Category: Sailor Moon
Pairing: Michiru/Haruka
Copyright: "Sailor Moon" is copyrighted by DiC, Toei, Kodansha, and Naoko Takeuchi.
The characters of Sailor Moon are used here without permission - for
entertainment, not for profit.
The story and all its original characters are property of the author.
Fiction Rating: T
Author's Note: -chan, -kun, -san, -sensei are titles.
San - neutral, used in most situations
Kun - informal, used for boys and men younger than oneself
Chan - informal, used for young children and very close friends or family members
Sensei - used for teachers, doctors, people with a higher education
Author's E-Mail: kinkaze @ hotmail.com
PART 1
The white-strapped sandals scuffed nervously against the wooden floor. Curiously she fingered the heavy velvet of the curtain. It felt like kitten's fur. She wouldn't dare twitch at it though, reveal the view of the source of that soft rumble emanating beyond. The hall was musky with the scent of retired props and un-swept floors. She felt funny. Like when she went in the roller coaster with that girl. Her mother had thought they would make good friends, but the girl didn't really hold any interest for her and, in some way knowing this, the girl didn't have much interest in her.
The celloist onstage was nearing the end of her piece. That same celloist was probably the closest in age out of Michiru's peers, and she was at least five years older. Her mother had also supposed that her joining the music academy would be a good opportunity to make friends, but that hadn't worked out either. When she was pushed up into the advanced class after under a month it hadn't concerned her particularly. The kids her own age hadn't warmed to the intimidating prospect of a child prodigy, and rather banded together, still working on shaky scales while she was churning through compositions. At least in the older class her peers were involved enough in their own perceived genius, that she was little more than a minor irritation.
"… Kaioh Michiru," came her introduction.
Timidly and obediently she advanced across the stage. She was wearing the dress her mother had bought and, in light of its abalone hue, had called a Snow White dress, like from the fairy tale. But walking across the stage, seeing a rude boy yawning in the front row, she felt anything but a fairy tale, more like she was wrapped in a winter, closed off to these politely bored onlookers. Lots of the other class members had friends, sometimes boyfriends in the crowd who would wolf-whistle hilariously and inappropriately as they arrived. But that was normal, because they were seventeen and up, and she was twelve and miserable.
She nestled the violin against her collarbone and began the piece, drawing her audience to an appropriate silence as she pulled the bow for the first strain of the melody. She didn't like the song particularly, it was too what was the word? Uplifting, that was what he had called it… Play it liltingly, Michiru! God! Can you leave your morbidity out of a single piece? It was the closest he came to humour, that kind of mockery, but she tried not to hate the tutor, not when her mother liked him so much. And there were times when she imagined her mother to be quite like her in that respect, not really having many friends, but of course that couldn't be true because her mother was wealthy and well-bred and respected and was always entertaining or being entertained. So she must have many friends.
Reaching the small few bars near the end that flirted on the edge of an uncertain minor; she closed her eyes and relished the moments of melancholy, the redeeming phrase of the song. It was over too quickly, a sprightly ending for a conclusion. How predictable. She dropped her instrument to her side bowing lightly to the respectable applause. She was the last performer and so allowed to join her parents in the stalls while the musical director gave closing comments and feigned surprise as he accepted a bouquet from the committee for his year's work.
"Lovely work, Michi-chan," her father spoke proudly, "Such a happy tune, eh? Perhaps there is something you aren't telling me?"
"I couldn't say." She smiled mildly, wishing she did have something to say, some report of interest that might inspire him to return earlier in the evenings, might cut short a few of those conferences. But of course she had none.
"I knew you wouldn't regret all those hours of practise… " Her mother provided.
"No." She acknowledged. "I'm glad to have taken these classes." And she wasn't sure if she meant it even as she spoke.
"Oh, Michi-chan, I should introduce you to a good businessman over here. This is one of the top dogs I had the pleasure of meeting at the last convention." he gently teased a taller moustached man. "Tenoh Ryu, this is my daughter Michiru."
