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 2
It was around two o' clock when a black sedan rumbled noisily into the drive. Michiru paused the CD she had been listening to in order to observe the entrance of the three curious figures. The moustache-ed man, Tenoh Ryu…Climbed from the driver's seat. The passenger doors opened revealing Tenoh Haruka, the girl Tenoh Haruka, and a woman, presumably her mother, who confidently pulled off her sunglasses in the fashion of a movie star. By this point in time Michiru had resolved to seriously attempt this whole friendship business… there was something quite… curious about such a convincingly boyish girl. A heavy rap at the door announced their arrival so that the girl had to steal herself sufficiently to wait calmly until the doorman formally announced their entrance.
"My Ladies…" She was already at the top of the steps and descending. With a pace slightly more sedate yet somehow with more efficiency, her mother had already presented herself to make introductions.
"Tenoh Hanako, I don't believe you've met my daughter, Michiru." The introduced girl stepped forward to shake a proffered hand. With a standard "Pleased to meet you," she marveled at the strength of the grip, her mother would never shake hands like that.
"Aren't you charming?" Was the woman's warm response. "You'd never guess, but Haruka has been on at me after she saw your performance. Apparently you are quite the talented musician, I'm sorry to have missed it." She smiled broadly. Her husband's moustache bristled with a confirming grin, while the accused, Tenoh Haruka, was blushing, looking determinedly at a place on the floor.
Michiru felt suddenly elated at such a presence, these people clearly held a similar social status to her own family and yet…and yet they were so completely different! As surely as her family kept a silence about them, this one had a…loudness? Confidence? Something… something brash but genuine… but pleasant… She mentally concluded to find more friends from out of town…
X
It was a brilliant afternoon, the heat of the day slow to subside. The adults were lagging behind, this Tenoh Haruka was a fast walker! It took a certain determination to match such a pace whilst talking and coming up with unique and suitable ideas for a potential dialogue to win over such a girl.
"I… Like your… shirt, Tenoh-san." She tried.
"Huh?"
"It's… nice on you."
"It's a shirt." Was the flat reply.
"Yeah, but… it's like the boy's school uniform at my new school… sometimes… they don't look… so nice in shirts… ?" She wracked her twelve year-old brain for a more solid anchor of conversation.
"So you're saying you think boys look nicer without shirts?" She was smirking. How rude!
"No!… I think boys should always wear shirts!" She responded indignantly.
"Even for swimming?"
"I… No!" She was completely flustered "… Well, actually perhaps that would be fairer… because girls can't wear only shorts when they're swimming."
"So you would rather just wear shorts when you're swimming?"
"No! Why are you… ? Do you enjoy teasing me?" Michiru was still struggling to keep up.
"Yes." She grinned. "Quite a lot actually."
"You think it's funny letting me ramble on about dress shirts?"
"Yep."
"And you find it entertaining discussing whether I prefer toplessness?"
"… Uh…" Michiru found a certain triumph in the intensity of this girl's blush.
"You know Tenoh Haruka, I think I might like you, but you really should work on your manners!" And mustering all her strength she upped her pace and continued to walk on ahead.
No, certainly this Tenoh Haruka was not an easy person. She was confusing and brash and unpredictable. Still, Michiru was completely charmed; totally intrigued about what it was that could make her eyes so fierce…
X
The Tenoh family left shortly before her father's return. Suddenly all that promise of newness, of change and prospective contentment faded. The relaxed manner her mother had entertained with their guests had stiffened to a hard core; even this man's plaintiff blue eyes no longer weakened her resolve.
"A lot of problems, I suppose?"
Michiru left for her room desperate not to hear, yet anxious to understand, she sat with her back to the clean white door, breathing hard to the sound of angry voices. She wished the staff were still on. Usually they wouldn't fight if the staff were around.
"I… not too bad."
"Perhaps it was just… what was her name again… Ainiko who was having some difficulty… ?"
"Don't be… Damnit Reiko, I told you, that was years ago… I thought we had gotten past it?"
