But I Clean Her LITTERBOX!
| But I Clean Her LITTERBOX! | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 17 August 2016 |
| Location: | Earth Court Frat House |
| Synopsis: | When he started to follow Mamoru, Kenji Tsukino wasn't expecting to find the impossible house. Or the loooooong staircase in the house. Or finding not!Wonderland in the basement. Or finding out his daughter is Sailor Moon and the boy is Tuxedo Kamen. Or that he changes the litter box belonging to a talking cat. (Yeah, let's focus on that last one.) |
| Cast of Characters: | Mamoru Chiba, Usagi Tsukino |
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
A hot-as-hell day in early August, and an eighteen-year-old boy with an air-conditioned Tokyo penthouse is out in the sun, voluntarily. He's dressed for the weather in sandals and a loose white cotton shirt and cargo shorts, and he's wearing aviator sunglasses.
Granted, even if he's got an e-reader in one hand, he's got his phone in the other, and every once in a while (in front of landmarks) he stops to look at the phone screen and do something. Every once in a while-- sometimes frequently-- he'll stop as many as four times in a minute, apparently randomly.
This might seem like odd behavior, except for the fact that he's not the only one doing it.
Most of the time, though, he's reading something on the Kindle.
It's strange that he's unaccompanied except for a white cat, who's sometimes following at his heels, complaining, and sometimes walking next to him, and sometimes vanishing into the cooler shadows -- stranger still that he sometimes talks to it when he stops to fuss with his phone. Strange because Kenji's rarely ever spotted him in the city without at least one of his daughter's friends, or his daughter, or one or two of the four boys he's usually with.
Eventually, he turns off onto a side street in a partially-residential, partially small-shops part of Akihabara -- the neighborhood Kenji had narrowed down a certain unfindable address to, years ago. At this point, the white cat complains loudly, and Chiba crouches down to let the cat jump up onto his shoulder, then melt there as he straightens again and pockets his phone.
This is apparently a well-known route for him, since he automatically skirts little vendor carts and benches on the sidewalk as he reads the Kindle screen. He also manages to skirt other pedestrians without looking, all the way up until--
--wait. No one else is taking any notice of Chiba. And he turns, right into a place that should contain an electronics store, but-- the store's much further down the street. He turns, in fact, into an overgrown wrought-iron gate in a stone wall that shouldn't be there, and walks up a long gravel drive toward a house that shouldn't be there, either.
A large house, in an overgrown yard, somewhat dilapidated but not actually unsound, with ivy growing up the walls. He opens the unlocked front door and disappears inside, cat on his shoulder and Kindle in his hand.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji is extremely glad that heavy trench coats are heavily frowned upon when tailing someone despite what the movies say.
Fortunately, even if this were more like a scene from a movie, the trench coat wouldn't be needed anyway. Chiba's more or less minding his own business aside from the frequent stops and to talk to a cat. (A cat that reminds him of his daughter's, oddly enough.) And he doesn't need to be the reporter he is to tell what the kid is doing when he stops to fiddle with his phone. He himself may have caught a Ponyta five minutes before this little exercise began.
Honestly, Kenji had not planned on following the boy today. He hadn't planned on anything. The other day at the cemetery Kenji had found himself at a crossroad, similar to the one he felt when deciding to officially give up the story. The situation was no longer stagnant. A creature of habit had changed his routine, had brought someone along.
One way or another, he knew this would be the last year he looked into this. Maybe next year he could wait until the last minute to buy Shingo a birthday present, as opposed to the last week. That would be nice.
Of course, Chiba has ruined this plan, showing up some place he usually isn't, alone in a way he hasn't been in ages, but without the air of loneliness. He's too carefree, too cheerful, if you knew how to look, and he has to wonder if he's somehow found himself in a Mirror Universe. What's next, a straight A Usagi who is cruel to everyone?
...yeah, not even in alternate realities. His daughter's too sweet for that, too nice.
He shakes himself free from mentally gushing about his daughter's better attributes in time to see the boy turn some place that should not be turnable. Kenji has stalked this street so many times, eyes scouring for anything he's missed, and truly, the electronics store is supposed to be here. This path isn't supposed to be here, the gate isn't, the house certainly doesn't belong. And yet, here they are. Here it is.
Until now, the house had only existed in a trail of paperwork that continued to branch out through the course of several services before each strand of the web fizzled into nothing. The few that did not end circled in on each other, creating a complex mobius strip of headaches and several bottles of aspirin.
He doesn't walk on the gravel, not yet. Instead, his steps are just to the side in the dirt and scraggly grass, and even still the footfalls are silent and times to the boy's ahead.
This...is turning out to be a touch more complicated than even he could have guessed, isn't it.
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
After all, nothing's simple when everything's out of order in the first place, and then houses and driveways and entire large gated yards go undeveloped and unnoticed in the middle of Toyko -- in the middle of Akihabara, no less -- and Chiba's waltzing in like he owns the place. The impossible place.
He closes the door behind him, but it wasn't locked when he went in.
It's not locked for Kenji, either.
The house is empty and still, inside, except for the sound of Chiba puttering around in another room ahead, then opening a door and descending stairs. Also, another voice. Not the boy's. Older, but not much older. "She never listens to me anyway."
Then Chiba's voice. "All I know is she stopped biting after D-Point, and I was perfectly happy to let her pretend we never stabbed each other in the feels over Kunzite."
It's only the one set of footsteps. Kenji doesn't have time to check the rest of the place out, not with the voices getting further and further away, but his take-in-the-place-in-a-cursory-glance reporter detail instincts will tell him it's not lived-in, and it's only a little dusty, and there's no smell of must and no smell of rot, and no water-stains on the walls or ceilings. It's also cool, cooler than an abandoned house with shut windows in the summer should be.
But there's no time for anything more than that.
It proves to be the kitchen Chiba went into, and he's left the door open-- it's clearly the door he went into, because it's dark except for a moving light and the voices floating up from there. The voices and the one set of footsteps.
"She's still afraid to talk to the girls, though. Or maybe she's not. She used to at least tell me things."
"Well maybe she stopped telling you things when she found out you were talking to me. I don't know why, since I always told her everything I figured she'd want to know anyway, but I dunno, maybe she's embarrassed. Maybe she's a lot of things. She's never been keen on letting people understand her."
"Yeah but I'm her guardian!" the second voice complains.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but these particular girls aren't all that interested in being guardianed by guys. Especially not guys whose butts they can kick. Easily," laughs Chiba. "And you know not even L..."
Too indistinct to hear. But the top of the stairs can still see the descending light, the white shape of the cat next to the black-haired boy's head, and the shape of a hand held up and emitting light. Mamoru Chiba's hand. Definitely Mamoru's, because it's the hand holding the Kindle, and he's still reading it.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Before he notices the lack of dust and mildew, and how there's no water stains, before he even completely enters the house, the first thought that strikes him is that a house this abandoned should not have a front door lacking a creaking groan when opened. Everything else is just that little touch of unease, a familiar path taken twelve steps to the left. Things are as they should be, but they're also not.
