Weird Lunar Love Polygon

It's the day after the day after the ill-fated but silver-lined anime night at Mamoru's apartment, and the day after the night of Sailor Jupiter's awkward rooftop conversation with Tuxedo Kamen, and Usagi was probably JUST HERE because--

--Mamoru's grinning as he comes out of the ice cream parlor, working on a giant chocolate-with-extra-chocolate styrofoam cup of ice cream. He's moving just fine, quite unlike the way they eventually left him in his apartment that night, beat up and falling asleep after reassuring them he didn't need the hospital.

It's a sunny, bright Saturday afternoon, and the sidewalks are full of kids enjoying the weekend. Mamoru's so very easy to spot; like Mako, he sort of towers above the crowds.

Makoto wasn't looking for Mamoru, to be honest. Spending more of the night stressbaking than sleeping hasn't done a lot to make her feel better; she's tired, disheartened, and really just wanted to get some ice cream and spend some time with a friend.

"I just feel really stupid," she's sighing to Rei as they two of them walk along towards the ice cream parlor. "I had myself all worked up getting the wrong idea, and he didn't feel that way about me at all. Looking back, I don't know why I thought he would."

Suddenly, she stops short, nearly causing a collision when the person walking behind her only barely manages not to walk right into her. The reason for the sudden halt isn't hard to determine - Mamoru does kind of stand out, and as her eyes fall on him across the crowded sidewalk she remembers that she's annoyed at him. It's almost enough to make her forget that she's just had her heart broken for the hundredth time.

"Mamoru-san!" She lengthens her stride as she calls out to him, hurrying to catch up.

"Don't feel dumb," says Rei. "It happens. Look if you need--" Rei stops midsentence as Mako suddenly reacts to something... oh, it's Mamoru.

Rei still isn't sure what to think about him. At the very least he's not a monster or a villain, or if he is then he's a really good actor. She's convinced, at least, that he's got a soft spot for Usagi, and that's sweet and all... but that's actually a really big problem!

The priestess can't help but notice just how casual he is, walking around like he didn't just get machine-gunned by evil soccer balls the day before yesterday. That's a pretty rapid recovery time... Well, on the bright side, at least Rei wont have to check up on him later.

At the same time she's thinking about this she's also thinking about Makoto's broken heart, which is why the two of them are out here to begin with. They're walking towards the Crown as Mamoru is walking out.

She keeps pace with Makoto following her to Mamoru. "Hello, Chiba-san. Nice weather, isn't it?" It's a pretty benign greeting, compared to what she's thinking about.

"Ehh?" Mamoru stops and turns, spoon in his mouth and eyebrows up, then smiles around the spoon. He hurriedly swallows his mouthful and waves as they catch up. "Yo! Sorry you didn't get to watch much of that anime the other night-- Minako-chan ended up staying late while I was crashed out on the couch, and I probably have to watch the rest of it now, or she'll make stuff up about what happened in it," he says with a rueful laugh. Then he holds up his ice cream to Rei. "It's the perfect weather for self-indulgence. I'll wait for you guys if you were after some of your own..."

Makoto is no longer in the mood for self-indulgence. Instead, she plants a hand against her hip and eyes Mamoru with the air of one aggrieved. "Mamoru-san," she says, after a wordless glance sidelong toward Rei, "what does 'be more careful' mean in your language? Because after the other day, I don't think it means what you think it means."

Rei blinks at Makoto, and then back at Mamoru. This is why she ran towards him?

Well at least she's not upset anymore! Distractions are good, right?

Rei is quick to follow up after Makoto, tag-teaming on Mamoru out of nowhere.

"You totally were reckless then. Like what were you thinking?! How could you--" It's a little awkward since she can't mention details in such a setting but... "--well you know!"

Blinking blankly at the two Senshi, Mamoru looks utterly taken aback, drawing away and inward a little bit. "I-- what? No, it was fine! Look, I'm fine-- I figured I could take it, but I was pretty sure Usagi-chan couldn't." His voice lowers and he says insistently, holding the ice cream close, "And like I said that time with the burns when I was at Dr. Shelby's, I heal up pretty quick if it's just physical..."

He trails off, looking between angry Makoto and angry Rei, and then he juts out his chin. "It's not like I was going to get myself killed or something, and you guys had your hands full, and she was like a deer in headlights and that stuff was going to get her, and if it did, the four of you would have been super distracted."

It sounds like a lot of rationalization after the fact. They were there. He didn't think about it at all, he just reacted. It was reflex. Protecting her was reflex.

