It was a ridiculous fight in the middle of the night, and Mamoru had been awake before Makoto got the call on her Senshi communicator. When she left, he was fretting, but like all the other times, he made no hint of trying to leave. Like with the shark tank youma, he knew enough to run away when the fighting started, knew enough to stay out of the way so Sailor Moon wouldn't be distracted keeping his safety in mind.
After the fight, wherein Usagi had gotten injured and then nearly passed out from how hard she used Moon Healing, Kamen had leapt off with her-- as he does sometimes, and as she's never objected to--
--and when Makoto gets home, Mamoru is not there.
She almost doesn't realize at first. Thinking that Mamoru must have gone to sleep already, Makoto doesn't bother to turn the lights on when she comes in, and she's occupied enough by trying to move quietly that she's halfway across the apartment before she realizes that the spare futon she laid out for him is neat and empty.
The realization leaves her standing dumbfounded for a moment. Then she marches back to the front door to switch on the lights, confirming what she already knew - he's not here.
Where the hell did he go by himself in the middle of the night?
Making a quiet 'argh!' noise to herself, Mako hunts up her cell phone and prepares to send Mamoru's number an extremely judgmental emoji.
Just as she's about to hit send, a key turns in the lock. He's not bothering to be quiet, but there's a certain resigned flavor to the door opening: the lights were on. Bright blue eyes meet exasperated green ones, and Mamoru looks dishevelled, and there's a fading pink burn mark on one hand, and he just closes the door behind him.
He's been known to do a sort of 'I can explain!!' thing before. It usually shows up on his face first.
There's no sign of it right now; he's caught fair and square. So-- he just watches, trying to gauge how angry the Senshi of Courage is.
The sound of the key in the door has her looking up, phone in hand, just in time to meet Mamoru's eyes as he comes in. Makoto stands there for a short space, taking in the sight of him, the lack of any motion to explain himself.
Then she glances back down at her phone and, annoyed, hits SEND anyway before she puts the phone away and looks back up at Mamoru again. Not really angry, he'll be able to see that. Definitely exasperated, though.
"I don't think you get how this bodyguarding thing is supposed to work, Mamoru-san."
She can see him weighing things behind his eyes. He looks at her throughout; he doesn't dissemble, doesn't obfuscate, doesn't hide.
When Mamoru does speak, it's only faintly apologetic. "She needed me, too. I thought, well, if you were all there, she wouldn't. She'd have you. But she was scared and she was looking for me, and I felt her get hurt, and I couldn't stay anymore."
He steps away from the door, toeing his shoes off and pocketing his keys, and continues speaking. "She was awake by the time I got her home, and she climbed in her window and went right to bed."
A second later, and his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he takes it out to glance at it-- then lifts his eyebrows. "Okay, I deserved that."
Makoto listens, frowning, irritation simmering more and more through the explanation. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she begins to say, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
There's only one person who he talks about like that, at least as far as Mako knows, and she knows firsthand where Usagi was and who took her home--
Her eyes flick from Mamoru's face down to his burned hand and back up again, and he can practically hear the gears in her head grinding to a stuttering halt. Wait. WAAAAAAIT.
"--but - you're not--" Coherence momentarily fails her in favor of mental and verbal flailing. "--are you--?"
Where moments before, Makoto had sent Mamoru THE MOST judgemental emoji, Mamoru now gives Makoto THE MOST uncomfortable expression. "Yeah," he says, then shoves his hands in his pockets and just stands there. "I didn't think you'd let me fight." A beat. "And if Luna convinced you all that I was a bad idea for her, then we'd at least have..."
He shifts his weight, then -- as if it required proof -- takes one hand out to reach inside his jacket. And he pulls out a rose, long-stemmed and perfect, with a scent so sweet it's not of this modern, mundane earth.
Makoto, standing there, blinks at him stupidly. The evidence is here in front of her eyes, irrefutable - but if Mamoru is, after all, Tuxedo Mask, then...
"...what..." It's not so much a question as it is a quiet sound of incomprehension.
