It's Sometimes Called Falling in Love (part 2 of 3)

a Sailor Moon fanfiction by Haruka

Back to Part 1
My dearest sea...

A seagull dove into the rolling ocean waves. Blue eyes couldn't help 
but admire the way the bird could look so graceful in the wind and 
sea. As it brought it's pray to the surface, Haurka felt a slight pang 
of sympathy for the fish; it was taken away from it's mother sea.

Why do I have to be so damn sensitive?

Throbbing from her solitudious heart brought the sentiment that 
something was missing from this mood that had been occuring more 
frequently that usual, which was once or twice in a millenia. Her mind 
seemed to click into autopilot as her eyes faded into a scene of her 
captor's eyes meeting her with a love Haurka knew all too well. The 
lack of pain kept her in this reverie until their lips carressed one 
another in a joining that was nothing short of a cosmic explosion... 
but then-

Damnitt.

Haruka brought her fist down onto the dock- more precisely, on a peice 
of some broken champagne bottle from years past. Cold electric 
currents ran trenches on her spine, but she did not wince as she 
simply looked at the peice of glass lodged in a bloody plain for a few 
moments before retreiving a hankercheif- she couldn't remember how she 
came to possess it. The familiarity of the scene was decisively 
different but she recollected it vaugly being done somewhere before to 
her. As soon as the easily-one-inch shattered dagger was out of her 
palm and in the cloth, a painful lonliness washed over her and she 
made a violent shower flowing from her eyes to the sea below.

At that moment, Haruka would have died to be the one to make Michiru 
happy- to hold her in her arms for five minutes, or to have the water 
temptress wipe away her tears with a pure smile. Never before had the 
Aquarian needed someone so dearly- but the magnitude of aching was so 
familiar and expected that she was almost driven mad on that dock.

If I just slide off... I won't have to battle with it anymore.

Fatal thoughts made the deep canyons on her wrists pulsate with a grim 
reminder of times her memory had shut away. 

"I hate you."

Never could have those words held so great a weight. The polarities of 
it were mindboggling enough, but it just fed the Haruka's hope that 
there could be love just as vast and deep in Michiru's heart for her. 
Before this hope was shot down by harsh reality, Haruka had boarded 
her motorcycle and was speeding back to the white house by the sea... 
home.

~*~

"Hi this the Kaioh and Kitsu residence. Please leave a message after 
the tone."

They're out to dinner... just breathe... you don't have to do 
anything. Just leave the message. It's an innocent late coffee. 
Nothing to feel guilty about. You'll just tell her- ohGoddess, I need 
to sit down.

After a good three hours, Haruka finally added the invitation the the 
couple's message machine. As soon as the connection broke, her mind 
raced feverishly to somehow get that message off the machine. Guilt 
and desperation filled every dendrite, partially because they had just 
moved in together, and partially because Haurka wasn't sure if she 
could avoid vomiting during her confession. Five minutes later, her 
dire schemes were interrupted by the mortal ring of the phone.

"Hello?" Haruka's voice was too rushed.

"Haruka?"

Her heart stopped then raced faster than she had ever ran or driven 
before.

"Hi, Mi-chi-ru." So much for smooth.

"Um... what coffee house?"

"...what...?"

"Coffee. You just left a message.. I was in the shower."

She desperately tried to force her mind away from the image of Michiru 
in the shower.

"Erm.. yeah. The one on Main Street."

"Okay. I'll meet you there in ten minutes?"

"Yeah.. .okay... sure."

"...okay. Bye."

-Click-

"....bye."

She splashed her face with cold water to remove any sign of the tears, 
and was glad, for once, that Setsuna was out shopping. She desperately 
needed the silence to prepare her speech when the timing was right. 
She threw on a light jacket to block the wind, and sped off into the 
city.

Slightly less than punctual, Michiru showed up five minutes late, but 
Haruka did not mention it and Michiru did not seem to have any desire 
to explain. The blonde could tell that she was tense, even through her 
frenzy of trying to keep her hand on the coffee cup and her stomach in 
her belly. Until the coffee cups were empty, not a word was spoken 
between them.

"I had better head home."

Haruka knew that 'home' was the last place Michiru wanted to be at the 
moment.

Maybe this isn't right.

"I'll give you a ride."

"No.. that's alright. I can defend myself on the subway."