It's the same with the two sets of voices echoing in a house that, when he stands still, only has one pair of footsteps travelling the halls to accompany them.
He is glad for the unnatural cool in the house, though. While it's the perfect weather for shorts, he's been feeling a bit self concious about his calves lately. Shingo had made an offhand remark not long ago, and though it was clearly said in the way that didn't mean anything, it had still been said. So, while his slacks are loose and light, they are still slacks, and the cool air skirts up beneath the hems of his legs to chill the sweat on his skin.
He's in the kitchen and peering around the door frame leading to the stairwell, eyes widening slightly at the light that seems to emanate from the boy's hand, and not the kindle or phone.
Kenji recognizes the feeling then. It's the one he's been getting for over a year now, starting with small isolated events and leading to large scale evacuations. His reporter's instincts knows it wasn't a storm that caused damage to his house. He knows the bay hadn't simply overrun a handful of months ago. He knows this, has reported on and speculated about many other similar situations. After all, it's news worthy.
But every time he tries to focus and connect the dots, a curious headache forms just between his eyes, stabbing at the bridge of his nose and spreading into his sinuses.
The voices fade, and he doubts his fleeting thoughts of Chiba being on speaker phone are true. After all, the other voice is too crisp and clear. However, flirting with the other idea threatens that same headache.
While he waits for the steps to fall out of ear shot, he takes a few pictures of his surroundings. Open the fridge, take a picture. The cupboards, take a picture. Through the doorway and into the living room, take a picture. He's been hunting for this house for the good part of a decade, and he'd be a fool of a reporter if he didn't at least attempt to bring home with him some proof for his own sanity's sake.
All the while he keeps an ear out, listening. When he no longer hears the footsteps, he decides it's safe to follow. He can still see the glow from the hand, so while he keeps his phone out, he locks the screen. It takes a step or two for his feet to become accustomed to length and depth of each stair, but even then his hands glide along the railing and wall.
From far below, he hears the sound of a door opening and closing. Shining the light on his phone, he's unable to see the bottom just yet, but his steps are finally able to move faster.
When he does reach the bottom, he just stares at the door, moving the light of his phone to take in the detail. He fumbles for a moment before the light comes in flashes, taking pictures of the ornate woodwork and impossibility of the door and the surrounding wall.
This is...older than the house. He reaches out and his hands slide along the carvings.
Kenji knows, even as he just stares, gobsmacked, that the ridiculously impossible length of the staircase will be nothing compared to what's behind door number one.
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's nothing in anything; there's no power in the house, and the ancient icebox has been standing there for aeons, as frozen in time as the rest of the place. The cupboards are bare, the rooms are empty, and dust motes dance in sunbeams in the breath-held silence of the place. It doesn't seem to mind him taking pictures. Not if they're for him.
That door, though -- it's not just older than the house-- it looks almost as though it grew there. The steps near the bottom certainly don't look like they were carved from the stone, but formed naturally somehow. The ornate woodwork is definitely that of human hands, but-- it's far older than the house. There's also no particular era's style it can be ascribed to, though there are elements here and there that do bear resemblances to some of the earliest extant art movements of Eastern Asia.
It's beautiful.
It's unnatural-- no. There's nothing unnatural about it: it's just twelve steps to the left, as much as everything else has been.
The door opens to his touch without needing to be pushed, and the wood is warm and alive beneath his hand. The brightness beyond it is momentarily blinding, even despite the light from Kenji's cellphone flashlight, because daylight to the dark-adapted eye is a dazzling thing indeed.
And that is most assuredly daylight. Bright sun on vivid greenery surrounding an ancient and shallow stone staircase with the arch of a shrine at its top, and a brilliant blue sky above, puffy white clouds scudding across it. To either side of the steps is a stone fu dog, the half-dog half-lion shrine guardians of any--
--one of them just blinked at Kenji.
The other just narrowed its eyes.
They're stone.
They grind a little as they move, as stone does.
This is at the bottom of an impossibly long staircase beneath a house in the middle of Tokyo, apparently abandoned, with a bigger yard than should exist in that space without being snatched up by developers, and can't be found unless one knows it's there. There's sky. There's daylight. There's a shrine-- no, visible just past the stairs, it's a long wide red roof, and many more besides; it's more like a monastery. And there's an immense cliff behind it with a waterfall cascading down it to one side--
--and one of the fu dogs just jumped off its stone perch and ran, literally ran, up the steps. The other's picking its way daintily off its own perch and coming over to Kenji, sniffing. "What are you doing here?" she asks him, looking up. "Who are you? You smell like her, and the door let you in, but we don't know you. My lord Jadeite is going to be annoyed."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Just for him. The pictures are meant to ease his mind about coming times where he questions his sanity. They're that bit of truth, taken on a phone laden with security measures, to be transferred to a computer at home. One that has not seen the internet in five years. Paranoid, yes, but that's what makes him good.
And that door, that beautifully impossible door, he stares as it opens and feels compelled to once again run his hand over carvings. This time, it's to say thanks, as odd as that sounds even to him. And it's this he braces himself against as he's momentarily blinded and blindsided.
How is it possible to be countless hundred meters below ground only to find oneself in a sanctury like this? It shouldn't be, perhaps more so than even the house. But it is.
He's still blinking back the light as he steps forward. He'll later blame this on why he believes the squinting and blinking are a trick of the light, and how the grinding of stone is a trick his ears play to accompany the sight.
However, he stops dead in his tracks as one runs up the stairs. As the other walks toward him, he's eternally grateful for his pitstop not long before this adventure began. Otherwise she'd be smelling pee, as well...
Back up against a tree, Kenji swallows hard as he tries to get his knees to stop shaking.
"I don't smell. I took a shower this morning." It's a kneejerk response, because he shouldn't smell like anyone, at least not to humans. Though he supposes statues of lion dogs are allowed to have keen senses of smell. "Um, sorry. Who do I smell like? Komainu...sama?"
He makes it a rule to be polite to mythological stone beasts that only move in legend.
It's a rule he just now made. He thinks it's a good one.
(He just hopes she doesn't get offended if he called her by the wrong word. There's so many names she could go by.)
Kenji decides, though, that if she were a hostile mythological statue, she could easily have crushed him already. Hell, she could probably idly flick him with a paw toe and cave his skull in. So, with this in mind, he pushes lightly off the tree, still shaking of course because he's relatively sane, and clears his throat.
"I'm following a boy. He came down this way. Before it was just about a story," one that could consume him if he let it. "But now I think he's seeing my daughter."
And that there is an anchor he can use. A connection to reality and a talisman for courage. He pulls out his phone and flips through pictures of the house until he finds one of his daughter. He shows it to the fu dog.
And because his focus is now on his daughter, he can gush and be that embarrassing parent every teen dreads.