Then, very abruptly, she wheels away from him with an inarticulate shriek of incredulous fury. "What the HELL!"
Now she's angry, but not at Mamoru - in a sudden surge of energy Makoto storms across the apartment to the kitchenette to begin banging around in the cabinets for some inclear purpose, ranting to herself. "Oh, 'I'm sorry I can't be more direct, the dark powers of the world have ears everywhere' - such a load of bullshit, and I actually fell for it! All this time - AGH!"
In a flash, something else occurs to her and she snaps back around to point at Mamoru. "No wonder! You must've had no clue what I was even talking about that time! And here I was eating my heart out--"
The Senshi of Kicking Your Ass is angry, and now Mamoru is nervous. He can't make himself small, but he can make himself fade into the background, and as Makoto rants and slams cabinets and talks about stuff he has NO IDEA OF, it's almost working.
But then she slams her gaze on him and he's pinned to the wall, eyes wide. "Wh-what?" he asks, bewildered.
He's a boy. He's such a boy.
On some level Makoto realizes she's not making any sense. Mostly, though, she's too pissed to try to explain herself in any kind of calm and rational fashion. "Masato Sanjouin!" she exclaims instead. "I thought he was you!"
In another abrupt jerk of motion, she turns to face the kitchen area again, yanking the end of her own ponytail in sheer aggravation. "He had me totally convinced he was Tuxedo Kamen - oh my God, how much of an idiot can one person be?"
"... he what?" sputters Mamoru, holding up his hands again-- this time it's not so much 'don't hit me' as 'hold up a second because WHAT'. He finally, finally comes in further and ends up half-sitting, half-leaning on the back of the couch. And he squints at her. "But you also thought I was Nephrite. What in god's name made you think that? Even leaving aside whatever Sanjouin said to you."
"Because--" Makoto pauses to look toward Mamoru, the momentum of her wrath hitching a little as she stops to think back. What she remembers makes her groan and cover her face with both hands. "--because you kept hinting, and I thought he was Tuxedo Kamen so you couldn't be, and Nephrite was the only other person who made sense."
Breathe. DEEP breath. When Mako meets Mamoru's eyes again it is woefully but a bit more calmly, between her fingers. "After the masquerade, remember? When I came to the study session and you were all beat up, and you said something about going through a wall?"
"Oh, no wonder you were so pissed off," Mamoru says with a blink. "I'd had no idea what I'd done. Hannah-chan was so mad at me for scaring off one of her guests, too." He's silent for a moment, thinking, then covers his eyes and slouches a little, and his ears are turning red. "None of you trusted either of me. And all of you together could keep me out so easily," he says in a low voice. "I couldn't deal with that. I couldn't tell you. And then later, I couldn't tell you because you trusted me but you still didn't trust the mask... and then you finally did, but Rei had that vision..."
He drags his hand down his face, then looks up at Makoto again. He looks tired, but the burn is gone already. "I knew who you were from the beginning because I gave you your henshin pen. Artemis gave it to me, I found you and got you out so Nephrite couldn't see you transform. But back then, you didn't like me at all. So I hinted, but I didn't know what else to do."
Mako promptly buries her face in her hands again, squeezing her eyes shut in mortification. Behind her fingers, she's turning bright red. "I'm so sorry, Mamoru-san! I completely had the wrong idea, and I went and made things more complicated for everybody thinking that I knew what was going on when I didn't--!"
Her turn to wish she could somehow make herself smaller. If she could, she'd sink right through the floor and vanish completely.
"Mako-chan, no!" Mamoru says, scrambling up and crossing the room in a couple of quick strides. Without even hesitating, he pulls her into his arms and hugs her, covered face and all. "It's not YOUR fault you didn't like me, and it's not your fault he lied to you, and it's not your fault I don't--"
He laughs, and it's rueful and apologetic and self-castigating all at once. "Not your fault I don't know how to people. We'll figure out why he lied to you, okay? He must be magic-- he was texting me, worried when I was involved in that battle royale witch thing in the park, and he was telling me I should come to him for help if I needed it. We know they can brainwash people. If he was lying to you about being me-- maybe he was working up to ask you for help. He can't be all bad. When he sprung me from the hospital, we were talking about you. And for just a second, I saw his reflection in the window as he trailed off. He looked so wistful. If he was playing with your head, it wasn't him, not really."