Mako isn't really angry, exactly, but Mamoru could be forgiven for thinking so. Because she likes Mamoru, and she does appreciate what he must have felt at the time, she makes herself rein herself in, drawing in a breath and letting it out in a sigh. "Look," she says, trying to be patient instead of accusatory. "It's not that I'm not grateful that you were lookng out for Usagi-chan - and thank you for that, by the way. But Rei-chan is right, you were really reckless. This is just the kind of thing that you and I were talking about the other day, you know?"

Rei sees an advantage and takes it! (She's had a lifetime of experience arguing with her crazy grandpa, and probably a lifetime of arguing with Serenity.) "You thought about all of that in the half a second it took you to decide to just throw yourself into it?" she asks suspiciously. "Because it seemed to me like you didn't think about it at all!"

She points at Mamoru, shaking her finger at him. "You got off easy this time. Don't think it'll always turn out that way!"

Crossing her arms, she glances at Makoto before focusing back on Mamoru. "We are grateful that you looked out for Usagi-chan, but getting yourself hurt isn't that great either!"

Now Mamoru's scowling, and he'd cross his arms, but ice cream, and there's no convenient Kyouko to give it to. So he stands there and holds it and clenches his jaw as they try to soften the blow with gratitude but hit him in the Sense-and-Reason anyway. "I thought we were talking about unnecessary risks," he tells Makoto pointedly. "Making sure she's going to be okay is ALWAYS a necessary risk."

Then he turns that scowl on Rei. "Look, if I bothered to compete, I'd be a kendo champion. I can take in a lot of details like that and act on them immediately-- and game theory as applied to tactics is a long-time hobby of mine. Don't tell me you've never looked at a situation in a blink and acted on what you could see as an acceptable risk/gain ratio, then reasoned it out later. If you do it enough it turns into gut reactions. I'm not a fighter, that's you guys. But if I see something about to happen that's going to compromise everything, I'm going to do something about it. I can't promise not to."

And for all of everything-- for all the suspicions, for all the secrets, for all the things he doesn't know and they don't know-- everything he just said sounds an awful lot like an old-time prince in the middle of a war. The kind that pores over maps and charts, the kind that knows the strengths and weaknesses of others, the kind that goes out on the field and analyzes and directs and acts.

But the person he should be protecting like that, the person he should be focused on the safety of above all else--? That person is the Moon Princess, not Usagi Tsukino.

Makoto pinches the bridge of her own nose in frustration, trying to stomp back the impulse to yell at him - he's not wrong, but at the same time he's just not getting it, and she's not sure how to make him understand or if they even can.

She thinks of Usagi, of the princess, of Tuxedo Mask and the rooftop the other night and roses out of nowhere and she feels a little sick.

"Mamoru-san..." Letting her hand drop, she looks at him again, more anxious now than aggravated. "Are you in love with Usagi-chan?"

Making sure she's going to be okay is ALWAYS a necessary risk.

Does he really feel that strongly?

Rei frowns as Mamoru mentions that he could be a kendo champion. She pauses and trails off as she thinks about that. She isn't sure what to think. A lot of guys say things like that and can't back it up...

"Yeah well when have you... ever..."

...but in the world they're in words like that carry a bit more weight. Especially when someone's past life was probably a prince. The kind of prince who wore armor and a sword.

Did she ever tell Mamoru about the reading she had on him? She mentioned the Moon Princess, sure, but the rest of it?

Yet that vision is all the more reason...

"As much as I still think you're a dummy for throwing yourself into danger like that, I really have to worry even more about your reasons. I don't really think it's proper for you to see Usagi that way, all things considered." Honorific intentionally not used.

And on comes the headache, the thing that feels like brainfreeze on top of a migraine. The more they say, the closer any of them gets to the truth, the more his head hurts. The more he tries to think about it, to think about Usagi and Sailor Moon as separate people, or to think about comparing them, or to think about his feelings for both of them and how irrational it seems to be so devoted to two separate people -- three, counting the Moon Princess? The more his head is killing him.

Makoto's not the only one who's starting to feel a little sick.

Ice cream now melting, but still obviously delicious, Mamoru can't even thinking of eating it anymore. Face pinched, economy of motion severely enforced, the older boy sidesteps slightly and drops the ice cream into the bin by the streetlight.

It takes him a moment to answer, to answer either of them, and when he does it's with his eyes closed and the fingertips of one hand pressed hard to the space between his eyes. Rei may remember something like this happening when he was driving her home from helping the creepy doll girl and she brought up the same subject.

"I don't even know what love is," he says finally. "I've read a lot of books. I know what people say it is. I don't think I could recognise it if I felt it, or if someone felt that way about me. I can certainly," he lets his hand drop, his tangent relieving the pressure a little, "recognise the physiological symptoms of infatuation, if I were to do a self-analysis in the middle of it, but I would imagine it's hard to think of doing that if you're under its influence."

He's hedging so hard. SO HARD.

