Nandomo Meguriau (Hey Are You Stalking Me)

It's a sunny day in Mitakihara, and Infinity University's mostly deserted, seeing as it's summer break. There are, however, always prospective students visiting, and there are also always the presence of some staff and some teachers.

Mamoru Chiba, star student who had a bad time of his last month leading up to finals and got less than perfect grades for his troubles, has just dropped in to pick up extra credit work to hand in at the beginning of the new term, and is on his way out--

--with Sailor V! Who is not currently Sailor V, but won't tell him her name, and since Mamoru's used to not having any idea how to cope with Minako being Minako, he has just accepted this. "I'm really glad you were there last night," he's telling her as they walk down the path toward the street. His glasses are on and he's in a super stylish expensive natural-fiber summer-weight suit with a seriously hipster art t-shirt under the off-white blazer. It's some cute reference to the new photos of Pluto. "I got held up, and I always feel more comfortable about it when I know more people are looking after her."

Minako Aino doesn't not say her name so much as to be obnoxious as she is a little forgetful and doesn't think to introduce herself. Her identity might be guessed at when some mumblers point and talk about her, which *almost* prompts Minako to give a smile and wave until she hears the murmurs of, 'Minako, top student the next school over.'

She wisely avoids bringing up that sort of talk and politely ignores extra-credit work, cleverly whistling to herself as if she doesn't even notice it.

"Yeahhh, so am I. I got buried treasure out of it, so it was totally worth it! Even if everybody just ran off as if they had somewhere to be in the middle of the night," she says, waving her hand carelessly as if it is the sort of event she does every night.

She also gives Mamoru's choice of shirt a thumbs-up. "Whooo, I love your shirt. That's my faaaavorite planet. But I might not be an impartitioned voter."

When Mamoru walks into the office, he's greeted by a woman he's not seen before. At least, as far as either of them knows. She's tall, with pale skin and long (LONG) red hair. And when Mamoru walks in, for some reason, she is rapidly very close to him and all up in his personal space.

"Excuse me, young man." she says, as she gets closer. "Is there something I can help you with?"

'Morgana Kimiko - a name chosen by Beryl herself by who knows what metric' is her current civilian guise. She can't trust her generals to look for Endymion, the Moon Princess, or the Crystal - so she's doing a little footwork herself. And yet being a teacher is so oddly familiar for her. In a different way. Perhaps she was a teacher - or at least an academic - in the past life before she rememebered who she truly was?

Mamoru looks like he wants to pinch the bridge of his nose, but does not. "You mean an impartial voter?"

But he ditches it really quick in order to nerd out about SPACE!! "--anyway, yeah, I'm really excited about the photographs; it's so cool that even now, we can get new mythology. I mean, it looks like the planet's got a giant heart and a whale on it, can you imagine the stories people are going to come up with? Like the rabbit on the moon! I'm not sure what they'll say about the whale, but the heart--"

This is what he's saying to Minako as they enter the office, and then he very abruptly cuts himself off because basically as soon as he gets in the door there is a hot teacher all up in his personal space.

He takes a half-step back, then completes it for a whole nother foot of space between them. He hopes it sticks. He looks alarmed.

"Um--" Mamoru casts a glance quickly toward Minako like 'oh god help', then swallows and turns to the teacher again. "I'm here to pick up the extra credit work I asked my calculus and sociology teachers for-- they said they'd leave them here, should be marked Chiba Mamoru--?"

"Impartial voter? I don't know that political party."

Minako doesn't seem to have problems with personal space.

Or, at least, she has tons of problems with personal space, but other people invading hers (or vice-versa) don't even make her flinch. She just gets more excited, continuing babbling about how hearts definitely -do- belong on the planet, it's the planet of love, and so on.

She seems to have confused Venus and Pluto. She also doesn't seem to pick up on any weird 'help me' looks and just keeps talking in the background about planet and goddess myths, the most beautiful goddesses, how planets rotate around the sun not vice-versa like Archimedes thought, and so on.

It would probably be very difficult for 'Morgana' to ignore Minako's yammering in any normal circumstance. But this is not a normal circumstance. She feels... drawn... to this young man. In a way she can't quite place herself. And for a moment she feels less like the powerful sorceress-queen of the Dark Kingdom and something more akin to a giddy schoolgirl.

She barely keeps her disguise going, because she'd really like to scoop him up and dive out a window or something similarly ridiculous. "Mamoru Chiba." she says. Lowly. Like she's rolling the words around in her mind and committing them to some sort of permanant record. Then - suddenly - her hands are on the tops of his shoulders, her long fingers (and also, long fingernails) sitting there. "Ohhhh. Mamoru Chiba. The one looking for the extra credit? I heard about some of the things going on with you. It's a shame they happened to such a... promising student."

There's a flinch at the touch, and suddenly instead of just alarmed, Mamoru also looks both deeply uncomfortable and somewhat put out. "Er-- sensei--" he starts, not at all wanting to touch her hands without gloves on, but seeing no other way to actually get her hands OFF him-- but calling attention to her rudeness would also be rude, and she's a teacher, and right now he has no idea what to do about this.

