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This is a spoiler. It takes place after years Sailor Stars. It is a romance
if you are looking for action this is not the right place for you. Mamoru
dumped Usagi again. I am using Japanese names right, I think it is much
better than the NA(North American). The Starlights' name stay the same
because I couldn't think of any for them. Now on with the story.
* means thinking
Separation
by Serena Chiba
Chapter 2
When the demands of Mamoru's burgeoning career in the high powered
world of Tokyo took more and more of his time and energy, life dragged for
her and the arguments started. Accustomed as she was to doting parents who
indulged her, it was a new experience for her to come against someone who
refused to give in to her.
"My job's important to me," Mamoru told her firmly. "I can't drop
everything and rush home, because you're bored and can't manage to amuse
yourself for a few hours. Get a job, if you've too much time on your hands.
I know your parents would never let you go out to work, but I've no
objection, if it'll make you any happier."
"I'm not trained for anything."
"Well, go out and get some training. It's about time you stopped
assuming that the world owes you a living and saw a little of the real
worldout there."
"I don't want a job," she told him.
"So what do you want? Do you know?" he sounded exasperated.
"You make me sound like a spoilt bitch who doesn't know her own
mind. It's not like that," she protested.
"Isn't it?" he asked roughly. "It sounds suspiciously like it to
me. I warned you how it would be. You walked into this marriage with your
eyes wide open. Your parents, to give them credit, had their doubts as to
whether it would work. But you married me anyway."
"I didn't hear you voicing any objections," Usagi flashed.
"I wanted you," he said crudely. "I still do. Physically you stir
me up in a way no woman's succeeded in dong before. But if you married me
thinking you could change me, mould me more to your liking, you've got
another thing coming. You married a man with a mind of his own, Usako. I'm
not prepared to change my life to suit your every whim. I'm not ready to
abandon patients just to take you out when you feel the need for my company.
If you wanted some idle, rich, dilettante who had time to dance attendance
on you all the hours of the day, you should have settled on someone else."
"I almost wish I had!" she shouted at him, and he stormed,
slamming the door behind him.
* * * *
It didn't take her long to discover that Mamoru had a temper to
match her own and, as the weeks went by and the differences between them
grew, he became less and less inclined to keep a check on it. At times
she wondered if he regretted his marriage and was wishing he had his
freedom again.
Usagi tried hard to curb her feelings and, for a while at least,
they papered over the cracks. She went to classes to learn shorthand and
typing and, when she had achieved a reasonable standard, she started
looking for classes on interior designing.
The quarrels continued, often over nothing at all. At first they
patched up their differences, usually when Mamoru is tired of the
argument and carried her off to the bedroom. He made love to her until
the memory of what had caused the dispute between them had been cast aside,
forgotten in their need of each other. Physically she had always been able
to satisfy him, an eager pupil from the first who had turned into a willing
partner. But even in that area of their life it seemed he had begun to find
her inadequate.
"Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the only woman who can
fill my bed satisfactorily," he taunted her cruelly during the last, bitter
row, the culmination of all the arguments they had had during the first
months of their marriage.
"In that case you won't miss me when I'm gone, will you?" she asked
as she stormed into the bedroom, took down her suitcase from the top of the
wardrobe and began to fling her possessions into it in an untidy heap.
"I've had enough, Mamoru, do you hear? I'm leaving you and....."
"Going home to Mummy?" he said scathingly. "That's typical of you.
The minute you can't have your own way in something you abandon the fight
and run to hide behind your mother's skirts. Why don't you grow up, Odango
Atama?"
"I suppose you resent the fact that I grew up with a stable, secure
background, while you..." She paused, suddenly aware that she was hitting
below the belt.
"Well, go on. Say it," he prompted her roughly. "I wondered when
we'd get on to this. Don't mince words. You're the product of doting
parents who indulged your every whim, while I was brought up in an
orphanage."
"There's no need to throw it in my face as if it was my fault," Usagi
snapped furiously. "You had a rotten childhood and I'm sorry for you. But
does saying I'm sorry make things better for you?"
