Not Because of Fate

by Arihanna

Summary:

They were written in the stars. Bound by destiny.
But what happens when love isn’t enough and fate feels like a cage instead of a promise?
They were destined, until Usagi broke up with him. Now Mamoru is losing himself in the quiet, and Usagi is trying to forget what her heart won’t let go of.
If fate no longer decides… will they still choose each other?

Chapter 1

He didn’t expect the knock. Not tonight. Not this late.

Mamoru looked up from his book, the quiet creasing between his brows deepening as the sound echoed through the stillness of the apartment. The world outside had long since gone quiet, the kind of silence that felt earned—soft lamplight spilling across the pages in his lap, a half-empty mug cooling on the table beside him. Only the low hum of the heater and the ticking wall clock marked the time.

But the knock disturbed it. A small, tentative sound that was barely audible.

He froze, listening.

Another knock followed. Slower and softer this time. Not urgent, but uncertain. As if whoever stood on the other side wasn’t entirely sure they wanted to be let in.

He sat up straighter, the book forgotten, left open on the armrest. A faint unease stirred in his chest as he crossed the room. It wasn’t fear exactly—just that gnawing tension that comes when something interrupts what was supposed to be a quiet night. 

He paused at the door, hand hovering for a second. Then, he turned the knob.

The hallway light spilled in, and so did she.

“Usako?” he said, blinking. His voice caught in his throat, like he couldn’t quite trust the image before him.

Something felt… off.

It had been quiet since Galaxia. No enemies. No resurrections. No impossible choices. Just school, rotations, a shared calendar, and coffee gone cold on the table. Peace had never lasted this long. Which only made her appearance tonight feel heavier, like it belonged to a different lifetime.

Her golden hair was still drawn into her signature twin tails, but messier than usual—like she hadn’t looked in a mirror all day. Strands clung to her cheeks. Her skin was pale, almost washed-out in the hallway light, and her eyes… her eyes were rimmed with the kind of redness that only came from holding back tears for too long. She clutched the strap of her purse with both hands, knuckles pale, like it was the only thing anchoring her to the world.

There was something in her posture, something hesitant. Like she hadn’t fully decided to be there until the moment he opened the door.

He took a breath, slow and careful. Whatever this was—it wasn’t just a late-night visit.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you,” he said again, more quietly this time. The words came out uneven, a slight tremor clinging to the edge of his voice.

Her lips parted like she meant to say something, but nothing came. Just silence, thick and uncertain. When she finally spoke, her voice didn’t sound like hers. It was flat, scraped clean of its usual rhythm—no playfulness, no brightness. Just the dull echo of something unraveling.

“Can I come in?”

It was barely a whisper. Not a question, really, more like a plea wrapped in exhaustion.

Mamoru didn’t hesitate. He stepped aside instantly, as if his body already knew what to do before his mind caught up.

“Of course,” he said, his voice gentle. 

She passed him without looking up. No kiss on the cheek. No teasing remark. Not even a glance. No warmth. Just the brush of her shoulder as she walked into the space they had once shared.

The air shifted. It felt heavier. Like even the apartment recognized the absence of her usual light.

He closed the door gently behind her, turning just in time to see her lower herself onto the edge of the sofa—upright, rigid, and foreign posture. Not her usual sprawl with socks tucked under her thighs and one arm flung over the back cushion. She perched like a visitor, like someone who didn’t intend to stay long.

Mamoru lingered by the doorway, then took a slow step forward. The questions were building fast in his chest, but he swallowed them down.

“I thought you had class late tonight—”

“It ended early,” she cut in, her voice flat.

The interruption sliced through him. He flinched, not visibly, but internally. Something was wrong. He could feel it vibrating from her skin like a second heartbeat.

He forced a breath through his nose. “Do you want some tea? I just made a pot of—”

“No.”

He froze. No?

She always wanted tea. Even when she was upset. Even when they’d argued. It was their ritual. A small comfort in a chaotic world. Her declining it sent another chill down his spine.

Mamoru’s jaw tensed. He walked over and sat beside her, careful to leave enough space between them that she wouldn’t feel cornered, but close enough that she could reach for him, if she needed to.

“Usako…” His voice was barely above a whisper. “What’s going on?”

She took a breath, but it stuttered halfway out of her lungs. “There’s something I need to say,” she murmured. “And I don’t know how to say it without… without… hurting you.”

His blood turned cold.

Still, he stayed quiet, listening.

She didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the window, where the city lights glimmered beyond the glass. Her reflection floated beside them like a ghost.

“Have you ever thought about what it would’ve been like,” she began, her voice quiet and deliberate, “if we never got our memories back?”

The question landed like glass shattering on tile.

Mamoru froze, the words catching him mid-breath. His brow furrowed, not out of confusion, but defense. His mind scrambled to keep up, to understand where she was going with this, why she would ask that now .

He blinked, once, then again. “I mean… I guess I wondered,” he said cautiously, his voice slower now, more careful. “A long time ago. Back when everything still felt… new. But not recently.”

His gaze searched hers, trying to meet her where she was—trying to read the storm that hadn’t yet broken on her face.

“Why?” he asked, and this time the word came softer, almost hesitant. Because deep down, he already knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

She let out a short laugh, but there was nothing light in it. Just air and ache. It cracked halfway through, like her voice couldn’t carry the weight of it, and then it was gone, swallowed by the room.

“I think about it all the time,” she confessed, eyes fixed on some invisible point beyond him. “About who we were before the past came back to claim us.”

Mamoru felt something shift inside him—low and slow, like a drop in temperature. His stomach tightened, cold curling in his gut. He chose not to interrupt.

“We hated each other, remember?” she went on, the corner of her mouth twitching upward—but it wasn’t a smile. Not really. More like the ghost of one. “You were cold. Dismissive. Mean, even. And I was loud and dramatic and constantly in your way. We couldn’t stand each other.”

She paused, her fingers curling in her lap, twisting together in a slow, anxious rhythm.

Across from her, Mamoru flinched, just slightly, but it was enough. Her words landed harder than he expected, dredging up images he’d long since buried. The sharpness of their earliest days. His short replies. The way he’d rolled his eyes when she spoke, dismissed her with quiet disdain because he didn’t know how else to protect the fragile walls around him.

She had annoyed him, got under his skin, yes.

But he never hated her.

Not even close.

Somewhere along the way, she stopped being a disruption, and became the reason he looked forward to anything at all.

Her kindness. Her warmth. Her refusal to give up on people, even when they didn’t deserve it.

Even when that person was him .

“And then one day,” she said, her voice quiet but steady, “the universe rewound us like a tape and said, ‘Surprise, you're soulmates.’ And we just… accepted it. Like it was a fact. Like love was inevitable.”

“Usako…” He turned toward her more fully now, reaching gently, but her hands stayed clasped in her lap. “You’re not just some destiny I accepted.”

“Maybe not consciously.” She finally looked at him, and the pain in her eyes was a punch to the gut. “But don’t you ever wonder if we’re just… acting out a script someone else wrote for us?”

His mouth opened, then closed. He wanted to say no. Wanted to tell her she was wrong. But the words felt fragile in the face of her unraveling.

“Opposites attract,” he offered weakly, but the second it left his lips, he regretted it. It sounded hollow. Cliché. Insulting, even.

She didn’t respond. Just stared at him for a moment too long, then turned her gaze back to her lap.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately,” she whispered. “About whether you would’ve chosen me… if we met as strangers. If it was just you and me. No past lives. No prophecies. No golden destiny lighting the way.”

Her words hung in the air, like something she’d been carrying for too long, finally set free.

Her voice cracked, barely holding. “And I can’t help but wonder if I’ve… stolen that choice from you.”

Mamoru felt it like a punch to the chest. A hollowing. The kind of ache that leaves you breathless, not because you’re hurt, but because the person hurting is her .

The air seemed to thin around them. He tried to speak, he needed to, but nothing came. Nothing that would make it better.

“Don’t say that,” he said finally, low and uneven.

But it wasn’t enough. Not even close.

Silence pressed in, dense and sharp, the kind that filled every corner of a room and left no space for air. It wasn’t angry or cold—it was waiting. For something. For him. For her. For the next word that might break everything open.

She blinked rapidly, lashes trembling, and a single tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t brush it away, she just let it fall.

Like she didn’t believe she deserved to stop it.

Her voice trembled, soft but steady enough to land like truth. Her chin quivered, barely noticeable, but enough to betray the effort it took to stay composed. She was unraveling quietly, carefully, even as she forced herself to speak.

“I want you to be with me because you choose me,” she went on, barely holding herself together. “Not because you’re supposed to. Not because a thousand years ago, someone decided we were meant to be.”

Mamoru opened his mouth, but the words caught somewhere behind his teeth. Nothing made it out.

Not I do choose you.

Not You're wrong.

Not even her name.

Because for the first time, he wasn’t sure words were enough.

He wanted to tell her that she wasn’t just some name etched into the pages of a myth. She was everything . She was the woman who danced barefoot in the kitchen while brushing her teeth, who cried at commercials she'd already seen, who always stole the last cookie with a triumphant little smirk. 

Fate had nothing on her. 

Nothing on the way she made him laugh when he forgot how, or how she pieced him back together without even knowing it. Day by day, moment by moment, she didn’t just make him believe in forever—she became his reason to believe it could exist at all. 

But none of it made it past his lips.

It all lodged in his throat like stone.

And then she said it.

“Mamoru.”

Not Mamo-chan . Not the nickname she always used, the one that wrapped them in softness and shared history.

Just his name.

Mamoru.

The sound of it, spoken in that quiet, aching voice, cracked something open inside him. It reached deeper than he was ready for, past memory, past logic. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d called him that with so much space between them. Stripped of endearment, stripped of nostalgia. Just raw.

“I think we should take some time apart,” she finally said.

It came gently. Carefully. But the softness didn’t soften the blow.

He blinked, disoriented. His body went still, like his brain hadn’t fully registered the meaning behind the words. The words hit like a slap to the face—sudden, sharp, and impossible to ignore. 

“What?” he asked, though he heard her perfectly. The question wasn’t about clarity. It was about how this could be happening. Now. Like this.

“I’m not saying forever,” she rushed to add. “I just… I need space. And I think maybe you do too. Time to think. To really ask ourselves if this is our choice… or just destiny’s.”

“No.” He shook his head, moving toward her before he realized he had. “No. Usako, no. I don’t need time. I need you . I gave you that ring because I chose you. Not because some past life told me to. Not because of fate, or reincarnation, or a future we haven’t even lived yet. I chose you .”

She stood, slow and stiff, like the decision had taken root somewhere deep in her bones. Her hands shook as she unclasped them from her sides, fingers curling like they didn’t trust themselves.

He rose with her, heart pounding, desperation clawing up his throat. “Please,” he said, his voice cracking. “Don’t do this. Not like this.”

Her eyes filled, brimming with guilt. 

“I’m sorry.” Her voice shook now, barely more than a breath, thick with guilt.

Then she reached for the promise ring—the delicate silver band he had spent weeks picking out, the one with the pale pink heart-shaped gem she once said reminded her of a spring sunrise. She slid it off her finger with reverence, cradling it in her palm like something sacred. Like something already broken.

“I just… I need to know who I am outside of all this,” she whispered. “Outside of us. Outside of destiny. And maybe…” her voice faltered, “maybe you do too.”

He reached out, placing his hands gently on her shoulders, fingertips barely grazing the fabric of her sleeves—like she might disappear if he touched her too roughly. His thumbs hovered just shy of her collarbone. “Are you scared? Is this just nerves? Because we can talk through this. We can—”

“No.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “I’m not scared. I’m clear. I just don’t want to wake up someday and wonder… what would’ve happened if we weren’t reincarnated lovers with a prophecy and a daughter from the future. What if none of it had happened? What if it was just us? Would we still be here?”

“Usako—” he began, but she was already speaking again.

“And if you meet someone else while we’re apart…” she said, eyes flickering downward for the briefest moment. Then back up. She winced, like she could feel the words tearing something loose as they left her mouth. “I’ll understand.”

He stared at her, stunned. For a moment, it didn’t register. Then his heart split wide open.

“You think I want someone else?” he asked, breathless.

“I think…” She took a step back. Her lips quivered. “I think you don’t know what you want yet. Not really. Not without everything we’ve been told. Not without all the stories and the silver crystal and the promises we never made ourselves.”

The silence that followed settled like snow. Cold, muted and final.

And suddenly he saw it—clearer than he ever had.

All the cracks. The ones he’d brushed off. The quiet way she’d withdrawn when he talked about future plans. The far-off look in her eyes during nights that used to be laughter. The way she never asked about venues. The way she always hesitated before saying yes to things they used to dream about.

“You’re leaving me,” he said, his voice low, bitter on his tongue. The words tasted like betrayal, like something sour he couldn’t swallow. “After everything we’ve been through?”

She didn’t answer. Not with words.

Just a slight shift of her weight, and a look that didn’t reach him.

His breath hitched—and suddenly, he wasn’t in this room anymore. He was everywhere they'd been, all at once—every version of them that had ever fought to survive.

He remembered the way Beryl had looked into his eyes, cold and triumphant, when she turned him into a weapon. The feel of chains tightening around his mind, the shadows he couldn’t escape. And then— her . Usagi. Standing in front of him with tears in her eyes and hope in her voice, whispering his name like it was a spell. She’d reached him when nothing else could. Her love had shattered the curse.