"She was at that conference…"
"… I…"
"She was at that conference!"
"She's an employee."
"Ha, well it's essentially up to you who you employ. How surprising that you would take the easy option!"
"It was a conference. You can't trust me with employees at a conference?
"I think using a plural is a bit excessive. I saw the tickets. It was only the two of you. So tell me… what precise knowledge base does a half-baked receptionist bring to a nationally recognized corporate conference?"
Silence.
"Actually, it's probably better you don't answer that. I shouldn't have to hear it. Yes, you see what I've become? You see the kind of controlling, obsessive tendencies I have adopted because of you?"
Silence.
"I don't know why I waste my energy. I'm going to bed, don't wake Michiru. And don't wake me. I'm sure one of these rooms you pay for has suitably clean bedding."
Her steps echoed down the hall, up the stairs, past her room. Michiru wouldn't budge from her position until she heard some other movement from the floor below. She needed to know he would go to sleep. That he wouldn't slam the door, rev the engine and not be there in the morning… she never knew if he would come back when that happened. For all the times, the repeats the predictably immature action reaction sequence, she couldn't bring herself to leave her position. It was better that he stayed at home. It was better that he got a good nights rest and be ready for work the next day.
So she waited, unable to sleep, unable to shift her thoughts, all swirling like hot water. And waited into the night. And waited still. And was finally met with the sound of a closing door and a rumbling engine. All the ferocity of noise dulled. It was then she realized that this was all more intrinsic than thoughtless, angry outbursts. This was something damaged to its foundations, something rotten and scarred and something more than her endless striving for perfection or distraction could prevent.
Her curtains were left open, she couldn't sleep, emotion like caffeine to her writhing mind. He and she and she and them all falling and twisting into an incomprehensible conglomerate. She opened her eyes and watched the free moonlight on the white-faced flute player. And she cried. Perhaps it was over tiredness, or hormonal pre-adolescence. She thought of these things all the while knowing it was nothing of the sort. Her foundations were rocked, not in an unexpected catastrophic way, but in a slow dying, corrosive manner. The few who could still tolerate her were at war… there are no victors in war.
X
Monday morning. Generally, Michiru liked school. It meant time she could concentrate on other areas, when adults would commend and appreciate her input. It was lunchtime she didn't enjoy quite so much. But it was a routine by then. The girls in her year would sit in circles and eat and chat. The boys would begin impromptu soccer tournaments, or some of the weaker ones would gather in the shade for sedate card games. They all had their groups. Michiru, it seemed was not one to be easily subsumed into a group and took her lunch and sketch pad behind a large tree at the other end of the soccer pitch, pretending not to hear the joyous noise when a goal was scored or a hand played well, or a revealing piece of information exposed. Currently it was the image of the reckless girl, Tenoh Haruka who took up her pages. She wasn't sure why, only that at that point in time it was her image that could console and consume her aching mind. Somehow the fierce eyes, the increasingly accurately rendered lips and jaw had become the image to distract her mind from its tension.
She knew she should stop it. It was rarely a good plan to place such an emphasis on a persona that may turn out to be not nearly as convincing, relieving or heroic as she needed it to be. But at that time it was what she needed, so regardless, Tenoh Haruka, unwittingly, became the muse of a suffering mind.
X
The park felt like the playground as she walked home, still filled with the residual enthusiastic troupes of school kids reveling in each other's company before the call of parents and homework broke into their fun.
"Hey, Kaioh-san!" She was startled, no one ever called to her, perhaps it was a joke…
"Did you miss my home run?" It was that girl!
"Hi! Tenoh-san? I didn't know you knew the people from my school… ?" The thought ran cold in her veins. She didn't want this potential acquaintance to know the general lack of interest this school had for her.
"I didn't…" She threw down her mitt and walked from the 'pitch.' "They just needed an extra guy, so I stepped in." She was dusty and exuberant in her involvement, "You know these guys then?" She indicated the rest of the team with an off-hand jab of her thumb.