"I wasn't asking for your sympathy," he retorted. "I'd get precious
little if I did. Don't worry, I've always known the score. I was well aware
that I wasn't worthy to marry the great Tsukino Usagi.
"It's hardly my fault if you've a chip on your shoulder about the
way you started life. It never made a scrap of difference to me," Usagi
said, and meant it.
Usagi felt sick at the sound of the cruel note in his voice. "I
don't have to listen to you any more, Mamoru," she told him as she wrenched
open drawers and took out her clothes. "And I don't intend to. Our
marriage was a mistake-that appears to be something we both agree on.
There's no more to be said."
He leaned against the door jamb, outwardly casual, but as deeply
moved as she. The dangerous attraction that came from his was as potent as
ever. Her senses stirred in spite of herself as she looked at him and she
was concious of another voice within her telling her to back down, now,
before it was too late. But he was speaking again and it was already too
late, Usagi knew it.
"If you walk out on me, you needn't think I'll follow you and crawl
to you to come back to me. I'll find someone to take you place easily
enough."
The worlds caught her on the raw and she blazed back at him, as
furious as he. "At least it'll make a change for you to be looking for
company! I'm usually the one who has to do that."
He took a sudden step towards her, his face dark with anger and
suspicion. "And what exactly do you mean by that remark?"
She laughed and asked him carelessly, "Isn't it obvious? You were
never around when I need you, were you? You were always at the hospital.
It's hardly surprising if I looked elsewhere, is it?"
If she hoped to make him jealous with that taunt, it seemed she had
failed.
"I see. Then there's no more to said, is there?" There was a
curiously white look about his mouth as if the strain of keeping his hands
off her was suddenly too much for him. "Don't let me keep you from
packing." He turned abruptly and left her. From the kitchen came the sound
ofthe drinks cupboard opening and the clink of a glass. Obviously he was
seeking consolation in a drink.
Her cased pack and the locks secured, Usagi paused, her anger,
slowly steeping away. How could she have said such things? She hadn't
meant them, but when she loses her temper she was capable of saying a lot
of things she did not mean. With some idea of making peace forming in her
mind, she stepped uncertainly through the door that led to the living room.
Mamoru was sitting sprawled in an armchair, a glass in his hand
and a bottle of whiskey on the table beside him.
"Ready to leave?" He put the glass down with a bang that sounded
unnaturally loud in the confined space of the room. "Shall I get you a
taxi or are you going to call you Mummy to pick you up?"
It was obvious that he had no intention of backing down. Why should
she make the first move? And with a hot pride that she had cursed endlessly
in the months since, she turned, picked up her case and said coolly and
deliberately, "Neither, Mamoru. I'll walk. I need some clean, fresh air
after the stale atmoshpere in here."
He shrugged. "As you pleae. Goodbye, Usagi."
In a daze she lifted the suitcase and walked to the door, ignoring
his outstretched hand. She was reluctant to say the words that would mean
the end of everything between them. Instead, she told him, "I couldn't
manage everything. I've had to leave...."
"Collect them some time. I don't want them."
He might just as well have said that he would prefer all traces
of her presense in his life to be erased. She winced slightly, but pride
forced her to go on. "Yes, I'll do that." She paused, still looking at him.
Why did just the sight of him make her stomach turn to jelly and her whole
being tremble with desire for him?
"If you're going, get out now."
If she was going. Did he think she didn't mean it after all? That
he was so irrestisible that now even after all the hurtful words he had
flung at her she would swallow her pride and stay? If he had made just one
move, said just one encouraging word, she wold have done exactly that. But
he didn't.
"Sayonnara, Mamoru," she said in a voice that sounded cracked and
raw. Then somehow she found the strength to walk out of his life and not
look behind her as she did so.
So how is this fanfic??? Is it good or bad?? If you have any flames,
comments, or criticism email me at serena_chiba@hotmail.com
See you!!
Serena Chiba
Japanese names
Tsukino Usagi Serena Tsukino
Chiba Mamoru Darien Shields
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