And that should’ve been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

Then Demande.

Mamoru could still feel the fury in his blood when he saw the way that man touched her—like she was something to own. He remembered the tremble in her voice when she said no, when she pushed back. But it wasn’t just her strength that saved her—it was them . The bond between them. A bond so deep, so untouchable, that even obsession had no power over it. She had chosen Mamoru. Again and again, she chose him .

He saw her now—barefoot and glowing—as she stepped in front of Pharaoh 90, knowing she wouldn’t survive. He remembered how time seemed to fracture, how the scream roared through his throat, helpless and primal. The space she left behind had been more than silence—it was a void, a wound. A hole he didn’t think he’d ever crawl out of. But somehow— somehow —she came back, and they found each other again.

And then Galaxia.

God. Galaxia.

He remembered the silence of death. The cold, endless void. The absence of breath, of color, of light. And yet, even there—he felt her. Calling him, loving him, mourning him. That love had crossed galaxies and lifetimes and death itself.

It brought him back .

His hands clenched at his sides.

“We survived it all,” he said, the words thick with disbelief. “You brought me back from brainwashing, from death , Usako. We died for each other, and you chose me. When someone tried to rewrite the entire timeline, you still found your way back. When the universe took everything from us, we held on.”

His voice cracked.

“And now… you're choosing to let go?"

She bit her bottom lip, hard, as if pain might keep the tremble away. Her shoulders were rigid, every breath a struggle between restraint and collapse.

“I’m trying to do the right thing,” she said, her voice barely holding. “For both of us.”

The words landed like a betrayal, even though she meant them as mercy.

Mamoru’s throat tightened. His pulse pounded in his ears, and something in him snapped.

“And what if you’re wrong?” he said sharply, the desperation in his voice rising before he could reel it in. “What if this is the biggest mistake of our lives?”

She flinched like he’d struck her. The tears spilled instantly. She brought her hands to her face, but they did nothing to hide the ache in her expression.

He stepped forward without thinking, closing the space between them, and wrapped his arms around her.

She came willingly—collapsed into him like the wind had gone out of her. He held her tightly, almost too tightly, clutching her like she was the one dangling off the edge of a cliff, as if letting go of her now would mean losing the ground beneath his feet.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his shoulder, the words breaking against him. “I love you. I always will. But I need to let go.”

His chest caved around the words he couldn’t say. His eyes stung. Every part of him trembled with the effort of keeping her close, of not letting go. As if holding her was the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.

She stayed there for a long moment. Long enough for a small, reckless part of him to imagine she might stay. That she might lean back into him and say she didn’t mean it. That love would be enough. But then, gently, she eased out of his embrace, her touch reverent and sad, like she was saying goodbye to something holy.

She held the promise ring again, and looked at it for a long time, running her thumb across the band like it held the weight of a thousand lifetimes. As if she could still feel everything it once meant.

Then, with careful hands, she placed it on the table. 

Slow and deliberate.

Like she was laying down not just a piece of jewelry, but a part of herself—a symbol of who they had been, and the life they thought they were building.

Mamoru stared at it, unblinking. It looked too still, too final. Like it might shatter if he breathed too hard.

A lump rose in his throat. He almost reached for it—to stop her, to say something—but his body stayed frozen.

She moved to the door in silence. No words. No glances back. Just the quiet scrape of her shoes as she slipped them on. She paused only once—to look around the apartment. But her gaze was distant, as if she were already gone. As if everything around her had turned into a memory.

“Goodbye, Mamoru,” she said softly, her voice frayed and final.

The door clicked shut—soft, final, far too loud for something so small.

Mamoru just stood there, rooted to the floor staring at the space where she’d stood, where she’d cried, where she’d loved him. His breath came in short, uneven bursts. His fingers twitched, and his entire body screamed to chase after her.

To stop her. To fight .

But he didn’t.

Because when Usagi made up her mind… there was no stopping her.

She had asked to be let go.

And Mamoru, for the first time in any lifetime, had no choice but to let her.

Chapter 2: After She's Gone

The city kept moving with quiet certainty. The same skyline stretched across the horizon. The same streets buzzed with life. Taxi horns cut through the air, just as they always had.

The city hadn’t changed.

But everything inside him had.

Mamoru stood at the window now, forehead pressed against the cold glass, his breath fogging the surface in slow, uneven bursts. 

One moment he was on the sofa, trying to make sense of the silence she left behind, and the next, he was here—restless, pacing and unraveling.

He didn’t know how long he’d been awake. The sky outside had shifted more than once—from amber fading into steel blue, then to the soft grey of a winter breath against the windowpane.

She had been gone for hours now.

Behind him, the promise ring still sat on the table, untouched.

He didn’t dare touch it.

The scent of Jasmine still lingered throughout the apartment. It was faint, yet stubborn–still clinging to the cushions, threaded into the upholstery, and settled into the threads of his hoodie whenever she hugged him from behind. It had always smelled like her—floral and warm and a little too sweet. Now, it haunted him in its gentleness, filling the space where her voice used to thrive.

Mamoru blinked hard and turned away from the window. His fingers drifted to the back of his neck, tangling in hair he hadn’t bothered to brush. The skin there was warm and damp with the kind of sweat that came from grief, not effort. His shoulders ached. His chest felt hollow, like someone had scooped something out and left the shape of it behind.

The cushion where she’d sat still held the slightest imprint. His fingertips drifted toward it without thought, brushing against the slight dip in the fabric. It was warm once. Now it only smelled like her.

Even the air seemed thinner and harder to hold. 

She was everywhere, yet nowhere.

He had replayed her voice so many times it no longer sounded real. He searched for a tremble. A crack. Anything to suggest she was still unsure.

But there was nothing.

She had already decided, long before she stepped into the apartment. Long before she placed the ring on the table like it no longer belonged to her.

That’s what gutted him the most.

She hadn’t come to be convinced . She had come to say goodbye .

And somehow, he hadn’t seen it coming.

His fingers reached for his phone before he could talk himself out of it. He unlocked it, his thumb pausing for only a moment before tapping her name, then her number.

It rang once, then again—then went straight to voicemail.

He didn’t leave a message. He couldn’t. He didn’t need to hear his own voice cracking, didn’t want to listen to himself beg her to come back when she had already made up her mind.

All he wanted was to tell her to come home and that whatever she was trying to figure out, she didn’t have to do it without him.

But she was serious. And he had to stop pretending she wasn’t.

Still, he opened the messaging app and tapped out a text.

Please.

Then he erased it.

He tried again. Can we talk? It stayed on the screen for a few seconds before he deleted that too.

He even typed her name—just her name—as if that alone might be enough. As if she might see it and know what he was trying to say without needing him to say it.

But in the end, he deleted that as well.

If she wasn’t going to answer his call, she wasn’t going to reply to a message either. And he wasn’t about to send his heart into the void twice.

Mamoru’s knee caught the edge of the coffee table as he walked by—sharp wood bit into the bone—but he didn’t flinch. Pain didn’t register the same way anymore. Not now. He just needed to move.

On the bookshelf, their photo still stood upright. His gaze lingered on it before reaching for the frame.

The frame was simple, black with a soft matte finish. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her face tipped up in a laugh he could still hear if he closed his eyes. There was wind in her hair, and sunlight catching the curve of her cheek. Her eyes were squinting from joy, not just light. He remembered the moment—the sound of her sandals slapping against the pavement, the smell of street food, the weight of her leaning into him like she was made for it.

He held the photo longer than he meant to.

Then, slowly, gently, he turned it face down.

His hand hovered near a quilt on the edge of the sofa. She found it at a little local shop and insisted on bringing it over. It was loud and floral and definitely not his style.

“You need more color in your apartment, Mamo-chan. I’m sure this quilt will help you think of me when you see it.”

And he had. Every time. She had said it so casually, not knowing how right she would be.

A memory came to him unprompted. It was one of his favorites—maybe because it wasn’t anything monumental. There were no grand gestures and no declarations. Just the appreciation of simplicity. The kind of moment most people would forget, but that had always stayed with him.

Usagi, in all her chaos and color, had a way of turning the ordinary into something sacred. She was loud. She was unpredictable. She was sunshine crammed into a body that could barely contain it. But she could also be still. She could sit in silence without discomfort, her presence filling the space without needing to be loud at all.

It was one of their first dates, and they had been watching a movie. She had finally worn him down and convinced him to watch a rom-com—her favorite genre, not his. Mamoru had just finished making popcorn, the scent of butter still thick in the air, clinging to his sleeves. When he returned to the living room, she was already sprawled across his sofa, limbs flung like she belonged there, quilt tucked around her like a nest.

With a mischievous grin, she snatched the remote. “Trust me, you’re going to love this,” she said, pressing play without giving him a chance to protest.

He sighed in mock dread as the opening credits rolled. The screen faded into sweeping shots of New York in autumn, and he muttered something about every rom-com starting the same way.

She threw a handful of popcorn at him.

“Blasphemy,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Halfway through, she was snorting into the blanket, laughing at a line that wasn’t that funny. Not objectively, anyway. But it made her wheeze, and that made him smile.

And then—without warning—tears.

Raw, unfiltered grief poured from her, a full-body heartbreak that streaked down her cheeks without apology. Her smile collapsed into a trembling frown, her eyes welled up, and the popcorn bowl tilted dangerously in her lap. It was like sitting next to a one-woman weather system—sunshine to thunderstorm in under ten seconds.

“They were supposed to find each other,” she whispered. “They were so close.”

He glanced at the screen. The main characters had missed each other at a train station. A classic near-miss.

“It’s only the third act,” he murmured. “They’ll find each other.”

She sniffled. “But what if they don’t?”

He handed her a tissue. She took it gratefully and dabbed at her eyes, sighing like her entire soul had been personally wounded.

“You cry every time you watch this, don’t you?” he asked.

“Of course I do,” she said. “That’s what makes it good.”

He smiled, soft and quiet.

He hadn’t been watching the movie at all.

He was watching her—her expressions, the way she gasped before the characters kissed, the way she gripped the edge of the bowl like the tension might actually swallow her whole. Her laughter was infectious. The kind that filled a room and made it impossible to look away.

She never tried to hide how much she felt. Not for people. Not for movies. Not for him.

It was one of the many things he loved about her.

And that night, as the plot evened out and the characters found their way back to each other, he couldn’t look away. The glow of the TV danced against her skin, softening every line, catching in the corners of her eyes. She was beautiful in the kind of way that made his chest ache.

He leaned in, almost without thinking, and kissed her cheek. Just once. It was light and barely there.

She flinched and squeaked, “H-Hey!”

He smiled. “I couldn’t help it.”

Usagi pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, peeking at him from over the floral edge like a turtle retreating into its shell. Her cheeks were flushed—not from the film’s drama, not from the blanket’s heat, but from that one gentle, unexpected kiss. He knew that pink tint well. She was flustered, and pretending not to be.

“You’re supposed to watch the movie,” she said, narrowing her eyes like she was trying to scold him but failing miserably.

“I am,” he said, leaning back against the sofa, his arm brushing hers. “It’s hard to focus when the person next to me is reacting more dramatically than the characters on screen.”

She gasped, pretending to be offended. “Excuse me, I am emotionally invested.”

“You cried because the dog got adopted.”

“It was touching!”

He chuckled softly, the sound low and warm in his throat. “I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

She paused. Then her voice dipped, quieter. “You didn’t have to kiss me, you know.”

“I know.”

She turned her head, eyes meeting his in the dim light. “Then why did you?”

He held her gaze. The movie flickered in the background, forgotten. “Because I wanted to. Because you were laughing. And then crying. And somehow, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”

For a moment, she didn’t speak. Her fingers fiddled with the edge of the quilt, twisting the hem like she was thinking of what to say—or maybe how not to say too much.

Then, she smiled softly, “I like being here, too.”

He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing her skin. She didn’t flinch this time. Didn’t hide. Her shoulders relaxed under the blanket. She leaned into him, just a little. Not enough to make it obvious, but just enough that he felt it.

The movie played on, and neither of them paid much attention to it after.

She never did anything halfway. She loved with her whole chest. Cried without shame and felt everything, all at once.

And in moments like that—blanket-wrapped and messy-haired, crying over a predictable ending—there was no past life, no kingdom, no prophecy. Just her, in the now. And somehow, that had always been enough.

And now, she was gone.

He crossed back to the couch, sat down slowly, the floral quilt still half-folded nearby. The room was dim, the scent of jasmine still lingered, and the silence roared.

“Do you ever wonder if we only love each other because we’re supposed to?”

He hadn’t known how to answer then. At the time, he wanted to laugh. Of course not. It almost felt like a ridiculous question to ask, but it only forced him to examine something that was too close to the bone.

He loved her. That had never been in question. He loved the way she looked at him like he mattered. The way she curled into him at night, fingers tucked beneath his shirt. The way her presence made everything quieter inside his head, the chaos dimmed by nothing more than her nearness.

She made him feel seen. Needed. Whole.

But love, she said, wasn’t automatic and couldn’t be received by default.

And maybe she was right.

Maybe she had been pulling away while still holding his hand. Maybe, she had been smiling through it, carrying the weight of their story until it no longer felt like her own. He didn’t see it—not then. He saw her laughter, her gentleness, and her willingness to stay.

But maybe she had already started to leave. Not with her body, not all at once—but in the small, almost invisible ways people start to drift when something no longer feels like home.