This situation is not, perhaps surprisingly, something that was covered in instructions for children at the orphanage or foster homes in which he was brought up.

He settles for taking another step back and shrugging a little, and he's actually at the threshold of the door, and Mina's still talking planets next to him, and--

--he sort of ducks behind the blonde. "I'm fine, thank you for your concern. I hope Sanjouin-sensei hasn't been spreading rumors about bad company, as he suggested he thought might be the case-- it was just a spate of ill luck. Um-- I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Minako Aino gives a weird little guilty giggle. "It was a shame!" she agrees, giving her best innocent shrug ever. "That thing that happened," she says, thinking back and trying to remember if she actually knows the thing or not and hoping it wasn't something so terrible that she accidentally says something inappropriate.

"Had I known he was scalping the bottom of the barrel with his grades, I woulda' told him to study. ORDERED him to study. Not stay out all hours of the night goofin' off!" she says, waving a finger at Mamoru in her best imitation of her own mother.

"Don't you worry, sensei-chan, I'll set him on the straightest arrow."

"Well, I can't say that most of our students get repeatedly injured over a short period of time without bringing up concerns they might be involved in... unsavory activities." she says. Mamoru's ducking behind his friend forces her to break that hold, and she smiles a bit. Leaning forward a bit.

This boy... she wants to move closer like a moth fluttering near a flame. "I am..." a pause for dramatic effect. A smile. "Morgana Kimiko. So, to you..." she says, after a pause. And a glare at Minako. A glare that could probably set a dozen deliquents on the right path. "KIMIKO-SENSEI."

"I do hope you can keep this young man on the right path, miss." she adds. "Otherwise I will have to take matters into my own hands." Yep, totally looking dead at Mamoru.

"As a responsible member of the school administration of course." she adds hurridly. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, Mamoru-kun" she adds, acting familiar VERY quickly, then breaks away from him slowly, like it is a difficult action (it is) to go fetch his assignments from within the office.

The high-schooler's eyes widen behind his glasses and he goes from alarmed and uncomfortable and put out and uneasy straight to deeply unnerved.

He can't even manage to get anything out in response to Minako's tsking and talking like that about him in front of him; 'sensei-chan' goes unremarked; Minako's malapropisms aren't even noticed. He just stares like a deer in headlights, face blank.

When Kimiko-sensei goes into the office -- finally -- to get his papers, he turns white-faced to Minako and whispers hurriedly, his body language defensive and tense, "Oh my god please help me out here I am deeply uncomfortable she is super creepy and being way way way WAY too familiar and I don't know what to do--"

He shuts up really quickly when he hears Kimiko-sensei coming back, and straightens up, and looks like he's been sentenced to death.

Minako Aino gives Mamoru a sneaky pat on the back and a ridiculous, naughty grin on her face. "Shhh, stop panicking," she says, not even bothering to hear out anything Mamoru has to say. "I'll help. Your secret is safe with me," she promises.

"But you need to keep your illicit teacher-student affairs a little more secret. You're both gonna get into trouble. I'll talk to you more about it later," she says, straightening up and trying to act like the proper Seiyou star student she knows she can be.

"I'll also keep an eye on him. I'll tutor him two-hundred-forty-seven, seven days a week, I promise! Every day, every night, 'til his brain bleeds!" she announces upon Morgana's return.

Very shortly thereafter, 'Morgana' returns with a small manilla envelope, stuffed to the brim with extra credit work inside and marked "Chiba Mamoru". She holds it in her hands, showing him the name, but does not turn it over.

"Mamoru Chiba..." she begins, leaning close to him. Again. "Mamoru-kun." she corrects. "You understand that allowing a student... even such an EXCEPTIONAL student, like yourself... to make up work to this degree is very unusual, I hope?"

"If you want to earn full credit for this work you're about to do, it needs to be returned to the office..." a pause, and a look into his eyes. "TO ME. By the Tuesday the first. Two days before classes start."

"Otherwise, I will be forced reduce the credit. Unless... you /want/ me to hunt you down?"

Mamoru shoots Minako the most scandalized and wounded and betrayed look he can muster on such short notice, and he's faced with... HER again. He takes a firm step back, and then reaches to snatch the manila envelope out of Kimiko-sensei's hand. "With all due respect, Kimiko-sensei, you're not my instructor; additionally," he points out in a pedantic fluster, "those assignments are not make-up work but extra credit, I've done extra credit every summer break since starting middle school, it's not irregular at all, and they are always handed in to the teachers that assigned them. Not to mention saying 'to this degree' is an offensively inaccurate implication; they will, when completed, put my grades above perfect, and there aren't many of them."

He's gone red in the face, poor boy. Not only is she creeping on him, she's also implying things about his grades AND CREEPING ABOUT IT ALSO.

(His eyes, such a deep blue, like the oceans of this beautiful planet.)

He takes a deep breath and another two whole steps back and really hopes Minako stays where she is and at least bars the teacher's path. "Furthermore, I regret I must inform you that your behavior is extremely inapproprite and rude, and I would appreciate it if you did not touch me again, and I must respectfully insist that you not address me so familiarly. Please call me Chiba, as my instructors do."