"She's adorable and sweet and kind and she may not get the best grades but she's real intelligent in ways that are important. And her heart is even bigger than this place, and twice as pure." Determined now, he takes a step forward. "So I really do apologize if I annoy your lord Jadeite, but she's my daughter. That trumps royal titles in my book!" A jerk of his shoulders. "With all the respect due, I mean."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The fu lion's eyes light up (not literally) when she sees the picture of Usagi on Kenji's phone. "OH!" she chuffs out, sitting back heavily on her hindquarters. "You're her PAPA?" She pauses in the middle of her impressed elation to look alarmed. "Oh. /Oh/. Uh. Well, uh, of course my lord Jadeite won't be annoyed by you. But he's not royal, he serves our liege-- but that's all, um. That's all beside the point! SHE IS ALL OF THE THINGS YOU SAY! Except twice as pure as this place. WE KEEP IT VERY PURE, THANK YOU SIR. But she is very pure, yes! So pure she can make other things pure-- and--"
"Baka," hisses the other fu dog from the top of the steps, where he's just appeared again. He grumps down at the two, sitting on his haunches. "You're here. You might as well come in. You can't tell people about any of this, but you weren't going to, were you? You're her father, so you must be very smart." He huffs, then shifts impatiently and looks at the girl komainu. "He told Lord Jadeite to go home. Artemis was listening, and went and said who it was. So it's all right. Just messy. And you accuse me of making messes."
The girl fu dog huffs right back, teeth bared. "You don't make messes," she tells him, "you are a mess."
"Go on up," the boy tells Kenji before tackling the girl from the top of the stairs in a horrifying crack of stone against stone, and they roll into the bushes, fighting.
The top of the stairs opens into a wide, tranquil courtyard, green-grassed and white-sanded, and a large orange tabby cat sleeps sprawled out in the sun on the grass below its own tiny shrine perch. It looks like a very normal cat.
The white cat that was following Chiba is apparently asleep on the porch of the main monastery building, head tucked under his forearm, ear twitching now and then.
It's a huge place, and there's forest all around, and a stream goes by on one side and disappears into a bamboo path that seems to head toward the cliff face.
And then the door behind the sleeping cat on the porch opens and lets out Mamoru, who -- despite his everyday summer clothes -- somehow doesn't look at all out of place. He doesn't come out of the shade, but bows from where he is on the porch, and then gestures toward the door. "Please come in, Tsukino-san," he calls, "Jadeite set the kettle on before he left, and there are cakes. I apologize for the roughness of the komainu: they mean well, but they've only socialized with each other and the other guardians for approximately time immemorial, and they're only just starting to remember how to behave around people."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
His bones rattle when he jerks in surprise at the shining eyes, the excited exclamation, and the 'whump' as the dog sits. He wonders if he's imagining the vibrations in his feet, or if she actually made the earth move when she sat.
Not that he'd ask. It's just rude to ask a female in any form a question that may imply weight. And recently it's become more and more a delicate subject for males, too. Best bet is to just not think about it too loudly regardless.
"Um, yes. I'm her...you know my Usa?" For some reason, this doesn't surprise him as much as it should. But he's ridiculously pleased that the fu dog shares his opinion (for the most part) about his daughter.
There may even be a bit of a puffing out chest.
And he's very confused as well. Make other things pure? What, is she a fairy princess unicorn on weekends?
Kenji shakes his head when the other interrupts. By the tone in his voice and the argumentative stance of them both, he nearly yells at them to behave or no dessert for them. But then he shakes his head, because these are not his children. If he had to guess, they weren't children at all.
"Ah, thank you." He starts to inch up the stairs before it's even suggested. He archs a brow. "If I did tell anyone, I'd likely be committed, don't you think?"
And he's nearly to the top when he hears the impact of rock against rock. His reaction is borne of instinct. Turning, he yells down. "Don't you go wrecking the place! You do not want me to come down there!"
Then self preservation wins, and he chuckles as he rubs the back of his head and darts that way.
The view continues to send him out of sorts. How is this even possible? A sky beneath the ground? Or are they even beneath the ground at all? And if not, where are they? Surely not Tokyo.
The boy he'd been following shows himself. Kenji is still a bit out of sorts, and aside from returning the bow, he is silent. He doesn't even respond right away about the fu dogs.
"'There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter.'" He arcs a brow at Mamoru. "I wonder if Lewis Carroll found himself here. Though I didn't exactly follow a rabbit. I followed a boy who has a keen interest in one, though."
He enters through the doorway, still looking around. "They remind me of Usa and Shingo when they fight."
"It's a pleasure to meet you again, Chiba-san." He studies the boy with reporter's eyes, seeing up close the boy he normally watched from afar.
There were many times he wondered what he would ask if he found himself here. Well, not here physically, but standing in front of the boy who was at the center of an obsession over a decade old. The questions he'd ask. The holes perhaps they could fill in together. All of this is mulled over as he slides his phone in the messenger back slung over his shoulder.
What he settles for would not have even entered his mind a year ago. "She's still very young, Chiba-san."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The inside of the place looks normal, at least, but for Kenji's knowledge of where it is. Very traditional. The low table in this first room is gestured towards as a place to sit at; it has mats, Kenji won't be sitting on bare floorboards.
The boy pauses in the next doorway, hand on the wooden frame, and looks back at Kenji. "I won't take anything from her, especially not her family," is all he says in response to that. And then he vanishes beyond, where a kettle's just starting to whistle.
It's only a moment later that he comes out with a tea tray and carefully sets it on the low table. Almost traditional. Almost. Like the patterns inlaid on the table and woven in the mats, the tea service is decorated with a motif that is not Japanese. It's beautiful and ancient, but it's not... this tradition.
Thankfully, the cakes look just like some that Usagi took home from Makoto's yesterday. No fairy food, this.
Mamoru kneels across the table from Kenji and starts to prepare the tea. "If she still chooses me when we're not so very young," he says, pausing to look up and meet the man's eyes, "I will ask you for her hand. If she doesn't, then I won't be someone you have to worry about."
His eyes, that startling blue, are as ancient and impossible as the door at the bottom of the stairs. This is the boy he's followed since he was six; this is the boy he saw his daughter give a rose to in the hospital, this is the orphan whose parents' graves he visited every year, this is the boy who grew up in the care of the state who should not be remotely well-adjusted but who got himself into Infinity University; this is the boy who was playing pokemon go on the way here.
But this is the boy whose hand glowed, and who spoke with someone on the stairs that had no footfalls. Who moves through this place like he owns it.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji gives a soft snort at that. He knows the Chiba resources, at least monetarily, or how they had been a decade ago. He knows that if this boy chose, he could kidnap his daughter and somehow make it all look legal. And if he did that, Kenji would of course go after them both.
Fortunately for Mamoru, the boy's never displayed such selfish arrogance.
He doesn't kneel on the mat. His knees, though he's not an old man, are definitely not made for kneeling anymore. Normally he would grit his teeth and bear it, put on the face expected of him by society, but he needs to feel in control of something. This boy and this place are all just alien enough to set him off kilter. And Kenji Tsukino hates being off kilter.