Mamoru leaned forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers pressed to his lips like they were holding something back. His breath came in shallow, uneven waves. He couldn’t seem to take a full one anymore—not since the moment the door closed behind her.

The apartment was too quiet. Every second of stillness pressed against him, thick and unbearable. He stood and wandered into the kitchen—not because he needed anything, but because he needed to move. Standing still meant thinking. Thinking meant remembering. And remembering, right now, hurt too much.

His eyes landed on the kettle.

It sat exactly where she’d always left it, perched near the corner of the counter beneath the cupboard with all her teas. The same electric kettle she had used in the mornings, pink and sleek and “neutral-adjacent,” as she’d described it when she insisted on replacing his plain steel one. A birthday gift, technically. But really, she had bought it for herself.

She used to hum while waiting for it to boil. Sometimes real songs, sometimes half-made melodies she never bothered to finish. She said it helped her wake up. That the steam made her feel like she could breathe again. Jasmine was always her favorite—light and floral, with honey stirred in until the bottom of the mug went sticky. Occasionally she would switch it up—green tea, oolong, something seasonal—but jasmine was her comfort. Her ritual.

His gaze flicked toward the cupboard. Her favorite mug was still there. White ceramic with a small gold crescent near the rim and a tiny chip on the lip where she’d dropped it once while laughing too hard at something he said. He’d offered to replace it, but she refused.

“It’s still perfect,” she said, turning it in her hand. “Cracks give it character. Just like us.”

He swallowed hard and looked away.

For a long time, he just stood there, staring at the kettle. It wasn’t doing anything. It just sat there, waiting to be needed. Just like everything else in this apartment. Like him.

Then, without really thinking, he reached out and flicked the switch. The hum filled the silence like a ghost. He didn’t open the cupboard or reach for her mug. He just stood there for a moment longer, staring into the nothing of it, and then walked away.

---

He didn’t sleep that night.

The bed was too cold, too empty, too quiet. He lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, as if it might offer some kind of answer—or at the very least, silence the thoughts that wouldn’t stop spinning through his head. But nothing came. No dreams. No rest. Just the dull ache of her absence pressing against every inch of space around him.

When morning came, he hadn’t moved. He was still in the same clothes, still lying on top of the covers, still haunted by the shape of her departure—by the way she’d said his name with finality, by the sound of the door closing behind her, by the ring she had placed so carefully on the table.

He sat up slowly, each motion thick with exhaustion. His body moved out of habit, but there was no real intention behind it.

He brushed his teeth. Took a shower. Made coffee.

They were the same routines he followed every day—movements etched into muscle memory. Somewhere, someone had once said that routine helped in times like this. That structure could make grief more bearable. But today, nothing felt grounding. The toothbrush in his hand felt foreign. The water running down his back might as well have been air. The coffee smelled too strong, bitter in a way that used to wake him up. Now it just sat in the mug, untouched, cooling by the minute.

He found himself back in the living room, where the soft light of morning slipped through the blinds and stretched across the floor. It was quiet. Still. The sunlight stretched further across the floor, brushing the corner of the quilt in gold. It didn’t change anything. But it reminded him the world hadn’t stopped. Not completely.

The ring still sat on the table. It was beautiful, and it looked so out of place now. Like it didn’t know what it meant anymore. He looked at it for a long time. His hand twitched at his side, but he didn’t move.

The pink heart-shaped gem caught the light in fractured bursts, scattering kaleidoscopic reflections across the room. Soft hues of rose, violet, and gold shimmered in the shadows—colors that belonged to her. They were the same shades she had unknowingly brought into his life with every laugh, every touch and every glance.

He couldn’t bring himself to touch it. Not yet.

To pick it up would be to admit what yesterday had already tried to tell him—that it wasn’t hers anymore. That the promise it symbolized, the future they were supposed to build, had been quietly, irrevocably set down between them.

It would make everything final.

It would mean that Usagi, the woman who used to hum while she poured tea, who danced barefoot through the kitchen, who sang his name like it was a secret only they shared, wasn’t coming back.

And Mamoru… he wasn’t ready to let the truth have him.

Notes:

Thank you so much to everyone who’s taken the time to leave a review or send kudos! This is my first story here, and your support means so much. Y'all are so kind!! ❤️

The story will alternate between Mamoru’s and Usagi’s POVs, though most chapters will be from Mamoru’s perspective.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I can’t wait to share the next one!

Chapter 3: The Space Between

Notes:

I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to read my story. Every kudos and comment makes my day, and I’m so grateful for all of you. Hope you love this chapter! 🙏❤

 Usagi’s POV

The morning light had no business being so gentle.

It slipped through the curtains like it didn’t know what happened the night before. Like it hadn’t seen her standing in the doorway of Mamoru's apartment, shaking from the weight of her own decision. Like it hadn’t watched her heart crack in real time as she turned and walked away from the only man she’d ever truly loved.

Usagi had left his apartment hours ago, but she was still breaking.

She lay at the very edge of her bed, curled tightly beneath the weight of the cardigan she had worn last night. She hadn’t turned on the lights or changed her outfit after coming home. She didn't even have the capacity to pull the covers over herself. The cardigan clung to her, still faintly scented with his cologne from where he'd held her.

Her pillow was damp beneath her cheek, her eyes still burning from tears that had long since stopped. And in the stillness of the morning, all that remained was the echo of her own voice, trembling but certain:

I love you. I always will. But I need to let go.

Even now, she wasn’t sure how she had managed to say it. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it had felt like cutting through the center of her chest just to let the words out. 

But there was no gentle way to break someone’s heart, especially not his. 

He had opened the door last night with that tired, quiet smile he always wore when reading late into the evening. She remembered the soft light of his apartment, the quiet rustle of pages as he set his book down, the way his brow furrowed when he saw the look on her face.

And when she spoke—when she told him—he didn’t yell. He didn’t accuse.

He just asked her to stay, and begged her not to go.

And still, she walked out.

She had walked back to her house in silence, with one foot in front of the other, her phone buzzing in her pocket, and her throat closing with every step.

The ache hadn’t arrived suddenly. It had crept in slowly over the months, slipping into quiet moments that once brought her peace. It settled in when the dishes were done, when the sky turned soft, when his hand rested in hers and she had no reason to feel anything but joy.

And yet, beneath the calm, something hollow stirred; a question she wasn’t ready to face.

It wasn’t loud, especially not at first. Just a subtle restlessness that was persistent and quiet, blooming in the spaces that were supposed to feel safest. In his arms, in their silence, in the ordinary rituals they’d built together. It didn’t come from conflict. Nothing had gone wrong.

In fact, Mamoru had done everything right.

This ache and doubt wasn’t about not loving him. She did, fiercely and entirely. They had the kind of love that transcended lifetimes and even defied death.

She had chosen him in every version of her story. When he was masked and nameless. When he had been lost to himself. When he had forgotten her completely. When the universe had taken him from her, again and again. She had grieved him, waited for him, found her way back to him every time.

But sometimes… she wondered: if fate hadn’t drawn the map, would they have even crossed paths? If there had been no prophecy, no Moon Kingdom, no lifetimes to bind them, would love still have led them here? Would they have chosen each other in this life, as strangers, starting from nothing?

But this… this feeling pressing in on her chest was not just about the past, and it wasn’t only about loyalty or history. 

It was also about everything that came after. The life that had been promised to her as if it were already written. The path that had been laid out so long ago, back when she was too young, too naive, too in love to ask the question that echoed louder now than ever before:

Is this still what I want?

Not just what had always been expected.

Not what was owed to some sacred destiny.

But what she wanted, for herself, for the version of her that existed outside of prophecy and love stories.

And that was the ache. The terrifying, beautiful possibility of choice.

Because lately, it felt like all the twists and turns had already happened. They had already survived everything, and the ending had been inked in stone:

He would become King.

She would become Queen.

They would rule Crystal Tokyo together.

That was their future. It was beautiful, secure and eternal.

But lately, even eternity had started to feel like a cage.

She wanted to know who she was outside of him. Not as Serenity, not as Neo-Queen Serenity.

Just Usagi.

She didn’t blame Mamoru for this, she never would. He had always made room for her.

But fate hadn’t.

Fate had handed her a crown before she finished becoming a person. She was written into someone’s future before she knew how to stand on her own. Every path she’d ever walked had curved back to him, and she had followed gladly.

But now, for the first time, she wondered what it would feel like to wander. To stand still, and to not know what came next.

And that thought… that terrifying, exhilarating thought had planted itself deep inside her and refused to let go.

Because if everything was already set in motion, if every day was just a step toward a future she didn’t question, then what was the point of it all… if fate had already done it for her?

She thought about the moment it snapped into focus.

A few weeks ago, they had spent the afternoon at the park, stretched out beneath a canopy of autumn leaves that were just beginning to turn. Reds brushing into golds, the last green clinging stubbornly to the edges. The air had been crisp, the kind that hinted at change, but didn’t demand it just yet. He had been talking excitedly as he often did about the future, about pursuing medicine abroad, weighing options between Berlin, Boston, and maybe even Paris. His voice, always steady, had taken on that particular brightness it carried when he spoke of the things that stirred him, the things that made him feel alive and full of purpose.

And then, somewhere between plans and dreams, he turned to her and asked, with a smile that made it sound so obvious:

“You’ll come with me, right?”

There was no hesitation in his voice, no doubt in his eyes. Just a quiet certainty, as if her answer had already been written.

She smiled, said yes, and meant it. In that moment, it felt easy, natural and true.

But later that night, standing alone in the bathroom with a toothbrush in hand and nothing but her own reflection staring back at her, the thought hit with such sharpness it made her still:

When did I stop asking myself what I want?

She had always assumed she would go, because that had been the plan. That was the path they had talked about for so long that it had taken on the weight of inevitability. It was the life they were supposed to have. The one everyone expected them to build together.

And it wasn’t Mamoru who made her feel trapped, he had only ever loved her. But love couldn’t quiet the feeling that the rest of her life had already been decided for her.

It was fate itself that felt suffocating. The idea that her choices weren’t entirely her own, that she was only acting out her part. That was what made her chest tighten, and what she could no longer ignore.

She hated that realization, the way it cracked something open inside her. Because this pain, this quiet ache she carried, wasn’t about leaving him or doubt. It was about freedom. About finding enough space to hear her own voice again, beneath the noise of everyone else's expectations, including her own.

She needed to know if she was capable of choosing him again. Not by default, not because it was the next logical step, but because her heart, untethered and unpressured, still wanted him. And if that meant walking away, even for a while, even if it meant hurting them both, then she had to.

Because if she returned to him, she wanted it to be with eyes wide open. With a heart that had wandered, questioned, grieved, and still found its way back. Not because it was foretold, not because it was safe, and not because it was time.

But because she wanted to.

Whole-heartedly and willingly, in this lifetime.

The first buzz of her phone broke the silence, cutting gently through the stillness of her bedroom.

She didn’t reach for it right away. Instead, she lay there, listening to the soft hum against the nightstand, as if the vibration itself might carry meaning.

A pause followed, then came a second buzz. This time, it was longer and more insistent.

Slowly, she turned her head toward the nightstand, unsurprised to see the names glowing faintly on the screen.

Minako was first. Then Rei.

Of course they were checking in. They always knew, even when she hadn’t said a word. Even when she tried to disappear into her own quiet, they found her anyway. Not because they had to, but because they loved her.

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to answer, at least not yet. Not while her chest was still aching.

With a trembling breath, she turned the phone face down and let it disappear into the bedsheets.

There would be questions, and there would be tears.

And she would answer them. Just not today.

Because right now, she wasn’t ready.

---

The hours passed.

She drifted from room to room, then found herself brushing her fingers over the kitchen countertops. There was a framed photo of the girls at the shrine taken one summer when laughter had come easily. A chipped mug she always used for late-night tea rested near the edge. A half-used candle Mamoru had given her last spring, the one he claimed “smelled like her”—jasmine and something warm, was placed beside the mug.

The scent was now faded and distant.

She opened the cupboard without thinking. And there it was, still tucked behind a row of cereal boxes: the tin of earl grey Mamoru had brought back from London. She had hidden it there weeks ago, as if that simple act could erase the memory of him sliding it across the table, his smile soft and a little shy.

“This made me think of you,” he had said.

She closed the cupboard slowly, carefully, like it might snap shut on her fingers if she moved too fast.

She found herself standing in the middle of the kitchen, unmoving, her fingers pressed gently to her temples as if to hold her thoughts in place. And then a knock echoed from the front door, carrying down the hallway and splitting the silence.

Her body jolted and her heart lurched before her brain caught up.

Maybe…

No .

No. Don’t be stupid.

Still, her feet moved before reason could stop them. She pulled the sleeves of her cardigan over her hands like a shield.

When she opened the door, it wasn’t him.

Minako barreled through the doorway without hesitation and her arms were filled with a large paper bag. “Emergency carbs. Don’t argue.”

Rei followed behind her, quieter, but no less intense. Her brow was furrowed, her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and her gaze was sharp, as always. “You look like sh–”

“Good morning to you too.” Usagi interrupted with no pizzazz in her voice.

Luna slipped in behind them, graceful and unobtrusive, and hopped onto the arm of the sofa.

Usagi stepped aside, letting the girls move past her. She watched with a strange sense of detachment as they kicked off their shoes like they always had, moving through the house with the familiarity of people who had done it a thousand times before. They had been coming here since middle school. They didn’t need permission to sit, to speak, or stay.

