@starlingsinclair - Part two has arrived!! Thank you to @uglygreenjacket for organizing this event! I feel like I’m going to have fic to read for weeks! Thank you to @tinacentury and @floraone. This chapter would literally not be up without your support and patience and feedback. At two entirely different points when I wanted to throw this chapter through a proverbial window, these two talked me through it, so that I could share this installment with all of you today!!
Please enjoy! Read on FF.net
Preview:
Minako was curled up on the couch, her legs tucked to one side as she sipped carefully at her steaming tea. She watched in equal parts amusement and irritation as Usagi paced the living room floor forward and back, forward and back, again and again.
“Will you relax, already?” Minako barked.
“I feel like he should’ve been here by now,” Usagi muttered. “Do you think something happened to him?”
Minako rolled her eyes. “No, I think he’s fine. I think you’re used to him bounding over rooftops to get anywhere in like twenty minutes. But seeing as he doesn’t remember any of that, he has some obstacles.”
Usagi sighed, and flopped down beside Minako.
“If I told him what he’s forgotten, do you think he’d believe me?” she asked, her voice wistful.
“Stick in the mud, overly-rational Mamoru?”
“Hey! He’s not a stick in the mud!” Usagi objected.
“Probably not,” Minako concluded.
“Yeah, he’d probably think I was completely crazy,” Usagi concluded with a mournful sigh. She lasted another twenty seconds before she bolted back up from the couch and resumed her pacing.
Minako’s heart broke for her princess. Usagi brought only light and love into the world. She deserved to be happy. Minako privately thought Mamoru would eventually fall in love with her, but who knew how long that would take?
The boy was dense.
Minako has been shooting him hints for months. He missed them entirely. She whispered in his ear that Usagi had a thing for adopting lonely orphans.
“That sounds like her,” he had agreed as he took in her friend with soft, fond eyes.
But had he made a move? No!
So she announced loudly at parties he attended that Usagi needed a responsible sober driver to get safely home, knowing that Mamoru refused to partake in a single alcoholic beverage. (Apparently, he was afraid of memory loss or something. Minako didn’t bother to remember the exact details for why he insisted on being a stick in the mud). When he didn’t immediately volunteer, and let friggin’ Umino swipe the task away from him, she figured he would never get it unless she was direct.
She made an off-hand comment on how she was trying to set Usagi up with someone, but the girl was so picky. Minako had hoped that jealousy would get his act in gear, but he had merely told her that Usagi was allowed to be discerning. Connections weren’t always easy to make.
After that, she had just started making fun of him for being an awkward, oblivious nerd with no social skills. Artemis had told her it was counterproductive, but you know what? It made her feel just a little bit better.
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