Latest revision as of 14:03, 20 March 2016

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's maybe an hour and a half, two hours, after the brouhaha in the abandoned bar. The place that Sailor Moon took Naru to was down a very very long flight of basement stairs in an abandoned house in Tokyo-- and illogically, the door at the bottom of it opened into a beautiful green space with the sun overhead and cliffs risingup on one side. It looks like an immense shrine or temple set into a mountain, and the grounds are pristine and lovingly kept, with zen gardens and bamboo and carefully swept paths that wind into the woods and go over little streams with tiny bridges. The main entrance is at the far side of a lawn, upon which a little orange-and-white cat suns itself.

The buildings are very traditional, with dark wooden frameworks and white rice-paper walls and sliding doors; it seems to be very empty of human life but for the two of them. There are indications of habitation, mostly in the form of kitchen stuff set up in a kitchen room, and an open door as they pass showing signs of being a bedroom in use. It's a very calm place, peaceful and quiet.

Whatever Moon-- or Usagi-- has been telling Naru for the past while, it's at that ninety-to-a-hundred-twenty minute mark that they can hear steps in the front room. Usa will know it's Mamoru.

Naru Osaka has posed:
In the grand scheme of the last.. highly nebulous period of time.. basement stairs opening up into a sunny garden is rather the least of the weird that Naru is attempting to process. A few basics have come clear in that time.

Naru is physically fine, not even a scratch on her. She probably gets more bumps and bruises in an average week at school than she did in the Dark Kingdom. Her grasp on time is absolutely on crack, just lu la lemons gone. She's days behind reality.

There is a notebook in Naru's grasp that she's unwilling to let go of, even as she hugs Usagi again, and again. No matter that its in the way. An unfamiliar notebook at that, not one that Naru had at school, or ever before.

"Usagi.." Naru starts, even if she's /looking/ at Sailor Moon, she can't seem to not use the familiar name, and here is where one might worry that Naru will be upset, or angry about being kept in the dark, lied to for quite some time.

Instead Naru offers an almost shy smile. "I'm so proud of you!"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi -- er, Sailor Moon -- has been fretting and hovering over Naru, hugging and cuddling in between. Despite the assurances and the evidence that her friend is physically fine, she's still very much Usagi!

And then Naru says her name -- her real name -- and she freezes for a moment, looking very much afraid. Because she is very much certain Naru will be hurt or angry or both!

But she's not!

Usagi's face crumbles as her henshin drops, and she's hugging Naru all over again. "I wanted to tell you but I also didn't and it's been so hard keeping it from you and I'm so sorry!"

Sniffle, sniffle, sniffle!

Then she pulls back again and fusses once more, making no move to take away the notebook. "Are you sure you're okay? They didn't hurt you?"

Sniffle!

And then she's looking toward the front room, and even though she can't see anything through the wall, her face lights up with a smile Naru likely hasn't seen on her face in months.

Then she looks back at Naru, eyes wide. "Don't tell him about the Noodle Incident!" Despite the demanding words, her voice is almost pleading!

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Only you," a black-haired and blue-eyed upperclassman says as he sticks his head in the door, "would have a noodle incident involving actual noodles."

His expression is a lot warmer than the teasing words might indicate, though he looks relatively tired. Naru may never have been introduced to him, but she'll have seen him around the Crown, frequently with Usagi's newer friends-- and before that, either keeping to himself or easily dismissed as 'Motoki's hot friend'. A high-schooler; Infinity by the uniform he'd been wearing; nearly always actually doing homework upstairs at the Fruits Parlor instead of actually downstairs playing games in the arcade.

He's also been missing since some time in November.

"Osaka-san, I don't think we've met; I'm Chiba Mamoru. Are you all right?" he asks as he comes in. He's looking Naru over in critical assessment, but it's Usagi he's headed for, and it's Usagi's injured arm he's reaching for. It's also the side of Usagi's head he casually kisses as he lays a hand over her burn, emitting a faint golden glow.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"That is.. so odd." Naru comments as she hugs Usagi again as her henshin drops and Sailor Moon really /does/ become Usagi again. "So cool!" She amends after only a moment. "I promise. I won't tell anyone." She attempts to assure Usagi, even as Usagi apologizes to her. "Have you.. always ?" She's not sure quite how to phrase what she's asking.

Questions are easier and Naru nods. "I'm fine. They were .. nice really. Melanite was very sweet, she gave me this milk to drink, it was very tasty. And Zoisite was just a darling. There were some less nice people too, but not so many. They didn't bother me much." She explains before she looks up and blinks as she realizes that Mamoru is actually /there/. "Oh! I've heard all about you! It's nice to meet you, finally. I'm fine, really. It was a really odd place."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I didn't not tell you because I thought you wouldn't. It's just..." She sighs. "I was being more selfish than anything, I think." Then she shakes her head. "Not even a year."

She's not exactly sure how to handle Melanite and nice in the same sentence. What kind of milk? And Zoisite? Actually, yeah, if she tilted her head and squinted, she could probably see that. "Well, I'm glad. I was very worried!"

Mamoru comes in and her response to his teasing is to stick out her tongue. "Naru-chan knows all my dirty secrets. Even about the boy I insisted I was gonna marry when I was three."