Still, he meets the boy's eyes, stubborn and bracing against the abnormalities of his day. One knee is bent, the other not quite as impossibly long as his daughter's. (She gets that from both sides, more so from her mother.)
"And if I say no? If it's not sweet, two sugars please." He places his messenger bag on his lap, rifling through and moving around photographs, careful that they face him. Should this encounter turn out as he suspects, he does not want the boy to see some of the pictures. He wants to throw him off, not wound him even further.
"If I say no, and she looks at you with those large eyes she gets, what would you do then?" He does pull out one photograph, though. It's the same Usagi's shown to Mamoru, one that Kenji's made a copy or more of. He turns it around and slides it toward Mamoru. And it takes everything he has not to gush at how completely adorable his three year old daughter is as she hands a boy a rose. And then he pulls out another, one Usagi hasn't seen. That hug she keeps talking about is something Kenji also got on camera. "Apparently she's had her eye on you for quite some time. What would you tell her, then, if I said no? That I don't approve?"
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's only a nod at the 'two sugars', and they're dutifully added to the cup he's preparing for Kenji. The tea smells wonderful -- green, with jasmine and rose. It's carefully placed in front of Kenji before Mamoru starts to make his own. He does it while glancing at Kenji as the older man speaks, now and then, and once he's finished with his, he sits cross-legged on the mat. No traditional tea ceremony, this.
Finally, the plate of cakes between them and the hot water and bowl of tea leaves and the bowl of sugar all off to the side, Mamoru -- who, in this place, moves and acts and holds himself with the casual grace and bearing of royalty -- regards Kenji. His own tea is held briefly between his hands, and he sips it, then sets it down.
The breeze through the open rice-paper windows smells uncommonly sweet, and the nature sounds from outside are a soothing and harmonious thing, despite the impossibility of everything. "I don't lie to her, Tsukino-san, and I won't. You are her father. Until she is old enough to legally act on her own, you and her mother have the legal right to block decisions she makes that you deem unwise. She loves you deeply, and wants you to be happy, and to be happy with and proud of her."
"Ultimately, however, once she is of age, it would be her decision whether or not you approve. I imagine she'll try to argue you into seeing her point of view. I don't know what she would do if you kept telling her no -- but I won't pressure her to do so. I don't have the right, and I would never presume to have the right, to do something like that. Even if I did, I've already told you -- I won't take you away from her."
He's so very calm. "I would prefer it infinitely if you approved. I love your family. I love that she has you. I would be honored and humbled if you would accept me into your family. But if you did not, I would accept that." There's a brief pause, and the first sign of amusement, wry and understated, becomes visible on his face and audible in his voice. "But you have to understand that she calls the shots. We both want her happiness. Your decisions are yours, but she'll undoubtedly try to change them if they make her unhappy."
He glances at the pictures that Kenji slides his way, and his eyes soften incredibly, and the amount of affection-- the amount of deep, unconditional love in his face-- is a palpable thing, an undeniable thing. After a second, like he doesn't realize it's happening, his face transfigures with a slow smile so bright and golden that the very air around them is charged with his happiness, the colors become more vivid, and the breeze in the treetops outside sounds almost like singing.
Very softly he says, "I know she is your world. And I know how that feels, because she's my world too." And then he finishes, glancing up, "You're here. You know I'm not normal. Believe me when I say I've died for her before-- and believe me when I say I live for her now."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji snorts. "You'd better be careful there, son. If you were anyone else, I'd say you were blowing smoke."
But of course, one doesn't follow someone for a decade, watching them grow from afar, without getting a general idea of how they operate. "You say she calls the shots. I suppose this is why you've been happier this past year."
He takes a sip of the tea. A hint, whether or not with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, is still a hint.
He shifts in his seat a bit. That look on the boy's face, and the resulting shift in atmosphere, almost feels like Kenji is intruding on a private moment. A moment that involves his daughter.
He wants to strangle the damn kid. Why couldn't he have been detestable? Why couldn't he have grown up embittered by his upbringing? It would make it much easier to hate the kid.
Kenji rubs his face in his hands before he waves. "Keep 'em. I have more copies. You can, I don't know, frame them or something."
Show them to all the damn grandkids he'll get. Fifty years from now.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. "This would be much easier if you were an asshole. But you're not, are you. Never have been, damn you."
He finally looks at the boy again. "I tried to dissuade her, when she was younger. Told her she didn't know your name. Thought it worked, but you just managed to wiggle yourself back in." He leans forward, head tilted as he tried to make sense of everything. "Why do I get the feeling it isn't coincidence? That the one case, the one story, I've obsessed over involves a boy who keeps finding my little girl?"
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's face brightens, and as he'd picked his tea up again, he sets it down once more to slide them over toward him. After he picks them up, there's a sleight of hand-- how? He's in short sleeves!-- and the pictures vanish. He'd begun by giving Kenji a radiant, boyish smile, but it fades as the words come from the older man, in such clearly aggravated distress.
"...the case? The story...? This isn't just you not wanting her to date until she's forty, is it," he says hesitantly. "I don't-- I haven't wiggled myself in anywhere, Tsukino-san. We always find each other. She's found me and dragged me out of darknesses not of my own making so many times, now..."
He gives a helpless little gesture of both his hands, before he picks up the tea in them and looks down into it. His face is earnest, distressed in its own right, when he looks back up at Kenji. And still those ancient eyes, a bedrock of truth behind them that's unassailable, blue as the Earth's oceans from space. "She's saved me so many times. And I've always done my best to keep her safe, always."
That 'always' sounds like so much more than a year. So much. "Why did you try to dissuade her? Why did you lie to her?" he asks, trying not to let the hurt show. "Why are you afraid?"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji scratches behind his ear, giving him a moment to think. "Forty? Prefer fifty."
He wants to believe the 'darkness not of his own making' is a teenager's flight of 'no one understands' and the inability to take responsibility for one's own actions. And if he weren't in this Wonderland and joining the Mad Hatter for tea, he'd be able to fool himself into believing that's the case.
Instead, he sighs and studies his own tea. He wanted to rattle the kid, not kick him like a puppy.
He taps his blunt nails against fine china, finding the noise oddly soothing. After a moment, he doesn't start from the beginning, but he at least starts. "Did you know this house barely exists on paper? And until today, it didn't exist the countless times I've come through here looking for it."
He looks up then, eyes more curious than accusatory. "That, of course, isn't the only thing that barely exists on paper. Why do you suppose that, after I bribe a coroner, a guy I went to school with, he retired and suddenly aside from the copies I had there was no trace of the autopsy reports? Or how a freak storm happens on a day that was sunny every where, including where it was said to have caused a crash?"
He picks up one of the pastries, recognizing it as one of Makoto's on the first bite. There's a second of savoring, and for one unguarded moment he's enjoying it as much as his daughter would.
But he's a grown man, and he's quick to hide it.
