"Light is good from whatever lamp it shines."
Anonymous
*********************
Dear Diary & M.,
It happened again today. I hate myself.
I wish I could just stand up to her and say no,
but it's no use. Maybe I'll just pretend to be
sick and stay home from school tomorrow. I
might not have to pretend. I'll write you again
tomorrow.
Your friend,
Sae
* * * * *
"Ready!"
Muscles tensed in the mirage-inducing convection waves
emanating from the hot paved surface. It was only April, but the
extremely warm weather of the week had turned the afterschool track
practice into much more of an exercise in endurance than those
participating had previously suspected.
"Set!"
Not excluded from this was one particularly svelte-looking,
sandy blonde-haired runner in lane two. Still, this was her favored
position, and she reveled in it. Only a gunshot and a matter of mere
seconds until another victory in this sprint event, she smiled
inwardly. For now, however, the only thing that stood between her and
those events was a matter of concentration, as she expertly
anticipated the starter's pistol. One-tenth of a second -- that's
my secret. I can guess the starter's intentions down to that margin.
It's really just a matter of experience, really. Anybody can do it
if they've started enough races like this. The key is concentration.
Concentration. I can feel it -- here it comes -- he's going to fire
it -- n . . ."
"FALSE START! LANE THREE!"
"What the hell?" said loud enough to not be overheard by
the judges yet given adequate flavor to swirl around the palate of
those runners around her and leave a sour taste. One of her other
abilities, of course, was to isolate annoyances with a minimum of
effort.
"All right, everybody," the coach sighed. "Five minute
break. Get some liquids. This hot weather is working against us."
The blonde, however, refused to break stern eye contact with the
shorter, brown-haired, pony-tailed girl beside her.
"Katsumoto Sae! You false-started! Again! If you're ever
assigned a lane beside me again, I want you to know that if you
false-start, break my concentration, and cost me another race like
you did last week, I'll personally have you kicked off the team!
This is intolerable!"
"I'm sorry, Tenoh-sempai! I really am sorry. I'll try my
best to not let it happen again." An observer would have had a
difficult time deciding whether the girl was shaking because of the
anticipation of the race or due to her current encounter.
"Yeah, but it will. Damn! How did you ever get on the
team in the first place? I told the coach they should have never let
the ninth-graders participate on the senior level, but since the
school is so small, I guess they *had* to let you join up. What a
sham!"
"Again I'm . . . I'm sorry Tenoh-sempai," her voice much
more unsteady this time. "I'll . . . I'll . . ."
"You'll . . . you'll . . . Good God! How are you ever
going to finish a race clean if you can't even get a sentence out
straight?" She looked around in disgust. "I'm leaving." She
violently grabbed her bag lying on a nearby bench and angrily removed
the sports drink inside, squeezing the plastic container to spray the
liquid into her mouth. As her head was positioned upward, she
thought she saw a flash of green out of the corner of her eye, over
by the entry gate. But by the time she looked again, it was
gone.
Yeah, a mirage, Haruka mused to herself.
* * * * *
"Exams posted! Exams posted!" the boy running down the
hall announced with glee. It was, of course, the siren call for the
weary student, a chance to see how all of the effort poured from
their respective souls during the last month had fared against the
unerring, savage honesty of the standardized test. For others,
however, it was less an affirmation of their intellectual standing
than a reminder of their overall superiority.
Haruka sighed as she basked in the afterglow of receiving
this reminder. Tenth. Not bad, as it was a hard series of tests.
She stared up the list to find one name in particular. Kaioh
Michiru. Third. Third, she laughed privately. I'll be hearing about
this all week, about how she messed up because she was sick or
something. She smiled wider as she pondered the rather naughty
possibility that she was having something of a bad influence on her
companion.
Throughout the hubbub and commotion that was exam posting
time, she managed to hear one word in particular from the crowd that
caught her rather finicky attention:
"Sae! Sae, I finished twenty-third! How did you do?"
