It's a glorious sunny day in early July, and school's just got out maybe half an hour ago, and the greenery in the park by the bay is luscious and verdant. and the sun's speckling the grass through the waving trees. It's time for roses, and there's a garden in the park with benches, a beautiful view of the water, and the seclusion of tall rosebushes and hedges draped with climbers. It's a quiet and still spot, even with a breeze blowing through; it's a place that waits.
There usually isn't anyone here at this time of day.
There is now: an absurdly tall teenaged boy in Infinity's high school uniform's sitting in the shade on one of the benches, hair mussed by the light touch of the ocean breeze and glasses perched on his beautiful, sharp-featured face. He is completely and utterly absorbed in a book.
It's a book about tides.
Makoto came across this spot only just recently, but unconsciously she's already begun to think of it in some way as hers. There's just something about the nearness of the trees and the bloom of the roses that speaks to her, and the stillness of it, the sense of seclusion created by the encircling hedges, makes it feel like a private hideaway rather than a corner of a public park that's open to all of Tokyo.
She's had a lot to think about lately. Normally after school Mako might go to the arcade or spend some time shopping, but this afternoon, with her friends mostly occupied by various other things, she feels as though she just wants to sit and think a while. With a cold can of tea that she bought from a vending machine, and a few homemade anpan in her lench bag that she and Usagi did not get to during the lunch break, she comes wandering around the side of a rose bush - and stops short, her thoughts of a quiet afternoon to herself suddenly dashed by the unexpected presence of another human being.
And not just any human being, but Mamoru Chiba, of all people. For a moment Makoto stands there, tempted to just turn around and leave - but the thought of letting his presence drive her away from such a perfect spot makes her balk inwardly. At last, wearing a rather disgruntled expression, she makes up her mind and steps forward, heading not toward the bench but to find a place to sit on the ground in the shade of one of the hedges.
The part that may or may not be amusing is that Mamoru also considers this place his, however ephemeral and transitory such an ownership may be. He waits; this is a place that waits. He's still, this is a place that's still. And the green-ness of it and the enclosed brightness and seclusion, and the curtains and fountains of roses -- it gives him a wistful sense of inexplicable nostalgia, of homesickness for a place he's never been.
So he comes here. Not every day -- probably just the days he's not at the arcade, and maybe not at the same time -- but he looks so comfortable here. Despite the intentness in his face, there's no tension.
Not even when he looks up at the quiet rustling and sees Makoto. Instead, he gets a sort of wryly affectionate expression. "Kino-san. Did you want the bench? Less grass stains." He closes his book over his finger and shifts to start getting up.
Makoto stops almost in the act of lowering herself to the ground, with a defensive little hitch of her shoulders. It's impossible to take any satisfaction in the prospect of having him leave and concede this space to her when she'd just only just made the conscious decision not to let his presence drive her away.
For a split second she wonders if this is all some kind of a trick - but just as quickly she discards the notion. Even if he really is Nephrite, there's no reason for him to have expected her to come here.
Ugh.
"It's fine," she says, and determinedly plunks herself down in the spot she's chosen. "You were here first, after all."
The wryness turns into silent upperclassman amusement as Makoto stubbornly sits down, and instead of immediately going back to his book, Mamoru leans forward with his elbows on his knees, one hand up to prop his chin, book hanging out of the other hand. A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth, and his blue eyes, though laughing, are warm. "I see."
One heartbeat. Two.
"I wonder, though, what I ever did to you. I'm curious: I don't tend to make enemies, much less unknowingly." He doesn't tend to leave enough of an impression aside from 'smart, nice but aloof, kind but distant', in fact. Except since he met Usagi -- but he's still not used to this new impression he leaves people with.
He does suspect that she thinks he's Nephrite, but that whole thing with Sailor V dumping out a metric boatload of merch on the rooftop in front of him in between word-bombs and malapropisms left him more confused than anything else. And she's not trying to kill him, so...
"If I was rude to you at study group, I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to be."
A flush rises unbidden into Makoto's cheeks, and she looks away, remembering her own behavior at the ill-fated study group meeting. If he is Nephrite, she thinks now in hindsight, the way she acted must've made it incredibly obvious that she suspects him... and, if by some chance she's wrong, then she was really just appallingly rude.
She's sure she's not wrong to be suspicious of him after the things that he's said, but even so, Ami's words from the other day still sting. It's an almost physical prickle against her skin.