"I never lied to her. I said she didn't know his name. Your name." He leans back a little. "I'm not afraid of you, Mamoru-kun." Because it's the boy he's talking to, regardless of how old he feels. In that moment, he looks his age. "I like you. Helped where I could. A letter here, a call there. It's surprising how many friends you can make when you report the truth and don't embellish guilt."
"See, and that's the thing. I shouldn't have had to." He leans forward now, the edge of his elbows pressing against the table. "You have no blood relatives. You're the heir of a fortune. If nothing else, there should have been headlines about you. Instead, trying to find anything beyond the fact that you exist was damn near impossible. And what I did find was just...convenient."
"It's not you I'm afraid of. Nowadays it mostly is because she's not allowed to date until she's sixty. But whoever it was not only made you Tokyo's best kept secret, they also had my number."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru re-gruntles a little once Kenji no longer seems to be accusing him of anything, settling down on the mat -- though his shoulders are still a little hunched in. The white cat finally comes in, blinking large blue eyes at Kenji from the doorway for a moment, then coming over to jump onto Mamoru's shoulder and settle there, sort of hanging over it.
Yes, there's a moon on his forehead, just like his daughter's black cat.
Mamoru's listening, though, and he's chewing on his lip a little. "The house doesn't want to be found because of what's under it," he says as if it makes total sense, utterly matter-of-factly. This is probably to forestall him thinking too hard about autopsy reports and their disappearance. But then Kenji says something that Mamoru ends up chewing on a lot more than his lip: 'it was sunny'. He's still listening, but he's turning that over and over in his head.
And then the last thing Kenji says, and Mamoru looks up in alarm, one hand up to scritch absently under the white cat's chin. The purring stops, though, and the cat is looking at Kenji too -- and for a furry cat-face, his expression matches Mamoru's pretty well. "Have your number...?" he repeats, starting to frown. "Were you threatened? The fact that one of the first memories I got back is of the sheeting rain and horrible visibility as the car we were in sailed right over the cliff means that there was rain, and by the time anyone found us, very local torrential rain had already dried up, at night,
"The fact that I have no living relatives doesn't surprise me, because I remembered that the Chibas weren't my parents -- they were my legal guardians, but not my parents. The fact that I'm hard to trace also isn't surprising; whoever they were, they were working with some powerful magic backing them, and something really well organized. There was a plan. We don't know what it was. The head of my guard is looking into it; I'm sure he'd give his eyeteeth for your notes, for your help figuring it out.
"But there's also a lot of stuff involved that you probably don't want to know about. A lot of it's even stranger than this place, and some of it has to do with who your daughter is. That's a discussion I have no right to have with you. That's something she's going to have to talk to you about. Or I can call her, if you give me a moment, and see how she wants to proceed -- like I said, she calls the shots."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
He blinks at the cat, nearly a photo negative of his daughter's cat. He archs an eyebrow. Artemis, he remembers the boy fu dog saying. It would make sense if this cat were Artemis. Aside from an orange tabby who's very much at home in the sun, he hasn't seen signs of life. That, and Luna and Artemis? It's obvious.
"The first call was a warning. The second confirming said warning after...an incident. Obviously, we're all fine."
Then he's shaking his head. "Well, either you were a second to the left of this reality, your memory must be faulty. I looked at the weather reports. I have the weather reports. That road was dry as a bone all day." He shrugs and pulls out the pile of papers. He reorganizes some, specifically those photos from earlier, and leaves that in the bag. "These are copies. Have your...head guard look at them. Just email me the notes in the margins and let me know what page they're on. And, to be honest, until this year there hasn't been anything terribly new in about eight years."
Head of guard...
He almost asks. But really, he's pretty sure he's going to be leaving here with a big headache as it is anyway.
Kenji jerks. "My daughter is Usagi Tsukino. That's who she is. If you want to call her, go ahead." His eyes narrow at the cat. "Since coincidence doesn't exist, I take it you're Luna's sister."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Or there was a magical storm that cleared up as soon as it did its job," Mamoru says with a half-hearted one-shouldered shrug, sliding the stack of papers over to himself, glancing at them, then looking away from it. "I'll have him email you. You've probably seen him-- taller than I am, long white hair, generally quiet... his name's Kazuo Takeba. So when you get an email from him, you'll know the name." There's a pause, and he glances sidelong at Kenji. "I know you'll look him up, so-- there's a PI looking into him right now. Please let us deal with that."
There's the ghost of a smile that tugs at one corner of the boy's mouth. "There hasn't been anything new until now because everything was still in a holding pattern. A lot of things were resolved this past year. I finally know who I am, for one."
Then Mamoru actually has the audacity to roll his eyes at Kenji. "Of course she's Usagi Tsukino." But then the heat's out of it because he's smiling, and it's an affectionate smile. "It's who else she is-- I mean, you're Kenji Tsukino, but you're also a reporter, a photographer, a father, a husband, a relentless pursuer of the truth-- they're all part of who you are, aren't they? And who Usagi Tsukino is-- is complicated and amazing and inspiring, and selfless and brilliant and wonderful, and intimidating and stubborn and the owner of the biggest heart in the entire world."
And as Artemis makes a sound like he's going to cough up a hairball the size of the rock of Gibraltar at the same time as someone's stepping on his tail while he's trying to be quiet in church, he sinks his claws into Mamoru's shoulder and flat-ears at Kenji. And then there's the other voice he heard speaking with Mamoru. The other MALE voice. "I AM NOT LUNA'S SISTER," yells the cat.
Mamoru, to his credit, only winces and reaches up to remove Artemis from his shoulder, placing him on the table and then rubbing at the broken skin through his shirt. "Jerk. Also subtle, Artemis. Very very subtle. Way to go. I promise not to tell on you, though."
Then he lifts his wrist to fiddle with what looks for all the world like a really fancy wristwatch. "Usa? Before you ask, I did eat my carrots today. Listen -- your dad followed me into Jadeite's palace. Some of the stuff he wants to know-- because of the case he's been working on for twelve years, in other words basically me-- kind of gets complicated, and I don't know what I'm allowed to talk about. I told him you call the shots because you do and I'm a horrible liar, sorry."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji archs his eyebrow. "Of course I'll look him up. What do you think I am, green behind the ears?"
He doesn't say whether or not he'll leave the PI to them.
After all, he can look into people like that perhaps far better than a group of teenagers can.
...Maybe.
He blinks at Mamoru. Well, yes, his daughter is all that, even if she chooses not to see what eleven in the morning looks like on Sundays.
But then he's letting out a sound that is a cross between a shriek and a walrus as he scoots back real fast, both knees knocking into the table.
"But, but!" He stares at Artemis for a moment. "You can't! I mean, they can because they're stone! You can't! What! I can't even...what?!" He takes a moment and swallows. "Can Luna do that, too? But...I change her litter box! I tell her not to tell on me when I break my diet! What...!"
Its around now Mamoru's making the call through his watch. Kenji stares for a moment, still reeling from--
"WHAT?!" He jumps at the sound of his daughter's voice. "How did! I mean what! This isn't! DADDY I CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING you're asleep right now, yeah? I'm looking at you on the couch AHAHAHAHA! MAMO-CHAN! WHA-- I mean MAMORU-KUN!"