Not receiving an immediate response, the friend beside
decided to search for the name on the posting herself. Her
enthusiastic mood was hard to contain and, unknown to her, to be
short-lived.
"Look! There you--- oh---Oh, Sae-chan, I'm so sorry. I
know how hard you studied for---"
"No. No, it doesn't matter. I'll just try harder next . .
."
It was at this precise moment, of course that the young
girl decided to look up to see the tall, sandy-haired girl peering at
her at a cold angle from above, wearing a smile so malevolently smug
and superior as to be almost surreal. The older girl, hands in
pockets, simply smirked, turned her back, and left, leaving the
younger girl with her echoing thoughts.
I probably shouldn't have done that, Haruka thought to
herself. No, I take that back, I *should* have. She needs to be set
straight. Put in her place.
As she sauntered down the hall in her aura of palpable
arrogance, Haruka wondered whether the green blur she saw turning the
hall corner through her peripheral vision was real or just the
motions of the crowd playing upon her imagination.
Yeah, probably the latter.
* * * * *
The girl sitting at the bench heard the person approaching
from behind, but decided to say nothing. The uninvited visitor, on
the other hand, took the moment's silence as an opportunity to
whisper a proposition into the girl's ear:
"Does the pretty young girl need some help with her
homework, pray tell?"
"Your kind of help, I don't need."
"Mmmmm? Touche! A little aggressive, aren't we,
Michiru?"
"I'm not in a particularly good mood today, Haruka." The
blonde backed away from the bench rather quickly and raised an
eyebrow.
"Oh, 'I'm not in a particularly good mood today, Haruka.'
Is that the best you can do? I haven't seen you for four days and
*that's* how you greet me? I'm . . . I'm . . ." she held her closed
fist to her chest and looked upward in her most dramatic pose, doing
her best to contain her laughter, "Devastated!"
"Look, Michiru, I know you did well at that swim meet you
just got back from. Atoki-san told me so. So why are you in a sour
mood? And why didn't you tell me yesterday when you returned early?
You weren't supposed to be back until this evening."
"As to why I didn't tell you that I returned early, I had
other business to attend to. As for why I'm in a bad mood, well,
it's for much the same reason."
Haruka twisted her way around the bench and uninvitedly
plopped herself down beside her companion, giving her a careful
eyeballing to see if there was something on the surface that she had
missed. "You know, Michiru, Setsuna's supposed to be the mysterious
and cryptic one among us, not you."
"Sorry to disappoint."
Continuing her silent inspection, Haruka's eyes gradually
drifted downward until they met Michiru's open backpack. Crammed
within was something pink, rectangular, and altogether absent in
Haruka's memory of Michiru's possessions. The following question
was, therefore, inevitable:
"Hey, what's that you've got in your bag?"
"Nothing."
"*No,* Michiru, it's not nothing. Now come on, tell me?"
Haruka added a coquettish turn to that last question, a flirtatious
move that the intended did not respond to at all.
"You mean you don't recognize it? Somehow I thought you
might remember something that you're responsible for."
"Michiru, you're talking in circles. Now, let's see what
it is . . ."
Using her great speed, Haruka moved her hand down to the
item, putting a firm grip on it, but not removing it from the bag.
Michiru's hand was almost as fast, moving to hold it within.
"What do you think you're---let go of that!!!"
"Oh, touched a nerve, have I? Must be interesting!"
"You want to see it? Fine!" She angrily removed her
hand.
Haruka slid the item into her lap while keeping her eyes
locked on Michiru's, lest she attempt some type of subterfuge. It
was not until she turned her eyes upon the item that they became as
large as the proverbial saucers, quite possibly the widest they had
ever opened. This new record would last exactly one minute.
"An exchange diary? An exchange diary! You actually
exchange diaries with someone else? And not me? This is . . . this
is . . ."
There are two ways she's going to react to this, Michiru
thought. She might just fly into a jealous rage. That is, if I'm
lucky. If I'm unlucky, she'll say something like . . .
"This is the funniest thing I've ever seen! What is it?
