Poor Sailor Moon looked for a while, no doubt, especially when starting off in the wrong direction. It's not until she more or less gives up and heads for a rooftop to maybe spot him from a higher vantage point that the concept of 'we'll stumble into each other again and again' actually comes into play.
Because he happens to be on the roof of the library, in the dark, still hatless, and looking at the moon.
Tuxedo Kamen is so often a mysterious figure, dashing in and out of Usagi's life, there when he's needed, giving and giving whether it costs him nothing or nearly everything, never asking for anything--
--except he did, tonight. Help for a friend. A friend he actually calls a friend, someone he cares enough about that she MUST have some insight into the mystery-man's life that Sailor Moon does not... but it wasn't her appearance or her injury that caused him to freeze.
And instead of coming back, or sticking around, or taking anyone with him -- instead of asking Sailor Moon for help with the civilian, or help with anything, he ran off with something clearly wrong, horribly wrong. He didn't even come back to report on the civilian, to let anyone know who might have been concerned.
He's just there on the roof of the library, watching the moon, cape around him and blocking out all the white except for that gleaming ghost of a mask. Even if the cape obscures most of him, even in the brightness of the moonlight, it's obvious from his shoulders that he's still tense, curled in on himself.
She actually fully intents to go home at first, to wallow in her own misery. But it's not until her fourth time bouncing away from her window that she realizes she can't. Not yet, anyway. Tuxedo Kamen had been hurting back on the roof, and the desire to see that he is okay is stronger than her need to be selfish.
It does take her awhile to find him. It isn't until she actively stops looking and is bounding from roof to roof that she does. For a moment, she watches from the shadows.
And, embarrassingly, she's wondering for perhaps the first time, at least consciously, who he is beneath hat and mask, especially now that the hat is gone. What sort of events led to his friendship with Kyouko, and what pain does he have now from her absence?
She is more than a little ashamed at the flare of jealousy that rises in her chest. He is allowed friends! He is not here for her alone! (Even though that same selfish part of her she denied earlier to find him wants it to be so.)
Her steps are quiet when she emerges from the shadows, and it's not until she's halved the distance between them that she realizes she is even moving at all.
"She won't answer you." She sits next to him, arms wrapping around her knees as she looks up at the moon with him. "I used to think she could hear us. When I was younger? But she's never answered."
She twists the thumbs of her gloves.
He doesn't startle at her soft voice; he can feel her presence, her light shining in the darkness whenever she's transformed. He can feel the ache in her heart matching his own. But he can't look back at her; his inexplicable grief, disproportionate to the frankly unsurprising horror of that which has befallen his friend-- which he has no doubt can be fixed, somehow-- is a shameful thing, something he wishes no one could see.
"She used to," he says in a low voice, sounding lost, though perhaps it's only that he's lost in thought. "She used to. In my dreams. And I used to remember them all, but they've been stolen piece by piece. She kept me company."
He's silent for a moment longer, and then the movement of Moon's hands reinforces the fact that her hurt is her own, and he finally looks at her. His face is tired, stiff with salt tracks he doesn't even know are there, and one white-gloved hand moves to lay over hers. He offers the ghost of a smile. "I'm sorry. Were you looking for me?"
He dreams of the moon, too?
When he looks at her, all she wants to do is give him a hug, assure him everything will be okay. Instead, she reaches over with her free hand and pulls the handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wipes his face.
"She reminds me of Mama. That same warmth, you know? But I could tell her what I couldn't tell my actual Mama, so."
She is done, but keeps the handkerchief tight in her hand and she gives him a smile. And she tries so very hard not to cry.
"I just wanted to make sure you're okay."
And she fails, but maybe he won't notice if she keeps her voice almost a whisper and doesn't draw notice to her leaky eyes. After all, this is not about her. It's about him.
"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise. I'll try harder next time."
Tuxedo Kamen's eyes widen behind the mask as Sailor Moon takes the kerchief from his pocket, as she gently deals with his face -- he'd been crying? Why?
And then they soften, and the way he's looking at her is reminiscent of pockets of shelter in thunderstorms. And just like someone else, the boy smiles a little and says, a hint of amusement in his voice, "Well. I don't know your Mama, so I wouldn't know about that warmth..."
But it's only light teasing, trying to lift her from her tears
the last thing I want to do is hurt her
just don't want her to cry
and it's not something that's really there enough. What he can do (it will always, always be about her, always; whether she is there or not, it's about her) is unfold and reach to draw her close. "I'm not okay, but I don't know why. You promised to help me save her, and just because we didn't do it today doesn't mean we won't. It's a big problem, and complex, but it's not insurmountable. And it means so much to me. You care so much. Even for people you've never met."
He bends his head, laying his face against her hair. "Don't cry, Sailor Moon. You didn't fail. You always do your best, and when it matters, it's always enough."
She tries hard to not cry harder as he keeps talking. And then she's away from his face because his arms are around her, and she lets herself cry only because he can't see her. It is warm, and safe, and thunderstorms will not get her here. Just like they won't get her somewhere else. "S-she'd probably hug you. Lots. Or tease you. Or both."
And her eyes are closed and her fingers are tight on his jacket. Would she be trying this hard to save Kyouko if he hadn't have asked? Probably. But it was because he asked that she wants to try as hard as she is.
"She's important to you...of course I want to help."
And then a small, evil voice whispers in her ear. It's a familiar voice, and sounds a lot like her teachers, sometimes her friends, sometimes her family.
