1832/Chocolate Is Life

Chocolate Is Life
Date of Scene:	18 August 2016
Location:	Earth Court Frat House
Synopsis:	After 'Death By Chocolate', Mako brings Mamoru a gift from the chocolate festival, and he explains a little of what's happened to Naru and to himself lately.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Makoto Kino

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The apartment's pretty subdued-- it's not that everyone's out, it's more that some people are, and nobody's really come over at the moment, and the people who are left are generally quietly doing things by themselves. It's Jadeite that tells Makoto that Mamoru's up on the roof fussing with the garden.

The sky's overcast, and while it's humid at street level, the breezes up at this height make it actually rather lovely, climate-wise. The air smells like rain, and the sounds of the city are muted almost to the point of inaudibility. Mamoru's got a tarp spread out and a wheely cart with potting soil and planters and pots of different sizes, and he's in shorts and an undershirt and big garden gloves, determinedly potting a bunch of brilliant blue verbena from flats. There's a tightness around his eyes that isn't usually there, and a preoccupation that indicates the work is the last thing on his mind. He's quite smudged.

Makoto Kino has posed:
With the little box she got at the chocolate festival tucked carefully under her arm, Mako emerges from the roof access door and stands for a moment, taking in the sight of the developing garden, feeling the brush of the wind against her skin and the things that it murmurs inaudibly to her.

"Hey," she says after a moment, voice mild but clear enough to be heard. "I brought you a present from the chocolate festival. Want it now, or should I put it on the table for the next time you take a break?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru glances up and smiles; the tightness around his eyes goes away, but the preoccupation does not. "Hm--? Oh man, chocolate? Breaktime is officially now," he says, standing up and cracking his back a little as he stretches. He takes off the gloves and drops them on top of the rolly-cart, then reaches for the towel and bottle of tap water he's got up there, doing the sort of splash-dab this counts as a clean face thing that is de rigeur for playing-in-the-dirt Mamorus. "A whole chocolate festival, huh? Probably a good thing I missed it."

(He's watching himself interact. He seems to be doing it right.)

"If you want some lemonade, I think someone brought some up a while ago, it's--" He glances over at the umbrellaed table, and the lemonade has long since had its ice cubes melt, so that it's lemonade at the bottom of the pitcher and cloudy water at the top. "...okay, maybe a little more than a while ago. I guess it really /is/ breaktime."

Really there's just something a little off about him. Not not-him, just...

Makoto Kino has posed:
She glances toward the lemonade pitcher, then back to Mamoru, smiling fondly. "It's okay," Mako promises, holding out the little box. "I'm good. Here, for you. Sorry it's such a little box, it's what I could afford." Her smile turns slightly rueful as she says it, self-deprecating.

And then Makoto pauses a bit, still holding out the box until he takes it, regarding him a little more hesitantly. Something off. Not unfamiliar, more like... it's hard to say. But something's happened.

"I went with Naru-chan," she says presently. "There was a monster, because of course there was. Probably best that you missed it, yeah."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
His hands curl around the box almost reverently, and it's very nearly a little-kid smile Mamoru gives Makoto. "Thank you. So much. It's my favorite and it's from you-- don't ever be sorry, even if it's customary--"

The air winds around them like a large cat, tugging at Makoto's hair and ruffling Mamoru's, drying it on the back of his neck; the silence is clean, up here. He looks down at the box in his hands after a second of hesitation, like he was about to reach out and hug her and decided against it at the last second, some kind of mixed caution and self-awareness. "Poor Naru. Wraiths messed her up badly enough the night before last that I had to go in and fix it. That was something-- neither of us wanted to have to do, but-- I had her permission. That if she was that badly off, she wanted me to. It was just harder than it should have been, because a lot of me was missing, too."

Here he looks up and away a little bit, distractedly. "I'll be fine soon." A quick glance back and a quick of a smile, corner of the eye and corner of the mouth. "And chocolate is one of the tried and true methods of fixing Mamoru's head, so Makoto is a wise and clever and prescient imouto-sama."

He gestures at the table, then, and glides past Makoto -- brushes against her arm on the way, smudgy skin to skin, and there's a bright warm flash of gold guiltily latching on ever so briefly before he sits down, himself, pretending he didn't just do that.

That box is getting OPENED.

Makoto Kino has posed:
That brush of gold, of contact, finds Makoto as Mako as she ever is - a little worried, but steady, rooted like the oak that is one of her symbols and might in fact be visible from the roof if the other buildings of residential Uminari don't block it from view. She winces a little in sympathy over Mamoru's explanation of what Naru has been going through. "No wonder," she murmurs, and shakes her head a little. "She's been having a rough time lately, hasn't she?"

A little sigh, and Mako wanders over to take a seat herself, still watching Mamoru as he peels open the little box. Wavers a little over whether or not to ask what happened, ends up deciding to grill Kunzite or somebody later. For now, she offers another smile. "You're welcome."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Rooted. Someone else's roots to help him climb back out, to help him reassemble, to help him remember how to re-grow. That was the guilt: he knows that. And he knows he should just ask. But there's an element of-- it's only time he needs, it's only patience, he can do it himself-- but all the same, those connections are so necessary for the fragile parts of him. He glances up from his fingers fussing with the box's ribbon, and he looks nothing but wry.

