was out (she was crossing her fingers they’d agree to go to Kura Sushi with her, because, well, gashapon prizes for every 5 sushi plates c’mon!)

And because her shift at work had ended in an odd kind of in-betweentime where it didn’t make sense to go back home first but also made her arrive in Ikebukuro way earlier than the play was out, she’d strolled down Otome Road and stocked up on manga and doujinshi, took a detour for Bubble Tea, and then made her way to stroll through PARCO before she was to pass through to the other side of Ikebukuro station to slowly head towards picking up Mamoru from that nerdery he liked to call ‘culture’ with that haughty look, her pink backpack newly filled with very Japanese culture, too, thank you very much.

And so, when the screaming started, it kind of shook her to the bone for just a moment before old instincts took over. She dropped her Bubble Tea - it splashed onto the ground in a bright, mess of a puddle where it had exploded out from her now deformed, ripped plastic cup, droplets flying everywhere as it spread out in moving liquid, and she stepped right in it as she took off running, her mind reacting with immediate, irrational panic for Mamoru.

Because the screams came from the direction of the theater, and her whole mind started tunneling.

It was, of course, muscle memory. Running. Finding a place to transform.

Letting the magic envelop her before she could take flight. Even when Galaxia was so long behind them, it was edged into her being. But her heart sped up too fast nonetheless, so out of routine.

Because if anyone so much laid a hand on him again, she was going to forget herself, ok?

They didn’t, though. She singled Mamoru out in the crowd immediately.

And it immediately made her calm down when she found him first thing, her eyes drawn to him. Skidding to a halt on top of the triangular glass structure that was the entrance to the building, she could overlook the scene.

A glowing, floating, roaring figure hovering over the outdoor stage, a forcefield of energy locking around roughly 300, 400 people, plus a performing ensemble that fled the stage screaming, jumping off the wooden platform and into the panicking crowd.

Mamoru was standing protectively in front of his companions in that fancy grey dress shirt he’d worn for the night, held hostage like everyone else in the crowd by the sparkling, cackling blue energy surrounding the area, his eyes scanning the crowd, no doubt trying to figure out how he could escape to transform.

He wouldn’t need to, though. She got this.

Right as the figure floated into the crowd to a round of rising panic, Usagi jumped.

Confidently, Sailor Moon stepped off the building and let herself fall to the ground, softening her landing just a meter above the open-air stage with a 79

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powerful flap of her white wings. The monster was glowing, pushing energy out in all directions, lamenting and screaming out her apparent disappointment. She was quite visibly (and audibly) not very amused by the director’s new avant garde approach to having a play performed outside the actual theater.

“Hey!” Usagi shouted in her glare-y tone, one hand stemmed into her cocked hip, and didn’t falter even when an eerie hush fell over the crowd. Even the ghost-like figure quieted as it stilled and turned to look up at her. “I won’t allow you to disturb these people enjoying their dull fancy-pants classic literature!”

Men and women in all kinds of somewhat business dress, some young, some really, really old, tweed vests and hipster totes, shining bald heads and tight grey buns, and all of them looking at her in utter awe.

And suddenly, the crowd roared. She blinked a little, surprised.

But well, she supposed she had looked rather cool. Landing right on the stage like that, spreading out Eternal Sailor Moon’s wings like so, her hair fluttering with the wind her momentum created, and landing on the stage with no sound of her footfalls at all, to the sudden hush of a previously frightened crowd.

Well, Tokyo didn’t see Sailor Moon much these days, either.

And so, when she’d turned and pressed her forearms one over the other in her signature pose to scold and promise to punish the spirit something fierce in the name of the Moon, complete with her no-nonsense face and her loud and authoritarian-when-she-wanted-to voice, the crowd had howled and cheered at her even harder. Someone from the tech team even trained the friggin spotlight on her!

She started to grin, found Mamoru’s intense eyes across the crowd and winked at him.

He was smirking at her, one side of his lips lifted. And he was standing straight again. Relaxed. No longer looking for an exit strategy.

But the… what was it? Monster? Rogue, forgotten daimon egg? Ghost?

Whatever it was, it did not seem as enamoured with the play. In fact, it flared, floated towards her with great speed, and howled.

“If only!” It lamented most dramatically, and so very loud and angry. The air shook with it’s roar, and Sailor Moon held her arms, elbows out, over her face protectively.

In all honesty, it actually looked kind of stunning. Face painted white in full red and black Kabuki makeup, a kimono so colorful and intricate it was mesmerizing even without fanning out into the fluttery energy that surrounded the whole place like a ghost’s veil. It was one of the prettiest monsters she’d ever seen.

“The blasphemy!” It cried in a voice so shrill a few people shrieked and held their ears, others shouted Sailor Moon on, many began to run again.

Its energy shot out like a pulse. Beneath it, the hundreds of plastic benches outside the theatre evaporated into dust, some people who’d been cowering on them or standing on them to see better fell, and the screaming began anew.

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“This production,” it shrieked, and shot out another blast, and Sailor Moon grabbed her wand and ran at her, “defiles all art! ‘I am a cat’ is unrecognizable!” it shrieked.

And Sailor Moon nearly fell over her feet. “Wait, what?” Usagi couldn’t help an incredulous laugh, found Mamoru’s eyes again - he was creeping closer towards them, trying to make his way towards her around the thick mass of people.

“This play is about a cat? Really? A cat?!”

Mamoru threw her a look even when she giggled so clearly at his expense.

But that meant she was distracted, and ducked when the next blast rattled the glass of the theatre behind her the .. spirit? Monster? Shouted her rage, all ‘blasphemy’ and ‘what are we doing NEXT to dishonor the great arts’, and Mamoru mouthed ‘genius loci’.

Ah. “You know,” Usagi told the angry protector of the arts with a shrug as she dodged another wave of energy. “I once went to a poo exhibit at an art museum.”

“WHAT?!”

The roar was so loud and came with a wave of energy that made her fringe shake.

Mamoru, closer yet again, looked at her like he wanted to slap his forehead. Or maybe hers. Though he shouldn’t be acting so highty-tighty. He was, after all, the one who had taken her there. Only to get super embarrassed when she’d insisted that she, too, wanted to be flushed down the giant Toto loo like all the kids in their poo hats. (They’d let her.)

She still had that poo hat. And loved it dearly, by the way. Because it was amazing, duh.

So well, the genius loci got a little angrier after that, but she’d still got it.

Following it a little further away from the crowd where she could blast at it without being afraid to hit anyone, it was kind of really nothing.

She didn’t even break a sweat. A twirl here, dodging a thrown theater prop there or a stage light here, and then she jumped, kicked, landed, and one Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss later she’d sealed the spirit right back where it belonged.

And that was exactly why it had worked him up that much, she supposed, when after months of nothing, Sailor Moon made her first appearance in front one of the biggest crowds she’d ever fought in front of, and she fucking kicked ass, and even kind of had a lot of visible fun while doing it. She hadn’t even thought about the possibility to call the girls for backup. She hadn’t needed it at all.

The energy barrier dropped as if it had never been there, the sirens outside the area suddenly audible, and the crowd cheered like they would have for the best play in the world. And when she found Mamoru’s eyes again, they were super dark.

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And well, this time? She didn’t even have to talk him into this. She just grinned at him, toothy and wide, cocked her head and crooked her fingers at him, and she had him.

She didn’t even look back when she fled inside. She knew he would be behind her.

The good thing about open-air plays? It left the inside completely deserted.

She’d barely slipped into the dim theater room when his hand halted the door behind her.

He kissed her when he reached her. Mamoru’s lips on Sailor Moon’s, pulling at her face with both hands until she was where he wanted her, his tongue stroking so deep into her mouth like it belonged to him. Hot and deep and full of his low, quiet, guttural moans that she swallowed right down as she sagged against him.

“You were so fucking hot,” he exhaled harshly against her puckered lips when she broke for breath and flicked her eyelashes up at him.

At her look, he only groaned and kissed her again, mouth open and wide and wet and deep, her fingers curling into his tight black jeans. She pulled at one of the loops that held his belt, stepped back, and he made that little protesting grunt when his lips disconnected from hers.

His eyes were so fucking dark. And so she grinned, bit her lip slowly in that way that made him focus on her mouth like that, and pulled again.

She flicked her eyes behind her, and back to him, curling her lips up in all the suggestion she was capable of.

She had expected him to roll his eyes, tell her to detransform. To take her hand and take her home. Maybe find the others first. Maybe to even take her to dinner still like they’d planned, on the way to the JR station.

And yet, he did none of these things. Instead, his eyes darkened even further and he simply followed.

Of course, it had taken her quite a while into their mutual sexual activities to actually really notice how very, very hard he got for Sailor Moon.

That he looked at Sailor Moon that way. That he’d always looked at Sailor Moon that way. And it wasn’t because she was oblivious, like he tended to say with that weirdly affectionate roll of his eyes. No, it was because he had the poker face of a statue. Those old bronze ones with the icky green stuff on them. Ya know, the stern looking ones.

And when she did finally notice how much slower his eyes were to drag over her in costume, how much deeper his inhales when she was being particularly badass, how much blacker his gaze when she transformed in front of him in determination, some years had passed.

To her credit, it wasn’t like she had to transform a lot these days.

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And so Mamoru’s half-hearted “We’ll get caught,” got lost somewhere between the creaky bounce of the seat when she pushed him into it and his reverent fingers stroking down the plush feathers of her wings.

He bit his lip, too, and so she bit it for him, and he whimpered so hard she had to grin in a way it kind of hurt her face. And again, when his eyes rolled back in his head for just a second when she stroked one gloved hand down the metal fly of his pants, bulged out towards her.

He did fall back even further into the red plush chair nonetheless, absolute putty in her fingers, when she slowly dragged the metal flap down and set his cock free into the dim, dark light of an empty theater.

“We shouldn't,” he said, wide-eyed and in that voice that said ‘god, please go on’, shuddering. His cock jumping, twitching, leaking as she laid it free like a present. And when she dragged one gloved finger slowly up that pulsing vein that ran from base to tip, he closed his eyes and hissed through his teeth, and the back of his head hit the plush red velvet seat as he sunk so far.

“Anyone could come in,” he said weakly, his head lolled to the side, his eyes half-lidded and all-black even when he spread his knees far apart beneath her.

It was a recklessness of the kind both of them knew intimately. Both of them knew better. After all, they had memories not much unlike this; from a relationship entirely in secret between two worlds. They’d done things like this before. Many, many times before, even if this was the first time they would do it in this life, and Mamoru was so much more responsible than that.

But there was none of that responsibility left in those punch-drunk eyes of his right now. Only thick, helpless desire.

Thus, when she climbed on top of him, knees spread to either side of him and he arched his whole body off the seat against her, she couldn’t keep the smirk in.

“I'll make it worth your while,” she whispered at him with her grin too wide and even wider when she dragged a finger against his lip and he bit it with a harsh grunt.

With a tug away from his mouth, her glove came off.

He spit it out somewhere to the side, carelessly, and she grinned even harder.

The grin turned into moan not long after.

She palmed him, and he cupped her. His thumb over the fabric on her clit and pushing, rolling, his knuckles against the little dent below that kept her vagina so neatly covered.

Mamoru grunted hard when she sat down on top of him fully, started to rub herself against his hand, her skirt shifting across his legs, his cock pressed between them in her hand, but he just craned his neck and watched her.

And no, they didn’t get caught, and his eyes remained half-lidded and on her the whole time, his mouth both slack and tense all at the same time as he 83

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breathed through his mouth, a whisper of a moan through every harsh exhale of breath. Even when she collapsed on top of him, braced herself with her elbow around his neck and on the seat behind him, one hand digging into his glossy, pretty hair and her open mouth against his shoulder, his head was turned to her and he was watching her.

So beautifully practiced, Mamoru knew what he was doing when he pulled at the skin next to her crotch, his thumb and palm pressed deep into the softer skin at the hollow of her thigh. His fingers so deliciously strong and heavy as they wrapped around her leg, the tips of his fingers digging just so at the sensitive skin of her buttcheek, skimming along the hem of her suit both at her ass and where his thumb traced the hem at her crotch.

With one practiced, gentle tug at the skin by her crotch, Mamoru pulled her apart beneath the fabric, cheeks and lips and clenching entrance, like he would when it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the suit but her panties. Pulled her apart in the way that exposed her clit and her cunt just a little more, and it caused her clit to rub right against the fabric, and her entrance to chafe against the friction his fingers created on it.

God. The suit didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come off, and so she ground herself against him wantonly, his fingers and his cock alike, and when her fingers around him became messily unrhythmic and stalled, he pried her fingers from him one by one and stroked himself instead.

She tugged at his shirt, buried her fingers in his pants instead, curled around the waistband and the cool little button, her thumb in the fabric, her knuckles in his pubic hair and that pretty little line of hair that trailed up to his navel.

And then she just arched, wings unfurling behind her, completely out of her control, as she keened and surrendered to sensation.

And so she just moved. Ground against him, mouth at his throat, pushing her hips against his cock and fist over and over where it made her crazy.

It coiled and built and rushed in her head and she wanted to scream, wanted to rip the fabric away from her crotch and bodice so she could sink onto his cock, as he stroked himself against her with the tip at her entrance and she writhed and writhed.

She was so wet the fabric was damp, so wet it slipped across her oh so easily. Nothing whatsoever dry about this particular hump.

The suit didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come off, but it was pliant. It was magic meant to move with her, and so she could feel it all so well. He kept one thumb dug deep in the hollow of her thigh, pulling her apart even as he pushed the tip of his cock against the hollow of her crotch over and over, pumping himself against her. Fucking himself against her suit and her right with it, and with every push and every dent, it pulled the fabric taut across her clit.

It was fucking magic.

Snapping, she pulled her fingers from his pants and started to frantically, messily rub against the fabric over her clit.

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His laugh was breathy and right against her face, his head moving as he watched her, no doubt.

“Good?” His voice was rough against her cheek.

She barely managed her ‘uh-huh’. It was more a grunt into his shoulder, her teeth in the fabric of his grey dress shirt, and it was wet from her saliva. But she felt his smirk against her face.

He pumped himself hard, poking her over and over and she pressed against him as hard as she could, her thighs clamped around him as tense as his jaw when he arched up against her, his cock in his fist, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing against the fabric, brushing her fingers until her legs trembled.

She knew when he couldn’t take it anymore. When he stilled completely and pressed himself against her still as a statue, biting his tongue as he held himself in place for her. She rubbed her clit harder through the fabric, breath beginning to stutter at his neck, and when she was almost there, his hands pulled at her face, pulled it off of him.

Because this precious man liked to see her come, and right now he had the chance to see her come on top of him as Sailor Moon.

It was worth the effort just for the look on his face, even when she could barely hold her eyes open, could not close her mouth at all as she came in a silent grunt-sort-of situation. Shuddering and pressing back against his cock and hips and her own hand, he held her face cupped between his hands all the while through as she rode the wave of her orgasm out against him, his eyes heavy and dark and gobbling her up, his face twisted like he was in pain, albeit the exquisite kind.

When she came down from her high, sighing and stretching and rolling herself against him, it was her turn to watch him. And it was a fucking treat.

One hand back around his cock, pumping faster and harder than he’d done before as he chased his own orgasm, his other, tense and twitching hand fighting hard to remain steady on her face, curled around her chin and jaw and his fingertips against her ear and hair and neck as he pulled her closer back down to him. So close their lips almost touched, or their foreheads, but just not quite, and her hand dug into the red velvet on the seat behind his head, her nails scratching the fabric noisily.

He looked so fucking beautiful just before he came. That intense moment where he hovered just at the edge. His jaw sharp and tense, his eyes flashing and so glued to hers in their intensity, black and dark and so easily mistaken for anger if you didn’t know him, his jaw clenching and unclenching and clenching as he hissed shuddering breaths through his nose and lips as he licked them and then bit. He was so visibly worked up. So very, very hard. Trying so desperately to last just a little longer because this moment and this sensation was just too fucking good.

He pumped. Moved the skin up his tip over and over with one hand, his tip so very red, so very swollen, so very wet. His fingers so clumsy against her face as 85

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he brushed his hand against the crescent moon on her forehead, and it tingled warm against his touch. He breathed out harshly, almost poked her in the eye when his hand pushed into her hair. But he always held her eyes. All the time.

Always.

He stopped breathing for a second, held his breath and choked it out in gulps afterwards, when he came against her suit, sticky and white and warm.

It dribbled down his fingers and her thighs.

And then he breathed again, found her eyes again, and all the tension fell off of them, and with it they heard the faint noises of people shouting outside, sirens, and an easy silence in the dark around them without the blood rushing in their veins.

She giggled, and he threw his head back and groaned, and she giggled even more.

Unlike him, she was of course clean when she de-transformed.

And yet, Mamoru smiled at her so super warmly when it was just her in her jean jacket and her pink backpack full of manga and doujinshi.

He was so adorably sheepish, pulling his handkerchief out from his pocket like that- hers really, but of course he’d stolen it so long ago now that it really was his, even when her name was embroidered into it. Cheeks ever so slightly red, he cleaned himself up awkwardly, and they snuck out together.

He still took her to dinner. Stained, untucked shirt and all. Walked home with her with his arm tight around her shoulder and a silly grin on his lips, as she made some more fun of him that his pretentious classic lit ‘meiji era satire on the intellectual elites of 1905’ was really a story about a cat, silly dork.

However, the whole thing hadn’t quite taught them to stop, and Mamoru still kept being very hard for Sailor Moon, and they kind of… never stopped after that.

Turns out the suit did come off - at least if one ripped at it with brute superhero strength in strategic places - and Tuxedo Mask was entranced by the curve of her butt as it peeked out from beneath Sailor Moon’s skirt unhindered, and even more so when he’d pulled the boots off her feet and stroked his hands down the whole length of her bare legs. And especially so when this was just after a battle, adrenaline making them so very stupid.

They told themselves over and over they’d stop. (Or at least he did, every time, promising himself afterwards with a mutter under his breath.) But every time was hotter than the last, and well, they didn’t have to transform a lot these days, so even when it happened every time they had to come out to fight these days, it still only happened like, three times a year. And, ya know, rare candy and all that.

And so, all conviction fled his eyes once a few months had passed and he watched her transform with that slack and heavy look on his face that took it all in too intently, watched the ribbons form her suit in a way that was too mesmerized and obvious, and she always knew in her bones she’d have no trouble whatsoever convincing him afterwards.

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Not that she even really tried not to. Nothing turned her on more than feeling the way he sheerly wanted her like that.

He was a wanton mess for Sailor Moon, and seducing him in costume, at one point, needed barely more these days than a suggestive smile as she led him away from the girls and glanced over at deserted dockside warehouses, their bench by the fountain and the clocktower in the dead of night, or, well, rooftops.

(Rooftops were fucking amazing. The higher the better. There was nothing better than getting bent over the side of a building, or pushed against a rooftop fence, and fucked so good to the view of night-time Tokyo, or even sometimes its dawn, or even, that one time only, the dangerous bustle of day.)

And well, yes, so, public indecency was actually a felony in Japan as Mamoru liked to point out a lot when his dick went back inside his pants afterwards. But, well…

They were superheroes. Mamoru made a point of being super careful to make sure there was no one there who could immediately see them. And besides, the city kinda owed them that much, she rationalised. And it wasn’t like, rooftops and stuff could really be considered ‘in public’, right?

And so, she’d never gone as pale as when Minako handed Usagi her phone one Wednesday afternoon.

Oh god.

“Fucked,” she muttered, wide-eyed. Clutching Minako’s glittery golden phone case. “I’m fucked, Mina-P. I'm so, so fucked.”

Mamoru was going to kill her.

She heard her own voice moan from the video in the most lewd way she’d ever heard anyone moan, and she wanted to disappear into the floor. Please.

Minako snickered beside her. “Well, I'd say the being fucked part has already happened.”

Usagi whipped her head up so hard her hair fluttered, but cringed directly, because Mamoru’s video voice did that ‘I’m gonna die, this is too hot’ breaking thing she really didn’t want him to discover to be broadcasted on the fucking internet.

Oh God. As it went for small mercies, of all the times that paparazzi could have captured them having sex in public, at least they discovered Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. It could have been so much worse. It could have been Mamoru and Sailor Moon so, so easily. It could have been Mamoru in a position where it looked as if he was having hook-up sex with Sailor Moon (and also cheating on Usagi) and having to defend that to his co-eds, professors, future employers, her Papa.

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And yet unfortunately, seeing as Mamoru had been adamant they not disclose that Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask were a couple to the media previously for reasons, this kind of spread like wildfire even harder.

The tweet that had linked the video had over a million retweets already, and new comments were added to it every second in all kinds of languages.

And to her horror, Minako leaned back over her shoulder.

“Shit damn, Usagi, you have a spectacular butt,” she said with a low whistle.

Usagi pressed Minako’s phone to her chest in appalment and received held up hands and a shrug along the lines of ‘well don’t hold your ass into a camera if you don’t want me to comment on it.’

Sailor Moon’s use of moaned expletives was muffled against her chest, and Usagi’s face was in flames.

And when she eventually looked back at it (Tuxedo Mask’s face now between her legs and she thus not at all in view except for her thighs around his head and her gloved hands in his hair, but his pretty butt hung from his loose tuxedo pants all the more so, unfortunately), Minako was back to leaning over her shoulder.

“Dayum,” she made. “Where is he hiding those glutes?”

Usagi clapped her hand forcefully over Minako’s eyes, and then threw the phone.

The hashtags were almost worse than the video itself, really.

As were the social media discussions about if they were a couple or a booty call. Or the blogs popping up dedicated to various body parts of theirs. Or the amused hashtagged compliments for his apparently so trained use of tongue and how they should do a more instructive video next, please.

Or the trolls who did the opposite. The assholes with the slutshaming comments who could go fuck themselves, thank you very much. Those disgusting ones who wrote long and short explicit and dirty comments about wanting a go too — with either of them, really, but mostly her, which days later on would make Mamoru see red and glare a lot at strangers. Why were men on the internet like that so much. Why? Then there were the discussions whether the city of Tokyo should press charges or not that made her flinch, and the way less frequent but even more condemning conservative pieces that made her throw her phone a look because really? In the 21st century? Really?

(And then there were the fan artists and fanfic writers who’d shipped Mamoru with someone else than her who she secretly was kind of delighted to see so devastated now.)

But no, an accidental sex tape really wasn’t how she’d wanted the world to find out Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask were, indeed, a couple. No.

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(Though infuriatingly, some were still convinced they weren’t. Ugh. What did it take to stake her claim exactly?!)

And yes, even that first day, the number of posts like that she’d found was staggering. The internet was talking about nothing else that day. They were trending on all the big social media sites, almost worldwide.

And so, that first day, she prayed so hard that Mamoru hadn’t seen, ducking out from Minako’s with her face flaming and her head held very low and avoiding looking anyone in the eye, as if everyone could suddenly see past her and know Sailor Moon was her, and thus that person moaning in the video was her, too. (A strange sensation, really - she knew fairly well after so many years that no one could see past the magic glamour, not even her parents and one of them had pushed her out a birth canal and all and knew what she looked like all over, and yet suddenly, she was nervous about it again.)

(But well, what did she know, maybe the glamour of the transformation wore off when she took the fuku off. And she damn well took at least strategic bits of that fuku off in that video.)

Maybe, due to some miracle or other, maybe Mamoru hadn’t seen it?

Mamoru didn’t use his twitter often. Maybe his co-eds were too prissy to discuss that particular finding in front of him? Maybe? Small miracles, and such?

What were they the miracle romance for anyway, if she couldn’t get a miracle when she needed one most? To ensure she’d ever be getting sex again?

And who had even filmed that? This was on the rooftop on top of Crown!

Where she’d seduced him. As fucking always.

Mamoru was gonna be so fucking livid.

And so it shocked her to the core when, in a twist of unforeseen events, it was not Mamoru who wanted to murder her.

No, when she eventually dared to go home and ducked her head through the door, Mamoru rushed to greet her. And then stopped before touching her, as if his touching rights had been revoked for all eternity. All tragic martyr puppy eyes and regretful apology as if this was his fault.

“I’m so sorry, Usako. I’m so, so sorry” he said with wide eyes and a begging voice so broken it made Usagi recoil in absolute bewilderment, because this was the opposite of what she’d expected, but maybe she should have known he’d blame himself.

So, no. Mamoru didn’t want to kill her.

But Luna did. Very much. Luna wanted to kill both of them, slowly and painfully with words, and she’d already started the torturous process in her absence.

Luna cleared her throat primly, seated on Mamoru’s coffee table, addressed her with a glare, and proceeded with her lecture as if Usagi had been 89

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there all along. Apparently she’d been scolding Mamoru for over an hour before Usagi arrived.

All holy lunar powers meant to be used for the cause and not for sex, about responsibility and respect for the powers, and respect for the henshin, and how they’d jeopardized their image, and public indecency and how could they, and steely, disappointed glares. In excruciating detail, Luna pointed out all the things that could happen and could have happened because of their stupidity.

Then Luna called over Artemis and Ami for the rest of her impromptu intervention (because Makoto refused to judge, Minako was too delighted, and no one else cared, she supposed), both of whom seemed more uncomfortable to be there than even Mamoru and Usagi - who both sunk deeper and deeper into Mamoru’s ugly beige couch.

But when his palm inched out blindly against her thigh, she threaded her fingers through it, squeezed, and held on tight, and it became kinda bearable.

He didn’t let go of her hand the whole time.

He did suffer more about the whole thing.

While she was beginning to shrug about it, secretly proud when someone wrote complimentary things and smiling softly whenever she stumbled about a post by some kind soul trying to convince people to respect Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask’s privacy and stop sharing that video - all hadn’t they done enough for the world to deserve that decency – Mamoru was taking a bit longer to get over it.

(The original had long since been deleted by twitter for, yup, violating their indecency guidelines too, and Ami was working her magic to have all traces of it erased as it is) Adorably, the worst for him was people discussing her body. He got so livid over that. But other than that, the whole thing made him burn in any sort of way.

Like when they sat in the Fruit Parlor half a week later, iced coffee for Mamoru, giant-ass parfait for her, and Unazuki sat gleefully next to Mamoru, and Motoki next to Usagi, and started to talk about whether they’d noticed that the video was filmed on top of Crown of all places in a way too excited voice.

“Did you see that video?!” she’d howled like her favorite anime had just announced a reboot, no greeting at all as she slid into the booth with them like she owned the place (and well, her family did, and she’d worked there all throughout high school back then, so kinda?), and Mamoru met Usagi’s eyes in open horror before warily flicking them back over to Unazuki with his features carefully back in place. “...Which video?” he stalled like a dumbass.

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But Unazuki threw him exactly the kind of look that question deserved.

“THAT video,” she scoffed. Then made that melting-smile thing usually reserved for puppies and cute boys. “The Sailor Mask Sex Tape!” She puffed up her chest.

“You made that name up,” Motoki rolled his eyes, but slid in, too, and Mamoru’s brow twitched, as did his fingers around his iced coffee.

“What if we did,” he growled at Unazuki darkly, ignoring Motoki’s comment, knuckles white. Usagi shot him an apologetic look, slid her dessert spoon through her parfait, and held it out across the table with ice cream and a raspberry on it. He liked the raspberries. He knew she didn’t share food. He knew this was a comfort raspberry. An ‘I’m sorry’-raspberry.

“Did you?” Unazuki turned to him just as he leaned forward, opened his mouth and accepted Usagi’s peace offering. “See it?”

She slipped the spoon back out from his closed mouth and he shot her another look as he moved his lips eating, his shoulders slumped and weary, and Usagi crinkled up her nose in their silent conversation of ‘I’m sorry, too’ and ‘not your fault’ and ‘are you ok’ and ‘I guess I’ll live’. She slid her spoon back through her parfait and licked it clean. “...I’m not in the habit of watching other people have sex,” Mamoru said prissily once he’d swallowed. “Maybe you shouldn’t either.”

Usagi held his eyes, quirking one eyebrow over her ice cream, and he shrugged.

Unazuki, however, dramatically rolled her eyes, stemmed her elbows onto the table, and leaned towards Usagi instead. A full on dismissal, and Mamoru’s posture changed ever so slightly.

“Did you see the way she could bend, though?” Unazuki hushed gleefully.

“Like, man.”

Usagi slipped a little further into her seat. Cause, well, she could.

“I mean, they’re superheroes,” Usagi defended weakly, and dug deep down to the cornflakes part of her parfait.

“Horny superheroes,” Unazuki corrected with a grin.

Mamoru’s blush was super instant, and she cringed at him again in apology.

“They could be having sex right on top of us again right now and we wouldn’t know,” Unazuki said as if she was announcing free milkshakes.

No, right now they’re actually sitting at this table with you.

Mamoru sighed in a way declaring for all to see that this was torture.

“How many times do you think they’re up there, having sex right on top of us?” Motoki asked.

Once. That one time.

She decided Mamoru deserved a kiwi, too, and held out her spoon. He leaned forward and opened wide for her.

“Hm. I bet they have sex all over the place,” Unazuki mused.

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“With each other?” Motoki asked in that conspiratory tone, leaning forward too, coffee cup and all, and Mamoru’s head whipped to him in utter, appalled, disappointment. All ‘how could you even think to ask that?!’, kiwi and soft ice cream in his mouth and all.

Unazuki grinned. “Are we team hook-up?” she asked. “I’m team hook-up, so…”

This time, Usagi supposed she must have looked even more appalled than Mamoru. At least his ‘See?!’-eyes told her so.

“I mean, why would they do it on our crappy roof if they had a comfy bed somewhere to do it in?” Motoki mused.

“Maybe you should stop having conversations like this with your sister. Or anyone,” Mamoru threw in under his breath, but was totally ignored.

“Especially our crappy roof,” Unazuki grinned, lest anyone forget that important fact.

“Maybe it's just a kink…” Usagi said meekly. Flushing. “Don't kink-shame them.”

Mamoru blushed hard, and lifted his iced coffee to his lips.

“Who’s kink-shaming?” Minako chimed in gleefully, popping her sunglasses on top of her head, hair swishing as she appeared in front of their table as if out of nowhere, and dragged a chair over from the table opposite. “What’s being kink-shamed?”

Mamoru groaned loudly, his head in his hands.

To her credit, Minako, other than Motoki and Unazuki, was actually expected to show up here.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she made in final understanding as she sat, smile turning absolutely dirty and absolutely fixed on Mamoru. “We’re talking about the MoonTux Sex Video.”

Mamoru shot her the dirtiest, most unforgiving look he’d ever thrown her before, and apparently Minako gobbled it up. She chuckled so evilly through her wide grin as she met his icy glare straight on, utterly amused. Usagi scraped the last of her ice-cream from her dessert glass, and let the spoon clink into it noisily.

“Man, that ship name is so much better,” Unazuki groused, slumping down.

“But no kink-shaming,” Minako ordered with a finger held high, and slung her handbag around the backrest of her chair. “That video was beautiful. Like, show it to everyone.”

Mamoru glowered even harder, because yes, Minako HAD shown it to everyone.

“Way better than porn. Look at all that perfect and beautifully physical love and desire. I’m so proud of them.” (Usagi sat up straight and beamed, and now Mamoru shot HER that look.) “It oozed. Literally.” Minako snickered, and Mamoru’s look was back on her, along with a deep, deep sigh.

“Besides,” Minako continued, “Sailor Moon’s fucking hot, I’d bang her, too.

In a second.”

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Usagi beamed harder, Mamoru was visibly not amused.

But Minako seemed to remember something, ignored them fully, and turned to Unazuki with a tilt of her head. “Wait, you’re team shipping?”

“No, she’s team hook-up,” Usagi grumbled grumpily with her elbows on the table and her cheeks in her fist.

Minako leaned all over Motoki only to pat her knee amusedly, and Mamoru’s look grew even more irritated. Usagi swore he was this close to start kicking people under the table.

“Ooooh maybe they don’t know each other’s identities!” Unazuki cried with way too much excitement.

Usagi blinked. So did Mamoru as he met her gaze once more.

“Ooohhhh,” Minako grinned, “Oh, tell me more!” Really, Minako’s glee about the whole thing was gonna give Mamoru an aneurysm. And it was very visible glee. Like, in a way she should have been rubbing her hands together.

“Yes,” Unazuki cried, “hear me out! What if they’re having this super secret partners-with-benefits thing going on, but they can’t tell each other who they are, and so they do it all over Tokyo.”

Oh shit, that sounded amazing. Usagi couldn’t help but look at Mamoru in excitement. He cocked his head to the side, still not amused, and shot her that kinda ‘Really, now?’-look.

“You read too much smutty fanfiction,” Motoki laughed.

“No, no, but, imagine!” Unazuki gushed. “Tokyo Tower, the blinking lights just as they go out all romantically, tearful eyes gazing at each other deeply. All, ‘if only I knew who you are and we could do this in a bed’, and all that pining agony between them even as Sailor Moon is bouncing on Tuxedo Mask’s—” Mamoru was about to throw things.

“—Don’t forget his ass out again for all to see,” Minako interrupted, and grinned right at Mamoru.

He threw some money on the table. “Ok,” he said. “We’re done.”

And then he climbed over the side of the booth in a movement way too agile, fleeing, even as Minako cackled.

So, well. All in all, Usagi was fully expecting to never have sex in public again. All what with Luna’s ‘I thought you were the responsible one’-lectures to Mamoru (because she knew she would never dissuade Usagi), every last mumbled comment from Minako and Makoto especially, all ‘I bet Crystal Tokyo will have like, a collection’, and well, the internet.

And yet.

And yet, Tokyo Tower, middle of the night, the blinking lights as they were about to go out, and Tuxedo Mask’s heavy breathing as his eyes were burning into her legs.

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Because she was kicking off her white boots slowly. In the way that was pretty silly, objectively, but he was a dork and absolutely hooked on her. Pressing the tip of her foot into her heel to slip them off, her lips upturned in challenge.

At first, she’d told them all to leave him alone. At least all those she could openly tell. Had scolded Luna like Luna had scolded him. How he was already insecure as it was. How he’d simply expressed his desires and how that was fucking amazing. They did. Together. Maybe in an unfortunate place. But it was still beautiful, Minako was right. Don’t they tell him it’s not. He had enough hang-ups, he didn’t need this crap.

But then? Then she noticed he’d started to touch her more in costume.

Openly. Sure, he did still want to die that one time her Papa started talking about the Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask sex tape that was causing such ruckus in the media when they’d invited her parents over for dinner one day, but… After this, he never refrained from touching her in public again… Not only Sailor Moon, even.

“Is this gonna be a thing now?” he asked, his face in deep, pretty shadows under the beam, but he was breathless and his voice was rough with want.

He couldn’t fool her, though. And he knew it. Otherwise he wouldn’t already be throwing his top hat carelessly over the side of the tower, his mask following and dropping on the beam beneath theirs.

She shrugged. “Let them think what they want,” she said with conviction, and with her most suggestive smile, and slowly slipped off her gloves, too.

And then, Tokyo half asleep beneath them, his costume painted in oranges from the light one second, and in deep darkness the next when the lights went out with a start, she pushed him down and straddled him.

And oh, how he let her.

He looked up at her, eyes black and deep and horny again as if that video was either absolutely harmless or had never existed in the first place. Intense and worked up and helplessly turned on.

And so she smirked, slowly, languidly grinding on top of the quickly hardening bulge in his lap, and spread her wings once, one flap. Lest he forget she looked like an angel and all.

“I'm the senshi of purity, remember?” she purred as she rocked against him purposefully, then walked two fingers up his white dress shirt in the rhythm of his shuddering. “So, how bad can this be?”

He groaned, elbows beneath him, and arched against her in full surrender, hands flying around her and digging into her ass to press her down against him harder. Because apparently, he decided it wasn’t bad at all, and that yes, this was fucking beautiful.

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Author’s Notes Anyway, classic lit is lit and I’d love to go to a Sōseki play any day lol, just like I’d happily buy all the manga and doujinshi, just saying. Also, as I was agonizing over a title for this, I found a great song that fit this fic quite perfectly: 6LACK: Outside. It’s by a black artist singing about wanting to play outside - really the epitome of a 2020 song, and it’s amazing! - and it was only when I listened to it that I saw what I had done writing this lol… how I tragically wrote a fic set entirely outside without even noticing, while I am firmly stuck inside in 2020 because that’s what responsible people do this year, and no wonder my subconscious wanted to write this so dearly lol. Anyway lol. I hope you have fun with this, and I’d love to hear from you.

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In Public Additional Tropes: Go Seduce My Archnemesis Contains: (light) Intoxication, Seducing Someone Else’s Date/Bf, Girl-on-Girl Hate Ship: Mamoru x Beryl, Usamamo

Cockblocking 101: Don’t Sleep With Your Target by moonlightusa

She didn’t like him one bit.

Not the way he dressed (like, what is it with that stupid ugly jacket?!) or the way his eyes narrowed juuuust enough that she could actually feel the mutual distain. No – there was way, way more to it than that.

Usagi sipped at her Bellini, a drink she would normally reserve for brunch, but today was fucking awful so why the hell not get something that would make her smile. She had hoped the combination of sweet peach puree and Prosecco would have improved her mood. But of course, the universe had to have other plans. Because across the way, in a perfectly lit alcove where you could have one hell of a good time, was Chiba Mamoru.

It wasn’t that she hated the guy. It was just that they never seemed to be on the same page. From the way he always seemed to pop up around her friends

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(hell, he even briefly dated Rei) to their constant verbal spats, she was never able to connect with him the way that she did with… well, just about everyone else. Any time they were thrown together (which seemed to be a lot?), it always ended in utter disaster.

“You’ll never guess who’s here.”

Minako immediately turned around to scan the crowd of the boutique club, baby blues piqued with curiosity. “Who?” “Chiba-san. In the cove,” Usagi’s glare cut across the room.

“Oooh. Who’s he with?”

Usagi’s eyes narrowed even further as she catalogued the scene. In the dark, it was a little hard to discern her features, but Usagi could easily see the woman’s ridiculously long legs and too-short dress. Usagi shifted, the feel of her faux leather leggings suddenly weighing on her mind. It’s not like she came out with the intention of seducing a man. She needed a girl’s night out, and such an outfit at twenty-five years old included high waisted leggings and a dressy crop, not a dress that ended at your vag. She had felt cute – sexy even – when she left her house and arrived. After all, it’s not like their group didn’t turn a head or two on arrival. But compared to Sexy McLegs over there… she started to question herself.

“No clue,” Usagi finally replied. “Can’t really make her out. So damn dark over there. But whoever she is, she definitely plans on going home with him tonight.”

“Let me see, let me see!” Makoto chimed in, scrutinizing the room until she focused on the alcove. “Wait a sec. Isn’t… isn’t that Beryl?”

A collective wave of groans errupted from the party of five.

“Great, if he thinks he’s bringing that hussy around us again, he’s got another thing coming!” Rei chimed in. “I can’t stand that bitch!”

“Rei, if Mamoru-san is bringing her around again, it must be for a good reason.” Ami mused. “Especially after last time.”

Aaah, last time. When psycho bitch Beryl stormed into the Crown and threw a toddler level tantrum over feeling “abandoned.” That she was sick of Mamoru choosing school and Motoki over her, and he would ‘pay’ if he didn’t pick her. Like, a total ultimatum: school or Beryl. And when he, of fucking course, picked school, she dumped the remnants of some poor customer’s smoothie all over his school notes.

Safe to say, they all thought she was ancient history.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Usagi sneered. “She’s a total psycho bitch! There HAS to be a reason he’s here with her. Has to be!”

“Yeah, probably that he wants to get his dick wet,” Makoto slyly remarked.

Rei rolled her eyes. “Really? Don’t be gross.”

Makoto hummed as she twirled her straw. “You dated him, not me.”

“Hardly. And not gross him; gross her. Them… together. Just, gross.”

Usagi shook her head at the whole thing. Why in Kami’s name was he here with her, of all people? There were tens of THOUSANDS of women who would 99

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throw themselves at him given the chance, and he had to pick Beryl?! Again?! No fucking way was she letting that nonsense happen.

Usagi drained the contents of her glass. With a smack of her lips and a flutter of her heart, she stood up off the bench. “That’s it. I’m going over there.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m not letting that dumbass get his shit all mixed up with her again. No fucking way. I’m not having that skank anywhere near us again.”

“You’re gonna cockblock him?!” Minako laughed. “Seriously?!”

“Yeahhhhhhhh Usagi!” Makoto cheered with a toast. “Send that troll running back to the cave she came from!”

“Yes, please yes,” Rei laughed as she clinked glasses with Makoto. “I’d love to watch that bitch get knocked down a peg or two.”

Usagi felt her confidence rise the she even elicited a small grin from Ami. “Alright ladies, I’m ready for duty.” Standing tall (5’2” in her stilettos and damn proud), hips swaying and tresses bouncing, Usagi made her presence known. She could feel eyes on her – the girls, the bartender, even some of the customers – but she was dead set on the mission. As she approached, there was no mistaking the woman beside Mamoru. It took everything in Usagi to not roll her eyes at Beryl’s obvious signals - her arm wrapped around him, breasts pushed against his bicep and practically falling out of her dress. Classy. Mamoru, with his long fingers curled around his glass, didn’t seem to be too effected. Or maybe he was. Hell, either way it was going to be fun ruining his evening.

Usagi slid a hand on the table and cocked her hip. “Well, well, well; look who we have here. Really, Chiba; Turrato’s on a Wednesday?”

Mamoru’s gaze slid from his drink to her face, midnight blue that could make any women’s knees buckle (but not hers; no, never ever hers). “Ahh, Odango Atama. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She smiled and tossed him a casual shrug. “Can’t a girl just say hi?”

“Girl, yes. You…?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Usagi turned her attention to the seething red head beside him. “Beryl.”

“Usagi.”

“So!” Usagi exclaimed as she slipped into the alcove. “Come here often?”

“As a matter of fact I—” “You know I don’t,” Mamoru replied before sipping at the amber liquid.

“Such a shame. It’s a great place. Good drinks, solid menu.”

“Excuse me, what—” “Yeah, if you like paying for overpriced liquor.”

“Which I know you’re more than happy to do!” Usagi exclaimed as she placed a hand on his bicep. “Garçon! Another round of drinks!” she shouted to the waiter, who stared at her quizzically.

“Who do you th—" “You don’t have a drink.”

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“Aww, you’re buying?! Thanks, Chiba. I’ll take a peach Bellini, please and thanks!” she called out to the waiter, who continued to look puzzled.

“A Bellini? Really?”

“So?” Mamoru gave her a knowing stare. “What? They’re good.”

“And I’m paying for this?”

“Um, you offered, duh.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Oh yes you did,” Usagi replied, tapping her finger up his arm with each word for effect. She did her best not to cackle as Mamoru shifted his body towards her, Beryl temporarily forgotten during their little exchange. Hehe . Hehehehehe .

“Besides,” she added, “what fun would it be if you’re the only one drinking here?”

“Um he’s NOT—” “Isn’t a Bellini a breakfast drink?”

“Not when you’re in Venice.”

“And you’ve been to Venice to know this?”

Usagi wrinkled her nose. “Of course not. But you of all people should know that I’ve studied food way more than anyone on the planet. Therefore, this knowledge is entirely valid.”

Mamoru laughed. “Valid, you say?”

“Of course. Everything I say is valid.”

“Is it, now?”

He burst into laughter at her glare and playful shove. This is way too easy.

“Don’t be mean!”

“Oh please,” he countered. “This is far from mean.”

“Maybe, but—” “Excuse me, but who the hell do you think you are?!” Beryl erupted, her hands slamming down on the table for good measure.

“Tsukino Usagi?” She smirked when she heard Mamoru let out a snort, only to try and cover it up with a clearing of his throat.

“I don’t mean literally, bitch,” Beryl sneered.

“Oh, well, if you don’t mean literally,” Usagi shrugged, “I’m here to see Mamoru-san.”

“The hell you are.”

Usagi propped her chin on her fist, knees towards him as she lengthened her torso, elbow brushing against his forearm. She batted her eyelashes at him before shifting back to Beryl. “Oh, I really am.”

“Mamoru!” Beryl screeched before swatting his arm. “The fuck?!”

“Oh Beryl it’s fine, let Usa—Odango join us for just one. Right?” he replied, his eyes skimming Beryl before turning back to her. Usagi returned a cheeky smile, inwardly enjoying Beryl’s turmoil as Mamoru continued to pay more attention to her.

Was she mistaken, or did Mamoru check her out just a moment ago?

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Nah. Usagi twirled a loose piece of hair around her finger. “So why are you here?

Thank you,” she added as the waitress placed the flute in front of her, garnished with a peach slice. Usagi picked off the fruit, closing her eyes as she savored the delicacy of the ripened peach. Juice dribbled down her chin, but before she had a chance to react, Mamoru’s finger brushed against her chin.

“Messy odango,” he smirked. “Can’t even eat fruit without causing a mess.”

Usagi was about to toss a retort his way, except that Mamoru had to go and place his finger in his mouth and suck at it. Fuck — that ’ s hot.

Usagi focused on his lips, and at this moment could not think of a single thing more attractive than Mamoru sucking peach nectar off his index finger. It was tantalizing. It was erotic. It was-No! Stop it, baka! This is Chiba! CHIBA. Stop it! Now! “Shut up,” Usagi stumbled out before hastily tossing the last of the fruit in her mouth. “Peaches are juicy,” she reasoned between bites.

“Indeed, they are.”

Usagi swallowed the fruit and quickly washed it down with her drink. Get. A. Grip! You cannot be affected by this man.

“So,” Usagi leaned in, “what is it that you’re drinking?”

“Blanton’s, neat.”

“Gross.”

“That’s because you’re an uncultured swine,” Beryl bit in before snaking Mamoru’s glass out of his hand. “Only a real woman knows how to sip on some bourbon and actually like it.” Usagi rolled her eyes as Beryl slurped at Mamoru’s drink. When she replaced the empty glass in front of him, she learned her head against his shoulder.

“Really, Beryl?” Mamoru chided as he shrugged her off him. “Why’d you do that?”

Beryl straightened. “Do what?”

“Why do you have to be like that? That’s not a cheap drink. Damn!”

Mamoru groaned as he placed the empty glass at the edge of the booth. “Not cool or ladylike, as a matter of fact,” he added, causing Usagi to chortle into her glass.

Beryl rolled her eyes. “Oh please,” she huffed. “At least I’m not snorting like Miss Piggy over there.”

Usagi looked up from her drink, about to go all warrior princess on Beryl’s ass, except that she didn’t even get the chance to.

“Beryl, I think it’s best you go now.”

“But, baby!”

“Now.” All Usagi could hear was the pulsing of the music, followed by the crunch of a body shifting down the cushion, ending the performance with heels stomping across the floor.

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“Fuck you, Chiba Mamoru,” Beryl spat as she slid her purse against her arm. “I’m too good for you anyway. And you,” she motioned toward Usagi, who did her best to remain stoic as she held on to the stem of her glass, “go fuck yourself.”

She knew she shouldn’t say anything but, man, she hated the bitch! “Okay!”

Usagi exclaimed in a sing-song voice, ending with a toothy grin and a flirtatious wink. When Beryl stormed off in a huff, Usagi and Mamoru broke out in unanimous laughter.

“That bitch is craaaaaaaaa-zee!” Usagi proclaimed as she raised a glass to her path of destruction.

“Uh, yeah, no kidding,” Mamoru shook his head before pointing to the waiter at his empty glass. “Not that you were any help!”

Usagi gaped before placing her fingers against her collarbone in mock shock. “Moi? No!” Mamoru tipped his head back before rolling his neck. “Oh, yeah, like none of this was intentional.”

“Psh, so what if it was?”

“I guess I’d wonder why you would do that.”

Usagi shrugged. “Because she’s a psychopath?”

He shook his head. “No, no; I think there’s more to it than that.”

“Oh, really now?”

“Yup. You wanted to get me all alone, didn’t you?” Mamoru smirked as he reached for his refill.

Usagi recoiled in mock-obvious fashion, adding in a playful shove for good measure. “Puh- lease ! Usagi sipped at her drink before placing the near-empty glass in front of her. “She’s not good for you is all.”

“She’s not?”

Usagi sucked in a fortifying breath before she shook her head. There was something in his voice. So… husky. Deep. An octave that made her panties twitch.

“No.” Mamoru shifted in his seat. “And why do you care who is good for me?”

“Because,” Usagi stammered, “you’re my friend.”

Mamoru let out a quick chuckle, the twitch became a tingle. “Oh really?”

“Like, in the weirdest, quasi-est sense of the word,” she quickly deflected before placing her hand on his forearm once more. “Regardless of what I mean to you or you mean to me, you shouldn’t be with someone like her . ” Mamoru’s eyes flicked from her hand back up to her face and Usagi’s heart skipped a beat. “No?” She pressed her lips together, her fingertips twitching at the feel of his blazer against her skin. “No,” she answered softly.

Usagi, what are you doing? You successfully did it. Beryl ’ s gone. Get up. Go. Mamoru’s thumb traced the swell of her bottom lip, still in the ‘o’ formation. When had he moved so close to her? Or did she? Wasn’t she closer to the exit when this all started?

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Go. Usagi nibbled her lip, doing her best to reign in whatever emotion was pooling in her core right now. This was Chiba Mamoru. Chiba freakin’ Mamoru with the arrogant attitude. Made her angrier than a honey badger on a mission. Teased her relentlessly and would intentionally seek her out, just to make sure he got in his daily jab.

Go! His knee slid against hers beneath the table and she couldn’t help but press back against it. The space between them was closing, and quickly, especially when he focused on her lips for a heartbeat too long. Her tongue darted against her lips before Usagi took a final breath.

GO! NOW! Their lips met. Firm, open lips pressed against each other with intensity.

Her whole body tingled as she tasted him – bourbon and something else that was oh so delicious, as she scraped her hands through his inky black tresses. Mamoru’s hand slid from her cheek to her collarbone, over her breast and down to her hips, where he grasped her with intent. They mutually broke apart, Usagi’s head lolling as his lips traced her collarbone. When his hands moved from her hips to her ass, she let out a low groan as he gave it a squeeze. She found herself hoisted into his lap, erection greeting her against their respective barriers.

She rocked against him, a ragged but oh-so-sexy groan coming from Mamoru as she claimed his lips once more. His left hand continued to grasp her buttocks while his other traveled up the length of her torso, fingers flirting with the hemline of her fitted crop. As it became obvious she wasn’t going to stop him, he slipped his hand underneath. She moaned in response to the contact, the compressive fabric of her top making the sensation that much more intense. Her head tipped back as he ran his thumb against a sensitive nipple, sending a jolt through her core while she rocked against him. Usagi’s mind barely registered the sudden feel of cool air against her bare breast, marveling at the sheer eroticism as Mamoru took her into his mouth and sucked.

“Mamo-“ she moaned as she grasped his hair, her hips bucking and grinding against him.The material of her leggings allowed her to slide against him with ease. Only, if he didn’t stop soon… hell, if she didn’t stop…

“Mamoru,” Usagi whimpered softly. Her breath ragged and heart racing from the intensity of the moment and the anguish of having to stop it. She pressed her hands on his chest as he slipped her top back into place. Except, he wasn’t quite done; slinking his hand up her neck and against her nape to drag her in for another hard-pressed, bourbon-laced kiss. She gripped his lapels with a moan as his thumb – perfectly positioned mere inches from her arousal – massaged little circles that elevated the tingle to a full-on rolling pulse. No space was left between them as they gripped at each other, and it was fucking amazing.

As Mamoru’s hand begins its descent down the plane of her back, Usagi couldn’t help but tremble from the trail of his fingertips, tantalizingly slow, lower 104

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and lower. Her lips quivered when they separated, swollen from the intensity from his kisses. Never in a million years did she think she would be on the receiving end of these glorious, amazing, panty-dropping kisses. From the way his chest was rising, his eyes half-lidded with a hunger that mirrored her own, she knew he felt the same way. Because in what world would anyone ever think they would ever, ever, eeeeeever hook up?!

They continued to stare at each other, synchronized panting drowning out the music in the background. Usagi was sure there were a million reasons why she should walk away, but nothing was coming to mind. No, she wanted him – needed him. His hands all over her, touching her, grabbing her, stroking her in places that only he could satisfy.

“Usa,” he mumbled, “what.. what…”

She bit her lip as his hand continued to trace the hollow above her leggings, his thumb occasionally tugging at the form-fitting material. What are we doing? Clearly, the question was on his mind, too. And though she could probably think of a million and one reasons, only one response came to mind.

“Your place or mine?”

Mamoru startled, but quickly rallied by grabbing his wallet and throwing random bills onto the table. Usagi hardly had time to slide out his lap before he tugged at her arm, exiting the booth in haste. After snatching up her clutch, Usagi clasped Mamoru’s hand, the two of them all but running to the doorway.

“Soooo,” Minako began as she patted her hands against her thighs, “think Usagi-chan succeeded?”

Four sets of eyes turned their attention to the dark booth, their jaws dropping almost immediately. There were arch nemeses Usagi and Mamoru, hand in hand, dashing for the doorway. They all gasped when suddenly Mamoru pressed Usagi against the wall, his mouth fastened to her as if she was his life support. But it was the moment when Usagi slid her heeled leg up his, aided by a firm grasp of his hand on her upper thigh, that they blushed and averted their stares.

Rei was the first to laugh, dropping back into her seat as she clapped her hands against her cheeks. “No way! No fucking way!!!” she cried out in amazement.

“Woah! Usagi!” Makoto saluted. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”

“It’s about damn time,” Minako grinned. As the giggles tapered off, Ami pulled out her phone and tapped at the screen.

“Excuse me, Ami-chan, but your happiness is right here,” Minako teased with a wink. “Who you messaging?”

“Just sending Usagi something really quick.”

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“Nooo Ami, don’t discourage this!” Rei cried out. “I swear if these two don’t finally fuck—" “No, no, nothing like that. Just a friendly piece of advice.”

“A friendly token?”

“No glove, no love,” Ami shrugged as she put her phone back into her purse. The four girls broke out in giggles as they watched Usagi and Mamoru slip out of the club and into the night.

Author’s Notes This is my very first time participating in Smutember, mainly because I feel like when it comes to my writing skills on the citrus scale, I barely scrape a lime 99% of the time. However, with these amazing prompts put together by the fabulous FloraOne, I was bitten by the smut muse and couldn't help but put this together! My hope is to have at least one more chapter, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this prompt: a blend of 'seduce my archnemisis' and 'in public'. It's not a full on lemon, but there's definitely plenty of action.

Thank you so much to aurorafiberarts for her exceptional editing and turnaround.

I hope you all enjoy!

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In Public Additional Tropes: Established (New) Relationship Contains: Penis-In-Vagina Sex, Shower Sex, Unprotected Sex (?)

Ship: MinaKunz

Strawberries and Syrup

by VenusUnchained

“More.” She rasped, trying to be quiet and failing when he thrust harder, deeper, and she whimpered loudly against her bit lip to keep from crying out. His hands grasped firmly into her hips, torn underwear hanging limp and sad around her thigh, and the cold porcelain of the restaurant sink bit into her ass every time he pushed his cock into her sodden entrance. With everything she had, Mina met each of his thrusts with desperate hips, a gluttonous want to feel every inch she could without ruining his slacks. He’d barely undone them really, just pulled himself through the open zipper, and plunged himself inside of her raw.

“Shhh…” Khai hushed, kissing his forehead to hers, unable to smother the fire in his grey eyes with all of that seriousness. Not when he was so deep inside of her, enveloped completely by the hot depth of her while the strap of her cute yellow dress fell down off of her shoulder, freeing one of her breasts, jerking with 108

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each turbulent movement. No, this was perhaps the only time his eyes looked so wild and untamed, almost dangerous with their intensity. So much for not ruining his slacks. “We need to hurry.”

“But you feel so good.” Mina shuttered as she rolled her hips on his slick cock and pleaded with her eyes. It wasn’t her fault he decided to slip his hand up her dress in the cab on the way there, edging and fucking her with his fingers the way he was currently fucking her on the bathroom sink of a five star restaurant.

Probably payback for the black thigh highs she’d chosen to wear knowing full well the sight of her skin beneath them would send Khai over the edge. Stockings that were now rolling down her thighs as they moved and her muscles clenched around his waist. She supposed they were even. They’d barely been seated before she dragged him into the bathroom of a very familiar restaurant, and locked the door. “Don’t stop..”

“Mina..” Khai gasped, clearly ready to combust when she slipped her hand down the back of his pants and dug her fingernails into his buttcheek, moaning when his hips snapped sharply forward.

He kissed her then, trying to drown both of their mounting cries with his tongue. It was just one of those nights, perhaps marking an anniversary of the night they met, but Mina was insatiable, and Khai daring in his subtle, or not so subtle way if Mamoru’s Christmas party had been anything to go by. It started with a glance when he picked her up for the evening, and from there a series of touches accompanied those sidelong glances and long, inappropriate kisses. They couldn’t stop touching, tasting, or feasting on the sight of the other. And they hadn’t even ordered dinner yet.

Lipstick smeared onto her cheek, it was smeared on his shirt and mouth, and probably her neck from where Khai had clamped his lips against her pulse and likely marked her pale flesh. Mina clawed his suit jacket, his hair, the sides of the sink to keep from falling in when he slammed his hips against hers in a desperate race toward the end. She tried to dilute her moans into ragged breaths as the tension between her thighs began its rapturous crescendo.

The door rattled, punctuated by the knock of someone trying to enter the men’s room. Mina giggled softly, tensing her thighs around Khai’s hips to keep him from pulling away when she was ready to die a not so little death. “God don’t stop...Please don’t stop..”

He growled, fueled by her whispered pleas, kissing her hard with a fistful of her once pristine hair, and this time her moan echoed against the stalls. The commotion beyond the door made certain they’d have to hurry, but the thrill of being caught seeming to only arouse Khai even more. “I want to feel you…”

“You too.” Mina said breathily with an invitation in her deepened blue eyes.

She reached between their frantic hips and stroked her very swollen and sensitive clit with the pads of her fingers the way she liked it, sliding over slippery flesh making certain to stroke the thick length of him between her fingers as he 109

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pounded deep inside of her more feverishly. It was his turn to moan, only Khai would clench his jaw to contain it into another low growl as he pulled back to watch. The added stimulation serving both of them with new sights and sensations.

Time was against them, but it was enough.

The onslaught of pleasure came like a freefall, crashing down so destructively that it stole her breath. It burst and spread through her shaking limbs as she came with a vengeance, back arched, fingers grasping and digging into his hair and clothes as she shuttered and pulsed around the thick girth of him. Khai had tried to smother her euphoria with distracted kisses, even offering the shoulder of the pristine suit jacket he wore for her to bite down on as she clung to him for dear life.

Mina dragged him down with her, pulsing so violently around his hard and intrusive cock that he bent forward, grasping her body against his suit-clad chest when he came only a moment after her. Khai stilled, hips stuttering as the warmth of him spread inside of her and spilled over the edge of the sink, his release coming in growls and groans between clenched teeth. Neither of them were quiet.

The restaurant manager was thoroughly embarrassed, as one is when they enter the men’s room of their establishment to find a couple barely dressed and highly disheveled, but glowing and grinning ear to ear in the aftermath of a clearly rigorous session. Khai let her duck into one of the stalls to clean up and make herself presentable while he spoke to the poor man with the diplomatic grace and clarity that men only seem to gain after a soul-shattering orgasm.

Mina was only grateful the manager didn’t call the cops, but she suspected the fact that Khai was a very prestigious client of theirs had a lot to do with them getting off by simply being asked to leave. After getting off. As painfully serious as he could be, she suspected that with his natural sharpness came a certain unassuming self-awareness and charisma that had gotten the man out of more trouble in his life than he’d ever admit to. Although naturally, as quick-witted as Khai was, she still assumed that the orgasm helped.

An amused silence had fallen between them, almost smug as they spilled out onto the sidewalk with mussed up hair and rubbery legs. The night’s air was fresh in her lungs but chilled against her skin, still sheened with sweat and Mina pulled her cropped faux leather jacket tighter around her bare arms. The fact that she’d left her torn underwear on the bathroom floor helped nothing, but she figured the guy that had interrupted them might like a souvenir.

Khai was still adjusting his tie, pulling his suit jacket down over his crotch with the hopes of hiding any potential stains. They made a pair alright. Lipstick smudged along his neck and the collar of his grey shirt, a telling story of the way her lips had traveled. Mina had no way to hide the purple hickeys, one on her neck and the other on her left breast in a place she couldn’t conceal based on the low neckline of her dress.

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“So, what now?” He asked, running a hand over his long silver hair to smooth it, immediately having to pull down the jacket of his suit again. His brows raised slightly as he gave her a once over with his eyes, seemingly almost proud of his work. Mina smirked, mocking as she narrowed her eyes at him and let her hair down out of the very messed up half ponytail she’d styled it in.

“Diner?” She offered, sauntering toward him to lace her arms low around his waist. “I could go for some pancakes.”

“What about my place?” Khai gave her that look that melted her soul, a mixture of mere subtle shifts of his lips, a lukewarm heat in his affectionate stare.

Mina stared back almost defiantly until his lip quirked a bit more, rewarding her with the dimple in his cheek. “I will make you pancakes.”

“Deal.” She agreed, smiling excitedly. They’d been officially dating for a few weeks, their friends still recovering from the shock, and she had yet to see his apartment.

The plan had been a post-Christmas date, dinner at his place, but as Khai had warned her, he was extraordinarily busy with the opening of the Tokyo branch for his business and asked her to reschedule. The New Year came and went, and contrary to his previous thought, Hotel Century did allow him to book a room since his company threw a big party that of course included all of their friends as well as a rather substantial price tag for the establishment. Khai wasn’t exactly a ‘money talks’ kind of guy but when it counted he used his status toward good things, and always kept quiet about it. They had made good use of that room too, sloppy and drunk, only this time kept the damages to a minimum.

He felt bad enough for missing their date that he thought a fancy dinner would make up for it, though the thought of him flipping pancakes for her was so much better. “We really need to work on this dating thing.”

“I don’t know.” She smirked as Khai hailed a cab, pausing to allow the automatic door to open. “Being spontaneous works for us.”

His brow quirked. “I’ve never been spontaneous in my life.”

“Oh?” She inquired, knowingly, eyes shifting back toward the restaurant.

“Yes, I know. You are proving to be very dangerous for me.” Khai said dryly, slipping into the cab beside her, giving the driver his address.

His apartment was exactly what Mina thought it would be. Spacious, full of clean lines and contrasting neutral greys, black, and white with stainless steel appliances and tall windows with a killer view of Tokyo Tower. Khai was also more traditional, and Mina paused in the genkan to slip out of her four inch heels dwarfing herself, before daring to step further into his apartment. It looked like a photo for GQ magazine, much like the man himself.

“So do I get a tour?” She asked, looking all around to try and find a personal touch anywhere, hands folded in front of her for fear of touching anything. She stepped to the window, well aware of his eyes on her back while he shrugged out of his suit jacket and tie. If she hadn’t been there she suspected he

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would have put them away, but instead he draped them over the back of a leather chair by a very modern linear fireplace.

“If you want.” He said quietly, his stare unwavering on her as he lit the fireplace with a remote.

Mina turned slowly, the intensity of his gaze sending a chill down her spine.

A quality about Khai that she loved, basked in, cherished, was his ability to hyperfixate on her regardless of what was going on in his life. Contrary to his previous admissions that he never did that in previous relationships, she thought he was doing just fine, currently undressing her with his eyes as she stood against the backdrop of the city. The whole wide world out there, and all Khai wanted to do was stare at her.

“I’d like that.” Mina said, stockinged feet padding back toward him on the cold hardwood floor. His grey eyes trailed her as though somehow she’d fascinated him. “What?”

“Hm?” “You’re staring.” She giggled, nudging his side playfully. “I must look like a mess.”

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” That intensity again, the way his hand brushed her hair behind her ear, fingertips down her arm so he could lace his fingers with hers. Mina thought this must be what it was like to fall. Really fall for someone. Khai’s lips quirked, perhaps at the raging flush that crept from her neck all the way up to her hairline, or maybe it was something he said. “This is the living room, obviously.”

“Beautiful view.” She said, only she was no longer paying attention to the indeed spectacular view outside, but at him.

“Right, the tour.” He said, clearing his throat and pulling her deeper into the apartment. “The kitchen is through there,” Khai said, gesturing to their left to a small but posh little kitchen with dark wood and marble accented by stainless steel appliances. “Pardon the mess, but this is supposed to be the dining room, but I just use it for work.”

If this was a mess, Mina was glad he hadn’t chosen to come up to her apartment when he picked her up that night. There was a dining room table, papers neatly stacked and files organized in holders surrounded a laptop where the messiest thing about it was the coffee cup still sitting on the glass table, likely from earlier that morning.

“Charming.” She replied, smirking up at him since he’d described her apartment as such during their Christmas reunion. He didn’t seem to notice, only led her forward by the hand toward a small hallway.

“There’s a half bath through there, and then my room.”

Mina found herself pulled into a large room with more large windows draped with thick blackout curtains that were pulled open to another gorgeous view. She could see the park from there if she looked hard enough, the building where Mamoru, and soon Usagi lived… but that didn’t remain her focus for long.

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Khai pulled her face to look up at him with two gentle fingers beneath her chin, bending to capture her lips so sweetly she thought her knees might fail her and even after it was over her eyes didn’t want to open for fear that it wasn’t real.

She caught him studying her when they did open, grey eyes clear against the dim light of the city that filtered into the dimly lit space.

Behind them, a king sized bed was made, an expensive watch on the bedside table along with a pair of reading glasses and the leather bound edition of “The Art of War” she’d gifted him over the holidays. The old, cynical Mina would have thought it to be staged, and it might have been had they originally planned to come to his apartment, but whoever she’d become after meeting Khai, this better version of herself, was touched.

She smiled and kissed him again, briefly despite the night growing more intimate than it already had. “It’s beautiful here.”

“But?” “But nothing.” Mina smiled wider, more mischievous. “It could use some color. And your living area is the size of my entire apartment so…”

Khai rolled his eyes, squeezing her hand, and leading her toward another door within his room. “My bathroom, and closet. That’s the tour.”

Mina peaked in the luxurious glass and marble bathroom, eyebrows raised, impressed if not a little jealous. The apartment was small but spacious at the same time, oozing with too much money, but gorgeous. She was almost glad that their initial plans to have dinner at his place had been delayed, knowing a few months ago it might have made her feel insecure but he gave her something no other man before him ever had. Effort.

Khai was always upfront and honest with her about his shortcomings in relationships, and true to his word he at least called her every day just to catch up.

Was terrible at sexting, but it never failed that she’d wake up to a text every morning that simply said ‘Good Morning Beautiful.’

“It’ll do.” She joked, spinning on her toes to face him. “It does suit you though.”

“Boring?” He raised his brow and Mina laughed.

“Hardly. I love it.”

“Do you?” He asked, and for some reason, her breath caught in her throat.

Their eyes danced for a moment and Mina swallowed hard.

“I…” Grrrrrrr.

Rudely, her stomach replied for her. Khai’s easy laugh lifting the tension that grew between them.

“It’s getting late. I owe you pancakes.” He raised their joined hands, pressing a kiss to her knuckles with a somewhat knowing gleam in his eyes. What it was he knew, her hunger or...whatever just happened, made her stomach knot with more than just hunger.

Mina only nodded in response, smiling though her cheeks burned, and together they walked back into the living space. Khai let go of her hand to 113

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rummage in the kitchen while she slowly meandered around the apartment full of clean lines and sparse furnishings. There were some large shelving units containing a lot of old books, some movies, and a rather eclectic music selection.

Something she remembered from their first conversation but was eager to explore.

“Can I put some music on?” She called out, fingering a few CDs which were slowly becoming an archaic form of media but even she still had a decent selection leftover from her teenage years. Her parents always lamented about vinyls and how there was nothing like listening to an old record. Mina felt very much the same about CDs. “Sure.” He replied, somewhat reluctantly as it was established that music was one area that they had little in common. She chose something instrumental, something to set the mood really. A neutral choice they could both agree on. Just because they were at his place making pancakes for dinner instead of some fancy restaurant across town sipping wine, didn’t mean the night shouldn’t be romantic.

Softly the music filtered through a surround sound system and Mina mosied toward the kitchen where Khai was mixing batter in a large bowl. The sleeves of his dark collared shirt were rolled up to his elbows and he’d pulled his long hair back into a low ponytail. Adorably, smudges of flour on his tawny skin and pristine clothes really tore down his stuffy businessman exterior for something far more approachable. She liked to think she was one of very few that got to see that side of him.

“You do this often?” Mina asked, leaning in the entryway, head tilted to admire him.

He smiled in a fond manner she hadn’t seen before, testing the consistency of his batter with a spoon. “Have you ever had cizlemes?”

“Pardon?”

“I’ll take that as a no. Cizlemes are a kind of pancake my mother used to make for breakfast on the weekends. I used to help her in the kitchen growing up and thought you might enjoy it. And yes, you can still douse them in syrup if you insist on it.”

Enjoy it? She was absolutely touched by the gesture. “I’m so glad we got kicked out of that restaurant.”

Khai chuckled, seemingly more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. “I can’t say I have any complaints about the course of the evening.”

“Want me to cut strawberries?” Mina asked, gesturing toward a freshly rinsed bundle sitting in a colander in the sink.

“I blame you, but I always seem to have them in the house now. I have since I moved in. I’d love the help, thank you.”

“I’ll take that blame.” She said, cheeks warm beneath the glance he gave her over his shoulder. She selected a knife and began to slice, knowing he’d moved in far before their reunion. He’d eaten a lot of strawberries since then if she had to guess and Mina was shamelessly happy to know how deeply she’d gotten 114

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under his skin after the first night. Mostly because he’d gotten so deeply under hers.

“I wouldn’t want to blame anyone else.” Khai replied fondly.

“So, is this a Turkish recipe? Long time family secret?” She asked, genuinely curious after many long conversations about holidays, customs, and even a hefty debate about religion. They’d even discussed love and soulmates in gross depth long into the early morning hours over the phone one night. Mina never quite got over how adorable it was that he fell asleep. Even more attracted to his ability to delve into such deep and philosophical topics fearlessly. No judgments between them no matter how they disagreed.

Khai did laugh a little in his throat, flipping one of the thin pancakes. “I thought so, for a long time. We were hosting my Uncle for a long weekend once and he shattered my entire world.”

“Sounds serious.”

The stove sizzled behind her, a warm scent wafting into the air, adding a homey touch to the museum-like apartment. “Nothing life-altering, but they’re really just crepes. A recipe more best known in Thrace.”

“Sooo Greek?”

“No.” He bit with playful disdain. “Well… it’s an interesting place.

Somewhere in the middle of Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria. It’s beautiful.”

“Ah yes,” she giggled, “To be so cultured.”

“We should go some time.” He said absently, followed by the snapping shut of his jaw that was almost audible. He was too busy pouring a ladle of batter into the pan when she turned around to look. Khai’s jaw was clenched, his ears red.

Mina turned back to what she was doing when the silence fell between them, humming along to the music, swaying to the instrumental version of some popular song from when she was little while she cut the berries down to sizes suitable for pancakes. Gazing out between the cabinets and the sink to the glittering skyline of Tokyo beyond the windows, she smiled.

Everything still had that new feeling to it, a little awkward at times because emotions are strange like that when relationships are still newer but it felt more like their private clubhouse than his apartment. Then again home was different for everyone and for her, it felt more and more like wherever Khai was.

“Hey Khai,” Mina said once the berries were washed and cut and her task for the moment was done. “Do you remember what you asked me that first night?”

“I asked you many things.” He replied, turning to face her while keeping a close eye on the stove.

“You asked me if the night was too young for love.” She lifted one of the strawberries toward his lips, resting the pad of her finger against them when they parted to accept the treat. Khai merely looked at her, puzzled, and she almost missed it for staring at his mouth. “Well, it’s not.”

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He swallowed hard and Mina only quirked her lips in a manner that usually spelled trouble, turned on her heel, and sauntered out into the living room. Khai cursed softly, having burned one of the crepes.

The fire was warm, welcoming, and Mina propped herself up on a very modern version of what should have been an armchair. Up so high, it was like the Moon had dropped lower in the sky just for them, basking in the pale yellow glow while the music added a more dream-like quality to the night. She felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. So much so that it terrified her, thrilled her, like being swept away by a perfect stranger. Two souls in love before they knew a thing about the other.

Like a proper waiter, Khai balanced two plates on his hands, setting them down on a glass coffee table in front of the fire where Mina sidled to join him on a sofa that matched the chair she previously occupied. He bent to kiss the crown of her hair, moving the armchair out of the way so she could see the view if she wanted, and ran back into the kitchen to grab syrup, strawberries, some honey, strawberry jam, and some kind of white cheese like feta. It was placed on a platter like a fancy restaurant might, and accompanied by mimosas, a pleasant surprise.

“It’s not every day I get to cook for someone.” He observed, leaning forward to artfully spoon some white cheese and strawberries onto the thin spongy cakes, drizzling just a touch of honey on top.

“It’s far more romantic than our original plans.” Mina said.

“I’m glad,” Khai replied, offering a forkful of his dish. “Try it. I doubt it’s sweet enough for you but this is just how I remember it growing up.”

He was partially right, but it almost tasted like strawberry cheesecake, only a little more savory. It was delicious. Maybe more so when he fed it to her like that, grey eyes locked on her lips. He was right though, she was craving something sweeter. “Is there anything you don’t do well? This is amazing Khai.”

He chuckled in reply, melting on the spot when he took a bite for himself, exhaling slowly as though he re-lived a million childhood memories. Taking compliments wasn’t exactly his strong suit either, but Mina figured she could work on that. Thoughts for later, as she earned an exasperated smile from Khai when she loaded hers up with cheese, strawberry jam, loads of syrup, and topped with strawberries. Worth it for that dimple in his cheek.

Mina prattled on about her day, enjoying the sugary sweet crepes that were more spongy and delicious than other ones she’d had, making a mental note that Khai was never allowed off the hook when it came to breakfast on the weekends if he could make these.

After all, they didn’t see each other much. A quick lunch here and there, a night out on a weekend that usually resulted in them crashing at her place or some hotel nearby depending on how much they’d had to drink with dinner. Lots of phone calls, and like now as she rambled, he listened without judgment.

“So, there’s an audition.” She said finally, poking at the soggy strawberry on her plate before forking the syrup coated fruit into her mouth.

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“Are you trying out? You should, you know. If you want it.”

“Think so? It’s been a long time since I even tried. I guess I just got comfortable.” She shrugged, startled by the subtle kindness in his face when she turned to look at him.

“Being uncomfortable means you’re learning or trying to press forward.”

“Please don’t start quoting The Art of War.” Mina teased. Khai raised his hands in defeat and opted for a sip of his mimosa.

“I’m only saying that if you still want to be an idol, this could be your shot.

What role is it for?”

“One of those original movies that streaming services produce. Nothing huge but I guess these days it’s a pretty big step. It’s for a lead though, one of those murder mysteries. A modern noir type thing.”

“You’d be perfect.” He said, leaning forward to kiss her temple. “You should do it.”

There were few things in life that could make her flush but Khai seemed to know every single one. “I guess I don’t want to be a receptionist forever.” She smiled genuinely, biting her bottom lip between her teeth causing his pale grey eyes to flicker toward her mouth. “Thank you.”

“For?” “Believing in me.”

“I wouldn’t be a very good boyfriend if I didn’t.” He brushed the fringe from her eyes softly. “You charmed me, so I have no doubt that you’d dazzle the world.

I’d be selfish to keep you all to myself.”

“Don’t ever doubt that as soon as those cameras shut off that I’m all yours.”

“I’ll remember that when you’re famous,” Khai said quietly, pale eyes roving over her face, the pride she saw in them turning into amusement. “This will sound cliche, but you have syrup on your lip.” He pointed out, his mouth already tugging in that irritatingly sexy way.

Mina only smirked back and relaxed against the sofa. “I hope you plan on removing it in some very cliché way.”

Khai slid closer, grey eyes fixed like a hawk on his destination. Cheesy as the moment was, at least they were self-aware. It didn’t help the way her heart fluttered and the anticipation of it built in her chest in that breath catching way that she didn’t want to escape. His tongue ran slowly over her bottom lip, lightly brushing her teeth as it dipped between her lips. Mina knew she was gone when his fingers slowly slipped into her hair, and she parted her lips to brush her tongue against his. It was sweet like syrup.

Unlike the total combustion of earlier in the evening, Mina curled her fingers into his shirt to pull him closer, savoring the sticky sweetness of their lips with a more paced desire. His hands remained as such too, fingers trailing from her hair to caress her jaw as he parted after a lingering moment to peer into her soul.

She had yet to decipher the look in his eyes but part of her knew what they were saying.

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“Are you staying tonight? Khai asked, his thumb tracing her bottom lip before retracting.

“If you want me to.” She replied, unsure how being weak in the knees worked when you were sitting down but she was certainly weak. When he didn’t reply, only answering with a wanting look, Mina nodded.

“I’ll clean up. If you want to, you can use my shower and help yourself to something from my closet to sleep in.”

“Well after earlier, you probably want a shower too.” She replied, fiddling with the top button on his shirt. “The dishes will be there in the morning.”