Your best is their worst.
"What if one day...my best isn't...good?"
Will he hate her, then? If she fails, gets people hurt or worse.
"Never happen," says Tuxedo Kamen into her hair, firmly, fiercely. He holds her more tightly for a second, and then pulls away just enough -- arms still around her, not detaching her from his jacket -- just enough to crane his neck to look at her. And then it's his turn to move an arm, bring his hand up to her chin, turn her face toward his.
And he's smiling even if his eyes are as shiny as hers were when she was trying not to cry. "I believe in you. You can't even see how good you are, can you? I believe in you, and I'll always help you in any way I can. If you really need me, I'll find you. You have your friends to shore you up, you have all these people who love you, even if sometimes they're rough or angry, they love you. And love gives you strength. As long as you love as hard as you can, your best will always be the best."
As Sailor Moon, she so often feels older than she actually is. But now she feels very much fourteen. He is saying things and they're making her cheeks turn pink. She knows she is not as good as he thinks she is. (She has to retrieve her tiara every time she makes an attack!) But that he seems to think she is is enough.
For now, anyway.
"I'll do what I can for you, too?" She bites her lip and shifts her grip on his jacket. Not letting go, just making it so she can see him better.
And he is still very sad, but is also making her feel better. Which he really doesn't have to do, because right now it's her job to cheer him up.
And so she kisses him.
Before she can even think, it's just a soft press of her lips against his, but it's there. And her cheeks are even more pink when she pulls away. (Maybe he won't notice she just kissed him...?)
"A-a, ah, text, like earlier. Even if I'm at dinner again, it really wasn't hard to get away, I eat fast, so you know, if you need me just text again, but sometimes when I'm sleeping I don't hear it it's not that I'm ignoring you, it's just I don't hear it because sometimes I don't, or if I'm in school I'd get in trouble, you know, but other times I'll do my best, right?"
Smooooooooth as silk.
Abort, retry, fail?
Tuxedo Kamen's eyes are instantly wide in startlement, and he doesn't register a single thing Sailor Moon says because he's still trying to reboot his cognitive functions. A slow blush is creeping up on his face until he's nearly as red as the girl in his arms, and the hand that had come up to tilt her chin upward earlier now reaches to touch his lips, an unconscious motion.
(Are they still there? Is this still his face? He's awake, right?)
(Wait, she's saying things.)
(Focus! FOCUS.)
No, okay, that definitely worked. He doesn't trust his voice. He's not sure he can actually make words work. So he nods! Emphatically! And there's this silly grin trying to happen that he's as unaware of as he was of the salt on his face, before.
Finally, he remembers human language. "I-- I will! And if you're in school, you know, I'm in school too-- it's okay--" It's... oh, he wants to. Oh he wants to so much. But the mention of school brings reality crashing in, and if he starts thinking about Sailor Moon in school, he'll start thinking about--
--the headache is already starting to edge in at the corners, sneaky and insistent.
So he stops thinking, and she's still there, in front of him, and right now she's all there is in the world if he can just--
No thinking. He leans in to kiss her back.
Oh! Oh oh oh! He is not going to just dash away, like she half feared he would. Instead, he is leaning back in!
A part of her, unknowingly reserved for a somewhat tutor, tries to rebel but is also too confused to fully do so. (Besides, she tries hard to keep her two selves separate, which usually works better when she's awake.)
So she isn't leaning in but she is in no way going to be resisting at all because--
"A-HEM!!!!!!"
Sailor Moon pauses, her eyes widening as she realizes she is caught.
For her part, Luna is about two seconds away from raking her claws down both their cheeks. Here she was, all worried, only to discover her charge nearly...smooching someone! The NERVE!!!!
Sailor Moon is nothing more than a cardboard cutout from the waist up. She leans back and away, body stuck in the pose. "Luna. Fancy meeting you here."
She's not leaning back in, so Mamoru hesitates--
--and then there is a super distinct terrifying throat-clearing and Tuxedo Kamen leans away just as quickly and as solidly. "Luna! Uh-- so! Sailor Moon found out that the Dark Kingdom brainwashed a magical girl and she's working for them right now, but she's actually the second one they got, and the first one was-- she had someone do a purifying thing? On her? And she's okay now--? It's very interesting, isn't it? It's definitely valuable intel. But she probably would have said someone else found out, so I thought you should know--"
He's getting up and backing away.
Steadily. Not fast. You don't run from lions.
"--but I have to go, uh. Do my homework now. That we've caught each other up. On intel. Ja ne!!"
He leaps into the darkness, vanishing into the night with a rustling of silk and then silence.
Sailor Moon sighs when he's gone, though she totally understands why.
She would run away, too, if she didn't live with Luna.
Still, her fingers press lightly against her lips as she watches him disappear into the night.
When that...that smoocher is far away, Luna's shoulders droop. "Usagi..."
Sailor Moon finally turns to the cat. "It wasn't just me who found out. A lot of people were there." He was just trying to give her brownie points.
She wonders, then, if she even accomplished her goal of making him feel better.
Luna sighs. "You need to be careful."
Sailor Moon looks at the cat. "He won't hurt me, Luna. He's on our side."
Luna leans her front paws on Sailor Moon's thighs. "He can still hurt you, though. In ways that doesn't involve sides."
Sailor Moon levels a look at the cat before turning back to the now empty space.
He wouldn't. Right?
Still, her hands wring one of her twin tails.
What does she know?
She's only fourteen.