"Pleased to meet you Tenoh-san."
"A very enchanting piece Michiru san." He returned in a growly voice that filtered through the tufts of moustache and contrasted with his smooth words. "My own one is probably signing up for the piano, you know." He pushed forth the yawning boy from before.
"Say hello to the nice young lady, Haruka," he prompted." The boy's eyes were fierce in the face of being instructed, they burnt into Michiru's causing her to swallow, as she knew her own were blue and mellow, and not fiercely anything.
"Hello, Kaioh san." He responded, stiff in indignance.
"And this is Kaioh Kenji and Kaioh Reiko." The man proceeded to introduce Michiru's parents. The boy rolled his eyes, nodding to each adult in turn with the acknowledgement of "Kaioh san." And "Kaioh san."
Michiru wanted to laugh despite herself. It wasn't right to be rude to adults, but this boy didn't even seem phased by the prospect of reverence to your elders. She watched the shock in the expressions of her parents recovered with calm smiles.
"Heh, always gotta be the joker." The man, appearing slightly embarrassed, roughly tousled the boy's hair, which was promptly re-smoothed to the sides. The boy introduced as Tenoh Haruka then shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away boredly. And from that moment, Kaioh Michiru-twelve-and-miserable was completely intrigued.
X
At home, for a change the three of them had an evening together. It was a Saturday. After a serving maid cleared away their dishes, they had remained in a tense silence, all pretending to be distracted of the sight sun bleeding into the city skyline. Though she was secretly thrilled to be in their combined presence Michiru excused herself as her father drew out a fat cigar to the disgusted look of her mother.
"It was a gift… from my last trip… " He responded as though it were reason enough.
"A gift from whom?"
And though she willed them not to the loaded words reached her retreating back, and Michiru only wished she could be distracting and funny and charming like that fierce boy, so that they might love her enough to forget to hate each other.
In her room it was mainly white, but with some silver-framed black and white prints of famous musicians and members of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. It predominantly consisted of the grey ridges of aged musicians' faces, up-close and contorted in concentration on their voiceless music. Only the one poster Michiru loved, even in black and white she loved it. A picture of mournful flute player, the silver instrument extended from her down turned lips, her perfectly white face turned from the intrusive camera. Alone in her room, Michiru could stare and stare at the visage of this woman, mesmerised by what she could only interpret as a beautiful sadness. The décor was called minimalist, her mother had said. And that meant that she had had little to no input into the layout of her own bedroom for the sake of modern design. It had quite astonished her on the rare occasion when she had been forced to play in a prospective friend's room, she got funny looks when she had expressed amazement at the tacky array of celebrities and magazine cut outs littering the walls.
"Your parents will let you do this?"
"Er, Yeah… What, I supposed your place is all gold and diamonds?" Came a mocking response. And remembering the silver frames to her pictures, she didn't have a retort to such an outrageous claim, and the potential bond sunk into oblivion.
She looked at the polished wood of her violin as it lay in its case, but couldn't bring herself to touch it that evening. Because, for all her practice, it couldn't distract them for long enough. And if she played now she would only play how she felt, and it would certainly involve that intolerable morbidity. She would rather wait until the house was empty, after school, when they were still at work and the acoustics of the desolate house benefited only the ears of the cleaning staff that were rostered on at the time. Then she could indulge her soul, giving voice to and somehow relieving the weight on her heart.
Forfeiting further consideration of the matter she went to the clean surface of her desk turning to an empty page of her sketch pad and carving a soft stick of graphite to a suitable point. Satisfied with the shape she threw several random arcs onto the surface with the flick of her wrist until they appeared more familiar. It was the tousled head of that fierce boy… in her mind, it had only been so brief that she couldn't recall the precise turn of his lips or the curvature of his jaw, but the eyes seemed right, already they looked challenging back at her from the page. For a moment she stared at this, her own creation, and wondered if they might meet again, if maybe he would sit for her properly so that she could rectify the image of only a blurred memory.