"Trust me, honey, if I were dreaming this would make a lot less sense. Or even more sense."
"DON'T KILL HIM AND TRY TO HIDE THE BODY DADDY OKAY!!!"
Kenji pinches the bridge of his nose. "I get the feeling I wouldn't succeed if I tried..."
"Um...okay. Um. You can tell him...stuff. Just, you know. Um. Not how much we...um...kiss. I MEAN HUG! I MEAN SHAKE HANDS!"
Kenji just sits sort of dazed for a moment. "I'm too old for this shit."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
This is Mamoru scooting back away from the table on his butt because of course Artemis flips out harder when Kenji shrieks and Artemis is sharp; Artemis manages to knock over the hot water as he rocket-cats out the door like someone put a cucumber on the floor behind him.
They are thankfully both too far from the table to get hot water on them.
This is Mamoru holding the communicator away from his ear by a wide margin because he's not wearing earplugs and Usagi's got a higher decibel level in a higher register than a jackhammer, and he doesn't want even temporary tinnitus.
He sighs, and reaches way over to snag and eat a cake while they're yelling.
Once the ruckus has died down some, he says, with his mouth full of cake and his other hand in front of his mouth so Kenji doesn't have to SEE the cake, "I meant the escalation stuff. And the kingdoms. And whatever."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
And this is Kenji, now more or less just staring at the hot water in complete stupefaction. Mechanically, he takes out his handkerchief and starts to gingerly mop up the mess.
Usagi, with her voice at more tolerable levels, nearly whines over the communicator. "Okay. Yeah. But um."
There a brief sound of arguing over the line. It ends with an indignant yowl and hiss.
"Daddy, you can't be mad okay, and if you are you can't be mad at--" And then there's steel in her voice. "Why have you been investigating Mamo-chan, Daddy."
"It's not him! It's the case! That story! You know the one! The one where I came home and you'd been crying for hours!"
"Mmm. Go ahead and tell him. Daddy. I'm going to go be grumpy at you."
Kenji slumps and waves a hand. "Yes, dear."
"Mmm." A more chipper voice. "Okay, if he threatens to kill you, remind him I'll never forgive him, ever ever, and I'll tell Mama." Kenji visibly whitens at that. Mamoru thinks Usagi is scary? "And don't worry it'll be okay but I gotta go I love y--"
A beat. A very awkward beat. "YES DADDY I LOVE HIM OKAY SO NOW YOU REALLY CAN'T KILL HIM SO THERE GOOD DAY SIR GOOD DAY!"
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"...okay," says Mamoru reasonably. "Don't let Luna scratch you up. Or me. Or him. It'll be okay. If he doesn't believe me I'll show him. Love you, see you soon."
And then he clicks the communicator off, and he looks across the table (and the space between) at Kenji. After a moment, and a couple of false starts, he finally looks apologetic and just says it flat out.
"Your daughter's Sailor Moon. She's also Princess Serenity, reincarnated heir to the Moon Kingdom. I'm Tuxedo Kamen, and I'm also Endymion, reincarnated Crown Prince of Earth. She's already literally saved the planet from assured destruction twice, because her heart is the most powerful weapon of truth and blinding love in the universe. No one else can do what she does. No one. Her grades aren't great and she sleeps a lot because she's up in the middle of the night with astonishing frequency, killing monsters and saving lives and making sure that actual demonic evil doesn't creep into the world everyone deals with every day. She's been doing it for over a year. And every time she's in trouble, or afraid, I know it and I can find her and I come and help as fast as I can. We both have friends who help us. We're not alone against all this. But it's not something she can stop doing, and it's not something that can be fought effectively without magic."
He reaches over gingerly and picks up his tea to finish it, a shot of courage without the alcohol. And then he's just looking at his hands. "Please don't be mad at her for not telling you. She's been protecting you and her mother and her brother from not having to know or worry about this. And we've been doing everything we can to keep her safe and coming back home to you." Then he looks up again. "I don't know where I lived before the accident; it was probably in the house upstairs. I don't know who my actual parents are, or were, in this life. I only know that it didn't work the way it was supposed to because of that accident, and that I have my guardians back because Usa and her guardians -- the other Sailor Senshi -- and our other friends with magic, they helped me take them back from the witch that killed us all in our first lives, and then we helped them kill her. That ended in March."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
His jaw ticks. He listens and...doesn't quite compute. In the back of his mind, he's refuting everything, looking for those cracks he can widen and tear the story apart.
"March, huh? Must have been a hell of a time. Her mother and I'd been considering having her call hotlines until around then."
His voice is calm. His jaw is still ticking. He's angry, of course, but he's not sure who at. Or who he can be angry at.
He slaps his hand down on the table and stands. "Dammit, why can't you be crazy? Why can't you have a history of lies and deceit?" He points toward the entrance, and effectively toward his daughter, voice raised in an angry yell. "She's fifteen years old! Who the hell has the right to put all of that on my daughter's shoulders? And that's another thing. If the moon people want her back, want to take her away, they'll have to go through me."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Honestly, it's not a great reaction, but it's a hell of a lot better than Mamoru'd been expecting.
He doesn't jump, doesn't cringe; the regality he'd been displaying earlier is there in force now, but there's no arrogance to it. There's nothing awful about him at all. He's another kid that's had to grow up too fast -- but Kenji's been watching him a long time, and this element of him's always been there. He grew up too fast a long time ago, in quite a few ways. This year's been different because the kinds of growing up he did were, too.
But there's always been that self-possession, that diplomacy, that steel beneath him. That calm, there to be leaned on in the face of--
--of raging father.
"It's fate, Tsukino-san," says the boy in a low voice. "It's part of who she is. The person responsible for her having to awaken to her power so early -- March. We eliminated that threat in March. Usa was the only one with the strength and power to do it, which is why she was awakened. And even then, she had the help of all our friends-- even people who are sometimes our enemies. They all died there. They all died to help her get to that witch, to get her to where she could save everyone. Save the world. And she did. And then she brought them all back to life. She did. Usagi Tsukino. She's fifteen, and she has the biggest heart in the universe. The only person who loves enough, unconditionally enough, to be able to bring that kind of strength of will to bear. It's her birthright, and she accepted it, every step of the way. Don't take that decision away from her. Don't undersell her bravery, her courage. Be proud of her. That's all she wants, sir. Be proud of your daughter, Sailor Moon."
He looks down for a second, turning his empty cup around in his hands before setting it back on the table, then standing up. "And there aren't any moon people left, sir. Only her court and mine were reincarnated. And her court were all born on this planet, like she was. They have lives here. They're of Earth now. And they love her as much as you and I do. No one who loves her will take her from you, Tsukino-san, and everyone who loves her would die to keep her safe."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Don't tell me--" He cuts himself off and takes a moment to compose himself. He knows Mamoru wasn't trying to tell him how to take this, knows logically that the boy is trying to explain things the best he can. "I don't have to like any of this to be proud of her. I've always been proud of her. And unless you can look me in the eye and swear to me there's not a chance she could...if you can guarantee she'll always be safe at the end of the day, a part of me will never like any of this."