Khai looked at her like she had three heads for a split second before he pulled her close. His mouth twitched as though he tried to hide a grin. “You’re out to derail all of the order in my life, aren’t you?”

“I’d never want to change you.” Mina began, holding his eyes as she stood up, pulling the zipper on the side of her dress down. It slipped off easily enough, adding to the chaos by leaving it in a heap on his living room floor. Anyone who could see through his large windows certainly got her show as she was left wearing nothing but a pair of black thigh high stockings.

She smirked when she saw the bob of his Adam's apple and bent to place a brief kiss on his nose, lifting her foot onto the cushion beside him to roll one of her stockings slowly down her leg. “But if you want to join me…I could use someone to help wash my back. Unless you’d rather wash the dishes.”

Either Khai was rendered speechless or was too transfixed on the motion, he sat rigid in place until she’d removed the other stocking. This time, she giggled, and tossed it at him, leaving him to stare after her as she sauntered toward his darkened bedroom with a little more sway in her hips.

She flipped on the warming lamps, casting a dim orange glow across the marbled bathroom and contemplated the jacuzzi tub or the large walk-in shower stall walled by tempered glass. Opting for efficiency, Mina cranked the hot water in the spacious standing shower, letting the steam perspire on the steel appliances and fog the mirrors. Enough to soothe the muscles and not burn the skin.

Only a few minutes passed and he was there, sinking in through the steam.

She knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. The warmth of his body, luxurious fabric pressed against her back, the spicy musk of his cologne enveloped her in the misty fog as Mina found herself in his arms. His shirt was unbuttoned, hanging loose over his powerful shoulders, belt gone, pants unbuttoned and unzipped, just barely hanging off of his hips. He was messy and unraveled as he pulled her against the firm wall of his chest.

“You certainly know how to destroy a man.” Khai muttered against her skin, sweeping her hair to the side to press his lips against her shoulder, to pull the flesh of her neck between his lips.

“Mmm...It wasn’t easy.” She smirked and peered at him behind her shoulder. “But you shouldn’t have shown me how to breach your defenses.”

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“You did it before I ever showed you, Mina.” He growled breathily, lips caressing the shell of her ear sending a chill down her spine. “No one can get under my skin the way you do.”

Mina turned and gazed up into his deepened eyes and slowly pushed his shirt off of his shoulders. She kissed his chest as the skin exposed, caressing his thumping heart with her lips, pulling deep, ragged breaths from his lungs. “When did I have you?”

In turn, his fingers tilted her chin upwards to look at him. “You always have.”

“Always?” Mina questioned, her fingers hooked the waistline of his slacks and pulled him closer, wasting no time in slipping them down off of his hips.

“It feels that way.” He whispered, the running shower nearly drowning the words but she was getting good at reading his face, and knew she felt the same.

“Some souls are just born yearning I guess.” Mina replied, taking his hand and pulling him into the hot spray with her.

Khai dragged his blunt nails up her sides, letting the water run through his long silver hair, deepening the tone against his smooth tawny skin. “Are you yearning now?”

Her blue eyes danced with his grey. Yearning? That was all she knew since she met him. Khai had turned her into a selfish ball of it. Mina yearned for his presence when he wasn’t near, for his touch, his kiss, even his bland and stoic tone because she knew she could search that beautiful, carved face of his for some tick, some subtle motion that revealed more than anyone else ever knew. “Always…”

“Tell me what you want.” He muttered, pulling her close.

Mina tilted her head back, washing the fringe around her eyes out of her way in the hot stream, and Khai wasted no time in drinking the deluge that ran down her neck. She gasped and hummed as he pulled her close, slick skin against slick skin, his cock coming slowly to life between them. Pumping a few squirts of some fancy looking soap into her palms, she ran her hands over the firm muscle of his chest and began to wash him.

“Nothing.” Mina claimed innocently, the familiar scent of him wafting up from the soap and into the steam, some exotic scent she’d have to make note of later. Truly she couldn’t think of a thing about this man she didn’t want. She would have stolen his last name if he’d asked and normally a thought like that would terrify her, but she supposed that souls were meant to stop yearning eventually.

Once they found the very thing they’d always wanted.

“Nothing at all?” Khai asked, pulling the wet curtain of her hair aside, reaching for more soap so he could hold her close and wash her back as she’d requested.

“That feels good.” She sighed, reaching her arms around his waist to run her soapy hands over his back, lightly raking downward with her nails earning a low rumble of satisfaction in his throat.

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More and more soap seemed to be added, a session of roaming lathered hands like they hadn’t already touched every piece of each other, perhaps cleansing each other of lovers before to ensure there would be no lover after. Their lips brushed in almost kisses, breath mingling with the steam as her hands caressed his chest, the lines and ripples of his stomach, the V of his hips. She touched him as though he was untouchable, forbidden, a strange notion that came to her in moments of uncertainty. But she wasn’t uncertain now.

“Mina…” He sighed, biting down on his lower lip as her soapy hands caressed the soft flesh between his thighs, upward to the somewhat intimidating length, pike hard and pressed against her stomach between them. Mina watched his face carefully, not stroking, but running the pads of her fingers over the veins and swollen head, letting it twitch against her touch as his cock slid against her soapy skin.

Khai groaned, pulling her until she was no longer under the showerhead to him step under the stream to rinse off while simultaneously turning her back to him. Mina could hear the soap dispenser, feel his hard length nestled in the crevice of her backside as he gathered her breasts into his palms and pulled her firmly against him.

“Tell me what you want.” He practically purred, pulling an audible gasp from her when he pinched the aroused pink tips between his fingers. Mina arched her back slightly, rubbing at his groin with her ass in the process. He ran his hands down over her stomach, her arms, rubbing his palms against her nipples until her skin was on fire, each sensation made more intense by the slippery nature of their skin. Unsure at this point if she couldn’t breathe because of the steam, or his skillful touch.

“What don’t I want, is a better question.” She replied, half out of her mind from the mere touch as he ran his hands lower, kissing her back as he bent to graze her thighs with his fingertips, using a firmer touch on the inside of her legs until they reached their destination.

Her body tensed, lips parted in a barely suppressed gasp as his fingers parted her folds, slowly rubbing between the lips. Breath hot against her skin, he growled when she began canting and moving her hips in time with his hand, grinding against his cock in the process. “What don’t you want then?”

Mina rolled her eyes when his fingers brushed her clit, sending shockwaves of pleasure rippling across her skin in slow delicious torture. “Khai…”

“Tell me.” He muttered again, giving her a brief concentrated touch where he’d long learned was an easy start to getting her off. A few minutes of that and she’d be curling her toes and seeing stars but she didn’t want that. The teasing was too sweet, too slow, and sensual not to savor.

“Not yet…” Her reply came shaken and pitched and she exhaled with welcome frustration when Khai switched to slower, broader strokes, pressing the pad of his finger against her entrance without penetrating the way she wanted him to. He swept the touch forward instead, slipping on more than just the soap.

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The shower filled with their heavy breaths, his touch making her ache, his own ardent sighs fueling their edging further until Mina couldn’t stand it. She pulled away to rinse away the lather that had slowly seeped down her body and wrenched the water off so she could pull Khai’s lips to her own. He gathered her into a large, fluffy towel, barely breaking from a slow, toe curling kiss while they fumbled and failed to dry off a little, stumbling into his dark bedroom.

They onto his pristinely made bed, an entanglement of wet skin and hair.

She writhed and gasped into his deep, deep kisses, her skin alive and humming, wet and aching for Khai to fill her. Each touch and kiss felt different, slower and methodical, more pleasurable and torturous than Mina’s impatient desire could comprehend. His purposeful touch, her thighs, the backs of her knees, the curves of her waist and neck, all erogenous skin she’d all but forgotten until he touched them.

Khai flipped her onto her stomach, kissing the dimples in her lower back, up the notches of her spine until his breath was in her ear and the head of his cock pressed against her entrance, seeking permission. She shivered when his husky voice whispered against the shell of her ear. “You have to know what you do to me…”

“Show me.” She gasped, biting her lip as Mina peered up at him over her shoulder, cheek pressed against the mattress, her hips lifted just slightly to encourage him.

“It might take all night.” Khai whispered, steading his thick immodest length in his palm, pressing himself inside her from behind, a deep gasp panting against her skin.

Mina curled her fingers into the comforter, lips parted to gasp her affections as the familiar sensation of her body stretching to accommodate his length that delved deeper with slow and shallow thrusts. The muscle of his chest and stomach rippled against her back, his teeth nicking her shoulder, soothing the affectionate nips with gentle kisses between his breathy moans. A sound that could have destroyed her right then and there.

Mina rolled her body with his, grinding her back into his achingly slow thrusts in unison. She remembered this sensation well, that first night when Khai lifted her onto the vanity of the hotel room in their fury. It felt like she was coming and she couldn’t stop, only this time he seemed to make a point to keep her at the edge of her euphoria without letting it spill over. The far more intimate connection of their bodies, moving languid and slow, the passion in it alone speeding up their tempo only for Khai to regrettably slow it back down to a simmering heat when her body tensed beneath his weight, quivering from riding the intense waves of pleasure from his long deep strokes.

“Khai…” Mina practically begged, silenced by his hand caressing her face, his thumb tracing her parted lips until she sucked it into her mouth.

“Fuck…” He growled at the swirling motion of her tongue around the pad of his thumb, slowing his thrusts as though he might cum. “You said not yet.”

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“Gods you are making me crazy.” She moaned, gripping the blanket under them for any sort of purchase against the pleasure. That full feeling of his thick length inside of her, stroking every part of her and making her wetter than she’d ever been. Aching no matter how complete he made her feel. They’d been at it long enough that even the Moon was high and the city lights seemed to have faded with no signs of stopping.

Khai pulled out again and urged her onto her back, his cock heavy and glistening rested on her stomach, thrumming like a heartbeat. “Now you know how I feel when I’m with you.” He whispered, leaning forward against her lips which were parted and fighting for breath, letting the heat of his body seep into her skin.

So much reflecting in his deep grey eyes that caught the city’s lights from outside, but conveying much more from within. “Seeing what’s really important...Always wanting more…”

“You don’t have to want, you have me,” Mina whispered, piercing her eyes with his as she caressed his face, brushing the stray hairs that hung carelessly in front of his eyes. “You have all of me..” Her fingers hooked around his neck, buried in his damp hair to kiss him. She rolled her hips against his thick length, still posed between her thighs, slipping her tongue between Khai’s parted lips when he groaned, and after so many minutes, she begged. “Please…”

Mina caught his deep moan with her tongue as he pressed himself inside of her, lacing his fingers with hers, pressing her down into the mattress with a steady rhythm. Lips caressing her neck, tasting the budded tips of her breasts, taking all of her that he wanted, and she was afraid he’d steal her heart completely in the process. Softer moans escaped between her lips, too focused on his comforting weight as he moved, the feeling of their connection that slipped in and out of her without ever disconnecting. Khai locked his eyes onto hers as they moved together with fervent synchronization, and Mina could feel his hand shaking in her grasp.

“More…” He groaned, cursing again when she moved her hips more rapidly over his cock from below, stroking herself against him more desperately, building the pleasure far too fast. “I’m going to…”

“God yes…” She moaned, letting the first wave of his orgasm, the way his hips jerked, thrumming his cock into that spot inside of her as he spilled his hot release inside of her bring her over the edge.

She couldn’t breathe to scream, but her body clenched and shook all around him, fingers curling against his skin, gripping his hand, thrusting her hips into his sensitive cock to prolong the crushing pleasure that spread throughout her limbs and all that mattered was him. No one else could do this to her, shatter her heart and world without even touching her, but when he did, she could feel it in her soul.

It took Khai a moment to come to his senses, not as quickly or as sharp as before, but he rose up on his arms to kiss her affectionately, resting his forehead

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on hers, brushing hair away from her face. “You are beautiful… maddening and beautiful.”

Mina giggled, rolling to her side with him as he slipped his sated flesh from inside of her and fell against the mattress, gazing up at the ceiling with a deep, satiated exhale. Admiring his profile, the subtle outline of it against the city lights outside and nestled against his chest. “You are incredible, and not just in bed.”

“In a minute.” He chuckled, sliding those grey eyes over toward her with intentions that made her flush. Perhaps it was his smirk. “We’ll see if I’m done with you yet.”

“We’ll see.” Mina winked, leaning over to kiss him softly, hopping off the bed to give him a show as she headed back toward the bathroom to clean up.

Khai was under the sheets when she returned. His silver hair messily drying over his shoulders, sitting up against the pillows and staring out at the city. Biting her lip, she slipped in beside him, studying his thoughtful expression as though he was far away.

“Hey, Khai… what is it that YOU want?”

“I want to take you to Dubai… to meet my Mom.” Mina went slack jawed, eyes wide and suddenly scared. And not just of his mother. “OH.” “If you want to.” He added, clearing his throat. “I thought we could go to Thrace. I could show you my home in Istanbul...make a trip of it. Fly home from Dubai.”

“I do.” She spit out too fast but not fast enough. Just like that there was tension, an awkward silence between them. They may have been official for a while but for someone like Khai it was so new. Committing to more than just his job was a grand gesture. THIS was a grand gesture.

“It wouldn’t be for several months so...”

“Plenty of time to let the production company know… If I get this role.”

Mina replied, tilting her head to catch his eyes which gleamed with confidence.

“You mean when you do.”

Mina leaned back against the pillows, they smelled like him. They gazed at each other a long moment, the tension melting away into certainty. It was in every beat of her heart that seemed like it was thundering in her ears. “I want to go with you, very much.”

“I want you.” He replied, lacing his fingers with hers just to bring them to his lips which were swollen and perfect.

It was going to be a very long night.

They made love until the sun peeked through the buildings, and Mina thought it felt so familiar, like coming full circle. But the man currently wrapped around her was fast asleep breathing deep and even against her sweat sheened skin and everything felt so certain, the way she thought it should feel. Perfect.

Turning her head, she watched him sleep for a moment, face relaxed without all that tension on his brows and jaws he looked even more ethereal.

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Carefully she kissed Khai’s still swollen lips and accessed the few purple marks darkening on his neck and smiled. She was so scared, but not of him or what they were becoming, but how he made her feel. She’d always had a knack for the romantic, the amorous, with larger than life dreams of fate and soulmates that Rei had tried to knock down a few pegs on occasion, and Ami would flush as she tried to pin some form of logic to it.

There was no logic to the way she felt in that moment, lying awake in his arms with nothing but fate to explain the way they’d come together. As though somewhere in another universe they weren’t meant to be so happy, so carefree, belong to each other so completely. An odd feeling in her gut that perhaps this was their chance, even when she had no recollection of the opposition. A chance she couldn’t let just pass her by.

Her fingers wound in the silver hair stark against the dark pillow and Mina took a shuddering breath, whispering to a man who wouldn’t hear her in his deep slumber. Though she thought she saw it, there in his earnest grey eyes, in measured moments throughout the night. Even felt it in his touch.

“I think I’m in love with you… Mister Mob Boss….”

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Introduction By Hook-Up Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, Just Friends, Go Seduce My Archnemesis(ish), Huddling For Warmth, Thank God We’re Alive Sex, Awkward Sec, Pining Contains: Deep-set Insecurities, Heartbreak, Fingering, Dry Hump, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Blind

by FloraOne

As was usually the case when Tsukino Usagi had a klutz-attack, Chiba Mamoru just had to be right there.

This time she really wanted to scream.

The fucking bamboo cup was new. She didn’t even LIKE the coffee inside.

Had let the barista put in two more shots of vanilla to make it bearable. But tomorrow she was supposed to be a grown-up, and grown-ups liked coffee and drank from responsible, sophisticated to-go cups. However, her grown-up-passing bamboo cup had betrayed her, fell apart on her, and it had exploded all over her fancy, thick, wheat-colored coat, her boots, her shopping bags, and all the new clothes in it that she’d bought.

Clothes she would need tomorrow.

But yeah, so the thing came apart in her hands because of course, and it came apart in her hands just as she had her weekly run-in with Mamoru (quite 126

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literally, why did she always have to run like RIGHT into him), and her phone dropped, her bags dropped, clothes spilling from it all over the sidewalk, and her cup exploded all over the contents of her bags. One shoe from her new pair of semi-expensive suede pumps rolled down the sidewalk like a sad little bowling pin.

Fuck.

And Mamoru, the absolute jerk, had the audacity to laugh at her.

He’d jumped a little, away from under her coffee projectile, but immediately started snorting, then knelt down to help her gather up her things.

And no, not the malicious kind. Not like he used to when they were younger. More the affectionate kind. In fact, when she looked up to glare at him witheringly, he was giving her the softest fucking look. But it just made her even angrier and she snarled and ripped her phone from his hands and dropped it somewhere with her new blouses.

“O-kay,” he said, carefully. “Bad day, I get it, and you’re—” “I know, I know, I’m a useless and unladylike klutz and no boy will ever like me, blah blah blah,” she spat angrily, and punched her stained clothes back into the two paper bags, angrily pushing back her bangs from her face. There were tiny brown droplets of liquid on all of them, every item, how did she even manage that?!

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him recoil a bit. “I didn’t say that.”

She whipped up her head to give him a look.

And the fucking douche looked exceptionally pretty today. Dark jeans, nice shirt, leather jacket in a nice cut that she saw him in whenever he was out with his motorcycle these days. His skin gleaming in the golden scenery of the autumnkissed trees around them. Good-fucking-hair-day on top. Why did he always have to look so exceptionally good whenever he saw her fail yet again?

Around them, people swerved to avoid them. Muttering a little. They did hold up traffic, and Juuban-dori was busy that time of day.

“I mean I didn’t say that today,” he clarified with a frown, and as she’d put the last garment in the bag and straightened, he got up, too. And held out her pink little faux leather handbag she hadn’t even noticed she’d dropped as well.

“Are you ok?”

She sighed hard. Before, of-fucking-course, one of the vanilla-coffeesoaked paper bags ripped, and all her new clothes she’d just punched back into it fell back on the sidewalk through the new hole in the bottom. Shrieking, her to-go cup once again flung away from her and hit him. Just a few droplets this time, but he jumped away from her startled.

Usagi grunt-shrieked. Fucking done with this day.

He laughed. A fucking delighted belly-laugh, as if she was just the most amusing thing. His personal little clown.

“Maybe just make sure that hypothetical boyfriend is a little bullet-proof,” he snorted.

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She hit him with a suede pump and glared at him even harder as his hands went up.

“That was a joke,” he informed her, eyes twinkling.

Well, why was he in such a good fucking mood?

Once again, Chiba Mamoru knelt in that infuriatingly graceful way and helped her gather up her things.

“What are all these for?” he asked. This time, he didn’t put the clothes back in her bag. He folded them with a flick of his hands, like in those crazy YouTube videos where people pinched clothes and they magically turned out folded, and put them on his knee. She stared at it dumbly.

“I’m starting a new job tomorrow,” she said a little reluctantly, perhaps a bit too self-consciously.

He lifted his head. His hair shifted across his forehead as he tilted it at her in question, and she shrugged.

“I wanted to pretend to look smart,” she mumbled, and with that, he was done folding her clothes, tags neatly tucked into the front like in the shops. Got back up with them in a soft pile under his arm.

“By wearing muted-color blouses and high heels?” His look was a little offputting.

She shrugged awkwardly.

He nodded down the red-cobbled street. It was their silent-conversationspeak for ‘I’m going that way, too.’ They hadn’t been doing this since yesterday, after all.

Sighing, she started walking beside him, and he didn’t give her back her clothes.

“What kinda job?” he asked, looking at her profile.

She pressed her lips together tightly. “It’s a secretary job at my father’s newspaper.”

She knew without looking how he’d react, and he didn’t disappoint. His eyebrows were in his hairline when she did sneak a peek, and her frown turned harder.

“What?” she asked in annoyance.

He looked like he was trying to consider his words carefully. But then he obviously decided on ‘blunt,’ after all. “Do you really think ‘secretary’ is a good job for you?”

She tried to cross her arms. Except her bag jostled and she remembered that she maybe should refrain from whipping it about the place, lest it break too.

And so she just glared. “What, you’re saying I’m too useless for that, too?”

His look was utterly annoyed. And yeah, she was in a foul mood. “No…” he started, emphasizing it hard. “I’m just saying maybe you shouldn’t be in a job where you need to be super organized and feel like you have to pretend you’re something you’re not.”

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She pouted sourly. “Right, because YOU think the way I am is just amazing.”

“What if I do?” he shot at her.

Her glare was mocking. How fucking dare he. “Ha, Ha,” she mocked right back.

His look was so frigging exasperated it would have been amusing were she in a better mood. But she wasn’t.

“I do have a boyfriend, I’ll have you know,” she mumbled. It felt like a sortof-revenge act, after all that time. But it didn’t end up feeling like she wanted it to.

Instead, it felt weird immediately. Weird timing, weird information, weird everything. She wanted to take it back immediately, pluck the words back up from the air and cram them back into her mouth.

It felt wrong. And complicated. And no one could know.

But Mamoru’s step faltered, and he blinked at her, taken aback.

She scrunched up her nose, blushed, and walked on. Refusing to look at him. “Well I kind of have a boyfriend,” she corrected.

He lifted one eyebrow in something akin to amusement. “Kind of?”

She huffed, whipped her head back around to face the street and not him, and her streamers of hair slapped around her a little. “It’s complicated.”

“Ah.” With that, they’d arrived at the fork in the road where they almost parted ways. Where he would walk to his fancy, cool-people apartment building, and she would walk down the little residential lane where she still lived with her parents after all this time, because it was cheaper that way.

She sighed, and the wind seemed to listen. It rustled the trees around them in unison with her exhale. Red and orange and yellow and brown and green leaves dancing in the wind around them for a bit.

“So, when are you starting?” he said, hovering.

She whipped her face back up to him, absentminded. “Huh?” “Your new job,” he asked, and his hands wandered into the pockets of his dark jeans.

Ah. She nodded sharply. “Tomorrow,” she answered dutifully, then frowned again at her ruined clothes.

He nodded. Then he offered her the bundle of clothes still tucked underneath his arm, sprinkled in brown, but carefully folded. “Well, good luck, Odango Atama,” he said.

She took the clothes, held them against her chest with one arm.

“Knock them dead,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

She rolled her eyes in answer, but smiled.

And when she’d already turned and started walking down the residential lane, he called after her.

“Usagi?”

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His face was utterly serious all of a sudden. “I hope he treats you well,” he said.

Huh? He shrugged. “Your ‘kind of’ boyfriend.”

She blinked, hard. And her heart hammered against her chest, utterly weirdly. But then she frowned, crinkled her nose, spoke before thinking. “As well as he can,” she mumbled without thought, and that, too, she immediately wanted to take back.

She did leave then, even when Mamoru was still frowning at her. Frowning in the way he did when he was about to scold her, or when she was doing something reckless. Frowning at her like he did when he didn’t like the sound of what she was saying.

But he didn’t say anything, and she was glad. She couldn’t really explain it to him, after all.

Sailor Moon gasped when Tuxedo Mask pressed her against the wire-mesh fence high on top of the roof of her old school, the deep glow of Tokyo’s skyline at night stretching out before her.

She gasped again, gloved hands curling into the mesh as she arched her back when he pressed back against her harder. It felt so delicious, the fence in front of her, this lean, perfect, hard man behind her. That so absurdly arousing pressure of being crushed by a hard, warm, turned-on, larger body. And when he reached around so wildly, so frantically, his hand down her crotch and his fingers pressing deep against the fabric directly covering her slit, she lolled the back of her head into the crook of his shoulder and fell so heavily against him he had to press her against the fence even harder to keep her upright.

She wanted it. She wanted her whole body to be covered in a pattern of marks left by the mesh, a keepsake for her memory she would get to hold on to just a little longer until he was inevitably gone again.

“Please,” she whimpered, both hands clawed into the fence, holding her up, and he groaned in that guttural way and pressed soft lips so very tenderly against the nape of her neck. For a second, his hand left her, and she whined. But she felt it moving up her back, heard the grunt as he brought it to his lips, and when it returned between her legs, his hand was finally bare.

She mewled brokenly when he finally wriggled his hand into the fabric of her fuku, and his fingers touched her weeping sex.

She spread her legs a little wider for him.

He was clumsy, unpracticed, but she was so wet for him it barely mattered.

Instead, she brought her own hand down, moved it underneath the fabric of her crotch as well, and lacing her fingers over his, she slowed his hand down, made him press harder, moved it to swirl around her clit, his heavy fingers divine pressure, and she keened.

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When he got the rhythm, it felt better than her own hand, felt better than anything.

“Oh god,” she keened, panting harshly. And after a while, she couldn’t help it, bucked her hips against his hand, whined, empty and throbbing and pulsing and wet. So, so wet.

She was falling apart, the hero of Tokyo, hanging from a fence as her dark protector/maybe enemy fingered her. His fingers were firm and perfect, and he was panting harsh against her ear, his cheek pressed against her hair, his cock so very hard and twitching against her ass as he pressed it so insistently against her.

The way he rubbed himself against her, hard and poking and making her bite her lip, rubbing himself against her in the rhythm of his fingers at her clit.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she slipped her own hand back to join, stroking shallow against her wet entrance. He whimpered with every wild buck of her hips against his fingers, against his cock, against the fence.

And when she was almost there - so, so, close - and his own body moved more frantically against her, he yanked his hand away. Instead, his hands moved to cover hers. One wet and one gloved, curled over hers into the fence as he moved his hard erection against her ass, the friction of the fabrics of their clothes so strangely stimulating as he moved and moved and moved, thrusting and erratic and wild, while her own fingers took over. She rubbed herself across the edge, her eyes on Tokyo Tower’s orange glow just as the light went out, and she came.

Just when she came down from her high, it was his turn to fall. His lips shuddering against the crook of her neck, his body stiff as he came against her into the pristine fabric of his tuxedo, the mask chafing at her neck.

As the frenzy fell, her breathing slowed. Deeper and heavier, and so did his, puffed against her neck. His forehead hit her shoulder, his fingers flexed and curled tighter around hers in the fence, and his whole body moved with his breathing, pressed so deliciously hard against her.

His lips puckered. He pressed them warm against the crook of her neck, and she tilted her head so he could kiss up her throat, sighing. And he did. Slowly, oh-so tenderly.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed when he reached her ear. Then, for a second, his teeth grazed the shell of it, his fingers flexed even tighter around hers, and she shuddered.

“For what?” she asked, bewildered, and her throat was completely raw, her voice hoarse. Wait, had she screamed while they did this? She didn’t remember.

His hand left hers - the bare one. The breeze had already dried her wetness from his skin, and she almost mourned it. But he didn’t remove it. Instead, he let it trail down her wrist, her forearm, caressing the sensitive skin at the crook of her elbow before hovering against the deep cut that went up the whole length of her arm, the skin around it blue and purple, no longer touching.

Ah. “I’m so, so sorry. You have no idea how.”

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She frowned. Moved to turn, but he immediately pressed her back harder against the fence with his whole body. It rattled beneath their weight. Had it done that earlier, too? She hadn’t noticed.

“No,” he pleaded. “Please,” his bare hand curled back against her fingers, his whole form curled around hers, “let me stay like this just a little longer.”

So she just turned her head to the side, tiara clinking as it moved against the mesh, and she pressed her cheek, the side of her nose, against the crisp fabric of his shirt. The trinket hanging from his bow tie tangled in her hair. He always smelled so good. Soapy clean, mingled with the faint smell of roses. She breathed him in. She wanted to bottle his smell, keep it.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, frowning.

He moved his head, pressed his own cheek against the crown of her head.

She was fully cocooned like this.

“It was my cane,” he said, his voice all remorse and rumbling against her through the vibrations in his chest.

“It wasn’t your hand. It was an accident,” she argued against the fabric of his shirt and the warmth of him underneath.

“With my weapon.”

She tightened her hold on his fingers. “So?” He sighed. “I thought she’d got you for a second. With my weapon.”

“Venus was there,” Usagi tried to argue.

“I wasn’t.” He moved, his mouth and nose along her neck, pressed the words out against her skin, and inhaled like he was just as creepy as she was. “I was so worried. So worried I’d—that you—” With that, he stroked his whole body against her with a full body sigh, and she closed her eyes to fully savor the unusual caress.

“I noticed,” she whispered.

He exhaled harshly, pressed another kiss against her hair, much harder than any of those before.

“Nothing happened. I heal fast,” she promised. And with another rattle and a press back against him, he let her go. “I promise I’m fine,” she said, turning.

“Don’t do that again.”

“I can’t promise that,” she said, but when she looked up, she was surprised to find his eyes glassy and frantic underneath the mask.

He moved to cup her face. Stroked his gloved thumb down her cheekbone, his bare one against the dip of her chin, her lower lip. Stooped and hovered and brought himself down to her eye level.

She wanted to rip that terrifying mask away so badly.

“Please, please try,” he begged.

She nodded, and his relief was palpable even though they both knew it was a lie.

“I’ll try,” she promised anyway.

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With a sharp nod, his hold on her face tightened. And then he bent to press the tenderest kiss of the night against her tiara, the edge of his lip ever so lightly brushing her skin, and let it linger.

She’d still had her eyes closed when he let go, one thumb stroking down the apple of her cheek.

“It’s hardest to let you go like this,” he whispered. “When you’re hurt. When it’s my fault—” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s not—” But he talked right over her. “When I can’t—” He broke off, and she pressed her eyes shut tighter when his voice turned so, so frustrated.

“You know, I could help you. Underneath this transformation, I’m a fucking doc—” She whipped her eyes open in panic, whipped her hand up to press her gloved finger against his lips.

He stilled immediately. Everything in him dropped. The corners of his mouth, his shoulders, his whole frame. His eyes had never looked this sad. Or maybe they always did.

What if we didn’t? Keep it a secret?

His whispered confession the first night they’d ever kissed hung in the air between them, unspoken. She hadn’t answered him then, she didn’t answer him now. And she felt absolutely despicable.

His exhale was shaky and final, and he nodded. Then he turned around and left.

It was a horrible feeling, sometimes. That longing. That aching. Wondering, as she slid her window along the frame and climbed into her dark room, where it was in the city that he was doing the same. If he was alone or had people waiting for him, and if she would ever get to see that place, and if it was all her fault when someday he might decide he didn’t even want her to know these things after all.

And then she’d remember the tremble in his lips when she kissed him in stolen, secret moments after a battle. The way he’d never asked for more in the beginning, always let her lead, always let her decide. The raw, wanting look when she’d first taken them all the way, the way he looked so helplessly vulnerable as she drew him out, warm skin and pulsing veins and weeping head, kissed the tip to his broken whimper, calmly rolled the rubber down on him as he sat there with his arms pressed against the cement of the roof with his fingers balled into tight fists and his head thrown back. How he’d then shot up to clutch at her as she lifted herself up and sunk down on him all the way. And the way, nowadays, that this had all changed. When he’d started asking, too. When he’d started taking, too. When he begged for more. Pressing her against mesh-wire fences or pressing his lips

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against her clit, his hands so tight and desperate, holding her thighs spread open for him, keeping her in place.

At home, Tsukino Usagi rummaged with one arm in the messy first-aid kit in the bathroom that was only so messy because she was the one using it the most, and flinched when she dropped half its contents on the floor. Holding her breath, she listened intently for any sounds of her family, and exhaled in relief when no one seemed to rouse from the noise.

Her knees were red and knobbly as she sat on the tiles, put it all back in the kit while trying not to move her injured arm too much, and studiously didn’t look up when the door creaked ever so slightly and the fluffiest black shadow padded across the tiles noiselessly on velvety paws.

Luna hopped up onto the cabinet, silently watched Usagi clean her wound with soft concern.

It looked worse than it was, really. It was already closing. It had been bleeding a lot, smeared down her arms, but it wasn’t actually that deep, didn’t need stitches. The bruising would take longer to fade than the actual cut.

She was fast about it, too. She’d been doing this long enough that this was routine, Ami’s steps drilled into her by sheer repetition. After it was fairly clean, she flinched only a little as she dabbed the wool cotton ball pinched between her fingers against her wound to spread that horrible iodine gel.

But Luna’s voice was worried. “Where were you?” she asked, not unkindly, perched on the edge of their porcelain sink.

“Watching the lights of Tokyo Tower go out on a rooftop,” Usagi mumbled at her wound immediately, dabbed the iodine in her wound until the ball was too red and she picked another from the plastic sack to dab first into the gel and then against her skin. It wasn’t a lie.

Luna tilted her head curiously, but didn’t press. She simply waited.

And when only sad sighs came, Luna’s eyes turned warm, and she hopped down to the floor and stroked her body against Usagi’s leg in a caress so very much like a real cat’s. It was comforting.

Sighing, Usagi looked up when she was done, the gauze pad absurdly long but secured against her skin, and watched her pale face in the mirror. Her mascara was smudged so late into the night. The longer she looked, the more abstract her features became.

“Usagi-chan?” Luna murmured in concern, and Usagi dragged her eyes away from her reflection to give her guardian a warm, reassuring smile. Reaching out, she scratched her soft little kitty head, and Luna’s head butted against her hand in tender retribution.

With a weary sigh, she switched off the light in the bathroom. It went off with a little click, and Luna’s paws became soundless once they moved from tile to carpet as she padded with her into her darkened room.

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She changed in silence, and once her head hit the pillow, she blinked at the ceiling even as Luna’s light weight settled and curled against her side above her purple comforter, warm and comforting and starting to rumble for her benefit.

Luna was long asleep when Usagi was still staring at the ceiling.

She’d been with Luna so long now. She trusted Luna. Luna trusted her.

She was half sure if she came clean, Luna wouldn’t make them break up.

Not anymore. Not after so long.

It still wouldn’t be great. It still would be complicated. Luna would still be disappointed in her. She’d still be wary and concerned and take necessary precautions. They had no clue if they were enemies. They were after the same thing, for years now. But Luna would help, she was sure.

So what was holding her back, now that this excuse was gone?

She turned with a sigh, pushed her head underneath her pillow. As she curled it, she imagined curling it into his hand. Imagined what it would be like if he could lie beside her, sleeping as deeply as Luna.

Somehow, the image didn’t fit. Tuxedo Mask in Tsukino Usagi’s room.

And deep in her heart, she knew why.

You’re Sailor Moon. I don’t believe you can ever fail.

His words echoed in her head. They’d been spoken in pride, spoken to reassure her and push her on, long before she’d ever pressed her lips against his shocked ones.

He thought so highly of her. But watching the shadows of her dark room, Sailor Moon wasn’t who she was. She was Tsukino Usagi, on the brink of twentythree, grown out of her childhood room on paper and yet so attached to the stuffed rabbits on her shelf. Tsukino Usagi, the klutz, the crybaby, the unladylike disaster, and her traitorous heart whispered the reason.

Tuxedo Mask was into Sailor Moon.

She was terrified he’d be disappointed with Tsukino Usagi underneath her.

And it was unfair. It was an awful thought. But… they just might be enemies. They had no way to know. And even though Tuxedo Mask was ready to put all his faith in Sailor Moon and follow her should things ever get to the point where they did find the Silver Crystal, when they did find the princess, and ended up standing on opposing sides after all? Usagi trusted Tuxedo Mask to stand with Sailor Moon.

But would he trust a girl that much who had never gotten a full score on any test in all her life? A girl who still hadn’t figured out all the different settings on a washing machine even though her Mama showed her weekly? Who fell asleep with her cheek clinging to whatever it was she’d meant to force herself to do, whose brain only worked in ‘now’ and ‘not now’ and was thus late for fucking everything? A messy, chaotic, brash, loud, emotional girl who got scolded by teachers and co-workers and Senshi alike, who still snuck out of her childhood room to go save the city and would do so for a while.

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She wasn’t so sure.

On December 24th, the date night of the year, Usagi browsed 7-11 and piled too much christmas cake into her basket, because she was adamant to get her sugar shock on and curl into bed with Luna and Netflix and cake.

With Shingo moved out of the house, Mama and Papa had installed regular date nights, so tonight of all nights she knew she’d have the house to herself. Minako was invited to a fancy party, Mako-chan was working, Ami had a date with Ryo, and Rei detested both christmas movies and christmas dates and was no good company on a day like this, so it would be her, the cakes, her cat, and a marathon of the Bachelor Japan. She was even kind of looking forward to it.

She knew she was hogging the cake aisle, two people had stopped close to her at the shelf, but this was an important choice and she refused to let herself be rushed. One of them had already wandered off, but just as she’d piled her seventh individually packaged cake slice gingerly into her basket, the other one started to speak, startling her.

“Exactly how many of these are you planning to buy?” Chiba Mamoru’s voice remarked with too much amusement, and she jumped, surprised. She would have dropped cake number eight if he hadn’t reached out with those infuriatingly killer reflexes and caught it for her with a smirk.

He was standing there with nothing but a hot can of Boss coffee. In a chic black coat, black turtleneck sweater peeking out, one of those classic, checkered Burberry cashmere scarfs in burgundy and beige loose around the collar of his coat. All of him in pristine, dry condition, even though it had snowed outside all day. He wore frigging leather gloves. He looked like he belonged in an ad, not in a conbini, that teasing smile forever on his lips.

“What if I buy all of them,” she said with a huff, and inspected two identical vanilla and strawberry cream Santa cakes carefully in order to pick the superior one among the two.

He did that little huff sound that she knew well. She knew that when she’d look, he’d be smiling at her fondly even as he shook his head.

On a whim, she reached for the tiramisu cake. The only cake in their collection she never bought for herself. “Here,” she said, and handed it to him. He took it reflexively. “You’ll love that one. It’s all coffee and dark chocolate.”

He eyed it strangely. But to her surprise, he didn’t put it back. He did follow her across the small space, stood beside her as she pulled a tin of cocoa from the shelf first, then went to the end of the shop second, and pulled open one of the fridges.

“So, how’s that secretary job going?” he asked conversationally.

She flinched, threw him a look through the clear fridge door, and sighed before she reached for the big bottle of Calpis. “I got fired,” she mumbled towards the rows of bottles.

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“Oh,” he said.

She shrugged. Shut the fridge to the dull rattling sound of the silicone strip reconnecting to the metal frame. “Yeah,” she sighed. “Merry Christmas, I guess.”

He looked at her evenly, undecipheringly.

He only spoke again when they were standing in line at the till, him right behind her in the rather long queue. Lots of mothers with their excited children, holding cake like her, a few salarymen and their bento boxes. A bored teenager in a thick hoodie jacket over her school uniform tapping away on her phone, a basket dangling from the crook of her elbow.

“So where is that boyfriend of yours on an occasion like this, to cheer you up?” Mamoru asked rather quietly, rather monotone, behind her.

Her shoulders stiffened up. Bristling. “Who says I’m not meeting him,” she said, not looking back at him. But she heard him shift.

“Are you?” he asked.

She sighed hard and deep, shoulders slumping. “No.” She looked down at her basket full of christmas cake. It was her own fault she would not be sharing it with him. She knew that.

She fought the dejected frown vehemently.

“You should be treated better,” Mamoru said. It sounded kind of hard, and because of that, she finally turned around, shaking her head even as they moved forward a little in the queue.

“It’s not like that,” she said, meeting his gaze. “He’s amazing.”

His answering look was doubtful condescension and it made her bristle again. All, ‘yeah right, I’m sure he’s Prince Charming.’

“And yet you’re alone today?” he said, gaze dark.

She rolled her eyes. He was being a jerk. A kind of judgemental one.

“He better have a good reason,” Mamoru went on, glowering.

Usagi rolled her eyes at him in that big, exaggerated way and he gave her that exasperated look in return that she could paint in her sleep. A nonverbal dance they’d perfected for years.

He still poked her in the shoulder when it was her turn at the till and she’d missed it. She jerked forward, scurrying along to the kindly smiling cashier.

And then they stood outside in the puffy snow. Her with her powder-pink wool mittens and her 7-11 plastic bags, him with a responsible, graphite colored tote bag he’d produced from seemingly nowhere, ready to carry home unexpected tiramisu cake purchases.

But hovering, he turned back after they’d already said their goodbyes.

“Hey…” he called back towards her. “Want to hang out?”

She blinked. Curled up her lips for a tease. “What, not having a hot date, either?”

But his face suddenly morphed into genuine, forlorn melancholy that punched into her heart. “No, sadly not,” he said with a dejected shrug.

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She started. Looked up at him perhaps a bit too intently, but his eyes endured her heavy, probing gaze as if it didn’t bother him at all. “What would we even do?” she eventually mumbled.

His lips quirked up on one side, and his gaze swept over the white street, the white tipped awnings. It was meant to be a joke, she knew. “Build a snowman?” he suggested with a snort.

But everything in her lit up, the excitement bubbling to the surface so hard it made her squeak and forget everything else. He blinked at her in utterly amused surprise, but his own lips slowly started to stretch wide as he took in her reaction in that intense way Chiba Mamoru always studied all her reactions.

He laughed. Such a beautiful sound. “Come on, then,” he grinned, and nodded his head in the general direction of god-knows-where.

God-knows-where turned out to be Arisugawa-No-Miya Park. She’d flushed at the fact that their bags were parked on a bench where she’d had sex before, and snorted at the way he went about this project all strategic and planned like the nerd he was, rolling and rolling and rolling a ball in tracks around the edge of the fountain - out of service for the winter, the clocktower topped with snow in a way it looked like it had a little hood of whipped cream - until it was big and dense enough to be a base, while she just punched snow together in a big pile. It quickly became apparent they were building two snowmen instead of one, and it had turned into a competition. His was darn accurate.

Her fingers were numb by the time she’d installed a head, her wool mittens soaked through and a bit of pink color having bled into her snowman (they’d been cheap, ok?!) Next to her, Mamoru was attaching two round balls to the front of his snowman, carefully working, and she snorted at him.

“So, yours is a snow woman, I take it?” she giggled at the perfectly circular round snow tits.

“Yup,” he said, and then cursed when one dropped down again and split like a powdery coconut.

She was punching snow back against her base that had dropped off when he was done with stay-in-place snow boobs, and was moving on to place two round snowballs on either side of his snow woman’s head. Snowballs suspiciously Odango-shaped. Only more apparent when he started to strategically attach what looked like long streamers of snow-hair molded like a clinking snake against the contours of his snow woman.

“Wait,” she called, appalled. “Is this supposed to be me?”

He threw her an amused look. “No,” he said, that entertained smile playing around his lips again, and for a while she didn’t believe him, sending his artwork suspicious glances as he worked.

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Except then she got it, when he took a small branch to use as a carving stick, and traced a tiara in the snow, two globes into the odangos.

He was building a Sailor Moon snow woman.

The realisation puckered in her heart.

Frowning at her own now suddenly so boring snowman, she nodded sharply, and went to gather more snow. She had to climb into the base of the fountain for it - they’d cleared all the snow off the ground around them already, and now it was either fountain or bushes. He laughed at her when he saw her start rolling a small ball around in the snow in his technique now, but wisely didn’t comment.

But when she was done with her top hat and smiled fondly at it, before stealing his stick to trace a mask, he’d faltered and watched her in silence.

She threw him a look, but started to build a bow tie out of leaves, pressed a tiny pine cone beneath to stand in for his fancy trinket, then attempted to attach a cape, which was fucking hard, and made her curse a lot.

He’d finished long before her. His Sailor Moon had a skirt and everything, yellow leaves artfully woven into her hair, red leaves for a bow at her front and back. It was kind of an infuriating masterpiece. Meanwhile, her Tuxedo Mask looked a little droopy and sad, and yet, when he was done and she was not, he was wordlessly helping her trace a cape. And man was he better at this than her.

In the end, Usagi added the finishing touches. Traced two sets of lips and two sets of rosy cheeks with her color-bleeding mittens, and for once, she was pleased with her handiwork. It looked cute.

But then they were done, and it was bitterly cold and she was wet and frozen, but when she found his kind smile and the way he so tenderly looked at their combined work, she didn’t want to go.

“Are you a fan?” she asked him, pointedly looking where he looked, the Sailor Moon snow woman.

His smile was so fond it did things to her. “The biggest,” he said with the cutest, sweetest, most sheepish little tilt of his head, as if he was confessing a deep secret.

It left her in a weird state of turmoiling emotions she couldn’t pinpoint. But when he turned to her, looking at their bags, knowing he was about to say something, perhaps leave, she rushed to speak instead.

“Let’s build a snow dome,” she rushed out, and his smile twitched.

“What?” he asked, amused.

“To sit in! Like in Terrace House!” she clarified, and his eyebrow turned up.

Obviously she knew he would never be caught dead watching Terrace House, so she clarified. “Like in the countryside. Like an igloo.”

He tilted his head at her.

“We can put it directly opposite of our snowmen. To watch them a little longer. While they last, and all.”

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He snorted, but lifted his hands in a gesture all ‘sure, whatever,’ and together they did now have to venture into the bushes after all.

The branches attacked her and she was wetter afterwards than ever before, but the snow was thick and heavy and there was a whole damn lot of it, and this time she didn’t argue. Mamoru’s rolling technique, joint effort. Rolling, rolling, rolling it across the soil.

“What do you like about Sailor Moon,” she asked eventually, looking at the snow and not at him, and the way the ball (as high as her knees now) rolled across the snow, pushed by both their gloved hands.

He was silent for a little while, obviously mulling over his answer.

“She’s the best person I could ever imagine,” he eventually said.

It hit her, and kind of not in a good way. Because she knew for a fact he did not think this about her.

It hit way too close to home. Something screamed at her to ask for more.

To ask in what way. To dissect every last expectation.

But she was terrified of the answer, and so she didn’t.

But he’d stilled. Noticing something was up with her, because Chiba Mamoru was a perceptive guy who always watched her too intently.

She shook her head, pushed at the snowball, and on they went.

“Tell me something,” she said, rolling, aware of the fact her voice sounded a little croaky. But she needed a distraction from her thoughts.

“About what?” he asked, tone neutral but his eyes intense and watchful. His leather gloves trailed over the snow like he was caressing it even when his eyes weren’t on it at all.

She shrugged awkwardly, brushed her wayward hair from her face. “I don’t know. Something happy. A story.”

With that, his lips quirked up. That handsome flirty look that was not flirting at all, just his normal tease. And also, how did she look like someone had put her into a blizzard and then left her out to dry, hair fuzzed out and damp all over, and his stupid scarf was still that elegant effortless thrown-over-the-shoulder look with no hair out of place?

“You want me to tell you a story?” he asked, amused. “Like, what? A fairy tale?”

She threw him his signature Odango Atama-reaction look, a little mocking, a little irritation, a little tongue. He just lifted his eyebrows, clearly entertained.

“So what?” she huffed, frustrated. “I want it. Something with adventure and no grown-up stuff.”

His smile was warm and infuriating and very Mamoru. “So you want Peter Pan?” he joked.

She rolled her eyes theatrically, and pushed the ball at him a little harder (he oof-ed with a laugh). “Well, maybe,” she muttered.

He threw her a look, rolled the ball backwards in a way that navigated around a bush. “Peter Pan is a horrible story.”

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“Excuse me?”

“Kidnapped children who have to stay as kids forever, but never get to see their parents again?” he said with a pointed frown and she frowned right back.

“That’s the most horrible interpretation of it I’ve ever heard,” Usagi said, horrified. The snowball rolled into a fresh batch of high snow, crunching across the ground, narrowly wedged between a line of bushes, but growing quicker and quicker. She wriggled at the branches a little, and it rained down even more snow.

He shrugged.

“You know there’s also the interpretation where all the children all died in the war and Peter Pan collected them all and brought them into heaven,” she said, pushing her numb hands against the snowball. It reached higher than her belly now.

“And that’s supposed to be better?” he chuckled. “There’s also the interpretation where Peter brainwashed them all, removing all their memories so they would want to stay young and brainwashed forever, and Hook was the only lost boy who managed to break free from Peter’s spell, grew up, and now tries to save all the other kids.”

“Wow, that’s sinister.”

He snorted, his fringe shaking across his forehead, and he navigated the snowball down a trail between the bushes, walking backwards in a way as if he had eyes back there or something. She would have walked straight into a bush.

Usagi huffed, rolling. “What’s so bad about not being good at all that adulting stuff? Wanting to escape all those expectations?” she said after a little while. “I would love to run from it, too, sometimes,” she confessed.

Immediately, Mamoru’s piercing look was back on her. That tilted head, and she pressed her lips together in discomfort.

And with another shake of the leaves, they were back out of the bushes, behind the fountain, behind her naughty bench, the snowball reaching her sternum. It was giant.

Mamoru clapped a bit of powdery dusting of snow off his coat, making it infuriatingly pristine again.

“So, how do you want to do that?” he asked. And somehow, Usagi was sure he meant the running from expectations, but she pretended to misunderstand.

“We’ll just carve it out,” she said with a decisive little nod. “Make a little seat inside and all.”

Mamoru’s eyes scrunched together, but he didn’t press.

Rolling the giant snowball across from Snow Moon and Snow Mask, she kicked at it a little, making it collapse ever so slightly, then she knelt and began to dig. Her tights were super thick, her miniskirt lined with press-on heat packs. But she was wet, and kneeling in the snow was probably not the best idea, and yet she ignored it and dug her numb fingers and wet pink mittens inside, starting to carve it out.

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Mamoru’s form was dark and heavy beside her as he knelt right next to her.

So close their sides touched, his coat to her jacket, his leather-gloved fingers digging beside hers.

“So, are you looking for a new job?” he asked, probing carefully.

Apparently, her comment didn’t leave him alone.

At least this was semi-safe. She nodded.

“Something caught your eye, yet?” he asked carefully, choosing his words.

She wrinkled her nose, dug, and shoved the snow to the side. The hole in it was quickly forming. “I’m doing something on the side that’s kinda fun. You know, to pay the bills and save up a little to move out eventually.”

She felt his look at her profile.

“Oh?” When she did look, he was carefully pressing his hands against the sides of their igloo. Attempting to keep it sturdy as she gutted it.

“Don’t laugh, please?” she mumbled.

He smirked. Patted the snow against the forming walls instead of digging it out. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare.”

Aggravated at his look, she fisted the snow she was digging out, and threw it at him. He laughed, lifting his arms. The snow powdered off his sleeve.

“What is it?” he chuckled, dusting himself off with that smirk in his eyes.

She felt her cheeks heat and it was kind of tingling against her cold, cold face, and yet his intense attention remained on her even as he carved them a seat and she mutilated it. She could feel his eyes.

“Do you know like, these people with the fake weddings? And the fake wedding guests and fake brides and stuff? For like, pictures for social media and event dates and promotions and stuff?”

Of course, he looked horrified, and she huffed, then snorted.

“Wait what,” he cried. “You like, fake marry people?”

She dug a little more, but this time pushed it back, patting against the little tiny narrow seat he was forming. “So far I’ve only gone on fake-vacation with people, and took fake friend and family pictures. But yeah, I think I’d love to fake marry someone.”

He took a beat. Patted snow against the wall while holding his arm out and around to pat it from both sides. “That’s kinda sad,” he said.

She threw him a look.

“The needing to hire such a thing,” he defended immediately at her look.

“Not you doing it. I think you’d have fun with it.”

“I do, actually,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “And I think I like helping people who feel that lonely.”

He grew silent. But when she turned to him, he smiled. It was genuine, but a little melancholy, and she frowned.

He turned back to their snow igloo. “Does it at least pay well?”

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She rubbed her hands against the seat like he was doing. It did look like a seat now. And also, now that there was an ‘inside’ inside of here, it protected them strangely well from the cold outside, even though she could barely feel her hands anymore.

“A lot better than some of my older jobs,” she answered, and received a firm nod.

“So, what does your boyfriend think of you fake-marrying other people?”

The question had barely left his lips before it apparently turned her so sad that he directly picked up on it. Because his concerned, “Bad question?” shot out immediately afterwards.

She brushed her teeth across her chapped lip and frowned hard at the snow, patting on. “I haven’t actually told anyone about the job yet.”

A beat of silence.

“Why not?”

She sighed, moved a little weirdly, a little embarrassed, and kept patting.

Didn’t look him in the eye. “It’s not exactly what people want for me. It’s a silly job.”

Another beat of silence.

“But you told me?”

At that, she did look up. Sent him a small smile, half of a tease. But he wasn’t teasing back. His look was dead serious. At least until she spoke.

“That’s different,” she informed him. “You ONLY expect crap from me.”

Despite himself, it seemed, he laughed. A rumbling chuckle, and it couldn’t have echoed off their little space, but it did, and it made her smile in return.

And he sat back on his haunches. Somehow, they were done. A tiny little snow dome igloo. It was narrow, but they could sit in it.

Turning was a little awkward. It was so narrow they had to sit in it pressed tightly together, and making a 180 required her to move her whole body against him. She blushed when he did the same.

But then there they sat. A little warmer in here, their exhales turning the walls to ice ever so slowly. Directly in front were Snow Mask and Snow Moon.

She was looking at the pretty cape on her misshapen snow boyfriend when Mamoru next spoke.

“Why haven’t you told him about the job?” he asked.

She turned to look him in the eye. His elbows were on his knees. Looking long and dangly as he wrapped his arms around them. He looked like a giant in a doll’s house.

“I… don’t tell him a lot of things about me,” she said because it was true.

But he frowned. “Why?” She didn’t know why she was telling him these things, really. She didn’t know why she always wanted to tell him things, in general. When did her high school nemesis become her confessor?

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But she did. She told him. “I’m terrified he’ll be disappointed. In me.

Everything about me, really,” she confessed, kneading her frozen hands.

He inhaled sharply. Shook his head hard. “Usagi, no.”

But she pressed her lips together and fled the conversation. Slipping from their igloo, she walked to her bench, took both their bags.

He was watching her intently again when she wriggled back inside, pressed herself back into the narrow space next to him, slipped off her ice-clump gloves, and slowly unpacked all their cakes.

When they were all uncapped, she pulled her little pencil case of cutlery from the inside of her breast pocket and his eyebrows rose back along his forehead.

She shrugged. “Other people carry fancy sustainable coffee cups with them, I have cutlery in my pockets. I’m always ready to eat,” she said, and he laughed, and she extracted her one spoon, then held it out towards him.

He looked even more surprised than when she’d randomly pulled silverware from her clothes.

“Wait, what?” He was all incredulity. “Tsukino Usagi is sharing food? With me?”

Well, it was Christmas Eve after all. She gave him a cheeky grin. “Maybe you deserve it today,” she said, and pushed her shoulder against his a little, jostling him. “Ya know, one undatable person to another.”

He laughed. That beautiful, amused, belting sound she only ever heard him make with her. Carefully, he slipped off his leather gloves and placed them in his lap.

She pointed at the cakes, and he dutifully, carefully, leaned forward and sliced her spoon into chocolate sponge and chocolate cream mousse perfection first.

His eyes widened a little in surprise when he slipped the spoon back from his mouth, and she beamed.

“Bûche de Noël,” she informed him, then took the spoon from him. Her own way of stabbing the cake was much less careful and much less modest.

“That’s a very fancy term,” he remarked with a smirk as she opened her mouth wide and shovelled cake into it.

“I don’t know much,” she said with her mouth full, “but I do know my food lingo.” She swallowed, dug the spoon in again. “It’s my favorite. The sponge cake swirled with the soft chocolate mousse cream?”

She slipped her spoon back into her mouth.

“Better than the classic ones with the fresh strawberries?” he asked with a smile.

She licked the spoon clean, handed it back to him, and pointed at the next cake for him to try, the strawberry brûlée dome cake. “I love the classic ones,” she answered. “But the conbinis don’t have the freshest strawberries.”

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When he took his bite, he groaned in it, too, and Usagi smirked at him, all ‘See?’.

“Only the Fujiya classic one is better than this,” she said. “And Mako-chan’s.

But it’s super expensive, so.” She shrugged. “And I’m not forcing my friend to bake for me 24/7.”

“You don’t?” He laughed, and she poked him in the side. Then she pointed to the tiramisu cake she’d made him buy, and this time, when he ate, he fucking melted.

“Excuse me?” he said. As if he were offended he hadn’t known this perfection before, and it made her preen in pride.

Her eyes were all ‘I told you so’, and it was the best friggin’ feeling.

She still made him lick the spoon clean first. She didn’t want this coffee nonsense with her vanilla strawberry Santa.

“Mamoru?” she asked, decapitating Santa ruthlessly.

He turned to look at her, and she flinched a sheepish smile.

“Merry Christmas,” she hushed.

The smile he gave her was perhaps the warmest he’d ever given her. “Merry Christmas, Usagi.”

His cheeks were red and flushed from the cold, like red spots on a doll, and it was kind of adorable.

But when she passed him the spoon again, she brushed his hand. He recoiled heavily.

“Fuck,” he cursed sharply, and she was about to inhale sharply to give him shit for that reaction, but then he jump-grabbed at her hands and confused the hell out of her and started to rub and fuss until finally all the ‘oh, because they’re cold’lightbulbs went off in her bewildered head… And also what the fuck wow, how were his hands so insanely warm?

“They’re fucking blue,” he cursed in his dirtiest scolding voice, his tone all ‘why didn’t you say something,’ and honestly, the difference in heat between their fingers felt almost painful when he wrapped his large hands around her small ones, rubbing them.

She blinked at his effort, utterly dumbfounded. At the way he brought them to his mouth and cupped his hands around them, blowing in that slow, deliberate way that puffed out his warm breath across her fingers.

It was… surprisingly sweet. It kind of flushed through her. It was totally weird.

It was meant to lighten the mood, or maybe her awkward, undefinable, fluttering feelings. “If you think that’s bad, you should feel my feet,” she awkwardly joked.

His glare was so quick and dirty the sounds died in her throat just as she’d uttered them.

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“Right, then,” he glowered, wrapped both her hands in one of his and reached with the other to start putting the plastic caps back on her cakes. “We’re getting you home, then.”

“Hey!” she called in protest, but really, she’d lost the war. He was muttering, slipping his own too-large gloves onto her hands with jerky, annoyed movements, giving her a lecture on the superiority of leather gloves over plastic as he dumped hers in the trash, all ‘leather is literally skin and warms with your body heat’ with irritation in his voice and movements as he put her stuff back in her bag.

At one point, she started giggling ridiculously, and he glared at her even harder.

And he did walk her home. At least to their fork in the road.

And once again, he hovered. Called her back after their goodbyes.

“Usagi?” he called her back.

“Hm?” she turned back.

His cheeks were pink from the cold, his jaw tense, but his eyes sincere.

“Don’t change.”

Huh? She rolled her eyes. “I’m a disaster,” she threw back, “Your own words.”

“You’re a delightful disaster. Please don’t ever change,” he said, still that intense glower, and she recoiled this time. “Especially for someone else’s expectations. No one’s.”

She felt inclined to give him her ‘yeah, riiight’, look. But it froze on her, perplexed.

He tilted his head, and shrugged. “Thank you for today,” he said, and it was too confusingly genuine again.

And then he turned and left.

She stood staring after him too long, before she shook her head and walked home.

She ended up eating the rest of her cake in the tub, because no one was around to scold her and Luna couldn’t care less. Felt the feeling return to her toes and frowned into the steam.

She started hard, when, two days later after the most random battle, Tuxedo Mask gingerly lifted her in that soft way he always touched her, and carried her to a place she knew well.

She’d expected his tongue in her mouth, maybe a chance to get to touch his bare skin. She’d missed him, she’d been dreaming of him, she wanted him. Had been distracted the whole battle because it had been too long. Because he’d turned her into someone who waited for battles to come so she could fuck her partner/maybe enemy/probably boyfriend.

But he didn’t carry her away to have her way with her.

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Arisugawa-no-Miya Park. On the roof of the Tokyo Metropolitan Library, exactly across from their fountain, their bench, and the new snow sculptured additions, he’d laid out a blanket, a thermos, and a christmas cake still boxed.

The expensive, classic Fujiya one.

She blinked hard at the coincidence, and he shifted almost awkwardly beside her. He held out his hand towards the spot almost sheepishly, and her eyes must have been big and round and incredulous.

“This is…” she started.

He shifted closer.

“It’s amazing,” she breathed, confused.

He laughed, relieved. And somehow, it sounded familiar.

“That’s like, the best cake,” she pointed out, kneeling on the soft, thick, green blanket.

“So I’ve been told,” he said, held her gaze. Watched her.

She turned, looked around. It was freezing cold up here. Especially in a mini skirt with bare arms and legs.

Down there, from the spot he’d chosen to take her, you could see Snow Moon and Snow Mask, and she couldn’t help but smile.

With a heavy swoosh of his cape, he sat right behind her, and relieved goosebumps ran along her skin when he shifted so close his body heat enveloped her, his chest pressing against her back intimately. She shivered, and with a flick of thick fabric, he wrapped his cape around her.

It was warm from his body, surprisingly soft, and she almost mewled.

She felt his low chuckle rumble against her back, his face move against her hair, and his arms wrapped tight around her.

It was utter bliss. She sat in a warm cocoon of the man she’d dreamed of since she was young, who, turns out, she could turn into a shuddering mess beneath her, who swooped her away to… to…

To this.

It was so sweet it choked her up. A Christmas date. He tried to give her a Christmas date.

It flushed through her. Filled her heart. Kinda turned her on. Made her trail her hand down his leg slowly and wonder how long it would take him to react.

But she also wondered how long he’d had this prepared. If he’d, had there been a battle earlier in the week, had had this ready, too. How many days had he been waiting for this?

It made her heart speed up, and kind of also terrified her. Not because she didn’t want it. Not at all. Not in the least. She wanted this so very badly.

But what were the chances that she could keep this if she was too terrified to show him who she was?

Her eyes flicked back to Snow Moon and Snow Mask. The igloo had been absolutely destroyed, no trace of it left, but those two were almost untouched.

“Have you seen those?” she pointed with her chin, voice cracking weirdly.

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Weirdly, his voice sounded almost as sheepish as hers. “I have, yes.” He drew her closer to his chest still, and she sat completely between his legs.

She pressed back against him as hard as she could, eyes fixed on her crappy Snow Tux next to Mamoru’s shiny perfect version of his idol, Sailor Moon.

How would he react? Mamoru and Tuxedo Mask. How would either of them ever react if they found out Sailor Moon was a college drop-out who’d ate nothing but enormous amounts of christmas cake and the occasional KFC for every meal for the last few days while she was alone for once?

Tuxedo Mask was apparently thinking something similar. His chest was beating hard, she could feel it thumping against her back. His arms around her super tight.

“What would you do?” he whispered against her hair.

She frowned.

“If we could be together for real?” he clarified, voice thick.

Her own heart sped up. There was this awful voice in her head that asked herself if she could pretend to be someone more responsible. Like she had tried for that job with her father’s newspaper.

It was so fucking terrifying, the thought. Tuxedo Mask was the best man she knew. A true hero. Going nuts when she was hurt. Touching her like she was a gift from fate and he was undeserving of her. He was smart, drop-dead-gorgeous, strategic, reliable. He deserved the Sailor Moon he imagined. She wanted a woman like that for him. She wanted to be a woman like that for him.

She wasn’t, though. Not even in a self-deprecating way. She had lots of other things going for her. She could make people smile. She made a killer curry rice, her only good dish. She could cheer someone on and believe in them. She could sleep in any situation, anytime. She could give a good pep-talk. She could believe in the good in others, find something positive in most situations.

But she was also an acquired taste, kind of. There were few people in her life who hadn’t been disappointed in her throughout her life. There wasn’t a single person who was permanently in her life who hadn’t been disappointed in her at least a number of times and told her so. Be it the fact she could never remember how to put on a kimono even though Rei had shown her a thousand times, or Ami’s patient but dispiriting look when Usagi failed a test she’d taken hours of time out of her busy schedule to tutor her for. Luna and Artemis’s scolding lectures, especially when she was younger, almost any other day. Her Mama refusing to let her in the house because of her abysmal grades. Shingo too embarrassed of her to introduce her to his friends. Her friends making excuses for her, telling people they’ll like her if they only gave her a chance to get to know her a little better.

She didn’t want this man of all men to be disappointed in who she was.

She wouldn’t be able to take it.

She wanted to be with him. She wanted him to keep being this proud of her. She wanted him to keep looking at her like that. She wanted to wake up with him in the mornings and jump his fucking bones in sleep-warm sheets and then go 148

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for an enourmous breakfast afterwards, and she wanted him to not care if she sucked at time management and finishing what she started, and keep kissing her like that even if her fancy new coat would forever be spotted with coffee because she didn’t even know where the next dry-cleaner was.

So yeah, if they could be together for real? What would she do?

But because the silence had stretched too long, and she couldn’t speak this truth into existence because it wasn’t only her heart at stake here, but also a lot more, she ventured somewhere safe instead, somewhere practiced, somewhere more light.

“Have sex in a warm bed,” she finally said, shivering. Because, well, it was also the truth.

He laughed. A huffing sound that moved her hair.

She sighed, wrapped herself against him more, and shivered.

His laugh died and stretched into silence instead.

She almost fell when he got up so abruptly. The wind rustling his hair underneath that top hat. Blinked in confusion when he held his gloved hand out for her, frowning.

“C’mon,” he said, and curled his fingers at her.

Her heart started hammering. What?

“What about the cake?” she stalled.

“I’ll buy you another one,” he said quite dryly. “Come on.”

Her heart beat hard. Ba-dump, ba-dump, against her ribcage. She knew what was gonna happen. She wanted it. She was terrified of it.

“Where are we going?”

“To have sex in a warm bed,” he said calmly, still holding out his hand for her.

Her eyes widened. And yet, she took his hand. Because she would always take his hand.

With one swooping motion, he lifted her. Soft gloves around her goosebump-ed knees, the other curled around her midriff, her arms settling around his shoulders in a movement so routine, so practiced, so natural it made her heart ache.

“But… where,” she gasped when he jumped, her stomach sinking with the motion of soaring through the air as he lifted off the roof with her in his arms and jumped right off the side of the building.

“My place,” he said.

She almost choked. Clutched his lapels.

“No,” she begged.

He stopped. Stilled in the snow near her Snow Tux. “Why not?” he asked, looking down.

She curled her gloved hands into his jacket, kneading it nervously, and her voice rose in agitation. “I’ll see where you’ll live, I’ll figure you out! We’ll—”

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He gave her a hard long look. Not unkind, but searching. “What if I don’t mind if you figure me out?” he asked quietly, vulnerable.

Her whole form turned into one big whimper, and in answer, he exhaled hard, eyes shimmering.

He wasn’t moving. His fingers twitched around her knees.

“Do you not want to?” he asked under his breath, his eyes studying her intensely.

Her heart hurt.

“I want nothing more,” she whispered, confessing, barely audible.

But with that, he moved. Jumped.

Sailor Moon shrieked.

“Close your eyes, then” he said. “I’ll make sure you won’t see, if that’s what you want.”

She squeezed her eyes shut immediately and it caused his breath to stutter in despair.

But soon after - so soon, he lived so close! - he touched ground. The shifting of his body, leaning, dipping her. The slide of a balcony door, the changing sound as he left Tokyo behind and put her down in his home. She kept her eyes firmly shut, perhaps even harder now, and heard him sigh.

The same sound again, a door shutting, and suddenly, it was completely silent except for his harsh breathing and hers.

“Wait here,” he whispered in the silence.

The rushing sound of something sliding against a rail. She frowned.

Curtains? The swish of his cape as he moved around her, then that same sound again. Behind her eyelids, her vision turned black.

She felt his return as goosebumps on her skin, even though it was no longer cold.

Then she felt his breath on her face.

“You can open your eyes, now,” he said. Softly now.

And yet she still whimpered.

“I promise.” His voice was a beg. “It’s as dark as it can be in here.”

To a hammering heart, she opened her eyes. And yes. Yes, it was pitch black, all curtains drawn. He was nothing more than a silhouette.

She stared, exhaling harshly. He was right here. She was in his home, somewhere in Azabujuban. This could be— They could be— To the rushing sound of her own blood in her ears, she lifted trembling fingers to his face. And for the first time ever, she brought her eyes to his mask. He held his breath.

She traced it first. White as it was, it was the lightest thing she could see.

Behind it lay only shadow and it painted movement. Not knowing what he looked like, there was no chance she could figure it out in the pitch dark.

She tightened her grip and lifted it off.

His lips opened with his relieved whimper, and it broke her.

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Her hands were rushed, frantic. She ripped off his hat, threw it across the room. Something knocked down somewhere, but neither of them reacted. Her hands pulled at his jacket, frustrated.

And she couldn’t believe her own ears for what she said next.

“Detransform,” she begged.

He stilled. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

It was stupid. It was dangerous. She knew of course that this was different.

Even if she took off his mask in costume, ever, she was relatively sure that the magic would still protect him. Chances were high that she would still not be able to truly see him. But detransformed? One flash of light, one car driving by outside in an angle that it peaked through the curtains after all...

But she nodded, closed her eyes just for a moment.

There was no flash of light, just a shimmer of magic that she felt, but she took no chances. When she touched him next, however, she touched the heavy fabric of a winter coat. An incredibly soft scarf hanging from it.

She frowned. “You weren’t supposed to be wearing more,” she huffed in annoyance, tugging, and he barked out a laugh.

He shimmied out of the jacket immediately, hopping and moving and shaking it off, and she groaned in an utterly unladylike way when she moved her hand beneath whatever sweater he was wearing, and there was warm, bare skin shivering underneath her gloves. She ripped at it like a madwoman, over his head and away, and he let it all happen. And when she trailed her lips against his chest, against the rise and fall of pectoral muscles, he was shivering all over. His hands ran through the long streamers of her hair, tugging ever so lightly, and it lifted her mouth off his chest and up towards his face.

It was hard kissing him in the dark. She missed his mouth, frantic and wild, until his hands messily disentangled from her hair and grabbed her chin, strands of her hair still pressed between her face and his hand. And then his tongue was firmly in her mouth, stroking deep and wet and slow against hers, and it made her shudder all over, too.

Moving her hands down his form blindly, he grunted in pain against her when she found her goal but hit too hard, but he never stopped kissing her back, even when her hands fumbled because fuck damn removing someone else’s belt in the dark with gloves on was a fucking test of skills right there, and she only managed it when his own hands moved between them to help.

With a whipping sound as she ripped it from his pants, it finally came free, and with his hands moving between them, and the sound of a zipper going down, they fell from his hips, and he kicked them off his legs.

Stepping back, his lips disconnected from hers with the softest, lewdest little suction sound, but she had to see.

He was nothing more than a silhouette, just a man in shadows. Her man in shadows. And he was standing there, panting harshly in his underwear - the tight dark boxer briefs kind, something like that - and nothing more. No mask. No mask.

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Waiting for her to move.

She did. Moved close, inhaled his skin. Soapy clean, no roses this time. This was just him.

He shivered.

Usagi lifted her hand, drew Sailor Moon’s gloved index finger slowly from his sternum down his chest, his belly. She didn’t feel it through the glove, not really.

Didn’t see it, not at all. A tiny dip that must have been his navel. A rise, and then there was his hard erection. That, she could feel.

His breath was shuddering, and yet he waited.

She drew both hands into his underwear and tugged it slow, slow, slow down his legs, kneeling. And when she looked back up, she saw his shivering, trembling body, the jut of a cock near her face.

She leaned forward, exhaling. Rubbed her cheek against it, her glove catching it, and he cried out a soft whimper before she stood up again.

His whole body was shaking, and it affected her in ways that spread and tingled deep down her spine, pooled in her belly and between her thighs.

When he moved, it was his hands. With trembling fingers, he grabbed one of her hands, and one by one, he tugged at every finger of her glove, pulling until he could slip it from her. Then he took her other hand and did the same, until her hands were bare.

A naked man in the dark with the woman he desired, leading her bare hands to his naked body, she’d have expected him to draw her touch to his cock.

And yet, curling one of her hands with his, he brought it to his face.

Her breath stuttered, her hands trapped against his larger one against his high cheek, and when she moved her thumb to trail the pad of her finger along his cheekbone, his eyelid, skin she had never touched before because there’d always been that stupid mask, he sighed, moaning tonelessly, and curled his face into her touch.

It broke her heart and made her fall in love all over again.

There was stubble on his chin, his cheeks. His eyebrows were thick and full, the crease between his brow rigid and deep, and his own hand so, so heavy over hers, pressing.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He gasped, shuddering. She’d never dared say that before.

And then his own hands were on her face, and then his lips. Trailing her eyelids, her cheekbones, her nose, her temple, her cupid’s bow, the corner of her lips, her mouth. His tongue back against hers, careful and slow and moaning.

And then he slowly walked her backwards, until the back of her knees hit something soft, and his lips disconnected from hers softly, preciously.

“The bed is behind you,” he whispered.

She licked her lips, stepped aside, and pushed him on it. His silhouette bounced, he gasped, and the sound of a creaking mattress filled the room along with his shudders.

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She wanted to see this so badly. Her naked man with the face she didn’t know, that stranger she loved and trusted so completely, looking up at her in the shadows as Sailor Moon climbed over him, straddling him. She wanted to see his face so very badly, the look in his eyes.

But she only had his sounds and his touch. Only had the way his breath came out garbled when she sat down directly over his cock, grinding her fuku against him. Only had the way his fingers twitched and dug into her ass so desperately, how his thighs tensed and shook underneath her, overwhelmed and hard.

Only had the way he clawed his hands into her so hard when she rolled her hips over him, again and again, working herself up on his cock as she moved it along her crotch, the way he hissed and babbled and whimpered brokenly, desperately.

She knew those sounds. She knew them so, so well. Had heard them pressed against her ear, her chest, her mouth, her hair. She could hear when he was struggling, getting close. Could feel by the way he pressed his hips down far to reduce friction, trying not to come.

And then she stilled, and panted harshly.

He was looking up at her. She couldn’t see his eyes, the shadows were too deep, but her eyes had adjusted just enough to the dark to see the curve of his nose, the movement in his face, his bare shoulders against dark sheets.

Breathing deeply, pressed against his cock tightly, she moved and covered his eyes.

He jumped at her touch. Jumped even more when he felt the shimmer of her detransformation rippling against his skin.

It was stupid. It was pitch dark. She couldn’t see him. He wouldn’t be able to see her either. And yet she was too terrified. Because what if he could?

The shudder in his breath broke when he touched her again, and there were no boots, no tight fuku, just loose pj shorts with lemons on them and short sleeved pajama top to match, buttoned in the front.

His voice broke, his hands moved around her bare calf so tight it almost hurt.

“Hi,” he whispered into the dark, his breath puffing against her wrist. Her palm still covering his eyes.

“Hi,” she whispered back, and her voice broke, too.

His breathing stuttered when he moved his hands carefully, tenderly up her leg, underneath the hem of her loose shorts to dance his fingertips against the sensitive skin of her bare ass underneath.

“You’re wearing less than I did,” he said breathlessly, but his voice was a grin.

She chuckled.

“I promise I’ll keep my eyes closed,” he said after a beat.

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And she could have cried in gratitude for him. With a beating heart, she removed her hand.

He was still hard beneath her. She could feel every contour of his cock now, jutting hard against her, against the thin, thin fabric, moving. And yet he moved almost calmly. At least it could have been mistaken for calmness, if it weren’t for the tremor in his touch.

“Can I touch you?” he hushed into the dark.

She frowned. But of course he couldn’t see. “Of course,” she said.

Incredulous, perplexed, and too loud in the hush of darkness.

But he shuddered, and then his hands moved up and underneath the soft viscose fabric of her top, gentle, tender fingers trailing up her skin. Stroking featherlight underneath the crease of her breast, brushing ever so faintly along her nipple.

It was too good, too little, and she pressed her knees against his thighs, pressed her crotch against his cock, contorted her whole body and yanked her top over her head in one fluid movement so sudden and hurried he groaned. Grabbed her boob harder, his thumb deeper, his other hand into her ass and his cock up against her, his hips lifting her, head thrown back as he groaned louder than she ever heard him groan before.

“Do you have a condom?” she gasped in a way-too-wanton way, but he turned on his bed so fast she almost fell off him and shrieked.

“Sorry,” he whisper-shouted, horrified, and his hand blindly fumbled around what must be a nightstand by his bed. Something crashed and fell (a plant?) and he cursed. But the sound of wood and swishing items later, and he ripped at something in the dark.

Then he turned back around, square package slapped onto his belly, and she knew his eyes were closed even though she couldn’t see.

“I can’t put it on without looking,” he whispered, and held it out instead.

She exhaled. He was so fucking trusting. And so, it was a little like their first time. She knelt, pushed her pj shorts down her legs, then stepped out of them.

And sitting down on him again, her wet sex now naked and directly at his bare cock, he exhaled all his breath in one surprised whoosh.

She fumbled in the dark, ripping at the foil packaging, tried to figure out in the pitch black which way to roll it down. But all the while, her hips moved along his bare length, her clit gliding down his shaft, his hands digging tight and firm into her thighs, and god it felt so good, so, so bloody good, just one buck lower and he could move inside and— She finally figured it out, pinched the top, lifted her butt, and grabbed his cock.

He hissed through his teeth when she rolled it on him, then moaned a sound so broken and guttural it stuttered and died when she sunk down on him ever so slowly, it was the most erotic sound in the world.

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And then she sat on him, his head thrown back, his thighs so tense they lifted her right with him off the bed, and he breathed harshly through his nose, fisting the sheets around her, the fabric gliding underneath her knees where he pulled it away.