Mamoru comes clean all the time, doesn't he? He doesn't hide things. Not now that he has people to not hide them from. People depend on him to be dependable, so if he's less so, then they need to know. (He should come clean to Makoto.) He almost says something, then looks down again and startles at the prettiness of the chocolates in the box. "Jeez," he says, eyes wide. "They're art!" He looks up quickly. "Do they have competitions? You should put your chocolates in a competition there. I mean, not the medicinal ones probably, but the ones without magic in them--" A beat. "--and if I can eat your art I don't feel at all bad about swapping visual aesthetics for gustatory."

It is with supreme relish that Mamoru puts the whole first chocolate in his mouth. And then holds his hand in front of his mouth while looking away from Makoto to say, "Lacrima got me. Usa and Kunzite saved me. But she drains identity. It comes back. But I'm still a little--"

His eyes flicker toward her uncertainly, and he chews.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Competition? Makoto looks briefly surprised at the question, and then thoughtful. "They might," she allows, "I didn't really look for that. I'm not sure I'm up to that level, anyway, not without cheating with your roses." A quick flash of laughter in her eyes, for a moment. "I'll make you chocolate any time you want it. But I refuse to call it medicinal. Nothing described with that word has ever tasted good."

She folds her arms together, resting them lightly against the edge of the table as she contemplates the idea of someone able to drain identity. "...That doesn't sound good," Mako observes, mouth curving into a bit of a worried frown. "But if you're recovering, then I suppose it's all right." A beat. "I wonder if the rose chocolates would help at all. The magic was yours originally..."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Oh chocolate always helps," Mamoru says, eyes twinkling as he lets his hand drop, because he's swallowed. The others he'll savor, one by one. And hide them from Usagi until he's finished. There aren't, after all, that many -- and Mako didn't make them. So many logics.

"But I'm okay on energy and magic. I was channelling it into me almost as fast as she was taking it from me-- and when they got her off me, I kept pulling it up until I was okay. It's just that I also shoved what she hadn't eaten of my sense of self into the ground, into the trees and air and -- everything -- and it's been more complicated than I thought finding it again. And then there's waiting for the rest to come back, which is actually faster. She'd gotten at Kunzite earlier, so at least I knew what to look at."

Makoto Kino has posed:
She tries to follow, really she does. Some days, Makoto just doesn't quite feel equipped for the world of strangeness that she lives in now. Today is one of those days. "I don't quite get it," she admits. "But I guess if you and the guys do, that's good enough."

There's a discomfort there nonetheless, one that isn't focused on Mamoru particularly. Mako has looked away, gazing off across the garden and the work that he'd been doing when she came up. Plants and flowers are always soothing. "The thing at the festival was minor, compared to all that. Fortunately. Naru-chan was standing right next to me when it hit her. We beat it up after - I met Cure Flora, she mentioned you and the princess."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Cure Flora. "She's a sweetheart. Her fairies nag," Mamoru says after a second, and then he reaches halfway across the table-- but his hand stills; he's unsure of cues. He can't read this one, right now, without looking; he can't, because Makoto's hand is out of reach. He's trying to focus. He's getting in his own way of it. "I'm glad Naru was up to fighting with you," he says, then trails off.

There's a pause. "I called Serenity to calm her down a little. Cure Flora, I mean. I thought maybe they had some things in common, and it seemed to be right... "

Then it snaps in his face. Makoto just called Usagi 'the princess'.

He reflexively called her Serenity after that.

Drawing his hand back, the black-haired boy drags his hand down his face. "Usa, I mean. Luna announced her as Serenity. It's not my fault--"

Makoto Kino has posed:
That brings Mako's eyes back to Mamoru, widened a little in a moment of surprise and confusion. Then she shakes her head, offers a lopsided smile of reassurance. "It's not exactly secret any more, is it? Her or you. You both know too many people for it to be a secret." At least within magical circles, and not so much even that, lately.

"Flora seemed nice," Makoto goes on. "She mentioned she's kind of new to this whole thing; we traded phone numbers. She puts out enough flower petals to make me start to feel inadequate." A hitch of a laugh follows that comment, chuckling at her own joke. Maybe there's a grain of truth in it, though, because then she looks down. "I just wish I'd been more on the ball. Naru-chan said it was okay, but..."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mismatched discomforts. Mamoru lets out an unsteady laugh, then reaches up to mash the heel of his hand into his forehead and drag his hand through his hair thereafter. "Oh. I thought you meant-- see, Usa's still having trouble with Serenity. She doesn't-- I think maybe she doesn't like who she was. So she's not-- she doesn't want to-- she doesn't realize that she's just part of her? And everything's weird. I didn't-- I mean, she showed up as Moon and then henshined and then just dropped them all and was Usa, I'm not gonna tell her what to do. And-- her dad knows now, and I don't think he's gonna tell her what to do either, and everything's-- really confusing."

He laughs again, and this time he covers his face with both hands. "I'm rambling. I'm sorry. I'm trying to track it all, myself. And then I'm just-- I'm sorry." It's laughing, and it's apologetic laughing, and it's resigned, and it's not in danger of getting out of control, but it's clear he's fishing around for anything resembling how to converse properly. But then he does reach over, more, holding his hands out and open in front of Makoto.

"You're in good company. Or bad company maybe. Feeling inadequate. But you're not, you know. She's like I was last year, except worse, and except more unfair because she can't even try to jump away and because she's not jumping on grenades on purpose. I think something's going to happen. I think Kunzite thinks something's going to happen, with her. He's keeping an eye on her too. Everybody is. And still, things like this keep happening. It's not your fault, and besides, someone else being there also helping -- if you don't know them -- can be very distracting. And if something happens in the middle of a lot of civilians, that's even worse. Just always do your best and sometimes your best one day is different from your best another day. And then you're done with that day and there's another one."