Ajax presents...
AFTER SCHOOL
Part 3: The Easing of His Heart
18th September, 1996
Mamoru woke with a shiver, a cold breeze coming
through the open window, the thin curtains
blowing in the wind.
"Summer's really over..." he thought, "I didn't
use to get cold in the mornings, even with the
open window...Oh." No wonder. Usagi had taken all
the covers.
What?!
"What's Usagi doing in my bed?!!" He panicked
silently for a few moments, waving his hands in
the air, imagining a furious SD Kenji chasing an
SD Mamoru down the street and bapping him on the
head with a giant plastic
mallet, anime style. Then Usagi turned over and
he glimpsed the golden ring on her finger.
"We're married," he remembered, a pleasant
warmth spreading through him at the thought. "We
just got married!" He wanted to jump back into
the bed and grab her in a bear hug, but she
looked so sweet, sleeping. Taking
care not to make a lot of noise, he dressed and
left for college.
* * * *
Usagi woke up when she heard the door close.
That is, she opened one eye. Then closed it and
opened the other. Then she closed both and
burrowed back into Mamoru's arms.
Well, she intended to, but all she met was a
stretch of cold bedsheet.
"Mamo-chan?" Finally, both eyes opened, and the
first thing they saw was an alarm clock.
Currently at 9:00.
Years of trained reflex nearly caused Usagi to
shoot of the bed, screaming "I'm late!", but the
bed she was sleeping in was no longer the single
one covered with bunny sheets. "I don't have to
go to school anymore," she thought, burrowing
into the warm covers for a few slow, luxurious
minutes before getting up just as slowly. Humming
an impromptu song "I'm
never gonna have to wake early again...", she
dressed, had some breakfast and sat down in the
living room. There wasn't much to do. Daydream of
Mamoru a bit, resist turning on the TV to avoid
catching the 24-hour anime channel
(turning off of which was impossible).
"No, I am not going to get bored!" resolved
Usagi. Her first married day and she was getting
bored. She had opted to be a housewife. She had
wanted this. She was going to enjoy it.
And for Mamoru, she wanted to be a good
housewife.
Determined, Usagi rose from the couch. "Not
gonna be a couch-potato either," she chuckled
mentally. First turning on the radio, she took
out some supplies and began slowly cleaning the
room. Slowly, no hurrying. It was very relaxing,
as opposed to springing out of bed early in the
morning and racing to school. It was weird, that
she should prefer cleaning the house to school.
But for Mamo-chan, she'd clean the house three
times over and not complain. Besides, that was
what housewifes did. They led happy, peaceful,
calm lives.
The radio played an ad for a travel agency.
Usagi's heart twinged momentarily. How she would
have loved a honeymoon. They had no money to pay
for it, not yet. Mamoru had been angry at himself
for not having been able to
offer her one, but she had told him that she just
wouldn't go see her parents for a few days. That
would be exactly like a honeymoon. Now, she could
be with him everyday. There was no need for a
honeymoon. Looking at the photo taken at their
wedding, Usagi finished cleaning the house with
renewed determination and went out for shopping.
* * * *
The bell rang at Jyuban University and Mamoru
got up with a sign of relief. The classes were
finally over and he could go to his wife.
Impatiently, he signalled to his friends, eager
to be out of there. His best friend Toshio,
sensing the reason for his impatience, grinned
sympathetically and told his friends to hurry.
All together, they walked to the exit.
Mamoru had been dreading the walk home, thinking
that he would have to wait for another thirty
minutes to see Usagi. So he was very surprised to
find her standing next to the gates, leaning
against a wall with shopping
bags swinging in her hands. As usual, his heart
skipped a beat when he saw her and he had to
stop. Usagi stood there and beamed at him.
"Hello, Mamoru," she said, not employing the
familiar "Mamo-chan" with his friends around, and
then greeted them as well. But she had barely
gotten the words out that Mamoru had grabbed her
in his arms and started
kissing her. He didn't even notice that he had
squashed one of the shopping bags against her in
the process. His friends, not used to seeing the
quiet Mamoru display such open emotion started
wowing, surprised. When the kiss was
finished, Mamoru grabbed his wife's (who was beet
red by then) hand and turned towards the others,
proudly bowing before them.
"Gentlemen," he said, "may I present you my
wife, Chiba Usagi?"