Are you trying to become a conventional 1990s Japanese girl now?"
"Haruka, that's enough."
"Maybe you'll invite me over to your place and we can
discuss the latest idol sensations. It will be so cool! Plus we can
sit around and swoon over SMAP and watch reruns of SMAPXSMAP all
day."
"Haruka!"
"Although I'm more of a Hyper Hyndu Squatters girl myself .
. ."
"Alright, that's it. I'm leaving."
"No, no. Sorry, I'm sorry," Haruka attempted to regain her
composure from laughing. "I just would like to know what's the
problem."
"*That is* the problem," she indicated the diary. "Or more
precisely, it tells who the problem is."
"What do you mean?"
"Why don't you open up the cover and take a look at whose
diary this is?"
"Fine, I'll look, although I don't know what difference it
will make."
She looked down to the kanji forming the person's name and
the aforesaid record was broken instantly.
"Katsumoto Sae!?!"
"Yes."
"You know her?!?"
"Yes. Her parents and my parents are close."
"And you're exchanging --"
"Yes. What's the matter, Haruka? It looks like you've
just seen a ghost."
"Well, I mean, it's just that . . . just that . . . "
"Just that *what*, Haruka? There wouldn't happen to be
anything in this book that you would be ashamed of, *is there*?"
"Michiru, you don't understand, I was just teasing her like
----"
"Oh, I understand perfectly, Haruka. You've been making
that girl's life a living hell since the start of this year. I
almost didn't believe it until I saw it myself -- two times yesterday
-- at the track and in the hall."
"I didn't mean anything by it -- you know how I am
sometimes."
"Yes, *I* do, but she doesn't. She's terrified of you,
Haruka. I've known her for ten years, even though she just
transferred here this year. You don't know her at all. You should
read some of the things she's written in there. It's pathetic, and
you're causing it."
"Look, I'm sorry. I just thought it might build some
character for her. I promise to start treating her better right
away."
"No, Haruka, it's not that easy. She knows that I'm also
fairly close to you. If you just start acting nice to her out of
nowhere, then she'll know that I put pressure on you to do it, and
that will embarrass her worse than anything. No, we're going to have
to figure out some other way to sort this out."
"Well, maybe if I just gradually became nice . . ."
"No, I've thought of that too. She's smart, smart enough
to see through that as well."
The blonde raised her hand to rub her brow, deep in
thought. There was, of course, no easy answer forthcoming, and
therefore she predictably became quite frustrated:
"Hrmph! This is turning into some sort of Greek
tragedy."
"Why Haruka, sometimes you surprise me."
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"Well, you mentioned that this was turning into a type of
Greek tragedy, and I was just thinking, what if that *did*
happen."
"Oh, really? Hmmm . . . got some sort of exotic Bacchic
festival in mind? -- I could go for that -- Haruka the Satyr."
"I'll file that one for future reference, but actually I
was referring to the dramatic ending. You remember from Tsuboro's
literature class, don't you? The 'Deus ex Machina'."
"Well, actually I sort of skimmed . . . "
"The 'Deus ex Machina', the 'God from the Machine', was one
of the most common and convenient ways to resolve a tragic plot.
Having a god or supernatural figure descend from the heavens at the
climax of a story and force a happy ending."
"I still don't see how this relates to me."
"*A god or supernatural figure . . .*"
"You--you don't mean--"
"It's a bit contrived and cliche, that I'll admit. But
effective as well. You can't deny that."
"No! No, I am *not* going to be the puppet in another one
of your schemes, Michiru! I won't do it. I have to draw the line
somewhere."
"Hmmm . . . that's odd. I believe that's the same excuse
you used when I suggested that we . . ."
"Michiru!"
" . . . while the parents were . . ."
"Michiru, that's enough!"
.
.
.
" . . . with frosting and a cherry on top."
"SHUTUP!SHUTUP!SHUTUP!SHUTUP! My God! We're in public!
You just can't keep your mouth shut and tongue from flapping, can
you?"