By the time the ice cream goes into the trash, Makoto is intensely regretting pretty much everything about the past two days. She doesn't step back, quiet, but there's a shift in the way she holds herself, withdrawing a little and dropping her shoulders like she's trying somehow to make herself a little smaller.

"Okay," she says, voice almost lost to the street noise, eyes averted downward toward the pavement in front of her feet. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that." She's worried, too, about what it means for everyone if Mamoru's somehow fallen for Usagi, but she can't quite share Rei's disapproval, not without knowing how Usagi feels.

"But... you should think about it, you know? How Usagi-chan feels, knowing you got hurt protecting her. How the princess would feel if something happened to you." She makes herself look up, green eyes earnest and a little strained. "We just want you to not be so careless with yourself, that's all."

Rei starts to feel really bad about Mamoru. He was having a good day and then she just... well... She was so worried about distracting Makoto that she didn't think about... Now she feels guilty, and is a bit miffed at him for other reasons, too. Yet at the same time...

Rei scratches the back of her head and says, "Um... what do you mean you don't know what love is? Well its... I mean... it's a lot of things."

Well what does Rei actually know about it? She knows a lot of people come to her shrine for love advice or romance-related problems... but she's not really sure her advice actually works, or that it's anything more than well-meaning words...

Well, she may not be an expert, but she's seen that look in Mamoru's eyes whenever Usagi's around. It wasn't always the same from person to person, but you learned to recognize it. She's convinced that he's in love with her and is just trying to weasel his way out of an answer. She lets him get away with it this time.

"Yeah well if you do feel something about her then that's a big problem. First off..."

Rei glances to Makoto, and then away from the two of them.

"... ugh... I don't know if I should even tell you."

A love triangle between Usagi, Mamoru, and the Moon Princess could really be damaging to everyone around, and not just to those three. It could fracture the group, or at the very least cause a serious problem right from the start. Rei has no idea if the Moon Princess is the jealous type or not. She saw her visions, and she has some inkling as to what they mean, and she's told them to Makoto, too, or at least the important parts.

"I think you're going to get hurt if you pursue her, and you're going to hurt Usagi, too. Sooner or later..."

No, she can't just blurt it out like that. She trails off, looking away. What should she even do here?

There's a smile without mirth, but it's gentle nonetheless: Mamoru's not aggressive, here, he's not angry, he's just--

It's not their fault he's in a weird lunar love polygon.

"Don't be sorry, it's fine. She's your friend. Her happiness makes everyone happy. You should be concerned with anything that might affect that happiness," he tells Makoto, that smile lingering around his eyes. He's brighter when he's talking about her, isn't it? "And you're right, so should I. But I wasn't badly hurt, and if she had been because I didn't act, I don't know how I could have lived with myself."

His hands go in his pockets, and Mamoru looks tired. The ghost of that headache is present, but as long as he doesn't think too hard--

But now he just looks uncomprehending. Staring at Rei, he asks slowly, "How on Earth would it be a problem if I felt something for Usak" mid-word correction "gi-chan? Tell me what?" His body language had relaxed out of defensiveness, but it turns inward a little again, and he turns fractionally away as if providing a more narrow target. "How would I hurt her? The last thing I'd ever think of doing is hurting her, Rei-san, I wouldn't do that. What shouldn't you tell me?"

Makoto's smile is honest, but it's a pained and faintly wistful thing, too. "Of course you don't want to hurt her," she says in a gentle tone. "But, you know, it's not always that simple. If she falls for you, and it turns out you don't feel the same... or if you fall for her, but she loves someone else..."

Unconsciously she curls her arms around herself. This is all a little too close to home, right now. "We're just worried. And there's the princess to think about, too."

Deep breath. Letting her hands drop, Mako looks back towards Rei. "But, Rei-chan... it's up to Usagi-chan how she feels, too. You know what they say about people who interfere with other people's love lives, right?"

Rei frowns at Mamoru, and then at Makoto. She sighs, reaching up to rub her forehead. "You're right, Mako-chan. I shouldn't interfere. It's hard not to do anything when you see your friends and you think they'll get hurt, but really it's not like it's up to anyone but those two."

Then she looks up at Mamoru, looking him in the eyes. "... but not interfering means not telling you. Sorry, Chiba-san, but you'll just have to find out what happens when it happens. It's not like I really know for a fact how the Moon Princess will react when she meets you."

She points at Mamoru ominously and says, "... but I know what I did see."

Her hand drops. She crosses her arms and looks away from Mamoru. "... Forget about it. We didn't really come out here to talk about this stuff." She says this as if she wasn't being a shrine maiden giving mysteriously bad omens like five seconds ago.