She’d only sat down on him, and he’d almost come. It made her so fucking wet she couldn’t breathe.

And so she started rocking. Forward and back instead of up and down, moving her clit along his skin as he whimpered and cried out and made the best fucking sounds she’d ever heard. Rocking, rocking, rocking until her thighs burned and she collapsed on him, her breasts against his chest. His arms flung around her shoulders, his hands into her hair, and he pressed her against his shoulder in the tightest hug, and began to jut his hips upward to meet her in the middle.

She eventually came with his hair in her mouth and her face pressed against the side of his head, in the tightest embrace she’d ever known, his cock sliding in and out of her slowly, languidly in a way that felt almost like a rocking dance. It was beautiful. It was heartbreaking. She wanted to see him.

Instead, she felt him everywhere. Hands and thighs and cock and hair and his stuttering breath against her face, his fingertips brushing away the fringe of her hair and his lips puckering exhausted kisses wherever he reached, long after he was flaccid and soggy beneath her.

It was much later, when her breath had calmed down and her sweat had cooled on her skin and he was breathing calmly beneath her, stroking her hair over and over, that she broke the silence. Mumbling against his skin.

“What if I fall asleep?” she whispered, concerned.

“Then we’ll wake up in the morning,” he whispered back, his palm heavy on the back of her head, his cheek rubbing against her hair.

Her hands curled in his hair. “We can’t.”

He exhaled hard, his hand jumped, and then the silence stretched.

But his next words would break the spell.

“What would be so horrible if you knew who I am?” he whispered into the silent room, heavy and loaded.

Her hand twitched against his hair, and her heartbeat picked up in panic.

But she finally managed to speak the truth.

“It’s not knowing who you are. It’s you knowing who I really am,” she confessed.

But he got it so horribly, horribly wrong.

His whole body turned hard beneath her.

“Oh,” he said.

She froze. Her heartbeat was starting to hammer so hard he must have felt it against his chest.

His next words didn’t help. They were no longer a whisper.

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“You don’t trust me? After all this?” he asked. His voice shook. Broke. “You still think I could be your enemy? That I could, what, fight you? Be against you? Do you really think I—” She pushed off of him. “No! That’s not it! I—” “Well, what is it then?”

She exhaled harshly.

He turned in the dark, pushed away from her— “No!” she said again.

—And then he got up, back turned to her. And with another shimmer of the air, the cape was back, the top hat, the mask.

“Transform,” he said. It sounded so utterly defeated.

“Tuxedo Ma—” “Transform,” he interrupted her.

Panicking, she did. He felt it the second she was finished, because he always did, turned around, and lifted her wordlessly.

She panicked. Full on. About everything. About his assumptions, about the hurt her stupid insecurities had caused, about her silly lemon pajamas still strewn somewhere in this dark room, about to be left behind as incriminating evidence for her silly character. She started shaking all over.

The slide of the balcony door sounded so much louder than it had before, and she scrunched her eyes shut.

He left her on a random rooftop barely a minute later. Too close.

He left without looking back, and she sobbed so hard it choked her.

She found him sitting on the little bench outside of that one coffee shop at the edge of Arisugawa-no-Miya park, the small one with the bicycle hanging upside down from the ceiling in the picture window, and Mamoru was possibly in a mood even fouler than hers when she sat down in the seat next to him.

Besides, it was the oldest trick in her self-help book. If she was feeling like she was in a hole she couldn’t dig herself out of, digging someone out of theirs at least made her feel worthwhile.

“You look like you could use some company,” Usagi said, and made herself comfortable completely uninvited.

He sighed, then hit the back of his head against the glass behind him.

“Did the old-man-clothes shop stop making purple pleated pants?” she asked slyly, propping her chin up in her fist.

At least he snorted. .

“No,” he said, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips. “They still stock my clothes just fine.”

“Darn,” she grinned back.

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And there it was. A full smile, one of his warm ones just for her. She kind of wanted to fist-pump.

He nodded his head towards the entrance of the café. “Do you want something?”

She threw him a look. “I always want something.”

He threw her a look back, but this time it was more affection than exasperation. Turning in his seat, he lifted his hand, signalling the barista.

She tugged off her mittens (baby blue plastic wool this time, Mamoru glared at them), and grabbed the tiny little menu tucked behind the edge of the bench. The name of the cafe was embossed in pretty cursive script. “What’s good?” she asked, scanning it.

“The coffee.”

She pulled a face. He chuckled.

“It’s literally in the name. Nem: Coffee and Espresso.”

“Do they have milkshakes?” she interrupted, completely ignoring him.

“No.” She pouted.

“Ramune?”

He shook his head, she pouted harder.

“I heard their Daifuku is supposed to be good.”

There we go. Finally something good. Without waiting for the barista to have to come outside for her, she hopped off the little platform and walked inside.

But when she walked back out, unpacking her Daifuku and grief-mrompfing into it, the back of his head was back against the glass, his gaze forlorn and kind of lost.

Her heart fell, and she watched his profile for a second. He looked absolutely heartbroken, his eyes full of sorrow, his shoulders limp and hanging as he stared unseeing into the distance.

Nodding, she moved back onto the platform in one big leap, startling him, and sat back down next to him carefully, brushing her jacket over her bum, because the wood was cold.

“So what’s got you sighing that much for real?” she asked right out, and he proved her point by sighing even harder.

He lifted his coffee cup to his mouth, the steam playing around his nose, and kept looking into the distance. For a while she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he surprised her.

Looking down into his coffee cup, he shrugged. “I’m lonely,” he answered.

And it punched her in the face.

“In a nutshell,” he continued. “And I don’t want to be.”

Her whole body froze. She didn’t know why this shocked her so much. Why his words threw her so much, except— As always, he could immediately read her stricken, affected mood. “Sorry,” he apologized, turning his face and looking her directly into the eyes.

What the fuck.

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“No!” she cried. She hit her fist and her Daifuku against the bench.

He jumped, surprised. Lifted an eyebrow. “No?” he intoned, a sliver of his usual amusement in his voice.

She felt like stomping her foot like a cranky child. Her voice certainly sounded like it. “You’re not supposed to be lonely!” she protested vehemently.

His other eyebrow joined the party, but his doubtful, tilted smile was back.

“I don’t think you get to decide that, Odango.”

“No!” she cried.

He turned, watched her.

“You're my friend!” she cried on, as if it made sense.

But most shockingly, he recoiled in confusion. “I am?” he asked, and she gaped.

“Yes!” She shoved him in the shoulder. Of course he was, what the hell!

“And as my friend, I'm not gonna let you be lonely!”

He huffed the smallest laugh. A little snort. “I really don't think that's how it works, Odango.”

“Well, it’ll just have to!”

He laughed again. It was such a beautiful sound, if just too faint.

But then it fell again, that smile, completely erased. He swirled his coffee in his cup.

“It’s more a specific loneliness. Not a general one,” he said quietly.

She frowned, confused. “So it’s about…?”

He kept silent for a beat. Swallowed. Looked back up and into the distance, and she waited it out.

“A girl,” he whispered eventually. ...Oh. And why that one threw her so, she did not understand. But it did. Low, straight into her guts. She swallowed it down.

He turned his head again, found her eyes. Shrugged in that sad, apologetic way.

Usagi crossed her legs, then her arms. “Well,” she started. “I hate her already.”

One side of Mamoru’s lips quirked up.

And then he sighed again.

“It’s not really her fault,” he said.

She raised her eyebrow just like he always did, because she’d learned from the best.

He shook his head at her. “Well, it really kind of isn’t.” “‘Kind of,’” she asked, and he threw her a look for kind of throwing his own words back at her.

But this time, when he lifted his cup back to his lips and stared out into nothing, he did not eventually elaborate.

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And so, when it dragged on too long, she slapped her hands against her knees, clapping against her black skinny jeans.

“Well, I’ll just have to make you feel less lonely, then,” she vowed loudly.

He did smile then, when he turned his head. “As I said,” he said in that eyerolling tone that was all affection and all Mamoru. “It's not the friend kind of lonely I'm feeling.”

“Pfft,” Usagi snorted. “One friend maybe can't make up for that, but 10 certainly can. And let me tell you, I can easily be as overwhelming as 10 friends all at once. We're going shopping tomorrow, baka, I need a fake bridesmaid dress.”

And this time, he really, genuinely laughed.

Usagi beamed.

“I mean it,” she said, clapping her knees. “You're not gonna be lonely while I'm around, now drink up, and get your ass off that bench, you're treating me to Cremia—” “It’s 2°!” he cried in offense, but she threw him a look, as if that was any argument against ice cream.

But she just jumped up, put on her mittens, and made him drink up.

He did. Smiling oh-so-softly, and she felt a little better immediately.

Tuxedo Mask still saved her. But it was like it had been in the beginning.

When he waited around to make an entrance. Only swooped in when she was in danger, and otherwise stayed back.

It made her throat constrict and the tears fall, so angry at herself.

He was still always there. She felt him. Even when he didn’t show his face because they got it handled, she knew he was watching, but kept away. And when he did step in, blocking her, distracting the enemy for her, lifting her out of harm’s way with trembling hands and too-modest touches, he never lingered around.

She had no one to blame but herself. And her stupid heart pointed out that she’d now done it before he ever knew what she was like.

She’d disappointed him.

One night, she stopped him.

She followed him exactly two rooftops before he turned around, because Tuxedo Mask always knew if she was there. He was too observant to be snuck-up on.

“Tuxedo Ma—” she started, but he interrupted her.

“Why can’t I know?” he asked her, eyes ahead and at the neon lights of Tokyo.

Her throat constricted, pinched tight and painful and she couldn’t breathe.

“Y-you know that we—” He shook his head sharply. “No.”

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And then he whirled around. Walked the two steps to her and closed the distance between them completely. He stooped and stood so close she could see the flecks in his irises behind the mask, so close every harsh intake of his breath brushed the fabric of his costume against her skin.

His voice broke.

“All I want is to be able to say your name...”

And with that, her tears bubbled over.

His gloves caught them, his thumb brushing against her cheeks.

“Why can’t I know?” he whispered.

Her words were watery. Choked up. “What if I’m not the kind of girl you would want?” she cried.

He frowned as if the mere idea were absolute nonsense. “That’s impossible,” he said darkly.

But he couldn’t possibly know that.

She sobbed, pressed her hands against her mouth, and fled.

She sat on a cold stone bench on a cold afternoon that felt like a cold night because January afternoons were dark and did that to you, and she didn’t want to go home and not tell her Mama why she was looking like that.

There was another downside for secret relationships. You couldn’t cry in anyone’s arms when your secret partner/probably not enemy/probably no longer boyfriend decided he had enough of your crappy bullshit.

And so Kimi-chan square it was, forlornly people-watching in the cold and singling out the lucky bastards who walked in pairs with an envious stink eye.

There’d been a girl who’d slipped her bare fingers into her boyfriend’s gloves.

Man. But she kept sighing, kept sitting there even when the temperature dropped even more and she started to shiver and the sky started to mist the softest powder of snow on her ever so slightly.

When she held out her hand and caught one in her purple cheapo mittens, just before it melted, it was a perfect little ice crystal.

She shivered and sighed.

And then jumped, because a tattered, old, and deliciously warm green jacket fell over her shoulders.

She looked up startled, found Mamoru’s eyes as he stood right behind her, hands still raised where he’d dropped his most offensive piece of clothing on her with half a smile that looked kind of sad and an inquiring tilt of his head.

He was in a thick scarf and turtleneck, except it wasn’t his usual black one but that thick sophisticated wool kind that looked like little braids in dense anthracite-colored threads. It looked warm, but this time he shivered too.

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“You don’t need to do that,” she said, turning her eyes back down and stroking her mittens against the thick lapel of that old jacket and smoothing it against her purple windbreaker.

He’d changed his clothes over the years. Combined them better. But staples like this one still appeared in different combos, and it made her smile in strange nostalgia.

“You looked cold,” he said with a shrug as he sat down next to her, that pretty profile as lost in thought as she was, and brought one leather gloved hand up to sip steaming, smelly coffee in a bamboo to-go cup, then held it with both hands afterwards.

“I know you have a decent coat, why do you never wear it?” he asked her as his eyes tried to follow where she was looking, what she was watching.

“There’s coffee all over it still because I’m useless at adulting,” she said right out with a dejected sigh, because with Mamoru, she didn’t feel like she needed to pretend.

He only nodded, as if it was the most normal thing to procrastinate getting your seasonal clothes in shape all season, the occasional snowflake fluttering against his hair and melting there.

“Bring it with you next time we see each other,” he said with an absentminded shrug, and took another sip of his coffee.

She furrowed her brows, turned to look at him, jacket brushing against its rightful owner.

He shrugged, gave her the most melancholy encouraging smile and flicked his eyes back to the couple she’d been watching last. “I have a good drycleaner I go to almost every week anyway. It’s no hassle to just bring it in with mine.”

She straightened. Blinked. Hard. That was… one of the nicest things he’d ever offered.

His face turned to her just slightly. “What?” he asked, side-eyeing her, before they moved back on to the next couple.

Her throat suddenly felt full of overwhelming… something.

“I’ll do that,” she whispered, tucked her purple hands between her thighs to warm them up beneath the fabric, and let her eyes stray back to the next couple as he absentmindedly nodded.

They were cute. Looked happy. Tall guy, smaller brunette girlfriend in a cute wool hat. Leisurely walking down the street, the guy’s arm slung around her shoulders as they chatted. Assholes.

She noted that both Mamoru’s eyes and hers were following them down the road as they disappeared around the corner, then switched onto the next couple and did the same. Looking, most probably to everyone who might be watching, like those cats in the videos where you filmed the cats and not the tennis they were watching.

“Can I ask you something?” Usagi asked into the quiet.

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He gave the slightest, most nonchalant nod, not turning to look, one elbow on one dark, slim-jean-ed knee, sipping from his bamboo cup.

“You know, with me being undateable and so on,” But with that, his frowning eyes flew to her, full turn, concern shining from them.

“You know that I was a teenager and a dick when I said that.”

She threw him a shrug. “I mean, you weren’t wrong.”

His brow furrowed even more. “I was.”

She rolled her eyes, leaned over to nudge his shoulder with hers, but he was a stiff, unmovable board and his frown only deepened. “Just go with the argument please.”

His eyes narrowed even further, but he nodded in that ‘do go on’ way.

She huffed, straightened her back, frowned into the distance, collected her words. “If you, like,” she started, “were in a position where you dated a girl you thought was like, really amazing. Like, if I had pretended to be like, super great and super capable and like, super super duper—” He’d fully turned on the bench. Tense as a brick, glaring. “Usagi.”

“No, please,” she shook her hand in his direction, interrupting him. “Like.

Say you dated me. And I would paint you this picture and pretended to be really great. But then beneath that is me. Like, then you find out what I’m really like, undateable disaster and all,” she rambled out. “Like, how deeply disappointed would you be exactly?”

And with that, she turned to look into his eyes again, and recoiled a bit when they were painted in quiet fury.

His words were cutting menace. “Is this about your ‘boyfriend’?”

But she recoiled, too, worked up and irritable. “Did you just use finger quotations?” she glowered, overreacting. “Because what, I invented him?

Undateable, unladylike girl like me has to make up a guy who likes her—” Yet with that, he looked absolutely horrified.

“Usagi,” he cut in angrily, eyes snapping. “If he doesn’t like you the way you are, he’s the biggest idiot on the fucking planet.”

She frowned.

But he went on, eyes blazing, turned and leaned dark and angry into her personal space. “I’m really sorry I said these things to you. They’re horrible. And they were wrong. You’re perfect the way you are. But please, don’t take something an infantile asshole on the street said to you over half a decade ago to mean any sort of truth about your character.”

She glared at him, but then it fell. The fight leaving her, and she slumped, looked back at the street.

And with her standing down, it seemed contagious. His features fell, he sat back, but she felt his eyes still cutting into her profile.

“It’s not only you who thought that way about me,” she admitted quietly.

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He sighed. Turned back, his eyes back to following her gaze on people on the street.

“The words that we feel attacked by the most are usually the ones that have already been hurting us, Usagi,” he said equally quietly, sadly.

Her brow furrowed in utter confusion. What was that supposed to mean?

But then his gaze hardened. He stretched out his legs, crossing them prettily at the ankles. His bamboo cup met the surface of their stone bench with a dull little clack as he placed it beside him, empty.

Her heart sped up when his earnest eyes met hers.

“If he thinks these things,” Mamoru said, slow, enunciating every word, “he doesn’t deserve you. Please dump the fuck out of him.”

She curled up her nose, turned her gaze away, pulled at the corner of his large green jacket to bury herself in it further. “It’s not like that,” she said.

He sighed, long and hard. Leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching her sideways. She felt his eyes.

He got up only after a while. Picked up his bamboo cup and held it between those elegant leather gloves. Towered over her and gave her a long look she only slowly returned.

It was strange. Being stared at by Mamoru like that never felt wrong. Never felt weird. It only felt seen.

No matter how long she stared right back.

But he was the one to break it first tonight. Still that serious gaze, but with a slow tilt of his head, a swish of his hair, and she only now realised it had stopped snowing. “I want you to be happy, Usagi,” he said.

The words curled around her heart. Softer than she’d expected. And she sighed, and curled her lips up in return, to give some of that back.

“I want you to be happy, too,” she whispered back. Because it was the honest truth.

He smiled, nodded, and left her with his beloved green jacket still around her shoulders.

In the end, it was nothing more than a thought that took root in her brain that allowed her to face her fears and truly make herself feel naked. Truly allow herself to be seen.

The words that we feel attacked by the most are usually the ones that have already been hurting us, Usagi.

Mamoru’s words had rung in her head so long and so hard they sounded foreign and weird and somehow spoke to her on a level she did not understand.

She hadn’t understood what he’d meant when he’d said them. She still wasn’t sure she understood what he’d actually meant to say when he said them.

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make-believe. Watching them go to such great lengths to pretend to be something they were not just to fit in better, it worked in her.

She was terrified Tuxedo Mask would look at her and be disappointed.

Because people had looked at her in the past so often and had been disappointed, and now the stakes were so much higher than they always were.

But what was hurting her was not anything he was doing, or even saying, or even hypothetically thinking. What was hurting her was her experience. Her anticipation of expectations that had been hurting her all her life.

And it wasn't only ‘their’ expectations of her from others. They didn’t come from outside, not anymore. No one made it their business to scold her for grades or lack of focus now that she was expected to handle these things on her own. Not even Luna was scolding her on what she ought to be doing instead anymore.

Those days were over. Maybe they’d just given up, she didn’t know. Or maybe they’d accepted that this was just who she was. So no, it wasn’t only the expectations others had of her, it were expectations she’d learned to have of herself. A picture society told her she was supposed to be in the colors of her flaws, but the colors never changed. And they kept hurting her because they put the finger right on the things she was never to be flawless at.

But… Maybe isn’t wasn’t so unforgivable to not be flawless.

Maybe it was ok to be a delightful disaster. Maybe it didn’t need to hurt her when people focused more on the disaster. Maybe it wasn’t her job to please everyone. Maybe it was ok to not be totally complete on your own, to have puzzle pieces missing to be filled by people who were better at these things than you.

After all, there were so many people who saw her flaws and nagged at them, but with the people who truly mattered in her life, that didn’t mean they didn’t still stick around, it didn’t mean they didn’t love her anyway.

Maybe it was time to figure out if he would stick around, too. Or maybe even whether or not he expected those things of her, too, in the first place. And maybe, if he ended up not liking her the way she was, maybe Mamoru was right.

Maybe that was his loss. And maybe that didn’t have to mean he could not still be on their side, when worst came to worst. Even if he chose not to want to share her bed, maybe he could still choose to follow her in battle anyway. Because if anything, she did trust Tuxedo Mask to follow Sailor Moon. And she was Sailor Moon, flaws and all.

And while these things sounded good and logical in her head, they still terrified the fuck out of her. They required more bravery than she'd ever needed facing any youma.

Usagi didn’t wait for a battle that he might lurk around for and not show his face if he wasn’t needed. She didn’t wait for a situation where her adrenaline was already spiking high, her fear for her life affecting her fear for her heart when he looked at her and asked for answers.

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No. About a week after Mamoru’s words had taken root in her thoughts, she transformed, knowing Tuxedo Mask would feel it, and then she waited on the one rooftop she knew to be a minute away from that balcony door where he lived.

It was a weird time of day. The middle of the afternoon on a random weekday, and she waited for a while, overthinking and worrying that this was stupid. He was probably at work, wherever he worked, whatever he worked as.

She’d probably worried him, made him antsy and anxious to get out of his obligations for literally nothing. It was brash and unthinking of her all over again.

She should have done that at night, what had she been thinking? And so when that thought came to her, over an hour later on that roof, shivering and cold in the middle of winter on a rooftop in a fluttering mini-skirt, she panicked and turned to leave, cursing herself and her stupidity.

Of course, when she turned around to hop off the building, she saw him standing right behind her, watching her.

His cape rustling in the wind, his hair flowing beneath the hat.

The anxiety climbed back up her spine, paralyzing her.

“How long have you been here?” she asked, her voice shaking a bit with her nerves, and maybe the cold.

“Just a minute or so,” he said, distant and unreadable, but so, so searching.

He didn’t comment on the elephant on the rooftop. That there was no battle. Where they were. What that meant. He just waited for her to speak.

After all, he’d been waiting for her to speak for a while.

Her heart raced, her chest hurt, she felt dizzy. All the small hairs rose on her skin in fear. She’d never been so terrified. And yet she held his gaze, and then she spoke. Because he was here, and this was what she needed to do.

“It’s not Luna,” she pressed out, voice shaking.

His brow twitched in utter confusion about a name he’s never heard, and then his eyes scanned her, focused with a start on her shaking hands, the way they clawed into her skirt.

“And it’s not that I don’t trust you,” she continued, oh so agitated. “I trust you with my life.” She swallowed, pulling at her skirt. “I trust you with anyone’s life. I trust you with the world and the life of any princess and with any stupid mythical rocks. I trust you so much that I think if it comes to it and we’re at opposing sides, that I’ll be inclined to think your side would be the right one to be on.”

She’d yelled it all out, and afterwards, his eyes were blown up wide.

It made her falter. Made her heart beat even harder when he… didn’t say anything.

“It’s not that,” she murmured, quietly now. “I promise it’s not that.”

Down on the street, a group of children were scream-laughing in that way little children tended to do, and it travelled up in nonsensical sound so very unfitting the mood up here.

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She jumped a little when in one stride, he came close. Exhaled harshly when he came so close that he filled up all her senses, leaning down. Eyes flashing as he searched her gaze in that intense, scanning way he always tended to look at her, trying to see.

“Then what is it?” he asked her eyes.

She freed her lip from a sharp bite she didn’t know she’d been abusing it with, exhaled up and against his chin, her neck craned to look up at him. “I’m terrified,” she admitted almost inaudibly.

His brow tensed. “Of me?” he asked, and her breath stuttered.

“No,” she said, frowning. “I don’t know. Maybe!”

At that, his eyes flashed with hurt behind the mask, and so she hurried to explain.

“But also of me!” she cried, and her hand flew up and clawed itself desperately into the lapel of his jacket, begging him to understand what she had trouble saying.

She breathed hard, he waited.

She kneaded her fist into the fabric. Spoke to his jacket, to his chest, and not at him. “Sailor Moon is a symbol,” she said with difficulty.

He shifted. She knew, would she look up, he’d look confused again. His hand was already lifting to her elbow.

She huffed, went on. “She’s a hero. She stands for things. She’s…”

She swallowed.

“She’s… she’s… She’s if you take me, and put a filter on everything that’s atrocious. A big giant floating censure bar on all the things I don’t want you to see of me. She’s the very best of me, but she’s only the best of me and—” With that, his hands were on her. On her face, stroking down her hair, but she stubbornly focused on his chest. Spread both hands against the crisp white shirt. Felt the way his heart was hammering beneath her palm, and it showed her he was as nervous as her, and maybe it was ok to feel this way.

“Underneath this, I’m only me. I’m not a superhero. I’m only me. I trip and fall and stumble through my life, my attention span is that of an overexcited squirrel, I chew my pencils and I lose a lot of jobs that I don’t manage to fit in and that’s not only because I run out at random times to go fight bad guys that I can’t explain. I’m not Sailor Moon beneath the costume. Not always. Not really. But you like Sailor Moon.”

His breath rushed out in a way that felt… important. But she still didn’t look up. Couldn’t.

She didn’t look up when his fingers brushed at her chin and she didn’t look up when he stepped so close that their bodies touched all over. When he stepped so close she could feel him tremble, too, stooped above her, curled around her.

But she listened when he spoke.

“Close your eyes,” he hushed against her lips, earnest and intense, and she listened immediately, momentarily. Relieved.

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When he lifted her, she let herself fall into his arms. She clawed at him, fingers in the fabric, warm from his body, wrapped her arms tight around his shoulders, and then she climbed him. Pressed her face into the crook of his neck and clung to him like a monkey, weird and intense and needy. And when he jumped with her in his arms, she knew where they were going.

The slide of a balcony door, the ripping sound of curtains across rails, all while she was still clawed to the front of him, his hand on the small of her back, barely needing to hold her up with the way she’d clawed herself around him.

And then his arms were around her, hugging her back as he stood with her in the middle of this room when she didn’t let him go.

She needed a moment until she dared to open her eyes, clinging to him, her cheek pressed against his neck. But when she did, she started.

The room was dark. But not as dark as it had been the last time she was here. It was light outside and the thick curtains couldn’t hold all that light out. She could see the shadows of an open kitchen on one side, the bed on another. She could see it was tidy and small, and she clung to him harder.

And his hands stroked down her back and waited it out. Waited it out when she clung even harder, pressed her lips desperately against his neck, his throat, his ear. Inhaled and bit and kissed, and all the while, his fingertips only scratched lightly up and down her spine.

When she eventually descended, it threw her all anew. It was dark, yes. His black tuxedo, the black of his hair, it all melted in the shadows, but she could still see him in the faint light. He didn’t detransform - hadn’t even removed his hat and he always removed his hat - and he was standing in a dark apartment that was his and that she could see, if only in black and greys.

Slowly, she reached up, and his eyes flashed when she took the top hat off and flung it blindly to the side.

He stayed really, really close.

“You’re not a symbol to me,” he said, and her skin jumped. “Not in the way you think.”

She ripped her eyes up then, finally, saw his eyes look at her in that searching, searching way.

Slowly, with careful movements, he took his gloves off. And then, in the most tender, heartbreakingly gentle way, his fingers made her feel electric. They were so unfairly warm against her freezing skin when he ran his fingers oh-so-softly down her arm, up her leg, everywhere she was naked, goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch.

“I’m not blind,” he breathed down at her. “I’ve seen you stumble through every battle all these years. I catch you. I see your fear, every time,” he said, and she couldn’t help the whimper. Couldn’t help the way her hand flew up to cover his, so he would touch her more, firmer. “I admire that you get up afterwards. Every time.”

The last, he spoke right against her lips, his face slanted over hers, but he didn’t kiss her. And then he smiled, and she felt the pull of his lips against her skin.

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“I also happen to find people who stumble a bit through their life very endearing.”

She exhaled harshly, shuddering. Clawed at the fabric of his jacket, but then he stopped.

Then he stepped back.

“I can be a giant jerk,” he told her from a slight distance, and she gaped at him, her very skin crying for him. “Especially when I’m overwhelmed. And I suck at articulating how I feel. I close up when I’m scared and then I push people away.“ And her heart puckered. Painfully. That… He also— She— She stepped towards him, wide-eyed, and he took another step back immediately, his head tilted in that way that felt so awfully familiar.

“But…” he said slowly, holding her gaze. “If that’s what it is? If you’re scared…?” he asked.

She held her breath when he did reach out. In the most modest way, he reached out to push a stray lock of hair behind her ear, watched the passage of it as he did so.

“I can wait for that. I can try to do my best so that you feel you can show me one day what you don’t want me to see.” And then his eyes flicked back to hers, and she’d never loved him more. “I can also accept when you never want me to see.”

Her chest exploded. How? How could he be so friggin’ patient with her. So accepting? Here this man stood, telling her he would take it if this went on forever, if she was never ready to give him what he so clearly wanted. And somehow, it was all she’d ever needed.

It made her fall harder than she’d ever thought possible.

It came out confusing, visibly so. She growled. His eyebrows jumped up in confusion, and he gasped when she pulled at his jacket, pushed at his chest, yanked at him. His mouth popped open in surprise when she attacked it, made a gurgling sound when she licked her tongue into his mouth, until he finally got the memo and his hands fluttered to her side and his mouth opened wider in a moan and he finally kissed her back the way she needed him to.

His hand shot around her, cupped her ass and squeezed along to his shuddering breath right down her lungs. And when she pushed him off her with a yank, gloves at his chest, his lips were kiss-swollen and his eyes more confused than ever before.

But then she pushed him more, and he collapsed on his back, bouncing off his mattress ever so slightly, and his eyes flashed in a different way.

She climbed on top of him and he groaned, her fingers clutching at his jacket, pulling him up to her lips as she fell down at them, and his mouth was wide and slanted and fucking heaven and his tongue her favorite dessert.

He was whimpering hard when her hands clawed at his shirt, pulling it from his pants, and she leaned down to lick a line against his heated, warm skin. From the hem of his pants to the dip in his chest, lifting the fabric up as she went, then 168

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pressed her ear against his heart like a weirdo only because she couldn’t get enough of hearing it beat so very, very hard.

His hand in her hair, bare fingers stroking down her scalp, pressing her there, and she was ready to cry.

When she looked back up, his head had shifted the pillow, and she froze.

His eyes searched hers, bewildered yet again as to her reaction, but— Her silly lemon pajama top lay in his bed. It lay by his pillow.

Tuxedo Mask had found her pajamas in his apartment, flung god-knowswhere, and now it lay with him in his bed, weeks later. He slept with her clothes, her smell, a reminder of her in his bed, and it made her chest constrict because it could not contain the feeling.

His gaze was searching, as always. Watching.

“Close your eyes,” she whimpered down at him.

And of course. Of course, he closed them without hesitation, and it made tears spring to her eyes - she didn’t know what emotion they were made of - before she closed her own lids as well.

She leaned over him, found his lips blindly, clumsily. Puckered her own against the corner of his mouth and then his lower lip, before she whispered, “Detransform.”

He gasped against her mouth, but this time he didn’t ask to clarify. He just did it, and she felt the shift of clothes underneath her, beneath her hands and thighs and chest and belly. No thick coat this time, but thin fabric, the same for both his top (T-Shirt?) and his pants (...sweatpants? Pajamas? In the middle of the day? What was it?) and maybe this was all a mistake, because she immediately wanted to sit up and look and— Squeezing her eyes shut even harder, she exhaled against his shuddering mouth, and then she detransformed as well.

His voice was this hoarse, quivering, pained thing when his hands shot up around her, and she knew he was exploring blindly just as she had done. Clumsy, wild hands against her ass, her leg, her arm, gliding and feeling and searching frantically for hems.

She helped him, caught her blouse and ripped it from her skirt, then contorted to get it off and fling it away, accidentally swatting at his hands. But they found her chest anyway, warm hands slipping and stroking and following the band of her bralette to her back.

He ripped at it, frustrated grunts, and she chuckled right at his mouth, reached back for the (for once) well-practiced art of unseeing bra-removal, and when it fell away, his guttural moan was music to her ears.

She didn’t know where he’d wanted to kiss exactly, but she knew the places he found were unusual, wild. He licked up her skin, rubbed his cheek against the underside of one breast, inhaled and pressed his face against her, and she curled her hand into his hair and he jumped when she appeared to slap him in the face instead.

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They both snorted at once. It was so absurd, his chuckle so beautiful, but however weird the places he found, she wanted more. Following the contours of his skin wherever it may lead, dragging her teeth against muscle and softness and precious hardness that she instantly recognised.

He huffed hard, his face in her hands tensing, when his hands couldn’t figure out the situation of her clothes, and she laughed into his mouth and he gobbled it all up and it was the best sensation ever. “Tights,” she informed his lips, and got an “Ahhh,” in return, before his hand travelled up, surer now, and slipped inside. Because, well, tight mini skirt on high-waist tights was pretty hard to figure out just by touch, she figured, and she pushed her hands into her clothes along with his and then dragged it all down her legs, his palms digging tight into her limbs and it felt fucking damn reverent.

She pulled his underwear down directly with his pants, accidently poked her closed eye with his jutting dick. He attempted to sexily drag her panties down with his teeth but lost his grip somewhere mid-thigh and then weirdly bit around her leg in an attempt to find them again before he grunted and just pushed his hands down her legs, and then pushed them back up to her clit, changing her amused laugh to a hissed moan immediately.

It was absurd. It was weird. It was glorious, and she couldn’t get enough.

Pushed back against his hand, pressed her tongue against whatever bit of skin she was currently catching, felt the hard jut of his cock rub against her in the weirdest places to the sound of his frustrated snorts.

But when she had his cock in her hand he hissed through his teeth, and she found the tip of it almost as weeping wet as she felt herself.

And then he twisted. Stretched. When the first thing clattered and clashed and he cursed and ‘Ouch-ed’ his way through the motion, she understood he was reaching for something unsuccessfully. Until he was back on her skin and his hands somewhere in the general vicinity of her shoulders and he spoke against her cheek.

“I’m gonna turn around and get a condom,” he said, voice apologetic.

Meaning, I’m gonna open my eyes. Her stomach flipped.

But then he added just a small murmur, and her heart flipped, too.

“Get behind me,” he said, and then waited.

She did. Move behind him, that is. And this man held his promise and didn’t look, because he waited until she was at his back, and only then did she hear him shift, move. The sound of a drawer. The sound of ripping foil.

And because he was a better person than she was, clearly, she opened her eyes like a douche, thundering heart and all. But obviously, all she saw was his back, moving in the dark. Muscled skin and jutting spine, sitting at the edge of his narrow bed she’d almost fallen off twice in the past ten minutes or so, his face leaned down towards his dick as he rolled on the condom, his infuriatingly pretty butt shifting against the sheets.

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And then he was done, his spine lengthening, his hair shifting across the nape of his neck, and she held her breath.

“I’m turning back around,” he breathed.

Her eyes blew wide. Temptation so strong. She almost— But then she shut her eyes tight, tight, tight at the last second, and his hands stroked back over her skin, making her sigh in utter frustration.

On top of her now, his lips hit almost in weirder places. She could tell so well he was doing it with his eyes closed. The crook where her boob curved into her armpit, or just to the side of her clavicle, running his lips in weird diagonal movements down her chest and kissing wherever he could reach.

His fingers fumbling even clumsier than before - and so beautifully shaky running up the inside of her thigh first before orienting anew, then his fingers at her opening and rubbing up in search of her clit that his fingertips didn’t quite find at first from this angle until her gasp told him he hit jackpot, and he rubbed in the way she showed him against a wire-mesh fence.

She clutched at him, warm skin beneath her palms and his lips against her shoulder, when his dick did the same, his fist dragging it ever so slightly too high, trying to poke, before she reached down to help him along and he finally slipped inside.

His sigh was more of a whimper, hers a long exhale.

He sunk slowly, savoringly, and it was perfect. And when he was in all the way, filling her out and clenching around him, she reached out. Pulled.

He collapsed on top of her, panting, her cheek against his hair, her fingers clawed into his scalp.

He didn’t move his hips, waited for her always, pressed so deep inside of her, twitching and worked up.

It wasn’t much of a conscious decision. She just blinked her eyes open, and knew she didn’t want to close them again. Of course, she only saw his ceiling. His face cradled in the crook of her neck, her hand in his hair, his breath so labored against her throat, waiting.

But… “Open your eyes,” she whispered.

He jolted. The movement pressed his dick inside her harder, and she mewled through his startled “What?”

“Open your eyes,” she moaned again, and stroked her fingers down the nape of his neck.

And then she let go of his head. Dropped her hand down to his side, instead.

He still didn’t move, not for a moment. Until, with an anxious sort of sequence of worked up breath, his arms moved to her face, his own lips still pressed against her neck.

“Look at me,” she whispered.

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Lifting himself up around her, so, so slowly, time stopped the second she saw his face. She couldn’t breathe. She flared up all over. She tingled and her blood screamed and her eyes must have been pure shock, too, when she looked into the shocked eyes of Chiba Mamoru, currently naked on top of her and buried deep, deep inside of her.

He found his breath first. It bubbled out in a whoosh, and it kind of rushed out as an incredulous laugh, his eyes jumping between both of hers and his hands stroking against her face, brushing back her fringe, the hair from her face, cupping it, caressing it, over and over and over, thumbs against her cheeks, her eyebrows, holding her.

“Hi,” she said, shocked.

“Hi,” he bubbled out, his lips stretching, grinning, then shaking his head at her in utter disbelief. His laughter was wide-eyed surprise, but she knew. She knew it was wonder. Relief.

It was so fucking right. How could this be so right?!

He never let go of her face. Never stopped stroking his thumbs down her cheek, even when, only a little later, he started moving.

When she whimpered this time at the sensation of his cock letting go and coming back, his eyes were that searching, piercing, hyper-alert look she’d known of him for years, his thumb at her lip to catch every tremble of it.

It was the slowest, gentlest sex they’d ever had, the slowest sex they’d ever have, the best moment of her life. And he saw her and he kept seeing her and her heart was as friggin’ full as she felt of his cock deep, deep inside.

And when he sunk back in next, it was so slow she pinched her hands impatiently into his butt, shuddering, and he fucking grinned.

“You kind of have a boyfriend, yeah?” he grinned against her lips.

She flushed, heat crawling up her chest, her face, and he laughed so delightedly, so happily, his thumbs drawing circles against her face in a touch more tender than she could ever have imagined as he slowly, slowly rolled his hips back against hers.

She shuddered, stretched on his cock and he bit his lip but never looked away, and she curled her face against his hand.

“Do I?” she asked, heart beating, and this time his eyes flashed and when he thrust into her next, it was hard and deep and possessive.

“Oh, you do,” he assured her with the most determined, vindicated look in his arsenal and she shuddered.

His hands cupped her face so tight. Almost shook it. “You definitely do,” he implored, eyes wild, and he thrust back inside to her keening sigh. “God, Usako,” he groaned, “Yes, you do.”

She whimpered, lifted her hips, rolled her hips against him to meet this slow dance in the middle, and his thumb kept stroking her cheek under her bated breath, her wild eyes as she willed her brain to take in every moment of this, every

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molecule of him in and on and around her so she would never forget this miracle moment.

And then he leaned down and kissed her. Met her lips just as he’d fully sunk back into her, and her shudder into his mouth met a moan of his own. It was the most tender stroking of his lips, the most tentative touch of his tongue, the softest kiss they’d ever shared. As if they were doing this for the very first time, and maybe they kind of were. All of them, at least.

“You promised to make me feel less lonely, remember?” he breathed into her lips, and kissed her just a little harder.

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Author’s Notes So, here’s a fic I DIDN’T plan, and it’s not the one I announced. It fits into a TON of Smutember tropes as you see, and yes, I also didn’t think these tropes could ever fit all into the same fic too, lol. The idea came to me super last minute and I started writing it the day before yesterday and then kind of never stopped. I definitely wrote this instead of sleeping.

I’m not gonna lie, I really like this story. And apart from the deeply personal layer of seeking acceptance (from yourself, from others; more on this a little ways down lol) and how very, very much I am convinced of the fact that if you love someone for their core, then you will be drawn to them whatever face they’re wearing, regardless of whether you are aware of these feelings or not, I’m also strongly passionate about the needed normalisation of masculine platonic affection in media and society, and that the far majority of all men, just like the far majority of all women, can be super fucking nice without ulterior motives because of course they friggin can, gender equality for all!

Anyway. Because this was super last minute, I had people help me super last minute, too. Thank you so SO much to both Antigone2 and Daikon. You guys have all my fingers wrapped into permanent cheesy heart-signs, I am so super-super grateful to you. For sacrificing your time for me to cheer me on, encourage me and help me out!

So, Three more things. One, you can’t convince me having sex with Tsukino Usagi while she has her eyes closed wouldn’t leave a few bruises lol. Two, part of the motivation for the way I wrote the sex scenes was this: someone told me lately that most of my romantic tension in a smut scene comes with their eye contact. So, I challenged myself and removed that eye contact completely for a whole number of scenes. You tell me if I still succeeded in establishing a connection between them without it.

And three, and most personal to me: this is one of the most personal pieces of writing I’ve ever shared with you, I think. I love Usagi. I adore her. She’s an everlasting role model for me. It pains me to see her character changed in fics, and it hurts my soul to see her WANTING to change herself for others. But I also am like her in a lot of ways. Many of her strengths are my strengths, more of her flaws are my flaws. And I’ve been in her shoes and in her insecurities a lot, especially growing up, and that’s why the things that hurt her (because they are the things that hurt me) attack me so much. It’s my own hurt too. So having her feel it so deeply, those flaws of hers (those flaws of mine), and having her feel like she has to hide parts of herself from others as to not be judged, and all the things she lets herself get reattacked by because they are already wounds, hurt to write a shitton. But giving this character a person and a place (that she canonically HAS and gets!), who sees these flaws and thinks they are ok, making her believe they are ok, too, that they belong to her, that they make her her? That she sees the flaws and gets hurt by them and because of them, but ultimately, they are allowed to stay? Most of my works around her character are lessons in self-love (Because.

I love Usagi Tsukino. Adore her. This flawed, wonderful person who is a lot like me. So that’s a lesson for myself right there too.) But this right here was a piece of (self-)acceptance.

And so please excuse me for allowing her to put herself down so much in this piece, and for letting the insecurity overman her for once. I promise I usually don’t let her do that (and myself either!). But self-acceptance is not ignorance, it’s forgiveness.

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Miscellaneous by Beej88

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Miscellaneous by Brownsugarheartattack Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: ...Under/Over Where the Magic Happens...These were requested by FloraOne after I did UsaMamo nails for UsaMamo Week. After 3 seperate attempts, 2 bottles of spilled polishes, and broken a thumbnail later... I convinced myself to finish this and it only took 5 hours lol (I haven't done any serious nail art in a decade and I am wayyyyyy out of practice). I managed to catchup on all of the Fandom History podcast episodes while painting these lol.

2 birds! đ&#x;&#x2122;&#x192; There are prettier versions Usagi's blanket nail art out there. I plan on keep practicing until I nail it better. I am submitting this for Smutember. You will have to excuse the poor lighting... I can't take pictures outside at 1 am and my apartment has the worst lighting lol!

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Miscellaneous by VenusUnchained Artist’s Notes: Thought I’d do a little bit of smutty art for Smutember ;) This could fit a lot of themes...but I’m sure that jawline has something to do with why Venus is sneaking into his room in in the middle of the night. Or is she there as part of a mission for information? He’d probably assume the latter, but I have a feeling there are a lot of reasons she’s there...

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Miscellaneous by IamCharlotte88 Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: I really wanted to do something for #SailorMoon this #Smutember2020. Glad Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m able to do something before September ends... Dedicated to all Sailor Moon fans and authors who write for this years smutember. Im yet to read them all.. đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;â?¤ď¸?â?¤ď¸?â?¤ď¸?â?¤ď¸?

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Miscellaneous by IamCharlotte88 Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: I just want to be fair with all the senshi .....đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160;đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x160; So which one is your favorite? đ&#x;&#x2DC;?đ&#x;&#x2DC;?đ&#x;&#x2DC;?

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Oh Crap Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fanfic Of Us Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, Caught In The Act(ish), Sexual Fantasies Contains: Anal Sex (M/M), Heartbreak, Fic Within A Fic, Crack Fic, Crack Ship Ship: Usamamo, Mamoseiya

Excuse Me, Ami Wrote WHAT?!

by FloraOne

FutureQueenOfAwesome: Oh my god, Ami. OH MY GOD. Usagi proceeded to hit the exclamation point key a thousand times and wouldn't have stopped, except for Ami's reply that came directly.

Ami.Mizuno: This is so weird, right?! I'm so sorry it's so weird!!!!

Usagi was about to yell at her laptop, definitely hopped on the mattress so hard that it squeaked.

FutureQueenOfAwesome: NO!!! IT'S ONLY PER FEC TION. FutureQueenOfAwesome: OH GOD PLEASE. AMI. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. I NEED MORE. I NEED IT. PLEASE AMI PLEASE. Usagi wasn't even exaggerating. Not at all. She was hyperventilating over this so hard Mamoru would surely find her keeled over dead when he came home from uni later. Surely.

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FloraOne â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Excuse Me, Ami Wrote WHAT?!

She typed a string of 'please' over and over again, copy and pasted until it became longer and longer. Then as many blue-shock-scream emojis as humanly possible, and some more 'please's.

Ami.Mizuno: Usagi, you're DEAD in this.

She flopped dramatically around, drummed her calves against her bunnies-and-moons comforter on Mamoru's bed (or well, technically theirs now), and typed furiously.

FutureQueenOfAwesome: I KNOW AND IT'S PERFECT FutureQueenOfAwesome: like. they'd never do this if I wasn't like, dead?!

Everrr. This is the perfect setting! The only POSSIBLE setting! IT'S PERFECT AMI!!

PERFECT!!

She nearly cramped her finger hitting the exclamation point so hard.

Ami.Mizuno: It's disturbing how much you're into this.

Usagi rolled her eyes and put on caps lock.

FutureQueenOfAwesome: YOU BETTER BE WRITING, AMI. WRITE ME MORE, AMI. WRITE IT NOW.

It wasn't even a full 24 hours later before Ami the absolute saint had fullfilled Usagi's wildest dreams of a fic, and she found herself sitting on Ami's bed, legs tucked underneath her and vibrating, gasping and OH-MY-GOD-AMI!ing every two seconds as she scrolled down the Google doc on her phone.

Ami, across the room, was waiting patiently in her swiveling chair (and not even pretending to do anything else) until Usagi was done, and shooting her the slightly embarrassed and yet somewhat disturbingly intense glances that she desperately tried to hide like any author when in the presence of someone reading their work.

Usagi's eyes were big, round, shocked saucers when she was done.

"Ami," Usagi cried, and clutched her phone to her chest.

Ami flinched, visibly not knowing if this was a good or a bad Ami, and Usagi wanted to shake her, because when had this ever been a bad Ami?!

"Honestly," Usagi started, voice full of deserved reverence, "I think this is the best you ever wrote."

Ami's eyebrows shot up at that, and her swivelly chair squeaked a little with her disbelief as she fell back against the backrest.

"Even better than the one with Kunzite and the rain?!" she asked in wideeyed disbelief.

Usagi shook her head empathically, untucked and re-tucked her legs on Ami's soft comforter. "Yes!" she implored. "Although you KNOW how much I love that one!"

Ami frowned. Rolled forward across the carpet with her swiveling chair a little, her ruffley white socks against soft beige and the white plastic wheels of her chair.

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Usagi scooted to the edge of the bed, closer to Ami, determined. Ami was brilliant. Wonderful. Amazing. So fucking talented. Shakespeare. Austen. CLAMP. And she needed to know.

"Like," Usagi started, and shook her phone at her friend. "I LOVE how he took a while to get hard? Because he was PINING. For ME!" Ami blushed tomato-red, but primly folded her hands in her lap.

"And this is so well characterised? I'm so amazed?"

Another shake of her phone into Ami's general direction.

"And I really think this newest version brought out the grief so much better?"

Ami ducked a little, and looked even more sheepish.

And then Usagi sighed in purest bliss. "Gosh, Ami," she pressed the phone once more to her chest, even more reverently, and the little bell attached to the bunny charm on her phone tinkled softly. "This is so fucking HOT," she whispershouted in pure awe.

Ami blushed impossibly more. But also preened. The proud, shy smile of a writer praised.

She cleared her throat, pushed dark blue hair behind her ear and swivelled back to her desk, and her laptop on it. Behind her lay Azabujuban and a clear afternoon sky, and her friend was perfect ok?!

"You don't think I got too â&#x20AC;Ś explanatory at the end?" Ami asked, scrolling through her document.

"The thing with the prostate? I wanted to point out that men actually do enjoy passive penetrative anal sex much more because of the way the prostate is so sensitive and stimulatable. To make a clear but somewhat subtly unsaid parallel to point out that it's generally different with women because, well, no prostate, but I don't know if it's too much?"

Usagi waved her off, shrugging, making a face. "Naaaahhh," Usagi made.

"It's like, anatomically correct sex? I think?"

Ami nodded.

"I'd expect nothing less of you, Ami-chan."

Usagi's reward was that proud blush smile on Ami again.

And Usagi went back to her happy sigh. Beamed at her phone and dramatically let herself drop back on Ami's bed, hair and arms spread out, phone against her chest.

"And it's SO FUCKING HOT, Ami-chan," she whisper-shouted once more.

It morphed more into a proud smile blush than a proud blush smile.

Usagi walked home elated not long after. Read it three more times before the night was out, sent Ami more exclamation points and verbal-vomit-squeals about it and then had kinda-maybe-sorta wet dreams about it she only vaguely remembered in the morning.

Because it was like, super hot.

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It wasn't as easy as he was used to. He had to be worked up, had to make an effort to relax and let go so he could.

The hand around his cock was firmer than he was used to, pumping less carefully, less tenderly. And yet it was a kind of pressure he felt he needed.

He craned his neck and the back of his head hit firm skin, lips brushing against the damp nape of his neck and puckering a kiss there as Mamoru exhaled hard through half a hiss, his semi-hard cock jumping as his foreskin was pushed mercilessly up his tip and back down.

No, it wasn’t as easy getting hard as he was used to. Not at all, and yet the whole experience was so strangely liberating, and so strangely cathartic.

Another firm pump, and he grit his teeth and stemmed his elbows into the strange bed and the strange sheets as he arched his back.

Not his own bed. He wouldn’t ever be able to do this again in his own bed, not since…

He pressed his eyes shut, willed the thought down, and the hand on his cock stilled. Mamoru grunted again in protest.

But a surprisingly tender hand prodded his shoulder and Mamoru rolled over, his sweaty skin slipping against the cotton of the sheets, breathing hard as he collapsed on his back.

Blue eyes met blue in the dark of the room, hot summer air that wouldn’t cool down even in the dead of night cooling their sweat only ever so slightly as it blew in through the open balcony door and made the curtains dance.

The concern that met him was full of compassion and understanding, and so was the hand that let go of his cock and brushed so tenderly through his fringe.

“Are you ok?” Seiya whispered into the dark of night. There was no light on and it made the room almost impossibly dim, illuminated only by the light pollution outside. Seiya was barely more than a silhouette, skin appearing blue in the darkness, eyes pitch black. The new moon made the night even darker than it would usually be.

But that’s exactly how Mamoru had wanted it. He wouldn’t have been able to do it had the Moon been watching.

And yet Seiya’s hair still visibly fell into his eyes even in the dark - so much shorter now since he’d cut off his ponytail in grief.

“We can stop,” Seiya said, his eyes close and jumping between both of his, his fingers brushing through Mamoru’s damp hair in a way that made Mamoru sigh and close his eyes and imagine it was Usagi’s hand instead.

He snapped his eyes wide-open immediately, willed the thought down.

Seiya’s eyes grew more concerned still.

“No,” Mamoru hissed, grabbed Seiya’s hand around the wrist and pushed it down his torso back where it had come from.

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He was soft again, but stirred when Seiya’s hand stroked the length of it.

They’d just have to start again.

Seiya didn’t move his eyes away, watched him silently for a beat, and Mamoru stubbornly looked back evenly.

“Would you rather want me to be a woman for this?” Seiya asked, voice low and sympathetic.

But Mamoru’s eyebrows shot together, his insides twisting almost painfully, but definitely viscerally in protest.

“No!” Mamoru hissed, appalled in a way that made Seiya’s eyebrows shoot up, perplexed.

No. He couldn’t. It would be… It wouldn’t feel right. Not since…

Mamoru never wanted to feel another woman again. Never wanted to sink into anyone else ever again. It was the last of her he had. And he knew it was nonsense, that memory didn’t work that way. That if he did, it wouldn’t overwrite his memories like a deleted hard drive. But no.

Usagi would be the last woman he would have sex with. She would be the only woman he ever had sex with. The only person he ever made love to.

Understanding him in that uncanny way that had made this all possible here in the first place - had made him want this in the first place - eventually, Seiya nodded, leaned forward, and dragged his teeth along Mamoru’s throat.

So, so different from the way Usagi had touched him. So calmingly different.

Seiya’s grip turned harder again when Mamoru’s cock once again started to wake up. He hissed and closed his eyes when Seiya’s tongue dragged up his throat and through his sweat.

It was just different enough. The strong grip of Seiya's hand, the smell of his sweat, the taller, wider frame than he was used to, the firmer, thicker skin.

“Turn around.” Seiya’s harsh whisper was an order demanded right against the shell of his ear, and Mamoru shuddered, slipped free, and bared his ass.

Seiya’s hand was firm and steady as he stroked it from the nape of Mamoru’s neck along the length of his spine, palm wide and strong, down to his butt. Pressed his hand hard and firm as he squeezed his ass, and pulled his buttcheeks apart.

Mamoru gripped the sheets between his balled fists and grunted again, arching his back further, pushing is ass far up to the popping sound of the lid on the small tube in the bed, shuddered to the welcome sensation of the cool liquid being slowly, slowly dribbled down the crack of his ass in the stifling heat of the summer night.

Seiya was careful. Gentle. They’d trained, he’d prepared himself, and yet Seiya still went painfully slowly, let Mamoru adjust until he keened, his thighs beginning to tremble as Seiya worked his way in farther, slowly, slowly, bit by bit.

Mamoru breathed evenly, deeply, in through his nose, out through his mouth, let it all consume him, gave himself over. And after a while, Seiya started to hit that spot 194

FloraOne – Excuse Me, Ami Wrote WHAT?!

inside of him he’d never felt, so novel in a way that felt like a sigh of welcome relief, where his prostate was located that made this so exclusively intense. Hit it over and over again, the minutes running together until his head swam and there was only the delicious pressure in his ass that coiled so tight in him and built and built.

It was amazing. It could make him forget. It could make him let go.

Mamoru closed his eyes and shook, knees and elbow pressing coiled and tense into the bed that wasn’t hers, trembling, crying into the sheets as he frantically reached down to grab his jutting cock, pumped himself and felt himself being stretched and penetrated and filled.

As if something was trying to fill up the void, and it was oh so comforting.

He shuddered and came even when his cock had yet to become fully hard still, the pressure in his ass too much, too good. It was good still, kept being good, his newly flaccid cock back to stirring as Seiya kept on. Because Seiya wasn’t done.

Because Seiya needed this, too. Careful, slowly.

Mamoru shuddered again, pressing back harder as Seiya’s forehead fell against his shoulder blades, one hand moving to his bicep.

He grabbed it, pulled at it, kissed it, and felt Seiya’s own tears hot on his spine.

Because Seiya was grieving too. Eight years since she died in Mamoru’s arms to the day. Sacrificed herself so all of them would live, as if life without her held any meaning. And while the girls had started to move on, didn’t hurt as deeply anymore over her loss, only Seiya still understood.

They could share their grief together. And they did.

Mamoru’s eyes were stunned, round saucers, his mouth dry from having fallen open a while ago. He probably should have stopped reading when he first saw his name on the open file on Usagi’s computer. Shouldn’t have looked at her browser in the first place. Shouldn’t have used her laptop in the first place. But it was standing around in the kitchen where she’d used it last, left behind with an empty cup noodle carton and her red Tuxedo Mask themed chopsticks next to it, and as it was already here it had been quicker to just use hers to look up the recipe instead of unhooking his from all the cables on his desk.

He hadn’t expected to find himself get fucked in the ass by someone Usagi had kind of liked, ok?

This hadn’t been meant for his eyes. He knew it. But his wife had written this and he kept reading it. There was no way he could have stopped.

When he was done, he fell back against the side of their fridge that their crammed little wooden bench booth was set against, his hair jostling into the photos and postcards and takeaway-leaflets that were tacked against the metal by colorful magnets, and just sat there, blinking. The kettle had long since popped

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with his boiling water and cooled down again, his coffee cold and stale, the ingredients of his supposed-to-be lunch forgotten on the counter.

His first instinct was to leave it open. Tack a big yellow post-it note onto the screen. ‘We need to talk.’ Leave her stirring after he came home from his lateafternoon class to sit his wife down and discuss why she wanted him to bang Seiya.

(Or Seiya him, whatever.)

His second instinct was to be an absolute ass about it. To not tell her and instead start dropping hints that he read it until she was a flustered, embarrassing mess and finally admitted her obvious crime.

But both of these options would have required him to be level-headed about this, and that he was not. He couldn’t even begin to think how he might bring this up. ‘Hey I snooped through your stuff invading your privacy and found the thing you wrote that is kind of invading my privacy and also do you like imagining me having gay sex like as a rule, or…?’

It was one of those days where he had to leave before she came home from work and she might be out again when he came back and…

He shut her laptop and vowed to just address it tonight.

And then he didn’t.

It had been vivid. He could picture it. He pictured nothing else that afternoon in class, and it had driven him nuts. Honestly, if he weren’t so disturbed, he’d be kind of proud. He didn’t know Usagi could write in a way that evoked whole, vivid, disturbing pornographic movies to play out in his mind’s eye.

He just should have fucking written that post-it. But he hadn’t. And then he’d chickened-out that night when she came home tired and snuggly and sad because a potential client had decided against her and that always hurt her feelings, and he’d decided it could wait until the morning.

Except by the morning he was so firmly in Freak-Out-Central, he no longer dared to.

What did it mean?

He’d stewed on it the whole night and now the whole day, too. Alternated between being endlessly irritated for the breach of privacy while also telling himself it was strictly ok if his wife wanted to fantasize about him in a way so vivid that she felt she had to write it down. Really, in the weirdest way, this was even a little flattering. At least he played a part in her sexual fantasies, that wasn’t a given, after all. Only to then remind himself that someone else was playing a huge part in her sexual fantasies, too. And that was…

Did she fantasize about Seiya a lot? He knew there’d been somewhat of a spark there, knew that Seiya loved her with a passion. Of course, he never blamed her for it. Always knew what he and Usagi had was not so weak as to ever be threatened by Usagi’s propensity to have a big giant loving heart that collected meaningful connections, something he loved her for in the first place. And on Seiya’s side, he couldn’t quite place blame on someone for falling in love with the most precious woman in the world, too. He could relate, after all.

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And yet, despite knowing that, here he sat stirring in his irritated mind, catastrophizing to the brink, and spent a whole week trying to find out why Usagi wanted him to be fucked by Seiya and also feeling super jealous that she was even thinking that way about Seiya at all. Naked. With his dick out. With his dick out in Mamoru’s ass. Picturing it as she wrote it. Seiya’s dick.

Did she imagine other things? Did she imagine threesomes between Seiya, him and her? Did she imagine herself having sex with Seiya period? Was Seiya sexier than him? Was she missing something? Was she sexually bored? Was he not satisfying her on his own? Did she like to watch? What did it mean?!

Bombarding his google search bar that morning on the toilet with entries like ‘why does my wife fantasize about me having sex with men?’, or, ‘how can I find out if she’s still satisfied with me?’ (and deleting his search history right after), he at least found out that, in fact, in general, gay sex consumption was the second most frequently consumed porn category among heterosexual women and thus totally normal. Something to do with liking people with dicks and the dismantling of sex and gender expectations and gay sex allowing to view sexual intimacy through a lens where patriarchal gender norms don’t hinder sexual encounters. All while engaging in fantasies that might be more traditionally ‘forbidden’ for women’s sexual scripts… But… he knew Usagi didn’t have any issues around feeling pressured to behave a certain way in any context, least of all sex. He admired her for how well she could navigate society’s expectations about her as a woman and not give a crap about them most of the time, and also, there was nothing Usagi thought was forbidden to her during sex, was there? Was there?!

Stewing some more in the jumbled soup that had become his own thoughts, Mamoru started questioning everything.

Stood in front of her white IKEA shelf in their tiny living room that morning in his underwear with his morning coffee, frowning at her manga, lost in thought.

How had he never noticed that a lot of these were titles that featured men with men? And… didn’t she go to that comic convention a lot? The one she dragged Ami to every year? Comiket?

He jumped a little when Usagi’s hands slipped around his bare waist and she snuggled her sleep-warm body against his back, stroked her face against the crook in his spine between his shoulder blades.

“Are you ok?” she murmured, muffled by his skin. The curtains danced a little with the glowing orange morning light that filtered through the open window.

He stalled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His voice came out a bit too pressed. He was losing his touch. Couldn’t hide things nearly as easily anymore as he was used to. He blamed Usagi for that.

“You’re a bit tense.”

He could basically feel her frown in her touch.

He swallowed. Ran his fingers over the spine of one title. Black and red, the tiny image printed on it showed a man bent over another man in an almost kiss.

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‘Steal Your Kiss’ read the title. Next to it was one that read “Only You Can Tie Me Up,’ though he couldn’t quite tell from just the spine if this was two men or not.

“Just… stressed out a little,” he squeaked, and lifted his mug to his lips.

“Hm…” she purred, and then her hands slipped down his front in the usually most welcome move he knew of her, well-practiced and well-loved, except…

“Can I do something about that?” she sing-songed into his skin, breaking her words off with her warm, puckered lips against his skin, and danced her fingertips down towards his crotch.

The moment she lightly stroked his dick over the fabric, he jumped, cursed when he spilled his coffee over his fingers and chest.

Shit.

She jumped with his expletives, let go of him. Ran with softly padding feet and grabbed a hand towel from their open kitchen. He held open his arms, looking at the mess. A blink and she was back, patting it down his abs, grinning slyly when she started padding down his crotch.

He stirred anyway, wide-eyed.

“I could get it… all clean, you know?” she suggested with a small smile. Her horny smile, the one he loved. That smile of hers that looked absolutely adorable even when she was saying such innocently lewd things, the one that…

Did she also imagine him doing that to Seiya? Did she picture him getting down on his knees, too, and…

To his own horror, his traitor of a cock oh so confusingly jumped at the thought - not the Seiya bit, but the bit of her getting turned on over the thought of him doing… that… and…

He pushed her hands away and fled. “I’m fine, I’ll just take a shower,” he mumbled, cheeks hot and flaming.

“Can I join you?” she asked after him, voice oh-so-hopeful.

It stopped him. He glanced back at her. Took the time to look her up and down. The way her lips were puffed up because she’d bit them too much. The flushed way her chest peeked from his too-large-shirt on her and how it fell down her frame. The way she looked at him like she always looked at him when she was worked up, and it calmed his brain for a second and affected him.

He curled his lips into a smile and held his hand out for her. “Sure.”

She came with him with the happiest, cutest grin she was capable of.

But after one very distracting shower he did have to get his ass to class, and the class was urology. Unsurprisingly, seeing a lot of dicks on giant slides in the big lecture hall did not help his predicament.

At least those slides mostly were what he blamed the fact on that his crisis went on in new and even more disturbing ways. He was 1000% freaked out by the time he nodded asleep over his textbooks in the library two hours later and found himself imagining what it was like to be kissed by Seiya Kou.

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The Seiya he knew. Ponytail and all, eyes lowered and fixed on his lips, bent over his naked body, head tilted just so as he was about to kiss him…

“Do you think she wants it like that?” he hushed at Mamoru’s lips, voice rough and husky and wanton like in one of those songs of his that Usagi used to listen to up and down.

He shook his head violently, wide awake immediately, banishing the thought. What was happening to him?!

Twenty-four hours after he’d first laid eyes on the offending writing, he found his head in his hands and himself running through his options. Of course, number one would still be to go home and talk to her. But of course, that would have been the sensible option that people did who didn’t totally suck at communicating things that bothered them, and he had yet to quit his membership of that club.

If she wanted a threesome, maybe like, at first, ...dildos would help? He was this close to coming home with a bag full of freak-out dildos when he reminded himself that no, he was doing better. He could open his mouth. Except he didn’t.

Not for a while anyway. This shit was hard, ok?

At night on their couch when they were kind of not watching their film any longer even when it was still flickering behind them, her tongue ran down his clavicle and up the dip where his shoulder moved up to his quivering jugular vein.

And although this kind of was his favorite thing in the world, usually, he still found himself frowning at the ceiling nonetheless, because she was awfully turned on today, and why was that?!

His mouth formed words all on its own. “Hey, do you ever want to try something else?”

She stilled only to hum sweetly against his skin. “Like what?” she asked, and ended it with her open lips pressed behind his ear.

“I don’t know?” he pressed out, worked up, ran his hand down the curve of her soft butt despite himself. “Watch um… porn with me or something?”

She shrugged, sat up, straddling him, brushed her hand down his chest. “If you want?”

His brow directly lowered in accusation. “What kinda porn?” he glowered up at her.

In answer, her eyebrows shot up in amused confusion. Justified, of course.

He was the one getting irritated over things he’d brought up himself.

“Whatever you’d want?”

She didn’t get it, of course, and he didn’t press it.

Except he pressed something else. And not his own erection against her as she started grinding on top of him, his hand beneath her shirt, his thin lounge pants bulged out against her panties, although he did that, too.

He pressed the words out against her skin. “Do you want to like… be on ...top?”

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She lifted her face off of him and wrinkled her nose in amusement. “I am on top...” she said, and wriggled her butt on his crotch in emphasis.

He licked his lips, curled his hands into the fabric of her panties on each side of her. “No, I mean like…” He flushed deep, deep red and it made her stretch in bewilderment on top of him. He held her in place. “We could use your, uh, vibrator on like...me…? And—” Her eyes grew wide, and he sunk a little lower into the couch as he tensed, but hurried to go on.

“I mean if like… you would want to… see me on my hands and knees? Or even with the transformation pen, if you, um. And… maybe… Say, if you ever wanted to watch me with… uh.”

Her eyes were full terror at this point.

“You read it,” she announced.

It must have looked comical, really, he supposed. Watching a deep-red flush blanching down so suddenly on his skin.

Her face morphed into stunned panic, but he kept his hands firmly dug into her ass, lest she flee like he would have. “THAT’s why you’ve been acting so weird all day?”

He flinched, but finally came clean. “Why would you even WRITE that,” he answered with unveiled irritation for once.

She stretched up straight in his lap. “Wait, you think I wrote it?!”

With that, Mamoru recoiled back into the couch cushion hard. “Someone else wrote it?”

That… during all of his freak-out these past hours, that had not occurred to him. What?!

Uh. Behind them, someone screamed in the horror movie they’d been watching.

Her eyes were wild panic. "Um, yes! Yes, it was me. Totally only me, no one else, eheh—" He shot up at her. "WHO?" She almost fell off his lap. Would have if he hadn't clawed himself into her underwear, and she hadn't reflexively gripped at his shoulders.

She flinched so very fucking hard. "I would rather not say…" she squeaked out.

"Oh god," he mumbled wide-eyed into her equally wide eyes in absolute, desperate abhorrence. "It's Ami." Her freaked out reaction spoke for itself, really. "Why would you say that?!" she cried in panic.

Mamoru nodded through his shock, convinced, her reaction confirmation enough, and Usagi's face fell in open horror as she clawed her hands into his open shirt.

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"Ami thinks about men with men aloud a lot!" he hurled at her. "And Ami writes fan lyrics for songs on the internet! It’s gotta be Ami!" Oh god. Ami had imagined him on his knees for Seiya. Ami had imagined Usako dead and him being grief-fucked by the guy who was also into Usagi and— Oh god.

Usagi looked more stricken than he'd ever seen it. Holding her breath as he stared her down while his mind whirled with Ami sitting down to write him having sex that was… and...

It was when the man in the movie screamed, too, that Usako broke.

“Oh god,” Usagi echoed his thoughts exactly down to the absolute dread.

“PLEASE don’t tell her you know. I promise she doesn’t—” How would he ever look Ami-chan in the eyes again? Knowing she sat down to write what she sat down to write. Through his mind’s eye, he recounted the vivid, explicit scene about him and Seiya, every word shifting with the new knowledge that not his horny wife had written it, BUT AMI. AMI. “Mamo-chan, I swear she usually doesn’t—” “But...” he interrupted her, all fretful, flustered repugnance. “Why is it about me?!”

For some reason Ami sat down to write a dirty story about Seiya and Mamoru, had handily killed off his wife for it, and Usagi had access to it on her laptop. He blinked. Why— “Because it was for me!” Usagi cried, blushing and embarrassed and stricken, hands curling and uncurling around the button border of his shirt.

“Why Seiya, then. Why not you?!” he cried in consternation.

Usagi flushed all the way down her shirt. So much he was surprised his hands on her butt didn’t directly burst into fire.

She was so flustered it would have been the best ever opportunity to tease the hell out of her and himself right into these panties if he weren’t even more flustered than even she was.

“Because it's weird if she's writing about ME,” Usagi mumbled, face burning and red.

His eyebrows flew up. “And it's not when she's writing about ME?” She cringed hard, bit her lip in coy remorse, and his eyebrows rose even higher.

“You like it,” he accused. And well, obviously. Of course. But still— Usagi scrunched her eyes shut and flung her head back, baring her teeth in a silent, tortured scream. When her head flew back to him and she shifted on his lap, she looked like she did whenever she’d broken something valuable of his, or like that time when she’d accidently shrunk the green jacket in the wash.

“C'mon,” she cried. “This fic has you so into me and in love with me you wouldn't have sex with any other woman when I'm dead. It’s guilty pleasure wish fulfilment, how could I not like it when you—” He mumbled under his breath. “Well, I wouldn't.”

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And somehow it shut her up and made her look at him in wonder, and they were getting off topic and he couldn’t have that.

“But why SEIYA,” he cried instead.

She flinched, her face completely wrinkled into a ‘Why not?!’ sort of expression, and at his glare only, went to elaborate.

“I mean,” she linked his lips, smoothed the sides of his shirt against his bare chest. “Ami specifically writes BL—” He frowned, confused.

“—And this one was beautiful. Like, she still manages to have everyone pining for me somehow. It's glorious and—” He shook his head slowly.

“You’re totally freaked out, right?” she cringed.

He flinched right back. “A little?”

Her pout was quite frankly tragic. And also disarming. She was clearly distressed.

But still. “This is totally weird, Usako,” he told her.

She flinched even more, leaned forward to groan into his chest. “You weren't supposed to ever know,” she lamented her plight.

“That doesn't really make this better,” he informed her dryly.

She made a squeak somewhere between a howling dog and that noise she made whenever she stubbed her toe, except it all came whistling through her nose.

“Please don’t be mad at Ami, ok?” she begged, smoothing her hands down his chest over and over in the most nervous gesture he’d ever seen her make. “ I swear she wrote this because I begged so hard. She usually doesn’t write you anymore—” “Anymore?!” he cried.

“—And she had this idea and she wasn’t gonna write it, and I begged and begged and— Oh, please, don’t tell Ami you know, she’d—” He interrupted her, cupped her butt and dragged her back close to him.

“How did this even start?”

She broke into another cringe. All the sheepish apology and ‘I think I shouldn’t tell you this’ in her face, but she told him anyway. “A poly fic about the Shitennou when we were 14.”

What?!

“With me?” he cried.

“No,” she promised, eyes blown wide. “Amongst themselves, I promise!”

What?!

Usagi was all wrinkled brow and nervous touch. “Ami writes BL. Like, slash.

Like, in general,” she tried to explain, and his own face fell into a frown again. “This was just a, a… a kind of side project for me? Like a writing exercise? I’m her captive audience and it was a favor and—” But at his confused look, she blinked. “...BL?” she asked. “Boys Love?”

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He didn’t understand.

“The genre? Really?” She looked at him like he was being utterly dense.

“Projects?” he interjected in new horror. “There’s more?!”

“Not about you!” she flew to implore, hands on his pecs. And then she flinched. “Uh, well, except for—” God, no.

He could feel the heat crawl up his neck, his face, his ears.

“I mean, she doesn’t usually ever write you.” Her hands went back to smoothing down his skin. Down, down, down, flick of her thumbs, lift off, go back up, down, down down. It would have been really soothing. Would have been.

“She, like, usually writes a lot of like, Kunzite and Zoisite?” she said, and his eyebrows flew back up. “Or all the Shitennou with Zoisite and each other. Or that one with Rubeus and Zoisite. And the one with Fisheye and Zoisite. And the one with—” “That’s a lot of Zoisite,” he interrupted.

She shrugged sheepishly. Shifted on his lap. “Gay Zoisite is like, Ami’s muse?”

His eyebrows really didn’t want to go back down today.

“Anyway. Except this one. This one was purely for me. No one saw it but me. It was encrypted and all! She doesn’t write you usually, I promise!”

“Usually,” he repeated.

She flinched, shifted on his lap again, and really, that was distracting.

“Just like, you know, um.”

He stared her down while she flushed, and she swallowed and went on.

“Well, before we knew you were Tuxedo Mask, she’d already written all these things with Tuxedo Mask, but, I mean, we were super young, and I gobbled it all up, and, well—” Um. “All these things?” he asked, and noticed for the first time that all her rattled nerves somewhere along the way had calmed him down.

She wriggled on his lap again and this time it was really distracting.

“Just… a few,” she squeaked.

“What about?” he asked too calmly, and drew his thumb up her butt.

She flushed. From his touch or the topic, he wasn’t sure. “Um.” He leaned forward, brushed his nose up her neck, felt her shiver. “What about?” he asked her again, and kissed behind her ear.

“Uh, Tuxedo Mask with, uh… Kunzite and Zoisite in this, uh, kinda triangle kidnapping kinda situation and— oh,” she broke off, melted against him, and let herself be pulled down fully as he got rid of those panties.

She did end up telling him. Showing him, even. Much later. Had him vow to never tell Ami that he knew, and she reluctantly vowed in return to never again ask her friends to write erotica about him, that was the deal.

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And yet, the next time he saw Ami? He flushed the brightest red in the same speed that Ami paled and knew.

“Usagi!” she’d hissed at his wife immediately, unable to look him in the eye.

And with that, he supposed he’d lost his part of the deal, too.

Author’s Notes This happened for Reasons and the Reasons know who they are lol. Anyway, here, have something of a crack fic, and don't take this fic seriously at all, lol? I can explain myself lol xD Somehow Mamoseiya was suddenly a thing and suddenly kind of a prompt. This is the same prompt that Nari drew her art to (and I directly incorporated it into this fic, lol.) Maybe SOMEONE out there likes this idea too, lol? Maybe?

So yeah, RARE PAIR ALERT, and the trope is 'Oh Crap There's Fanfics Of Us', and yes, that means I wrote for the same trope twice this year, lol. This also hasn't been beta-ed because I didn't wanna force a ship that isn't theirs on anyone, so forgive my German ass some mistakes, ok?

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Oh Crap Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fanfic Of Us Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Embarrassment, Navigating Sexual Media, Fingering, Cunnilingus Ship: Usamamo

Oh Crap Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Doujins Of Us

by FloraOne

So, sometimes, being in the public eye was mortifying.

Like that time when they were still just barely teenagers, and he didn't know what doujinshi were. Mamoru had naively asked about it one particular Sunday afternoon that he would never forget, sitting in their usual booth at the Fruit Parlor with the girls.

And granted, while he had grasped immediately by their reaction (and Usagi's horrified gasp especially) that this was one of the things he should have just ought to have known apparently, he still wasn't prepared. And frankly, Minako with that scary, smirking glint in her eye was telling him quite soundly that he never should have asked.

And so, after a flabbergasted round of interrogation, all 'how could you have gone through puberty never seeing one?' or 'how could you have been with

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Usagi for this long without seeing one?', the girls had decided he needed to be educated.

That same evening he found himself in the creaky elevator of Ami's large apartment building of all things (because, apparently - and surprisingly - her collection was even bigger than that of the others), a snickering girlfriend at his side clutching a bundle of slender books from her own collection in a pink bag to her chest. And Chiba Mamoru was introduced to the quite obviously popular genre of fans drawing him (and all of them) into sometimes-racey, fan-made manga that had apparently been around for so long at this point that (among some entertaining variations) some overarching 'fanon'-consensus had developed - on things like what they looked like beneath the transformations, who they were with, who had a praise kink, and what they did for a living.

And yes, he admitted it. There were some pretty entertaining views in there he did think were interesting. Like the fact that apparently the drawing side of the senshi fandom was firmly and passionately convinced that Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars must be an item, while Michiru was seen to be the oldest and married with 3 kids to some bland, random salaryman, or that most of them were seen to be in job-having ages. But next to those, he'd learned that night that apparently Tokyo 'shipped' him not only with a whole array of the Senshi, but also with almost every villain that had ever popped up on their horizon. Graphically. And if that wasn't bad enough, apparently the world thought he was pretty much a jerk. The douche fans imagined underneath the mask looked nothing like him, and yet apparently at some point they'd all slowly agreed that this just was what he must look like, and also that he was really kind of a giant dick. (Called mostly 'Darien', they'd agreed on. What the hell.)

But while those examples that the girls had showed him when they'd all still been young were altogether pretty tame, (and he only much later learned of the stash of those that weren't tame that NOT ONLY HIS GIRLFRIEND KEPT) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the hentai? That came later.

The first time Usagi showed him one was after she'd moved in. And he got so flustered that she got flustered right along with him, and also coo-ed at him a lot in ways that made him glare at her very hard.