His eyes are level on Mamoru's, jaw still clenching. "I have pictures in my messenger bag. Pictures I'm not showing you. You may be...prince of whatever, but you're still just a boy, as you should be, and there are some things no one should have to see." He points at his chest, trying hard to make his point. "It's my job to protect you kids the best I can. It's my job to worry, to not like things. Everything you say about her? I felt all of that the instant she was first put in my arms. What kind of father, what kind of person would I be, if I just waved all of this off without a care?"
"I'm not taking any decision from her. But don't take the decision away from me on whether or not I'm okay with this."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru shakes his head, hands up. "I'm not trying to make you okay with it. I only mean -- tell her so. Please tell her you are," he says, voice low and pleading. "Please don't fight with her on it. She can't help it. I know you only want the best for her. And I know it's impossible to be okay with this. I'm just-- I'm just telling you the things I tell myself so I can pretend I'm okay with it. I'm sorry."
His hands fall to his sides. He can't tell Kenji that someday she might not come home. They both know it. The boy sighs and reaches up to run his hand roughly through his hair, then down the back of his neck. "Kunzite will look at them. They might tell him something. If they're what I think they are, I'll look at them too, because I know a lot more about physics, forensics, and anatomy than he does."
He looks away, then, and if it's possible, his voice is even lower. "I appreciate you trying to shield me from that-- but I'm a healer, and even if I'm only eighteen, I know what it's like to lose someone on the operating table no matter how hard I try to save them, no matter how much I know, no matter how much I can fix."
And then he gives Kenji a half smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "And-- I appreciate it maybe more than you know that you're trying to protect me. You don't owe me anything. I'm telling you things you don't want to hear because they're the worst things. And you're still trying to protect me, to keep me safe alongside your daughter."
There's a beat, and the smile does reach his eyes, but it's a glitteringly wistfully sad one. "If I had a father, I'd want him to be like you."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
He sighs and shakes his head a little. "I will. Just...not right now." He'll be needing some time to think after this.
And then he levels Mamoru with a very much Dad Look. "There's a reason doctors can't operate on their family members. There's a reason cops don't investigate crimes and murders involving family members. These aren't pretty pictures. The wreck wasn't pretty."
He sighs and rakes his fingers through his hair. "I'll let Ku--wait, who's Kunzite?" They were talking about a Kazuo earlier, weren't they? He waves a hand. "I'll let him look. If he thinks your input is needed on them, then...we'll see."
And he's feeling two shades of awkward, because he's still used to his own son scoffing at affection from either parent, even when he's seeking it.
What does he do? Hug the kid? Mamoru never really was one for physical contact. (So much so that in the beginning he kept a sharp eye out for any indication regarding the orphanage staff being less than kind and a bit heavy handed.)
But, well, he needs to do something. So there's a step or two taken and a liberal amount of hair ruffling. Mamoru's been to the Tsukino house at least once while Shingo and Kenji were around. This shouldn't be completely surprising if he watched the two.
"You, ah, did good at that science fair, by the way." He coughs and clears his throat. "Better than the volcanoes and whatnot." A few years too late, but hey.
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's not entirely there at the moment, his mind halfway bogged down in moments that make his skin cold-- Takashi bleeding out in the ice and snow, Fiore bleeding out on his living room floor, Usagi bleeding out in his bedroom -- so much blood on his hands, his hands have touched so many things that should never be outside of the skins that hold them in -- Kunzite, in another life, pierced through by stalagmites and broken everywhere, while an eight year old prince he'd shielded worked on him for hours after that sound -- Homura's cold body, Kyouko's; all the death at D-Point, all of it--
He misses Kenji asking him who Kunzite is; he's pale and breathing shallowly, and he tries to focus on the words Kenji's saying, on their surroundings, but there keeps being snow. Why doctors don't operate on family members-- he doesn't even like Takashi. Takashi's-- it was so cold and there was no one but Kunzite's ghost and no exits, and people were already dying when the side dimension kicked them out--
It's a shock when Kenji's hand ruffles his hair, and the contact is a welcome thing in that case; the bright burst of human emotion not his own, fully alien to the mire into which he was sinking, with affection and protectiveness mingled in-- it pulls him out and he latches on to it, and Kenji will feel an overwhelming need for grounding and a desperate fight against past horrors through the touch of his hand to the boy's head. He'll also feel the golden warmth of him, the connectedness of the boy to the planet, to the platonic ideal of 'home', to their surroundings in this impossible place; he'll feel at once the ancient and the very young.
And Mamoru finds his ground to hold on to, but it's a near thing. It's a little thickly that he says, "S-sorry, if I think about it-- it's all right though. Sorry. I didn't get any of it on you, did I--? Science fair...? Let's-- let's go outside-- please." And if Kenji isn't shying away from him after that, he reaches to lightly put his hand on the back of Kenji's shoulder, as if afraid to lose that contact even as he's moving in the direction of outdoors. Even if Kenji moves away from his touch, he goes out anyway-- he needs his bare feet in the grass. "What volcanoes? Tell me about it-- just talk to me, please--"
There's a scattered edge to his voice, he's still fighting, even if it's easier going.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji watches with a wryly arched eyebrow. In this moment, the kid reminds him of hazy memories he has of his grandfather. Not a military man, but a doctor not unlike what the boy wants to be.
Which wouldn't have caused so much trauma if his grandfather hadn't been one of the doctors sent to help the surviving victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
And it's not parental reactions he has troubles with. A kid skins his knee, his instinct is to comfort. It's the words. That's a barrier he still has issue with, even after so many years with a daughter seemingly intent on breaking him of every masculine tradition he thought he would need to adhere to as a younger man.
So he doesn't shy away. Instead, he shakes his head and brings his hand up Mamoru's back, hand warm against the nape of the boy's neck.
Yeah, he's never letting Mamoru see those pictures.
"Tell you about it? Sheesh, son, you were there. I'm not about to go stroking your ego. You know the story: You won first, I was proud, the news article written wasn't necessarily as unbiased as it could have been. Although, I will have to say." He follows the boy out, keeping contact in what should be an awkward half hug for as long as he's allowed, because he's a dad and that's what dads do. "I was more proud of Usagi's participation award for her primary school's science fair. Sure, all the other kids got it, and her little plants were pretty much withered by the time the fair came around, but she had the judges wrapped around her little pinky, and when they apologized that she didn't place, she was quick to assure them it was okay, because those were amazing projects they deserved it. Did you know she was giggling the day she was born? They tried to tell me it was gas or something, but pfff, doctors, what do they know."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Not just contact, but a hand at the nape of Mamoru's neck-- it's much faster, listening, that he can distract himself away, using Kenji's own emotions as a touchstone. And they're outside then, and his bare feet are in the sun-warmed grass, and the breeze is rustling the trees, and the lazy orange shrine cat comes over to twine around his feet, and he breathes.