X
On Sunday, by the time she had risen Michiru discovered her father had already left to sort out something or other at the office. From her bedroom window the telling lack of his white company car in the drive was confirmation. She dressed and wandered down to meet her mother, seated at the breakfast table outside.
"Good morning, will you have tea with me?" She indicated a chair beside her.
"Thank you." She pulled back the seat obediently and waited as the serving maid poured, stirred and ducked away.
"Your Father has apologised that he must continue with some work today, so he won't be joining us."
"It's a pity they can't get someone else to go in and look at all the little problems?"
"Hm." Her mother said sipping, and obviously not in agreement. Michiru looked down to the hot swirling within her cup and thought how her head felt like this sometimes. That everything was overheated and moving too fast, and if everyone could just, just stop and hang on enough and cool down, it might be okay… if they could just wait enough for her to catch up her understanding of their adult world.
And what did she know of that? She knew her mother loved and despised her father. Not in an obvious way, her mother was far too refined for that. In the silences she kept, in the times she looked away beyond a point Michiru could follow. When he returned and she could only keep a moment in his presence, as though he was the perpetrator of some deep injury. And still she seemed to miss him, miss him while he was present… some quality, perhaps one that had long been forgotten, because there was a time they had been happy, and that era had somehow dissolved as though never existing. But it had existed because it held fast in Michiru's memory, clung so solidly though she willed it to dissolve as well, so that she could never have that comparison to vainly hold to and wish for.
More than anything she wanted her father to fix it, use the powers he had to build and maintain a corporate monstrosity and apply them to his marriage. It couldn't be so hard. She knew her mother could be moody, sullen even, but whenever something had gone wrong 'Sorry' had been sufficient for Michiru to rectify a situation, to satisfy her mother. But she also knew this, and that that was her father didn't like confrontation, for all his business bravado, he would rather not be at home if it meant the enduring tension, and that seemed to make sense. Why remain in the confines of a doubting home, an imperfect family, if he could keep in the presence of a successful business where people went out of their way to please him, who respected and never questioned him. Michiru understood this, the same way she understood a child would obviously choose to omit the truth if it meant avoiding punishment. Yet she couldn't respect such a decision, because it was selfish, because, if it were her, she would fight. It was hard enough to make friends, how could he nonchalantly loosen his grip on a marriage?
Most of all, Michiru couldn't face the wordless animosity, not when, away from each other, both of these people could be warm and gentle and completely focused on her needs. Alone, when she could keep up a good mood, they could be entirely distracted from selfishness and adult conflicts that she could never quite grasp. Because, for all his faults, for whatever list of recriminations, her father had her same blue eyes, she knew because her mother had said so. And she couldn't face the knowledge that her mother might look into them one day, and have lost that small amount of lingering love to be swallowed by her loathing.
"I have invited Tenoh san and his family to join us later for, well, something of a tour around town. They've only moved here recently." This instantly rocked Michiru from her reverie. That fierce boy! How marvellous! She considered whether she might want a boyfriend. It would certainly make her next recital more entertaining to have a raucous boyfriend…
"Then… Haruka-kun will be… ?" Viewing her mother's bemused look she suddenly wished she had edited the anticipation from her pitch.
"Haruka… kun… ?" Suddenly her mother lifted her hand to stifle a giggle. It would have been an encouraging sign had Michiru not been so embarrassed. "Oh, Michi-chan, I hope this isn't disappointing news for you… but Haruka's Tenoh-san's daughter.
"I… Oh… " A sudden wave of sobriety came over Michiru's aspiration for a boyfriend. She had had positively no luck in instigating a regular friendship; a boyfriend might just have been the opportunity she needed… Never mind. Poor Tenoh Haruka, the girl mused, if she only knew how entirely hopeless it would be to make friends. If she only had in her possession a list of each of Michiru's failed attempts, coupled with the reasons of being detached or prissy or strange or just generally dislikeable, perhaps then this Tenoh Haruka could spare herself the tribulation and meet some similarly normal, happy children at the park…
***
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