Really, it was so fucking strange. This weird mixture of feeling flattered in a way that made him feel ashamed and absolutely totally weirded out altogether.

That little tiny, tiny spark in himself that got pushed down very, very far and was vehemently ignored that did find these depictions a little arousing after all (though even allowing that particular thought any room was pretty much impossible as it was.) Mamoru was pretty sure he now knew what celebrities must feel like - those whose face and body were plastered all over pubescent girls' walls (and their dreams, and their fanfictions). Or worse, what celebrities felt like when they found their faces photoshopped into porn. At least it wasn't really him. It was 'Darien'.

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But for better or worse, doujinshi were to stay a firm fixture in his life. One would think with them being way less active after Galaxia was defeated, it would die down. But no.

Every poltergeist and angry spirit, or even just disaster help that made the Senshi show up for assistance and reassurance, brought new surges. Wherever he went, there they were. And Usagi never tired of buying more (even when she got angry at them a lot. Tuxedo Mask was not solely shipped with Sailor Moon, after all, and sometimes she got jealous-angry at HIM because of something a fanartist had written. Yes. No, thank you.)

And sometimes it really was his own fault. Like shopping strolls in Ikebukuro because he never learned.

Sure we can go into Mandarake, Usako, if you want. Sure.

They'd strolled through Book-Off, ate a bowl of Tsukemen ramen at the counter of one of the restaurants around with the cheap lunch sets, browsed through Sunshine City, and exiting through the back of it, Usagi had insisted on Otome Road. And while he was still talking about Reika's surprising break-up with Motoki that had all shocked them the previous evening, Usagi had pulled him around the corner of the black building that was Mandarake and down the steps to its basement floor.

He'd stopped talking, baffled. This was a whole floor dedicated to second hand doujinshi. Every square inch of it covered in slim print media, top to bottom.

Rows and rows and rows of tightly packed and neatly organized shelves under fluorescent light like any library, just that this one was all fan-made manga. And turns out, the Sailor Senshi occupied a whole wall of it.

He blushed so hard he was sure he ought to have gone up in flames. Or at least be instantly recognized by the staff, or thought to be a hentai, or both.

Surprisingly, none of these things happened. Instead, Usagi pulled him by the arm nonchalantly, chatting on about speculations the girls had about the whole thing (Did Motoki cheat? Did Reika? Were they good about keeping constant contact long distance? Etc etc) even as she started mindlessly browsing through the slender books and at least some of its very explicit covers. Her long fingers brushed them aside to inspect them as nonchalantly as if she was swiping through her phone, and occasionally she stopped to pull one out a little and push it back in with the pad of her index finger to the quiet swish of paper on wood shelving.

Mamoru's hands shot into his pockets only to shoot out again because what if anyone thought his hands were too close to his dick like that, and oh my god what was Tuxedo Mask doing with his stick on that one?!

She pushed Tuxedo Mask and his vulgar stick abuse back in and pulled another out to flip through.

"—Remember Ami-chan says maybe they just drifted apart with changing lifestyles and changing social circles, but this morning Unazuki texted Mina-P back and said tha—oh, look!" she interrupted herself mid-sentence, snickering, and held the open book towards him.

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He didn't think he had any blood left to travel up into his face, and yet he felt himself immediately flush some more. Felt the heat crawl up his neck so fast and hard his face tingled, and Usagi blinked in startled amusement.

Definitely hentai. They tended to bestow Tux... plenty generously. And everyone on the page looked really into it. It was very artistic, he gave it that. Not one of the really lewd ones.

Usagi pulled it back, flipped through it some more. "I'm buying this," she told the book more than she told him.

"Absolutely not," Mamoru choked under his breath, trying to talk as quietly as possible.

Usagi flicked her eyes up at him prettily, gave him that coy smile, the one that said, 'watch me you prissy boy', and gingerly put it into her red plastic basket before leafing through the next. A moment later her eyes lit up again. "LOOK!" She held open another image of him, in yet a different artist's style.

Oh god. This one was even worse.

Into the basket it went.

Which was how he knew at least some of what she owned that would make his ears tip red, though he used to refuse to look.

And she didn't bring them up. Even when it did amuse her how much he got flustered over them, she respected his boundaries day to day. Not like, 'look what I bought', unless he made the mistake of going with her when she bought them. But she also lived with him, and read them, and so he still came across them.

But even when she didn't specifically mention where she had certain ideas from, he still knew right away. Sometimes in the most unfortunate contexts.

Like when she'd just come on his cock and started talking about them in one form or another from the bathroom as she peed afterwards. (Because of course that's just what you'd want to hear your girlfriend talk about right after sex sex acts you didn't do. His mind immediately traitorously started whispering if she was missing something.)

And yes, the bathroom - as in that one room that carried sound across the pipes for all the apartment building to hear, even without her talking from the open bathroom door in that loud pitch meant to carry as it was.

"Hey, would you ever want like, a tit fuck?" she called from the loo that night when he was still lying on his back splayed out across the mattress helplessly sweaty and trying to get his breathing and heartbeat back under control.

He blushed bright red and squeaked somewhat because oh my god a what?

"You know, like in hentai. Where you rub your dick between my boobs?"

"Usako," he groaned helplessly.

"Well, would you?"

Her voice echoed a bit off the tiles, sounding far away and still way too loud.

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With a groan, he got up. Pulled the drawer open for new underwear and pulled them on before padding over to the bathroom. "Where is this coming from exactly?" he asked her in his 'don't let the neighbors hear' voice.

She was flushing the toilet and twisting the faucet, holding her hands underneath the loud spray in the tiny sink of their separate toilet stall, and met his eyes in the mirror apologetically.

"Ah," he answered himself.

"Well," she said somewhat sheepishly. "I just thought about it because you were so into my boobs today, and you super super like it in 'His Rod Of Love' and— "Oh my fucking god, Usako," he squeaked. And shortly after followed his naked girlfriend into the washroom as she started her shower, to vehemently correct her that Darien liked these things and it didn't mean he did, and he thought even that term alone seemed a bit objectifying, didn't she? And, well.

Then she rolled her eyes and pulled him underneath the shower with her, underwear and all, and he squeaked again but forgave her quickly.

And somehow, over time, almost slipping through his consciousness how that could have even happened, he really simply started to get ok with it.

While even the mere suspicion that somewhere in any given room of any given person might be visual depictions of Darien's monster dick was enough to turn Mamoru into a burning lobster in the first eighteen months or so of knowing this art form even existed, somehow, along the years, he strangely found himself starting to be wholeheartedly blasé about the whole thing.

And he couldn't deny there was something intriguing about them. There was a whole series named 'V-Card' by this apparently very popular artist with individual doujin-titles such as 'Love-Me-Chained' that shipped Venus with Sailor V of all people (who was anything in real life from a soldier to the reborn pirate legend Ching Shih). A series that both Minako and Usagi devoured, and it reminded him very curiously that no, the public had no way of knowing they were the same person. Or that one unexpectedly and bewilderingly entertaining book Usagi loved where every single Senshi was a Drag Queen in real life, transforming into girls only when they fought (and him a Drag King). Or the fact that yes, some of their attacks made better innuendos (and without any modification whatsoever) than he would ever have thought about on his own. (Sparkling Wide Pressure, World Shaking, Sailor Body Attack, Star Gentle Uterus… and so sometimes whenever he heard some of them shouted in real life these days instead, it was hard to keep a straight face.)

And some of them? Some of them were downright adorable and sweet.

The sexual and non-sexual ones alike. Slices of life so well-meaning and wellintentioned towards them it moved him dearly. (And Darien's fictional mother was so precious he could barely stand it.)

So yes, some of those were interesting. Especially the ones that didn't feature him (though he would probably always hate how gleefully Usagi devoured 210

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the ones that featured Sailor Moon - sometimes an actress, sometimes an aspiring and brilliant politician fluent in 5 languages with double degrees in real life shipped with anyone and everyone and everyone together and especially Sailor V.) And so he developed a morbid fascination and in that process sometimes forgot to be mortified about the whole thing.

Which was exactly how he found himself turning to her little stack of newly bought colorful specimens still in the bag she'd bought them in, and started reading.

They'd been netflixing the night away because he was a freshly-baked resident of Juuban General Hospital and it was exhausting and so on his rare days off he tended to collapse on the couch and do nothing at all. And so he'd lain sunken into the cushions, his thumb absentmindedly tracing the shell of her ear as she lay with her cheek against his chest, legs tangled with his, bare ankles crossing with hers. They were watching some romantic comedy series about two high school students sharing an apartment, and with every stroke of his thumb, her eyes were drooping a little more, her breathing slowly turning deep and calm, fighting to stay awake. He gave her three more minutes tops to lose this particular fight.

"Bed?" He tilted his head down at her as Uehara and Nao pretended not to walk home together from school on the screen.

"Episode's not dun—" She broke off for a giant yawn bigger than a kitten's, and he chuckled. The movement in his chest shook her slightly, and she only snuggled in closer.

"You're missing half of it," he argued, and stroked his hand down the soft fabric covering her back. It crinkled beneath his fingertips.

"Um not," she mumbled, eyes closed and mouth in his sweater.

He leaned his head back against the soft velvet cushion behind him and drew her in a little closer. She was wonderfully warm. "You're gonna make me sit through this episode again because you won't remember a thing."

"Mhmmm," she said in that sleepy way that made it clear she was already out.

He smiled.

Stretching ever so slightly beneath her, he reached for the remote. With that distinct sound of power going out, the TV switched off, and all at once the room turned a little darker and quieter, Usagi's deep breathing filling out the silence.

But she was warm and the couch felt glorious, and so instead of getting her to bed, he carded his hand lazily through one streamer of her hair and settled in. Getting his book would have required him to get up and shift her off of him, and so he didn't. This was how his eyes fell on the paper bag on the side table next to him.

He barely hesitated before fishing out one of the slender books. Only rolled his eyes at the cover. Tuxedo La Smoking Boner. Flipping it open, he frowned. And yet continued to read.

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And yes, damn, he would not ever admit it aloud, but some of this was sexy.

But after a while he snorted so hard it made an almost comical sound through his nose, and she startled a bit on his chest. "One thrust and you come?" he asked her sleeping form incredulously.

"Mmmhh," she made again in pure reaction, heavy and drowsy.

He flipped the page, stroked her hair. "Why are they making you behave like being about to orgasm is somehow a bad thing that must be stopped?" he asked again after a while, not expecting an answer, really.

"Mnnhh," she grunted, and it was little more than a noisy exhale.

He flipped another page.

Maybe that night was when his curiosity won out, he didn't know. But from that night onwards, he was more curious than weirded out, gravitated towards her when she was reading them.

Therefore, it happened that when the situation was almost the reverse, a few months later, that he didn't turn away.

He lay in her lap and started ignoring the words in his book when she stroked and stroked his hair, absentmindedly carding her fingers through it delicately, running her fingertips and nails ever so softly along his scalp, behind his ears, along the nape of his neck and into his collar, and it was the most blissful thing in the universe. He was, after all, a bit touch-starved. Had always been. To the point that only Tsukino Usagi ever managed to fill that void. And when she did it so very willingly, he soaked it up body and soul. He would have started to purr if only he could.

He let his book slip away and turned fully into her caresses. Turned in her lap, he focused on what she was reading instead, flipped open one-handed on her knee, and silently read along as he moved his head with her fingers in blissful content.

Sailor Moon was being brazenly - and quite coquettishly in way it honestly deserved a good pinch of second-hand embarrassment - seduced by Darien.

Except apparently she had no idea he was Tuxedo Mask.

And the way it was drawn was honestly arousing, even when he didn't remark on it. There was something quite enticing about the idea.

A dozen flipped pages later, Mamoru's eyebrows shot up.

"That," Mamoru started dryly, "is the biggest dick Darien has ever been given," he commented.

Usagi snorted, shrugged, and her hand stilled in his hair. He nudged her until she dutifully continued.

"Isn't that gonna hurt?" he asked.

She scratched her fingers lightly along his scalp, shrugged again, and he reached out and flipped the page for her so she wouldn't stop scratching again.

Ah nope. Of course, they'd make it be super great instead of super painful.

He glared. If this would be real, that would definitely be hitting her cervix in the 212

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most painful way. He was already doing that in the middle of her cycle, and needed to be careful about it because that hurt her, and he was not that big.

He turned another page for her.

"And you're supposed to be a virgin in this?" he huffed in annoyance.

Because what, making it even more painful? What were they even thinking?

"Yup," she said, and popped her 'p'.

"Your first time with that scary monster dick of mine?"

Her hand stilled again, and she bent over him in wild contortions and threw him an amused look, then leaned forward to press a peck of a kiss against his forehead before she stroked his fringe away from his face.

"That scary monster dick of Darien's," she corrected haughtily, and Mamoru rolled his eyes and flipped her page.

And for a second there, he caught himself enjoying it. This. With her. On their new, gorgeously comfortable velvet couch with her naughty-in-an-inaccurateway doujins. So when months passed until he found her reading one again, he didn't quite dwell on the feeling, but if he had, he would have found confusing, confusing excitement.

He was cooking then, vent hood whirring loudly and catching the steam from his dashi-and-mirin broth cooking his onions on the stove as he cut his noodle dough into strips of homemade udon because he was feeling fancy and Makoto had taught him well. Usagi, as was to be expected, was magically drawn in by the smell of homemade food and came in sniffing, open doujin pressed to her chest as she followed her nose and melted happily.

He smiled, dropped the noodles into his noodle sieve, water boiling up in the pot immediately, and moved to the fridge. The chashu was leftover from yesterday and only two strips of it were left but they had to do. They still smelled good when he sniffed at them either way, and he put the small plate on the counter with the cracked eggs in one of their expensive ceramic bowls that Rei had given them as a housewarming gift.

"What are we having?" she asked with pure saccharine bliss in her voice, sidling up next to him and standing on her tiptoes to hold her nose into the aromatic steam, sighing into it.

He threw her a smirk. "Tamago Toji Udon. More or less," he said, pushed his index finger into the gap between her chest and the spine of her book and pulled it down so he could see, slanting his head to see even better, and let his eyes glide over the page perhaps too eagerly.

His eyebrows still flew up. "Ok, why am I fucking Rubeus?"

Usagi blushed just a little, and it was adorable. "Darien is dom'ing Rubeus to save Sailor Moon from kidnapping. They even have his UFO in the sky and all!"

He basically ripped it from her hands to see for himself, leafing through the pages blinking and wide-eyed. And shit damn, yes, some of this was actually a little hot. Usagi tried to get it back from him, but he held it out of reach and started to rant about inaccuracies.

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That was until Usagi started snacking on the already so scarce chashu.

He stopped reading immediately. "Did you just eat theâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" She was still chewing, wide-eyed "... no?"

His glare was instantaneous and so was his finger pointing to the door as he shoo-ed her from their narrow kitchen.

But he was still ranting about it 15 minutes later, leafing through the book with a heavy frown and tapping fingers against the glossy paper on their small cherry wood coffee table while Usagi was loudly slurping to cool the fresh udon down.

And he was still ranting a week later, a different book from her pile in his hand when it was her turn to cook, and that meant pouring boiling water into two tonkotsu instant ramen bowls.

"You the way they're doing this would actually be dangerous, yeah?" he pointed at the hard anal pounding Sailor Moon was getting. "Like, for both. Look, they're even drawing you screaming out!" He accusatorily jabbed at the image.

And yeah, he had been talking himself into a rage. All 'why does everyone think spit counts as sufficient lube' and lecturing about sphincters and lack of female prostates and how passive anal sex, while way more pleasurable for men, would still be hella risky for them too if done like this. And how all that translated to the fact that this inattentive and rather brutal but way too common portrayal was a recipe for demonstrating effective ways to anal incontinence with a high chance of penile fracturing and frenulum-ripping if done untrained and unwidened and landing straight in his ER like way too many people every day if done in the way it was shown here, while probably not even being pleasurable for the female receiver in the least if done at this speed and depth, since women, if they even were among the 10% of those who enjoyed butt-play at all, are only sensitive around the many nerve endings directly on the butthole, and not in it. After all, there were literally none inside in their butts whatsoever (which was clever of nature after all, since shitting would be hella painful if there were) and again, no sensitive prostate to be found in Sailor Moon's butthole that would make it more worthwhile for her.

He might be her prissy boy in these regards, but he did know his anatomy.

"Mamo-chan," Usagi tried to interrupt.

"It doesn't even anatomically make sense. The inner sphincter can't be controlled voluntarily at all!" he growled. "This at least ought to be done slow. And has any of these people ever even looked at an anatomical model? There's the tiniest fraction of a passage only where the anus is tighter than a vagina, but the rest of the rectum? Definitely not as tight!"

"Mamo-chan," she tried again, and noisily sat down his ramen cup in front of him, chopsticks even clankier next to those.

He flicked his eyes up from the offending inaccurate anal.

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Usagi looked at him concerned, lowering herself down next to him, his purple slippers with the little white masks on them too big on her small feet as she folded her legs underneath her. "What are you even doing?"

He blinked, all the rant whooshing out of him, and looked back down at the booklet he'd pulled out of the shelf this time, and not her. He pulled a face, cheeks heating. "Reading your doujinshi?"

"But why," she asked with a furrowed brow. "You hate them."

He felt his cheeks grow hotter by the second. And so he picked up his chopsticks and stirred the stiff noodles in his cup apart.

"Are you doing this for me?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

Uh. Her brow furrowed in concern. "Mamo-chan, you're allowed to hate them ok? Just because I enjoy them doesn't mean you have any obligation to—" "That's not it," he interrupted, but frowned. Because he really didn't know what he was doing. But he wasn't doing it for her, he knew that.

She waited, eating, but when he wouldn't elaborate, she didn't push.

Only late that night did she turn around in bed and ask, "So, I'm taking it you never wanna try out anal sex?"

He'd blushed heavily in the dark and hid his face in the crook of her neck. "...I didn't say that."

It went on like this, over the months, and suddenly years. He'd read her doujins, especially the hentai ones, and once he'd find something atrociously unrealistic in them, he'd point it out, to which she'd shake her head at him, often over food. Why was she always a virgin in all of these? Did they have to portray him so sex-crazy? Why could he always go on after he already came?

"So what's happening?" he asked one day when they were close to their wedding date, and he walked in with take-away while she was reading.

"Sailor V just found my g-spot and I came instantly," Usagi reported with a sheepish smile, and Mamoru rolled his eyes and threw her a pointed look immediately.

"Just because I don't find mine doesn't mean this can't happen," she defended automatically.

And so he threw her a longer look, set the plastic bag down, and started reading to her from the internet. About persisting nonsense myths about a g-spot invented by a German dude who named something after himself in vaginas that wasn't there no matter how many people still stubbornly believed in it, because back then no one knew the clitoris was a whole organ and that the whole thing moved and so yes there was a whole area that was sensitive in there but it was the clitoris and not anything else.

"Wait." Her voice was so appalled as she flicked her eyes repeatedly from her book to him and from him to her book. "You're not kidding? It's not a thing?

Really?"

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"Not in the way they all keep portraying, no," he shrugged, and pulled the still warm Sukiya cartons from the bag, condensation water dripping from the cartons as he lifted them out.

She looked at her book as if it had betrayed her.

"Where do you know that from?" she asked after a while.

He flushed, but didn't say.

And on and on it went.

"So I just know what you like? Magically?" he'd ask, holding up one of her books as he came out from the living room where he'd been cleaning up her stuff, and honestly it was perhaps the sexiest one of her's he'd ever read, even though he didn't mention that.

Or lying in bed in various stages of undress on lazy sunday mornings when they both were reading and she curled herself against him in the best of way, and proceeded to read over her shoulder instead.

Or when she was already his wife, in the park on a blanket, and she stretched the kinks from her body in a way that allowed his very interested gaze to lazily enjoy the show and read over her shoulder again, trying to talk quietly.

The way she looked at Tuxedo Mask in some of those. He gulped and blushed and rubbed his warm cheek against her hair.

"Why are they never using any protection?" he whispered against the crown of her head.

"Senshi magic," Usagi shrugged in his arms.

Ah. "Well that would be nice," he remarked, and she snort-huffed a laugh at him.

And really, after all of this commentary of his, maybe he should have noticed some things way, way earlier. Like the fact that he was enjoying them. At least the fact where he was sharing them with her. Or the fact that he was overdoing it in a way that she'd stopped enjoying them as much.

Because one day he noticed she'd started picking at them herself, and she was wrong.

"I found another unrealistic thing," she'd said one Saturday evening close to their one year wedding anniversary. Across the room, he stretched and closed his laptop, craned his neck and watched her on the couch, one leg dangling over the other, smiling at the way she sat there in a faded T-shirt and her underwear.

"Oh?" he asked, swivelling his office chair around to face her.

"Mhm," she said, and turned the page. "Yeah, so Darien is in that porn-y trope where he's getting a blowjob under his desk at his office job and he's getting hard without even having been touched yet, just because he's so excited about it."

And with that Mamoru started hard. "You think that's unrealistic?" he asked slowly, after a little while.

Had he nagged at these so much she was even beginning to question… what, desire?

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Only then her head shot up in utter confusion. "But you're the one who always points out that-" He frowned hard. That …had not been his intention.

If someone had told him back when he first learned of doujinshi that one Saturday in his mid twenties he would decide to start acting them out - and that it was his own idea, and also that he'd kind of never stop doing it again in his marriage after that - he would have laughed if he'd not been so busy flushing even at the thought.

But Mamoru just calmly stood, took the book from her bewildered hands, and leafed through it for a little while to know what he was gonna try to emulate.

Then he put it down next to her, leaning over her in the way that made her shudder and him smirk.

She was even more confused when he walked out of the room and to their bedroom without a word, her eyes following him with every move. When he returned, she was so visibly confused. But he just knelt in front of her and didn't tell her.

Slowly, deliberately, holding her gaze, and revelled in the way she recoiled back into the couch, eyes flashing.

"Really?" he said with a sort of calm he cherished, one side of his lips crooking up.

He moved to the floor fully, kneeling before the couch and before her, and waited. Only when she ran her eyes down his form - the black T-Shirt she loved because it was a little tight on him, the dark pants that stretched across his form, the shiny belt buckle, and her teeth scraped her lower lip, did he start so slowly move. With slow strokes that burned on her soft, smooth skin like they always did, he brushed her legs apart so he could move between her parting legs.

"There's nothing exciting about this?" he asked, tilting his head, smirking wider when her mouth popped open in a little gasp.

A gasp that immediately stuttered a little, eyes flashing, when he trailed his knuckles ever so lightly from the inside of her knee up the inside of her thigh and back down, watching the shudder in her.

The side of his lips turned up wider, his fringe brushing into his eyes as he tilted his head at her. He hoped he looked at least a little like that jerk Darien. "You have no idea what's sexy about the idea?" he purred.

"N-no…"

When his finger brushed the hem of her panties, her hips jumped, and his smile must have turned cocky.

He raised an eyebrow, looked her in the eye even when he brushed the fabric of her panties aside with his knuckles. "No?" She groaned, couldn't keep her hips from lifting towards his fingers, and groaned again when, with a snap, the fabric slapped back against her when Mamoru withdrew his hand.

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Instead, he craned his neck, licked his lips and closely watched her mimic the motion almost unconsciously, eyes on his mouth. Unable to keep in the smirk, he tapped his fingers against the crotch of her panties, walking them down top to bottom until she shuddered.

"Maybe a little," she said, biting her lip, and by then, she'd scooted down close against his hand, knees spread so very, very wide, and closer still with a little whine when he withdrew.

But her eyes flashed dark and wanting when he withdrew the small bottle of her favorite edible lube he'd gotten from the bedroom from his pocket, and pushed the flap of it open with a click and a flick of his thumb.

It was a sound she'd learned to love, conditioned into her for years now, and he knew it.

He took his time, teased her and laughed at her until she growled at him, drew it out until she was so turned on she was almost vibrating off the couch. And when he eventually did pull her panties aside and drew lube-slick fingers so easily down her slit and her swollen clit, she was, indeed, so wet and excited she was close to coming before he'd even started, because no, that wasn't unrealistic at all.

And later, when he'd transformed for her. So she would get to see Tuxedo Mask kneeling for her, hard for her and for her visible desire, ready and so very visibly turned on in this costume she so liked. Flicking his eyelashes up to her, he brushed her legs apart once more, slowly took off his gloves and mask and hat one by one without breaking her gaze, before he leaned in with a groan and touched his lips to her clit. Starting to suck it just as his slick fingers began to stroke and stroke and stroke ever so slowly around her entrance the way she'd taught him long ago, she came for the first of two times that night. Because even in the doujins no one would ever eat her out as long and eager as he would, and that night he aimed to show her that sometimes reality was often better than fiction. Mamoru, after all, touch-starved and all, had always been very eager to please.

From that night on, they both brought doujins home. And when something turned him on, he told her. And when he ranted how this would really go, he showed her. Sometimes it was ridiculous. Often someone fell from the bed. A lot of things weren't all that nice, but some of them definitely (and sometimes surprisingly) were, and for some they had to change a number of things to make them some sort of enjoyable in reality. And yes, turns out, he'd been right, passive anal sex was something he did enjoy more than her.

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Author’s Notes I've said it before and I'll say it again lol: No WAY wouldn't there be tons of merch (AND THERE CANONICALLY IS) and thus ALSO tons of FANWORKS if the Senshi were real. Shops full of it like TONS more than there would be of BTS and the like! ANYWAY, if you want more Mamoru-reacting-to-Doujins, check out Uglygreenjacket's smutember entry for last year: Deflowered, where Mamoru finds a handful of Tux x Moonlight Knight Doujins in Usagi's possession lol. ALSO ALSO ALSO check out this year's smutember week 3 entry by nari20 on tumblr: because before I ever posted this story, she already rummaged in my mind and kind of illustrated it PERFECTLY by coincidence! (AND THEN SHE WENT AND MADE ART FOR *THIS ONE, TOO* AHHH!!)

Thank you thank you thank you to Antigone2 helping me out at short notice when my beta was insanely busy. Thank you SO much, love! And thank you to my fanfic book club ladies who chucked ridiculous romance sex tropes at me to rant about lol!

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Oh Crap Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fanfic Of Us by Nari20 Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: Inspired byâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Oh Crap Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Doujin of Usâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; by FloraOne !

Uh... for those of you wondering, please read the story it is the most hilarious thing ever ð&#x;&#x2DC;&#x201A;

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Pool/Onsen Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Dealing with Sex-Aversion, Asexuality Ship: Rei x Jadeite

Stoplight

by Heavenly_Pearl

Jadeite was good at a great many things.

Driving, to say the least, was not one of them.

His foot was heavy on the pedal, he took turns like a bat out of hell, and he liked to think of traffic lights and stop signs more as “suggestions” rather than “rules that must be followed”. How he ever managed to convince the proctor of his recent driving exam that he was a responsible enough driver to sit behind the wheel, Rei did not know, but she should have listened to her gut feeling and insisted they take the train, rather than letting Jadeite convince her with that charming smile of his that it would be more fun to rent a car for the weekend and drive to Kyoto themselves to celebrate her twentieth birthday.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jadeite asked, noticing Rei gripping the dashboard when he took yet another sharp turn without warning.

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“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she said crossly, as if seeing her life flash before her eyes could be considered “fine”. “Just…maybe slow down a little the next time?

You’re not racing Minako at Crown; you don’t have to be in such a hurry.”

“You’re the boss!” He reached over to turn up the volume on the radio, bopping his head and singing along, off-key, to an old Three Lights hit.

Sighing, Rei reclined back in the passenger-side seat and stared out the window at the passing scenery. More than the drive, it was what would happen in Kyoto that worried her more. It was their first overnight trip together, and in a moment of what was surely temporary insanity, she had agreed they could rent a room together at the inn.

A couple sharing a room meant one thing – sex.

Well, it was probably about time they did it. After all, they had been dating for about six months now, ever since Usagi and Mamoru combined their powers to resurrect Jadeite and his other comrades from their stone imprisonment. The other girls, when Rei recently admitted they hadn’t done anything beyond kissing, had been surprised they had waited so long. Kunzite had barely finished transforming into a corporeal body before Minako dragged him to the nearest bedroom to, in her words, “make up for lost time.” Ami, surprisingly, had been the next, a latenight study date with Zoisite for her college anatomy class becoming a chance to study his anatomy – up close and personal. Makoto had wanted her first time with Nephrite to be special, so she had planned a super-romantic Christmas Eve date, complete with lighted candles and rose petals spread across the bed.

The thing was, Rei had never felt the desire to have sex. Not with Jadeite...not with anyone, male or female. When the other girls spoke of how hot they found their boyfriends and how horny they were, it sometimes felt like they were speaking another language, Rei unable to relate.

She loved Jadeite. She was certain of that. After years of mostly mistrusting men and insisting she would never do anything as stupid as fall in love, somehow Jadeite had managed to break through all her defenses. Far from the ruthless monster he had been under Queen Beryl’s spell, the real Jadeite turned out to be sweet and fun-loving, someone who reminded her not to take life so seriously all the time and who loved her in spite of her sometimes...prickly personality.

Yet she never felt the need to take their relationship further, happy with what they already had. That was strange, right? Shouldn’t she want to sleep with her boyfriend?

“Uh, Rei?” Startled from her thoughts, Rei jumped. “What is it? Are we almost there?”

“Not exactly…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, don’t freak out, but I think I may have taken a wrong turn somewhere?”

“We’re lost?”

“No...not totally. I know we’re somewhere around Nagoya…”

Rei rubbed at her temple, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on.

“Okay, pull over and hand me the map. Let’s retrace your route…”

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When they finally arrived – twenty minutes later than expected, thanks to Jadeite’s poor navigation skills – they dropped their luggage off at the room at the inn, then headed out to check out the sights. Luckily, Rei’s headache had worn off by then, leaving her in a much better mood.

Rei had visited Kyoto several times before, most recently on her class trip back during her second year of high school, but it was the newly-reincarnated Jadeite’s first time. He ran around like an excited puppy, taking pictures with his flip phone and asking Rei a million questions about the shrines and temples they visited. If it had been anybody else, Rei probably would have lost her patience long ago, yet it was hard to be mad when he was so genuinely curious. It also gave her a chance to show off her knowledge of Japanese history, Jadeite hanging onto her every word.

“Where do you want to go next?” Rei asked when they reached the entertainment district of Gion, looking down at the map in her hands. After the mishap on the drive down to Kyoto, it was decided she would be in charge of directions for the remainder of the trip. “We could check out the Silver Pavillion?

Chion-in Temple is also nearby, if you’d rather go there. There’s this incredible 24meter tower that houses the biggest bell in all of – Jadeite, are you listening to me?”

She frowned. For the first time since they arrived, Jadeite seemed distracted.

“Oh, sorry.” He bowed his head in apology, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It’s just… Uh, can you wait here a sec? I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going, and why can’t I go with you?” Rei asked, suspicious.

“Uh...bathroom?”

She arched an eyebrow. It wasn’t a very convincing lie, considering they had just taken a bathroom break less than twenty minutes ago, and he knew it, pressing his hands together in front of his face in supplication.

“Please, Rei. Ten minutes is all I need.”

“Fine,” she said with a sigh. There was a nearby shop she wanted to check out anyway. Her grandfather had asked for some tea as a souvenir, and they were known for selling the best tea leaves in Kyoto. She might as well take the opportunity to buy some while they were here. “If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m leaving without you, though. You’ll just have to find your way back to the inn without a map.”

He faked a gasp. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Just try me,” she said, smirking. “We’ll meet back here in ten, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

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They went their separate ways, Rei watching Jadeite’s back until she saw him enter a shop further down the street. A sign near the door read Yamazaki Pharmacy in large red kanji.

Is he sick? she wondered, brows furrowed in confusion. She hadn’t noticed him coughing or sniffling, though, and he certainly appeared to have more than enough energy to spare. But what other reason would Jadeite have to stop by a pharmacy in the middle of their tour…?

Oh. Condoms. He must have forgotten to bring some with him.

Rei closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. Don’t think about it, she ordered herself. All it did was make her more nervous about what was supposed to happen later that night. For now, she just wanted to enjoy the rest of the day with Jadeite without worrying about whatever expectations he undoubtedly had.

Pushing it out of her mind, Rei entered the tea shop and picked out an assortment of teas for her grandfather, including Kyoto’s famed matcha. The ten minutes were almost up by the time she returned to their designated meeting place, no Jadeite in sight.

“It shouldn’t take that long to buy a box of condoms, should it?” she muttered to herself in annoyance, tapping her foot as she checked her watch for the third time.

He was officially five minutes late.

Though tempted to make good on her threat to leave him there, Rei wasn’t that cruel. Maybe he had forgotten where they were supposed to meet up? She was pulling out her phone to call him when she heard him shouting her name, waving his hand over his head as he jogged down the sidewalk.

“You’re late,” she said when he finally caught up to her, lightly out of breath.

“Yeah, I know, I know. Sorry, the shop was busier than I expected it to be.”

He held up the bag he was carrying in his left hand. Rather than the plastic bag she had expected, it was a pretty gift bag decorated with cherry blossom branches.

“Maybe this will help make up for making you wait?”

“What is it?” she asked, taking the bag from him. “Didn’t you go to the pharmacy?”

“The pharmacy?” He blinked. “No, I went to – Oh! I think there was a pharmacy right next door.”

“Next door?”

“Yeah, but why did you think I needed to go to drug store?” he asked.

“I thought you were buying –” She shook her head, uncharacteristically flustered. “Oh, never mind! It’s not important.”

Curious to see what he did buy, she reached inside the bag, feeling around the crumpled pieces of tissue paper until her hand wrapped around something solid. She pulled it out, a small gasp escaping her lips when she saw what it was.

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It was a tsugegushi – a Japanese boxwood comb – beautifully hand-carved and painted with vibrant red spider lilies.

“Happy birthday!” Jadeite said, taking the comb from her hand. “I hope you like it. I thought this one would suit you best.” He grinned as he gently placed the comb in her hair, right above her left ear. “Yep, I was right. It looks like it was made just for you.”

“I-I love it,” Rei said, touching the comb in her hair, “but my birthday isn’t until tomorrow. Besides, I thought this trip was already my present.”

Jadeite shrugged. “I wanted you to have something to remember this trip by.”

“But I haven’t gotten you –” He laughed, bringing a finger to her lips. “All you need to say is, ‘Thank you, Jadeite. It’s beautiful.’”

Rei rolled her eyes, but smiled, rising on her toes to lightly kiss his cheek.

“Thank you, Jadeite. It really is beautiful. I’ll treasure it always.”

“That’s better,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Now, what were you saying about a really huge bell? That sounds kinda cool. Let’s go check that out…”

“I am stuffed!”

Jadeite laid down on the floor beside the low table where they were sitting and rubbed his stomach. For dinner, they had returned to the inn for a meal of Kyoto specialties: Kyoto-style sushi made with fish cured with vinegar, boiled tofu, pickled vegetables, and sweets made of red bean paste for dessert. Though the family-owned inn could hardly be considered a high-class establishment, whoever prepared the meal was an exceptional cook, just as good as Makoto or any chef at one of the fancy restaurants Rei’s father usually took her to for her birthday.

The company was much more enjoyable as well.

“Man, those sweets were delicious, weren’t they?” Jadeite asked. “We should bring some home with us as a souvenir. Usagi would probably love them.”

“I’m sure she would,” Rei agreed, well-acquainted with her princess’s infamous sweet tooth. “I know of a bakery where we can pick some up when we go out tomorrow.”

“Cool.” Sitting back up, Jadeite ran a hand through his curly hair. “So, what do you want to do now?” he asked as Rei cleared the table, placing their dirty dishes back on the tray to be picked up later by one of the maids. “I’m exhausted after all that walking we did today. Do you want to take a bath? A nice, long soak in the hot springs sounds heavenly right about now.”

A bath did sound nice... “Let me get my toiletries,” Rei said, grabbing her shampoo, conditioner, and soap from her suitcase. Not wanting to risk losing it, she took the comb he had given her out of her hair and carefully stored it in one of the suitcase’s secret compartments.

Jadeite grabbed his things as well, then they headed to the baths.

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“Hey, I heard this inn has a mixed bath,” he said casually along the way.

“Wanna check it out?”

“I’d rather stick with the women’s bath tonight, if you don’t mind,” Rei replied, not even taking a moment to think about it.

“Oh.” He appeared taken back by the speed of her answer, but he quickly hid his disappointment behind a smile. “Sure, okay,” he said as they reached the entrance to the changing rooms, stopping in front of the one designated for men.

“I’ll see you back in our room whenever you finish, then. Enjoy your bath!”

Sighing after he vanished behind the blue curtain, Rei walked through the red curtain right next to it and began taking off her yukata. A few of the inn’s other guests were already there, the two college-aged women standing next to her having a not-safe-for-work conversation about their respective partners as if nobody else was around.

“– couldn’t find my clit if I drew him a freakin’ map!” the shorter one said, her friend placing a commiserating hand on her shoulder.

“Shuji was the same way when we first started sleeping together. You have to show him what you want, Keiko,” the other said. “Guys aren’t mind-readers, you know. Next time he’s fingering you, try –” Not wanting to hear the rest of that sentence, Rei tossed her clothes in one of the provided baskets, then quickly moved onto the bathing room, taking a seat at one of the showers.

She had managed to put off thinking about it for most of the day, but her nerves were now back in full-force, the soap slipping from Rei’s hands several times as she thoroughly cleaned herself. After rinsing off and twisting her wet hair into a bun on the top of her head, she went outside to take a soak in the open-air hot spring.

Rei stepped into the bath, enjoying the intense heat as she submerged her body into the steaming water. The temperature fell just short of being unbearable, exactly as she preferred. Finding a spot away from the other women already gathered – she wasn’t in the mood to socialize – Rei rested her head against a large rock and closed her eyes, trying to calm down and relax.

It was no use. Every meditation technique she attempted failed, the anxiety about what was going to happen when she returned to their room consuming Rei’s every thought. She couldn’t even enjoy the magnificent view of Mt. Higashiyama, one of the inn’s main selling points.

I never should have agreed to come on this dumb trip, Rei thought. It got her out of another awkward, boring birthday dinner with her father, but she was beginning to think even that would be preferable to having sex with her wonderful boyfriend who she loved more than anything.

Or did she? She thought she did, but if she truly loved Jadeite, wouldn’t she want to make love with him? The desire seemed to come naturally enough to everyone else. Even the woman who was having bad sex with her boyfriend was

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eager to do it again, Rei overhearing snatches of her conversation with her friend, who was giving her more advice on things to try to improve their sex life.

Groaning, she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Why did this have to be so complicated for her when it seemed so easy for everybody else?

Maybe once she did it, she would understand what all the fuss was about?

Like how, when she was a little girl, she used to absolutely hate eating broccoli. It still wasn’t one of her favorites, and she never craved it, but now she didn’t mind eating it on occasion. Maybe sex could be like that for her?

Feeling a little light-headed after spending so long in the steaming hot water, Rei decided it was probably best to get out before she fainted. Jadeite was probably starting to wonder where she was, anyway, although she still took her time getting dressed in the inn’sred yukata and blow-drying and braiding her long hair, putting off the inevitable for as long as humanly possible.

You can do it, Rei, she told herself when she reached the door to their room, her heart pounding. She had faced much worse during her battles as Sailor Mars; this was nothing in comparison. Taking in a deep breath, she took off her slippers, then slid open the door, stepping inside.

Two futons had been rolled out, side-by-side, in the center of the room while they were taking their soaks. Jadeite, as expected, had returned to the room before her, laying on his stomach on one of the futons and flipping through what appeared to be a Kyoto travel guide. When he heard Rei enter, he sat back up and smiled, the sleeve of his yukata slipping down his shoulder and partially revealing his chest. No matter how many times she tried to teach him the proper way to wear one, he always tied it too loosely when left to his own devices.

“Hey, you were in there a while,” he said as Rei put her toiletries away. “I was beginning to think you got lost.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Unlike you, I can ask for directions.”

“Ouch.” Jadeite patted the bared part of his chest. “You wound me. You really do.” Setting the travel guide aside, he stood and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and kissing her cheek. “I missed you,” he said in a softer voice.

“Jadeite, don’t be silly. I was only gone for an hour at most.”

“The longest hour of my life.” His lips moved to the side of her neck, just underneath her earlobe, and kissed the exposed skin there. “Mmm, you smell so good. What’s that fragrance?”

“It’s just my shampoo,” Rei said, gently breaking free of his embrace.

“Come on, it’s getting late. We should go to bed.”

His eyes lit up at the suggestion, Rei realizing too late what she had insinuated. “Yes, let’s go to bed.”

He reached for her hand, leading her back to the futons. They both laid down and got underneath the blankets, Jadeite rolling over on his side. His hand brushed against her cheek as he looked down at her, his blue eyes filled 230

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with...tenderness, yes, but also something more, something she couldn’t quite discern. Lust? Desire? Whatever it was, it didn’t exactly make her feel uncomfortable, but it was...weird.

“God, you are so beautiful, Rei,” Jadeite said, his voice low, barely louder than a whisper. “You have no idea how much I’ve dreamed of tonight...of being with you…

Rei wished she could say the same.

“Jadeite, I…” If she didn’t want to go through with it, now was the time to speak up.

Jadeite would never force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. He wasn’t that kind of guy. If she told him she wasn’t ready, she knew he would respect her wishes, yet...she hated the thought of disappointing him.

Oh, just get it over with, Rei, she thought, turning over to face him and crushing her lips against his.

His eyes widened. Rei wasn’t one to initiate their kisses often, but he quickly got over his surprise, his tongue finding its way into her slightly opened mouth. As his hand slid downwards to rest upon her hip, Rei brought one of hers to the nape of Jadeite’s neck, her fingers tangling in the soft curls there.

She didn’t mind this at all, to be honest. Jadeite was an amazing kisser – not that she had much experience to compare it to, admittedly. The only other person she had kissed was her father’s assistant Kaidou in a misguided attempt to make him fall in love with her. She realized now that she had confused Kaidou’s friendship with love, that her feelings for him were nothing like what she felt for Jadeite, yet, for some reason, neither of them inspired in her the passionate, sexual desires the world said she was supposed to have for the person she loved.

That didn’t stop Rei from trying. She moved closer to Jadeite, moaning like she had seen in the movies when his lips moved from her mouth to trail up her jawline. He murmured her name like a prayer, the hand on her hip slowly roaming down her backside until Rei grabbed it and put it back where it was before.

Not yet.

Jadeite got the message. His mouth found hers again, Rei closing her eyes as she tried to relax and lose herself in the moment. She was beginning to feel what she thought might be the stirrings of arousal, a flicker of fire inside her belly that reminded her vaguely of what it felt like to transform into Sailor Mars. She moaned again – more honestly, that time – Jadeite taking it as encouragement to roll Rei over on her back.

Rei parted her legs just wide enough to allow Jadeite to position himself in between them. He was careful not to put all his weight on her, but she could still feel an unfamiliar bulge pressing against her, proof of his own arousal. Looking down at her, Jadeite smiled, tucking a strand of loose hair that had fallen out of her braid behind her ear.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

She licked her lips and nodded. “Y-Yeah.”

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Her heart pounded as he once again began kissing her neck, the sound loud enough that she was certain he could hear it. Rei stared up at the ceiling, lightly biting down on her bottom lip when she felt a hand start to slip underneath the fabric of her yukata’s neckline.

Nerves, that’s all it was. Perfectly natural.

She could do this. It was okay.

Yet the moment she felt his fingers brush against her nipple, Rei froze, her entire body going stiff.

“Rei?” Jadeite, noticing her discomfort, immediately pulled his hand out from her yukata. “Are you okay?”

No, she wasn’t.

“I-I’m sorry,” Rei said, gently pushing him off of her and sitting back up. “I can’t do this.”

Jadeite propped himself up on his elbow. “Rei, what’s wrong? Did I do –” Rei shook her head. “I just can’t,” she repeated, scrambling back to her feet and running out of the room. She ignored Jadeite calling out her name, not even bothering to put her slippers on.

She aimlessly roamed the halls of the old inn, no real destination in mind, only knowing that she a moment to herself. Somehow, she ended up in the garden at the back of the inn, the ground damp underneath her bare feet. Rei sat down on a stone bench underneath a sakura tree, sighing as she hid her face in her hands.

She had really messed things up back there. She should have been honest with Jadeite from the start instead of forcing herself to play some role that never suited her, hoping that the real feelings would magically switch on for her if she faked it well enough.

“Rei?” She lifted up her head and glanced over her shoulder, lowering her gaze when she saw Jadeite standing several feet behind her. She didn’t know what to say, how to apologize for ruining their trip, so she didn’t say anything, turning her head back around.

To her surprise, it was Jadeite who apologized instead.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “When you agreed to this trip, I thought… Well, I thought you were ready to take our relationship to the next level. I shouldn’t have tried to push you –” “No.” Rei swiveled around on the bench so she was facing Jadeite. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “I thought I was ready, too.” She shook her head; why was she still avoiding the truth? “That’s a lie. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be, but...”

“That’s okay. We can wait until you are. I don’t mind.”

“But what if…?” She swallowed hard, her fingers digging into the fabric of her yukata. She had already come this far; she might as well come clean about everything. “What if I never am?” Rei asked in a soft voice, very much unlike her.

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His eyes widened. “What do you mean?” He joined her on the bench, though he still kept a respectable distance between them.

“It means…” She drew in a deep breath, her eyes meeting his. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to have sex with you,” she declared matter-of-factly. “Or anybody else, for that matter.”

There was a long pause as Jadeite let what she said sink in.

“Did somebody...hurt you?” he hesitantly asked. “I swear, if somebody forced themselves on you…” A bit of his previous ruthlessness flickered in his eyes, his hands clenching into fists.

“No, it’s not like that,” she assured him.

Jadeite relaxed his fists, but a confused look remained on his face. “Then, is this about the vow of chastity you took during the time of Silver Millennium?” He reached over, placing one of his hands over Rei’s. “I don’t think you need to feel bound to a promise you made in another lifetime, Rei.” “No, that’s not it, either.” Rei slid her hand from underneath his, bringing it to caress his cheek instead. “I love you, Jadeite, but I’m just not attracted to you that way. In a sexual way,” she admitted, lowering her hand back to her lap. “I’ve never felt that way about anyone.”

“No one?” He blinked. “Not even, like, a celebrity? Or, um, maybe a woman?”

“No one.”

“Oh.” “I understand if that is a deal breaker for you.” Rei stood, walking a few feet forward, and wiped away a stubborn tear with the palm of her hand. She refused to cry. This was for the best, for both of them. It was better for her to dedicate her life to serving and protecting Usagi, as she had done in her previous life. Falling in love was only a foolish dream, just as she always thought. “You deserve to be with somebody who can love you the way you want to be loved.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked.

“Isn’t that what you want? Now that you know?”

“No.” Coming up behind her, he hugged her. “Your vow of chastity during our previous lives didn’t stop me from loving you, Rei,” he reminded her. “A lack of sex sure as hell isn’t going to stop me from loving you in this life, either.”

“But…” “I love you, Rei Hino,” he said, interrupting before she could protest.

“Nothing will ever change that. Nothing.”

Jadeite kissed her temple, Rei relaxing in his embrace. “I love you, too,” she said, turning around and wrapping her arms around his neck. “More than I could ever imagine.”

Bringing his hands down to rest on her hips, Jadeite started to lean forward to kiss Rei, but paused a few inches away from her lips. “Wait, is this okay?” he asked. “To kiss you?”

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In response, Rei rose on her tip-toes and bridged the gap between them, brushing her lips against his in a soft kiss.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” she said. “More than okay. I like it when you kiss me.”

“Yeah?” He grinned, kissing her again. “Good. I like it when you kiss me, too.”

They kissed a few more times, each kiss growing more ardent, but after a while, Jadeite finally pulled back, grasping her hand. “Come on,” he said, jerking his head back toward the inn. “It’s getting late, and we have a lot more sights to see tomorrow. Let’s ask the proprietress if she happens to have an extra room available.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Rei said, letting him lead her back.

He glanced back at her over his shoulder, eyes widening in surprise. “Are you sure? I mean, I won’t do anything unless you want me to, but –” She tightened her grip on his hand. “I trust you. I don’t mind sharing a room, as long as all we do is sleep.”

“Okay.” Jadeite smiled. “Sounds good.”

Author’s Notes I hope you enjoyed the story! Feel free to follow me on Tumblr! My username is kaleidodreams.

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Second Chance Sex Contains: Penis-In-Vagina Sex, Fingering, Hit On By A Stranger Ship: Usamamo

Just Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Forget You

by AllyUnabridged

The setting sun gilded the crowded streets as Tsukino Usagi dashed between her fellow pedestrians, blonde hair streaming in two tails behind her, pale pink purse banging against her hip. An expert at navigating Tokyo foot traffic at high speeds at this point in her life, she dodged left and right and left again, barely needing to murmur apologies. Usually, these days she tried to be a bit more sedate and grown up, but this was important.

As Usagi neared the building where she'd spent her free time the past few weeks helping to paint, wallpaper, clean, and arrange furniture, she slowed and tried to catch her breath. Her hands flew up to smooth out the twin buns on either side of her head, tucking a few stray strands back into their pins. She hoped her make-up wasn't too smudged. At least she'd had time to slip in her after-work earrings, dangly gold things with crescent moons on the ends that she'd fallen in 236

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love with years ago. Her work clothes of a tailored pink button-up blouse and gray skirt should be nice enough, at least, along with the adorable pink kitten heels she'd found on sale just last week.

The front of the restaurant glowed golden in the early evening. Through the windows, Usagi could make out at least a dozen bodies, all crammed together to celebrate the grand opening of Tempura Furuhata. She grinned and hurried toward the entrance.

Just as her hand closed around the brass handle, she caught sight of one particular guest and froze, smile faltering.

Her eyes traced over him, taking in the differences six years had made. Still lean, his shoulders were broader than she remembered, filling out the crisp midnight blue shirt he wore. His straight black hair spilled over his eyes like it always had, shading them from curious observers. Those cheekbones and jawline were as lethal as they'd ever been.

Usagi dragged in a deep breath and fought the urge to run. He shouldn't be here now. Why hadn't Motoki or Makoto said anything, dammit?

Plastering an even wider smile on reluctant lips, she pulled the door open and stepped into the restaurant, causing the little bell she'd installed yesterday to merrily announce her presence. All talking stopped for a moment. Then Makoto rushed forward, green eyes sparkling and hands outstretched.

"Usa! You made it!"

"Of course I did. I wouldn't miss today for anything! Sorry, work kept me longer than I meant it to," Usagi whispered that last part in Makoto's ear as she embraced her friend, standing on tiptoe to do so.

Makoto squeezed her back. "Don't worry about it. I'm just happy you're here now."

"Took you long enough to get here, Odango." The voice of one of her other best friends rang across the room, causing Usagi to see red for a moment.

She whirled out of Makoto's arms to face Rei, blonde hair a swirling storm around her.

"Not fair, Rei!" she shouted, hands on her hips.

"Yeah. You know Usagi was probably hard at work drooling over the latest manga, Rei. Leave her alone!"

Usagi rolled her eyes at this less than helpful defense. She shot a glare over her shoulder. "Thanks, Minako."

"Any time!" the other blonde said, waving a breezy hand and winking.

"I did have some edits I had to finish," Usagi admitted to Makoto, who laughed, tossing her trademark auburn ponytail over her shoulder. Usagi thought she looked amazing in a floral pink and green dress, her cheeks bright from excitement and happiness.

"Hey, deadlines are deadlines. I'm guessing you're hungry, though, if you were deep in that. Did you remember to eat lunch?" Makoto fussed, pulling her toward the long buffet set up where tables would normally be.

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As Usagi began to load up the black stoneware plate Makoto thrust at her, she risked sneaking a peek toward the front of the restaurant. To the area she'd deliberately ignored from the very first second she'd entered. Her eyes instantly found the dark blue gaze fixed on her, and she fought hard not to blush. She forced herself to scan the rest of the room as if that had been her sole purpose in the first place.

Things had changed in six years, she reminded herself. She had changed, had grown up. She was no longer the clumsy, crybaby teen she once was. She even had a two-year design degree under her belt as well as two years at a job she loved.

With that in mind, Usagi moved away from the buffet and began to mingle.

She avoided Rei to punish her for the earlier comment. Another quick glance showed her fourth best friend, Ami, deep in conversation with Motoki and the object of Usagi's avoidance. So, she latched on to some of Motoki's friends, a sweet couple she had met a few times at other gatherings.

Makoto's delicious tempura disappeared into her stomach almost magically as Usagi chatted about work and the weather, unseasonably warm lately.

All safe topics, ones that steered clear of teenage obsession or heartbreak. Her nerves, strung tight, began to loosen a bit. She could do this.

Once her plate was empty, Usagi excused herself. Although she could have left it on the stack of dirty dishes the other guests had started, she decided to settle it on top and take the whole thing to the back to give herself even more time to settle. She picked up the small tower of plates, balancing them carefully as her high school job as a waitress had taught her, and gently pushed through the few people standing between her and safety. The red swinging door was no obstacle, she was so familiar with it, and then she was in the quiet safety of the brightly lit kitchen, Makoto's pride and joy.

Usagi moved to the sink and began to set the stack of plates on the stainless steel countertop. The deep voice behind her caused her to almost drop them instead of the steady descent she had planned.

"Hiding, Odango Atama?"

The dishes clinked together as her breath hissed out from between her lips. Stomach clenching, Usagi briefly regretted eating so much tempura.

"Not at all. And that's still not my name," she answered, keeping her back to him to hide her warm cheeks. "Just trying to help Mako out. She should be out there enjoying her triumph, not worrying about picking up after us."

"The restaurant looks beautiful, and the food is amazing. Makoto and Motoki have every right to be proud of what they've accomplished. I'm sure it'll be a success."

Usagi half turned, still not looking at him. "It will be. I know it. They've put too much of themselves into it for this not to work out."

Out of the corner of her eye, Usagi watched him stuff his hands in his pockets. She cursed internally because he just stayed there, between her and the 238

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rest of his party. What was he thinking, anyway? Before he left, he never deliberately sought her out. That wasn't their thing.

"You're probably right."

The silence between them stretched out. Usagi felt her mouth go dry. She dumped her purse next to the stack of dishes and rummaged among the metal shelves on the other side of the sink, seeking out the mug she'd left the day before.

She needed to take it home anyway. Her fingers closed around the pink handle and she drew it out, moving over to the sink again to fill it with water.

The cup was halfway to her lips when he spoke again.

"It's good to see you again, Usagi. You've grown up."

So she'd been reminding herself. She spun around mid-sip, eying him from behind the safety of her mug. After swallowing the cool liquid, she felt capable of speech again.

"You haven't changed much at all, Mamoru. I expected gray hair if I ever saw you again," she teased, trying for a lighthearted grin but not sure if she managed it.

He grimaced, and her heart dropped along with her smile. That was so stupid. Why had she said it? First, it made it sound as if she thought about him while he was gone. Which she had, often. But she didn't want him to know that.

Second, she basically called him an old man. And even with a six-year age difference, he definitely wasn't that. The years between them seemed even less important now than they had at sixteen when she'd been a silly girl with hearts in her eyes she hadn't known how to hide.

She tried to recover by downing the rest of her water with a few long gulps.

The empty mug went into the sink with a clank that echoed loudly in her ears.

She'd come back for it another day.

"We should get back out to the party. I haven't had a chance to congratulate Motoki yet." She braced herself to move past him and back out the red door.

To her surprise, he caught her arm gently. She finally found the courage to look fully at him, sky blue eyes clashing with dark blue. Her skin felt warmer where his hand wrapped around it, although a layer of smooth cotton separated them.

"It's good to see you again."

There was something so earnest in his voice, Usagi could almost forget her embarrassment of six years ago. Almost.

"You, too. I, uh, didn't realize you were coming back. Motoki didn't mention it."

Mamoru shrugged, still holding her captive. "It was undecided until last week, and I didn't tell him until I already landed and settled in."

Usagi licked her lips. "So you're staying here, in Japan?"

Great, now she sounded like an idiot. He was going to think she was just as brainless as she'd been as a teenager.

His eyes glinted as he inclined his head. "I am."

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Usagi pulled away, backing toward the door. "Well, good then. I know Motoki has missed you."

His eyebrows rose as he let her go. "I missed him, too."

Was she the only one thinking that maybe they were both saying one thing and meaning another? Or maybe was that just hope left over from countless nights spent in odd dreams of dancing in his armsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;among other things.

She kept backing slowly toward the door, not paying attention to where she was going. So the creak of the door before she touched it didn't even register before she was suddenly pulled towards Mamoru again, this time landing fully in his arms, her cheek pressed against his firm chest.

"Oh! Usagi! Mamoru?" Motoki's confused voice filled her ears, and silently Usagi cursed, even as she peeked out from under her bangs to look at the other man.

"You almost cracked her head open with the door, Motoki," Mamoru said in the dry tone she was so used to from him.

Of course. He'd merely saved her from a concussion. Blushing, Usagi moved away from him once more, and his arms dropped from around her.

"Thanks for the rescue, Mamoru. Hi, Motoki. Great party. Mako's food tastes amazing as always. I'm just going to go say hi to Ami and Rei. It's been a few weeks. Later!" She didn't care if she was babbling or rude. She bolted out of the kitchen and through the crowd, sure her cheeks must be on fire.

"Usa? Are you okay?"

Usagi looked up into a too-perceptive violet gaze. Rei stood just steps away, hand on one hip and looking elegant as always in a clingy red dress. She stepped toward Usagi, took her hands in hers, and began to chafe them a little as if she thought Usagi was too cold.

"Yeah, Usa, you look a little off. Is everything okay?" Minako piped up from next to Rei, appearing in a flurry of orange, red, and gold that should have clashed but didn't because Minako could pull off pretty much anything.

"I'm fine," Usagi tried to reassure them, looking over her shoulder distractedly.

Mamoru and Motoki chose that moment to come out from the kitchen.

Both looked good, but Usagi had eyes only for Mamoru. With a sigh she dragged her eyes away, back to her friends. Apparently they'd seen what direction she'd come from and put two and two together because suddenly they hustled her into the corner of the restaurant farthest from the kitchen, heads leaning close to hers, eyes full of understanding.

"Have you talked to Mamoru yet?" Minako asked, reassuringly rubbing one of Usagi's hands between hers.

"A little. We said hello."

"That's what has you so worked up?" Rei snorted but kept her hand on Usagi's shoulder all the same.

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"I know I'm being stupid, Rei. I haven't seen the man in six years. I should be totally over, well, any little crush I had on him."

Minako shot Rei a look and shook her head. "It's fine, Usa. Do you know how long he's staying?"

"I think, maybe, for good? Like he's really back." Usagi felt the blood rush from her cheeks at the thought. She wasn't ready for possible chance encounters with the man she somehow hadn't gone a day without seeing between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, before he decided to study medicine outside of the country.

"That could be interesting." Minako grinned and winked at Rei, who scowled.

"Is that all you ever think about?" She shook her head. "Look, Usa, everything will be fine. He didn't even know you had a crush on him, right?"

Usagi felt even more lightheaded at the question. "Um, well, see…"

"You never told us that you said something to him!" Minako hissed, looking over her shoulder as if checking Mamoru's location—something Usagi had already been aware of from the moment he stepped back into the room. Thankfully he had stayed near the kitchen talking with Motoki and the couple Usagi had chatted with earlier.

"I—well, I was young. And being very silly, okay? I didn't tell him I loved him or anything!" A strangled, high-pitched giggle tore through Usagi, causing Ami and Makoto to look their way as well and frown in concern. They began to move towards the other three.

"I only told him I liked him. That I thought he was cute," Usagi muttered in a rush as Makoto and Ami stepped up.

"Oh, is she talking about Mamoru again?" Makoto asked, a relieved smile blossoming on her generous mouth.

"Shhh!" Minako warned. Then she glared at Usagi. "You told Makoto and not us?"

"I didn't tell any of you. Makoto just has more opportunity to hear me asking Motoki about Mamoru," Usagi shot back with a shrug, referring to Makoto's two-year relationship.

"What did Mamoru say when you said you liked him? I'm assuming you're referring to the time before he left for America," Ami inserted calmly, ever the one to cut to the heart of a matter. Her eyes pierced Usagi's as she tucked a short strand of blue hair behind one ear, a habit that told Usagi she had her entire concentration.

Usagi nodded and frowned. "He laughed and said I was sweet, but too young for him."

The other four winced, even Ami. Usagi appreciated the support. At the time, she'd been devastated. Looking back, though, he was right. She was far too young for him then. That didn't make the episode any less humiliating, of course.

"But you kept asking about him after he left," Makoto pointed out in a loud whisper.

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With a shrug, Usagi sighed. "Well, just because he said that didn't mean I stopped having feelings for him."

"Poor Usa," Minako murmured, always so sensitive to matters of the heart.

Usagi flashed a bright smile at her friends. "It's fine, really! And now we've got the awkward hellos out of the way. Everything else is a piece of cake, right?"

They murmured reassurances that didn't sound entirely sincere to her, but she let it slide. Instead, she changed the subject to one much more innocuous: Ami's classes. The only one of them still in university and about to begin medical school, she happily babbled about her expectations for the coming year, blue eyes bright, hands alternating between smoothing down her pale blue skirt and clasping in front of her, while her friends smiled indulgently and asked questions like if she planned to move out of her mother's apartment now or if she'd decided which hospital to take her residency year at.

Usagi's eyes and thoughts wandered, although she tried to pay attention for Ami's sake. But really, what was she supposed to do when Mamoru was within sight? It wasn't like she'd ever had any self-control where he was concerned. Not when she'd teased him, not when she'd argued with him, and certainly not after she realized she might be in love with him.

Of course, it was never that serious. It never had the opportunity to be.

One day she was telling him she liked and admired him. A week later, he was gone.

Now she examined him as covertly as possible. She drank in his profile as he talked with Motoki. Her first impression through the window and their encounter in the kitchen hadn't been nearly enough. She wanted to go up to him and memorize every change to the face that still haunted her dreams. Of course, that would probably creep him out, she mused.

"Usa? Usagi?"

Usagi reluctantly pulled her attention from Mamoru-gazing. Her gaze swung over to Makoto, an embarrassed flush staining her cheeks. Thankfully, all four of her friends just gave her knowing grins.

"Maybe you're not entirely over him, Usagi," Ami surprised her by saying.

"Yeah, how many dates have you been on since high school? And none of them ever worked out. There was always some excuse," Minako teased.

Usagi blushed. "My bad luck with guys started with him. I doubt he's the answer," she muttered.

"Well, don't look now, but your 'not the answer' is headed this way," Makoto told her.

"Mako! Don't be obvious!" Usagi hissed, barely resisting the urge to cause more of a scene by dragging her friend back into facing their little circle.

"I can look at my own boyfriend, Usa! And he's with him!" Makoto growled back, rolling her eyes.

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They didn't have a chance to continue the argument. Mamoru and Motoki reached them, the former with his trademark intense, serious expression and the latter all smiles.

"How do you like the restaurant, ladies?" Motoki asked with a grin as he slid in next to Makoto, taking her hand in his. Of course he already knew. They'd all been in to help set it up at one point or another over the past weeks, although sadly not much as a group.

Minako rapped her chin and sighed. "Hmm, I don't know, Motoki. I think maybe the lights were the wrong choice," she commented, looking up at the dangling mini chandeliers.

His face turned red from both frustration and laughter while the women all giggled. "If you change your mind on the lights one more time, Minako..." he warned, wagging a finger at her. It was an almost constant refrain for over two months during the initial design phrase.

Usagi noticed Mamoru standing to the side, a frown in his eyes as he watched their interactions. She caught his gaze, offered a smile, and moved over, gesturing for him to join the circle between her and Minako. His frown lightened as he made the few steps to take up the empty space. Usagi gloated a bit inside because he was fractionally closer to her than to Minako. Not that it mattered, of course.

"So, the prodigal nephew returns," Minako said, sliding a wicked glance between Usagi and then Mamoru. She flicked elegant fingers at Ami's whispered, "Son, Minako!"

Mamoru tilted his head forward, hair shading his eyes so that Usagi couldn't quite make out the expression in them. "It was time."

That was the type of interaction she expected from him. Short, to the point.

Not the odd conversation they shared in the kitchen. Of course, Minako being Minako, she couldn't let it go.

The other blonde tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows.

"And what made it time?"

Even Usagi, who often spoke before she thought, thought Minako had gone too deep with that question.

"Minako!" she hissed, glaring, along with the other three women.

To her surprise, Mamoru chuckled a little. "It's okay. There just wasn't anything holding me in America, and I finally realized it."

"And do you hope to find something to hold you here?" Minako's time could almost have been called flirtatious, but Usagi knew it well. She wished she could growl and stomp on her friend's foot in warning, but that was a little difficult with Mamoru standing between them, seeming oblivious of Usagi's discomfort.

Did she imagine it, or did his eyes flicker towards her as he shuffled his feet before answering? "I'm not sureâ&#x20AC;Ś" "Minako's just teasing you," Rei came into the rescue, to Usagi's relief. And Mamoru's too, if she was any judge.

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"Hey, can't fault a girl for being curious when a tall, dark, and handsome acquaintance returns after years abroad." Minako shrugged and laughed. "Have you had a chance to look around at the changes the district has gone through since you left?"

Mamoru shook his head. "No. I flew in two days ago and slept the rest of the day. It was a long trip. Then I spent the last two days adjusting and running errands."

Usagi didn't trust the sparkle in Minako's eyes one bit.

"Well, there are definitely quite a few changes." She examined her goldpainted nails. "Sadly, I'm busy all weekend or I would suggest a group outing. Plus I know Motoki and Makoto will be slammed because this place is so awesome."

"Ah, that's okay, I'll just—" Minako waved her hand and interrupted him. "No, no, there are a few duds, too. You need to know the places to avoid! Let's see." She tapped a finger against her chin.

"I have classes anyway, Minako," Ami reminded the group. "So I wouldn't have been able to join an excursion."

"True! I forgot about those."

"And I promised Grandpa I would mind the temple this weekend so he could go to a retreat." The hidden laughter in her best friend's voice caused Usagi's eyes to shoot to Rei. Those violet eyes glimmered back at her with a hidden—or not so hidden—message, and Usagi's stomach clenched again.

"Oh, damn, I forgot about that, too!" Minako's voice dripped honey sweet, and Usagi's gaze swung back to her, trying to communicate with widened eyes that Minako refused to completely meet.

"I don't think Usagi is busy this weekend. Are you, Usa? No plans I'm forgetting about for you?"

Usagi's mouth had become a desert once more. "Well, no." She couldn't force more words out from between frozen lips.

Minako's lips curled into a satisfied smile. "Perfect!" she purred. "Then Usagi can help you get reacquainted with Azabujuban, Mamoru!"

Usagi wasn't sure she was breathing anymore. From the warmth of her cheeks, she was pretty sure she was lit up brighter than the Tokyo Tower. The world seemed to slow down as Mamoru turned towards her. She expected to see panic or disdain in his eyes—they were the two expressions she could remember most, after all, even if eventually even he had thawed towards her. Instead, she found herself drowning in warmth that wrapped her up like arms holding her close.

Like his arms had earlier.

"If you have time, I would appreciate it."

The low words, the genuine smile he gave her, caused her heart to start beating again and the air in her lungs to woosh out in a small gasp. She found her own lips curving in return.

"Sure."

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She could have stared at him the rest of the night if Minako clearing her throat hadn't broken the spell. Her eyes snapped to Minako, her blush somehow intensifying to the heat of a thousand suns. He was going to think she was as silly as she'd been when she was sixteen!

"Why don't you give Mamoru your Line code, Usa, so you two can plan your weekend," Minako said, her eyes telegraphing a message Usagi was a bit too dazed to take in.

"Um, yeahâ&#x20AC;Ś" Usagi watched Mamoru take his phone from his pocket and unlock it. He looked at her expectantly, and in a slightly robotic manner, she fumbled with her phone to open her Line messaging app. She brought up her QR code and he scanned it; then he offered the same to her. She saved him in her contacts, forgoing her usual avatars and stickers because she didn't know what to use in this case.

As soon as Usagi looked up, Rei changed the topic to upcoming summer blockbusters, much to her relief. And Usagi knew it was solely for her benefit. Rei was more an indie film type and often ranted about the violence and sexism found in blockbuster movies, something which would always draw Makoto into an argument. This time she was more than civil, though, whether out of concern for Makoto's anxiety levels or to keep the peace with so many other guests, Usagi wasn't sure.

She didn't have much input into this topic herself, at least not for any of the current soon-to-be-released batch of movies. That was a good thing because the heat she felt radiating from her right was far too distracting to form coherent sentences. Maybe she was imagining it, but it felt as if every millimeter of skin on that side of her body was electrified because of his presence. She had no idea how she was going to survive this tour that Minako had roped her into giving him.

Eventually their large group split, some to get food more, others to mingle.

Usagi was one of the former since she hadn't tried any of the desserts yet, and Makoto had been right. Somehow, she'd forgotten lunch yet again. It happened sometimes, usually on her busiest days, something she never would have thought possible as a teenager. But she always regretted it, just as she did now.

Usagi chose a delicate chocolate pastry, the kind she knew Makoto liked to fill with flavored cream. She admired the elaborate rose on top as she wandered a bit away from the table. It was almost too pretty to eat!

"Are you ever going to bite into that thing?"

The voice behind her made her jump.

"Of course! But it's so pretty; I feel bad."

Mamoru came around to stand in front of her. "Never thought I'd see the day you didn't devour chocolate on sight."

Maybe she wouldn't have to worry about surviving tomorrow if he kept talking like that. She might not let him survive that long!

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"A lot has changed since you've been gone," she said pertly, nose up in the air. It was worth waiting a few more seconds to shove the thing in her mouth just to prove him wrong.

His eyes took on an unfamiliar glint. To her amazement, he swept her from head to toe, so slowly it made her stomach clench.

"Yeah, I can tell."

Was Mamoru flirting with her? Her?! There was no way. He was just trying to go back to their old trading game, she assured herself. That didn't stop the blush that stained her cheeks yet again. At this rate, she might as well not have bothered with makeup at all that day!

Forgetting her resolve, Usagi shoved half of the pastry in her mouth to stop herself from blurting out the question. The look in his eyes changed to one she was much more comfortable withâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;amusement. He smirked at her, that smug half-grin that had always done strange things to her insides.

"But maybe not everything," he said, taking a bite of his own chocolate pastry, the one she only just noticed he held.

Eyes narrowed, she stared him down as she continued to chew, barely noticing the delectable flavor of dark chocolate mixed with raspberries that burst on her tongue. Swallowing that much food was difficult to do, but she managed without gagging, thankfully. That would have ruined the mask of righteous anger she wanted to project even as the laughter in his eyes inexplicably made her want to giggle.

Each of her bites after that was a nibble, followed directly by Mamoru taking a bite of his own pastry. They continued eating and staring at each other, and in the hazy back of her mind she wondered if this was the world's strangest staring contest and how in the world it had even started. By her last bite, he had caught up. Their chewing slowed, as if they were trying to see who could hold out and finish last.

To counter the flash of triumph in his eyes when finally she let the last of the chocolate slide down her throat while he still chewed, she lifted her slightly sticky fingers and began to lick melted chocolate off each digit, one by one. She wanted to grin in satisfaction when his eyes darkened and he seemed to choke a bit on his last swallow, but she restrained herself. She wasn't sure exactly where this was coming from, but it was fun.

All thoughts of smiling were wiped out of her mind when he lifted his own hand and returned the favor, curling his tongue along his skin in a way that made her breath stop yet again. That triumphant look was back in his eyes but darker, swirling with emotions she didn't understand.

"You have a bit of rose here."

His other hand lifted, and his thumb brushed the skin right next to her mouth, pressing ever so slightly. A tingle passed along her cheek and down her neck, ending in a shiver she barely managed to suppress. When his hand pulled

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away, she saw a piece from the rose decoration resting on his thumb before he flicked it away.

"Thanks," Usagi managed to gasp out.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I thought I was going to be bored all weekend cooped up in my apartment."

Usagi struggled to regulate her breathing and remember how to talk like a functioning adult. "Did, um, did you keep the place you had before you left?"

Mamoru nodded. "I own it; it was easy to rent it out while I was gone, although the last tenant left months ago."

Normal conversation was helping her equilibrium. "No shortage of people looking to rent in the city."

"No, there's not. But I was considering moving back and didn't want to start renting it out before I made up my mind."

"That was smart," Usagi said, giving a little giggle. "I was lucky Makoto already had her own place when I wanted to move out of my parents' house.

Although we drive each other a little crazy, so we've been looking around for a bigger place. It's so hard to find something we like, though. And maybe it won't be needed, anyway."

Usagi's eyes strayed away from his, finally, seeking out her friend across the room. A soft smile stole over her when she found Makoto and Motoki standing side by side talking to some more of his friends. His hand rested on the small of her back, and it made the gooey romantic core in Usagi melt even farther. She sighed at the sweetness before turning back to Mamoru. He had also been looking their way; she caught a wistful look in his eyes when they came back to her.

"Do you think he's going to ask her to marry him soon?"

"I know Makoto hopes he will. They've been dating for two years." Usagi's smile turned into a grin. "And if that happens, I'll get the apartment to myself."

Mamoru rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Getting a little ahead of yourself."

Usagi shrugged. "It's bound to happen sooner or later. And it's not like I'll be getting married first," she snorted in amusement at the thought.

"No one's caught your eye, huh?" The question was casual, although he didn't look at her while asking. But she prided herself on being an open book.

"Nope. A couple guys have tried, but for one reason or another things didn't work out. Minako says I'm too picky." She thought she saw his fists clench, but they relaxed again right away, so she must have been mistaken.

"Ah. Their loss." His eyes burned into hers once more.

"What about you? No one pining away for you back in America?" Oh, man, that was obvious. So stupidly obvious. But he asked first!

It was Mamoru's turn to shrug. "If they are, they shouldn't be. I broke up with someone over a year ago. It wasn't...we just weren't a good match."

"Oh." Usagi pressed her lips together against the flash of heat that burned through her at the thought of that unnamed woman. "That sucks. Break-ups are never easy."

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He ran a hand through his hair. "Some are easier than others."

"Her loss," Usagi found herself echoing. She allowed her smile to creep back. "And I can't say I'm unhappy if it brings you back to Japan."

"Oh, really?" He raised his eyebrows, smirk firmly back in place.

Usagi's chin shot into the air. "Of course. Motoki missed you."

"So you said earlier." This time she was sure he was laughing at her.

"Well, he did!"

"Hmmmm."

To her surprise, he reached out again, this time catching one of her ponytails between her fingers. Her eyes followed the golden strands as he tugged gently and then allowed them to slip away in a waterfall of sunshine. When the last piece fell, she looked back up at him. His eyes were softer than she'd ever imagined seeing.

"I'm glad you didn't change your hair."

"You hated my hair!"

Mamoru shook his head. "I absolutely did not. But it was fun getting a rise out of you, Odango."

Her heart almost stopped when he actually winked. At her. Then her brain caught up with what he said, and she waved a finger at him.

"Let's get one thing straight before tomorrow, mister. I don't want to hear 'Odango' from you once, got it?"

Mamoru held up both hands. "Okay, okay. I'll do my best."

It was Usagi's turn to smirk. "You'd better if you want to take you to all the best places."

Mamoru sobered a bit. "Has it really changed so much here?"

There was that hint of wistfulness again. It made Usagi's heart ache. She reached out and placed a comforting hand in his arm.

"Not that much. Minako was totally exaggerating. But there are some cool new things I can show you, and amazing restaurants."

Mamoru's hand covered hers for a moment. Usagi marveled at how her hand felt in his, even like this. They'd rarely touched before, when she was younger. But somehow this felt like coming home.

"I look forward to it."

Usagi felt like her heart was soaring high above the clouds. So of course, that was when Rei arrived to bring it back down to Earth as only she could.

"Hey, you two. Minako's trying to talk everyone into going to the izakaya down the road now that we all have a good base of food in us. Makoto and Motoki said they'd join us after they clean up. Are you in?"

Usagi drew her hand back but kept her gaze on Mamoru, not bothering to look at Rei next to them. She raised her eyebrows in challenge. She couldn't picture the Mamoru of six years ago casually going to an izakaya with friends.

Although he didn't seem excited about the idea, he also nodded.

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Finally, Usagi looked over at Rei. She blushed at the knowing look in her eyes but kept her head high.

"Sure! Sounds like fun, although I think we should all help Mako and Motoki first. They deserve it with all the hard work they've done!"

"We all put work into this place—but you're right." Rei nodded and walked over to the other small groups, beginning to rally them in the cleanup.

"You're a good friend," Mamoru observed next to Usagi as she moved toward the buffet table.

Usagi threw a smile over her shoulder as she picked up an empty black platter that had been full of tempura earlier.

"Thanks. Glad you've finally noticed."

"I'm noticing a lot."

To distract herself from that, she busied her hands with stacking platters, which were swept away by one of the other guests. Within a matter of minutes, the front room had been cleared and furniture rearranged so it looked just the way it was supposed to. Usagi heard the chatter of a few others in the kitchen as she placed one of the final chairs, so she didn't try to go help washing up. The kitchen wasn't that big.