There's a calm and focused love offered him always, one he can lean on always, one he can borrow always, which he borrows too; there's a silver clarity of love everpresent for him to lean on also, and that's another; there are words, natural and easy; there's Kenji's Dad-Presence also lent him, for which he is profoundly grateful.
He just looks tired, then, a little drained, but his color's back and his breathing's easier; the panic attack was headed off and the place they're in lends him its timelessness and sheltering brightness. Mamoru smiles a little lopsidedly and hangs on to Kenji's words, because if Kenji's going to let him save face, then he's going to take what's offered. "Of course she did. She was happy to be here, wasn't she? Happy to be with you, here on Earth, with everything bright and new--"
Mamoru reaches across his chest to put a hand over Kenji's for a second, and his own emotions, his projective empathy, has been carefully walled off by now-- nothing to interfere, nothing to intrude. "Thank you, Tsukino-san. I'm sorry I-- I just-- thank you. For everything."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji shrugs and Mamoru's hair is ruffled again before the older man steps away. "It was always easy to spot her in the maternity ward. With all those other babies? Dark hair, all of 'em, except her. Little tuft of, I kid you not, silvery-white hair. She was my young little old lady until she was about two."
He slips his hands in his pockets and just sort of stares at the scenery, wondering for a moment if that tabby talks, too.
"What am I gonna tell my wife?" He looks back at Mamoru. "Don't let her sweet demeanor fool you. That woman is terrifying when she's angry, and she always knows when I'm lying."
Then he flashes an almost evil grin. "I could always turn her to you for answers, if things come up. She has maternal instincts, you're still a cute kid, she won't kill you."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru ducks his head, smiling; his hair's ruffled again, and again, he has no protest.
Then he glances up through his bangs, and he says with a half-smile, "Honestly I think Usa should tell her, if you don't. If Usa wants me to, I will, though. I already feel like I had a near-death experience telling you."
Stepping off a few feet to lean down, Mamoru scoops up the lazy tabby and holds him upside down in his arms like a baby, then mooshes his face into catbelly and shakes his head rapidly for a second. The cat makes a sound that's halfway between purr and protest, takes a halfhearted clawless swipe at Mamoru's face, and wriggles free to jump to the ground and stalk off, fur thoroughly ruffled.
Then he sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Do you want me to call for a ride out of here, or do you want the cape-jump express up the steps, or do you want to take your chances with my sketchy teleportation skills, or do you want to climb up a gajillion stairs?"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kenji nods in quick agreement. "Right, right. Send in the adorable biological offspring. Good plan. There's no way Ikuko would strangle her own daughter."
While he seriously doubts either Usagi or Mamoru would be in danger of any real repercussions, and though he doubts he himself would come to physical harm, he's pretty sure that this would cause his wife to buy an actual dog house for him to sleep in.
As it stands, he'll settle for the couch.
"I take it that one doesn't speak." Oh dear goodness. Hasn't he done the same to Luna on rare occasion when no one else was home?
Trying hard to ignore the sudden redness that goes from his face down his chest at the thought, he looks toward the entrance. And fortunately, the thought of climbing a gajillion stairs turns his complexion white. "No option number five?" He rubs the back of his neck. "So what, you'd give me a piggy back ride or something?"
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Nope. But don't worry, the moon cats are also, well, cats. Artemis' partner definitely does that to him a lot and it's hilarious. They'll let you know emphatically if they're displeased," Mamoru says carelessly, waving a hand. "You just need to take them seriously when they're being serious, but that's just like anyone else."
Then he glances toward the stairs. "It's honestly only my teleportation that's sketchy. It makes me seasick. My aim's a lot better these days, though, I haven't appeared ten feet up in the air or half-buried in the ground in months." He also hasn't teleported in a couple months, but we're not going there.
"The other guys are much better at it. But sure, yeah, I can give you a piggyback ride." He gives Kenji a sidelong glance. "You seriously went down all those stairs not thinking about having to go back up them?" As he's doing side-eye, there's a sort of crackle and a brief flare of understated shimmering gold, and the boy's dressed in formalwear and a mask and cape that manage to not actually look ridiculous at all.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"But I change her litter box." This feels something far safer to obsess over than the fact his daughter runs around in a mini skirt.
He blinks at Mamoru's assurance he hasn't teleported through stuff or in the air. "Gee. I'm reassured. So ending up in a wall is only minimal then."
And then the boy changes. Kenji's shoulders droop and he is seriously contemplating just taking a nap when he gets home. "I'm taking a bubble bath when I get home. And maybe read a good book. Because I've suddenly just lost the ability to comprehend anything. I mean, where do you keep that? It's not under your clothes, you were wearing shorts and they'd be all wrinkled and -- I'm sorry, I'll be very impressed later, it's just, this is not how I expected my day to go. But this..." His hand waves at Mamoru's ensemble. "It's not fair. It takes me half an hour to get into my good suit, and that's if everything's already pressed and ready to go."
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Don't worry, if I want to dress up for something, I have to do it like everyone else. If I take the mask off everyone knows who I am. Don't ask me how that works," Tuxedo Kamen says with an apologetic laugh. "But you know it's still just me, anyway. Like you said-- no matter what I am, you know?"
It's not actually complicated to set up the piggyback ride once they're at the bottom of the stairs, and with an "I'll never tell if you don't", they're bounding up through the darkness.
It only takes about ten seconds. Then again, Tokyo rooftops.
At the top of the stairs, the prince makes room for Kenji to slide off his back, then dusts off his hands. "You're tired -- I'm exhausted. Have a nice bubble bath. I'm going to go sleep in the sun with a cat curled on me for a while and possibly question some life choices."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
He waves his hand and huffs a bit. "Now you're just trying to make me feel better."
And the piggy back is as awkward as it sounds. He chokes back a sound at the promise. "Please. Who would I want to tell?"
And then he's too busy trying not to scream in terror or choke the boy to death, because apparently Kenji's afraid of heights that don't come with the safety of a floor. Even if it is just too the top of the stairs.
He manages to keep his cool even as his knees tremble. And by keep his cool, all that really means is he doesn't collapse to the floor. "Um, yeah. Actually, I have a daughter holed up in a closet probably eating a pint of ice cream. I think...I'll get a spoon and join her."
He staggers off a few steps before he turns back. "Hey." When Mamoru turns around, he shrugs. "I'm glad this birthday wasn't as crappy for you as the others. Maybe next year we'll do cake."
And then his cheeks are burning and he's clearing his throat as he walks off, because that was rather presumptuous.
Mamoru Chiba has posed:
HOW IS HE SUPPOSED TO NOT IMMEDIATELY TELL USAGI.
Mamoru's face is also burning-- and his heart is so very, very light.
After a second of frozen wordlessness, he calls back after Kenji a little unsteadily, "I'd-- really like that!"
And then there's the sound of a door closing behind him as Mamoru vanishes back down the stairs to sort through too many emotions all at once.