Minako unloaded the bag onto the coffee table. Croissants, matcha buns, something chocolate and flaky filled everyone's vision. Rei, without a word, went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Luna curled her tail and began to groom herself, calm and unbothered by the tension that had settled in the room.

Usagi drifted toward the kitchen table and wrapped her hands around the mug Rei placed gently in front of her. She didn’t drink. She just held it, letting the heat warm her palms even as everything inside her felt numb and distant.

The silence that followed was long and thin.

It was Minako who finally broke it. “You’ve been MIA for the last few days. We were one missed call away from involving your mom.”

Usagi stared down into the tea, watching the steam curl upward, and offered a quiet apology. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I… don’t even know where to start.”

Rei pulled out a chair and sat across from her, her tone gentler now. “Start anywhere.”

Usagi bit the inside of her cheek. She could already feel the words catching in her throat, heavy and reluctant, but she knew she had to say them. “I… I broke up with him.”

The confession slipped out quieter than she meant it to, and for a heartbeat the world around them seemed to hold its breath.

Minako’s mouth dropped open. “Wait. What?”

“With Mamoru-san ?” Rei leaned forward, eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to see through the surface of the words.

Usagi nodded, the motion small but certain.

Minako sank into the nearest chair like the breath had been knocked out of her. “What the hell happened? Did something go wrong?”

“No,” Usagi whispered, her voice breaking. “He didn’t do anything wrong. That’s the hardest part.”

Rei’s brow creased with confusion. “Then why?”

She swallowed hard. Her throat felt raw, like every word might scratch on its way out. “Because I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Minako’s expression softened immediately. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Usagi inhaled slowly, trying to steady herself. “I’ve been part of this love story since I was fourteen. We’ve survived everything—death, war, destiny. We’re supposed to end up together. Everyone knows that, and everyone expects it. And I do love him. I love him more than I know how to explain.”

“Then why—?”

“Because it’s all been figured out for me already,” she said, her eyes lifting to meet theirs. “Every step... every ending. And I’ve never questioned any of it. I’ve never stopped to ask myself if I want the life we’re heading toward or if I’m just walking toward it because I’m supposed to.”

Rei blinked, her voice soft now. “You think you didn’t choose it?”

“I think I never had the space to wonder if I did.” Usagi replied honestly.

The room fell silent again. Even Luna paused mid-lick, her ears twitching as if listening.

Usagi’s next words came barely above a whisper. “He’s everything. He’s kind, and brilliant, and patient, and… he sees me in a way no one else ever has. But he deserves someone who’s sure. Not someone who’s afraid to admit she’s lost herself somewhere along the way.”

Minako’s voice thickened with emotion. “Does he know that?”

“I tried to explain,” Usagi said quietly. “But I think all he saw was me walking away.”

The silence that followed was heavier than before. 

Then Minako reached over and slid a chocolate croissant across the table. “You’re not disappearing on us too. Okay?”

“I second that,” Rei added, her voice low but firm. “You want space to figure things out? Fine. But you don’t get to do it alone.”

Usagi felt her throat tighten. Her grip on the mug remained, steady but trembling.

It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t dull the ache, but somehow, it gave her a chance to breathe.

For the first time since she walked away from Mamoru’s door, she felt held. Not by destiny, not by the weight of fate, but by the people who had always stayed, even when she didn’t know where she was going.

Minako leaned forward again, her elbows resting on the table as she studied Usagi’s face with gentleness instead of shock. “Did he say anything when you told him?”

Usagi hesitated. “He asked me to stay.”

Rei went still.

Minako’s eyes flicked downward, her shoulders tense.

“I’ve never seen him look like that,” Usagi whispered. “He looked worse than when he lost his memories… and when Galaxia took him.”

Her voice cracked, unraveling in spite of herself. “This was different. This time… it was me who broke him. And it was my fault.”

Rei didn’t speak. She simply reached across the table and laid her hand gently over Usagi’s.

Minako’s expression shifted into something softer and steadier. “It’s okay to want space to figure things out.”

Usagi's lips turned into a thin line. “That doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“No,” Rei said, her tone quiet. “But of all people, I think he’d understand that.”

Luna hopped down from the couch without a sound and padded over to sit at Usagi’s feet. She didn’t make a noise or demand anything. She just sat there, watchful, steady and present, as she always had.

Usagi looked down at her and let out a slow, shaky breath.

“I just… I needed to make space for the parts of me that haven’t had room to exist,” she said, her voice fragile but honest. “The messy parts… the unsure parts. The girl who still doesn’t know who she is when no one’s telling her who to be.”

Minako’s smile was small, but warm. “You’re allowed to want that, Usagi-chan.”

“I know,” she said. “But I don’t know what to do now.”

“You’re not supposed to,” Rei replied gently. “That’s the point.”

---

They didn’t stay long.

Minako packed up the remaining crumbs with an exaggerated sigh, muttering something about how carbs didn’t fix everything, but were still essential in the healing process. Rei reminded Usagi to text them later. Not tomorrow, but tonight. And Luna, after making a single, silent lap around the main floor, leapt gracefully into Minako’s arms with an air of reluctant authority, as if to say, ‘ You’re stable. I’m trusting you to take care of her now.’

Usagi walked them to the door, her sleeves still pulled low over her hands. No one said goodbye. They didn’t need to. They just looked at her—really looked—and offered a glance that held more comfort than words ever could. A look that said you’re loved, even when you’re lost , and then they slipped out into the early evening light, leaving the house quiet once more.

When the door clicked shut behind them, she stood there for a moment, just breathing. The silence returned, but it didn’t slam into her the way it had before. It didn’t echo or feel suffocating. It simply… settled. 

She wandered back to the kitchen table, her hands brushing against the back of the chair as she sank into it once more. The mug of tea was still sitting there, untouched and now long cold, but she lifted it to her lips and drank it anyway. It tasted bitter and faintly metallic. But it grounded her in the present, and that was enough.

Her eyes drifted to the photo magneted to the fridge. It was a snapshot Mamoru had taken of her last summer, when everything still felt easy. She was wearing oversized sunglasses and holding a giant scoop of ice cream that was melting faster than she could eat it, her head thrown back in laughter, sun painting her skin. He’d said it was his favorite picture of her. 

She reached for it now, her fingertips grazing the corner of the frame. Then she let her hand fall away. She wasn’t ready to take it down.

Not yet.

Later, she curled up on her bed beneath the thick knit blanket Mamoru had bought her during that cold snap last December. She hadn’t cried again since the morning, and she didn’t feel like crying now either. The sorrow was still there, but it had quieted. She didn’t feel shattered, just exhausted. The kind of tired no amount of sleep could fix.

She watched the late light shift across her floor, shadows stretching long and blue as the sun sank lower in the sky. The air in her room felt cooler than usual, or maybe it had always been this way and she was only noticing it now. 

She thought about Mamoru’s hands. How steady they had been when he touched her, even in goodbye. 

Usagi knew he wouldn't be okay, but she hoped, more than anything, that he wasn’t angry. She didn’t believe he would be. Mamoru never carried things with sharpness. He never made her feel small, even when she was breaking things apart.

That was the kind of man he was.

For the briefest moment, she let herself imagine going back. Picking up the phone, walking the familiar path to his door and undoing everything with a single breath. She didn’t know how much damage she had done, or if he would even want her back. And if he did—if he said yes—she wasn’t sure she’d be ready to say it, too.

The space between them was growing. She could feel it, slowly stretching like the space between stars. Vast, unknowable and full of unanswered questions. But for the first time, that space didn’t feel like a void.

It felt like a possibility, and a beginning.

If the timing was right and their paths aligned again, she could return not as someone completing his story, but as someone who had finally learned how to write her own.

Chapter 4: What She Asked For

Notes:

Thank you so much to everyone who’s read this far! I can't help but smile whenever I read your comments, and I’m so grateful you’re here with me as the story unfolds. 💙

The diagram in Mamoru's textbook was precise. Every measurement was exact with a neat web of lines and angles. However, staring at them just created more fog in his head. His pen sat between his fingers, motionless, the ink cooling at the tip. The library’s stillness pressed against his ears, an oppressive quiet that used to soothe him but now only made his thoughts louder.

All he could focus on were the sounds in the library. Somewhere to his left, a chair creaked. A girl with a messy bun coughed into her sleeve. The dry, rhythmic tick of the wall clock was starting to irritate him. He stared at the same page until the words stopped being words, until all he saw was a gray blur that could have been anything — the shapes of continents, a face, the memory of Usagi’s smile.

Mamoru tried to focus again and read the same sentence three times. He skimmed down the page, then back up. The lines and arrows in the diagram seemed to move when he wasn’t looking, like they were rearranging themselves just to mock him. His handwriting, from earlier in the week, trailed off mid-equation.

It had been two weeks. Fourteen mornings where coffee tasted bitter, no matter how carefully he brewed it. Fourteen nights of collapsing into bed with textbooks barely touched, the formulas blurring uselessly on the page. He had forgotten to sign his own lab reports, miscopied equations he could normally solve in his sleep, and once walked halfway across campus before realizing he’d left his lecture notes at home. Small, careless mistakes that weren’t him, not the man who lived by precision and order. 

And still, he was expected to keep studying, to recite pathways and fill in blanks as though his life hadn’t been split cleanly into before and after her.

But what undid him most was her absence. It was the longest he had ever gone without speaking to Usagi, and the silence gnawed at him in ways he couldn’t articulate. He caught himself reaching for his phone more times than he could admit, only to stop short, knowing there would be nothing waiting. Even the hours seemed to stretch differently without her voice threading through them.

He rubbed his temple and forced his eyes to the notes. The sound of pages turning at another table made him glance up. A couple of students were bent over laptops, murmuring to each other in low voices. Someone else was highlighting a passage so aggressively the squeak of the marker carried.

The library had once been a refuge, a place where silence was an ally, where everything had an answer if you knew where to look. Now the silence left him alone with questions no textbook could solve.

Suddenly, a memory appeared uninvited: Usagi, curled up on his couch in oversized sweatpants, coffee perched precariously on the armrest while she pretended to study one of his textbooks upside down just to make him roll his eyes. She’d pointed at a diagram of a molecule, squinting like it might explode, and declared, “This one’s clearly plotting something,” as if she’d caught it in the middle of a crime.

He shook his head, forcing the image back into the corner of his mind where it belonged. Memories of her kept breaking through loudly, in his routines, in the curve of a laugh overheard in the hallway, and little things like the scent of coffee from the cafeteria. 

It was maddening, this need to move forward with questions still hanging between them. Medicine left no space for the luxury of being distracted; it demanded every waking moment. And yet, under the weight of deadlines and endless rotations, she lingered. She was proof that some things couldn’t be shut out, no matter how hard he tried.

He shut the textbook. The crack of the covers made the girl across from him glance up.
“Sorry,” he murmured, sliding his pen into his bag, though he didn’t know if he was apologizing for the sound or for not trying harder.

He needed air, or movement, or noise. Anything but this.

Coffee from a corner shop would do. At least it would give him somewhere else to look.

The cold caught him the second he stepped outside, biting into his cheeks and the tip of his nose. The November wind threaded under his collar, carrying with it the smell of the crisp smoky air from somewhere up the street. His breath fogged in front of him as he zipped his coat and started walking, hands buried deep in his pockets.

The city moved around him with a constant tide of strangers and sounds; footsteps splashing on wet pavement, car horns impatient at the intersection, a bus groaning under the weight of its stop-and-start crawl. The scent of roasted chestnuts drifted from a cart near the corner. Someone was selling sweet potatoes from a crate, steam curling into the cold. A man cycled past with a stack of parcels bungee-corded to the back of his bike.

He kept his gaze fixed forward. Couples passed in pairs, shoulders brushing, heads tilted toward each other against the wind. A woman laughed at something her companion said, her scarf fluttering.

Without meaning to, he took the long way to the coffee shop, cutting through a side street lined with dim shop windows and the occasional flicker of neon. A busker was playing something slow on an acoustic guitar, his fingers stiff from the cold.

The coffee shop that he was heading toward offered a warm rectangle of light against the gray. He pushed through the door, and heat wrapped around him immediately, prickling the skin on his face. The air was rich with the scent of ground beans, cinnamon, and something sweet from the bakery case. A low, steady hum of conversation filled the space, punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter.

He stepped into line, eyes skimming over the chalkboard menu without absorbing a single word. A bright and unselfconscious laugh from behind the counter caught his attention and, for half a second, made his chest ache. The sound was nothing like Usagi’s, and yet it still reminded him of her in the way all the wrong things did lately.

She’d laughed like that once, head tipped back, hand brushing his arm to steady herself. One time, they’d been waiting out a rainstorm under the awning of a closed bookstore, water pooling on the pavement. Her laugh had been the only warm thing in the cold air.

When it was his turn, he ordered a black coffee. His usual.

The paper cup was hot in his hands, the steam curling against his face. He let the heat seep into his fingers, grateful for something tangible to hold onto. He was halfway to the door when—

“Mamoru-san?”

The voice pulled him back. He turned.

Dark hair, the familiar set of her shoulders, and a smile that reached her eyes before her mouth.

“Saori-san?”

She crossed the space with the same steady grace he remembered, brushing a hand lightly over his sleeve as she passed him. That hadn’t changed. Saori had always been comfortable crossing lines other people left untouched.