Minako must have also excused herself from dish washing. She slid around the table next to where Usagi had stopped and looped an arm through hers, smiling smugly. Usagi tried hard not to grin back, but it was inevitable.

"I guess you want me to thank you, huh?" she whispered.

Minako giggled quietly. "Oh, I can wait until after the weekend for that. But I did notice the two of you getting awfully close."

Usagi snorted. "Of course you did."

"And I have opinions. And ideas."

"Am I supposed to be shocked?" Usagi giggled right along with Minako.

"Will you two hyenas take your purses so we can get some drinks?" Rei dangled Usagi's pink purse and a gold one she recognized as Minako's in front of them.

The two blonds rolled their eyes and snatched their respective purses before joining the larger group beginning to stream out of the restaurant. Usagi ended up toward the back and watched fondly as Motoki and Makoto turned off the lights and locked up, pride in every motion. She moved off to give them room and somehow ended up next to Mamoru again.

"So where exactly are we going?" Mamoru asked Usagi laughed. "Minako didn't say. But I guarantee wherever it is, they have good cocktails. She's picky."

He nodded and they fell into a much more comfortable silence than earlier. Usagi enjoyed walking in the warm night air, not oppressively hot but also without the chill that early spring held. Her arms swung freely by her sides as she looked around, taking in the groups walking along either side of the street, passing cars, and the glow of lights from businesses and apartments. Since becoming an 249

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adult, this was her favorite time of day. Release the stress of work, often hanging out with friends, with the bustle of the city around her.

She felt Mamoru's eyes on her and glanced at him with a smile. He looked so serious at first that it faltered, but then his mouth tilted up at the corners.

"You like the city, don't you?"

"Of course! It's always so busy, and I can find anything I need, and everyone I love is here. What's not to like?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess not much."

Usagi blushed at the warm look he gave her. She was so busy eyeing him that she didn't notice a large crack in the sidewalk ahead. Her right toe caught in it, jerking her momentum to a halt and sending her tumbling forward.

Or it would have, if a large hand hadn't caught hers and pulled her back up. Usagi found herself tucked against Mamoru's side, once again so close she could make out tiny flecks of gold in his dark blue eyes that seemed to catch and reflect the lamplight. His other hand landed on her shoulder, steadying her.

"Thanks, again."

Mamoru chuckled. "Seems like it's going to take some work to get you safely to the izakaya. Hopefully we're close," he teased. His hand smoothed over her upper arm in a gentle, reassuring gesture, causing her not to mind his words nearly so much as she might have.

"C'mon, you two," Makoto said from behind them, poking Usagi's arm where it pressed against Mamoru's. "Looks like Minako finally found what she was looking for!"

Usagi looked up to see the rest of their group starting to turn in at a building just ahead. Mamoru's hand fell from her shoulder, but before he could release the hand he held, she began to tug him forward.

"Oh, this place carries my favorite umeshu! I'll have to thank Minako!" she squealed.

Then she realized what she was doing and dropped Mamoru's hand like it had burned her. She turned mortified eyes to him.

"I'm so sorry!"

"Why?" he asked, shaking his head. "You were just excited."

She grinned up at him. "I am."

"Usagi is very particular about her umeshu," Makoto said, patting her on the head as she and Motoki passed.

Usagi realized that left her and Mamoru at the very back of the group.

Unfortunately, by the time they got in the door, their group had taken up all of the available tables, but no empty seats were left. Mamoru pointed to two empty stools at the bar.

"Shall we?"

Usagi nodded and followed him across the room, her heels clicking on the wooden floor and drawing her friends' eyes. She gave them a little wave and

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pointed to the bar. Minako winked, Rei and Makoto snickered behind their hands, and Ami watched with wide eyes as Usagi walked away from them with Mamoru.

The stools were utilitarian, which she thought Mamoru probably approved of, simple slabs of dark wood for the seats with low rungs to indicate the backs.

Mamoru slid onto one with ease, but Usagi had to give a little hop up onto hers.

She teetered first a moment and felt Mamoru's hand on her back, steadying her.

The skin of her back felt seared by his fingers and palm; even when he removed his hand, she was sure she still felt it.

"What are you going to order?" Usagi asked breathlessly to cover her internal turmoil. Surely drink choices were a neutral topic.

"Probably just nihonshu," Mamoru commented as he scanned the small laminated drink menu card laying in the polished oak bar.

"Well, I guess you already know I'm going to have umeshu. Theirs is so good! Minako's tried to get me to at least order an umeshu sour, but I'm worried it would ruin the flavor." Usagi realized she was babbling and so bent her head over the menu as well.

Mamoru hummed but didn't say anything else. Once more, Usagi felt hyper-aware of how close they were, mere centimeters set between each of the stools. And since an unfamiliar man sat to her right, she found herself leaning even more toward Mamoru on her left so that her shoulder practically brushed his arm.

The fairy lights over the bar reflected off the glossy wood and glasses, catching her eye.

"Hey, can I have your Line?" a voice to her right asked.

Usagi sat straighter and turned her head slowly, unsure that she was really the target for this, now of all times. She hardly ever had guys hitting on her when she was out; usually they were too bowled over by Minako or Rei. But her blue eyes met dark brown staring straight at her, although they weren't on her face for long.

She felt her skin crawl when the guy grinned, revealing several crooked teeth, eyes still firmly fixed on her chest.

Before she could refuse to give him her information, the man leaned closer and slurred, "Your hair is amazing. I want to wrap it in my fists as Iâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" "Is this person bothering you, Usako?" Mamoru's arm landed heavy on her shoulders, his hand curling around her arm and rubbing slightly.

Instinctively, Usagi leaned into his touch while whipping her head around, eyes wide. Realizing the out he was giving her, she forced a bright smile and laugh. "It's fine, Mamo-chan. I was about to handle him," she purred, running a playful finger over his cheek, a spark of satisfaction igniting in her when his blue eyes turned almost black.

Usagi turned back to the guy on her right who was watching them with palpable disappointment.

"Sorry, but no. You can't have my Line." She shrugged, and Mamoru's arm slid down her crack until his hand settled on her waist. He pulled her closer so that

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she was practically in his lap. That sent off a whole storm of butterflies in her stomach.

"Too bad," the man muttered, turning back around.

Usagi reluctantly pulled away from Mamoru and settled back on her own stool. His arm remained behind her, hand now resting on the short back of the seat. She felt his knuckles pressing into her hip, each a jutting reminder of how close she'd been to him just moments before.

Mamoru, as if unaware of how he was affecting her, raised his free hand and caught the attention of the server. The balding man behind the bar shuffled over.

"One umeshu and one umeshu sour, please."

Usagi elbowed Mamoru as the server walked away. She stretched up so that her lips were right next to his ear.

"Why'd you order for me?"

He lowered his head and returned the favor, his breath fire along the shell of her ear. "I owe you for showing me around tomorrow. Plus, do you want that jerk to think you're available?"

This time she poked him in the thigh with a stiff finger. "I can handle guys like him by myself, you know," she hissed, lips still dangerously near his skin. In the back of her mind, she knew what they looked like. She just wished it was real.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm confident of that. But he was staring at you."

There was an underlying growl in his voice that sent a thrill down her spine.

Still, being her, Usagi had to poke fun at him a little.

"And Usako? What was that about?" she whispered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his cheek go red.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mamo-chan?"

"Same." They nodded and pulled apart, although she noticed Mamoru's arm behind her still hadn't moved. Usagi wasn't sure what exactly they'd established between them, but just then their drinks came.

"Do you want to try mine?" Mamoru offered, holding up one glass and comparing the cloudy gold liquid to the other, a clear amber. "I figured if you give it a try, then Minako can't harass you about it anymore. And if you like it, you can keep it and I'll take your umeshu."

Usagi considered both drinks and then nodded. She accepted his glass and raised it to her lips for a delicate sip. The flavor exploded on her tongue, and she cursed herself for not giving this a chance before.

"I take it from the way your eyes lit up that you like it," Mamoru said, reaching for the other glass.

"I should never have doubted Minako," she admitted fervently.

"I won't tell her you said that. I remember her being a littleâ&#x20AC;Ś" he paused as if searching for the right word.

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"Pushy? Bossy? Would never let me live it down in a thousand years?"

Usagi laughed. "Thanks. You're probably right."

While they nursed their drinks, the spot to Usagi's right suddenly felt lighter. She glanced over and saw the unfortunate man next to her had stood up to leave. Their eyes met, and she shrugged apologetically once more.

"Thank goodness," Usagi muttered once he walked away, putting more space between her and Mamoru. "That was so awkward."

"Pretending to be my date?"

Did she detect a trace of hurt in his voice? Usagi spun to face him, gasping.

She examined his face, the way his brow had lowered, his eyes shuttered a little from the open expression she'd been enjoying all night. If anything, he looked like the old Mamoru, the one before they reached an uneasy truce just before she turned sixteen.

"No! Just him being here after that! I hate getting hit on, honestly," she confessed. "I'm glad it's usually Minako or Rei who get the attention."

Mamoru's expression lightened. He smiled slightly, shaking his head. "I don't know why."

"Because it's awkward!" Usagi huffed, taking a deeper gulp of her cocktail.

"What am I supposed to say if they keep pushing it? Or like that creep, staring where I don't want them to?"

"No, I meant I don't know why you don't get hit on just as much, if not more. You're beautiful." Red stained his cheeks, but he kept talking. "And you should never feel bad about answering someone honestly when they want more than you're willing to give."

Something in Usagi softened. Maybe it was the hurt that sixteen-year-old Usagi had felt when faced with Mamoru's rejection. Maybe it was just the anxiety from that night's encounter. Whatever it was, it caused her to reach over and take his hand in hers.

"I'm so glad that you were honest with me, all those years ago. I want you to know that."

He stiffened, eyes wide. "I'm so sorry-" He started to draw his hand back, his arm behind her dropping away, and she could see the shutters closing in his eyes again.

She tightened her hand, not letting him pull away, and tried for a smile.

"No! No, you were right. It took me a while to admit it, and by then you were already gone. But you were right. I was so young and naive. Things wouldn't have worked between us, no matter how infatuated I was with you."

"I regretted what I said that day." It sounded as if he forced those words from his lips. With his shadowed eyes, she wasn't sure if that was because he regretted hurting her or because he wished it hadn't been true. Her hopeful side thought maybe it was the latter. Or both.

"I can't say I'm not glad." Usagi winked and took her hand off his. She turned and lifted her glass, draining it to the last drop, suddenly in need of the 253

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liquid courage the alcohol provided. "I did miss you when you were gone. Nothing worked to fill the void, although I tried."

She saw Mamoru's hand clench around his own glass. "Nothing worked for me, either," he whispered so low she almost didn't catch the words that drifted under the sin of the izakaya.

Her head snapped around. She stared at him, totally unsure that she heard what she thought she heard. At first he kept staring at his drink before he lifted it with jerky movements and drained the umeshu, leaving only melting ice in the glass. Then he turned to face her as well. His eyes held a vulnerability that tore her heart and made it soar at the same time.

"Can we go somewhere more private?"

Usagi nodded, stunned. Her head spun a little as Mamoru called the server over and paid for both their drinks, and not from the alcohol. One drink was nothing.

Mamoru slid off his stool and offered a hand to steady her as she moved to get down as well. His skin almost burned hers, whether from the warmth of the building and the bodies pressed in around them or something else, she wasn't sure. To her surprise he took her hand in his as he led the way out of the izakaya.

She caught Minako's eye as they passed and gave a little wave. Her friend grinned and threw her a thumbs up and an air kiss.

Once back on the sidewalk, Mamoru turned to her.

"Do you mind—I mean, I don't want to presume, but you said that you and Makoto are roommates…"

Usagi put him out of his misery. She squeezed the fingers wrapped around hers. "Let's go back to your place, okay?"

He nodded, and they set off into the night.

Thankfully, it turned out that Mamoru didn't live far away. They didn't even have to take the train to the other side of Azabujuban. A warm glow suffused her when he kept hold of her hand. It made that seed of hope in her heart sprout and start to bloom. Which was probably ridiculous because she hadn't seen him in years, but she was having such a hard time remembering that.

Neither of them spoke as they briskly walked through the thinning crowds.

Usagi opened her mouth a few times to say something, anything, but his expression of serious concentration froze the words on her lips. They weren't important anyway, just attempts to distract herself from where their conversation was headed so she didn't get nervous and do something stupid.

Despite lack of distraction, the trip went quickly. Before she realized what was happening, Mamoru was pulling her into a brightly-lit alcove and swiping a card into the auto lock. They traversed a black and cream tiled lobby to a small

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bank of elevators. Once inside the wood-paneled confines of the elevator car, there wasn't much to look at but Mamoru, so she did.

She drank in his profile, the way his features remained outwardly calm but turmoil turned his blue eyes midnight, the white-knuckled grip he took off the bar set at hip-height with the hand that wasn't holding hers. Once more she started to say something but stopped herself. She could sense it still wasn't the right time somehow.

Fifteen floors up, nearly the top of the building, the elevator drew to a smooth stop. Mamoru tugged her hand and guided her off. They walked down a red-carpeted hall until he stopped at the third door on the right. He unlocked it, flicked a light switch just inside, and waved her in.

His genkan was spotless and austere, much as she would have expected if she ever thought of it. A small rack for shoes sat off to one side, with everlasting types of street shoes. A couple pairs of house slippers waited, both large.

Mamoru followed her eyes to the slippers and blushed.

"Uh, sorry. I wasn't expecting company except for maybe Motoki, so I didn't get any smaller slippers when I was out stocking up."

Usagi smiled. "Don't be silly. It's fine. Although I'll look funny wearing those!" She wrinkled her nose and laughed as she toed out of her pink heels, secretly grateful to be done with them for a bit. They might be cute, but they weren't meant for long sessions of standing or walking, let alone the running she'd done before the party. She dropped her purse next to his shoes, a pile of pink among the black and white surrounding her.

Mamoru nodded in response to her words and took off his own shoes.

Once they both wore slippers, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Would you like some tea? All I have is green tea right now..." he quietly asked, still not looking her into the eye.

Usagi sensed that the tea was meant to soothe his nerves more than to be hospitable, but that was no reason to refuse.

"That would be great."

Mamoru headed toward what turned out to be an efficient kitchen, with stark white cabinets and stainless steel countertops. Very few items graced the counters, one exception being an electric kettle. Usagi settled onto one of two black metal stools that graced the steel bar jutting out from one wall, dividing the kitchen and living space. While he occupied himself taking cups and a box of tea from mostly bare cabinets with hands that trembled ever so slightly, she granted herself permission to look around. After all, he was the one who invited her in.

The living room followed the theme of the other rooms she'd seen in that it was practically a blank canvas, especially compared to the clutter that was the apartment she shared with Makoto. No pictures adorned the white walls. A simple set of white vertical blinds were partially drawn over the floor-to-ceiling windows along one side, through which she glimpsed the outlines of buildings as told by lighted windows and the glow of streetlights. A single couch and chair set graced 255

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the center of the hardwood floor, black leather with what she was sure was called "clean lines."

It was a little depressing, but she reminded himself that he had just moved back. There was time for decorating later, right? He was such a sensible person, or at least she'd always thought so. It made sense that he would only take care of the necessities first.

The clink of ceramic against metal started her, and she looked over to see Mamoru set two black mugs on the bar between them. Steam rose from inside, sending the distinct scent of green tea wafting up.

"I have lemon, if you'd like, or ginger. And I have honey."

"Oh, honey and lemon, please," she requested.

He bustled around the kitchen some more, pulling out the additional ingredients. She watched as he carefully measured and added, looking up a few times to see if she wanted more lemon or honey. Each time he responded just right to her nods or head shakes.

As he set her mug in front of her, she noticed that he added only honey to his own tea, but more than even she had wanted. It was endearing; she mostly remembered him drinking coffee, and she'd always assumed that it was black with no flavoring. Now she wondered if she'd been wrong. Maybe she'd been wrong about a lot of things when it came to Mamoru.

Usagi lifted the cup to her lips and gently blew on it, mirroring him. She took her first sip much sooner than he did, savoring the hot liquid even as the combination of tastes burst on her tongue.

First sip out of the way, she carefully placed the cup back on the bar and stared at Mamoru, eyebrows raised.

"Sooo...you missed me?" The words bubbled out of her, more teasing than she'd intended. His eyes bore into hers, though, serious and earnest.

"Every day."

His words shook her, threw her back into that daze she'd fallen into in the izakaya, but at the same time they resonated. No matter what she tried to tell herself, there wasn't a day in the intervening years when she didn't have at least one small thought about him. It didn't take much. A cup of coffee, a ridiculously difficult question in a textbook, seeing someone tall with black hair out of the corner of her eyes. Even roses sometimes reminded her of him, although she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was just that whenever she was close enough to Mamoru, she caught the faint scent of damp earth and roses.

It hadn't mattered when she tried to date; that wasn't distraction enough, something she'd eventually learned was a signal that none of those guys were the right man for her. If they couldn't make her forget a love she'd all but given up on at sixteen, what hope was there for a future with them? It was something her friends had never understood, although they were always supportive of her decision to end things.

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"Me, too." She whispered the words even as her eyes dropped to her tea.

She took a bracing gulp, practically scalding her tongue in the process. She'd forgotten to blow on it.

"I meant what I said then, though. Even though it hurt both of us. I don't—I don't think we were in the right place for a relationship. But I wish sometimes I hadn't left."

Usagi licked her lips, still staring at her fingers clutching her mug. "Was it me?"

"What do you mean?"

She lifted her eyes and sought his, hoping she'd be able to see from his eyes if he told the truth. "Did you go to a completely different continent for school because of me?"

Mamoru's eyes widened then narrowed. "No. I had already applied to Harvard before that. I should have said that. I think I was trying to, but it came out wrong."

Usagi's jaw dropped a little, mind spinning in circles as she tried to process that. "Telling me I was too young to be in a relationship with you, that was your idea of telling me you were leaving?"

"Sort of?" He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the black strands. "What I meant was that you were too young to get into a long-distance relationship that might not last. I saw what it did to Motoki."

"But you laughed." Her voice was small. That had been the part that hurt the most, the part that still hurt after all these years.

He set his mug down and rushed around the bar. He took her hand and pulled gently until she turned to face him. His other hand slid under her chin and tilted her face up, forcing her eyes to meet his. Usagi thought she registered horror and sadness.

"I didn't—I wasn't laughing at you. I was—I was laughing at fate." The way he stammered out that confession convinced her of his sincerity, but she still had no idea what he meant.

"Huh?" His lips pressed together for a moment, and he sighed. "Here was this girl I couldn't stop thinking about for two years. At first because it was fun to tease her, and then because I noticed how beautiful she was with fire in her eyes. And she was telling me that she liked me—me, a guy who could barely put into thoughts what he was feeling, let alone say it. And I had just gotten my acceptance to Harvard."

His thumb rubbed her cheek. "I couldn't ask you to wait for me. I was in for the full four year ride, including two years of residency. And this was something I'd been dreaming of for so long, I couldn't give that up either. So the only thing I could do was laugh. And I tried to tell you, but I barely got any of it out and then you were running off."

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His sad eyes bore holes into her soul while his words lightened and dissipated clouds she hadn't known she still held on to.

"I'm so sorry."

Tentatively, Usagi brought her free hand up to cup his over her cheek.

"So you didn't think I was silly?"

"No! What made you think that?"

"You said it!"

"I definitely did not."

Usagi scrunched up her brow, trying to find the memory she'd buried deep down of that day. But his exact words wouldn't come to her. Hadn't he? If he said he didn't, then she believed him.

"Oh." A smile burst out of her. "I'm glad."

His eyebrows raised. "Glad?"

"That you didn't think I was silly."

"Of course I didn't! I wouldn't trample anyone's heart on purpose, especially not yours."

They fell silent, still staring into each other's eyes as the years and confessions washed away that monumental misunderstanding. Usagi might have been content to stay like this forever, drowning in the relief that filled her, but one small thought niggled at her.

"Mamo-chan," the nickname slipped at, and when he smiled in delight at it, she continued, "you said that you thought I was beautiful. Do you still think that?"

His eyes darkened a little, sweeping over her face. "Even more beautiful than you were at sixteen. I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but here you are." He dropped her hand so that he could frame her face with both of his.

"I never stopped liking you, you know. I compared every guy I dated to you. It really wasn't fair to them." She was babbling again, but who could blame her as he stepped even closer to her?

"Am I supposed to say that I'm sorry for that?" he whispered, one thumb rubbing over her lip slightly.

"I guess not." A small giggle escaped her.

"No one could ever compare to you eitherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Usako."

His lips were a mere whisper from hers now, but he just hovered. She realized he was letting her decide. Silly man. Her hand slipped behind his head and pulled him all the way down until their lips slid together. The heat was instantaneous, curling down her body to her toes. The kiss itself was light at first but grew deeper as they explored angles and pressure. Usagi grew a little lightheaded from it, but she barely noticed that. She was too lost in sensation.

One of Mamoru's hands left her face, tracing down her shoulder and back in a fiery trail. He pressed lightly at the small of her back, causing her to slide off the stool and directly into his arms. Still their lips pressed and slid, tasting each other for the first time.

Finally, they both broke apart, gasping slightly to take in much-needed air.

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"Wow." Dazed, she stared up at him in wonder.

"Yeah."

"Maybe just...one more?" she suggested, running her hand up his arm so that she could lock both behind his neck. He adjusted his grip on her waist.

"Are youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" "Don't ask me if I'm sure. I've wanted to kiss you for six years, and I'm finally getting my chance. Don't break the fantasy, Mamo-chan!" she scolded him with a low laugh.

His eyes dropped to her mouth again. "Well, if you insist," he teased back.

Their second kiss was somehow even hotter than the first, lighting an inferno Usagi hadn't been aware she was even capable of. Now pressed firmly against his entire body, the way his mouth felt against hers as their hands wandered coalesced into a firestorm of sensation, raising goosebumps on the inches of bare flesh he found when her blouse rode up her waist.

Usagi ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, delighting in the silky feel of the strands against her skin. She'd always wondered if it was as soft as it looked. Her fingers fisted in it when his mouth slanted at a different angle and he sucked on her bottom lip, giving it a nip. She gasped and returned the favor by pulling away just enough to run the tip of her tongue over his. The sound he made deep in his throat was her reward.

Apparently that initiated an all-out competition between them for who could make the other moan more. At one point Mamoru turned them so that she was sandwiched between his body and the bar. She didn't mind. It gave her something to brace against as she lifted a leg up to twine around his and draw him closer, the hard ridge of his erection pressed against the soft swell of her stomach.

He tore his mouth from hers only to slide his lips along her cheek and along her jaw, finding spots she hadn't even known were sensitive and grazing them with small, wet kisses. Usagi threw her head back to allow him better access even as she ran her hands down his arms, feeling the heat of his skin under the smooth fabric of his shirt. Her hands sought out his waist and tugged his shirt out so that she could finally feel the warm skin of his back, the lean, coiled muscles underneath practically begging for her to trace them.

"Are we going too fast?" he murmured against her skin at one point, even as one of his hands wandered up from her waist to cup and squeeze a breast, sending sparks shooting down her skin when his thumb grazed the nipple through her lace bra.

Barely coherent, Usagi pulled one hand away from his back to smack his shoulder. "I've been waiting for you for six years. Stop it."

He didn't bother with words when he lifted his head to catch her eyes with his own, lust-darkened and needy in a way she would never get tired of. She drew his mouth back down to hers, this time for a long, slow kiss. Mamoru continued his exploration of her breasts, this time one in each hand. He smiled against her mouth when she moaned again.

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"You like that?" he teased when his thumbs found her nipples and pressed in. Somehow he knew just the right amount of pressure to send her bucking against him.

"You think you're so smart," she ground out, reaching up to run a finger along his jaw and down his neck. Her quick fingers found the buttons of his shirt and flicked them aside. "Two can play at that game."

She stretched up to capture his mouth with hers while her hands parted his shirt. She hummed against his lips when her skin met his, no pesky undershirt in the way. The planes of his chest fascinated her almost as much as the taste of his mouth, smooth and then sharply angled, buds of nipples that tightened when she flicked them and it was his turn to moan.

He tore his mouth from hers and stood there panting while she smirked.

"I don't know that I'd call this fair."

"Oh?" He shook his head and his hands moved to the center of her chest. She watched his face as he undid the buttons of her blouse with much more care than she ever bothered, almost as if he was savoring each exposed inch. His eyes were so dark she couldn't even call them blue anymore, his mouth slightly parted when he drew in a sharp breath once he got a good look at the white lace bra she'd chosen for the day. His fingers brushed along the scalloped edges, and she shivered, sending a delighted smile to dance in his eyes.

Mamoru must have realized that he'd stopped part way, though, because suddenly the rest of her buttons were free almost as quickly as she'd managed to undo his. He sucked in another breath as his fingers grazed her stomach, and honestly so did she. Her fingers grasped his waist tighter, needing something to keep her from melting into a pool at his feet from the heat alone.

Then he dipped his head and his lips grazed the tops of her breasts where his fingers had just trailed, and Usagi couldn't help the gasp that escaped, followed by another moan. She managed to let go of his waist with one hand only to bury it in his hair, fingers sinking into the soft mass and holding on for dear life when he took that for the encouragement she intended. He pressed openmouthed kisses to her skin, managing to catch lace several times. The dampness from his mouth seeped through the lace in a mixture of sensation that left her dazed.

He lifted his head again and stared at her. There was an awe in his eyes, one that echoed in her own heart. They were here, together, and going very much farther than either had dreamed. In dismay, she felt him withdraw a little.

"Usakoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" "No." She shook her head, firm quick jerks. "No regrets. No doubts. I want you, more than I've ever wanted anyone I think. And I'm pretty sure you want me, too." She wiggled against him to prove her point, holding him even firmer with the leg she twined around his.

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"Actually," he gave her a small smile, "I was going to suggest moving somewhere more comfortable."

She giggled. "Oh. Okay, yeah, that might be nice."

Biting her lip, she blushed as she unwound from him and he stepped away.

He grabbed her hand and started to lead her across the living room to one of the two doors on the other side, but she pulled him to a stop when she thought of something.

"Um, protection...we should probably…"

Mamoru ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "I don't...it's been a while, and I wasn't really expecting…"

Usagi grinned. "That's alright. Hold on!"

She slipped her hand from his and hurried back to the genkan. She fumbled to open her purse and pulled out the little foil packet there. Racing back toward him, she triumphantly held it up.

"Minako makes sure we always have an emergency spare and that it's not expired. She's kind of insistent about it," she explained, blushing.

Mamoru's slow smile and the way he grabbed her hand again drew a laugh as she followed him.

His bedroom was as spacious yet as minimally furnished as the rest of his apartment. The focal point was an enormous bed draped in light gray and framed by two simple nightstands. She barely had eyes for anything else after seeing that.

Well, until Mamoru stopped and turned to face her. His face, framed by inky hair and lit by the moonlight and city lights pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the room, was much more difficult to read without being able to clearly see his eyes, but that slight smile was still there. His shirt still hung open over his chest and stomach, providing shadows that caressed each muscle.

Usagi licked her lips and inched closer, crushing the foil packet in one hand while the other reached out to trace yet again, this time able to see the way his muscles contracted under her fingers.

"I want to learn every inch of you," she confessed, looking up shyly at him.

He cleared his throat. "No objections here."

His warm skin called to her, drawing her toward him even though his arms hung at his sides, letting her explore as much as she wanted. The condom fell to the ground as she slid her hands over his chest and up onto his shoulders, taking probably too much delight in the fine shiver she felt race across his skin. Her fingers dug slightly into the muscles as she went, varying the pressure, memorizing the way his shoulders flexed when she pushed his shirt off and then down his arms.

It caught at his wrists and she pouted.

Mamoru chuckled and swiftly undid the buttons that allowed her to finish the job. His shirt looked at his feet while she ran her hands up and down his arms, utterly fascinated.

"I always wondered what you looked like without a shirt on," she teased, stepping closer so that her nose was practically pressed against his skin.

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"Probably a lot less impressive back then." His voice was tight.

"Hmmm. I don't think so." Usagi closed the small distance and breathed him in, that delicious earthy floral scent she would sometimes catch before. She pressed a kiss just above his nipple, making him jump. His hands clamped onto her waist then, firmly holding her while she began to let her tongue do the next round of exploring. His fingers traced jerky patterns along her skin; she was pretty sure each time they totally stopped, her tongue had found a particularly sensitive spot.

She was really enjoying herself. She'd never taken the time to study the few lovers she'd bothered with, not like this. But there was something that told her that she needed to know every bit of him, as intimately as possible, as quickly as possible. At the same time, being with him like this didn't feel like the first time at all.

She dropped to her knees as her mouth traveled over the planes of his upper abdomen, causing it to flex. She smiled against his stomach and kept going, licking and kissing. At the same time, her fingers found his belt buckle and she fumbled it open blindly, too busy to pull back and actually look at what she was doing.

She felt his hands begin running through her hair, gently tugging at the base of each bun and tangling with the strands only to release, over and over as her mouth explored his abdomen and her own hands pushed his pants down. She pulled back enough to help him slide out of them all the way, grinning when she saw in the dim light that his black socks were trimmed with roses on at the top.

"I love the socks," she murmured, running her finger over one set of flowers. She pouted a bit when he pulled them off and resolved to make sure to see them again sometime, in full light.

"Thanks." Mamoru chuckled as she mournfully watched him drop them onto the pile his pants and shirt had made.

She looked back at him and gasped. "Omigosh! Your boxers have roses, too!" She grinned and reached out, tracing a silky red rose on his hip.

"Usako," he groaned, catching her hand and pulling her back up. "I think you're a little overdressed, aren't you?"

She lifted her chin. "Well, shouldn't you fix that?"

He took her challenge and ran a finger along her throat, tickling her at the same time as it turned her on. His finger hooked in the collar of her blouse and pulled, exposing her shoulder and upper arm. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her skin, making her shiver. Then he repeated on the other side. Inch by inch he pulled down her blouse and kissed along her arms; she giggled when he found the sensitive skin inside her elbow.

Her shirt now joined the pile with his, and his hands were back at her waist before she could miss them. Usagi clutched his upper arms as he caressed up her sides until his thumbs brushed just under her breasts, teasing her. Then he

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reached around and unhooked her bra. She watched him watching her breasts tumble free; it was the most erotic thing she could ever remember seeing.

Mamoru's hands slid back to finally cup her skin to skin. They both watched her nipples harden with the slightest touch, and then his head dipped down. She almost screamed from the pleasure she felt when his mouth latched onto one dark pink nipple and he suckled, strong pulls that left her moaning and wriggling in his arms. When he turned his attention to its twin, she could barely stand the exquisite sensations, her fingers digging so hard into his shoulders that she must be leaving marks.

Once he moved on from her nipples, he also began an exploration with hands and tongue that rivaled her own. Everything narrowed down to sensation for her, wave after wave of pleasure and fire racing across her skin wherever his fingers and moth touched. She barely noticed when he unbuttoned her skirt and let it drop down along her legs, although she whimpered in protest when he moved away. But it was only to pull her away from the pool of fabric at her feet and closer to the bed, so she easily forgave him.

They tumbled onto the firm mattress. She wasn't even sure which one of them had made the final move to it first. She was too lost in the kiss he offered her, lips and tongues sliding together while their hands continued exploring. At one point, his fingers hooked the delicate waistband of her white lace panties and tugged. They pulled out of their kiss long enough for him to slide the barely there scraps of lace down and off, tossing it to the side somewhere, before he captured her lips again for another long, searing kiss.

His fingers trailed down her stomach, firmly pressing into her flesh and causing her to moan into his mouth. He lifted his head, and through passion-drunk eyes, she saw him look down. Then his fingers tangled with the soft, short curls between her legs.

Usagi's hips lifted off the smooth sheets when his fingers brushed against and parted her damp folds, her fingers fisted into the sheets beside her. She moaned something entirely incoherent as he pressed in deeper and began rubbing, finding her clit almost as quickly as she ever managed. Her hips bucked again to the rhythm he set, and she was vaguely aware that he laid propped up on one elbow, watching while his hand worked her over in the most delicious way imaginable.

His fingers stroked her, sure and deep, and her moans became keening cries she couldn't have kept quiet if she wanted to. She twisted on the bed, but somehow he managed to keep her hips mostly pinned. Bright bursts of light shot across her vision as he picked up the pace, and her mind went entirely blank for one white hot second that seemed to fill an eternity. She drifted from the height, sated for the moment, to find him cradling her shoulders and pressing small kisses to her forehead.

"You are so beautiful." His voice sounded almost reverent, she decided groggily as she snuggled into his side.

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To her dismay he slipped away before she could get comfortable. That jarred her back to reality a bit, although she couldn't find the energy to lift her head as her eyes followed him across the room. He bent down and came back up with a silver square in his hand, and only then did she remember the condom.

She watched him slide his rose-covered boxers off, his erection springing free. A smug smile tugged at her lips because she had caused that reaction, all her.

Thought slid away again as he ripped the foil packet open and slid the condom on then joined her back in the bed.

His mouth found hers once more, hot and needy. She wrapped her arms around his back, drawing him closer. He laid half on top of her, carefully keeping all his weight on his arms to either side, and she let her hands begin a leisurely exploration of his back. Her nails scraped lightly from his lower back up to his shoulders, and it was his turn to moan into her mouth and buck against her. She reveled in the feel of his cock against her, hot and heavy and needy.

One of his hands slid between her legs again and she spread them wider even as his fingers plunged into her again, sliding over the slick wet flesh there.

Still throbbing from her orgasm, she felt the need ride in her again.

"Please, Mamo-chan," she softly cried, tearing her lips from his, fingers digging harder into his shoulders.

He rose up over her and moved between her thighs. She reached down and helped guide his cock until he was poised right at her entrance. With an almost gentle nudge he pushed in, one slow inch at a time, until he was buried completely inside her. They both paused for a moment, staring at each other. Then Usagi smiled and pulled his mouth down to hers, and he began to thrust in and out in long strokes that increased in momentum with excruciating slowness.

She could feel every inch as he moved in and out, pressing against her inner walls. Combined with the way his chest pressed against hers, stimulating her nipples, and his tongue sliding along hers, she was coming close to reaching a second climax already. As if he could sense that, he pulled his mouth away and rose up, changing their angle and driving in just that much deeper.

Usagi's legs slid up and around his, her feet practically hooking on to either of his thighs in an attempt to brace herself. She moved her hips with his, up and down, wanting to increase the pace but also enjoying where they were at too much to let it stop. Inadvertently, her hips slid just a bit to the side on one thrust, and his eyes widened. She paused, waiting to see if that hurt him, but instead it seemed to increase his pace and intensity.

An idea lit in her sex-drugged brain, she began to slide her hips from side to side with each thrust, circling around his cock. After a few thrusts he stopped, and so did she.

"No, please keep going," he moaned into her ear.

A pleased grin lighting her eyes, she gyrated her hips, over and over in a circle around him while he held still, face buried in her neck. Without warning he began to thrust again, suddenly frenzied motions that were difficult to match, 264

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although eventually she found the rhythm again. She could almost feel the tension in him as her hands swept up and down his back.

Suddenly he gave several harder thrusts and shuddered, most of his weight going to his elbows and his sweaty forehead pressed against her shoulder.

Overcome with the sense of power she felt from giving that to him, Usagi's fingers slid between their bodies, aided by the slickness of their skin. She found her clit and rubbed it until a smaller explosion of pleasure rocked her, enough to take off the edge and let her slip weary arms around his shoulders as he collapsed fully onto her.

Mamoru's weight wasn't suffocating; far from it, this was maybe the most comfortable she'd ever been. Her eye slid closed as she basked in the dimming glow created by the sensations and emotions he'd lit within her. His breathing and her own began to even out, and too soon he pulled away.

Mamoru dropped a short, sweet kiss on her lips and moved off her completely. "I'll clean us up," he murmured.

Usagi watched from under heavy lids as he walked across the bed room and out the door. She heard water running, and soon he came back in. He handed her a warm, damp cloth and smiled down at her.

For some reason she blushed, but she also managed to return his smile as she cleaned herself up. He took the cloth and left the room once more. When he came back, she had barely managed to move at all.

"I'm not sure I can stand up right now," she confessed.

Mamoru slid onto the bed next to her and maneuvered her around until he could drag the blanket up over both of them.

"You don't need to if you don't want to," he said, smoothing down what she was sure was incredibly messy hair against her forehead.

She smiled and snuggled into his side.

"Well, if you insist," she muttered around a huge yawn.

He kissed the top of her head. "Sleep, Usako," was the last thing she heard as she slipped into familiar dreams.

At some point, bright sunlight hit her face. She didn't bother opening her eyes. Instead, she rolled onto her stomach and buried her head in a pillow much softer than hers, muttering about light and sleep and dancing. As she drifted back to sleep, she heard a chuckle from beside her and felt a soothing hand run down her back. She fell back to sleep with a smile on her face.

Sometime later, a delicious scent teased her into true wakefulness, although she fought hard to return to her dreams. When she cracked open her eyes, she realized she was alone in a large bed, the room around her dim. She lifted her head and caught a glimpse of wide, tall windows covered in vertical blinds and a long, dark curtain.

It took her a moment to get her bearings. Then the night before came crashing down on her, and she dropped back onto the bed with a grin. Stretching aching muscles, she wondered only a moment where Mamoru had gone before 265

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her nose answered her. Her stomach growled in protest that she wasn't wherever that aroma was coming from.

Usagi sat up, the blanket falling from her shoulders to her lap, and looked around. She didn't see the pile of their clothes on the floor anymore; in fact, her clothes were nowhere in sight at all. However, she saw a bundle of fabric stacked neatly on the nightstand beside her. She pulled the top piece toward her and found a soft blue t-shirt, several sizes too large so obviously Mamoru's. Deciding that worked well enough, she slid it over her head and let it settle around her. The other item on the table turned out to be a pair of black boxers, sadly without any roses or other decorations. She shrugged and put those on, too.

Dressed as much as she could be, she swung her legs off the bed and started to stand up. Her feet bumped into something soft directly underneath, and she looked down to find a pair of fuzzy pink slippers waiting for her. Tears welling up in her eyes at the thoughtfulness, she slid her feet into them, toes wiggling against the silky lining.

Nothing could be done about her hair, she decided, trying to finger-comb it into some semblance of order. She could tell that the buns were horribly misshapen at this point, but her stomach informed her again that she had no time to worry about that. Giving up, she strode to the door and pushed it open.

The sight of a fully dressed Mamoru greeted her across the bar that separated the kitchen and living room. His back to her as he stood over the stove with spatula in hand, he didn't seem to notice her presence until she reached the bar.

"That smells amazing."

To his credit, he didn't jump. Turning his head a little to the side, he offered her a small smile. "I hope you like eggs and toast."

"With butter and honey? Please?" She pleaded, clasping her hands under her chin as she noticed the pile of eggs on a plate next to him.

Mamoru flipped two pieces of toast out of the pan on the stove and onto two individual plates. She watched as he divided the eggs between the plates, arranging them almost as artfully as Makoto would have. That thought brought her up short.

"Omigosh!" She ran to the genkan and pulled her phone out of her purse.

She winced as the number of waiting messages flashed on the screen.

"The girls are never going to let me hear the end of this," she moaned as she returned to the bar.

Mamoru looked up from drizzling honey over one of the pieces of toast.

"Do you think they're worried?"

With a shake of her head, Usagi hopped onto one of the bar stools. Then she winced because she was still a little sore in delicate areas. "No, Minako saw us leaving. There's no way she kept that to herself, so I'm sure at least Makoto put two and two together when I didn't come home last night."

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She folded her arms on the cool metal bar and dropped her forehead onto them. Even the click of him placing a plate next to her, followed by the sound of metal meeting metal when he laid a fork down as well, wasn't enough to bring her out of her embarrassment. She heard the sound of running water and heard the clink of glass by her head. Then he gently, hesitantly ran a hand over the top of her head, and she lifted it and offered him a smile.

"It's not that big of a deal," she tried to console herself as she pulled the plate full of food before her and picked up the sticky piece of toast. "Minako has done far, far worse. Once she disappeared for an entire week with some guy she met at a modeling shoot."

Usagi crunched into her toast and chewed, hardly taking the time she usually would have to savor the sweetness of the honey. Eyes still on her plate, she sighed after she swallowed that first bite.

"It's just, that was a one-time thing, and she barely knew him. And it was totally in character for her. This," she waved the toast between the two of them, finally finding the courage to look him in the eye, "is completely different."

He didn't deny it. Instead, the frown she'd glimpsed when she first looked up disappeared from his brow and was replaced by an all-too-familiar smirk.

"So they're going to tease you."

Glumly, she took another bite. "Mercilessly," she muttered around her food.

Mamoru began to eat as well. They both managed to put a good dent in their eggs, toast having disappeared right away, when he cleared his throat.

"So, uh, you don't see this as a one-time thing?"

Usagi froze in the middle of bringing a bite of egg to her mouth, fork suspended in mid-air. She blushed and set it down with a slight clatter, egg uneaten.

"I mean, I'd like it not to be. That is, if you want to keep...um, and not justâ&#x20AC;Ś" The flames in her cheeks grew higher with each stammered word as she struggled, for once in her life, to say what she was feeling.

The most vulnerable look she'd ever seen entered his eyes, a cross between hope and longing. Without looking away from her eyes, he reached out and took her free hand in his.

"It's probably way too soon, but I want you to be mine, Usako. I want to wake up to more mornings like this, to see where this will take us."

A relieved grin burst from her. She squeezed his hand tightly. "I'd love that."

They both let out sighs and then laughed a little. He kept hold of her hand until they cleared the rest of the food from their plates, only a few more bites each.

Then he cleared them away while she sat watching him, admiring everything from the line of his shoulders to the way his hair fell into his eyes and the very attractive curve of his ass when he bent to scrape the last bits of food into the trash can under his sink.

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Then something struck her. She blamed it on a lack of coffee thus far. "Hey, you're totally dressed!"

Mamoru laughed and blushed. "I wanted to go out and get you a pair of slippers from the conbini when it opened," he admitted.

Usagi stretched out one of her feet and looked down. "They're very cute.

Thank you."

"You're welcome," he sputtered, still blushing. He placed the dirty plates and pan in the dishwasher.

"Um, and my clothes?"

"I'm washing them. I hope you don't mind, but they were all wrinkled and— " "It's fine, Mamo-chan. I'm glad I won't have to walk home in your shirt and boxers, that's all." Usagi winked at him.

"I wouldn't mind." That was so low she probably wasn't supposed to hear it. She giggled anyway.

Clean-up complete, Mamoru came around the bar and took her hand in his. Pulling her off the stool, he led her to his couch and sat, tugging her down next to him. Usagi went willingly, suddenly content to curl up next to him.

"It's already mid-morning. Do you want to get home after your clothes are dry and change?"

Usagi thought about it. "Yeah. If we're going to walk all over Azabujuban, I'll need something other than heels. That was a bad decision yesterday," she admitted, snuggling closer and laying her head on his chest. She looked out the large window onto his balcony and the cityscape beyond it.

They fell quiet, the only sounds in the apartment their breathing and the whir of machines coming from what she assumed was his bathroom. Speaking of.

Usagi reluctantly pulled away. "I'll be right back," she murmured, dropping a kiss on his cheek.

She correctly assumed the only door she hadn't been through was the bathroom. After taking care of business, she left the toilet enclosure and caught sight of herself in the vanity mirror, something she'd avoided on the way in.

Her hair stuck up out of her buns in odd places. Her cheeks were flushed and her crystal blue eyes dreamy still, much more than usual. But Mamoru hasn't teased her about her hair yet, at least! She grinned, too happy to let bedhead disturb her, and practically skipped out of the bathroom.

On the way back to the couch, she grabbed her phone. Mamoru smiled at her when she rejoined him, and she snuggled back into the same spot against his side. They fit together as perfectly as if they were made for each other, a silly notion that pleased her anyway.

Usagi spent the next half hour reading through the messages from her friends. She read the funny ones out loud to Mamoru and groaned and hid her phone from him when she got to Minako's, which she'd saved for last.

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"No, really, neither of us need to see this!" she protested when he laughed at her.

He poked her shoulder. "After all her effort yesterday, you'd just ignore her?"

She gave a firm nod. "Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent. I don't know how much you remember from before you left, but she has gotten so much worse over the years."

"I don't know. She saved the day for us last night," he said, lips suddenly against her neck just under her ear.

Usagi squirmed and giggled. "Okay, that's true. Still, I'm never telling her that! It would just prove her right. On all counts. She already thinks she's some sort of love goddess. Says she channels her inner Venus."

Usagi rolled her eyes as she finally opened Minako's messages. The first one blared out at her, and she buried her face in Mamoru's shirt.

"She says, 'I told you so!' I knew she would do that," she griped, smacking his chest lightly with her free hand when she felt it rumble under her in a laugh he barely suppressed.

The rest of the messages were along the same vein, interspersed with teasing remarks about being safe and having fun and she totally was taking credit for everything. Usagi found herself muttering while Mamoru's laughter went from silent to full-on chuckles. She poked him in the ribs a few times for that.

Finally she composed a quick message to the group chat with all her friends, assuring them she'd had a fantastic night, thanks, and to leave her alone already! Their responses were immediate, almost all laughing and winking emojis.

Then she messaged Makoto privately and told her she'd be home soon to change.

That started another round of teasing, of course, but she closed the app before reading too much. Tossing her phone to the side, she laid her head back down on Mamoru's shoulder and sighed, utterly content. She began to doze a little when he started running his fingers through her hair once more and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Eventually Mamoru nudged her awake and told her that her clothes were probably ready. He tried to insist on ironing them, but she just gave him a look, shook them out, and swept away to get dressed. A few minutes later, she popped back out of the bedroom, dressed in the same outfit as the previous day but still feeling refreshed.

"Do you have a brush I can borrow?"

Mamoru went into the bathroom, and she followed. He handed her a brush and then leaned against the door and watched, obviously fascinated, as she unwound her hair and began to brush it, starting at the ends and moving upwards inch by inch.

"You remind me of my cat," she told him, rolling her eyes. She laughed at the way his eyebrows shot up.

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"She always watches me do my hair. I used to think she was going to attack it when I was younger, but she just watches. It's become our routine."

Mamoru snorted. "That's adorable," he admitted.

"Do you like cats?" she asked as she finished brushing one side and began to wind it back into her traditional bun-and-ponytail style.

"I do. I thought about getting one in America, but I wasn't sure I was going to stay. And I didn't want to travel overseas with an animal and have to worry."

Usagi nodded and went to work on the other side of her hair. "That's good," she said absently, thinking that if she and Mamoru moved in together eventually, at least she wouldn't have to worry that he wouldn't like Luna.

Hair finally done, she turned to Mamoru and smiled, bouncing a little in her excitement. "Ready to go?"

He nodded. "Of course."

Usagi scooped her phone off the couch as they headed for the genkan.

She tucked it back into her purse then changed out pink slippers for pink heels.

Looking at her new slippers next to his, she gave a little sigh of satisfaction. Then he was reaching his hand out to her. Fingers linked together, they left his apartment and set out to start this first day as a couple. When they left the building, Usagi thought the sun shone down just a bit brighter for a moment when she took his arm and he smiled down at her.

On the rooftop of a conbini next to a tall apartment building, two cats sat close together at the edge. The black fur of one gleamed in the sunlight from a recent brushing, contrasting with the gold crescent moon on her forehead. Red eyes narrowed in concentration, she llicked the forehead of the other where the gold crescent moon blended more easily, making him almost appear like any other white, blue-eyes cat.

Movement down below drew their attention. Red eyes and blue watched intently as a tall man with black hair led a smaller woman onto the sidewalk, her long blond hair wrapped in two buns at the top of her head and then streaming down her back in twin ponytails. It almost seemed like the black cat smirked at the woman's outfit, a respectable pink blouse and gray skirt. Hardly anything to elicit that sort of reaction, if a cat could smirk at all.

The woman latched onto the man's arm with both hands, far closer than any other couple walking the street that Saturday afternoon. The cats watched him laugh and cover her hands with one of his as she led him away. They kept an eye on the two until they disappeared out of sight.

"Finally."

The light female voice drifted in the air between the two cats. The black one lifted her head and looked up into the blue sky, toward the spot where the moon would rise in the evening.

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"They're happy together now," the black cat said, satisfaction clear in her voice.

"Just the way they were meant to be. The way she wanted them to be." The white cat's response held more contemplation and a touch of resignation. He eyed the spot where the two lovers had disappeared.

"Do you think they'll ever remember?"

Luna shook her black head, only a hint of regret in her red eyes. "After all these years? I don't think so. Princess Serenity's final wish after Beryl's defeat was so strong."

"If we ever need to…"

"No other threats have appeared in all these years. Let's continue to hope that they will be able to live out their happy ending this time."

This was a conversation that had gone round and round between them, at first frequently when they realized what Usagi's final wish in the Silver Crystal had done and then perhaps once every few months. It had been almost a year since the last time Artemis tried to bring up the possibility that they might need to awaken Serenity and her Senshi again someday.

This time he didn't argue. He just sighed and turned back to let Luna continue grooming him, enjoying this time with her before they had to return to Usagi and Minako and pretend to be simple cats once more.

Author’s Notes Now, I've told my friends that 1) I'm wordy, and 2) I really NEED a relationship for sex to feel right to me, so you're going to just have to put up with some talking first.

Did any of you guess where I was going with this AU based on the clues I left previously? For this story, Season 1 was the end of the monsters and the chaos that followed Serenity, Endymion, and crew from the Silver Millennium. Here, for now, Usagi and Mamoru get to live out the life that Queen Serenity wished for Serenity and Endymion when she sent them forward in time.

Big hugs and thanks go out to Ninjette-Twitch, who kindly betaed this for me while also in the middle of writing her own Smutember stories. Please remember, reviews are love for authors. I would dearly enjoy hearing what you think of this new story!

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Sexual Fantasies Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Porn-Viewing, Mentions of Sex Ship: HaruMichi

Adult-Only Videotapes by ellephedre

Going back home in the evening, after a long day of rehearsals, Michiru found Haruka at the door with a glass of red wine in her hand.

"For you."

Gladly accepting the offer, she brought the glass to her mouth, taking a sip. "Hm, Chianti. Delicious. Where did you get it?"

"Maybe I went to Italy to retrieve it."

Oh, if only Haruka could successfully teleport, she would be across the ocean in an istant.

"Unfortunately, it's a simpler story. I went to a very selective wine store and chose their best product, just for you."

Michiru was curious. "Didn't they make a fuss?" In the US they were tremendously technical about the legal age for buying alcohol.

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Haruka displayed a feline smile and stepped back into the living room. "I have my secrets."

Michiru wanted to know them. "Did you bribe the clerk?"

"That would be so vulgar."

Oh? It wasn't like her to worry about such things.

Haruka leaned against the counter of their island kitchen. "Relax, darling.

Enjoy your Chianti. If you come here, I'll rub your shoulders. How did rehearsals go today?"

"They were massacrating." If her muscles hadn't been properly trained, she wouldn't have been able to cope with the rhythms imposed by Janus Schwarz, the composer she was working with.

Haruka put her hands on both sides of her neck, starting a massage. "Was I right to trust that guy? He didn't bother you anymore, did he?"

"Janus? Of course he did."

"That son of a..."

"Haruka, calm down. Janus is almost endearing in his pursuit. He'd jump on a broomstick if it had two breasts and a pretty face."

Haruka impressed strength in the fingers that were loosening her knots.

"He wants to take you to bed and you expect me to stay here, saying nothing?"

"Yes. You trust me, don't you? Be mature."

For Haruka it was a great effort. "The guy is pathetic. At thirty-two years of age he's still running after teenagers."

"I didn't know I was a mere teenager."

"You're gorgeous and grown-up beyond your years, darling, but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know you. He is attracted to your freshness and youth. By now both are eluding him; he is nothing but a poor old man."

"I didn't know you cared so much about age. What will you say about us then, when we are fifty years old? Or four hundred and fifty?"

"Well, I'm certainly not going to run after teenage girls."

"Obviously. Even if you dared to do so with mature women, I'd castrate you."

Haruka made an amused sound. "You forget that I'm not a man, Michidear. How would you proceed?"

"I would cut into your belly, rummage through your body, and find that imaginary penis you are convinced you possess. Then I would cut it in two."

"Ouch." Haruka let her go and stretched herself to the side to get another chalice, this time for herself. "And we were talking about Chianti." She took a sip.

Michiru leaned against her and took the glass out of her hand, drinking exactly from the side she had touched with her lips.

Haruka observed every movement of her mouth.

Michiru took advantage of it. "So, how did you get the wine?"

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Smiling, resigned, Haruka searched the back pocket of her jeans. "A couple of weeks ago my friends from the Indy Racing League helped me get this."

She showed her a card.

Michiru studied it thoroughly.

Haruka Tenou, born January 27, 1973, San Diego, California.

It was a fake ID, which gave her lover more than the twenty-one years necessary to buy alcohol in the United States.

"I didn't know I was in a relationship with a californian. Why don't you whisper a few words in Spanish to me?"

"As you wish, querida." Haruka grabbed her by the waist and dragged her into a vault. They both laughed.

Hugging her, Michiru stroked her hair. "So you resorted to illegality."

"Alcohol tastes better when it's forbidden."

"To verify that, I must savor it again."

"Please do, we have two bottles just for ourselves. But the real surprise is..."

Haruka let go of her and went around the counter, pulling out of a hidden shelf a tray of...

Oh, appetizers.

Michiru felt her mouth watering. "What have I done to deserve you?"

"It's still a mistery to be revealed. For now, my love, feed on this offer. I want to get you delectably drunk."

Michiru brought a salmon tartlet to her mouth. "Hmm. Delicious. What do you have in mind?"

"Who knows? Let's eat and drink for now. Do you want a foot massage?"

Michiru almost moaned. Like a cat in heat she ran to the sofa and put her legs on Haruka's thighs, the glass of wine in her hand. She leaned against the backrest. "I love your ideas."

"I had no doubts."

Half an hour later, Haruka had put on relaxing chamber music in the living room. The wine had pleasantly clouded Michiru's mind and the appetizers had calmed her appetite.

Michiru was observing the empty goblet against the light. "I wonder how Usagi and the others are doing in Japan."

Haruka had raised her feet on the couch, her head on the armrest. "I knew you missed them."

"We are more comrades than friends."

"But you still miss them."

Michiru didn't want to give in. "You too."

"Yes, but I admit it. I miss Odango a lot. She makes me laugh like no one else... It's a pity we can't go to them right now."

"Waiting is so boring."

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"Frustrating, you mean?"

"Frustrating and boring. I have so much energy inside me. I don't want a new war to start, but I want to fight. I wished the enemies would hurry."

"If only their arrival wasn't destined to be signalled by a devastating earthquake..."

Michiru felt petty. "Yes...." In order to fight, she was desperate for a disaster to happen.

They remained silent for a long moment.

"Come on, don't feel guilty."

"I don't feel guilty. I won't be responsible for the earthquake."

Haruka stood up and clapped her hands on her legs. "This conversation has turned too serious. Time has come for the second surprise!"

Michiru observed her with a vague interest as she walked through the living room, on her way to their bedroom.

She poured another sip of wine from the bottle and waited.

Haruka came back with a paper bag. "Do you promise to maintain an open mind?"

"What have you done?"

Haruka placed a hand on her hip. "Don't treat me like a child. I wanted to satisfy a curiosity, okay? I am sure you'll thank me later."

Michiru kneaded her own scalp, repressing a yawn. "Really?"

Sitting next to her, Haruka took a videotape out of the envelope.

Michiru could not believe what she saw on the cover. "'Lusty Girls'?" she recited. It was a porn video.

Haruka raised her hands in defense. "Before you start screaming, listen to me."

"I am not screaming, I..." She massaged her temple. "Why did you buy something like that?"

"Out of curiosity, Michiru! We are adults, aren't we? I feel dumb for ignoring a whole branch of filmography known to most people I meet."

"You're referring to your racing driver friends."

"They and everyone else. Do you know that housewives watch these movies too?"

Michiru picked up the videotape. "I doubt they are interested in lesbian material."

"You'd be surprised. But to show you that my main objective is to expand our knowledge..." From the envelope Haruka took out a second tape.

The cover said everything: a man was squeezing the enormous breasts of a woman, her mouth open in an exaggerated groan.

"Did you also pick up straight porn?"

"Fun is guaranteed. Let's watch it together, don't be a spoilsport."

Maybe it was the alcohol, but Michiru was more amused than indignant.

"How do you know these movies are not bad examples of pornography?"

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"Would it matter? Still, I asked the videostore clerk for help."

Michiru raised an eyebrow. "Was he a guy?"

"Yes. He was happy to help me."

"Of course he was. A woman was asking him for advice on porn..."

"Again with this thing? People take me for a guy!"

"Only in Japan, where men have more effeminate features. Here they take you for a woman. A masculine one, but still a woman."

Haruka rolled her eyes to the sky. "In any case, he made no advances to me. He was proud to share his wisdom on the subject."

"How disgusting. He probably is one of those guys who spend their time masturbating."

"Don't be so uptight! Do we want to have this experience or not?"

Well, after all, she was a bit curious. And she could always blame the alcohol for her decisions.

She pointed reluctantly to the television on the wall. "Yes, why not, proceed. Let's laugh a little."

Enthusiastic, Haruka opened the package of the first movie. "We'll begin with the straight material. If the lesbian video turns me on, I don't want to deflate myself with images of male bodies."

Michiru started doubting her motives. "By any chance, is your real purpose to watch naked bodies of other women?"

"Nooo."

Michiru squeezed her eyelids.

Haruka feigned innocence. "Come on, I'm doing this with you, aren't I? We'll do it together."

"I won't get turned on."

We'll see, Haruka thought . She turned off the stereo and started the VCR with the first movie.

After the trivial introduction titles - what kind of name was 'Lovely Productions'? - the actual film started.

The first shots were of the outdoor swimming pool of a villa.

Haruka tried to be blasè. "Beautiful location."

Michiru had already focused on another detail. "What is with the terrible soundtrack? Even the porn I watched with my friends at boarding school had better music."

Haruka paused the movie. "What?"

"Uh?" "Did you watch a porn movie when you went to an all girls' school?"

Michiru dropped her head on the backrest. "Ah, yes. There was this girl who had stolen some from her brother. I think she was a lesbian, you know? She invited us all into her room to watch it. At one point, I noticed that she was trying to put her hand under the skirt of one of my roomates."

Haruka was salivating. "Really?"

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"The poor thing jumped away. I was behind them. If I had been in her place, maybe I wouldn't have moved."

Haruka could not believe her own ears. "Were you attracted to that girl?"

"No, but the situation aroused me. For me it was further proof that I was interested in women."

Haruka didn't want to sound like a pervert, but... "If I had been a classmate of yours..."

Michiru bit her lip. "We would have done it under the covers, secretly, in the communal dorm. Without a care for who could hear us..." She smiled maliciously. "They would have expelled us within a few weeks."

Haruka loved to know she had turned on her passion.

Michiru leaned forward to take the remote control away from her. "Let's watch this movie."

The sounds of the video filled once again the room.

On the TV a girl was putting sunscreen on her body. She was doing it carefully and slowly. The camera lingered on her strained nipples and buttocks during the massage.

Michiru drank another sip of wine. "For now it's purely voyeuristic."

Shh, thought Haruka.

Suddenly a second person appeared in the set - a male actor with a pumped-up, tanned physique. Shirtless, the man opened the flap of his jeans.

"Pfff!" Haruka couldn't hold back the laughter. "Did you see his face? He's so ugly."

Michiru had stopped her chalice in mid-air. "They chose him for other qualities." She hinted with her chin in the direction of the imposing hard member that the man had pulled out of his underpants.

Haruka felt a vague sense of disgust. "I don't find it erotic."

"Because you're not straight."

Suspicious, Haruka dwelt on the clouded eyes of Michiru. "You, with those vague bisexual tendencies, find it exciting?"

"No." Meanwhile, the actor had approached the girl and was engaging her in a long, open-mouthed kiss.

Michiru continued to have her say. "I am excited by the progressive discovery of desire, its slow ignition. To show genitals so quickly is just... vulgar. In addition, that is not an attractive penis."

Haruka burst into laughter.

Michiru didn't let herself be burned by her mockery. "You don't appreciate any of them, but regardless of my sexual proclivities I can recognize the harmony of proportion in that part of the body. After all, I have painted many nudes."

"Really? And what is the perfect penis like?"

"To begin with, it doesn't have that enormous mushroom-shaped helmet..."

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Haruka deflagrated into new spasms of hilarity.

"Will you stop? Are we in kindergarten?"

Haruka beat her chest hard, over and over again. "We are here to laugh!"

Not really convinced, Michiru pointed to the television. "This part might interest you."

Haruka watched. Oh, yes, the guy had begun touching the girl, stripping her of the upper part of her costume.

She and Michiru watched in silence as the man's mouth teased the actress' areolas with long licks.

"Those are fake boobs," Michiru declared.

Unfortunately it was true. "Not that I mind the size, but why ruin a perfectly nice pair of normal breasts like that? Now they look like balloons."

"You're imitating me like a parrot. You're actually drooling at the sight of them."

"No, I am sincere!" Haruka leaned towards her. "I prefer the perfection of your breasts." She made a move to touch them, but Michiru blocked it.

"If you think you're going to have sex with me with porn in the background, you are sorely mistaken."

Haruka mentally snapped her fingers. She wasn't planning to give up: after all, her real weapon was the lesbian videotape.

She rested back on the couch, just in time to see the actress lying on the deckchair by the pool, while the guy pulled her thong off to one side. The camera focused on her newly uncovered vulva. There was nothing to criticize about that part of her body: it was tremendously pretty.

"When I think of the pain of the brasilian wax..."

Haruka studied the suffering tone of Michiru. She was not fully focused on what she was saying: her eyes were fixed on the TV screen.

Haruka looked again and grimaced. "Why should a beautiful pussy like that be handled by fingers that look like sausages?"

Michiru giggled. "Yes, those hands are not beautiful at all."

Meanwhile the background music went on. The actor bowed his head and opened his mouth on the folds between the girl's legs.

Haruka evaluated his technique. Potentially it wasn't bad, but... "Doesn't she mind the roughness of his beard?"

"Yeah... still, she is on the right path to cum."

In hearing her use that term, it was Haruka who enjoyed herself immensely.

"When I picked up this video I asked for only one thing: I wanted real orgasms."

"HMMM!" As she heard the sound coming out of the tv set, Michiru squeezed her eyelids. "That groan, however, is fake." The actress released others of the same kind.

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Haruka reflected. "You think that many women are forced to behave like this? I mean, men look at this stuff and expect girls to vocalize their pleasure. But us women often like to keep quiet."

"You scream when I tease you well."

Haruka blushed. Her belly went on fire. "We are not talking about me."

"As you wish. Anyway, I think there are women who love to moan and wail.

Of course, if they do it only for their male partners, it's a bit sad."

That's exactly what she meant.

"We'll never know" Michiru concluded.

"We could ask the Inners."

Michiru began to laugh softly. Haruka followed her suit, their laughter increasing in volume at the same time.

"Yeah, they're like kids!"

Michiru completely agreed. "Usagi may have made love many times, but since Mamoru is involved, I imagined their intercourse wasn't that wild."

Haruka lifted a finger in the air. "They might surprise us."

"He?" "She. In my opinion Odango is completely at ease with her sexuality within a love relationship. I bet she is capable of awakening Mamoru's dormant instincts."

"Yes, yes, but now don't imagine our future queen too much or I'll get jealous."

"Don't ever be, darling." Moving closer to her, Haruka resumed watching the film.

On the deckchair the girl was twisting her hips, offering her more sensitive flesh to the man's fast tongue. Her pleasure was no longer a pretense.

Michiru shrugged. "The guy may not be a vision, but at least he's not incompetent."

"This isn't turning you on, right?"

"Why you keep asking me this?"

"Because of those deep and distant hetero tendencies..."

Michiru abandoned her head backwards, annoyed. "If you have these fears, don't show me these movies."

Someone cried out. The girl had begun to come.

After watching her, Michiru shook her head. "You have ten fingers like that guy. I don't want for anything."

The camera caught a shot of the man's congested member as he stood up, preparing to penetrate his partner.

Michiru grimaced. "I don't want something like that at even half a meter from me, let alone inside me."

Haruka smiled. Sexual disgust towards penises was all that she needed to calm down.

Michiru caressed her cheek. "I much prefer your pussy, as you called it."

Okay: if Michiru had used that word, she was definitely drunk.

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Meanwhile in the movie the actor was taking his time, beating his meat tool against the girl's lower lips.

"Why does he do that?"

Haruka knew. "To feel more macho. It's pathetic."

Michiru agreed. "It's a porn thing, right? In reality they don't do that."

"I hope not, for the sake of the Inners."

The guy finally completed the penetration, starting to go back and forth with deliberate slowness.

Haruka and Michiru observed his moves without particular interest for about a minute.

"If he doesn't touch her clitoris he'll never make her come again."

"Do you think he cares? She seems to like it anyway."

"She's pretending, I tell you."

Suddenly the actor changed the tempo of his thrusts, finding an insistent and fast rhythm.

Michiru leaned forward. "But that technique..."

"Yes, that's the one I use on you when you're at the brink. I go light and and fast. I thought men were more violent when..."

"AH! AH! AH" The girl's moans filled the room. To avoid being heard by their neighbors, Haruka lowered the volume.

Michiru was focused on the action taking place on the screen. "With all that weight, everything has to be more...incisive. Perhaps there is also a component of pain."

Only she could use words like 'component' during such a moment.

For her part, Haruka was focusing only on the girl. The size of her giant breasts excited her to a certain extent. It was the sight of her face, deformed by pleasure, that caught her attention. Not to mention the lower abdominal area: if there was a real orgasm in the build, soon the girl's hips would start twitching madly once more, just like...

The camera focused on the buttocks of the man who was pumping inside her.

"Ugh!" "No!" Michiru and Haruka covered their eyes simultaneously.

"AAAAAHH!" The girl started orgasming and the attention was again all for her.

Haruka felt cheated. "Did they have to make us see him? At the climax?"

Michiru had one hand on her chest. "It wasn't even a sculpted butt..."

Haruka looked at her suspisciously. "Would that have changed anything?"

"Yes. A beautiful body is always pleasure for the eye. But perhaps some women like this bear-like physique..." Michiru looked desolately at the rest of the scene, and at the pleasure of the girl, who, after long seconds, was waning. An 282

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involuntary applause escaped her. "Well, I have to admit it: even ugly people can be good lovers."

"For me it's enough that they are girls."

"Oh, I know, love." Michiru got up and stole her remote, turning off the VCR. "Come with me. I'll satisfy your aesthetic sense with the vision of a much more beautiful body than the ones you have just seen."

Haruka felt like jumping with joy. "Can I bring the other tape?"

Michiru struck her with a glare. "I was referring to my body."

"Of course you did. You'll certainly be more beautiful than the girls in the movie. I'll look at their bodies and praise yours in comparison."

"Do you want to have sex while we watch the tape? It would be... like an orgy."

At the mere thought Haruka got turned on. "Please? Just once."

Michiru shrugged and grudgingly headed for the bedroom. "I could find one of those girls sexier than you, you know?"

"I don't think so. Anyway, no one is capable of giving you pleasure like me.

And no one else can ever touch you."

Her possessiveness pleased Michiru. "Okay, let's experiment. We'll satisfy that perverse mind of yours."

Haruka followed her immediately. "You won't regret it."

She closed the door behind them.

.

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes Translated from Italian. In this story you'll find some light references to my Sailor Moon saga.

I'm telling you just so you know that those events had had a development in other fanfictions of mine. My saga is a direct sequel to Stars, the fifth season, so it's firmly set in the second part of the 90's This is why you'll find videotapes and not yet DVDs. I hope you enjoyed this fic. I love Haruka and Michiru as characters and as a couple, their more adult dynamics (in comparison to the Inners) always fascinated me. Haruka's sassiness and Michiru's snobbery are gold.

I decided to translate this story about them because I saw that the other very short ficlet ('The almost quickie in Usagi's room) has had some success on Tumblr between smutember followers and this one shot is certainly more satisfying to read for Haruka and Michiru's fans. I admit beforehand that my saga is less focused on them than on other couples (I invented partners for Ami, Makoto and Minako and I paired Rei with Yuichirou) .

But when I write about these two Outers, my italian fans adore it (and them). They started calling Michiru 'The Goddess' for the way she behaves and Haruka... well, she is more manly than most males :D So I wanted to share my vision of them :) Elle P.S. In my saga Inners are not at all the 'kids' Haruka and Michiru think they are in the sexual department. But it's so funny that they believe themselves so sexually superior that I keep making them say it!

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Sexual Fantasies Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: (Consensual) Power Play, Tying Up, Light Themes of Dominance and Submission Ship: Usamamo

Power Play

by Tina Century

“You want me to what ?”

Mamoru’s own incredulous voice echoed in his head as he stared up at the whirring fan on their bedroom ceiling. Usagi’s warm body was curled up next to his, her peaceful snores filling the room, and the shame settled in his stomach and burnt on his cheeks as he thought back to earlier that evening.

He hadn’t meant to react the way he did. And really, Usagi’s request was...pretty tame, as far as sexual fantasies go. Especially for someone as uninhibited as she was about...everything. They’d been in bed, cool sheets twisting around his bare skin as he positioned himself at her entrance, when she’d moaned.

“Mamo-chan...I want you to tie me up.”

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He’d panicked, his erection instantly disappearing, a hot flush burning on his face.

“You want me to what ?” he’d blurted out, incredulous and embarrassed.

Again, this was tame. But Mamoru had always been a bit of a prude.

He glanced over at Usagi. Familiar with his sexual hang-ups, she’d immediately noticed his reaction and rubbed her small hands soothingly up and down his back. “It’s ok, Mamo-chan. Never mind.” She’d then leaned up and placed a feather-light kiss on his lips before rolling over and promptly falling asleep.

Mamoru had been playing the encounter in his head over and over again for the last half hour. His badass, saved-the-world-multiple-times-over, insanely powerful superheroine fiancée wanted to be...dominated in bed?

He wanted to please her, loved teasing her into a sweaty, moaning mess until she begged for him, and he was all too happy to oblige.

But like this? Wasn’t there something inherently...patriarchal about it?

Unable to sleep, Mamoru did what any self-respecting nerd would do; he pulled his phone from his night table and started Googling.

It still happened sometimes. Blips of dark energy, youma that would briefly terrorize the city. Unlike before, they never turned out to be harbingers of another, greater enemy. These encounters were good for keeping them in battle shape, Luna told them. Just in case.

Sometimes, Usagi secretly kind of enjoyed it. Peace was wonderful, but there was an odd sort of nostalgia to the rush of power that accompanied her transformation, working in tandem with her closest friends, and, of course, getting to see her fiancé as the undeniably sexy Tuxedo Kamen.

Often, he’d scoop Sailor Moon away after the battles, just like he used to, and, adrenaline rushing, they’d make out like teenagers in whatever dark corner they could find (just like they used to).

But tonight, something seemed different.

He landed on their balcony with a soft thud and carried her into their bedroom, tossing his hat and mask onto a nearby chair in the process.

Usagi’s transformation shimmered away, leaving her in the thin cotton tshirt and lacy pink panties she’d fallen asleep on the couch in, her hair frizzing around her. She looked up at him quizzically, expecting him to detransform and get ready for bed.

Instead, he looked her up and down, his appreciative gaze not leaving her body as he slowly removed his jacket, rolled his crisp white sleeves up to his elbows, and loosened his bowtie. He took a deep breath.

“Turn around and get on your knees,” Mamoru growled.

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Usagi’s eyes widened and shot up to connect with his. Was this?....Was he? He gave an almost imperceptible nod, and a shiver of excitement shot straight between her legs.

She did as she was told.

Mamoru knelt down behind her on the carpet and pulled her shirt over her head, Usagi gasping as the cold air brushed against her nipples. Cupping both breasts in his hands, he trailed a long line of tender kisses down her cheek, her collarbone, her shoulder.

“Mamo-chan,” Usagi moaned, leaning back to capture his lips with hers.

His tongue delved into her mouth as she fisted her hands in his hair, his cape curling around her naked back.

He suddenly pulled away, and Usagi let out an involuntary whimper at the loss of contact.

“You asked me to do something to you earlier this week, Usako.” his voice was hard. Usagi looked up at him and nodded her head rapidly.

“What was it that you wanted, Usako?” He grasped between her legs with his palm and squeezed, eliciting a guttural moan from her.

“I wanted you to...tie me up,” she gasped, the wetness seeping between her folds as she verbalized her desires.

“That’s what I thought.” Mamoru pulled his loosened bowtie from around his neck and gently, lovingly placed Usagi’s hands together behind her back. She could feel her heartbeat in her teeth as he wrapped the material around and around her wrists and tied it in a firm knot. “Is this what you wanted, Usa?” he asked huskily, moving to stand in front of her.

She was panting now, the pulse point in her neck beating a frantic rhythm, an almost-painful throbbing between her legs. “Yes,” she gasped. She looked up at him through half-lidded eyes, dizzy with desire at the lack of control that came from being nearly naked and bound at his feet. She was giving herself into him, trusting him completely in the most vulnerable way, and she shivered in anticipation of what he would do to her next.

The moonlight cast a soft glow into the bedroom, and Usagi’s eyes roved hungrily from his mussed hair to his lean chest to the very evident bulge in the thin fabric of his tuxedo pants.

“Mamo-chan, can I?” Usagi looked suggestively at his zipper. “I want you in my mouth.”

He moved across the room to sit on the bed, hissing through his teeth as his pulsating erection sprang to life once it was freed from the confines of his boxer briefs. He smirked at her before grasping himself in his own hand and starting to pump up and down.

“No,” he said gruffly. “I want you to get over here and watch.”

With a grunt of frustration, Usagi tried to balance herself on her knees and make her way across the room. It was difficult with her hands tied behind her back, but she managed, and stopped when she was kneeling in front of Mamoru’s place 288

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on the bed. The slickness between her legs increased as she watched Mamoru touch himself as his eyes roamed over her, the sounds of his whines and moans as his hips moved in time with his hand turning her on to no end.

“Please,” Usagi whimpered. “I need…” she trailed off. She needed to touch him, needed him to touch her.

With a powerful pull, Mamoru lifted her up and threw her on the bed. He reached for the tie he’d left on the night table after work that evening, and Usagi mewled in pleasure as he looped it around her tied wrists and tethered her hands to the headboard.

He leaned back, hovering over her as she was restrained to the bed.

“You’re beautiful, Usako,” he murmured. And then he started to worship her with his hands, his mouth, his tongue, grazing and kissing and sucking over every one of her curves, her battle scars, his own grunts and gasps muffled by her skin.

She arched forward as he looped his fingers through her panties and pulled them off, her hands straining against the headboard. “Ah...Mamochan...please,” she gasped as he traced small circles on her inner thighs with his gloved hands.

He raised an eyebrow suggestively at her. “Did you want something, Usa?” His hands continued their movements, caressing her everywhere except the place that cried out for his touch the most.

Usagi squirmed on the bed, desperate to feel his hands where she wanted them.

“Please!”

He smirked as he removed his gloves. “As you wish.”

And she exhaled noisily in relief, shuddering with want as he slowly began to pleasure her in earnest, his fingers stroking, spreading her slickness where it felt good, rubbing her clit until she moaned in pleasure and was writhing under him.

Usagi’s breath started to come out in puffy little pants, her orgasm building under Mamoru’s touch, when he abruptly stopped and pulled away. “No,” she moaned, begging, her hips involuntarily thrusting upwards against him, desperate for contact with his skin.

“Do you want to be fucked?” Mamoru whispered, his gaze dark as he leaned above her and shed the rest of his clothes.

“I need to be fucked,” Usagi responded through gritted teeth.

“Then beg for it.”

“Please!” Usagi nearly screamed. “Please!”

“You can do better than that.”

“I need to feel you inside of me. Please!” she cried, her pleas becoming more frantic as he leaned in closer to her.

And he finally, finally obliged, making her cry out in pleasure as he slowly thrust into her. There was something about fully surrendering to him like this, letting him take control, not being able to touch him as he filled her up to the beat of a delicious rhythm that drove her mad in the best way.

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She thrust upward into him, and he let out a tortured, lusty moan. She smirked up at him. Even like this, she could control him, too.

Grunting, he sped up the pace. Usagi’s inner thighs shook as the pleasure built up in her core, and he muffled her cries with his lips as she fell over the exquisite edge, her orgasm somehow lasting longer than it ever had before.

Minutes later, Mamoru cried out his own release, burying his head against her neck as he came.

He rolled over, untied Usagi from the headboard, and removed his bowtie from around her wrists. Taking her hands in his, he deposited light, gentle kisses on her wrists before leaning back onto the bed and pulling her onto his chest.

As both their heartbeats slowed, Usagi absently traced a pattern on his chest with her fingers. “Mamo-chan?”

“Hmm?” he responded sleepily.

“Thank you. I know you didn’t...I know it was...weird for you.” She hesitated.

“What made you...how did you get...comfortable with it?”