"I didn't hear that particular complaint last Saturday
n----"
"AHHHHHHHHH! All right! All right, Michiru! You win!
You win! I'll do whatever you want me to do."
"Oh, and you'll carry out my little plan *too*, so just
listen very closely . . ."
* * * * *
"Thanks for inviting me for ice cream, Michiru-san. I
really do appreciate it."
They both walked behind the school, already deserted for
the evening, on their way to the confectionery shop. The younger
girl, shorter by at least six inches, could be seen to have an
obviously prouder gait as she walked beside her popular friend from
childhood.
"Oh don't say one more word about it, Sae-chan. I know you
need a break from everything that's been going on lately. But don't
worry! I have a sneaking suspicion that things are looking up!"
"I'm happy that you believe in me, Michiru-san. I don't
know what else could help me but, I don't know, a miracle from above
or something."
"Hey, you never know. Stranger things have happened, much
stranger things."
Almost as part of some hastily-assembled plan, one Tenoh
Haruka appeared on the sidewalk ten meters ahead, walking away into
an alley leading to the side.
"Michiru-san, look! There's Tenoh-sempai. I know both of
you are friends, but, please, let's just avoid her today. You've
read my diary and -- I know you're taking a real risk to your
reputation just being seen with me in public . . ."
"Oh, let's not overreact, now Sae. Let's just go have a
talk with her. Hurry, before we lose track of her in that
alley!"
Precisely one second after Kaioh Michiru finished her
observation there appeared an intense flash of light that originated
in the aforementioned alley, bright enough to blind them momentarily.
When they regained their sight, at least one of them was quite
startled to see a girl before them. She wore a sailor fuku and she
was about to speak:
"Invited by a new age, magnificently at your presence, I am
Sailor Ur---"
"Moon! Sailor Moon! You're Sailor Moon, aren't you?! I
have all of your manga!!" Sae had already begun rummaging around her
backpack for her camera by the time she had made her assertion.
Apparently she had little inhibition against interrupting convenient
plot devices.
Oh, this is utterly perfect, Michiru chuckled to herself.
A fortuitous alteration of plans, to say the least. She silently
thanked whatever deity had provided her with this gift this day.
"What?!? Are you blind? Sailor Moon? Isn't it obvious
that I am the striking and charismatic Sailor . . ." Before
finishing however, Haruka happened to notice an exceedingly harsh
glare coming from the eyes and crossed arms of the green-haired girl
standing beside her starry-eyed companion. And for the slightest of
moments, she knew a fear like none other, and responded thusly:
"Moon. Yeah, that's me . . . <sigh> Sailor
Moon."
"Yessss! Oh, Michiru, you were right! Things are looking
up! This is great!" Sae had to contain her kinetic glee. "But what
about . . ."
"Don't worry, young girl. I will deal with the gorgeous
Tenoh Haruka . . . so . . . so let me just make my way over to the
alley where I shall chastise her! Yes!" Haruka waltzed over to the
opening of the side street, still within view of the couple, and
pointed to the unseen figure within. "Young maidens' hearts
ar---"
"Excuse me, Sailor Moon!" Michiru called from the side.
"Um, yes. How can I help you young girl? I'm in the
middle of chastising."
"I didn't want to mention it, but . . ."
"But?"
"Well?" the green-haired observer asked in an increasingly
annoyed tone.
"Well what?"
"*Aren't you going to say it, Sailor Moon?*"
"Say it? What the hel---oh--sh----FINE!" For a moment,
Michiru thought she could hear Haruka's teeth grinding. "All right .
. . InthenameoftheMoonIwillpunishyou."
"I didn't quite hear that, Sailor Moon! A little louder
please!"
Oh yeah, definitely grinding.
"grrr . . . In The Name Of The Moon I Will Punish You!"
"Psst . . . Michiru -- Why's she looking at you instead of
Tenoh-sempai when she's saying that?" Sae was still giggling in the
throes of the ecstasy of seeing her hero incarnate.