“I knew it was you,” she said. “You haven’t aged a day.”

He gave a short laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s been a while.”

“Since graduation, right? You vanished after that.”

His gaze flicked past her to the window, as if measuring the years in the distance between here and somewhere far beyond. 

“I was… away,” he said at last, the pause carrying more than the words revealed. It was the closest he could come to explaining, without unraveling the truth of his disappearance during Galaxia’s shadow. His gaze drifted briefly, then he gestured toward an empty table where weak afternoon light spilled across the surface. “I came back last year.”

She unwound her scarf and sat, leaning forward slightly as her gloves landed on the table with a soft thud. “That explains the mystery. And here I thought you were avoiding everyone.” Her gaze swept over him, lingering a second too long. “You’re still studying to be a doctor, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Her lips tipped upward. “There’s a calm confidence in the way you carry yourself now… it’s the kind of thing people notice.”

It struck him as an odd thing to say, given it had been years since she’d last seen him. Yet she said it with such ease, as though the distance between then and now had never existed.

She’d been this way in high school: part charm and part challenge. She knew how to draw attention without ever seeming like she tried. Usagi could draw attention too, but hers was never on purpose. She simply lit up a room, and the world seemed to lean toward her without knowing why.

“What’s new with you?” he asked.

“I’m in criminal investigations now. I mostly work on fraud cases. It's not as glamorous as TV makes it, but I like it.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, smiling. “I’m only in Tokyo for a couple weeks, actually. I'm visiting my parents.”

They traded updates for a while. Saori talked about her apartment, Mamoru discussed his rotations at the hospital and the whereabouts of mutual friends. She told him their classmate became a firefighter and that she had a near-miss in a fraud case where she chased a suspect three blocks in heels before thinking better of it.

The talk had the rhythm of something familiar, but beneath it was that steady undercurrent — the subtle lean forward, the way her hand sometimes rested on the table closer to his side.

Then she tilted her head, chin resting on her hand.

“And Usagi? You two were… together for a while, weren’t you?”

The name landed like a punch to the ribs. He set his coffee down and looked into it, avoiding eye contact. “We’re not together anymore.”

Her brows knit. “Oh. I didn’t know. You two looked… I don’t know, solid. Like you balanced each other.”

He remembered the first time Usagi and Saori had met. It was the only time he had ever seen Saori falter, her usual composure unsettled by the sheer force of someone else’s presence. And Usagi hadn’t even tried. That was the thing about her—everything she did seemed effortless. The way she laughed, the way she filled silences without meaning to, the way she managed to make even strangers feel as though they belonged. She never calculated her charm; it simply existed. She was a light people leaned toward instinctively, not because she demanded it but because she couldn’t help being who she was.

He missed that more than he could ever say—the unstudied warmth of her, the way his world seemed to right itself when she was in it. Even now, in her absence, he felt the loss of that balance, as though every step forward faltered without her steadying him.

He gave a small shrug. “Things change.”

She hesitated, tracing her finger along the rim of her cup before saying, “I always thought she was… a little impulsive.”

“She’s not like that,” he said immediately. The reply left his mouth before he could temper it, a reflex born of too many years watching people underestimate Usagi. Impulsive wasn’t the word. She was unguarded and wholehearted. Usagi moved with instinct because she trusted the world to meet her halfway. And if that sometimes looked reckless to others, to him it had always been the purest kind of courage.

Saori blinked, then smiled faintly, leaning back in her chair. “You're still protective. I remember that about you.”

“I’m not—” He stopped himself, then took a sip. “She’s just… different from what people think.”

And there it was again—that unthinking reflex to stand between her and the world. Not just her reputation, but her. To shield the messy, stubborn, luminous truth of who she was from being reduced to anything smaller, anything less.

The café hummed around them. The hiss of steam from the espresso machine and a chair scraping across the floor suddenly became louder in his ears.

Saori slipped her gloves back on and picked up her scarf.

“I should let you get back to studying,” she said with a smile. “You always were the disciplined one.”

He stood out of habit, following her toward the door.

The late afternoon chill hit the moment they stepped outside. A gust caught the end of her scarf, and she smoothed it down before glancing to her right. 

Mamoru followed her gaze. Makoto and Ami, standing just a few paces away, paper cups in hand, clearly mid-conversation until they noticed him. Their words stilled, eyes darting first to him, then to Saori at his side. 

“Mamoru-san?” Makoto’s eyes flicked between him and Saori. “Who’s your friend?”

Before he could answer, Saori stepped in with a polite tilt of her head. “Shikikagura Saori. We went to high school together.”

Makoto gave a quick nod. “Kino Makoto,” she said, gesturing between them. “And this is Mizuno Ami. We’re friends of Usagi’s… and Mamoru’s.” The weight she put on Usagi’s name wasn’t subtle. It was meant to be a reminder, a quiet point made in the space between introductions.

Ami offered a small smile, her gaze flicking briefly to Mamoru.

Then Saori, as if deciding to seize the moment, turned back to him. She made sure her voice carried. “Actually, Mamoru-san, if you’ve got time while I’m in town, we should have dinner. Catch up properly.”

The way she said it, light on the surface and deliberate underneath made his jaw tighten. He didn’t miss the timing, the way her words slipped neatly into the silence just as Makoto and Ami looked on. It wasn’t just an invitation; it was a statement, and he was the one cornered by it. He could feel Makoto and Ami’s curious eyes on him as though the answer might reveal something more than he intended.

It wasn’t interest that unsettled him, but the knowledge that from the outside it could look like something more, and the thought of Usagi hearing it that way twisted his chest.

“I’ll… let you know,” he said evenly.

Saori smiled as though that were enough, the kind of smile that closed a conversation on her terms. She gave Makoto and Ami each a polite nod. “It was nice meeting you both.” Then she turned, her scarf trailing behind her as she started down the street, not sparing him even a glance over her shoulder.

For a moment, none of them moved. The late afternoon air seemed to hold its breath, the rustle of her scarf still lingering in his ears even after she had gone. The three of them just stood there, watching until she disappeared around the corner.

It was Makoto who finally broke it. She crossed her arms and said, “So… old friend?”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “She’s visiting her parents.”

Makoto raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. Ami glanced at Makoto, a quick sideways look that said more than words. It was gone in a second, replaced by her usual calm expression.

Makoto shifted her weight, gloved hands deep in her pockets. “We, uh… heard what happened. I’m sorry. I know it’s not my place, but… it sucks.”

Ami nodded. “Usagi didn’t tell us much, only that things had… changed. We didn’t want to pry, but we’ve both been thinking about you.”

He kept his gaze on the space between them, the tightness in his chest making it harder to keep his voice even. “I appreciate that. I’m… managing.”

Makoto raised an eyebrow. “Managing? That’s code for ‘not eating enough and studying too much.’”

A faint huff escaped him, something almost like a laugh. “Maybe.”

“Well,” she said, “if you ever want a decent meal, you know where to find me. No instant noodles allowed.”

“And if you just want company,” Ami added softly, “even if it’s just… sitting in the same room and not talking… we’re around.”

It was the kind of uncomplicated generosity Usagi had always surrounded herself with, and for a moment he let himself imagine being pulled into it too—before remembering he no longer had the right.

He nodded. “Thanks. Really.” 

For a moment, he just looked at them, struck by how effortlessly they extended their warmth, how easily they opened their lives to someone else. It was the kind of closeness he had rarely known, the kind that could soften loneliness simply by existing. Usagi was lucky to have friends like them. But then again, it made sense. She deserved nothing less.

The three of them traded a few lighter words about the weather, classes, the kind of small details that could almost pass for normal. It was warmer than anything he’d said to Saori earlier, and for a few minutes, it even felt good. Still, every so often he caught himself on the verge of asking the questions he really wanted to. He almost asked Makoto if Usagi was eating properly, almost asked Ami how she’d been sleeping. The words pressed against the back of his teeth, but each time he swallowed them down. It wasn’t his place. Not anymore.

Still, every so often, Mamoru caught Makoto studying him like she wanted to ask another question. Once, Ami’s gaze flicked in the direction Saori had gone before she looked back at him.

“Well… it was good seeing you, Mamoru-san. Don’t be a stranger,” Makoto said, and Ami gave him a small wave.

Mamoru returned the nod, watching as they headed off in the opposite direction, their voices trailing down the block until only the quiet of the street remained. 

The street noise seemed thinner without them and the November air suddenly felt sharper.

He took the long way back to his apartment, his shoes finding familiar turns while his mind replayed the evening. Saori’s smile. Makoto’s brow tilting upward. Ami’s careful phrasing. None of it was heavy-handed, but all of it left the same impression, that at least some part of tonight would reach Usagi. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. It didn’t need to be intentional for it to happen.

He told himself it didn’t matter. She had chosen distance. He was trying to respect it. And yet, there was something in the thought of her hearing about Saori from someone else that left his jaw tight. Not because there was anything to hide, but because he’d rather she hear it from him than through a chain of curious voices.

The thought followed him up the steps to his building.

Inside, the door clicked shut, sealing in a stillness that felt heavier than the cold outside. He didn’t bother with the lights. The street noise was a faint hiss under the hum of the fridge. His coat stayed on; the chill in the apartment clung like a reminder.

He sank onto the couch, elbows braced on his knees. The window across from him caught a dim reflection. It was just his outline in the dark.

The phone was in his hand before he’d decided to pick it up. The light of the screen was stark in the room, his thumb already moving.

He began to draft a text message:

I wanted to tell you this in case it gets to you first… but I ran into an old friend today. You might remember her. We went to high school together. There’s nothing going on.

The message sat there, the cursor blinking at the end like it was waiting for him to make it official. It was simple, unembellished, just enough to close the gap before someone else could open it wider. And yet, would she even want to know? Would she care, or would it just be one more thing she’d have to pretend not to think about?

The urge to send it wasn’t about defending himself. It was about her knowing the truth before it turned into something else. But maybe that, too, was overstepping and pushing into a space she’d asked to keep clear. He thought it was the right thing to do, to spare her the spiral of unnecessary doubts, the kind he knew too well. They’d only been apart for a couple weeks, and the last thing he wanted was for her to believe he’d already set her aside, as if she were something to be stored away and forgotten.

And yet, sending it would have been a contradiction of everything she’d asked for. She wanted space and time to breathe without the shadow of what they were or what they might still be. If he reached out now, even with the purest of intentions, it would sound like a claim, like he was trying to keep a thread tied between them when she’d been clear about needing to cut it. He wanted her to know the truth, but more than that, he wanted her to have the freedom to come back to it, or not, on her own terms.

He read the words again, then held down the backspace key until the screen went white.

The phone stayed in his hand for a long moment before he set it facedown beside him. The apartment was just as quiet as before, but now it seemed to press in closer. He leaned back, letting his head rest against the sofa.

Whether they spoke or not, her presence didn’t fade. It shifted and settled into the negative space between his days. Tonight only proved it: chance meetings, overlapping circles, stray conversations… Usagi would remain in his orbit, close enough to feel but out of reach.

Life seemed intent on offering detours: faces he could learn, moments he could step into, doors that might lead somewhere else entirely. But every possibility paled under the weight of knowing one truth: he could take another path, and still she would be there, somewhere alongside it.

And if that was all that remained, having her in his life without truly having her, then he would endure it.

Chapter 5: The Shape of Distance

Notes:

Thank you all for the comments and kudos. They really mean so much to me and keep me inspired to keep writing. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Usagi’s POV

The air felt different now, though it had nothing to do with the winter creeping into the city. It was something quieter and more grounded, like a sound in the background she couldn’t stop hearing once she noticed it. A month had passed in a way that felt like a blur—slow when she was alone in her room, fast when she blinked in class and realized another week had slid past without her saying his name too often out loud.  

She had made rules. They weren’t complicated, but they helped. Take at least one new route a week, even if it only meant getting off the bus a stop earlier. Try one small thing alone each week—buy bread, go to the library, drink tea somewhere she’d never been, sit with discomfort until it loosened its hold.

And alongside the rules, she kept a different kind of list in the back of an old notebook. Not instructions, but reminders of herself.

Things I like because I like them (not because anyone told me I should):

1. Warm bread with too much butter.
   
   
2. Movies with quiet endings.
   
   
3. The smell right before it snows.
   
   
4. Short poems that feel like the start of a larger thought.
   
   
5. Clean pillowcases.
   
   
6. Silence that isn’t completely empty.
   
   

The list felt childish, but it gave her comfort.

A couple of weeks had passed since Minako had stopped by her house unannounced, but the conversation still looped back into her head without warning, catching her in the middle of errands or over her first cup of tea in the morning.

She had been sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor that day, folding laundry into uneven stacks when Minako leaned casually against the doorframe, hands shoved deep into her pockets, looking casual in the kind of way that made Usagi sit a little straighter. Her tone was light at first, but her eyes gave her away.

“So… Mako-chan and Ami-chan ran into Mamoru-san a couple weeks ago.”

The fabric in Usagi’s hands slipped a little as she looked up, brows lifting. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Minako shifted her weight, her voice softening. “Sorry we didn’t mention it sooner. We weren’t sure if you’d… want to know.”

Usagi smoothed the shirt across her knees, fingers flattening the same crease again and again. Her gaze stayed on the fabric, not on Minako. “It’s okay, Minako-chan.”

But Minako didn’t move from the doorframe. She hesitated, then drew in a small breath as if bracing herself. “He wasn’t alone.”