“I read about it.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

Usagi couldn’t help her endearing eyeroll. Of course he did. “And?” Mamoru leaned up on his side to fully face her. “Honestly? At first, I was kind of uncomfortable with the whole thing. But the more I read, the more I realized how hot and freeing that consensual kind of power play can be.” A faint blush graced his cheeks. “And it really, really was.”

Usagi grinned at him. “It was.” She shot him a mischievous look. “So, do I get to do it to you next time? Tie you to the headboard and have my way with you?”

Mamoru’s breathing sped up, and a pulsating hardness pressed up against Usagi’s stomach. Grabbing the tie that was still next to them on the bed, he handed it to Usagi and whispered, his breath hot against her ear, “Why wait until next time?”

Author’s Notes Yeah; I'm still blushing.

I tend to fall into the “show; don’t tell” school of writing, but briefly: This is a very common sexual fantasy/kink, but it’s sometimes very hard to find stories about it that don’t wander into non-consensual territory. So...I wrote one that doesn’t. Hopefully, I succeeded.

This is my first time writing anything like this, and apparently I've gone all in. This story explores some power play dynamics and very very light themes of dominance and submission, with mutual consent being a key element.

I hope you enjoy, and I really, really hope you tell me if you do! As always, thanks to my amazing beta Kasienda for her feedback and edits; I love how much my writing evolves after your input!

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Sex With The Ex Additional Tropes: Pining, Fake-Not-Dating(ish), Forbidden Fruit Contains: Heartbreak, (Mutually) Possessive/Jealous Sex, Fingering, Cunnilingus, Penis-InVagina Sex (and lots of lube) Ship: Usamamo

Saudade

by FloraOne

She woke up, not with a start, but soft as the hands that wrapped around her. She knew instinctively, immediately who was in her bed, who the large frame engulfing her was, drawing her to him tightly. As if the breath against her neck had a color and a smell and a unique stamp on her brain that immediately let her know it was him even if he barely ever allowed himself to touch her.

Only then did she notice the slight tremor, the harsh, broken up breathing even when he tried to keep absolutely silent.

He was crying. He'd broken into her room, slipped into her bed, and he was clinging to her and he was crying.

She froze for a moment. Terrified that if she moved he might disappear, run. Terrified to break the spell that had allowed him to seek comfort in her bed.

In the end she trusted herself that she could take it if he decided to run.

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However, as if he was a skittish, wild animal, she decided on not spooking him, and kept her movements slow.

She moved her hand over one of his, clasped around her middle in a death-grip, and squeezed.

As if she found an on-switch, it caused a sob to break from his throat. He pressed it into her hair, gasping loud and making room for the next, and the next after that.

"Shhh," she cooed, both hands on his arm, pressing tight, "I'm here."

It was instinctive. Obviously, he could have cried for anything. But... She was sure it was his nightmares.

"I can't do this," he sobbed, sniffling, broken, "I keep seeing you die. I can't take it."

"I'm here."

This happened sometimes. Sometimes, he just needed to hear her breathe. Afterwards he'd feel guilty, feel like he wasn't strong enough, pretend it never happened.

That night, he stayed in her bed until morning. Until his tears were dried tracks on his face and he fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

She turned around at the break of dawn and watched him sleep — ink-black hair messy against her sheets, darkest eyelashes so long and delicate against his skin — until she could no longer hold her eyes open.

When she woke up again, he was long gone, and it was her turn to cry.

Some days it was harder than others. He claimed it was when she was in danger, but Usagi knew better.

It was hardest for her when she was faced with the fact that even though he could never be hers, he could be someone else’s. And she suspected it might be the same for him.

They didn’t manage to separate their lives completely. Never had. Not even when she didn’t remember him yet and they were just bickering idiots in the streets of Juuban for those wasted, lost years they could have been happy in oblivion. Not even then, when she’d wished on the silver crystal for a normal life on her dying breath and it had granted it, had they managed to stay away from each other.

How could they? They had mutual friends. They lived only a few streets apart. They were partners-in-vigilantism. Two halves of a whole that were lost when apart. They loved each other, even if it was only pain it ever brought.

One of the worst moments for her was one birthday of Unazuki’s they had both, of course, attended, because of course they never learned. Unazuki who liked to celebrate her birthdays with a side of speed-dating. Inviting as many

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singles as she could and rubbing her hands with glee as she thrust them strategically at each other.

It had been awkward enough, in that painfully masochistic way, in the years that Unazuki had paired them together, stating she thought they’d fit perfectly. It had been awkward both before they got together and after they knew they were cursed.

But boy was it worse when Unazuki had given up on them for the first time, and paired them off with others. And well, Usagi was a jealous person as it was, and sometimes it was just utter agony.

That first time it happened Usagi didn’t even remember the name of the unfortunate boy who had the pleasure of being ignored by her that night as she inched him closer and closer towards the kitchen to where Mamoru was chuckling at something that girl with him was saying.

“This is Komatsu Kenta, he draws dōga for Toei, his mother is a famous shoujo animator, and this is Tsukino Usagi, the biggest otome you will find in this room. She works for Nakayoshi,” Unazuki had introduced brightly, all teeth in her smile, and Usagi had barely even glanced at the guy, because the girl who was with Mamoru had the shiniest hair she’d ever seen with no fizz whatsoever and clasped her hands elegantly at her front instead of gesticulating wildly with them.

Mamoru hadn’t chuckled at her that way in years.

Her gut felt like it was on fire, and Unazuki’s suddenly so stifling studio apartment right with it.

She turned her back, smiled politely at something the boy in front of her had said (what was his name?), and he startled a bit when she met his eyes for the first time, and she did too.

He was surprisingly good looking. Minako would have started wolfwhistling.

“Oh,” he said with a smile that was objectively cute. And then smoothly segued them into conversation. “So, do you have a favorite anime?”

But his hair wasn’t black and his eyes didn’t hold the weight of the world and his touch would never tingle on her skin.

“Sailor V,” she said absentmindedly, and couldn’t help but turn her head.

Mamoru hadn’t looked at her during these two minutes once.

“My mother worked on the recent reboot!” The boy said excitedly, and really, she should be listening.

Instead, she positioned herself in a way that she could see Mamoru behind the guy’s shoulder a little better.

Mamoru was smiling. He was smiling and tilting his head and nodding to what the girl with him was saying.

“—Honestly I think it’s a shame the mahou shoujo genre is so painfully neglected and underfunded. The Sailor V anime set the stage and people did nothing with it,” the guy said with a brush of hair behind his ear, but she wasn’t following. “Animes like Precure were super popular, too. I just don’t understand 294

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why no one has adapted the Sailor Senshi for an anime yet. Magical Girls are real, I don’t see why the producers think it’s a risk to—” And then she said something and they moved to the kitchen and it’s quieter there and— “Hey,” Usagi interrupted him rudely, too suddenly, and he was pushing more hair behind his ear and looking at her nervously. “Do you want a drink, too?”

“Ah!”, he said, eyes widening. “Sure, of course! We—” But she didn’t let him talk. Instead, she pulled at his arm and practically dragged him to the kitchen.

“Uh—” And then she made him duck behind the counter with her so she could listen in on the way too pleasant conversation Mamoru was having.

“Um—” he made, blushing.

The kitchen wasn’t empty. A group of Unazuki’s co-eds from the Arts department were mingling around the fridge, laughing and joking. Someone was rinsing out a few glasses at the sink above her whom she couldn’t quite see. More voices by the corner, the unpleasant smell of cigarettes mixed with the fresh air of an open window, and in it, Mamoru’s deep baritone and the pleasant voice of a woman she didn’t know and he now did.

“I’m more of a fan of his earlier work, I have to confess. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World is fantastic, no?” this infuriatingly pretty woman was saying.

“Hm,” Mamoru tilted his head with that soft smile. “Yes, there’s something quite enticing about the idea that dreams might be more real than reality.” And then he reached for one of the dark green bottles and poured for the girl first, and Usagi wanted to smash the bottle. “Even when his imagery is quite disturbing sometimes,” he said, moving that bottle to his own glass second with that smile he never directed at her anymore, and Usagi forgot to breathe.

“What, skulls stripped off skin and flesh are too much for a med student?” she said with too much tease in her voice, too much flirt, and Usagi curled her hands so hard into her own skirt she felt something ripping because she didn’t trust herself not to run and grab that sleek, perfect hair instead and yank her away from her prince. Squeezing her eyes shut, she collapsed and pressed her back harder against the counter.

It got so much worse when he chuckled again, that rumbling sound she swore she would be able to make out across worlds from a cacophony of sound.

That chuckle he used to press against her hair when she teased him, that chuckle that would be followed by his hands wandering her skin and that smile turning more suggestive when they didn’t know better. That chuckle that was hers.

She clawed her hands into the counter, lifted her eyes over it, and there they were.

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He made a noncommittal sound, something Usagi couldn’t place. But what she could place very well was the look that girl was giving him. And also the way she pulled out a slip of cardstock from her purse, and wrote on it.

Usagi gasped, and Mamoru’s eyes whipped to hers. And when Usagi dashed away, boiling, exploding, hurting, moving through the gaps between bodies to get out of there, she was distinctly aware that he was following her, and only remotely realised she had not a single clue when exactly the guy she’d dragged with her into the kitchen had left her side.

Trying not to hyperventilate, trying not to cry, trying to get away before he caught up with her, she stumbled out into the hallway, crashing into someone who was walking in at the same time and mumbling an apology without looking up. She grabbed her ballet flats from the pile of shoes on Unazuki’s narrow shoe shelf, causing a few to tumble down messily onto the ground. She fled without putting them on.

When the door closed behind her, muffling the sound of chatter and music to a dull sort of hum, the tears sprang to her eyes, and she tried so hard to keep her chin from wobbling.

She exhaled shakily, dropped her blush-pink patent leather flats on the ground noisily, and was about to step into them when, of course, the door fell open behind her with a push so forceful and sudden it toppled her over.

She crashed with a watery yelp.

“Shit,” Mamoru cursed. Moved to help her up, but she sprang away from him.

He was wearing his brown leather jacket, his shoes, and he looked too perfect, and his eyes grew concerned when she glared at him with watery eyes.

Wiping her face with the sleeve of her cardigan, she grabbed her shoes again and rushed barefoot down the stairs.

“Usagi!” he yelled after her. She didn’t stop to turn around, but the pounding sound of his footsteps behind her told her he was following.

She just rushed on harder, took the stairs two at a time.

The asphalt felt crunchy and weird beneath her naked feet when she stumbled outside, and so did the autumn breeze on her tear-streaked face in the night. A shiver ran down her spine.

The door fell closed behind her. She dropped her shoes again, messily stepped into them, and walked on.

She’d barely gotten four furious steps away when the door flew open behind her again. “Usako!” he shouted after her.

“What?!” she whirled around angrily, flying hair and flying tears, and then froze.

He looked heartbroken. None of that soft smile and content chuckle left.

And he was also holding her red hooded jacket in his hand.

Oh. Right.

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She wiped her nose on her cardigan again and moved to sniper-snatch it out of his grip, then awkwardly shrugged it on as she walked away from him.

His footsteps followed.

“Talk to me,” he begged behind her.

Of course she knew she was being unfair. He didn’t want this any more than she did. And yet she couldn’t keep the venom out of her voice and stomped her feet a little harder. “You should get back to your date,” she bit, and crossed her arms awkwardly, firmly.

He’d caught up with her. Was looking at her sideways, but she refused to look back at him.

“Usako.”

“Are you gonna call her?” she groused.

“Of course I'm not.”

A beat, and then he added, “You’re walking in the wrong direction.”

Damn.

She stopped. Could have screamed that he had the gall to be right. And yet he simply steadily looked back at her.

With a pivoting turn, she stalked into the direction they’d come from. Once more, he followed at a slight distance.

“If you’re with her you can talk about weird films with fleshless skulls all day,” she barked bitterly over her shoulder.

“It’s a book, not a film.”

This time, she legit growled. A grunting sort of scream, all the frustration in her escaping through her throat and nostrils and eyes. With a yank, she pulled off her shoe once more and threw it at him.

He had the absolute nerve to simply catch it. Simply moved his hand out without even flinching, that absolute ass, and caught it.

He sighed long and deeply even as she withered her glare at him. “Is she your type?” she eventually asked.

His next sigh was even deeper, and he shook his head as if she was being stupid. And of course, she really was.

“No, Usako. You know she’s not.”

He held her shoe out carefully. As if this time she was the wild animal that he might spook.

She took it in much the same way she’d relieved him of her jacket.

Grunting, she threw it back on the ground.

“She's pretty,” she growled against the ground when she stepped back into it.

“If you say so,” he said, and it made her inexplicably even more livid.

“I bet you wouldn’t tease her about her hair.”

He didn’t say anything, but his brow drew closer together.

She sniffled, hated herself for the fresh round of angry tears that bubbled so very uninvited from her stupid eye sockets. “You’d look great with her. I bet 297

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you’d make the perfect couple. It’s gonna take you no time to forget about someone like me with someone so fucking perfect as—” “Usako, what the hell,” he interrupted her with the darkest growl she’d heard from him in a while.

She wiped her nose again. The rubbery fabric of her red jacket left her snot rubbed across it.

“I always knew you could do better than me anyway,” she whispered at their feet.

With one long stride of his too-long legs, he was in her personal space, towering over her and glaring.

But she refused to look up.

“Maybe it would be easier if we ...if we aren’t…” she hiccupped. Took a deep breath. “If we didn’t… If we avoided…”

“If we don’t see each other anymore?” he interrupted her harshly.

With a hard sigh, she finally looked up. His gaze gutted her.

“I can’t, Usako.” His voice broke.

And yes. She knew that. She couldn’t either. It was the last that they had of each other. Seeing he was doing ok. Allowing each other a smile, here and there.

Watching him. Always. Even when they couldn’t...

With the most unattractive sound tearing from her throat, Usagi started crying again. Helplessly. Ugly. Messily.

“Wh-at,” she choked out, hiccupping, “What if— what if she'll be your wife,” she wailed. “In 10 years. And you'll be over me and I’ll still be here and—” His hands curled around her arms, sudden and tight and too forcefully, and he crushed her against him not unlike the first time they had kissed. Back when they didn't know they couldn't. His tongue in her mouth harsh and rough and demanding and possessive.

She melted. Clawed her hands into the unyielding leather of his jacket so hard it hurt her fingernails, and whimpered into his mouth when his hands clutched the back of her head, the nape of her neck, his face tilted and her tears so salty on his tongue.

“Never,” he breathed into her mouth. “Usako. Never,” he repeated, and returned his lips to hers to kiss her even harder.

It was a while before he yanked himself free and fled, and she cried harder than she had done before.

Mostly, when they shared dreams due to some weird fluke of destiny that liked to remind them they were still bound together for eternity, they shared the nightmares. And as excruciating as the experience was, she would not trade it for the world. Because sometimes, so very rarely, they were granted a good dream to share. Sometimes, they dreamt they were allowed.

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He held her hand in both of his against his chest as they lay on the surface of the Moon, the endless sky so full of Stars you could not make out individual constellations.

“If we’d never found out, where would we be?” she whispered against his skin, cradled into his side.

He flipped over, his eyes that yearning sorrow she knew best by now, and it was a tragedy all in itself. She barely remembered anymore what he looked like when he’d laughed at her so very, very happily.

But he held her eyes, all pain and regret, even when the scene around them shifted, and they lay under the same blanket of impossibly bright starlight and the colorful streaks and shadows of the milky way, only no longer on the Moon — instead, far above the neon bright Tokyo night on an impossible dome made from a kaleidoscope of color.

As was possible only in dreams and nowhere else, he didn’t have to retrieve anything in order to reach for it - the ring simply appeared in his hand from nothing.

He sighed, shuddering and mourning. “Here,” he said, and slipped it onto her ring finger where it fit like it was made specifically for her, without breaking her gaze.

It was a heart. So real and detailed and intricate it made her wonder if it really existed outside of this dream. Pink and glittering and beautiful, little stones around it reflecting the starlight off of it and onto his warm chest, and the sob tore through her throat so violently that she woke up.

Her finger was bare in the dead of night, her room a curtain of bleakestgrey; full of shadows and lacking all traces of color in the dark, and her tears came so sudden they pooled wet in the crook of her eye, her nose, dropped cold and pearling down her chin, into her clavicle, into her ear. They flowed so hard she might have drowned in them.

Alone.

When she was in middle school, one of her assignments had been to write a text about what she would want most in the world. At the time, she’d written about something silly like the world’s biggest parfait she’d read about in Shingo’s edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, because she couldn’t think of anything else.

She wanted to go back to that time, cross it out, and write instead: The life I could have had with him.

They’d had 8 months together.

Three years. It had taken them three years to admit it. Years they’d called it bickering even though their flirting had been so disgustingly obvious everyone had seen it but them. Lost time they would never get back. Precious, lost time they 299

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could have spent together in obliviousness if they hadn’t been so very stubborn.

Lost time she would be mourning forever.

When she met Chiba Mamoru, she didn’t know she’d met him at least twice before. Once on the Moon, once in front of Osa-P, using his face as a trash can.

No, she’d met him again, that baka running around town in her neighborhood and teasing her hair with that panty-dropping soft smirk on his lips, drinking coffee at Crown.

In their magic years of blessed, oblivious normalcy, she’d finished Middle School and befriended Ami and Makoto, she’d entered High School and met Minako - who’d found Rei a while ago. Without knowing them, she’d found them all.

And even though they’d wasted so much precious time, she’d finally admitted to herself at age 17 that the full-body-pounding her heart was so adamant to orchestrate whenever Mamoru’s midnight eyes met hers in that slow way, perhaps meant something more than she had allowed herself to see.

(That obnoxiously tormenting way. That stupidly sexy way he would look at her so very intently. One lip turned up and his gaze so very fixated. It had been torture. It had been glorious. She missed it so much.)

Apparently, it had been mutual. Because when she’d finally admitted it to herself, and then to him, he'd reacted by exhaling in a way that felt like his whole body had shuddered in relief, and closed all space between them in one single relieved rush. Enveloping her, lifting her, crushing her, their first kiss had felt like a waterfall of sensation, and like something she’d been made to do but hadn’t known, hadn't been able to place the familiarity of, his fingers so tight in her hair it almost hurt, her tongue so deep in his mouth and yet not nearly enough, ever.

She’d noticed something was wrong, of course. He’d noticed it, too. Sent her to doctors, concerned and hovering. The cough that one day came to stay. Or the way it was so hard to breathe that time when she’d spent one unforgettable vacation all with him during golden week - when her parents and Shingo went to Akita and she’d stayed behind. That one week she spent almost entirely in his bed, happy and giggling as she kissed and kissed and kissed his smooth skin under his sheets, and hadn’t parted from his side for seven uninterrupted glorious days in a row that she would never get again.

For it all crashed and burned in the spring of her last year of High School.

When Seijuro and Natsumi joined her class and they hadn’t known yet they were Ail and An, when Luna had had no other choice but to make her remember, and him regret.

Naru had been the first to be attacked, and rushing to her aid because her screams over the phone had woken up every instinct in her blood, Mamoru in her wake because he’d been with her when Naru called, it was all forced back into her mind.

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window as Usagi collapsed on her knees to the floor, returned Mamoru’s and her memory.

The way the images returned in a flood of pain was so excruciating it ripped her heart in half. Her body filled with power as she screamed so terrified that first night she had to transform. That smirk she’d kissed a hundred times as he teased her about a date with Umino, Rei on his arm. A dance at a ball, his words in her ear when she needed strength. The second worst person in the world dying in her arms, the whisper of a memory telling her he’d done that before, thousands of years ago when worlds had crumbled because of their love. His eyes devoid of all humanity when his fingers flexed around her throat at Beryl’s order. His still body when she didn’t kiss his cold, dead lips goodbye.

Her chin held high when everyone she loved had died for her and here she was alone to end it all. Beryl’s curse on her lips the last thing she would ever speak.

The promise that in any life, in any time, their love would kill the daughter of the moon. Slowly and steadily. If she was his ever again, she would breathe death with every passing second. Such was Beryl’s parting gift for them.

And it had, already. Her cough that wouldn’t go away. How she could not breathe when she’d been with him for too long. Why she got lightheaded when he whispered in her ear that he wanted to be with her forever.

The curse had always been there, they just hadn’t known what it was. And it all reflected from his horrified eyes.

Turns out, her heart was never meant to mend again.

He’d left her that same night. When the Cardian was gone, Mamoru hadn’t even said goodbye.

But how could she let him go? How was a life in this pain any better?

How cruel was this fate? To be reborn with him and not be allowed to have him? What kind of nightmare was this?

That night, she’d collapsed sobbing, banging against his door until her throat was raw from begging, and she’d heard him crying as he leaned with his back against the door. And yet, he never opened it.

After the disaster that was Unazuki’s birthday party, Usagi had had some thinking to do, and she’d done it with her heart in shreds. Over and over and over she saw herself in her mind’s eye, hiding behind kitchen counters watching Mamoru slowly move on without even noticing. Pouring wine into women’s glasses and forgetting to hurt for her. It had been three years since their eight months. Was this going to be her life from now on? Would she be watching Mamoru move on and never move from that place of heartache herself?

Maybe he’d had the right idea.

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her. Her stomach was in knots and her lipstick was blush pink and she wore Rei’s chic lucky pants and she had a panic code set up to text to Minako to get her out of here if she needed to break it off for whatever reason.

And so of course, when she stood out at the entrance of the izakaya at shortly after 5pm, looking in through the picture window to see if he was already there (he was), of course when she moved to enter she looked up and there Mamoru was, standing right in front of her.

Her first not-really-a-date hadn’t even started yet.

And as always, he read her too well. He was about to say something, head tilted. But then he looked her up and down, terrified Usagi in her incriminating high-heeled, lip-sticked appearance glancing at the bar inside, and he instantly sobered.

She would never forget the alarm in his eyes. Or the way he instantly masked it away.

“Do you…” He licked his lips. “Do you have a… a date?”

“I…” She clutched her purse around her middle too hard. “Something like that.”

“Oh,” he said. And his whole face closed off. His hands pushed into his pockets. He was wearing the dark jeans they’d bought together during their eight months. “Yes,” he said with a sharp nod. “Yes, good.” And turned to leave.

It felt like a punch.

“Mamo-chan,” she pressed out, heart pounding.

He didn’t fully turn back to her, just his face, but his eyes were haunted, and it was all her fault.

“Minako set it up,” Usagi croaked, and she crushed her bag tighter to her body to keep her hands from trembling.

He nodded, but wouldn’t look at her.

And of course it was stupid. Of course it went against anything she’d set out to do tonight, but he was hurting and it was her fault this time and it slipped out because it was her most basic truth.

“I love you,” she begged.

His face crumbled. He shook his head sharply, jerked to turn and leave again.

“I just…,” she started, voice raised. “I thought you were right?” she told his back, and when he turned back to her once more, his face was dark and tormented.

“What?”

She licked her lips, forgetting her lipstick. It tasted weird. “With Unazuki’s party?” Usagi tried, voice wavering. “And the girl? Moving on?”

For a second, he clearly didn’t know what she was referring to. But she could watch the dawning terror unfold on his face, morph into alarm as she shrunk in regret.

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“Wait,” he said, glancing at the bar, scanning every face. “You’re doing this because of me?”

She wilted, wobbled on her high heels, dug her fingers into the sleeves of her jacket and the faux leather of her bag. “I just…This is…”

He took a step closer. His eyes were wild. “Usako,” he started. “I was chatting about a book. I was hiding in the kitchen so I wouldn’t have to see whomever Unazuki had deemed perfect for you that wasn’t me, and I was chatting about a book. I…” He shook his head.

But then he looked at her eyes and instantly sobered, and she had no idea what he’d seen in them to make him break off, but he did.

“Have fun with your date,” he croaked over his shoulder, and didn’t look back.

Usagi didn’t use her panic code that night. But she spent it getting drunk and telling a patient guy she barely knew all the ways she would never get over Chiba Mamoru. He even patted her back and all, shared a story about a girl he wasn’t quite over either, and at the end of the night she didn’t feel better.

The night Mamoru had left her for her own good, Luna had tried to comfort her. Had told her that one day it would get easier.

But weeks and months and then years passed and during all of it, nothing about it had ever gotten easier.

Ail and An gone, they’d had a bit of peace until Tomoe’s daimon eggs had terrorized Tokyo in a way they were so sure would be the end. And when it looked like they were dying either way, they’d slipped for the first time.

Or he had. While she’d begged him for a short and happy life almost from the first day on, had not cared for her well-being as long as she got to be with him, he’d been the strong one of them both. Until silence came and took every excuse, and they’d fallen like dominoes, no resistance left.

It had just happened. They hadn't dared mark it with words. Hadn't spoken about it, just gravitated towards each other in unspoken understanding.

They'd savored it like their personal last supper. Something holy bound to end.

He’d only held out his hand wordlessly. And when she took it, because she always would, he'd led her to his home and into his bed. She'd undressed holding his gaze in the silent darkness of his apartment, garment after garment, look after look. And all the while, his breath had grown more ragged with every layer falling, every bit of skin bared, and his eyes darker with every passing second. Until he stood so close she felt his breath on her skin, his heavy, wanting gaze tattooed into her heartbeat.

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hummed against her wetness so broken and so pained she'd curled around him and stroked his hair even as her knees had started to wobble.

That night they’d kissed each other’s tears and he’d held her face firmly between his hands so gingerly as he sunk into her to the beat of her heart, the spiel of Tokyo’s neon lights reflecting off his face above her in the dead of night.

He’d loved her like someone who only got one chance at this. Kissed her like he wanted to brand her taste into his tongue in utter desperation. Held her like someone who’d loved you for two lifetimes and did not get to have you anyway.

The way he touched her, the way he moved in her, the way he cried her name and kept going, all night all night all night because they couldn’t stop, they would never be able to stop. Traced her shape with his tongue and pleaded for the morning to never come, ghosted the tips of his fingers along every oh so sensitive patch of skin, flipped her over and unravelled her again, needy and relentless and until she howled in greedy, debauched hunger. Shaking with need, his teeth at her neck, her nipple pulled taut, wrapped around her thumb with a desperate hum. His lips at the shell of her ear, the insides of her wrist, tracing just the hypersensitive edge of her walls until he’d driven her so mad with want she clutched at his hair and fucked herself on his oh so willing tongue.

And the closer dawn came, the more desperate they became, the more frenzied and panicked and aggressively rough. As if, were they to only try hard enough, they could fuck themselves so hard into each other they might finally be one. As if something were to finally click and fit together like a machinery finally latching into place, and they might finally be allowed to be whole. Together. One. It never worked, no matter how hard they tried. And oh they tried. They tried, so, so hard. Pitiful, delirious, fatal.

And so she felt his cramping, coated fingertips at her clit to the tremor of her every nerve, felt his cock throb deep inside her to her haggard pleas for more, begging him to fuck her deeper and to never stop, so pathetically wet, so brutally carnal, even as her walls fluttered around his thick, deep, hard dick as he filled her stretched her fucked her desperately. And still she cried for more and more and more. His cock in her hard and insatiable and as unrelenting as she was even as his hands brushed down her back her belly her fingertips in the most tender, most worshipful, most exquisite ways. And in return she clawed at him and sobbed for him, and her toes curled into his damp sheets when she pulled at his hair so hard, pulling him against her chest so sharply it must have hurt. But he just latched onto her nipple and sucked fiercely even though his tongue still caressed her like a precious gift.

Together they couldn’t stop, and hid from the rising sun. Frantic and exhausted and frenzied in a way only someone would get that would never get to feel this again, together they kept going, clumsier and messier and manic, until his hardwood floor was littered with every last condom that had been left from the box by his bed used in soggy puddles on the ground, and something carnal and possessive revelled in her that none was left for him to use with someone else.

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The consequences, of course, had been immediate. She felt it deep in her lungs, in the tremor in her hands. And yet she’d clutched his hand tightly as Super Sailor Moon marched to Mugen Academy and tried to save a teenage girl trapped in a monster’s body before she destroyed the world. And when, for some unfathomable reason, she’d survived this battle too, Hotaru a baby in her arms and her eyes empty with her heart her driving force and ripped out for all to see, Mamoru had wept again.

What his tears were made of that morning exactly, she never learned.

But the memory of his touch was too much, the reverent stroke of his hands along the inside of her knees and thighs, the soft skin beneath her breast, his teeth pulling so deliciously at the shell of her ears and his lips against her eyelids and his sigh in her soul. The ripple of his abdominal muscles when she brushed her fingers across them. The pure agony when he thrust his hips into empty air when she so desperately wanted him inside of her forever. The dazed look in his eyes that never left her face when she flipped him over, lowered herself onto him with trembling, aching thighs and took him so excruciatingly slow until her walls rippled around him and he grabbed her ass, thrust up and lost control. And so, when the dead moon circus began to haunt the city first and his heart later, they had slipped and slipped again.

He hated himself for it.

But Pandora’s box was wide open from that night on. She'd had a taste of him, the taste of the most delicious treat on earth and she was physically hurting from wanting more, even when the consequences always loomed.

Usagi hadn’t cared. Had only cared to hide it from him, so terrified that he might know that she was his always even if she was not supposed to be, but of course he always knew.

The months they couldn’t stay away at all? When not only his lung was black from the effect Nehelenia had on Earth and him, but hers was as well, because they couldn’t keep away? He blamed himself when it was her decision, and she had never been so afraid for his life.

The next time he caved she'd almost died.

It was when she collapsed in battle one day and he screamed for her so tormented as he tried to shake her awake that the girls intervened.

Sat them down at different corners of the holy fire in Hikawa, knees pressed obediently into the tatami mats, and told them they had to stop.

She screamed and shouted at them when they asked Mamoru if this was what he wanted for her life. To die on his dick. Had made him cry so desperately and promise that it was not.

In this way, it had taken her almost dying once more, and the girls to reinforce it, that he finally had the strength to stop it. (She didn’t. She never had.)

Had shouted for her to leave when she showed up at his place all the same, shouted at her shaking and agonized. Shouted at her panicked and trembling and frightened. So, so frightened.

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'What does it all matter if you just leave me anyway?! What was all this for?!'

And then they stopped. Started to keep their distance. Tried. And for the longest while, they managed. Polite distances even when they were alone in a room. Gravitating around each other in distant orbits. At senshi meetings. In the streets of Juuban. At parties. At festivities at the shrine and when Mamoru started helping Ami prep for her intermediate examinations in med school. They tried.

They stayed away.

And yet, this was when he started to slip into her room at night sometimes.

When he broke into her room to hold her after the dreams got too bad, because some days he couldn’t calm down if he didn't hear her breathing.

They told themselves it was ok.

For every thirty or forty nightmares, it seemed they were granted one good dream together. This one she spent in his bed, with her head against his chest, her legs curled in his lap, his arms tight around her, his chin on her hair and breathing deeply. Holding her, and she held him back.

Outside his window there was nothing. As if the world had needed to cease to exist for this to be possible. To be allowed a cuddle in his arms.

How sad was it to dream of a hug from the person you loved above all?

But this right here was what was taken from them. Sunday mornings waking up in the same bed with a smile. Lazy breakfasts together. He reads and she plays games on the couch, her legs thrown across his lap as he strokes them absentmindedly, not really noticing the motion of his hands as he was too sunk into his book. Welcome home and good night pecks of kisses that were so routine they meant little more than ‘hello’ and right now they meant the world. The knowledge that when you would turn around, he would be there, he would always be there.

“The Portuguese have a word for this,” he mumbled into her hair, holding her too tightly, too desperately for this to masquerade as the effortless togetherness she so longed for.

“For what?” she whispered back, clawed against his chest.

“That empty, overbearing feeling of longing for something or someone you love. Something lost to you, even when you know you can never have it back,” he said, and held her a little tighter. Held her so tight it would have been uncomfortable if it weren’t exactly what she needed. Instead, she pressed her face harder against his throat so she could feel the words exactly where they were formed.

“The ghost of that love that will always remain even in its absence,” he continued. “Always there to remind you what you are missing, what you could have had.”

“Oh,” she said, her heart heavy. She didn’t want the Portuguese to have a word for this - for it meant they must know this agony too to have invented it.

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“What is it?” she still whispered despite herself, and clutched at him a little more.

Saudade.

The next one was Hiroshi. An aspiring cook Minako had met as he catered for one of her shoots, happily piping flowers onto dessert plates. “He’s like, a male Mako-chan. You’ll love him,” she’d promised.

He gave Usagi a box of the prettiest madeleines she’d ever seen as a greeting, with a blush and a hand to his neck. And as they were sitting down for their lunch date at Tomori café - her small little lunch café in Bunkyo near the Kodansha headquarters that she could easily pop out to for an hour during office hours for the most casual of meetings with date-able strangers - she thought this one might be really, really sweet.

And so there they sat with the sandwiches-and-soup lunch sets and beverages in pretty ceramics in her usual spot by the window at the narrow table converted from an old Singer sewing machine, and he talked about the best cafes in town that he could take her to for a taste-test when it was, for once, not her who was distracted by Mamoru.

One moment Hiroshi was enthusiastically talking about choux cream, gesticulating and fully turned to her, and the next he faltered and glanced somewhere behind her.

“Uh, do you know this guy?” Hiroshi asked warily, and Usagi blinked in surprise, slung her arm around the backrest of her chair and bodily turned to look.

“He keeps staring at you.”

There he sat. An untouched beverage in pretty ceramics in front of him, behind her. In Bunkyo. Far from Azabujuban, far from any of his campuses, somewhere behind Waseda because that’s where her office building happened to be located. There he sat, watching her on her date he shouldn’t know she was at.

When her eyes met Mamoru’s, they lingered. Only after a while did he break first. Averted his eyes and awkwardly lifted pretty ceramic to his lips.

“Who is this?” Hiroshi asked when she’d slowly turned back around, exhaling brokenly and lost in thought, hands in her lap.

She flicked her eyes back to him. For a second she’d forgotten where they were.

“My uh…” she croaked, as if it hurt her throat to even form the words.

Only, like, the man I was reborn for to love. “...My uh,” she swallowed, “my Ex.” No sooner had she muttered the words had she felt Mamoru get up and leave.

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A couple weeks later, she was on her way to meet Kioshi for Starbucks. A blonde boy with the sunniest smile and an attitude even more positive and bubbly than hers on her best days who, in a twist of unforeseen events, had been introduced to her by Shingo. Because even her oblivious little brother had taken her to the side and told her he couldn’t stand how lonely she looked. Kioshi was in the Sailor Moon fanclub with him, one year Shingo’s senior, one year her junior - a tall, always-smiling kindergarten teacher.

Mamoru forcefully grabbed her arm when she reached to open the heavy door.

His lips were a snarl, his fringe falling into his eyes even wilder than usual.

“He’s not good enough for you,” he hissed.

Her sigh was so tired she felt it sack her bones. “That’s not true, Mamochan,” she murmured in defeat.

“He isn’t,” he snarled. Took a step closer. Towered over her.

And then he glared so hard at the person behind her who wanted to enter the shop that they jumped. Usagi sighed, pushed at his chest, and made way.

“You got it the wrong way around,” she sighed, pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and leaned against the glass façade, a little ways away from the entrance. She hit the back of her head against the glass and glared at the sky. “He shouldn’t have to put up with me.”

The cursed girl who will never be able to love him the way she loves another.

But this time Mamoru didn’t quite read her so well, it seemed. His fists clenched. His eyes were poison as he glared into the shop, no doubt knowing exactly which of the people inside she was to meet.

But his voice lacked all strength for what he said next. Only held the pain.

“This is who you want to replace me with?” he asked their reflection in the window as he looked inside.

It pricked at her eyes.

“You’re being unfair,” Usagi growled.

Sometimes, late at night when she couldn’t sleep and lay awake staring at the untouched empty side of her bed, she thought that maybe they could cheat the curse.

She told herself that when his 90-something year-old neighbor died, she could move into the vacant apartment next to his. She could be the unmarried lady next door with the cat for the rest of their lives, with her bed pushed against the same wall as his. Who could tell him good morning and good night every day.

She didn’t have to be his to spend her life only with him. Maybe they could be alone, together, forever. Like she did now sometimes, when she called him at night just to hear him breathe as he fell asleep, and he didn’t say a word about it.

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When she placed the phone on the empty pillow beside hers, turned him on speaker, and closed her eyes to pretend he was there with her.

The man she was strolling along Shiba Park and the foot of Tokyo Tower with that late afternoon was Yuma, a voice actor for mostly video games and anime, who loved vintage arcade games and had quite objectively the sexiest voice she’d ever heard, whom she didn’t even know where Mako-chan knew him from but she and Minako had insisted and bought her a new dress for the occasion.

And this was how she found herself blushing warmly to the colors of autumn foliage sprinkled across the trees, the golden hue of the setting sun casting the day in a light so in harmony with the orange-red steel looming so high and giant above them, and yet hated herself a little. He was so sweet as they compared high scores of their most frequently played arcade games and he complimented her with a low whistle on her long-standing Sailor V gaming superiority. They’d all been so, so sweet.

And yet when Mamoru stopped right in front of her, not even deeming Yuma worth a glance, just wordlessly held out his hand for her once more, she took it without a single goodbye.

When he finally snapped and couldn’t take that dating thing anymore, and kind of kidnapped her away from it right then and there, his hand around hers a death-grip.

He didn’t even look back at her that much. Just pulled her away to Yuma’s confused protests and put her on his bike. Pushed a helmet on her head with careful, trembling fingers, and drove her to his home.

Only when the door had closed behind them had he turned around and stood there, heaving chest and labored breath and intense, sorrow-filled eyes.

“I can’t,” he’d admitted brokenly. “I can’t take it anymore.”

It was her who ended up attacking. Her who literally, physically jumped him. And as easily as he’d caught her shoe that time after Unazuki’s party, he’d caught her. Hands strong on her naked thighs beneath her fluttering skirt, and he groaned into her mouth as he hefted her higher oh so effortlessly, pushed his hands kneading, gripping up the length of her legs until they dug into her ass.

She slung her arms around his shoulders, clawed her hands into his hair, tucked it back violently so she could shove her tongue into his mouth so he might never pry her from him, and he only whimpered against her lips and opened his mouth wider for her onslaught.

He carried her to bed stumbling, moaning. Had to lower himself down with her because she refused to let herself be dropped, her legs slung tight around his hips, her mouth a messy sort of frenzy.

Only when he stroked his palms warm and strong against her face, her temple, her cheekbones, only then did she let go, gasping for breath, and his look

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was pure longing and pure torture, illuminated by that golden hue of sunset that had been meant for someone else tonight.

“Please,” he begged. “Please, don’t replace me.” His hands in her hair, his eyes jumping between both of hers, his body so deliciously heavy on hers, pushing her down into his mattress.

With a growl and all her Sailor Moon strength, she tensed her legs around him and swiftly rolled him over. He hit the mattress with a bounce, before she stroked her hands harshly back into his hair, drawing back his fringe sharply, aligning his lips with hers. “No one is ever gonna replace you,” she breathed against his lips. “No one’s gonna fucking ever compare.”

His fingers flexed into her ass in sync with the gutted twitching of his face.

And then it slipped even more, when she stroked her hand down his chest sharply and traced his cock through his pants, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He was hard, and gasped so prettily, so brokenly, so terribly.

His eyelashes blinked up at her. “We can’t,” he begged, so torn and wanting and guilty, even as he turned his face in her hands, stroked himself against her touch like a needy kitten.

It was all in his eyes. They’d been over it a thousand times in situations just like this. His guilt. Her life a price he wouldn’t pay, even after he’d willingly paid with worlds collapsing for them. His broken whispers. How she was his world. How he needed her to be in it. Even if it meant without him. How he couldn’t do it, even if he couldn’t stay away either. How this was the most difficult thing in all the world to uphold, and how he hated himself for it.

She grunted. Grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt and pulled it off him. He lifted his arms for her without any fight whatsoever.

“I know,” she hissed.

Shuddering breath, those eyes so full of sorrow, he still ripped that date dress right off her too, perhaps a little too hard, a little too on purpose, and she felt something tear before he’d slipped it all the way over her head and hair.

“Usako,” he whimpered. His hands skimming along her legs, and up up up, brushing the underside of her thin cotton bra so carefully, so gently.

She twisted impatiently, unclasped her bra on top of him, moving against him and he groaned, his fingers trembling when they met her naked breasts, her pebbled nipples.

“Just because you put your dick in me doesn’t mean I’m yours,” she scolded her old argument. One kiss, one hug, one fuck didn’t mean they were together.

His eyes flicked back up to hers. “But I want you to be,” he whispered like a dirty, dangerous confession.

Clutching his face, she locked her knees around him, and purposefully, languidly, rubbed against the bulge in his pants.

“Me too,” she promised. Forbidden.

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He keened, guttural and pained, and pushed his hips hard off the bed and against her. Pulled at her knees, his hands strong and warm and his fingertips sunk into the back of them as he spread her tighter around him, pushing his hips firmly up against her even more.

She would have thrown her head back if it weren’t for the deep need to watch his eyes, to watch him fall apart because of her and only her. And so she clawed her hands into his naked chest and stretched her hips to press back into his, moved and moved and moved the way it felt oh so good. Swirled her hips so his erection would rub against her panties just right, and did it so, so long until his jaw clenched and his eyes twitched and teared and he was biting his tongue so hard he looked like he was in pain.

She was so wet, she was so tense, she’d possibly never wanted him this much even if it had to be a lie, because if there was one thing they had going for them it was wanting eternally.

But when she couldn't take it anymore and finally lifted her hips up and off him, he reactively thrust his hips up against her in protest for a moment — until, with dawning understanding, he smashed them back down against the mattress violently, understanding what she wanted. When she clawed at his belt, his tight pants, his underwear, he whisper-shouted his relief in broken agony.

He helped her along, trembling hands pushing at his clothes, erection springing free, kicking and writhing to get fucking naked asap.

He rolled her over, then. Twisting, shaking his leg to get it all off even as his lips sucked in one nipple and his thumb drew expertly down the middle of her damp, damp panties.

She sucked the air in through her teeth, pressing back against his mouth and hand and popping her eyes open, toes and fingers flexing uncontrollably as his thumb skimmed beneath the hem of her cotton panties and swirled it around her entrance once to wet it, then up to brush around her clit, firm and practiced.

He moaned against her nipple, flattened his tongue and licked up her chest. “God,” he groaned. “You’re so wet.”

She inhaled harshly, turned her head, found his eyes, his chin at her chest, his hand in her panties, his look full of no return.

He held her eyes for a while, thumb around her clit, her breathing so harsh, her slit so wet, and with silent understanding between them, he leaned over her, reached out next to her, and pressed his lips against hers, open-mouthed and wet and pretty damn fucking crazed.

The drawer he’d tried to navigate next to her misbehaved completely. Not looking, only moaning into her mouth, he pulled at it too strongly, and it pulled out from his nightstand all the way and crashed onto the floor, spilling its contents everywhere. She jumped, turned, his mouth slipping wet along her skin and landing at her ear as she looked, and he bit her earlobe and she moaned when he flicked his thumb up and down, up and down, swirl and back up.

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Mamoru didn’t even so much as grunt in irritation at the mess, undeterred.

Notebooks, pens, his phone, all of it all over his floor, and in between individual foiled little packs of condoms, her lube. As if they’d never stopped, it had all still been in there, now scattered messily, and he didn’t care — just bent over and snatched a condom and her pink tube from the floor.

She inhaled harshly, his hand in her panties, and glared at the floor, and at the condom moving from his hand to his mouth to rip at the foil and to his cock awkwardly, one handed.

As he rolled it down throbbing skin and bulging veins, she hissed. “I swear if you use these with anyone else—” He glared at her even harder than she had at him. “Never.” And then he squeezed at her pink lube and coated himself up even when she was so wet she was practically messing up his bed.

He did that whenever he wanted it to last. When he wanted her to last forever.

“Promise,” she whispered needily, even as she pushed his hand out of her panties and her panties frantically down her legs.

His brow furrowed, turned so sad. Braced above her, he brushed his cock in his hand up and down her slit much like his thumb had done. It made her throw her head back for a needy kick and wail, and his free hand flew to her chin, drawing her eyes back to him.

“Usako,” his croaked. “Never.” He dipped his tip inside and she howled, and he drew it back out and back up, but always held her eyes, right over hers. “I’ll never have sex with anyone but you. Ever.”

It tore through her heart, and she clutched at his arm, his ass, and he must have seen how much she needed to hear this on her face, because he kept going.

“I’ll never marry. I’ll never be with anyone.”

And with that, eyes boring deep into hers and his thumb at the apple of her cheek, he sunk deep into her.

She whimpered, clawed her hand into his warm, hard butt, needed him to go fast, needed him to never stop, because the lump was forming in her throat.

“Me too,” she whispered at his lips, craning her neck to move hers closer to his. “Let’s be alone. Together. Forever.”

He sighed, drew out, and with one single deeper thrust, filled her back up, and she whimpered again when his hand moved back to her clit, even when his other hand drew tiny circles on her cheek with his thumb, head tilted in pitiful sadness.

“That’s not what I want for your life, Usako,” he whispered back at her lips so very torn.

Inhaling sharply, angrily, she rolled him over once more, and drew out a howl from him when she impaled herself sharply on his cock, pressed his hand to her clit, and set the pace.

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He bit his lip, drew her close, let her take over, and really, it grew more possessive, rougher, angrier, more heartbroken by the second, and it was all her doing.

His hand at her ass, rocking up into her, his mouth on her neck sucking hard even when his hand stroked so tenderly down her clit.

Her hands on his face, pressing him down, daring him, loving him, begging him.

When he flipped her back over it was because her legs were getting heavy, trembling harder, her back shivering, and he pressed her into his sheets and pressed inside of her as deep as he could.

“Has any of these guys touched you?” he growled into her skin, desperate and harsh, his tongue catching her beading sweat.

“No,” she gasped, moved up against him.

“Kissed you?” he demanded, hands deep.

“No,” she swore.

“Promise,” he ordered.

“I promise.” And with that, she tensed and shook and shook.

But this could not be it yet. She could not let this be over yet. Ever.

But he knew her skin like a familiar instrument, they’d played this forbidden game too often and he knew all her secrets. Pulled out and bent until she breathed harshly again, moved his cock along her folds until she keened again, snatched her pink tube from the floor, squeezed, let the clear liquid dribble down his cock again and when he moved back in, it was so fucking slick it made her howl this time.

Made her thrash her head against his pillows and clamp her thighs tightly against his hips and clawed her hands into his sheets even as he coated his fingers too to rub perhaps a tad too frantically at her clit.

It would be a while until she could come again, but he knew to pass the time.

And even in all their frenzy, he touched her like he always touched her. His fingertips cried gentle sonnets, his eyes spoke wedding vows, his lips painted devotion. Every brush of skin dripping of the melancholy that was knowing this was meant to be nothing but a memory.

Just a little while longer, and they were babbling everything out.

Everything but what they wanted to say most.

Mine. Yours.

In the end he sobbed into the crook of her neck, tears wet against her skin and she scratched her fingernails across his scalp, over and over.

For once, she didn’t feel like crying at all. She had everything she wanted right here in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed against her neck so faintly she could barely make out the words. “I’m so, so sorry.”

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Stroking her cheek against his hair and clutching him harder, Usagi fought down a cough, glared at his ceiling, and vowed to herself to find a way to break the curse. Even if she had to fucking find a way to go back in time to do it, she would.

Author’s Notes OBVIOUSLY this was the angstbus in full force. I’m so sorry. This just happened.

But well, it's my rendition of 'The Break Up Arc Is Real' in a sauce of Mutual (And mutually-acknowledged) Pining with a side of Forbidden Fruit and tons of mutual stalker tendencies our OTP is so very canon-known for. This sounded like fun to write lol??? But yes you know what I love and want from the break-up arc is the SUFFERING and here you have it very condensed, ehem.

Also I want to send some love out to everyone who needs it this week. I felt terribly lonely this week and remembered that tons of people probably feel that way too this year and well, here I am waving to you from my own little cave! So, hopefully, other than the suffering I brought to our babies, I hope you feel a little less alone, together!

(ALSO please no one expect to be able to fuck themselves through a packet of condoms per night. That usually only happens in shiny new relationship fever if at all, or, like here, when everyone involved is super friggin desperate like these two are, and a side of superhero stamina also wouldn’t hurt. And when you ATTEMPT IT, please, lube is your friend!

Lube is your good, good friend!)

Mwah! Be well!

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Shower by FloraOne

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Shunga by FloraOne Artist’s Notes: The trope is “Shunga”, even though it also fits last week’s “Pool/Onsen”, obviously. I attempted to draw this in a bit of a more ukiyo-e like style, though I obviously didn’t succeed in that endeavor all that much (maybe one day I’ll be good enough to emulate Japanese traditional art, LOL, for now this is still clearly my style, even though not in anime form), but it’s still one of my favorite things I ever drew! ANYWAY I hope you like!

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Talking In Bed Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, Sex Games, Sexual Fantasies, Mutual Masturbation Contains: Masturbation, Fingering, Dirty Talk Ship: Usamamo

The Devious Plan For The Green Jacket's Demise by ellephedre

Usagi Tsukino knew she had an incredibly attractive boyfriend.

Mamoru had mouthwateringly blue eyes, large shoulders that made her fingers itch just at the thought of gripping them, big (and very talented) hands, and a long lean body, sculpted with muscles in just the right places... Really, his only flaw was his terrible fashion sense.

Usagi considered it a gift from heaven, to her. If Mamoru had been able to coordinate two colors that weren't rotten-pea-green and faded-from too many washes-purple, he would have long been snatched by some other clever girl. In those dire circumstances, she wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet him and make him notice her gradually.

So, she tried to be understanding: the horrible green jacket and the lilac pants had been fundamental in keeping other women away from him. Now that the danger was averted though, an upgrade was in order.

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She had been trying to manipulate him subtly for years. She hadn't criticized the pieces of his wardrobe that hurt her eyes: instead, she had complimented him on the ones she liked. His biker suite for instance was a favorite of hers. Every time he donned it, she didn't miss the opportunity to say how much the blue and white combination suited him, how handsome he was in it, how wonderfully the ensemble showed the shape of his body...

She had hoped that, in time, he would take the hint. In vain.

Mamoru loved his green jacket and purple pants at least as much as he loved her. She had fervently hoped that he would stop wearing them once the fabric became too chafed, but as soon as that happened, he managed to replace both garments with nearly identical pieces, bought only God-knew-where.

She had been tempted to search the whole city to find the diabolical store that sold those fashion offenses and set it on fire.

He was going to make an arsonist out of her!

She had managed to contain the problem by using all her pin money to gift him with new tasteful clothes. He thought her too generous and told her repeatedly that she didn't need to spend all her savings on him; he loved her anyway.

He really didn't get it. She was giving up sweets and cakes for him, it was an enormous sacrifice!

At least he wore the outfits she had chosen for him, even when he didn't exactly appreciate them. For their dates, to make her happy, he put on almost exclusively the clothes she bought, so she rarely saw the other odious attire anymore.

But she knew that, out of her sight, he still wore it, just as if it was a costume - one designed to make him appear dull and restrained. She understood that he wanted to give an appearance of moderation and reliability, but enough was enough!

She needed to address the root of the problem, in one way or another.

An idea came to her mind one Saturday morning, while she laid on his bed on an autumn day, pretending to read. Mamoru was finishing a very interesting novel he had just bought and she had promised not to bother him for a while. Still, being his girlfriend allowed her some leniency, especially since, once again, he was wearing the horrible purple pants - this time as a comfortable house attire.

If it were possible, he would probably choose to be buried in them.

"Mamo-chan?"

He didn't lift his eyes from the book he was reading. "Yes?" "Yesterday at Tsutaya I was browsing through the pages of a manga..."

"Ah-ha."

"It was a smut one."

He stopped what he was doing, looking at her.

Now that she had his attention, she could proceed with her plan. "I saw a scene that I would like to re-enact with you. It's more like a game."

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He put aside his novel. "A game?"

Yeah, he gave a good pretense of modesty and composure, but his mind was quite sexual when properly stimulated.

"Hm-mh" she continued. She stammered a little at voicing out her idea. But it could work so efficiently... "It's a who-comes-first game. With punishments included."

Mamoru was intrigued and laughed softly at her embarrassment. "What about the rewards?"

She became bolder, getting on her knees, gracing him with a view of her open cleavage. "The reward comes with losing." She blushed. "No pun intended."

Smiling, Mamoru extended his arms towards her, asking her to join him.

Usagi happily complied. "It's a very daring and difficult game" she explained. "You have to stop yourself from indulging too much in the sensations. The participant who doesn't resist, lose. And the winner can ask the partner for anything she wants."

"Anything she wants? You think you are going to win?"

She was determined to do so. "I'm going to be honest here, Mamo-chan. If you lose you won't regret it, but I want you to..." she steeled her voice, "I want you to throw away your green jacket."

He furrowed his brows. "My jacket?"

"Yes. Sorry."

"But it's so comfortable and warm." His voice had turned pitiful.

"I detest it."

"You said you loved how it smelled!"

"Because it smells of you. Because I love you. But I would be so so happy if you would just... put it aside."

He was confused. "You only have to ask."

"By 'putting it aside' I mean 'throw it in the nearest trash can'."

He was mildly offended. "You fell in love with me while I was dressed in that jacket."

"That says a lot about how attractive you are. And lovable. Oh, Mamochan." She raised on her knees, taking his face into her hands, kissing him from above. "Don't say no to me. Let's play."

His interest was piqued. "That means you could lose."

"I suppose." But she wouldn't. "You can ask me for something too.

Anything you want."

"Anything... Including getting out of anime night?”

Usagi immediately sulked. It was a regular fixture in their date schedule. "I thought you liked it!"

"I do. There is just one anime I don't want to see anymore."

"Which one?" She dreaded the answer because she knew it.

"Hana Yori Dango."

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"Nooo! It's so engaging! I want to know if Tsukushi ends up with Domyouji!"

"Tsukushi should run away from him as fast as she can. Domyouji treats her horribly. If you want to see her demean herself by attaching romantic notions to his behavior, I won't object, but..."

"It's not as terrible as you think it is" she complained. "I want to know how the story unfolds, with you! If I go to Makoto's to watch the registered episodes, I cannot spend the night at your house."

It was certainly a sacrifice, Mamoru considered. But he could endure for a few nights. "That's the punishment I insist on. After all, you are asking for my precious jacket in return."

She regrouped her thoughts. "You are right. And I won't lose."

She sure was confident. "That smut manga has given you new ideas?"

Cheerfully, she started unbuttoning her pink shirt. "That and I haven't ever really worked on making you go crazy for me, Mamo-chan. On making you... crave.”

Her attitude had just become extremely alluring for him. "Crave?"

"Yes. Let's play at... watching and not touching. We won't be able to trick the other into coming with caresses, so we'll have to be creative. And if one of us doesn't resist and touch, we can go on, but the winner is decided."

As soon as she backed away, his blood started to boil. "That seems..."

"A very good plan, right?" Usagi was biting her lip. She had just gotten rid of her shirt and yellow bra, and she was letting her blue jeans skirt slide down her legs, slowly, in no rush.

Mamoru swallowed.

His jacket. His beautiful green jacket. He had to be strong, a man of resolve.

At the opposite side of the bed, Usagi hesitated for a minute, moving her little toes inside the white socks that still covered her feet. "Your job is to tempt me.

Shouldn't you try?"

Right. "No." Feigning a certainty he didn't have, he stretched his arms over the headboard, apparently relaxing. "I can resist you just fine."

"Oh, really?"

He stayed mute, enjoying the view of his delectably innocent and beautiful girlfriend laying on the linens, pure of heart and soul even when she was trying to sexually entice him.

Usagi observed him and smiled devilishly, wetting her lips. "There was this once time" she began, stretching, "before we had begun making love, when I wore this exact pair of panties." She pointed to the cotton ones she had on, yellow and with no decorations outside of a small ribbon sewed at the top. "I was in my pajamas. I rested in my bed, trying to sleep, thinking of your soft lips on my mouth... In this fantasy, you were Tuxedo Kamen. You had entered my bedroom

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through the window and lay near me, whispering sweet nothings on my ear, your gloved hand resting on my stomach."

She brushed her belly with her own hands, imagining they were his. Her eyes were pools of languid desire in which he wanted to drown.

"You cannot understand, Mamo-chan. Back then I had no idea what I wanted, but the thought of your warm fingers on my body... I started panting and closed my eyes, dreaming of you kissing me deeply, tasting me with your tongue.

Unconsciously, I moved my hips, inviting your fingertips to slide downwards. I immediately stopped and turned against the pillow, gasping, ashamed and so so mortified. How could I feel so much without you present? It wasn't right, I had to explore those sensations with you. I had to wait for you to come back from America."

For a moment his excitement subsided and he was both moved and sad.

Usagi didn't want to dwell on past sorrows. "Do you remember what you did to me on this bed, during our first time?" Her hand traced a path to her mound, resting over the panties. "It was my dream come true."

He remembered every detail - every quiver of her body, every gasping mutter, every impatient request.

He shifted uncomfortably on the bed while she turned to rest fully on her back, closing her thighs over her small hand.

"Just talking about it made me wet."

Breath abandoned him in one big whoosh. Blood pooled around his groin.

"Do you remember when I was self-conscious about it? I'm not anymore." She closed her eyelids, biting her lips. "This moisture that I feel makes the friction with the cotton so pleasurable..."

His erection twitched and he undid the buttons of his pants, to give it room to grow. He was going to lose all dignity - and his jacket - if he didn't do something right now. "Move your fingers under the elastic band."

Starting, she opened her eyes, looking at him. She studied him. "You want me to?"

"Yeah..."

"Don't you want to do it yourself?"

He wasn't going to fall for that simple trick. "One day. Today... you're too interesting to watch. So incredibly beautiful, Usako."

Her chest filled with air. "I... I'll have to be very excited to grant your request. You giving some attention to yourself would be a good incentive."

He had imagined as much. "You can do without that though. Think of me brushing a kiss on each of your nipples. " She trembled, moving her chest upwards.

"Think of me licking them slowly. Sucking them."

Her expression had become suffering. "If you really want to do that..."

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"I want you to ask it of me. Let's amend the rules a bit. If you command me to touch you and I just obey, you lose. After all, we both know that you would come almost instantly."

She had become a quivering mass of anticipation. "You wish."

Oh, he really did.

Getting back a semblance of control, Usagi moved a hand over one of her breasts. "I think I won't describe to you what I am doing, not anymore. You'll just have to imagine it."

He didn't know how to reply to that.

"Or..." Usagi teased. "I could make you watch. If you move back, just a little."

His brain shut down. Instead of coming back with a witty reply, or turning the situation around to make her desire to show herself to him, he just shifted backwards, giving her space.

Very slowly, her cheeks pinkening almost imperceptibly, Usagi turned on the bed towards him, opening her legs just a fraction. He caught a glimpse of her fingers caressing her nether lips over her yellow panties and he.... he drooled.

Usagi met his eyes and chained him with her gaze. "I can go on forever, Mamo-chan. If you want to undress me, I won't stop you."

He could resist, he had to resist. "No need."

"Really? Well... I can be very generous sometimes." She moved her hands to her hips, tucking her fingers under the elastic of her panties. By degrees, taking attention to savor every caress of the fabric on her body, she slid the garment down her thighs, over her knees, and finally over her calves. She took the panties off along with her socks, baring herself completely to him.

A heart attack was about to hit him.

Usagi wasn't embarrassed anymore. She was determined and powerful in her control of his desire.

Breathing softly, she opened her legs, allowing him to see the puffed pink, closed lips she was teasing.

Damn.

Torturing him, she didn't tuck her finger inside, searching for the inner lips.

She went lower, by not even an inch, and started to push just one knuckle into the moist red tunnel of her body.

Becoming as hard as iron, Mamoru scratched his palms to avoid reaching for her.

"I usually don't do this" she confessed.

She wanted to kill him.

No matter what she said, the caress was affecting her too. Her voice was strained, her eyebrows creased. "I'd rather... stimulate the little flesh nub above...

Have I ever told you? I've started to do that sometimes, when I'm at home, all alone."

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If he hadn't been superhuman, he would have died on the post - or jumped her, quite violently. But his resistance was indeed supernatural. "How much pleasure do you feel when you touch yourself?"

His eyes were her weak spot and he used them to seduce her.

"A lot" she murmured.

"More than when I'm the one touching you?"

She hadn't stopped the gentle thrusting of her finger. "It's... it's different.

With you, everything is a surprise and it's so wonderful, so intense, but I... when I'm in the mood, I just know what spot to hit and the right place to rub. It's fast and immediate and... it leaves me wanting for you, Mamoru."

If she continued, he wasn't going to let her go back home. Ever. "Show me."

She shook her head, stubbornly. "You are here. You can touch me."

"Is that a request?"

"No. It's a possibility, for you. Show me how much you want me, Mamochan. Don't you think of me in this state, when you are here all by yourself?"

Infinite times.

"Will you allow me to see what I do to you?"

He could show her. She was right, she didn't know how he gripped himself in one hand, clenching his teeth, throwing his head back. A little couldn't hurt. He pulled his pants out of the way, taking out his erection.

The way her face changed and her lips parted, her pupils completely dilated, nearly undid him.

She couldn't wet her lips like that while looking at him...

Her eyes met his and, as if she had all the time in the world, she resumed her ministrations between her legs, idly moving one knee back and forth, preparing to enjoy a long and satisfying sexual session.

He wouldn't last more than one minute.

She was admiring his whole, still clad, body. "Take off your clothes."

In thirty seconds he had complied - maybe behaving like a virgin schoolboy, but even he had his limits.

Shifting leisurely on the bed, Usagi smiled, still offering him an extraordinary view of her now engorged sex. "Whoever wins, this is going to be so beautiful, Mamo-chan." She closed her eyes, as if she didn't have the strength to keep them open. "I'm gonna come as never before."

That sentence proclaimed her the winner.

With a mind of its own, his hand found her nether lips and joined her moving finger, entering the furnace of her womb.

Her eyes flew open, staring at him, transfixed.

"Like this?" he asked, not caring about anything else, not anymore.

She gasped when he moved over her. Her arms surrounded his shoulders as soon as he bent down to capture her mouth with his own, going crazy for her just as she had predicted.

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"Like that!" she cried out, giving herself up to the penetration of his finger and the insistent rubbing of his palm, thrusting back in time. When she closed her legs around his hips, he would have given her all the green jackets ever produced in the world - just to convince her to never let go.

Drenching his hand in her pulsing orgasm had never been so mindblowing, so exquisitely satisfying. Him actually entering her body was - this time only - nearly an afterthought, a dessert after an already fulfilling meal.

Resting in the aftermath, so completely relaxed and overwhelmed by their sexual encounter that neither of them cared or searched for an embrace - Usagi spoke. "So..."

Mamoru dreaded the continuation.

"You touched me."

"You came first."

"Because you touched me. The rules were clear."

How could she insist? "Don't you have a heart?"

"I do and it's big. But I can be ruthless when I really cannot stand something."

Why, why his precious and well-loved jacket, reliable companion of his everyday life?

Usagi couldn't believe his reluctance. "It's not even the same jacket you wore long ago. It's a new one, just similar."

"It's so difficult to find colors that suit me..."

Her face lost any trace of amusement. "That shade of green and purple don't."

"They make me feel good!"

She sat up and loomed over him, full of understanding. "Those aren't the only colors that can do that for you, Mamo-chan."

"They coordinate with my mood when you are not with me."

He couldn't have said anything to surprise her more. "Really?"

Well, that was part of the explanation. He also felt like that purple and green showed adequately who he was - not a fashion icon, just some guy that needed clothes to avoid going naked in the street. Simple, reliable, understated clothes. Moreover, he was a creature of habit: he loved those colors merely because he had been using them for so long.

Usagi read his thoughts, or more probably his expression, and was moved.

Almost. "The jacket goes anyway."

He moped.

Usagi untangled his crossed arms. "We'll find something that makes you feel the same way, I promise. Maybe in a similar shade - but not too much. And you won't have to see Tsukushi accepting Domyoji's arrogance. Even if that makes you truly mean."

The situation called for a childish attitude he hadn't resorted to in years.

"You are meaner."

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Usagi kissed him on the lips. "Well, we are going to be mean together.

And cheer up: every time you'll miss your jacket, I will put on a show like the one you have just enjoyed, at your pleasure."

That lifted his mood considerably.

Usagi's smile was radiant. "Deal?"

He bathed his fingers in the cascade of one of her golden tails. "Deal."

Author’s Notes Woah! This is one of the very first fanfictions I conceived completely in English.

I've always hated - as many do - the traditional attire of Mamoru in the '90s anime.

I've mentioned Usagi's hate of the outfit very en passant in my Sailor Moon saga, in different stories, but the inspiration for this one shot came from two sources: a question by one of my long time readers, Carmen, that some days ago, while watching together Crystal - and criticizing Mamoru's horrible fashion sense even in this new anime - asked me if I had ever written something about Usagi's reaction to his clothes, since she didn't remember.

The second source of inspiration was FloraOne's fanfic Blind. At the beginning of the second chapter, she inserted an extremely witty remark of Usagi about Mamoru's clothes and that was it, the idea of this story took form in my mind.

About the Hana Yori Dango reference: I've actually read more the manga and I haven't seen the anime in years, but I think that would be Mamoru's reaction to Tsukasa Domyouji.

This story can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, but it contains references to other fanfics of my saga. In particular, when Usagi mentioned her first time making love to Mamoru... I am going to describe that in the fanfic ''Beyond the stars', which I am translating.

To end this long ramble... what would you have done in Usagi's place after Mamoru explained his love for the green jacket? Would you have let him keep it, or would you have been without pity, like her? :) You must know that in the canon of my saga, after Mamoru surrendered his jacket in Usagi's hands, she used it to lit a bonfire in Rei's backyard. The heat helped her cook some wonderful sweet potatoes. So cruel!

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Talking In Bed Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Overworked Usagi, Cunnilingus, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Adorable

by TNue

Usagi was sitting on the floor of her tiny living room, in her tiny apartment that she could barely afford, but she wanted to keep living next to her college and her job as an assistant to a new mangaka whose series started to gather some serious attention, even a rumor about a talk about making an anime of it was running around. Usagi loved her job, especially cause this would help her a lot achieving her dream of becoming a mangaka of her own.

So, for now, she would live on a tiny budget. Being an assistant didn't pay much and she refused her dad's financial help. He was already paying for her college (and he also chose her major, wanting his daughter to have a profession if being a mangaka didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work out, so now she was a happy student of Pharmaceutical sciences)

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Her life was hard, balancing studies and work was more complicated than she expected, but it was worth it. She had a good support group, her friends since middle school, who always tried to keep their Saturday free to gather together and have some fun.

And Usagi was trying to be happy. It was a hard life, but she was really trying. Oh, she was trying...

And one of her reasons why she was trying so hard was the simple fact she found the most adorable man to be her boyfriend.

Of course she never told him he was adorable, Mamoru liked to keep his brooding, serious and focused reputation and she wasn't gonna be the one to break his bubble. But he was indeed adorable. The way he always smiled when he put his eyes on her, his glasses, how serious he was about his studies, his sense of humor.

They knew each other for 2 years, during her senior year in high school, when she clumsily hit him in the head with her chemistry test. She was upset for getting a bad grade, that could compromise her deal with her dad.

They fought a lot during the first year of their relationship, but always a friendly banter. He helped her with her chemistry class, and she helped him study for his exams, since he was a freshman in med school.

Her friends always teased her about their relationship, but no, Usagi was adamant about her feelings for Mamoru. He was just a friend, just a study partner.

Just someone she could count during bad thunderstormsâ&#x20AC;Ś One day, they were studying at his place when a bad thunderstorm hit the city and Usagi HATED thunder. She was scared of it since she was a baby and it was the most terrible sound in the history of sounds.

Mamoru was able to calm her down, putting his long arms around her and whispering in her ear that she was safe, that he would protect her always.

Usagi didn't expect to kiss him that day. He later confided he wanted to kiss her for a long time and was gathering some courage to ask her out.

But how to do that to a friend? Mamoru was scared of asking Usagi out and her saying no, and being friends turning into something awkward. Usagi calmed his nerves by saying she would accept going on a date with him.

One year after that dreadful chemistry test, they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

Usagi finished a page of her first manga she was working on and stretched.

Drawing on the floor was hard and bad for her back, but it was what she could do at the moment. Mamoru offered his place for when she needed to work on her story, but she was a stubborn girl, wanted to prove she could handle it.

Her cellphone rang somewhere in the room. That always happens, she couldn't figure how she could lose everything in that tiny apartment.

"Hello? This is Tsukino Usagi" she always answered her phone like that since she started working, wanting to sound more professional.

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"Hello, this is Chiba Mamoru" was the answer she got. Her boyfriend and his sense of humor… how she couldn't not find him adorable?

"Mamo-chan! How are you? I miss you so much this week, I barely had time to sleep since our deadline is getting closer, and school was impossibly hard, all my teachers decided to make my life impossible, can you believe it?" She sighed and took a deep breath. "Can't wait to see you on Friday, I totally need some time off, to just be your girlfriend and have a nice date with my amazing boyfriend."

"Oh, that's great. The date part, I'm sorry about the other things…"

Mamoru hated the fact Usagi was always pushing herself so hard, she wanted to erase the goofball image she had since middle school and prove to everyone she could be a responsible adult.

"But your amazing boyfriend is waiting for you at the restaurant…"

"Wait, today is Friday?"

"Yeah. You said you were craving for some Korean food, so I made reservations at Sonsojae…"

"I lost track of time, I'm so sorry, Mamo-chan… give me 10 minutes to take a shower and I will meet you there!" She said, already jumping to choose an outfit.

How she could forget her date? Oh, Mamoru would be so mad, she knew how punctual he was and how he hated tardiness (and yet, he always forgave her).

"Usako, Usako, listen to me…" he told her, trying to calm her down. "It's okay, don't worry... I will order our food and meet you at your place, okay?"

Mamoru was the perfect boyfriend. And Usagi didn't feel like she deserved this incredible man…

"Okay, I will wait for you here…"

Usagi tried her best to make her home presentable before Mamoru got there. She needed to do her laundry, but couldn't find time for it. And least, her place wasn't that bad, so she just gathered her clothes and put her drawing materials away.

It was rare for Mamoru to go to her place.

She always said hanging out at his apartment was better, since he had more space and it was quieter than hers. Even knowing Mamoru never cared about that. He was just happy to be with her, no matter where…

He was indeed the perfect boyfriend. Adorable, beautiful, smart and hot.

The complete package. Her mother loved him, Ikuko already thought of Mamoru as her son in law. She even told Usagi once about a bride shop in Nogizaka that she HAPPENED to pass it by, even not having any business in that area…

Taking a deep breath, Usagi couldn't help but think why Mamoru was with her. Why that man, the perfect prince, was wasting his time with a bland, stupid, crybaby like her. She barely had time for him and he was the med student, he was supposed to be the busy one!

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Since they started dating, Usagi kept thinking why and how they were together.. She loved him, for sure, but she didn’t deserve him…

Tears fell down her face, and Usagi hated crying… She was always crying back in school and grown-ups didn't cry all the time like she did. How could she leave the old Usagi behind if she kept crying every time that things got harder? Her life would be way better if she just started to act like her age.

She was an adult, she was working for a brilliant mangaka and she was doing a good job at school. She was even working on her own manga. Her friends were great and her boyfriend was amazing…

Why was she feeling so miserable if she tried so hard to be happy?

"Usako?" Mamoru asked from the genkan, taking his shoes off. For his birthday, Usagi gave him a pair of black slippers with red roses embroidered on them and a copy of her keys. So he could make himself at home in her place. "I brought you bulgogi, I know how much you love it", he said, distracted with the bags of food. Luckily the restaurant was near her apartment, so he was there in no time.

When he looked at the girl crying in the middle of the room, he left the bags on the floor and ran to her, hugging her.

"Usako? What's happened?"

No answer, just sobs. He felt his shirt getting wet with her tears. Mamoru just stood there, with his crying girlfriend on his arms, not understanding at all what's going on.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" she said, stepping away from him. "I got you all wet for nothing, I'm sorry" Mamoru always felt like Usagi was trying too hard to do everything perfectly in her life. From the moment she made the deal with her father about college, to living by herself and working a lot of hours, and not giving up her dream, she wanted to bury her old image. And Usagi made time for her friends and for him. Always smiling, always keeping everyone's spirit high and being always there for them.

Cause that was what she did best. Being the best human being he knew.

He loved her so much and he felt so helpless…

"Usako… it's fine, really." He gave her a soft smile, kissing her forehead. "I bet you forgot to have lunch today, so we can eat first and then talk." He went back to the entrance to get the food bags. They sat down and ate in silence, Korean food was one of Usagi's favorites, but she was so lost in her thoughts, she was barely savoring her bulgogi.

After putting the trash away, Mamoru sat next to her, waiting for her to start talking. Even if she didn’t want to talk, he would be there for her, offering his total support.

"I… I just feel so tired. I feel like losing myself, Mamo-chan and… and I don’t know, I never thought it would be so hard to handle everything, school, work, my stories…"

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His heart broke in a million pieces… he was angry with himself for not noticing how his own girlfriend was feeling. But now wasn't the time to think of his feelings. It was time to take care of her.

"I feel lost…"

Mamoru caressed her cheek and smiled at her. His girlfriend was so amazing and she didn’t even realize that. Since they first met, he knew how strong she was and how impressive her willpower was. He wanted to help her find herself.

"Usako... you are so strong and I admire you so much." He held her small hands in his, feeling how calloused they were, from spending hours drawing and painting. "I know you think you have to make everyone happy, your family, your friends, me... And you know what? We can’t be happy if you're not."

Usagi sighed and looked down at their entangled hands.

"It’s just… complicated, you know? Juggling everything. I'm so tired… so so tired…"

Mamoru felt hopeless, so he brought her into his arms. He wanted to tell her everything would get better, but he didn't know how. She was a better adult than he was. He didn’t have to work for a living, his parents left him a good inheritance, so he could spent all his time focused on his studies. Mamoru was also doing what he loved, studying to be a doctor. Usagi was just studying what her dad wanted her to do. She didn't want to become a pharmacist. Her dream was making people smile and swoon with her stories and she was so good at it, her mind worked in mysterious ways. How someone so sweet like Usagi could create plots with insanely great twists, that could keep her readers entertained forever.

She deserved to live her dream. Like he was.

"Usako…. You're so sweet and incredible and I'm so in love with you.

Everyone around you loves you so much and they will always support you and anything you want to do." He kissed her cheek and got a tiny smile in return.

"I'm so sorry you feel like this, I didn't have a clue… " he sighed, this wasn't about him. This was about Usagi and making her feel better.

"Mamo-chan… just… just kiss me… your kisses always make me feel better."

Mamoru held her face and kissed her deeply. Her lips tasted like the sweet and sour meat they ate, and he loved it. He loved kissing her so much, Usagi tasted amazing every time. His girlfriend was an oasis and he was always thirsty. So he kissed her. Bringing her warm body close to his, feeling her heartbeat, so rapid.

Usagi was so scared and Mamoru could feel it. They always tuned to each other feelings, but now, he felt guilty for not knowing Usagi, his Usako, his first and one love, was struggling so hard.

Usagi pulled herself onto Mamoru's lap, straddling him, not breaking their kiss, keeping him impossibly closer to her. Mamoru rested his large hands on her ass, letting Usagi feel him hardening underneath her. She always felt so powerful when she felt his hardening cock, knowing how much he wanted her.

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Mamoru brought them to her bed easily, Usagi felt so light in his arms, she must have lost some weight… Their clothes left their bodies in no time and yeah, she was probably too busy and ended up skipping a few meals. He didn’t feel sorry for her, feeling sorry would mean he was pitying her and that was not the case. This amazing woman didn’t deserve anyone feeling sad for her.

She deserved the world.

Their sexual relationship was something new for them. Although they loved each other fiercely, neither of them felt ready to take that step. Their make-out sessions were passionate and intimate, but it wasn't the right time.

At least not until a few weeks ago, when they were studying at her place and a thunderstorm hit the city and they ended up in the middle of a blackout.

Usagi, afraid of thunder, took refuge in her boyfriend's arms. And that night, they surrendered to the passion that consumed them. It felt so right, like two pieces of a puzzle. It felt like magic, two souls becoming one.

Mamoru made his home between Usagi's legs, kissing every inch of the woman's delicious skin beneath him. Usagi moaned loudly and bit the pillow, the walls of her apartment were thin and she didn’t want her neighbors to hear her.

"Let me hear you, please. I want to know how good you're feeling under my touch, Usako" he said, his boyish smile convinced her to let go of the pillow and look at him. She loved as he moved down his body until he found the sacred treasure between her legs. Mamoru always tried to make his Usako feel as much pleasure as possible. He knew he had next to zero experience and sex was something they were learning together. he wanted to know all the points of his beloved's body, his desire of making Usagi coming undone under his fingers burned inside him.

Or under his tongue..

Mamoru got up and looked at the girlfriend's pussy, and ran his fingers over it, feeling how wet she was. He felt his stupid male pride running through his veins, knowing that he had done this to her… and he needed to taste her.