"Not so loud, Sae -- she'll hear you. And she's not
looking at me, she's looking at my necklace -- Sailor Moon . . .
well, Sailor Moon sort of gets distracted by shiny objects."
"Now, as I was saying to you, Tenoh-san . . ." Haruka
tried to regain a modicum of dignity, at least as much as a
second-rate Sailor Moon impersonator could.
"*A*-hem."
"WHAT NOW?"
"You forgot to strike your mahou shoujo pose, Sailor
Moon."
"Ah . . ha, ha, very funny; sure I did, young girl. You
just missed it!"
"No, I don't think so, so show us." Michiru's eyebrows
rose in a wave of contrived naughty innocence. "I've heard it's
quite . . ." she thought of an inflammatory word, " . . . unique.
You wouldn't want to disappoint your biggest fan would you?"
"Pose . . . pose . . . how does she do it?" Haruka
whispered to herself. "Let's see . . ." she began to contort her
fingers and cross her arms in a futile effort to emulate a position
she had seen so often. Seeing that the best she could do was a
pathetic variation of the traditional hiko dachi karate stance,
however, she simply gave up and decided to complete her scolding by
looking down the empty alley and pointing an accusatory finger:
"Now listen up, you handsome scoundrel! I know being as
popular as you are, it might be easy to dismiss others and treat them
poorly as you do. But it's not good to hurt others' feelings. So
ease up on the girl, or I shall return and chastise you a second
time!"
Haruka held her breath, waiting for the next dreaded words
to slip from Michiru's mouth. One second, two seconds, three
seconds; oh, thank God -- it's over. She released her breath in
relief. It was exactly one second premature:
"That's not enough, Sailor Moon! While her intentions are
pure, I'm afraid our Haruka-chan is under the influence of
otherworldly evil. To permanently heal her, she needs . . ."
"*Now look, I am NOT going to . . .*
"PURIFICATION!"
This just isn't my day.
"She looks pretty pure to me, young admirer. Let's just
let whatever demons she's hiding slide this time . . ."
"All right, Sailor Moon, if that's what you want to do.
But don't be surprised if I have to call you back to finish the job
later, and often. Very often. Very."
"Very?"
"Very."
Michiru smiled as the Haruka volcano was about to go
critical and erupt, loving every moment of it.
"mmmgrrrrAAAAAHHHH! JUST STAND BACK!!!" Haruka raised her
and aloft and pulled her henshin wand out of nullspace to provide the
theatrical effect for the imminent purification of the Tenoh Haruka
supposedly residing in the alley. She performed a few motions that
suspiciously reminded Michiru and Sae of a modern dance performance
that the entire school had seen a week previously, and then let forth
a mighty bellow like none ever heard in the storied history of
suburban Tokyo:
"MOON SUGOI NIWAKAJITATE SHOUJO JUNJOU
KAWAIIWIFICAAAAA--TION!!!!"
Lacking any real magic or sound effects, the two viewers
simply stood there in the eerie silence that descended upon the
moment, watching as "Sailor Moon" remained locked in the last phase
of the purification attack, a position almost humorously resembling a
flamingo in repose. The silence was to be broken by the youngest of
the two onlookers:
"Is it just me or is Sailor Moon a lot scarier than in the
manga?"
"Sae-chan, you don't know the half of it . . ."
The sailor-suited visage before them broke her pose and
raised her hand to her heart. "Evil has been vanquished and
therefore Sailor Moon's job is done! Katsumoto Sae -- you are now
under my personal protection! Although Tenoh-san has been healed, if
ever evil sullies your dreams . . .
"Sullies your dreams?" Michiru chuckled.
"Silence, green one! If ever evil sullies your dreams, I
will be there -- just tell the now-healed and ever-graceful
Tenoh-san, as, through the purification, I now have a special link
with her. Just tell her and I, or one of my Sailor Senshi, will be
here to assist -- although it probably won't be Sailor Neptune since
she's always so busy looking at herself in that damn mirror of
hers."