"...No," Mako says, reluctantly, still not looking at him. "You weren't. I was the rude one that time, showing up and then just leaving as suddenly as I did. So I'm the one who should apologize."
Mamoru laughs, and it's easy and inoffensive. "Maybe," he tells her wryly as he sits up properly, still holding his book like he's going to go back to it, "you could tell that to Sharpe-san. She gave me such a hard time for running off one of her guests when you left. It's all right, though," he finishes, looking away from her in order to take a slip of paper out of his pocket and mark his place with it. The book then gets put in his blazer pocket.
"I know I was an ass to you before the gala. That's why I volunteered us, I thought I'd be making it up to you," the eleventh-grader explains in a reasonable tone. "I didn't mean to actually speak for you, that was just terrible on top of terrible. But at least the preparation went well, didn't it? Even if the police came to the party, or so Sato-san says -- I had to leave early. The person I was hoping to see didn't show up, anyway, so I didn't feel too bad about ditching. Especially since no one even recognised me behind my mask."
There's a brief pause, and his eyes are momentarily obscured by the sunlight reflecting off his glasses, but there's the faintest teasing quality to his voice that can't be hidden. "I also figured you'd be completely occupied by Sanjouin-san, and I'd had enough of your deathglares to go tracking either of you down and interrupting again." Then the sun's blocked from his face again, and his eyes, oh my god. They are sparkling with mirth.
The thing about Makoto is--- she's just not very good at reading beneath the layers of people's behavior. There's no guile in her to speak of, and she's not accustomed to looking for it in others; in general, she takes people just as they present themselves to her.
Which makes it really hard for her to know how to even respond to Mamoru, who might or might not be her enemy but either way definitely knows more than he should, when he's being so casually conciliatory. Even moreso when he actually has the nerve to start teasing her.
The result is that Makoto is, at the moment, about six different kinds of flustered, and his bringing up Sanjouin-san does absolutely nothing whatsoever to help cool the blush that's lit up her face. "That's - aah--" For a half heartbeat there she really kind of looks like she wants to either explode into indignation or dive for cover into the rosebushes. "Thanks for being considerate, then!" It would probably sound more like genuine gratitude if she didn't sound so comically stiff.
He's doing it on purpose, damn it. Seeking some kind of temporary refuge, Makoto rather conspicuously occupies her attention with her bag.
Of course he's doing it on purpose. Except -- like the few times she's seen him talking about academics with Ami -- there's that lingering problem of affection suffusing his manner. It's not even a layer, because it's nearly everpresent, but somehow only around the Senshi: he's teasing Makoto like an older brother would, not like a bully.
(That doesn't BEGIN to explain the two-way banter-fests he and Usagi have had in Game Center Crown for months, now.)
It's definitely not like a bully because as soon as Makoto's THAT flustered, he stops, glancing away. She hasn't denied disliking him, but can he blame her?
"You're welcome," he says. And then he clears his throat and takes his book out of his pocket again, glancing down at it. "Anyway, I wanted to thank you for protecting someone important to me when I can't, and I never got around to it properly. So-- thanks."
Abruptly, the upperclassman is standing again, and he adjusts his glasses. "You can have the bench now anyway, I've got to go." After all, right about now, Seishou detention should be letting out.
Not that Makoto really has any experience with the teasing of a big brother... but she does know from bullies, and this isn't it.
"Huh?" His words distract her from her agitation and she looks up from fussing with her bag, brows drawing together in sudden confusion. He's thanking her for - what?
"Hey, wait!" He can't just drop a comment like that unexplained and leave. As he's adjusting his glasses, Mako scrambles to her feet, all those other oblique comments he made before running through her mind again. Just what does he know, and who is it that he's thanking her for protecting? "What do you--"
Can't he? Mamoru Chiba seems to be able to find the most precisely aggravating way to have positive interactions with people, without fail. He doesn't slow down, already walking as Makoto's scrambling to her feet; he heads around a bend in the hedge walls and the overhanging greenery even as she's starting to ask what he means, or what he knows, or anything at all.
By the time she gets to the corner he turned, close as it is, he's vanished. It's not a maze, so there are precious few places he could have vanished to, but he's nowhere to be seen.
And so Makoto's left standing there at the corner of the hedge, staring in utter perplexity at thin air, full of questions without answers. There's just the roses, the trees, the gentle breeze that stirs her hair lightly around her face and tells her nothing.
"Aaaaah--" Her voice rises, aggreived, into the sun-dappled air. "What the hell?"