"Then I'll ride with you."

"No!" Michiru quietly snapped. "I like to walk alone."

Submissive silence followed Michiru to the subway station, but as soon 
as she had disappeared from the racer's sight, Haruka found herself 
running after her. 

She caught a glimpse of her walking down to the eastbound train, the 
exact opposite of the way to her house. Haruka, from a bit of hertle 
training, jumped over the turn gates and ran as fast as her legs could 
carry her to her soul reason for living.

"Michiru!" she cried above the screeching of the breaks and people 
roaring. The aquamarine jerked back off the train as if the blonde's 
voice was a string that was around her waist.

Panting as she caught up to her, Michiru couldn't help but giggle at 
the blonde's bedrussled appearance, but the lightness of her laugh 
stopped when she saw the desperation in her eyes.

"I... have... to... tell you.. something..." she breathed out 
jaggadly.

"...okay."

Fighting to retain composition, Haruka took in a deep breath:

"I don't like your girlfriend." That wasn't exactly supposed to be the 
opening line...

"..."

Now or never.

"I don't like her because she hurts you more than she helps. I don't 
like her because she made you cry today and all the other days. I 
don't like her because she doesn't trust you and she doesn't try not 
to hurt you."

"Haruka, I-"

"But most of all, I don't like her because she's with you... and I 
know I could make you happier than she could."

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is... that over the last month and a half... ever 
since I saw you when I woke up... I've been falling in love with you. 
You're the reason I exist and die. You mean more to me than anything 
in this world. I don't know if I'm meant to love you, but I do know 
that I will never love someone else as deeply and sincerely as I love 
you. You're my other half.. my missing peice. What I'm saying is... 
no, more like asking you... is if you love me too."

The aqua-haired goddess looked away at empty space for a long eternity 
before whispering:

"I can't, Haruka."

The weakness in her voice created doubt in the blonde's mind.

"Look at me and say it."

Her blue eyes were hallow and blank, and Haruka knew at that moment 
she couldn't do anything more than walk away. She didn't even need to 
hear Michiru say coldly and distantly

"I can't love you."

The metal cylinder carried her love away then, brushing a warm breeze 
that stung Haruka's eyes with tears. So many emotions spread through 
her at once: betrayl, rage, pain, passion, love, lust, desperation, 
desire, hopelessness. Then she flipped the lightswitch off and she 
felt nothing. All she consisted of was bones, muscle, flesh and 
impulse. She walked mechanically up to her motor cycle, didn't think 
as she turned the ignition and sped off into the night. She didn't 
want to see anything.

~*~

Setsuna knew what the phonering held. She knew there was nothing she 
could do. Without answering the phone, she picked up the keys and 
drove to the hospital.

It took all the time senshi's control to not kill Michiru when she saw 
her sitting by her bedside. All the crimson-eyed woman wanted to do 
was wipe that stream of tears off of the niave girl's face. 
Self-control kept her in the chair in the corner of the room, hidden 
by the curtain, listening to Michiru's heart renching words that 
turned Setsuna's rage into overpowering greif. She knew the words 
exchanged between the two before Michiru boarded the subway. She knew 
the ex-sea-senshi still loved her partner dearly, though she never 
knew she loved her before they met for the second time. It wasn't 
supposed to be this way, but Haruka's attemptive suicide was only 
stopped by her forgetting that she loved her. In the end, Haruka would 
still die out of love for Michiru, but the aqua-haired girl could 
never know this, though she would loved Haruka just as much. It was a 
miracle that Haruka had even survived her suicide, but there were no 
miracles left for the wind senshi.

She said 'can't', Haruka... you idiot. She didn't say 'don't'. 

The bleeps of Haruka's tired heart joined into a drowning flat tone.

~*~

One afternoon two weeks earlier, Haruka and Michiru had been talking 
lightly when Michiru, with all the sincerity in her, asked her 
conversation partner:

"Hey, Haruka?"

"Hm?"

"What do you want more than anything?"

"To be here with the one goddess who I love more than anything in the 
world... you."

Blue eyes didn't stray despite of the furious blush that rose from the 
usually pale cheeks. Michiru knew then that Haruka loved her too, and 
hoped that there would come a day soon when she wouldn't have to keep 
a table in between them.

Onwards to Part 3


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