Makoto is not ready to stop being mortified just yet, but she leans gratefully into the hug, keeping her face hidden for a little longer. "Now that I think about it," she admits, muffled, "I can't remember if he ever actually said he was Tuxedo Kamen, or if he just... implied really hard. He didn't want to say too much about it, he was worried about enemies listening in or something..."
Which really kind of backs up Mamoru's speculation. Sighing, Makoto finally pulls her hands away from her face and hugs Mamoru back. "I really am sorry, though. I was suspicious of you for way longer than I needed to be, for such a stupid reason."
It's a hug! It's a hug Mamoru's not afraid of, because Makoto really needed it, and this is one of the things being a friend is about. He hugs her tight and laughs a little. "I could have told you. Turns out I was mostly just dumb."
Finally, he pulls away a little and looks down at Makoto, and though there's a little bit of honest worry still back there, the teasing sparkle's extremely evident. "Are you going to tell on me?"
Mako promptly sticks her tongue out at him. Then she laughs. "You'd better tell me who knows already and who isn't supposed to," she says, a glitter of humor surfacing in her own expression. "I think it's pretty clear by now that it's a bad idea for me to try to figure this stuff out on my own."
"Oof," says Mamoru, and he steps back to lean against the counter, running a hand through his air before his shoulders drop. "V knows, she found out before anyone, because she tagged Tuxedo Kamen to help her hunt down Mamoru Chiba because he was Nephrite and I got so annoyed I just took off my mask. Usako knows. I don't know how Rei-san and Ami-chan would react-- Luna would be livid. She's already livid. I just don't want anyone to stop me from helping her, or from being with her. Otherwise-- otherwise I'd really rather you all knew. I don't like it being a secret."
"I think Ami-chan at least suspects," Makoto muses contemplatively. "Rei-chan might, too, I don't really know with her. But anyway, if three of us already know, it doesn't really seem fair to keep the others locked out of the loop. If you'd rather they knew, shouldn't you just tell them?"
Composure fully regained now, Mako props a hand idly against her hip and looks to Mamoru with brows raised. "I don't think anybody would be mad at you. Except Luna, but I'm sure she'd come around if the rest of us all agree. It'd definitely make things simpler - you have no idea how worried I've been, you know, thinking that Usagi-chan was ending up in a love triangle between you and... well, yourself, I guess." Letting out a sigh of amused exasperation, she rolls her eyes. "Geez."
Mamoru laughs uncomfortably. "I was getting lectures for two-timing Usagi and Sailor Moon, myself. I still will be, but... it was a really big relief to find out she was the same person." He examines his shoes from afar for a moment. "I'll tell them," he says, finally, looking up again. "It's kind of funny, though. All the things I thought you'd all be mad at me for... and you haven't been angry about any of them. I think that's all my secrets, between that meeting here and now..."
His eyes are bright. "But you know... I think we were friends back then, too." And then he looks completely sheepish. "And me being alone is generally still a problem, but Tuxedo Kamen is beneath their notice. I'll be okay getting places as long as I take the rooftops!"
She smiles, warm and honest, when he says that he thinks that they were friends. It fades quickly into worry at the rest of what he says, though. "--I wouldn't count on that," Makoto says. "Being beneath their notice, I mean."
And then she stops and drags her hands over her face. "Ugh, it's too late to get into all of this tonight. I haven't talked to the others about it yet, either, and I need to."
"...well, at least I'm really fast in henshin," Mamoru says hopefully, then looks apologetic again. "Sorry. Don't worry about it, if Usako has nightmares again I'll let you know if I'm going out. But I don't think she will."
He shoves off the counter and shrugs out of his jacket. "And just drag me along for the meeting, whatever it is you need to tell them, so you don't have to go over it twice. I'll tell them then, too."
He reaches over, then, and messes up her hair with a grin. "Goodnight, Mako-chan."