The words hung between them. Usagi’s hands stilled completely, the fabric caught mid-fold. She didn’t look up. The pause stretched long enough to weigh down the air, until finally, her voice—low, almost fragile—broke the silence.

“Who was he with?”

Minako hesitated, her eyes flicking over Usagi’s face like she was gauging whether to say it. “Saori-san. Do you remember her? They went to high school together.”

Usagi had felt her pulse in her ears. “Yeah, I remember,” she replied quietly.

In that moment, Usagi remembered everything she wished she didn’t: Saori was poised, well-spoken, and a little too friendly at times. She’d been the type of girl people noticed and quick to lean a little too close when she talked. Saori was polished with a laugh that carried easily across a classroom. Not unkind, but flirty in a way that sometimes made Usagi bristle, even when there hadn’t been a reason to. Back then, she hadn’t thought much of it. Mamoru had been her friend, Saori had been his, and that was that.

So it shouldn’t have surprised her to hear they crossed paths now. They’d been close once, after all. But the thought of the two of them in the same room again, catching up like no time had passed, stirred something uneasy in Usagi’s chest, a feeling she couldn’t quite describe, only feel.

She bit back the flicker of something like protectiveness and reminded herself she had no claim on where he stood or who stood near him. That had been the point.

Minako tilted her head. “Mako-chan said they didn’t hang around long. They looked like they were catching up.”

Usagi had tried to keep her tone even. “I see.”

But inside, the thought tangled. Women had always noticed Mamoru at the university, at the arcade, on the street. She’d recalled exchanging a polite conversation with Saori, never imagining she might have been watching him differently. If she had, maybe she would have paid more attention. Or maybe she wouldn’t have, because back then, she’d never considered that Mamoru’s attention could be anywhere but on her.

She’d wanted this break. She’d been the one to draw the line, to say they needed space, that she needed to figure out who she was without the gravity of him shaping her days. And she meant it. She still did. 

That afternoon, she’d told Minako what she thought she was supposed to say: “I want him to be happy. I want him to move on if that’s what’s right for him.”

And she did. She wanted him to have a life that didn’t leave him waiting on her decisions. But wanting it and feeling it turned out to be two very different things.

For days afterward, the same image kept flashing before her eyes—him with Saori—like a photo she’d stumbled across but couldn’t delete. She didn’t know the context, didn’t know if it had been an accident or planned, didn’t know how he’d been feeling when they spoke. Her brain filled in what it didn’t know, because that’s what brains do when given a picture without a caption.

The memory of that conversation with Minako had lingered. Even now, as she pulled her scarf tighter against the wind, she could still feel the little hollow it had left behind, the one she pretended not to notice. She didn’t want to dwell on it, not when there were assignments piling up, but it had a way of slipping into her quieter places.

She caught herself scanning the faces in the crowd without meaning to, as if he might be there, half-turned toward someone else, head tilted in that listening way of his. She reminded herself, again, that it didn’t matter. That she wasn’t entitled to wonder who he was with or why. That this was the point of stepping back, to give them both the space to live without the constant pull of each other’s gravity.

And yet… she missed him. She missed their ordinary moments, like his texts that asked if she got home safely, seeing his name on her phone at night, the way he said good morning before anyone else. She told herself she wouldn’t trade this time for clarity for anything, but the truth was, clarity hurt, too. 

She reached the corner and stopped, glancing at the little coffee shop across the street. Warm inside, lights soft, windows fogged so the world looked gentler. She could sit there for an hour and not answer to anyone for where she’d been.

She hadn’t meant to come. The plan had been simple: walk a while, pick up groceries, then go home. But the windows called to something she’d promised herself she’d try—doing a small thing alone without turning it into something grand.

The door chimed as she stepped inside the coffee shop, the scent of espresso and baked bread wrapping around her. She was still tugging off her gloves when an unfamiliar voice that was directed at her, cut through the hum of conversation.

“Hey, sorry, this might be strange, but… are you Tsukino Usagi?”

She looked up, startled, to find a tall man with sandy blonde hair and a paper cup in hand. His smile was easy, the kind you’d expect from someone who could start a conversation anywhere without worrying how they’re perceived.

“…Yes?” she said, more a question than an answer.

He stepped closer, balancing his cup between both hands. “Sorry, I should introduce myself. My name is Daichi. I’m a friend of Osaka Naru, we volunteer together at the community center. She’s mentioned you a few times.”

Her grip tightened around her bag strap. Naru’s name was a reminder of how small their world really was, that no matter where she went, the same threads kept looping back, and it brought a faint twist to her chest.

“Oh,” she said, recovering her voice. “Yeah, Naru-chan and I go way back. Since elementary school.”

“She said you’re in your last year of high school,” Daichi said, still smiling. “That must be exciting. She thinks the world of you, by the way.”

Usagi offered a polite smile, though her mind was still elsewhere—half in the warmth of the coffee shop, half back in the cold where she’d been moments ago, chasing thoughts she didn’t want to admit she was chasing. She wasn’t here to make new connections. She wasn’t here to meet someone who might be another link in the same chain that kept pulling her closer to the places she was trying to step away from. She was here to prove to herself that she could be somewhere without building a reason for it.

Daichi glanced toward the front, then back at her. “Hey, I’ve got a table by the window. If you don’t have plans, you’re welcome to join me. It’s better than sipping coffee alone, right?”

Her first instinct was to decline. Not because of him, but because of the fragile balance she’d been protecting. Still, his invitation was disarming in its simplicity, and she’d promised herself to take small risks.

The tilt of his smile was lighter than Mamoru’s. But the way he waited for her answer made something in her sit up straight.

She hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Why not.”

The chair by the window was warm from the sun. She cupped her drink, steam curling between them as he talked about Naru, about the coat drive at the center, how early winter had come. They talked about nothing urgent, and maybe that was the relief.

“Do you ever volunteer?” he asked at one point. “We’re short a few hands Tuesday afternoons. We sort donations, help with after-school stuff. It’s nothing fancy.”

Usagi took a small sip, thinking. She thought of how she’d told herself to do one new thing alone each week and how alone didn’t have to mean isolated. “I haven’t,” she said, “but maybe I could try. Tuesdays are… possible.”

His face brightened. “We could use someone who’s good with kids. Or lists. Or snacks.”

“I’m good at snacks,” she said, a smile escaping before she could catch it.

“Perfect. That’s half the job.”

He told her a story about a kid who wore two left boots on purpose and refused to be convinced it was a mistake. She laughed, and then she heard herself laugh, and then she heard herself hear it, and her face warmed with the effort of pretending it didn’t mean anything.

The conversation wandered after that, as easy as if they’d been sitting there longer than they had. Daichi mentioned that he worked in marketing, the kind of job that kept him staring at screens too long but also let him talk to all sorts of people. He’d been living in Tokyo for just a couple of years, still chasing the thrill of trying new food stalls tucked into alleys, convinced he could taste the city better that way.

When the conversation slowed, Daichi leaned forward slightly. “Listen, I know we just met, but… would you want to grab dinner sometime? No pressure,” he added quickly, holding up a hand. “Just thought it might be nice.”

Usagi blinked, startled. “Dinner?” Her stomach tightened, not because the offer was unwelcome, but because it felt too sudden. She smoothed her napkin, stalling, then forced a small smile. “I… wasn’t expecting that. I’ll… think about it.”

“No worries,” Daichi said, unfazed. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a muted-colored napkin, and scribbled his number across it before sliding it toward her. “If you decide yes, just text me. And if not… it was still nice meeting you.”

She folded the napkin without looking at it and slipped it into her bag, feeling the faintest ripple of guilt for how far away her thoughts had been the entire time.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Goodnight, Usagi-chan,” he said easily, already settling back into his seat as she gathered her things.

She froze for a breath. The nickname fell too comfortably from his lips, like he’d known her far longer than they had just spoken. The way Daichi said her name felt different. A flicker of warmth stirred in her chest, tangled with unease, and she wasn’t sure if it was flattery or discomfort. She managed a small nod, her voice quieter than she intended. “Goodnight.”

Outside, the cold hit her immediately, more abrasive than she expected. She pulled her coat tighter and started toward the bus stop, boots clicking against the slushy pavement.

Usagi was halfway to the bus stop when she realized she’d left her scarf on the back of the chair. She stood there for a moment, debating whether it was worth doubling back. The cold nipped at her neck, and that was enough to make the decision for her.

So she turned back.

When she pushed the door open again, the café had quieted and most of the chatter was replaced by the low sound of the espresso machine. Daichi was still at his table by the window, book open but clearly abandoned.

“Hey,” he said, looking up as though he’d been expecting her. “You forgot this.” He lifted her scarf from the chair, holding it loosely in one hand. “I was going to text you, but then I remembered… I don’t have your number. So I messaged Naru-chan instead. Not as smooth, I know.”

Usagi felt heat rush to her cheeks. “Guess it’s a good thing I came back, then.”

He leaned back in his chair, that easy smile tugging at his mouth. “Or maybe I just have good luck.”

The words caught her off guard. It was light and harmless, but enough to send another flicker of warmth through her face. She stepped forward, taking the scarf from him. “Thanks again.”

“Would you want to stay a minute?” he asked, nodding toward the seat across from him. “Unless you’ve got somewhere better to be.”

She hesitated. She could just leave, head home like she’d planned. But her feet moved toward the chair anyway.

They talked about nothing important—her favorite drinks on the menu, how the weather couldn’t make up its mind this week,  the hierarchy of pastries (butter, then sugar, then flake), how he kept meaning to read his book but apparently got distracted too easily. Every now and then, he’d make a comment, something about her laugh being “contagious” or how she “brightens up the place” and she’d find herself blushing before she could stop it.

And somewhere between his stories and her half-embarrassed smiles, she caught herself wondering what exactly she was doing. Just over a month ago, she’d been convincing herself she needed space, needed time to figure out who she was without Mamoru. That had been the whole point. She’d told herself she wanted him to be able to move on too, even if the thought stung.

But the universe had a strange way of throwing curveballs. And here she was, sitting across from someone new, someone easy to talk to, who seemed genuinely interested and wondering if maybe, just maybe, this was her way of saying she had other options. 

When she finally stood to leave, Daichi glanced at the book on his table, then back at her. “Guess this means I’ll have to finish this on my own,” he teased.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, smiling despite herself.

“Fine, but maybe less entertained.” He gathered his things, then added, “I usually come here on Wednesdays. If you ever want to continue this very important conversation about weather patterns and pastry quality, you know where to find me.”

Usagi hesitated, tugging the scarf around her neck. “Maybe I will.” The answer came out softer than she intended, more tentative than playful, as though she was already trying to convince herself it meant nothing at all.

His grin widened. He was confident without being pushy. “I’ll keep your seat warm.”

She stepped back out into the cold, the door shutting softly behind her. No napkin, no scribbled number this time. Just an open invitation she could take or leave. The thought trailed her down the street, caught somewhere between curiosity and something that twisted in her chest. She told herself she wasn’t looking for anything. Not now. But the idea that the universe was dangling possibilities in front of her so soon and so unexpectedly made her uneasy.

And then, without meaning to, she pictured Mamoru’s face if he saw her sitting across from Daichi like that, laughing, leaning forward, hair spilling over her shoulder. The image was uncomfortable enough to make her wince. Not because she knew what it meant, but because she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

By the time she finally made it home, the late afternoon light had shifted into that warm haze that made everything outside her window seem softer and quieter than it had been hours ago. “I’m home,” she called, distracted.

Shingo waved from the living room without looking up. “You missed Mom’s curry experiment.”

“Was it good?” she asked, halfway up the stairs already.

“Define good,” he said, and grinned.

In her room, she let her bag drop from her shoulder and hit the floor with a dull thud as she fell backward onto the bed, arms sprawled, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The day replayed itself in scattered pieces. From coffee and casual conversation to the unexpected ease with which Daichi had spoken to her, and the way it all felt almost too coincidental. She hadn’t gone out looking for anything other than a quiet afternoon, and yet she’d ended up in a situation that mirrored something she’d only just heard about from Minako.

And here she was, weeks after hearing about it, being asked out herself in the middle of a coffee shop. As if the universe had decided to make the whole thing symmetrical. She wasn’t ready, not for anything serious, not for anything that felt like replacing what she’d left behind. And yet the timing made her pause. Was this how it worked? You let someone go, and almost immediately life threw you a mirror of it, just to see how you’d react? It was ridiculous, unfair and almost funny in its precision.

She rolled to her side. On the desk sat the notebook with the list she had created before. She pulled it close and found a clean page.

Ways I’ve Been Trying:
– Took a different route to school on Wednesday. Got lost one block and found a bakery that sells bread too warm to cut.
– Sat in the library for an hour without texting anyone. Read the first chapter of a book with no magic, no fate, no stars that owe me anything.
– Made lunch by myself on Friday. It was bad and I ate it anyway.
– Went to a café and didn’t pretend to be okay the whole time.
– Said yes to a conversation I could have avoided.
– Thought about volunteering. Wrote it down so I can’t say I forgot.

She capped the pen and stared at the page until the words blurred. She flipped back to her rules and added one: When the ache is loud, do one gentle thing.  

Her scarf still smelled like coffee. She wrapped it around her shoulders and sat at the desk as if she were a different version of herself—a version who wrote letters no one else would ever see.

She pulled a clean sheet and smoothed it with her palm.