"'Above perfect?'" Minako says with an almost fangirl coo. "And all this time, I've only been a perfect student. Had I known I could be more than perfect, I would have aimed for the moon and landed in the sun, Chiba-chaaaan~!" she says, clapping her hands together.

"Don't worry, Kimchi-sensei. I'll spend lots and lots of time with him, tutoring him up so you won't have to do a single huntin'. He'll be above perfect in no time!"

She blinks. She's not used to having students 1) stand up for themselves in her presence 2) try to put their foot down about her personal contact. So she can assume, that this is a very strong willed Earth boy. But, she is the Queen... no wait, she is the SENSEI here. Announcing that she's the Queen would be a little wierd.

"Excuse me, then. Your previous teacher must have given me the wrong information about your specific case when he was getting me ready. You see, Mamoru-kun, one of your instructors does address you so familiarly, as you will discover when classes start again, becuase you previous instructor has fallen ill, and I will be taking over for him. Which means I will be your homeroom teacher, and I address you the same way I address all of my other students."

She puts her foot down - literally, as her high heel makes a loud noise. "Furthermore, while I understand you are an upperclassman, that does not entitle you to make such arrogant demands of your instructors here at Infinity. If you continue to do so I will be forced to find ways to take you down a peg or two." she adds. She's now floating somewhere between enamored with him (and those eyes MUST STOP STARING AT THOSE EYES) and not letting any earthling, especially any YOUNG earthling, stand up to her - not even her cover identity.

"I can show you how to get the best extra credit assignments, sure," Mamoru says to Minako, almost calming down, before being yanked back to HOW SURREAL AND HORRIBLE THIS SITUATION IS. He stares at Kimiko-sensei in disbelief.

"With respect for your position, Kimiko-sensei," he says, getting this bizarre and kind of sick-flustered horror-show trainwreck strangled quality and a building outrage to his voice, face very red and knuckles very white, "I deeply apologize for having to humbly correct your assertions once more, and insist that you cease your extremely concerning inappropriate familiarity and wholly unprofessional threats. If you don't, I'll-- I'll be forced to file a formal complaint with both the school and the Ministry of Education."

Here's where he actually shows Minako, without words, how actually legitimately desperate he is: like a kid, he grabs her sleeve. This situation *does not compute*. He actually stutters with the last bit: "I-if need be, I will t-transfer out of this school. I am sure any of the other s-schools in the city would be quite p-pleased to take a, a transfer student with--with my academic and athletic records. But if you stop now, I-- I won't leave--"

Minako's shirtsleeve is probably done for. He'll have to buy her a new shirt.

Minako Aino does a wink and ensures Mamoru she knows exactly what he means by 'best extra-credit assignments.

But she's also nice and gingerly gives him a reassuring holding about the shoulders, using all of her caring and nurturing self to make sure the poor boy feels reassured and comfortable. She leans in and whispers 'there there' to his ear and generally tries to save Mamoru.

But she is certain to give Kimiko extra-nice smiles and totally uses tricks of the perspective to her advantage: subtly lifting her fingers up over his far shoulders, leaning her lips just a little extra close when whispering, and gingerly nudging him towards the door.

"Let's go work on extra-curricular extra-credit together. Don't worry about her. She's just being friendly like this with alllllllll the students." she says nice and soothingly.

"No reason to threaten to make complaints. Let's get you out of here, you big worrier."

'Morgana' does notice every movement and action Minako makes. Suddenly it's all clear. It's like this has happened before, after all. A handsome boy she had fallen in love with on sight. Who had rejected her overtures.

Because he was already in love with a beautiful blonde who was most explictly not her. The rush of thoughts and memories has successfully overwhelmed 'Morgana' to the point where she doesn't directly try to stop him from leaving or further protest.

"I agree." she says, sharply. "That will be unnecessary. I can understand that I have somehow made you uncomfortable and that's not my intent, Chiba." she says, almost stumbling over her own words. Is she madder at him, at the blonde with him, or herself? Who can know.

"I just hope we can still have a positive interaction when class starts. Don't forget your deadlines." she adds before she starts stepping back to the office.

"--okay," Mamoru says, breath stuck in his throat, and whether it's to Minako or 'Morgana' is impossible to tell. It may just the version of noping out that's pronounced 'okay'. And he is completely unashamed of needing or accepting Minako's shielding help, here; she may be confusing and it may be half on purpose, but there's been something he's nevertheless trusted sincerely and wholeheartedly about her from the first time he ever met Sailor V. And it's not just because she's a public vigilante heroine idol.

He walks out with her, and then they're out of the office area entirely, and then they're out the doors, and the air is fresh and warm and smells of cut grass and sunshine, and with the ground under his feet he can begin to breathe again. "Thank you," he whispers to Minako. "That was worse than fighting a Witch. It really was. Let's go to the arcade. Oh god, what is my life even."

And they head down the sidewalk and out of sight.

Minako Aino shouts stuff about arcade dates loudly enough to cause rumors before running off school grounds!