She leans against the kiss and hums happily, and then blinks as she feels the warm glow. The ache had been in the back of her mind, and she'd almost forgotten. "Oh yeah. Ow. Thank you~"

She blushes a bit when Naru said she's heard all about Mamoru. Heh.

Speaking of Zoisite! "How is he? Is he okay? I didn't mean to do it then! Did it hurt too much?"

Her eyes are large and worried as she looks up at her boyfriend.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Given you got pretty spooked when things started exploding in the bar, but even the youmas weren't scaring you, the milk probably had something in it," Mamoru says a little unhappily. "But I guess that's better than knowing what kind of place you were in. I don't really know. You were pretty lucky. There's a lot of magic and messy politics involved in the broader situation, and you never should have been targeted. I'm very sorry you were. I'm glad you're none the worse for wear."

There's a pause, and he turns to eye Usagi after Naru says "all about you", and he sees the blush, and he determinedly tries to suppress the blush blooming on his own face. Close eyes! Deep breath! Centering! Brow-furrow! Serious teenager is serious!

He exhales, then folds himself up to sit next to Usagi on the floor. He's close enough that if she wants to, he's a lean or a lap away, but he doesn't initiate anything beyond the temple-kiss a moment ago-- not in front of Naru, or maybe just not claiming Usagi's attention away from the redheaded girl. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you, too," he says with a slight smile. Then he glances aside to Usagi and shrugs one shoulder. "It was what he needed. Especially right then. He was asking you to, anyway. She was trying to take him over, and it would have been even harder if she'd managed it-- but you got him while he was still fighting her off, and Nephrite and I were both able to help him help you fight her off and get him back. He's physically fine now, and he was already on the road to mentally better-- he should progress a lot more quickly now that nothing's messing with his head."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I'm not sure I was originally a target. There was someone.. all grey.. wait, that doesnt narrow it down much does it.. but he and Melanite were trying to make a girl to go with them from school, and she didnt want to go and I poked my nose in." Naru explains, a little furrow of her brow as she starts to process that hey wait.. Melanite wasn't nice /then/.

"It.. it all got very very confusing in the bar." Naru admits as she shamelessly listens in at the conversatoin about Zoisite. "I'm glad he's alright. I liked him."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Her brows furrow at Mamoru's words about laced milk and politics.

And she does slide into Mamoru's lap, because greedy, but she's also tugging Naru along so she's no further away than she was before.

And it's a good thing she did! Because she slumps against his shoulder in relief. "Good! I'm glad he's okay. I'll bring him some stuff later."

And then she latches onto the one thing she can, and her grin turns sly. "Oh-hooooooooh?"

It's probably not at all what Naru meant, but almost a decade of friendship entitled one to teasing, anyway.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I like him too," Mamoru says to Naru with another smile, self-deprecating, almost exactly at the same time as Usagi's going 'oh-HOH?'.

This causes him to blink and stare at Usagi-in-his-lap, not that he can see her face, or she his. "Wait," he says, then looks at Naru in consternation. "Oh, you like him like that? Well-- let us get the last of us out and defeat the Dark Kingdom first, if you can? I'm hoping he'll move into my place afterwards, so he'll be handy... but I don't even know if he likes girls."

He leans his chin on Usagi's head and says contemplatively, "Though if you ended up having kids, they'd be so ginger they could keep Tokyo warm in the winter with their hair alone."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Tugged along, Naru is quite content to be close to both of them, even if they are currently being disgustingly adorable. She settles her sketchbook in her lap and well, the teasing raises a little blush on her cheeks. "Not like that!" She tries to protest, although she looks away with a shy expression. "He was sweet. He got me a sketchbook and some pencils. It's okay if he doesn't like girls. What.. what does that mean? Take your place?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi is perfectly okay that her level of adorable is at 'disgusting.'

She arches her eyebrows high at Naru! "Mmmm hmmmmm!"

And then there's a bark of laughter at the image of the fiery haired kids warming Tokyo. She's quick to clamp a hand over her mouth as she pokes Mamoru in the side.

"He meant 'move into,' not 'take.'"

Speaking of.

It's been burning a hole in her purse for over a week now!

She digs through and pulls out the old photograph and hands it to him. "That's your competition."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Ow," Mamoru says companionably, then agrees (while rubbing his side), "move in with me and Nephrite, and hopefully also Jadeite and Kunzite. I haven't asked them yet. Jadeite I haven't seen except once or twice in the past few months, and not at all since Usako and everyone rescued me from the Dark Kingdom, and... well, Kunzite's still in there, we haven't gotten him out yet. He's not himself right now."

This has him fairly grave, and then Usagi's taking out a picture and holding it up to hand to him, and he ducks his head back and then takes it, focusing on the image.

It's funny what Usagi can feel from him, there. Emotions running high, hot and cold. Grief and relief in equal measure. The ice of the memories surrounding the moment, combined with the knowledge he now has that he'd been so close and had had no idea, creating the gut-clenching pain of dramatic irony as applied to life. Affection, warmth. A window of safety and unquestioning love. More irony, since it had been such a brief window, and she so small and he so lost--

On the outside, he doesn't say a word, and his expression does something Kunzite's does a lot: it turns into a non-expression, carefully blank, showing nothing. He smiles after a slightly too-long delay and hands it back to Usagi. "Well. I've already been in competition with myself over you before, this isn't much different."