Mamoru,

I promised myself I wouldn’t write you letters you’ll never see, but here I am anyway, practicing honesty with no witness. I went to a café today and a stranger asked me to sit, so I did. I laughed once and then felt guilty, because it felt like using a piece of myself you had shaped. And all I want is to prove I can stand on my own and still be loved for it.

Minako told me you saw Saori. I’m not angry, and I want you to be gentle with yourself about it. Don’t carry it home like a failure or a proof of something neither of us owes the other right now. I imagine the coffee was warm, and I hope the conversation didn’t leave you feeling like we are pretend people moving around pretend rooms, pointing at lives we’re not ready for.

I’m trying. Not at us, but at me. At being a person who can stand up straight even when the wind is in my chest. I made a list of things I like and felt ridiculous and then lighter. I got bread from a new place and ate it while it was still hot because I can. I sat in the library and didn’t pick the book I thought I should. I also didn’t text you when I wanted to. 

I keep thinking about destiny like a train timetable, and I keep wanting to get off at a station that isn’t on the map just to prove I can walk the rest. I want to find out if I’m brave enough to be the person you fell in love with when no one is watching me try.

If you had walked into that café, I don’t know what I would have done. Probably run, then pretend I was breathless for some other reason. The truth is, I miss you. Not in a way that means we should undo the choice we made, but in the quiet, stubborn way that reminds me I’m still learning how to be honest with myself.

I’m not actually planning on sending this letter to you. It’s only proof to myself that I’m still trying. Please keep taking care of yourself, even when I’m not there to check.

With love, always,
Usagi

She stared at the page long enough to memorize it, then folded it once, twice, and slid it behind the notebook cover where she kept things meant for her eyes only. It was a not-letter, a private rehearsal of honesty, proof that she was indeed trying.

She turned off her lamp and lay back down without taking off her scarf.

The house moved around her—pots clinking in the kitchen, Shingo’s laugh at something on TV, the muffled crackle of heat kicking on. The sound of a home that didn’t ask you to be more than yourself to be allowed to stay.

The next morning she woke early on purpose. She’d written it on a different list and then ignored it for three days— go for a walk before the city wakes up. She pulled on a sweater and a coat that still remembered a different winter, wrapped the scarf tighter, and stepped into the thin blue of almost dawn.

Breath smoked in the air. A few windows glowed. She walked two blocks and then three, and when she got to the corner where she usually turned right, she turned left without arguing with herself about it.

There was a small park she’d seen and never entered. This morning she crossed the grass that crackled faintly underfoot and sat on a bench that faced a tree without leaves. The ground was hard. The sky was a soft, stubborn gray. She took out her phone, opened a message to Naru, and typed:

Do you still need volunteers on Tuesdays? I can help with snacks. And sorting. And being there.

She read it twice, then hit send before she could change her mind.

By the time she got home from her walk, her fingers were numb and her cheeks were stung pink. She made tea the way Makoto had taught her when they were younger—pour a little hot water in the mug first to warm it, then empty and start again—as if care could be a recipe. She botched breakfast and ate it anyway, but at least it tasted like trying.

After school she stopped at the library. The warm air fogged her glasses, and she wandered past the shelves the way people drift past a display case, not looking for anything in particular. She pulled out a book at random. It felt imperfect, almost reckless, but she carried it to a window seat anyway. She read three pages before her thoughts slipped—not to destiny, not to the universe’s calculations—but to the sound of her own name in her head when she said it without attaching anything after it.

Just Usagi.

On the way out she borrowed a pencil from the front desk and wrote a reminder on the back of her hand: Tues 3:00 pm—community center. The graphite smudged when she put on her glove, but she left it anyway.

In the evening, Minako called. Her voice came bright through the receiver, though there was a thread of carefulness beneath it. “How’s your heart doing?” she asked, skipping the polite questions about school or weather—the kind of skipping only a best friend could manage. What she really meant was: How’s your pain today?

Usagi lay sprawled on her bed, staring at the cracks in her ceiling. “It has its ups and downs,” she admitted, her voice muffled by the blanket she’d pulled up to her chin. “Which is the worst and best answer.”

“You don’t have to do this perfectly, you know,” Minako reassured. Usagi could picture her leaning back against her headboard, hair tied messily, phone cradled against her cheek. “You just have to keep going if you want to see progress.”

Usagi sighed, twisting a strand of hair around her finger until it almost hurt. “I wrote him a letter,” she confessed. “But I don’t plan on sending it.”

There was no judgment on the other end, only warmth. “That counts,” Minako said. “Trying is progress.”

Usagi hesitated, then blurted before she could stop herself. “I… also met someone at a coffee shop.” Immediately, heat climbed her neck. She wanted to swallow the words back down.

Minako didn’t gasp or press. She was quiet, the kind of quiet that held space instead of filling it. “Do you want to tell me about him?”

Usagi rolled onto her side, clutching her pillow. “Ummm,” she started, then paused. Her voice softened. “His name is Daichi. He’s friends with Naru-chan. He asked me to sit and chat… then asked me to dinner. I didn’t say yes, but I also didn’t say no.”

Minako’s tone was steady, grounding. “‘Maybe’ is a boundary when it needs to be. Do you feel okay about it?”

Usagi’s throat tightened. “I feel like I’m cheating on a test where the answer key is blank.”

A soft laugh floated through the line. “Usagi-chan, you’re allowed to talk to people. You’re allowed to laugh. You’re allowed to be a person while you’re figuring out which kind.”

Usagi pressed her palm over her eyes, smiling despite herself. “I knew you’d say something like that.”

“You love it,” Minako teased. “You just hate when it’s right.”

They fell into a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable, the kind that let her breathe. Finally, Minako added, her voice low but firm, “I’m proud of you.”

The words landed in Usagi’s chest like warmth filling a cold room. After they hung up, she opened her notebook and scribbled:

Ways I’ve Been Trying (addendum): Told Minako a true thing without making it prettier than it was.

Later that night, her phone buzzed again. A message from Naru lit the screen: Tuesdays would be amazing. We start at 3 PM. I’ll put you with Daichi for intake if that’s okay. He’s good at lists and being kind.

Usagi’s stomach flipped. She stared at the message longer than necessary, thumb hovering, before typing back:

Okay. I’ll be there.

That night, she stood at her window with the lights off and watched the street. The neighbor’s porch light clicked on and off. A cat moved under a parked car, a small shadow trailing a larger one. Somewhere a windchime announced a wind that hadn’t arrived yet. She pressed her forehead to the glass until it cooled the place above her eyes where thoughts gather. She whispered Mamoru’s name once, not because she believed the world would carry it to him, but because saying it made the room more honest.

She went to bed and lay on her side and thought about the shape of distance. It wasn’t measured in blocks or days. It was measured in all the ways you chose not to reach out—not because you didn’t want to, but because you wanted the reaching to matter when it finally happened.

---

On Tuesday she stood outside the community center five minutes early. The building smelled like mop water and old wood and the citrus cleaner someone had overenthusiastically used. Kids’ voices ricocheted down the hall like they had an agreement with joy. Naru waved from the front desk, face as bright as always.

“You came,” she said, as if there had been a possibility Usagi might not.

“I said I would,” Usagi replied, and felt a flicker of pride at how the words fit her mouth.

Naru pulled her into a quick hug and then gestured toward a table in a side room. Daichi stood there with a clipboard and a lopsided tower of donation forms that looked like it might fall if anyone breathed wrong.

“Hey,” he said, the smile easy as ever but softer now, like he understood something about the space she was protecting. “Ready to conquer the mountain of coats?”

“Born ready,” she said, rolling up her sleeves like a person who knew where to put her hands.

For the next hour she matched gloves that wouldn’t pair, sorted hats that all seemed to be navy, and wrote names in careful letters on labels that would outlast the season. She asked a child his favorite color and he said “yellow because it’s loud,” and she wrote yellow next to his name for no reason that would matter to anyone else. She chatted with Daichi about nothing and about small things that were everything when you needed them to be. He didn’t mention dinner. She didn’t mention maybe. They worked, and it felt like she was going forward.

When she left, the cold air on her face felt like permission. She stopped at the bakery she’d found by getting lost and bought a loaf still hot enough to scald her fingers through the paper. She ate a slice as she walked, too much butter melting down her thumb, and licked it away without apology. She was alone but went with it and didn’t think about what he would have said. She thought about nothing at all, which was sometimes the bravest version of thinking.

That night, she reached for her phone and didn’t open Mamoru’s thread. Instead she opened a new note as a reminder to add it to the many lists in her journal: 

1. Doing a thing that no one will ever know I did and letting that be enough.

The ache didn’t go away. She didn’t expect it to. It settled beside everything else—hunger, breath, the way her heart sped up on staircases—and stopped insisting it was the only true thing. She missed Mamoru the way you miss a handrail after you decide to take the stairs without one just to prove you can. She missed him like oxygen and found she could still breathe.

Later, she stood at her window again. Snow started in tentative flecks, the air testing its own weight. She pressed her palm to the cold glass and pretended it was a touch that meant I’m here, which is different from I’m yours in ways she was only starting to learn.

She lifted her scarf to her face before turning out the light. Somewhere in the house, a pipe clicked. Somewhere in the city, a bus groaned to a stop and opened its doors. Somewhere in a room she wasn’t in, a man she loved existed, whole and good without her beside him. It wrecked her and steadied her all at once.

She went to sleep and dreamed of a bench in a cold park, of a hand that wasn’t trying to teach hers anything, just resting near it. In the morning she woke and put her feet on the floor and kept going.

The shape of distance, she decided, was not emptiness. It was the space you make around a thing you love so you can learn from it. It hurt, but it also made room.

And in her bag, folded small and ordinary, was Daichi’s number—a reminder and a possibility she wasn’t ready to answer. It felt heavier than paper. She left it there and made tea, and when the ache got loud, she did one gentle thing and waited for it to quiet.

Trying counted, and for now, that was enough.

Chapter 6: Coffee Windows

Notes:

Hope you're all having a great week so far! ✨ There’s a bit of drama in this chapter (because of course it does 😅), but next week’s update should lighten the mood with some humor. Hopefully my attempt at being funny actually works!

Enjoy!

Mamoru’s POV

 

He hadn’t meant to be on this street. It wasn’t the fastest way to the station, but lately he’d been letting his feet decide for him, taking the longer routes, the quieter ones, the ones that gave him detours he didn’t have to explain. The sun was already sinking behind the buildings, leaving the kind of pale winter light that makes everything look flat. The air carried the sharp tang of snow on its way. He adjusted his scarf, hands deep in his coat pockets, thinking about dinner in the vague way you do when you’re not actually hungry. 

He hadn’t been eating well, but lately he was at least trying. Cooking the simplest things, making sure he finished a meal instead of falling asleep over his notes. He’d even started running in the mornings when the streets were quiet, breath clouding in the cold. The routines were shaky and uneven, but he was trying, and that counted for something.

That was when a voice cut through.

“Mamoru-kun? Chiba Mamoru—hey!”

He turned before he could think better of it. Motoki was already there, moving across the sidewalk with that familiar grin, hair sticking up in its usual rebellion, peacoat unbuttoned like he’d rushed the last block.

“Motoki,” Mamoru said. The name slipped out easier than he expected. “Wow. It’s been—”

“Two years,” Motoki supplied, the kind of guy who always knew how long it had been. “You disappeared into… whatever serious people disappear into.” He clapped Mamoru on the shoulder in a quick, colliding hug. They stepped aside to let a stroller through, then a couple with matching coffees, laughing when the third interruption came, because it always had with them. Life barged in, but they shifted and picked up where they left off.

“Café?” Motoki tilted his head toward the corner place with the fogged-up windows and a chalkboard bragging about seasonal lattes.

Mamoru followed because there was no reason not to. Inside was warm noise — milk steam hissing, cups clinking, voices pitched in that way people only use when they’ve decided not to be cold for a while. They found a table by the window, where the glass had turned white at the edges from the warmth inside. Motoki ordered something with too many words; Mamoru asked for a plain black coffee.

“So,” Motoki leaned in once they sat, “before I ask if you’ve cured three diseases and restructured society, what have you actually been doing?”

“Working. Sleeping when the universe allows.” The deadpan landed, pulling the smile it was meant to. “Rotations at the hospital. Schedules that change the second I get used to them.”

“Classic ‘I live in scrubs now’ era,” Motoki said. “Any free time for the rest of us mortals?”

Mamoru shrugged. “Depends on the day.”

Motoki leaned back, studying him for a second longer than the joke required. “So… things are just ‘okay,’ huh? That’s usually code for not getting enough sleep and drinking coffee as a food group.”

Mamoru huffed a quiet laugh, not denying it. “Maybe.”

Motoki grinned, but there was something gentler under it now. “I can always sneak you something that isn’t coffee or whatever passes for hospital food. Consider it part of the perks of knowing me.”

Mamoru shook his head, but the thought left something unexpectedly warm behind. “You’ve really turned into a responsible adult, huh?”

“Don’t spread that rumor,” Motoki said, mock serious. “I’ve got a reputation to protect.”

Mamoru let out the kind of quiet huff that wasn’t quite a laugh. Their cups landed on the table almost in unison, the small clink buying a pause before the next thought. Motoki leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table like he owned the space.

“I’m still at The Crown,” he went on. “We remodeled a little and kept the old cabinets. You’d be shocked how many kids lose their minds over games older than they are. Nostalgia for a past they never lived. I guess retro never really dies.”