A silence followed. Usagi had reddened even more
while Mamoru's grin had broadened as his friends'
jaws dropped further and further. "What???!!!"
they started yelling, "You guys got
married???!!!!" With much noise, they started
walking upon them, intent on both congratulating
and beating Mamoru for not telling them. Mamoru
grinned, and pushing the unfortunate Toshio
between his friends and Usagi, he grabbed her
hand and started running.
* * * *
"Mamo-chaan! You squashed the chocolate sauce!"
Usagi scolded. They had run for about five
minutes until the university was completely out
of sight and she was trying hard not to grin at
Mamoru's little display. He,
meanwhile, was guffawing hysterically with tears
flowing down his face. "Did you see their
faces??!" he laughed out, "That was priceless!"
He continued laughing for a good minute until
Usagi finally bapped him on the head. "Stop
it!" she scolded, a smile in her voice, "that was
embarras-"
Another kiss. She could feel his lips curving in
a smile against her, but she remembered the
squashed chocolate sauce and jerked away from
him, checking the bags for damage. Grinning, he
put his arm around her shoulders and they started
walking towards home. Out of habit, he nearly
turned towards
the road to her house, but she gently pulled him.
"Oh yeah," he remembered again. For a minute, he
had felt as if they were still in the past, her a
student and him walking her home with his arm
around her. They would part before her house so
that her father wouldn't see him accompanying
her, and she would always choke him with a hug
before walking off. As if reading his thoughts,
she looked towards the road to her house before
rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. He closed
his eyes for the heartbeat duration of the kiss,
warmth and affection flooding his heart. "What
does a wedding change, in the end? What's
different, now that we have worn fancy kimonos
and drunk a little bit of sake in front of a
priest?" he thought. "Here I am, standing on this
road with this girl kissing me, and my heart
still stops." But before, he had only been sure
of their present, only of the instant, for there
had always
been the threat of her father and in the saddest,
loneliest part of his heart, always the doubt
that he might one day find himself without her,
as
one day he had woken up in a hospital without his
parents. The familiar loneliness came back to him
as he thought this, and even though he smiled at
Usagi when the kiss was over, the fear and
sadness haunted him all the way home.
* * * *
"Mamo-chan, look at this mess!" Usagi groaned,
"you squashed the bottle of chocolate sauce, and
it's even gotten on the rice! What are we going
to eat tonight? I was going to cook it with the
vegetables!" she whined in a voice reminiscent of
her younger days. "Go get some rice if you don't
want to stay hungry tonight!" With that, she
pushed Mamoru out the door. "And don't forget the
chocolate sauce!"
Mamoru walked out, his dejected mood still
hanging over him. It got worse as he realised
that he would have to go to the supermarket that
was further up as the one nearby closed early.
With slumped shoulders, he started walking. To
make him feel even worse, they had run out of
chocolate sauce.
Dejectedly, he walked back to his house. The
staircase to his apartment loomed in front of
him. How many years had he faced those stairs,
day afte rday, which promised nothing but the
loneliness of his bleak house? The memory gripped
his heart and tightened.
That is, until he smelled the very strong odor
of something burning.
Mamoru dashed into the apartment, scared out of
his wits that something had happened to Usagi. It
was far from that, however. His kitchen was a big
mess, some sort of oily liquid was splashed on
one wall, bits and
pieces of something he couldn't identify were on
the floor, and Usagi was sitting miserably in the
middle of it, her face and clothes stained with
the
same stuff that was on the floor.
"The chicken exploded!" she was repeating
incredulously, staring at the open oven with wide
eyes. "The chicken exploded!" Mamoru groaned from
the doorway to announce his presence to her.
"Mamo-chan! I wanted to make a surprise for you
but the chicken exploded! How can a chicken
explode?!"
"So much for depressing thoughts!" Mamoru
thought. "She's here."
"She's here." He clung to the thought like a
mantra, knowing that the staircase no longer led
to a bleak house. This stained kitchen was truly
part of his home now, and she was there. Before,
he had only been sure of their
present, now he was sure of their future too, for
she was there and she was sitting in the middle
of his, no their, kitchen and the chicken had
exploded and she was there to stay. Full
realisation of their marriage suddenly came to
him as the familiar lonely feeling slowly
disappeared, and drops of sunlight happiness fell
into his soul.
She was there to stay.
His heart warmed at the thought.
* * * *
email: breaker@technologist.com
Fanfic page: http://rei.animenetwork.com/ajax/fics.html
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