"HEY!!! Now wait just one minute, you filthy,
double-crossing--" Michiru bit her tongue as she remembered that Sae
was beside, but eased when she realized that the girl in question was
zoned out, completely locked on remembering every word, motion, and
nuance of her new paragon of love and justice.
"And if there is one thing I want you to do, Sae, it is to
promise me, promise me that you will hold onto those dreams and do
your best to make them true. Hold onto them forever. So until next
time, always remember to be of pure heart and . . . and . . . and,
oh, and the moonlight carries the message of love!"
"*Oh, really?* And what exactly *does* that last part mean,
Sailor Moon?"
"Er, it means, it means . . ." Haruka rapidly looked around
to gauge her options. There was but one obvious: "Um, bye!" She
quickly leapt into the alley and disappeared.
A somewhat awkward pause followed as two minds raced to
process the significance of what had just transpired. One came to a
conclusion slightly earlier than the other:
"Sae-chan, if anybody asks about this, I'm going to deny
it."
"What happened to Tenoh-sempai?"
"Oh, yeah. She should still be in the alley. Let's go see
how she is."
As they both ran the thirty feet to the alley, the younger
of the two noted with some bewilderment an unexpected visitor blowing
in the air before her face.
"Where did all these rose petals come from?"
"Trade winds. Look Sae, there she is!" The blonde girl
was sitting against a wall, and appeared to have just awakened from a
deep slumber.
"Haruka-chan! Haruka-chan! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I must have fainted -- the heat finally
got to me." Haruka appeared to shake her head to regain her senses
before continuing:
"Oh, hello, Sae-chan. I didn't see you there. Oh, was
that a good practice we had or what? Looks like it did me in
though." The young girl's eyes were already enlarging by the time
Michiru helped Haruka to her feet. "Ow. I've got to get in better
shape before next week's meet, but we'll still have fun like always,
right, Sae-chan?" The utter sincerity in Haruka's smile surprised
even the seasoned cynic looking on. "Well, I better run home then.
Thanks a lot, Sae-chan, Michi-chan! See you both tomorrow! And I'll
see you tomorrow night, Sae-chan -- don't forget our study
session!"
"Uh, yeah. Right! Thank you, Tenoh-sempai!" Sae was
tasting a beautiful mix of elation and astonishment, which caused
Michiru to grin. Mission accomplished.
As the blonde ran off down the alley, the two girls
remaining could only stop, gape, and listen to the birds sing a new
song in the distance.
"I think I need to sit down . . ."
* * * * *
As the pair walked home into the last rays of the evening
together, they looked forward to the setting sun, coyly avoiding each
other's eyes.
"You did well. I'm proud of you, Haruka-sama."
"Don't embarrass me like that, Michiru."
"Oh, whatever do you mean, Haruka-sama?"
"You know what I mean. Just don't call me that
anymore."
"Call you whaaaaaat, Haruka-sama?"
"No more."
"No more, Haruka-sama?"
"No more."
* * * * *
Dear Diary & M.,
I don't know if I can write too much
right
now 'cause I'm so happy and excited. I'll tell
you about it a little later, but someone gave me
a
big gift today, a gift I can't repay. I don't
think I'll ever get to see her again, but if you
do, would you tell her 'thank you'. And would
you also tell her that I'm going to keep my
promise, and I'm going to start right now.
Your Friend,
Sae
#1 Sailormoon Fan
* * * * *
"Well . . . maybe one more time . . ."
- - - - x - - - -
****************************************************
"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you
made them feel."
--- Carl W. Buechner
Author's Notes:
Sailor Moon and associated characters are the intellectual
property of Takeuchi Naoko and/or Toei, DiC, Bandai, Kodansha, and a
host of other ethereal corporate entities.
SMAP is a noted J-Pop idol band and SMAPXSMAP is their TV variety
show. Hyper Hyndu Squatters is a real underground Tokyo J-Punk
band.
Thank you for your time.
gradient@thedoghousemail.com
http://members.tripod.com/gradient
"Deus ex Haruka" Red-2 +Gradient February 1999
****************************************************
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