He's on board, he's clearly on board, up until Makoto brings up the Moon Princess. And then Mamoru's face shuts down, pulls on one of his standard masks: not the politely blank one, not the friendly but unreachable one, not the impatiently disinterested one--

The stony one, possessed of an aloofness that's been mistaken for coldness, that's been mistaken for haughteur. He's standing straight and unmoving, as still as a petrified forest, and he waits until they're both done. Then he says, perfectly calmly, "You came out for ice cream. But this conversation started, and now I'm going to tell you how I feel about the Princess."

He closes his eyes. "For eleven years I've dreamt of her. She was there for me, she played with me or held me if I was hurt, she told me stories I don't remember, she listened. She kept me company for all the years I was alone, and if not for her, I'd be as much of a mess as most kids my age who grew up the way I did." He opens his eyes and they're a steady, clear blue, and the first thing slips past the mask through them. And it's a hellishly frustrated inadequacy. "For the past year and a half, the Princess has begged me to find her the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou. For the past year, she's promised I would remember who I was if I did, and she's cried. For the past six months, over and over until a friend went into my dream and brought me lucid, I've dreamt of running through misery and war and chaos with her, I've dreamt of dying, unable to wake myself up, unable to tell if she was safe afterwards. I haven't had a conversation with her since she started asking for the Crystal. I can't find it. I can't find her. I would do anything for her--"

He stops there, and he clenches his teeth, and his face is tight, and he looks like he's having to wrench the words out with the Jaws of Life. "--except choose her over Usako. And you know, I don't think she'd make me. I don't think that's who she is. And you know what else? If Usagi-chan loves someone that isn't me, that's-- that would be okay, as long as they didn't hurt her. Because she's so important."

Those words are in Makoto's phone, even if they're from someone else, and about Sailor Moon instead. They're in there, a couple months back.

"And her happiness-- I want her to be happy. I just want that. More than I want to find the Ginzuishou, more than I want to know who I am, I want her to be happy. If all this makes me a traitor to our Princess, you'll have to do whatever it is you do with traitors. And now my head is goddamned killing me, and I'm going home."

There's nothing Makoto can do but stand there and listen, feeling her heart sink more and more with each word, the look on her face gradually turning from faintly anxious to guilty to outright miserable by the time Mamoru finishes and states that he's going home.

All three of them only mean well, so how do things keep going so wrong.

"I'm sorry, Mamoru-san," she says, whether he sticks around to hear it or not. "That isn't what we meant at all, I just--"

Almost, the words pour out. How much it hurts to love someone who doesn't love you back. How much it hurts to get your hopes up only to realize that you had the wrong idea all along. How much she doesn't want to see Usagi go through that, or him, or *anyone.*

But what she says, head hanging until her bangs screen her eyes, is, "I'm sorry." And then she looks over to Rei, apologetically, eyes glimmers. "...Sorry, Rei-chan. I don't think I feel like getting ice cream any more, either."

It's better if she just goes home herself, she thinks.

Rei hears Mamoru's words. They... weren't what she expected. "You'd choose Usagi over the Moon Princess. Well, fine. I guess her highness will just have to deal with that when the time comes. As long as you're sure of that, I guess it doesn't matter."

After what happened in her vision, she can't really blame Mamoru for not repeating that.

"I don't know what she'd do, but she's a person just like everyone else. She can deal with it. We'll figure out how to break it to her when the time comes."

With a shrug, she adds, "Who knows? Maybe she's found someone else, too. Maybe she'll just be happy that things are better for you now. Maybe that's all that matters."

Does Usagi love someone else other than Mamoru? Well, Usagi doesn't seem to have made up her mind on that yet. Clearly Mamoru is in the running, but he's competing directly with Tuxedo Kamen.

"Of course, we can't speak for Usagi on that. It's up to her whether she chooses you over... someone else."

Now Makoto is miserable, too, and Rei feels even worse. There really is no recovering at this stage. "Sorry, Mako-chan. I guess it didn't turn out well. I'll see you around."

He is there long enough to hear it-- he doesn't even turn away yet. His head hurts, he feels sick, he's as miserable as the two of them-- and his words and his heart are full of conviction, but actually being made to choose between Usagi and the Princess? Between Usagi and Sailor Moon?

Mamoru flinches and his hands fly to his temples, eyes shut tight. "I know you didn't. You're just looking out for us both. I know. I'm not angry at you," he says, and he glares a little at Rei under the shadow of his hair.

'As long as you're sure of that, I guess it doesn't matter.'

happy that things are better for you now

Guilt stabs through Mamoru almost as fiercely as Beryl's sword, and now he is angry, and it's still not at either of them-- so he looks away, and he just leaves. He leaves as Rei's voice fades in his hearing. He feels slow and dim and lost.

He keeps trying to think-- it's okay if they abandon him, because he was fine on his own.

But-- it was the Princess who made sure he was never truly alone.