Mamoru could see it instantly: the neon glow bleeding into the dark corners, the clatter of coins, Motoki leaning on the counter like he owned more than just the machines. The Crown had always been less about the games than the people who filled the space. “You always did think places mattered,” Mamoru said. “Not just the stuff inside them.”

Motoki barked a laugh. “Nicest way anyone’s ever described my life as a glorified extension cord manager.”

Mamoru’s lips quirked, the corner of his mouth tugging like he almost wanted to argue, but didn’t. 

“And hey,” Motoki added, tone softening, “feel free to swing by anytime. Reika’s been cooking like crazy lately—soups, stews, the whole works. You’d be doing us a favor eating leftovers, and it’ll give us an excuse to use all of our Tupperware.”

Mamoru gave a faint smile with a small nod, and the thought of being around familiar faces left something unexpectedly warm behind.

They caught each other up in the shorthand of old friends: Makoto’s cooking still dangerous, Minako’s grand plans still grand and still collapsing, Ami now capable of inhaling a pastry in one bite which somehow counted as progress. Motoki mentioned seeing Kobayashi every now and then, and Mamoru let the names wash over him like furniture still in the same place, familiar even from a distance.

“What else is new with you?” Mamoru asked. “Other than teaching teenagers what a joystick is.”

Motoki lifted his left hand. “I’m engaged.”

Warmth surprised Mamoru, but it wasn’t complicated. “Congratulations.” 

He’d always liked them as a pair. Motoki was steady, Reika was sharp but kind, both pulling in different directions but somehow meeting in the same place. Back in school, he’d noticed it even before they were official: the way they’d ground one another without getting their edges dulled.

“Yeah.” Motoki’s grin tipped, part boyish, part relieved. “Did the whole ring thing. She didn’t run, thank God. Now I’m the guy who says ‘fiancée’ too much.”

“Say it as much as you want. Reika probably likes hearing it.” Mamoru said. 

Motoki chuckled as he leaned in. “You’ll come when we set the date, right? I’ll bribe you with unlimited crane-game tokens if I have to.”

“You never needed to bribe me,” Mamoru said almost quietly.

For a while, they let the conversation go quiet. Just two men drinking something warm while the street outside thought about turning on its lights.

Then Motoki’s cup touched down with a click, and he cleared his throat. “If this is out of line, stop me. But… how are you and Usagi-chan?”

The question pressed against him like a bruise. Her name always found its way in, no matter where he was or who he spoke to. It wasn’t something he disliked—how could he, when she had been part of every corner of his life for so long? It just meant there was no escaping the truth that she lingered everywhere, as inevitable in conversation as she was in his own thoughts.

Mamoru’s eyes fixed on the seam of the table. “We’re not… together anymore.”

Motoki’s face went through three different shifts — apology, regret, then restraint. “Ah. Sorry, I didn’t know.”

Mamoru shook his head, slow. “No, it’s okay. It’s been… a little while now.” He paused, letting out a breath that felt heavier than it sounded. “She asked for space. And I… I’m trying to respect that.”

The words felt too neat for what it had really been, but it was the closest thing to the truth he could say aloud.

Motoki gave a slow nod, his gaze dipping. Not out of awkwardness, but out of respect, as if he’d set the words down between them and stepped back. “That must be… hard.”

Mamoru let out a quiet breath. “It’s… not easy. But if space is what she needs, then that’s what I’ll give her.” He glanced down at his cup, steam long gone. “Some days I do better with that than others.”

Motoki didn’t try to patch it. Just nodded. “Do you want me not to bring her up? Going forward?”

Mamoru shook his head. “Not saying her name doesn’t make her less present.”

“Yeah,” Motoki said quietly. “It doesn’t.”

The door burst open, a cluster of students spilling in with too-loud laughter, cold air tagging along. For a few minutes they busied themselves with shifting the table, moving cups, smiling at the chaos. 

When the café settled back, Motoki spoke again, softer. “You know… I always liked you two together. You balanced each other out. She kept you from disappearing into your own head, and you steadied her when she needed it.” He gave a small shrug, like it was nothing more than the truth.

Mamoru’s throat caught, then eased. “Thanks.”

They let the talk drift back to safer ground. Motoki ranted about a machine that ate coins; Mamoru promised to stop by the arcade like a regular person and not just as a ghost. They laughed about Minako’s claw machine crisis, traded a few stories that had no business being as funny as they were, except that they belonged to a time when the world had felt lighter.

As they talked, Mamoru realized how much he’d missed the ease of it—conversation that didn’t demand precision, laughter that didn’t need explanation. He thought of how Usagi had friends who kept her grounded, how they never let her carry her world alone. Maybe this was his version of that. Motoki wasn’t the answer to everything, but his presence was proof that Mamoru didn’t have to live only inside his own silences.

When they finally stood, Motoki clapped him into another shoulder-hug, all warmth and no hesitation. “Don’t vanish again. Seriously. I know you’re busy saving lives, but you’re not allowed to ghost Reika and I for another two years. I’ll track you down.”

Mamoru raised an eyebrow, deadpan. “I’d like to see you try.”

Motoki grinned, boyish and stubborn. “Oh, I would. And it’d be embarrassing for you, because I’d bring half the arcade kids with me. Imagine an army of teenagers storming to your apartment for answers.”

Despite himself, Mamoru let out a quiet laugh, the kind that reached further than he meant it to. “I’ll try to disappoint you sooner,” he said. Motoki snorted, which was as good as sealing the deal.

They split at the corner with the casual optimism of men who always said they’d text and sometimes even meant it.

Mamoru should have gone left toward the station. But instead, he went right for no reason. Just muscle memory pulling him down the street with the older bricks, the one his body knew even when his head told him not to.

The wind cut between the buildings, cold enough to sting. He pulled his collar up and kept his eyes on the ground, watching his breath scatter in little bursts.

He didn’t realize where he was headed until he stopped in front of a different café with the wide window. The place looked warm from the street, the kind of spot people photographed for postcards. Up close, you could see the chipped tile by the door, and maybe that was why he liked it. It was lived-in and a little worn.

And there she was through the window.

Usagi.

His chest jolted so sharply it felt like someone had pulled a wire tight. For a heartbeat he just stared, frozen on the sidewalk across the street, convinced his mind had filled in the shape of her out of habit. But no—it was her. The curve of her shoulders under her coat, the familiar fall of her hair, the way she tucked one side behind her ear when it slipped loose.

For an instant, relief and ache collided in his ribs. She was here. She was okay. She was…

Standing next to a man across from her.

Mamoru didn’t recognize him. Tall, sandy-blonde hair, leaning in slightly, smiling in a way that suggested he didn’t need to work very hard to be liked. And Usagi was smiling back, that soft, unguarded kind of smile that used to catch him off guard because it always felt like it belonged only to him.

Mamoru’s breath stuttered out. For a moment, he couldn’t move. Shock pinned him there, as if the ground had shifted and left him teetering on an edge he hadn’t known was under his feet. He tried to frame it as nothing more than what it was—two people sharing coffee—but the details betrayed him: her scarf draped across the chair like she meant to stay, the brush of her fingers as the man slid a napkin toward her, the slight tilt of her head when she laughed.

It was absurd, how suddenly the bottom seemed to fall out of him. ‘

This is the first time I’ve seen her since the breakup… and she’s with someone else.

His stomach dropped even further.

Was this what she meant by space? The word space sounded different now. He hated the thought that this was her version of moving forward.

Mamoru felt ridiculous, a silhouette across the street, but his feet wouldn’t move. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, yet his mind filled in the blanks automatically—the cadence of her voice, the clever little tilt of her head. The imagination cut just as sharply as the truth.

At last, he forced himself to step back. Standing there any longer felt like it would turn him into something he didn’t want to be. The cold bit harder when he finally walked, but he barely noticed. At the corner, against his better judgment, he glanced back once more.

She was laughing again, and the guy was looking at her like he’d been handed something rare.

Mamoru turned away before it could make him feel worse, if that was even possible. His hands stayed shoved in his pockets, his breath uneven. He tried to think of ordinary things like errands, lists, anything really, but the image of her smile across that table followed him down the street like it had every right to.

The thought was bitter and heavy, the kind of question that makes itself known and doesn’t leave. Not the man, not the moment, but the possibility. To be looked at like that. To be chosen in the present tense, not because of history, not because of promises made long before she could make her own. He told himself this was the point of the break, to give her room to be seen and decide. And he would not be the one to stand in the doorway she had asked to walk through.

Still, when he saw her laugh across that table, when he saw her shoulders ease in a way they hadn’t around him for weeks before she left, something uninvited moved in his chest. It wasn’t anger, more like jealousy in its quietest form: Not just of the ease the man represented, but of the man himself, sitting in the place Mamoru wanted to be. The chance to meet her without the weight of destiny hanging overhead, to see her simply as she was now. Mamoru knew it was selfish to wish he could be that for her: the unburdened choice and the fresh possibility. But selfish or not, the ache was there.

His phone buzzed once in his coat, the sound precise enough to cut through the glass of his thoughts. He didn’t reach for it right away. He let it buzz again, as if ten seconds of silence might buy him time to feel less like he’d just stumbled into a story that wasn’t his. But the world had never been patient. He pulled the phone free and checked the screen.

It was Rei.

He stared at her name too long, thumb hovering like hesitation could undo anything. Then he accepted, because avoiding it would have felt worse.

“Hey,” Rei said. Her word carried its usual cadence: crisp, neat, and trimmed down to essentials. “Are you busy?”

He almost laughed, but didn’t. Busy depended on which part of him got to answer. “I’m walking,” he said. “What’s up?”

“The temple’s short on hands,” she said, brisk in the way she always was when asking for help but pretending it was just information. “We need help with the lantern lines, booth frames and miscellaneous things. The usual.” 

He could see it already: rope burns threading across his palms, the ache of cold air in his lungs, the warm glow of lanterns brightening against the dark. It was work he didn’t mind—there was something honest and straightforward about it. If you pulled the lines hard enough, the knots held. If you lifted right, the frames stood. His hands understood that kind of language.

But even as he pictured it, another thought pressed in before it could finish forming: Usagi would be there. She always was, no matter how much she swore exams or errands might keep her away. Saying yes meant walking straight into her gravity again. Saying no meant sitting alone and pretending the distance didn’t hurt.

Neither option felt simple.

“When?” he asked, already knowing he’d fold.

“Next Saturday. Early,” Rei replied, and she didn’t bother softening the edge in her voice. “Which I know you don’t mind. But I need more than half-strength volunteers. We're having a festival that night and it could use your arms, Mamoru-san, not just your opinions.”

He stared at the snow drifting across the sidewalk like it couldn’t decide whether to stay or vanish. Rei was right. The work would get done faster if he showed up. That was reason enough, he told himself, even if another reason pressed closer than he wanted to admit.

He finally decided and told her, “I’ll be there.”

“Bring gloves you don’t like,” she added, a small thread of humor running under the words. “Last year ate through three pairs.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Noted.”

When the call ended, he found himself at a crosswalk he didn’t remember reaching. The red light blinked down, traffic humming past in even breaths. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the cold rest against his eyelids like a weight.

He didn’t know what seeing Usagi earlier had meant. He only knew it had unsettled everything he’d been trying to hold steady. And he wasn’t going to dress it up as something brave. Agreeing to Rei’s request was just another way to keep his hands moving while time did whatever it always did.

The light changed. He walked.

Snow brushed his skin with its indecision. Behind him, the café window was already just another square of glass in a street he wasn’t supposed to be on. Ahead of him, Saturday waited with its lanterns, cold ropes and questions he couldn’t yet answer.

Maybe this was just how life worked after upheaval—finding steadiness in the smallest, most ordinary things. He was learning to cook enough meals that didn’t come out of a box, keeping pace with his studies even when the hours bled together, showing up for people when they asked instead of retreating into excuses. It wasn’t much, but it was movement—progress measured in inches rather than miles. And in that movement, he felt the faintest proof that he could still grow, even in the aftermath.

The world went on. Lanterns would rise, knots would hold, and next Saturday would come whether he was ready or not. He could already picture the glow against the winter sky, and in the corner of that memory was always her—laughing too loud, cheeks flushed from the cold, tugging him toward the next booth as if she couldn’t stand still for long.

And he knew, no matter what he told himself, he’d be there, telling himself it was for the work, while every part of him understood it was also for her.

Notes:

Hey everyone!

Long time no see!

It’s been 11 years since I released my last and only fanfic (on Fanfiction . net lol), but I recently rewatched all the Sailor Moon movies, and it sparked a question that always comes up: Would Mamoru still love Usagi if their memories never returned?

This story is my interpretation of that idea. I wrote this all in one sitting and figured I should just post it before I overthink everything and talk myself out of it—because yes, that's definitely a thing. Might as well try, right?

It takes place post-Stars, but in an alternate universe (AU)—so no Sailor Scouts, no transformations. Just angst, romance (my two favorite genres), and a focus on Usagi and Mamoru as flawed, emotional adults trying to figure out who they are outside of destiny. There are references to their past final battles in this first chapter, but those will only appear here.

I’m also working on other fanfics (longer ones!) but I wanted to start with this. These stories are just for fun, and a way for me to stretch some creative muscles I haven’t used in a while.

If you’re enjoying it so far, feel free to leave a comment. I adore them, and they really do keep me going! Take care, loves! 💕