Mamoru licked her tentatively, since it was the first time he was doing it, kissing her delicate parts. Usagi was startled, not understanding what was happening, but when she felt the thirsty boy's soft tongue, she moaned so loudly, the girl was sure the entire city heard her.

And like he imagined, she tasted divine.

He licked her labia, she smelled so delicious, so addictive. His tongue ventured into her entrance, penetrating her slightly. Usagi was completely lost, opening her legs further, repeating over and over Mamoru's name. She didn't know what to do, the pleasure she was feeling was driving her crazy. Mamoru looked at her, feeling the girl's body tremble under him. And when he found her clit, Usagi screamed.

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Her hands went to his hair, her hips moved freely, and she was so dizzy, lost in the movements of the boy's tongue and lips. She felt her orgasm just around the corner.

"Mamo-chan…" her voice was so low, he barely could hear her.. "I'm gonna come… oh, God… gonna come on your mouth…"

Mamoru enveloped her clit with his lips and gently sucked it, determined to give his girl everything he could. And he was rewarded with her tight grip in his hair and her body shaking from pure pleasure.

He kept licking her, and she tapped his head, feeling sensitive. Mamoru took the hint and laid down next to her, his strong arms bringing her to his chest.

Usagi was breathless, her big blue eyes closed. Her mouth was dry from screaming, and she couldn't care less if anyone heard her.

"This couldn't be your first time doing this. It can't be, it's impossible… " she said, listening to his heartbeat. Usagi felt empty, like her soul had left her body.

"I did my research." was his lame excuse. Since they started their sexual relationship, Mamoru read everything about sex and female pleasure he could find. He wanted to make Usagi reach the stars and he was happy being able to do that. He kissed her sweaty forehead and snuggled her into his chest.

Usagi grabbed his face and kissed him, tasting herself. She felt his hard cock against her and smirked, reaching for it and gently caressing with her delicate hands, getting a struggled moan from him…

“I like how hard you feel.” Usagi confessed, hot and breathy into his ear, and Mamoru shuddered. “You’re so warm, too.... Want this inside me.”

Mamoru blushed, adorably. Like he always did when she was this forward when they were being intimate. She said once they never had to feel ashamed or shy of telling each other what they wanted, likes and dislikes. They were learning together and communication was the key.

"Usako… I won't last if you keep doing that…" Mamoru reminded her, breathless. She kissed his chest, licking his nipple, while gently pitching the other.

Mamoru had really sensitive nipples and she loved that.

She let him go and eagerly fumbled with her nightstand, taking a foil package and a bottle of lube. Even knowing she was getting wetter by the minute, they found lube was their best friend.

Mamoru took the package from her, even being each other’s firsts and Usagi being on the pill since she was 14 to help her with cramps, they were too young and too busy to start a family, so double protection it is.

Usagi propped herself up on an elbow to watch her boyfriend unrolling the condom on and lubing himself, his hands trembling. It was sweet how nervous he got every time he did this.

Adorable.

All covered up, Usagi laid back. He kissed her neck and pulled Usagi's hips closer, hitching her legs higher and reached down to line himself up. He pressed

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in, feeling Usagi's thighs quivering. Mamoru took a deep breath after a few nudges, ending up teasing her clit with his slick cock.

"Mamo-chan, look at me," Usagi held his face, looking deeply into his eyes.

"Slow down, there's no need to rush…" she kissed him again, feeling the tip pushing gently into her.

Mamoru broke the kiss, biting his lip. His body was so sensitive and screaming at him to thrust deeply into his girlfriend tight and gripping entrance, but he knew better. This was about her, everything was about her…

"Fuck..."

Usagi smiled, amazed by his expression, his gaze fixed on hers. Mamoru never swear, but Usagi loved when he did.

Slowly, he started thrusting into her, gently, checking if she was uncomfortable or in pain. And God, she was warm, so tight. And he was lost in paradise. Managing to fit all the way inside her, his hips glued to hers…

"Am I hurting you? Are you okay?" Always worried about her.

"Mamo-chan… I can feel you so deep..."

Mamoru choked out, it felt so good, he felt dizzy, blindly checking on her if it was okay for him to move… Mamoru leaned down to kiss Usagi, jostling his hips forward and receiving a startled cry, her hips rolling slowly, her hands on his hips, pulling him impossibly closer to her, encouraging him to move. His hips picked up, slowly at first, testing the waters, his thrusts deepened and Usagi cried out, again and again and again.

Mamoru was keeping his rhythm, in and out, feeling feverish, making his home inside her. It felt so good, so amazing… Usagi crossed her legs on his back, and searched blindly for her clit, furiously touching it, while clenched down, coming around his cock. Mamoru kept pumping into her, faster, deeper, harder, feeling her getting even tighter.

It was too much… Usagi opened her eyes, seeing her man groaning, his mind going completely blank.

"Usako…. I love you…" he said, as his cock emptied into the condom, hearing his own heartbeat so loud, all over the room. He melted against his girlfriend and she put her arms around him, both of them trying to catch their breaths.

After a while, Mamoru was able to pull out and remove the condom, tying it up and throwing it into the basket near the bed. He went back to his lover's embrace and they stayed in silence, just basking in the afterglow.

"I love you too, Mamo-chan."

The next morning, Usagi's alarm woke them up. They felt a little lost and confused at first, until she switched it off, groaning. She was supposed to sleep in on Saturday, but she had a lot of homework to catch up. She sat on her bed, sighing.

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She looked down at Mamoru, his delicious naked body covered with her stupid bunny blanket.

"I'm sorry I woke you... I just have a lot of work to do… I have been neglecting college these past few weeks…"

Usagi made a move to get up and Mamoru held her down, not letting her go.

"Mamo-chan, I'm serious, I need…"

"Move in with me." He interrupted her, wide awake now.

"Wait, what? Mamo-chan, this is something we need to sit down and talk through thoroughly." Usagi ended up back in bed, taking his hair off his beautiful eyes "And I gave this a lot of thought. I want to wake up to this every day. I want to come back to my apartment and see you there, your drawing materials all over the place. Or we can find another place for us, or I can move in here. " he said, so fast she could barely understand him.

"Mamo-chan, slow down."

"My point is, you're sacrificing so much… your burden is my burden too. If you have a problem, I have a problem. And I want to be there for you. Every step of the way." He took a deep breath before keep talking. "You're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Please, let me share that with you…"

"Mamo-chan…"

He sat on the bed, touching her face, she was so beautiful under the shy sunlight. "I love you, Usagi. And I want to share my life with you."

Mamoru wasn't really the talkative type, so she listened to him carefully.

"Is this a proposal?" she teased.

Mamoru blushed, like the cute boy he was.

"I want to marry you someday, so, maybe?" His boyish smile so bright.

See? Adorable...

Author’s Notes This piece was inspired by Smutember 2020, hosted by Floraone on tumblr. I always admire her work and I felt like participating this year… It's being while since I wrote MamoUsa (and smut, to be honest). Enjoy!

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Trapped Together Additional Tropes: Thank God We’re Alive Sex, Reunion Sex Contains: Cunnilingus, Fingering; Hair Pulling, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

August by crescentcompact

And I can see us twisted in bedsheets August sipped away like a bottle of wine 'Cause you were never mine

Usagi figured that she would eventually end up trapped somewhere with Tuxedo Mask. It was a hazard, really, of the superhero lifestyle. What she hadn’t counted on was that being trapped with Tuxedo Mask would end with her coming hard against his mouth as they waited for help to arrive.

Things had been peaceful for years. They’d (just barely, and at great personal cost) defeated the Dark Kingdom when she was 15, though they’d never found the elusive princess or the Silver Crystal that Luna kept going on about. They

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continued the search for years; Ami had even run simulation after simulation to no avail.

Eventually, searching had given way to high school exams and then high school graduation, and senshi meetings mainly consisted of gossip sessions at the Crown. Even those had become less frequent as everyone tried to establish their adult lives, and they thought that peace had settled over Tokyo.

They hadn’t seen Tuxedo Mask in years, either.

That all changed when strange monsters had started attacking several weeks ago. The senshi had been unwillingly pulled out of their peaceful retirement and back into battles with mysterious youma. At 19, Usagi felt like she’d been pulled back into a battle she’d never asked for or wanted.

The first time Sailor Moon saw Tuxedo Mask after all of these years, she’d forgotten how to breathe. Every lingering adolescent feeling she had about Tuxedo Mask came crashing back all at once. That momentary hesitation during battle had cost her a badly singed shoulder and an angry new scar before she’d managed to get out of the way.

The second time, she’d been a little more prepared. She dodged the youma’s attack with some amount of grace and even managed to save Tuxedo Mask from a hailstorm of explosive chocolates.

The third time, she’d been whisked to safety by one of Tux’s well-timed rescues. She’d been overcome by the scent of him and had buried her face in his chest, grazing her fingers along the lapels of his jacket and tugging without thinking. He’d given her a curious look before setting her safely onto the ground and running off.

After that, Tuxedo Mask hadn’t been shy about jumping in for the rescue, his touches a few inches lower and his gaze lasting a half second longer than strictly necessary each time. Every battle felt like an escalation of something just a bit out of Usagi’s reach.

It was driving her insane. And, frankly, it was wildly distracting, though nothing had come from their charged interactions besides a lot of lonely nights with her vibrator.

She’d been so convinced that she’d moved past her old schoolgirl crush, despite the fact that she’d never lasted more than a few dates with anyone else.

While they'd all been perfectly nice, and attainable, and didn’t need to save her from near-death experiences constantly, they’d also never quite measured up to intense heart palpitations she felt whenever Tuxedo Mask so much as looked at her.

Now, though, Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask had found themselves in the aftermath of a battle in one of Tokyo’s soon-to-be-torn-down buildings. Once again, they’d scraped out a narrow victory, but they had somehow managed to get stuck when Sailor Moon’s attack both finished off the youma and shifted the materials around them, trapping them inside the construction zone. And of course,

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she’d forgotten her communicator, which is why she had to fight without the other senshi to begin with.

The space is cramped and dirty, showing signs of neglect in every corner.

A small amount of light from the moon and the Tokyo skyline shines through a small window opening, barely illuminating the area. The summer heat makes the room feel particularly heady.

There’s barely space for the two of them to sit, though the low ceiling makes it impossible for Tuxedo Mask to stand at his full height. Giving up on finding a way out of their current predicament, he unhooks his cape and lays it down on the ground before taking a seat.

“It looks like they’re actively working on clearing out this area. There should be construction workers coming by in a few hours, and we’ll just have to wait until then.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”

Usagi is both deeply aware of their proximity and deeply aware this is the longest she’s ever spent alone with Tuxedo Mask without them hanging from a ledge in an elevator shaft. At least in the elevator shaft, they’d had the distraction of trying to not fall to their deaths. Now, all they had was time and years of unspoken questions.

They sit in uncomfortable silence for approximately ninety seconds before Usagi can’t take it any longer and starts to ask Tuxedo Mask about his favorite ice cream flavor.

Instead, he surprises her by asking a question first. “Sailor Moon… Why did you start fighting again? I thought you’d retired.”

She’s taken aback at the suddenness of the question as well as her own inability to answer. She didn’t understand why she’d been pulled back into this life either, though it seemed ‘destiny’ and ‘duty’ were the only answers she could ever get out of Luna.

As far as she was concerned, destiny could go fuck itself. Though perhaps that wouldn’t be the answer expected of Tokyo’s Favorite Heroine.

“I thought after we’d defeated the Dark Kingdom that it would be over, and that we could all live happy, normal lives. And it was, or at least I thought so… but I guess that was too much to hope for. It certainly wasn’t easy then, but I’m learning that moonlighting as a superhero isn’t any easier as an adult.” Sailor Moon smiles ruefully. “Why did you come back? No one has heard from Tuxedo Mask for years, either.”

Tuxedo Mask pauses thoughtfully. “I’m not sure, honestly. I’d given up on finding the princess years ago. I left the country for a year or so when things seemed quiet. But I kept having this feeling that I was still needed in Tokyo, as if I was being pulled by something I didn’t understand. I’d never gotten any of the

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answers I was looking for. And then when these new attacks started, I felt like this was the reason I’d come back.”

The air felt thick. Sailor Moon doesn’t have an answer in response. Instead, she notices the oozing scrape along Tuxedo Mask’s arm. Reaching out to investigate, she skims her fingers along the torn flesh. He winces when her touch gets too close to the wound, but doesn't back off from the increased proximity of their bodies.

“It’ll be okay by tomorrow. I heal much faster than normal people, and I can stitch it up myself later if I need to.” At her quizzical look, he continues. “I’m in medical school. It doesn’t leave much room for moonlighting either, but it comes in handy at times.”

Usagi doesn’t know how to respond. It’s the first personal fact that she’s ever learned about Tuxedo Mask, and it makes him seem much so more human than the fantastical figure she’d built him up to be in her head.

She settles for pressing a soft kiss near the damaged flesh, an apology for her uncharacteristic stoicism.

He looks at her with some kind of vulnerability she can’t place. He lowers his gaze before bringing his face near hers, his breath hot on her lips.

The kiss is chaste, all things considered. It isn’t even their first kiss, though it is the first kiss they’ve shared since they’d been unwittingly thrust back into the superhero life.

Usagi breaks away briefly, the air suddenly feeling very hot between them.

She flashes back to every frustrating night she’d spent fantasizing about this, bringing herself over the edge with her fingers while dreaming about what it would be like to press Tuxedo Mask against the wall and rip that damned mask away from his face.

Suddenly, she’s never wanted anything more than to see how far this could go.

She brings a gloved hand to the side of Tuxedo Mask’s neck, curling her fingers into the base of his hair and bringing him back down against her lips.

He responds with a groan, deepening their kiss and pulling her over his legs and onto his lap, the skirt of her fuku dangling over his legs and her knees digging in to the cape separating them from the dirty ground. He moves one hand to her thigh, teasing his gloved fingertips against the line where skirt fabric meets bare skin.

She responds in kind, grinding against him in a desperate bid for increased friction where she wants it, her breath coming in short bursts against her chest. Feeling bold, she breaks away from their kiss just long enough to shift her ministrations elsewhere, peppering kisses along his jawline before nibbling at his earlobe.

She takes it as a good sign when she hears him gasp, sucking air between his teeth.

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She takes it as a better sign when he finally breaks, and suddenly she’s a heady mess because his hands and his mouth are all over her at once.

“Does this thing…come off?” He claws at her fuku from various angles, desperately trying to find a way to touch more of her delicious skin underneath.

“I don’t think so? There’s not a zipper or anything as far as I can tell…”

Tuxedo Mask groans, tugging at the fabric. Finding no practical way to remove the offending garment, he moves one hand to the base of her head, knotting his fingers into her hair and pulling it to expose more of her neck. The other hand slides up her waist, ghosting her breast with his thumb, until it lands at her collar.

He tugs at the sailor collar of her fuku as far down her shoulder as it will go, his gaze stopping at the angry pink flesh of her latest battle scar.

Sailor Moon’s breath hitches, expecting him to wince at the unsightly marks across her shoulder. Instead, he slows his frantic pace to bend down and place a gentle kiss on the scar, mirroring her tender actions from earlier. He trails his lips up the side of her neck, pausing to give a gentle suck at her pulse point as his hand moved from her collar down to her thigh, grazing over the fabric. He takes a moment to nip behind her earlobe, then pulls back and, meeting her gaze, brings a gloved hand to his mouth, sliding the garment off finger-by-finger with his teeth.

She’s never seen anything more erotic.

Tuxedo Mask moves his further up her thigh, finally moving past the hem of her skirt. His fingers brush lightly against her crotch. She ruts up against his hand, wanting to be touched.

Their eyes meet, and she nods her encouragement.

He pulls the fabric of her crotch aside with his thumb and runs one finger up and down her slit, teasing at her entrance and feeling her wetness. Eventually, he slips one finger inside and curls, and she swears her eyes roll into the back of her head. Encouraged, he adds another, stroking up and against her front walls.

Usagi mewls as she digs her hands into the fabric of his jacket and grinds deeper onto his hand.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks they’ve done this before, though she doesn’t have time to dwell on that thought when the present feels so fucking good.

He pauses. “Sailor Moon… I want to taste you.” His eyes are wild and dark and pleading.

She pauses, briefly considering the both the implications of his words and the logistics of how to maneuver in such a cramped space. Deciding that oh fuck yes, that’s exactly what she wants, she nods and moves off his fingers.

Seeing no other practical way to grant him access, she stands on wobbly legs, unsteady from their awkward position and previous activities. He brings his one gloved hand to the back of her thigh to pull her closer to his face.

It’s uncomfortable and cramped; she doesn’t quite fit in the small space, and her legs are in an awkward crouch above Tuxedo Mask’s head. He pulls at one 344

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knee and brought it over his shoulder to give better access, then starts peppering kisses up the inside of her thigh.

Finally, he pulls the crotch of her fuku to the side, but he simply runs his thumb lightly around her clit, teasing her.

She wants to scream in frustration. She’s so strung out from his earlier ministrations that she can’t even fucking think, she just rut her hips forward, but he still won’t fucking move.

Finally, finally, he brings his mouth up to her slit and slides his tongue forward.

She thinks she can hear him moan while his face is buried between her legs, but she’s too strung out to focus on anything except how fucking good his tongue feels on her clit and his fingers feel inside of her.

He curls his fingers just so, and she gasps and pulls harder at his hair while she babbles incoherent nothings and her head rolls back and her legs feel progressively more and more like she can barely stand on her own, but moving away from his wicked, wicked tongue is most definitely not an option for her at this point.

This time, she definitely hears him moan into her. She’s never felt more fucking powerful (including that time she saved the fucking world, thankyouverymuch) or more turned on than she does when she looks down to see Tuxedo Mask whimpering into her cunt.

She digs her hands deeper into his hair, his top hat abandoned somewhere amidst the random construction equipment around their He takes her hair pulling as a sign to continue, and it’s not long before she’s bucking against his tongue, her vision going white as her orgasm overtakes her.

Her chest heaves as she comes down from her orgasm. His hand on her thigh steadies her while her legs go boneless, and she sinks back to the ground.

She notices that his chin is covered in the remnants of her, and that his smirk looks too much like the cat that caught the canary.

“That was… yeah. Thanks?” She’s not exactly sure what proper post oral etiquette is, but she thinks it probably involves some sort of acknowledgment and reciprocity. She moves forward to bring him in for another kiss, her hands moving to palm the bulge visible through his tuxedo pants.

He breaks away, grabbing her wrist to still her efforts. “Sailor Moon, is this really what you want? We don’t… I mean, I’m fine if you don’t want to…”

She blinks, pulled out of her post-orgasm haze. She brings her gaze up to meet his. “I’m sure, if you are.”

Tuxedo Mask hesitates for a moment, his normally-cerulean eyes darkened with arousal. “I don’t have a condom…” He looks strained and wild-eyed, like holding back is physically the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Right. Fuck. Protection. Like a responsible adult about to have what she hoped was mind-blowing sex with her schoolgirl fantasy crush in an abandoned building. She’s glad at least one of them was thinking clearly. “One sec, I think I 345

crescentcompact - August

do…” as she wills the items back into existence and pulls out a small bag with several condoms and a sample size packet of lubricant.

“You keep condoms and lube in your subspace pocket?”

She shrugs. “Sailor Venus insists that we all do? Something about the friction in your wallet being a bad place to store condoms. She thinks it’s her duty as the Senshi of Love and as the leader to ensure we’re always prepared for any situation, especially emergency sex. Or so she says.”

Tuxedo Mask chuckles and takes the foil packet, tearing the corner with his teeth. “Sailor Venus is correct on the storage part, at least. It can compromise them and lead to the condom breaking. Remind me to thank her sometime.” With that, he rolls the latex down his shaft, groaning at the touch.

It takes another two minutes of finagling for them to figure out a workable position in the cramped space. They settle on a seated position with her on top.

Then it takes another thirty seconds to pull the fuku to the side and get her in position. Finally, finally, she sinks down over his cock with a groan. She takes a moment to adjust to the feeling, unaccustomed to the sensation.

She hears him suck in his breath when she starts to move. Sees him tense beneath her as he pulls her hips forward against him. Tastes the sweat on his neck when she brings her lips to his pulse point.

It’s too much, and not enough, and the only thing she can focus on is feeling more. It’s not long until she’s back to the incoherent mumbling, because she’s nothing if not talkative, but this time she’s joined by Tuxedo Mask’s breathy gasps next to her and his fingers digging into her thigh.

He reaches between them, frantically finding her swollen clit through the fabric of her fuku. She grinds down harder and knots her hands deeper into his tuxedo jacket, desperate for release.

She hears his desperate groan against her hear as she moves against him.

She tenses, her orgasm building, while his fingers work their delicious magic against her clit. Her vision goes white when she comes against him; he follows soon after with a strangled, desperate moan.

It’s all over too quickly, but she’s so thoroughly fucked that she can’t bring herself to care.

Later, after they’ve awkwardly disentangled and fumbled around one another and forgotten how to make small talk like normal humans who just boned (as if they’d ever even had small talk to begin with), Tuxedo Mask pulls her back against him and gives her a chaste kiss that’s somehow more comforting than anything else he could have said.

She settles against him, nuzzling into his shoulder in the uncomfortable space. Eventually, they both nod off, content with their proximity and silence.

At least, that is, until the construction crew finds two sleeping superheroes among their pile of rubble the next morning. That one’s harder to explain.

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Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes The last time I tried to write fanfiction was more than 15 years ago. However, the world is a nightmare these days, and returning Sailor Moon has been a big comfort to me during Covidtimes.

I wanted this to feel somewhat like aged-up-adolescent-fantasy-come-to-life (and also breaking it, because fantasy never really works out) while emphasizing the sexual agency of both characters. I think a Usagi who never regained her memories or fought past Classic would be a very different character, as we as the audience only really see her character growth through her battles. Plus, we always need more costumed cunnilingus, so. Here we are.

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Trapped Together Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, In Public Contains: Alluding To Sex Ship: HaruMichi

The (almost) Quickie in Usagiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Room by ellephedre

"Where did Usagi go?"

Michiru was dragging Haruka along the corridor of the first floor of the Tsukino house. The ground floor had just filled up with people - the Three Lights, the Inners and now even a TV crew. Haruka and Michiru didn't strictly need to hide, but a) Michiru didn't want to be filmed on television, b) playing hide and seek was exciting.

Haruka gasped as they slipped through a door. "Odango went off with that Seiya!"

Michiru forced her into the room. "Do you want to lock yourself up with the three of them for the next half an hour?"

"Yes, if it stops him from molesting her!"

"Usagi had that little girl in her arms, I'm sure she'll take care of it."

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"You're too optimistic, darling."

"You are too worried about our princess's actions." Michiru slipped her hands under her jacket, brushing her waist. "I'm beginning to think I should be jealous."

Haruka's breath had shuddered at the feel of her hands. "Michi, what are you doing?"

"I don't know, what do you think?"

Haruka touched her lover's hips with her fingers. "It will never cease to amaze me how your mind works. There are about ten people downstairs, we are hiding in another person's house, and you..."

Michiru looked around, to identify the room in which they had trapped themselves. "It seems that we ended up in the princess' room. How sweet, look: a young girl's refuge."

They looked at the bedcover littered with pictures of bunnies, at the backpack that lay at the feet of a desk full of schoolbooks and at the line of stuffed animals that filled a shelf.

"Perhaps she is young, but I doubt these walls are innocent. If Mamoru has entered the room..."

"Its walls are immaculate precisely because he's been here. Do you think that our very virtuous prince would have done anything with his beloved under her parents' roof?"

Haruka's shoulder dropped. "That's so sad."

Michiru let out a giggle. "Come on, don't concentrate on Usagi's sex life.

How about you and I, in here...?"

Haruka pretended to be scandalized. "A quickie? Against the door?"

Michiru adhered to her body, looking for her soft lips with her mouth. "You and I. Be careful not to cry out."

Someone else screamed downstairs. A sense of danger spread through the air, striking their auras.

Haruka wanted to snap her fingers for the missed opportunity. "We need to tranform."

Michiru had taken a step back. "Yeah. Perfect timing, uh?"

Tell me about it. "I'll beat the monster up for you too."

Michiru unsheathed Neptune's pen, laughing. "Get in line."

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: Missing moment from episode 184, Stars/fifth season, translated from Italian. A short missing moment story about this fantastic couple. With it I am joining the #smutember challenge! The tropes included are #inpublic, #establishedrelationship and #trappedtogether. The sex is just alluded to, but Haruka and Michiru would have definitely gone all the way if they hand't been interrupted :P 351

Trapped Together Additional Tropes: Established Relationship, Caught In The Act Contains: Arguing, Quickie, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Intentionally Trapped

by Ninjette Twitch

Mamoru pulled into the parking garage of his apartment and into his designated spot. He turned off the car and just sat there, enjoying the silence. It had been one of those days. You know the kind. Where anything that could go wrong did go wrong.

He woke up late and had to rush to get to work, bypassing his usual coffee stop. He’d lost a patient first thing in the morning. The hospital had been busier than usual. Interns were asking him basic questions that they should have known the answers to. He’d realized that he’d forgotten to bring lunch, so he had to go to the cafeteria and buy it. But once he got all the way down there, he remembered his wallet, sitting on the bedside table where he’d left it beside a still snoozing Usako, when he’d rushed out the door. Another resident, who’d felt bad for him, brought him a coffee...then promptly spilled it on him. Scorching coffee in his lap.

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He’d jumped, dropping his phone, which landed on the hard hospital floor and shattered. Then, because of a last-minute emergency patient, he was coming home late.

No coffee. Hungry. Patients who didn’t make it. Interns who couldn’t look something up in a damn book! Busy. Phone dead.

He was tired and grumpy and completely over this day. He wanted to go home and relax, snuggle with Usako on the couch, and maybe watch a movie? He didn’t really care what they did. He just wanted to relax and go to bed.

He wanted this day to be over.

He climbed out of the car with a sigh, slamming the door shut behind him, and headed inside, up the elevator, and to his apartment. But when he unlocked and opened the door, he was greeted not with the sound of the TV going and Usako munching on the couch, getting crumbs in their cushions, but with silence and darkness.

He frowned, flipping the lights on, dropping his shoes off in the genkan, and heading into the living room. “Usako?” he called out, but nothing. No sound.

He walked to the bedroom, opening the door slowly. She wasn’t asleep. He looked around, confused, making his way back into the living room.

It was then he noticed a scrap of paper on the table, written in Usagi’s slightly scribbled handwriting, hearts and bunnies drawn all over the sides.

Mamo-chan!

You were late coming home. I hope everything is okay! I tried to call you, but your phone must be dead. I’m heading to Minako’s party. See you there!

Love you!

Mamoru read the note twice, frustration growing. No, his phone wasn’t dead. It’s broken. And Minako’s party? He remembered it now, but he hadn’t before.

His anger flared, which just made him angrier because he knew he had no reason to be upset. He’d known about the party. And of course Usagi would head over there if he came home late. They’d done that before when he’d had a late night and it never bothered him. Why was he so angry now?

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, sighing to himself. He just couldn’t get over this awful attitude he had. Maybe going to that party would help lighten his mood.

The drive over to Minako’s hadn’t helped one bit. He hit every red light and was almost hit once. He knew it was because his anger was causing him to be a little reckless, and he tried so hard to reign in his emotions.

He pulled into a space in the parking garage and headed into the building.

Sighing to himself, he entered the elevator and pushed the button that would bring him to Minako’s floor. The second the doors opened, his stomach dropped.

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He could hear the music from the blonde’s apartment coming all the way down the hall.

Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe the party wasn’t going to help lift his spirits.

He headed down the hallway, not bothering to knock on Minako’s door.

No one would have heard it over the loud music anyway. Instead, he let himself in.

He flinched, his senses assaulted by the blaring tunes pulsing loudly from the stereo system and the pungent smell of alcohol. He scanned the area, his eyes quickly falling on Usagi, and something flared in him. Was that jealousy?

Yup. It sure was. Because across the room, drink in her petite little manicured hand, a polite smile curved on her always kissable lips, was Usako, wearing white short shorts and a pretty pink flowy shirt with capped sleeves. She was talking to a guy he didn’t know, who was standing a little too close, laughing a little too much, staring at his Usako a little too hard. Mamoru gritted his teeth, even as Usagi caught his eye, her whole beautiful face lighting up as she flung her hand in the air, waving frantically as if she didn’t already have his complete attention.

He made his way through the crowd, his heart feeling a bit lighter the closer he got to her. But he still couldn’t shake the anger coursing through him at the sight of her with some random guy. The man’s smile dropped a bit when he saw him approach, and Mamoru couldn’t help but grin smugly.

“Mamo-chan!” Usagi chirped as he moved to her side. “There you are! I’ve been trying to text you all night!”

“My phone broke,” Mamoru muttered, bending slightly to kiss her on the cheek.

“Oh, no. I’m sorry!” Then she really looked at him, and she frowned. “Hey, are you okay?” She touched his bicep softly.

“I’m fine,” he said, and inwardly cringed because it came out rougher than he’d meant it to, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

Her frown deepened, but she accepted his answer, harsh as it was, and turned back to the man, who was still there, holding her hand out in introduction.

“Um, this is Itsuki, one of Minako’s friends from work. He’s studying to be a doctor, too.”

Itsuki tipped his cup toward him with a smile. “Great to finally meet you, Chiba-san. Usagi-san has been talking about you all night.” His voice sounded strained.

Mamoru glared, unwarranted anger flaring through his veins. “Oh, so you’ve been with her all night then?” he ground out accusingly.

Usagi’s brows furrowed as she turned completely towards him. “Okay, what is going on?”

Mamoru dragged his glare to her and took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair. “I said I’m fine. I’m just going to go home. Have fun with your new friend.”

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Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heels and pushed his way through the crowd, making his way out the door. He headed straight for the elevator and only had to wait a minute before the doors slid open and he stepped inside.

He sighed to himself, raking his hand over his face in frustration. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just be in a better mood? Usagi didn’t deserve the way he’d just treated her. He felt awful for it and would definitely owe her an apology later. He considered going back into the party to apologize now, but quickly put that thought aside. Clearly, he wasn’t in the right state of mind to be in there. He needed to go home, calm the hell down, and talk to her like the rational person he usually was when she came home later. He’d apologize, maybe make her favorite dessert, find some way to make up for his awful behaviour.

For right now, though, he needed to go home and get away from people.

With another sigh, he reached over, pushing the button to the lobby, then leaned back against the back wall of the elevator as the doors started to slide shut.

But his eyes widened as, at the last second, Usagi flew into the elevator with him, turning sideways to squeeze through the almost closed doors.

She turned her back to him, not saying anything right away, and waited until the elevator started its downward descent. As soon as it started moving, she reached over, pushed the emergency stop button, and the elevator came to a halt.

He frowned, confused, until she whipped around, blonde pigtails flying with her movements, eyes full of fire.

He swallowed, running his hand through his hair. Maybe now was a good time to apologize. “Usako, I-” “What the fuck is wrong with you, Mamo-chan?” she yelled, her jaw tight with anger and her eyes glaring into him.

He stopped, shocked by her outburst. Then his anger sparked again.

“There is nothing wrong with me,” he ground out. Even though he knew it was a lie, he couldn’t help it. How could he tell her what was wrong with him when he didn’t even know?

“Oh,” Usagi started, her hand raised in a sarcastic motion, “there is definitely something wrong with you. Why were you so rude to Itsuki back there?”

She pointed at the elevator doors as if the guy who’d been eyeing his girl was right on the other side.

“What, just because I don’t want to be friends with your new little boyfriend, I’m the bad guy?” He knew he was being ridiculous, that everything about this was stupid, but his bad mood just continued, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

“Boyfriend?” she screeched, her eyes bulging, and he flinched. “He was waiting for you! Minako told him about you being a doctor, and he wanted to pick your brain!”

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That’s when the anger soared. Because of course someone wanted to bug him about doctor stuff again. “Great!” he yelled, his control finally gone. “Because that’s what I’m good for, right? Answering medical questions all damn day?”

Usagi’s eyes widened. “Is that what this is about? Interns asking you questions? Did you have a bad day at work or something? Because that is not my fault!” she shrieked.

“I know it’s not your fault!” he raged, feeling his head start to spin. This night just kept getting worse.

“Then stop yelling at me!” she cried out, dropping her hands in frustration, her gorgeous blue eyes angry and lost at what was going on.

“I’m sorry! I don’t mean to yell at you!” Why could he just stop yelling and talk like normal?!

“Why are we even fighting?” she screeched, confusion and pain on her face. All he wanted was for this night to be over; to be home, relaxing, and not fighting with the person he loved more than anything.

“I don’t know!” he yelled, starting to deflate. He was so tired of being so angry all day. It was exhausting. “I’m sorry I’m yelling at you! I’ve had the worst day.

Nothing has gone right. And I’m taking it out on you, and I’m sorry!! I just can’t seem to-” And that was as far as he got because she came across the elevator, clutching the sides of his face in her tiny hands and pulling him into a bruising kiss.

He was surprised at first but quickly wrapped his arms around her tiny frame, pulling her tight against him and responding to her assaulting lips with equal fervor.

Her tongue trailed his bottom lip and he groaned, opening to give her access. Her hands moved to the back of his head, holding him to her as her fingers tangled in his hair. She nibbled on his bottom lip and his hands moved to her thighs, gripping tightly as he lifted her against him and pressed her to the wall. Her legs wrapped tight around his waist and she pulled him against her, grinding into his hips, and he couldn’t help the moan that erupted from his throat.

He brought a hand underneath her shirt, running his fingertips on her stomach on his way up to massage her breast, his thumb brushing over her bra covered nipple, causing it to harden. She whimpered into his mouth as he lightly squeezed and twisted. She bit his bottom lip and tightened her fingers in his hair as she thrust her hips into his again.

Then she dropped her legs, forcing herself to stand, and her hands went right to the button on her shorts. He followed her lead, unbuttoning his jeans as she pushed her shorts and panties off, throwing them to the side.

He’d barely gotten himself unzipped before she reached into his boxers and grasped him, her eyes fixed solely on him. He gasped as she clutched him, moving a hand to prop himself against the wall as her hand moved up and down.

Reaching down, he grasped her waist again, hauling her up against him and pushing her back against the wall, his lips capturing hers once again. Her legs 358

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twined themselves around his hips again and her arms around his neck as he lined himself against her wet center.

As one hand went held her up, the other dropped down, running a thumb over her clit, and she gasped into his mouth. His lips trailed down her neck as her head tilted back against the wall behind her.

“Mamo-chan,” she moaned loudly. “Move.”

It was all he needed to hear, and he thrust his hip forward, slamming himself deep inside her. She cried out, her nails digging into his shoulders, and he drew back out, thrusting in again hard, grunting against her shoulder.

As he started a steady, rough pace, her moans of his name in his ear encouraging him on, he knew this was what he needed. He could feel the anger of the day dissipating with every thrust, every moan from her lips, every clench of her muscles around him as he pumped in and out of her.

He knew he was getting close quick, and it had everything to do with the way she was moving her body with his, using the wall as leverage and her fingers clutching his hair to push her hips against his. He dropped his hand between them and rub furiously. He’d be damned if after being such an asshole to her, she still gave him sex and then didn’t come? He wasn’t going to allow that.

She was gasping, moaning nonsensical chants against his shoulder as he sped up, both thrusting and his fingers. And then she came, her whole body tightening around him as her head flew back against the wall, her eyes rolling back in her head as her nails scraped his scalp. The sight of her coming undone around him was always the most beautiful sight in the world, and it sent him surging over the edge with a few more well-placed thrusts inside her.

She sagged against him, her breathing harsh and broken in his ear, and he pulled her off the wall, turning them so his back was now against it and slid down to sit on the floor, her still in his lap. Neither spoke for a few minutes as they tried to catch their breaths.

He felt much calmer now; much more relaxed than he’d felt all day. As his head rested on the wall of the elevator, he realized how ridiculous and out of control he’d been all day. No one had deserved his attitude, especially not the girl currently snuggling her head against his chest. He licked his lips, feeling ashamed of himself as he ran his fingers through her hair.

“Usako,” he said softly, and she gave him a “hmm?” in response, not moving from her position on his chest. “I’m so sorry. I acted like an idiot. I took my frustration of today out on you, and you didn’t deserve that. I really am sorry.”

To his shock, she giggled a bit as she lifted her head to smile up at him.

“Honestly, Mamo-chan, it’s nice to see you have a little freak out from time to time.

You’re always so level-headed and perfect.” He rolled his eyes and smiled as she gently touched his cheek. “I’m sorry you had such a bad day, though. I hope this made it better?”

Mamoru laughed. “It definitely did.”

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“Good,” she giggled again, leaning over to place a kiss on the tip of his nose.

“Do you want to go back to the party?” he asked, remembering how poorly he had acted. “I owe your friend an apology, too.” He shouldn’t have been so rude to the guy, even if he had been eyeing his girl. Who could blame him? Mamoru still wasn’t even sure how he had landed such an amazing woman.

Usagi scrunched up her nose in an adorable fashion and vehemently shook her head. “Nah, I think we should go home. Let me make your day even better,” and she leaned over, placing soft, sensual kisses on his neck. “You can talk to Itsuki another day.”

He allowed his eyes to slide shut, enjoying the attention as her lips made their way back towards his mouth. “That sounds great,” he smirked, then reached up to hold her cheek, pulling her in for a soft, slow kiss. “Let’s go home.

“By the way, Mamo-chan,” Usagi pulled away with a sly grin, “did I see a little jealousy flare up when you saw me talking to another guy?”

Mamoru felt himself flush and shrugged. “Me? Jealous?” Then he smiled, unable to help but to confess. “It’s hard not to be jealous. Because I promise you, Usako, he may have wanted to talk to me, that that’s not why he was hanging around you at the party. Trust me.” He kissed her shoulder before looking her back in the eyes. “The way he was looking at you told me all I needed to know.”

Usagi smiled, attacking his lips with hers. “He can look all he wants,” she said between kisses. “You’re the only one who gets to touch.” He moaned in appreciation against her lips and she pulled away, pulling off of him and standing as he groaned in protest. She threw him a wink and grabbed her clothes, putting her panties and shorts back on and adjusting her shirt.

He stood, too, lumbering his way off the floor of the small, cramped elevator to shuffle himself back in his pants and straighten out his clothes into something somewhat proper. She gave him one more look to make sure he was ready, then pushed the button on the elevator wall, sending it back on it’s original descent down to the lobby. Then she moved beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist as his snaked around her shoulders.

When the doors finally opened, he frowned in confusion. There stood Minako, a smug, knowing smirk on her face. Beside her stood the maintenance man, grinning as he looked them over.

“Hey, guys,” Minako drawled, clearly hinting at something.

“Hey,” Usagi spoke first, sounding just as confused as he felt. “What’s going on?”

“Well what’s going on is someone went to leave the party. You know, the party? The rager I was throwing? That you just left? Without saying bye? Yeah, that one. Only, when they went to leave, the elevator mysteriously wouldn’t work. I couldn’t imagine why?” Minako said, feigning innocence. Mamoru felt himself pale and Usagi fidgeted beside him. “So, I called the maintenance man to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. And you’ll never believe it. Did you know 360

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there was a camera in the elevator?â&#x20AC;? She grinned, much more excited about this than he felt she needed to be.

Mamoru immediately felt sick. How had not thought of a camera in the elevator? Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been too in the moment; too caught up in everything that was Usagi.

Beside him, Usagi turned beet red, flushing as both hands moved to cover her face. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh my God,â&#x20AC;? she moaned in embarrassment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sadly, there was no sound,â&#x20AC;? Minako continued, tapping her finger thoughtfully on her chin, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but I imagine thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what you said in there,â&#x20AC;? she pointed to inside the elevator. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Minako!â&#x20AC;? Usagi screeched in admonishment. Mamoru thought he might pass out, his head spinning as the maintenance man gave him a thumbs up. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Or screamed, rather,â&#x20AC;? Minako added, completely ignoring them as if they werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t there. Mamoru couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take anymore and grabbed Usagiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand, pulling them both out of the elevator and around Minako and the maintenance man.

Minako grabbed his bicep, halting him as he tried to brush by her, and leaned in with a grin on her face. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nice moves, Tuxy,â&#x20AC;? she said softly with a wink.

If it was possible to get any redder than he already was, he did. He didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t respond as he dragged Usagi through the building and out the front door, missing the wink she threw at her nosy best friend at the last second.

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes I need to point out something in this story. Mamoru is an ass. BUT we all know we have all had those days where nothing has gone right, everything messes up, and you are just in an ill mood all day. We all go through those days, especially here lately with this pandemic happening. I wanted to showcase that side of him because we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get to see it very often.

So, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get too upset with him being a dick. I think he makes up for it in the end. đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x2030; Thank you, as always, to my best friend and beta, Beej88. She only got to work on about half of this because her adulting lately has come in like a whirlwind and taken up all of her time. But she is forever my cheerleader and I love her! You guys, send her some love on tumblr. I know she would be eternally grateful for the boost of support and happiness right now!

What did you guys think? Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hate me for Mamoru being a jackass. We all know he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean it. It happens sometimes. Reviews are love!

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Unresolved Sexual Tension by Nari20 Artist’s Notes: Inspired by ‘The Heatwave’ by Rei0ki The theme I chose for Week1 is Unresolved Sexual Tension! And if you know you know, but it's my take on the milkshake pic.

(Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about photography!! Sorry if the numbers doesn't seem right, I have no idea what it means tbh.)

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Unresolved Sexual Tension Additional Tropes: Pining, Go Seduce My Archnemesis Contains: Misunderstanding, Friends-With-Benefits, Oral Sex(both), Fingering, Penis-InVagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Stay

by Queen Risa

Usagi was by no means planning to ever get caught in this type ofâ&#x20AC;Ś.. arrangement.

Especially with him.

And yet, here she was.

She sighed, giving her eyes a rest after staring mindlessly at the one phone number she had pulled up on her phone, fighting that familiar, internal debate that had plagued her since this started.

Once again, she was asking herself if she really wanted to do this again. If she wanted to dig the hole deeper than it already was. Of course, she knew who she was. Indulgent, impulsive, reason was out the door for her most of the time.

There were no complications, she had to remember that. No one was getting hurt.

They both knew that.

She did what she ended up doing so many times before.

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She tapped on her screen and the ringing began.

Every single part of her body tightened up when the call connected and his deep voice rang through her ear.

"Hey," she squeaked.

"Oh hey," he greeted. "How are you?"

"I'mâ&#x20AC;Ś good," she said, rolling her eyes at the small talk.

Say it. Ask him. She just had to ask him, it wasn't like it was the first time (the first time had been a disaster). "What are you doing right now?"

"Not much," he casually answered.

She swallowed. "What about tonight?"

He paused, and she knew that's when it clicked for him. "Completely free."

She bit her lip, hard. "Oh." "What are you doing?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Oh." Her heart started to pound. "Yea." It was silent on both their ends for a while before she finally got the courage. "Do you want to come overâ&#x20AC;Ś?"

That stupid, stupid party started all of this. Freaking Motoki was the cause, he always was because he was their only connection to each other. The only reason why they ever saw each other nowadays.

And his stupid, stupid birthday party just had to bring them together.

She had found that hotel's fancy bar, and settled in a seat with her overly fruity drink, while the dulled laughter and music from the ballroom continued to reach her ears. Originally, she was only resting her feet for a few minutes, taking a breather before going back. But that was before he'd settled in the stool next to hers and her fingers had tightened around her glass.

It was the usual. The jokes and teases here and there, nothing pressing. But every time she would find his eyes, they would be dark, swimming, and always looking at her until she was looking at him, and suddenly he would try to avert his gaze.

It started happening without either of them knowing.

It was two drinks, and it wasn't even hard liquor. He probably had less.

Their accidental, innocent heated gazes. Deciding to take a cab ride together. His suggestion to walk her upstairs. The tense trip to her apartment that felt like forever until finally she was there with the keys in her hand. He had shuffled awkwardly, unsure of what to do when she stepped inside. Half-turned towards the door, ready to leave her alone, and it pulled in her heart because she didn't want him to leave yet.

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She had pulled on his jacket sleeve, met his confused eyes too far away, and then the faint smell of alcohol was suddenly puffing up against her lips, and she realized it was the closest she'd ever been to his face.

It was an instant switch in her brain when she pulled on his tie and their lips touched. Her tongue swept into his mouth, and she finally found out how he tasted - fresh, warm, and melting against her.

She wasn't entirely clear on how it ended up going so far - kissing freaking Chiba Mamoru, pushing Chiba Mamoru onto her silly tattered, purple comforter.

Maybe it was their - what does Minako call it? - unresolved sexual tension from years of bantering.

All she knew was that she was the one that was tearing, pulling, grabbing, and he was giving back in equal.

It was Mamoru - stupid, judgemental, up-tight, rude Mamoru-baka, and it was annoying how impossible it was to shake off the affect he had on her.

And for once, she wanted to give into that effect, blissfully ignorant of all the truths that she knew so well.

That this wasn't going to lead anywhere, it was just sex. It wasn't like they would actually be good together, that he would actually like her -want her in that way.

And the way each truth burned in her heart made her realize how stupid she really was.

Mamoru had always been unattainable. Never open, always too stoic, too sarcastic, too unreadable, and she wanted to be able to see every emotion reflected in him, to be the cause of those feelings, to affect him as much as he affected her, and to know that once upon a time for a night, he wanted her just as much as she wanted him and he was completely hers.

In those late hours of that night, she heard his every whisper vibrate through her ear, the ghost of his trembling, sometimes smiling lips against her neck, the taste of him everywhere in her mouth and her throat, his smooth, hard skin under the pads of her fingers. It all fueled her to forget about the complications of the morning light that would inevitably ruin everything magical and turn it real.

It was that night that the flood gates opened.

And she drowned so willingly with him.

"May-maybe," he had muttered in her mouth that one magical weird night of insanity, "I should leave."

She was finally able to pull off her jacket, hearing it land on her living room floor along with her purse, all while keeping her mouth firmly on his. "Why?" Her fingers clawed into his hair, her nails raking against his scalp and she never felt so satisfied when he shook in a full body shudder at her actions and had 368

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to muffle his sounds into her neck as he bumped into her desk, making one of her camera tripods clatter to the floor.

"You hate me, remember," he breathed out hard against her ear.

His words made her falter then, her movements across his skin less bold, softer and more questioning. "I don't…."

He was right.

They were supposed to hate each other, that's how it always was between them. And yet she could never remember a single time where she had truly hated him. Annoyed and pissed, sure, many times over, but never was there a moment where she despised him so much that she wouldn't care if he lived or died or wished the worst upon him. That was true hate.

What she felt was the exact opposite. She cared way too much, far too much to the point where it was past being a friend, much less a nemesis.

"I've never hated you," she confessed.

His sharp intake of breath was what she needed to finally push him onto her bed, watching as he bounced back against the mattress a little. Pressing her knees into the bed around his legs as her dress rode up her thighs, her fingers barely worked to get his shirt buttons undone. "You were annoying, stuck up—" His hands shot up to help her, reaching for the last of the buttons at the bottom. "So frustrating, such a complete nerd—" her amused voice carried on.

And her voice broke when she spread her hands against the expense of his hard, board exposed chest, that little stream of hair running from his navel and disappearing past his waistband. "And totally hot and sexy…."

He threw his head back and fisted her old purple comforter that was underneath him as she ran her fingers over his nipples, then his ever-so-slightly defined abs, and stopped to dig them into his hips. "You make it so unfair sometimes," she admitted, totally fixated on his skin, not glancing up to see his smirk.

Although she whined when suddenly her view was gone, she gasped as he sat up and pressed her against him. Clumsily, he found the zipper of her dress and hastily tugged it down. He pushed his cold hands in, feeling all naked skin, and Usagi had never been more happy about her decision to go braless for the dress.

"You're one to talk about being unfair," he whispered into her collarbone, fingers tracing her spine and the skin of her bare back as her thin dress straps slipped free off her shoulders, and she firmly held his head to her lest he ever get the idea to stop touching her.

"What are you talking about?" she hissed, moving her hips against his pant leg, enjoying the fiction through her underwear.

"And you're oblivious," he laughed.

But his touches grew slower until they stopped completely on the small of her back. "I can still go…"

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She froze again against him. "I can still leave if you don't want to, I can go whenever you want me to, justâ&#x20AC;Ś." he whispered, a tinge of sadness weaving weighing down his voice.

What was she supposed to say? That her deepest fantasies since she was 16 were about to come true, that she'd dreamed about this forever in the dark of her teenage bedroom. How was she supposed to say that and not sound ridiculous and pathetic.

She knew she wanted this. It was too many years of her always denying that she wanted this to happen with him just at least once. To see him unravel because of her, to have the image of him panting underneath her, totally at her mercy, burned in her mind, the taste of him stained in her mouth, every single thing she craved to have right there.

"I want this," she stated, firm, confident, but completely breathless as she pushed back against him to get him to lay down, and her dress almost fell completely from her body. "I really, really want this."

In only her deepest dreams could she have imagined the sight of him beneath her. Panting, dark eyes looking at her like he couldn't believe she was real, like she was everything he had dreamed of even with her tangled, dismantled hair and smudged makeup.

"Do you?" she questioned, nervous.

Deep blue, vulnerable eyes looked into hers, a mix of emotions flashing past that she was too scared to understand at the time. His hand cupped her face and ran down, popping her bottom lip open as he craned his neck and pressed his lips against hers, a kiss that was in so many ways deeper, slower, more intentional than their fast, hard ones just before. His index finger pushed her chin back just an inch as his hands joined her frozen ones on his belt, helping to unlatch the buckle.

"Yes." At the word, and after he whipped off his belt, she ripped open the button on his fancy dress pants, and she kept her eyes only on his face as her hand slipped past all the cloth and touched smooth, hard, pulsing skin.

The first few times it had happened, it was filled with new touches, new sounds, new patches of skin never seen, and so much uncertainty for when it would be over. Because it had already been over and her fears were realized.

That first night they had come down to a rocky conclusion at nearly 4 a.m. in the morning, tangled in her sky blue bed sheets and purple comforter. It had been awkward and embarrassing, and he had only told her that it had been a great night, settling on an unspoken agreement that that was it.

It had been only a great, fun night. Nothing had started, nothing could grow from it.

He had left it like that, and she didn't stop him.

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She told him that he should leave then, and it was too soon when he had his rumpled suit back in place and was out the door.

The next day, Usagi had spent realizing how horribly she had screwed up.

He was right there, bare skin touching hers, smell imprinted on her sheets, black messy hair against her pillow, and she'd lost him.

She didn't want to lose him, she wanted more. But it had been obvious that he didn't after that night, and maybe that was what it had to be. Just a fun time between them.

But if it really was only a fun time they could have, she thought, why couldn't there be more?

And that thought had been her downfall.

It was after her photography session with one of Minako's friends. The girl had needed new modeling photos and Minako was more than happy to set her up with Usagi. It had been an amazing opportunity to finally use her equipment and start building experience and a portfolio for customers, and Usagi had been more than enthusiastic during the whole thing while taking the girls' photos around scenic spots in Tokyo and Juban.

She had been until she caught a new subject in one of the pictures.

Mamoru, still in his scrubs and a jacket, was walking down the sidewalk, totally oblivious to the fact that he was in the background of a photoshoot. Totally oblivious to the fact that she was taking his picture.

It all came whooshing back, their night together. It filled her up and made her feel even more empty at the same time. Minako's friend had asked if she was alright and Usagi had waved it off, continuing the shoot but not before watching him until he rounded the corner and she could comprehend her surroundings again.

Later into the night, she scanned the pictures she took, spotting him in all of them until he disappeared out of the frame.

And the thought rang in her head again, louder, that if it really was just a fun time, they could have it happen again.

She dialed his number before her mind could overpower her heart and stop her. Stuttering, red to her roots explaining why she was calling, until finally she got the message across to him and then he started stuttering.

That first time asking him, she didn't actually think he would show up, ready and so very willing.

Let alone that he'd arrive within 15 minutes and had her full, hot, and panting in her bed soon after. And then it happened again two nights later and then again a night after that or another time nearly a week later, and it had been so good and neededâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; She fooled herself into thinking each time was their last, but eventually, she knew it could never be the last time, when she finally put his cell phone number into her favorites.

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It was a phone call or a text from her and he would come running after his shift or straight from his apartment to her own little studio apartment across town that she called home after moving out of Makoto's place. It was always her place, their own little space where their voices and memories could echo and bounce but never escape past the walls to the real world.

Soon, a blush followed her everywhere in her small apartment because every single part of her living space held an explicit memory for her. Her bedroom obviously, but the couch, the floor near her genkan - they hadn't made it far that time - her kitchen ("Mamoru this is my kitchen!" "Do you even cook in here?"), her shower. Memories where he had her absolutely begging him to fuck her sometimes or screaming at him to make her come hard, when he so desperately needed her to say his name, and explain to him everything she wanted him to do to her and vise versa, what she wanted to do to him.

Then it was all his extra touches on things. How he always smelled freshly clean from the shower. The soft, tender way he pushed her hair away from her face, or how he'd get up afterwards to grab a towel and gently clean her first and then himself. That look he thought she would miss when he looked at her like she was all he needed. The unnecessary kisses he drew over her skin that she loved. How he always told her how perfect she was, how wonderful, how good she wasâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; It all confused her to no end, honestly. These things that made her think one thing - that he actually wanted her, wanted to take her out, be with her - but then it was the fact that he never brought it up if he did want her or if it was all just heat of the moment when he was inside of her, or her hand on him. That's what scared her enough to never ever ask him to stay. Not after that night where she told him to leave.

She got to keep him for a few blissful hours of ecstasy, but her mornings were always empty and the worst part of her day for another reason other than the loss of sleep.

Because he always left, never staying with her until morning.

It was somehow a part of their silent agreement, she guessed, because if he stayed, then it would mean something for them and they would have to talk about it.

At least, that was her own understanding of it, she never ever actually talked about it with him. They never talked about what they really were (they REALLY sucked at talking about stuff) and Usagi could only assume most of the aspects of their relationship - should she even call it a relationship?

He left though, every single time, and that clearly showed something. He didn't want to stay with her, didn't want her any further than what they have established. After all, if he wanted more, wouldn't he at least try to spend more time with her? Why wouldn't he askâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; He always left.

In the middle of the night or in the early morning. He would leave way before she would wake up.

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It's what stayed with her the most, him leaving before their mornings. It reminded her that what they had was nothing but temporary. It reminded her that he was never really hers.

It's what she needed because she had to remember that there was no way that their little fling could blossom any further than what they had now. She might have never hated him, but that didn't mean he had to like her.

She never fully realized how down the hole she was when those little reassuring comments in her head were quieter, and the little thumping in her heart grew louder instead.

But Minako had been in far more complicated relationships than this, so she of all people would be fine? It wasn't as if there were any actual strong romantic feelings involved, because at most she just had a crush on him, so no one should get hurt. They didn't go on dates, didn't talk about anything regarding their situation, no one knew of their nights together (even if Minako had been able to string out a few details from her). She knew what she was getting into.

That's how these things usually worked though, right? No messy hidden feelings, no strings attached, it was just sex. Easy to understand and quit and move on from. Just sex.

Really hot, orgasmic sex.

But sex, neverthless.

But all she wanted to know was if he even liked her when his cock wasn't inside of her.

It was practically routine after so many weeks, and she could hardly pinpoint how it always started, besides the routine of her buzzing him into her building, the anxious anticipation of when he arrived at her door, then the hasty untying of his shoes and finally her mouth on his before a single "Hi" could be uttered.

And it spiraled from there. Bumping into pieces of furniture, dropping one of their shirts on the floor, their other articles of clothing following soon after until not one single inch of skin was hidden from each other.

The build-up was the most intoxicating and frustrating thing for her.

Sometimes it was done by his fingers, or blind, desperate grinding, or, like right now, his mouth, his tongue, his teethâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; "Don't st-stop," she gasped as soon as his tongue swirled along her clit. He slung her legs higher on his shoulders and sucked her even harder as she cried out.

He wandered then, teasing down her seam instead, keeping her up but never letting her come just yet.

It was strangely impressive how he was even more infuriating in times like these than when they were out in public.

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Her breath did weird things then when it was suddenly one of his long fingers tracing down the length of her and spreading her lips apart for his eyes and making her shudder all over.

"You're so wet," he whispered.

She bucked her hips against his fingers. "Please….."

His fingers continued to tease, never touching but circling the edge of her swollen skin. "What do you want?"

She hit her head against the bed. "Please…."

"Tell me," he said, his hot breath puffing, waiting for her.

"I-I want your fingers-your tongue inside of me," she breathed out heavy. "I want to see you fuck me with your mouth …"

Usagi gasped as suddenly, the lower half of her body was in midair, thighs locked around his shoulders and his hands gripping her legs as he raised her hips to his mouth and bent her legs, burying his tongue and teeth into her and she lost all of her words.

"No," he growled into her as she popped her eyes back open. "Watch."

And she did, bracing herself on her forearms and elbows because now she could watch him eat her out, see when his lips wrapped around her dark, swollen clit, how his tongue lapped at her and into her as if he was starving and needed to dip into her and taste to live.

It pooled inside of her, made her even wetter with his fingers circling her entrance and slipping in a few times to tease her and she started to not even recognize the sounds coming from her mouth.

She came hard with a sharp grunt, eyes bright and wide, shaking against his mouth and he rode it out for her with his lips on her clit and two fingers slipping slowly in and out of her until she was done, and cleaned her up after with his tongue.

Her legs slipped down from his hold and she dropped onto the mattress.

Watching with ragged breath and her heartbeat in her throat, he licked his lips, her wetness shining on them and dripping down his chin.

The possessive pull of seeing her mark on him made her legs wrap around his hips - to make him fall on her, fall against her lips so that she could savor what he had been tasting.

One of these nights, Usagi was finally roused awake. She didn't know if it was the shifting of the bed or the pull of the sheets, but her eyelashes fluttered against her skin and she could see the dark silhouette of his body sitting up and watched his flexing back as he picked up his clothing from the floor.

Sleepy and dazed, she scooted closer and leaned in, startling him when her lips first met the small of his back and her hands ran up the sides of his thighs, her tongue lightly tracing the falls and rises of his muscles along his back and then traced the roundness of his butt when he stood up fully from the bed.

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She rose up, on her knees on the bed, almost to his height, and found that pulsing point on his neck with her mouth and bit down and sucked. He shook hard and almost fell back against her but still stood even when her hands had traveled down and kneaded into his buttcheeks.

"Does that feel good?" she whispered into his ear as he rocked slightly against her lips and hands.

He snorted a little, voice breathy. "Too good."

'Stay, please stay.' Her heart sang the words and all she had to do was tell him so he might.

But only if he even wanted to, and she didn't know if he did.

He still reluctantly walked away, picking up his clothes along with his keys, phoneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; 'Just please, stay.' Her heartbeat was beating in weird places.

She could see it was kind of awkward but hot for him, her kneeling on the bed naked, staring at him as he got dressed. When he did finish, he stood there, eyes bleary and weird, like he was thinking about something and he almost did speak, his mouth opening butâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Their gazes met and he turned all panicked, unsure. He closed his mouth, swallowing down whatever words he had been planning. And then he just stared at her, waiting for something she wasn't sure of.

Inside her chest, in her heart, it was tight, longing, wanting.

She wanted him to fucking stay.

To be with her in the light of day and stay in bed all morning, take a shower together and have a bantering war over breakfast in the kitchen, to pretend this was a regular, normal day for them both because they were.

She wanted him to stay.

The words were stuck in her throat and they stayed there up until all she could do was say it to an empty apartment.

His voice had been shaky and beyond horny their first night together. "Youyou don't have toâ&#x20AC;Ś" Usagi took the second to look down at him for the first time, running a finger down the hardened flesh and enjoying the reaction she got of his broken moan and him biting his lip hard.

"Oh trust me," she breathed, wrapping her hand completely around him. "I want to do this."

She tried different things, watching him intensely as she held him and fast pumped at first, but his hand had caught hers and slowed down the pace, having her rub where it felt good for him. His fingers moved her thumb over his tip and he absolutely fell apart. She took over from there, switching the speed, tracing pink,

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shaking veins, circling her thumb into his tip, pushing the skin back and digging it carefully against the tiny slit.

"I want to hear everything that I'm doing to you," she said after she saw him try to muffle his cries.

Watching one particular vein, she dipped her head down and ran her tongue from the base all the way to his wet tip and his answering cry was so pained and frantic. She wanted to hear it again and again, how turned on he was, how many noises she could get from him, make him wither just by her touch.

She wanted to hear that it was only her that was causing him to react this way.

"Say my name," she said, smiling at how his face twisted under the tortured sound of his groan.

He'd almost never said her name, always calling her "Odango Atama" or some other idiotic nickname instead. She could count on one hand the number of times he'd said her name and she would love to hear him say it, beg with it, moan it, repeat it over and over until it didn't sound like a word anymore.

His eyes were losing all focus, completely glazed over, so she slowed down her strokes to a stop. That got him to raise his head and throw her the most frantic, wild look she had ever seen in his eyes.

"Say my name," she repeated, breaths against his face.

"W-what?"

She moved her mouth to the side, kissing the skin below his ear. "My name."

A weary smirk happened. "Odango Atama."

She huffed, leaning back with a small pout on her lips as her hands moved away from his waist completely.

"Wait, waitâ&#x20AC;Ś" he pleaded, breathless and panicked. He shut his eyes and breathed hard, trying to regain some control of his brain functions.

"Usagi," he whispered. It rolled out so well with his deep voice and her name had never sounded better.

She pulled his pants the rest of the way down his legs, barely hanging on by his ankles before she snapped the elastic band of his boxer briefs against his skin and he hissed. "Again."

There was no hesitation this time. "Usagi."

Grinning, her hands didn't return to his body but rather hers. She shifted and pushed the rest of her dress down her body, past her chest, her hips, and then finally in a pool of pink and satin on the floor, her heels and panties the only things that were covering her. His dark, heavy eyes traveled down her body and his look made her want to burst into flames. "Again," she breathed out.

Her hands wrapped around him but didn't move as she breathed out, "Again."

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"Usagi." This time it was broken up as she started moving her fingers along the firm, smooth skin, brushing across raised and vulnerable veins that seemed to twitch and tremble with his ragged breathing.

She sat up, fully straddling his shaking thighs, and sped up her movements. "Don't stop saying it."

He nodded dumbly, hips rising off the bed in rhythm with her hands. Her eyes couldn't look anywhere but his perfect face, twisting in pleasure, eyes switching between being scrunched closed or rolling back in his head, and his white teeth biting down on his lip. She ran her thumb over his tip like he had done before, eliciting the most broken moan from his throat.

Again and again and again he stuttered out her name in gasps, moans, whispers.

He kept saying it and made sure to never stop saying.

A breathless mantra, even when she leaned down, and her lips met the tip of him and slowly slid down him little by little, licking down his dick. He was hard, thick, shaking in her mouth, and she moved carefully, swirling her tongue around him and watched him with intense eyes as his mouth dropped open. He jerked back his hips and pressed them down hard against the mattress, trying so hard to keep them still.

He stuttered hard, hands entangled in her undone hair, tugging on her streams of hair, his mind clearly spiraling out of control with pleasure, but he never stopped. Didn't stop when he was so close and told her. Didn't stop when he came in her mouth and kept gasping her name.

He never stopped saying her name for the rest of the night.

It was such a idiotic idea but if Usagi had realized anything, it was that she would never stop coming up with them.

"Do you want to come over and like...watch this new movie I got?" It was ridiculous that this was embarrassing for her to ask when she has literally called for him to come over to fuck her. "Just to hang out?"

"Sure," a hint of confusion laced his voice over the phone, which didn't surprise her.

"It's just to hang out though," she added, emphasizing on the 'just'. "If that's okay?"

It was like he came alive then. "Oh yes that's definitely, completely fine. I would love-like to come by."

"Oh, okay great," she breathed out.

Her nerves were all over the place after they hung up after settling on a time, and it continued to widen further when her intercom finally rang with his arrival.

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It was a new….pace. Not bad, but very awkward with him wearing his regular street clothes, sweater and jeans, while she had donned her most frilly, pink pajamas like an idiot. The unsure movements, clearing of throats, and nervous glances as he slipped off his shoes near the door had her regretting everything, ready to send him home and find her own solace in curling up alone in bed.

They ended up on the couch and a friendly distance away after she popped in the DVD and pressed play. Conversation was nonexistent, and Usagi started to wonder if they could even work together without one of them being naked. What if it was just superficial, silly sexual tension?

"Here," she said, passing him a bright blue mug full of hot cocoa.

"Thank you."

Sipping and watching the opening credits in awkward silence, Usagi concluded that her idea had been a disaster.

But then she was throwing wide eyes over to him when he cleared his throat and turned towards her.

"Thank you for asking me to come," he rushed out. "I mean, I appreciate it— " He licked his lips, reconsidering his words, she guessed.

"I was just really surprised when you invited me," he settled on.

She blinked, a little worried. "Why?" He froze, eyes searching and a blush began to run over him.

'Oh'. Now she knew.

"It's just, I was…"

"You're surprised I didn't invite you over to just have sex?" she finished for him.

He coughed, red down his face and neck but nodded. "Yes, I guess so," he chuckled weakly.

"Do you—do you not like it?"

His eyes whipped to her. "No, no, this is—this is great. I don't care what we do."

Her heart sped up, a horribly hopeful feeling. "Really?"

"Yes, anything you want to do," he assured, taking a sip from his decorated mug.

"Okay." Her heart jumped at his words and she snuggled further into the couch and a part of her wanted to move and snuggle into him instead.

But she stayed away and instead reached for her socks sitting on the coffee table.

"What are those?"

She gaped at him. "Fluffy socks?"

"You wear those?" he asked, eyebrows raised high.

She lightly swatted his shoulder. "You can not watch a movie without fluffy socks!"

He chuckled hard. "You don't need—" 378

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"Yes you do!"

And it wasn't even ten minutes later that she had fitted him with the craziest, softest pair she had in her possession and he just smirked at her obvious joy in it all, his larger feet next to her smaller ones, both wearing the weirdest patterned socks.

And then it was there - the ease, the talking, it was all there once that awkward tension was broken into pieces and she slowly inched her way closer and closer to him on the couch as their back and forth continued through the movie.

Finally she was next to him and naturally fell into resting her head on his shoulder, her legs slung in his lap, his hand holding her thigh, and she didn't want to break this spell, this moment. She never wanted to leave this spot.

She turned her face to him and realized that her lips met the edge of his chin and she could see how deep blue his eyes were, and the curve of his lips this close. It came over her quickly and impulsively.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked up at him.

His nod was so eager and he seemed to realize it too, and slowed down.

"Yes." Her lips pressed against his, willingly opening for his tongue.

She savored every second of it, the fresh, minty taste of his breath, as if he had just brushed his teeth. His tight jaw relaxing into her hands, her body fitting against the contours of his body as she moved above him and straddled him.

They had made out before, but it was usually so fanatic with their clothes half off and their minds running off the high from their arousal. She had never gotten the chance to just taste him calmly and explore.

She had never kissed him just to kiss him, to feel his lips against hers just because.

Her heart nearly exploded when he pushed her hair from her face and he chuckled as she picked at a hair caught in her mouth. And hands on her hips, he pressed her more firmly against him, letting their tongues melt against each other.

See, it was those warm, happy moments that made her question everything about him, about them. These moments tore at her heart relentlessly. It gave her hope.

It was a while before they finally stopped and she sank into him, head buried in the space between his chin and chest, hearing his unusually fast heartbeat pump through his shirt.

Sleep came as an unwanted guest as she felt fabric slip against her cheek and movement as her eyes drifted closed, his scent filling her before all her senses dulled completely.

The note was propped up on her table with the DVD cover when she woke up in the morning, alone on her couch, blanket having been laid over her and the dirty mugs already in the sink.

She read the neat writing through blurry vision.

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You fell asleep around the one hour mark. I paused the movie and locked the door behind me.

Good morning.

-M Her smile grew slowly but stopped when she realized.

He still hadn't stayed.

The gold liquid sloshed around her glass, the sound going along with the voice of her date. She caught some snippets of this and that but couldn't completely focus on what was being said.

She was too caught up watching the scene across the ballroom.

Mamoru, all ridiculously handsome and sexy in his suit, standing there deep in conversation with his date.

His plus one.

All long legs, blonde hair pulled into a sleek bun, vivid emerald eyes, ruby red dress that hugged her body.

He had the audacity to have a date. Yes, she had one as well, but Unazuki herself had set up the date since he was a close friend of hers and it would make sense for Usagi to go with him.

It was her wedding and Usagi didn't want to say no and have to come up with an excuse so she accepted, always willing to strike up a friendship, if anything, with someone.

And the guy was nice and funny and so conversational, so it pained her to not even pay attention to him and what he was saying when Mamoru freaking kept laughing at this woman's jokes that she couldn't hear.

She saw complete red when he openly laughed.

That was her laugh, the laugh she got from him when she tripped over nothing or opened a can that exploded all over, or when she got her skirt zipper stuck once and he had to pry it open for her to slip it off. It was her laugh, she got to hear it, she made it, no one else.

And he was there giving it so willingly to her.

Had Unazuki set up a date for Mamoru as well?

Who was she?

Makoto came up to her then and Usagi had to tear herself away to focus on her friend explaining the current situation that was happening with Rei's dress having torn and Minako trying to fix it in the bathroom.

Getting caught up, she lost sight of the couple and discreetly scanned for them in the crowds until Unazuki came up to her, billowing wedding dress falling around her as she waved around a black wallet.

"Usagi, Mamoru left before I got the chance to give it to him," she explained, face flushed. "Would you mind?"

She had nodded, smiling and chatting with her newlywed friend.

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After Unazuki left though, Usagi examined the wallet, cursing when she decided to flip it open and see what Mamoru even kept in it. She looked over his driver's licenseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;argh his picture looked perfectâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;spotted a library card, a few yen, and it looked like all the usual items you would find.

Until she snapped it closed, fuming when she found a condom in one of the compartments.

Who had he been planning on using that with, tonight?

She eventually left, bidding a friendly goodbye to her date, but not before scanning the reception once more and feeling her blood boil when she realized Mamoru's date wasn't there anymore either.

"What?" she questioned the next day at his door, looking him up and down in the tuxedo, suddenly sheepish over her simple hot pink t-shirt and shorts. "Have to stop and meet the Prime Minister afterwards?"

He smirked, letting her inside. "Of course, I have to receive my medal of honor in about half an hour."

She dramatically widened her eyes as she padded in and slipped off her shoes. "Wouldn't want to make the Prime Minister wait now."

She could practically hear his smirk as she rummaged through her purse producing the wallet. "You should be more careful with that," she imitated his lower, scolding tone, "You would lose your head if it wasn't screwed on."

He narrowed his eyes playfully at his familiar insult. "Thank god I have you, then."

'If only you knew how much you had me.' "Seriously, where are you going like that?" She changed the subject.

He plucked the wallet out of her hand. "Hospital thing."

"Oh," she said, trying so hard to keep her voice level. "Have a hot date and everything?"

He snorted. "Of course."

It bubbled up in her rather quickly, icky and green and dark and awful, and just the thought of it was overwhelming enough for her to blindly miss the complete sarcasm in his voice. "Who is she?"

Obviously taken back by the sudden shift in the conversation, Mamoru furrowed his eyebrows. "I was joking."

She froze. "Oh." Usagi could feel his eyes staring at her, slightly confused, intrigued.

"Why would it matter if I did?" he asked, curious. "If I did have a date?"

"It wouldn't matter," she rushed out. "I mean you're single, semi-datable, I guess."

He narrowed his eyes. "Right."

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They could have so easily dropped it, she could have made her exit, said goodbye instead of standing in his kitchen and bringing it all up again since of course she had to continue the torture.

"How was your date?"

That adorable crease moved in between his eyebrows. "What?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat, and turned away from him, bracing her hands on the clean countertop, trying her best not to let her voice break. "At the wedding, the blonde you were talking to, wasn't she—" "You're talking about Eiko?"

"Yea. She seems really nice and—and she's pretty." She tried to quietly mumble the next part. "I guess you have a thing for blondes."

He heard anyway. "What's that supposed to mean?" he questioned.

"You have a type," she answered, sliding her hands on the edge of the countertop.

He said nothing for a beat and she thought that maybe she had finally got him, that everything she was thinking of was true, that he had been seeing her and that this was all what she had feared about, that nothing had mattered to him.

But he did speak, loud and clear and firm. "She wasn't my date."

She paused, eyes wide and confused and searching because what?

But she could have sworn—the way they had been— "She wasn't your plus one," Usagi stated carefully.

"No," he answered. "She was one of Unazuki's friends from university and she's a research assistant. We were discussing one of her latest studies and we talked, but it wasn't...romantic."

The embarrassment and relief flooded her at the same time and it was difficult to know which she was feeling more of. "Oh, my...my bad."

"You thought—" "No, no it's nothing," she interjected, the burning blush spreading everywhere. It was so wrong and stupid, getting jealous over someone she didn't even have, but it still bubbled up inside of her. "You can do whatever you want I—" "Usagi." He'd moved, his voice sounded much closer behind her. "There's no…."

She bit her lip. "We never really talked about this, if it was exclusive" something real "—or just a fun thing on the side—" "—I know—" "Like is it friends with benefits even though we're not quite friends or..."

"I don't know—" He was definitely much closer.

"Or more like fuck buddies even though we're not exactly buddies either, or are you just my booty call that I message to come over—" "What do you want?" he stopped her.

Her shiver rippled through her at his voice right next to her ear, and she could feel his looming figure behind her.

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Deep inside of her heart, she knew exactly what she wanted. And yet, it was impossible for her to voice out loud. It was too scary, too open, and she'd always been one to wear her heart on her sleeve but this was something that she didn't want to see the end of. It was the type of feeling that crippled you and lifted you up all in one wave.

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have...justâ&#x20AC;Ś" "Usagi," he repeated, voice all soft and patient and expectant. "What do you want?"

His body heat tickled her back. It was easier to distract than confront and so she took the easy way out. "I want you to touch me."

His lips brushed up against her neck, his nose bumping into her skin, and his lips moved against the shell of her ear, goosebumps rising over her entire body. She could already feel it all affecting her, pooling.

Softly, his finger glided along the span of her arm, stopping at her hand and lacing his hand with hers, fingers interlocked with each other. "Like this?"

Her breath caught but she shook her head.

His other arm shot down her body, his hand slipping past the waistband of her shorts, and she nearly toppled over when his index finger and thumb pressed right up against her clit. "Or like this?"

She nodded frantically, holding herself up against the countertop, throwing her head back and almost laying it against his shoulder. She waited for him to trace those slow, hard circles she knew he knew she liked, but he stayed rooted, fingers frozen against her. "Mamoru, move," she growled, patience running out and hips moving on their own.

His tall form pressed against her back, pinning her between his chest and the counter, and she bucked against the growing, pointed hardness poking into her back, his mouth tipped down to her ear. "You do it."

She grasped his wrist tight, and overlaid her hand with his, bucking her hips against it as she moved his fingers, clutching his thumb and pointer finger and rolling them around the aching center of her. And he watched with his face pressed against the side of hers, breath hitting her cheek while her eyes fluttered and lips parted as she continued to use his hand to touch herself.

Finally moving on his own, he ran his fingers up and down, spreading the slick moisture along her seam, and used it as an opportunity to move back up and circle fast, frantic rubs into her clit.

Her arm flew backwards, found the back of his head and latched onto his hair as she raised up on her toes, trying to match his height and move with him.

She couldn't spill out a single coherent sentence if her life depended on it. It was too good.

His other hand came around and pulled down her shorts with her underwear, leaving them just above her knees, and his mouth found the spot in between her neck and shoulder that had her nails clawing into his hair behind her.

"What do you want Usagi?" he ground out.

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She was so gone, eyes glossy and focused on his fingers. He pinched her clit and her eyes shot open with a cry as he repeated it again, whimpered it into her neck as she ground her butt against him.

She licked her lips, and found his darkened eyes on hers. "Y-you, I want yoyou, you," she rambled so breathlessly that she could see how much darker and frantic the blue in his eyes had become. "You. Only you…"

He whispered, finger running over her entrance. "Tell me."

"I-I don't want you to be with anyone else," she rushed out in gasps. "I was so jealous because no one can have you."

"Say that again," he whimpered, fingers slick and teasing her as they almost went inside by accident.

"I-I was," she faltered when his other finger ran up the length of her.

"Say it."

"I was fucking jealous because no one else can have you except me," she hissed with clenched teeth, moving her hips against his hand. "Because you're mine, only mine."

His eyes went almost black and his breathing broke up even more and his free hand grasped her chin and pulled her lips to his as he finally allowed his fingers to go deep back inside of her.

Her tongue swept his teeth and she tried to drown herself in the taste of him, mouth open and gasping for air as he pumped his fingers in her. He ripped at her hair, endless blonde strands falling around her as the hair elastics snapped apart and pins hit the floor.

It all stopped then, and she let out the most tortured cry when she no longer felt his fingers but instead her back was against the wall and he was kneeling in front of her.

He ripped the shorts down her legs along with her lacy underwear to her ankles and she didn't have much time to breathe before he was lifting one of her legs over his shoulder. She nearly screamed when his tongue buried itself in her, licking her insides.