"Not really…"
"Hey Tenoh, stop flirting with girls and do some damage on second base, huh?"
"Heh, I'd better…" She turned back to the game. "I'm not flirting, moron! Try concentrating on short stop rather than quick wit!" A warmly dusty hand reached Michiru's shoulder, "I'm sorry, I'd better get back before I'm ousted by my first Tokyo division," She grinned teasingly. "I'm sure I'll see you… sometime…"
"Of course." She replied, because Michiru simply couldn't imagine never meeting with such a person again.
X
There were no idle staff inactive enough to pause sufficiently and question her about her day when she arrived back at the house. And that was good. It meant she could get straight to practicing, or composing as she wished. Still, there seemed an awful lot of people rostered on that afternoon. As she passed through rooms their voices hushed. They were talking about her parents again, politely ducking away with pitying glances until it became almost intolerable. She felt invaded in her own home.
Forgetting her set pieces, Michiru took the black case by the handle and proceeded down the stairs, through the hall and out towards the northern end of the garden. There was a long path marked on each side by a regular line of spruce as though standing to attention with her passage. The stone lane lead to an opening over looked by trees that seemed to hail to some long-forgotten dynasty, and may well have. Histories were surely entrapped in the rings of their age-thickened trunks. It was beneath these trees that Michiru stopped to open her case, attach the chin rest, tighten the bow and apply rosin, a ritual that had become almost automated. She lifted the violin to her chin to check the tuning… it was slightly out due to the heat of the afternoon but quickly rectified with a few minor twists.
How sad that wherever she was it had to be away from the eyes of society, but, in a way she liked it. In a way she needed it… time to think uninterrupted… she remembered her grandmother's words… 'You can't change the world, all you can work on is yourself…' And that seemed fair; like less of a compromise. She missed her grandmother.
"But I would like a… someone…" She spoke out loud, realizing as the movement of her chin on the violin's base so that the front bobbed comically. She had to laugh despite herself. That had been another piece of wisdom divulged by her grandmother.
X
"Goodness, the violin?"
"Yes, I heard a solo at a concert mother took me to."
"Well, it's a lovely instrument, I'm sure you will be a lovely player."
"I hope so."
"But you know the problem with the violin?"
"What's that… ?" She was suddenly worried.
"Well, if you pass me yours… Thank you." And the woman positioned it firmly beneath her chin and sang the song of an old master who could sing and play… but lost all his teeth in the process! And whenever they were afforded time together they could indulge in such games until it was time for Michiru to go home.
X
But she couldn't play and sing, that was merely a foolish tale. Even so, the image of a toothless, white whiskered old trickster singing his heart out to the rhythm of a nodding violin still made her smile. Because it was their joke; and somehow more important than any of the heirlooms that had been sorted and sent across the country to the disparate family her grandmother had headed.
So she played a song she had written for her grandmother, it was one of the few 'happy' songs she enjoyed, because it was derived from genuine happiness. Though it was simple, it had meant the world to finally perform her composition, temporarily drowning out the incessant beeping of monitors, hospital intercoms and the dull drone of white-coated men. She didn't like hospitals. They were designed so that back up generators would kick in if there were a power cut. The world could be ending, but those sanctioned, sanitized cities would remain oblivious. There weren't enough windows in hospitals.
Through the large trees a patch of sky broke as the wind rearranged its branches. Michiru watched for a while, distracted by counting the time it took for a cloud to move across and out of sight. Faster than she had imagined. The wind must be much stronger up high.
From memory she played and replayed her set pieces for the class after school the next day. She would probably be given a new one since they had almost murdered her recital piece with endless practice. It hadn't helped that she hadn't particularly liked it in the first place. She played and played… and thought how bizarre it was to term such an intense repetitive procedure as 'play'.
The sun had lowered and her arms became cold, the calls of daytime creatures had become lethargic. Reluctantly she replaced her instrument, removing, loosening, and clasping as required. The lights were on inside, the staff would be leaving and her mother returning… walking back along the path she could only hope that her father would as well.
***
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