She clawed her nails into his perfect, soft hair, making sure he would stay, and felt everything spin out of control in her body, letting out broken howls and cries. He wasn't going slow or playing with her, this was different.

It was fast, needy. Loud smacks of his mouth on her skin, completely focused on driving her over the edge as fast as he could because he could do that to her.

She gazed down, vision unsteady and her fingers pushing his head further into her. His crisp tuxedo that fit him so right, shiny, fancy black shoes, and perfect— he was just fucking perfect.

"Mamo-chan," she let the secret nickname slip from her trembling lips, and when he heard it, she felt the little stutter of lips against her. She said it again and felt his hold on her legs tighten. "Mamo-chan, don't stop—don't—"

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Usagi was teetering, bucking her hips and arching her back on the wall as he hauled her further up until she was practically sitting on top of his mouth, and he could explore her even deeper.

Though she lost all sense of self when she felt him work his long, so perfect, finger in and fill her. Slick and fast with his mouth still working on her clit and oh my god when it was right there, he curled it.

Everything in her clenched and crashed at once and she gasped as she shook out the strong orgasm against his mouth.

She was still breathing hard when he laid them down on his floor. He hovered over her, still fully dressed in that tux, his hair messed up from her hands and his mouth wet with her and it turned her on, seeing him flustered, muddled, because of her.

His lips crashed down on hers and his hands were trembling as he tugged up her shirt and threw it god knows where. And his lips left hers but they returned to her collarbone instead, then the swells of her breasts, the curve of her stomach, tracing the inside of her leg.

She wanted him to fuck her in his suit, on the living room floor of his apartment, make herself a memory for him to always remember everytime he was in this room. So that she could stay in his mind like he stays in hers all the time.

Frantically, she found the cold metal of his belt, tore the button of his slacks open while his hands were busy with searching his pockets, fumbling with his wallet and finding the shiny, foil square.

Her lips kissed down his throat, her hands moved over the muscles and stomach through his crisp white shirt, tracing them through the fabric, committing his taste and body to her memory. Meanwhile, his fingers and eyes shook, trying to focus on his task of unwrapping.

She pushed his pants down enough only to work on his boxers and pull out his throbbing erection, already stroking it and pushing him to the edge within seconds. The condom out of the packaging, she plucked it out of his hands and slipped it on him in one fluid movement that left him shaking and breathing hard out his nose.

He slid inside of her, whimpering, and she clenched around his cock, welcoming it like it returned home.

"Only me?" she whispered, moving her lips against his neck. His large hands flexed around her thighs, pulling each leg around his hips and plunged into her with long, deep strokes "Only you," he gasped, voice broken, eyes connecting to hers, and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

He pushed in, deeper and a little bit harder each time, and pressed a long, searing kiss on her panting lips, swallowing her moans and groans. He whimpered when her tongue shuddered against his.

His lips were wet, slippery, and hers.

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"No one else," he breathed out, rolling his fingers against her clit, thrusting faster, harder, deeper. She dug her heels into his back, her fingers clinging to the tense muscles of his bottom, ecstasy building in her belly with every delicious grinding move of his hips. "There's no one else."

She stared into his eyes, felt every word pulse straight to her heart with each deep thrust, and she kept staring until the fireworks burst behind her eyes and then his.

She had made him miss his event, had his suit thrown around his living room in pieces, and had his mind filled with thoughts of only her. They still laid on the floor, Usagi having wrapped herself around him, with his head pillowed on her chest and her legs locked around his waist, both breathing heavy while he played with a puddle of her hair.

But she knew reality would have to come down crashing soon or later.

The words were just a whisper on her lips.

"I-I have to leave."

His head moved from its spot on her chest. "Why?" he whispered.

She weakly laughed, bracing her elbows to move up. "Well I have to leave sometime."

He kissed her then as she was slowly sitting up, cupping her face, moving his lips against hers desperately, pulling, wanting and she wanted him to always kiss her like this.

He pulled away just slightly, the words quiet and scared and thrilling.

"What if you stayed?"

It all froze. Her breath, her eyes, her hands on him. She remained still, frightened she had heard him wrong.

"What?" she choked out.

"What if you stayed," he repeated, kissing her again softly.

This was it.

It should have been just 'yes', a quick, joyous 'yes of course!' but it couldn't be that easy because they weren't this easy. She had to know. This was her chance to finally know, to ask him.

She swallowed hard, pulling back from him. "What does it mean?"

His fingers paused against the skin of her cheeks and chin, eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean?"

"If I stay, what does it mean?" she asked, slow and careful and breathing out perhaps too hard.

He stared into her eyes, fingers tenderly stroking the ceases on her face, his own eyes swimming with something she couldn't figure out. "It can mean whatever you want it to mean."

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That was not an answer and definitely not the answer she had been looking for. "But what do you want it to mean?" she asked again, growing a tad irritated at the avoidance.

He stared at her even harder, searching her eyes. "I want it to mean that you can stay if you choose to."

It was sweet, a neutral response but she wanted something more from him.

She wanted him to tell her to stay, that he wanted her to stay with him, that it means that he wants her in his life as something more than a 'good time.'

Then it hit her when she looked at her surroundings and it all became startling clear. How startling similar this conversation was to their talk on their first night, when they decided that it was better being a one-off thing. How all this talk was going to end up with the same result.

She had never even been to his apartment, it had always been her calling, her request, always her apartment. Their dirty little secret confined within the walls of her apartment. She had been so stupid, so hopelessly desperate for him.

"That's all that you can say?" she asked, voice growing weak.

"If you want to stay, you can stay," he fumbled, suddenly concerned and trying to mend his words.

The tears dotted in the corners of her eyes as it all started to press into her heart that they were never going to happen and his soothing touches on her skin was making it all that much harder because she really, really had hoped that he would have at least wanted her a little and to at least say itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; She stood up completely, moving away from his worried gaze and his place on the floor and started to collect her things and get dressed.

His voice came out all broken and confused as he stared at her. "Usagi, what are you doing?"

"I'mâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;," she paused, cringing at how obvious it was that she was crying. "I'm leaving."

"Oh," he choked out. "Do you need a ride? I can take you anywhere, it's fine-" "I'm okay, thanks," she snapped, pulling up her underwear and shorts. She had to leave quickly, move on the sooner the better before it could hurt her anymore.

He tried to speak again and she heard him getting up from the floor, still naked and bewildered by her actions.

"Usagi, are youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" "I'm fine. Just getting out of your way."

"You're not in my way."

Her shirt slipped over her. "Well you didn't exactly ask me to stay."

"Because you wanted to leave."

Finally turning around, she stared at him with wet eyes and a hoarse voice.

"You're the one that always leaves," she accused, the tears escaping her hold. "Not me."

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His eyes widened, realizing. "Iâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" 'Tell me to stay. Tell me to stay with you. Tell me to stay and I'm yours.'

He stood there wordlessly, hands shaking hard, and confused and not knowing what to say at all and it broke her heart to turn away from him. To leave him like that. But she did.

She was freaking 25 and still believing that life could be a perfect fairytale.

As if the guy she'd liked forever could suddenly feel the exact same for her. That he had been as crazy about her during all this time.

She cried on the way down to the lobby on the elevator, on her train home, and finally at her apartment.

The apartment that was filled with memories of only him.

"What does it mean to you?"

"It was a nice night."

"It's just a one time thing, then."

"You can leave if you want."

That first night, she'd kept dwelling on the words as the bed shifted, the rustle of clothes following afterwards. She didn't dare roll around but instead listened to him dress slowly.

She could still stop him, take back her words and tell him she wanted him to stay and they could talk about it later, that it didn't what it meant as long as she had him for a few more hours.

But she didn't say anything, didn't get up.

She woke up sore and alone in the morning, the once occupied spot next to her cold as ice. The bed still smelled like him, and so she spent her morning curled up in the sheets with the pillow pressed to her face as she breathed him in.

Only one night, one amazing night, and she had already messed it up badly.

It was better this way, she had tried to convince herself then. What if he had stayed? It would have been such an awkward morning filled with blushes and sideways glances as they both dressed and said goodbye, leaving their mistake in the past.

No - him leaving was good, it kept them from more confrontation, messy explanations that would leave confusion and heartbreak.

She was making breakfast for herself - a burnt waffle - a towel wrapped around her damp hair when the silence in her apartment began to take effect.

There were no laughs, no breathless voices in the dark, no snarky, annoying baritone voice that shot straight to her heart.

It was only silence.

And it was the most awful sound she had ever heard.

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The going away party was nice, with a huge "Bon Voyage" banner and colorful balloons spread throughout the Crown arcade. The snack table had been loaded with some of his favorite foods and Makoto brought a handmade chocolate cake from her bakery that was iced on top with the words "Good Luck Mamoru!".

She had only found out two weeks ago, from Ami no less. A hospital program in Osaka had been vastly impressed by him and had offered him a job in a high position with horrifyingly good pay. A great job, and of course why wouldn't he have taken it? Obviously nothing was holding him back here anyway.

She had cried hard for hours, cried more on days she thought she would be okay. And after much debate, she decided on coming to the party for him that Motoki had invited her to.

It had been several weeks since she had even last seen him, since his apartment. Since their last time. And she had avoided him at his own party.

She watched from her booth though as everyone greeted him and said goodbye before calling it a night. His smile was appreciative, kind, but it had that strained quality to it.

"Odango Atama," he said as he walked over to her when his goodbyes were done.

It was funny how a name could change over time, how nearly a decade before she would find herself on the verge of smacking him for the stupid nickname, and now she was on the verge of tears instead.

She wouldn't hear the nickname from his lips again.

Attempting a smile, she took the bait. "Mamoru-baka."

The stool creaked under his weight and his closeness sent a slight shake to her fingers as she continued to slowly tear apart the napkin.

"Do you have everything packed?" she asked politely.

He nodded. "Pretty much."

"That's good," she said.

"Yes," he paused. "It's just hard leaving a place you've known for so long."

"Well, the opportunities will be great there," she countered. "New places, new things, new people."

"There's just some people you can't forget about," he said, his eyes finding hers and there was that look, where it seemed like he wasn't looking at anyone else but her.

No, no, no, he didn't get to do that. To say things, to look at her and expect things to be settled and civil.

He leaned towards her. "Usagiâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" She cut him off and got up quickly. "They're lucky to have you in Osaka."

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That extra second of looking at his face, to remember every curve, the color of his eyes, the way he looked at her as she pushed past the arcade door and left. She took every detail of it.

"Good luck," she called out, eyes sad but hard as she left him for the last time.

Walking back, everything hit her. He would never smile at her again, she would never bump into him again, no more choked moans in the dark of her bedroom, no more witty, sarcastic exchanges, no breathless laughs when one of their shirts got stuck around their heads. He was never really going to come back besides the occasional visit for Motoki - not for her—never her.

And it was one of those days again where she let it all out when she got home and cried out into her pillow.

That was until her intercom rang, and knowing it had to be Makoto dropping off the leftover cake, Usagi mindlessly buzzed the guest in.

It wasn't until she was whipping the door open and her red, mortified eyes stared into his.

So she looked anywhere but his eyes. "What? Did I forget something at the arcade?"

"No I—" "I would lose my head if it wasn't screwed on, right?" she spat out.

She moved away from the door, left it wide open for him and he took the chance and came inside, following her.

"I wanted to talk to you," he explained.

She huffed out a laugh. "About what?"

"About me leaving. And us."

"What?" she hissed. "Did you want to come by and say 'don't worry, I'll write you' or 'I'll call you'.

"No I—" "I don't care that you're leaving," she lied straight through her teeth.

It was his eyes, suddenly broken and empty, that slight hopeful light in them gone, that killed her. Twisted the knife deeper and harder. "Oh." It was funny how they could be so intimate with each other's bodies, how they knew each other's faces of twisted ecstasy, but it was more than to be intimate with emotions mixed in because words were harder to take back.

"You're leaving," she continued, trying to keep her voice a bored, careless tone. "Why would my opinion affect that anyway?"

His voice was so soft, innocent. "I thought—" "It was just sex Mamoru," she interrupted, finally admitting it with the most bitter, horrible half laugh spitting out of her mouth that she hated. Years worth of her denying that Chiba Mamoru could ever have some feelings for her and here he was. Leaving. Again. For good, now. It could never be enough, could never match what she had felt for him. She could never be enough.

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"Don't get me wrong, it was amazing—" 'I want more, I want you' "—but of course there can't be anything more to it."

It was a few beats of silence until he mumbled, "You're right."

He was leaving. What could her thoughts really do to change that? Even if he felt something for her, it couldn't be half of what she was dealing with for him.

He never stayed for Odango Atama in her apartment. How could she begin to hope he'd stay for her when it meant giving up on this opportunity. She knew he wouldn't. Besides, they really wouldn't work together anyway. He had thought she hated him and maybe she should hate him.

Maybe they should never talk again, leave it at that and move on.

A soft, fluffy material landed on her hand suddenly, and she opened her eyes. Her heart jumped when she saw the familiar strange patterns.

"The socks that I…" he trailed off, "I wanted to return them."

She furrowed her eyebrows. He had kept them?

That night played through her head, how it had been so easy then, talking to him, joking, when she could have pretended that this was their actual normal life, and it made her heart jump out of her chest because she could still remember his amused eyes as she threw him the socks she found, how he had burned his tongue on the hot cocoa, and— She remembered how much she loved him.

And all because of some fucking fuzzy socks she broke.

It was stupid frilly, fuzzy socks.

Because he kept them. Stupid socks that he had hated wearing but laughed with her at the ridiculousness of it.

Her choked sob was so loud and pained that footsteps came immediately to her. She hated how her body naturally leaned into his embrace, and how her hands grasped at his.

"I lied," she cried. I do care that you leave. Everytime you leave.

All those mornings when she would find the apartment empty and cold, the lonely breakfast and shower, holding back the tears because she had clung to that never-ending hope that maybe he would be there next to her or waiting for her andThe lump formed in her throat, everything crashing into her all at once and she pushed herself against him more, tightening her arms around him and burrowing further into his chest.

And she could finally say it.

"Can you please stay?"

"Yes," he answered, voice relieved, immediate, no hesitation. And he held her so tight and close, and it made her want to believe that he'd been waiting for the question, and had been hoping for the chance to hold her until morning ever since that first night.

She wouldn't wake up alone again.

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She was scared of morning. Scared of what the morning would bring. What they decided from here on, and when she would eventually need to let go of him.

The tears were already gliding down her cheeks and she sniffled into his dress shirt, and his arms reacted, pulling her even closer until no space was spared between them. From now on, she vowed to say it.

The words burned in her throat like they always did.

Can you stay forever?

Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes It's been a while but happy Smutember! Here's my little piece for the last few days of this wonderful month! (again, I am not a smut writer regularly so take mercy lol) It's an aged-up AU (eh it's just a normal setting, no Senshi situation). No trigger warnings except that it's obviously mature and it involves oral sex and sexual content. And it's kind of angsty lol. Not your jam, that's totally cool and I'll see you in a different story!

First, I wanna give a HUGGGGGGEEEEEEE shoutout to FloraOne for organizing this wonderful event of Smutember and bringing us all together to enjoy some sex positivity. And second, another shoutout to FloraOne because she also looked over this and helped me SOO much. Seriously she is one of the sweetest people ever and I will never stop saying that.

Please go bombard her with love on her fic and her Tumblr. Flora, thank you for setting this month up and for helping me, you are so so so so loved.

I hope you guys enjoy and let me know what you think! And yup I'm leaving it as an open ending because that's my thing now lol Another huge thank you to FloraOne for everything and a huge thank you to all of you who read! Let me know what you think and please go and read and enjoy all the Smutember content wonderful people are creating!

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Weathering the Storm by Beej88 Artist’s Notes: Illustrated for ‘Thunder, Tea, And Confessions’ by Ninjette Twitch

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Weathering The Storm Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Hurt/Comfort-ish, Sex Toys, Cunnilingus, Hair-Pulling, Playing Doctor, Penis-InVagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Distraction

by Heavenly Pearl

Usagi could sleep through almost anything. When they were younger, her brother Shingo often joked that World War Three could break out in front of their house during the middle of the night and she wouldn’t even crack an eyelid.

There was one thing almost guaranteed to wake her from even the deepest slumber, though.

Thunderstorms.

It started with a soft rumble in the distance. Usagi’s eyes jolted opened, looking over at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. The bright green numbers read 1:27. That meant Mamoru had returned home from the hospital only about an hour ago, sneaking into bed and spooning against Usagi’s back. His warm presence was comforting, yet despite her best attempts to ignore the incoming storm and go back to sleep, Usagi involuntarily jumped when she saw a

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streak of lightning through the glass doors leading out to the balcony, accompanied shortly after by a crash of thunder.

Drowsily, Mamoru propped himself up on his elbow and rubbed at the corner of his eye. “Usako, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, nothing!” After he had worked another late shift at the hospital, the last thing Usagi wanted was to disturb his much needed rest. “Go back to sleep. I’m – Eek!” She jumped again at another boom, pulling the blanket over her head.

Mamoru lightly chuckled, the mattress shifting underneath her as he sat up. A couple of seconds later, Usagi saw a faint glow through the blanket, presumably from him turning on the bedside lamp. Her suspicion was confirmed when Mamoru pulled the blanket down again, mussing up her hair.

“I will forever be amused that the bravest woman I know – someone who has risked her life more times than I can remember for the sake of the world – is scared by something as mundane as thunder,” he teased with a fond smile on his lips.

Usagi pouted, not finding the situation quite as amusing as he did. “It’s not funny, Mamo-chan. It’s loud and sca—AHH!” She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his torsoas it began to downpour.

Mamoru immediately hugged her, kissing the top of her head. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said in a soft voice, no longer teasing. “You’re safe here. Thunder can’t hurt you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Still holding her close, Mamoru rubbed soothing circles on her back, Usagi starting to relax until the lamp went out, enveloping them in darkness. She didn’t want to seem like a total baby, so Usagi stifled her shriek, letting out a soft whimper instead.

“Dammit. I should have a flashlight in here…” Mamoru released his hold on Usagi and started digging around in his bedside drawer. “Yeah, here it – No, wait, is this...your vibrator?”

“Oops, I guess I put it in the wrong drawer the last time I used it.” With Mamoru so busy with his first year of residency, Usagi had needed to rely on her trusty vibrator a lot more than usual. “Sorry.”

Mamoru handed the vibrator back to her without comment, then resumed his search for the flashlight. He found it a few seconds later, but when he turned it on, the light was dim and flickering. “Great, looks like the batteries are almost dead,” he muttered, tapping the flashlight against the palm of his hand. It helped stop the flickering, but the light was still faint, barely illuminating anything at all. “I’ll get some candles from the kitchen. I think we still have some from that dinner party you threw a couple of months ago.”

He moved to climb out of the bed, but Usagi grabbed his arm, stopping him. “No, don’t go! Don’t leave me here in the dark.”

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Mamoru kissed Usagi’s forehead. “I’ll only be gone a couple of minutes, okay?”

“But...” Sighing, she let go of her hold on his arm. “Fine. Only two minutes, though.”

“You won’t even miss me,” he said, kissing her one more time on the tip of her nose before leaving the room.

Almost as soon as the door clicked shut behind him, however, there was another round of thunder and lightning – the loudest yet. Usagi huddled underneath the blanket, taking some comfort in the scent Mamoru had left behind.

Liar, she thought, already missing him.

If only Luna was around to keep her company… But she had decided to spend the night with Artemis over at Minako’s place. Traitor.

It took much longer than two minutes for Mamoru to return to the bedroom, apologizing as soon as the door opened. He was carrying a bunch of white tapered candles in the crook of his arm, the flashlight tucked underneath his armpit and a silver candelabra in each of his hands.

“Sorry, I had trouble finding the matchbook.” Said matchbook was clenched between his teeth, muffling his voice.

Usagi, seeing him, tossed the blanket aside and rushed over to help him.

“You could have called for me to help you, you know,” she said, taking the pair of candelabras off his hands. She set one on top of the dresser, then put the other on Mamoru’s nightstand.

“I didn’t want you walking around in the dark, crashing into everything,” he said, placing some of the candles in the candelabra on the dresser and lighting them with the matches. “You might have gotten hurt.”

Usagi opened her mouth to protest, but to be fair, that’s probably what would have happened if she had gone to help him. Twenty-one years old, and she was still a world-class klutz.

Taking the rest of the candles, she prepared the other candelabra on the nightstand. The candles didn’t put out a ton of illumination, but they were still better than the flashlight. At least she could make out most of the furniture.

“You know… This is actually kind of romantic,” Usagi said, blowing out the match after she had lit the last candle.

“Oh?” Coming up behind her, Mamoru wrapped his arms around her waist. “Is it?”

“Yeah…”

Usagi craned her neck to the side, looking upward to meet Mamoru’s eyes.

If the heat in his hooded gaze was any indication, they were both thinking the same thing.

“Hey, if you need a distraction from the storm, I can think of a few things we can do to keep your mind off of it...” Mamoru suggested, brushing his lips against her temple.

A distraction sounded exactly like what she needed.

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Wordlessly, Usagi took one of his hands and slowly guided it up the front of the T-shirt of his she had borrowed to sleep in. She wasn’t wearing a bra, a fact that made Mamoru grin when he reached her chest. He cupped one of her breasts in his hand, Usagi biting down coquettishly on her bottom lip as he used the pad of his thumb to tease her nipple.

“God, I’ve missed this,” he murmured, his lips tracing the shell of her ear.

His other hand roamed downwards, fingers rubbing her through the fabric of her cotton panties. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” she said. “So, so much.”

Usagi never imagined she would spend her first six months as a newlywed sleeping alone almost every night, only catching a few precious moments here and there before Mamoru had to go to the hospital for another shift. Even the rare times he was home at the same time she was, he was usually either too tired or too preoccupied with studying his case files to pay much attention to her.She tried her best to be understanding, knowing that he was working so hard to achieve his dream, but Usagi had to admit, it was a lonely life sometimes, even with Luna and all her friends and family to keep her company.

She let out a moan as Mamoru lightly sucked on her neck, Usagi sweeping her long hair over her other shoulder so he had better access. The storm continued to rage outside, the rain tapping against the glass of the sliding door, but she barely noticed it, closing her eyes and leaning into Mamoru’s embrace. “Mamochan…”

“What do you want, Usako?” he asked as his lips made their way back to her ear, his husky voice making her go weak in the knees.

“You,” she murmured. “Always you.”

She pulled his hands away and turned around so that she was facing him.

Dressed only in an undershirt and his boxers, Usagi still thought Mamoru was much too overdressed, her hands immediately reaching for the hem of his shirt and pulling it upwards. Mamoru quickly got the hint and raised up his arms, helping her pull up the shirt the rest of the way and tossing it somewhere in the darkness.

The light from the candles flickered across his bare chest, casting tantalizing shadows over his toned muscles. Keeping eye contact, Usagi traced a single finger downward, Mamoru hissing through his teeth when she circled one of his nipples, then hooked said finger into the waistband of his boxers. A notable bulge was already beginning to form, but to her surprise, Mamoru reached for her wrist, stopping her before she could go any further.

“Your turn,” he said in response to her silent question.

His own hands slid up the back of her thighs, underneath her shirt, fingers lightly digging into the meaty flesh of her ass as Usagi stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. She moaned into his mouth as they kissed, only vaguely aware when Mamoru began tugging her damp panties down her legs.

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“On the bed,” he ordered in between feverish kisses.

Only too happy to oblige, Usagi took a step back toward the bed.

Unfortunately, she forgot about the panties still wrapped around her ankles. With a surprised shriek, she tripped and lost her balance, falling back upon the mattress in an ungraceful spill.

To his credit, Mamoru didn’t laugh. Usagi could tell he really, really wanted to, though, pressing his hand against his mouth in an attempt to hold his snickers at bay.

Well, it was funny. Even she was unable to deny that, bursting into giggles once the initial shock wore off. Mamoru joined in a couple of seconds later, chuckling as he freed her legs from the oh-so-dangerous panties, then settled in between them, leaning over her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Mmm.” Usagi placed her hands on his broad shoulders, staring up at him as a mischievous thought crossed her mind. “I will be if you give me another kiss, Dr. Tsukino.”

Mamoru cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? I don’t believe I’ve heard of that form of treatment before.”

“It’s cutting edge. Still in testing, but initial studies are very promising.”

“Well, far be it for me to stand in the way of a medical breakthrough.” He lowered himself, his lips locking with hers in a long kiss that made her moan in desire. “Better?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure… I think I might need more treatments,” she teased, enjoying herself far too much.

“Maybe,” he agreed with a smirk, “but I better give you a thorough examination first…”

Mamoru sat back on his knees, his fingers curling around the hem of her Tshirt as he pushed the fabric upwards over her breasts. He then began his “examination”, swirling his tongue around her hardened nipples before switching to landing fleeting kisses over random spots on her body, Usagi never knowing quite where he would kiss her next. Her stomach...her breasts...her knee...her hip...her cheek…her belly...her ankle...the inside of her thigh… Everywhere except the spot she most wanted him to kiss.

“Mamo-chan…” Usagi squirmed, feeling as if every nerve in her body was on fire “Stop teasing already!”

He laughed. “Okay, okay!” His hand reached for the vibrator she had tossed aside earlier, taking a moment to locate her bottle of lube, which she had conveniently left on top of his nightstand. “Did you know that vibrators were originally developed as a medical tool?” Mamoru asked while he applied a layer of lube to the toy. “One of the popular myths behind their invention is that at the time, doctors believed giving female patients orgasms would cure them of socalled ‘hysteria’. Newer research has discredited that theory, but –”

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Usagi propped herself on her elbows, staring at her husband in disbelief.

“Are you seriously giving me a lecture on the history of vibrators in the middle of sex?” she asked. “Oh, my god, you are such a geek!”

He scratched the bridge of his nose with a clean finger, adorably bashful.

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, probably not the best time…”

“Well, at least you’re an incredibly sexy geek,” she said with a giggle, stretching out her arm to brush back a lock of hair from his forehead. “So, are you going to use that thing or not?”

In response, Mamoru turned the vibrator onto the lowest setting and brought the tip to her entrance, just barely touching against her clit. She gasped, feeling a shockwave of pleasure, but after only a couple of seconds, the vibrations sputtered to a stop, Usagi letting out a couple of choice expletives.

She had forgotten to recharge the battery after her last session. Again.

Mamoru sighed. “Well, so much for that idea,” he said, setting the vibrator on the nightstand to be cleaned later.

“That’s okay.” Usagi sat up, her shirt falling back into place as she shifted positions, and took his face in between her hands, giving him a kiss. “I prefer a more human touch anyway…”

“Yeah?” Mamoru smirked, raising an eyebrow. “Fingers? Or tongue?”

Why choose?

“Both.”

Usagi leaned back once again on her elbows and spread her legs wider in invitation, Mamoru moving to kneel on the floor beside the bed. He ran his warm hands a couple of times over the inside of her thighs, then slowly dragged the flat of his tongue over the length of her slit.

“Oh, yes,” Usagi rasped, closing her eyes as she threw back her head.

She had definitely missed this.

Her “Rabbit” did the job, but no toy could ever compare to the magic of Mamoru’s tongue. She moaned as he repeated the action, bringing one of her hands to rest on top of his head. Though Mamoru knew her body well enough at this point that she no longer needed to guide him through what she liked, he enjoyed it when she played with his hair when going down on her. She lightly tugged at the roots, rewarded when he glanced up at her and grinned before returning to what he was doing.

After several more long strokes, he switched it up, concentrating more on her clit, his tongue swirling around the nub that brought her so much pleasure.

Usagi fell back against the mattress, throwing her arms over her head. She could no longer see what he was doing, but she heard the cap on the bottle of lube being snapped back open, Mamoru coating one of his fingers before slowly gliding it inside her.

“Okay?” he asked, taking a break from working on her clit.

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Usagi craned up her neck and shoulders, nodding her head enthusiastically. It was more than okay. She gasped as his finger started moving inand-out of her in a rhythmic sliding motion, his tongue soon rejoining the action.

The sensation was almost too much to bear. Usagi was unable to keep quiet, her whimpers, moans, and incoherent mumblings drowning out the rumbles of thunder in the background. She had mostly forgotten about the storm, her thoughts only on Mamoru. Fingers digging into the sheets, her breathing became heavy with lust, her hips rolling as a familiar pressure started to build between her legs.

“Mamo-chan...need you...now…” His tongue and finger were fantastic, but she wanted to feel him inside her, to make him feel as good as he did her.

“Please!”

She didn’t have to ask twice. Mamoru withdrew his finger and fumbled to his feet, pulling down his boxers in a hurry. He didn’t even bother to push them all the way down, only releasing his fully-erect cock before climbing on top of her, as eager as Usagi was. He slipped inside of her easily, her folds slick with lube and her own arousal, and began grinding against her, Usagi’s hands roaming down his back to grab his firm ass.

There were times when she preferred Mamoru to make love to her slow and gentle, to draw out every agonizingly pleasurable moment until she finally begged for merciful release.

This wasn’t one of those times.

After a weeks-long drought, they indulged in each other like weary travelers drinking from an oasis, almost frantic as they writhed together on the bed.

Messy kisses quickly turned into eager pants, Mamoru increasing his speed at her command. Feeling close to her peak, she slid her hand in between their bodies and rubbed at her throbbing clit. It didn’t take much longer for the pressure to finally burst, Usagi crying out as waves of ecstasy crested over her body.

Mamoru wasn’t far behind. A couple of thrusts later, he came inside her with a final shudder, just in time for the bedside lamp to flicker back to life. Looking at each other, they laughed, Mamoru letting his forehead drop to her shoulder.

“Well, you timed that just right,” Usagi teased, combing her fingers through his sweat-matted hair.

The worst of the storm had passed as well. It was still raining, but the lightning and thunder that frightened her so much had come to an end, thank goodness.

“So, was that a good enough distraction?”

“Mmm… The best kind.” Usagi wrapped her arms around Mamoru’s neck, pulling him closer. She knew she should probably go clean herself off and pee, but she wasn’t ready to let him go yet, wanting the moment to last as long as possible.

“Maybe thunder isn’t so bad after all…”

“Yeah, it’s the best.”

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She wasn’t sure if he was referring to the thunder or the “distraction”, but Usagi was too blissed out to care. Their lips found each other once again, exchanging soft, leisurely kisses until Usagi really did have to go pee, unable to hold it any longer.

When she returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, all the candles had been blown out and Mamoru was back underneath the covers. He pulled back the blanket in invitation, Usagi jumping into bed and snuggling up beside him.

Though it was late, neither were eager to go back to sleep, wanting to take advantage of the increasingly rare moment of togetherness.

“You know,” Mamoru said, twirling a strand of her hair around his finger, “I have the day off tomorrow – well, I guess it’s technically today now, huh?”

“Oh?” Usagi landed a kiss on his bare chest, liking where this was leading.

“You don’t have to study case files?”

“A couple, but they shouldn’t take long. What about you? Any plans?”

“Nope.” Well, she was supposed to go shopping for new shoes with Naru, but her best friend surely wouldn’t mind if she skipped out on her this once. After all, they could go shopping any time; it wasn’t every day she got her sexy, amazing doctor of a husband all to herself. “No plans at all. I’m free as a bird.”

“Really? It sounds like there’s no need for either of us to wake up early, then…”

“Yeah, no reason,” Usagi said with a grin, shifting positions to straddle Mamoru’s lap and reaching for the hem of her T-shirt. “No reason at all...”

Author’s Notes Yes, Dr. Tsukino is intentional! It’s canon that Chibi-Usa’s last name is Tsukino, so it seems likely that Mamoru took Usagi’s last name when they married, which I think is pretty cool of him, personally.

Feel free to follow me on Tumblr! My username is kaleidodreams.

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Weathering The Storm by Nari20 Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes: AU in which Seiya and Mamoru grows closer in the absense of Usagi..(yeah wtf but it just happened!!)

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Weathering The Storm Additional Tropes: Go Seduce My Archnemesis(ish), Second Chance Sex, Caught In The Rain Contains: Cunnilingus, Fingering, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: Usamamo

Thunder, Tea, and Confessions

by Ninjette Twitch

Mamoru drove slowly, squinting as the downpour of rain slammed against his windshield. This damn storm had ruined his night. It came out of nowhere, darkening the skies quickly as they opened up, thunder and lightning crashing around him. He’d been studying in Keio’s library when it started, and he’d decided to pack up his things and head home before it got too bad. Had he known it would get like this, he would have just waited the storm out at school.

His brow furrowed as he spotted someone on the sidewalk, jacket huddled tight around them. Who in their right mind would be out walking in this? As he got closer, thunder clapped deafeningly loud around them, and the poor soul jumped hard, ducking, hands flailing over their head in a vain attempt to protect themselves from the noise. That’s when he noticed the buns.

Usagi.

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His eyes widened, and he immediately pulled the car over, rolling down the windows, brakes practically hissing in protest as he stopped beside her.

“Odango!”

He had to yell to be heard over the torrential rain as it hit the pavement, pinging loudly against the metal sheets of his car. She jumped again, startled as she turned to look around, and her expression dropped when her eyes narrowed with the realization that it was him. His heart clenched in his chest, jaw tensing tautly. Although their relationship had definitely improved over the last six years they’d known each other, their fighting turning into more of a playful banter as they’d both gotten older, they still weren’t what people would consider “friends,” no matter how much he wanted precisely that.

The thought annoyed him, and his tone was harsher than he intended.

“What the hell are you doing walking in this storm?” he snapped. “Get in the car.”

She rolled her eyes, shoulders tensing, huffing indignantly as she clamped her hands onto her hips with a definite air of defiance. “Right,” she yelled back, raising her voice above its usual pitch to be heard over the storm. “Like I would get into a car with you.”

Well, that stung a bit. “You’d prefer to get soaked in a storm that scares you rather than let me give you a ride home?”

She opened her mouth, no doubt to hurl a scathing retort back at him. But at that moment, lightning streaked across the sky, followed by another thunderous boom that was so loud it shook his car. Usagi screamed, dropping to her knees as her arms flew back up to cover her head.

Mamoru hissed through his teeth, heart skipping a beat as he leaned forward angrily. “Get in the damn car, Usagi!”

This time she listened, vaulting to her feet, shoes splashing through puddles as she hurriedly ripped open his passenger door and threw herself inside, clumsily stumbling as if she was being chased. She was breathing heavily, and he waited, giving her a chance to calm down a bit before he turned on his signal in preparation to pull away.

When her breathing finally returned to normal, rivulets of water dripping off her, plopping onto his leather seat, her sodden shoes no doubt soaking the floor, he finally pulled away from the curb, slowly.

“What are you doing out in this storm?”

She shivered, lips trembling as the water and cold air in his car gave her a chill. “I was on my way home from Ami’s. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain today,” she muttered, keeping her eyes trained out the window.

“You don’t check the weather to see if there was a little storm coming, considering how terrified you are of them?” He was trying to lighten the mood and get her mind off of the raging monsoon happening outside. He knew he’d succeeded when her head whipped to him, fire in her eyes.

“First of all,” she started, anger lacing her voice, “this is not some little storm! And how do you know I’m scared of storms?”

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Mamoru rolled his eyes. “It was clearly very apparent by the way you jumped at the sound of the thunder,” he pointed out scathingly. “But even if I hadn’t just witnessed that, I might just already know because I have known you for six years now, Odango. I’ve caught on to a thing or two.”

Usagi pressed her trembling lips together tightly, petulantly crossing her arms as she turned her attention back to the window. “Yeah, well, no one asked you,” she muttered, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“You literally just asked me, Odango.”

“Shut up, Mamoru-baka,” she stubbornly hissed under her breath.

A streak of lightning shot across the sky, and Usagi squeezed her eyes shut tightly, slinking down in the passenger seat, clamping her hands over her ears, awaiting the thunder that was sure to follow. And follow, it did. A loud crash roared through the air. It sounded close, deafening, and even Mamoru jumped.

This storm was making Mamoru nervous. He couldn’t see two feet past his car, and his wipers couldn’t move fast enough to clear the windshield before more rain hit. This was getting dangerous, and Mamoru needed to get off the road.

Luckily, his apartment was literally right around the corner. Usagi’s apartment, on the other hand…

“Odango...I can’t keep driving in this. It’s too dangerous.” He didn’t dare tear his eyes away from the barely visible road in front of them to see what her response was, but from the corner of his eye, he could see her squirm and knew she was more than likely scowling at him. “My apartment is coming up here on the right. We’re going to have to ride the storm out there. I can bring you home after.”

She didn’t answer, but he could hear her swallow past the lump in her throat. He knew this wasn’t ideal. He was sure she would probably rather walk home than be stuck with him in his apartment until whenever the storm ended. But the image of her falling to her knees, terror etched into her expression flashed through his mind, and he refused to let her walk home alone in this. She was just going to have to put up with him for a little bit longer.

He pulled into the complex’s parking garage and into his normal space.

They sat there for a moment, listening to the muffled sound of the rain as it relentlessly pounded against the cement garage.

Mamoru consciously ignored how his heart picked up in pace as he took a deep breath and turned towards her. “Let’s get inside.”

He held his breath, half convinced that she was going to demand to go home right away, but instead, he was relieved when she nodded curtly and hopped out of the car. He exhaled quietly, raking his fingers through his hair before he followed suit. He noticed as he closed his door that she was staring at the seat she’d been sitting in.

He leaned down to peek in through his driver’s side window to see what she was looking at—the seat. The passenger side seat was soaking wet, a very defined imprint of rainwater left in her wake. He stood back to full height, brow

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furrowed as he peered at her over the top of his car. She was chewing on her bottom lip, and it dawned on him that she was waiting for a verbal lashing.

Though he did tend to tease her mercilessly, the thought didn’t sit well with him. “It’ll dry,” he said instead of the scathing remark he typically would have said.

Her eyes shot back to him in surprise, and she opened her mouth to reply when another loud crack of thunder sounded around them, the echo amplified in the parking garage. She yelped, dropping to the ground, pressing the heels of her palms over her ears. Without thinking, he rushed around the car to her side, leaning down, concerned as he wrapped an arm around her without an ounce of hesitation. She flinched before letting him help her stand. Then she pushed away from him, defiance shining in her blue eyes, and held her head high as he led them inside and to the elevator.

The ride up was silent, neither saying a word, both of them, perhaps a bit childishly, refusing to acknowledge the other’s existence in the elevator. The silence was awkward, tense, and internally, Mamoru’s head was spinning. Usagi had been to his apartment before because of the random parties Motoki used to throw in his apartment. But they’d never been alone in there before, not one on one.

As they reached his floor and the doors opened, Usagi didn’t move, allowing him to go first. As they made it to his apartment, he unlocked the door and quietly stepped aside. She gave him a small nervous smile before taking a step into the genkan. He locked the door behind them and took off his shoes, exchanging them for slippers.

He wasn’t used to having women in his apartment, but because of the occasional times when Reika would come over with Motoki, he’d had the good sense to invest in a pair of woman’s slippers. He was grateful for that now as Usagi peeled off sopping wet shoes, stared at the slippers for a moment before sliding her feet into them.

He had no idea what he was thinking, but Mamoru led her into the living room and toward his bathroom. “Hold on one second,” he said as he rushed to his bedroom. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants and his Keio University t-shirt, swallowing nervously as he offered them to her. “Why don’t you take a shower to warm yourself up. There are towels in the cabinet in there. You can put these on until your clothes dry. The dryer is right over there.” He pointed to the laundry room.

She stared at the clothing in his outstretched hand for a moment, and her expression was uncharacteristically guarded as she reached out to take them from him with a nod. After she slipped into the bathroom, Mamoru headed back to the living room, shifting nervously, pacing as he tried his best not to think about the fact that Usagi was currently in his shower, naked.

He shook his head with a self-deprecating snort and went to the kitchen to make some tea as a distraction instead. He was sure a cup of hot tea would also

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help warm her up, and it would give him something else to focus on other than the running water he could somehow hear more clearly than the driving rain outside.

As he placed the stainless steel kettle that he’d filled with water onto the stove, thunder crashed outside once again, and another round of lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the inside of his apartment through the balcony doors. Usagi shrieked from the bathroom, and even though he knew she was perfectly safe, he couldn’t help the immediate response he had to her cries as he inhaled sharply, heart racing as he tore back through the living room.

He stopped in front of the bathroom door, hand poised over the door handle before he came to his senses and pulled back quickly as if the doorknob had burned him. “Are you okay?”

It was silent for a moment, and he was inwardly debating the morality issues of going into the bathroom in case she was hurt when she finally responded.

“Yeah.” There was a shaky tenor in her voice. “I’m okay.”

The shower turned off, and he quickly moved away from the door, feeling a little foolish as he headed back into the living room, collapsing onto the couch with a slow, trembling exhale of breath.

He wasn’t sure why he was nervous. It was just Usagi here; the same Odango he’d known forever. The same girl he’d just teased yesterday for ordering the same milkshake she always did. To be fair, she’d started it, asking him with an overly dramatic tone of mock concern in her voice because he didn’t have a book in his hand.

“Are you sick? Should I call a doctor? Can you diagnose yourself?”

He’d laughed at that one. Because yes, their teasing had become just that.

Teasing. And playful banter. And somewhere along the line of their long history together, he’d come to rather enjoy it.

Though sometimes, admittedly, he did wish it was more…

The bathroom door opened, breaking his train of thought. He heard her soft footsteps as she entered the laundry room and the telltale clicks and soft purr of a motor as she started the dryer. When she stepped into the living room, he craned his neck to look up at her. His breath caught in his throat, lips parting in surprise as he did a double-take, his startled gaze sweeping over her. Usagi stood just over the threshold, her posture tense, awkwardly shifting as she bit the corner of her lip like she always did when she was nervous.

And maybe she had a reason to be. She wore only his Keio t-shirt, the sweatpants noticeably missing. He’d handed her a pair of his sweatpants, hadn’t he? He snapped his mouth shut, swallowing as the dull heat of a blush crept up his neck. The shirt wasn’t much shorter than the skirts she typically wore every day. But for some reason, this time, it was different. These were his clothes. His shirt. And nothing underneath?

Her hair was different, too. Instead of her trademark buns, which obviously didn’t hold up well when wet, her locks were braided down her back. He’d never seen her hair in any style but the odangos she usually wore. While he loved her 412

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signature hairstyle, despite how much he teased her about them, this new look was intriguing.

He’d completely stopped breathing, and he felt the warmth of a blush fanning across his face. He tried to swallow but found his mouth had gone completely dry.

She cleared her throat, wringing her wrists as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, breathing deeply as if mustering her courage. “The sweatpants were way too big and just kept falling off of me. When I went to put my clothes in the dryer, I saw you had some clean clothes that hadn’t been put away yet. So I grabbed a pair of your boxers to wear underneath this. I hope that’s okay.”

She said it in a matter of fact manner, an indication that she didn’t really care if it was okay. It was already done.

He could only nod. It was all he could do. Here was the girl of his dreams, whom he hadn’t always had the greatest relationship with, standing in his living room wearing nothing but his shirt and his boxers. He averted his eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath as he tried to gain some self-control over his emotions...and his hormones.

When he felt brave enough to turn his gaze back onto her, she was looking around his apartment as though she wasn’t sure what to do next.

“I texted Minako to let her know I was here. You know, so she doesn’t worry when I don’t come home from Ami’s.” She shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly, and all he could manage was another curt nod. Damnit, he just couldn’t seem to form any words.

The whistling kettle in the kitchen broke through the tension, and he cleared his throat as she turned to look at him, brows furrowed. “I made some tea,” he rasped as he stood. “Would you like some?”

She studied him for a moment as if contemplating his words. Then her lips curved into a soft but tentative smile, one that wasn’t customarily directed at him as she nodded enthusiastically. He smiled back, awkwardly waving his hand to indicate that she could sit on the couch before heading into the kitchen to retrieve the beverage.

He stood at the island for a moment, breathing deeply, reminding himself that this was Odango. Odango. Things should not be this uncomfortable. There shouldn’t be this much tension. He needed to reign in the situation. Maybe some teasing? A snappy remark? He was spiraling, and he needed to get a hold of himself, bring them back to where they were used to.

With renewed confidence, he carefully grabbed the two mugs of tea, careful not to spill it as he headed back into the living room. She wasn’t on the couch like he’d assumed she would be. Instead, she stood at the balcony doors, slender arms tightly wrapped around her body as she watched the rain come down in sheets. He carefully set the mugs down on the coffee table, opting to

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silently observe her, marveling at the beauty of her silhouette framed in front of the window, like a breathtaking focal point against the backdrop of a raging storm.

Lightning struck across the sky, followed quickly by a thunderous boom.

Usagi flinched away from the window, clumsily stumbling back onto the couch where she fell onto the cushion with a terrified yelp. Mamoru fought back a grin, took the seat beside her, reaching over to hand her one of the mugs. She grasped it with a grateful smile, sipping it slowly.

He picked up his own mug, taking a slow, deliberate sip, stalling until he trusted himself to speak again. “You really don’t like storms, huh?” He inwardly cringed at the blurted statement. What a stupid thing to say! Of course she didn’t like storms! What was wrong with him?

She wasn’t fazed, nodding, tilting her neck to the side to stare out the window again. When she turned back towards him, there was a sullen scowl on her face. She gently set her mug on the table. “Please do not make fun of me because of this,” she pleaded. “I can’t help it.”

He shook his head. “I can’t help the fact that I love to study, but you make fun of me for that,” he argued, the words spilling from his lips before he could stop them.

He slid his eyes shut, frustrated with himself, and how easily he slipped back into old habits. When he risked meeting her gaze, her eyes were wide, filled with indignation, cheeks tinged pink, lips parted on a startled gasp.

“That’s different!”

He raised an eyebrow. “How? How is that any different?”

Her mouth opened, then closed, unable to retort as he’d rendered her speechless. She blinked, and he grinned, undeniably pleased by her response.

She was flustered, pink-cheeked, and so utterly kissable in her righteous indignation; it reminded him why he couldn’t help but push her buttons as he mercilessly teased her.

He opened his mouth to respond when a loud boom rattled the apartment. Though it wasn’t unexpected given the relentless ferocity of the storm, Usagi squealed, jumping as she threw herself into his arms without thinking. He grunted softly from the unexpected impact of her body colliding with his, but he was quick to recover, heart racing as he reverently wrapped his arms around her tense, trembling form.

He thought for a moment that she’d pull away from his embrace, but she didn’t move, and he swallowed around the lump in his throat as he pulled her more snugly against him. “I won’t tease you for this, Usagi,” he whispered, pressing his lips into the wispy strands of damp, silken hair. Even when the thunder stopped, he didn’t let her go; instead, she tucked her head beneath his chin.

“Thank you,” she replied, her voice trembling just above a soft, grateful whisper.

Silence blanketed the room, and his breath hitched when she snuggled in, curling up into a ball on his lap, tucking her head into the hollow of his collarbone 414

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as she pressed herself closer. She curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and he wondered if she could feel the way his heart raced beneath her palms. The only sound permeating the silence of the room was the rain as it pelted against his windows. Without even realizing it, he lifted his hand and began to trace the soft silken tendrils of hair that curled into the braid that trailed down her back.

He’d never felt so comfortable before. Intimately holding her in his arms.

This was exactly what he imagined heaven felt like, and he couldn’t help but love every second of it. If only it could stay like this forever. But while he’d realized his true feelings for Usagi a long time ago, he knew she didn’t feel the same. How could she, after the way he’d treated her?

When they’d first met, he’d been angry, annoyed, irritated by her bright disposition that threatened to pierce through the gloomy sullen greys of his world.

Admittedly, he’d been very harsh, and though he’d berated himself endlessly over the years, he couldn’t take that back. But maybe...maybe they could start over?

Even if he couldn’t have her in his arms like this all the time, at least they could be friends?

“Usagi,” he breathed, his stomach churning, nerves frayed as he summoned up the courage to say what he’d left unsaid for so long. “Can we...would you want to start over?”

She lifted her head, pulling away, tilting her chin up to look up at him. He instantly missed the warmth of her body pressed against his. “What do you mean?”

Her brow furrowed, confusion etched into the delicate features of her face as she peered up at him. His heart skipped a beat, and he was terrified and hopeful all at once. It was nerve-wracking, and he probably should have pulled away to put some physical distance between them so he could think straight. He didn’t drop his arms from around her, though. Not yet.

Sighing, he tore his eyes away from hers, mustering the courage, pushing past his social ineptness to try and put into words what he meant. “We fight all the time,” he rasped nervously. “And yeah, it’s fun sometimes. But that’s not how I wanted this to go.”

She tilted her head to the side, gracing him with the adorably confused expression he’d seen on her face more than once, especially when she deemed something he’d said particularly weird or crazy. “How you wanted what to go?”

Reluctantly, he finally pulled away, carefully extracting her from his embrace as he moved to stand. He was opting to put some distance between them. If he was going to finish this, tell her he wanted to be friends and not the frenemies they’d inevitably become, he needed a second to breathe, to collect his thoughts. There was no way he’d be able to manage that with her small form pressed warmly against his.

She watched him, head moving back and forth as her gaze trailed him as he began to pace the floor. “When you first threw that test paper at me, and I made fun of your hair,” he started, not daring to look at her, afraid he’d lose his nerve, “...I’m not good at expressing feelings, you know? And you...you were just so 415

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beautiful.” He glanced at her quickly, unable to resist seeing her reaction. Her eyes widened, startled, but he had to keep going. “And instead of saying something nice like I wanted to, that came out. And you were so angry. I just...our relationship turned into this back and forth fighting all the time. And I don’t even know how that happened.”

He knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t help it. Words were just spilling from his mouth, bypassing whatever filter he possessed before he could even think them. “I mean, we’ve known each other for six years, and I still can’t seem to say the right thing. I think it must be a defense mechanism because it doesn’t seem to matter how long I’ve been in love with you; I just keep spitting out all these insults whenever you’re around. I don’t mean to. They just come out. And I…” He froze in his tracks when he heard her gasp, his eyes widening when he realized what he’d just said, what he’d just inadvertently confessed. He whipped his head around so quickly he was sure he’d given himself whiplash to settle his terrorfilled gaze onto her. She was shocked, eyes so wide, she was like a little blue-eyed doe caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Inwardly, he cursed his stupidity. What the hell was wrong with him! How could he have just said that? His breaths were coming in short, panicked, truncated gasps. He was hyperventilating. He needed to get the hell out of there. Now! “Anyway....yeah...um...do you want something to drink?” he stuttered, his mind reduced to a completely blank slate riddled with terror. “I’m going to go make us some tea.” He turned on his heels, practically running to the kitchen, knowing damn well he’d already made them both tea earlier. It was still sitting on the coffee table! But he needed an out. And it didn’t matter how much time he’d spent with his nose buried in books, or how intelligent he liked to think that he was, at that moment, he couldn’t think of anything else.

He left her there on the couch, wide-eyed, as he rushed out of the room.

He only stopped when he leaned against the counter across from the island, raking both hands through his hair, ducking his head, feeling foolish, miserable, and filled with frustration. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it! What had he done?

He’d ruined everything.

His internal rant of self-deprecation came to a screeching halt when he heard her soft footsteps enter the kitchen; he stopped breathing as he slowly looked up. He didn’t have to wonder; he knew he looked like a wreck, pale, regretful, on the verge of passing out. He frowned, though, shocked to see how determined she looked. He’d expected anger, revulsion, anything. But not the serious look that was on her face right now.

She was uncharacteristically graceful as she moved to stand in front of him.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think. All he could do was wait. Wait for her to explode on him? To laugh in his face? Maybe demand an explanation? But she stood still, staring at him. The tension in the air was so thick; he could cut through it with a knife.

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Finally, she licked her lips and took a step toward him, her hand reaching out to gently touch his chest. They both watched her hand, and he swallowed around the lump in his throat. As her fingers dragged up his chest, joined by the other one at the back of his neck, his breath caught. Her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, and she slowly pulled him down towards her.

He felt her breath fan warmly across his lips, and he couldn’t help but whisper out the one thing he’d wanted to call her for as long as he could remember.

“Usako.”

She paused, hesitating, and he was terrified he’d just ruined whatever was about to happen. She stared into his eyes, and her face lit up brightly as her lips curved into that brilliant, signature smile that was so purely Usagi it took his breath away. She launched herself onto the tips of her toes, crashing her lips onto his.

He responded immediately, unwilling to let this moment slip away from him. He wrapped his arms around her waist, crushing her against him as her arms encircled his neck. She tilted her head, deepening the kiss as her tongue trailed across his bottom lip. He gave her access, moaning into her mouth as his tongue tenderly caressed hers.

She pushed herself closer, pressing her body against his as their kiss heated up. He backed her up to the island, pushing himself off the counter to follow those perfect lips of hers. She tightened her grip around him as he hauled her up onto the island, her legs spreading slightly, allowing him space to stand between them, never breaking their intense lip-lock.

Her hands moved to the buttons on his shirt, making quick work of them one by one before she yanked his shirt from his pants. She pushed the fabric open, running the tips of her fingers over his chest. He groaned in response, running his hands up her sides, slipping them beneath the seam of her shirt to trace across her belly. She whimpered into his mouth, her hands tightening in his hair.

He grabbed the bottom of her shirt, and she lifted herself slightly so he could pull it up and over her head, finally breaking their kiss. He halted because, of course, she wasn’t wearing a bra. It was currently drying. She sat on his island, completely topless, her perfect, beautiful breasts bare for him to see.

He couldn’t breathe. And he was getting incredibly hard.

She smiled, biting the corner of her lip in the sexiest way he’d ever seen.

She brought her hands to his chest, gripping him by his open shirt to pull him back to attack his lips again. But at the last second, as their breaths tangled together, he backed away, taking a step toward the counter behind him. She frowned in confusion.

“Usako…”

“Do you...do you not want this?” Her expression fell, eyes glistening with a perceived rejection that immediately broke his heart.

“No!” he yelled with wide eyes, his shaking hands held in front of him. “I mean, yes! I do. I do want this. Just… I just don’t want you to feel pressured or…”

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“Pressured?” Confusion laced her voice, and he sighed.

“Yeah. You’re vulnerable because of the storm, and I don’t want to take advantage of you.” He took another step back, needing to put some distance between them before he gave in and pulled her back into his arms. Instead, he looked away, avoiding the possibility of overstepping her boundaries by gawking at the perfection of her bare chest.

She smiled, using her hands to help herself slide off the table. “Taking advantage?” She giggled, her grin widening. “I’m in love with you too, nerd.”

His breath caught in his throat, and he froze. “Wh-what?”

“Mamoru... we’re both to blame for the way that our relationship has played out so far. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since the second I laid eyes on you.” She said it so matter of factly like she was telling him the weather report.

Had he blinked? His eyes were burning. He forced himself to blink and take a deep breath before he passed out. His heart skipped a beat, hope blossoming a little in the cavity of his chest. “You have?”

Usagi nodded, her eyes bright and breathtakingly gorgeous. “But I was so young; I didn’t know what it was. I just knew I had feelings that I wasn’t used to.

They freaked me out. So instead of trying to figure out what they were, I just ignored them and leaned into all of our fighting.”

He was speechless. He could never have imagined in his wildest fantasies that Usagi Tsukino would be standing in his kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of his black boxers with roses on them, confessing that she’d been in love with him since they’d met. It was surreal, and he felt like he was watching all of it from outside of his body.

“How about we start over?” she asked, sticking out her petite hand between them. “Hi. I’m Tsukino Usagi, and I’m in love with you.” She grinned, patiently waiting for him to respond.

After staring at her outreached hand for a moment, stunned with disbelief, he slowly extended his own. As he took her hand in his, shaking it slowly, he drew his eyes back to hers. “Hi. I’m Chiba Mamoru. And I’m definitely in love with you, too.”

She broke out into a huge toothy grin. “Good! Now that we’ve settled that...” Using their still joined hands, she jerked him forward. He dropped one hand to grasp her waist, pulling her against him as his other hand clutched her cheek, tilting her head slightly to deepen their kiss.

As she pushed herself against his body, her arms slipping around his neck, she moaned. She walked backward, leading them out of the kitchen. He took the lead, walking her across the living room, refusing to pull away from her lips. She stumbled a few times, giggling every time she tripped over her own feet. He couldn’t help but smile, his lips still pressed to hers, the craziness of how this night was turning out, making him feel more lighthearted than he’d ever felt.

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When she tripped again, this time almost falling backward, he caught her, his hands gripping her hips, pulling her tight against him as he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around him and held on as he walked them both across the apartment and into his bedroom. Now that she wasn’t tripping over every little thing, she tilted her head, deepening their kiss, and ground her hips into his. He stumbled, jutting a hand out to catch himself on the wall of the hallway as he groaned into her mouth. She giggled, and he couldn’t help but smirk against her lips as he continued into the bedroom.

He threw her onto the bed, and she laughed as she bounced a bit. Still grinning, he climbed on top of her, holding himself above her with a hand on each side of her head. She stopped laughing, a beautiful smile still spread across her perfect, always kissable lips as she stared up at him.

He took a moment just to look at her. Here she was, a vision he’d only dared to dream about before, splayed out before him in all of the glorious, curved perfection that he’d spent years secretly memorizing. This time, when thunder clapped in the distance as the storm finally made its way out of Minato, she didn’t jump, entirely at ease beneath him.

But he couldn’t help but pause again. Three hours ago, they were still frenemies, perfectly content to fight with each other daily. Now she was beneath him in his bed. “Usagi…” he hesitated, his smile dropping slightly, “...are we moving too fast? We don’t have to do this.”

But her smile only widened reassuringly, and she reached up to cup his cheek. “Mamo-chan,” she purred, and his heart fluttered at the sound of the new endearment on her lips. “I’ve been waiting for this for longer than you can imagine.” She leaned up slightly, placing a kiss onto his shoulder. “I’ve literally dreamed about this.” The next kiss was pressed into the crook of his neck, and his eyes slid shut as he suppressed the moan bubbling up in his throat. “I don’t want to stop,” she whispered, kissing his jaw next. “I want to go,” she kissed the corner of his mouth, “all night.” She paused, and he opened his eyes to peer down at her.

Her smile had slipped from her mouth, replaced by an intense look of longing that took his breath away. “Make love to me, Mamo-chan,” she breathed.

His mind went blank, every thought, every ounce of hesitation pulled from his head, and he immediately crushed his lips onto hers. She moaned, slipping her arms around his neck and pulling him down onto her. He settled between her legs, his tongue sliding against hers, and she grabbed at his shirt, pushing it the rest of the way off and tossing it to the side.

Then her hands went to his belt, fumbling as she struggled to get it undone. He dropped a hand to trace down her side, and she grunted in frustration, yanking at the offending buckle. He chuckled and pulled away, climbing off the bed to stand. She immediately sat up, watching intently as he unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans.

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He could feel the butterflies twisting and twirling through his stomach as her eyes raked over his body. This wasn’t his first time with a woman. But this was his first time with her, and he wanted to do it right.

She stared, her pink tongue popping out to lick her enticing lips as he nervously pulled off his jeans. She moved to sit up on her knees, crawling to the side of the bed. Her small hands reached back out, running over the muscles in his chest and over his abs.

“I’ve always wanted to do this to you,” she moaned before leaning over to trail her tongue from his navel to his collarbone. His breath quickened, and he could feel himself getting unbearably hard in his boxers. “You taste delicious,” she grinned up at him.

He clasped both hands to her face, pulling her closer to crush his lips to hers. Her hands moved to his waist, pulling him tight against her, his hardness pushing into her belly. She slid a hand into his boxers and around his cock, running her fingers up and down.

He inhaled sharply, and she grinned against his lips. He knew she was watching as his face scrunched up, his head dipping to her shoulder as she stroked him. She kissed his shoulder again, then moved to his neck, her delicate hand not slowing as she caressed him.

He grunted, pushing her backward back on to the bed, her hand slipping from him. He attacked her lips again as he climbed on top of her, and her fingers tangled in the hairs at the nape of his neck.

He trailed his lips down her jawline, then to her neck, stopping to suck and nip at a particular part that made her groan. Her fingers clenched in his hair, holding him to her as he moved downwards.

He reached her breast, taking a second to gaze at them before taking them both in his hands, running his thumb over her nipples until they hardened beneath his fingertips. She moaned, and he watched as her eyes slid shut when he took one between his lips, sucking gently. He massaged the other with his hand as his tongue flicked over her nipple, relishing the way her breathing sped up, and she unconsciously ground her hips up into him.

Then he switched breasts, giving the same treatment to the other. He continued his way down, lapping at her skin as he made his way toward her belly button. Her eyes opened, and she watched him, her eyes locked onto his whenever he looked up at her.

It was hard to tear his eyes away from his, finding the lust and passion in them captivating. But he broke away to gaze down at the boxers she wore. He continued down, bypassing the boxers to kiss the inside of her thigh, where cloth met skin. She sighed in contentment as his lips moved all the way down to her ankle at an agonizingly slow pace. She shifted beneath him when he moved to her other ankle, slowly making his way back up the other side.

When he made it back to her hips, he softly grabbed the waistline of the rose-covered boxers between his fingers. He looked back to her face, and she 420

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smiled, lifting her hips enough for him to pull them down and off, not even bothering to look at where they fell on the ground. He didn’t care. All that mattered was this breathtaking beauty in front of him, her legs spread for him, wet and waiting, as she stared at him with all the trust in the world.

He leaned down, his eyes locked with hers again, and stuck out his tongue, trailing up her slit. Usagi hissed, her back arching slightly with pleasure. It made his heart race and licked her again slowly. She moaned, her voice egging him on, and he used his hands to hold open her thighs, watching her closely as he moved his tongue to her clit.

Her body twitched beneath him as he searched her clit for that one spot.

He’d done plenty of research on the female body and how to please it.

Theoretically, he knew exactly what to do. Putting it into practice was a little different.

But find it, he did, and he grinned when her whole body arched off the bed, and she cried out. Her fingers threaded through his hair as she held him against her. He released her right thigh, bringing his hand up between them, and slowly pushing one finger in. He groaned into her at how incredibly tight she was around his finger as he started moving it in and out.

Her moaning got louder, and he flicked her clit again with his tongue. Her hips started moving on their own against his face, and he smiled as he inserted another finger. She gasped, widening her legs, and he picked up the pace, speeding up his fingers as they pumped in and out of her.

He felt her muscles start to tighten around his fingers and knew that meant she was close. So he latched his lips around her clit and sucked. Her whole body tensed, and she arched off the bed and cried out.

He gently pulled his fingers out as she collapsed on the bed, panting as she stared up at the ceiling. He moved off of her and discarded his boxers, throwing them to the side as he watched her breathing start to normalize.

He sat on his knees between her legs and reached over, opening his bedside table and pulling out a condom. He’d bought the box a while ago, wanting always to be prepared. It was only missing one condom, the one he’d used his first time with a girl after a party thrown at his house. Although Mamoru’s first time wasn’t with who he wanted, he’d make up for that now by making this the best time instead of the first.

He slipped the condom on, rolling it down his throbbing member, and looked up to notice her watching him intently. He smiled and reached a hand out, running his finger across her clit again, making sure to work her back up. She moaned, her eyes sliding shut with pleasure.

When her back started to arch again, and her gloss started to coat his fingers again, he pulled away, earning him a groan in protest. He moved over her, hovering above her, one hand beside her head to hold himself up. The other hand, he used to line himself up against her.

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He looked into her eyes, giving her one final opportunity to stop him from going any further; one more chance to pull away. But her eyes showed only love as they looked up at him. She smiled, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek.

“Mamo-chan,” she moaned, thrusting her hips toward him. “Please.”

It was all he needed to hear. He pushed in slowly, her tightness consuming him as he let her adjust. He watched her eyes, entranced, and pulled out, thrusting back in slowly. She cried out, her hands gripping his shoulders, and leaned forward to press his lips to hers. He slanted his lips, deepening their kiss as he started a slow, steady pace.

He wanted this to last; wanted to stay like this forever. But her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper into her, and he grunted as he unintentionally jerked into her. She moaned, encouraging him to speed up.

With both hands on either side of her head for leverage, he pushed into her as her hips moved to meet his, bucking hard against him. Her arms wrapped around his torso, her hands tracing his back as he moved, and he complied with her directions. Faster. Harder.

Mamoru grabbed her right leg, untangling it from around his hip and hauling it up to her chest. The new position sent him in deeper, and she cried out when he hit a certain spot. He grunted, feeling the pressure building up inside of him, knowing it wouldn’t be much longer before he came. From the way she was moaning, slamming her hips into his, he knew she wasn’t far behind.

He reached a hand down, pushing his thumb against her clit and rubbing.

He watched intently as her mouth dropped open, and she stiffened beneath him.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as she tightened around him, his name on her lips, her nails in his back.

The sight of her coming undone beneath him was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

A few more well-placed thrusts into her tight center sent him over the edge, and he roared in her ear as he came. His forearms barely held him from crushing her as he collapsed on top of her, his foreheads buried in the crook of her neck. The only sounds in the apartment came from their heavy breathing, and in the back of his mind, he noted that the storm must have finally passed as he didn’t hear that at all anymore.

She kissed his shoulder, and he lifted his head to look down at her flushed, smiling, perfectly heart-shaped face. “That was amazing,” she cooed, her hand caressing his cheek.

“You’re amazing.” He couldn’t seem to get rid of the smile that he was pretty sure was now permanently plastered to his face.

She grinned, giggling softly. “We are amazing,” she corrected. He leaned down, crushing his lips to hers in a long hard kiss.

After a moment, he pulled away, rolling out and off of her, earning him a groan of protest. He grinned and took off the condom, throwing it into the small trash can beside the bed. He grabbed the blankets, wiggling it from underneath 422

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the both of them so they could get under them. When he laid back down, Usagi turned, curling into his arms.

They lay like that, her head tucked under his chin, his arms wrapped around her. She was warm and soft, and he couldn’t believe this had actually happened; that she was in his bed, in his arms, had told him she loved him.

This was not what he was expecting to happen when he’d left the library at Keio earlier, trying to avoid the oncoming storm.

Usagi pulled away, and he immediately missed her warmth. She sat up quickly, the blanket falling to her waist, her chest once again bare, and she looked to the window, frowning. “The storm is gone.”

His heart dropped. Would she want to leave now? Maybe he’d been a distraction from her fear, and now that the downpour was over, she was ready to get back to the apartment she shared with Minako.

Mamoru propped himself up with one elbow and looked up at her. “Do you want me to take you home?”

Her head whipped to him, confusion written all over her face. “Do you want me to go home?”

“No.” He didn’t hesitate in responding, because no, he didn’t want her to go home. He didn’t want her to leave. Not when he’d just got her.

Her confusion morphed into a sigh of relief, and she grinned. “Good.

Because I was serious about going all night.”

He broke into a laugh, the tension and fear immediately disintegrating.

This woman was amazing. She leaned down, placing a gentle kiss on his lips. While she was distracted, he brought a hand up, tickling her side. She dropped to the bed in a fit of giggles, her messy, braided hair sticking out in all directions around her.

He moved back on top of her, pressing his lips to hers. She moaned softly, wrapping her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. She ground her hips into him, making him hard almost immediately.

But he stopped, pulling away and halting her movements. There was one final thing he needed to do. “Usako,” he breathed, “will you go out with me?”

She giggled, her cheeks flushing a beautiful shade of red. “I’ve been waiting six years to hear that. I thought you’d never ask.” She leaned up, pressing her lips to his. Then she pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. “Yes, baka.

I’ll go out with you.”

He grinned, unable to suppress his happiness as he captured her lips again, this time kissing her hard and deep. She chuckled into his mouth, and he pulled away, giving her a confused smile. “What’s so funny?”

Her grin was mischievous as she giggled again. “Think of the shock we’ll get when everyone finds out tomorrow.

“If we even see anyone tomorrow,” he said playfully, delighted by the sparkle in her eyes.

She frowned in confusion. “Why wouldn’t we see anyone tomorrow?”

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He smirked, raising an eyebrow. “You plan to go all night. I say we just stay in this bed all day tomorrow, too.”

Her eyes slid shut for a moment as she moaned. “Mmm, I love that idea.”

She circled her arms back around his neck, pulling him down on her and crushing her lips to his.

That damn storm made his night.

Author’s Notes This one is a bit more detailed than I usually write. I don’t know what happened. Lol. But I hope you like it!

And as always, thank you to my amazing beta and bestie, Beej88. She’s got a lot of adulting going on right now and she still made time to beta this for me. She also made special fanart just for this fic! You’re amazing, girl!

And that wraps up Smutember! Thank you again to FloraOne for hosting this wonderful month. Thank you to all the other writers and artists who participated! Thank you to my best friend and beta, Beej88! And THANK YOU to all you beautiful, beautiful readers! Without you, this wouldn’t be near as much fun.

I have something new in the works so keep your eyes peeled.

Stay safe everyone! And don’t forget, reviews are love!

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You Talk In Your Sleep Additional Tropes: Established Relationship Contains: Fingering, Penis-In-Vagina Sex Ship: UsaMamo

Somniloquy

by Ninjette Twitch

Mamoru frowned in his sleep, pulled from his dreams by a soft voice. He slowly opened his eyes, listening intently to the mumblings coming from behind him, and smiled. Taking extra care not to wake her, he rolled over, facing Usagi, who was sleeping on her back, her hair a mess, and her mouth hanging open. He watched her for a few minutes, marveling at how someone could be so beautiful, even with a small line of drool running down her cheek.

She huffed in her sleep, her face scrunching up in anger, and his eyes widened when he heard a harsh “Mamoru-baka” slip through her stupor. He couldn’t help but chuckle as he was vaulted back to their younger days of Mamorubaka and Odango Atama. They hadn’t called each other those names in a long time, but obviously his younger self was currently making an aggravating appearance in her dreams.

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His eyes raked over her, and he wasn’t surprised in the least when his boxers became a little tighter. The white tank top she was wearing with her pink pajama shorts was riding up, exposing a tantalizing view of creamy white skin. His breath hitched, and he licked his lips, running his fingertips in the gentlest of caresses over the soft curve of her abdomen.

“Baka,” she murmured, and he stopped, shifting his eyes back to her face just in time to watch as the annoyed pout, that she’d often graced him with when they’d first met, cross her features once again. “...stupid...stuck in a book...nerd...,” she muttered, and his eyes widened again. Nerd, was he?

He stifled a laugh as he slipped his hand into her shorts, running his fingers across her panties. Her lips parted slightly, and he leaned down to her ear. “With test grades like those, maybe you should have your nose in a book, too,” he teased, remembering quite clearly some of his quips he used to throw at her.

Her breathing picked up, and her face scrunched. He could feel her getting wet beneath his finger as she started moving her hips in tandem with his hand, making little noises under her breath that turned him on to no end. He licked his lips, his breathing hitching slightly, as he swept her panties to the side, slipping a finger inside of her. He stopped for a moment, watching as she started squirming beneath him, clearly wanting more. He smirked, thoroughly enjoying this silent torture as he slipped his finger back in again, making sure to keep it just between her folds, resisting the temptation to push inside.

“I’d rather have a life,” she began loudly, clearly fully awake now, though she kept her eyes closed, long lashes rustling across the tops of flushed cheeks, “than be stuck reading endless books until I die.” A smirk slowly curled onto plump, kissable lips, and she was clearly impressed with herself for her snippy comeback.

Mamoru’s jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. Odango was definitely back in full swing, and it was high time he taught her a lesson. Without a word, he plunged his finger inside, earning a gasp of pleasure as her eyes finally flew open, and her body arched to meet him.

“That wasn’t very nice, Odango,” he teased, bending down to hiss the words in her ear as he moved his finger in and out of her in a slow, torturous pace.

“You….. *gasp*....started….it...ah!”

She moaned, her body moving in time with his hand. He watched, with a grin, as her face twisted up in pleasure. He was incredibly turned on, and his breath quickened as his eyes greedily raked over the tantalizing curves of her writhing body.

“Do I ever start anything?” he asked playfully. She barked out a laugh of disbelief, making him chuckle. He brought his thumb into play, rubbing it against her clit. “You started this, Odango Atama.” She moaned loudly, gripping his hand to make sure he didn’t stop, and it turned him on even more. “Calling me names in your sleep.” He moved his hand in time with his words. “Baka.” Thrust. “Nerd.”

Thrust.

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With each thrust, she gasped. “ You are a nerd!” She cried out, and he could tell by the tone of her voice that she was getting close. With a smirk, he stopped, holding his fingers in place. She bucked her hips, trying to get him to keep going, but he held firm. “Mamo-chaaaan,” she whined, and he chuckled again.

“Oh, now I’m Mamo-chan again, huh?” he grinned, and she wriggled her hips again, desperately trying to force his hand to move. “What happened to Mamoru-baka?”

She growled. God help him; she actually growled. “You are being a baka, baka!” And before he could say anything, she pressed her palms against his chest, forcefully shoving him onto his back, and his fingers slipped from her with the force of her push. He watched, breath caught in his throat, as she quickly removed her bottoms and climbed on top of him, her messy blonde hair fanning around her perfect heart-shaped face. Her gorgeous blue eyes, angry and full of fire, bore into him, and he couldn’t breathe.

She was beautiful.

“You were mean to me in my dream,” she growled out, frustration and anger lacing her voice as she jerked at his boxers, yanking them off, throwing them over the side of the bed. He hissed as the cold air swept over him. “You’re being mean to me now.” His hands immediately went to her waist to steady her as she positioned herself above him, his hard-on poised right at her entrance.

With both hands on either side of his head, she leaned down, her hot breath pooling in his ear, making him harder than he ever thought he could be.

“You deserve more than a test paper thrown at your head,” she whispered, her tone sultry and filled with promise. Then she dropped, impaling herself on him as she threw her head back in pleasure.

He couldn’t help it. The neighbors probably heard the strangled cry that erupted from his lips. Even though he’d been teasing and pleasing her, the anticipation had been killing him, and the intensity of finally being buried inside her rocked him to his core.

She didn’t move, taking her time to tease him now. Slowly she sat back up, her hands moving to his chest to help her keep balance. He could feel her pulsing around him, tightening her muscles the way she knew he liked, and he gritted his teeth, using all his willpower to keep from thrusting up into her more deeply. He’d been in control with his fingers before. Now it was her turn.

She bit her lip, and he groaned. She knew how much that turned him on.

This really was payback. Keeping one hand planted firmly on his chest and moving the other beside his head, she leaned back over, slowly rolling her hips into him.

He grunted, his fingers digging into her sides as he tried to his best to keep a grip on himself; much like the way she was gripping him.

“What’s the matter?” she giggled, rolling her hips again, pulling him deeper into her. He sucked in a breath, feeling himself twitch inside her. He needed more, and she knew it. She slid her palm up his chest, exploring his taut 428

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muscles with her soft fingertips, and he almost couldn’t take it anymore. “Those books aren’t really helping so much now, are they, baka?”

That was it. The dam broke. In one fluid motion, he rolled them over, and a laugh escaped her lips as she hit the mattress beneath him. Without a word, because his need overrode his ability to speak, he pulled out just to the tip and slammed back in, earning a cry from both of them. He grabbed her hip, hiking it up around his waist as she wrapped her arms around him, tangling her fingers in the hairs at the nape of his neck. Breathless, heart pounding in his chest, he pushed in again as his lips crushed to hers, swallowing her moan.

As his lips trailed down her jawline and onto her neck, she raised one hand above her, gripping the headboard to give herself leverage as she moved with him, meeting him thrust for thrust. Her other hand still tangled tightly in his hair, pulling slightly every time he pushed into her.

“Mamo-chan,” she cried out, egging him on as he grabbed one leg, pushing her knee to her chest, sending him deeper still, her other leg gripping his waist.

He was almost there, and he could tell by the way her muscles tightened around him and the way she was moaning in his ear that she was too. He dropped a hand down to her clit, rubbing it in circles, the way he knew she loved. It sent her over the edge, and she gasped, her whole body tightening beneath him as she cried out his name.

After a few more thrusts, he came, too, a harsh “fuck” falling from his lips as his forehead dropped to her shoulder, his forearms next to her head to hold himself up and keep from crushing her. For a few moments, neither said anything; only their breathing echoed off their bedroom walls.

Her hands started tracing the muscles on his back, and he closed his eyes, enjoying the tenderness of her touch. “I should talk in my sleep more often,” she giggled. He grinned, lazily lifting his head to look down at her.

“You talk in your sleep every night, Usako,” he said, gently pulling a strand of hair that was stuck to her cheek, sweeping it behind her ear. “I just usually can’t understand you. Tonight, though,” he leaned down, brushing a tender kiss on the tip of her nose, “I got the gist.”

A blush spread across her cheeks, and he chuckled. Reluctantly, he rolled to lay next to her, pulling out of her as he did, eliciting a groan of protest from her lips. But she curled into his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

“I’m going to be so tired for work in the morning, baka,” she teased, her fingers tracing designs on his chest.

He chuckled. “Then go to sleep, Odango,” he grinned. “And no more talking in your sleep.”

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Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes As always, thank you to my beta and bestest friend, Beej88, for going over this for me. She is the greatest! And thanks to all my friends who egged me on through this. Hope you enjoy!

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Thank You <3